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They did not stir in him a taste for nostalgia or loves lost. He saw in them only one purpose--to harden the shell he had chiseled with care, the one mat hid all that could be deemed vulnerable and kept entombed the signs of humanity. When he talked to me about his early years, it was with the voice of a stranger, as if what had been had touched the life of another, one a safe distance removed from the fray. In the telling, his eyes never strayed beyond my face and his voice retained its deep pitch, no matter the emotional import of what was recalled. I was ten when I first heard the story of my fathers ocean crossing, and as I sat in the hospital room listening to Mary's account of the tale, the early moments of the dying man's life came exploding back, as real, as hard and as fresh as a wave. His ship was three days out of Naples when the storm hit. Four levels below the deck, walled-in against an overworked engine, six hundred men, women and children were crammed into a space designed for two hundred. The stench of waste mingled with that of burning oil and spouting steam. The cargo hold, normally a dry haven for luggage and sealed goods, was now little more than a moaning assembly of humanity. Families sat in small circles, huddled under tattered coverlets of soiled sheets and clothes. Infants wailed against the pangs of hunger and the nibbling of rats. The elderly chewed tobacco leaves instead of food, black spittle coarsing down their chins. Women, young and old, sang Neapolitan ballads to lift deadened spirits and prayed daily to a stern God for a quick end to a dark journey. They boarded the ship under a blanket of darkness, paying twenty-five thousand lira--nearly five hundred dollars-- per head to a local broker, Giorgio Salvecci, an overweight landlord who kept a tan overcoat draped over his shoulders regardless of season. Salvecci shipped skins--Italian immigrants--across the Atlantic Ocean and into the harbors of New York, Boston and Baltimore. At the turn of the century, during the height of the Italian migration to American soil, Salvecci and his crew of thugs sent fifteen hundred transports a week off to an uncertain future. They were openly indifferent to their customers' ultimate fates; their part of the bargain ended with the payment of under-the-table cash. In return for a few thousand extra lira, Salvecci could also be counted on to supply false documents that would be rubber-stamped at Ellis Island and other points of entry, allowing the less-than-desirable access to the Golden Land. Convicts, thieves, con men and murderers: all, eventually, made their way to Salvecci. He was their last hope, all that separated them from a long stretch behind the hard bars of an Italian prison. The ships commissioned by Salvecci to cross the Atlantic were beaten and worn-down cruisers that had seen far better years and far more magnificent voyages. What once had been the pride of a vibrant fleet had been reduced through neglect into ocean-chugging pimps, rushing loads of human hope and misery toward a mysterious new country. The ships had majestic names culled from a more glorious past to cart along with their deteriorating bodies--II Leonardo, La Vittoria Colonna, La Regina Isabella, II Marco Polo. They had once carried the gold of Venetian merchants across the angry seas of the Adriatic. Now, weighed down with age, they swam slowly over the Atlantic. The passengers were fed once a day, in the late afternoon, by a large, muscular man covered from forehead to ankles in tattoos. His name was Italo and he came from a northern mountain region known more for rugged terrain than culinary expertise. It would take Italo a dozen trips to fill the bowls of the hungry, as he lumbered down narrow steel steps, carrying a large pot filled with hot stew. He dipped the bowls into the scalding liquid and scampered away, leaving them to devour what he knew to be a meal unfit for animals. On occasion, he would throw large chunks of old bread into the hole and watch dirty hands dive for the delicacy. Passengers built small fires around which they'd circle, using old wood and clothes in an attempt to stay warm and keep their children safe. It was an eight-day journey of pain, but one that each person on that stifling deck desperately needed to complete. They were leaving behind a land of dry soil and little promise for a place where, they were told, every one of their dreams would come true. That is what they needed to believe, what would give them the courage to go on as around them grandfathers died in silence and infants wailed their last breaths. The dream of America was more than enough to make Paolino Vestieri want to live. Vestieri was a thirty-six-year-old shepherd from Salerno who had seen a thriving flock of three hundred reduced to a half-dozen, victims of hunger, thieves and sickness. He had an eight-year-old son, Carlo, and a wife, Francesca, eight months pregnant with their second child. Despite the daily difficulties, Paolino had no plans to leave Italy. But then, in the late winter of 1906, his father, Giacamo, was ambushed by a band of camorristas--the Neapolitan Mafia. Ignoring his pleas for more time to pay off a long-standing debt, they stripped him nude, hung him from an olive tree and sliced open his stomach. It would be three days before Paolino got word about his father and was able to find his body, and by then the crows and maggots had had their fill. When he returned home, he found Carlo missing and his wife screaming in ways he had never heard a woman cry before. They took Carlo! They took my son! Who took him? Paolino asked, grabbing his wife. The camorra, They took my boy. They took him for the money your father owed. The money we cannot pay. Stop your crying Paolino said, removing his hands from his wife and heading for the bedroom to get his lupara. I will get Carlo. Francesca fell to her knees, still crying, head cradled in her hands. I want my son, I want my son. If they want revenge, tell them to take it from your father. Not from my boy. They have already taken it from my father Paolino said, checking the lupara for shells as he walked past his wife and out the door. - [ * * * ] – I’ve been through a lot here in NLCW, fought some of the best, won championships, lost championships. Competition is what I’m used to, but I don’t have that going against Jackson. Jax and I worked right along together, when I was running No Limit Wrestling Federation, he’ll we even did battle as Iceman Cunningham. It was during a feud with him that Jackson felt he was wrong, and ran away. Made a big thing out of it as well. Then three weeks ago, we faced off and even with his best effort I walked away with yet another win over Jackson. If anything, to me, this man is the quintessential form of an immature child, if you ask me. Someone who wants everything handed to him rather than fighting for it…otherwise, he might break out into a temper tantrum. Am I not surprised? No, sadly that’s what this game has turned into, and just like a lot of talent, he has to learn how to handle himself and be able to rise above all of his trials in his life. All he wants to do is point fingers and talk about everyone else rather than actually accepting what he’s done wrong in life and what he can do to make it better. But it doesn’t really matter this week, now does it, Jackson? Before you answer that, Jackson, think about who you are facing. It doesn’t matter because you really won’t be able to rise above anything, especially me in a match. I have to honestly say that I’m quite embarrassed with being put on the card with someone like you because as a person, you disgust me. As a fighter, you suck. And as my opponent, I pity you. Actually, no I don’t. I don’t pity the fact that you are about to step into the ring with something that you will regret having to face for the rest of your life…not because you’re facing a living legend, but because you will lose and you will most likely die as a result. You don’t deserve to stand up to the likes of me and I will show just that. But at the same time, I don’t really care because all I want from you is what I hunt for day in and day out and do I need to repeat myself of what it is? No, I don’t think so. We all know what I’m coming out of there carrying and it doesn’t glitter in the light or glisten in the sun, but it dries up and walks with you from that moment forward. Something so crimson red that it makes me smile at the sight of it. Something so pure and so full of life that I set off just feeling it flow through my hands as I beat the living hell out of you. And do you think that you will be able to get out of this one? No, because… Jackson, you have no way out of this bout. You can’t run away like a little school girl and cry to the teacher about this one. You can’t beg and plead your way out of facing me and you sure as hell can’t blame anyone for your loss in this one except one person…yourself. I don’t have time for the games and I don’t have time for the pity parties that you want to throw just because you aren’t worthy of even fighting in the ring. Before you actually step inside that ring with me, do me a favor and leave all of your problems behind because they aren’t going to help you against me. Hell, I deal with a lot of bull on a daily basis, especially dealing with haters like yourself or anyone else who think that I don’t have what it takes to climb back to the top. If you, or anyone else for that matter think just that… Then prove ME wrong! I could give a damn what you all feel about me, but I’m getting sick of you twats thinking that you have the best of me. You want to actually think that and believe that, then prove it, you will only be a foolish believer to think such a thing. I dare you…I seriously dare you to try me and I’ll show you just what I can do and even more. They don’t call me a Lion for a reason. You will see why this week and as long as you are still silent towards me, it will only prove one thing… This week, Jackson, you’re stepping into your personal hell and it will be nothing like you’ve ever dealt with before. And in the end, I will make sure— No, I will make sure that you are permanently silent and we will never have to listen to your whining ever again. Get ready to step into your grave and burn, baby, burn… …for you will never be prepared for your brutally silent death. -- That’s a Wrap! -- |