by Julia Mcconnell

Created on: January 29, 2010

Mrs. Tratta was a mountain of a woman who always wore a flowered dress.  She owned a small candy store on Wallace Street.  And she made the best candied apples in the neighborhood.  Whenever I went into her shop, her eyes would turn to the ceiling, ‘cause she knew I was going to look at every apple before I picked one to buy. 

I liked big apples with a thick shell of candy and the spread under the apple had to be the largest pool.  After I picked my apple and paid for it, Mrs. Tratta would say, “Thank you, Julia,” with a smile on her face.  Licking the apple, I’d open the door to leave, setting off the warm tinkling of the small bell at the top of the door. 

The shop was across the street from my school, Hamilton Street School.  I don’t know why we all called it that because the name of the school was really St. Patrick’s School, just like the church. The school was between Hamilton and Wallace.  So it could just as well been called Wallace Street School.  Anyway, I decided to walk through to Hamilton Street to see if maybe Georgie was somewhere there playing with some of his friends.  All the yards were empty. I left through the Hamilton Street gate, around the corner to Grand, past the rectory, past the big horse chestnut tree in front of the church and crossed the avenue to my house.

  Marie was coming out of Volpe’s Drug Store and yelled to me.  I walked over to her and asked what she had in the paper bag.  “It’s for my mother.” She said.  “She has a terrible headache. She always gets one after she sees my father.  Gotta go now.” she said, as she waved a hand and rounded the corner.

Marie’s father didn’t live with Marie and Mrs. Dag.  He drank too much and whenever he got drunk he would point at the sun or the moon with his finger and threaten to shoot it out of the sky.  He did that so often everyone called him, “Shpahahzole.”  In Italian that means, ‘Shoot the Sun.’ 

Marie didn’t talk about him very much and I think it was because she felt sad for him.  It made me feel sad too.  I thought about Daddy and although he didn’t threaten to shoot anything when he had too much to drink, it did make my mother mad and he would wake me up so he could sing or recite, “The Cremation of Sam M’Gee.”

I hope Momma won’t get any headaches because of Daddy’s drinking. 

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