Five days after the opening of the new Mount Hope Bridge, the Stock Market Crash happened: Tuesday, October 29, 1929. The wop ironworker Luigi Marino was out of a job. What took 40 years to establish in America was wiped out. Forget about it.

The patriarch, Leonard Marino, had seen a red, white and blue sign in a barbershop window back in Naples: WORKERS WANTED! AMERICA! Big balls, this guy. Floated on a stinking steamer across the Atlantic to work his ass off in the Bristol Rubber Factory for $1.00 a day. A nine-hour shift, plus Saturdays after the Micks went on strike. The American Dream. After the Crash, the son Luigi was back to square one. No more rivets and high-wire glory. Back in the dirt growing vegetables. He vowed his children would never get their hands dirty. John, the third generation, got into real estate and insurance. Everything was nice. Smooth as ice cream. So, when Joey was born, he had the silver spoon in his mouth. But something happened. At the delivery the Doc said, "You got quite a little man here." Mama Angie thought he was talking about the kid’s dick. Forget about it. The kid was covered with hair, on his arms, on his legs, on his back. Like one of them China pets. 

Joseph Leonardo Marino was bad news from the get go. A bad seed. And what an actor! Better than the entire Booth family, better than Burton, better than Barrymore. And what a load of brass-faced bullshit he could lay down! Got raised up the "old country" way. Lots of yelling and slapping. Hey! Whadda ya crazy? Shud up! Lots of strutting around, acting. Look at me! Look at me! The father had no time with the shiny shoes and the sweet cologne. Trouble came easy. Broken windows, BB guns, stealing. He got caught taking a brand new stainless steel monkey wrench from the Portagee hardware store. Mama Angie found out and cuffed him good. She couldn’t understand the stealing; the father was loaded. When she asked him how come, the kid said, "Because it was shiny." That’s the way he came up. Like a dumb bluefish scrounging around Narragansett Bay ready to strike a shimmering lure. A predator that would chomp on anything shiny.

He caught his wife that way. Rose Marie was the daughter of a Rubber Factory mill rat. Joey spotted her at a high school football game in heels, gold jewelry, full make-up and big hair. She talked gutter talk, even in good company. No class. The factory made RUB-BA. When she perspired, she was SWEH-EH. Like she was too lazy to pronounce all the letters. Too much work. Youse take dees, for you take these. Crude. Youse do dis he-ya. Like she didn’t have no education. Played stinky finger with her own cousin and stuffed her bra with tissue paper. You could see the folds but she didn’t care. Shud up. Joey snagged her, and they married and moved into one of Pop Marino’s apartment houses so they were eviction-proof. They had three daughters that Joey liked to show off at the Bristol Fourth of July Parade. He’d strut down the main drag with Rose and the kids, shaped like one of them roadside sand barrels on skinny legs, reflecting sunglasses, gold jewelry, chewing a smelly Parodi in a patriotic tank top swelled with black gorilla hair. People would say, "Look, it’s Joe Bristol." The name stuck like meatballs on spaghetti. 

He really went berserk after he started with the coke. Bought a ’66 ‘vette, with a teakwood interior and side exhaust, 427 cubes, 450 horsepower. Thought he was the "don" of the Italian Social Club preening on the bocce court with Gucci loafers making divots to screw up the pilon. After a couple toots and a few beers he owned the joint, busting balls and cuffing skinny white mill rats. What are youse lookin’ at! The young dudes thought he was cool. Big actor. Big mouth. Neapolitans liked him, he was one of them, a different breed. Sicilians hated him. Like mixing cats and dogs. You know what they say – A wop from Sicily will stab his own mother in the back, but a wop from Naples will stab her in the cunt and twist the knife.

Eventually, he hit the wall with the drugs. And you know what slammed him? A little old chocolate woman. Joe Bristol had this wicked strange compulsion to hurt people close to him. By that I mean near at hand, like on a train or a bus. It didn’t matter who it was. Could be a kid or a woman or an old man. Say he was on a plane staring at the back of someone’s head. After about an hour he wanted to smack or grab or squeeze something and make it bleed. He got so loco on an Amtrak train, coked up and drunk, he caved. Began staring at an Aunt Jemima across the aisle, asleep, fixing on her red lips and a pattern of freckles on her forehead that looked like a baseball diamond. All of a sudden – POW! – he backhands her and the glasses go flying. She starts shrieking and our boy tells the conductor it was some kids. Some kids, he says. That’s the pattern; blame someone else.

In Joe Bristol’s abusive life, a trivial thing like whacking a crow wouldn’t seem like a signpost, but it was enough to get him to Narcotics Anonymous. My name is Joe and I’m an addict. A few weeks into the program he meets a Long Island Jewish Princess. Terry would hit on anything fresh that wasn’t low-bottom and, after all, the guy still had his ‘vette. Self-indulgent and cheap, she had a high-pocket ass and beak nose. A stupid pigeon, fly around and shit all over. Howah ya? Besides being manic depressive she was dyslexic and had a plump purse full of pills. Oy hava loinin’ dis-ability. Sometimes she’d throw a seizure and reverberate on the floor with purple lips. Her favorite color. Joey began doodling her and Rose Marie found out. She got a lawyer, a restraining order, the whole nine yards. After the final courtroom hearing, after Joey was stripped of all his possessions, including his children, Rose zinged him once more. In the dark hallway full of shysters she screamed, "Youse ain’t puttin’ your pop-tart in my oven no more!"

He got rid of the ‘vette and bought a Toyota. Joe Bristol decided to go straight. Took one of Pop Marino’s tenement rooms: hot plate and microwave kitchen, free-standing toilet and grungy shower. What a comedown. Quit drinking beer and got rid of the cigars. Joseph Leonardo Marino, a.k.a. Joe Bristol, one-time pebble-in-a-shoe was going to become a productive member of society. He enrolled in college. A strange world. The punks with the backwards baseball caps looked like robots. The giggly girls used the word "like." And the phrase, "Oh my God!" "Oh my God, like I was like really angry!" A different language spoken here. No youse. One day he turned to the flighty sound of, "Ewww. There’s like, like gum under my desk." It was April. 

April Watson looked like the daughter of Connecticut yuppies, long dirty blond hair, hazel eyes and pretty pink flushing face, but she was actually a half-Jew from Maine. Not your typical Maniac, she came from some shekels. Taller than Joey, she liked to accentuate her height with boots and heels. Had a closet full of designer clothes but preferred the Bohemian look, the sickly hippie crap, the same jeans and three different tops all week. A chick like this wouldn’t have even noticed our boy, a loser guy and a wop to boot, so that made it even more tempting. He had to have this shiny thing.

Their Art History class took a bus trip to the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan. Joey schemed and sat across from April, small-talking his baloney, flashing his pinky ring and fake Rolex. In and out with the comments and smiles, like a boxer, back and forth, weaving. Entering the city it was rainy and overcast and he imagined himself holding her hand negotiating puddles. Sir Walter Raleigh with a hard-on. He’d packed some Mama Angie "sangwiches" which she refused, but when the bus got held up in traffic, she gave in. During the tour he maneuvered to hold doors and pull her chair at lunch. Fishing with meatballs and bogus father figure kindness, he set the hook and got ready to jerk the pole.

Luigi Marino learned to rivet working on the Brooklyn Bridge. He’d left Bristol for Little Italy, sleeping in a relative’s flat on the living room floor with the cockroaches and sometimes his cousin’s pudgy wife. So, he was a pro when they began the Mount Hope. Over six thousand feet of rivets on maybe the most beautiful long span bridge built up to that time. The first bridge to have color, a light greenish tint to blend in the landscape. When the cables began snapping, the nervous architects decided to dismantle the whole deal and install cold-steel cable to support the girders supporting the main span. More work, more pay. With overtime painting, Luigi was building a nice little nest egg. He hadn’t even cashed his last check when the Crash happened. Lucky to have a plot handed down to him, he kept up on groceries and taxes by growing vegetables. Old Country stuff, seeds passed down, finocchio, pomodoro tomatoes, garlic cloves and long white cetriolo cucumbers. People still had to eat, right? Sometimes he’d lump fishing boats, unloading at hours when others were sleeping off the wine, or he’d oyster or quahog. His wife Assunta (Susie) kept the house tidy, the food on the table and the clothes clean. Nice, nice. Italians had a lot to prove. One Sunday Luigi came home from Mass in his manila straw hat, blue double-breasted suit and red striped tie. Susie asked him to go down to the corner for some Sunny Monday Laundry Soap. No one ever heard from the guy again. He pulled an Academy Award performance. The ultimate disappearing act. Forget about it.

"Hey, too bad you missed your ride. Hop in. Don’t worry about nothin’. I’m goin’ right by the campus. What are friends for anyhow?" Joey said to April, stranded after an evening lecture. She reluctantly agreed to go for some Italian food.

"After all, we’re in this together," he said.

The intricate weave of the hairy black spider was begun. Lights. Camera. Action. He made double sure April saw him hand the maitre d’ a five dollar bill. He arranged the seating so she faced him and the view. He interrupted, faking like he was receiving important guests. Hi Johnny. Tony, how you doin’? Louie, long time no see. April figured he knew everyone important in town. So relaxed, leaning back talking with his hands, stuffing the white cloth table napkin in his collar. Get whatever youse want. My cousin owns the joint. He ordered for both of them.

"Guido, you know what I drink. Bring my special, cabbitto? Look, my cousin, is he here? Tell him I’m here. How do you like my friend, nice huh?"

The waiter nodded politely while Joe Bristol thrust his chest and crudely tucked his shirttail into his pants, checking over April’s shoulder for an audience.

"I want youse to fix us a big salad, balsamic vinegar, and make sure to bring the good olive oil. On the antipasto I don’t want no hard peppers and if there’s any fat on the prosciutto don’t even bring it. The pasta tonight, is it tin or tick?"

"Thin," the waiter said.

"Okay, fix us the Veal Marsala with fettuccine alfredo and if that veal is tough I’m sendin’ it back. Make sure you keep your nose in the kitchen. And before you bring the cannoles, make sure youse cut me a little piece so I can smell if the cream ain’t gone bad."

"Thank you, sir."

As the waiter walked off he put the help down. Where do they get these stunadas? We got Mickey the Mope over there in a tuxedo. April was turned on by the power and Joey toyed with it - until she mentioned her new boyfriend back in Maine. Whatever. Probably some punk hick with a pimple problem. But it added fuel to the fire and he puffed up more than usual.

"Yeah, we Marinos go way back. I’m talkin’ back to the friggin’ Roman Empire! Julius Caesar for Christ Sake! We own half the town over here. And what we don’t own, we can buy. You know what I’m sayin’?"

He sucked his stomach in and jutted his chin. What a clown, she thought. Just like Mussolini. Such a pompous blowhard, at least he’d have to pay for the meal. 

"You know, April, honey…" (Oh, my God, he’s calling me honey!) "That paper you read in class was very advanced, very sophisticated. You’re way ahead of the others."

"Thanks. I like worked all night on that."

"It showed. It was really awesome. And youse can tink on your feet. That’s a sign of real maturity."

"Well, I have to keep my marks up. I get certain, what do you call them, incentives, from my father. Like, I hate living in the dorm. Cedar Hall is so, like, adolescent. Next semester he said he’d pay for my own place."

Joey saw the light from the crack in the door.

"Hey, between you, me and the lamp post, Marino Realty is the biggest outfit around. I got more properties in my portfolio than Carters’s got Liver Pills. Know what I’m sayin’? Look, I’m a partner in that complex going under the bridge - Mount Hope Apartments. You wanna get in on that? No better view of the whole Bay!"

April suddenly realized this hairy buffoon could be her ace in the hole. This guy was so stupid she could talk him into anything. Play him like he was playing her. After all, she was the one holding the goodies.

"Wow! Do you think I could live there in the Fall? How much are the rents?"

"April, c’mon! Whadda you, nuts? No problemo! What are friends for anyways? I can save youse a nice end unit. Hey, listen to me, this school thing is harder than I expected. Last thing we need is stress, right? Am I right or wrong? One hand washes the other."

"My father said he’d pay if I got like better than a 3 point grade average."

"April, honey, count yourself in. We can work something out. We’re in this together."

A partner? Yeah, right. The principals at Marino Realty didn’t want him within two miles of the place. The only partner he had was himself on this fishing expedition. He was trolling. Lay the bait out there, let it sink and wiggle, reel it in a little. Play it and watch the tip of the rod. Who but the fisherman knew that the nice silver fish was a barbed steel hook?

"What about guests?" she asked.

"Hey, a guest is a guest. We don’t need no party place, no overnights, you know? Just a safe place for youse."

April thought youse was a wop idiosyncrasy rather than a red flag of ignorance. It was kind of cute. This guy Joey was such an idiot, who cared? She was too dreamy about her new place on the Bay and how she could sneak in the boyfriend. Now, she’d definitely have to go on the Pill.

What did Joe Bristol know about love? A bowl of spumoni after a face slap? On the evolutionary scale he was about the third guy from the left. He’s got April all jacked up about this apartment baloney, dangling her like a puppet, edging closer and closer. In Art History class he sat beside her during a video about Minoans. "My people," he called them. In the darkness, with images flickering on her pink face, the wicked strange compulsion took him. All the pain it caused before was out the window. Forget about it. When they showed the naked bull-leaping women he stretched out like he was yawning and squeezed her breast. This was no love grab - he wanted to pop the thing. She let out a howl that raised the roof while the professor leaped for the lights. Naturally, Joey goes into his stonewall routine.

"I taut I saw a freakin’ mouse!" he screamed.

She bopped him in the head a couple times.

"I was tryin’ to protect youse, April! Tink about rabies! All them needles in your gut!"

Lucky she didn’t call the cops. After things settled he apologized with food. Tupperware packed with Mama Angie’s meatballs and stuffed peppers. Fresh bread, still warm in the aluminum foil. "I had her fix this special," he’d say. She refused at first, but the stuff was so good her dorm girlfriends convinced her to cave. Payback time. The more she took, the more he brought. Poor Mama Angie was doing overtime. Tortelloni. Veal Scaloppine. Calamari. Zuccotto. With all the Tupperware exchanges things smoothed. He dogged her with compliments. Your hair is so shiny! What’s that perfume? The guy had more angles than a pool-shooting lawyer. Soon April had an angle of her own.

"Look, Joey, my parents want to see a lease for the apartment. They want to come down here and like look at it."

"Sure," he said. "Oakee Doakee. I’ll get it to ya as soon as possible."

Of course it never came. The jig was up. Things ground down to a halt. No more Tupperware. The compliments stopped. When she asked for the lease a second time he said, "Sure. Sure. After the holidays." 

"What holidays?" she asked. 

"What holidays?" he mocked and shook his head. 

Mr. Watson found out from the Bristol Town Hall that Joseph Marino wasn’t a taxpayer. The guy didn’t own nothing. April threw it up in his face and he boomeranged. 

"What? Youse are too good for me now? Who made youse a saint? Freakin’ half-a-heeb jickey. What’s your problem?"

She told him she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

"You’re makin’ a big mistake sweetheart. Who da hell are you anyways?"

She got disgusted with the whole deal and walked, flipping him the bird for good measure. He had to come back with the only ammunition he had.

"Am I too much man for youse? Who needs ya! I bet youse take it up the azz anyways! Youse couldn’t handle the sausage I got! Bitch!"

She didn’t see the hairy gorilla for two months. One night the cops showed up at her dorm. There was a problem, they said. They put her in back of the squad car and drove past the entrance to the bridge.

"We got a jumper up here says he’ll go over if he don’t see you. Joseph Marino. We’ve had trouble with him before."

There he was looking real small in nothing but boxer shorts and a gold crucifix resting on his seaweed chest, his arms wrapped around a steel cable 150’ over the water, his feet anchored on two of Luigi’s big rivets.

"If I can’t have youse, I don’t wanna live!" he screamed. "Youse are my whole life!"

She took the bait. What an actor this guy! Better than Barrymore. It took what it took. Once he come down and had her landed, he went right back to the old ways. Funny thing was she didn’t seem to mind. He even showed her off at the Fourth of July Parade. Joe Bristol, native son, returning home with the spoils of war. Rose Marie and the kids watched him strut past like a peacock, puffing a cigar, black hair growing out the tank top, April on his arm chewing gum. "What a freakin’ slut!" Rose said loud enough for all to hear. "His taste is in his azz!" Then she pulled the kids back and flashed a confused evil eye when April turned to Joey and asked, " Youse want I should make a sangwich when we gets back, or wha?"