I just published a version of this chapter which needs editing, but this is another one:

Vico flung a twangy line across the steam.

“Saperelle!”

He cried with glass bottles of wine.

The pizzas came flying in along with “do you want pizza, PIZZA, PIZZA MARIA?”

Cheese in strings across the table.

“We are united!” I said. “PAR fromage.”

“Ancay Francay,” he said it again. “Napoli Ancay Francay.”

Now, before we fly off, I’ll hold back the hoover dam—them. Me. The whole thing. I must. This is a sport, with a shrug, not dinner. Also theater. That’s first. We’re in Naples, Italy, not Florida. We’re on the boot, not the pointed toe. Field, stage, what’s the difference? Tear down the set, charge the field, save the smuggling revolutionary. We will revolt? We will.

PIZZA, the word, came flying in — fourteen people at once, insisting that they were the main character, in their own way. It’s like a magic trick. They become a Greek chorus, instinctually. They are one as well as one body. Everyone talks at once. It was stage-worthy, an inspiration.

I wanted the calzone as big as your head. That felt like a content block right there, but NO – NO — it went flying, fourteen people who knew better than me. PIZZA, PIZZA, the PIZZA Maria is…It’s NOT — GOOD — that word flew. GOOD, GOOD, BAD, MARIA, PIZZA IS NOT GOOD COLD.

You see, they know that sound is REAL — soundwaves. We’re speaking to WIN. Not to play footsie. And it was wonderful. So loud, so free, even tickling, getting FLUNG around at this table. You’ve never seen such footwork, switches in topic, slam. They can take you down. I wasn’t prepared.

Vico dropped it on the table, just like that, with his hands.

“What happened to you?”

I sliced open a calzone as big as your head, and a pool of fresh cheese spread across my plate and began to rise. On his elbows, Vico sat at the head of the table next to Franco Franzese. Flora was justice. Angela was amused.

“Piscine,” I said, or pool in French with a Neapolitan accent.

“Eh brav. Eat, eat, eat.”

I was already full and thrown, packed to the brim. How to eat this thing? With a fork and knife or with bare hands? I picked up the creamy, subtle cheese on a fork, amazed. These people were gifted. Franco Franzese, now in the ring, had been alerted by my enthusiasm but they could see, together, the commentators, “si si,” the sparkles around me, yes yes they could. This is what I mean. They could the SPARKLES around me, truly. HELLO? HELLO? CONTINUE. She’s not talking. “You,” enough of that.

“You see she doesn’t eat,” Franco said.

Quick move.

He mocked the “laser beams” shooting out of my eyes.

Yes. No. This.

He interjected that, apparently, my father had “Alzheimer.”

“Alzheimer?” Vico’s eyes widened.

Everyone said “Alzheimer,” which was funny.

“What does that mean?” I swallowed. I laughed.

“BUON,” I said.

“You see, she’s joking,” and why would I joke about a disease? I couldn’t say that though. But this was JOY.

“You were ten, correct?”

“Ten” flew in from everybody.

“This is what she said,” Franco gave me a palm and tapped the table.

“But you were here at this time…”

“I poof no?!”

I called in Carmine in front of me because the question as to why I disappeared was disappearing. He adjusted his glasses for our first round of charades. I was 100% positive, you see, that was my only direction. Let’s LEARN. And this was a show, also. Carmine and I were the players, you see, at this moment, our moves being evaluated by the commentators. His father mocked him.

“TWEET TWEET.”

I saw explosions in Carmine’s eyes.

“What is the…” word for WORD!” Big hands. Big feelings.

“NO POOF!” I cried! Franco got onto his elbows, coming in, putting his chin into my fight, approvingly, very good. “You see? You see.” Pass — from the judges.

Carmine nuzzled his nose at me.

“How do you say…”

They threw out guesses, amusing themselves. The tension over Carmine and his band even reentered the equation, Franco Franzese rooting him on in a state of conflict with a chin. I had to — pointing — ARTEEST IO— WAIT ME — They’re trying to bring me down, make it more challenging.

“POOF!”

“POOF, Meri?”

The chorus said.

“HOW DO YOU SAY?”

They got the CONCEPT!

Quick foot-change, bam, I needed the word for “word.”

“Disappear,” Carmine snapped.

I dipped my finger into that word. They mirrored it, cute. Not Carmine.

“And what is this?”

I laughed. Why is she laughing?

“Disappear,” I imitated Angela’s way of talking. I tapped the table. Franco pointed out my gestures, “Neapolitan, how can this be?” I kept tapping, since you have to get strategic in these parts to get to the end of a sentence. Look at the finger, and they did. Tapping large. “BUT WHY? Look at that…”

“Type, teep…of grammaria…”

I didn’t want to bastardize Italian.

“The structure of the LANGUAGE.”

Carmine does not BREAK, he won’t do it.

“Grammatica? What is the GRAMMATICA of to disappear?”

His brows raised, he looked over at them, voices shooting, even enjoying charades.

“WHAT — IS IT?”

“A verb…”

They disagreed.

“SI,” I scooped up that word and brought it back with my shoulders into a fist.

“She has a quality though doesn’t she?”

“BEFORE THIS.”

I continued with air-quotes, pointing at everything.

“LIKE CALZONE LIKE TABLE LIKE PAPA LIKE LIKE—A VERB IS?”

“Maria?”

Flora rang low.

“How do you say questo…”

I SHOT OUT MY HAND — spouting any word that came to mind.

Comments. Suggestions. Guesses. Fouls.

“Word…”

“WHAT?”

“YES!”

I pointed.

“The word, Carmine! The word! Thank you!”

“This is what you want to know? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE? THANK YOU?”

They rushed me.

“Alzheimer, poof, ten, word, what was this nonsense?”

I signaled largely.

“HE DIDN’T SAY!”

Boom, they took me to the ground. I got up. I made “shush shush” sounds with my finger. “Shush shush.” This was utterly nonsensical, conceptually, to the Neapolitans. “Shoosh shoosh.” What did this even mean? “Shoosh.” I couldn’t help but laugh. They undercut me. I clapped at Carmine. Did a tap dance over all these voices! Only compliments. Comments. I had to hold it.

“What is the WORD for the contrary of one person?”

“AHHH,” Flora adjusted her glasses like Carmine. She understood what I was doing. Maybe she didn’t. Franco said something that made Flora laugh and alerted me.

“The word,” I wagged my finger.

“PER…”

“PER, PER? Meri PER?”

“QUESTO.”

Carmine pulled back.

“No person,” and I tried to mime “around” and flashed “one.”

“No one.”

“YES!”

We applauded Carmine.

I boosted him as “my professor” at his father who received it begrudgingly.

“He said nothing to a person!”

“How was he supposed to tell a child? How was…”

“Scouge,” Franco said, not scusa, even suave.

“No!”

Franco said that it was I who didn’t want to accept it, heavy in his delivery. I was a child. He couldn’t tell me. “IO,” with hands shooting forward for “live,” a word that was not there, “with HIM.” It didn’t matter. Rosa, Emma, and Angela got up because it was just a story to pick up the plates. I shot up.

“HELP?”

Obnoxious move.

They threw me back in the ring.

“Secret,” Carmine said, looking off, because he kept getting it.

“It’s THE SAME, is it the SAME? THE SAME.”

“And what about it?!”

“NOH, noh, noh…”

They insisted as if they had been there.

“HEY!”

I started swinging wide with English just to knock them down.

“THE DOTTOR!”

Now, the cracking up — it’s Joy, my inheritance too, an edge, wanting to slice someone, but I can’t get angry, so why not make fun of myself, do a little dance on this goddamn disbelief line on which I was stuck.

“Dottore Meri DOTTORE…”

I threw my hands down.

“I speak Neapolitan.”

“Brav.”

Franco gave the assembly a palm. I had a style.

I slapped across my palm into the great beyond. It was done, I put down my glass.

“Brav.”

I shot out “diagnose” which passed. Franco and Vico were doctors. Everyone confirmed “the importance of Latin” in how they said “diagnotici…”

“DIAGNOSED” POW, POW POW. DIAGNOSED.

“HE SAY TO ME —”

INTERRUPTION.

“When I was twenty years old that he…”

“WHO, Maria, who?”

“DOTTOR!”

I gripped my fist for the past participle. I opened myself up for attack. This was a boxing ring. “HAS EU,” it was English and French, “Alzheimer when I was ten.”

“Ancay Francay,” Vico reminded me.

“Alzheimer?”

They said as if they heard it for the first time.

“MA PARKINSONS PRIMO…”

Throwing out three fingers, I tried to say “neurologia.”

THREE FINGERS, what?

“MARIA, Maria, PUT the NAPKIN…”

Ah, Carmine just raised his brows.

“When you were twenty or ten?”

“PUT THE NAPKIN!”

“Ten,” I brought a fist back to me in a large curve on “MA.”

“Told ME when I was TWENTY.”

“Do you want meat,” Angela even came in with a sincere elegance.

I became bright, grateful, and I had never been so full.

“Maria, eat, please.”

“I don’t SPEAK,” I said, “Italian!”

They reassured me that I did.

Franco gave people “looks.”

How was he supposed to tell a child? About all this?

“THE DOCTOR SAID!”

The word for angry—I had a fork and knife.

“Eat, eat, eat…”

“THE DOTTORE MARIA THE DOTTORE!”

“The dottor was not happy!”

It was I who was not happy.

They even expressed sympathy and understanding.

“SPEAK,” Franco threw me onto the table with his forehead.

“SPEAK to your mother?”

I was wild, in-between states of awareness, frozen with sheets of paper shuffling in my eyes. No one remarked on my state as abnormal or out of control. Chaos, haha, Angela would later laugh. That’s Naples. Nothing to bat an eye about. Franco made circles over his eyes and gave them to me as questions.

“What are these eyes for?”

Flora was deciding how to call it.

Everyone huddled in to participate in charades with Maria and Carmine, throwing their guesses with weight, volume. Hard to keep the thread. I swam. Carmine nuzzled at me. “NO,” he said as I laughed at their picking apart my moves, tempting. I made the universal symbol for talk. “The word,” I said into his owl eyes, we were going down, spiraling.

“He did not TELL…”

“Nothing. He said nothing.”

Just the swirl of the crowd. Carmine pulled back. I took the floor. I wiped my mouth, remembering my father, laughing a little. Of course not.

“What Meri, SAY WHAT?”

I floated, my pinched fingers remained. They didn’t know. I had to remind myself. Franco pointed. “Neapolitan.”

“About the MY MOTHER to you? He say,” I opened my hands. “What? About the my mom to you,” nice, curious, Neapolitan even, but bright, can’t get ANGRY, can’t get ANGRY. “He say to you…” A platter of a hand now scanning the way. Evidently mirroring them.

Franco took the lead on this one because my father spoke to him the most…

“Cosa?”

I tossed Carmine “what” instead of “how much.”

“La quantità, Carmine…of the WORDS.”

“Not much,” Franco said.

Others joined, obviously.

“Only that she wasn’t never really in your life.”

His sincere brow — his sympathy— infuriated me.

Why are they asking me this, then?

I looked at them.

They got pushy.

“How were they supposed to know?”

I laughed. I had to give that to them, forward, at a breaking point that was unbreakable.

“No, I do not SPEAK…!”

“Aw, how sad, sorry.”

“No…”

They searched for a day, any day, that I spoke to my mother.

“No, no, no” not this…

“Weekends? Birthdays, Christmas, holidays…”

“NO!”

“Not even on her name day?”

I had to laugh.

“NEVER!”

“But she’s still your mother…”

That was richer than the food.

“Mai, mai, mai,” my Italian pinches in full force, one in each hand, I said “never” with an increasing satisfattivo. Satisfaction, I think. I gave them two hands—the number of times that I saw her let alone spoke to her almost pleading with them, a bit of an act, on an edge.

“Christmas, weekend, name days, you called people…”

I threw my hand—I cast it long and sharp.

“Oilloc,” Vico poured me another glass.

“SHE!”

I held the hand, held it, just trying to find the word for “to give.”

I handed anything and everything to Carmine for the VERB. Time to pump it up the play — getting into this game right? How FUN it was FOR ME. RIGHT? This goddamn story. But gotta keep it light, gay, can’t be affected, must understand, no one can affect me. They loved it! Carmine took it, simply, not knowing what this was — brilliantly. His father got it, too, indicating to Flora—her son.

“When a person does this…the ACTION. VERBE!”

“She’s got a style no?”

“Brava Meri!”

How could I not laugh? They didn’t get how FUNNY they were, but anytime I laughed, they thought I was joking. Quick changes. I felt bad. I was too quick. I couldn’t offend them. They were innocent. I got it.

“She gave me….”

Carmine came in.

“SHE GAVE YOU? GAVE YOU WHAT?”

“To another person!”

Emma took a deep breath.

In short, my mother gave me away, not gave me, to another person when I was four years old.

“So what, people give their babies to people…”

Franco Franzese handed a baby to a person as if it were stupid, even, how common it was.

“Si, si,” Flora seared, this time, with her frown, right through me. Looking at them, they gestured, indicated, scanned.

“NORMAL, NORMALE.”

This is not a reason not to call someone, your mother. Si, si. Patch things up.

I got up from the table.

Carmine’s head grained back slightly as I threw open an invisible cage in a self-mocking step.

“NORMALE…”

“Isn’t this nice?” Eager, bright, can’t get angry. “NICE. NORMALE.”

“Normal, Maria, yes, normal.”

They liked my mime, and?

Carmine made little wings without changing his face but there was a question beneath it. I opened up a pigeon coup in my mind. He even got the image. His father snapped at him.

“What did this have to do with birds?”

“Tweet tweet!”

“MetaFOR!”

“She’s joking!”

“No!”

“Then why?”

“You.”
“YOU!”

“TELL THEM MERI!”

Angela cried.

I gave the BABY to a woman “over there.”

“BAMBINE.”

“What about the BIRD CAGE Maria?!”

I was putting her, pushing her, over there.

Vico kept saying “OBI LAN.”

I felt terrible for taking up this space but it was over. With a fist to Carmine like we could do this, I fired at him. “WE!” He repeated what I blurted, becoming less and less verbal. He adjusted his glasses. “Confusion,” he could see that. They all did.

He asked everyone with a palm to back up. He was in charge. It didn’t work but it did. He got mocked, the crowd got interested, and his father came closer, bringing in the people in.

Without inflection, Carmine pushed up his glasses, “Meri is giving a baby to someone…in confusing circumstances.” His brows lifting…me up. “A foreigner, Meri, or someone…”

“Or someone you did not know?”

I snapped at him because I got a word I needed and flashed “TWO.”

“Both,” he confirmed with a peace sign.

He left the space between us open; there was a missing piece of information that everyone tackled to fill with his eyes on me and “over there.” I shot four fingers at them, my body surging with electricity.

“FOUR YEARS!”

Yes, that detail. He nodded.

“FOUR YEARS?”

“FOUR YEARS OLD OR YOU LIVED WITH THIS WOMAN FOR FOUR YEARS?”

Two fingers for both—“YES!” It became bigger, happier, and wide-eyed as they hit me with “no, no, that’s not what happened.”

“No, no,” Flora said with a tone.

“You don’t remember.”

If there was one thing that could have made me blow, it was that. I heard “remember me” in my head when I was four years old, lady, and at four, I had that bite, and I did bite—watch out. I threw punches. My Way. You see. I couldn’t forgive myself for going there in feeling, so I masked that, but none of that was apparent. I had a strong mask. They kept going. No, no. They just didn’t stop. No, no. No, no.

Only one woman — my fire was lit — could bring down a team of Neapolitans single-handedly. In this case, she would have been happy to. I felt it, I channeled her fire—the mother who stepped into my house in a tennis skirt and legs shaped by the Gods and took me home for a day that turned into four years. I kicked my feet like she did.

“HEY! My Brazilian Mama!!!!”

Their heads sort of flew back.

“TELL YOU—OKAY?”

I set off Nettuno —what the fuck is going on? I felt terrible. Guilty. “Now who’s this?”

Carmine moved his eyes without his face.

“O—kay…”

They bounced off my okay, rhythmically.

“O-kay, o—kay.”

I gave them her sassy finger in her Brazilian accent.

“Pay attention.”

I suddenly remembered that phrase.

The table paused.

They were impressed…by how I became this other person in front of their eyes.

Franco especially.

“Si, si,” they all agreed, but why didn’t I do theater anymore?

How could I not laugh?

“She’s good, not bad. Do it again.”

They got that she was real—they felt it.

“DO IT, Meri, DO IT AGAIN.”

I laughed.

“She’s joking…”

“Pay attention,” I said, and is this where I lost the reality of it? I didn’t go, why are you doing this? Or, I’m going to have to leave. I had evidence, you see, it’s true. That was the automatic response.

“SHE SAID NOT ME, SHE SAID.”

I chewed gum like she did, smiling really nice, fake nice, at them. I flashed the four jazzy fingers she gave me at the tennis club which they mirrored. They commented, zoomed in on the gesture, amused.

I began on my pinky!

I showed it to them. Held it. They waved their little pinkies at me.

I had to PUSH through the laughter. “SHE SAID, no me, SHE said to me,” I said, as her, which they could legitimately see. I counted all the way up to four beginning to say “the bad names” about my mother. Franco had to laugh. They called my foul.

“The bad things! CARMINE! About the my mom.”

Carmine said, looking at me with owl eyes so I could follow him.

“This woman didn’t like her mother,” reading me, “more…hated, Meri?”

“SHE SAID—FOUR YEARS!”

“It’s not true.”

“SI!”

For the love of GOD.

“I DO NOT SPEAK!”

Franco didn’t want to accept it.

Carmine slipped it in.

“You don’t put the definite article in front of family members…”

“MAYBE,” I blurted in French.

“PAR CONTRE.”

They called my fouls. Vico said “Ancay Francay.”

“It is more true,” with shoulders, “PER me.”

The math added up, at least, to Franco Franzese.

“And then,” I came here for the first time…after these four years.

“Yes.” Coming in fast —

I laughed again, taking that hit. Franco Franzese accepted my statement that he didn’t believe a child, putting his chin into it. “Was this not unbelievable?” He had no clue why was I laughing, “unbelievable,” looking at them, an edge they didn’t notice but I was wrought about it. I didn’t want to do this. I laughed, rinsed. I was coming to my senses. I hated my story.

“She was Brazilian, this woman?”

“She said that.” We tackled Franco for fun. “SHE SAID, SCUSA,” Emma.

Franco Franzese defended himself — right.

“My Way Brasiliane,” Vico said.

“No…” Rosa said. “Baby no…”

“Si,” Vico figured. The whole time. He followed me perfectly.

“Was this her? The woman you told to get out of My Way?”

“Her cugine,” I said, and Vico said “esatto.”

Once again, even better — BRAV.

“Sorry…”

Their faces—what word was this?

“SORRY?”

Flora called my foul in sounds.

“Why is she apologizing? Carmine?”

He didn’t know. No one did. Well, I sort of flipped out, albeit strangely.

“Um,” trying to bring my voice down, they wouldn’t let me.

Caring Franco — leading with a sincere brow.

“What? What do you want to say? SPEAK!”

“What is stronger than scusa?”

Meri, Carmine got real without words suddenly near me.

Why do you want to know this?

“YO HOO ARTISTS TWEET TWEET YOO HOO.”

I was standing by the Cubist painting of Maria with a veil and two faces. Oh, smile, um, switching feet, haha. “Meri,” there she is, Franco with a tight alligator smile. We can see her, no? At four. Yes, yes, we can. We can.

“Mi dispiace,” Ivana said.

“NOH,” Rosa said. “Baby NOH.”

Franco looked at me as if I were a complete alien.

Angela said “MERI,” so tenderly.

She was happy that I was back even elegantly.

Everyone was.

I was “allegra,” according to Angela’s pout—joyful, happy, lively.

I blinked.

“Allegra?”

Flora frowned.

“Si, Meri, si,” Franco ushered me to get off this train of thought.

Vico just listened, giving me eyes, a song was coming.

“I am coming down,” he showed it, his eyes sparkling, “from the mountain,” he said rhythmically, “with a story of misfortune,” and without words, there were many songs, his eyes becoming distant, misty, so many. He shrugged at my nonverbal reaction as if it were tiny though I didn’t move.

“Anche brute,” he said about Napoli.

“Belle,” in French, “and anche brute,” he said, even magically. His eyes. To become brute, himself, since he is. Staccato. Eh brav. No one else caught that — this was a siren in action. Eyes sparkling. He got the picture. My performance the whole thing. Nonverbally.

I couldn’t believe these people.

“We wondered where you went…”

Now, I’m recoiling, “WHAT IS THIS SHYNESS?”

Franco was so funny, receding into himself. “WHO IS THIS?!”

“Si,” Flora called it.

“Si, scusa.”

“WHY IS SHE SAYING SCUSA?”

“This is what family is for.”

Right.

I’m not really at this point yet, of going in and perfecting the scene, the information is there, so I’m going to keep blocking it out this week. Keep on figuring out the order. Well, that works, that’s a simple task. But I’ll send both of these out… I’m thinking about that too right now, just trying to get excerpts from this published. I’ve just turned my attention in that direction, so we’ll see. Thanks.