Chapter Thirty-Six

My stomach was hollering for food, but I wasn't ready to answer it. I had a stronger need that was going to be satisfied first. Thanks to Allen, I had missed my opportunity to speak to Joe at the cemetery, to offer sincere condolences. The words were said yesterday, but they should be repeated on the day Ethel was laid to rest. I wouldn't blame Joe if he didn't allow me inside his house after I missed the service. In my eyes, there was no excuse for my tardiness. It would be easy to blame the paper for the misprint, but I should have double-checked with someone.

The heavier rain had returned by the time I parked behind Joe's deteriorating mansion. I knew why he didn't hire a contractor to do the necessary repairs on the house. Of the two brothers, Joe was the horder. It would be nicer to say he was the conservative one of the two. But the truth is, he pinched every penny. And this man had millions to pinch. The only reason he owned the mansion and Mercedes was because he bought them at a bankruptcy auction for a song.

Joe was born in Naples, Italy. He and his brother landed in New York City at the age of eighteen and nineteen. Joe the oldest of the two. They had opened a small pizza parlor there. Before long, the one parlor became two, then three. In a few years, they had a chain stretching along the New Jersey coast line. Then they moved westward and landed in Pennsylvania.

It was after they set up housekeeping in Milton that something happened between them; something so terrible they became bitter enemies. Joe never told me what caused this family feud that survived all these years. Twenty-some, to be more exact. The brothers were in their late forties when the feud began.

Thomas liked the ladies too much to ever commit to just one by getting married. Whereas Joe was too busy building his pizza empire to take the necessary time to build a loving relationship with a woman. At least until Ethel had come into his life.

But there must have been another woman before Ethel. I strongly doubted Angel was conceived during a one night fling. As I said, since I've known Joe, I've known a real miser. Whereas Thomas liked to throw his money around. Or more correctly, Thomas liked to flaunt his wealth. A flashy new luxury car every year, a new house every other. He even had his own private tailor moved here from overseas somewhere. I believe it was Italy. Joe, on the other hand, was content shopping at your regular guy department store. He always looked neat, though. White shirts starched as stiff as a board. A coat and tie worn regularly when he left the house. At home, the attire is much more casual. But then, it would look a little more than eccentric to mow the lawn and tend the garden in a suit and tie.

Joe still did his own yard work. I believe this was because he enjoyed it so much, not because he was too tight to pay a neighbor kid twenty bucks to cut the grass.

The one extravagance Joe allowed himself was a full-time housekeeper. Ethel had a tiny apartment in town where she slept. But from daybreak to nightfall, six days a week, she was at Joe's house, or off somewhere with him. Sundays were reserved for her sister and her large family; the family Ethel never had. By her own terms, Ethel had considered herself an old maid.