R24: Learning
Title: Learning
Characters: Silver, Giovanni, Pearl
POV: Silver
Notes: Errr, assuming he was raised Sicilian. If you don't think there's a Sicily in the canon world, then feel free to substitute a made-up country with a history and culture very similiar to Sicily!
When I started to write Giovanni, I went to the library and checked out all the books on Sicily I could find. Hah- now I know a bunch about Sicily!
Ma’m sets down a glass of milk, a plate of cookies, and something else.
“What are all those books for??”
She’s not answering. I see her peer peevishly out from behind an unlit cigar as she thumps down enough books to stock the whole of Westridge High School’s library. She tilts her head and gives a small grunt- perhaps of satisfaction or perhaps of annoyance. I know she’s waiting to see what I’ll do.
I grab the book nearest to me. “Sicily Throughout the Ages?” I look up to her sharply. “I’m not interested in history. Strangers: A History of Foreign Occupation in Sicily…Encyclopedia of Italian Hand Gestures- What’s all this for?”
Ma’m peers down her cleavage at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Italian Cuisine… Vineyards of Italy… Sicilian Cuisine, The Sicilian Dialect, Travel: Italy, Travel: Sicily, Art of Sicily, Architecture of Italy, 500 Advanced Positions For Really, Really Hot Sex-“
“That’s mine!” she snaps and snatches it before I can open it. “Mind your own business. Nonna your beeswax, kiddo.”
“But-“
“Keep looking through the goddamn books.”
“Psychology of Immigrants… The Sicilian Exodus… Must-Know Etiquette of Italy and Regions- I’ve already done World History, you know!”
“Bugger all that. They don’t teach you anything aside from who thought who started it,” she says.
I rather liked the class, but arguing with her is like licking a spoonful of boiling pitch. “More books on manners in Italy. More books on manners in Sicily.”
“Yeah.”
“More history of Sicily- where did you get all these?”
“Library.” She doesn’t offer any elaboration.
“How many travel guides to Sicily are there here?”
“Dunno. Count them yourself.” She fingers the cigar longingly but doesn’t light up. Thanks, mom.
“Food and Italian Culture… Food in Sicilian Society… An Updated Text of Sicilian Economy… Ma’m, what are all these for?”
She picks her nose. “You. Reading, of course.”
“There’s more books on the impact of foreign invasion in Sicily. And more on Italian etiquette.”
“I know, I checked them out myself.”
“Why?”
Ma’m tosses the cigar on the counter behind her. “Eat your damn cookies.”
“Yes Ma’m.”
She waits a while before downing a few herself. “Well, you said you wanted to know your father better.”
“What? You can’t get to know someone by reading about foreign countries-“
“Well, you can’t know him without knowing what’s made him.”
I rub my head, but quickly stop. He’s rubbing off on me and I’m too young to get a receding hairline yet. “Look, I really appreciate all this, but really, this isn’t going to help me…” But I have to admit it’s something, all this coming from a woman who would rather gulp turpentine than lend a hand to a fellow human being.
“Why he’s so mistrustful of any and all strangers. It’s in his culture, kiddo. All that foreign occupation just coming to Sicily and draining it dry. That’s what the book said.”
“Thanks, but-“
“Besides, you said you wanted to get to know him weller, and there was only this way or the other way.”
I put the book down. “What other way?”
For a moment I think she’s going to start laughing or crying. I can’t tell which. She idly flips through the book that she checked out for herself. “The other way’s to just live wit him.”
.