A Version of Victory
by Tom Sheehan
part 1
I saw it all, from the very beginning, heard it all, too, every word rising on the air... in our first classroom, in church, everywhere it happened, you name the place and I was there. Unannounced it came. From the heavens it must have come, taking over his soul, his body, his mind for a few bare minutes of magic. Once, and once only, every five years like clockwork, it came on him, as if grabbed by the heavenly spheres or ignition itself lighting up his lungs from the inside.
My pal Victor, classmate for 16 years of schooling, teammate for eight years, inseparable companion, fifth year custodian of miracles that made him, for the nonce, an extraordinary singer without explanation, an indescribable tenor so gifted I have to place the cause on an element beyond us mere men.
V for Victor, dit dit dit dah, dit dit dit dah, dit dit dit dah.
I never saw the miracle coming in any of the situations. Neither did he, but it took hold of him and wouldn’t let go until the last word fell from his lips, from his throat, from his lungs, and then to depart forever from him. No song was ever repeated, making the miracle even more mysterious, as he could not even recall the scenario within a half hour of its happening.
I often thought I hoped I’d be there when it was over. Or maybe I didn’t hope so. It would be sad enough to hear the last of it, knowing at that moment he’d be gone before another five years had passed.
You think I’m off my rocker, I’ll bet, but I’ll tell you I have not missed a word. Not that I was clued in on the moment of coming; I rarely knew it was coming until I was out of college and back home for good. And then the math of it hit me. So, because he was my best friend, because he was so loyal in his own right, a trusted teammate, a productive teammate, a leader, I started keeping a journal, plotting the next revelation, the next miracle.
His musical renditions were all glorious, out of this world, curried with so much talent it shook me. Perhaps it was a part of his emotional and physical make-up that brought up a message from within, carried it off so it could be shared. There just had to be something in the air, surrounding him, waiting for his hand or eye or lung to breathe it in so it could be let loose.
The time it happened when he was 15 years old, and not the first time I had been a witness, was the first time I thought his surroundings or the company he shared dictated his revelation, his sharing, his improbable gift. It was as though it was needed, not by Victor but by those about him.
I tried to trace that import from the third incident.
We were sophomores in high school, and every Wednesday evening, five of us, all teammates and classmates, would gather at Phil Barbanti’s house where his mother fed us the ultimate in Italian meals. She and her daughters loved to cook, to feed us and her son during the football season. The good old smells of rich sauce were deep and delicious and flooded the house, all the rooms, the hallways, the bathrooms, probably the cellar and the attic, calling on the appetites, not letting go until cake or pie hit the table.
Mr. Barbanti sat at the head of the huge table partly in the kitchen and partly in the dining room where it was extended to accommodate us weekly guests, with a jug of wine, an old cider jug, in place beside his chair... a deep, delicious “Dago Red” he called it, made in his own garage from his own grapes off his own backyard vines, a recipe from Italy come by boat fifty years earlier. That Dago Red, barreled in the garage, was often a target for theft of a pint or so, late at night, Barbanti house lights all dimmed or shut off, the four of us pals mischievously out on Saugus town.
Heavy in his chair, the classic icon of the East Saugus Italian community, stonemason, violinist of sorts, warm as sin, Mr. Barbanti, by habit, often by choice, talked to his wife in beautiful Italian, almost musical, as if it had come directly from La Scala. I loved to hear him speak, sonorous at some moments, secretive another, yet a tenor’s carry in his voice. I dreamt about learning Italian, but did not follow through with my intent. I think the result is the way I listen to opera now, putting in my own words for those being sung, making my own dreamscapes, composing my interpretation of an aria.
When Mr. Barbanti spoke, all commotion in the kitchen stopped. Kettles stopped singing, pans stopped banging and clanging, glasses and plates stopped clattering. Sentences stopped in mid-statement as if a gavel had crashed down on the countertop. “Angelina, that sausage will be the best ever served in this room, I am sure of it,” as interpreted by his son in a low whisper, and the order it indefinably contained, would be understood, the tone set for the evening, the feast ready for us princes.
So it was on that night, the table cleared, a hum in Mr. Barbanti’s throat coming musically across the room, a tune from old Italy most likely, that the ignition started in Victor’s chest. The younger people in the house that evening were in the hallway to the upstairs, set off to the side of the kitchen, some sitting on steps, a couple standing, all gabbing, comrades at ease, sated, our mouths in a sweet and sour taste after being curried by meatballs and gravy and the inevitably delicious strawberry shortcake, when Victor stood up at the foot of the stairs, at attention to an invisible order, unsaid direction, with no outward sign, no outward expression, no full giveaway on his part.
An alertness was telling me I was again to be witness to the miracle only he could accommodate. It was likely a moment, I was sure, that Victor did not know was coming, from wherever it was loosed, from what housing or crucible or dais where it was issued, as if on demand to be a living moment of time.
It came in Italian, rich as Naples I’d guess, abruptly, suddenly, rising from him who could not speak Italian, who could not read music, who had not sung a song, unknown to him but a few seconds before, for the previous five years. Instantly I remembered the last time, when he was ten, when I was once again at his side in such a situation, and here I was once more, right there in front of him as the unmusical Victor, grabbed by an unknown power, unknown force, unknown capability, unknown talent, broke into a song I had heard a hundred times but never from Victor, never before from him and, as time would prove, never to come from him again.
He sang about what a wonderful, beautiful day it was, but it came in the Mother Tongue, La Scala powered, as beautiful if no more beautiful than Caruso himself:
Che bella cosa ’na jurnata e sole, he sang, sonorous, rising up the hallway and through the whole house, n’aria serena doppo na tempesta! It was majestic, soaring, tilted the whole house on an edge. Pe’ ll’aria fresca para già na festa... Che bella cosa ’na jurnata e sole. Eyes opened wide at “O sole mio, mouths gaped at a boy singing in Italian who knew no real Italian other than a few curses, how to greet the day, say hello or goodbye, say supper was late.
Ma n’atu sole cchiù bello, oi ne,
’o sole mio sta nfronte a te!
’o sole, ’o sole mio sta nfronte a te! sta nfronte a te!
A glorious song it was from the first note to the last note, a glorious sound loosed in the house, probably the first time ever the words rose in such incredible beauty within that brick house now set with fantasy or mystery. I had no name for it.
And heavy, chair-bound, stunned by beauty, Mr. Barbanti rose from his seat, his eyes also wide in amazement, a huge smile beginning on his face. “Mamma mia,” he said a number of times, and again as the song was finished, as Victor turned slowly, shaking his head in his own sense of wonderment, wondering again where this power had come from, this sweep of energy that came up out of him, this talent beyond measurement, this music and these words he had never known, and him also suddenly knowing he would never sing this song again as long as he lived. That knowledge must have also come to him from some distant place, must have been understood.
“You’ve been holding out on us, Victor?” Mr. Barbanti said. “All these times at dinner you never sang such a song, such a beauty of a song, and in a voice only the Maestro would own. I never knew you could sing. My God, son, do you know what this house has heard tonight? What I have not heard since I left Italy and my one night in La Scala, night of forever, Caruso out there in the light by himself, and that glorious voice raising the very heavens. What else do you have hidden? What songs hide there? Do you know la Donna è mobile? The Barber of Seville? Turondo? Sorrento?”
Copyright © 2023 by Tom Sheehan
