The furrows above Pettirosso “Petey” DiCappello’s mono-brow plotted his meager concentration, intent on the fiberboard tray between his porcine hands. His lips formed unuttered words as he left Italian People’s to cross Butler.

Lemmesee—two milk, one sugar; one cream, no sugar; one double-mocha, half-caf… He blinked. That Billy. What a fessacchione—coffee is coffee, right?

BEEEEEEeeeeeep!

“Madre del Dio!”

The red SUV’s glancing pass caused a comic bullfighter’s pirouette. Panic forced Petey to collapse his grip, sandwiching the tray and crushing the bagged baked goods in the middle. Only one lid popped, but half that cup sloshed onto his left hand.

“OWWWW! Sonafa—”

He faltered in pain, but the insistent rush hour restored his grip and he waddled to safety through the remaining maelstrom of cars and curses. He laid the tray on a trash can, dug out his handkerchief, and pressed the throb out of his wet flesh. He picked the errant lid off a mummified rodent corpse in the gutter, cleaned it deliberately with his handkerchief, and replaced it. He mopped vainly at the cups, their ochre stains already preserved in the absorbent Styrofoam, and turned his attention to the crumpled bag. It was stained through and clung to its gelatinous inner mass like clothing to a burn victim. He tried a careful separation, tearing one seam top to bottom. He poked at the amorphous mess but managed only to separate the Danish shale into an approximate number of indistinct units. Rearranging a few raisins and relocating some jelly at random helped, he thought.

Petey exhaled and headed for the door of the Ereditare di Italia (Sons of Italy) Social Club, a storefront that grew more anachronistic by the day, as Butler Avenue and the rest of Chambersburg—known with affection to its citizens as “the ‘Burg”—was dragged by gentrification toward that REALTOR® kind of respectability that typifies 21st-Century urban renewal. The Club’s ugly, squat elevation was magnified by nearby pastel-oak-and-fern renovations and re-openings. It was anchored to the sidewalk by four courses of the blond brick last popular when Buicks were classified by the number of fender “holes.” The shin-to-hairline plate glass and aluminum-frame door were sheathed inside by vertically-applied rolls of contact vinyl that looked less like the intended stained glass than a blizzard of Technicolor confetti. One naked corner offered the only promise of a glimpse inside, but most of it was taken up by an old duochrome of John Paul II, which—being outside the beaten awning’s daytime penumbra—looked more frail than its subject. Up above, the paint-starved basso-rilievo featuring Jupiter, Juno, and a gaggle of lesser dieties might still have lent a modicum of dignity, had time and perching pigeons been kinder.

Petey put his beefy shoulder to the door and stumbled inside, underestimating as always the spring’s degree of exhaustion. The Club’s dim interior was consistent with its public face. Light came from sputtering fluorescence, beer signs, and the clanging glare of macchine del pinball. Sludge from generations of grease, grime, and tobacco smoke had paralyzed the beaten-tin cherubim in the ceiling tiles. Even a trained eye couldn’t guess their—or the walls’ or the floor’s—original color. The kitchen, bar, and corner stage had long ago ceased to pique or satisfy gustatory and carnal appetites. About the only evidence they ever had were the odd bottles of Grappa or Galliano and the few remaining dingy portraits of regional headliners and ecdysiasts. The place’s ambience had fallen so far below its own traditions that it seemed to magnify the suffering of the occupant of the Crucifix in the far corner. A brand-new, imported brass espresso machine stood as sole evidence of the Club’s present utility—a day room where mob soldati congregated for morning roll-call and family business assignments. Like its possible users, all it needed to put to use was the proper connections—but who was to call the plumber was an assignment that always seemed to fall between the stools. So, every weekday, after the ritual accusations and throwing up of hands, Petey was pushed into morning traffic to fetch breakfast for those without domestic resources.

The cascade of light punctured Giovanni Nonnula’s concentration as he pounded his hip into the Star Trek machine, featuring a ridiculously top-heavy Lieutenant Uhuru. He turned, the ball dove between the flippers, and the machine mocked his latest failure to break into the top ten scores with spiraling cartoon sounds. His bloodhound face fell further when he saw that Petey had muffed his simple task again. As his closest—well, only—friend, Giovanni broke toward Biglietta “Billy” Scarlattino, who’d spotted the carnage and was halfway out of his chair with his mouth fully open.

"F'Chrissakes, Petey! Not again!"

Billy allowed Petey to set the goods down one-handed before he snagged his other arm above the elbow and spun him, hooking his foot behind Petey's nearer ankle. Petey hit hard on one buttock and splayed as far backward as Billy's grip allowed. Billy cocked his free fist and an eyebrow. "Sorry, Petey; you're outta luck. Maybe a simple beatin' makes an impression…"

Billy's focus was interrupted by a manicured right pinkie that he recognized as Giovanni's, which promptly disappeared up his right nostril, up to the gold-and-onyx Knights of Columbus ring. Giovanni stepped into his swing and raised Billy, whose hands were now welded to the bigger man's forearms, to the balls of his feet. Petey slumped onto his back and covered his head. Billy remained on the hook while Giovanni paused to allow the rest of the fight to fall out of him and to help Petey up. Petey sat and Giovanni relented.