Once Upon a Family Time

PRESTIPINO

Copyright © 2014 GARY PRESTIPINO.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-0980-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-0979-5 (e)

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 5/12/2014

CONTENTS

Farmer Brown

Retirement

1968

R Train

2015

Game Night On The F Train

Hospital

Naples

December 8, 1951

June 7, 1918

Unscheduled Stop

Brooklyn

Smoking Johnny Barbeque

1963 Bus Sitting

Monongah

Epilogue

Biographies Of Key Characters In The Book

Acknowledgments

To my family in the future and my grandson Nikko, great-niece Isabella, and great-nephew Lucca. The stories and people in this book are a part of your family. Without them we would not be here today. To Monique, my daughter. I hope she will continue telling stories to the next generations about her family.

Once upon a Family Time is a story about two brothers who travel in time. Gary, the younger brother, finds himself in a frustrating time-travel loop. One day he’s living a normal life as a husband, father, and grandfather. The next day he wakes up and he’s a time traveler with no explanation, unable to return to the present period of 2015. Luckily for Gary, his brother is also a time traveler, and fortunately, he’s able to control his time travel into different time eras. He is able to travel back in time to meet Gary and help him get closer to coming home and end the time loop he is trapped in. With the help of his brother, Richie, and the many adventures that lie ahead of them, they both hold on to the hope he can return to the present and lead a normal and productive life in the year 2015.

All of the time jumps, which are how Gary occasionally refers to them, are somehow related to their family, specifically their grandparents and great-grandparents. Gary’s alternate world and time spent in it compared to the time in 2015 is not real time. Throughout the story the two brothers form a newfound bond and dedicate their journey to helping each other. Before the time jumps started, both brothers lived apart geographically and would see each other once or twice a year, depending on a family event or short vacation.

Family and friends will never understand the journey these two brothers have endured or the silent challenge they accept to save their family and secure the future. The lesson of their journeys is that we really don’t know how much our ancestors sacrificed for us, such as the hardships in their lives and the danger they endured bringing their families to America. During the brothers’ travels, they learn to appreciate their family and take time to enjoy their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and extended family.

In this book the reader will follow the brothers’ journey through time. They will visit places they have never been to and places so very familiar to them. Everywhere they travel will provide a fond memory from their childhood or a newfound memory from the past.

FARMER BROWN

T HE DAY WAS HOT AND humid—the kind of day where steam rises from the city streets and sewers, and the tar on rooftops is so hot that if you walk on the roof, your shoes stick to the black tar. No matter how hard you try to cool off, nothing relieves the overwhelming feeling of heat exhaustion.

These are summers in New York City, and the people who live there are accustomed to them. The best thing to do is head toward the ocean, where you can hope for a cool breeze coming off the water and waves crashing into the beach. When it gets unbearable and heat stroke is about to seize your body and you can’t tolerate it any longer, you jump into the ocean, swim, doggie paddle, or just float until you cannot tread water or kick your legs any longer to stay afloat.

I awoke early that day. The heat and humidly were so hot, and there was no way I could lie in bed and sleep. The sheets were wet from sweat and uncomfortable to lie in. I was forced to get out of bed even though I was exhausted from sleep deprivation and being excessively overworked.

I was working six days a week as a shoemaker in a small shoe-repair shop located at Pierpont Street in Downtown Brooklyn. My hands were swollen and sore from the tedious shoe repair I was generously paid forty cents an hour to do, working sixty hours a week. I have to say, this was one of the toughest, most physically demanding jobs I’d had in my lifetime. I spent almost ten straight hours a day doing steady shoe repair with a thirty-minute lunch break, not to mention standing on my feet the whole time. I was physically drained by the end of the day and had to push myself for that last burst of energy just to get to the train and head home. I was amazed that I could repair shoes. My time travel provided me with talents I was not aware of. The shoemaker trade was in my family heritage. My dad and grandfather were both shoemakers. I guess the shoemaker genetics travel in time.

I pulled myself out of bed and slowly walked over to the sink, slightly hunched forward. I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth the best I could under the circumstances. My fingers could barely hold the toothbrush. The tips of my fingers were raw and sensitive to the slightest touch. It was so hot. I don’t remember ever sweating that much. I couldn’t think about eating breakfast, even though I skipped dinner the previous night because of exhaustion.

I packed a banana and day-old semolina bread, grabbed a towel, and headed out of the apartment. I walked down the five flights of stairs from my prewar flat into the street, where the hot July sun was blaring down upon me and into the worst heat wave New York has seen this century. I headed down the street toward the trolley car station; the platform was packed with people crowding around the station platform, pushing and nudging each other to get on the already crowded trolley. My destination was Coney Island—beaches, ocean, food, my secret plan, and hundreds of thousands of people all with the same idea in mind: to cool down.

The trolley ride was forty minutes, and it made many stops along the way. The trolley was filled to capacity; people were hanging off the running boards of the trolley as it approached Coney Island. Coney Island was exhilaratingly busy. I had never seen so many people at Coney Island during my present life. The sidewalks were full, and you could barely walk. The crowds of people were overflowing into the streets, and the few cars on the street were at a near standstill. The car horns were piercingly loud, and the crowds of people were moving in the same direction: the ocean. The first thing on my agenda that day was to jump into the ocean and cool my aching body. Next on my list was to sit and relax on the beach, eat my bread and bruised banana, and begin the rejuvenation process of healing my body.

I have this knack for healing my body and getting energy back quickly. I usually wake exhausted, but throughout the day I have quite a bit of energy, which is enough to get me to six o’clock pm when I finish work for the day. The healing process starts on the train ride home. Extremely exhausted when I leave work, by the time I get off the train at my stop, I feel pretty good. Of course, once I lie down in bed, I fall asleep quickly. I know in 2015 I have similar healing powers. Usually a day in bed or lounging around the house on the couch heals my ailments. Janet, my wife, is always amazed at how quickly I bounce back from the flu or an injury.

It was Sunday, my day of rest. I now knew the true meaning of day of rest. It was eleven in the morning; I’d been swimming for forty-five minutes, until I could no longer tread water. Exhausted from swimming, I came out of the ocean feeling refreshed. I lay down on the sand without a blanket. I knew I would be back in the water soon enough to cool off again and wash the sand off my body. I was as cool and comfortable as I was going be today.

Yes, I almost forgot; now it was time for my secret plan.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been away. Did my family miss me? Did they know I was gone? Was I still there? There were a lot of unanswered questions for sure.

I was trapped in New York. The year was 1922, and I couldn’t get back to the year 2015. As always, I did have a plan. My plan was to try to find my brother, Richie. Richie was a time traveler too. Unfortunately both of us had been blessed with this special time-travel gift. Also an unfortunate situation was that I couldn’t seem to jump back to 2015.

Richie is four years older than me and has been able to control his time-travel adventures. In fact, Richie has the ability to travel to the future. This has been my only saving grace and hope that I can get back to the present. Richie’s travel into the past and future, good or bad as it can be, has given him the opportunity to warn me of any danger that lies ahead for me, and he is always able to return to the present.

My plan was to search for my brother on July 2, 1922, two days before Independence Day. I needed to know why I was there. What wrong did I need to right? We had designated places to meet depending on the time of year and the actual year I was living in at that particular moment. Usually Richie found me and let me wait a bit for him. In many jumps he would get there before me.

I was feeling a little bit more anxious than normal. It was probably the scorching heat and the work I was doing. Like I said, this was one of the toughest periods of time I’d ever traveled back to, and I had never experienced working in these conditions. Usually I was out of a time jump anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours. This jump unfortunately had me as a living, working resident of New York City in 1922. I arrived sometime during the first week of June, so I was approaching four weeks and counting. I never appreciated how hard my grandfather and my father must’ve worked in their lifetimes. I don’t ever remember my dad complaining or being too tired to play ball with my brother and me, though I didn’t know much about my grandfather. He was retired from working as a shoemaker when I knew him as a young boy.

I was up on the boardwalk, sitting on a bench in front of the haunted house, looking for any sign of my brother. Apparently oblivious to many people, I didn’t look like I fit in in Coney Island in July 1922. There were many immigrants of European descent, and they all seemed to have that certain look: brown worn pants, faded-out white shirt, and brown-red shoes that seem to squeak when you walk. Not to mention everyone seemed to have a foreign accent. I was a third-generation Italian American; I was tall and spoke perfect English. As much as I tried to dress the era and walk around in the very uncomfortable fake-leather, brown-red shoes, I still stood out in the crowd.

Two young-looking Italian men approached me. Both were a good foot shorter than me. One was fifty pounds lighter than me, with eyes sunken deep into his skull, and the other was about fifty pounds heavier, with a face and head so fat he could be a balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade floating down Broadway. They wanted to know what my business was there. I looked at them like, Are you kidding me? Who the hell are you? I managed to restrain myself from snapping at the two morons. At this point I was short on patience, and my temper could get away from me.

I immediately responded, I’m looking for my brother.

The short, overweight one stepped closer to me and said in broken English, Rocco wants to talk to you.

I said, Sure, I’d be very happy to meet Rocco, once I find my brother.

Now the other man came up to me, all 120 pounds of him, and said, You don’t understand—Rocco wants to meet you now.

I knew I could wipe the boardwalk with both these guys, but I wasn’t sure how involved or dangerous they were. I figured I should back off, play it cool, and go along with them without much resistance.

Much to their surprise, I said, Sure, I’ll meet Rocco.

The next Thanksgiving Day blimp grabbed my arm and led me away. I gave a silent chuckle. Wow, I thought, I’ve never seen a person with a head that big and fat. We walked away from the crowd and off the boardwalk to a quiet street. Halfway down the street we came upon a little storefront café. There were a few older men in suits sitting outside the café. All the men looked at me as though I was a freak of nature. I was pushed past them and into the café.

Once inside I was walked over to a table where three men were sitting. The first man was a big man, standing close to six feet tall—one of the few people I could have eye-to-eye contact with in 1922. The second man obviously was Rocco—not that he resembled a person I would consider to be called Rocco. I guessed his mother gave him that name at birth. The third person, to my surprise, but I guess not to my complete surprise, was a young-looking man for his age. He had a very dark complexion and was nice looking—my brother, Richie. Rocco right away asked me my name; I hesitated for a moment because I wasn’t sure if I should say what it was. I was trying to get a read from Richie. In all my travels, we had never discussed this scenario. I guessed Richie had to adapt to the situation, and I hoped he knew what he was doing. The encouraging outlook about this situation was that I was able to find my brother.

Rocco had a plan of his own for me. Rocco and his henchmen had been watching me for weeks walking the boardwalk on the weekends and during the week at night. I would often go straight to Coney Island after work to get something to eat and cool off. Coney Island was an ideal location for me. I was very familiar with Coney Island, and it hadn’t changed all that much since 1922. The boardwalk was still made out of wood, Nathan’s was still there, and the Cyclone was still operating.

Rocco’s crew hung around the neighborhood in Coney Island and observed the coming and goings of people. They knew I didn’t belong there, and maybe they thought I was planning to move in on their territory. I had to laugh. Yeah! Right—me moving in on someone’s territory! I hated trouble. In my real life, I was called Gary the Ghost because whenever there was trouble, I was gone. You wouldn’t see me until after all the action died down. Maybe the next day I would show up and ascertain the damages. In high school when there were racial riots, I would always disappear and never get involved in the gang wars. I learned firsthand how the innocent guy always gets hurt in those fights. The big-mouth, tough guys always look for the weakest and smallest person to prove their manhood. In my case that would be six feet, 120 pounds of teenage boy.

Your name? What is it? Rocco demanded.

Gary! I answered back more forcefully.

Gary? What kind of name is that? You don’t look Russian or Jewish.

I’m not Jewish or Russian! My name is Gary Palame.

Are you Italian?

Yes, I’m Italian American; I was born in Brooklyn, New York. My parents were one of the first immigrants to travel to America. My father worked in the coalmines in Pennsylvania and died very young. My family also—

Rocco interrupted me. Okay, okay! Whatever.

I guess Rocco lost interest in my story. I’ve learned from my travel experiences when the right time to say nothing is and when it’s time to bore someone to distraction and confusion. It seemed to work. I distracted Rocco with my family history, and it bored the hell out of him. My brother made eye contact with me; I could tell he