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I visited my Uncle Nunzi recently in the retirement home where he now lives. He was eating a turkey sandwich on white bread and grumbling the entire time.
“I should’ve moved to a retirement home in Italy,” he muttered, “at least I’d get a prosciutto sandwich for lunch on a nice roll.”
He cheered up when I told him that I’d do better than that and take him to dinner on Sunday at his favorite Italian restaurant. He then took another bite of his sandwich and started complaining all over again.
“You know what they told me when I told them the turkey has no taste? It’s free-range turkey. I don’t care if the turkey rode with The Lone Ranger,” he said, “maybe they should’ve lock it up in solitary confinement to give it some taste.”
I finally got Uncle off the subject of the sandwich when he confessed another problem he’s been having.
“You know, almost everybody I like is dead,” he said.
I told him that didn’t make me feel very good. He said it’s not always about me. Then we discussed how dead people always seem superior to the living.
The dead have a natural advantage over the living when it comes to reputation. Nobody is supposed to speak ill of the dead, so naturally we only complain about the living. The only two dead people I ever heard Uncle criticize were Hitler and Stalin (he still feels Mussolini got a bad rap because he did make the trains run on time). Uncle claims all of the great literature and music were written by people who have since died. I think it only seems that way because it takes many years for a writer or painter’s reputation to grow in stature, and by that time, they’re dead.
If Michelangelo were still living, people would be griping that the art on the Sistine Chapel was derivative and the color was all wrong. The same with Shakespeare. He died just in time to save his reputation. I have it on good authority that The Times’ theater critic in London was about to write a scathing review of “Romeo And Juliet,” claiming it encouraged teen suicide. And all that stuff with boys playing girls and girls dressing up like boys in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” just was not credible. You think me and the guys on the corner didn’t know Michelle Pfeiffer was a girl in that movie because she put on a pair of pants?
I found out Uncle has a related problem. He not only venerates everybody that died, he gets confused over whether some celebrities have died or are still living. Uncle thought Ernest Borgnine had died 20 years ago and when he found out last year that Borgnine was still alive, Ernie up and died. That happens to everybody, I assured Uncle. I keep forgetting whether Sophia Loren is still alive or not. I must’ve struck a nerve because Uncle threw the remnants of the free-range turkey sandwich on the floor.
“Sophia is still alive,” he shouted. “She is still beautiful. And you, my nephew, are hopeless.”
I wanted to know whether Uncle got confused about whether his friends are dead or alive. He admitted that at his age even his friends’ status has become a problem, and he doesn’t know whether to still be upset over the way Vito cheats at cards or whether he has died and earned his forgiveness. He admitted Luigi had shown up to visit him after he had sent a Mass card to Luigi’s wife only two years ago mourning her husband’s death.
“Sometimes I even think I’ve already died and this is the afterlife,” he added. “I think — could this be heaven? And then the ugly woman brings me this white-bread sandwich, and I realize this can’t be heaven unless I wasted a lot of time going to the 6 o’clock Mass.
“Of course this could be hell, especially the way you’re dressed.”
I picked up the sandwich off the floor and placed it on his tray for the attendant.
“Maybe you ought to leave your room and eat in the dining room with the others,” I said.
Uncle advised me he eats in the main dining room every other night.
“I can’t take these people two nights in a row,” Uncle said as he sipped on the espresso I brought him. “Last night this guy next to me tried to tell me that Clark Gable was a better actor than Marcello Mastroianni. He’s the same guy that bragged that the turkey is free-range.”
“He reminds me of you,” he added with unmistakable disdain in his voice.
“Well, they’re both equally dead,” I said.
Uncle looked up from his espresso and asked, “Now you’re going to try and tell me that Mastroianni is dead?”
I thought about contradicting Uncle and decided against it.
“Of course not,” I said. “You think Mastroianni would die while Sophia Loren is still around?”
“Maybe you’re not as dumb as you look,” replied Uncle, as he finished the espresso with a slurp.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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