Street Boys by Lorenzo Carcaterra

Along the farthest side of the castle walkway, stretched out across the length of the path, handguns, rifles and starter’s pistols lay in one long row, drying from the heat of the fires and a warm night. Well over a hundred boys and girls were scattered across the open space, sitting around the four full fires, each eating a long meal of fresh fish grilled on wooden sticks and drinking from bottles of wine brought up from the castle basement.
    “It’s nice to see smiles on their faces again,” Nunzia said. She was sitting across from the main fire in the center of the road leading to the castle, a tin cup filled with red wine by her feet, looking at the cluster of boys stretched out around her. “At least for one night.”
    “A smile goes hand in hand with a stomach full of food,” Franco said. “It’s been a while since many of them have had both.”
    “How soon you think before the guns are ready?” Vincenzo asked. He was resting across the cobblestones, his arms folded behind his head, legs crossed.
    “Maldini said they should be dry by morning,” Franco said. “Then they’ll need to be cleaned. If we could find some oil to coat them, it would be even better.”
    Nunzia looked across the square, at three boys struggling with a wheelbarrow filled with an unexploded bomb. Beyond them, two younger boys bounced a small black ball against the side of a brick wall.
    She saw the jeep swing its headlights into the piazza and come to a sharp halt in front of a statue. She watched the soldier get out, a large dog following close behind, and walk into the center of the square, staring out at all the activity around him. He turned to look toward her, their bodies separated by distance and a large bonfire, their eyes meeting for a brief instant.
    “The Americans have finally arrived,” Nunzia said in a calm voice. “At least one of them.”
     
    Connors and the mastiff slowly weaved their way past the scattered children. Their quiet murmurs and soulful singing echoing off the large, barren castle walls, the fires crackling and sparkling high into the air.
    Connors stepped over two sleeping boys and turned past the edge of a fire when he saw an older man walking toward him, a small glass in his right hand. “You in charge here?” Connors asked, stepping in the man’s path.
    The old man shrugged. “They don’t even trust me to make coffee,” Maldini said.
    “Then who?” Connors asked.
    Maldini downed the remainder of his drink, wiped his lips with the palm of his right hand and then turned toward the edge of the pier. “The boy in the long-sleeve shirt,” he said.
    Connors looked past the blaze of flames and down toward the darker end of the pier. “The one next to the girl?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Maldini said.
    “You’re kidding, right?” Connors asked. “He’s only a kid. Where are the others?”
    “What others?” Maldini asked, walking with Connors now toward Vincenzo and Nunzia.
    “Anyone else,” Connors said. He glanced down at a group of kids drying wet guns and rifles with torn rags. “Resistance fighters. American soldiers. You can’t be the only adult here.”
    “My daughter would give you an argument about how much of an adult I am,” Maldini said. “But I’m the only one here old enough to join an army.”
    “And what’s going on with all this?” Connors said, pointing at the kids with the guns and another group wheeling a bomb inside the castle walls. “What’re all the guns and bombs for?”
    “They’re getting ready,” Maldini said.
    “Ready for what?” Connors asked.
    “They think the Nazis might be coming back to Naples,” Maldini said.
    “They probably are,” Connors said. “What’s it to these kids?”
    “They’re going to fight them.”
    Connors stopped, turned and stared at Maldini. He held the look for several seconds and then smiled. “That’s great,” he said. “No really. It’s a great idea. I don’t know who came up with it, you or the kid, but