The Reluctant Tuscan by Phil Doran Page B

whatever garbage her neighbors had dumped that day.
    It was on one of those walks that I struck up a conversation. I had just done a load of wash and I was in the process of hanging it on the line when Signora Cipollini and her poultry came clucking past our house.
    â€œ Buona sera, Signora Cipollini,” I said with all the confidence of one quoting the first page of a phrase book.
    â€œSera,” she muttered, eyeing me warily.
    â€œMolto bello oggi.” I pointed up to the sky so she would know I was talking about the weather.
    â€œTroppo caldo,” she said, indicating her displeasure with the heat.
    â€œSì,” I said agreeably while I composed my next thought. “Allora, come sta, signora?”
    â€œIn somma.”
    I didn’t know what that meant, so I just plunged on. “Prendere mangiamo . . . uh, uh, suoi polli?”
    She flashed me a look of horrified indignation, quickly huddled her brood together, and ushered them away with such alacrity, I knew I had said something wrong. As they receded in a flurry of swirling pinfeathers, I leafed though my phrase book and discovered that instead of asking if she were taking her chickens out to eat, I had asked if I could eat her chickens.
    And we wonder why nations have such a hard time hammering out peace treaties.
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    I had gone back to hanging out the laundry when Dino’s truck pulled up. He hopped out, casting a baleful eye at a man too busy washing his wife’s undies to go out with the boys and gun down a wild pig.
    â€œ Ciao, Dino,” I said, nonchalantly turning the lacy front of Nancy’s pink panties away from him.
    â€œIs your wife sick?” he said, sliding open the hatch and letting his pack of hounds bound free.
    â€œNo.” Then I realized that had to be the only explanation for what I was doing. “Yeah, a little touch of the flu.”
    â€œOh, too bad,” he said, “but, listen, I need to talk to you about something.”
    â€œOur water?”
    â€œYour water’s okay, huh?” he said pulling a chewed-up clothespin out of Luna’s mouth before she could choke on it.
    â€œSort of. Ever since they turned it back on, there’s been no hot water in the shower.”
    â€œJust in the shower?”
    â€œThat’s the strange part. Like maybe there’s an obstruction, or a broken—”
    â€œI take care of it.”
    â€œHow soon?”
    â€œToday, tomorrow.”
    â€œToday would be better.”
    â€œToday is impossible.”
    â€œTomorrow?”
    â€œTomorrow I will call my cousin Turrido, one of the finest plumbers Italy has ever produced, and if he can do it, he will do it, and that’s a promise.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œBut you must help me with my son.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” I put on the properly serious expression, which was difficult because of the sudden raspy wetness of Ninja’s tongue on my bare foot.
    â€œI am a worried sick. Rudolfo don’t want to marry Pia.”
    â€œPia?”
    â€œPia Tughi. They be together since they was kids. Our families are very close. We all expect them to marry, but now he refuses.”
    â€œWell, I’m sure he’s got his—”
    â€œNo, he don’t! You got to talk to him.”
    I winced.
    â€œHe likes you. He thinks you’re moderno .”
    â€œLook, Dino, I don’t think you can talk anybody into getting married.”
    â€œYou and Nancy have no kids, no?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen how do you know what you can’t talk anybody into? Especially a son who is killing his mother to death because she don’t have no grandchildren.”
    â€œRudolfo is thirty-four years old,” I said, cupping my privates as Cosimo came sniffing up to me. “He’s old enough to know what he wants.”
    He looked at me with pity. “ Ai, you Americani . You know how to get to the moon but you don’t know