by Al Drinkle
It was cold for late September. Johnny and his sister, Barbara, were driving south from Torino, eating boiled sweets and attempting to decipher crackling transmissions on the radio. Johnny fine-tuned the dial while keeping an eye out for the turnoff that had eluded them so many times in the past.
Each year, the siblings made the trip to place a floral arrangement, a crucifix or some other manner of kitschy decoration on their father's grave. Leaving the autostrada, the old Cistalia gained altitude and all of a sudden the undulating hills were carpeted with vines. After passing a few insignificant villages, they plateaued and parked as the seemingly interminable vineyards gave way to a tiny graveyard.
"You know,” Johnny muttered sardonically, adjusting his absurd polkadot tie, “one of these years we're either going to have to move mother here to Verduno, or move the grave to Torino.”
“Oh, shush” said Barbara. “It's once a year, and it's the only thing that gets you out of the city.” Her brother elected to ignore her, instead scrutinizing the gaudy plastic ornament that he had liberated from the back seat.
“We remember,” he read on a ribbon that had been ineffectually glued to the trinket. “Well I don't! You know what? I don't remember what the old Pelaverga-guzzler even looked like!”
“Johnny, it only takes you five minutes.”
“Yah, five minutes to put this piece of junk on the grave, and over two hours to drive from Torino and back! Mother wants to remember, so we waste an afternoon driving down here and… Goddam it! Do you recall what row he's in? It's as if they've shuffled the graves around...”
“It's over here, I think,” Barbara pithily replied. As she surveyed the headstones, Johnny sauntered behind her, ceaseless in his dissemination of complaints.
"Here it is.”
Johnny carelessly deposited the ornament on the grass in front of their father's grave while Barbara gingerly knelt nearby. The closing of her eyes caused Johnny to roll his.
“Come on, Barb… church was this morning.” Barbara ignored her brother, her hands clasped in prayer. He weighed his sensitivity against his impatience. “Hey, I mean prayin's for church, huh?”
“I haven't seen you in church lately."
“Wellllll,” chuckled Johnny, “there's not much sense in my going to church. Say, do you remember when we used to get dragged here when we were young? You were really scared of this place. There was the time that I jumped out at you from behind a tree… Grandpa shook his fist at me, yelling, ‘boy, you'll be damned to hell!’ Do you remember that?”
“Johnny... Stop it."
“Well, how about that? You're still afraid!”
“Stop it, Johnny. I mean it!”
"They're coming to get you, Barbara,” he taunted, raising his hands and affecting a sinister accent.
“You're ignorant! You're acting like a child!”
As they bickered, a disheveled figure with hollow, saturnine eyes appeared at the perimeter of the graveyard. He carried a gigantic bucket and a pair of Felco pruners, seemingly oblivious to the siblings despite the fact that they were directly in his plodding trajectory.
“They're coming for you, Barbara! Look! Here comes one of them now!”
“He'll hear you!”
“He's come for you!”
Thoroughly horrified, Barbara emitted a shriek which startled the approaching man from his somnambulist lumbering. His mouth melted into a gentle smile.
“You have nothing to be afraid of, miss,” he offered in a reassuring, almost lyrical voice. “I'm just passing through on my way to harvest my Barbera. It's my wife's favourite, you know, and we're expecting thunderstorms this evening.”
A few other bedraggled figures sauntered into view, similarly equipped with pruners and buckets. The man signalled a farewell to Johnny and Barbara as he and his harvest team disappeared into the vines.
Barbara eyed her brotherly acidly.
“My mistake,” said Johnny. “They weren't coming for you, Barbara. They're coming for Barbera.”
Still shaken, Barbara began to wander back to the car. “It’s time for you to take me home, Johnny,” she asserted, conjuring what composure she could manage. “This is the most ridiculous wine article of all time.”
