Crossing the Common

Alexandra always bought the Italian bread at Federico’s in the Italian section by the U. S. Rubber, “the shop” the workers called it. Harry (her mother would spoil Harry) always expected bread fresh from the oven. She herself was partial to her brother. Had he stayed in town, he might have propped her life by relieving her of mother. But none in the family—not Harry or Alice or Rob or Marian—had.

Old Federico, mostly paunch and so short only his head topped the glass bread case, was a lecher. Emerging to hand over the bread, as if carelessly, he would brush the phallic loaves against the breasts or thighs of the young and quivery girls sent for the daily bread.

Leaving, she could not get through the street. There was a procession. From St.  Elizabeth’s. Portuguese. The incense, a sudden sea, imprisoned, and the crowd. As she was bound, she watched. It was the Virgin on a dais, released from captivity in her niche and carried, of course, by sons of women initiated in the sensual rites. Embalmed in plaster painted a paradise bl