DNA

Usually I zone out, looking across the greens of Pawtucket Country Club, when I put gas in the car at the Quickie Mart on 152. Tonight for a third time, I came across someone from over 20 years ago while pumping the gas. I find that funny, how you can run into people while gassing up your car. This should happen more at reunions or supermarkets.

“Hey, Jacopo,” a kid in the driver's seat shouts out to him, “Get the grape one! Get the grape blunt!”

“Jacopo...Jacopo?” I know this name I think to myself. “Who else is named Jacopo but the one I know?”

I do know him. His full name goes sort of like this: Jacopo Luca Giacomo Angelo Tataglia. I knew his mother back in the 80's when I started really working. She was small Guidette from Providence who was similarly named by her Dad, Nicole Adele Sofia Tataglia. From what I could tell, her entire family was low level mafia. The family was “heavy” into Italian heritage and hence the names. Nicole was mix between Mt Hope High bad-ass black girl/Italian princess, with a penchant for wearing lace covered jeans, Obsession perfume and having the ability scratch your face in an instant when pissed off.

After hearing that name, I follow the kid into the store and ask, “Is your Mom's name Nicole?”

“Yeah...” the kid is eyeing me suspiciously. I eye him in a similar manner because all I see is wigger with a “fuck you” attitude.

“I knew your Mom when she was your age. That first and last time I saw you, you were in a bassinet in Women & Infants. Your Mom had two black eyes, busted blood vessels in her eyes from pressing down so hard to birth you.” That I remember, Nicole was wasted after giving birth and looked like a redneck husband had worked her over with a club. It was the last time I saw either of them and that was 1993.

We talked for a short bit, finding out his Mom had remarried another guy and that Jacopo was living in Providence now. We walk back to the cars and he promises to say “Hi' to Mom when he sees her.

They drove off and all I can think is “Holy Shit..How about that?”

Being a awful snoop, I have to find out about him, his mom on Google. I type in her name a some very scant information comes up on Mom. OK, she's not big on the internet scene. I type Jacopo's name in and....I find news stories, police logs and State Police blotter accounts of breaks in, jumped warrants and the usual punk, petty thief charges. The kid's Facebook is mostly lyrics from rap songs and him flashing gang signs on grainy iPhone pictures. There was the usual old photo of a young girlfriend and him, with solemn promises to love one another “for-eva” and if you read a bit further, you see both relationship statuses are “single” now.

“Oh Jesus...the kid's a LOSER!” I thought.

I wasn't too surprised in fact. I knew of Nicole's family back then and there was a hint, well, more than a hint of criminality to it all. Once, while on a run from work to Nicole's house to pick up her clothes for a night out, we made it just in time to see her younger brother being manhandled to the ground by five Providence cops. He had had a temper tantrum over god knows what and was smashing the windows out of one of the many cars parked in their yard. They had to release him when the found the registration on the car belonged to him.

Apples don't fall too far from the tree they say.

It's happened more than once, I running into the kids of people I knew when I was young and finding out these kids are fuck ups, unhappy or still trying to find their way at 25. I, of course, usually don't identify myself when I hear these stories, and being the curious prick that I am, I draw it out of them and I can pretty much piece together the past family life. Again, I am surprised at times by this, knowing who the parents were at one time. I had thought that stable people I knew then might have produced stable kids. Well, there's no guarantee that any kids you have, will turn out right or as you had hoped.

Now, only if I could run into a few teachers I knew back then while pumping gas. Ah, I'd have a better chance running into them at a nursing home now.