Angelo D’Elia/ 06-20-07
My name is Dante Trotta, and it happened one afternoon on a street called
Angelino on the northwest side of Burbank, California. It was 1960, the year my
dad’s zio Paolo and family had immigrated to the United States from Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. In addition to zio Paolo, there was zia Franceschina, and the
kids with Franco the oldest and then Carlo, Giuseppe, Giuseppina, Gerardo and
Ilda. Today, Franco is Frank, Carlo is Carl, then Joe, Pina, Jerry and Ilda is
still Ilda.
I had a 1951 Mercury. It was grey and had an automatic transmission. Nothing
fancy, but it got me to work and school. At least it wasn’t as old as my dad’s
cousin Angelo’s Mercury which was a 1950. His had a standard transmission, and
bore signs of the past owner’s efforts at customization. As I recall, the image
of the Roman god, Mercury, had been removed from the hood and the holes filled.
Everyone had been put up at a different house until the family could have their
own apartment. For some reason, my own brother Nick ended up at Angelo’s, and so
did Pina. The parents and rest of the kids were scattered throughout Burbank.
Ilda, who was still an infant naturally was with her mom and dad. Franco stayed
at our house, and he and I shared my bedroom.
I was probably seventeen and Franco about twenty. One day, we were all sitting
around the house after lunch and he makes me understand that he wants to go for
a ride. I say “makes me understand”, because none of my dad’s cousins spoke
English yet. Thus our conversations were mostly physical and dominated by
gestures, expressions and grunts instead of depending on those cumbersome
English words and sentences that we use today.
We walked out of the house and to the car that was parked on the street. Franco
mentioned with great effort, or maybe he drew me a picture, that led me to
believe he had driven cars in Rio. My little sister, Diana who was about four,
wanted to go along. The three us got into the car. In those days, no one except
“sissies” used seatbelts. I drove down to Tulare and stopped. Further down, at
Glenoaks, I turned left and in seconds I had passed Jay Scott Drugs and Shopping
Bag. When I got to Scott Road, I noticed that the North Glenoaks Library
Branch next to Mario’s Meats was still open. Diana was asking a million
questions, and suddenly Franco got my attention by grabbing my arm.
Franco’s eyes pleaded, “Let me drive now. I can’t wait.” There went Magnolia and
I caught a glimpse of Harvey Thomas himself working on one of the cars in his
shop. I asked Franco if he would like to drive the car now, and his head was
shaking YES so hard I felt justifiable concern that he might hurt his neck. We
passed Olive Boulevard and when I got to Angelino, I turned left up toward the
mountains and pulled over to the curb. “Okay, Franco, go for it,” I said.
I never saw a human move that fast. Before the earth turned one 1/10,000th of a
degree on its axis, Franco was in the driver’s seat, with me at shot-gun and
Diana in the backseat. He accelerated and pulled away from the curb. Everything
appeared to be alright until I noticed that his hands seemed to be frozen on the
steering wheel. He didn’t have that relaxed sort of left to right slight swivel
that most experienced drivers employ to go straight. I noticed that the car was
moving ever so slightly to the right, and I kept waiting for him to correct the
trajectory. Then, and painfully so, it dawned on me that he didn’t have the
slightest idea about how to put things right.
I guessed that the huge Magnolia tree on the park side had been there
undisturbed for at least seventy-five years. It was truly majestic,
horticulturally impressive, artfully pruned by City of Burbank personnel, and it
was solid. I tried to grab the wheel, or at least I remember thinking that I
"ought to" grab the wheel. I told him to step on the breaks. He just smiled.
Franco, once more looked over at me and repeated, “I drove a car in Rio.”
Perhaps he meant that he had driven in a car in Rio. While I was pondering the
exquisite and profound difference in those two interpretation, something
inevitable happened.
The car stopped abruptly. After the crash, there was no forward movement
whatsoever. My mind was computing. I thought to myself, “Are we in a tree?” In
front, everything was green. I did not have enough time to answer that question
because of the extreme pain on my forehead. I had cracked the windshield with my
head and was momentarily stunned. I looked back at Diana, and saw that she too
had bumped her head on the back of the front seat. Franco did not appear to be
hurt. Ironically, his tight grip on the steering wheel had prevented him from
injury at the same time that it made it impossible for him to avoid the tree.
Franco was speechless, except that he did mention one more time that he had
driven in Rio. I think I heard him say that trees are not as close to the road
in Rio as they are in Burbank.
After checking to see that no one was seriously hurt, I went outside to inspect
the damage. Franco had hit the tree dead center. Had he measured with a tape, he
could not have been achieved more accuracy. The tree had impressed a symmetrical
"V" in the exact middle of the bumper. When I backed away from the Magnolia, we
all stared in wonder at the incredible new insignia Franco had created on the
front of my 1951 Mercury. That car would take the new "V" to its grave at the
local junk yard a few years later.
I was able to drive the car back home. Franco was silent all the way from the
scene of the accident to the front of my house on Lamer Street. As we all got
out, we took one more look at the "V" Franco had contributed and proceeded to
rehearse what we would say to my parents. Diana, added a statement from her
point of view. She said, "Danny, I'm going to tell Mom that you let Franco hit a
tree and hurt my head." I knew then, that what had started out as a fun
afternoon had ended quite differently.
I learned the value of exact communication on that day, and that Franco's
inability to express himself in English and mine in Italian had combined to
produce an explosive combination. It was not too long after that experience that
I signed up for an Italian class at Los Angeles Valley College. Today, I am
acutely aware of the difference between the statements "I drove a car in Rio"
and "I had driven in a car in Rio".
