Sei !

Looking back at it now after a gaggle of decades

it’s a wonder that my maternal grandfather

wasn’t bumped-off by a fast moving vehicle

as he crossed Bedford Street on his way to church, or

on his way to visit the DeCarlo band of lunatics,

or on his way to the Marconi Club to drink a glass of port wine

with a rip of Italian pane before going out back to play bocci or especially

to engage in the frantic game of odds & evens (called Morra)

a rapid-fire encounter of flashing fingers while shouting out

their exposed numbers in the famed romance of the Italian tongue.

This was a stunning visual and aural event:

Two combatants face-to-face, nearly no time elapsed between calls,––

no “one-two-three-shoot” bullshit as played by amateurs,

and at the end both players spinning away from the other in a decisive

retreat from the game.

There should be an opera dedicated to odds & evens

as it was played at the Marconi Club on Bedford, out back

at the bocci lanes behind the meadow just beyond the billboards.

It could well be that the reflexes required and honed in order

to stay in the game was the reason why my maternal grandfather

never got bumped-off crossing Bedford by oncoming traffic.

I specifically recall that flashing and screaming the number "six"

was the most dramatic and memorable moment of the game,

the number called with the most searing of emotion:

“Seeeiiiiiiiii..!”

And to this day, six stands alongside googolplex as my arithmetic of choice.