MIDDANGARD (A Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction)

Chaper 12: Memories and Reflections

Carmellita did not like Fredo. It was an emotional response to past experiences. Perhaps a generation or two ago, her area of north Brooklyn had been inhabited, for the most part, by Italians. Nearly all had moved on to other places like Suffolk County, Long Island and Monmouth County, New Jersey. Those that remained were mostly mafia types, living off the suffering and vices of the newer inhabitants of north Brooklyn. In Carmellita’s experience, Italians were little grubby characters with 'wise guy' smirks on their faces and thick stubby fingers... or big mountains of flesh, with names like "Jumbo" and "Tiny''. When the Vanishings started, it was those types of Goblers who ruled for awhile; until the 'Citizen' Puerto Ricans began to organize and to drive the creeps out, or underground.

Carmellita had no good memories of socially redeemable "I-ties". In her world, they were the first ruling Goblers to ravage her people. They were the enemy. Even the local priest, Father Anthony Bubala, turned out to be a child molester. Many months after the changes started to occur, some of the young Tunnel Rats caught him hiding below the Pacific Street subway station. With his sickly gray-maroon aura, there was nowhere for him to hide on the surface. The phony white collar no longer held the people’s respect. The boys took turns cutting him and then left him to rot in his own filth. Fredo, with his brown robes and short stocky frame, reminded her of too many bad memories.

Yet here she was accompanying her best friend Snowflake to a marriage ceremony crawling with grubby I-ties; here too was possibly the most respected man she knew, SnowXX, condoning the marriage.

Here too was Dr. Poppi. Poppi being the Puerto Rican handle for Mr. Bookman.

Poppi, who had helped organize the early Puerto Rican Gobler Resistance.

Poppi, the man who had supplied them with useful herbs like bilberry and eyebright, and vitamins like Lutien and Vitamin A, items which had insured the TunnelRats superb night vision.

 Dr. Poppi, who had negotiated contracts that traded Bedford-Sty masonry, Irish silver alloy equipment, Chinese rice and more, all in exchange for Puerto Rican help in cleaning out the lurking Goblers from tunnels, all over the city. From Graybeard’s BoroPark Jews the PR’s traded for tight fitting black tunnel clothing and for high school teachers. Because of this trade, Puerto Ricans traveled more than any other ethnic group, ferreting out the enemy for almost all the Citizen groups in the vast tunnels and sewers of the old city.

Poppi had even facilitated the set up of a small Puerto Rican community in South Queens to assist the Latinos there - the Columbians, the Costa Ricans, the Brazilians, the Dominicans, the Salvadorans etc – helping them to organize. Puerto Ricans were explaining to the other Latin American Citizens that they were too vulnerable standing alone against the Gobler hordes; explaining to the newer immigrants that they had to unite with all Latinos in order to defend themselves. Carmellita had spent time on the front lines with those Queens Citizens. She was proud of the role her people were playing in uniting a previously fractured area.

Dr. Poppi had done for her people what they were now doing for the Latinos in Queens. And, unbelievably, Dr. Poppi thought of Fredo as a younger brother!  

It made her want to bite her lip and draw blood.

In addition, both SnowXX and Snowflake treated Fredo not only with respect but with much more!

She knew there had to be something to it. Yet she just couldn't get past the look of the man. It was simply a physical reaction.

Besides, the Brooklyn Southside was foreign to her. The Italians and the Irish had been the first to unite. They were the first to clean out their neighborhoods. Then they helped the black Southern Baptist of Bedford Stuyvesant rid that area of rampaging Goblers. Bed-sty had lost many of their best people to the Manhattan Black Muslims, who were fighting hard to clear Manhattan of a Nazi-like alliance of German, English, Italian and French Goblers. Snow, who was originally from Brooklyn, threw in with the Muslims and significantly helped to oust the fascist hate mongers from Manhattan, men like Adolf Gruber.  In Brooklyn, the departure of good men like Snow caused the Black Baptist Alliance to loose lots of ground to their own brand of Goblers, mostly strong local gangs. Just in the nick of time, Fredo, Ian and Rabbi Gandolfini offered assistance to their Ranger friend Malcolm [Xavier Brown], who accepted gladly. That new and formidable alliance routed the Goblers all the way to Eastern Queens.

Carmellita knew the history. She knew about the close ties - is that where the term 'I-ties' comes from? - between the ‘wops’ [woops! my bad] and the 'micks'. Carmellita liked the Irish; they seemed like big happy kids to her.

She also knew that, next, Fredo and Malcolm’s people had swept down into the ConeyIsland/Canarsie area to help the Russians, Ukrainians and the transplanted Poles of Williamsburg [another story] rid that Brooklyn section of a Russian Mafia Gobler death force. While the Italians and the Brooklyn blacks charged south to help the Russian Citizens there, the Irish and the BoroPark Jews under GrayBeard flooded north to aid her Puerto Rican friends and neighbors; that’s the history that hit home for her.

 Besides, most of South Brooklyn had above-ground trains; the elevated lines that ended on Coney Island and Brighton Beach. Therefore, there was no need for mutual contracts with the Italians for subway tunnel cleanouts. What's more, Puerto Ricans preferred rice and beans to bread and pasta; there was not much chance for trade there either. Carmellita had never traveled to Bensonhurst or DykerHeights. Her TunnelRats knew Flatbush, Prospect Park, and Bushwick... Even Flatlands Ave, BoroPark and RedHook [check the maps fella!]. But not 'famed' DykerPark, the golf course turned 'I-tie' farmland! There was a cultural divide between her and that ethnic group. Other Puerto Ricans didn't feel it the way she did. But then, most other Puerto Ricans hadn't been raped by a grubby fingered 'wise guy' back in 2016.

Since then, she had emotionally healed. She had grown strong, confident and well adjusted - for the most part. But Fredo still pushed a lot of disturbing buttons, without him ever even realizing it. She knew she was being unreasonable, but that doesn’t matter much when bile starts rumbling up to your throat from your stomach.

In addition, some Italians were said to live in “earthen shelters”, like moles or groundhogs. That seemed ridiculous to Carmellita. In her area of north Brooklyn, there were plenty of inhabitable Brownstone buildings and plenty of Bedford-Sty rock masons willing to restore additional dwellings. Sure, buildings had collapsed, especially the tall ones. But with way less than 10% of the population left, over half of the structures could fall, or be burned out, and still you had many 'normal' places to call home. Living in mounds, like rodents, didn't improve her image of the 'vaunted' South Brooklyn Italians.

If the Black Muslims, really just SnowXX's dominant faction, wanted to form another alliance with an important section of Brooklyn, why not choose the Irish? Now there was a classy crew! They worked metals! They controlled the Brooklyn docks. The Puerto Ricans controlled the Brooklyn Bridge! The Irish controlled the waterfront warehouses. They were restoring the Brooklyn Navy Yard, birthplace of so many famous ships.

Does anybody even remember WalaboutBay? < [See FACTS section at the end of this book] > The Puerto Ricans do know the history, thanks to Dr. Poppi. It was the Irish who had saved many grand things. Things like wooden matches that would have been lost without their forethought... and other nice warming things, like Irish Whiskey! They were a people who loved to sing and dance and share a good story.

So what if the Italians saved a lot of fruit trees, baked good bread, made good wine, were good carpenters and had turned their open lands into vegetable gardens. They were pikers compared to the Irish. They would never measure up to the Irish archers or be able to master the slingshot like those Bedford-Sty HomeGuard cats. The “I-ties” main weapon was the baseball bat, for crying out loud.

Carmellita knew she was being bitchy, but she couldn't help herself.

On the positive side, Wil, half Italian/half Irish, had the cutest freckles, thick dark hair, fair skin, a long lanky/wiry type of build and sad puppy dog eyes. She could just eat him alive... Except for the fact that he was not only taken, but taken twice!

Besides, she had other plans. She had already staked her claim elsewhere.

She was going to sink her ivory white teeth into that baby-faced Blondie with the - I have no idea how to handle you, Carmellita - Look on his big Russian face.

Funny... she had guys scampering over themselves and after her wherever she went, and yet Wham! She gets hit by a big Russian 'truck' who is constantly trying to back away from her.

She already knew what their kids would look like - if anybody ever had any ever again - big strapping boys and dainty, hell on wheels, little girls.

"Poor fella," she mused out loud, "I’ll be turning his head like a top - for the rest of our lives."

Carmellita was already planning to get a copy of Tolstoy’s book War and Peace...

It seemed so very appropriate.