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socks
and shoes— bought just yesterday by his mother and paid for by
Uncle Vinnie—and he felt constrained and awkward in the
unfamiliar clothes. The tie choked him, and the stiff leather of the
tightly laced shoes had already rubbed a blister on one heel. Beside
him sat a small, battered old suitcase dragged from beneath his
mother’s bed and into which she had crammed all his meager
belongings, except for Teddy, the stuffed brown bear he clutched like
a lifeline. It was several years old, ragged, dirty and one eyed, but
a gift from his parents at his birth, tangible evidence that once,
however briefly, they had welcomed and celebrated and loved him. So
Renzo clung to it, his most prized possession.
    “ You
mustn’t be afraid, Teddy,” he said quietly now to the
bear, his lower lip quivering. “We’re only going on a
trip, you know, to a new home. And I’ll take care of you
there...really, I will! Mama says the Martinellis are nice people.
Mr. Martinelli owns a newspaper. They live in the country, with lots
of trees and ponds, so we’ll be able to go swimming and fishing
and—and... It’ll be just like a real adventure. It’ll
be great, Teddy... you’ll see....” He echoed his mother’s
words to him before he buried his face in the bear’s scruffy
fur, damp from his tears.
    After
a time, not wanting anyone to see he had been crying, Renzo lifted
his head and, with his sleeve, resolutely wiped his red-rimmed eyes
and sniffling nose. He must be brave, he told himself, like Batman
and Captain Marvel and all the other superheroes that peopled the
comic books he read, the imaginary world in which he lived in his
mind, so different from the world in which he existed.
    It
was then the cocoon caught his eye. Once, long ago, someone had
planted a honeysuckle vine in front of the tenement, and somehow it
had not only survived, but also thrived. So it was wildly overgrown,
its tendrils running up the grimy bricks of the building and snaking
along cracks in the badly settled sidewalk. Hanging from a small
section of the vine was the cocoon. It was an ugly thing, a hard
shell that harbored an equally ugly, wormlike caterpillar, Renzo
knew, having broken open a cocoon once. But even as he gazed at it,
something wondrous happened. The shell suddenly split along one side,
and what gradually emerged was not the fat, grubby caterpillar he
expected, but a big, gorgeous butterfly.
    Renzo
watched, enthralled, as, free at last, the insect slowly spread its
fragile, gossamer wings and flicked them tentatively, once, twice.
For a fleeting eternity, it poised on the cocoon. Then, without
warning, it took flight, soaring up and away until it finally
disappeared in the pale blue sky. And in that moment, with a
startling clarity far advanced for his tender years, Renzo
thought, Someday,
I, too, will soar—because if an ugly caterpillar can change
into a beautiful butterfly, who is to say what I may become, if only
I try?
    Behind
him, the front door of the tenement opened, then shut with a bang. He
heard the brisk clatter of his mother’s spiky high heels upon
the concrete porch even before he saw them. Her shoes were bright
red, like blood, and matched the color of the lipstick she had
smeared upon her mouth and the polish with which she had painted her
long, false nails. As he glanced up at her, silently pleading with
her to change her mind and let him stay, Sofie Cassavettes smacked
the gum she was chewing vigorously and fiddled nervously with one of
her long, dangling earrings, refusing to meet his eyes.
    “ Come
on, Renzo. It’s time to go,” she said tersely.
    Even
as she spoke, Uncle Vinne pulled up alongside the curb. He was
dressed in a new suit, too, and the top was down on his long, flashy,
two-toned convertible, which Renzo knew the neighbors—behind
Uncle Vinnie’s back— referred to as “the
pimpmobile.” Smiling brightly, waving and calling out to Uncle
Vinnie, her generous hips swaying in the tight leather