American Ace Read online

  Also by Marilyn Nelson

  Lyric Histories

  My Seneca Village

  How I Discovered Poetry

  Sweethearts of Rhythm

  The Freedom Business

  Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color (written with Elizabeth Alexander)

  A Wreath for Emmett Till

  Fortune’s Bones

  Carver: A Life in Poems

  Other Poetry Collections

  Faster than Light: New and Selected Poems

  The Cachoeira Tales and Other Poems

  The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems

  Magnificat

  The Homeplace

  Mama’s Promises

  Picture Books

  The Ladder (translated from the Danish of Halfdan Rasmussen)

  Beautiful Ballerina

  Ostrich and Lark

  A Little Bitty Man (translated [with Pamela Espeland] from the Danish of Halfdan Rasmussen)

  Snook Alone

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Marilyn Nelson

  I’d like to thank Solomon Ghebreyesus, William Timmins, and John Stanizzi for their helpful suggestions, and Jacob Wilkenfeld for his research on Connor’s behalf. Thanks to the Air Force Historical Research Agency for their help in locating the photos used in the book. And I’ll add here another shout-out of gratitude to my friend Pamela Espeland. —M. N.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Nelson, Marilyn, date.

  American ace / by Marilyn Nelson.

  pages cm

  Summary: Sixteen-year-old Connor tries to help his severely depressed father, who learned upon his mother’s death that Nonno was not his biological father, by doing research that reveals Dad’s father was probably a Tuskegee Airman.

  ISBN 978-0-698-40790-9

  [1. Novels in verse. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction. 4. Identity—Fiction. 5. United States. Army Air Forces. Bombardment Group, 477th—Fiction. 6. Racially mixed people—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.5.N45Ame 2016 [Fic]—dc23—2015000851

  Cover art: plane © 2016 Ronnie Olsthoorn; sky © Ekspansio, iStock; head and shoulders shape © Leontura, iStock

  Jacket design by Lori Thorn

  Version_1

  To the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of the Tuskegee Airmen, and to those who wish they were their children or grandchildren

  Table of Contents

  Also by Marilyn Nelson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One The Language of Suffering

  Uncle Father Joe

  Driver’s Permit

  Hot Cocoa

  Letter?

  Part Two La Famiglia Bianchini

  Chinese Gong

  Gold Class Ring

  Heirloom

  Italian Bling

  Part Three The X-Factor

  Baklava

  Unknown DNA

  The Stink Eye

  Suo Marte

  Part Four Dead-End Clue

  The Mystery Ring

  The Forcean

  But

  Historically Black Colleges and Universities

  Part Five A Hundred What-ifs

  What Families Are For

  Googling Wilberforce

  Lines of O O O O O O O

  Ace

  Part Six Together in the Kitchen

  Cringing

  DNA

  Thanksgiving Gasp

  Now That We’re Colored

  Part Seven Acute Care

  Rehab

  Daily Visits

  Watching Dad Come Back to Life

  Reading Dad the Headlines

  Part Eight Holding Dad’s Juice Glass

  Feeding Dad a Salisbury Steak Dinner

  Wheelchair to Walker

  Rehab Christmas

  Moving Dad Home

  Part Nine Beginning

  The Floodgates Opened

  Heroes

  DMV

  Beyond Skin

  How This Book Came to Be

  About the Author

  The Language

  of Suffering

  My dad went weird when Nonna Lucia died.

  It was like his sense of humor died with her.

  He still patted my back and called me buddy;

  we still played catch while the mosquitoes rose.

  He still rubbled my head with his knuckles.

  But a muscle had tightened in his jaw

  I’d never seen before, and the silence

  between us in the front seat of the van

  sometimes made me turn on the radio.

  I knew he loved his mom. We all loved her.

  But when he smiled now, his eyes still looked sad,

  all these months after Nonna’s funeral.

  Maybe there was some treasure he’d wanted,

  that she gave to one of his brothers in her will?

  Maybe he’d wanted some of the furniture?

  But he got the embroidered tablecloth

  Nonna and Nonno brought to America,

  which she spread out at family festivals

  under platter after platter after platter.

  He wasn’t a movie dad with another woman:

  He was an oldish husband who’d just moved away,

  a dad who didn’t hear you when you spoke.

  Me and Mom and Theresa could see his pain,

  but we don’t know the language of suffering.

  Uncle Father Joe

  One of Dad’s younger brothers is a priest,

  so we thought he could be the one to break

  into Dad’s silence: It’s part of his job.

  But he was so busy finding common ground,

  preaching compassion, and working for justice

  and human liberation that the small

  curling-inward of his own big brother

  got only his occasional hug, and prayers.

  I couldn’t ask, because I don’t believe;

  or don’t know if I do. The difference

  is moot, since anyway I’ve been confirmed,

  like all half-Irish, half-Italian kids.

  But Dad was spending another joyless night

  sipping Chianti in front of the TV.

  He looked like he might have been physically ill:

  his face gray, his eyes lightless. He sat there

  in his reclining chair sipping red wine,

  letting Theresa control the remote.

  Mom and I avoided each other’s eyes,

  each of us aching with mute, helpless love.

  I went to my room and called Uncle Father Joe.

  Do you know how depressed my father’s been?
/>
  I asked. Should he be on some kind of drugs?

  He said we should let Dad’s mourning run its course.

  Driver’s Permit

  Three months later Dad smiled a little more,

  but that’s the only improvement I could see.

  Mom and Theresa and I tiptoed around

  as if his silence was glass that could shatter.

  Uncle Frank, Uncle Petey, and Aunt Kitty,

  his partners in the restaurant business,

  kept Mama Lucia’s Home Cooking afloat.

  They said the regulars were asking how Tony was.

  Uncle Rich insinuated that maybe he should see a shrink.

  Theresa whispered that Nonna Lucia

  wouldn’t have wanted Dad to take on so.

  Nonna lived a good life. She was ready to die.

  My half brother, Carlo, Dad’s son with his ex,

  who seldom visits, brought his wife and kids

  to see their grandfather and cheer him up.

  But nothing seemed to make much difference.

  I googled depression. And I got scared.

  A blue glacier was growing between us.

  The melt started on my sixteenth birthday.

  (March 17: St. Pat’s. Mom’s family

  says it means I’m 51 percent Irish.)

  Dad said I should get my driver’s permit!

  He promised me forty hours behind the wheel!

  That was the best birthday present I ever got!

  Hot Cocoa

  Five o’clock Saturday morning: Dad’s idea

  of the safest time for driving practice.

  It’s pretty cool to be up and out together

  while the day’s still dewy and birdsong-y.

  I got the hang of driving pretty quick,

  except for the hyper-responsive brake pedal.

  We drove around in my high school parking lot,

  then drove aimlessly in the neighborhood.

  At six o’clock Dad turned the radio on.

  There was talk of illegal immigrants.

  Dad mused about building a border fence:

  To fence them out, or to fence ourselves in?

  I told him we read a poem about that,

  that I bet he would like, by Robert Frost.

  Is he the one on the less traveled road,

  with miles to go before he sleeps? Dad asked.

  We read him in my eighth-grade English class.

  I always wondered what the hell that guy

  had promised, that made him stay on the road

  instead of going home for hot cocoa.

  I said, My teacher thinks he was in love.

  And for the first time in a year, Dad laughed.

  Behind the wheel with two lives in my hands,

  I felt the wall between us start to fall.

  Letter?

  We’ve practiced entering the interstate,

  changing lanes, speeding up and slowing down,

  the turn signal, left turn against traffic.

  I always feel like I’m driving around

  two thousand pounds’ worth of potential death.

  Dad says he’s glad to know I feel that way:

  He says it shows I’m wise beyond my years.

  We’ve been trying to drive an hour a week.

  Depends on our responsibilities.

  It’s worked itself into a nice routine:

  We listen to the radio, and talk

  about whatever thoughts enter our minds.

  It’s funny to think about identity,

  Dad said. Now I wonder how much of us

  we inherit, and how much we create.

  I see so much of your mother in you,

  so much of Carlo’s grandfather in him.

  I used to love hearing I was like my dad.

  Now I see that was just learned behavior.

  I feel sort of like an adopted child

  must feel, when he finds out he’s adopted:

  like he doesn’t know anymore whose child

  he is, like he doesn’t know who he is.

  And it’s all because of the letter Nonna left.

  La Famiglia Bianchini

  The Bianchinis closed the restaurant

  on the anniversary of Nonna Lucia’s death.

  They held an over-the-top Bianchini feast

  that evening. White tablecloths and everything.

  Digital photos projected on a screen:

  Lucia with two sons, then three, then four,

  her face orbited by children’s faces,

  her beatific grief when Genaro died.

  Uncles and aunts toasted the memory

  of the woman who made them who they are.

  I sat at the table of first cousins,

  knowing Dad was going to break the bubble.

  He clinked his glass during the spumoni.

  Expecting a speech, everyone fell still.

  He cleared his throat and said, Mama left me

  a ring, a pilot’s wings, and a letter

  saying Genaro wasn’t my father.

  My dad wasn’t my dad. My family

  is only half mine. You’re my half siblings.

  My dad was an American, named Ace,

  a man she loved with all her heart, who died.

  Her letter didn’t tell me his last name.

  But my own last name is a deception.

  I’m half Italian. I’m your half brother.

  Chinese Gong

  If someone had dropped the proverbial pin,

  it would have sounded like a Chinese gong.

  The Bianchinis rebooted Mama,

  the girl before them, as a girl in love.

  You could almost hear the noises their minds made.

  They rebooted their papa, Genaro,

  who worked long hours in the factory,

  gray and stooped, with a beautiful young wife

  and five children in whom he found much joy.

  Then Aunt Kitty confessed she was a little shocked,

  . . . but I’m glad to know Mama had a Grand Romance!

  Tony, nothing makes you less my brother!

  There were a lot of hugs among them.

  And confusion at the children’s tables.

  One cousin asked, Half of Uncle Tony

  is our uncle? So what about the rest?

  Then Uncle Father Joe said, In God’s eyes

  all humankind is one big family.

  Let us be grateful for the love we share.

  Tony, I wouldn’t be me without you:

  You’re as much Bianchini as I am!

  There were a lot more hugs. There were wiped tears.

  I wiped a few. Some were because I knew

  one-fourth of ME was now an enigma.

  Gold Class Ring

  Mom patted Dad’s hand on the steering wheel.

  See? I told you they’d all feel as I do.

  It’s so romantic to be a love child!

  I wish we knew who this American was.

  Dad felt his parents had made him live a lie,

  that their kept secret was a betrayal.

  To think, he said, whenever they looked at me,

  what they saw was my secret history.

  He wouldn’t share the letter, but he said

  Nonna wrote he was the fruit of great love,

  that Genaro’s love had saved them both from shame,

  and that his fathers would be proud of him.

  In July, Italy won the World Cup.

  Mama Lucia’s Home Cooking was wild

  with Asti Spumante, blaring music,

  il Tricolore,
men shouting Viva!

  A conga line danced out on the sidewalk.

  Some dancers were part of my family,

  some were Italian people we all knew,

  some were neighbors. All of them were happy.

  The next day I drove Dad on country roads,

  the interstate, and the lot at the mall.

  After lunch he reached into his pocket

  and put a gold class ring on the place mat.

  Heirloom

  It’s too small for me. Can you get it on?

  It fit the pinkie finger of my left hand

  like it was made for me. I pretended

  I couldn’t get it off, then snarled and said,

  You’re mine at last, my Precious! and Dad smiled.

  It’s yours, then, Connor. Your grandfather’s ring.

  Maybe it’s a clue to the mystery

  of our inherited identity.

  I said, Mortal, beware of the power

  of heirlooms from the vampires’ royal line!

  I gave Dad a bloodthirsty, fangy grin.

  Then I told him I’d use its power for good.

  Hard to describe how the ring grew on me.

  I looked at it hundreds of times a day,

  admiring its rectangular logo

  and the Latin phrase etched into the gold.

  After some days, it belonged to my hand

  as inevitably as my knuckles and nails.

  It was PART of me. I understood what Ace

  was saying when he gave Nonna this ring,

  how much he loved the beautiful Italian girl

  he probably talked to like “Michelle, ma belle,”

  that McCartney/Lennon song on Rubber Soul.

  My Nonna. She loved him for sixty-five years.

  Italian Bling

  I work at Mama Lucia’s once in a while.

  It makes people happy, and gives me some cash.

  There’s always a job to do in a restaurant:

  for those who can’t cook, there are always plates to wash.