A Son Dies of AIDS
COTTLE, THOMAS J.
FAMILY CRISIS A Son Dies of Aids BY THOMAS J. COTTLE Thomas J. Cottle's account here is drawn from his ongoing research on American families facing major crises. The events he describes were...
...He was old enough now to make his own way in the world, he was told by his father...
...All the usual expenses were represented: rent, utilities, telephone, taxes...
...He even happened to be your father's grandson...
...His children tried to understand his actions, but their conversations among themselves were unsatisfying and there was no talking to their father...
...He seemed to have aged 10 years in a few months...
...After completing high school at 18, Daniello was asked to leave the house...
...God may punish me for saying it, but you belong in that grave, not your son...
...He also called his children occasionally, something he had stopped doing altogether at the time Danny became ill and he felt himself alienated from the family...
...John Mangione thanked God that his father would never know the truth about Danny...
...But he himself could never accept it, never deal with it, and certainly never talk about it...
...He's like tefather, a perfect specimen of the 19th century...
...Theresa offered only minimal protest...
...They might," he went on, glancing at his sister and brother, "butnotme...
...I don't feel either...
...He just stood there a few feet from Marco, looking old and whipped...
...All those people going to church, going to a cemetery, putting flowers on the grave of a person who isn't there...
...A man's whole purpose for living, John was told as a boy, was to provide for a family...
...Angela's son Tony bounced a large blue and yellow beach ball...
...The apartment was almost completely empty, except for a few pieces of functional furniture...
...Need anyone really comment on this tragedy...
...The events he describes were witnessed by him or related by members of the Mangione family (all names have been changed), who have granted permjssionf orpublication of this article...
...It's like talking to a rock, " he muttered to himself, "the man's got the feelings of a rock...
...At last acknowledging that their marriage was pure sham, John Mangione proposed that the couple separate...
...John Mangione, 64 years old, was a man seemingly alone in the world...
...I know /only had one brother and Stefano only had one brother...
...Angela, weeping, was rubbing her cheek...
...Time for the Mangiones had come to be measured around the events of Daniello's life, and death...
...Inside were unused bank checks as well as the carefully recorded stubs of all their father's expenses over the last years...
...It was the ultimate sign of making it in America, Giovanni announced the night final papers were signed...
...With all the children living in their own homes, the Mangione family house had grown colder and darker...
...He would prevent no one from visiting Danny when the boy was hospitalized, or from otherwise dealing with him...
...But he never came...
...Idon't have a father anymore...
...I think you should be punished for what you did...
...His son Johnny chose the wholesale food business...
...If his relationship with his youngest son had a ray of hope left before the diagnosis, however, it had totally vanished...
...Daniello Mangione, the priest had reminded the congregants, was only 26 years old when he died...
...Can you imagine all those people paying respects to a man who never even existed...
...How many times did Angela have to make an excuse for you when he asked ifyou are going to visit...
...Papa Mangione could die in peace...
...He had fought so hard and cried so often, especially in the last weeks, that in her hatred of the illness and pain of watching him suffer she found herself praying for God to take him...
...Some men can deal with it, some can't...
...Giovanni Mangione had become a first-rate stone mason...
...Friends were invited to come back to Angela's for refreshments...
...People either laugh at you or pity you...
...He never did a bad thing to anyone...
...Daniello knew his father would not take kindly to the news of something he had suspected when he was 11 or l2 and knew for sure by 15...
...His face remained expressionless...
...So who's this Daniello guy peopleare always talking about, and crying about...
...The elder Mangione died five years before the family learned that his last grandson, Daniello, was gay...
...I don't care what the guy was...
...He bought his own two-family home at 32, something that clearly pleased his father...
...Go ahead, have a good time...
...The house, too, was dead...
...It was so many years from the time he moved out, so many years from the time he found out he had AIDS, so many years from the time of that one hopeful autumn remission...
...We cannot always look to what is fair and what is not...
...Two years after his son's death, he admitted that he purposely had arranged a business trip the weekend the doctors felt would at last bring death to Danny...
...Following a requiem mass, he was buried next to his youngest son Daniello...
...Afterward Marco, no longer able to take his father's bitter silence, finally erupted: "Have you got one topic in the world we can talk about...
...Feelings were meant to be kept to oneself...
...He was my brother, your son...
...He was raised by a father who emigrated to America from Calabria, in southern Italy, as a young man looking for nothing more than a steady job...
...God will punish me for this, but I wish you were in that grave for the way you acted...
...He spoke openly and directly about AIDS, the disease that had wrenched the life out of Danny, the fourth child of John and Theresa Mangione...
...As of right this minute, I don't have a father...
...People at the office, where no one knew of John and Theresa's separation, notified Marco and Stefano that their father looked tired and ill...
...The closets, bureaus and kitchen cupboards held only a few objects and a small amount of clothing...
...With Mamma Fiorella gone almost 10 years, the two daughters were closer than ever...
...They dined together, yet they spoke almost not at all...
...He spoke of how Danny's illness had lingered for many months, the sores on his face and chest, his loss of weight, the way his voice changed as he grew weaker, the shocking disappearance of his handsome looks...
...When they finished, they knelt and crossed themselves...
...You want to pretend that he was never on this earth, that he was never born...
...The sons found only two objects of note in their father's home...
...Marco had not visited the shabby dwelling in months...
...Neither brother found solace in the church until after Danny died...
...John was devastated by Danny's unacceptable lifestyle...
...A father provided for his family and taught his children how to make their own lives better than his had been...
...For the next week he stayed in the house...
...You don't think that maybe that made death come a little bit quicker...
...They found the front doors to the building and the apartment unlocked...
...More than 40 people accepted the invitation...
...He took the phone call from Marco and got on the first plane home...
...Theresa's shoulders were shaking, and Stefano went to put his arm around her...
...In the light of late morning they read through the only written history of their father they would ever know...
...Having joy and being happy were not part of one's bargain with life...
...They need never divorce...
...He did not visit the funeral home, and was conspicuously absent from the final church service and graveside ceremony...
...It all died between Danny and my father," Marco would say later, "when he recognized Danny was gay...
...On the second anniversary of the death the entire family, with the exception of John, visited Danny's grave near the grove of cypress trees...
...Theresa, the four children, the steady clean work —not like pushing stones around in sand and concrete—and now the house, were the benchmarks of success...
...Now it was almost three years from the time of his death...
...It took just a few more phone calls to locate John Mangione...
...You'veworked very hard to destroy Daniello's memory but it isn't taking hold, so don't get excited about it...
...How about college swimming championships, is that safe enough...
...He never said a bad thing about anyone, and he could have the way you treated him...
...The taboo on speaking about Danny had spread to all subjects...
...He could have said plenty, and don't talk to me about what the Bible calls a sin...
...It didn't have to be creative work, or high paying, just regular...
...A series of phone calls produced no one able to offer information concerning his whereabouts, but several people took the occasion to comment on how sickly he appeared the last time they had seen him...
...And my brother...
...John Mangione did visit Danny in the hospital during the young man's many periods of intense illness, but he never visited him at home during the periods of remission...
...Theresa and the children remained nearby to welcome some of Danny's friends who had come to pay their respects...
...Theresa said that Danny was her son, whatever "his problem" might be...
...Marco had taken charge of planning a small Sunday graveside ceremony to mark the third anniversary...
...Theresa and John's relationship had deteriorated...
...To his family and acquaintances John Mangione became an enigmatic figure, if not an outright monster...
...His family finds it difficult to believe that much time has passed...
...neither would ever remarry...
...He was not brought up to express feelings or tell people of his problems...
...They had the church, Father Ted, each other, and no one else—not their four brothers, not their husbands, not their own children...
...He died a few days after the family found him, of congestive heart failure, his wife and children at his bedside...
...His father, his great hero, would never have gone so far...
...Father Ted's words had been strong...
...More surprising, the first contributions were dated before Daniello's death...
...He had been admitted to a city hospital suffering from severe chest pains...
...There was never any Daniello Mangione...
...Suddenly, he stopped and turned back: "Igotnewsforyou...
...One by one they laid flowers at the headstone...
...Neither wished to violate the tenets of the church...
...I don't know why people keep Coming up with that name...
...His behavior shocked his friends and infuriated his wife...
...John Mangione never said a word...
...It had been one of his last requests...
...Watching from a distance, one could see that each spoke a few words to him...
...Your son...
...He could come for traditional Sunday dinners once a month, but he was never to bring one of his friends...
...He maintained his business, where apparently few people knew of his personal situation, and lived his life very much alone...
...Then he left, and the family heard his angry footsteps thudding down the stairs toward the front hall...
...Upon hearing from his son's internist that Danny had contracted AIDS, John Mangione reaffirmed his policy of no discussion of feelings...
...You want to talk about sinning...
...Youwant me back, you show it by taking Daniello back...
...Talk about weird...
...He took with him merely the barest belongings—some clothes, important papers for work, and a few small objects that meant something to him, like a paperweight his father had given him for Christmas years earlier...
...He announced to his wife, not his son, that he would assist with the medical bills as much as possible, but he would not become personally involved with "the matter...
...It was evident that he had deprived himself in order to meet Theresa's expenses, give some money to the children, and still have money for these charities...
...You deserve to be there, not him...
...Whenhe'syourson, I'myourson...
...Each day his brown eyes seemed to become smaller, and fall further back into his skull...
...The ceremonies at the church and the cemetery were especially painful...
...Whatever feelings she may have expressed during her son's long illness and following his death were heard only by her older sister Carlotta, and Carlotta revealed nothing of their conversations...
...You don't think that tore her up...
...Then the phone calls ceased...
...You want to talk disowning, I'm disowning...
...And there was something else...
...One night, the whole family gathered at Angela's for a rare and tense dinner...
...His brothers Stefano and Marco —Steve and Marc to everyone outside the family—appeared bewildered...
...Theresa took to phoning him at work, since he either was never home or chose not to answer there...
...Besides, he was no longer welcome in the family home...
...From time to time they glanced in the direction of the narrow winding driveway leading from the cemetery gates, hoping that John might this day break his silence and visit his son's grave...
...Stefano had never been there and was shocked by the condition of the neighborhood and building...
...You make money, pay taxes, write checks, keep the books...
...Marco began walking out of the room...
...For a while he telephoned Theresa on a regular basis, checking in with her and inquiring whether she needed money...
...Nuts, huh...
...It was suggested that the police be notified, but Marco and Stefano said that first they would go to John's apartment...
...Marco said that if he could smash someone and cry a lot he might feel somewhat appeased...
...your son.You hear that...
...His books include Children's Secrets, Private Lives and Public Accounts and Like Fathers, Like Sons...
...Danny Mangione has been dead nearly three years now...
...You played it the way you wanted to, but you played it wrong...
...Some waved as they left the grave, others never looked again upon the soft, damp groundwhereDaniellowasburied...
...Angela Mangione found some relief in her brother's death...
...Real wrong...
...That's the deal...
...I mean, how far away do we have to go...
...Even in the hospital visiting with their brother, they acted as though they had never heard of AIDS, but of course it was the force of the illness that mystified and angered them...
...But my father could never handle it...
...The paperweight Giovanni had given him rested on a large notebook with a black grainy cover that looked to be old leather...
...You can only pity him," Angela would mutter bitterly every time the subject of her father's absence from the church and graveside ceremonies cameup...
...Theresa Mangione kept her pain inside...
...John Mangione had been donating money regularly to AIDS and cancer research programs...
...a devout Catholic, there was no place in his heart for homosexuality...
...Cotde, a longtime NL contributor, is a lecturer on psychology at Harvard Medical School...
...He went to work for a picture framing company, first as a delivery boy, eventually as a framer...
...On the Thursday before the ceremony, someone telephoned Theresa to say that John had been mysteriously absent from work for five days...
...Crying by itself merely frustrated him more...
...the hurts and sadness have not diminished...
...Within weeks of proposing the dissolution of almost 40 years of marriage, John Mangione moved to a small, dark one-bedroom apartment...
...He never did...
Vol. 72 • November 1989 • No. 17
