["Alina's Place" by Fredrik]
- Nicholas: My maternal grandfather, Rocco Galasso,
was a superintendent in an apartment building
for probably 18 years of his life.
And at some point, he bought the building.
And so we grew up there.
He would would say to me, "Nico, we're going for a walk."
And I always wanted to go with Grandpa.
And he would get a pastrami sandwich the size of my head,
and he would buy me a hot dog, and he would say,
"Don't you tell anybody.
"We just go for a good walk, right?
You want another hot dog?"
And in this building,
every apartment was filled with an aunt or an uncle.
And every Sunday, Rocco cooked.
So all of his family would show up for dinner,
all 30, 40 of us.
And one Sunday at dinner, Rocco made it clear to us
that we were gonna all have to move.
That the city has condemned all of these buildings
to build these brand-new apartments.
And so we had, I think, eight months to a year
to relocate.
And then one day, my mom and dad and my brother Michael and I
went to Rocco's apartment for the Sunday meal.
Now, we no longer lived on the first floor,
everybody else was gone, it was abandoned,
except for that one apartment.
We had our meal, and at some point,
Rocco said to me and my brother,
"Let's go downstairs and put some coal in the burner."
And we got down to the coal pile,
and instead of grabbing the shovel, he said,
"Pick up as much coal as you can and put it into your pocket."
So we stuffed our overcoat with coal
and our jean pockets with coal, and we went to the back yard.
And there's one light on and all the other apartments are dark.
And he takes a piece of coal out of his pocket
and he throws it through one of the windows.
And tears are streaming down his face.
And he says, "Come on, you break the windows with me!"
So my brother and I just started throwing--
We thought it was fun at the time.
And we're smashing windows,
and my mom and Aunt Lucy stick their heads out and go,
"What are you doing, Pop?
Stop it, stop it!"
But we didn't stop until all the windows were broken,
except for his apartment.
At first, my reaction was, "They took his building away."
That's what I thought it was about.
But I realized much later
it was about the destruction of the family,
which I think he knew.
A month later, he had to leave.
And never again were we ever together on a Sunday
in that way.
["Milo" by Fredrik]