Marty

Just east of Webster Avenue in the North Bronx, 187th Street

is a predominantly Italian community and the commercial avenue

of the neighborhood. Fruit and vegetable stands, pizzerias,

butcher shops, bakeries, cleaners and dyers and bars flourish.

It is Saturday morning around eleven o'clock -- a market

day.

WOMEN, dark, gesticulative, with bulging cloth shopping bags,

baby carriages. MERCHANTS at their improvised street stands,

hawking their wares, disputing with their CUSTOMERS, roaring

salutations to PASSERSBY.

In the midst of all this, CAMERA HOMES IN on a typical

neighborhood...

BUTCHER SHOP.

Delicatessens hang on the walls, wreathed with garlands of

garlic. PATSY, the boss, a swarthy man of sixty, is flopping

a chunk of beef onto the scale for the benefit of a forty-

year-old MATRON. There are three or four other WOMEN in the

shop, all talking to one another. A four-year-old BOY lazily

chases a cat.

The white refrigerator room door opens, and a second butcher,

MARTY PILLETTI, comes out carrying a large leg of lamb. Marty

is a mildmannered, short, stout, balding man of thirty-four.

His charm lies in an almost indestructible good humor. He

drops the leg of lamb onto the chopping block, reaches up

for the cleaver hanging with the other utensils over the

block and makes quick incisive cuts into the leg of lamb. He

sets the cleaver aside, picks up the saw to finish the cuts

as he chats with his customer, MRS. FUSARI.

MRS. FUSARI

Your kid brother got married last

Sunday, eh, Marty?

MARTY:

(sawing away)

That's right, Missus Fusari. It was

a very nice affair.

MRS. FUSARI

That's the big tall one, the fellow

with the moustache.

MARTY:

(still sawing)

No, that's my other brother, Freddie.

My other brother Freddie, he's been

married four years already. He lives

down on Webb Avenue. The one who got

married Sunday, that was my little

brother, Nickie.

MRS. FUSARI

I thought he was a big tall fat

fellow. Didn't I meet him here one

time? Big tall, fat fellow, he tried

to sell me life insurance?

Marty sets the five chops on the scale, watches its weight

register.

MARTY:

No, that's my sister Margaret's

husband, Frank. My sister Margaret,

she's married to the insurance

salesman, and my sister Rose, she

married a contractor. They moved to

Detroit last year. And my other sister

Frances, she got married about two

and a half years ago in Saint John's

Church on Kingsbridge Avenue. Oh,

that was a big affair. Well, let's

see now, that'll be about a dollar-

seventy-nine. How's that with you?

MRS. FUSARI

Well...

Mrs. Fusari produces an old leather change purse from her

pocketbook and painfully extracts one single dollar bill and

seventy-nine cents to the penny and lays the money piece by

piece on the counter. From the rear of the shop a woman's

VOICE rings out.

WOMAN'S VOICE

(off-screen)

Hey, Marty, I'm inna hurry.

MARTY:

You're next right now, Missus Canduso.

MRS. FUSARI

When you gonna get married, Marty?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

All your brothers and sisters, they

all younger than you, they married

and they got children. I just saw

your mother inna fruit shop, and she

says to me, "Hey, you know a nice

girl for my boy Marty?" Watsa matter

with you? That's no way. Now you get

married.

MARTY:

(amiably)

Missus Fusari, Missus Canduso over

there, she's inna big hurry, and...

Mrs. Fusari takes her parcel of meat, but apparently she

feels she still hasn't quite made her point.

MRS. FUSARI

My son Frank, he was married when he

was nineteen years old. Watsa matter

with you?

MARTY:

That's swell, Missus Fusari.

MRS. FUSARI

You should be ashamed of yourself.

She takes her package of meat. Marty gathers up the money on

the counter, turns to the cash register behind him to ring

up the sale. Mrs. Canduso sidles up to the counter.

MRS. CANDUSO

Marty, I want a nice, big fat pullet,

about four pounds. I hear your kid

brother got married last Sunday.

MARTY:

Yeah, it was a very nice affair.

MRS. CANDUSO

Marty, you oughta be ashamed. All

your kid brothers and sisters married

and have children. When you gonna

get married?

NEIGHBORHOOD BAR. LATE AFTERNOON

A TV set on the wall. Mel Allen, smoking a White Owl cigar,

is recapping the baseball game that has just finished as

Marty comes in.

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