![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
r_vecchioYou would’ve thought being Italian, and traditional when it comes to family, a guy would know a lot about the people who lived before him. But whatever ancestors Ray Vecchio had in Italy, stayed in Italy. He’s American through and through, born and raised in the Windy City. Being a second generation immigrant doesn’t really inspire him to whip out the family tree on a rainy day, especially since his parents show him all he needs to know about where he came from.
La mia Mamma
My Ma’s a sweetheart. She can curse like a sailor, cook like an angel (most of the time) and insists on speaking even a little Italian every day, despite having spent the bigger half, the much bigger half of her life in Chicago. When I was a cop, she used to worry and say I was going to send her to an early grave if I carried on the way I was. She didn’t want to have to bury one of her children because a crim has gotten a little trigger happy.
“Oh mio figlio, you should call your mother if you’re gong to be late, Raimondo, mi preoccupa…”
God, I remember like it was yesterday.
But I know she’s always been proud of the fact she had a police officer for a son; and the first night I brought Fraser home to eat with us, she said she wouldn’t have to worry so much if I was partnered with a guy like him. …That was after I explained he was Canadian. She thought he was sick, before I told her all Canadians, all Mounties have gotta be polite otherwise they’re sent straight to the Mountie dog-house. After that, she didn’t mind so much if I came home in the early hours ‘cause of a stakeout or some other trash the city had coughed up, as long as I had somebody watching my back.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with being Catholic, but my Ma has this incessant belief in things. She’s never missed Mass, even when Frannie was being born and when the whole -- process had begun, she was sitting in her pew and the only way you could tell she was about to pop, was the way she kept whispering “O Vergin benedetta, sempre tu, ora per noi a Dio, che ci perdoni…” over and over.
I find it more than a little amusing that Frannie was almost born in a church.
Pop
It started okay, from what I can tell. My Ma used to tell us kids stories and rhymes whenever it was raining about how Pop was going to come home and we’d all eat together round the table, ‘cause that’s what families are supposed to do. ‘Course I was six then so I’d had more than enough time to recognise the look in her eye when she said it.
Batta le manine
ahora viene papa
Si prendere confitine
Raimondo si mangera!
By the time she’d sung that, putting each of our names into the lullaby, he was supposed to walk through the door. I can remember it working once. The look on my mother’s face when she realised was beautiful. But I was six. I wasn’t stupid. When I was seven, we’d stopped singing it.
My father taught me a lot of things and I can’t honestly say he was all bad. He drank, he gambled and he lost. Wasn’t anything new. But there were three things he hated the most in the world. When one of his kids talked back, when one of his kids hit back, and cops. Unfortunately, I had to be the one who crossed all three lines and since then he pretty much thought that I screwed up everything I ever touched. I became a cop ‘cause I wanted to catch bad peopleand carry a gun and a badge… and my Pa hated that ‘cause he thought I thought he was one of them. It pissed him off and it pissed me off but I realised if I became a cop, and stayed a cop, I’d never have people thinking I was like him, a bad guy. I had to prove to him I wasn’t a bad guy. I could be good at my job and still be one of the good guys. He thought racking up debts, shooting pool and the odd dodgy deal was a life and that the schmucks who worked for a living were too stupid to see it. You know he's been dead for nearly nine years now and I still feel like I'm trying to prove myself to him. So what does my father mean to me? He’s some guy in my memory I try not to be. That’s what he means to me.
My Ma? Means the world. I’m Italian, what did you expect?
Muse: Ray Vecchio
Fandom: Due South
Word Count: Uh, 813...
[ooc: Uh, hey, I'm starting Italian lessons in January so I can't claim to be able to speak the language yet... so if anyone spots any mistakes in that, hey, could you be a doll and point them out? Ta!]
My Ma’s a sweetheart. She can curse like a sailor, cook like an angel (most of the time) and insists on speaking even a little Italian every day, despite having spent the bigger half, the much bigger half of her life in Chicago. When I was a cop, she used to worry and say I was going to send her to an early grave if I carried on the way I was. She didn’t want to have to bury one of her children because a crim has gotten a little trigger happy.
“Oh mio figlio, you should call your mother if you’re gong to be late, Raimondo, mi preoccupa…”
God, I remember like it was yesterday.
But I know she’s always been proud of the fact she had a police officer for a son; and the first night I brought Fraser home to eat with us, she said she wouldn’t have to worry so much if I was partnered with a guy like him. …That was after I explained he was Canadian. She thought he was sick, before I told her all Canadians, all Mounties have gotta be polite otherwise they’re sent straight to the Mountie dog-house. After that, she didn’t mind so much if I came home in the early hours ‘cause of a stakeout or some other trash the city had coughed up, as long as I had somebody watching my back.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with being Catholic, but my Ma has this incessant belief in things. She’s never missed Mass, even when Frannie was being born and when the whole -- process had begun, she was sitting in her pew and the only way you could tell she was about to pop, was the way she kept whispering “O Vergin benedetta, sempre tu, ora per noi a Dio, che ci perdoni…” over and over.
I find it more than a little amusing that Frannie was almost born in a church.
Pop
It started okay, from what I can tell. My Ma used to tell us kids stories and rhymes whenever it was raining about how Pop was going to come home and we’d all eat together round the table, ‘cause that’s what families are supposed to do. ‘Course I was six then so I’d had more than enough time to recognise the look in her eye when she said it.
Batta le manine
ahora viene papa
Si prendere confitine
Raimondo si mangera!
By the time she’d sung that, putting each of our names into the lullaby, he was supposed to walk through the door. I can remember it working once. The look on my mother’s face when she realised was beautiful. But I was six. I wasn’t stupid. When I was seven, we’d stopped singing it.
My father taught me a lot of things and I can’t honestly say he was all bad. He drank, he gambled and he lost. Wasn’t anything new. But there were three things he hated the most in the world. When one of his kids talked back, when one of his kids hit back, and cops. Unfortunately, I had to be the one who crossed all three lines and since then he pretty much thought that I screwed up everything I ever touched. I became a cop ‘cause I wanted to catch bad people
My Ma? Means the world. I’m Italian, what did you expect?
Muse: Ray Vecchio
Fandom: Due South
Word Count: Uh, 813...
[ooc: Uh, hey, I'm starting Italian lessons in January so I can't claim to be able to speak the language yet... so if anyone spots any mistakes in that, hey, could you be a doll and point them out? Ta!]
