The Lombardi Factor (Short Story) {Part I}

                                                                                    Approximate Word Count: 1034

     Some people take advantage of their good fortune when they have the same name as a famous celebrity.  If their last name happens to be “Presley”, in a bizarre attempt to cash in, they dye their hair black, buy a fake diamond-studded sequined outfit, have plastic surgery performed on their upper lip, then spend their Saturday nights perfecting an impersonation of “The King”. This would impress even the president of the “Elvis-is-Alive-and-living-as-a-singing-hobo” fan club.

     For most people their last name being Presley or Hepburn is considered a minor, and pleasant coincidence.  Life being what it is, people with the same name as a famous celebrity, and inadvertently following in the footsteps of the celebrity with the path of their own career is beyond that of just a pleasant coincidence.  More like a bizarre probability similar in scope to a pint-sized UFO landing in a midget’s back yard.

     Vigilio Lombardi had never witnessed a UFO and even if he had, he’d refuse to believe that the incident occurred.  Thus insuring the chances of that same UFO ever being reported to the authorities about as realistic as a crack dealer winning the presidential election.  To say that Vigilio was skeptical about unexplainable things is a mild understatement.  In fact, he didn’t have much faith in a lot of life.

     What he did have in abundance was an obsessive work ethic he inherited from his father, Benito Lombardi, and a bizarre attraction for what he considered, “living life on the edge.”  Benito had many of the same philosophies as the great NFL coaching legend, Vince Lombardi.  A strict as nails approach to his job as a fish importer in Philadelphia, a similar win-or-commit-suicide philosophy, and iron fisted control of his wife and children not unlike that of a third world president-for-life dictator.

     Benito tried to instill this same disciplinarian upbringing on Vigilio and his siblings.

     “I’m telling you once again Cornelius,” said Benito to his colleague and fellow fishmonger Cornelius.  “The only way any of my children will succeed in life is to fight and scrape their way to the top.  Regardless as to the size, steepness, or even smell of the heap.”

     “You’ve got that right Benito,” said Cornelius.  “Didn’t you tell me your #2, Aldo, went into the garbage business?”

     “Minor coincidence.  I told Aldo getting to the top was his only objective. I also told him second place or getting close to the summit of your career objectives is the same as coming in dead last.  Winning ain’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

     Cornelius frowned. “You aren’t planning on using that quote in public are you?”

     Vigilio took his father’s life philosophy and chose to live on the edge, taking a job as the high school geography teacher at south Philadelphia St. Catherine’s Parochial.  He also chose what he considered to be another edge-like undertaking, becoming the head coach of St. Catherine’s perennial loser football team.

     Vigilio wasn’t always obsessed with doing things in a precise, ultra-disciplined, fashion.  In fact, he was actually quite undisciplined in his youth, partially as a result of being the first-born son of Benito and Claudia Lombardi in March of 1944.  Benito and Claudia were the children of southern Italian immigrants fleeing the WWII chaos in Europe, and they met one another while growing up in south Philadelphia.

     Both sets of parents wanted Benito and Claudia to avoid serious relationship with one another owing to the fact that Benito’s father, Giuseppe, and Claudia’s father, Marcello felt that the world was spinning out of control.  Neither felt it very prudent for two young people to add to the problems by creating a relationship.  In an act of total obedience to their respective fathers, Benito and Claudia relationship flowered, and one day into their marriage, their eldest child was born. A son they named Vigilio, because the name sounded edgy and adventurous.

     Due entirely to the fact that Vigilio was the first American born child to enter the Lombardi and Antonelli families, from the moment he came home kicking and screaming right up until age ten, Vigilio was showered with more gifts and favors than Elizabeth Taylor had ex-husbands. The result was Vigilio becoming undisciplined and spoiled.

     Whenever he wanted something and his father refused to give it, little Vigilio visited 

his Lombardi grandparents to ask for it.  If that didn’t work, which happened about as often as the Bhutanese Navy establishing beachheads off the California coast, he’d really push it to the limit and go back to his mom begging and pleading.

     He’d also pay a visit once in awhile to his Antonelli grandparents to ask for additional items of importance to his growth and development.  In every case Vigilio’s behavior, playing off family members worked to a precise, finely tuned, 100% successful mis-behavior.  This is amazing when one considers that he’d perfected his technique by the time he’d reached age five.

     Times were tough and Benito and Claudia complicated them more by increasing the size of the Lombardi family, having one girl and six boys.  Because Vigilio was the oldest, when he’d reached the age where he could look after himself, Benito began taking him on his fish delivery routes throughout Philadelphia.  Even at this stage, Vigilio’s inclination for doing things on the edge and sticking with what appears to be climbing Everest-sized peaks while wearing rusted roller-skates became evident.

     Important tasks for Benito when he wasn’t working fifty-two hours/week or imparting life philosophies came in the form of helping coach a Pop Warner Football team in Philadelphia.  Benito had become a big fan of American gridiron, and he decided that a little league in Philadelphia was just the thing.  To top it off, even though Vigilio liked physical activity about as much as your average couch potato enjoys a heaping bowl of steamed broccoli, he found himself forced to play on the neighborhood team with his brothers through their father’s subtle influence.

      Vigilio wasn’t a big kid, and when he reached high school graduation in spring1981 his chances of becoming a gridiron star were as good as most kids using that hard-earned lemonade stand cash to finance their college education.

(Part I  End)