Eggplant Alley (9781593731410) (17 page)

Nicky nodded eagerly.

“Anyhow, the lieutenant says sure. Just hurry up, he says. Go ahead. There's nothing going on. So I go.

“I'm gone maybe fifteen minutes. It took a little longer, because I haggled about the price. I get back—my squad is gone. I ask the other guys where did they go? They got a goddamn job. A thousand-pound bomb in a basement. They took off without me. But they needed a fuse man, because I wasn't there. So my pal Grabowski, the fuse man from the other squad, he goes in my place. Grabowski goes on the job. He was a ballplayer. From Cleveland.”

Dad stopped and took a long gulp of beer. He licked his lips.

Dad said, “And so.”

“So what?” Nicky said.

Dad took a deep breath and said, “So something went wrong.” He shrugged.

“Wrong?”

“Yeah. The bomb went off and everybody got hurt and one guy gets killed. And of course that guy was Grabowski, the fella who went in my place.”

Dad shrugged.

Nicky didn't say anything.

“Everyone says I was lucky because I didn't go on the day something went wrong. The other guys, they even started to call me Mr. Lucky. My new nickname. Mr. Lucky. Except I didn't feel so lucky.”

Dad drained his beer. He belched. He put his hand on the porcelain monkey. He tilted the statue and examined it. He shook his head and smiled a sad smile.

“Roy Nicholas Grabowski. Two days don't go by when I don't think about him. I didn't go. He went and got killed. That kind of stuff stays with you for the rest of your days.”

Nicky didn't say anything.

“And that's that,” Dad said with a shrug. He picked up the pen. “That's the story. Glad we had this talk, kiddo. Now go to bed.”

Nicky slid off the kitchen chair.

He said, “I'm happy you didn't get killed, Dad.”

“Hey, me too.”

N
icky woke up after sleeping late. He shuffled, head fuzzy, eyes gummy, from room to room. The apartment was empty. No Dad. He was working. No Mom. She was probably shopping. No Checkers. He was dead. Nicky was not accustomed to life without a dog. He still dropped food on the floor and left it there, because he expected Checkers to click-clack to the scene and clean up the mess. Nicky wondered: “How long before I stop missing Checkers?”

Nicky sat on a sticky vinyl kitchen chair. He grabbed handfuls of Lucky Charms, straight from the box. He thought about Ann-Margret on the cover of
TV Guide
, then noticed a neatly folded sheet of paper near the sugar bowl. A note from Mom?

Nicky unfolded the paper and looked at the unfamiliar handwriting. It was a rare sight—Dad's handwriting. So this is what Dad wrote in the middle of last night. Nicky unfolded the paper and read.

Dear Roy—

It was nice to get your last letter. We all enjoy hearing from you. We would like to hear from you more often. We know you are busy. We are all well. Although Checkers has been ill lately. We will have to keep an eye on him.

I have something to say about your letter. You said you were so bored you would prefer combat. Roy, don't be stupid. I know what I am talking about. The army has given you a job, they know what is best and what they need to win the war. Just do your job and come home safe. You need to be smart. No combat, no joyrides on airplanes, no monkey business at all. You are at a war, not at Palisades Amusement Park. I know that at your age you think you are invincible. I used to think that, too. Stay in the office and do your work.

Be seeing you in the spring.

—Dad

Dad's penmanship was perfect. But Nicky saw nothing else to admire about this letter. He fought the urge to crumple the paper into a tight ball and pitch it out the window, onto Groton Avenue.

What was Dad thinking?

He was telling Roy to stay safe and sound in the air-conditioned office. To hide like a frightened bunny. Cower like a trembling bird. Skulk like a jittery little mouse. Stay in the office.

Not exactly John Wayne stuff.

In his private thoughts, Nicky thought: Dad was telling Roy to act like a coward. And Nicky in his most private thoughts thought Roy didn't need encouragement along those lines.

Nicky imagined Roy on Jones Beach in thirty years, showing off scars from the war—“Lookit this. From a paper cut, back in nineteen seventy.”

“The world has gone nuts,” Nicky muttered, refolding the loathsome letter. “Whatever happened to heroes?”

Around noontime, Mom returned from her shopping trip. She had a Val-U-Pack bag of new white socks. “Half for you,” Mom said. “Half for Roy when he comes home.”

She squinted at Nicky.

“What's with the long face?” Mom said. “You need to get out of the house. Use your imagination. Find something to do. Go to the library.”

“I'd rather go to the store.”

It was a sound idea. Nicky had not purchased a pack of baseball cards in over a year. Baseball cards cheered him up every time.

“Before you go, wait a minute,” Mom said. She fished a stamp from her purse, licked it, made a face. She stuck the stamp on an envelope and handed the envelope to Nicky.

“Drop this in the mailbox, will you? Be careful. Don't take shortcuts. Come right back. Don't talk to strangers.”

Nicky examined the envelope. It was addressed to Roy in Vietnam. Dad's letter, filled with the advice on how to play it safe, safe as a scared fuzzy bunny.

“Oh, this,” he thought.

Nicky banged on the door to 2-C. He heard footsteps. He saw a shadow on the threshold.

“Lester, open up,” Nicky said. “It's me. I've got something cool for us to do.”

Inside the apartment, there was the shuffle of slippers; a grunt;
a click, the creak of a closet door; the jangle of coat hangers; a closet door closing.

The door to 2-C swung open. Lester stood before Nicky. Lester was sweating, adjusting his glasses, grimacing nervously.

“Whatsamatter?” Nicky said.

“Gas pains.”

“You want to go to the store with me?” Nicky said. “I'm going to Popop's to get baseball cards.”

“Yes, surely. It sounds very interesting.”

“Get some dough and let's go.”

“Um, wait right here and I'll tell my mama. Right here, okay? I'd invite you in, but my mama just waxed the floors.”

Nicky stood in the hallway in front of the open apartment door. Nicky poked his head around the doorway. He saw a closet door. A set of keys on a small table. A white wall. An umbrella stand. A floor that was not freshly waxed. Standard stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Some pal,” Nicky thought. “Won't let me in his apartment.”

Of course, Nicky could never allow Lester into the Martini apartment. Under the same circumstances, Nicky would have to leave Lester in the doorway with some lame excuse, such as freshly waxed floors. “I'd say the toilet was overflowing,” he thought. “Much better excuse.” Allow Lester into Nicky's apartment? Nicky cringed at the idea. Not with that framed photograph of Roy, in his army uniform, right there on the living room table. Not with Mom liable to let it slip, at any second, that Roy was in Vietnam. Lester would know Nicky lied about college. That would be the end of this particular friendship.

Nicky remembered one of Grandma Martini's favorite expressions: “Lying is like eating the garlic.”

And he remembered the one time he asked Grandma Martini, “How come?”

“Because just like garlic, the lie keeps coming back up you gullet. Even when you no more inna mood for lying.”

Lester reappeared and without pause marched straight out of the apartment and into the hallway. He looked like a boy in a big hurry to get out of there. He gave the door a hard tug and the door slammed behind him. He nearly clipped Nicky's sneaker in the slamming.

Lester said, “I have a quarter. What is this Popop's like?”

“A dirty little place with a grouch for an owner,” Nicky said. “But it's the only store around here you can get baseball cards.”

“Very interesting.”

As they reached the stairwell, a commotion sounded inside 2-C. Mrs. Allnuts could be heard exclaiming, “Who on earth put this in here?”

“Let's get going,” Lester said.

Halfway through the lobby Nicky remembered the envelope in his hand. A letter addressed to his big brother in Vietnam. He didn't want Lester to see this envelope. Nicky casually slipped the envelope to the back pocket of his jeans. He was smooth. He was nonchalant.

“I'm a regular James Bond,” Nicky thought.

He dropped the letter. The envelope looped-the-loop and skidded gently onto the tile, at Lester's feet.

Address-side up.

“What's this?” Lester said. He bent down to pick up the envelope. “Hey, isn't this your brother's name? Private Roy Martini. This is an APO.”

“Lemme have it.”

“Private? APO? I thought you said he was in college.”

“He is. He's at APO College in a private room.”

“No, he's not. I know what APO is. APO means Army Post Office.”

Lester handed the envelope to Nicky.

“Is your brother in the army?”

Nicky didn't say anything. His face was aflame with shame and fear.

Lester said, “He is not in college.”

“Maybe.”

“What does that mean?”

Nicky shrugged. He sighed. He said, “Let's go up to the roof.”

The boys sat on the hot roof tar. A set of bedsheets swayed limply on a clothesline, scenting the warm air with chlorine bleach. Nicky tossed small pebbles at the retaining wall as he made a full confession. He told Lester that Roy was not actually in college. He told Lester that Roy was actually in the army, actually serving in Vietnam.

“But he's not in combat or anything,” Nicky said. “He doesn't hurt anybody. He's just a file clerk. He really didn't want to go. In fact, you know what? My father practically had to drag him to the airport.”

This was Nicky's way of saying, “In case you are wondering, my brother is not a baby killer.” Nicky thought he should make
that clear, just in case. Lester did not look like Becky Hubbard or Margalo or any other hippie. But looks could be deceiving. Nicky didn't know if Lester was one of Us. Or one of Them.

“Very interesting,” Lester said.

Lester gazed at the puffy clouds. He fiddled with his eyeglasses. He licked his lips. He smirked at Nicky.

“I didn't mean to make up stories,” Nicky said.

“Very interesting.”

“It's just that people get weird sometimes when they find out.”

“Very interesting.”

“It's hard to have your brother in Vietnam with the ways things are. You don't know.”

Lester said, “I know.”

“No, you don't. It's really crazy.”

“I know. It is crazy.”

“You don't know. You don't have a brother in Vietnam.”

“No,” Lester said. “But I have a daddy in Vietnam.”

Nicky blinked rapidly. His bottom lip stuck out. He said, “Very interesting.”

Lester said his father was a master sergeant serving in the air cavalry. A combat soldier. He had fought in Korea. He left the service and took a job selling insurance upstate in Something-ville. Mr. Allnuts worked all day selling insurance and came home every night and watched the Vietnam War on TV. And he just couldn't sit in his recliner and watch any longer. He wanted to do his part. He was needed over there. He said he knew a lot about staying alive in combat. He could help. He could save lives. So Mr. Allnuts re-enlisted and volunteered for Vietnam.

“He's proud of what he's doing,” Lester said. “We're proud. But my daddy got spit on and swore at the last time he walked through the airport in his uniform. So he told us it would be a better idea to lay low. Not advertise where he was and what he was doing. He didn't want to worry about Mama and me back here. He has enough to worry about. You understand?”

“Sure I understand,” Nicky said. He recalled the look of cold hate in Becky Hubbard's spearmint eyes. The memory made him shiver. “I've seen more than my share of peace creeps.”

“You know what my daddy calls the peace symbol? The footprint of the American chicken.”

Nicky chuckled. He felt his whole body, head to toe to fingers, relax completely. “That's a good one.”

A breeze swept across the hot rooftop. Nicky felt refreshed. He felt relieved. The truth was out.

Nicky said, “Is that why you never let me in your apartment? Lemme guess—you've got a picture of your father in his army uniform right out in the open.”

“Good guess,” Lester said. “And my mother has loose lips.”

“Oh-ho. I know what that's like.”

More progress. The Mystery of Apartment 2-C, solved.

Case closed.

Nicky was glad Lester was not a communist spy. He was extra glad Lester, son of a Vietnam combat soldier, was most definitely one of Us. He was more than one of Us. He was a close chum, confidant, real pal. Practically a brother.