'74 & Sunny (16 page)

On the other side of the hedges, I had to adopt the macho stance. There were high fives all around, and I remember me and the other boys trying to suppress laughter from our brimming smiles. But that wasn't really how I felt. I really wanted to wrap a blanket around her and put a stop to it, but my stupid standing among the boys made that choice harder than what you'd expect.

“Let's go, Gino,” Richie shouted. “You're up!”

By the time Gino walked into the hidden area, smelling of pine needles and fresh earth, we were all poking our faces in to see what he'd do. I watched him kneel down, touch Tina's face, pluck a nearby dandelion, and awkwardly place it on her privates while whispering, “I'm so sorry.” Tina's expression changed on a dime as she hiked up her panties in record speed, got up, and headed out of the yard and down the block. I also saw Gino bolt for the front door of my house.

“That wasn't supposed to happen,” Perry said. “That's it. Show's over?”

“Yeah, man. Let her go,” I said, with a little bit of anger. “What the hell else you want her to do? Huh?”

The guys just backed up and acted as if it were time to
move on to the next thing. Obviously, for Gino and me, it was something more important.

“What's up with Gino?” Perry said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe it freaked him out. I keep telling you guys that he's only ten.”

I left the boys behind and caught up with Gino at my house. I took the steps upstairs two at a time, where I found him in our bedroom, pacing back and forth.

“You all right?” I asked.

“That poor girl,” he said. “I can't believe that's the way he treats his little sister.”

“It ain't like that. He loves his sis,” I stammered. “But, did you at least like it? Was it something you'd like to do again?”

“No,” Gino said adamantly. “I don't understand the big attraction. It's just not something I enjoy seeing—in a magazine or in person.” We continued the debate as best a twelve-year-old and a ten-year-old could, but it went nowhere, and before long Gino crashed on his cot.

I tried reasoning a bit. “Gino, I don't know what it's like in New Jersey or with any of the boys you hang around with,” I said. “But, I'm telling you, that was something that a guy dreams of. I mean, I feel bad for Tina and all, but she volunteered. And we got to see her bush in person, right up close. I'd never seen one, had you?”

“Maybe some boys are like that, but I'm not one of them,” he said. “I don't know how I'm going to be able to look at her tomorrow.”

“It'll be a little weird,” I said.

He turned his body toward the wall and asked if I could shut the light on the way out. “I'm really tired. Let's just forget it for tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” I said. “It's been a long day. I'll come up a little later.”

When I got downstairs, I could hear the unmistakable snippets of my mother gossiping with Aunt Mae and Aunt Mary around the kitchen table. With a large Entenmann's crumb cake before them and their second pot of coffee brewing, chances were good they'd be occupied for a while. Rather than walk into that sit-down, I decided to follow the sounds of the living room TV, where my father was all settled in his recliner, with our wonderful mutts, Sonny and Pippen, asleep on his lap.

“Hey, Dad,” I said.

“There he is,” he said. “The man with the plan. What's the plan tonight?”

“I don't know,” I offered.

“Well, I do,” he said. “You've got two free hands and your father needs ‘magic fingers.' ”

“Yeah, sure, Dad,” I said. “The lotion is right here.”

“Good.”

“But . . . Dad,” I stammered. “Is it okay if I ask you some advice about what happened tonight with Gino and some friends of mine?”

With that, my father sat up, pushed the dogs away, and let me know his mind was 100 percent there for me.

“But of course,” he said. “Tell me what's what.”

To his credit, my father never made it difficult to discuss things of this nature. And so I began, while spreading all sorts of lotions on his tired body and giving him the right type of rubdown.

“So, it goes like this,” I started. “Tonight, Vinny D'Avanzo allowed Tina to show us her beaver behind some bushes in their backyard. It felt weird and all, but I just did it because all the other guys were doing it.”

“Was it more embarrassing for you than for her?” he said.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “She didn't seem too upset, but it really seemed to screw up Gino's head.”

“How so?”

“Well, the minute he saw it, he put a flower on it and told her how sorry he felt for her. And then he just ran back home and crashed in his cot.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I tried, but it seems like he wants to block the whole thing out of his mind.”

“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you think, after spending some time with Gino, that he's the same kind of boy as you and your friends?”

“No. He's not,” I said. “He's a great kid, but he's different.”

“Yes,” my father calmly said. “And I'm pretty sure he's going to stay that way because he doesn't have a choice.”

“That's okay, as long as it's okay for him,” I said.

“Well, A.J., it might not always be okay for him,” he said. “But if he's brave enough to get through this himself, then I want him to always feel it's okay for him to be who he is whenever he's around this family. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, sure, Dad,” I said, somewhat confused but satisfied with my father's on-the-spot verdict.

“Hey, Dad,” I said. “Mommy said aunt Geneva is feeling better from her operation and might be driving to our house in a few days. Maybe that will make Gino feel better.”

This is where my father had had enough of the charade. “I'm sure it will. But A.J., listen to me, your aunt Geneva didn't have cancer like your mother had two years ago,” he said.

And staying true to his form of never hiding the bitter truth with a sugar coating, my father decided it was time to cut me in on it.

“She had a
voluntary
hysterectomy.”

“But why?” I said, remembering all the pain my mother endured during her illness. “Why would someone go through the pain Mommy suffered if they didn't have to?”

He held his tumbler of Scotch, resting it on his belly, before letting me in on a dark family secret. “She didn't want to have any more of my brother's children.”

I stood there in the silence, stunned by the violent honesty of what he said. I reached for more lotion and continued his rubdown.

12

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS

G
od only knows we had our share of neighborhood arguments and physical altercations during the summer, and as much as my father wanted to show us his calmer side, there were some situations that had to be handled in his inimitable style.

Enter George Coulter, an unfortunate man, though a man of considerable wealth, who lived on the canal and just happened to be hosting a catered affair in his backyard complete with a waitstaff in black suits and white gloves. The party was occurring one Sunday afternoon, a beautiful August day, about twelve houses down the canal from where we lived.

If I could get into my father's head, I'd imagine he was holding the piece of information from us that had really set
him off in the first place. Apparently, as the story goes, Mr. Coulter was unhappy with his recent home-carpet installation, but rather than speak to my father man-to-man, he had the nerve to drop a note of his disapproval in our mailbox and refer to my father as a “hotheaded guinea” in the process. Mind you, my father was merely the manager of the carpet store. He had nothing to do with installation.

I'll never know how long my father let this bit of information fester in his brain, but I don't recall anything different when it came to prepping the boat for a fishing expedition. Everything was the same. While the men got the boat stocked with the correct fishing poles, nets, and baits and also made sure we had a half dozen or so clamming bags on board, the women prepared tin-foiled sandwiches to bring to the boat, as well as water, soda, and various bags of chips and stuff. And, of course, several flasks of Scotch were lowered into the boat.

When we pushed off the dock, I couldn't help but see a glint in my father's eyes.

After he instructed Jack to man the anchor minutes after we had set off down the canal, we knew something was up.

“You want me to grab the anchor, Pop?” Jack said. “What's going on?”

“Don't worry, just listen to your father-in-law,” he said. “We're gonna drop anchor right around the corner. Teach this fucker a lesson in front of his family.”

“What's going on?” Gino asked me.

“Just don't worry about it,” I said. “The old man knows what he's doing.”

Soon as we drove about one hundred yards and were smack-dab in front of Coulter's fancy backyard party, my father instructed Jack to drop anchor in the canal.

We sat there for a few moments, watching the Coulters' fancy party, from twenty yards away or so. “The Girl from Ipanema” was playing on his fancy, backyard hi-fi system.

“Is this going to be a fight like at the Coogans'?” Gino asked me.

“You never know,” I said.

After a few minutes of watching champagne served with finger sandwiches, my father had seen enough.

He cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted at the host and his guests.

“Attention, ladies and gentlemen. Attention all. George Coulter is a
cocksucker
! The man whose house you're at is a scared cocksucker who'd rather stick notes in people's mailboxes than talk to them in person.”

With our boat drifting toward the dock, my father was attempting to climb atop the guy's property. That's when Coulter appeared at the dock and did all he could to appease my father and beg him to meet him the next afternoon.

“Al, please, there are women and children here. . . .”

“Attention, women and children . . .” my father started.

“Please, God, stop,” Coulter said.

“I'll stop,” my father said. “Do your friends know about your fuckin' letter-writing skills?”

“Al . . . please. I was wrong. Let's please settle this tomorrow.”

“Say you were fuckin' wrong again”

“Al . . .
please!
”

“Say, ‘I'm a cocksucker and I was wrong!' ”

“I was wrong. Jesus Christ, I was wrong.”

“Say it or I'll hop up on your fuckin' deck right now.”

“I'm a . . . cocksucker, Al, okay?”

My father put one foot on his dock.

“Okay, okay. I'm a cocksucker . . . and I'm wrong.”

“Good boy, George,” my father said. “Come see me at noon or else I'll show up at your house with a fuckin' baseball bat. Understood?”

Needless to say, Mr. Coulter complied, quickly saw things our way, and apologized profusely.

After we lifted anchor and had traveled a few minutes down the canal, Jack laughed. “Hey, just another lazy Sunday afternoon.”

“The thing that gets me,” my dad said. “There was no stamp on the letter. That means the prick had the balls to stand on my porch and drop it in the mailbox.”

“No respect,” I said.

By this point in the summer, Gino had grown accustomed to my family's untimely outbursts of anger, love, passion, and insanity. I can't say he ever felt comfortable joining in, but just
seeing his stoic face while my father tangled with Coulter was worth a million bucks. Watching him being able to maintain his emotions made him feel more like a brother to me.

As we meandered down the canal, Jack and Frankie were talking about heading out to the Sore Thumb, an area that featured the bigger fish because of its vicinity to the biggest inlet to the ocean. As they talked and imagined the type of doormat fluke they might hook in to, they were setting up their fishing poles.

“Whattya say we stay local and grab some fish and clams and head back home early and make the women happy?” my father said.

Jack and Frankie wanted no part of that. “Pop,” Frankie said. “I just hooked up three poles with a squid and killie combo and a four-ounce weight. Let's at least give it a shot in the deep water.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I feel it, Pop. Look at this high-low rig I just put together. There's no way we head back home without hooking in to some fluke and bluefish.”

My father laughed. “You and your Puerto Rican rigs. If you weren't so good to my daughter, I'd throw that whole pole overboard.”

Their enthusiasm got the best of my father and as we exited the canal, he opened it up the engine, with the bow of the boat lifting like a rocket as we headed out to the deep, dark fertile waters of the Sore Thumb. We rode the waves that day and followed all the charter boats way out where the Atlantic
Ocean flows into the Great South Bay, and mostly suffered the gigantic tugs that the big, invisible fish put on your line. That type of action is usually enough to stay out there, but there comes a point, when the bait runs low and your patience is sapped, that you have to turn your boat toward home.

Jack and Frankie had caught just enough fish and seen enough action that they were satisfied with our excursion, and listening to my father's idea of heading back was an idea they were now open to. They were standing in the stern of the boat, filleting the thick fluke and beautiful bluefish we caught, on the boat's cutting board, while lofting the bloody remains into the air for the screaming army of seagulls that were floating above us.

“Guys, don't get rid of the sea robin,” my father said, referring to a prevalent and ugly bottom-feeding fish that had wings and whiskers and actually grunted—almost
argued
with you—once you brought it aboard the boat.

“Pop,” Jack said. “I'm not gonna let you eat that fish. Come on, we have enough fluke and blues for a week.”

My father would have none of it. “Let me tell you something. I don't believe in discarding a firm-fleshed fish. You take a grilled or pan-fried piece of sea robin and you throw it on some Italian bread with a slice of tomato from the garden with some lemon mayonnaise—and you got a meal fit for a king.”

“It's still early, Pop,” Frankie said, tossing the entrails of a small sea robin fish into the air. “And we still have some bait left. It'd be a shame to waste it.”

“Keep the bait out of the sun,” my father said. “We can use it in a little while. First, I want to make a stop somewhere.”

“Where we going, Dad?” I said. “Gino and I are feeling a little seasick with these waves.”

“Just keep your eyes on the bridge, something stationary, and you'll be fine,” he said. “I'm gonna take you somewhere where the water is flat like a mirror.”

My father took us through the Dickenson Channel, a challenging bit of the bay that had a sea floor that could rise to a depth of fifteen feet from twelve inches within seconds. You had to really know what you were doing and trust your crew like hell or else risk chopping your propeller to bits by taking big bites out of the bay's floor. We were headed to a small dot of forgotten land some hundred yards away when my father masterfully cut the engine and relied on Jack and Frankie to use long poles to guide us toward what looked like a scaled-down version of Gilligan's island. We were no more than fifteen minutes from home, but we might as well have been somewhere in the South Pacific.

When we finally got close enough and were floating in less than two feet of water, my father hopped out of the boat and asked Gino and me to join him and pull the boat by the anchor until we were on the lip of what looked like some sort of magic fishing hole.

“Dad,” I said. “What is this place? Why haven't we ever come here?”

“I was waiting for the right time,” he said. “If the tide is too high, you'll never see it. If the tide is low enough—like right now—you never forget it.”

With each step in the crystal clear water, Gino and I were elbowing each other as we got closer. We didn't care where we stepped or what creature might lie in wait. Gino and I felt like we were walking toward heaven. And for the first time that summer, Gino had actually stopped walking a couple of times to bend down and pluck clams from the bottom.

“Atta boy, Gino,” Jack hollered.

“We gotta hurry,” Gino said. “I think I see a wooden diving board in the middle of that island.” He'd come a long way from being afraid to slide down my father's leg into three feet of water. Now Gino was actually walking ahead of me by a foot or so.

I cupped my hand above my eyes. “It
is
a diving board. What is this place?”

And with that, we took off. Running as best we could in knee-deep water, parting the occasional patch of seaweed, and trying to be the first to—what felt like—colonize this mysterious marsh that seemed to exist solely for us.

“This place looks like a woman's perfume ad,” Gino gushed. He was onto something. It didn't smell like a woman ought to, but with warm, Caribbean-type water and a big, thick diving board that some good soul had anonymously built for other families to enjoy, it certainly was twenty years ahead of Calvin Klein's TV ads for Eternity. But this wasn't
an infinity pool in some rich guy's backyard. This was nothing more than a glorified fishing hole tucked within a tiny island of land off the beaten path of red and green buoys in the middle of the Great South Bay. While my father, Jack, and Frankie were raking in clams with their hands and feet, Gino and I finally hit land some thirty yards away. The water we dived into—off the big, thick, plank—was colder and much deeper, but it was clear enough to spot baby eels swimming by, as well as the inevitable blue-claw crab feeding on the bottom. And just when things couldn't get any more extraordinary, we saw a family of seahorses—which were many miles away from where they were usually found but obviously just as enchanted with the spot as we were.

I felt like I was gonna see Jacques Cousteau and the
Calypso
turn up any second.

“Gino,” my father shouted. “Get some mussels; find some starfish. Bring me back something we can take home and show the girls!”

That was the summer before
Jaws
, so absolutely no one was afraid to dive into a mysterious, deep-water hole and go exploring. We got so brazen and so drunk on fun, Gino and I decided to surprise the men and jump off the board bare-assed naked. We got a couple of horns from passing boaters, but we couldn't care less. This was the most fun we had all summer. And when Gino finally got the nerve to pry a starfish off the side of a rock, he held it above his head for everyone to see. “Uncle Al,” he hollered. “Look! Look!”

“Beautiful,” my father shouted.
“Atta boy!”

Gino stepped onto the marshland, stuck the starfish to his chest, and screamed out, “I'm Sheriff Benza, goddammit. And this is my land!” He was so happy. I don't think he even remembered he still had his shorts off.

It was a beautiful moment, wrapped within a wonderful day. Gino was more than at peace with himself at that spot. It was as if the water made everyone equal.

It was almost impossible to tear us away from that spot. But with the tide coming in, our little oasis was vanishing inch by inch. We didn't want to believe it, but we could see it with our very own eyes. My father whistled for us to come back aboard.

“Ah, crap,” Gino muttered.