Brewster (14 page)

“You’re not my son.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because it’s how I feel.”

I just stared at her. “I’m glad he’s dead,” I said.

“I know,” she said, and went back into Aaron’s room and closed the door.

I left the cake on the hallway dresser where I found it the next morning, spotted with dime-sized circles of wax like ringworm.

B
Y MID-SEPTEMBER
it was as if the summer—the nights we’d spent up on the embankment or listening to records in my room, our trip out to Yonkers, the four of us making plans—was something we’d left behind, like we’d been forced into a car and were watching it grow smaller behind us. We had no choice but to keep going.

That October I started applying to schools. Sitting at the kitchen table, late, I’d hear the chair creak in the living room and my father would come up behind me with his book closed on his finger, pat me on the shoulder and walk back. College was the answer, everyone said; it would keep you out of the draft. I was thinking more “out of the house.” Karen had applied all over, to schools I’d barely heard of: Wellesley, Barnard, Radcliffe. She’d told her parents that she and Ray might take off the next summer. Maybe I could come along, she said. Frank was thinking about junior college.

Ray and I worked on the car, scrounging parts all the way out to Trenton. This was his shot, Ray said. Jimmy said it was comin’ along, that Ray had a feel for it—that we both did. He said there were some parts would take time to find, but we might get it done by Thanksgiving—Christmas at the outside.

M
AYBE IT’S BECAUSE OF EVERYTHING ELSE,
because we could feel things suddenly changing, that we decided to do Halloween that year. Be kids for a night. It makes sense. I forget who I was. Frank was the Hulk, I think. Ray was a pirate, which is always cheap. Karen was Glinda the Good Witch of the North with a cardboard crown and a plastic wand with a tin foil star at the end. We did Prospect and some of the smaller streets around it, schools of little devils and ghosts and Snow Whites crowding through the gates and tripping over the curbs, splitting around us like we were boulders in a stream. “Now make a wish,” I remember Karen saying in Glinda’s weird voice, “then tap your sneakers three times.” And she’d whack me on the head with the star: “One—two—three!”

It felt good walking in the misty rain between the hanging skeletons and the spooks made out of hats with sheets hung over them, making fun of the people who opened the doors. It had been warm, so the pumpkins had softened and sagged, making them scarier. We got a couple of pounds of candy even though we were older because people didn’t want to risk pissing us off, then went to my room and ate it, listening to Dylan’s
Blonde on Blonde
, which Karen had brought from home. She’d memorized half of Glinda’s lines, which should have been annoying, but wasn’t. “You always had the power to go back to Kansas,” she’d say, and lying on the floor of my room on my elbow, I’d smile and give her the finger and she’d do that horrible Glinda laugh and say, “You have no power here! Be gone, before somebody drops a house on you, too!” and we’d hear Dylan singing in that stoned-duck voice of his about how she breaks just like a little girl and she’d smile and say, “Don’t bet on it.”

It was a good Halloween. The rain started to come down and we could hear it drumming on the gutter and we sang “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” changing Memphis to Brewster, and I remember looking around at one point and thinking if I could just stay in this room, in this moment, I’d never want anything else, just the four of us lying around stuffing Milky Ways and candy corn and Sugar Daddys, laughing, talking about what we’d do next summer and how we’d always be friends. No more.

They left after one. It had stopped raining, but a mist was falling thick enough to make your face wet. Some people had forgotten to blow their pumpkins out and looking up the block you’d see spots of flame like pinholes in construction paper. Karen said she’d drop Frank at his house. I asked Ray if he wanted to crash in my room. He said he might as well head back, see if the place was still standing—check if anybody was feeding Wilma.

We were standing around the car when an exhausted clown and a guy in an Elvis mask came out of the dark walking down the middle of the shiny street and we said something about how it was the King and who was the other one supposed to be—Richard Nixon? and they said, “How’s it goin’?” A little ways back a third guy in a frilled jacket with a plastic guitar over his shoulder had stopped to light a cigarette under the streetlight. “Who’re you?” Ray said, “the Lone Ranger?” and the guy grinned and leaned the plastic guitar against his stomach, then pulled on a giant Afro wig he’d tucked under his belt like a scalp. “Jimi Hendrix, man,” he said, then did a couple of silent licks on the guitar and we laughed and they walked on.

A
PERFECT NIGHT,
in some ways, the rain getting louder between songs, the four of us together—right down to white Jimmy with his frilled jacket and plastic guitar. Nobody wanted to be the first to say it was late. We talked about how we’d never be like our parents with all their sadness and bullshit—how we’d make it count.

It was three days later we heard that a woman in Poughkeepsie had hung herself along Route 55. She’d been there for two days, quietly creaking in the rain, but nobody had realized it until the decorations were being cut down for another year.

W
E WERE SITTING
by the lockers that morning when he came striding down the hall like nothing had happened, like everything was cool. Like his eye wasn’t shut and he didn’t have a stained bandage above his ear and a corner of his lip wasn’t raised off his teeth.

She saw him before I did, was up on her feet before I knew what was going on. He held her for a long time, petting her hair. “Hey, hey, hey, c’mon—it’s OK, it’s OK,” he kept saying. “Guy just got a little lucky, is all.”

She pulled back to look at him, touched his face with her fingertips like she was afraid he’d break. “Oh, my God, Ray,” she said.

“It’s fine, it’s nothin’.” He tried to smile at me over her shoulder. “Little late for Halloween, right?” he said.

“What the fuck happened, Ray?” I said.

“Nothin’ happened. Laced me in the second round, that’s all.”

“They didn’t stop it?”

“This ain’t the Garden we’re talkin’ about.”

People had begun to gather around.

“Fuck, what happened to you, man?”

“Hey, Chris, get over here—look at this!”

“Bad day, huh?”

He ignored them. “Looks a lot worse than it is, baby. Just got away from me a little, that’s all.”

“A little?” Karen said. “You call this a little? Ray, I don’t—”

“Just wanted to pick up some bucks, help with the car.” He held a cloth to his lip, tried to smile. “How the fuck was
I
supposed to know he was eight and one? Make that nine and one.”

“Danbury?” I said.

A couple of the bused kids walked by, looked, kept walking.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

I saw him look over my shoulder. Farber, who was on duty that morning, was standing a few feet behind me. He had his head to the side like he was studying something confusing. “Again?” he said.

“What do you want?” Ray said, his words slurred by the lip.

“What do I want?”

“That’s right.”

“What do
I
want?”

“I’m just standin’ here—I’m not makin’ any trouble.”

“I would think it’s about what
you
want.”

“We’re not doing anything wrong, we’re just—” Karen began.

“Not your concern, honey.”

“Actually, it
is
my concern.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I think it is my concern.”

“Hey, hold on, wait, wait,” Ray said. He pulled some small folded papers out of his pocket. “Look, I got a note—two notes. From the nurse, an’ another one from home.” He saw the look on my face and looked away, pushing his hair back off his face. “OK? C’mon.”

Farber was still staring at Karen. “Keep ’em,” he said to Ray.

I could see Karen’s face tighten. “I don’t see what—”

“I’m going to have to ask you to keep your mouth shut.”

“We have a right to know what we’re—”

“Shut your mouth.”

“You got no reason to talk to her that way,” I said.

Farber turned around, slowly. “I remember you,” he said.

“I remember you, too,” I said.

I could feel the crazy shaking starting in my stomach.

He smiled. “Oh, you’re gonna remember me all right.”

“Look, he’s my friend,” Karen said. “I’m just—”

“Friend?” He let it hang in the air—a taunt, a leer.

I stepped in front of Ray.

“Everything alright here, Vince?” It was Falvo.

Farber didn’t turn around. “Ed.”

“Anything I can do—help subdue the natives?”

“I’m just—”

“I’m joking, Vince.”

“Nothin’ O’Hara’s office can’t straighten out.”

Falvo wasn’t moving. He nodded toward me. “Well, this one’s one of mine.”

“Then you know he’s got a mouth on him.”

“Actually, I’m surprised to hear it.” He turned to Ray, whistled. “Another altercation?”

“So what?” Ray said.

“You see what I’m dealin’ with here?” Farber said.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened here, Vince?”

Karen and I started to say something but he held up his finger.

Farber told him.

“That’s unacceptable,” Falvo said.

“Yes it is.”

“Unacceptable.”

“Glad you agree,” Farber said.

“I’m telling you, it’s this climate of permissiveness, Vince. No standards, no discipline … If this was the army we’d be talking rank insubordination.”

Farber glanced over quickly.

“And you have to deal with this in class, too?”

“I wouldn’t put up with it.”

“Well, I’m sorry you had to put up with it this time.”

“Not as sorry—”

“Especially considering they’re my kids.”

Farber looked confused. “What—all three of ’em?

“Been working with him on the side.” He looked at Ray. “How long have I been working with you?”

“I don’t—”

“All right, Vince—I’ll take care of this.”

“Thanks—I’ve got it.”

“I know you do. But it’s my watch. I was supposed to have an assessment in on this one a week ago.”

“Well—”

“The three of you—let’s go.” He took me and Ray by the elbows, started walking us away. “I don’t need this coming back to bite me, Vince, know what I mean?”

W
E’D BARELY TURNED THE CORNER
when he stopped. He seemed tired. “Don’t you people have somewhere to go?” he said.

“What’re you going to say?” I said.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something.” He looked at Ray. “You’ve been to the nurse with that?”

“You want to see my note?”

Falvo looked at him for a while. “You OK?”

Ray nodded.

“Come here—let me see.”

I was surprised when Ray went over to him. Falvo took his chin in his hand, turned his head to the side, touched around the outside of the bandage. “This hurt?” He felt around the closed eye socket, gently. “How about that?”

“I’m fine—really,” Ray said.

“Sure?”

“I know what I’m doin’.”

“OK,” Falvo said, and walked away.

“
W
HAT’S GOING ON?
” he said to me that morning after class. “Close the door, have a seat.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“With your friend—what’s going on?”

“You mean—”

“The bruises, the eye, the lip—these fights I keep hearing about, the whole thing. No bullshit.”

“He gets into fights,” I said. “He’s got a temper.”

“He’s got a temper.”

“Yeah.”

Somebody knocked on the door.

“I’m busy,” Falvo called. “What about home—how’re things at home?”

For a second I thought he was talking about me.

“I don’t …?”

“At home, with his dad. How’re things with his dad?”

“Listen, he’s my best friend—he gets into fights, that’s all. And he knows these clubs—where you can make some money.”

“You mean like boxing? You know this?”

Somebody knocked on the door again.

“He fights middleweight,” I said. “Really, it’s not like that.”

“Alright,” Falvo said. “Come back at four.”

“Don’t we have practice?”

“It can wait.”

I
DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING
to Karen or Frank. We ate our lunch like we always did when it wasn’t raining—convicts in the exercise yard, huddled out of the wind. Pushing the season. Ray was lying down in the nurse’s office, Karen said—his side was hurting pretty bad. He’d said he didn’t mind missing lunch anyway since he couldn’t really eat or talk. The nurse wanted him to get an X-ray.

“What for?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Why would he need an X-ray?” Frank said.

It was only then we noticed her eyes.

“Hey. Hey—c’mon,” Frank said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “He’ll be fine. Really.”

“Tell me,” she said.

“Tell you what?” I said.

“It’s OK,” Frank said.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“I swear to God, there’s nothing to tell. Look, he doesn’t talk about it because he knows you wouldn’t like it. He goes to this club. In Danbury.”

“Where in Danbury?”

“What?”

“Where in Danbury?”

“How do I know where? In Danbury. Look, it’s not like I’m sittin’ there holdin’ his spit bucket or whatever. He’s been doin’ it a while, I don’t know, a year, maybe more.”

She was just looking at me, her mouth pressed together.

“Karen, I swear—”

“I thought we were friends,” she said.

“I am, we are—I swear …”

She wiped her cheek with the base of her thumb. “Never mind,” she said. “Forget it.”

I
FOUND FALVO
writing on the chalkboard, talking over his shoulder to one of the black kids who was sitting at a desk in the front row. “Read it out loud,” he said.

“Again?” the kid asked.

“You want me to come back?” I said.

“Again. Come in,” he said, waving me in.

It was the kid from the gym. I hadn’t recognized him without all the sweatshirts.

He read the sentence—something about Kurt Vonnegut’s
Cat
’s Cradle
—and Falvo wrote it on the board, little bits of chalk dribbling down like rain on a window. “OK—subject, object, verb,” he said, the chalk knocking against the board. “Better. Now do the rest of them the same way for tomorrow.”

The kid closed his notebook.

“You two know each other?”

“S’up?” I said.

The kid nodded.

“I’ve been trying to get Mr. Jones here to consider joining the track team,” Falvo said.

“Great idea,” I said.

The kid started gathering his stuff.

“The bus isn’t leaving for another fifteen minutes,” Falvo said. He turned to me. “Larry and I have had a very interesting conversation about your friend.”

“Is that right?” I said.

“Go ahead. Tell him what you told me.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to tell.” He had a slow, drawn-out way of talking, like he was bored, that got on my nerves.

“Go ahead,” Falvo said. “Off the record—for the next ten minutes, you’re not in school.”

“Tell me what?” I said.

The kid shrugged.

“Tell me what?”

“Friend a yours ain’t no boxer,” he said.

“What’re you talkin’ about?” I said.

“I’m telling you. All street. Way he uses his feet, that slidin’ thing he does—he just makin’ it up.

“I don’t—”

“Larry’s Golden Gloves,” Falvo said.

“So what?”

“Try to listen to what he’s saying.”

“I ain’t sayin’ he can’t fight,” the kid said.

“So what
are
you sayin’?”

“Look at where he holds his hands, man. Look at his knuckles—you think he got those wearin’ gloves? An’ all that shit all up around his neck?”

“I don’t know what’re you tryin’ to say. So he fights on the street, so what? Everybody knows that.”

He was sprawled back in his chair, looking at me. I wanted to hit him. “Lemme ask you somethin’, smart man. How many times you seen him fight?”

“Hundred twenty-three.”

“All that time, anybody touch him?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, now you listenin’.”

“Listenin’ to what? I don’t—”

“Listen to what he’s saying, Jon.”

“Listen, man, he ain’t my brother, I don’t care who’s takin’ him down. All I’m sayin’ is he ain’t gettin’ that shit in the ring
or
the street.” He leaned forward, said it slow like it might sink in better that way: “Muthafucka beatin’ on that boy knows what he doin’,—an’ all this other shit here, he just doin’ that to cover his Eye-talian ass up.”

I
T’S NOT LIKE
I didn’t do anything. I did. I talked to him—or tried. More than once.

There was nothing. His old man? Ray laughed. His old man was his old man—probably a good bet he wasn’t going to find the cure for cancer. Every now and then he’d tie one on, get a little crazy—what else was new? It was like that thing about the leopard—asshole wasn’t gonna change his spots.

For two days after he came in to school that morning he mostly slept. On the third I walked over to his house. It was one of those yellow, quiet fall days that feels like a memory of something else. I found him raking leaves in the front yard. Wilma was sleeping in the sun, fat as a tick.

I asked about his dad.

He was OK, he said. The two of them pretty much had it worked out where they stayed out of each other’s way. Especially now.

I gathered an armful of leaves in a loose hug and walked to the chicken-wire cage standing in the shade and threw them in the fire.

“Why’s that?” I said.

“Pissed about the X-ray, I guess.”

“You got the X-ray?”

“Sure.”

“When?”

He stopped raking, looked at me. “I don’t know—couple days ago. Why?”

“No reason—just Karen said your side hurt, that’s all.”

He handed over the rake, picked up a pile. “Yeah, you know. But hey, check it out,” he said, turning his face left and right like a man in a shaving commercial—“lookin’ better, right?”

“Fuckin’ Joe Namath.”

“See? All good.”

I took off my jacket, threw it on the fence. There was no wind. The smoke rose straight up, thinning out.

“God, I love that smell,” he said, dumping a bunch of leaves in the cage.

I
TRIED AGAIN.
It was always the same. He told me everything—about the Mexican guy, something Calderon, who put him down, about how he’d realized he was in trouble but figured he could snake his way out of it, about the look on his dad’s face when he came home. Lucky for him the old man had his own shit to deal with—a week before he’d broken two fingers busting up a fight, had to wipe his ass left-handed.

“Your old man had to bust up a fight?”

“Regular family of brawlers, what can I tell ya? Not what you’d call your upstanding citizens.”

We were sitting on the steps of the porch in the weak sun. Ray was picking shit out of the treads of his boot with a twig. Somewhere up the street somebody choked off a lawn mower—the last mow of the season. The bugs had died with the frost.

He pulled his boot closer. “I hate these squares,” he said, flicking a spot of shit into the bushes.

“You were lucky,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s me—Mr. Lucky.” Anyway, he was done with it, he said—he’d promised. He was studying for his license—the car was almost ready. Karen was giving him driving lessons.