Honor and Duty (13 page)

Momma looked down. “Mrs. Hall, she died last winter. Sippy, he’s
fine.
Sweeps up at the church. Name’s now Deloitte. He from ‘Sippi, but he pretends now to be Louisiana folk. Like you passin’ for a colored, his tryin’ to be uptown N’Orlins. Sippy says that Mr. Suds died and went to Kingdom Come. Deloitte is here to work for the Lord. He’s done with fightin’ the bottle. Sleeps in the church with the good Lord, who always forgave him his bad smell.”

She rubbed her hands together, making a rasping noise between her palms, getting ready to say something. “Toos helped me take care of Mrs. Hall. Right painful for him.” She put her head down, and then started to stand. I helped her. “You as strong as Toos! Dang, chile—you got rocks in your arm! Look how tall you are! Time’s surely passin’.”

She squinted off toward the park. Petrini Plaza was doing business putting the hurt on Mrs. Timm’s failing Reliance Market a block away. UC Hospital sat off on Parnassus Hill.

The nurse who had defined for me the two nations of America had come from UC Hospital. In the thicket of the park, a thug had beaten and raped her, taking one eye and her peace.

Toos and I had stood on Fell and watched a magical army of never-before-seen City workers clearing trees and bushes from the Panhandle at Baker Street. “How come?” I asked Toos.

“Nurse lady from the hospital got hurt in there.”

“Folk get cut in there evera night,” I said.

“They ain’t white,” he said.

When we came back from school, the crews had reached Shrader Street. The tall eucalyptuses and pines of our forbidden forest, the divider between the kid gangs of the ’Handle and the Haight, were gone. The axes fell into living wood, and saws toppled trees; and suddenly now, this place where so many had been killed and hurt at night was open and almost indecently naked. It was then I noticed the hate in the white
workers’ eyes as they surveyed us, looking at us, muttering and swinging angry axes.

“Mrs. Hall,” said Momma LaRue, “would’ve loved to see your face before she passed on to the Maker. Mrs. Hall missed you.

“Listen, sweetnin’, this is Momma talkin’. Ain’t right, driftin’ in an’ out of people’s lives. Some men are that way but you got to be
different.
I know you lost your momma and your daddy works hard, but you are not trash.” She looked at me, and I felt hollow, and bad. She poked me with an iron finger to drive the point deeper.

“I’m sorry. I can’t believe she’s dead. She was so
tough.
She used to wear those old, men’s shoes without the laces, walking with those sticks.” I was not comfortable thinking about her, a dead woman who had cared for me. “Glad for Sippy.”

“Deloitte,” she said. “You say hello to him. He’s one of the folk who asks after you. Wouldn’t be right, you visitin’ me and not him.” She smiled. “You know, there was some who never took a cotton to you. But not him. He
always
said you were special.”

I nodded. Sippy Suds. I liked him when I was little, charmed by his unrated pro-welterweight past, warmed by his acceptance of me. But as I grew older I saw him more clearly: he was a smelly old drunk who messed his own pants and couldn’t walk a straight line for a free drink. But Toos had always liked him.

Toos was in L.A. I had to see him. I couldn’t
not
see him.

“I know you tryin’ ta speak. No need. I know your feelin’s, and it warms my heart. Just hold on to
all
those good feelin’s. Now don’ drift away. You hear me? Now, ’nuff scoldin’ you. You’ve grown so! Put your young man’s arms around me, and give Momma a
big
hug.”

We embraced, and I moaned as she rubbed my back.

“You’d best write, Kai. Don’ drift out on us. Promise me now.”

“I do,” I said, not wanting to leave, not even for West Point.

I watched him on the bench. I had been his least promising pupil. But he had never told me to take a hike, to jump in a lake, to take a flying leap. Now I was leaving him, and I didn’t know how to do it. I tried to say hello, but couldn’t. I tried again.

“Hi, Tony.”

“Pass yur duties ta Johnny Moore?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

Johnny was the next president of the Junior Leaders. He would assign Leaders to the Y classes. The hard part was training my replacement in the men’s locker room. The new guy fumbled with the register, forgot members’ names and habits. I felt bad leaving Leroy and the counter. It was my job, and now I was leaving.

“Kid, gimme a spot. Gettin’ old and it’s pissin’ me off.”

He had six 45-pound Yorks and two quarter plates on a standard bar—365 pounds. Tony believed that any normal person should bench a pound for every day of the year.

The bald spot was growing in the middle of a jet-black scalp. The thick muscles forced between his big frame corded while he steadily pressed the bar. Fourteen years out of the ring, he was still 225 pounds of gristle and bone graced by a relentless beard and enough body hair for twenty of me. I grimaced as he exhaled bitter
bagnacauda
fumes from his lunch. He did ten reps without help, banged down the bar, and sat up. “Yur leavin’. Well, shit, kid.” He looked down.

“Gee, Tony, thanks for the good word.”

“ ’Member what I told you, ’bout war?”

“I know it’s hard,” I said.

“
Hard?
Hey, it’s fuckin’
impossible
, ’scuse my French. It don’ mean spit ta study it. And it don’ mean spit there ain’t no war
now
, cuz there’s always a friggin’ war
later.
Know what I mean?”

I frowned. This is not what I wanted from him.

“Look, kid. Ya never wanted to hear this.” He drew his forearm across his nose while flexing his nasal passages. He was squinting.

“Excuse me, are you using that bench?” asked a new member.

“Yeah, I’m usin’ it ta sit,” said Tony without looking up. “Ya got skills but ya ain’t a fighter. Toe ta toe with a fighter, yur screwed twelve outa ten. And
shit
—it’s all my goddamm fault.”

“Whaddya mean?” I asked. “I help teach it!”

“Aw, shit, kid. Yur a good coach, patient as a dead man. Not sayin’ this ta bust yur bones. Tryin’ ta tell ya who ya are. Ya got no taste fer blood. I know why ya get inna ring,” he said, his face twisted. “Ya get in there fer me. The Science saved yur skinny butt ten years ago, when that bully come inta yur life. Now the ring’s yur church. Me, I’m the fuckin’ priest,
’scuse my French. ’Cept I ain’t a goddamm peacemaker. Shit, kid. You are.”

“I’m as good as anyone in the program.” My voice was high.

“Tito put the big hurt on ya. Ya missed the finals. Wills made ya look bad. They ain’t blind like youse an’ they ain’t got no
relations
and no funny-lookin’ pencil-neck Chinese
uncles
draggin’ on their gloves, givin’ ’em the tsk-tsk shit fer the Duke’s rules! Tito, he’d knock out his gramma ta get another fight! Shit! You fight, ya gotta go bow ta yur uncle an’ mumble Chinese rosaries.” He snorted. “Ya got try. But yur family crap’s bigger ’n yur try.”

“But you taught me that
trying’s
bigger than winning!” I shouted. Others stared.

“Yeah, an’ ’at’s the flat truth. Lookit ya! Ya got a body! Ya got good arms and a man’s chest! Ya look like a fuckin’ piece a work! Ya got
great
try, great heart! But shit, ya started with
nothin’
.… Aw, shit, fergit it. I’m only makin’ it worse.” He looked down at his black gym shoes, moving his mouth silently. He was practicing a speech. He looked up, the smaller, left eye glinting, the larger one flat and lizardlike, the scar tissue livid in the dull light from the grated windows. Tony smelled of effort and garlic. A cabbie leaned on his horn, six floors down, making other cars honk back while pigeons took flight in a clatter of wings.

“Don’ know nothin’ ’bout West Point. Don’ even know where the hell it is. But it makes officers, which, ya ask me, are all turds.

“West Point’s prob’ly like the Corps. Marines, they like
killers.
Kid, you could do it. Lotsa kids can do it. But it’d be ugly fer ya. Lookit me. I came from bad youth, Hell’s Kitchen, fuckin’ bottom drawer, fulla sin, foul mouth, killed the Nips and screwed lots—aw, shit.” He shook his big, rocklike head. “None a that helped me with Clara or my boy.” He snorted, blew his nose on the old floor behind the bench. He had said too much. “Kid. Yur like yur Uncle Shingus.” He paused. “I’m hurtin’ yur feelin’s.”

“No,” I said, my voice barely audible.

“Kid, ya don’ wanna be an old, achin’, busted-down, soft-eared, bad-mouthed
bum
, livin’ in a hotel eatin’ goop from a can. Couldn’t even keep my goddamn dog alive. Ya wanna be a smart college man with a tie and a hat, a car and money in the bank, like yur Uncle Shingus, or yur dad. Meals. A roof. A future.”

That was not true. “I want to be like you,” I said.

“Oh, hell, like
crap
you do!” he bellowed. Men began to move away. “Ya gimme
porca miseria
, pig pain in my heart, talkin’ like that! Ya don’ like garlic sausage, ya spit out the best
bagnacauda
in North Beach, ya can’t play bocce ball ta save the Virgin Mary, an’ ya ain’t true Catholic even when ya show off my rosary an’ recite yur damn venal sins. Ya don’ cross yurself ’fore a bout or thank the goddammed Lord fer a stinkin’ meal, ya don’ give crap to yur patron saint, an’ ya don’ speak paisan excep’ fer the
‘Che fai.’
An’ ya got too many brains in yur headgear ta be a good fighter. So
fergit it.
Ya gonna stand there lookin’ pretty, or ya gonna work out?!”

“I—I just wanted to say goodbye. And hear your good word.”

He put out his huge, calloused mitt. His hand felt like an old piece of cold concrete with a leather cover. “Okay, great.”

I shook his hand with great emotion, making his big shoulder bounce. His fingers had lost feeling two decades ago. I did the gripping for both of us. I didn’t want to let go of him.

“Okay, kid. Here’s my goddamm good word. Put two more quarters on. Goin’ fer fifteen reps with four-fifteen—and fer Christ’s sake, don’ make no faces when I blow out my air.

“Goddammed peacemaker. Shit—can’t even
tell
you how pissed I’m gonna be if you get killed in some shitface war. Now, help me with this stinkin’ bar an’ don’ forget ta take my rosary with ya.”

8

Central Area, West Point, July 1, 1964

I rummaged for grub and there was none. Tony used to eat food out of the can in his hotel room, and I continued to envy him.

“Got more uniforms,” said big Pee Wee slowly. “Think
they’re multiplying.” I expected him to chuckle “Uh-huuh,” like Goofy.

“At least someone’s having fun,” said Clint Bestier.

I didn’t get it. Then I did, and giggled. “ ‘Multiplying.’ ”

“Need a shower,” said Stew Mersey. “I’m, like, ripe.”

He was. “Anyone see any food?” I drank more water.

“Wouldn’t do that,” said Bestier. “You’re going to have to use the latrine. Latrine’s in the sinks.”

I looked at our sink, puzzled. I wouldn’t go in there.

“Sinks. Five floors down. Latrines are in the basement, where we stowed gym gear about four hours ago.” It seemed like last year.

There was a mass of insanely deranged, screaming upperclassmen between my bladder and the sinks. I could wait, maybe a year.

“Not going to be any food until Christmas,” said Bestier.

I made a deep, squealing noise. “Hey—someone said we wouldn’t eat for the
summer
.” I was whining.

“Beast’s the worst,” he said. “We’ll get a little food in the fall.” I closed my mouth; no nutrition was going to enter it. Dinner had been an encore of lunch: moving food into milk cartons while testing the bouquet of water and savoring salt tablets.

“I could eat the tail off a hobbyhorse,” said Pee Wee. I saw Mersey look at Bestier, secretly laughing at Pee Wee’s funny voice. I didn’t like him doing that.

“Won’t we get rickets or scurvy?” I asked, hoping that a medical justification might spontaneously create grits. I thought of Angle’s burgers and cold vanilla shakes with ice in the bottom.

“Where you guys from?” Bestier asked.

“Escanaba, Upper Peninsula, Michigan,” said Mersey.

“San Francisco,” I said.

“Washington, D.C.,” said McCloud methodically. “You?”

“Fort Huachuca, Arizona,” said Bestier. “I’m an Army brat. Dad’s been prepping me for Beast and Plebe year since I was five.” He smiled, dimples deepening. “I knew what would happen today.”

The door exploded in a colossal crash as someone struck, opened, and bashed it into the wall. We hopped like the Four Stooges being goosed by cattle prods. The heavy door vibrated from its battering as Bestier shouted, “ROOM, ATTEN-HUT!”
and braced, quivering at attention, eyes straight ahead. We followed suit.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOOWILLIES TALKING ABOUT?!” screamed Mr. Spillaney. My mind fumbled as I tried to form an answer. I couldn’t remember. He looked angry. I wondered if he had been born that way.

He turned his back to us, facing our open door. “LOOK AT THIS LOCKER! EQUIPMENT’S IMPROPERLY DISPLAYED!” he bellowed. He turned into the room, took three giant steps like a fearsome hulk in a torture chamber, his eyes glaring like headlights in a big truck, and seized Bestier’s locker. He jerked it, shotgunning its carefully folded contents and throwing the locker down face first. It crashed horribly, like a living thing, in a great metallic boom. He turned to the door. Mersey closed his eyes, the horror too great. My eyes bulged with fear. That locker could have been us.