The Laments (27 page)

IT WAS ON THE ADVICE
of Frieda Grecco, the quiet woman in Julia’s Thursday group, that Julia took a preparatory course for the New Jersey real estate exam.

“If my husband can do it, you
definitely
can,” said Frieda. Her husband sold commercial property in Trenton. Business hadn’t been good for twenty-five years, but he scraped along, selling factory space and storefront property in West Trenton to a seemingly endless parade of hopeful entrepreneurs.

“Take the course
with
me, Frieda,” said Julia.

“Oh no, I’m a cook. Besides, Stevie would
kill
me!” whispered Frieda. “He’s
very
competitive.”

Steve Grecco had once threatened a butcher because he gave Frieda a discount on sweet sausage. It amused Julia just to imagine Howard doing such a thing.

When the course was over, Howard drove Julia to the real estate exam. “I’m sure you’ll do extremely well,” he said.

“I hope so,” said Julia. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken any sort of test.”

“Nonsense, darling. There is nothing you can’t do,” said Howard as she climbed out of the car. He shot her his rallying smile, the one that reminded her of Buck Quinn’s barbecue, when the subject of America first came up. America, where blacks had equal rights and the trains ran on time, except that there were no blacks in University Hills, and everybody preferred to drive.

JULIA PASSED WITH HIGH MARKS
; the family celebrated with a roasted chicken and a toast to her success. Then she asked Howard to help her prepare a résumé.

He looked surprised. “You mean you’re actually going to look for a job?”

“Well, of course,” she replied. “Otherwise, why take the exam?”

“I thought you did it for the challenge. It’s just a matter of time before I get another position, darling.”

“Now look, Howard,” said Julia, “remember our agreement? I gave up a job to come to America. You even said—”

“Of
course
I did, darling,” he said hastily. “You should go ahead and seize the opportunity!” Then he fell silent.

Julia was surprised. She had expected one of her husband’s overconfident assurances, but he seemed to lack the energy for this. His face resumed the vulnerable cast it had worn since Marcus’s accident.

That night, Howard lay awake thinking that he’d give Julia one day to realize what a bore it was to go to a job. One day. She’d see. Then they’d be in the same boat. Disgusted. Disgusted with the whole system. Then he gasped, realizing the degree of disenchantment he felt. He didn’t want a job. Not here. He needed to begin again, somewhere else.

“
GOT ANY SOAP, MUM?
” said Marcus.

“Soap?” Julia said. “One of my sons wants soap?”

“Two or three bars, if you have them,” replied Julius.

“It’s Tic-Tac Night,” explained Marcus.

“What’s that? Oh, let me guess—a night when all the filthier children in the neighborhood decide to give their parents heart attacks by washing themselves spotless?”

“No, it’s Mischief Night,” said Julius. “You play tricks on your neighbors. Soap up their windows, throw toilet paper on the trees.”

“Well,” said Julia, “I’m delighted that my children won’t be doing nasty things like that.”

A chorus of groans answered her.

“Because my children aren’t
savage heathens,
” she concluded.

Shortly after dinner, Will was caught slipping casually out the door.

“Just a minute! Where are
you
going?” asked his mother.

“Nowhere,” said Will.

“Well, where did the
soap
go that was in the bathroom?”

“I dunno,” said Will.

“Where are the twins?”

Will shrugged helplessly. All he wanted to do was meet Marina in the ferns.

“I want you at home,” snapped Julia.

“But, Mum . . .”

“Don’t argue. I’m going to look for the twins before they get arrested. Stay here with your father.”

“Where is he?”

“In the basement fixing a leak. Why don’t you see if you can help him?”

The door slammed, and Will heard footsteps so sharp they might have punctured the concrete path outside. There was a strong wind that night; the withered maple in the front yard was lashing one of the pillars. When the phone rang, Will hoped it was Marina.

“Hello?”

There was a pause. “Your mom there?”

“No, Scabby, she’s not,” replied Will testily.

“I gotta talk to her.”

“Can’t it wait until Saturday?”

“Look, I’m calling because
they’re going to get your house tonight,
” said Scabby.

“Who?”

“You know. Ever since your mom put up that flag, they’ve been planning this.”

“You little creep,” said Will. “It was probably all
your
idea!” He slammed down the phone.

The phone rang again.

“It wasn’t me,” insisted Scabby. “I swear! That’s why I’m calling to warn you. They’re going to—”

“All right,” Will snapped, and he hung up before the impulse to thank Scabby for his trouble struck him.

IN THE DIM WATTAGE
of the basement, he found his father on hands and knees, grunting as he scrubbed at the floor with a steel brush. The odd thing was that Howard was wearing his business suit.

“Dad?”

“A sinking foundation, cracked floor, mold—this damn house was built by a thief,” Howard muttered. His ginger hair was splayed over his temples, his tie hung to the floor, his expression was rigid, the lines in his high forehead exaggerated by his effort. Will had never seen Howard quite so angry over something so odd. Still, he explained Scabby’s warning call.

“Attack our house? That’s ridiculous,” said Howard.

“It
is
Mischief Night, Dad.”

“Ow!” shouted Howard, scraping his knuckles on the cinder block. Cursing, he threw the wire brush across the floor and sat with his legs out in front of him, like a toddler exhausted by a temper fit. Will reexamined his father’s attire—the pin-striped suit and black leather shoes. The suit was stained with rusty smudges and the shoes were scuffed. These were his father’s best clothes.

“Are you all right, Dad?”

“No,” his father replied. “I cut my bloody hand. Hurts like hell,” he added.

“Why don’t you come upstairs?” suggested Will gently.

Howard drew his knees up to his chest and clutched his temples. “Your mother wants to get a job, Will. She’s going to find out that it’s no picnic. And I’m speaking from experience. Lots of experience.”

Will spoke to his father slowly and clearly. “Dad, somebody’s about to attack our house!”

Then the doorbell rang. Sucking at his bleeding knuckles, Howard began to curse again.

Will walked back upstairs, alone.

When he opened the door, he saw five figures standing in the front yard, dressed in dark blue hooded sweatshirts, wearing identical masks. He faced five Nixons; five receding hairlines; five ski-jump noses.

“Trick or treat!”

“What do you want?” replied Will.

“Trick or treat!” they repeated.

Will made out more Nixons in the dark—some holding white bars of soap and rolls of toilet paper and cans of shaving cream. He felt his knee bobbing; fear always announced itself in his extremities.

“Halloween’s tomorrow!” Will shouted. “Go away!”

The figures laughed, and some jeers erupted on the periphery. The Nixons stepped forward en masse, their plastic faces shiny beneath the amber streetlight.

“It’s a free country,” replied one Nixon.

“If you don’t like it, go back to England!” shouted another.

Now both of Will’s knees were bobbing uncontrollably. More than twenty Nixons had converged on the curb. A particularly aggressive Nixon threw a roll of toilet paper over Will’s head. He watched the roll bounce on the roof and unravel, down the incline, tripping on the gutter, dropping to the lawn, where, seized by a restless breeze, it wrapped itself around Will’s legs.

“Stop it!” Will shouted, as the emboldened group began throwing more rolls at the roof.

A dark figure ran behind him and disappeared around the side of the house. Will stood paralyzed on the lawn, unable to retreat or charge. How could he defend his house with his father huddled in the basement, his mother roaming the neighborhood, and the twins on their own rampage?

Another roll of toilet paper missed the roof and landed at Will’s feet. He picked it up and hurled it at the closest Nixon, hitting him square in the face.

There was a muffled groan.

“Goddammit, Lament!” said a voice that sounded like Vinnie Imperatore.

Another Nixon had been tossing a baseball from one hand to the other; it seemed to grow into a hot coal as he palmed it back and forth until, finally, he wound up and lobbed it at Marcus’s window, shattering the glass.

“I’m calling the police!” Will shouted.

This seemed to give the Nixons pause; then somebody in the back laughed.

“Go ahead, call ’em!”

Will tried to summon up enough fury to replace his terror, but he could only hear the brassy laugh of the Midnight Chinaman. This attack had a sick logic: the Laments were strangers, they’d flown their own flag and challenged the Founding Fathers. Then it disgusted him that he was in sympathy with his tormentors.

Suddenly a jet of water shot across the grass, blasting a Nixon mask off Wally Finch’s jowly face, and he stood, sputtering, drenched from head to foot.

Will turned to see a man squatting by the house, wearing a suit, a tie flapping over his shoulder. Howard aimed the hose at the next marauder and proceeded to douse one Nixon after another.

Unable to breathe through the ski-jump nose holes, they pulled off their masks—first the Gallagher boys, then Vinnie—and retreated hastily into the darkness as the torrent pursued them.

“Little buggers,” murmured Howard as he turned off the water.

Will stared after the fleeting figures. “I hate being different.”

Howard might have reacted defensively, for this was a fairly potent condemnation of their travels. Instead he replied, “But you
are
different! You are a Lament, and Laments go their own way. A Lament would never act like
that
.”

He nodded in the direction of their tormentors.

“A mindless mob of hooligans. You’d think a country full of refugees from persecution would know better than to act that way.”

With that, Howard pulled his tie loose, stuffed it in the pocket of his ruined suit, and stamped back into the house. Will hesitated, struck by his father’s metamorphosis from the troubled soul scrubbing the basement floor to the hero on the lawn. He took a last breath of the cool evening air and hoped the madness of the evening was over.

JULIA CAUGHT THE TWINS
outside their school soaping obscenities onto their classroom windows. Not fully content with this, they began composing limericks about their teachers—there once was a teacher named Decker, who limped from the weight of his pecker—and proudly signing their names after them.

“You silly fools!” cried Julia, hurriedly rubbing out their signatures.

“But they’re funny!” argued Marcus.

“Then write them on paper, like normal poets!” she grunted as she hauled them home.

HALLOWEEN NIGHT WAS A MUTED AFFAIR
. Most children avoided the Laments’ house, for the garden-hose story had spread like wildfire. Nevertheless, the twins were determined to collect candy from every house in the neighborhood. Marcus dressed as a pirate with an eye patch and a beard; Howard fashioned a gnarled hook for his prosthesis.

“I’ve got the only
real
hook!” declared Marcus.

At the last minute, Julius decided not to be a pirate.

“Why not?” asked Marcus.

“We can’t be the same anymore,” replied Julius with a forlorn look. Though the twins hadn’t resembled each other after toddlerhood, they had felt like physical equals until the accident. Now Julius couldn’t challenge his brother to climb or to swing from a rope anymore. The accident had changed that. He was angered by the probing eyes of strangers and by the inordinate share of sympathy and morbid curiosity Marcus received.

“Why don’t you be Julius Caesar?” suggested his mother.

Julius didn’t take to the idea until Howard suggested he dress as the
assassinated
Julius Caesar. This delighted him; he ventured forth with six kitchen knives sticking through the folds of his toga into a board strapped to his chest.

Nobody recognized the twins until they saw Marcus’s hook. Abby Gallagher threw up when he appeared at her door. This made the whole evening worthwhile.

Everything Will Be All Right

The Laments’ second winter in America began with a stunning November blizzard that issued flakes the size of pennies, and, by morning, rendered University Hills as placid and pretty as a pastry-shop window. It was more snow than the boys had ever seen in their lives.

The twins raced out in their pajamas and built snowmen until their bare feet and hands were glowing. The car wouldn’t turn over. School was canceled. When the mail finally arrived at four in the afternoon, there were two important letters, one addressed to Julia, the other to Howard.

“Darling,” said Howard at bedtime, “I have wonderful news!”

“Oh good. So do I, darling!” replied Julia. “You first.”

“Well,” said Howard, “I’ve decided that Australia is the place for us.”

Julia paused. “Australia?”

“Yes. The climate is glorious. Everybody speaks English, and there are lots of job possibilities.”

“Howard,” replied Julia, “do you
have
a job offer in hand?”

“Well, not yet. But I’m sure—”

Julia held up her letter. “Well, I do have an offer. A position at a real estate office.”

Howard sighed. “Darling, that’s marvelous news, but this envelope contains my last check. We simply can’t afford the mortgage on this house. That’s a fact.”

“Then we’ll just have to find a house we
can
afford, Howard, because I’m not going to Australia.”

With that, Julia gave Howard one of the more tepid kisses of their marriage, and turned over. And neither of them slept very well.