The Poison Tree (8 page)

Rain was coming down in sheets now, and I could barely see. Someone else finally shouted we should stop, which was fine with me, as long as it wasn't me who initiated the stoppage. But, as we gathered our bats and balls and started to leave, the gang of kids slowly surrounded us. Then their leader, pulling a switchblade, told us to hand over all our money, bats, balls, and gloves. There was mild protest by Georgie Zeitlin, who was overweight but strong. He could even do an imitation of Antonino Rocca's airplane spin with Ephraim aloft on his shoulders, no less. And he loved to emulate Killer Kowalski's dreaded “claw hold” by taking his hand and plunging it into your guts until you “gave,” or were reduced to a puddle of tears. But even Georgie turned over his money, and of course, the rest of us complied as well. The
leader of the gang told us his terrier, still trying to snap up every last raindrop, had rabies and that a bite from her would be fatal.

As we left the park, our spirits significantly dampened in body and spirit, the gang pursued us at a dead run, shouting for us to stop. Of course we didn't stop. But their leader shouted, “Hey man, wait! I said, wait up!” So we did. We were standing on 67th and Central Park West now, and it was still raining like hell with no police in sight. These kids had taken our money, our equipment, and our pride. What more could they want?

“What the hell! You guys just robbed us,” Ephraim said as their pimply leader strode up, six inches from his face. The boy was about our age, but he had the beginnings of a growth of dark moustache on his upper lip, which he licked menacingly as he spoke.

“Yeah, man. We're giving it back.”

“Why?” I asked stupidly. Ephraim gave me a dirty look.

The leader pushed his hands through his dripping hair, walked up to me, and held me with two hands by my shirt: “You wanna make somethin' of it, man?”

“No,” I said.

“But why are you giving it back?” Richie said. Richie later won points for bravery by informing us he had five bucks secretly hidden in his high-top Converse sneakers. He would never give that up; they'd have to kill him first.

“We were just practicing,” the gang leader said. “Here—take it all back!”

He gave us back our money, along with our bats, balls, and equipment. In a matter of moments, they mysteriously vanished back into the park. We had our money back, which was good. But somehow it felt even more humiliating to be victimized as part of a dress rehearsal. I wondered how I would tell my parents, especially my father. I decided not to.

I chose to confide instead to Margaret, our maid. It was safe to tell Margaret things, because no one spoke to her, and she said nothing to anyone. She really was quite surly. On weekends, however, when my parents went out (they did socialize then, and even went dancing for a few years), Margaret turned into a different person. She made me chocolate fudge, which she
served in little paper baking cups with scalloped edges. I noticed she liked watching me eat the fudge. As I ate and watched TV, I saw her look toward me and almost smile. I pretended not to see, and continued eating fudge, and drinking my milk out of a special Welch's grape jelly glass. When my parents were out of the house, Margaret sometimes even spoke to me. She was almost friendly. When my parents were around, however, she was always sullen, and never spoke to anyone—not even me.

Margaret lived in an indescribable and smelly alcove we called “The Maid's Room.” It was located off the kitchen, near the service entrance where we took out the trash. Margaret's room was adjacent to where Blackie, our Cocker Spaniel, was tethered day and night, so her room smelled exactly like the urine-soaked newspaper, where Blackie, in Grandma Schvey's memorable phrase, “did his business.” I wasn't supposed to ever enter the Maid's Room, and its door was always closed, so I hardly saw it. However, its distinctive odor—socks, puppy urine, shit, damp newsprint—meant that I did
smell
it. Its stench enveloped everything in that part of the house, including the kitchen.

Margaret's skin was nearly translucent. If you looked closely, you could trace a faint highway of blue veins and arteries crawling underneath her skin. In all the years she was with us, I never once saw her take one bite of anything. She never seemed to be hungry, but she always looked malnourished. You could actually see her delicate collarbones jut out above the top button of her uniform. Her uniform's whiteness only emphasized how unhealthy and sallow her skin looked by contrast.

Except for my father's closet and chest of drawers, the rest of our house was unkempt and filled with heaps of dirty laundry and Mayflower Van Lines boxes. We had moved to 86th and Madison from the apartment at 440 Riverside Drive near Columbia University four years earlier, but the moving boxes remained untouched. When my father asked Mom to get those goddamn boxes emptied and out of the house, her reply was simply, “We've only just moved in, Norman. Besides, how can anyone be expected to keep house with only one maid?” My father had no riposte; he walked away cursing my mother's family, and poured himself a large J&B and soda.

Margaret was a live-in maid in theory, but not in practice. As a “stranger,” my mother forbade her access to their bedroom. A stranger could not be
trusted to set foot there, let alone clean it. In an emergency, she might iron my father's tennis shorts, but that was basically it. So, Margaret didn't exist as a maid who cooked, cleaned, or did laundry; she was more of a virtual maid proclaiming to the outside world that we, like others of our class, had one. Even though we didn't.

Although Margaret served no practical purpose, she was crucially important to me. After my brother was sent to bed, Margaret and I would sit together. During the fudge making, she was all concentration, but once I sat down in front of the television with a glass of milk and fudge, we got along well. I'd make her watch old horror movies with me, movies like
Plan 9 from Outerspace
or
The Werewolf
, which Margaret hated and loved, and watched with her tiny fists clenched over her eyes like a baby. Her body actually shook when something terrible happened in the movie, allowing me to feel like her protector. I really enjoyed seeing how frightened she was, since even I knew it was only a horror movie.

Once, I persuaded her to watch me curl an old pair of dumbbells I found in the alley outside our apartment building. The dumbbells were gold colored, but the gold paint had mostly chipped off and they smelled like rust. I didn't want either of my parents to see them—I didn't let my mother know because they were literally picked out of the garbage, and even though our own apartment was full of what might be called rubbish, she would have been furious if she knew I had brought something like that home. I didn't want my father to see them because I didn't want him to know that I wanted to lift weights and become strong, much stronger than he was. Then, I thought, he wouldn't dare comment on how skinny I was or mockingly call me “Muscles” when we changed before we played tennis. So my dumbbells became a shameful secret. Somehow the fact that the dumbbells were both filthy and secret made them more precious: they were real ten-pound dumbbells, just like Charles Atlas probably used. I hid them beneath my bed, and only used them when I was alone. I could have asked for a set of weights for Christmas, I guess, but it never occurred to me. Asking for them would only prove I needed them, that I was a weakling. Once I saw a picture in the
National Enquirer
of Bronco Nagurski, a pro football star from the 1940s. Bronco was just standing there, smiling. And, perched on his upraised hand—his wife! There she was, legs crossed casually, sitting like
a tiny queen, just talking to her husband. Even Dad couldn't do this! So, my plan was to become so powerful that I could hold a real live woman in the palm of my hand. I would talk to her, watch TV with her, or have her get me a Coke, and there she would be, right in my palm, whenever I needed her. I knew it would take many years to get that strong; until then, I would practice with Margaret when my parents were out of the house.

After curling my dumbbells six times for three sets with each arm, I asked Margaret to feel my bicep. She touched my skinny arm very tentatively, with the yellow tip of one skinny, tobacco-stained index finger. A few weeks after that, I asked if I could show her how strong I had now become. After considerable persuasion, she allowed me to try and lift her up in my arms. First, I raised her by her bony hips, and managed to hold her in the air for a few seconds. Despite her tiny size, I had to struggle to lift her without dropping her. As I held her in my arms, I smelled the foul odor of the Maid's Room, which clung to her uniform. But I didn't mind. This became a weekly ritual for us, and in time, I grew to love that filthy smell. Once I dropped Margaret, and she lay there on our dining room floor for one awful moment before I helped her to her feet. She brushed off her uniform and practically crawled back to her room. It was as though the world had stopped rotating for one horrible moment. I felt terrible, principally because I felt sure Margaret would never let me lift her again.

Then I wondered if she would inform my parents about what I had been doing with her in secret? I felt that there was something terribly private about what we were doing, something dirty even. Would she tell my father about our secret life together? Or reveal the two rusty dumbbells hidden under my bed? If she had broken an arm, it would all come out. Even Blackie, who was leashed to the kitchen doorknob all day, and never allowed freedom around the house, whimpered and strained to see what the matter was.

Standing outside her door, I shouted, “Margaret! I'm very sorry.” I added, “I'll make it up to you … I'll make you fudge!”

Eventually, Margaret emerged with something close to a smile, the first and only one I ever saw. I kept my promise and never dropped her again. With practice, I was eventually able to lift her quite easily and parade her around the living room. When I did this, Margaret, who when my parents
were around was a virtual mute with a sullen air, transformed into a giggly Irish schoolgirl with a crush.

“O, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but the lad is strong! How does he do it—how? Feel that arm, will ya'? How can he carry such a heavy load as meself? And how old are you now?”

“I'm eleven, Margaret,” I announced proudly, trying to prevent her from noticing the peculiar wet stain near the fly of my pajamas.

“Strong as an ox is he! Let me feel that muscle.” And I'd lift her again, and while I held her aloft, she'd press her fingers down on my skinny arm, following the slight curve of the bicep. Again that funny, indescribable tickling feeling came upon me, after which I had to suddenly set her down.

Before too many months had passed, I could carry Margaret in a single arm, as she quietly moaned and ruffled my hair with her fingers. “My Gawd, he did it! Look at him; look at what he did with just a single arm! Put me down, oh, please put me down now!” But I didn't put her down, and I knew she didn't want me to.

When I finally set her down as gently as possible on the couch, we both collapsed red-faced and sweating in front of the TV, my little circumcised dart of a penis struggling to free itself. What did that mean? I didn't have any idea, and Margaret either didn't notice, or pretended not to. Afterwards, Margaret brought me fudge and cold milk. She never ate with me, of course, but I did notice she watched me chew and swallow every bite. I wondered if Margaret had children back in Ireland, but never asked. After I had eaten my fill and could walk again, I brought her my Dad's cigarette box with the Empire State Building printed on it, and she took a single one of his Kents and poured herself a thimble-full of J&B with no ice. Afterwards, she took the glass and my father's Stork Club ashtray, and washed and replaced them both exactly where they had been. When my parents returned from their party or dancing, Margaret limped back to the fetid Maid's Room and turned back into her sad, mute, surly self again.

Although she never used her Master's in Education from Columbia to teach, my mother was always interested in childhood education, especially
what she called “The Gifted.” Obviously, she claimed that my brother and I were gifted, and read us stories from Dickens and Shakespeare at a very early age. She exaggerated our every accomplishment, however pedestrian. In time, she believed her own hyperboles, including a story that, upon seeing
Peter Pan
I speculated aloud whether Tinker Bell would be represented by an actor or just a beam of light. Or that when I had my I.Q. tested, I asked the administrator why she had dumped out the pile of blocks if all she wanted me to do was put them back. Most impressive of all, she insisted to everyone that I had miraculously toilet-trained myself at six months, and brooked no contradiction or discussion on this crucial point.

She even took me to audition for
The Quiz Kids
television program as a child. Although I was eliminated in the second round of auditions and never appeared on the program, my mother told people it was because the interviewer didn't understand the word “paleontologist,” which is what I had told them I wanted to be when I grew up. The ignoramus, she said, kept me off the show out of spite. Over time, she embellished the story so much that she said I actually
did
make an appearance and would have won thousands had the host realized that my claim that diplodocus—not brontosaurus—was the largest dinosaur was indeed accurate. I listened to Mom explain this to her friends, claiming that because the diplodocus was the
longer
dinosaur, I was justified in my answer even though brontosaurus was the heavier of the two. Of course, the moderator was simply too ill informed to know about this distinction between diplodocus and brontosaurus. For this reason, I had been unfairly cheated out of the fame and fortune which were rightfully mine.

I was present when she unfurled the story of my magnificence to Dr. Florence Brumbaugh, then principal of the Hunter College Elementary School, and author of several books on gifted children. She insisted I skip first grade, claiming I was reading at a third grade level. Since my mother had actually graduated high school by the age of fourteen, it was hardly surprising to her that I must skip a grade as well. The point of insisting on my supposed gifts was, of course, to shed light on her own. Perhaps we are all guilty of this—often to the detriment of our children. In my case, however, since I never believed in my own “giftedness,” her assertions had the strangely perverse result of making me want to fail.