The Wanderers (12 page)

That night Despie sat at her desk doing her homework and listening to the Scott Muni Show on the radio. She couldn't figure Buddy out. She liked him and maybe would like to go steady with him in time, but he acted so goddamn weird. Maybe they shouldn't have done it so soon. She wasn't sure he could handle it. Maybe after he calmed down a little they'd have a talk. On the radio a slow piano led into a song. "O.K., gang, this is a dedication from Buddy to Despie. Listen to the words. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles doin' it to ya."

I don't lak you, but ah luh-uv you,
Seems that I'm all-way-yays thinking uv you
Though-wo-wo you treat me badly,
I love you madly,
You really got a hold on me
You really got a hold on me

Despie sat in stunned silence. The words went in one ear and out the other. The phone started ringing, and in two hours Despie got calls from six girl friends. Despie didn't think about the words of the song. It could have been "Duke of Earl" or Beethoven—it didn't matter. The only things that mattered were that Scott Muni mentioned her name over the radio and Buddy dedicated a song to her.

Buddy sat at his desk in a pool of sweat. He hoped Despie had heard the song, but he was afraid she would be mad at him for declaring the agony of his love in public. He hoped she wouldn't take offense at the "I don't like you," and he hoped she wouldn't be scared by the "but I love you." The phone rang, and he almost took a chunk out of his thigh scrambling from the desk to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Lissen, man, are you buckin' for a section eight?"

"Hey, Eugene, you heard the song?"

"Though-wo-wo you treat me cruelly, I luv you true-el-ly," he mimicked with a nasal nastiness.

"You don't like the song?"

"Man, it's a very pretty song, a delightful song, really. Lissen, you sap, if I was a chick lissenen' to that song, I would think ... man, that guy's one fuckin' rag. Look, I don't know this Despie chick, all I heard is she's nice-lookin' but man, I'm tellin' you, a chick likes to be pushed around, man, she likes a guy wit' balls not no..." He sang another nasal verse from the song. "Do you know what I'm talkin' about?"

"I dunno." Buddy got depressed listening to Eugene.

"Look, Buddy, do you wanna remain a virgin all your life?"

"Hello?"

"Buddy?"

"Despie!"

"Hi, I heard the dedication. That was really sweet."

"You liked it?"

"Yeah, that was really nice of you."

Buddy sighed from the innermost part of his soul. "So you liked it, hah?"

"Yeah. Did you talk to Scott Muni on the phone?"

"Yeah."

"Ooh! What's he like?"

"He's O.K. Do you wanna meet tomorrow after school?"

"Did he say anything about what a funny name Despie was?"

"Uh ... nah. Do you wanna meet tomorrow after school?"

"What time?"

"Four. I'll come over to your place."

"O.K. Did he say anything else to you?"

"Nah. Despie?"

"Yeah?"

"I really ... really like you."

"Me too."

"See you tomorrow."

"See you."

Luddy lay on his bed, simling at the ceiling. What the hell did Eugene know?

E
UGENE
C
APUTO
ran his dry lips over Barbara Berkowitz's unextraordinary nipples, lowered his mouth to her ribs, then her navel, and hesitated before moving on to the warning track. He waited for her hand to yank his head up, but she lay paralyzed with anticipation, so he continued down until his nostrils were stuffed with pubic hair—then lower still until his tongue tasted and his nose smelled the acrid pungence.

"Oh, Eee-yew-gene! Eee-yew-gene!"

Eugene gagged on her stench and the sound of her ecstasy. He sat up and picked a few pubies like flecks of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. "Jesus Christ, Barbara, you oughta use Right Guard down there!"

She sat up, head slightly cocked in a questioning, shocked, open-mouthed stare as if he'd said, "Your parents are dead." "What?" squeaked from her constricted throat, her eyes glistening in mortification.

"Oh shit, don't cry," he sighed.

As if to spite him she cried so hard it actually sounded like "boo-hoo."

He debated whether to console her by patting and caressing her, or to just light up a cigarette.

"Hey look, Barbara, it's perfectly normal for girls to stink down there," he said, taking a long drag and blowing a smoke ring. She arched her back and hitched up her skirt. "Besides, you ain't
that
bad. I once ate out a girl who smelled like she stuffed small dead animals up there." He laughed at the memory.

"Eugene," she said coldly, her features like four deadly straight lines, "shut your filthy mouth and take me home."

He shrugged, started the car, and pulled out into the deserted street. He drove in silence. When they reached her house she got out, slamming the door as if to make the car crumble from shock waves. Eugene winced, leaned over the shot-gun seat, and shouted out the window to her back, "Nice meeting you, Barbara. Good night."

When Eugene came home his father was still up watching television. Eugene plopped down on the couch and started undoing his tie.

"How'd it go, Ace?"

"Thirty-four," Eugene answered without taking his eyes from the set. His father smiled and lit a Marlboro. He offered one to his son from a flat silver case with A.C. initialed in swoops and swirls like Louis XIV silverware. Eugene declined, sticking one of his own Kools between his lips.

"Thirty-four, hah?" Eugene stared at the television. "When I was your age, I was up to forty-six. You're catching up." Eugene shrugged, unnecessarily cupping his hands around his father's lighter. "You want coffee?"

"Nah, I'm gonna turn in. School tomorrow."

"Later, Ace." His father tipped an invisible cap to Eugene and changed channels.

Eugene studied his face in the bathroom mirror. His complexion was soft olive—a mixture of his father's Mediterranean swarthiness and his mother's Lebanese duskiness. His hair was jet black with a blue sheen. The hairline was low and even, the hair straight, looking more manicured than cut. He examined the pores of his skin with his fingertips. No blemishes—not even a blackhead. His eyes were hooded, yet they didn't bug out like Gennaro's. They were sleepy Robert Mitchum eyes with a husky liquid color like good dark rum. His nose was narrow and straight. His lips were thin and perfectly defined by a nearly invisible slightly less olive line. He stepped back to take in the whole face—a real Michelangelo job his grandmother used to say. He massaged his face and neck with the blue soap his grandparents had sent from Spain for his birthday. Before turning in, he sat at his desk and opened his little black book to the page headed "E.B."—"Everything But." A long list of girls' names was followed by initials ranging from "D.H.T.I.C.," which stood for "Dry Humped Till I Came," to "H.J."—"Handjob," "A.O."—"Ate Out," "B.J."—"Blowjob," and "F.J."—"Foot Job." He wrote Barbara Berkowitz under "A.O." and turned to the next page, headed DIAL, which read backwards, LAID. The rest of the page was clear, as unblemished by ink as his own skin was by blackheads.

***

The Wanderers met on the el platform next morning, each wearing a black jacket with yellow piping and "Tully" written on the back in yellow letters.

"Where the fuck's Caputo?" asked Buddy.

"Prob'ly sleepin'," answered Richie.

"Yeah, gettin' his energy back," said Perry with a tinge of envy.

"That guy's gonna screw 'imself to death."

"He mus' get laid more'n Elvis Presley."

"More'n Al Capone."

"Yeah, but he shouldn't miss so much school," said Perry.

"Ah, so what. Whad you rather do—sit on your ass in homeroom or sit on Barbara Berkowitz's face?" asked Buddy.

"I'd like to sit on your face, you stoopit dip."

Buddy made sucking noises at Perry, and Perry chased him around the platform until the train came.

"You-gene, You-gene." His little sister shook his shoulder. He turned over in bed and stared at her through quarter-mast eyes. "Al forgot to wake us again. It's ten o'clock," she nagged.

Eugene sat up and rubbed his face, then reached across his desk for a cigarette. "Ah, shit."

His sister was dressed. She left the room and went into the kitchen to make herself some breakfast.

"Dinky? Did he leave the car keys?" Eugene yelled.

"I dunno," she yelled back.

"Well, whyncha look then? I'll drive you to school." He lay back in bed, scratching his balls.

"Yeah, they're onna table."

"Awright" He got out of bed, and like every morning he had a hard-on, and like every hard-on, it pointed straight down between his legs. He stared at it—no longer shocked and dismayed, but with a hopeless resignation, a passive sense of doom. He staggered into the bathroom and out of habit tried to pull it up to a more natural position. As soon as he let go, it snapped back, pointing rigidly at the ground like a divining rod that just discovered an underground ocean. He pissed, washed, brushed his teeth, and got dressed. He wore a yellow button-down shirt with gold cuff links, cocoa brown skin-tight slacks, gold Banlon socks, and brown suede ankle boots.

Dinky sat in the dining room eating chocolate-flavored dry cereal. Eugene came in with two cups of coffee. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. He put one cup in front of his sister and sat down. "Did Al leave you money today?" Eugene extracted a five from his wallet.

She held up a tiny hand to signify she had enough. "Al gave me a five yesterday," she said, sipping coffee. "Can I have some more sugar?"

"No, your teeth'll rot. Did you do your homework?"

"Yeah."

"Lemme see."

She pushed away from the table and primly walked across the living room to her books stacked on the coffee table. Eugene chuckled. He really dug his eight-year-old sister—she tried so hard to be sweet sixteen. When she bent down he saw a flash of white.

"Dinky. Your drawers are showin'. Pull down your dress."

She stood up with her hands on her hips, tapping her toe impatiently and staring at him crossly. "You-gene," she said in a stern, lecturing voice.

Eugene laughed. She returned to the table with a black-and-white composition book, opening it for him. As he perused her arithmetic, she stood with one arm around his neck and one hand on her hip, studying his face for any sign of a mistake in her homework.

"How'm I doin'?" she asked.

"Good ... good ... ah ... ah ... how much is eight and six?"

She squinted at the ceiling, her lips moving. "Fourteen."

"Whad you put?" He pointed to a problem. She leaned over, her arm still around his neck. "Ah, shit," she said.

He bolted upright in his seat and stared at her. "Hey!"

"What?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"You know what," he said menacingly.

She shrugged, staring at her shoes. "You say it, and Al says it all the time ... last night he said shit to Mommy, and he said shit twice over the phone and this morning when you got up you said ah, shit."

She imitated him rubbing his face. He stifled a laugh.

"Well I'm older'n you, I can say anything I want"

She was impressed. "Can you say fuck?"

He grabbed her roughly by the elbows. "Dinky, if I ever hear you say another bad word, I'm gonna whack your behind an' wash your mouth out wit' soap."

She frowned at the table. He was afraid she would cry so he let go of her arms. "Whenll I be old enough?" she asked.

"For what?" he said with a vague fear.

"To say anything I want."

"Never," he said, the nagging unnamed fear setting up house somewhere inside him.

He drove her to the public school though it was only four blocks down the street. "Gimme a kiss."

She planted a sloppy one on his cheek. "Seeya."

"Seeya."

He sat parked at the curb and watched her walk up the steps to the main entrance.

Eugene drove through the park across the parkway and pulled up in front of Tully. The gigantic, gray, block-long factory that passed for a high school filled him with dread. Eleven o'clock. If he went in now he had to see the late monitor, then he had to see Mulligan. Eugene had already been sent to his office four times for lateness, and Mulligan would break his ass. School really bit the hairy banana these days. Eugene ran his hands along the steering wheel, then lit another cigarette. Fuck it. He drove up to Jerome Avenue and bought a knish at a deli. At this point it would be better to stay out all day than to waltz in at noon. He could get Al to write a note saying he was sick. He wasn't feeling that well anyhow. He sat at the back table and watched three flies have a party with a dry spot of mustard. Eugene shut his eyes, screwing up his face. After a few seconds he had a headache and composed a mental note for his father to sign.

Dear Mr. Bitch Mulligan:

Please excuse my son, Ace, from missing school yesterday. He had one fucker of a headache.

A
L
"T
HE
M
AN
" C
APUTO

Eugene took out his wallet and thumbed through his I.D. cards and photos. He always did this when he felt fucked up, just to make sure he knew who he was. He came across Barbara Berkowitz's number. She was on early session at Evander, which meant she would be home by now. He could use a nice blowjob. If he called her first she'd probably scrub her clam so damn clean it would win a
Good Housekeeping
award. Then maybe he'd do a decent job eating her out. But what if she wanted to fuck? The old familiar demon straddled his heart and squeezed. He couldn't finish the knish. Now he had a real headache. Ever since the guys had a circle jerk at Gennaro's house three years ago, and he saw that everybody else's hard-on went up and his went down he was convinced he could never get laid. He was built wrong The girl would have to stand on her head and he would have to lower himself into her snatch. He had plenty of chances to get laid in the last two years, but he always got scared of not being able to get it inside like a normal person. When it looked like piss or get off the pot, he would insult the girl incredibly and she would get mad and split. This saved his reputation as a stud but was hell on his nerves.