The Wanderers (13 page)

"Hey ... Barbara?"

"Yeah?"

"Ah, look, this is Eugene."

Silence. A good sign. If she really didn't want to see him she would've hung up. "Look ... ah ... I'm sorry about last night. I got outta line."

An angry inhale of breath, more of a hiss than a sigh.

"Ah, my grandfather was dying yesterday an' I was upset."

"Oh?" Coolly, "And how is he today?"

"He's dead."

A gasp. Hook, line, and sinker.

As Barbara noisily gobbled his rod, Eugene lay back and studied the pictures on her wall, all cut out of
16
magazine. Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Rydell, and Johnny Tillotson. Jesus Christ. He stifled a belch. His own taste ran to Dion, the Four Seasons, the Dovells, and some of the new Motown stars like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, and Mary Wells. That new blind kid, Little Stevie Wonder, wasn't so bad either. Eugene debated the diplomacy of lighting a cigarette.

***

Eugene's mother, although a looker, did not have the confidence and security that some beautiful women have. She always suspected her husband of cheating. He usually was. They had running epic battles all the time. They argued in the bedroom, at the dinner table, in the street, in the car, in front of neighbors, in front of strangers, and in front of their children.

Eugene remembered when he was ten going down to the basement to shut himself away from a big fight his parents were having upstairs. He sat in the oversized upholstered rocker like an old man, rocking back and forth at a furious pace. His father had descended the wooden basement stairs, angrily pointed a finger at his son, and said, "My advice to you, Eugene, is never marry for pussy." Two years later Eugene found out what pussy meant, but only now was he slowly beginning to understand the whole sentence.

***

That night after dinner the Caputo family, except Dinky, simultaneously took out their cigarettes. The ritual was always the same—Al offering Eugene a Marlboro from the fancy silver case, Eugene declining and lighting up a Kool, and his mother, Eleanore, puffing away on a Parliament in an ivory cigarette holder. Except for the dirty dishes, the atmosphere was more like a high-stakes poker game than a family meal.

"How was school today?" Al asked.

"Awright," said Dinky.

"Ace?" Al nodded his head at Eugene.

"I din't go." Eugene dug his fingers deep into his mouth and extracted a shred of steak from a back molar.

"Eugene, that's a disgusting habit," bis mother said evenly.

"Whynchago?"

"Headache," he said flatly, studying the food on his fingertip.

"For God's sake, use a toothpick at least."

"Headache, hah? What's 'er name?"

Eugene ate the steak. "Nah, really, had a headache," he said as if he didn't give a shit whether or not Al believed him.

"Thirty-five?" Al winked.

Eugene shrugged.

Eleanore snapped to, staring narrowly at Al. "Thirty-five? Thirty-five what?"

Al stubbed out his cigarette. "Forget it."

"No, no, no, Mister, I want to know. I'm his mother. Thirty-five chippies maybe?" Al shot her a look that could stop a heart, but she was just warming up. "Well," she smiled, shrugging, "I guess it's to be expected." She fitted another Parliament in the holder. "Like father like son?" She blew a small funnel of smoke in Al's face. His eyes burned through the fog around his head.

"Who the hell you think you are, Bette Davis?"

"Who the hell you think
you
are, Humphrey Bogart?"

"Bitch!"

"Chippy chaser!"

"Ball-breaker!"

She raised herself slightly from her seat, her voice trembling with passion, "Whoremonger!"

"Ha! I never had to pay for it in my life!" He lit another cigarette with a flourish.

"Oh, ho! Oh, ho!" she laughed dramatically to an invisible third party in the chair Dinky vacated somewhere between "Bitch" and "Whoremonger." "
He
never
had
to pay for it!"

Eugene lit another cigarette. This was even better than the last time.

***

"Your bosoms are golden mounds of margarine
your nipples are like a cherry if the A-bomb
fell on us right this instant this is wherein
my head I would bury."

Frowning, Buddy perused his poetry. He crossed out "bosoms" and wrote "breasts." He crossed out "mounds" and wrote "lumps." He crossed out "A-bomb" and wrote "H-bomb."

The doorbell rang.

"Ma!" he bleated. "Ma-a-a, get the door. Shit!" He got up from his desk and trotted down the narrow linoleum foyer. He looked through the peephole but couldn't see anyone.

"Yeah?" he shouted, keeping the door locked.

"Do you believe in God?" asked a high-pitched nasal voice.

"Fuckin' Jehovah's Witnesses," he muttered. "Go 'way. I'm Jewish." He was starting back to his room when whoever was out there pounded on the door with thunderous force. "Jesus Christ." Buddy grabbed an umbrella and threw the door open, holding the umbrella over his head like a spear. No one was there. He took a tentative step into the hallway.

"
BLEAH!
" Eugene shouted in Buddy's ear as he jumped from his hiding place. Buddy leaped back, almost stabbing himself in the head with the umbrella.

"Jesus Fucking H. Christ, Eugene!" Buddy dropped the umbrella and clutched his heart.

"Howya doin', man?" Eugene smiled. "You got a leaky ceilin'?" He picked up the umbrella and walked into the apartment.

Buddy followed him. "You're a fuckin' lunatic, you know that?"

"Tell it to the marines." Eugene walked into the bedroom. "Whadya doin'?"

Buddy bolted into his room and grabbed the poem from his desk.

"Hey, what was that?"

"Ah, nothin'."

"Borsalino, you bullshit so much your back teeth are brown." Eugene looked around the room.

"Meanwhile, asshole, you almost scared me to death." Buddy tried to change the subject as he slipped the poem into his back pocket.

"Don't change the subject. Wha' was that, a love poem?"

"Fuckin' guy. You come into my house, wanna put me inna hospital wit' a coronary."

"Whyncha read me your poem?" Eugene made himself comfortable at the desk. "C'mon, I'm a pretty good poet myself, I'll help you out."

Buddy stared at Eugene for a long minute, shrugged, and sat cross-legged on the bed. "O.K., pretend you're Despie, awright?"

"C'mon, c'mon, read the fuckin' poem awready." Eugene put his hands behind his head and wiggled seductively.

Buddy brought out the crumpled paper, flattened it on his bed, and cleared his throat seven times. "You ready?" he asked.

"C'mon!"

"Ahm ... your breastsaregoldenlumps ofmargarine ... ah ... yournipplesarelikeacherry ... ah ... no, wait ... uh, yeah, if the H-bomb ... ah ... fellonusrightthisinstant ... thatiswhere ... inmyheadI ... wouldbury—whadya think?"

Eugene couldn't answer because he was convulsed with laughter. He shook silently, his face red. He held in his stomach and in an attempt to catch his breath sucked wetly through his nose. After a few seconds he exhaled wearily, cradled his forehead in the bridge of his hand, and exploded into loud laughter. Buddy frowned, examining the paper. Flipping it over he examined the back, like maybe there was a joke written there that he couldn't see.

"You din't like it?"

"No, n-no." Eugene tried to calm down. "I-it w-was very m-moving." He started laughing again, rocking back and forth in the chair until it tipped backward and he went crashing to the floor, his feet raised in the air like a victory signal.

"Good for you, ya bastard!" Buddy helped him to his feet.

"Oh God!" Eugene took deep breaths to stop laughing and rubbed the back of bis head. "That was some fuckin' poem there, Buddy! Knocked me outta my seat!" He wiped a tear from his eye. "Enough a this bullshit, let's get outta here," he said.

"Where you goin'?"

"I got the car. Let's go up to Yonkers."

"Where? It's Tuesday."

"I dunno. You wanna hit Papo's?"

"I got no proof."

"Here." Eugene showed him a fake I.D.

"It's Tuesday though," Buddy protested.

"It's the best time. Only the horniest ones go Tuesdays."

"I dunno."

"C'mon, you ain't married yet. I won't tell Despie."

"It ain't that."

"Yes, it is. HI wait for you downstairs." Before Buddy could protest Eugene left the apartment.

"Hullo?"

"Hi."

"Hiya, babe, whatcha doin'?"

"Ah, nothin'." Buddy cradled the phone between his head and shoulder. "I wro'cha a poem."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you wanna hear it?"

"Whyncha come over an' read it to me?"

Buddy got terribly depressed thinking of Eugene in the car. "Uh, I can't now, I gotta lotta homework."

"Well, come over tomorrow."

"O.K .... Despie?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"Me too."

"Bye."

"Bye."

"Oh, Despie?"

"Yeah."

"Uh ... the phone's outta whack, so don't call me later because it don't ring on this end."

There was a long silence. "O.K."

"O.K."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Eugene sat behind the wheel, checking his breath with a cupped palm. Buddy's poem didn't make him laugh—it made him jealous. As far as he knew Buddy wasn't fucking Despie, but he envied Buddy for having a girl he thought enough of to write her poetry. Even if Buddy wasn't getting laid, neither was Eugene—so what the hell difference did it make?

Buddy opened the car door, and Eugene jumped involuntarily. "Let's go," said Buddy.

Eugene pulled out onto White Plains Road under the el tracks heading for the Bronx River Parkway.

"You know, Buddy? I been thinkin' about your poem."

"Spare me."

"No really."

"Fuck off."

"I liked it."

"Sure."

"It had heart."

"You shittin' me?"

"Would I shit you? You're my favorite turd."

"Fuck off."

"Hey, no, I din't mean to say that. I was only kiddin'. I really dug it!"

"Get lost."

"Hey, lissen, you stoopit jerk! I'm givin' you a fuckin' compliment!"

Papo's was a shoe box on Central Avenue in Yonkers surrounded by a miniature golf course, a Robert Hall drive-in clothing store, a Knapp shoe store, an Aunt Jemima pancake house, eleven gas stations, and Rickey's Clam House. Papo's squatted on the shore of a four-lane main drag that looked like an endless Christmas tree laying on its side adorned with traffic lights, fluorescent overheads, and bubbling neon.

"C'mon, let's go, there's no one here," Buddy whispered to Eugene as a refugee from professional wrestling studied the fake I.D. at the door. His lips moved silently as he tried to calculate Buddy's age, subtracting his phony birth date from the current year.

"Oh fuck it, you eighteen?"

"Sure! Can'tcha read?"

He gave Buddy the I.D. and nodded hello to Eugene. Eugene nodded back, then hustled Buddy to the bar.

"Hey, no one's here, Eugene."

"Shaddup, it's early. Whadya drinkin'?"

Before Buddy would answer, Eugene ordered two Seven and Sevens. The bartender looked like Moose from Archie comics.

The place consisted of a long bar, six or seven card tables covered with tablecloths, and a twenty-by-twenty-foot dancing area bordered by a juke box on one end and a small raised bandstand on the other. Caricatures of the regulars done in pencil and pastel covered the walls. Large faces with exaggerated hairdos and names like Tony, Gino, Ralph, Diane, Pat—about twelve Pats—Rosemary, Dominick, and Vinny. At the darkened table area beyond the bar, newly formed couples felt each other up on crowded weekend nights.

"Call it," Eugene nipped a coin.

"Heads."

"Cunt!" Eugene slid the quarter to Buddy, who walked over to the juke box and studied selections. He put on his three favorites, Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem," Lee Dorsey's "Ya-Ya," and his all-time favorite, Dion's "Little Diane." Buddy shuddered involuntarily as the first, trembling prolonged guitar note filled the room. He sat down, closing his eyes. Dion, not singing but wailing in anguish against the trembling guitar:

"D-I-I-I-A-N-N-E, DEEP DOWN INSI-I-I-DE I
CRY-Y-Y-Y-"
"D-I-I-I-A-N-N-E, WI-THOUT YAW LUV AH'D DIE-E-"
"D-I-I-I-A-N-N-E, YOU DRIVE ME-E- W-I-I-I-L-D,
D-I-I-A-N-E"

Buddy downed half his drink in one gulp.

Awww ... Lissen to mah heart (D-I-I-A-N-N-E)
Awww ... yah tearin' it apart (D-I-I-A-N-N-E)
Awww ... it's mah heart, Di-Ane (D-I-I-A-N-N-E)

Eugene had to grab Buddy to keep him from falling off the barstool in a swoon of musical passion. When they first started going together, and Despie was giving him a hard time—those endless days of agonizing hunger and self-doubt, Buddy had played "Little Diane" over and over on his record player, and now the words were so supercharged with meaning the song was almost unbearable in its symbolism.

"Let's get outta here." Buddy dragged Eugene to the door. He wanted to fly into Despie's arms and kiss and hug and fuck till dawn.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Whereya runnin'?" Eugene put on his brakes. "Relax, willya?" He stared at Buddy. "Christ! Finish your drink at least."

"I ain't thirsty."

"Awright. I tell you what ... we wait ... fifteen minutes ... an' if no tail shows we go home, O.K.?"

Buddy checked his watch. "Fifteen minutes."

"Shee! You're a real prize, you know that?"

Fifteen minutes went by and no tail showed. On their way out Football Eddie stamped blue turkeys on their hands so they could come back in without paying. In the parking lot, a VW pulled in beside Eugene's car and two girls popped out.

"Hey! Hey! You see that?" Eugene grabbed Buddy's arm.

"I ain't blind. C'mon, let's go home." He reached for the car door but Eugene grabbed his other arm.

"Let's go back inside."

"I got homework."

"C'mon. don't be like that."