Читать книгу Twentieth Century Limited Book One - Age of Heroes - Jan David Blais - Страница 10

CAHILL SAYS WE NEED TO GET HOLD of that paper Paul didn’t sign and the dictation tape. He’ll call a lawyer friend in New York. Two days later he phones me to say it’s tucked away in their conference room – Carter, Delfino & Samuels LLP on Park Avenue South, a few blocks up from Madison Square Park. Steve Samuels is an expert in something I thought was a joke the first time I heard it, “intellectual property.” Possession is nine-tenths of the law – I don’t need pricy lawyers telling me that.

Every day after we wrap up, Jonathan heads for Bar Harbor to clear his head and pick up the Times. My three-day home delivery apparently isn’t good enough. Tough. Today he throws the paper on my desk, open to the editorial page. “Look at this!”

PAUL BERNARD’S DEATH is the lead editorial. “The Times believes the Army must investigate promptly... open process... important questions needing answers.” It goes on, “the congressional investigation called for yesterday by Senator Clinton and Representative Nadler is an appropriate way to put pressure on the Army for a prompt resolution.” It ends by urging the media to hang together on this or they’ll hang separately.

“How about that!” Jonathan said. “A little heat from Congress won’t hurt.”

“It’ll go nowhere if the Republicans don’t go along and they won’t.”

Nearly a week Jonathan has been here but I still don’t know what his plan is for completing his work. I tell him about the sixteen cartons but not how they got to where they are. Or the Latimer flap. Time enough for that.

“I just got a message on my cell,” he tells me. “My editor wants to see me Monday.”

“How come?”

“I’m not sure. They said there’s more interest in my article after what happened to Paul. I’ll bet they’re thinking of expanding it. I’ve got some ideas about bringing in the investigation. I fly out Sunday, be back late Monday.”

* * * * * * *

PASSION AND COMMITMENT ISN’T ALWAYS ENOUGH. I was cut from the team. Only on my second try the following year did I earn the prized gray flannels with “St. Teresa” in green across the chest, number nine on my back.

Even in that collection of less than stellar athletes I did not excel. Oh, I started a lot of games, and at my best position too, second base, but puny hitting and an erratic glove did me in. My father called it quits after the season opener. I went oh-for-four and booted a grounder to let in the winning run. As I left the field in tears he put his arm around my shoulder. By nature, he said, some people (Jim) are better than others (me) at certain things (everything that matters). Said he’d see me at home, he had to get back to the shop. Right. The last thing I needed was advice on how to fail. Why couldn’t he just say I needed more seasoning? Or wasn’t that infield in lousy shape? The businessman through and through – clear-eyed, results-driven, no wishful thinking for him... or for me.

That summer I went to camp for the first time, CYO camp on a lake in the far west part of the state. The past few summers had been a nervous time, with people worried you could catch polio swimming or if you got chilled. One kid a year behind me nearly died of it and was in a wheelchair, they said for the rest of his life. But now they’d discovered the Salk vaccine. At first I objected. Why can’t I hang around like I always do, work on my batting and fielding, read? But being benched the last two games – for a fifth-grader, if you can believe it – gave me perspective.

Never before had I really looked at the horizon, or appreciated that clouds did more than fill the gaps between buildings. Canoes and snakes and birds, lying on a float, all the food you could eat, campfires, stories and singing, kids from all over, and the first portable radio I’d ever seen. Sports, too, softball, three-on-three basketball, running and swimming races, ping-pong. Winning wasn’t the point, which was a good thing when it came to swimming which I was not that good at. Everybody wore the same red and white camp T-shirt, no ribbons for coming in first, every day you changed sides. I even went on the optional all-day hike to a lake cars couldn’t drive to, packing lunch and swim trunks in my knapsack. It was beginning to dawn on me, maybe I wasn’t such a terrible athlete after all, that baseball had blinded me to simpler, more attainable pleasures.

I began that final year at St. Teresa’s part King of the Hill, part Ivan the Terrible. I was bored out of my mind, too long in one place. From the first day I made a pain of myself, fooling around, making loud, often rude comments. My classmates were astonished. Though my work was exemplary, in Deportment I was a grave disappointment. Finally my parents, both of them, were summoned for a conference on the topic: “What Is Wrong With Paul?” After the meeting I noticed my father looking at me differently. Perhaps I wasn’t the marshmallow he had taken me for. I thoroughly enjoyed his confusion.

Our eighth grade room had more desks than pupils and Sister Georgina positioned me in the last desk, two empty rows away from the others. The front desk belonged to Stevie Burns, the dumbest and meanest kid in the school. It was a peculiar tribute to be lumped with him, though I didn’t like him or his friends and refused their overtures. Stevie was one of the few kids at St. Teresa’s from the Project, a public housing sprawl off Manton Avenue which after its opening deteriorated into what my mother called the worst slum in the city. Buildings in disrepair, broken-down cars, littered sidewalks, poorly clad kids running wild, police there all the time, a blight on the neighborhood. She forbade us to have anything to do with the people who lived there. Our standing in the community required that we avoid bad families. Unemployment, welfare, delinquency, no man in the house or if a man, not the husband – those were the indicators of bad. A Project address was an automatic.

My advancing years brought on a family crisis. It was assumed that St. Teresa’s boys would attend La Salle Academy, the French Christian Brothers School where Jim went, and the girls, St. Xavier’s, where Catherine was in her first year. At this tender age we were hardly prepared for atheistic teachers, not to mention the perils of a co-ed institution. My friends and I weren’t so much worried about the impact on our immortal souls as being known for attending Mt. Pleasant, the huge public school a half mile from our house. Only dolts, troublemakers or those too poor to afford La Salle attended Mt. Pleasant, is how we saw it. Project kids went there, the ones who went anywhere, that is.

The nuns pushed La Salle hard, particularly its science program. Everybody said our country needed engineers to stay strong and I thought that might be the thing for me, designing bridges, televisions, even planes. I demolished La Salle’s entrance exam and a personal letter from the principal, Rev. Bro. S. Jerome, congratulated me on my admission. My mother begged to differ. To her, the Brothers offered an inferior education and until recently, I’d displayed no need for their vaunted disciplinary skills. She had a different plan.

My mother was a graduate of Classical High in downtown Providence which, despite being public, attracted especially capable students – many from well-off or accomplished families – skilled in music, drama, the arts. Their sports teams were terrible except for those where individual excellence counted, like tennis. Classical was on a par with Moses Brown, the private prep school on the East Side, and miles ahead of Mt. Pleasant, Central, Hope and the other public schools. It was co-ed, which offered the intriguing prospect of getting to know girls, perhaps well enough to ask them out, possibly even (a radical idea) as friends. My mother saw Classical as her last chance to mold me into an educated, cultured person.

Though my athletic career was kaput, I was reluctant to break entirely from that milieu. Plus, if I attended Classical I would need to make all new friends and take a bus to school. Benny was going to Classical, a plus, but not enough of one. In February, to my mother’s everlasting disappointment, I mailed my acceptance to La Salle along with my father’s check for $125, half the first year’s tuition. By now I had settled down and was in an advanced math group working with concepts in Algebra and Geometry.

ONE APRIL AFTERNOON, trudging up my street I looked ahead... police cars! In front of our house! I started to run. As I neared I saw a policeman leading Jim down the steps, another one talking to my father. They were putting Jim in the police car! He flashed me a grin and winked, then the door shut and off he went. My father had already disappeared into the house. My mother met me at the door. Her eyes were red and watery. “It’s Jim. He... he may be in trouble,” she said in a trembly voice, “they’re taking him in for questioning.”

“But why? I asked, terrified, “what’d he do?”

My father appeared at the door. “Marty’s on his way to the station.”

“Who’s Marty?” I asked.

“Our lawyer.” I didn’t even know we had a lawyer. My father looked down at me. “Paul, I’m going to tell you something you do not repeat. You understand me? Do not repeat what I tell you.”

I nodded. He paused, searching for words. “Some girl is saying Jim... forced himself on her. Him and two boys. Says they had their way with her.”

“Well, did they?” I asked, unthinkingly.

“Of course not!” His face got red. “It’s a damned lie but the little tramp’s parents went to the cops. I’m on my way downtown, make sure they don’t do anything stupid.” As he turned to leave he wagged his finger at me. “Not a word!”

My mother squeezed his hand and they walked together to the car. When she returned I couldn’t contain myself. “This girl, who is she?” I followed her inside. She reached in a drawer for one of my father’s Chesterfields. I hadn’t seen her smoke for a while, she’d been trying to quit. “Someone from the Project.” She snapped the match. “No one we would know.”

“Who were the others?”

“Billy Moore, for one. No surprise there,” she drew the smoke in hungrily, “and somebody named DiMaio. He supposedly goes to Mt. Pleasant.” Billy Moore was on the football team with Jim. They were always driving around in Billy’s red convertible. His father was a car dealer and had his picture in a big ad in the Sunday paper. She shook her head, “I have never trusted that Billy Moore, not from the day I laid eyes on him.” Her eyes began filling with tears.

I was puzzled. “Why are you crying? Dad said there’s nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t know, Paul... I just don’t know. Even if it’s not true, it’s so shameful, police coming to our home, being treated like common criminals.” She reached for her purse. “I need to go see my mother.” She wiped her eyes and ground out the cigarette.

I threw my books on my bed then came back downstairs. The telephone cord led under my sister’s door. I banged on it and pushed it open. Catherine was sitting on her bed, her legs folded underneath her. “You little turd!” she yelled at me, covering the mouthpiece. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone!”

“Until I opened the door, I couldn’t.”

“Well, you can now! Get lost! And close the door!”

At sixes and sevens I roamed around the house, thought of starting my homework. While I was inspecting the fridge, Catherine appeared. “Sorry I yelled, but next time, knock.”

“I did knock,” I replied.

“You’re supposed to wait.”

She had me there. “What is going on?” I asked.

She flopped down at the kitchen table. “Her name is Gloria Russo. She’s a sophomore at Mt. Pleasant. A friend of mine has a friend that knows her. She’s from the Project.”

“Dad said she’s a tramp.”

“Dad is so stupid! Jim this! Jim that!” She tossed her head angrily. “Well, this time big brother has really gone and done it!”

“Done what? What do you mean?”

“Come on, do I have to spell everything out for you?”

I flushed. “Jim, he’d never do anything like that. He wouldn’t, would he?”

“He is a boy, isn’t he?” She leaned forward on her elbows. “Look. Everybody knows about him and that Billy Moore, what they do. The wonder is somebody had the nerve to say something. Maybe because it was three of them, I don’t know.”

“Jeez.”

“Supposedly they were out cruising and that creep DiMaio knows this girl so they pick her up and supposedly there’s a lot of beer in the car and they go to Merino and park and, well, after a while they did it to her. All of them.”

I was floored. This couldn’t be true.

“I guess she was really messed up, her clothes were torn and everything and she smelled of beer so her mother said where have you been and she told her everything.”

“Dad said not to say anything.”

Catherine sneered. “There’s not a person in the whole city doesn’t know already.” She shook her head morosely. “Makes you feel great, doesn’t it?”

That hardly described it. What would become of Jim? Of our family?

It was late when my father returned with Jim in tow. I was upstairs when the car pulled in. I raced down, my mother and Catherine already in the kitchen. “Well, that’s that!” my father announced. “There is no problem, absolutely nothing to worry about. The lying little slut!” Jim was standing there, absolutely still, white in the face, staring at his shoes. My father poured a drink from the whiskey bottle they kept in the dining room but rarely used. He took a big swallow, then another.

“She and that DiMaio! Ha! They know each other, you bet! They been going together! So the boys pick her up at her job and they drink a little beer and leave them off at the Project. Big deal!”

He looked sharply at Jim who still hadn’t moved a muscle. “What happened between her and that DiMaio, that is no concern of ours!” He took another swallow. “Only thing, the police are taking it much too serious. It’s a lie and they damn well know it!” I looked into my father’s eyes. Between rounds – bloodied but defiant. Zale or Graziano or Sugar Ray from the TV fights. Quick on his feet and powerful, that was my dad.

My mother finally spoke up. “Well, what next?”

My father took a cigarette from his shirt pocket. She motioned at him and he shook another out of the pack. “They’ll have to finish the investigation but Marty’s on top of it.”

“Our name won’t be in the papers, will it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They’re all juveniles.” My father glared at Jim then shook his head really hard, as if trying to clear it. “Aaggh! It’s so ridiculous! That kind of girl is trouble, the way they dress, the big come-on, dragging good kids down to their level. A little Project tramp, that’s all she is!” I glanced at Catherine who was staring at the floor, her mouth a thin hard line. Suddenly my father reached over and punched Jim on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Jimbo! It’s not your fault! Everything’ll turn out okay!”

That seemed to loosen Jim up. He looked pleadingly at my mother. “I didn’t do it, ma. Honest, I didn’t do nothin.’”

Never had I heard that tone of voice. It was obvious my father had talked to him in no uncertain terms before the ranks slammed shut. My mother stood up and gave Jim a kiss on his cheek. “You’re a good boy, son. Your father’s right, everything will be fine.” She swept her hand around the kitchen. “Now, to bed! All of you! Tomorrow’s another day.”

During recess next day one of the Project kids, a seventh grader I barely knew, came up to me wearing this big grin. “What’s this I hear, somebody’s brother’s in big trouble?”

“What’re you talking about?” I replied warily.

“Don’t shit me, Bernard – him and his friends knocked up that girl.”

“You’re lying! Jim didn’t do anything like that!”

“Oh, no?” He looked at me belligerently. “You people, your big houses and fancy cars. Too good for the rest of us til we got something you want, like a little pussy!”

“Hey! Cut that out!” I stepped up next to him, shoving my face in his. We glared at each other, then he turned.

“Aw, why bother,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away. “You’re not worth the trouble. The cops’ll take care of it.”

During the day I noticed kids in little groups glancing at me. At my desk I thought of all those afternoons I’d spent at Merino, at practice, how at times my eyes would be drawn to the bushes behind first base and the trees behind the bushes, the deep, cool woods and the lane where kids and girls went and did things to each other, terrible things, wonderful things. Then I’d spit in the pocket of my glove and bang my fist. Hum boy hum boy hum it in no stick let ’im hit it no stick no problem. No problem, Jimbo. No problem at all.

That night we sat down to dinner, the five of us. It was eerie. Nobody mentioned what was on all our minds. After supper, I wandered into Catherine’s room where she was lying on the floor doing homework and listening to the radio. Secret Love. Doris Day. I kind of shrugged and looked hapless, my way of asking what did she think about things.

“Some kids were talking about Jim today,” she said. “I almost got into a fight. Can you believe it, me, a fight?”

“Me too,” I replied. She turned the radio off and told me to shut the door.

“Jim’s in more trouble than mom and dad are letting on.” Her face became serious. “They took him out of school today. He was in a lineup...”

“At the police station? But nobody identified him, right?”

“...and two cops were here and went through his room. You know that red checked jacket of his, they took it with them. I’m worried, Paul. Dad was down there all day with the lawyer.”

I hesitated. “They wouldn’t... he won’t have to go to jail, will he?” It hurt even to ask.

She took a deep breath. “My friend told me her family is really mad. They said somebody’s going to pay for this.”

The rest of that week was truly miserable. Each day more people were in the know. A couple of my friends tried to cheer me up, saying I must be a real stud too, how about showing them some tricks, that kind of thing, but that only made it worse. On Wednesday a three-line item appeared in the Journal – several boys questioned about a sexual assault on a fifteen-year old girl. No names, but there it was, in black and white.

A week went by. The next Friday night my father called us all together in the living room. Jim wasn’t there, he hadn’t been around much since this started. “I want you children to know what is going on.” My father still had on his best suit which he wore every day to make a good impression at the police station. “Our lawyer met with the District Attorney. They were trying to make a case to charge Jim and the others with rape...” My sister gasped, “...but they didn’t have any proof, besides, that kind of girl, anybody can have their way with her, they know that for a fact, so we made a deal, we would plead guilty to assault. They gave Jim a suspended sentence. The others, too.”

“Suspended sentence?” Catherine asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means that’s the end of it but he has to check in with a probation officer and he’d damn well better stay out of trouble.”

“And thank God our name won’t be in the papers!” my mother exclaimed. “Jim has been a foolish, foolish boy, but he needs our love and support,” she looked at Catherine and me, “and I want you to give it to him. Generously. He is paying for his mistake.”

“That’s for sure,” my father added, somberly.

“But he’s not going to jail,” I interjected.

My father shook his head. “It’s La Salle. They’re... they might expel him. Marty knows the principal but if that doesn’t work,” he spread his hands, “all that hard work, the chance to make a name for himself, gone. Down the drain.” My father looked across the table. “Fiona, this would be an excellent time for some of those prayers you’re so good at.”

As it turned out, Jim wasn’t expelled or suspended but what they did was devastating. They took away his extracurricular privileges. No football. No All-State. No college scholarship. Our lawyer went before the alumni association which gives the school a lot of money, Billy Moore’s father weighed in too, but the decision stuck. According to the principal, the boys were fortunate. Their attitudes must be reformed, otherwise this sordid affair will have no value for anyone. Soon after, I heard my parents arguing, the worst fight I ever remember. Nothing was broken, it was the passion in their voices. “Over my dead body!” my mother screamed. “Rather you rip out my heart!” Dad wanted Jim to transfer to Mt. Pleasant for his last year so he could play football, something might come of it.

“This is the boy’s life, Julien! Not some game! You drop him in that snake pit and mark my words, he’ll not come out alive!”

“Three years of those damned Brothers. Did that keep him from doing what he did?”

“If it weren’t for the Brothers where would he be now! No, Julien, I cannot,

I will not give my consent!”

So it was decided, Jim would finish La Salle. He was quiet around the house, no swaggering or cracking jokes, but beneath the sullen exterior he was really hurting. He’d lost what he loved best and had no way to get it back. Everybody knew what happened and the talk would start again when the varsity took the field in the fall minus their star fullback. Already resigned to living in Jim’s shadow, now it wasn’t his success I’d have to contend with, but his shame.

One night a few weeks later my father came home early, more depressed than usual. He could hardly speak. What’s wrong, my mother kept asking. Finally he spat it out. “The jewelry account... half our business. They canceled it today.”

“No! How could they!”

“Traficante... their President. I got a letter... said they couldn’t honorably do business with us any more.”

“Those hypocrites! It makes no sense.”

My father sighed. “It makes perfect sense. Marty checked it out. That girl Jim was involved with. You have any idea who the mother is?”

My mother stared at him blankly.

“She’s a Rosati. Big Anthony, from Federal Hill. She may be a black sheep but she’s family.” His eyes bored into hers. “They’re paying us back.”

ON A BRIGHT SUNNY JUNE DAY I graduated from St.Teresa’s. I was called up in front of the packed church. Top student award, English prize, Math prize, it would have been embarrassing, but despite being an exceptional student, I had a lot of friends. Everybody knew my heart was in the right place. Many of my classmates, even a couple of the girls, even Margaret, signed my autograph book, adding funny drawings and sayings. We had a party at home, cake and ice cream, just the five of us, King had wandered off which he sometimes did. Catherine was being especially nice, she and Jim went in on a portable radio for me. Midway through the doorbell rang and I got up. Nobody there but there was a box on the step. Stuck under the green and orange ribbons, an envelope with my name. I picked the box up, it wasn’t that heavy and shaking it, I went inside. Something bumped around inside.

“Another present!” my mother exclaimed. “Why didn’t you ask them in?”

“Nobody was there.”

“Well, don’t keep us waiting, open it!” Catherine said. I ran my finger under the envelope flap. There was no card, just a folded-up piece of paper, ragged along one edge like it had been ripped from a notebook. Puzzled, I unfolded it and read.

On his graduation day, for Paul the brother of James the rapist.

Memento Mori.

James the rapist! My heart leapt into my throat. Everybody crowded around, staring at the paper. I looked at my parents. My mother’s face had turned white. “Julien!” she said in this fierce voice I’d never heard before. “Take it outside!”

“But...”

“Take it outside! NOW!”

I followed my father through the door. He placed the box on the cement in front of our garage door and stripped away the paper. With his pocket knife he slit the wrapping tape. “Sacre Bleu!” he said softly.

I couldn’t see. He was in the way. I peered around him... He tried to hold me back, then his arm relaxed. “Go ahead, Paul. Look, but make it quick.”

Blood! There was blood everywhere! I moved closer...staring up at me was King’s head! KING’S HEAD!!!

“OH, NO! NO! NO! NO!”

I slumped to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. That’s all I remember. When I came around, my mother was bending over me, tears streaming down her face, whispering, over and over, “Memento mori...memento mori. Remember, man, you too must die.”