Then came the memory he had always tried to stifle and will away. Usually it seemed buried so deep it would never surface again, but then without warning it would come flooding over him, as it was now. That night late in May in his senior year at U. of D., on the camping trip to Stratford. He and six other boys and Father Paul had just seen Much Ado About Nothing and then sat around a fire roasting marshmallows and chewing over the play.
Later, sharing a tent, he and Father Paul had gone off to sleep, until sometime in the middle of the night when he woke in the dark to a hand fondling his buttocks. When a finger slid softly across his anus, he turned slowly, and the hand moved to his penis, which was hard within seconds. Now he was wide awake with a confusion of pleasure and rage, his thought not of Father Paul but of some intruder. But when he finally swept back his fist, it struck an ear, and it was the priest who gasped softly, “Oh.” And when he had turned far enough to see the man’s face, barely visible in the dark, it was covered with both hands in shame.
Chapter 34
Late that afternoon, most of the small basement apartment was dingy, with only the reading lamp lit over his shoulder, as he sat in the armchair, feet propped on the ottoman, writing fast in his red notebook.
The 12-inch portable TV on a small table nearby showed shape-shifting computer graphics flowing across the screen with insistent staccato music to announce “the Channel 5 News Live at 5.” As the music softened, he stopped writing and looked up at a familiar face.
“Hello, everybody, I’m Frank DeFauw. Tonight at 5 on our Up-Front segment: Michigan State University professor Carl Taylor, who has literally written the book on urban gangs, is here to give us his take on the epidemic of illicit narcotics and related crime that seems to be over-running our city.”
After the interruption, he did not go immediately back to the notebook. Instead he stared off at nothing, thinking again about why he had never told a soul about what had happened in the tent. It was not because he had felt sorry for the priest who had tearfully whispered his apologies over and over, until John had finally turned his back and pretended to sleep. In fact, he had not slept again that night, stewing in anger and regret that Father Paul had not managed to fight off or control his own demons with just two weeks left before graduation.
He had spent most of the following day in fear that one of the other boys had over heard those whispers in the night and guessed at what had happened. But none of them had showed any hint of suspicion, and he was finally left to admit that he would never say a word about it to anyone out of his own guilt and shame. Guilt that he’d been completely clueless about what Father Paul had been going through for the past four years. And shame over the pleasure he had felt from the priest’s gentle and loving hand.
Chapter 35
Olive-skinned, bright-eyed, verging on plump yet light on her feet, Mrs. Harry Green walked into her large kitchen, handed a set of keys to her son and sat down with him again at a table that showed the remains of a heavy Italian meal.
“Fifteen years,” she said, slightly out of breath. “I been holding on to it, hoping the land at least might become valuable to these guys who make these subdivisions all over the place. Then at least I would have something of value I could pass along to my son. Honey, have another cannoli.”
John pushed his dessert plate away. “No way, I’m stuffed, Ma. The thing is, I just thought since I’m not doing anything right now, I’d go out there, look the place over, see maybe I could clean it up a little. And then possibly try renting it out to somebody. Or even sell it. Not as a cheese factory probably, but maybe somebody would have some other use for it.”
“It’s a wonderful idea.” Mrs. Green used a knife to cut herself a third of a cannoli. “I’m just saying, whatever you can make from it, it’s yours, that’s all.”
At age 15, after his father’s death, he had asked his mother one day why she hadn’t sold the business, and she had said simply that she didn’t need the money. Now he asked again.
“Look, honey, I’ve told you, the money I didn’t need. Your father was a great one for saving. He really put it away. And he also bought a lot of life insurance. I always thought it was because his father, your grandfather, had died of a heart attack as a young man, in his 40s.”
Fingering the keys, he said, “And he figured the same thing might happen to him.”
“He was right, poor guy. But I still blame those thugs for what happened. Putting all that pressure on him, trying to buy into the plant, really trying to take over the business is what they wanted. I swear to God if I had that old man Monelli here right now, I’d still scratch his eyes out. Johnny, don’t play with those keys. Makes me nervous.”
He puts the keys down. “Cigar Mike.”
“Cigar Mike. I swear to God. That’s why I didn’t do anything with it when your father died. There was no way they were gonna get their hands on it.” Mrs. Green took a bite of the cannoli. “Honey, have the other half of this.”
“It’s not half, Ma, and I can’t. I’m too full. Did you see the story on Monelli’s son and his family in the magazine that’s out right now?”
“I saw it, but I won’t read it. I’m sick of hearing about those people. The police always talk like they know so much, but they never do a thing. It’s been that way since I was a little girl.”
He picked up the keys. “Ma, I gotta go. I want to go out and look at the place while it’s still light.”
Mother and son got to their feet. “If you’re gonna clean it up,” she said, “you’ll have to get the water and the electricity turned on.”
“I know, Ma. I’ll take care of it.”
She leaned close and whispered, “Please, Johnny, for once try to be nice to Harry.”
“Ma, please.” He swallowed with quiet exasperation.
She led him out of the kitchen and into the dining room where his stepfather was cleaning a gun collection. Harry Green was a large man with a self-satisfied air, an independent trucker with his own rig. Sitting at a dining room table covered with newspaper and a variety of long guns and side arms, he looked up as his wife and stepson came into the room.
“Going already, John?”
“Yeah, I gotta go.”
“Well, remember what I told ya.” Harry always sounded sure of himself. “There’s a lotta worse ways to make a living than driving a truck.”
“Yeah,” said John, telling himself to keep it light, “I’ll remember. So which one of these handguns is the easiest to use?”
“The easiest?” Harry smiled indulgently. “They’re all easy if you know what you’re doing. For the beginner I guess this little .22 would be the easiest.” He picked up the gun and sighted it at a picture of John Kennedy on the wall. “It’s not that heavy, has a nice smooth action, and it won’t kick you all over the place. Here, try it.”
He handed the gun to John, who looked it over and then pointed it at the wall. “So when you go up North, will you take these with you and do some hunting?”
Harry shook his head in mild disbelief. “Hunting season’s in the fall, John. No, your mother and I are just gonna go up and relax. Now if you want me to call that guy I mentioned about the truck, let me know so I can do it before we go.”
John handed back the gun. “Harry, no way I’m gonna drive a truck.”
Harry looked at him from under his brows. “Too good for the job, huh?”
“That’s not what I mean.” John caught a look from his mother.
Rubbing a cloth over the gun John had just handled, Harry said, “But it’s what you feel, ain’t it.”
“Oh, fuck it! Ma, I’m leaving.”
As John walked out, Harry said, “Nice language in front of your mother.”
He kept moving. “She’s heard a lot more from your garbage mouth.”
“Basically,” Harry called after him, “you’re just a spoiled, smart-assed punk.”
John left his mother’s bungalow from the side door onto the driveway where the Ford was pa
rked behind his mother’s late model Topaz. In the garage was Harry’s Aerostar.
Mrs. Green followed her son out of the house. “Nice. For the life of me, I’ve never understood why the two of you can’t get along.”
“Just leave it, Ma.”
“But why, Johnny?”
“Because he’s an asshole, Ma. And I have no idea how you can share your life with him.”
“Johnny, you’ve never, ever given him a chance, even when you were a boy.”
“When I was a boy he was hardly ever around. Which was just fine with me. I only had a problem when he came home.” John opened the Ford’s driver’s side door with a loud squeak.
“Your car looks like it’s gonna die.”
“It serves the purpose.”
“Why don’t you use mine when we go up North? We’re taking Harry’s van, and the car’s just gonna sit there in the garage.”
“I’ll see, Ma.” He got into the Ford.
“Well, you have the house key and you know where the car keys hang inside. So you’re welcome to it.”
John slammed the car door and said, “Thanks, Ma.”
Mrs. Green leaned in the open window to kiss his cheek. “Do me one favor, honey.”
“What’s that, Ma?”
“Please get yourself a haircut and shave off this beard. I don’t know my own son this way.”
John started the car. “I just might do that, Ma. I’ll see you later.” He backed the Ford loudly down the drive as his mother gave him a worried wave.
Chapter 36
It was surprising he remembered this area at all, a mostly rural stretch off I-94, beyond Mt. Clemens, northeast of the city. Nearly 15 years since he’d been down this road, and yet there were still a few landmarks he recalled. Like the old weathered barn with the two silos. He remembered that because he had asked his father on one of their trips to the plant—he must have been eight or nine—why that farm had two silos instead of one like all the other farms on this road. And his father had given him a look and said in his raspy voice, “Cause they need one more than the other ones.”
He remembered feeling embarrassed by his stupid question, asked probably because he felt, as he often did with his father in the silence between them, awkward and uncomfortable. “Because,” he had added quickly, trying to recoup his father’s respect, “they have more grain or corn to store.”
“Si,” his father had said and drove on, as usual, in silence. Having arrived here from Sicily at 13, Joe Giordano had learned to speak his accented English quite well, but at least around his son he was a man of few words. Hard-working to the point of obsession, he often missed dinner and arrived home after John had gone off to bed. And even in the time they spent together, on their Saturday visits to the plant, for instance, the man would be using every available moment, it seemed, to work on ways his small factory could produce more cheese.
But then, according to John’s mother, his father had always been that way: driven, obsessive, at age 15 working incredibly long hours for the old man who owned the cheese company, scrimping, saving everything, and of course learning every facet of the business. In less than a dozen years, before he reached 27, he had saved enough to buy out the old man. And then he had worked even harder. For three years he had come into an Italian grocery store on the eastside to deliver his cheese and to flirt shyly with the owner’s daughter, a full-figured young woman who worked behind the counter. It had been three years before he felt successful enough to ask her for a date. By then they were both in their late 20s, and on that first date he had asked her to marry him.
Of course, much on this road had changed substantially, and there was much that John did not remember. Most of the farms were no longer worked. In fact, most appeared abandoned, their fields overgrown, their pastures empty. There were a few newer homes and a store or two John could not recall, and the mottled gray of the highway itself, little used and never repaved, seemed much darker. So why had this area remained rural and undeveloped with so much sprawl in almost every other direction beyond the city’s close-in suburbs?
The front of the cheese factory property was so overgrown with trees and bushes that the building, set well back off the road, was barely visible. He passed the entrance twice before finding it. Finally, he pulled the Ford off the quiet highway and stopped in front of the rusty gate. Out of the car he walked through low weeds to the gate, fumbled with the keys his mother had given him and eventually found one that opened the heavy padlock. With some effort he shoved the gate through thick underbrush.
Moving the Ford slowly up the dirt road heavily overgrown with huge weeds and bushes, John watched the old plant finally come into view, a long, two-story cement block building with a badly faded sign on the front that said “Giordano Cheese.” He followed the road as it crossed in front of the building to a spot where he could park near a door with a small rusted “Office” sign attached.
There was still a lot of light left, but crickets were already chirping loudly as John got out of the car, looked over the unpainted block exterior of the plant and walked to the office door. Again he had to try several keys before finding one that worked. He pushed the door open with a loud creak and stepped inside.
There was just enough light coming from two dingy windows for John to see and recall a good-sized room, large enough to accommodate two desks and two filing cabinets, a small refrigerator, a couple of chairs and a couch. Everything was covered with a heavy layer of dust, and many generations of spiders had obviously been busy in this room.
On the wall above the larger of the two desks was a calendar with a curled picture of a scantily-clad young woman milking a cow. The month was June. Standing in the middle of the room, he wondered about the year. It had to be ‘77. He hadn’t been in this room in more than 14 years. Perhaps no one had. Something small made scurrying noises in one corner, and he decided he’d need to buy some mousetraps.
Another door, in the back wall, led out of the office, and he moved to it. Before leaving, he turned back and tried to imagine the room the way it had looked 15 years before. In his memory it was bright and cheerful. A smiling young secretary was typing at the smaller desk, and at the larger one John himself, at age 10 maybe, added up a long list of numbers with the help of an old hand-cranked adding machine.
As the reverie continued, a dark little man about 40 came up behind the boy and playfully placed an empty perforated tin cheese container upside down on the youngster’s head as if it were a helmet. The boy looked around and saluted his smiling father, and John recalled with both pain and fondness how rare that carefree moment had been. He turned back to the door, tried the handle and left the office.
Now he was in a dimly lit storeroom with an open area to his left and aisles of shelves to his right. Looking left he saw what was left of burlap bags with their contents eaten away. Better make it rat traps, he thought. When he turned back he saw the room as it once was: clean and bright, shelves filled with cheese tins, cans, boxes and other items used when the plant was a going concern.
He also saw himself, again at age ten, moving quietly and alone down an aisle toward a corner of the storeroom. He recalled vividly what the boy had found there one summer afternoon: his father and the young secretary from the office locked in an unmistakably carnal embrace. He remembered being stunned by the sight, almost gasping with the confusion of his feelings, but watching unseen for awhile, not making a sound, then backing away quietly and leaving the store room by another door that stood open and led to the main production room. Now he did the same.
Enough early evening light came through several dirty windows to see a number of large vats as he moved into the plant’s biggest room. For awhile he stared into one of the dusty, empty vats and remembered what this room had looked and smelled like when he was a child, the milky liquid being stirred in the gleaming vats, the workers in white overalls seeming never to notice the slightly sour dairy odor that always filled the plant.
He also th
ought of the cigar. And the day he had pushed between the white pant legs of two workers to come upon a frightening scene in which his father was speaking vigorously in Italian to three burley, tough-looking men across one of the vats. His father had been beet-red in the face when he pointed to the door, and the three men began to leave. But one of them had stopped, turned and flipped his fat cigar into the white liquid being stirred mechanically in the vat between them, the long gray ash being quickly folded into what soon would have been the region’s best ricotta cheese. Laughing raucously the three men had walked out of the plant, and John turned from the empty vat now reeling with the anger he had felt as a 10-year-old.
Starting to move back toward the storeroom, he noticed the large airtight door to the adjacent refrigeration room standing wide open. He headed for that instead, knowing full well what his memory would call up there.
In the open doorway he peered in and felt again the chill on his face and hands from that day at age 11, when he also found the door open and looked into the large, well-lit refrigerator, its shelves lined with freshly-made cheese. There on the floor his father had been sprawled on his back, his eyes wide open in a death stare the boy would never forget. Now he turned and walked away from the dark empty room.
In the office again he moved to a door at the far end of the room. Opening it, he found the small, dark, windowless bathroom pretty much as he remembered it. After he closed the door, his hand rested on the knob, then moved up to a spot on the door and its jamb where he knew it would be a simple matter to attach a latch and a lock.
Chapter 37
At dusk a dark green van rolled to a stop at the curb on a street lined with old clapboard two-story homes in the city’s southwest corner. Inside the van were four men wearing bulletproof vests. Three of them also wore baseball caps that said “Narco.”
Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy) Page 10