by Lou Cove
“I think this is it,” I say.
“What? No. He said ‘Naht Station.’”
“That’s the way they say it. North Station.”
We walk through Government Center, a complex of modern concrete structures that could have been the setting for Caesar’s simian revolution at the end of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. The buildings turn from concrete to brick as we make our way through a downtown crossing.
Howie stops at the outskirts of the Combat Zone, that infamous corner of Boston where all the girlie shows, strip clubs, and violence are on display. I zero in on the faint flicker of peep show bulbs and marquees that promise NUDE, NAKED, and ADULT while he checks Papa’s office address on a slip of paper.
“Chez Jefe!” he says, motioning to a less seductive office building. “This is where the war on poverty meets the private sector petri dish. And your dad is the mad scientist. A little welfare reform here, a little capitalist efficiency there. Your Papa’s gonna outsmart the Washington bureaucrats and actually get people jobs. Might even make a little dinero in the process.” It doesn’t make perfect sense to me, but somehow I understand my father’s mission in life better than I ever have.
The elevator moves so slowly I can’t tell if it’s actually moving. My heart slams until, with a groan, the doors release. “You have a claustrophobia thing?” Howie whispers, noting my silent anxiety on the ride up. “Possession by the devil’s my phobia thing … Hi! We’re here to see Peter Cove.”
The woman at the desk stares curiously at us, a grown man in flowered drawstring pants and a twelve-year-old boy with shoulder-length hair. “May I tell him who is calling?”
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Howie smiles. “And you must be Maid Marian.”
“Joyce,” the woman at the desk corrects, lifting the telephone to her ear.
“Joy to meet you, Joyce,” he says. Her cheeks redden when he says her name. She looks away, Howie looks at me, and Joyce looks back at him. Looks away. Looks back again, up and down, catches a quick breath and shuts her eyes as if she’s trying to go back to sleep. Howie gives me a jumpy brow wiggle and points back at Joyce with his eyes as if to say Did you see her? He doesn’t notice that Joyce has seen him.
Beyond the reception desk there’s a room full of people, mostly black, mostly women, filling out forms, speaking with staff.
“Ever see The Exorcist?” Howie asks. “My friends said, ‘Hey! Movie night! Let’s take some sugar cubes and ride.’ And I’m thinking John Wayne. I’m thinking Hondo. I’m thinking Rio Bravo. I didn’t know anything about this movie. Nobody knew anything about this movie.”
“It’s a horror movie, right?”
“That’s one way to put it. I’m a Frankenstein/Dracula kind of guy. I loved The Tingler … You see The Tingler, Joyce?” Joyce, on the phone now, shakes her head. “Vibrators in the seats! Revolution in filmmaking. They should do that in porn films…” He pauses, making a mental note of the idea.
“Mr. Cove is just wrapping up a meeting,” Joyce says, hanging up. “You can take a seat.” She points to a sofa against the wall behind us, but we stay standing, continuing our conversation as if it was just the two of us alone on the roof.
“Anyway, The Exorcist isn’t like those old movies. It’s just totally real and fucking horrifying. The acid probably didn’t help. But somewhere in there I just lost the ability to discern fiction from reality and I walked out of there thinking, whether it’s the raging sea or the Devil himself, the universe will break you eventually. You’re going to get whacked, one way or the other.”
If Papa’s ever been petrified of anything, he never mentioned it. Fear of failure, maybe, but his universe is meant for conquering. My universe feels indomitable, and Howie just confirmed what the experience of unexpected moves and perpetual loss of control has taught me: I’m going to get whacked eventually. Then again, these two seem to be handling their respective fates in style.
“El Jefe!” Howie points to Papa, on cue. My father is standing over an older woman who is focused on filling out a form, his hand reassuringly resting on her shoulder. He looks up when Howie calls and smiles at us.
“You even wear that outfit in the city?” Papa points to Howie’s latest pair of drawstring pants—black with lush, white-pink hibiscus. You are a crazy motherfucker,” he says under his breath as he greets us.
“And who are you, asshole? Pat Boone in the white buck shoes?” Papa, who is indeed wearing white bucks, seersucker pants, and a plaid shirt with a white collar and paisley bow tie, grins again and hugs Howie. I catch a glimpse of Joyce, still staring at Howie. Looking away, staring again.
“There’s style and then there’s chaos,” Papa says. “This way,” he puts a hand on my head and leads us toward the back. “Welcome to the next frontier in the war on poverty.”
“Corner office, of course. He’s El Jefe,” Howie whispers to me, conspiratorially.
Howie catches the eye of everyone he passes, a black, white, and pink blur of kinetic energy. His friendliness is infectious—people can’t help but smile in response—but the smiles are followed by a weak wave and a confused look: Does this guy have something to do with getting off welfare? Maybe he’s on welfare?
Papa sweeps us into his office and reaches for a leather cigar box on the windowsill. “Cohiba?” Howie shakes his head and Papa shrugs, putting his nose to the long, brown stogie. He breathes deeply, pierces the tip with a gold-plated cigar punch, wets the end with his tongue, then his lips, and finally lights it with a scrimshaw Zippo.
“Cuban?” Howie asks.
“Dominican, alas.”
“How about Hawaiian?” Howie pulls his own smoke box from his pocket—the Sucrets box—and reveals three huge joints.
“Ever heard of boundaries? This is an office, for Christ’s sake,” Papa says.
“This is an orifice,” Howie replies, opening his mouth wide and mimicking Papa’s cigar routine, licking the joint, biting off the tip and spitting it across the room.
“Put it away,” Papa wags a finger, walks to the door to close it. A young businesswoman walks by at just that moment, focused on a stack of papers in her hand. She slows for just a second, waves at Papa, takes in the fact that Howie and I are there, and keeps going.
“New staff member,” Papa says cheerily. “I’ll introduce you to her later. Smart, smart, smart. GREAT hire.”
“Speaking of…” Howie says. “Are you hiring?”
Papa looks blankly at him. “Can you wear regular clothes and not get high in an office?”
“Did Franco Harris rush for one thousand yards last season?” Howie asks as if the answer is self-evident.
“No clue,” Papa says earnestly. “But I’ve got a grant proposal in. If it comes through, we’ll have an opening. You willing to stay on this coast for while?”
“You get me a job and you’ve got yourself a housemate, mate. Well, two housemates, in fact. Two for the price of one.”
“Oh, there’s a price,” my father nods, puffing at his cigar.
*
He kicks us out shortly after we arrive, so we stroll the Combat Zone with its Boston Bunnies, Rap Booths, King of Pizza, nude photos. Howie leads me to The Book Mart, a small corner shop with blacked-out windows and a glass door stenciled with different typefaces: BOOKS AND MAGAZINES. MODERN AND TRADITIONAL. LARGE COLLECTION FRENCH SWEDISH CLASSICS.
Inside, a black guy in a royal blue southwestern-print shirt and large round aviator sunglasses blocks our way. “Hey man, you can’t bring that kid in here.”
“He’s my son, it’s cool. I give him permission.”
“Pigs don’t give him permission. Gotta go.”
I glance around nervously: unfamiliar nude magazines are wrapped in plastic. The Seeker shows a man kissing a woman, her shirt fully unbuttoned.
“He’s blind, man,” Howie says. “He can’t see anything anyway.”
Then I see another cover—Show-Off—with a couple kissing on it, but the wo
man on this one has no shirt at all and the man is squeezing both of her breasts.
“Bull. Shit. Kid’s eyes popping out of his head right now.”
Twogether, Skin Scene, Screw, and Dirty Old Man Coloring Book with an illustration of a bald man on the cover that looks way too much like Gramps, a halo over his head and a sly smile spread under his extended nose.
“That’s because he’s blind,” Howie whispers. “You know, usually he wears dark glasses so you can’t see them. It’s embarrassing. Don’t talk about it, OK?”
“Out.”
Howie asks two construction guys on a cigarette break from ripping up the sidewalk if they can keep an eye on me while he does a quick shop. They nod, pat the concrete sewer pipes they’re sitting on, and invite me to join them.
“Your dad’s got weird clothes,” says one, shirt open, chest hairs dripping with sweat despite the cold of the Zone.
Howie emerges with a paper bag. “This kid give you any trouble?” he asks. “He’s a tough one.”
“Whatever, Sally.” The sweaty one tosses his cigarette into the street and gets up.
“Well, thanks for the kindness, gentlemen. Off to new adventures. If you’re ever in the San Francisco Bay Area…”
“Figures,” says the other worker. Sweaty nods vaguely and picks up a shovel.
*
We meet Papa at “Naht” Station, and ride the packed sardine train home.
“We had a bit of drama here today,” Mama says, handing my father a folded copy of the Salem Evening News as we walk in.
“These are the classifieds,” Papa says, dropping his leather doctor’s satchel, which doubles as a briefcase.
“Just read the announcements section, Peter,” she says through clenched teeth.
“Right, OK, Historical Society meeting at Hamilton Hall, Thursday. Volunteer cleanup, Salem Common, Sunday. Blah blah blah. Gay Rights Alliance inaugural meeting, tonight, 31B … Chestnut St.?” He looks up at Mama.
“Uh huh.”
“So, Frank’s becoming an activist. Good for him.”
“Yes,” Mama says. “Good for him. I’m glad. But Glovey Butler isn’t so glad that he’s doing it here.”
“Shit.”
“She’s the one who showed me.”
“Shit.”
“She says she doesn’t care what he wants to do on his own private time, but she’s worried about us. She thinks some local homophobes might do something, and now they have our address.”
Papa strokes his mustache, considers, then loosens his bow tie and starts up the stairs.
“Where are you going?!” Mama shouts after him and my shoulders rise at the familiar shrill. Something beyond frustration there. More like panic. Like her brakes just stopped working and the car is jetting off the cliff at the Marblehead lighthouse. It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while my mother splinters, sharp and all at once. I guess everybody has their way of getting noticed.
“I don’t think that’s the issue. But we can certainly allay her fears. There’s only one thing to do,” Papa calls.
“And that is?” Her voice still frayed.
“Invite her to dinner.”
“OK,” Mama says uncertainly, but she drops out of DEFCON 1.
“And Frank, too.”
“Oh, God.”
“It’ll be fine! People can’t sustain fear or bigotry when they’ve had a good meal together.” Papa’s voice fades into his bedroom on the second floor.
“And have Howie and Carly take the kids out?” Mama’s head drops and she leans wearily against the banister.
“No! Everyone should be here,” Papa yells back. “In fact, let’s have everyone to Thanksgiving. That will give us a few weeks to figure all of this out.”
“Oh God,” Mama says again.
“We’re not going to Grandma Wini’s?” I sigh. “Come on. We don’t want that old lady here. She’ll ruin everything.”
“I’m certain she has some other place to go,” Mama says by way of comfort.
“I’ll bet you a hundred bucks no one has the courage to invite her,” Papa shouts. “And Howie! Let’s play racquetball Sunday! You need a good ass kicking!”
Bewitched
Even my new school can’t escape Salem’s strict past. The Alternative School is housed in a big building on Hawthorne Street with FOR GOD AND COUNTRY and SAINT MARY’S SCHOOL carved in cement above the door. Its own scarlet letter to wear. Wild ivy coils the wrought-iron railing running along the speckled marble steps. An imposing statue of Hawthorne himself stands in the middle of the street, alive with texture in the folds of his coat, the bristles of his mustache, the great bunches of turquoise-bronze grapes scattered about the heels of his heavy boots. Funeral homes, burnt witches, dead writers—little room for the living, here.
I was promised a new kind of school, and I have dressed accordingly: Papa’s tweed driving cap, turned backward, a green-and-yellow-on-white number eighty-eight jersey, and a pair of Mr. Green Jeans green jeans with a paisley patch Mama has sewn to the right knee. I feel like Howie: free, cool, and independent.
My teacher, Becky, who wants to be addressed by her first name only, greets me warmly with a handshake. She’s wearing bell-bottoms, clogs, a white shirt, and a belt made of big tortoiseshell rings, all linked together. “We’re so happy you’re joining the class,” she says, guiding me to sit with the group at a large round table. There are no desks in the classroom, and the students are doing art—a subject never even considered at Oliver. “I think you know Gretchen?” Becky asks, motioning to my neighbor sitting opposite from me. I shrug, noncommittal.
“You finally got out of Olivah?” Gretchen asks. I nod, scan the walls of the class, which are plastered with art, mostly by students, some prints by famous artists, or else collages of photographs of all the kids looking happy, wearing white-on-blue Alternative School Tshirts. I feel a wave of gratitude to my parents for springing me from Oliver: no grading on margins and crooked lines here.
“He lives around the corner from me,” Gretchen tells the group as I settle. “But he’s really from New York.” The other kids at my table look up, acknowledge me vaguely as I settle in among them.
“I like your hat,” says a tall boy to my right. “I’m Uli.”
I smile and touch the tweed absentmindedly. The group is drawing on large pieces of colored construction paper, choosing from a massive basket of Cray-Pas. A blonde woman at the table, younger than Becky but definitely older than all of us, hands me a piece of tag board and slides the basket closer to my side of the table. She looks like Stevie Nicks on the album cover for Rumours—the same choppy, feathered hair, the same curve in her lips.
“You can try to do still life from one of these things in the center of the table,” she says, pointing to a random assortment of objects that include an orange studded with cloves and a Polaroid Land Camera with a frayed leather strap. “Or you can just draw from your imagination.”
“Can I go the bathroom before I start?” I ask her.
“I don’t care,” she says, not looking up from her own drawing.
Taken aback, I don’t reply for a moment. Then: “But … Can I have permission to go?”
“Ask the teacher,” she rolls her eyes.
“But aren’t you…?”
“What? A teacher? No!” The entire group starts laughing. “Why does everyone always ask me that?”
“Because yuh got big boobs,” Gretchen tells her matter-of-factly.
“She’s in our class,” Uli leans in to me and whispers. “Come on. I’ll show you where the outhouse is.” She’s in our class. I don’t think I’d be more excited if I found out Farrah Fawcett was our teacher.
“You’re lucky you got out of Oliver. That’s like a concentration camp for kids. Here you don’t have to ask for permission to use the bathroom,” Uli says. His teeth are prodigious, almost horselike, and his mouth can’t close all the way around them, but it adds a friendliness to his face that I take to
immediately.
I nod as he leads me down a shining waxed hallway, most of the light coming from the tall windows at either end. Behind the bathroom’s closed doors, Uli returns to the only subject that matters with a whisper: “Gretchen says Penny has such big boobs because her mom cast a spell on her.” He answers my frown by telling me, “Her mom’s a witch.”
“No way.”
“Yes, suh,” his accent slacking on the R. “Laurie Cabot, the Good Witch of Salem. That’s her mom.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Stick a needle in my eye. You never heard of her? She travels with the Red Sox and puts spells on their bats and gloves to help them win. Last year they had a ten-game losing streak so she went to Cleveland with them and broke the slump. Sox scored two runs in the twelfth inning. Longest game in, like, twenty years. So pissah.”
“Have you met her?”
“A million times. She comes and does lessons at the school. Witch lessons.”
“She teaches you how to cast a spell?” I ask, crowding into the urinal and unzipping my pants. But nothing comes out. Who can focus?
“No, she doesn’t really teach us that. It’s more like mind control and ESP and stuff.”
“Can you read my mind?”
“Yeah. You need to pee.”
*
I can’t take my eyes off of Penny for the rest of the day.
“Hey. New kid,” she says, holding a picture she has drawn. “What do you think? Everyone always tells me how good I am. You tell me the truth.” I stare at the drawing but think only of her. Penny shakes the construction paper in my face, intuiting instantly the direction my mind has wandered. “Hello? What do you see?”
I look at the picture and it takes every bit of strength I possess not to say “It’s good.” It’s great, reminiscent of The Grey King, a book I love. “A wolf with purple eyes. A ballerina, standing on an acorn. But she has wings, and something, like, wrapped around her arms. Like streamers? Or ribbons?”
“Leather,” she answers plainly. “But I know what it’s of. I want to know what it needs.”
It’s hard to answer the question. It’s perfect. Her drawing is to the other students’ drawings as her breasts are to all the other girls: on a completely different level. But Penny looks at me and her expression says Please be different. Whatever her need, I want to satisfy it. She’s waiting for an answer. An irresistible tug in my chest pulls me to her. All I want is to make her smile.