The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  “Sent him a letter. They matched him up with some guy from Waterbury.”

  “Hey, look. Your brother’s a big boy. How’d he take it?”

  I pictured Thomas on the couch, wearing that foolish cap and shredding TV Guide. I didn’t answer Leo.

  “He’s a trip, though, huh? How ’bout that stunt he pulled out at the reservoir yesterday? Dropping trou, showing Dell his dick. That was weird, man.”

  “He quit,” I said.

  “Thomas? Quit work, you mean? What’d he do that for?”

  I told Leo I wanted to talk about something else—that I’d settle for any subject that wasn’t my stupid brother.

  “Hey, relax, Birdsey,” Leo said. “It was just a little freaky, what he did. That’s all I’m saying. Him taking Dell that serious. . . . I almost envy him, though. I can’t wait until it’s sayonara to that job. Fuckin’ Public Works Department. But anyway, Birds, I’m telling you. I think we ought to sample a little of Ralph’s reefer tonight, and if it’s any good, we should make ourselves an investment. Earn a little spare change this semester.”

  I couldn’t remember Dell’s street number. We drove past the mill, then slowed down when we got to the dingy strip of row houses just past the mill. It was one of those neighborhoods with car engines in front yards and abandoned grocery store carts overturned at the curb. Most of the people hanging around outside their houses were black or Spanish—not exactly the kind of neighborhood you’d figure a racist like Dell would live in. But it was typical, according to my sociology teacher. The biggest bigots were the ones who felt most directly threatened by the “underclass.” The ones who felt the most moved in on. We drove up and down, up and down, collecting dirty looks and trying to scope out Dell’s car. Finally, I got out and began looking in backyards while Leo rolled along in the Skylark.

  I found the Valiant Dell was selling sitting in a yard at the end of the street. It was faded red with black-and-white-checked upholstery. The body had cancer; two of the tires were bald. You could wobble the tailpipe with your foot.

  “Well, it ain’t going to win any beauty contests,” Leo said, approaching. He squinted in at the dashboard. “What’d you say he told you this thing had for mileage?”

  “Around sixty.”

  “Try seventy-eight and change. You seen the driver’s side seat? Stuffing’s coming out. Dell’s wife must have done some powerful farting while she was driving around in this thing. Let’s go, Birdsey. You don’t want this piece of junk.”

  “I do if it runs okay and he lets me have it for two hundred,” I said. “I could put a seat cover over it. Come on. We’re already here. Let’s go talk to him.”

  “Keep pointing out everything that’s wrong with it,” Leo advised me. “Make a list in your head. That’s how you get them down.”

  The garbage out by Dell’s back porch was ripe and overflowing; about a zillion flies lifted off it as we passed. The porch steps were rotting away. “This is exactly the sort of dump I expected him to live in,” Leo whispered. “Dell Weeks, the guy from Scumville.”

  I rapped softly. Squinted through the screen door. A cat was up on the stove, licking the inside of a frying pan. Somewhere inside, a TV was blaring.

  I rapped again, louder. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” someone called.

  Then Ralph Drinkwater was at the door, shirtless and barefoot, as dumbstruck to see us as we were to see him. For a couple of seconds, the three of us just stood there. “What the hell are you doing here?” Leo finally said.

  Ralph looked flustered. He disappeared back inside for a second and then came back again, yanking on a shirt as he pushed past us. “I was just leaving,” he said. He had his shoes in his hand.

  “Hey!” I called after him. “Is Dell home?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” Ralph said, not bothering to look back. At the front sidewalk, he broke into a run, shirttails flying behind him.

  Leo and I stood there, watching him go. I remember thinking, stupidly, that he’d just killed Dell—had come to Dell’s house and murdered the bastard and then, by some quirky twist of fate, had run smack into us. What other reason did he have for being there? Why else would he be running?

  “Birdsey, what day is it?” Leo said.

  “What? It’s . . . it’s the twenty-second. Why?”

  “Because you owe me twenty bucks.”

  “What?”

  “Our bet. It’s an even-numbered day and Ralphie’s wearing something besides his blue tank top. You owe me twenty bucks.”

  I waited for another couple of seconds, trying to figure out what to do. Then Leo turned the screen door handle and walked in. “Hey, Dell?” he called. “You home?”

  No answer.

  “It’s Leo and Dominick. We came to look at that car.”

  From down the hall, I heard Dell cough. “I thought I told you to call first.”

  “I would have,” I said. “But we were going fishing and I just thought. . . . We can come back some other time if—”

  “I’ll be with youse in a couple minutes. Go out back and give ‘er a look.”

  “We just did, asshole,” Leo whispered. We stood there, waiting.

  The place was a pigsty: dirty dishes and clutter everywhere you looked, tumbleweeds of cat fur all over the floor. It smelled, too—the whole place smelled like Dell. There was a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich and a half-drunk bottle of 7-Up on the coffee table. Drinkwater’s copy of Soul on Ice lay cover open on a stack of magazines.

  “You know what I think?” I said. “I think Ralph lives here.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Leo said. “You catch on real quick.”

  He walked over to a barbell on the floor, picked it up, did a couple of curls. Then he put the weight down and picked up Soul on Ice. “This book tells it like it is, man!” he said, mimicking Ralph. “I’ve read it 153 times now!” He tossed the book on the couch and started flipping through the magazines. “Hey, Birdsey, get over here,” he whispered. He looked quickly down the hall for Dell. “Check these out!”

  Mixed in with the Rolling Stones and the head comics were homo magazines. On the cover of one, two guys were tonguing each other. On another, some dude was straddling a Harley, wearing just a biker jacket.

  “They’re queers!” Leo whispered. “Ralphie and Dell! They’re queer for each other!”

  “No, they’re not,” I said. “Dell’s got a wife.”

  “Yeah? Where is she then? And whose magazines are these? Hers?”

  Down the hall, a toilet flushed. “Come on,” I said. “I’m going outside. I’m getting out of here.”

  Dell came out a minute later, calling to us from the porch. I couldn’t look at him. I needed to get the fuck out of there almost as much as I needed that car.

  “I jumped the battery and started her up after work yesterday,” Dell said as we went around the back. “She sounded good. Here, let me start ‘er up again.”

  “How come your wife’s selling it, anyway?” I asked.

  “I told you already. She’s got MS. The doctor don’t want her to drive no more.” I followed his eyes to an upstairs window. Sure enough: a middle-aged woman, fat and sorry-looking, was at the window. She waved down at us; I waved back.

  Dell backed his Galaxy out of the garage and inched it toward the Valiant until the bumpers clunked. We put up the hoods, connected the jumper cables. When Dell’s hand brushed against mine while he was checking a connection, I jerked it away. “If a queer ever tries anything funny with you,” Ray had once advised my brother and me, “knee him in the nuts first and ask questions later.”

  Dell told me to get in the Valiant and start her up.

  “So what do you think?” he said. “Sounds good, don’t it?”

  “Sounds all right,” I said. “You mind if we take her for a test drive?”

  “She ain’t registered and there’s no insurance. My wife let everything run out.”

  “This thing have any snow tires?” Leo asked.r />
  Dell shook his head. “What you see is what you get.”

  The three of us stood there, staring at it. Then Dell reached inside and turned off the ignition. The yard went uncomfortably quiet.

  “So, Dell,” Leo said. “What’s the story with Ralph?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, what’s the story with him?”

  “He answered the door a few minutes ago. Does he live here or something?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I was just wondering.”

  Dell shoved his hands in his pockets, jingling his change. “Yeah, he lives here. Him and me and the Mrs. You got a problem with that?”

  “Uh-uh,” Leo said. “We just didn’t know he lived here, that’s all. Neither of you ever mentioned it. You two related or something?”

  For several seconds, the two of them just stared at each other. “I’m white and he’s a nigger,” Dell finally said. “What do you think?”

  “So, anyway,” I said. “About the car.”

  Dell took his time finishing his staring contest with Leo. Then he turned to me. “I’ll let you have it for four hundred,” he said. “That’s a damn good price.”

  I told him I couldn’t afford four hundred—that I’d already told him two hundred was all I could afford.

  “Two hundred bucks for this car? For two hundred bucks, I might as well let it stay right where it is and be a goddamned lawn ornament.”

  “Two-fifty, then,” I said. “I can’t go any higher than that.” He spat on the grass. Said nothing. “Okay. Two-seventy-five then. That’s it. That’s my last offer.”

  He stood there, smiling and shaking his head.

  “It’s got over seventy-eight thousand miles on it, Dell. That tailpipe could go tomorrow. I’d have to get insurance, register the thing.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “So?”

  “You said yourself it’s just sitting here. I need a car.”

  “We all need things, Dicky Bird. Three seventy-five. Take it or leave it.”

  I shook my head. “Leave it,” I said.

  He shrugged. “No skin off my nose. See you Monday.”

  We were halfway across the lawn when Leo made a U-turn and walked back up to Dell. I followed, oblivious. “You know, it’s like you were saying yesterday, Dell,” Leo began. “What the guys on our crew do is nobody else’s business. Right? Like us smoking a few joints. Or you getting cocked on the job two or three days a week. Or harassing my buddy’s brother to the point where he’s in tears. To the point where he—”

  “His brother’s a little dickless pansy-ass,” Dell said. “Quits his job over some stupid little thing like that. I can’t help it if he’s—”

  “Hey, you know what I could never understand, Dell?” Leo said. I had no idea where this was going. “I could never understand why you’ve been so interested all summer about what Dominick’s brother’s got inside his pants. Why’d you go on and on with that dickless stuff all summer, anyway, Dell? Huh?”

  Dell looked nervous—vulnerable. “Stupid kid can’t take a little bit of teasing, that ain’t my problem. That’s his problem.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Because what us guys on the crew do is nobody else’s business, right? Not Lou Clukey’s or anyone else’s. Like, for example, the living arrangement you and Ralph got going out here. Lou know about you two being roommates, Dell?”

  “Come on, Leo,” I said, turning to go. “He doesn’t want to sell me the car, fine.”

  But there was a smile in Leo’s eyes. He stayed put. “How long’s he been living here, anyways? You and Ralph been roommates for a short time or a long time?”

  “We ain’t ‘roommates,’” Dell said. “He sleeps on the couch on and off. Since his mother took off for parts unknown.”

  Leo put his hands in his pockets. Scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his sneaker. “Yeah? That right? Was that while he was still a minor?”

  Now there was genuine fear in Dell’s eyes. “You see that house?” he said. He swallowed. Tried to smile. “That one down there? The green one? Him and his old lady used to live up there. Top floor. She was no good. White girl, but she preferred the coons to her own kind. After the little girl was killed—his sister—it got so that the mother wasn’t good for anything. Drunk as a skunk half the time, screaming and fighting with all her different nigger boyfriends. Ralph was like one of those stray cats you feed once and then they won’t go away.”

  “Come on, Leo,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “It’s her,” Dell said, nodding back toward the house. “My wife. She’s too good-hearted for her own good. White, colored, she don’t care. She’ll take in any stray dog. He ate more meals over here than he did at home. And then the next thing you know—”

  “Whose fag magazines are those in there?” Leo said. “The ones in your living room? They yours or his? Or do you share them?”

  Dell crossed his beefy arms across his chest. Looked from me to Leo. Moved to within a few inches of my face. The truth was this: in a fight, he could have probably killed both Leo and me. “What is this, Dicky Boy?” he asked me. “Blackmail? You and Big Mouth here trying to blackmail me?”

  Was the tremor in my face visible? The winner of this one was going to be the guy who didn’t flinch first. “Blackmail?” I said.

  “Because you and your buddy here and that pansy-ass brother of yours are going to be three sorry little motherfuckers if you fuck with me. You got it?”

  My gut was churning, but I was into it now. There was no backing away from what Leo had begun. “No, this isn’t blackmail,” I said. “If this was blackmail, I’d be asking you to give me the car. But I’m not. I just want you to sell it for what it’s worth.”

  Just when I thought the worst was coming, he nodded. “Two-seventy-five, you said?”

  I looked over at Leo. Looked back again. “I said two-fifty.”

  “What about you, Big Mouth?” he said, nodding over at Leo. “If your buddy and I make a little private deal here, you gonna keep your trap shut for once in your life?”

  “Mum’s the word, my man,” Leo said. “Mum’s the word.”

  “Okay, then, Dicky Boy. Bring the money over here Monday night. I want a bank check. Two-fifty. Make it out to Delbert Weeks.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  “No problem at all,” Leo echoed. “Delbert.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now both of youse get off my fucking property before I change my mind. And do me a favor, will you, Dicky Boy? Explain to Big Mouth here what the difference is between a white guy and a nigger, will you? He can’t seem to figure it out on his own. Big Know It All he is, but that one escapes him.”

  He pounded back in the house, slamming the screen door behind him.

  We walked back up to where Leo had parked his car. Got in. Neither of us said anything. We rode for a mile or more in silence.

  Leo was the first to speak. “Unbelievable,” he said. “Un-fucking-believable.”

  “What?”

  “All of it! The fact that they’re queers together! The fact that we got you that car for two-fifty! Frankly, Birds, I didn’t think you had it in you, but that was the sweetest victory I’ve ever seen. What’d you say to him? No, Dell, if this was blackmail, I’d expect you to give me the car. I wish I had that on tape, Birdseed. You’re my new hero.”

  I told him to just shut up. Told him Ralph wasn’t queer.

  “Hey, really, Birds. An hour ago, I was thinking you were a pussy because you wouldn’t sell a little weed on the side with me. Now, come to find out, we’re a couple of what-do-you-call-its . . . extortionists! I’m going to buy us a couple bottles of Boone’s Farm on the way out to the bridge. My treat, my man. This calls for a celebration.”

  “I said shut up, Leo. Okay?”

  “Okay, my man. Sure thing. No sweat. Because you are my fucking hero.”

  The wine and two or three hits off of one of Ralph’s joints mellowed me out a little. Out at the trestle bridge, I
kept feeling something striking my line but nothing would hook itself. Leo kept talking about queers. “And how about that little fruity kid we went to Kennedy with? He graduated in your year. The guy everyone always used to pitch pennies at in the hallway?”

  “Francis Freeman?” I said.

  “That’s the guy. Francis Freeman. He was definitely light in the loafers.”

  “God,” I said. “This stuff from Ralph is strong. I am wrecked.”

  “Me, too. So, what do you think, Birds? Could you ever do it?”

  “Do what?”

  He took a sip on the roach. When he held out the joint for me, I shook my head. “Make it with another guy,” he said, exhaling.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “Bring him on.”

  “No, I mean it. How about if it was a matter of life or death?”

  “How’s something like that going to be a matter of life or death?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Suppose . . . okay, suppose this psycho-fag pulls a gun on you and says, ‘Okay, I got a bullet ready for your brain, but I’ll let you live if I can bugger you.’ Would you do it?”

  “Jesus Christ, Leo,” I said, casting. “Give it a rest. Will you?”

  “Would you?”

  “That’s such a stupid question, I’m not even answering it.”

  “All right, all right, how about some guy comes up to you and says, ‘See this four-on-the-floor ’69 Chevelle SS-396? How would you like to cruise up to Boston College on the weekends and visit your little honey in this mean machine? All’s you gotta do is let me suck your dick once a week.’ Would you do it then?”

  “What are you, nuts or something?” I changed my mind about the joint—reached over for it. “Why? Would you?”

  “Me? No way, man. I ain’t no three-dollar bill.” I reeled in, cast again. Leo cast. “I might consider doing it for a Mustang, though,” he said. I looked over at him. “I’m kidding, Birdseed. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

  My mind floated from the Valiant I’d just bought to Drinkwater standing at the screen door at Dell’s to the sound of the ringing phone over at Dessa’s house. Fish or no fish, it felt better to be out here in the late afternoon sun than back at the house with my stupid, screwed-up brother. Better to fish and get stoned than wait all day long for her to pick up the phone. Let her wait now, I reasoned. Let her sit and wait for a call from the guy her father said wasn’t good enough for her. . . . Unless she agreed with him by now, after that stupid stunt I’d pulled out in her mother’s car. I’d scared her: that was the thing. Blown her trust.