Eggplant Alley (9781593731410)

by Cataneo, D.

  The next day was literature. Nicky was stumped by a long poem that was said to be written in Old English, but did not resemble any English he had heard or read in his lifetime.

  Nicky visited the Only House With Trees steadily for two weeks.

  “Your grades are really great,” Mom said, perusing Nicky’s first-semester report card. “All these afternoons at the library are paying off.”

  “I am applying myself,” Nicky said.

  On a day when Nicky was not scheduled to visit the Only House With Trees, he just happened to stroll down Mayflower Avenue at the exact moment Margalo climbed the hill from Broadway. A chance meeting.

  Margalo was happy to see him. “Hey-lo,” she said. She ran her blue eyes across his face. She smiled. She invited him in.

  Nicky was not in the mood to study and Margalo was not in the mood to tutor. So they ate potato chips from a tin—they were actually delivered to the house like milk from the milkman—in her room and drank cola, as much as they could hold. Nicky knocked off his third can of soda and went for a fourth. He could not get used to this house, a place with no adult supervision. Dr. Gildersleeves was always working. The divorced Mrs. Gilder-sleeves lived in Washington, DC.

  “A little touch of heaven,” Nicky thought, climbing the stairs with his drink.

  Margalo played “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on the stereo. She played it loudly and the windows shuddered in their casements. Nicky had never listened to the great song at earsplitting decibels, and he was moved. And no one hollered at them to turn it down.

  After four cans of cola, Nicky needed a toilet. He was embarrassed to ask Margalo for directions to the bathroom. She was too fine and too precious, not the kind of girl you ask about toilets. So he merely rolled from the blue beanbag chair and casually moved toward the door.

  “Where are you going?’ she said.

  “Um, I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh. My bathroom is the third door down on the right.”

  Nicky hurried along the carpeted hallway, wondering if every female on the planet had radar.

  Lost in this deep thought, Nicky miscounted the doorways. He found himself at the end of the corridor, wandering through an open door, into a darkened room. The room smelled of sweaty clothes, sweet perfume, and something like mothballs. A bare mattress was flopped on the floor. A gleaming red electric guitar was leaned against a massive amplifier. On the wall was a flag—a yellow star on a red and blue background.

  “Canada, maybe?” Nicky thought.

  His eyes fell on a partially opened door to his right, and through the opening he saw a tile floor and at last, a toilet bowl. By now he could not be picky about which bathroom he used.

  Nicky pushed open the bathroom door and entered. The room was hot and humid and glowed with a purplish fluorescent light. All around him—in the bathtub, along the floor, along the sink-top, in the sink—were plastic pots of black soil, out of which grew tall, leggy green plants with clusters of pointy leaves.

  “Mint?” Nicky wondered, having seen mint plants portrayed on a package of mint candy.

  Nicky flushed and found the sink, choked in a thick growth of this strange foliage. He turned out the light and walked out of the humid bathroom. He nearly bumped into a tall beefy boy with shoulder-length hair. Nicky noticed the hair was exactly the same chestnut brown as Margalo’s.

  The long-haired boy towered over Nicky. He said, “Who in the name of Janis Joplin are you?”

  “Nick.”

  The long-haired boy wore tattered flared blue jeans, a loose-fitting, rough linen shirt, and sandals. A triangular patch of frizzy brown hair pointed from his chin. The long-haired boy stomped past Nicky and reached into the bathroom and turned on the lights.

  “You turd! Turn off the lights, man, and you kill the GOODS,” he said, not in a friendly tone.

  “Sorry,” Nicky said, startled to hear anger from a total stranger.

  “Who did you say you were?”

  “Nick Martini. I’m a friend of Margalo.”

  The boy smirked.

  Nicky said, “I guess I better go. Nice to meet you.”

  “Hey, do me a favor. Don’t come down this end of the house anymore.”

  Nicky returned to Margalo’s room. She was stretched out on her bed, reading a magazine. Banging, whining electric guitar sounds pumped out of the speakers at a deafening volume. Nicky felt the bass in his belly.

  “I guess I kind of got lost,” Nicky said over the music.

  “WHAT?”

  “I SAID I GOT LOST.”

  “HOW COULD YOU GET LOST?” Margalo said. She sat up on the edge of the bed, stretched her arms over her head. She plucked an elastic from her wrist, and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

  The door thumped open and the big long-haired boy stood in the doorway. He planted his hands on his hips. He shouted over the music, “HEY, MARGIE, IF YOU WANT TO HAVE BOY SCOUT MEETINGS HERE FINE, BUT KEEP YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS OUT OF MY END OF THE HOUSE.”

  Margalo continued to wrap the elastic into her hair. She rolled her eyes and said, “ALL RIGHT, Eugene.” She shook her head at Nicky and said, exasperated, “THIS IS MY CHARMING BIG BROTHER. EUGENE.”

  “HELLO,” Nicky said. He wished Margalo would turn down the music.

  Eugene didn’t say anything. He stared.

  The record ended, and the room fell into a startling silence. Nicky’s ears kept throbbing.

  “This is Roy’s little brother,” Margalo said, leaning on her hands.

  “Whose little brother?”

  “You heard me—Roy’s.”

  “Oh, yeah. Him. The guy who thought Easy Rider had a happy ending,” Eugene said. “Whatever happened to him?”

  Margalo rolled her eyes. “You know where Roy is, Eugene.”

  “Yeah,” Eugene said. “Yeah. Now I remember. He’s busy. Baby killing.”

  “Eu-gene,” Margalo said.

  “Just being real.”

  “Good-bye, Eugene,” Margalo said. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Nicky.”

  Nicky stared blankly at Eugene.

  “Just being real,” Eugene said evenly.

  “Good-BYE, Eugene.”

  “I can take a hint.”

  “I wish. Good-bye, Eugene. Stop hassling us, Eugene,” Margalo said in a singsong voice.

  Eugene said, “Screw you,” and rocked out of the room.

  “Jerk,” Margalo said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Nicky said. His hands shook and his stomach cramped. “I guess I shouldn’t of used his bathroom. I got lost.”

  “You went into his BATHROOM? No wonder he’s freaking out on you,” Margalo said.

  She swung out her legs and rolled off the bed. She replaced the phonograph arm on the album, cranked up the volume, and the guitar music pounded out, bruising Nicky’s ears again.

  Margalo assumed a ballet position. “HE GETS JUMPY IF ANYBODY POKES AROUND HIS PRECIOUS MARIJUANA.”

  “WHAZZAT?”

  “MARIJUANA. WEED. GRASS. MARY JANE.”

  “HE GROWS MARIJUANA?”

  “WELL, DUH. YES,” Margalo said. She twittered on tippytoes across the rug. “WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS? A ROCK ’N’ ROLL BALLET.”

  “GREAT,” Nicky said.

  “YOU DIG HENDRIX?”

  “SURE,” Nicky lied.

  Margalo pirouetted. “WHAT DID YOU THINK THOSE PLANTS WERE? BOSTON FERNS?”

  “OH, I THOUGHT THEY MIGHT BE MARIJUANA,” Nicky lied. He thought for a moment. “ISN’T THAT AGAINST, YOU KNOW, THE LAW?”

  “NO, REALLY?” Margalo said, dancing. She glanced at Nicky. She smiled. “AND YOUR POINT IS? YOU’RE JUST LIKE ROY. SO UPTIGHT.”

  Margalo tugged Nicky’s arm, yanking his hand from his sweaty palm. Her free arm swept up behind her. Her long delicate fingers fluttered gracefully. All this while the electric guitar howled and twanged. Nicky felt her fingertips slip from his palm, tickling him, and he didn’t care to talk any longer about the bath
room plants.

  “I NEVER SHOULD HAVE QUIT BALLET,” Margalo said, puffing. She swept up her hair and piled it on top of her head. “IT ONLY SEEMED FOOLISH TO DANCE WHEN CHILDREN WERE GOING TO BED HUNGRY IN THE WORLD.”

  Nicky nodded. He watched as she let her hair slip from her fingers and fall mussily across her face and onto her shoulders.

  Margalo shouted over the music, “I DON’T MEAN TO BLOW YOUR MIND.”

  Nicky walked up Mayflower Avenue, the bright foliage of the Only House With Trees receding behind him. His mind was blown. He tromped up the hill in the rapidly chilling November air. He came within sight of Eggplant Alley, shivering as he walked out of one world and into another.

  It was almost five thirty, and dads were returning from work, tired and stinky and bored and utterly thankful to have jobs. Nicky reached the unshaded sidewalk of Summit Avenue, and the echo of the piercing electric guitar music faded in his head. Now he heard Mr. Storch’s xylophone. He no longer smelled the heavenly scent of green apples. Now he smelled fish frying. He pushed aside thoughts of the evil Eugene when he saw Mr. Willis, machine-gunned in the leg fighting Japanese in World War II, limping home from the sugar factory. Officer O’Dell trotted down the steps onto Summit, heading to his night shift at the 11th Precinct. And on the front steps of Eggplant Alley, picking at the tangled string of a yo-yo, sat Lester.

  “There you are!” Lester said brightly. “Hiya, stranger. It’s been forever. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  “At the library, studying,” Nicky said.

  “Your mother told me,” Lester said. “Very interesting. I should join you there next time.” Lester held up the tangled yo-yo. “Say, do you know anything about these?”

  Roy had tutored Nicky extensively on yo-yos. Nicky was an expert handler of yo-yos. Nicky said, “No. I don’t know nothing about yo-yos.”

  “Oh,” Lester said. With great force, he spat out a massive blue wad of gum. The gum landed on the sidewalk and glistened in the setting sun.

  “Have you ever noticed how closely a chewed-up piece of gum resembles a brain?” Lester said.

  “Not really.”

  A man wearing a plaid jacket hurried past. The man’s footstep pressed directly onto the gum. He looked down, shook his foot, swore. The man left a lacy trail of gooey footprints on the sidewalk as he walked away, swearing.

  “Did you see that? Did you see that?” Lester whispered, suppressing a cackle.

  “No, I didn’t,” Nicky said, and Lester gave up. Anyone who looked at Lester’s face could have seen a cloud gather on the boy’s heart, because he was sure Nicky didn’t like him anymore, for some reason, and Lester was terrified what the reason might be. Lester’s scared, bug eyes revealed an imagination unleashed.

  What did Nicky know? How did he know?

  Anyone who looked at Lester’s face would have seen the cold fear. But no one was looking at Lester’s face, certainly not Nicky, a boy with a scrambled, jumbled, blown mind.

  “Well, I’m going upstairs,” Nicky said without enthusiasm.

  “You have a lot of homework?”

  “Plenty.”

  Lester followed Nicky up the steps and across the courtyard and into Building B. Neither said a word. Lester was thinking about Nicky. Nicky was thinking about Margalo. He was frightened and excited. He felt on the edge of something. His mind was sprinkled with a million glittery images and ideas. He thought of green apples and blue eyes and the beauty of the female form. He could not believe that his mind and heart were doing this. He loved these thoughts and he hated them, because they filled him with longing and hopelessness.

  They climbed the staircase, and on the second floor Nicky said, “Lester, I have something to talk to you about.”

  “Very interesting,” Lester said. He continued nervously, “Like what?”

  “For one thing, do you think my hair is too short?”

  Lester blinked, bewildered. He said, “No fooling?” He surveyed Nicky’s head and said, “No. It’s not too short.” He joshed, “Are you planning to grow your hair long like one of those hippies?”

  “Why would you say a stupid thing like that?” Nicky snapped as an image of Eugene Gildersleeves flashed in his skull.

  Lester mumbled sadly, “Very interesting.”

  Nicky cleaned his ear with his pinkie. He pictured the evening, his mind a jumble, his skin jittery, at home with Mom and Dad. The idea did not appeal to him. Nicky looked at the door to 2-C. He blurted, “Let’s go inside for a minute. I’ve got a story to tell you. I’ve got to tell someone, and you’re the only one I can tell.”

  Lester licked his lips and took a step away from the door.

  Lester said, “Even better, why don’t we go on the roof?”

  “What? I don’t wanna go all the way up there. I can’t sit on the roof in my school clothes. Mom will kill me.”

  “Let’s go to your apartment then.”

  Nicky stared hard at Lester.

  “You’re not going to let me into your apartment, ever. Are you.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Guess what?” Nicky snapped. “I’ve had it with you.”

  Lester burbled, “No really. My mama just washed the floors.”

  “Forget it,” Nicky said with disgust. He huffed toward the staircase. “There are places around here where I’m welcome. To come in and have sodas and potato chips. And listen to music.”

  Lester said, “Don’t go.”

  “I’m going. Call me when you think I’m good enough to come into your precious apartment.”

  Nicky should have let it go at that, but he was not his old self. He stopped with one foot on the bottom stair and added, “And you can forget about playing stickball in the spring. Guess what? I don’t wanna anymore. I ain’t good enough for your apartment, you ain’t good enough for stickball.”

  “Wait,” Lester said weakly.

  Nicky stomped up the staircase. He was acting like a two-year-old, and it felt delicious. Lester called up to him. Nicky kept walking, climbing, stomping, and with each harsh footstep, Lester’s voice sounded smaller and sadder.

  Barella the Barber 31

  On the last Saturday before Thanksgiving, which was also Roy’s twentieth birthday, Dad cornered Nicky in the kitchen. Dad announced they were going down to Barella’s for holiday haircuts. Nicky tried to talk his way out of the trip. He complained of a brewing head cold, an awful lot of homework, a strange itch. Nicky promised to get a haircut first thing next week, no fooling, first thing.

  “Grab your coat and hat,” Dad said. “Don’t you start, Nicky. I mean, come on. Look at this.”

  Dad clutched a handful of Nicky’s bushy hair. “For crying out loud, if I had wanted a daughter, I would of had a girl. Don’t you want to look well groomed for Thanksgiving?”

  Nicky said, “Dad, come on. I don’t wanna …”

  “Enough,” Dad said. “What, are you going to give me a hard time about your hair? Didn’t I have enough of that with your brother?”

  So Nicky walked alongside Dad, block after block down Summit. They were on their way to Barella the Barber on Cherry Street, where Dad grew up, but Nicky felt like a boy on his way to the dentist.

  Cherry Street was also known as “the corner” and “the old neighborhood,” and Nicky knew it was out of love and thrift that Dad did business there. Part of Dad’s heart would always remain on those narrow streets, walking hand-in-hand with Grandma Martini; under the elevated subway tracks, where he played stickball; in those alleys, where he smoked pilfered cigars at age ten; on those fire escapes, where he slept on hot summer nights with his mutt dog, Benito. Dad loved going back to his old haunts. Plus, they got free haircuts from his second cousin Barella.

  Nicky and Dad walked, and it was not a pleasant walk. The skies were mean and gray. A brittle wind cut into them and that made Nicky’s nose dribble. The air felt cold enough for snow. And proceeding southwest on Summit was to move deeper and deeper into what Nicky unders
tood to be a sinister neighborhood.

  Nicky relaxed when he saw Barella’s red-and-white-striped barber’s pole. The barber shop was a safe haven. The place never changed, year after crazy year. Everything was still the same in that tiny sliver of the Bronx.

  Dad and Nicky entered the sanctuary of Barella’s, and the small bell on the door tinkled. Nicky beheld the two huge barber chairs of red vinyl and chrome, the canisters of combs soaking in green fluid, the wide black razor straps, the scent of masculine lotions and cheap cigars. Same as ever, same as the good old days.

  Seated near the back wall was the same old gaggle of Cherry Street goombahs. Nicky was sure these characters were seated there on the day he came in for his first haircut at age two. He knew some of their names—Dickie Dee and Fat Freddie and Junior, who was in his nineties. The goombahs grunted and hitched up their baggy pants and chewed green cigars and guffawed and whispered racy punch lines and cleared their throats with terrible growls and spat into handkerchiefs. Long ago, Dad told Nicky to stay away from where the old guys sat, because “there are dirty magazines back there.” Nicky didn’t understand why they didn’t just wash the magazines if they were dirty.

  Nicky climbed into the barber’s chair. Barella cranked up the seat. He snapped open a clean white cloth and draped the cloth over Nicky. Barella, shiny bald on top, a basketball-sized gut flopped over his belt, was in a grouchy mood, which was also a permanent feature of the shop.

  Barella started snipping and said to Dad, “So, Fragole, how you doing?”

  Leaning back in his seat, legs crossed, Dad seemed to relax in this familiar place, in his old neighborhood, getting addressed by his boyhood nickname. He fluttered his hand in disgust. He told Barella that when he parked his truck to make a delivery the day before, he came out to find half a dozen boxes of Yum-E-Cakes scattered and smashed on the street. Nicky had not heard about this incident until now.

  “Where was this?” Barella demanded, snipping faster.

  “East Street,” Dad said.

  “Sheesh, no wonder,” Barella said with disgust. He hacked at Nicky’s hair and considered the outrage. “That neighborhood has gone to the dogs. The coloreds got that neighborhood by the throat. You know your truck ain’t safe there.” He flailed his free hand toward the window, poking the scissors point into Nicky’s scalp. He boomed, “For crying out loud, THIS neighborhood ain’t even safe. Not no more.”