In the master bedroom, Barry tried to entertain Robert with his skill as a mimic. His newest impression was of an old man who lived down the block, an epileptic who a few months earlier had had a fit while walking his dog on Disston Street. The drama of the event—the barking, his wife rushing out of the house with a butter knife to put under his tongue—had been the talk of the neighborhood for weeks. At recess, Barry now fell to the ground regularly, wriggling, groaning, and foaming at the mouth to great applause from his peers; he repeated the performance for Robert that night, having achieved a kind of studied perfection through practice, but Robert was already bored with his brother’s small repertoire.
“Try someone else already! What about your gym teacher, the one who’s always got his hand down his pants? Or the cashier at Shop N’ Bag, with the lisp, who hates when Ma comes with all her coupons?”
But Barry would please only himself and fell onto the coats, cookie spit erupting from his mouth as he kicked out one leg in a series of scissorlike motions and almost tumbled off the bed.
Robert left his brother and went out into the hall, sat on the landing where no one could see anything but his feet, and listened to the hum of female chatter down below and the high-pitched exclamations of delight. Fake, he thought, all fake. With the arrival of the rich cousins, the other women, when they bothered to say anything at all, spoke in high, strangled voices. His mother was talking about how well Robert did in school, that his teacher had suggested he apply to Central, the city’s academic magnet high school. How strange to hear her talking of him this way—she never did, never called him smart or praised him in any way.
One of the rich cousins talked about a trip she’d taken to Florida and plans she and her husband had to visit South America, where gambling was legal. All the rich cousins were big gamblers, his father had told him. Was that not a lesson in itself?
Robert walked carefully down the steps to where the women sat. Aunt Lolly winked at him and spread her arms wide. When he got close to her, she smothered him against her enormous bosom. Cece took his face in her hands and kissed him wetly, and Uncle Frank’s wife pecked his cheek. Then one of the rich cousins put her hand on his arm, a small hand with long fingers, nails painted red.
“So handsooome,” she purred, clamping her fingers around his wrist, “he looks just like Monty Clift.” Finally she released him and he walked into the dining room.
“What good will his looks do him?” Stacia asked. “They won’t help him earn a living. As it is the girls run after him. Only thirteen years old and they call the house. Call the house!”
The other women laughed, though Stacia had not meant to be funny.
Robert mulled over their comments as he walked through the kitchen, stopping to pour himself a glass of orange juice. At school he’d heard his English teacher, Mrs. Markowitz, tell his history teacher, Miss Taft, that one day Robert Vishniak would be a lady-killer, a term that rang in his ears like a threat. When boys and girls had to pair up to learn square dancing in music class, four or five girls would rush to his side, so that he had to make none of the effort of the other sweating, red-faced males. Those same girls sometimes wanted him to walk them back from school, and twice he’d made out with Margie Cohen behind a tree in the school yard, and he’d liked kissing her but was uncertain what to do from there. Miss Taft, the youngest of all the teachers and the prettiest, would sometimes brush the bangs off his face and, smiling sweetly, tell him to get a haircut, even when he’d gotten one the week before. The sensation of her fingers on his forehead, and the light scratching of her fingernails, gave him a pleasurable chill. Other female teachers seemed to like to put their hands on his shoulders, giving them a momentary squeeze. Yes, women liked to touch him, but what his part was, how far he might go in response to their caresses, remained unclear.
While thinking of the mysteries of women, he descended slowly into the dark basement, the realm of men, and his feet made a hollow clomping sound on the stairs. The room was filled with cigar smoke and, as if inside a cloud, the men around the table hunched over their cards, shoulders stooped in concentration. In front of Robert’s father were only four chips. Uncle Frank had a few more chips than Vishniak, and Uncle Fred was doing the best of the three, but nothing compared to the chips in front of the three guests on the other side of the table. Robert stood behind his father, looking over his shoulder at his hand: two of hearts, two of diamonds, four of clubs, eight of spades, and a king of spades. What could Vishniak do with such a hand? From the glass next to him, Vishniak took a few sips of cherry brandy, sweet as syrup, which Robert knew he was not supposed to do, on account of his sugar. His father’s face was red, his forehead sweaty. Unlike the women, the men were mostly silent—a grunt here, a cough, a random obscenity mumbled.
Barry came down moments later eating a mandelbrot cookie, the crumbs clinging to his sweatshirt. They stood together and watched their father ask for three cards, which improved his hand only slightly, then silently throw a chip into the pot in the center of the card table. “Is he winning anything?” Barry whispered. “He’s not winning anything, is he?”
“Shut up,” Robert replied. For the first time in his life, he saw nobility in his father, who was mostly a shadow presence in his life, a sweaty mumbler of greetings who came in from work as his sons were leaving for school, was asleep by the time they did their homework and ate dinner, and left for a second job as they were going to bed. But suddenly Robert saw how his father could be strong, losing money without speech or expression, swallowing his shame.
And he wanted to help him. He stared at the cousin who was winning, at his big, shiny face, his cigar, the calm of his expression, the confidence as he upped the ante, then stopped to mop his brow with a handkerchief. Because the basement was cold—only a curtain divided this room from the garage—Stacia had felt the need to spring for two space heaters, which were surprisingly effective, and the cousin who was winning took off his sport jacket and put it over the back of his chair. Robert stared at the jacket—navy blue with a pink-and-white- striped silk lining. He’d never seen anything quite like it before. One side sagged with weight, a lump created by something in the inside pocket. A wallet, Robert thought. He keeps his wallet in his jacket, not in his pants. He can’t sit on his money because there’s too much of it.
Barry, bored with it all, had wandered over to the other end of the room, to the table where unopened bottles of liquor, the accumulation of ten years of Christmas gifts from Vishniak’s various supervisors at the U.S. Postal Service, sat on a table. Barry tried unsuccessfully to reach an open bottle but was too short. He signaled to Robert, but Robert, lost in his own thoughts, didn’t see his brother, so Barry crossed the room.
“Throw a fit,” Robert whispered.
“Now?”
“Yeah, a big one. Lots of spit. Throw your leg around like you did upstairs.”
“Whadda I get?” Barry asked. “I’m not doing it for nothing.”
“This is for Pop,” Robert said, motioning toward the game. “Think about someone else for a change.”
Vishniak had only two chips left now. He took another sip of his brandy, then pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow.
“I want a drink first. The gold-colored stuff in the fancy bottle.” He pointed at the makeshift bar.
Robert went to the bar—the men oblivious, grunting and scratching, a few moans as they lay down their hands—and filled about a third of the cup with black cherry soda, Barry’s favorite. Then, as Uncle Frank dealt a new hand, Robert picked up the bottle of Crown Royal and quickly poured to the top of the cup, then replaced the cap and brought it back to Barry.
His brother tilted his head back, gulping down as much as he could, then gagged softly, and burped.
“All right, hurry up,” Robert whispered, and pushed his brother closer to the men. Barry took a deep breath, as if plunging into water, and fell to the ground, groaning and convulsing, his foot catching on a metal fold
ing chair that hit the floor with a loud clatter. There was some commotion, a few cousins got up, but Uncle Frank and Vishniak glanced at each other with a certain understanding, and Frank shook his head, smiling to himself. The rich cousins did not even leave the table, and Robert feared his plan would not work; how could he get at the jacket if everyone refused to be distracted?
Then Barry, taking his performance to a level beyond the Method, rolled over and groaned, crawling to the poker table on all fours. When he got close, he grasped at a chair and began to pull himself to his feet. He opened his mouth, about to say something, and cherry-red vomit spewed out in a great arc, some of it raining down on the table and its inhabitants, some of it traveling all the way to the distant curtain. As if under fire, the men ran for cover in the garage. Vishniak spotted the cup of mud-colored liquid by his son. As Frank ran upstairs to get towels, Vishniak went closer. Those in the garage, including the owner of the navy jacket, now searched for a sink rumored to be in the back, where Stacia still did her washing. When they found it, the pipes made a loud squeaking sound as the slightly rusty water emerged from the spigot.
Robert knew that it was only a matter of minutes before his father figured out what Barry had been drinking and who’d given it to him. Across the room, Barry sat on the ground, clutching his stomach, too stunned to comment on what he’d wrought. Vishniak picked Barry up by the arm and, as he hung in the air, struck him several times on the behind.
“Shitfuckhellpiss!!” Barry screamed, over and over, so that Vishniak had no choice but to hit him again, across the mouth.
His father and brother occupied, Robert slipped a hand into the jacket, too scared to look around him or even to breathe. He felt for the lump, felt the momentary relief as he pulled out the smooth leather of a packed wallet and took half the contents, dropping a bill on the ground, then put the rest back. Quickly he retrieved the five from the floor and shoved the money down the front of his pants just as the men began to file back in from the garage, their faces, hair, and clothing all soaked with water. None of them looked pleased.
The pale eyes of his victim seemed to watch Robert closely as he rushed up the basement stairs and through the kitchen, then walked as calmly as he could through the living room where the women still sat. Avoiding his mother’s glance, he ran up the steps to the second floor. In his bedroom he fished the wilted bills out of his pants. They smelled of his skin, the newly pungent adolescent odor of damp yearning, of sweat socks and Ivory soap. He counted out three fives, a twenty, two tens, and four ones, and placed the bills on his desk to look at them. He was rich.
“You jerk!” Barry yelled, rushing up the steps. When Barry got to Robert’s bedroom, he climbed up on a chair and pounced on his brother. He smelled of vomit, and of cherry soda and whiskey, and it was all Robert could do not to gag as the two rolled around on the floor. “You set me up!” Barry said, crying as he punched and kicked his brother.
It took Robert some time to pin his furious brother down, holding his arms over his head. “Listen to me. I got us money. Lots of it.”
Barry struggled for a little longer, until he noticed the desk and the crumpled bills. “I want some,” he said. Robert released him, and he got up to touch the cash. “Half of that’s mine. I want what’s coming to me.”
“I have to think,” Robert said. “We need to be careful.”
In his short life, Barry had never been careful and did not intend to start now. He jumped onto the bed, yelping with delight. As miserable as he’d been a moment before was as triumphant as he was now. He used the mattress as a trampoline, falling to the floor with a loud thump and then jumping onto the bed again, then back to the floor. Suddenly they heard their mother’s fast and frantic footsteps on the stairs. Robert and Barry grabbed the money and shoved it into a drawer, but Barry held one bill back, slipping it into his pants pocket.
“What’s going on here?” Stacia asked, pulling at the door, which did not lock but rather stuck closed, the frame warped from dampness, so that it opened with a thwack.
The boys stood at attention next to the bed like soldiers during inspection. Vishniak’s anger was tame—a few slaps that barely stung—but their mother used a belt with a big, aggressive metal buckle. Even worse was the sound of her shrill voice, and her disappointment.
“We could hear you jumping downstairs. People thought the ceiling was gonna come down,” she said, moving toward the bed, her hands on her hips. “Barry, I told you to wash your face and change your shirt! Robert, comb your hair. You’ve been fighting, haven’t you? I can’t turn my back for five minutes —” She rushed at Robert but instead of hitting him, as he expected, she sat down abruptly on the bed and stared at the opposite wall. “Christ,” she added, putting her head in her hands, “what a disaster, from start to finish!”
The room was so silent that Robert could hear the ticking of the plastic alarm clock on the desk and then the click as the minute hand struck half after nine. His mother pulled briefly at her short black hair, and then she was still. Perhaps she didn’t want to go downstairs any more than they did. Robert walked over to the drawer, opened it, and took out two crumpled tens, then moved cautiously toward his mother. “Here,” he said, and put the bills in her lap.
“I’m not giving my half!” Barry said, but then Robert walked back to the drawer and took out the rest, dropped it into Stacia’s lap, and retreated to the opposite wall.
Stacia looked down at the money and began to straighten out the crumpled bills. “Where—?” she asked, but by then she must have thought of the commotion in the basement. There were few people in their family who carried so much money with them. Often these poker games ended in a flurry of IOUs that were paid, always, over time.
“Did you take everything?” she asked.
“I left half,” Robert said. “To make up for Pop. So you won’t be mad at him.”
“I didn’t bring you up to steal,” she said, but then she looked at Robert and something strange happened, something he rarely saw—she smiled. A half smile, really, because his mother had, years before, suffered an attack of Bell’s palsy, and her face never completely returned from the paralysis, so that her mouth sometimes went in two directions at once—just then, one side of her face was entertained, but the other turned downward, a mix of shame and mortification that would stay with her all night, so that from the time she served the food, to the moment the last guest took his coat and left, Stacia would not make eye contact with a single person.
But that was later. Right now, the boys stood by the bed, wondering what would happen to them. Robert elbowed his brother to tell him to give back that last bill, but Barry would have none of it. At age eight, Barry was already his own man, his behavior hard to predict. Like their mother, he always wanted what was coming to him—but then, like their father, he could turn around one day and hand you everything he had for no reason at all.
Stacia’s hands shook slightly as she gathered the bills into a pile, then folded the pile in half and put it into an apron pocket.
“You gonna give the money back?” Barry asked.
“Don’t see how I can,” she said, “without having the two of you admit what you did. And you’re not apologizing to the likes of them. A bunch of thieves with their government contracts.”
“I don’t wanna,” said Barry. “Apologize.”
“Well then,” she said, “the men are coming upstairs to eat with us now, so go wash your hands. And don’t forget to use soap.”
CHAPTER TWO
Domestic duties
The girls continued to call Robert’s house, asking him to walk them to school, and he even made out with a few more in the private corners of the school yard, but all that was interrupted when, encouraged by a guidance counselor, he applied and was accepted to Central High School. Central drew the brightest from all over the city, but it was also all male. Across the street was its counterpart, the Philadelphia High School for Girls, known as Girls’ High, but the two scho
ols had little daily contact, so that in ninth grade the only females Robert got close enough to touch were those he was sometimes pressed up against during the crowded morning rush hour on the bus that took him to school each day.
This should have been a proud and happy time for Stacia and Vishniak, but from the moment Robert got into Central, they became racked with anxiety. Central graduates often went on to college. And if Robert went to Central, Barry would want to go, too; his first statewide test scores were surprisingly high, and he got grades as good as his brother’s with little effort. Two boys in college—how would they ever afford it? The assumption was that Robert would go to Temple University, the cheapest local state school, and then there would not only be tuition, several hundred dollars a year at least, but he’d also have to get there, and would likely demand a used car to get back and forth.
The very thought of so many expenditures shook Stacia Vishniak to the core. Her husband took on as much overtime as possible, and Stacia clipped twice as many coupons. At night she turned the thermostat down so low that Robert and Barry swore, upon rising in the morning, that they could see their breath. She insisted that they reuse everything from tin foil to dental floss. For Robert’s fourteenth birthday he got a birthday card, signed by his parents, along with several pairs of socks and some underwear. After he’d read the card, it went back in the drawer, only to be taken out again for the following year’s birthday, and the one after that.
Happy to share the wealth of her endless anxiety, Stacia drove Robert, and later Barry, to make as much money as possible. The kinds of jobs Robert got in the neighborhood—delivering groceries, stacking books at the library, shoveling snow in winter and raking leaves in fall—never satisfied her. Each Saturday morning, she stood over his sleeping form, shaking him awake, incanting over and over: You have to make money, you have to make money, I ain’t running a welfare hotel here. You have to make money.
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