“He didn’t go back alone. I don’t believe it! He would have told me.”
“Not necessarily,” the officer said on the sly. “Maybe he wanted to keep Penelope to himself. She’s young and beautiful.”
“I’ve always said the Manos boy couldn’t be trusted,” Candy Antoni said, disgusted, wiping her eyes. “This proves it!”
The officer frowned at her, shaking his head in disgust. “You don’t have to worry about Steve Manos. He won’t be coming back.”
Shocked, Paul jumped up. “Where is he?”
“That, young man is none of your business. You should be more upset about losing your father. We’ve come to warn you to stay on your best behavior, Mr. Antoni. Mrs. Antoni, you’ve lost your husband, you don’t want to lose your son. Keep him under control.”
“I’ll try,” she said, knowing it would be impossible without Paul Senior there to help her.
The officer left the house without offering condolences, letting the door slam. “Dad’s dead,” Candy said, turning to Paul. “Did you understand that? Whatever you told them today caused The Council to kill your father. Now I have to go tell the old man. You and your big, smart mouth.”
Surprised that she would blame him for his dad’s death, Paul squirmed a little, started to argue, and then thought better of it. What difference did it make now? Steve was gone; someone named Penelope beyond the fence waited for his return. He remembered her screams. Wait, don’t leave! Please, I beg of you, come back!
Trying to conjure up regret that his father was dead, the full impact of it would hit later when he, his mother and grandfather would have to move into a Europe Town apartment complex with the rest of the single-parent households, a little closer to Tiresias.
Banished to his room, Paul heard Candy pacing, periodic sobs that she didn’t try to stifle echoing throughout the house. The phone rang; their next door neighbors begging her to pipe down, she woke up the baby.
Down the street in their house close to the corner, the Manos family suffered through a double whammy; just as The Council car pulled away from the Antoni’s, Peter and Stephanie finally returned home from what was supposed to be a follow up visit for baby Steve, empty-handed.
“Where’s the baby?” George asked, concerned.
He and Rose were still on the porch, while Eleni had given up, retreating to the basement to try to sleep.
Peter had his arm around Stephanie, and at the question she began to cry. “We had to leave him there.”
“Where?” Rose asked. “You left him where?”
“At the clinic,” Peter whispered, looking down at Stephanie. He hoped his soft voice would lessen the blow, but it just made it worse and she sobbed harder. “They’re going to take him over to the big hospital in the city.”
“In the city?” Rose asked, incredulous. Patients taken to the city rarely returned home. This was not a good sign.
“Detroit. They’re taking him to Detroit.”
“Steve was kidnapped today,” George blurted out, sagging in the chair.
Stephanie stopped crying, stunned. “What are you saying? Is this a joke?”
Bowing her head, Rose started to cry instead. “I wish it was. We still don’t know if he’s coming home,” she said. “We’re supposed to hear any minute. We’ve been saying that all day.”
“We hope we’ll hear,” George said. “And Paul Antoni didn’t get on the bus after work today. Candy’s been wailing all evening, a squad car visited a while ago. She just started crying again.”
Putting his finger up, they listened and sure enough, there it was; the cries of a broken-hearted wife.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe Steve isn’t home,” Stephanie moaned. “What’s happening to our family?”
“We can’t blame Polsky for baby Steve’s virus, but I’d like to.”
“What happened to Paul?” Peter asked.
“Let’s go inside. I feel ears trained on us,” George whispered, standing up. He offered Rose his hand, leading her inside, and everyone gathered around the table.
“Sit down,” Rose said, despondent. “I’ll fix coffee.” It was something to do in a time of crisis.
“I’ll get my mother,” George said.
Coffee made, Eleni once again sitting with the family, they told Stephanie and Peter the story of Steve’s kidnapping, Paul Junior running to the house which in turn got him in trouble with the police. They were sure he’d told Council Police Paul Senior told him about Tiresias.
“I’m not sure how one thing led to the other, but it did. I’m pretty sure my son was inside the fence.”
“No! Don’t even say such a thing,” Eleni cried.
“It’s true. I’m sure if the investigator ever shows up that’s what they’ll tell us.”
The phone rang, its shrill bell making them jump. Rose ran to the phone and answered. “It’s the hospital,” she said worried, holding the phone out for her sister.
Stephanie took the receiver and spoke into it, frowning. She listened for several minutes without being given the chance to respond.
“When will we be able…” She tried to ask but was cut off. Finally, “Okay, thank you for calling.”
Hanging up, everyone waited for her news. “His fever broke,” she said. “That’s good news. But they said he has to stay there for observation and they’ll get back to us soon.”
“Did they say when?” Peter asked.
“No. They said we’d be able to ask questions later, that he didn’t have time to address anything now.”
“That’s really a bunch of crap,” Peter said.
“It’s so lonely here without our boys,” Eleni said.
The sound of tires on leaves out in the street got their attention and they got up from the table to look out the window. “Is it Steve?” Eleni asked.
“No, but it’s The Council Police,” George said, stony.
“Oh God,” Rose started.
“Take it easy,” George whispered. “I don’t want them taking you away, too.”
He went to the door and saw an officer he was familiar with, someone who was in the neighborhood regularly. Stepping aside with the door open to let him in, but the officer shook his head. “I don’t need to come inside,” he said. George thought since he was alone, he might be afraid of an ambush.
“Where’s my son?” George said, tired of carefully choosing his words.
“Don’t have an attitude with me, Manos. I could’ve let you stew all night. We’re busy, you know. It ain’t like we got the time to come and placate parents because they can’t keep track of their kids.”
“You know that’s not the case here,” George said.
“Yes it is! The first time we warned you, the same night…” he nodded over toward the Polsky house, “the same night that happened, you should have boarded up the kid’s window. You knew he’d been sneaking around yet you continued to enable him to break the law.”
“So where is he? Does he get to come back?” George knew it was a loaded question and with Rose standing there taking in every word, it could get ugly.
The officer looked over George’s shoulder at the family staring at him and back to George, like he knew what George was thinking. Nodding his head, he signaled for George to come out on the porch. “I don’t want to upset your wife,” he whispered.
Oh crap, George thought, wishing he had a gun. “Stay here,” he told Rose. “You, too Manula, everyone stay inside for a minute.”
“I’m not going to harm George,” the officer called out.
“Slime,” Eleni hissed. “Piece of skata.”
“Eleni, hush,” Rose said, pushing her back into the kitchen. “Make more coffee please. We’re going to be up all night, we might as well be awake.”
Out on the porch, the officer told George that Steve was now a ward of The Council. When George started to sputter and cry, the officer actually showed some compassion. “He’s going to have it better than you could ever provide for him, George. They saw something in
the boy, a quality they don’t see that often and they want to give him every opportunity.”
“He’s my boy. How can living with strangers be better for him?”
“Look, it’s out of your hands now. In a while he’ll be able to contact you. Don’t you try to see him or contact him yourself, do you understand? The powers that be will take you down George; they’re serious about keeping things the same around here. You have your place and you better stick to it. Anyone trying to change it up around here is going to go down. You see what happened to Polsky and Antoni. Don’t let it happen to you.”
“You might as well kill me,” George moaned. “My wife is never going to accept this.”
“It’s better that your boy is in a good place, a better place than you could ever provide for him, then you being dead. Trust me. You and the misses.”
“What does that mean? I’m so tired of tiptoeing around in my own neighborhood.”
“It’s the way things are George. I tell you it’s better to accept it than to fight it. You’ll be proud of your boy someday.”
He tipped his hat, getting into the car and as he pulled away from the house kept his eye on George. George watched him drive away, an overpowering feeling of dread encompassing him. The car reached the corner and stopped, waiting for an inordinate length of time, the streets empty at that hour. But finally, it slowly turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Memory of the Color Yellow
–
Four
Chapter 13
Steve
Outstretching her hand, Darleen reached for mine while we were leaving the apartment. “This is my husband, Jackie,” Darleen said.
“Hi, Steve,” Jackie said, tapping me on the back. “I guess you’ve had quite an adventure today.”
The worry that I wasn’t going home slowly became dread. I didn’t want to pout though. Jackie seemed like a nice enough guy, but I couldn’t be sure. He might be there to slap me around, for all I knew.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied.
Darleen held onto my hand like my mother would have, leading me to the elevator, Jackie and Darleen unabashedly sharing the personal highlights of their day. Jackie held the door for us and we repeated the trip down to the ground floor, the thrilling lift and heave to my stomach was better than the crappy feeling I had and I even laughed.
“First trip down?” Jackie asked, smiling. When I nodded, he yelled “High five!” with his hand in the air. I finally got what he expected of me and jumped up to reach it.
“This way,” he said, leading the way out of the building.
“Where’s the car parked?” Darleen asked.
“Over at Anthony’s,” Jackie answered, a mischievous smile on his face.
“Oh boy, Anthony’s Pizza! You’re in for a treat,” Darleen said. “Can you handle pizza twice in a row?”
“I think so,” I said, trying not to be a drudge.
I wanted my mother’s green beans cooked in tomato, fresh from my Yiayia’s garden, and bread she’d made with the acorns we picked in the woods. Ashamed I’d ever complained about the food she served me, I’d make it up to her as soon as I got back home.
“A good meal and you’ll feel better,” Darleen said, reminding me again of my mother, of her obsession with feeding me.
“My mom says that all the time,” I said.
“Does she? It must be a mom thing,” Darleen said, hugging me as we walked down the street. I’d learn that the pizza place was world famous, that the dignitaries my father drove all over the city made a point of stopping there whenever they were in town.
Jackie held the door for us and we walked in to a dark, candlelit space, smelling of warm bread and oregano, walls lined with booths, tables for two in the aisle. A human being in a white shirt and tie met us inside. I was unable to determine what it was, man or woman.
“Three?” it said in a possibly female voice.
“Yep!” Jackie said. “Can we have a booth in back?”
“Follow me,” the person said.
Jackie slid in to the booth facing the door and Darleen stood aside so I could get in ahead of her. When we were seated, the person held out papers for us to take, but Jackie shook his head. “No menus necessary,” he said. “We’ll take a large house special pizza and Coke all around.”
“Coke!” I said, excited.
“All you want,” Darleen said.
“I had Coke once, at summer carnival.”
“Summer carnival was discontinued a long time ago. You must have been a baby,” Darleen replied.
“And he remembered having it!” Jackie said, smiling at me. “Coke is good.”
The couple chatted, making small talk, and I was caught up in it against my will, probably sharing too much about home, but they already knew most of it. No one’s life was that different, it turned out, even from Europe Town.
The pizza came and I was immediately addicted. “Can you see why people come from all over the world just to have this pizza?” Jackie said, closing his eyes and chewing like he was in heaven.
Darleen and I conspired, making fun of him. By the time we were done eating and the bill was paid, I was relaxed and had forgotten about worry for my family. We walked three astride, me in the middle, with their arms across my shoulders. Darleen motioned for me to get in the front seat and she sat in back. “The men get the best seats up front,” she said.
“The men protect the women,” Jackie replied, locking the doors.
The chatter continued as he drove through the city going east. Towering office buildings soon segued to one story buildings, to apartment buildings again, and then to single family homes. But the houses weren’t the 1950’s post war bungalows of Europe Town. These were older, almost palatial structures with expansive lawns. Even the name of the street had changed from Jefferson to Lakeside.
“Wow!” I said. “What’s this place called?”
“This is government housing,” Jackie said. “This is where we live.”
“The area is called Grosse Pointe,” Darleen said. “Our house is in Grosse Point Shores.”
“Gross? That’s gross!” I said, reduced to my worst adolescent boy caricature.
They laughed along with me, no recriminations for acting foolish. Turning a corner onto an even nicer street, I could see they had waterfront property, absolutely unheard of.
“Is this the Detroit River?” I asked in awe, leaning forward.
“Very good, Steve!” Jackie said. “It’s Lake Saint Claire, but I’m surprised you know about the river.”
“Billy and Connie told me,” I said.
He nodded his head, glancing at Darleen in the review. “You’re a quick learner. Yep, we lucked out all right. My mom and dad live in this house and Dar and I wanted to be by the water so we stay with them.”
“Your mom and dad are here?”
“Yes they are. But they won’t bother you much, I promise.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, thoughts of my family returning. “I miss my grandmother.”
“Aw, I’m sorry,” Darleen said squeezing my shoulder, validating my feelings.
It gave me hope that an end was in sight and I’d be going home, but it meant the opposite. “You’ll like them,” Jackie said, pulling up into a driveway and the condition of the house shocked me.
In a state of disrepair, I thought of the effort the inhabitants of Europe Town had to make to keep their homes maintained or suffer the consequences. Evidently, the government had slipshod standards for their own housing. The threat that the electricity might be shut off permanently in Europe Town was a real fear, yet lights were blazing all over the house here in Grosse Pointe, even illuminating the front trees and along a dock which led to the lake. In spite of the sun setting blindingly behind the house, little light was able to get through the smudged windows, making the lights a necessity. Dust moats floated in the air. A critical streak rose within me and I saw the rooms through my mother’s eyes. The interior se
emed extremely cluttered after Rose’s minimalist decorating. Lots of heavy floral prints on furniture and hangings on windows, pieces of pottery littered the surfaces, paintings and other framed artwork covering the walls. An arched doorway from the living and dining rooms led to an enclosed porch area they called the atrium.
“Let’s sit in the atrium,” Jackie said. “We won’t have many more evenings before winter comes to sit out here.”
I thought of my parents bundled in afghans, sitting on our open porch in every kind of weather just to escape the indoors and how much they’d love the atrium in spite of the clutter.
I followed Jackie down two steps into the porch. It was furnished in a hodgepodge of painted furniture, furniture upholstered in velvet and more floral prints, an extension of the collections inside the house spilling out. I thought of the rusty folding chairs and makeshift table on our Europe Town front porch and wished my mother could see this, could have something as nice.
“What do you think? Isn’t this better than Europe Town?” Jackie said.
Darleen walked out with a tray. “Here’s tea,” she said. “I’m sure Steve loved his home in Europe Town, Jackie. There’s no comparison.”
“Oh, I know that, but I just want him to appreciate the difference.”
“I’m not going home, am I?” The realization hit me in the gut.
Darleen set the tray down. The three of us stood in a circle, looking at the brick floor. I saw a tumbleweed of dust and hair. “No, you’re not. I’m sorry Steve.”
Sadness welled up in my chest, but I controlled it, not sure where the end would be if I let loose, the anguish and disbelief more than I had ever encountered.
“The leaders here think you have something special,” Jackie said, reaching out for my arm. “Darleen and I want a family, and when you started taking your trips, word trickled down you might become available so we applied right away. White dissidents are rare, so we were thrilled at the chance and then when we were approved…”
“I understand how overwhelmed you must be,” Darleen said. “Too much information, probably some of it shocking, in a short time.”
Memory of the Color Yellow 1-5 Page 12