Raising Jake

by Charlie Carillo

  “Where?”

  “Beautiful downtown Flushing, the garden spot of Queens. Hurry up, do those dishes. It’s time for a long-overdue crash course in your ancestry.”

  Jake leaps to his feet, gathers the dishes, dumps them in the sink, turns on the water, and starts scrubbing.

  “Road trip!” he exclaims.

  “Yeah, that’s right. We’re going on a road trip.”

  The thought of it already has me trembling, but there’s no backing out now. The road trip is on, and God only knows where it’ll take us.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It’s good to be in motion, if for no other reason than the fact that it makes you a moving target. Jake and I are in the borough of Queens, riding the Q-76 bus down Francis Lewis Boulevard.

  I’m staring out the window at sights I haven’t seen in nearly thirty years. Everything looks smaller and grayer than it used to, and the number of Asian businesses is startling. The bright red Chinese lettering on their signs seems to be the only real color around.

  “What do you want to know about the cello?”

  Seated beside me, Jake is looking out the window as he asks the question. I continue looking out the window as well. We both seem to instinctively realize that absence of eye contact will make this easier for us to talk about.

  “You had real talent. Why’d you stop playing?”

  “I wanted to switch to guitar. Wanted to play in a band with some guys from school.”

  “And?”

  “And Mom wouldn’t let me. She said I had a gift for playing the cello, and that it’s wrong to waste a gift.”

  “Maybe you had a gift for the guitar as well. Maybe it’s the same gift.”

  “That’s what I said. Mom didn’t want to hear about it. She said I had to stick with the cello.”

  A shiver goes through me, remembering the days when Doris used to try telling me what I had to do. “But you didn’t stick with it.”

  “Well, no, I didn’t.”

  I turn to look at him. “Jake. You going to tell me what happened, or what?”

  He looks at me and sighs, a sound that seems to well up all the way from his ankles. “You remember the rooftop of our building? You used to take me up there to see the Fourth of July fireworks when I was little.”

  “Sure, I remember. What’s that got to do with the cello?”

  “One Saturday morning Mom wanted me to practice the cello for an hour. I’d had enough. I told her flat out that I didn’t want to play the cello anymore. It was like she hadn’t even heard what I said. She just kept insisting that I practice, because I was scheduled to play in a concert at Lincoln Center in a few weeks. I told her again that I didn’t want to play the cello anymore, and she just rolled her eyes, like this was some kind of temporary anti-cello phase I was going through. Finally I agreed to practice, but only if I could go up on the roof to do it. She asked me why I’d want to do such a thing, but I ignored her. I just carried the cello up there, stuck it in a big metal garbage pail, squirted lighter fluid on it, and…lit a match.”

  He tells the tale without emphasis, as if he’s a cop reading it off a police report, somebody else’s act of madness. He’s not smiling, but he’s not frowning, either.

  “Burned up pretty fast. Some kind of fruit wood, I think, and the strings made pinging sounds when they snapped. By the time Mom showed up, it was really roaring.”

  “Jesus Christ Almighty, she must have gone out of her mind!”

  “No, she didn’t. That was the best part. She wasn’t angry, she was scared. I knew I had to make her afraid of me if I was ever going to get my way. She’s an extremely determined person, as I’m sure you know.”

  I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. “Did the fire department show up?”

  “No, no. The cello burned up in about five minutes, and all the ashes fell straight down into the garbage can. I was very careful about that. It’s not like I was some crazy arsonist.”

  “Jake. My God. How could you do that?”

  “It was the only way, Dad. You know what she can be like.”

  I sit back on the hard bus seat, dizzy and slightly nauseated. All Doris ever told me was that we were “discontinuing” the cello lessons because Jake was going through a “troubled” time. “That’s why your mother sent you to the shrink?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Was that any good?”

  Jake shrugs. “The shrink wanted to know why I set the cello on fire. The simple answer would have been that I didn’t want to set my mother on fire, but of course you can’t say that, so we spent a few hours kicking around teenage angst and raging hormones and crap like that.”

  He ventures a smile at me. “I’m not crazy, you know. The cello was rented, and I knew Mom had taken the insurance policy on the rental, so it didn’t cost you guys anything.”

  “Yeah? The shrink was a hundred and fifty a pop.”

  “Well, at least you didn’t have to pay for any more cello lessons, Dad.”

  “I wish I could have paid for guitar lessons.”

  Jake shakes his head. “Nah. Wouldn’t have been any point. The day I burned the cello was the day the music died.”

  My heart sinks. “Don’t say that. It’s not too late. If you want to play the guitar, you can play the guitar.”

  “Tell you the truth, Dad, I don’t really know what I want anymore.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  This was all my fault. If I’d been around, he never would have had to burn the cello. Together we would have fought the good fight against his mother, and switched him over to the guitar. He might have liked it. He might have joined a band.

  He might have been happy.

  We’re both jolted by the ringing of Jake’s cell phone. He presses a caller ID button and his face goes pale. “Shit. It’s Mom. What should I tell her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe the school contacted her.”

  “If they could have contacted her, they’d have done that before they ever called me. Go ahead, answer it. I’m not here, by the way.”

  He takes a deep breath and answers the phone, sounding remarkably calm. “Hey, Mom. How’s the conference going?”

  He’s not a bad actor. Most kids who’ve lived through a divorce can put on a pretty good show when they have to.

  He rolls his eyes at me. “I’m on a bus,” he tells her. “Just didn’t feel like taking the subway….”

  Except for the crosstown bus Jake never rides buses, not counting those few weeks after 9/11 when everybody was convinced the subways were going to be bombed or anthraxed. We all felt safer riding buses, even though they were blowing up every other day in Israel.

  “He’s all right,” I hear him say, and I realize Doris must have asked him how his father was. “She’s fine,” he says, and I realize she must have asked him about Sarah. “Not much,” he says, and I know she’s just asked him about his homework load for the weekend. Homework!

  He tells her he loves her and clicks the phone shut. “Now we can both breathe a little easier,” he says, grinning at me.

  “Three lies in one phone call. Not bad.”

  “Well, the part about loving her is true. That should count for something.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Of course I do! She can’t help the way she does things. And I’ll tell you, she’s a lot easier to get along with since I torched the cello.”

  “Jake. She’ll be back tomorrow. We’re going to have to deal with her, one way or another.”

  “You’re the one who said, ‘Fuck Monday.’”

  “Yes, I did. But I never said, ‘Fuck Sunday.’ You just went from Ivy League shoo-in to high school dropout so fast, I’m surprised your ears didn’t pop. Your mother doesn’t even know it yet, but her wettest dream just went drier than the Sahara Desert. Please don’t go kidding yourself that this can possibly go smoothly.”

  He stares at me. “I never kid myself,” he says simply. “It doesn’t pay off,
does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Mom thought I was going to go the academic route, just like her.”

  “Don’t knock it. Tenure. Summers off. A million holidays a year. Respect up the kazoo, especially as you get older.”

  “Thanks anyway. I’d join the army before I’d become a teacher. And believe me, I’m not about to join the army.”

  “Well, son, as long as we’re talking this way it’s my sad duty to inform you that someday, you will have to do something for a living. They taught you many wonderful things at that school, I’m sure, but the one lesson nobody seems to get around to is the one about the direct relationship between the need for money and the suffering that goes into getting it. Maybe they were saving it for last, but I tell you, it’s a hell of a surprise to spring on people. Finding out there’s no Santa Claus is nothing compared to this.”

  I pat him on the cheek, harder than necessary. He’s a little surprised by the slap, and narrows his eyes at me for just a moment. “There’s no Santa Claus?”

  “Nope. Sorry, kid.”

  “Well, that’s all right. Like I told you, I’ve got a plan. Have a little faith in your offspring, Father.”

  I get to my feet and push the tape that makes the bell ring. The bus glides to a stop. “We’re here. Let’s go.”

  There’s nothing like a walk in the old neighborhood to remind you why you left and never came back. On the streets of Flushing we pass carpet-sized lawns protected by knee-high hedges. Behind them are houses that seemed to have been built by and for midgets, places that make you feel claustrophobic just to look at them. In the backyards they have their aboveground swimming pools, giant blue plastic teacups, and through the summer months they float on their backs on cloudy chlorinated water and wonder out loud how anybody can stand to live in Manhattan.

  “First stop is my old school,” I announce.

  It takes less than five minutes to walk to Holy Cross High School, a big, gloomy place of yellow brick fronted by maple trees that don’t seem to have grown much taller in all those years since I was last here. The patches of lawn are still bordered by short metal poles with chains looped between them. Jake follows me to the main entrance and stops at my side.

  “Whoa, Dad. You went to Catholic school?”

  “It was my mother’s idea. Guess she wanted to save my soul. I’m not sure it worked.”

  There’s a large crucifix hanging directly over the doorway, and the Jesus figure nailed to the cross is bigger than life-sized. It’s made of some kind of weather-resistant metal, pitted and pocked by decades of rain and snow. It’s a muscular Christ with a scowling face, as if He disapproves of every student who ever walked beneath him.

  Jake can’t stop staring at it. “Was that thing there when you went here?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Pretty gruesome way to start the day, walking under that thing.”

  “Nothing like a good dose of guilt in the morning to get you going…. Do you know the story of the crucifixion?” Jake laughs. “Dad. Are you joking?”

  “I’m serious! I know I never told you about it, and your mother’s no believer.”

  “I learned about it in school. World religion class, eighth grade. I think I got a B.”

  “What did they teach you?”

  “That Jesus Christ died for mankind’s sins, and He rose from the dead three days later.”

  I nodded. “That about wraps it up.”

  “Also that God is actually three beings—a father, a son, and a holy spirit. I never quite understood that.”

  “Nobody does. We all just acted like we did so the nuns wouldn’t hit us with a yardstick.”

  Jake stares at the crucifix. I can barely stand to look at it, turn my gaze to the sidewalk. “The bravest kids in school used to throw snowballs at it.”

  “Oh, man,” Jake laughs, “that took balls!”

  “It sure did. But that’s nothing, compared to what Paschal Tufano did. He climbed up there and stuck a cigarette in Jesus’s mouth. And he was only a freshman at the time, a classmate of mine. Talk about balls.”

  Jake laughs. “Did he get caught?”

  “He got caught, and he got expelled.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Swear to God. Many roads lead to expulsion, my son. You write a smart-ass essay, Paschal Tufano sticks a Marlboro in the mouth of the son of God. In the end, it’s all the same.”

  I chuckle, thinking of Paschal, wondering what the hell ever became of him. Jake continues staring at the crucifix.

  “Did you ever throw a snowball at it?”

  “Never.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it would have been a sin, and at the time I was concerned with sins. Even thinking about chucking a snowball at the crucifix would have been a sin. That’s what we were taught here. You don’t have to actually do something bad. Even bad thoughts are sins.”

  Jake stares at me in wonder. “They taught you that?”

  “They certainly did.”

  “That’s unbelievable!”

  “Now do you see why I never took you to church?”

  “Did your parents believe in all this stuff?”

  “My mother did. My father didn’t.”

  “When did he die?”

  “About five years after my mother, I guess.”

  “You guess? What did he die of?”

  “He had a heart attack, too, Jake, and he died at home. That I remember. Okay?”

  “Why are you getting nasty?”

  “Jake. Please. All these questions…I have to sit for a minute.”

  “Dad, are you all right?”

  I’m far from all right. My shirt is damp with sweat and my head is pounding. I lick my upper lip and taste salt. “Thing is, Jake, I really can’t stand the sight of a crucifix. Never could.”

  “Why? It’s just a statue on a cross.”

  “It’s a little more than that to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you later. Right now I just have to sit a minute, and be quiet.”

  I’m feeling dizzy, and the strength has left my legs. Taking me by the elbow, Jake helps me to a stoop across the street from the school, where we both sit down. Jake rubs my back in a circular motion.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “Sorry about what?”

  “Sorry that you’re so…alone.”

  He’s right. He’s absolutely right. That is the perfect word for what I am.

  And then, for the first time since the day I packed up and moved out on my wife and son, I begin to cry, and I mean hard. The tears are plopping on the cement between my feet, and I’m sobbing like a child, the child I haven’t been for so very long.

  It’s an awful thing to do to Jake, but he’s strong. He just keeps rubbing my back in the same circular motion.

  “Hey, Dad. Come on. It’ll be okay.”

  At last I start to calm down. The time has come to start telling him things, the things I have promised to tell him, things I’ve kept buried for so long that the graves no longer have headstones.

  “Jake. There’s something you should know about this school.”

  “You’re not enrolling me here, are you?”

  “No, no…Thing is, I never finished.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My tongue is sticky. I try to swallow, but can’t. “I dropped out in my senior year. I’m a high school dropout.”

  I sound like someone standing up at a meeting and declaring himself an alcoholic. Jake stops rubbing my back. His mind is totally blown.

  “Dad. Jesus! You’re a high school dropout!”

  “It’s something even your mother doesn’t know about, and I’d like to keep it that way, all right?”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “Your mother has a Ph.D., so between us it sort of evens out for you.”

  “Why’d you drop out?”

  “Let’s just say I was going throug
h a troubled time.”

  “Dad. You’re amazing! No diploma, and you had a good career and everything!”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far. Nobody ever asked to see a diploma at the Star, I can tell you that. All they wanted to know about was whether I could knock out fifteen paragraphs on a windswept fire in Canarsie in time for the bulldog edition.”

  “Well, I’m proud to be following in your footsteps.”

  “Ohhh my God, don’t say that!”

  I start crying all over again. Jake takes me in his arms, and actually rocks me back and forth. What a father-son weekend this is turning out to be! Jake has cried in my arms, and I’ve cried in his, and we’re not even halfway through Saturday!

  I feel as if I’m never going to be able to get to my feet again. I’ll die right here on this stoop, across the street from the school where my formal education ground to a halt. I’m done, cooked, finished. It’s going to take a miracle to get me back to the land of the living.

  And then a miracle happens.

  It’s something I hear before I see, the loud, metallic snap of a lock across the street. The front door of the school is opening, a millimeter at a time, it seems, and then at last an ancient man steps outside, preceded by the broom he is clutching.

  He’s bent at the waist and cloaked in an old-fashioned priest’s frock, a dresslike thing with buttons the size of gumdrops. His feet move like the feet of a child’s windup robot, a shuffle step with minimal lifting, but he’s moving with determination.

  He lifts his goatlike head to regard Jake and me, long ears quivering, scant hair feathery atop his pink skull. His face is expressionless as he studies us through the biggest, thickest pair of eyeglasses I’ve ever seen. But he doesn’t waste much time wondering who we could be. This man has a job to do. He clutches the broom in both hands, squares his shoulders, and begins sweeping yellow leaves toward the curb.

  And then it hits me, and I all but fall to my knees over the splendor of the miracle before us.

  “Oh my God,” I say, more to myself than to Jake. “It’s the Walking Holiday!”

  His real name, I remember, is Father Brian Walls, and if I’d given him a thought over the past thirty years, it would have been about the certainty of his death soon after I left the school. But here he was, broom in his bony hands, doing what he’d done when I was a Holy Cross student—sweeping up the front of the school.