“Where are you going, Dad?” He seems worried about me, afraid to leave me alone.
“I just want to talk to this kid for a minute.”
Jake smiles with relief. “Pizza delivery boy shop talk, eh?”
“Something like that. Get started, don’t wait for me.”
Jake goes to the kitchen and I run after the delivery boy. He’s just boarding the bike when I startle him by grabbing it by the handlebars.
“Hey! What the hell you doin’, man!”
“Could I just see this bike for a second?”
“My bike?”
A big basket has been welded to the handlebars and the frame has been painted black, but the cracked leather seat is the original, and there they are, the letters BOB etched into the back of it. This is Fran’s ex-husband’s bicycle, still in service.
I start to laugh, still gripping the handlebars. The kid looks scared.
“Mister—”
“Do you believe in miracles, kid?”
“Huh?”
“Miracles. Do you believe that miracles happen?”
Clearly, nobody has ever asked him this question before. He has to think about it. “No,” he finally decides. “No, I don’t.”
I can see that he’s one of those sad, serious kids who works harder than he should for a boss who doesn’t appreciate it. He also thinks I’m nuts.
“Mister, I gotta get back.”
“I know you do.” I release the handlebars. “I used to have your job, delivering for Napoli’s.”
His eyebrows rise. “No foolin’?”
“Swear to God. Like thirty years ago, maybe more, when the real Napoli owned the joint.”
“Jesus, it’s been around that long?”
“Yeah, and so has this bike. This was my delivery bike.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“I’m not.”
I show him Bob’s name on the back of the seat. “You want to hear the story about this bike?”
“Sure.”
I tell him everything that happened to me that night—the bachelor party and the stripper and the bicycle theft, and losing my cherry to Fran, and the way she gave me her ex’s bike. The kid listens to my story the way you hope kids will listen to stories, but I guess that makes sense, one old delivery boy telling a war story to another. By the end of my tale he’s smiling, his teeth a radiant white.
“Great story,” he says, “but I’m not sure I’d call it a miracle.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Nah. It’s just an old bike that’s still around.” He climbs aboard, spins the pedals around to getaway position. “Take it easy, man.”
“What’s your name?”
“Paul.”
“Paul what?”
“Paul Fishetti.”
Oh man. This can’t be, but on the other hand, it can’t be anything else.
“Is your father Alonzo Fishetti?”
“Hey! How’d you know that?”
“I went to school with him a long time ago. He was the coolest kid in the class.”
Paul laughs out loud. “My father was cool? Gimme a break!”
“I’m telling you!”
“Bullshit!”
“What’s he doing these days?”
“He’s a plumber.”
“Yeah? What else is he up to?”
“He watches TV and he argues with my mother…. What was so cool about him?”
I tell him how his dad used to sneak cigarettes in the schoolyard, and how he busted his ankle that time he fell from the ledge.
Paul is fascinated. “Why’d he climb out on the ledge?”
“He wanted to peek into the girls’ changing room. Wanted to get a look at Margaret Thompson. We were all in love with a girl named Margaret Thompson.”
Paul puts his head back and howls. “Oh man,” he says, “that is pretty wild.”
“What is?”
“Margaret Thompson.”
“What about her?”
“She’s my mother.”
Paul is beaming now, and suddenly I can see his mother in his face—the perky ears, the hint of green on the outskirts of those brown irises, the playfulness. I have to grip the handlebars again to keep from falling.
“You okay, mister?”
I catch my breath, straighten up, release the bike. “You got brothers and sisters, Paul?”
“Yeah, there’s four of us.”
“You the oldest?”
“Youngest. My brother Richie’s wife just had a kid.”
So there it was. Margaret Thompson, the great unrequited love of my life, married the toughest kid in the class, and now she’s a grandmother.
I want to ask Paul all about his mother, of course, but you can’t ask a boy if he thinks his mother is pretty, and if she’s turned fat and embittered I really don’t want to hear about it.
But there’s one thing I do want from this kid, and I amaze myself by actually asking for it.
“Listen, Paul. Mind if I take a little ride on your bike?”
He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “A ride? Are you serious?”
“Just around the block. Come on, I’m not going to steal it.”
He looks at his watch. “I’m already late gettin’ back, man.”
I hand him a ten-dollar bill. He sticks it in his pocket and says, “Don’t change the gears, they’re all fucked up.”
I jump aboard the bike and started pedaling as if I’ve just robbed a bank.
“Just around the block!” Paul yells at my back. My shirt billows like a sail as I pick up speed. It still rides straight and true, Fran’s ex-husband’s ex-bike, so I am able to take my hands off the handlebars and hike my arms to the sky on the straightaways.
I have things on my mind and a million responsibilities, but I have never, ever felt so goddamn free.
I’m good to my word, returning the bike to Paul after one turn around the block. He climbs aboard and races off to Napoli’s.
“Tell your parents Sammy Sullivan says hello!” I shout, but I doubt that he hears me.
Back in the house my son and my father are working on their second slices.
“What the hell took you?” my father asks.
“Just having a little chat with the delivery kid,” I reply. I could tell them more, but I don’t want to. I’ve emptied out all my secrets today, shared all the stories I’ve got to tell, but this one’s all mine.
We polish off both pizza pies, and though we don’t speak much while eating, it’s not an uncomfortable time. We’re three soldiers in the same foxhole, chowing down to stay strong for whatever’s coming next. And we would do anything for each other.
My father gets our clothes from the dryer. Jake and I get changed, and I realize we should get going to rest up for tomorrow’s big battle.
My father accompanies us to the sidewalk, along the dug-up trench that soon will be a cobblestone path. He tells us he’s going to wait until next weekend to lay the stones, and Jake tells him he wants to help. Just like that, they have a date for next Saturday morning.
“Gonna teach him about stonework,” my father says. “A trade that could come in handy, now that his formal education is over.”
“Actually, Danny,” Jake says, “I’d like to think that it’s just starting.”
He grabs Jake in a rough embrace, full of giggles and tickles. “See you next weekend, kiddo.”
“Okay, Danny.”
My father turns to me and extends a hand. I grasp it just as I used to all those birthdays and Christmases ago, and we both squeeze hard. My father releases the pressure first and I think it’s over, but as I’m slipping from his grip he startles me by pulling me against him in the same kind of embrace he’s just shared with Jake.
“Be strong tomorrrow when you see Doris,” he whispers in my ear. “Don’t do what I did. Be there. Don’t bail out.”
“I won’t.”
“What do you think this plan of Jake’s is all about?�
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“I have no idea.”
“If you like it, back him up. Back him up all the fucking way.”
“I will.”
He releases his grasp, pulls back to look at me. “It was good to see you,” he says, and I think I’m imagining it but in fact I am not when he presses his dry lips to my cheek in what could only be called a kiss.
“I’m sorry we lost all those years, Dad.”
He shrugs. “I’m glad we’ve got whatever’s left.” He thumps himself on his bony chest. “I ain’t plannin’ on checkin’ out any time soon, I can tell you that.”
He turns and goes back inside while Jake and I, brimming with beer, walk toward what I hope turns out to be Francis Lewis Boulevard, and the stop for the Q-76 bus. We both have to stop and piss into somebody’s hedge on the way, and in the midst of it Jake’s cell phone goes off and of course it’s his mother, saying she’ll be catching an earlier train than she was scheduled to take and will be home tomorrow by noon. High noon, you might say.
We find our bus stop. You’d think a father and son might have a lot to say to each other after such a day, but you’d be wrong. We are all talked out, and I am in a state of awe over the way this magical day has unfolded.
My son has saved me. There’s no other way to look at it. Suddenly I realize there’s one more thing to say, one more thing to do.
“Jake, we have to stop in the Village before we go home.”
“The Village? What for?”
“You’ll see.”
We reach Matt Umanov’s guitar shop on Bleecker Street half an hour before closing time.
“Oh no, Dad.”
“Pick out the one you want.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Did you hear what I said? Pick out the one you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just promise me you won’t set it on fire.”
Jake confers with a bushy-haired clerk before selecting a honey-yellow acoustic guitar, made in Spain. It’s just under seven hundred dollars, including the guitar case, and it’s far and away the best money I’ve ever spent.
“Dad. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you.”
But there’s no way I can thank him for what he’s done for me. I’m out of the cage I’ve lived in for so long, and the liberty is absolutely intoxicating. Anything seems possible now. Who knows? I might even be able to have a real relationship with a woman. My son put the wings back on my shoulders, and so what if I can’t really fly? The trick isn’t getting airborne. The trick is dreaming that you can do it. It’s good to dream, even when dreams remain nothing but dreams.
At Christopher Street we board the Number 1 local for the ride uptown. Jake cannot wait. He takes out his guitar and begins playing it, his hair hanging over his eyes.
“Go ahead, kid,” I tell him. “Just think of it as a cello turned sideways.”
I sit across from Jake and watch his fingers introduce themselves to the strings, like the hesitant moves of an infatuated boy holding a girl for the first time.
He gains confidence by the moment. By the time we reach Twenty-eighth Street, he’s strumming it with ease. At Columbus Circle, he begins to play “Yesterday.” It’s a heartfelt rendition, all the more beautiful for its uncertainty. He finishes the song, and a few people actually applaud. The train stops at Seventy-ninth Street, and a man tosses three quarters into the open guitar case on his way out. Jake looks at me in wonder.
“Congratulations, son. You just turned pro.”
We are exhausted by the time we get back to the apartment. For the second straight night we flop on top of the bedspreads, fully clothed. Jake gently strums his guitar, which has already become his old friend. In minutes we’ll both conk out.
But first, Jake says something I will never forget. “I like Danny,” he tells me. “He’s a good guy. He’s amusing. But you’re the better man.”
The better man.
I want to ask him what he means by that. I also want to take a last shot at asking him about this plan he’s got for tomorrow, but I’m too late. The little cobblestone thief is snoring away.
I wait until his sleep deepens before taking the guitar from his embrace and locking it up in its case. I pull off his boots and cover him with a blanket. His face is smooth and his brow is relaxed. He looks the way he used to look, long before anything bad ever happened to him. Once again, my boy is king of the monkey bars.
“You lied to me again, Dad.”
I’m shocked to hear his voice. I thought he was in a deep deep, sleep. His eyes are closed, but he is wide-awake.
“What did I lie about?”
“Your childhood.” He smiles, keeping his eyes shut. “You told me you had a dull childhood.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We have never before had hangovers together. Yet another new experience on this most memorable of weekends.
It’s ten-thirty when I awaken, ninety minutes until Zero Hour with Doris. I open my eyes and immediately squint them against the morning light. My tongue is dry and my head is pounding. It’s a mild hangover, a beer hangover, and I know what to do to get rid of it.
“Coffee,” I say out loud.
“Great idea,” Jake moans into his pillow.
I’m a little stiff as I get up to make it. My long-dormant muscles are having a hangover of their own, from the gardening and the cobblestone stealing.
We drink the coffee black and scalding hot. We do not have to discuss the day ahead. We both know that we’ll be facing his mother together, showing up at her place shoulder to shoulder, like a pair of hired guns. And at some point, Jake will pull the trigger and unveil the master plan for his future.
Jake’s eyes are puffy, but I figure the coffee and a shower should straighten him out. We’re a little bit shy with each other, and I guess that makes sense. We know so much more about each other than we did twenty-four hours ago. It’s almost as if we’ve finally been introduced, after nearly eighteen years.
Neither of us is hungry. We’re both anxious but eager to get through the task ahead.
“You want to shower first?”
“Whatever you say, Dad.”
I happen to have a great shower. The water hits you in a needle spray that’s both pleasure and penance for whatever you did the night before. Jake always takes a good long time in my shower, and this time is no different. He comes out with his hair slicked straight back, the ends of it touching his collarbones. “God, that felt good.”
“I think I’ve got clean underwear here for you.”
“I’ll find it. You’d better shower, Dad, it’s past eleven.”
He wants to be there by noon. He doesn’t want to put it off for a single minute, and suddenly I realize that I don’t, either. Enough already. It’s time for Columbia University professor Doris Perez, Ph.D, to find out what everybody else already knows.
I strip down, go to the shower, and take the needle spray full-force in my face, as hot as I can stand it. Then, slowly, I turn the temperature knob until the water is warm, then tepid, then cool, then cold. It’s my own private hangover remedy, and I recommend it highly to anyone who does not have a heart condition.
Minutes to high noon. We are walking to the apartment on Eighty-first Street. Jake is carrying his bulky blue laundry sack, while I’m carrying his guitar.
“You okay, Jake?”
“Never better.”
“Never better, he says. We’re about to break some pretty rough news to your mother, and all I can say is that I hope you know CPR.”
“She won’t need it,” Jake says. “This isn’t going to kill her.”
“She may kill me.”
“I won’t let that happen, either, Dad.”
When we get to the building I’m ashamed to feel my knees tremble. I catch Jake by the elbow, just as he’s about to climb the stoop. “Maybe you should see if she’s home first, before I come in.”
/> “No way she’s home yet. We’re a little early. And you know that’s she’s always a little late.”
“I feel kind of funny going in there without her…permission.”
“I’m giving you my permission. I live here, too. Come on.”
We climb the four flights to the apartment. Jake gets the door open and says, “After you, Dad.”
I have not set foot in this place since Doris and I split. On the rare occasions the three of us have hooked up since then, it was always in a public place, and I never thought I’d be back.
But I’m back. I step over the threshold into the very dwelling where Doris and I began our thing on that drunken night so long ago.
“Must feel weird for you, huh, Dad?”
“Weird isn’t even the word for it.”
I feel as if I’ve entered a fortune-teller’s parlor. Doris always had a lot of books and paintings and gewgaws, but now it’s totally out of control. There’s not an inch of shelf space or wall space that isn’t covered, crammed, packed, or stacked. Most of this stuff looks both fragile and irreplaceable. This has gone beyond collecting, and straight into the realm of storage.
“Christ,” I say, “your mother does have a tendency to accumulate, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah, it’s in her nature. She surrounds herself with stuff to make her feel safe, I think. But I’m not sure it works.”
An ancient gray cat with milky-blind eyes and bald spots on his back limps into the room. Jake squats to stroke him. “Come here, Jasper.”
I’m stunned. “That’s Jasper? He’s still alive?”
“Well, barely. We had Max put to sleep about a year ago, and we should do the same with this guy, but Mom keeps putting it off.”
I remember the two cats darting in front of me on my first night with Doris. Now one of them is dead, and the other one’s darting days are long past.
“You know, this cat was here…” I shut up, let the sentence dangle.
“The very first night you were with Mom,” Jake says matter-of-factly. “Well, that makes sense. He just turned twenty, believe it or not. He’s a tough old bastard.”
I squat beside Jake and stroke Jasper’s head. He’s staring at me, but I’m sure he sees nothing. He yawns in my face, exposing crooked yellow fangs.
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