Shepherd Avenue

by Charlie Carillo

  "I like Vic's girl," I said, my voice fervent. "If I ever get married, that's the kind of girl I want."

  Angie grinned. "What about your boat? You were gonna live on a big boat all by yourself? "

  "If the lady was like Jenny I'd take her with me. . . . Think they're gonna get married?"

  "Jesus, I hope not."

  My heart sank. "Why not?"

  Angie pushed aside the leaves of a tomato plant so he could water the roots directly. A chicken pecked his pant cuff. He kicked it away softly. "Joey, you're so young."

  My heart sank deeper at the way he was putting me down. He could tell I was hurt.

  "Look," he said, "I like the girl, and I love Vic, but they're too happy together. You get what I mean?"

  "No."

  "Your father ever burn up an old Christmas tree?"

  "Yeah."

  "Remember how fast it went up?"

  "Sure, and it smelled good. So what?"

  "It burnt up in ten seconds, but those punks you buy at the candy store, they take all day to burn up. See? That's how it's gotta go when you get married. Everything's gotta go slow. It's gotta last." He shook his head. "Vic, he's goin' too fast with that girl. All that happiness . . ." His voice trailed off.

  "Angie, that doesn't make sense."

  He clapped dirt from his hands. "Maybe you'll see what I mean someday. I just hope nothin' happens. I hope to Christ they're careful."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  My father’s cryptic postcard read as if we'd never had our disastrous telephone conversation.

  Dear Joey,

  I'm on a farm in upstate New York and will be back before school starts in September. I think about you and miss you a lot.

  love, Dad

  "Do you believe this guy?" I said after reading it aloud. "He acts like everything is okay."

  "He's your father, not a guy," Connie said. "And what's not okay?"

  Connie never thought there was anything wrong unless blood was flowing or a bone was sticking out through your skin. I didn't even try to answer her.

  "Eh, all right, good," she continued. "September is next month. He'll be here before you know it. And he's gettin' closer all the time. Upstate New York ain't far."

  "What's farther away, upstate New York or Patchogue?"

  She squinted at me. "Why you askin'?"

  "No reason," I said airily, crumpling up the postcard.

  "How nice you used to save your father's postcards. Shame on you."

  September. My mother taking me to Stride Rite and making me try on pair after pair of shoes, judging from the look on my face whether they fit. Book covers made from Bohack paper bags, new bookbags, pencil cases with Batman and Superman on them.

  Where would my schooling continue? Angie and Connie never mentioned it, and here it was, the end of August. It was just as well, I decided — after all, I was going to run away.

  As if to remind me of my mission's urgency there was a letter from Mel the next day.

  Dear Joey,

  You ain't ever comming here are you? I bet you got a new girlfriend and forgot all about me. You don't care about me no more, you asshole. Fuck you in that case and fuck your chickens too. If I'm wrong you better tell me. Hurry up.

  Mel

  How had she detected Jenny Sutherland, through telepathy? I raced to my desk to write an answer.

  Dear Mel,

  No I do not have a new girlfriend. Vic has a new girlfriend and she is great, not like your ant Rosemary. Rosemary threw wine at Vic and I hit her in the ass. I alreddy told you I'm saving up money from bottles till there's lots. It's harder to make money now because everybody buys sodas from the hamberger place in cups. You can't get money for cups. I am still coming to see you, don't worry.

  I read over what I'd written. It had a whimpering tone I hated, so in a slashing scrawl I added:

  This is all true. If you don't believe me then fuck you.

  Joey Ambrosio

  The pencil felt flame-hot as I dropped it and sealed the letter. Until then I'd thought that saying the "f" word was the worst thing a person could do, and here I'd actually written it. I felt dizzy walking to the mailbox, connected to nothing and no one, like a helium balloon on a thread that could break at the slightest strain. I'd float up into the emptiness of the sky and drift forever among the clouds.

  "You sick or something?" Angie said when I walked in.

  "I want to see my house."

  He gestured at the walls. "This is your house."

  "My old house."

  On the ride to Roslyn I stared out my window, counting light poles. I felt his hand poking my rib cage.

  "Gum?" He held out a pack of Wrigley's, one stick jutting like a cigarette. I declined it, but moments later he poked me again.

  "Seeds?" In his cupped palm were sunflower seeds, bleached white. He dropped them into my hand and I noticed how thick his calluses were, from a lifetime of twisting wrenches and pipes to bring people water. There was furry hair on the back of his hand that resembled steel wool.

  Was it my imagination, or were Angie's ears and nose larger than they'd been at the start of the summer? It seemed as if a mainspring inside his body had loosened, causing everything to sag. Or maybe it was just the way the afternoon sun poured through the windshield and lighted his face.

  He caught me staring. "What's the matter?" His voice was sharp.

  "Nothing," I said, embarrassed. "I was just thinking."

  "About what?"

  I hesitated. "You're old, Angie."

  He laughed. "That's news?"

  I cracked seeds in my teeth and threw the shells out the window.

  "Don't count on seeing your father out here," Angie said. "He wouldn't come home without telling you, that's for sure."

  "I know that," I said. "The house ain't ours anymore, he sold it. I just want to see it."

  Angie swerved to avoid running over a dead dog in our lane. "The house isn't yours," he corrected gently. "Don't say 'ain't.' You talk good English, don't let us wreck it."

  We reached the Roslyn exit on the Long Island Expressway. "You gotta guide me from here."

  I did, curtly. "Left . . . right . . . another left, by that big tree . . ."

  I kept it up until he said, "I know where we are now."

  "You do? How?" He wouldn't say. He pulled the car up along the curb in front of the house but didn't cut the motor. It idled erratically, like a troubled stomach.

  "Needs a tune-up," he said, lighting a cigarette. He seemed nervous. "You want to get out, or what?"

  "Let's just sit here a sec, Angie."

  "Should I shut off the motor?"

  "No," I said, but the car belched and died of its own accord. We looked at each other, wide-eyed.

  "She conks like that," Angie said. "The second you stop feedin’ her gas, she conks." He didn’t start the engine again.

  He turned off the ignition and removed the key, slipping it into a vest pocket. He rolled down the window to let the smoke from his cigarette out.

  The house looked grayer, shabbier, and smaller than I'd re­membered it. The paint on the trim was peeling but the lawn seemed well-kept, obviously tended by professional gardeners. It bore the wheel marks of heavy machinery.

  The patch of soil that had been my father's crazy garden was sodded over, a quilt of dark green grass squares that stood out as plainly as an area rug.

  "You been here before, Angie?"

  "Once. You were a baby. Told Connie I was at the track."

  "We shoulda been friends all that time, instead of waiting for my mother to die."

  "You're tellin' me."

  I fumbled with the door, my hand shaky.

  "Where you goin'?"

  "I'm just gonna get out for a while, Angie."

  I stood leaning against the passenger door. Two boys on bikes pedaled toward me on the sidewalk. One I didn't know but the other was Phil McElhenny, the kid who'd conked me on the head in my one and only Little League game. At
the sight of me he screeched on his foot brake and pointed with a long arm.

  "Hey, Henry, this is the guy I was tellin' ya about," Phil said excitedly. "I hit him on the head and his mother carried him home!"

  Henry was a fireplug of a boy with a squarish head and the shortest crewcut I'd ever seen. "Baby, baby, stick your head in gravy," he said, barely trying to sing it.

  Phil pursed his lips. "How's his widdle head, huh? Does his widdle head hurt?"

  Angie got out of the car and rapped the roof with his knuckles to get my attention. "Come on, Joey, get in the car."

  I didn't turn to look at him. "In a minute."

  Phil pointed. "Who's that old geezer?"

  I stepped toward Phil. Angie called my name so sharply I turned around to look at him. "No fighting for you, Joey, I mean it."

  "I won't, Angie. Just stay out of this."

  "But - "

  "You get in the car, Angie."

  He obeyed me. As I walked toward Phil McElhenny I felt absolutely no fear. The incident Phil remembered so vividly was like ancient history to me, something that had happened to another boy on a remote planet. I was only mad at him for the name he'd called Angie. As Mel might have said, it was time to "teach him a lesson."

  And I was going to keep my word with Angie, thanks to Johnny Gallo, who'd given me some advice the day after I clobbered Jack Donnelly.

  "Lemme show ya how to fight without fighting, Long Island," he'd said, and then he grabbed my shirtfront and, holding it tightly, walked straight ahead, forcing me to stumble backwards. After a few strides I went down painlessly on my ass. Johnny glowered down at me, then his face broke into a smile.

  "See? You're scared of me and you ain't even hurt. Just remember to keep walking and hold on to the sucker's shirt real tight, like."

  But first I had to dismount Phil, whose hands gripped and twisted the bicycle handles as if he were on a motorcycle. He made a kissing sound that Henry echoed. I ignored the fat boy.

  "Get off the bike, Phil."

  My soft tone surprised him. His lips lost their pucker. He asked Henry to hold the bike, then walked lazily toward me. I didn't even notice his face. All that mattered to me was his loose striped short-sleeved shirt.

  It was easy to grab, and he was so stunned by my sudden leap that he did nothing to defend himself. His hands hung at his sides as I walked. Angie blew the car horn.

  "Hey," Phil said, "HEY!"

  I tightened my grip, felt skin pinch in the cloth. Phil yelped like a puppy whose ears have been pulled. I backed him into the side of the bike, then let go of the shirt with a shove. Down he went, and so did his bike, and so did Henry on top of his bike: dominoes. Angie blew the horn again but I wasn't quite through. Bike wheels were still spinning on air with a clicking sound when I said, "You guys get the hell out of here."

  I tried to imitate Johnny Gallo's frozen face, and it worked, because the guys couldn't take their eyes off me, even as they struggled to their feet, climbed on their bikes and rode off.

  At last I shook with the fear I should have felt earlier. I got back into the car. Angie's hands trembled as he lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter.

  "What are you, a nut? I was havin' a heart attack here."

  "I didn't hit him. . . . Ya see how scared they were?"

  "That what you want? People to be scared of you?"

  "Yeah."

  "You nut . . . you ever do that again, I'll put you over my knee. Old as I am." He puffed on his cig, pointed, and patted my shoulder. "Look, there's a kid goin' toward your house. Go say hello. Maybe he lives here now."

  I went out, at last noticing the smells I'd gone without all summer - cool suburban air, grass clippings, the salty nearness of Long Island Sound. I breathed in as deeply as I could, as if I were about to shout from one mountain peak to another.

  "Hey, you!"

  The boy, a thin kid in flowered swimming trunks that hung to his knees, stopped in the middle of the path to the front door. I approached him and sniffed chlorine. He'd obviously just come from a swim at the pool. His tight curls were wet and his eyes were as red as his hair.

  "What do you want?" he asked, sounding scared.

  I tried to smile. "I used to live in this house."

  His eyes widened. "No kidding?"

  "I moved out in June."

  "That's right," the kid said, his last traces of suspicion van­ishing. "That's when we moved in." Little puddles formed around his feet as he dripped. "Where do you live now?"

  "Brooklyn." The word sounded rough coming from my mouth. Maybe nobody can say it gently.

  "I was there, once." He shivered. "My name is Francis."

  "Joey."

  He extended his hand, cold and pruny from swimming, and I shook it. I'd all but forgotten the simple formality of a handshake - people from Shepherd Avenue eyed each other upon introduction the way animals size each other up in the jungle. "Do you sleep in my old room?"

  "Which one?"

  "The one with the window near the tree."

  "Sure, that's my room. . . . You want to come in or some­thing?"

  "Yeah," I said, and without even a look back to poor Angie I followed Francis into his house. My house. The house.

  "Mom!!"

  Francis had a shrill yell that shook me.

  "Stand there on the mat, Francis, I'll get a towel," a female voice called from upstairs. I looked at the alien furniture around the room I'd known so well.

  Footsteps down the staircase. "Francis, you'll destroy the woodwork with those wet feet - oh. Hello, there. Francis, who's your friend?"

  "He used to live here," Francis said, his teeth chattering. "His name's Joey."

  Francis's mother dropped to her knees on the mat to wipe the water on her son's legs, as if he were a thoroughbred in need of a rubdown. The smell of her perfume filled the foyer.

  She looked up at me, her face chubby and heart-shaped. "How did you get here, Joey?"

  "My grandfather's out front."

  She hung the towel across her son's shoulders. "Invite him in for coffee, Francis."

  Francis ran to get Angie while I followed the woman into the kitchen. Late afternoon sunshine shimmered over every­thing as she brought a tall white coffeepot to the table and set out cups, saucers, and a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies. She even set out linen napkins that were so white they made the coffeepot look dingy.

  "You look so much like your daddy," she said. "Around the eyes. It's remarkable."

  "No I don't."

  She stopped folding napkins. "I beg your pardon?"

  "I don’t look like him. I don’t look like him at all."

  "Is that right? I wonder who you look like."

  "Nobody." The smile left her face as if a mask had fallen from it. "I don't look like anybody. Just me."

  She knelt to pick up a dropped napkin, and while she was down there she found the smile and put it back on.

  Then the mood shifted with airy, lighthearted questions about my new home. She was smart enough not to ask about my father. I answered numbly, in blurts: "It's okay . . . I guess so . . . I dunno . . ."

  She sat next to me, her long pink dress crinkling with starch. When had I become seated? I couldn't remember. I felt as if I were underwater.

  "Could I . . ." I halted. Francis's mother touched my knee. "Yes?"

  Her touch triggered it. I plunged my face into her dress, between her breasts, each of which felt firm against my cheeks. The source of the perfume smell - White Shoulders, the same stuff my mother used to wear!

  Footsteps into the kitchen, one set padded, the other hard-heeled: Angie's.

  "Gee, Ma, what's the matter with him?"

  "He's all right," she said cheerily. Her hands were at the back of my head, holding me in place as she stroked my hair.

  "I'm Angelo," I heard my grandfather say. "I'm sorry, he's been upset all day - "

  He stopped talking, abruptly. One of her hands had left the back of my head - she must h
ave waved for him to be silent - and then the hand returned to stroke me.

  "Pour coffee for Angelo," she instructed. I heard and felt her voice through her breasts, which cupped me like headphones. I wasn't crying. I was happier than I'd been since my mother was alive. This was the kind of hug I used to get from her, only Francis's mother's breasts were bigger. My soul swelled.

  I stayed there ten, maybe fifteen minutes. I heard whistles for the Long Island Rail Road. I heard Angie sipping coffee, and making polite conversation.

  Suddenly I jerked away from her, the way a gasoline hose jolts when a gas tank is full. My vision was blurry. I'd pressed against her so hard and long it took time for me to focus. "I'm sorry," I said.

  "Don't be silly." She squeezed my earlobes.

  "He gonna throw up, Ma?"

  I turned to look at Francis, the luckiest guy in the world. His hair had dried, the curls puffing away from his head. He and Angie sat stiffly, like people in a hospital waiting room.

  "I'm fine," I announced to the room. Angie stood and jerked his head toward the front door.

  "We'll go now," he said. I noticed that he'd combed his hair straight back, the way it usually was when he left the bathroom in the morning. He must have kept a comb in the glove com­partment.

  On the way to the front door Francis's mother said, "Would you like to see your old room before you go?"

  "No. . . . Is it okay if I look in the garage?"

  "What for?" Francis asked.

  "Of course you may," she said. "Francis, take him there." "I know where it is."

  Our old four-bladed push mower stood in the same place on the oily floor where my father had left it after cutting the lawn for the last time. No other tools in sight; the mower was a prisoner in solitary confinement. I brushed off whitish-yellow blades of dried grass before wheeling the thing outside.

  "Ma, he's crazy!" Francis was even more scared of me than Phil and Henry had been.

  "What are you doing, Joseph?" Angie asked, but he left me alone.

  With a grunt I began pushing the mower over the grass, starting next to the driveway, the same way my father used to do it, cutting a strip and then overlapping it halfway on the return cut to make sure that even the stubborn grasses got shorn.

  But it was useless. The grass was so short that nothing got cut, the blades spinning inches over its surface. All the mower did was make noise, because it needed oil.