The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  “To Jimmy’s health,” our grandmother says.

  “Cheers,” Elissa says.

  “We love you, Jim,” our mother says.

  “We love you, Dad,” I say.

  We clink glasses. We listen to the water lapping against the boats in their slips.

  We have no idea.

  << 25 >>

  My father and I mail off the letter to the FAA.

  “It’s out of our hands,” I tell him.

  The family returns to Westchester. The John W. Manley School beckons.

  There are new faces at summer camp. New students. A whole batch of retards straight off the short bus, in secondhand clothing.

  There are new teachers as well. Fresh, bright-eyed women, just exiting grad programs, eager to sink their teeth into the real world of applied behavior analysis. I remain one of the few teaching assistants not currently working toward or already in possession of a master’s degree. Yet soon, all that might change.

  Of course, all the old faces are back, too. Georgie is here. Ceci is here. Angela is here. We are all here. On the first day, I meet with Ceci in her office. She wants to discuss my future.

  “How would you feel about working with Arham for the summer?” she asks. “He’s come so far with you. I think it would be such a special thing for you both to keep going together. Tell me what you think.”

  “Sounds great to me,” I say. And I am happy about this.

  “If he keeps making the progress he’s making with you, I’d like you to think about sticking with him through the coming school year, too. It’s not unheard of.”

  “I have no problems with that,” I say.

  “Calvin,” she says. Switching gears into the tone of serious work talk. “I asked around. Like I said I would. If you want, that thing we talked about, going back to get your master’s, it’s definitely an option.”

  “Look, I appreciate you looking out for me,” I say. “There is a lot going on with my family. I don’t think it’s a good time to really shake things up.”

  “From what you’ve told me,” she says, “it might be the best time.”

  I start to say, I’ll think about it, but I stop myself.

  Instead I say, “I can’t give you an answer right now.”

  “The Manley School will pay for almost all of it,” she says.

  “You have to let me think about it,” I say.

  “It’s a great opportunity,” she says. “Don’t let it slip away.” She does the nurturing smile. I think about the application, filled out, sitting in my room, just waiting to be turned in. And that would be it, a done deal, back to school, off down a road of commitment to something. Maybe it doesn’t matter what I commit to. Perhaps it’s the decision itself that matters.

  “I won’t,” I say.

  “I’m just saying, we don’t offer this to everyone,” she says. “We think you’re doing a great job. I know someone on the board at Pace. Just get the application back to me and I’ll put it in the right hands.”

  “Ceci, I really appreciate the kind words, but you have to realize I’m not sure if this is for me.” I gesture behind me.

  “Consider it,” she says. “That’s all I’m saying.”

  In the classroom, Arham is wearing the sneakers I bought him. He is bursting with giggles. He runs to me and hugs my knees.

  “Hug,” he says. “Hug.”

  “How are you, my little man?” I say to him.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he tells me.

  THE DAY COMES when he must take the stress test. My parents make the trip into Manhattan alone. The general consensus is it would be overwhelming for him if we all went.

  The test consists of electrocardiograph scans and a lengthy treadmill run, coupled with an isotope injection to measure how well his heart muscles function under stress. It’s the last big hurdle standing between him and the successful reinstatement of his medical clearance. If he passes the test, the FAA will reopen his case and, with a little luck, aided by the supporting material we sent in the letter, reissue his license. He can return to his job at Transcontinental Air, go off disability, start collecting his full salary instead of 40 percent. Mortgage gets paid. House stays.

  I wish him luck. Hug him awkwardly in the driveway.

  “There’s eggplant in the fridge,” my mother says from the car. “Don’t forget to walk Emma. We’ll be back around six, I think.”

  “Have fun,” I say.

  “Yeah, right,” I hear my father say. And then they are gone. Shortly after, there is an eruption of horn honking from the street in front of the house. I go to the living room window and see a group of young men all dressed in polo shirts in a black BMW. Chip comes thundering down the stairs carrying his golf bag.

  “Where you headed?” I ask as I meet him at the door.

  “I’m not even going to answer that,” he says. And then he, too, is gone. He piles into the waiting car. There are hoots and hollers as the BMW peels away.

  “Three down,” I say to myself. And as if the heavens themselves have heard my prayers, the phone rings and I hear Elissa shriek from her bedroom. There is giggling and it isn’t long before a car is outside honking for her.

  “Jackie’s taking me to the mall,” Elissa says, waddling down the stairs. “We’re gonna look for maternity clothes.”

  “Want help?”

  “It’s kind of a girls-only thing,” Elissa says.

  “Fair enough.”

  Her T-shirts are beginning to stretch around the budding mound of her stomach. With each month that goes by, she seems to look older and wiser. The pregnancy is very becoming and I’ve never seen her so happy.

  I am utterly alone in the house for the better part of the day. I check my e-mail and see that Charlotte has written me back. My heart drops when I open the message and discover a semiformulated brush-off stating that, indeed, the position has been filled. She thanks me for coming in and says the well-known film company interviewed many overqualified people for the job. It was a tough decision. Nothing stays the same, sure, but nothing much changes either. I feel like complete horseshit. I walk around in circles in my room and have a moment of panic. No extra money for my family. No extra money for me to move out. Nothing changes. I’m stuck here. In this house, with all of them. And worst of all, all I have to give in the way of financial support is a lousy $1,214.45, as of my last count. I am able to make no strides into adulthood. No progress toward being my own man. I do belong at the John W. Manley School. I go to my bedroom and pull the application out of my desk drawer. I call my undergraduate university and request transcripts to be sent. From my notebook, I transcribe my personal statement into Microsoft Word. I print it out. I seal everything up in the envelope and throw it on my bed. The only thing left to do is to hand it over to Ceci. Seal my fate. I’m not there yet, but something tells me I will be soon.

  I walk to the bathroom.

  “Goddamn stapler,” I say to my face in the mirror.

  Thoroughly dejected, I spend the rest of the day in a depressed funk. I sulk about. I masturbate eight times in five hours, tying my old record. I watch videos online, compiling a “greatest hits” of my favorite categories. As usual, I try to find women with glasses and knee-high socks. I look for blonds at first, switch to brunettes after a while. I try to take my time with each session, not wanting to rush. I’ve read this is good practice. A hasty jerk-off can lead to decreased stamina when confronted with the real thing. The fifth time around, I think about Gabby. I fantasize taking off her hat and touching my hand to the hole in her head.

  I listen to records. I listen to Sweetheart of the Rodeo. I listen to Pet Sounds. I listen to Beggars Banquet. I listen to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I lie on the floor in my room in my boxer briefs and turn the stereo way up. I listen to Larks’ Tongues in Aspic. I listen to Close to the Edge. I doze off for a half hour and when I wake I decide to alphabetize my records. I take them off the shelves and separate them, by artist, into twenty-six piles. This takes
a while. There are a lot of records. I sort through them all. I stop occasionally to think about what was going on in my life when I acquired certain records. For the most part, I can’t remember anything noteworthy about any of them. I look at my room and wonder how much of my life and money I’ve wasted collecting records, getting lost in music, shying away from forging real relationships with people. I look at the posters on my wall and determine they must all come down. I tear each from its place and crumple it into the garbage. When I finish, I am happy. I’m having a productive day. Getting things done.

  I put on one of my father’s bathrobes. I wander from room to room. I turn lights on. I turn them off. I stand in front of the piano in the living room and strike keys at random. I turn the television on. I turn it off. I take off the bathrobe. For dinner, I make a grilled cheese sandwich and heat up a can of tomato soup. When I finish eating, I jerk off once more, breaking the record. A very productive day, indeed. I call Wally to see if he wants to go to the movies. We opt for a horror film, some low-budget schlock. When I get home, my parents are sitting at the kitchen table. My father is eating a bowl of cereal. My mother is flipping through channels on the small television on the counter. I hover near the fridge.

  “How’d everything go?” I ask.

  “He passed,” my mother says. “Dr. Nadoo thinks he has a chance at getting his license back.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” I say.

  “It’s wonderful news,” my mother says.

  My father slurps a heaping mound of cornflakes into his mouth.

  “He doesn’t look so thrilled,” I point out.

  “I feel terrible,” he says. He wipes a line of milk from his chin.

  “Your father’s having some anxiety problems,” my mother says.

  “Still?” I ask. “Everything seems great.” As I say this, his head drops and he lowers his face into his hands.

  “James,” my mother says, “stop crying. You’ve been crying all day. You need to stop this.”

  “Everything is fucked,” he says.

  “Jesus, Dad,” I say. “Mom’s right. You need to calm down. What’s the matter?”

  He raises his head, looks at us both. His eyes are weary. His jowls are starting to regain some of the puffiness they possessed before he got sick.

  “Something’s wrong with me,” he says.

  I leave them both to their separate worries. I go upstairs. Elissa is in her room, lying on her bed, her hands resting on her belly. She is listening to music.

  “Are you having alone time?” I ask from her doorway.

  “Just taking a moment,” she says. She doesn’t move or open her eyes.

  I step into her room. I sit on the green and white throw rug that occupies the space in front of her bookshelf. I lie on my back.

  “Dad passed his stress test,” Elissa says.

  “I know,” I say. “He’s downstairs crying about it right now.”

  The weeks tumble by. I do not get in their way.

  NOTHING IS A better barometer of failure than the success of other people. Chris Hillman’s wedding approaches. I think about how much money will be dumped into the festivities as I open a fresh bill from Sallie Mae. I go through the usual motions. I mail off a payment. I add some money to my savings. I total the new sum in my notebook. I cross out the old amount and write the new one. I’m up to $1,367.36. This makes me both happy and depressed at once. There is no job at the well-known film company to inflate my savings, and $1,367.36 is just a drop in a very large bucket when taken in the context of how much is owed on the house. My financial contribution seems paltry, almost meaningless, and I haven’t even given it to them yet.

  Elissa is a whale. That much is certain. She spends most of her time reading now, sitting in the living room with my father. Her maternal instincts, roused by her pregnancy, have turned her into the defacto Dad caretaker. Elissa allows him two hours of television watching a day. The rest of the time she makes sure he spends in more productive, useful pursuits. She takes him on walks. They go to the grocery store. The library. They sit in the park.

  “Today’s limit has been reached,” she’ll say as she turns off the television. “Let’s figure out what we want to do, shall we?”

  “I want to work on the mobile,” he might say. In which case, Elissa will shuffle him to the basement, to his workbench, where he has begun constructing the present he promised to make for the baby. He and Elissa take frequent trips to the hobby store so he can purchase scale models of the aircraft he needs. “It’s going to have all my favorite planes,” he says. He buys tiny F-16s. He buys a Bell X-1, like Chuck Yeager flew to break the sound barrier. He buys a D-21 Tagboard, of Russian design, for spying during the Cold War. He buys a Boeing X-43. The old Fokker EI, a German dogfighter from World War II. A British Spitfire. He sits for hours and glues the models together. He fastens them with fishing line to a wooden cross he has sanded and polished. Over a few weeks’ time, the mobile begins to take shape, and I can tell he is proud of what he is doing, proud to be making something for the baby. He brings the work in progress to the dinner table, keeping us informed as to its development. Filling us in on which aircraft he plans to add next.

  “I’m working toward ten planes,” he says.

  For Arham’s birthday, his parents send a small cake to school with him. He drops it on the bus, so the left side is dented, but the words “Happy Birthday Arham” can still be made out across the top. I bring him into the main room, where Ceci has gathered some children and their teachers. Tony plays his guitar and we all sing to the little man. He sits beaming. He blows out the candles with a hail of spit and gusto. I give him a big hug, which he seems reluctant to relinquish.

  “Happy birthday, Arham,” I say to him.

  He looks me right in the eyes.

  “Happy birthday, Arham,” he says.

  << 26 >>

  My father and I drive in silence. Twenty minutes on 117 and we are there. The reception hall is enormous, tucked up among the tall trees in Chappaqua. A place called Silver Springs.

  I’m shocked to find I actually enjoy wearing the tuxedo I’ve rented. It fits me better than I could have hoped, and when I check everything out in the mirror before departure, I find myself satisfied. Maybe I am finally growing into my lanky frame. Maybe I’m getting some looks, after all these years.

  The parking lot teems with Sleepy Hollow High alumni. Faces from the past. Each filling me with pangs of dread. These are people I hated seven years ago and certainly haven’t grown any fonder of since. I linger in the car, unable to bring myself to even open the door and get out. I see Christian Rafelson, hair buzzed perfectly smooth, waving his hands in the air, apparently in the midst of some grand enchanting yarn that has Tara Walsh, Danielle Fusaro, and Monica Pearce enraptured. They all burst out laughing at something he says. A few of the “guys” loiter near the entrance, smoking. I watch John Wellington adjust his sizable gut around the waist of his pants so he can demonstrate for Paul Workman and Joe Fleischner the proper upward motion of a golf swing. Of course, the few people I wish were in attendance haven’t been invited.

  My father bangs on the window.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  It is odd to see him dressed in a tuxedo. I’m surprised at how handsome he looks. His face betrays a decent amount of exhaustion and he still has the sallow hue of sickness, but it isn’t as bad as it once was. The mustache is trimmed nicely.

  “I’m coming,” I say. I hesitate for another second before getting out. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

  “There will be cake,” my father says.

  “You can’t eat cake,” I tell him.

  He marches off. I follow, reluctantly stopping to say hello to everyone who notices me. I have eight versions of the same conversation before I even get inside. They all go something like this:

  PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: Oh my God, Calvin Moretti! How are you?

  ME: Fine. Pretty good.

&nbs
p; PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: What are you doing these days?

  ME: Teaching at a preschool.

  PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: Wow, that is so cute!

  ME: I suppose. And you?

  PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: I work for blah blah blah doing blah blah blah and I just got a raise and I’ve been there for three years now, so they definitely owed me, and hey, by the way, I’m sorry to hear about your dad, and how’s he doing?

  ME: He’s right over there.

  PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: Oh, man. He doesn’t look so good.

  ME: That’s what he says.

  PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: Wild.

  ME: Wild.

  PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH: Well. It really is nice to see you.

  ME: It is nice to see you, too.

  I STAND TOWARD the back, as much in the shadows as possible, but it’s hard because the banquet hall is cavernous and filled with sunshine pouring through every window. I watch as the band sound-checks. There is a loud spike of feedback from the microphone as the singer plugs into the PA. I squint to get a better look at the drummer as he takes a seat behind his kit. He looks like Arthur Kornberg, the Dungeon Master. It can’t be. Then again, it must be—the resemblance is too uncanny. I walk toward the stage. The singer is saying, “Test,” into the microphone over and over. I stand silently while the guitarist changes a string.

  “What kind of stuff are you guys playing today?” I ask, just lobbing the question into the air for any of them to field.

  “All sorts of crap,” the bass player, a stocky, balding investment-banker type with a Santa Claus tie says. “The bride gave us an extensive list of great suggestions,” he adds.

  “I’d like to suggest a heavy D&D theme,” I say.

  Arthur looks up from his stool and stops twirling his sticks.

  “I’d like to suggest Dark Side of the Moon. In its entirety,” I say.

  “That would be rad,” he says. He still wears the same enormous clear-rimmed glasses he wore when we were in the sixth grade. “Calvin?” he asks.

  “Arthur Kornberg,” I say. “The Dungeon Master.” I step up onto the stage and Arthur comes out from behind his floor tom and bass drum and we do one of those awkward hugs only two guys who aren’t good at human contact are capable of pulling off.