“You don’t have to fight my battles and you can’t solve every problem with your fists. You need to control that temper. You’re gonna hurt someone one of these days. Stay out of trouble. You’ve got too much to lose now,” Frankie lectured as they walked to the car.
Everyone told Michael he had a promising future. The world was his oyster. College recruiters were competing to get him to sign a letter of intent in the spring. He could go anywhere. His coaches, his adviser, his most trusted teachers, all believed he would make his decision based on academic rankings and his likelihood of making the squad. None of them would have suspected he had already made his choice and intended to accept the offer of the school the greatest distance from Eighth and Carpenter. He’d sworn to go away and never come back. But driving home from the station, he understood he could never leave Frankie behind, alone, with no one to watch over and protect him. He didn’t remember his mother’s face or how her voice had sounded, but he knew what she had asked his brother as she was dying.
Promise me you’ll always take care of each other. Frankie, you make sure you tell your brother I asked you both to do that when he’s old enough to understand.
FRANKIE AND MICHAEL, 1984
“He doesn’t like me, Frankie. I told you he wasn’t going to like me,” Charlie Haldermann whined when Michael excused himself, saying he needed to use the men’s room.
“Of course he likes you,” Frankie insisted, trying to assure his new lover he was misinterpreting Michael’s sullen demeanor. “He’s shy around strangers. That’s all.”
“Shy? The kid looks like he could tear the phone book in half. What the hell does anyone who’s built like a steamroller have to be shy about?”
It had been a bad idea. Frankie had been naïve to think Mikey would be happy, or at least relieved, that his older brother was finally ready to settle down. Ruddy and stocky, Charlie was more likely to die of a heart attack than AIDS. Michael finally could stop handing him feature articles he’d clipped from the newspaper about the brave struggles of the gaunt and doomed victims, stranded in a hellish medical purgatory between the dead and the living. He wouldn’t feel the need to give Frankie the third degree at least once a week. What are you doing? Who are you doing it with? Why can’t you just stop? Not forever. At least until they find a cure. Wasn’t watching Michael Montello waste away to nothing enough to convince you to take a vow of celibacy? Do you want to go blind, too? Don’t you think you’re being selfish putting yourself at risk? Don’t you know the cunt would hound Papa to throw you out of the house if you got sick? Have you ever stopped to think how I would feel if you caught it and died? But it had been wishful thinking, foolish even, to think Michael would embrace Charlie with open arms. Michael would find a hidden character flaw in Jesus Christ himself if He took up a relationship with Frankie.
Frankie and Charlie had a minor, quiet squabble about ordering another bottle of wine while Michael was in the bathroom. They’d already gone through two, at twenty-five dollars apiece, or, more accurately, the Gagliano brothers drank two glasses each while Charlie sopped up the rest like a thirsty sponge.
“Well, he drove an hour to meet me and he’s been acting like he can’t wait to leave since the moment he got here,” Charlie complained, pissy about facing an empty wineglass after losing the argument.
Michael had made Frankie beg before agreeing to the introduction. He’d insisted he was too burdened by academic and athletic responsibilities to spare the time to come home. He hadn’t even seen Barbie in nearly a month. The Tigers had traveled to Cambridge and Hanover for away games the past two weeks, and he would be expected to devote time he couldn’t spare to her if he showed his face in Philadelphia. But Frankie was persistent. Bucks County was close to Central Jersey. They could have a nice dinner in New Hope.
A steak house was neutral territory. Frankie was certain his brother was blowing them off when he failed to show more than thirty minutes after the reservation. But the threadbare tires of Michael’s beat-up Gremlin were to blame as he’d had to stop and change a flat in Lambertville. Frankie worried about him traveling in that ancient junk bucket held together with duct tape and rubber bands and planned on leasing him a snappy new Civic CRX for Christmas. He’d quickly built a loyal clientele and had plenty of disposable income since Papa refused Frannie Merlino’s nagging appeals that Frankie be made to contribute room and board, saying no child of his would ever be asked to pay to live under his roof.
“I’m going to the piano bar and request that Twinkle Fingers play ‘Send in the Clowns.’ Is there something your brother would like to hear?”
Frankie doubted the shellacked Liberace-wannabe knew “Thunder Road” or “Born in the U.S.A.”
The waiter presented the bill when Michael returned. Michael frowned when he saw Frankie offer his credit card without dividing the check and collecting a share from this garrulous, eager-to-please Charlie.
“What’s wrong, Mikey?”
“Where did you find this prize?”
“A friend of a friend introduced us during the intermission of a Gay Men’s Chorus benefit for the AIDS Task Force.”
“Didn’t you say he looked like Kris Kristofferson? You must be going blind, Frankie. He doesn’t look like a movie star to me.”
“He’s a little heavier than when we met, but he still has those beautiful eyes and a full head of hair.”
“Is it true?”
Barbie’s mother had heard from one of her friends whose sister was a client of Frankie that Frankie was giving his new friend a substantial down payment on a large residence with a view of the Delaware River.
“Is what true?” Frankie asked.
“Is it true you’re buying him a house?”
“Jesus, how rumors fly. I’m lending him a little money and cosigning on the mortgage loan.”
The school district where Charlie taught high school music, also serving as chorus director and the drama club faculty sponsor, kept him leashed to Bucks County by a residency requirement. Frankie thought Charlie was suggesting they live together when he asked to borrow the money. He was surprised when Charlie didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea of Frankie leaving Philadelphia, and he was hurt when the man who professed to love him actively discouraged him from making inquiries if any of the better local salons had an open chair. It had been a crazy idea anyway. Frankie was a city boy and didn’t like the pitch black of suburban nights or the sounds of four-legged nocturnal visitors foraging in garbage pails. He would have felt responsible if Papa “accidentally” tumbled down the staircase and broke his neck while living alone at Eighth and Carpenter with Frannie Merlino. Michael said his brother’s suspicions were preposterous, that Frannie Merlino was many evil things, but a killer wasn’t among them. He’d laughed and said Frankie spent too much time watching old movies and scoffed at the idea that their stepmother was Barbara Stanwyck and had sweet-talked Papa into taking out a secret policy with a double indemnity clause. Always the drama, he’d sighed, dismissing Frankie’s fears as the product of an overactive imagination.
“You’ll never see that money again, Frankie. Don’t sign those papers.”
“Stop it, Mikey.”
“And tell him to stop calling me that. No one but you can call me that.”
“Promise me you’ll try to like him.”
“He’s a hundred years old and he’s fat and loud.”
“He’s fifteen years older than me, which would make him thirty-nine. He’s hardly an old man. He’s got a big heart. You’ll see. Give him a chance. Salazzo gave me Saturday afternoon off so we can come to the game when you play Penn at Franklin Field. Charlie bought a Princeton sweatshirt he’s dying to wear.”
The desperation in Michael’s eyes was startling.
“Don’t bring him, Frankie. Please. Don’t. Please.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t. Don’t.”
Michael pushed his chair from the table and looked at his wristwatch, announcing he
had to leave.
“It’s late. I’ve got two chapters of Latin to translate and I have drills at five thirty in the morning.”
“Walk with me to the piano bar. Charlie will be hurt if you don’t say good-bye.”
“You say good-bye for me,” Michael said, turning his back and walking toward the door.
Charlie was sitting at the piano, his voice dominating a loud sing-along, pausing only to sip his cocktail. He lifted his glass and beckoned Frankie to join him. Frankie resigned himself to a long evening. Charlie had settled in until last call. He’d be too drunk to get it up when they got into bed and he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
FRANKIE, 1985
Frankie wanted to surprise Charlie Haldermann and make this birthday the best he’d ever had. He’d stowed his overnight bag in the trunk, along with a bottle of Moët & Chandon (no cheap sparkling wines for his Charlie), a dozen roses, and a chocolate birthday cake from the bakery on Christian Street. He’d reserved the best room, one with a working fireplace and a four-poster bed, at the most expensive inn in New Hope. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Charlie’s face when he opened the gift box and found a TAG Heuer Carrera, the same model the salesman said Steve McQueen had worn.
It was going to be the perfect celebration, as special for Frankie as it was for the birthday boy. Frankie had never been in love before, not really, not with someone who loved him back. He’d been blessed to find his soul mate in the eye of the storm swirling around him. Half of the boys in his graduating class at South Philadelphia Beauty Academy were dead. A client’s son who had seen Patrick Ryan in San Francisco said his face was spotted with purple lesions. Frankie had sat at Michael Montello’s bedside three nights a week until he passed, reading aloud from Stephen King novels after CMV retinitis had left his dying friend blind. Frankie had confessed to Jack Centafore he often felt guilty being so happy in the midst of such terrible suffering. But Jack had promised him God surely wouldn’t begrudge Frankie some small measure of contentment, seeming to encourage the relationship, though, in truth, he resented Charlie and rued the day the teacher had come into Frankie’s life.
Frankie didn’t recognize the van parked in Charlie’s driveway. He rarely made it to Bucks County before eight on Saturday nights and hadn’t told Charlie he was only working half a day today, not wanting to give him any reason to suspect he had something special up his sleeve and ruining the surprise. It probably belonged to a friend who had stopped by to wish Charlie a happy birthday, another teacher or a member of his Lutheran church choir. Frankie felt a slight twinge, knowing Charlie liked his cocktails and would certainly have insisted on making a toast in honor of the day. Let’s hope it’s just one, he thought as he slipped his key in the front door.
“Hello?” he called, more a question than a greeting as he stepped into the foyer.
He heard music playing in the living room, Madonna singing “Into the Groove,” an odd choice for Charlie, whose taste ran to My Fair Lady and Bach chorales unless it was Sunday tea dance at the Raven or the Cartwheel. Frankie found an open bottle of wine and two empty glasses on the coffee table. A pair of Adidas and rumpled Levi’s were on the floor. Charlie never wore sneakers or jeans. Frankie felt a stabbing pain in his gut and fought back tears as he climbed the staircase and opened the bedroom door, finding Charlie naked and on his back, his legs flailing in the air, urging a handsome young man to fuck his tight pussy and treat him like his dirty whore.
Frankie turned and fled, bolting down the stairs and out the door, with Charlie, wearing a flapping open robe, in pursuit. Charlie was surprisingly nimble for a fat man and managed to pull Frankie from behind the wheel of his car before he could close and lock the door. He pleaded for a chance to explain, and Frankie, despite his best intentions, sobbed into his faithless lover’s chest.
“He’s nobody, Frankie. Nobody,” Charlie swore.
Frankie didn’t want to know, and Charlie didn’t confess, who the dark-haired stranger was, how he and Charlie had met, how many times they had done it. He didn’t extract a promise it would never happen again, knowing Charlie would willingly say whatever he knew Frankie wanted to hear to buy forgiveness and some small measure of trust. It was enough that Charlie had sworn the man meant nothing to him, that he was nothing but trade (probably the truth), and that Frankie was the only man he could ever love (most likely a lie).
The sneakers and jeans were gone when they went back inside. Charlie poured Frankie a rum and Coke, then gathered the empty bottle and glasses and carried them to the kitchen. Frankie walked to the window. The van was gone. Charlie returned wearing his cords and flannel shirt and fleece-lined slippers, his hair neatly combed and parted.
“I know this is your favorite, Frankie,” he said, changing the record. They settled on the sofa, Frankie yielding to Charlie’s affectionate embrace and finding comfort in Stevie Nicks’s plaintive voice. “Feeling better now?” Charlie asked.
Frankie, his face still wet from tears, breathing through a nose full of snot, nodded his head.
“Who’s my honey bun?” Charlie asked in that coy voice he used when he wanted to sound endearing.
Frankie resisted the temptation to say he couldn’t answer that question since he didn’t know the stranger’s name as they hadn’t been introduced. It was over, done with, the subject put to rest, never to be raised again. Charlie loved his birthday surprises, all of them. It became a tradition, the two of them returning to the same room in the most expensive inn in New Hope every year until Charlie died.
He would never trust Charlie again after that notorious birthday. Charlie was supposed to be his safe harbor in the maelstrom of the epidemic and, instead, he had carelessly, recklessly, thoughtlessly, put Frankie at risk. Frankie thought about leaving him, but in the end, decided to stay with the devil he knew, at least until a cure was found and the threat was over. But he never let Charlie near him again without a condom. And after the dying stopped and the fear subsided, he could never quite find the right time to end the relationship. There was always some reason—a prepaid Caribbean cruise, Charlie’s emergency gall bladder surgery with serious complications—to postpone the breakup. Frankie could always soldier through a few more months. When Papa began to fail, needing more and more of his attention, he was grateful he had a lover who made so few demands on his time and who was content filling his evenings and weekends with other distractions, sometimes not seeing Frankie for weeks at a time.
For fourteen years, until the last time he used his key to gather the clothes he kept in his dead lover’s bedroom, Frankie felt his shoulders tense each time he turned the corner onto Charlie’s street. Holding his breath, he braced himself, preparing for the worst, always expecting to discover a strange Ford Taurus or Jeep Wrangler parked in the driveway. He never caught Charlie red-handed again but would often stumble on the telltale signs of infidelity. A used rubber under the bed. First names and telephone numbers scribbled on scraps of paper. Nothing to get worked up about. It didn’t mean anything. At least Frankie was still alive. He’d survived the epidemic. And, all things considered, being with Charlie, or with anyone for that matter, was better than being alone.
MICHAEL, 1987
The days turned cooler, the nights cold enough for down jackets, and the branches of the trees were stripped of any dead, brown leaves. The best and the brightest, used to constant affirmation of their gifts, were unsettled, on edge. Penn Law was brutal, unforgiving, without quizzes and midterms to allow anxious first-year students an opportunity to gauge their progress mastering the concepts of property and contracts and civil procedure. They had only one chance, a single test given at the end of the semester, to prove themselves worthy of their admission to one of the most selective schools in the country. Entire futures rested on the answers they would commit to the pages of their blue examination books.
The palpable nerves of his classmates were a balm to Michael, boosting his confidence. He thrived on competition, determined
to succeed. He burrowed into a carrel in the Biddle library every night, drafting detailed outlines of the copious notes he’d taken since September. Frazzled, weary-looking One Ls lingered by his desk to make small talk, complaining and cracking nervous jokes. He knew they sought him because of his thick working-class Philly accent and his notoriety as the Godfather, a two-time All-Ivy center. He could read it in their faces. Look at him. Listen to him. It gave their fragile egos comfort, knowing there was a gorilla in their midst. At least there’s one person here I don’t need to worry about as competition for selection to the Law Review.
The weather had been raw, two days of cold, driving December rain, but the sky had cleared and the air was crisp as an apple when he emerged from the library the night before his torts exam. He zipped up the varsity jacket he’d earned at the Academy, worn as a badge of honor of his row house roots, and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Ordinarily, he would have waited for a southbound bus, but the night was a pleasant reprieve from the wet, humid weather so he decided to walk through the Penn campus and across the bridge spanning the Schuylkill River. His thoughts were consumed with the recitation of the essential elements of simple negligence and the concept of res ipsa loquitur. He was barely conscious of his surroundings, and at first didn’t notice the woman ahead of him. The streetlights were dim and the massive walls of the football stadium loomed overhead.
He couldn’t see her face, of course, but there was something familiar about her confident carriage. He was fairly certain it was Amy Morganthau. She’d spoken to him tonight in the library, briefly, pleasantly, told him her little brother, three years behind him at Princeton, had been impressed when he learned the Godfather was her law school classmate. Even her jeans and sweatshirt couldn’t camouflage that she and Michael belonged to different species. Women like Amy, members of a privileged tribe whose rituals and language he didn’t know, intimidated him like no hulking ogre on the defensive line ever could. He’d avoided them his entire four years at Princeton, preferring the comfortable familiarity of his high school sweetheart.
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter Page 10