Car Trouble Page 10

  I didn’t want to think about Aunt Regina and passed the album to him.

  “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” he said. “Now he’s old enough to mouth off to his old man.”

  Grandpa stopped stuffing his face. “Oh yeah?”

  “He’s a little outspoken.”

  I was blushing again. I didn’t see myself that way at all.

  Out of nowhere, Himself started talking about his childhood. “When I was a kid, your uncle George sat across from me, where you’re sitting, and I would throw my peas and carrots under the table and when my old man, your grandfather, used to say, ‘Finish up your peas and carrots,’ I would say, ‘I already did.’ And your uncle would be the one to get in trouble.”

  “Of course, I knew all along who the culprit was,” Grandpa said. “Three boys, I had to have eyes in the back of my head to keep track of them.”

  We looked at some more pictures before we finished packing up the car. The one I remember most was a shot of Himself standing between Grandma and Grandpa in the middle of Floyd Bennett Field. Grandma was dressed in a light-colored coat with a wide lapel. Grandpa wore a dark overcoat with a sharp-looking hat, the kind with a band above the brim. Dad was grinning. He had a crew cut and was wearing what looked like a military uniform. The photo was taken the day he went into the army.

  No wonder he didn’t like me speaking out against the war; he’d enlisted. “How old were you?”

  “A few years older than you, young man,” he said. His serious tone made me think he secretly knew when I was going to be drafted.

  “You were born while he was away,” Grandma said.

  That I knew, from Mom telling me how she stayed out in Long Island with her father during the final weeks of her pregnancy. The day I was born, Himself wasn’t even there. “But there wasn’t a war going on?”

  He shook his head. “I did basic training and two years in Hawaii.”

  Not exactly Saigon. But he thought we should all go there if we were called. He was from that generation of men that never questioned what they were told to do. And I guessed he’d just found out I was not.

  Grandma closed the photo album and took it away. I cleared the dessert dishes, putting them in the sudsy water in the sink where the lunch plates were soaking. Then I grabbed my coat and told everyone I’d see them outside.

  With the Black Beauty packed to the rearview mirror with furniture, there was no room for me so I rode home with Grandpa, who filled the trunk and backseat of his Impala with the chairs. His car was only a few years old, a dashing silver-gray that matched his eminence and status in life. He could glide all the way to their new house in Pembroke Pines and neither he nor Grandma would feel a bump. They were leaving Brooklyn in style.

  I’d never been alone with Grandpa. He had a reputation as a stern fellow; maybe it was the beady eyes, almost black, trapped behind those thick glasses, or the way he seemed to scrutinize you with a quick once-over.

  He wore a blue peacoat and a tweed flat cap for our ride home. A blue rosary was wrapped around the Impala’s rearview mirror—probably one of Grandma’s extra sets—and the interior had a fresh, deodorized smell, as if Grandpa had just taken it to the car wash. The chairs bobbed along nicely in the backseat. I wondered if Grandpa was going to stick around long enough to get the table set up. I saw the Black Beauty in front of us, sloping down the hill to Foster Avenue, past the Vanderveer housing projects. I was sure Himself couldn’t see out the rearview mirror.

  Grandpa asked me about school and if anybody at St. Mike’s was offering a course on public speaking.

  “I don’t think so, unless you count the school play. My English teacher is directing it and he wants me to try out.”

  “Do it,” Grandpa said. “You have a voice that carries, as they say.” Now that was something my father would never have said, especially after meeting Brian. He already thought he was a draft dodger; God knows what he’d say if I told him he was directing the school play. “So your old man tells me you have a dog now. I heard her barking in the background when I called the other day.”

  I smiled. “Yeah. You’ll see her when we get home. She’s a beauty. Very ladylike. Crosses her paws when she sits on the floor.”

  The Black Beauty lumbered ahead of us. The trunk was bobbing up and down, like the rope was loose.

  “She doesn’t sound like a puppy.”

  “She’s not. She’s fully grown. Doesn’t really bark though. Dad says she was abused; I think she was kind of the bar dog at the Dew Drop.”

  “Is that right? I don’t know the Dew Drop. Is that where your dad spends his time these days?”

  “He likes to watch the Mets game there.”

  Grandpa gave a knowing chuckle. “I bet he does.”

  I had no idea I was feeding the machine, the one that had recorded my father’s transgressions since the beginning of time. I figured Grandpa had to know Himself better than any of us, except my mother. Ahead of us, the Black Beauty hit a bump and the trunk flew open. I could see the back end of one of the chairs.

  Grandpa honked the horn and Dad pulled over past the light on Clarendon Road. We waited for a few cars to pass and pulled up next to him.

  Grandpa was already out of the car, stepping around back to retie the rope on the Black Beauty. I could smell gasoline or oil dripping from the car. “For crying out loud, Pat, you almost lost the chair.”

  “Never,” Dad said. “I’m only going about twenty. Not even Nicky goes that slow.”

  Grandpa gave me a surprised look over his shoulder. His hair looked like a white halo against the gray sky.

  “I’ve had a few lessons,” I said brightly. “Dad told me how you taught him how to drive in the parking lot at Riis Park. Was he my age?”

  “A little older, I think. But who the hell remembers? I taught four kids how to drive. Pat, you follow me the rest of the way.”

  Grandpa got back in the Impala and pressed on. Holy Cross was coming up on our right. The polished tombstones were the same color as the sky. The storm had stripped so many of the trees, it looked like winter had already arrived behind its high black fence.

  “So you like to drive? You’re too young to have a learner’s permit, though.”

  “Yes. I’m not sixteen yet.”

  “I believe I waited until your old man had his learner’s permit before I took him out.”

  “It was his idea. He’s a hard man to say no to.”

  Grandpa laughed. “Is that a fact? Well, I hope he’s not taking you to bars too.”

  I looked at him. “No, nothing like that.”

  I had been back to the Dew Drop a few times since that first night Mom sent me there to tide Himself over with a ten-dollar bill, but I no longer had to bring the collie with me. I never stayed longer than one ginger ale because I knew Himself was looking for some company.

  “You know, when your dad was coming up, many young men thought that going to bars and carousing and getting into fights was the thing to do. I broke up some of his battles and boxed his ears myself when he needed it.”

  I wanted to say: So I’ve heard.

  “I don’t suppose young men have changed since then—or maybe your old man hasn’t changed much since then.”

  We made a right turn at the Sunoco station on Snyder Avenue. The vacant lot on our left was a scene of desolation: clumps of weeds, old supermarket carts, the concrete floor of the old icehouse that was there when we first moved in. At the next left, we would be on Medallion Street.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about me,” I said. “People have been comparing me to my father all my life. Do I look like him? Am I going to be taller than him? Probably. I guess that’s natural. As he’s fond of telling me, I am his only son. But I feel like people are telling me not to be like him.”

  “Nobody said anything about that—”

  “Then maybe I’m just hearing it that way.”

  I didn’t say another word. Nobody had to tell me Himself’s away games,
these nights spent in the Dew Drop, weren’t good. In fact, they were really bad, but Mom—and I—would never tell Grandpa about them.

  We pulled up in front of the house. I didn’t say another word and got out of the car. I helped Dad unload chairs from the trunk, taking two into the house. Queenie trotted down the stoop to check out the scene. I went back to the makeshift loading dock at the bottom of the stoop to bring in more pieces. Dad was petting the collie on the sidewalk while he talked to Grandpa. Maybe he wasn’t coming in. Maybe that was better. Once he saw the crack in the kitchen ceiling, right over the stove, he’d be on my father’s case to see when he was going to fix that. And not get a straight answer.

  Once we had put the table back together, Mom took one of her frilly lace tablecloths, not as fancy as Grandma’s but good enough for us, out of the buffet drawer and covered the table pads. “Well, it’s certainly bigger than the old table,” she said. She went into the kitchen and came back with Dee Dee’s birthday cake, iced a light green. “I would like everyone to keep their junk off the table for at least twenty-four hours,” she said to me. “Spread the word.”

  Himself looked at the cake and made a face. “Is it someone’s birthday?”

  “Yes. Bet you can’t remember which one of your five children.”

  Dad smiled and winked at me. “Which one of my children was born in November? Not Nicky.”

  I was a July baby. Everyone else was fall and winter. I thought, He actually might get this wrong.

  “Mary Ellen?”

  Mom put her hand on her hip. “No, you big boob. Mary Ellen isn’t until next month. It’s Dee Dee’s birthday. Don’t you even know when your own kids were born?”

  “It’s all a blur, Claire. I figure that’s your job.”

  She punched him in the arm. “You want to go fifteen rounds?” I didn’t know how long they would go back and forth like this—the playful side of their battle—but I had to call Larry Cahill. We were going to the movies.

  As I headed upstairs to change my shirt, I heard Himself ask Mom, “Did she ask for green icing? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Eight

  It was our first Christmas at the beach. We were heading out to Rockaway in the Black Beauty, Himself at the wheel. I was sitting up front in the Death Seat with Mom in the middle. My sisters were crammed, coat-to-coat, in the backseat under a red-and-green plaid blanket; the heater was on the fritz. With my grandparents off to Florida, Uncle Tim made the invite. He had a fancy job in the city and lived in Belle Harbor, a neighborhood that seemed like Beverly Hills compared with ours, in a stand-alone house with an outdoor shower and a built-in barbecue grill. We normally went there in the summers when my sisters and I could spend the day at the beach with our little cousins, fighting a losing battle with the Atlantic undertow and getting good and sunburned while the adults got good and tanked playing cards at the picnic table in the backyard.

  So far, it had been a good holiday. Christmas was still the one morning we could count on Himself to be home when we woke up. We always put the tree up in the front porch, and that’s where we opened our gifts. By the time I came downstairs in my corduroy slippers and bathrobe, Queenie was playing with the torn wrapping paper left on the living room floor, and my youngest sisters, Dee Dee and Mary Ellen, were already showing off their presents—silver necklaces with enamel, heart-shaped pendants “given” by our step-grandmother, on the Jurgensen side of the family, who sent Mom a check for the five of us and let her do the shopping. The three eldest kids—me, Maureen, and Patty—received Bulova wristwatches. Mine had a silver, stretchy wristband; the little window on the face showed the date. I turned the knob on the side to change it to 25.

  Himself was the last to open his presents and did so with exaggerated care, never tearing the paper that someone had taken the time to fold, crease, and tape shut. “You never know, someone might want to use it again,” he said, smiling as he opened my gift, wrapped in candy cane–patterned foil.

  “C’mon, Daddy, just open the present already,” Maureen said, sitting next to the tree in her blue-flowered flannel nightgown.

  Mom stood in the doorway to the living room, cigarette dangling in her left hand. Because she’d gotten up early to walk the dog, she was the only one of us who was dressed. Dad had turned to her and said, “Claire, when did your daughter become so bossy?”

  We never knew what to get him for Christmas. He didn’t have any hobbies or go in for fancy accessories like cuff links. If he wasn’t wearing the heavy-duty chinos he wore to work, he stuck to three colors: light blue, navy, and gray. He liked his cars in loud colors, though, and that gave me an idea. After driving around in the Green Hornet and now the Black Beauty, I wanted to see if he was willing to borrow some of that flamboyance.

  After he gingerly opened and removed the wrapping, his eyes popped and he cracked up. “Mother of God, what have we here?” He removed from the white tissue paper two pairs of socks, one canary yellow, the other bright purple.

  “I thought they would go with your car,” I said.

  “Oh, did you, now?” He was still laughing. A thick, graying stubble covered his cheeks and chin. I wondered if I was going to be that hairy when I was his age.

  “Love the socks,” Patty said. She was sitting on the radiator under the front porch windows, auburn hair in a ponytail. “You should wear them today.”

  He raised his eyebrow, sensing a plot: Maureen had already given him a pair of fuzzy dice, black with white polka dots to match the Pontiac’s two colors. We found them in an automotive shop across the street from Sears.

  “I’ll let your mother decide if they go with what I’m wearing.”

  I was sure he wouldn’t be caught dead in those socks at Christmas dinner, but I was wrong. He wore the purple Ban-Lons, with gray flannel trousers and a white dress shirt. All new. I took it as a sign his good mood would last all day.

  It took a little while to get out of Brooklyn, even though Himself drove like a maniac, changing lanes on Flatbush Avenue whenever a car blocked him, hugging the steering wheel as he burned through the streets. I held the handle near the car roof; Mom held my left hand. We never looked at the speedometer.

  Except for a newsstand at Kings Highway and a Chinese restaurant near Avenue P, everything was closed. The stores and automotive shops disappeared after the light at Avenue U. On one side of the road there was a golf course, then a marina; on the other, Floyd Bennett Field’s shuttered hangars and abandoned runways. For an old car the Black Beauty moved pretty well, approaching the tollbooth at the Marine Parkway Bridge with a steady, heaving determination.

  My sisters called it the noise bridge because of the buzzing sound the car made when it hit the road. I cracked open the window after we went through the tollbooth so I could smell the sea. The bridge rose over Jamaica Bay like a steel caterpillar, its towers and girders battleship blue. As we crested the road, the Atlantic came into view, a glittering plain of sapphire glass.

  I turned to my sisters. “Who wants to go to the beach with me?”

  “I’m cold enough in this car, Nicky,” Maureen said.

  It was probably twenty-five degrees out, but I wanted ten minutes at the beach before the family tango took over, so I slipped away after Himself parked the car. There was no wind and the sky was the hard bright blue of winter, so vast it was impossible to measure. The air was still, bracing, and the only sound was the occasional plane concluding its descent into Kennedy. We had just had a storm, and snow lay in crisp drifts in the gardens and by the curb. The houses were fantasy homes; some with three stories, wraparound porches, and the occasional turret facing the sea. Others went with a nautical theme, like one mansion whose flagstone patio had a balustrade decorated with seahorses.

  Even though it wasn’t going to be dark for a few hours, everyone’s Christmas lights were on, stapled to the windows and festooned on bushes and twirled around fences, bathing the blocks leading to the beach in a Technicolor glow. Of course, Himself would
never allow us to have outdoor lights; it was too gaudy, he said, and too expensive. We had to settle for decorating the front porch windows with a plastic wreath that had one candle in the center and stencils of winter scenes made white with a can of spray-on snow.

  I wondered if he had started. The liquor would be out. It was Christmas; everyone had drinks before dinner. It was no big deal. But with Himself, you couldn’t do that.

  The beach was empty, the sand packed down, the tide out. An Irish setter ran to fetch a stick of driftwood, its red coat shining, and brought it back to a trio of kids farther down the shore. It was too bad we hadn’t been able to bring Queenie with us. She was probably gnawing on the doggy treats she’d gotten as part of her present. This morning, Maureen had tied a red bow around her neck and took several photographs with Mom’s camera.

  The sun cast a dull glow on the ocean through a skein of clouds; another weather system was approaching. I rewrapped my new green-and-blue plaid scarf around my neck and shoved my hands into the pockets of my parka. The cold was piercing. I walked over to see the seahorses—their heads were still capped with snow—and checked the time: three p.m. Time to head back.

  There was another car parked in front of Uncle Tim’s house, behind the Black Beauty, a white four-door compact that looked too new, too immaculate to actually belong to someone; probably a rental.

  My ears were tingling by the time I let myself in through the back door. I heard a commotion upstairs, coming from the kitchen. I blew my runny nose with a handkerchief and climbed a short staircase to the main floor into a house filled with the rich aroma of well-seasoned roasting meat.

  Aunt Julie said, in her throaty voice, “Did I hear someone say Georgie is here?”

  I paused on the top step. Uncle George? He flew in from Germany? We hadn’t seen, or heard, from him since he’d moved to take that military job he wasn’t allowed to talk about.

  Uncle George’s suitcase, a large blue Samsonite contraption with brass buckles and reinforcements, stood in the center of the kitchen on the red linoleum. With its narrow entrance, the room looked like it might be small, but it opened up in unexpected ways. An L-shaped arrangement of appliances on two walls faced a large breakfast nook with built-in benches and a picture window that looked out onto the yard. That’s where the Flynn kids would eat their Christmas dinner. The table was already set.