“Ow,” the girl said.
Miss Harris got to her feet.
“What is your problem, Betsey?” she said.
“Someone threw an eraser at me.”
“Sure,” I whispered to Jeannie.
She smiled and nodded.
“Do you know who threw it?” Miss Harris said.
“Joey Visco,” Betsey said.
“Mr. Visco,” Miss Harris said.
Joey Visco said, “Miss Harris, I didn’t throw nothing.”
“I didn’t throw anything,” Miss Harris said.
“I know it,” Joey said.
There was a lot of giggling.
“See me after class, Mr. Visco,” Miss Harris said.
“But I didn’t do nothing.”
“After class,” Miss Harris said, and went and rested her hips on her desk and folded her arms and stared at us silently.
Chapter 31
It was a pretty bad neighborhood. Mean-looking dogs behind chain-link fences. Chickens in some of the yards. Streetlights few and far apart. I wasn’t comfortable. But I figured if Jeannie could live there, I could walk through it.
I didn’t want to go to dinner at Jeannie’s house. But her mother had invited me, and I couldn’t just say no, so here I was.
Mrs. Haden met me at the door and I put out my hand like a well-brought-up boy. She took it and then pulled me to her and gave me a hug. I had very little experience at being hugged by a woman. She was wearing a lot of perfume.
“Oh, you dear thing,” she said. “Jeannie’s told me so much about you.”
I nodded.
“And you’re so handsome too,” Mrs. Haden said.
I sort of nodded and sort of shrugged.
“I just had to meet you and thank you for saving my little girl,” she said.
I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded again and smiled as hard as I could.
“Come in, sit down, would you like a Coca-Cola? Jeannie, get him something while I look in the oven.”
“Want a Coke?” Jeannie said.
“Okay,” I said.
She and her mother both went to the kitchen. They looked sort of alike. Except Mrs. Haden was about twenty years older than Jeannie and looked like she might have had a hard life. She was still kind of pretty. Her hair was long. She was slim, and she wore a lot of makeup. She had on a black dress with no sleeves and black high-heeled shoes. It seemed very fashionable to me, and I wondered why she dressed up for dinner with her daughter and a fourteen-year-old kid.
Jeannie and I drank our Coke uneasily in the living room. Jeannie’s house wasn’t much. I’d been there once before with Jeannie when her mother was at work. The house was shaped sort of like a railroad car. There was a little front porch. Then you went in the front door into the living room, through the living room to the kitchen, through the kitchen to a bedroom, and in a little L off that bedroom there was a bath and another bedroom.
Mrs. Haden had cooked a chicken and some white rice and some frozen peas. We sat at the kitchen table. There was a candle lit on the table. Mrs. Haden was drinking some pink wine. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you some,” Mrs. Haden said. “But I couldn’t without your father’s permission.”
“That’s okay, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t enjoy wine so much.”
Actually I didn’t know if I enjoyed wine or not. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had any.
“Oh, you will,” she said, and drank some from her glass.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Jeannie says you don’t have a mother,” Mrs. Haden said.
I ate some chicken. It was kind of dry.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You live with your father?” she said.
“And my two uncles,” I said.
“Isn’t that interesting,” she said. “Three brothers raising a child.”
“Actually they are my mother’s brothers,” I said. “My father and them were friends and when my mother died, they moved in to help out.”
“Do you remember your mother?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Three men and a boy and no women,” she said.
She drank the rest of the wine in her glass.
“Oh, there’s women,” I said. “My father and my uncles all have a bunch of girlfriends, but none of them has got married.”
Mrs. Haden gave herself some more wine.
“A house full of boys,” she said.
“I guess so.”
“Probably living on peanut butter sandwiches and cold beans from the can,” Mrs. Haden said.
“We take turns cooking,” I said.
“You too?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you suppose they’d like to come here with you next time for a home-cooked meal?” Mrs. Haden said.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Well, that’s what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to invite them for a home-cooked meal.”
I looked at Jeannie. She smiled blankly. I nodded.
“That would be nice,” I said.
Chapter 32
Susan and I left the bench and walked up to the little bridge over the swan boat lake. We stood leaning our forearms on the railing and watched the boats and the people and the ducks, green and quiet in the middle of the city.
“It sounds like Jeannie’s mother might have wanted to promote you as her daughter’s boyfriend,” Susan said.
“I think that was one thing she wanted,” I said.
“And the other?”
“I was a way to three eligible bachelors,” I said.
“Two for one,” Susan said. “A boyfriend for her daughter and one for her. She seems in retrospect a woman who needed a man, who thought all women needed a man.”
“She stayed a long time with one of the worst men in the world,” I said.
“To some, a bad man is better than no man,” Susan said. “I stayed a long time with the wrong husband.”
“I think you’ve changed since then,” I said.
“Yes, I think so,” Susan said. “Did your father and your uncles go for dinner?”
“They did,” I said.
“What was that like?”
“They went the way they went to PTA meetings and stuff,” I said. “They didn’t want to go. They didn’t expect to enjoy it. They didn’t enjoy it. But they were polite about it.”
“Did she flirt with them?”
“Oh, my, yes,” I said.
“Was it embarrassing?”
“Yes. It didn’t seem to embarrass my father or my uncles, but it embarrassed the hell out of me and Jeannie.”
“She get drunk?”
“Yes.”
“Any of them ever ask her out?”
“No.”
“They say why?”
“No.”
“You have a theory?”
“She drank too much. And she wasn’t very bright. And she was needy. My father and my uncles never much admired needy.”
“So they just came to dinner to help you out,” Susan said.
“Yes, and I suspect that if they thought I needed more help, one of them would have dated her. Probably Patrick.”
“Why Patrick?”
“He was the youngest,” I said. “My father asked me about my feelings for Jeannie. I said I liked her but not as a girlfriend.”
“Waiting for the one?”
“I was,” I said. “And she wasn’t it.”
“But you might well have been it for Jeannie,” Susan said. “Girl with no stability at home, looking for someone, seeing it in you.”
“I was fourteen,” I said.
“And she probably hoped for the stability that your father and your uncles provided you, though I’m sure she didn’t know it.”
“She probably did, and I tried to help her with that. But she wasn’t the one.”
Susan smiled at me.
“What if I’d still been married when you met me?”
“
I’d have made my bid anyway,” I said.
“And if I hadn’t responded?”
“I’d have waited awhile and tried again.”
“You’ve never been a quitter,” she said.
“No,” I said.
We looked down as a swan boat slid under the bridge. A couple of kids in the front waved at us.
“I would have responded,” Susan said.
Chapter 33
We played six-man football in my junior high school. I played in the three-man backfield. Since the man who received the snap from center could not run the ball past the line of scrimmage, I played sometimes at the tailback position to pass and sometimes at left halfback to take a handoff and run. The high school coach had already been to see me about next year to be sure I didn’t go to St. Mary’s. And everybody said I was pretty good. Which I was.
There was a dance in the school cafeteria after the last game, the week before Thanksgiving, and I took Jeannie. Even though she wasn’t exactly my girlfriend. There was cider and doughnuts and some pumpkins and some big paper turkeys and music on the speaker system. We danced a little. I didn’t really know how to dance. Neither did she. In fact, neither did anyone else in the room. Most of the boys were interested in dancing close. Most of the girls were trying not to get stepped on. Everyone bumped into each other a lot. Standing around the rim, several teachers watched us carefully to make sure fun didn’t break out in some unacceptable way.
“Do you know any Mexicans?” Jeannie said to me.
“Mexicans?” I said. “You mean in Mexico?”
“No,” Jeannie said. “Around here.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Guy named Alex Rios, he’s a mason, works with us on a lot of jobs.”
“Us?”
“You know, I work with my father and my uncles in the summer,” I said. “And a lot of weekends during school. One summer they weren’t building anything, so I worked a couple months with a landscaping company run by Mr. Felice. Roberto Felice. All the workers but me were Mexican.”
“So you don’t hate Mexicans,” Jeannie said.
“Like everybody else,” I said. “Like some, don’t like others.”
“My father hated all Mexicans,” she said.
“Your father probably hated all everything,” I said.
We bumped and stumbled our way around the dance floor again.
“Why you asking me about Mexicans?” I said.
The music stopped, so we got some doughnuts and some cider and went and sat on a couple of folding chairs.
“We never had any money,” Jeannie said. “We always lived in poor neighborhoods.”
“Your old man never worked,” I said.
“That’s right,” Jeannie said. “So my mom had to work. She was a cocktail waitress at the country club, and it meant she had to work nights.”
“So who took care of you?”
“Mrs. Lopez,” Jeannie said.
I nodded.
“She lived next door,” Jeannie said. “And she had a little boy, about my age. Aurelio.”
“Aurelio Lopez,” I said.
“You know him?”
“I see him around school,” I said.
“Mrs. Lopez’s husband is a busboy at the club, and he had to work nights too, so I would stay with Mrs. Lopez every night.”
“How was that?”
“She was great. She is great. She’s like . . .”
Jeannie stopped and took a little breath.
“I love her,” she said.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“She’s like my other mom,” Jeannie said.
“Maybe that’s why you turned out so good,” I said.
Jeannie nodded.
“You don’t like my mom,” she said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you don’t,” Jeannie said. “I know. Lotta people don’t like her. She drinks a lot . . . and she’s man crazy. I bet your father doesn’t like her. Or your uncles.”
I shrugged.
“She’s had a hard life,” Jeannie said. “But she’s my mom and I love her too.”
“Good,” I said.
One of the teachers announced over the sound system that this was the last dance. And to be sure when we left to take all of our stuff with us. No one would be permitted back in the school. And anyone who left anything would have to reclaim it at the principal’s office in the morning.
Most of the kids danced the last dance. But we didn’t. Jeannie wasn’t finished talking.
She said, “Aunt Octavia, that’s what I call her, told me a bunch of kids beat Aurelio up.”
“What for?”
“For being Mexican,” she said. “Said they called him names, you know, greaser, spick.”
“That’s lousy,” I said.
“Mr. Lopez says he finds out who did it, he’s gonna kill him.”
“You know Mr. Lopez?” I said.
“A little,” Jeannie said. “He works all the time. Aunt Octavia says he’s crazy mad. And she says a lot of Mexican kids are getting beat up like Aurelio.”
“For being Mexican?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Lopez seems like a nice enough kid,” I said.
“He is. He’s not a jock or a tough guy or anything like you. But he’s sweet. He’s teaching me to play chess.”
“How’s he feel about all this?” I said.
“He’s afraid to come to school.”
I nodded.
“And where do I come in?” I said. “Or are we just making conversation?”
“I told him you’d help him,” Jeannie said.
Chapter 34
Jeannie and I sat with Aurelio Lopez on a bench outside a bodega in the Mexican neighborhood that everyone called Chihuahua. He was a smallish kid, slim, with longish black hair and big dark eyes. One eye was bruised and swollen half shut.
“I don’t even think of myself as a Mexican,” he said. “I don’t wake up in the morning and think, you are Mexican, you dog. My father came up here before I was born to work in the mine. I never even been to Mexico.”
I nodded.
“This stuff happen to a lot of Mexican kids or just you?” I said.
Aurelio shrugged.
“I’m small,” he said. “I’m easy to pick on.”
“So,” I said. “How many guys are there?”
“I don’t know, about ten, I guess,” Aurelio said. “They pick on the girls too.”
“Mexican girls?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“They ever tease you?” I said to Jeannie.
“Sometimes,” she said. “When I’m with Aurelio. They call me names.”
“Like what?”
“Spick lover,” she said. “Beaner girl.”
I made a face.
“So who are these guys?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Aurelio said. “I don’t hang with any Anglos except Jeannie.”
“Well, I guess we’ll probably find out,” I said.
“I wish I was a tough guy,” Aurelio said. “Like you, Spenser. But I’m not.”
“Everybody gotta be what they are,” I said.
Jeannie looked at me.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“I can walk to and from school with you every day,” I said to Aurelio. “If you want.”
Aurelio nodded.
“But what are you going to do against ten guys?” he said.
“Excellent question,” I said.
“Do you have an excellent answer?” Jeannie said.
“Not yet,” I said.
Chapter 35
“Let me guess, you took it on,” Susan said.
“Yep.”
She smiled at me like a mother at an unusual child. “You never thought about speaking to the school principal?” she said.
“Oh, God, no,” I said.
“Not done?” Susan said.
“Not by fourteen-year-old boys,” I said. “Wouldn�
��t have done any good anyway.”
Susan nodded.
“Schools are notoriously ineffective,” she said, “at the prevention of bullying.”
“And most other things,” I said.
“You’ve never been a fan of the school system,” Susan said.
“True,” I said. “And this was a kind of systematic racial bullying. They would have had an assembly and the principal would have told everybody not to do it.”
“And all the bigots and bullies would have said, ‘Oh, gee, okay,’” Susan said.
“And beat the hell out of Aurelio Lopez,” I said, “as soon as class got out.”
“Probably,” Susan said. “How about the police?”
“Tell you the truth, I never thought of it,” I said.
“No,” Susan said. “Of course not. I can remember how hermetically sealed adolescence was.”
“Even for well-mannered Jewish girls growing up in Swampscott?” I said.
“Even for them. Life was you and the other kids,” she said. “Adults were remote.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“So you decided to protect him,” she said.
“I did.”
“Fourteen years old,” she said.
“Almost fifteen,” I said.
She smiled.
“Oh, well, that makes it different,” she said. “Were you reading King Arthur at the time?”
“No,” I said. “But they read it to me when I was about twelve—the Thomas Malory one, as I recall. Not Tennyson.”
“And you swallowed it all,” Susan said.
“Yep.”
“And you still do,” she said.
“Yep.”
“Knight-errant,” she said.
“There are worse careers,” I said.
The afternoon was dwindling, and the sun was at our backs. Susan smiled and patted my hand.
“Far worse,” she said. “Did you have a plan?”
“Not really,” I said.
“You were going to just plow along,” she said, “and assume you could handle what came your way.”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“Like you’ve done all your life.”
“It’s worked okay so far,” I said.
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