The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  When I was in fifth grade, my mother finally let me stay home by myself after school. Left to my own devices, I almost never did my homework, or set the table, or took out the garbage like I had so often promised I would. I mostly just watched TV, built airplane models, and made crank phone calls to strangers whose numbers I called at random. “All your friends think you have bad breath but they don’t want to tell you,” I’d say. Or “Someone’s going to rob your house tonight. You better watch out.” When they’d demand to know who was calling, I’d hang up.

  When I was in sixth grade, my father got married again—not to Peter Clegg’s mother but to another woman named Helene, who had no kids. Dad invited me to the wedding, but it was on a Sunday night and I told him I’d rather stay home and watch Bullwinkle. He wasn’t a mailman anymore; now he worked for some shipping company. Just before he got transferred to Cincinnati, he took me out to lunch and told me he wanted us to stay in touch. Did I want that, too?

  “Not really,” I said, hoping he’d notice what a surly little bastard I’d become, thanks to him.

  “Well, okay, suit yourself,” he said, instead of offering me the objection I was hoping to hear. After he dropped me off back home, I went upstairs to my room and destroyed the Pinewood Derby car he had helped me make in Cub Scouts. Then I cried into my pillow so that Mom wouldn’t hear me.

  Sometimes on those afternoons between the time I got home from school and the time my mother got home from work, I’d think about Nadine and me playing “House” and diddle myself until the spasm came. During one of those sessions, it changed from dry to wet. After that, I’d do it so often that I’d make my dick sore. I stuffed the balled-up tissues in the pockets of my sports jacket, which I hardly ever wore anymore. Mom didn’t go to church much now, and when she did, I made such a stink about going with her that she gave up and let me stay home. By April of that year, I began to sprout pubic and underarm hair. I became the first of my male classmates to shave. I was drinking coffee at breakfast now, and reading the newspaper—the comics and the police report, mostly. I was delighted the morning I read that Tawny Cake had gotten arrested for something called “aggravated assault,” whatever the fuck that was. That was another change: I swore now. Saying the word fuck out loud sent a small thrill through me, and saying it in front of my disapproving mother was an added benefit. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I was stealing Mom’s smokes and swigging from the bottle of gin she kept hidden in the china closet. I shoplifted candy at the corner store, answered back my teachers. One day, I got so mad at my shop teacher—I can’t remember why—that I stormed out of class, grabbed onto the drinking fountain in the hall, and ripped it away from the wall. They suspended me for two weeks and billed my mother for the damage. I never did go back to that school. Mom was at her wits’ end by that time and decided that, since my real father had bailed, what I needed was a father figure. She went to see her brother, Uncle Chick, and asked him to help. That was when I went to live with the O’Days.

  I liked living there okay, although I wasn’t crazy about having to share a bedroom with my goody-goody cousin Donald. Mr. Athlete, Mr. Honor Roll. And I got the message that he wasn’t that crazy about the arrangement either. But Uncle Chick was pretty cool. Sometimes after school I’d go down to the Shamrock Barbershop where he worked and hang around, watch him cut hair and entertain his customers. Uncle Chick was funny; he was like a comedian or something. He’d tell jokes, make Uncle Brendan’s mynah bird that he kept at the shop say stuff. (Uncle Brendan was Uncle Chick and my mother’s uncle, my great-uncle. He owned the barbershop and Uncle Chick worked for him.)

  Sometimes on Sunday when the rest of the family would go off to church, Uncle Chick would take me fishing, or out to breakfast, or both. We even went ice fishing once, him and me, and I caught a decent-size striped bass. Donald didn’t like to fish, plus he always had a lot of homework. He took college prep classes and I was in general studies. If Uncle Chick and I got back from breakfast before the others returned, he’d show me how to fix things around the house. “How’d you like to learn how to use a socket wrench?” he’d go. Or, “How about you and me tackle that leaky faucet in the bathroom? Yeah? Okay then. Go out to the Merc and get my toolbox.” Uncle Chick’s Mercury station wagon had two rows of bench seats up front, but he had pulled out the third row of seats and set up a kind of portable toolshed in the car’s way-back, which was pretty cool.

  I liked Aunt Sunny, too. She was pretty, and nice to me. And, unlike my own mother, easy to talk to. When she got pregnant, I was the first person she told. She had come back from the doctor’s earlier that afternoon and I was the only one home, except for my little cousin Annie, who was taking a nap. “Guess what, Kent?” she said. It made me feel like kind of a big deal: knowing before anyone else, even Uncle Chick.

  I used to hang around in the kitchen with Aunt Sunny sometimes and help her make supper—chop up vegetables or whatever, peel potatoes or stir something on the stove. And while we were working together, she’d sometimes ask me my opinions about stuff: civil rights, whether or not I thought Kennedy was a good president. She made me think, you know? She always had the radio on in the kitchen, and I liked the way she’d sing along with the songs they’d play: “Soldier Boy,” “Johnny Angel,” and that Patsy Cline song, “I Fall to Pieces.” Patsy Cline was Aunt Sunny’s favorite singer. She’d dance sometimes, too, when the faster songs came on. Annie would wander in, sleepy-eyed from her afternoon nap, and the two of them would start dancing with each other. “Come on, Kent. You, too!” Aunt Sunny’d say, and I’d go, “Nah, no thanks,” but she’d pull on my hand and make me. It was silly, but kind of fun: Annie and Sunny and me dancing in the kitchen. One time, in the middle of us dancing, Sunny said, “Whoa,” and sat down on a kitchen chair. “Come here, you two,” she told Annie and me. “Someone wants to say hello.” She lifted up her shirt, exposing her swollen belly, and had us put our hands on it so we could feel the baby kicking. It felt weird but kind of cool, too. “Can we name her Tinkerbell?” Annie asked, but Aunt Sunny laughed and said it might be a him, not a her. “But I want a little sister,” Annie insisted.

  Aunt Sunny kissed her forehead and said it was up to the baby what it was going to be, not us. But Annie got her wish. Gracie was born at the end of the summer. Labor Day weekend, it was. Just before school started up again.

  Aunt Sunny was always urging me to go to the school dances when Donald went. I tried it once; that was enough for me. I spent the whole night leaning against the wall, or sneaking down to the boys’ room to smoke. They had a ladies’ choice near the end of the dance—that corny Bobby Vinton song, “Blue Velvet.” I stood there, watching all these goody-goody college prep girls cut in on whoever was dancing with Donald. About halfway through the song, this girl Alice from my homeroom asked me to dance, but she was a chub, so I said I didn’t know how to slow-dance. I did, though; Aunt Sunny had taught me. God, I hated Donald that night. When we got home, I went to our room while he was in the kitchen getting something to eat, and I grabbed one of his eight billion sports trophies—the one he’d gotten for good sportsmanship in indoor track. It had a little statue of a runner on top, and I decapitated it and put it back on Donald’s shelf. Hid the head under my mattress. Donald didn’t even notice until a couple of days later. I walked into the room and he was holding his headless trophy. “How did this happen?” he wanted to know.

  “How the fuck should I know?” I said. He told me to keep my hands off his stuff. “And what if I don’t?” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Make you sorry you didn’t,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah? You and whose army?” It was a bluff, of course. Donald wasn’t just smarter than me; he was also bigger and stronger. He could have taken me easily. The next morning when he and I were eating breakfast, I got up and went over to the fridge. “Hey, cuz, could you pour me some milk?” he asked. I got out a glass, looked over to make sure he wasn’t looking, and spit a ha
wker into the bottom. Then I poured his milk over it and handed it to him. He thanked me and took a sip.

  “Don’t mention it,” I said.

  Maybe Donald didn’t like me living with his family, but his little sister sure did. After the dismissal bell, Donald would usually stay at school, going to practice or some club meeting, but I’d head back to the O’Days’. “Wanna play dolls with me?” Annie would ask, or “Wanna color in my coloring book?” Sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t. If I said no, she’d follow me around the house. “Whatcha doing, Kent? . . . Wanna read me a story? . . . You know what, Kent? Mommy said next year or the year after that my teeth are gonna get wiggly and come out and then a fairy’s gonna fly in my window and take them and leave me money. And I think this one’s already wiggly. Wanna feel it?”

  “You and Annie have gotten to be real pals, haven’t you?” Aunt Sunny said once. “She’s crazy about you. I hope you realize how good you are with little kids.” I liked hearing her say that, and I liked Annie, too. She could be pesty if you weren’t in the mood, but I got a kick out of her most of the time. I acted more like her big brother than Donald did.

  Having to share a room with Mr. Perfect cut seriously into my jerk-off sessions. They were limited mostly to the times when I went in the bathroom and locked the door, or at night under the covers after the lights were out, or when I could get the lavatory pass at school and beat my meat while looking at the dirty graffiti scrawled all over the walls of the stall. Sometimes, to get myself in the mood, I’d think about Nadine’s flat chest and hairless twat, me lying on top of her and gyrating like a fuckin’ milk shake. But I didn’t think of my little cousin in that way. I just liked Annie because she liked me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Annie Oh

  Minnie and I are seated in back, and Africa is riding up front with Hector. He’s a beautiful child: big eyes, long lashes, and that hair that was so popular with blacks back in the 1970s. A “natural,” they called it. But the boy is antsy, shifting around in his seat, fingering the buttons on the console. “Sit still up there!” his mother scolds. He unbuckles himself and turns back on his knees. Cups his hand to his mouth and whispers something I don’t quite catch. “What you mean you gotta go again? It ain’t but twenty minutes since we stopped the last time.”

  Cause and effect, I feel like saying. Maybe she shouldn’t have bought him that big blue slushie at the comfort stop. I reach over the seat and tousle his hair. “It’s okay, honey. When a guy’s got to go, he’s got to go. Right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t you ‘uh-huh’ her,” Minnie says. “You say yes, Miz Anna.”

  “Yes, Miss Anna.”

  We’re in East Hartford now, another forty-five minutes from Three Rivers, still, but just a few miles from the mall. “Hector, why don’t you take the Buckland Street exit up ahead? There are plenty of restaurants along there where we can stop.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I’m paying Hector and Minnie each a thousand dollars to make this trip. They can both use the money more than I can use their services, but I’m glad I’ve hired them. With the exception of my kids and a few others, most of the people coming to the wedding are friends and clients of Viveca’s. Well, Minnie and Hector are my friends, more or less. Approaching the exit, Hector puts on his blinker. Drives the quarter mile and stops at the light. “Chuck E. Cheese!” Africa shouts, his face to the window.

  “You keep still,” his mother tells him. “We ain’t stopping at no Chuck E. Cheese. You just gonna go into wherever Mr. Hector stops so you can do your bidness. This trip ain’t about you. You just along for the ride.” Africa’s bottom lip pokes out, but he doesn’t protest.

  “This up ahead all right?” Hector asks. I tell him that’s fine, and he signals and pulls into the parking lot of a Friendly’s.

  While his mother hustles Africa inside, I climb out of the backseat to stretch my legs. Hector gets out, too. Lights up. I bum a cigarette from him and do the same. I’m excited about the wedding, but nervous, too. It was stupid of me to try and quit a few days ago. If I need a little nicotine to get through the next few days, then so be it.

  I watch Hector as he scans the area. Home Depot, the Olive Garden, Nordstrom’s, and Macy’s up on the hill. “Welcome to suburbia,” I say.

  “People here got money. Right, Miss Oh?” I’ve given up trying to get him to call me Annie. “I read in the Post that Connecticut is the richest state. Richer than New York, even.”

  “Well, the big money’s downstate: Greenwich, Darien. This is a more middle-class area. And there’s plenty of poverty in Connecticut, too. Especially where we’re going.” Not that he’ll see any of that this weekend. Even scaled down like I requested, the reception is costing Viveca fifty thousand dollars. That’s another thing I finally gave up on: paying for half. “Sweetheart, don’t worry about it. I can write some of it off as a business expense,” she insisted. But two hundred dollars a plate for the wedding supper? Krug champagne at three hundred dollars a bottle? Ridiculous.

  A rusty car with a rumbling muffler pulls into the lot. A black girl in a cap and uniform gets out and runs toward the building. Late for work, I figure. Hector’s watching her, too. No wonder. She’s got a cute little figure. “I worked at one of these Friendly’s places once,” I tell him. A few days ago, I read a headline in Viveca’s Wall Street Journal: FRIENDLY’S CHAIN LOSING MARKET SHARE.

  “You did? I wouldn’t have guessed that, Miss Oh.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “Well, you know. I’ve heard what rents go for in your building.”

  “Oh, I didn’t come from money, Hector. In fact, I was piss poor. Used to be thrilled when the big spenders came in and left a whole dollar for a tip.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re such a good tipper now, huh? Because you remember what it was like.”

  I smile, shrug. Exhale.

  “So you have family coming to your wedding?” he asks.

  “New York friends, mostly. But my kids will be there, and my brother and his wife. Oh, and the man who gave me my start as an artist.”

  “Yeah? Your teacher?”

  “No, he was the judge for an art show—the first one I ever entered. When he picked my work for a prize, I was shocked. But that blue ribbon validated me. Encouraged me at a time I was thinking about giving up. He’s quite elderly now, but he’s coming. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

  “That’ll be nice then, huh? Seeing him again?”

  “It will. I’ll make sure I introduce you. His name is Mr. Agnello.”

  Hector’s smile fades away. “Yeah, but I was thinking, Miss Oh, that maybe I shouldn’t go tomorrow if it’s real fancy. I brought a pair of dress pants and my silk shirt with me, but I don’t have a suit.” I tell him what he’s packed will be just fine. That I want him to be there. “Okay then. You think they’ve got an ironing board at that motel we’re staying at? Because I just put them in a Safeway bag and they’re probably going to be pretty wrinkled.”

  “That’s not a problem, Hector. Tell you what. When you drop me off, come in and I’ll press them for you and put them on a hanger. Then you won’t have to worry about it.”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that, Miss Oh.”

  “It’s not a problem. It’ll take me all of five minutes.”

  “No, that’s all right. Maybe Minnie can iron them for me.”

  “Well, we’ll figure it out.”

  “So your kids are coming, huh? That’s nice. How many you got?”

  We’ve already had this discussion, but I guess he doesn’t remember. “I have three, the same as you. I know you’ve met my daughter, Marissa.” Your doorman’s hot, I recall her saying, as boy-crazy as ever.

  “The one who lives in the city. Right?”

  “Uh-huh. And I have a son and another daughter. Ariane’s in California and Andrew’s stationed down in Texas at Fort Hood.”

  “He’s military? What branch?
”

  “He’s in the army.”

  “Nice,” he says. He tosses his cigarette on the ground and puts it out with the toe of his shoe. It’s the same butterscotch-brown leather I used in the assemblage I sold a few years back: that sad-eyed steer’s head I bought from a taxidermist and framed in shoes and coiled leather belts. . . .

  “Good news, sweetheart,” Viveca says when she calls me at the studio. “I just sold your Wild, Wild West piece to an investment banker from Wyoming. He came into the gallery and walked right to it without so much as glancing at anything else. I told him forty thousand, figuring I’d go as low as thirty-two or thirty-three. But he sat right down and wrote me a check without even blinking.”

  “He’s from Wyoming?”

  “Uh-huh. Jackson Hole. He said he and his wife are friends with the Cheneys.”

  “Did he understand that I was making a protest statement?”

  “To tell you the truth, that never even came up. But art is in the eye of the beholder, right? And a sale is a sale. Don’t work too late tonight, darling. Okay? I asked Carolyn to work a little of her magic, and she’s gotten us a nine P.M. reservation at Jean-Georges so that we can celebrate.”