“Who was she?”
“I shouldn’t say.” She looked across the seat at me. “You might run into her sometime in town, and then you’d have that in your mind, talking to her. I’d rather not say.”
“Alright. I saw someone having an affair with my aunt once, when I was a kid.”
“In the act?”
“What?”
“How did you see them? What were they doing?”
“They were in my cousin’s bedroom, and my aunt was lying back. She had her clothes on. And he was kneeling down—he had one hand on her knee. I knew from the way she said my name that there was something wrong about it.”
“Did your uncle find out?”
“I told him.”
“Really?”
“A long time afterward. They were already divorced by then. Separated anyway. The man was dead.”
“Is this the uncle who comes up to the hockey games?”
“Uncle Peter. You’d like him. I’ll fix you two up if you want.”
She took her eyes off the road and gave me an amused look, the first sparkle of happiness on her face that day.
We stopped about an hour from campus at a Chinese restaurant with exotic fish in large glass tanks along the walls. I remember the colors of the fish—impossible blues and golds—and I remember thinking that the conversation had changed the nice, easy feeling between us in a way I did not understand. It was late by the time we pulled into her driveway. She invited me in for coffee, but for some reason I said no, and took the long route back to Amen Hall.
Seventeen
THE MAIN QUADRANGLE AT EXETER is the heart of campus. Crossed diagonally by concrete paths, it sits in a shallow bowl of earth surrounded by four-story brick buildings: the Thompson Science Building; Phillips Hall, the Language Building; the Academy Building—which houses classrooms and the chapel and sits up on a rise so that it appears to be even larger than it is; and the Jeremiah Smith Administration Building, where the deans and the principal work and where there is a post office on the ground floor. All 1,014 of us had mailboxes there, with brass doors the size of cigarette packs, and individual combination wheels.
On that Friday, five days after my snowshoeing trip with Lydia, I worked the combination, opened my box, and saw three letters. Ordinarily I would have taken them to the Grill and read them in the company of friends, but after I glanced at the return address on one of the envelopes, I decided I wanted to be alone to open it.
I carried them outside, along one edge of the quadrangle, and down a path to Main Street. Not far along Main Street, you come to a sort of boulevard called Swasey Parkway, which angles off to the left between the widest part of the river and a patch of woods. Academy students did not walk there much. It had a reputation as townie territory, a place where Exeter High kids went to drink beer and make out, though I don’t know if that was actually true.
I sat on a park bench there, by the river, placed my books on the green slats to my left, and held the letters in my lap for a few minutes before opening them. Compared to the weather we’d been having, the day was warm, a day when it was possible to believe winter would actually give way to a kinder season. Birds were darting here and there in the trees behind me. The sunlit bench was warm, but the air was cut by a sharp cold breath from the river.
I unzipped my hockey jacket and looked at the surface of the water, the boathouse flag stirring in the sun, the Milliken factory across the way with its rows of glinting windows and chimneys pumping smoke. I had a strange fascination with that building, and used to sit staring at it for minutes at a time before crew practice started. For some reason, I connected it with the men and women who worked in the dining halls, a sort of white-uniformed servant class that went about its duties quietly and unobtrusively, but with what always seemed to me a righteous bitterness, cooking for and cleaning up after boys like me, in our sport coats and ties and ridiculous naïveté. It seemed to me vaguely wrong that there should be human lives so different from each other, that I should be there, in that cold, hardscrabble state with its backwoods poverty and mill towns, studying Russian grammar in elegant classrooms and making loud jokes with my friends at the Grill while people not that much older prepared my food and washed my plates, or worked in factories and passed their days dreaming about the weekend. My father had worked in a factory. I knew he would have been proud that I was at Exeter, but my being there also slid a thin steel plate between his memory and me. I sensed that with my uncles, aunts, and cousins, too, as if I had gone off and joined the oppressor—which is what I felt like, sometimes, at the Academy.
Late at night, when we were finished studying, Joey and I would often walk down the three flights of stairs to what everyone called “the buttroom,” a twelve-foot-by-thirty-foot stone den in the basement of Amen Hall. There was a vending machine, a place to play Ping-Pong, and a round, badly scarred wooden table where those students who had permission from their parents could smoke cigarettes and offer them to those students who did not. The buttroom was only a few steps from the outside door. One night a little boy from town walked through that door. Reggie, he said his name was. He was nine years old but had the face of an adult, a triangular, worn face sitting on top of a body with arms and legs that were as thin and hard as sticks. He asked Madhur for a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, looked us over with a jailbird’s eye, and said, “What the hell are you queers doing down here?”
Reggie came back three or four times during the course of the winter and early spring, amusing us with his swearing and smoking. But there was something horrible about it all. One night, Joey had an argument with Madhur about giving him smokes. “It’s like he comes up from underground, man,” Joey said to me afterward, as upset as I’d ever seen him. “Did you see the rings of dirt on his neck? Did you see his fingernails?”
Reggie was a like a figure in a dream for me, stepping out of the Exeter, the New Hampshire, the America that never showed themselves on the Academy’s neat lawns. Years later, I did, in fact, see him in a dream. He was darting through traffic on a snowy street, scooting between the bumpers of cars, away from me, and trotting down an alleyway like an abandoned dog, runt of the litter, looking for a warm place to sleep.
I had the three letters sitting on my lap; I was looking across the river at the factory. I was standing at the border of what seemed to me another nation. I took the thickest of the letters, put it on the bottom, and opened a smaller, thinner envelope that had my name written on it in the spidery glyphs of my grandmother’s arthritic hand. I have that letter to this day. “Carissimo, carissimo Antonio,” it begins. “Come ci manchi qui …”
My dearest, dearest Anthony, how we miss you here, how terribly we miss you. Your grandfather wanted me to write this letter to you today because he is not feeling strong enough himself to write it. He says he will probably not be well enough to come see you play the hockey next week, but that Uncle Peter will come and will tell him everything that happens. Here, with us, everything is fine, though Domenico suffers now from pain and is taking the medicine every few hours that the doctor gives him. I am very well. I pray for you every morning and every night, that God will give you all the happiness in life that Grandpa and I have had, that Jesus will send his blessings down on you, and on the souls of your mother and father in heaven. Soon you will be home with us again. Non vedo l’ora. Con grande affetto, Your grandmother who loves you. Nana Lia.
Non vedo l’ora is the Italian way of saying “I can’t wait,” though its literal meaning is “I do not see the hour.”
There was a crisp five-dollar bill enclosed, as always. I put the bill in my pocket and the letter back in its envelope and set the envelope between the pages of my chemistry book. The next letter was even smaller, with unfamiliar handwriting, no return address. I opened it and found a card with a woodcut of a seated Buddha dressed in red-and-gray robes. Around the Buddha’s head was a circle of red, edged in gold, which reminded me of the haloes around the stained-glass figures at
Saint Anthony’s Church. I’ve kept this card, too, all these years. It says, “Anthony, I have to go to Colorado to care for my sister, who is ill with breast cancer. I don’t know when I will be back. Before you graduate, I hope. Go sit on my rock when you can and meditate, as I showed you. Your friend, Lydia.”
I turned my eyes to the river and followed its silver surface north, toward the marshes, toward Portsmouth and Rye. A shrill whistle shrieked on the far bank. I looked up at the Milliken building and saw one of the windows on the top floor being opened, the sill being raised, a man’s face pushing out into the air. I watched him leaning there on his forearms for half a minute. He looked over the whole landscape in front of him—the river and the town and the Academy buildings in the distance. He saw me and waved, and I waved back. Then he pulled his head in and slid the window closed.
The third piece of mail was from Brown University, something I had been waiting for all winter. The envelope was thick, and thick envelopes were supposed to mean good news, but I was afraid to open it. After hesitating a long while, I ran my finger beneath the flap and pulled out the forms and a page printed on fine stationery. It was addressed to “Mr. Anthony Benedetto,” and the first line began, “We are pleased to inform you …”
Eighteen
THAT NIGHT, JOEY AND I skipped dinner at the cafeteria and went to a place called Clarke’s at the western edge of downtown, where the tables were covered with linen cloths and the waiters addressed you as “sir.”
“This is allowance money for the next two months,” Joey said when we opened the menus and saw the prices. But we ordered steak, baked potatoes, and coffee, and sat like princes at a corner table, eating very, very slowly.
“Doesn’t seem real, Anth, does it?” he said.
“Put a little more salt on and it will.”
He shut his eyes and tilted his head back as he always did when he laughed, a piece of baked potato the size of a sesame seed clinging to his lower lip, and his new eyeglasses twinkling in the lights. His laughter was quiet, almost apologetic—both of us half-expected to be put out on the street.
“I mean, Brown. MIT. The world out there is large, man, and we’re going right into it.”
“We’re ready.”
“Sure we are. But don’t you feel it coming at you some days? It’s like a locomotive for me sometimes. It’s like finals are tomorrow, and graduation is the day after tomorrow, and the days have only about five hours in them. Do you ever feel that?”
“Sometimes. Other times I can’t wait to be out where somebody doesn’t check to see if you’re in your bed at night.”
“You’re more grown-up than me. You’re more ready for the big world.”
“Like hell.”
“Sure you are.”
The waiter, probably five years older than we were, came and stood beside the table and asked if he could take our plates, asked if we wanted dessert, said, “Yes, sir,” to each of our orders for chocolate cake.
“You’re already hanging out with older women, and I’m a virgin still,” Joey said when the waiter had walked away.
“What older women?”
“I saw you in Mrs. Coughlin’s car, man. Come on. Everybody knows about it. Maddy saw you walking on the playing fields with her. Jensen saw you coming out of her house. You’re a legend in your own time.”
“She’s just a friend. We went snowshoeing once. We go for walks.”
“Come on, man. This is your roommate you’re talking to. The whole school knows, you’re going to keep it from me?”
“I’m Catholic, remember?”
“So what? Shaughnessey’s Catholic, and he’s been balling what’s-her-name from Concord Academy—”
“Kate.”
“He’s been balling Kate since they were in eighth grade.”
“I’m not balling anybody. I’m a virgin. And she’s gone away anyhow.”
“Mrs. Coughlin?”
“Lydia.”
“See? First-name basis. And you had a little thing in your voice, there, when you just said it. What did I tell you? You’re all ready for the big world, man.”
I shrugged; the waiter brought our desserts and refilled our cups from a long-spouted silver pitcher.
“This is the life, no?”
“Yeah. Until the bill comes.”
“Speaking of graduation. You taking Lydia to the fancy lunch afterward?”
“Lay off.”
“Reason I ask is that my sister wants to come up with my friend from home, Gloria. You’ve seen her picture, right? What about it?”
“Gloria?”
He reached out and touched the two knuckles of his fist against my forehead. “I guess it was because of the hockey stuff that they let you into Brown, huh? You think I’m taking my own sister to the Principal’s Luncheon? I’d be in mad disgrace, man.”
“Course you would.”
“I’m trying to fix you up with my sister, Puck. She’s looking for a white boy who’s Catholic and not too smart and not going out with anybody and still a virgin and you’re number three on my list. The other two already said no, for reasons of racial prejudice.”
“Oh.”
“She’s pretty, don’t you think?”
“Sure she’s pretty. But didn’t you tell me she had a boyfriend?”
“They just broke up. Another jock, like us. Football player.”
“Worse than us.”
“Tell me about it. He kept trying to get her to … you know, and she finally told him no, she meant it, no, and he never called her back. She’s looking for somebody with a little brains this time. I’ve been telling her about Higgenbottham, you know.”
“You have?”
“Course, course. But she saw his picture and that was the end of that. And the name turns her off. If it was Higgentop, she said, then maybe, but never no got-damned Higgenbottoms. What about your roommate? she asked me. She’s seen your picture, you know, and the name Benedetto has a nice sound to it, she said.”
“It means ‘blessed’ in Italian.”
“There you go. You never told me. And you’re a virgin to boot, a good Catholic boy, so I don’t have to worry about you, am I correct?”
“You couldn’t be more correct,” I said.
Nineteen
WE FINISHED THE SEASON 14–2 and played in the New England Schoolboy Championships at Boston Garden, where we lost to St. Paul’s 1–0, then beat Andover again, 2–1, in the consolation match. Several of my aunts and uncles came, and a contingent of cousins, but I barely had time to hug and kiss them all and ask about my grandfather before we were hustled onto the bus and shipped back to New Hampshire.
We’d each had bronze medals draped around our necks for finishing as the third-best prep-school team in New England. I wore mine to bed that night. I lay awake for a while, going over the final two games we’d played in front of the Boston Garden crowd, and then thinking back across the six years since my grandfather had first taught me to skate. I could remember some of the goals I’d scored, even as long ago as Bantam hockey. I could remember some of the injuries and defeats, riding home on a silent school bus once with my Revere High teammates after a particularly embarrassing loss to North Quincy, no one saying a word, Coach Zizza grinding his teeth in the front seat. Bruises and falls, beautiful cross-ice passes in practice, hours and hours of wrist shots and slap shots aimed at the corners of the backyard net Vito Imbesalacqua had made. My grandfather had been right, era proprio l’idea per me. Hockey had replaced a broken beam inside me, given me a way to live with myself—a kid from Revere, nephew of Pete Benedetto, who did not like to fight.
The next day I emptied my locker, put my skates and pads into a laundry bag, carried them back to Amen Hall, and stashed them underneath my bed.
I called Revere every Tuesday and Friday night from the basement pay phone. Uncle Peter would make a point of being downstairs at the appointed hour, and he gave me, sometimes in a quiet voice, the latest health reports. Grandma was f
ine, but Grandpa spent most of his days sitting in his favorite armchair, not saying much. He no longer had enough strength to work in the garden, or to make suits and blouses for his sons and granddaughters. Except for doctors’ appointments and the funerals of his friends, he did not leave the house and yard. He could get himself out of bed, dress and feed himself, and use the bathroom on his own. Vittorio Imbesalacqua brought him Il Mattino every day at lunchtime, but he read it without really seeming interested, as if, now that he could no longer participate in it, the world beyond his immediate grasp had lost all attraction for him.
Spring break fell the week after Easter that year, and instead of going to the Canadian home of one of my hockey friends, I went back to Revere and spent most of the vacation sitting with my grandfather at the kitchen table, in the den, or out on the front porch. On some days he’d want me to tell him a story from school—he especially liked hockey stories—and I told him, more than once, how Higgenbotham had won the consolation game at Boston Garden: winding up for a slap shot from the point and completely missing the puck, then looking down, seeing it there, and just winding up a second time and blasting it into the corner of the net. “Everyone thought it was the greatest fake of all time,” I said. “But he just missed it. He was so tired, Grandpa, he could barely stand up. He pulled the stick back and whiffed on it, almost fell over. But the defenseman had gone down to block the shot and slid right on by, so he just wound up all over again and hit it just right the second time.”
My grandfather would nod, smile, close his eyes for five or six seconds as if picturing the scene. Grandma would set a glass of prune juice and a napkin in front of him, with the deliberateness of a priest performing a sacramental rite. And he would thank her, put his fingers around the glass, then rest his arm there for a time, gathering the strength to lift it. Uncle Peter came downstairs before work and stopped by again at lunch, and then came home, showered, changed into clean clothes, and spent the whole evening with him, holding his arm when he walked to the bathroom, playing checkers and games of cards, massaging the withered muscles at the tops of his shoulders. After his father went to bed, Uncle Peter would step out onto the back porch and smoke a cigar, or sometimes take a few puffs from a cigarette. He was working construction again, and it seemed he was taking on all the muscle his father was losing. I would stand beside him, almost as tall as he was by then, forty or fifty pounds lighter.
In Revere, In Those Days Page 26
