Happy Family

by Tracy Barone

  And she was no more comfortable in the community at large. She walked through Montclair with the Talking Heads as her sound track; this wasn’t her beautiful life with its beautiful wives kookookachu-ing over their electronic pool covers. She preferred to hang out with the blue-collar crowd, apartment kids who cut school and had jobs pumping gas or at the 7-Eleven. She smoked weed with the kids who got bused in from Plainfield, kids who dropped in and dropped out, kids who shoplifted gum and necklaces from Korvettes. They knew people in jail, runaways, decent garage bands, and which dealers didn’t cut their drugs with baby laxatives.

  The apartment kids turned Cheri on to uppers. She loved the euphoric, knee-jiggling turbo charge and hyperawareness that, somehow, evened out her frantically active brain. The pills were black and coated (ode to her father) or white with twinkly blue sparkles. In the morning, she’d pop a few black beauties, wash them down with free coffee she got from an apartment kid who worked at McDonald’s, and by the time she got to school, she’d be buzzing.

  Cheri was like every other teenager who wanted to believe that her struggle was unique, her malaise more desperate, and her soul more misunderstood than anyone before her. No wonder she related to the alienation and rage of punk and new wave music and cranked them up on her Walkman. While Taya dangled her lineage to get into clubs like Studio 54, Cheri was pounding it out in the mosh pits at CBGB’s. She loved the East Village’s hustling trannies, winos, and glam boys, tatted gangsters, and hard-core punks. She slammed into strangers pogoing at CBGB’s while Joey Ramone sang “I Wanna Be Sedated.” Years later, when she was a cop, she’d realize just how much danger she’d put herself in during her teenage years, but then she’d felt invincible, pumped up on the wild blue beyond of breaking all the rules.

  One day in May as Cheri and Taya lounged on Taya’s platform bed, passing a skull-shaped bong between them while listening to The Doors, the subject of the prom lifted its ugly head. “I don’t give a shit about that stupid dance,” Taya said. “But to quote your man Jim Morrison, ‘This is the end, my beautiful friend.’ We can’t go out with a whimper. We made it through high school relatively unscathed, and if that doesn’t deserve a blowout, I don’t know what does.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Cheri asked.

  “How about Atlantic City?” Taya said with a wicked smile.

  It turned out that Atlantic City was a little sad, a lot tarnished, and more crowded than they’d anticipated. But they scored mescaline and quaaludes from some Disco-Suits they met at a casino, so they didn’t need arcades or Ferris wheels to see neon-color trails, to see cherries dancing out of the machines and becoming the waitress who brought them Long Island Iced Teas. They crashed by the pool in their clothes and returned home Sunday night with farmer’s tans and tattoos they got from a biker named Papa.

  “Thanks for taking me to the prom,” Cheri said as Taya dropped her off in front of her house. She was expecting to open the door and collapse on an overstuffed couch. Instead she walks into…Thanksgiving? It’s three o’clock in the afternoon in late May, yet her parents are at the dining-room table eating a very large roasted turkey.

  “Thank God!” Her mother jumped up. “We were so worried!”

  “Don’t get up,” her father said, grabbing Cici’s arm.

  “You’re supposed to be in Europe,” Cheri said.

  “And you’re supposed to be at the Resnicks’. But they thought Taya was staying here. We called them to let you know our flight had been canceled and we’d be back home for the night. Imagine everyone’s confusion,” her father said.

  Cheri’s stomach clenched; she couldn’t believe she was busted.

  “Solomon, let her sit and eat. I make the plate.”

  “Do not get up and serve her,” Sol said calmly.

  “You no look so good, you skin is all red. What were you doing in the sun, it makes wrinkles. I get some crème.” Cici stood up.

  “Cici, I mean it. Cheri’s old enough to lie and steal and be a delinquent, she can damn well make her own plate.”

  “I didn’t steal anything,” Cheri said, shrugging her bag up on her shoulder.

  “How about Mr. Resnick’s car?”

  “I no think they stole, only not ask to take it,” Cici said, eyeing Cheri’s arm. Cheri instinctively pulled her T-shirt down to cover her tattoo.

  “Taking without permission is the definition of stealing. Let me handle this, sweetheart.”

  “So you called the Resnicks? That’s great now that you’re getting Taya in trouble. If you’re going to ground me, can you just do it now? I want to go up and take a nap.”

  “And we wanted to be on the trip of a lifetime, but we didn’t get to do that.”

  “Can we please be the civilized people and have a family meal?” Cici said to Solomon. “She is home. She could have driven off the road, bleeding from her eyes.”

  “How long?” Cheri said. “A day? A week?”

  “Cheri, you are hurt!” Cici leaped up and grabs her daughter’s arm, pushed up her T-shirt sleeve until she’s exposed the patch of fresh ink and angry skin. “What did you do to yourself? Solomon, look!”

  Before her father was able to clumsily maneuver himself up on his stiff legs, Cheri decided that her best defense was a strong offense. She defiantly rolled up her sleeve to show her cherry-bomb tattoo.

  “Add this to my list of offenses.”

  Cici looked grief-stricken. “How could you? You already make so many holes in your body! This no comes off.” Cheri knew this was serious but her reaction was to laugh, which pushes Sol past the breaking point, as she’d known it would.

  “What is wrong with you?” he shouted. “Haven’t you put your mother through enough? Defacing your body, showing no respect for yourself. You want to do that, you can do it when you’re eighteen and supporting yourself. But while you’re in our house, living on our money, you will show some respect for us, at least.”

  “A month? It’s my final offer…”

  “That’s it. You’re grounded for the whole damn summer: no money, no car, no Taya. And don’t look at your mother like she’ll save you. I’m sick of your manipulative bullshit.”

  “Whatever,” Cheri said, turning her back to go upstairs.

  “Where do you think you’re going, missy?” Her father stood up; despite the expensive tailoring of his clothes, his legs looked like tree trunks in slacks. The word elephantiasis sprang to her mind, forget phlebitis or gout.

  “You think you’ll laugh when you have to pay for your own college?”

  “Solomon, no,” Cici said, standing in front of him.

  “Fuck you and your money.”

  Sol stood like a soda can that had been shaken and was just about to be popped open. He let out a sound, not quite a growl but close. Even Cici was silenced. Cheri slammed up the stairs. She was sleep-deprived, hungover; her emotions turned on a dime. She was suddenly overwhelmed with thirst. Going into her bathroom for a glass of water, she was infuriated to see her mother had fluffed—there were now expensive lotions, perfumes, and soaps on every available surface. Cheri hurled everything onto the floor with one sweep of her arm.

  “You’re going to pay for everything you break.” Her father was suddenly by her side in her bathroom. “I’ll keep a list.”

  “You’ve probably got a list of everything you’ve ever bought me since I was a baby. Do I get the bill when I move out?”

  “You ungrateful…” Sol’s hands were pressing into his sides like he was trying to stop himself from using them. “We have done everything for you. Do you think I can’t see how you turn your mother against me? You’ve done it since you were a child and you’re still doing it, even when you’re old enough to know better.”

  “Why is it a competition? Why does it have to be a contest with you over who Mom loves more? I’m the child, you’re supposed to be the adults! You think I don’t see how you look at me? Like you don’t want me here? Well, that makes two of us! I can’t wait to get
out of here. What’s most fucked up is that you think I want her suffocating me. You’re pathetic. A pathetic fucking freak.”

  He moved toward her surprisingly fast, given the condition of his legs, hand raised. She stumbled back and fell against the toilet, slipped sideways off its smooth surface, and smacked her head against the tub. Seen from this angle, her father looked enormous. She had a pooling feeling in the back of her throat. One of her ears buzzed and a throbbing pain began where she’d hit her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blow to fall. But when she looked back up, her father was gone. Suddenly she was retching into the toilet bowl. The last thing she heard before she falls asleep on the floor was Jim Morrison droning, “This is the end, my only friend, the end.” She hates The Doors.

  Without Gusmanov, the passion Marco D’Ameri sparked in Cheri might never have flourished. When she got back from Italy and told Gusmanov that she’d gone hunting, he was dismayed that she’d shot at birds without proper training. Gusmanov wouldn’t let her fire one of his guns until she could identify all the parts and how they worked, determine the muzzle velocity, clean, assemble, load, and unload. He’d hold up his father’s old pocket watch and time her taking the gun apart and putting it back together as he banged and clanged things in the garage to distract her. Then, when he felt she was ready to shoot, he taught her how to use her breath to keep her mind and body focused. He told her not to peek, but she peeked and saw the makeshift firing range he’d created for her at the old junkyard a few miles outside Montclair. He had her make her own targets, drawing circles or spattering paint, and he displayed them like artwork from school, being careful to take them down and hide them in his toolbox at night. When it was apparent that Cheri had talent, Gusmanov came up with the idea of having her don the green Girl Scout uniform because he knew Cici couldn’t say no to sashes, pins, and an American Institution. It was the perfect cover for him to take her to shooting lessons at the 4-H and, later, to state junior riflery competitions. Gusmanov said he inherited his aim from his dead Russian mother, who hid from Nazis in the forest, eating bark and squirrels she killed with a slingshot. “Where did I get my aim?” she’d wondered. Certainly not from Sol, who would never approve of Cheri’s love of guns and didn’t understand why she was always hanging out with “that handyman,” as he referred to Gusmanov.

  Target practice was her only refuge that summer, stolen under the guise of a project Taya and Cheri were doing for NYU. Just stepping into the 4-H firing range calmed Cheri. Precision shooting wasn’t just her sport; it was her sanity. Even before she put on her ears, she tuned out the rest of the world and was fully focused. While Cheri found absolution in her secret sport, she acted as confessor to Taya, whose father was involved in what was soon to become a public scandal instigated by his secretary, who alleged he’d fired her when she broke off their long-term affair. Cheri preferred listening to talking, especially about herself, and never guessed that Taya’s drama would cut close to her own father bone.

  Cheri packed up her room, vowing to return to Montclair as infrequently as possible. She had two agendas upon entering NYU: to live in the East Village and to lose her virginity. Soon she was juggling a full course load and a bartending gig—making good on her vow to use none of Sol’s money beyond the necessary cost of tuition—but it didn’t take long to find her first real lover, a bass player who happily relieved Cheri of her burden.

  “Well, at least one of us is getting laid,” Taya said when Cheri called her from a pay phone at Washington Square Park. Cheri was sharing an apartment on West Twelfth and Sixth with an Israeli graduate student who had a grand piano and a seemingly endless stream of relatives who needed a free place to stay. Look, here is Tamar’s third cousin twice removed and his two friends who just happen to be in the neighborhood at three a.m. with their sleeping bags, hummus, and blind dog—no problem, we’ll make room for them in the living room. Tamar’s early-morning piano practice failed to rouse the crashed backpackers but drove Cheri to the great outdoors.

  Washington Square Park became Cheri’s de facto study hall/crash pad. It had some of the city’s best speed-chess players, including an old Ukrainian man named Yure who reminded her of Gusmanov with his patience (he taught her to play chess) and stories of his war-torn life in the Old Country (in Yure’s case, tales of fleeing the Cossacks). Yure gave her the lowdown on who was who in the park and brought her stuffed cabbage his wife made for their restaurant on the Lower East Side.

  Cheri rarely saw her parents. NYU was far enough from the Upper East Side that, even if her parents were in the city, she could beg off getting together, citing her course load. And while Cici kept Cheri’s room in Montclair exactly as she’d left it, the last thing Cheri wanted was to return to the place she’d spent eighteen years waiting to flee. So it was a great surprise when, toward the end of her freshman year, Cheri saw her father coming out of the library by the park.

  “Solomon?” Since their fight, she’s taken to calling her father by his first name because it irritates him. He is wearing a dark, pin-striped suit and a bow tie; his rusty gray hair raked across his head looks as if it might spring up at the slightest provocation. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was looking for you,” he says. “Your mother gave me your schedule. You’ve got a class in there at ten forty-five, yes?” Since when did his voice lilt like a Canadian’s?

  “What, you’re thinking of auditing? Spending a little father-daughter time?” She lights a cigarette. Sol’s nostrils flare in disapproval but he doesn’t say anything.

  “No to auditing and yes to the other,” he says, resisting the urge to wave the smoke out of his face. “I’m a full-time student here. At the law school, right down the street by the gymnasium. Have you checked it out? Great tennis courts and the swimming pool—outstanding.”

  “Law school,” Cheri says with incredulity. “Here at NYU?”

  “It certainly disproves the adage you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” He laughs uncomfortably. “I’m on an accelerated program. Should be a cakewalk compared to med school. It’s not a career change, more like an expansion.” Sol’s eyes squint in the sun, making him look like a mole.

  “And you’re telling me all this because…?”

  “Because I thought we could spend a little time together. I wanted to tell you personally, and we haven’t crossed paths at the house very much lately. Let me take you to lunch,” Sol says. “After your class. One o’clock at Cicero’s in SoHo?”

  “Can’t. I have to get to comparative religion. Sorry to ruin your reunited-and-it-feels-so-good moment but I’m late. See you around campus.”

  “Cheri,” Solomon calls as she’s walking away. She turns around. “I’d like to believe that it’s never too late—or too early—to learn something.”

  But his overture was too little, too late. The last thing Cheri wanted to do was revisit the fallout of their fight. The idea of seeing her father at school infuriated her. It wasn’t as if he needed another degree on his wall. How dare he follow her?

  “Why, why, why can’t you be nice to your father? Please, he came with the olive branch in his beak,” Cici begged when Cheri finally deigned to answer the phone one day just as she was heading out of the apartment. As Cheri suspected, her mother was behind all of this.

  “Right. And if I sent him doves, he’d send them back stuffed with olives and capers and ask you to cook them.”

  “You are tearing my heart,” her mother said.

  Cheri finally agrees to let her father take her to lunch. That phrasing bothers her. She feels like she’s a briefcase that her father carries into Le Cirque, throws down on the chair next to him. The briefcase will have the snails. Actually, he says, “Let’s start with some snails for the table.” Because the table really enjoys mucus-producing garden pests. Her mother thought her father was manly when he ordered for her. Cheri didn’t.

  “Well, then,” he says after the waiter leaves. “Let’s chat.”

 
“About what?”

  “Tell me what your life is like. What courses you’re taking, other than the prerequisites. How do you like your professors? Who are your friends? Do you have a significant other?”

  “Significant other? Who says that in normal conversation? You think you’re going to catch me off guard so I’ll admit I’m gay?”

  “Okay, let the record be amended: Do you have a boyfriend?”

  The waiter arrives with their snails and Cheri fixates on the garlic butter pooling in the indentations of the snail tray. The risk factor is at red. Her father has never met a condiment that didn’t somehow end up on his face; sauces were also fair game.

  “So, where were we?” Sol asks. “You were going to tell me about college life. You found a major yet?”

  “I’m thinking about comparative religion. And yes, I have male friends, some of whom I’ve slept with.”

  Sol ignores the thrown gauntlet.

  “Religion? Where did this interest come from?” A portion of snail butter drips out of the corner of Sol’s mouth and dribbles chin-ward.

  “Well, not from you guys or that Catholic elementary school you sent me to.”

  “But what are you expecting to do with a religion major? The job field after graduation has to be pretty narrow.”

  “Isn’t a liberal arts education supposed to be about learning?” Cheri answers emphatically. “If I just wanted a job, I’d go to trade school. Religion is actually one of the broadest fields. It intersects with history, art, language, politics. Wars are always being fought over religion. People are adamant that one is better than the other but they’re all kind of saying the same thing.”

  Sol nods. “Organized religion is just another political system, especially Catholicism. The whole point is to create a hierarchy that is sustainable over centuries and, of course, offer the promise of salvation if you follow A, B, and C. I always found the history of the church surrounding the Council of Nicaea especially interesting.”