by Andrew Cotto
My mother took the train into the city most days to interview for law jobs. She came back soon enough with a position that started in the fall. But she kept taking that train out of Montauk, and she came back another day with news of a new house in Queens. She’d given up on the neighborhood where she’d lived since she was 8 years old. At first, she wanted to fight. I’d hear her argue with my father at night, dropping names of the guys from around that she knew – guys that she’d grown up with who were nice to us but maybe not so nice in general. She said they could find out, easily, who did this to me, and then they could make things right. But Pop wasn’t having it. He was no pacifist, and he taught me, all my life, to defend myself. We had a heavy bag in the basement and he showed me how to punch and move, protect myself, which I did, best I could, for as long as I could. Pop just wasn’t into the idea of payback, of sending another kid to the hospital. He wanted all this to end.
So when summer was over, we went back to Queens, but to a new neighborhood and a new house. It was a big place, too, looked like a castle, Tudor or something, three floors, stand-alone, with a driveway and a one-car garage and a shaded patio out back. We were separated from the neighbors by bushes instead of alleys. The neighborhood reminded me of towns I’d seen outside the city, with tall trees and green grass. People passed but didn’t stop to talk.
I took a room on the very top floor, with slanted walls, a little stained-glass window and a spot to sit under the widow’s peak. I’d be in the window most of the day, slouched with my feet on the opposite wall, playing Springsteen CDs and reading comic books in the colored light. My parents would come up once in awhile to check on me. Make sure I was OK. I wasn’t. But they didn’t know how bad it was. They kept saying things would be normal for me again once school started.
I went to a Catholic school, pretty close to home. I hated the place right away — way too strict and the only girls around were nuns — and those nuns could give those older kids from the neighborhood a pretty good fight. I kept to myself. At some point, in the middle of the first semester, I stopped speaking altogether, which drove the nuns crazy. They’d ask me questions in class and I’d just sit there, silent. So after school, they’d put me on the roof to clean out garbage cans as punishment for not saying anything. Nuns. One day, after throwing everything I could get my hands on from the roof into the teacher’s parking lot, I ran home, straight to the garage. Pop had band practice that day, and Ma worked late every day. We’d moved the heavy bag there, to the one-car garage, and I punched it with my bare hands, moving the weight around pretty good. Through heavy breathing, I could hear the tear of my knuckles across the canvas. Pale spots began to show up on the bag, and I decided to cover the thing with my blood.
After the canvas bag was good and polka-dotted, I sat on a crate and ripped off the stupid sweater and shirt they made us wear at school. Sweat dripped off my chin. My knuckles throbbed and burned red like they’d been dragged over sandpaper. It felt kind of good, but not good enough. I walked up to the garage door and punched out a window pane. The sound of shattered glass, and the slashing of my hands, got me what I wanted. I punched out all the rest of them, too, sending glass everywhere. Afterward, it looked like my fist had been rammed in a blender.
My hand gushed and I watched it bleed, letting the blood drip to the floor. For some reason, I’d wanted to feel and see myself bleed again. I licked a wound and tasted the dirty pennies. A puddle of blood formed on the floor between my feet. Then I wrapped my hand in the school sweater and went inside. With a pack of my mother’s smokes, I went to the attic, sat in the colored window and sucked cigarette after cigarette until my tongue blistered.
Later, I heard the sound of someone coming upstairs. Pop showed up in the doorway and wiped away the air. “Have you been smoking in here, young man?” he asked in this hokey voice. Then he saw my hand.
He dragged me to the hospital. Afterward, I ended up at a different kind of doctor. But not at first. At first, I went ballistic at home. All that I’d been holding in came pouring out, and I was a long way from silent. Pop and I fought almost every night, nearly coming to blows on a couple of occasions. I’d cost him his cool, and there was something satisfying in that. Something small, though, I had to admit.
Eventually, I cooled down and cursed him quietly, letting him know through silence that I hated him. I blamed Pop for everything that happened. It had sort of come to me slowly over the summer and then through the school year and in the silence of my room; then in a rush as I sat there bleeding in the garage. The words I couldn’t find came out in anger toward Pop. I figured if I hadn’t gone along with his helping-people routine… if I hadn’t listened to him and been his son… if I hadn’t put so much faith in him and in doing the right thing, and hadn’t told him the truth about the Spics and the bridge, I’d still be back in the old neighborhood, with my old friends, and Genie Martini with her great set of lungs, instead of being alone in the attic, attending some crappy Catholic school where there were no girls and not a friend in the world. I’d finally figured out what was bothering me, what had been taken away, and the fact of it was this: Pop had cost me my chance at being a kid. Not a runny-nosed kid with untied shoes, but a real kid who did all the things I had been doing, with girls and friends and whatnot, until Pop and his philosophy of doing the right thing took it all away.
My mother was in the middle. Pop railed at her that I needed to get straightened out, but she worried about her son. Usually, growing up, she was the tough one, but with this noise between me and Pop, she tried to stay calm, begging me to behave before Pop did something crazy like toss me out of the house.
I think the counseling was her idea. I fought it, of course. Un-uh. No way. Un-uh. But they gave me two choices: the psychologist or military school. And while the idea of going away was tempting, it wasn’t going to be some place with all guys, where you get your head shaved at night (my hair had just grown back) and your face chewed off all day. I’d rather stay at home with Pop and the nuns, so I passed on the drill sergeant and took the head doctor instead.
Not a bad guy, Dr. DeFuso. His house off Queens Boulevard had an office around the side. It was very brown in there, with slanted shades and a wooden desk and lots of books on shelves. We sat across from each other in cushioned chairs and he held a notepad and pen across his thighs. He asked me little questions that were supposed to have answers worth writing down. At first, I hardly said anything. But then I started giving him something to put on his pad, nothing monumental or nothing, but enough to keep me out of another crew cut.
This guy DeFuso was no miracle worker, but talking to him once a week for a few months made things easier at home. Pop and I still had our moments, but we had our peace for the most part. The best thing about going to the shrink was his suggestion that boarding school might be good for me. He talked to my parents, and one night they came up to my room with these brochures with pictures of nice looking kids studying and playing sports, posing with their arms around each other’s shoulders. It seemed so safe. So easy. I remember holding the brochures and thinking, yeah, yeah, I can do this.
So we went out for a visit. Took the car straight across Jersey, past fields and rolling hills, past exit signs for places ending in “burg” or “ville.” We glided down a winding road into a half-assed town called Hamdenville. Outside of town, we went through a high gate and up a higher hill onto the campus of Hamden Academy. Ivy covered the stone and brick buildings, and tall, tall trees threw shadows over the road. The air smelled new.
Some happy kid named Brian gave us a tour and, more than anything, I remember him saying “hi” or “hello” to a lot of the people we passed: Hi, Scott. Hi, Stephanie. Hi, Karen. Hello, Mr. Taylor. I wondered which ones would be my teachers, my friends. When we went into the underclass dorm, up to the floor for juniors, I picked out a room that I hoped would be mine.
There were some meetings with admissions people and a guidance guy. I met the baseball coach, too. But my
mind was made up before any of them even opened their mouths. On the car ride home to Queens, I fell asleep and dreamed of myself somewhere else.
Third Year
That next year, on my first day of school at Hamden Academy, I walked around campus like I already belonged. I didn’t really know where I was going or anything, but it felt like I did. It must have been all the time I spent that summer imagining myself there. And once there for real, I liked it right away. These private school kids got it made, I decided, walking under the high ceiling of the academic building, amongst all the fresh faces.
One face, in particular, stood out right away. I remember seeing her from across a classroom: deep auburn hair and a freckled nose, eyes that glowed green. Her eyebrows were the color of caramel. Her mouth was wide and, I could tell, easy to make smile. There wasn’t this “Ah, Ah, Ah...” soundtrack playing or anything, and she didn’t cruise up like a vision of the Venus on a clam shell painting they had at Catholic school, but the sight of this girl was like a miracle to me. I swear. I gave her a nickname on the spot: “Bella Faccia” for her beautiful face.
Each day, I moved closer and closer, row by row, desk by desk. I felt like a secret agent. After a week, I settled in right next to her. I sat up straight, caught my breath, and started to think of something clever to say. When I turned to deliver, she was waiting for me.
“So,” she said. “You finally made it.”
I almost fell over.
Through class, I tried and tried to keep my head straight ahead, but couldn’t help but sneak a thousand peeks. Afterward, on the way to next period, I worked the little routine I had used for charming the girls back in Queens:
“So,” I began, “tell me your name.” (Brenda Divine)
“Where are you from, Brenda Divine?” (Connecticut)
“Do you like it there?” (Yes)
“Do you like it here?” (So far)
“Do you like me so far?” (giggles)
“Who’s your favorite singer?” (Prince)
“What about Bruce Springsteen?” (Well, only “Thunder Road,” but I’ve listened to it, like, a thousand times)
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” (A doctor or a teacher)
“Where do you want to go to school?” (NYU)
“Who’s your favorite player on the Mets?” (Umm…pass)
“All right. One last question,” I said, leaning into the door frame of her next class.
“OK,” she giggled some more, hugging her books.
“What are we doing Saturday night?”
She smiled, but there was this sideways-thing with her mouth that cut that grin in half. “Well, actually,” she said, “I’m taking the bus to meet my parents in the city, and my...my boyfriend’s coming, too.”
“Ohhh!” I cried from the boyfriend-bomb but still managed to keep my cool. “Can I come, too?” I asked. “I’m from the city. I could show you guys around.”
“Maybe some other time,” she laughed and walked into class.
She had a bouncy step and her right foot pigeon-toed a little, giving the impression she might be clumsy or something until you saw what a jackrabbit she was on the soccer field (I never missed a game that fall). I watched her skinny legs moving in fresh blue jeans. As she turned to slip into the seat, I envied the fuzzy sweater that hugged her slender upper body. Once seated, she tilted her head toward the doorway, blinked a few times, then smiled at me with surprise.
“How about next Saturday?” I asked. “You free then?”
There was something in her dimpled smile. Something I didn’t know for sure, except that it was something I needed more than anything in the whole world. I swear.
Boyfriend or not, I sat next to her in class every day, taking the same walk down the same hallway afterward. We hung out after school and in the evenings, too.
I met other people. My roommate was a good guy named Sam Soifer, sort of a pale kid, always in need of a shave, with a body that drooped toward the floor like the bazoombas of a big old lady. Sammie had been at Hamden Academy for a year before me, and he took real pride in showing me around. He made it his job to point out everything and everyone he knew. It was kind of nice, at first, but it got old fast, especially after some kid asked him, as we walked through the common area of the dorm, “Hey, Soifer. When you crap, does he wipe?” Good one, I thought, but I also thought that I should find some other people to hang out with besides Sammie.
The guys next door seemed kind of cool. They played music and talked all the time about “Bettys” (which I figured out, soon enough, to mean “girls”). One was a loudmouthed kid, skinny with freckles, orange hair and a ton of confidence, like he didn’t know he was a skinny, freckled kid with orange hair. His roommate played the guitar, playing the part of musician with a piled-up hairstyle, sandpaper stubble on his cheeks and chin, and the right clothes faded and unbuttoned in all the right places.
Those guys, Geoff Meeks and Johnny Grohl, started talking me up in the bathroom and in the halls. They would knock on our door, sometimes, and ask me to come over and “hang.” They knew Sammie, like a lot of people, but, like a lot of people, they didn’t seem all that crazy about him. And they never asked him to come over with me.
One day, on my way next door, Sammie whispered “Don’t go.” It nearly broke my heart, hearing him beg me like that, but I wasn’t the same kid anymore who brought everyone along and picked the worst guy first. A lot of good that had done. It had cost me everything and got me nowhere. And I had some catching up do with a lot of things. So when Sammie begged me to stay, my heart might have stopped, but I kept walking.
Meeks and Grohl had another friend. A real cool guy named Todd Brooks. He was a prefect on the underclass floor of our dorm and always upstairs with Meeks and Grohl. Todd had some serious manners, wavy hair and broad shoulders, too. If we had a football team, he’d have been the quarterback; instead, he destroyed people in soccer and lacrosse. I learned, soon enough, that ours was a school of small circles, with no real center, but I was pretty happy to be in with those guys. They were about as cool as it got at Hamden Academy.
And Todd Brooks was the coolest of all. He wasn’t just any old student. He’d been there since freshman year – which was something on its own, since kids came and went all the time. He also served as the big man around campus, at least of the nonwrestlers — our only major sport — which made this guy Todd even more important, because the wrestlers were about as charming as vomit. And with Todd Brooks in the lead, the four of us made our presence known around campus.
“Here comes your girlfriend,” Meeks would crack whenever Brenda Divine approached my new group of friends. I loved the way she would slide into our booth in The Can (the makeshift soda shop on campus), help herself to a handful of French fries, and join the conversation. She was smarter than rest of us put together. Sometimes she’d challenge me to Foosball in the game area up the stairs. And we’d play for hours, spinning those little plastic men.
“You score there yet, Paesano?” Grohl would ask when I came down for more quarters.
“Get bent, all of ya’,” I’d say every time, but I wasn’t talking to Todd.
Todd knew my plans for Brenda. I was waiting for her and her boyfriend to break up. That’s it. There were other girls around, but she was my Springsteen. I didn’t like anybody else. We talked about it all the time, Todd and I. We talked about everything. I even told him about what happened to me back home. He was my guy, my buddy, my friend. My pal. We hung with Meeks and Grohl, but when it was time to divide, they went their way and we went ours. Until Todd went away with Brenda. And that hurt a hell of a lot more than getting hit in the head with a baseball bat.
It had to have been lacrosse in the springtime. They both played, and the teams traveled together. So somewhere, I figured, on those bumpy bus rides through the Jersey countryside, with the windows open and the spring air pouring in, they must have found each other and forgotten about me.
I had no id
ea, not a clue about any of this until an early evening in the end of spring. Crossing campus after a late baseball game, I saw my best friend and my best girl come giggling out of an empty building. The air got punched right out of me as I staggered behind a tree and watched them disappear into the twilight.
Nearly as painful as that torturous moment was watching Todd and Brenda fall for each other. Over the last few weeks of school, they became the pets of campus, and if we had a prom they’d have been the king and queen. As it was, everyone just fawned with approval as they pawed each other in public. It made me sick. The thought of what they might be doing out of public was too much for me to even think about.
Knuckling some salt into my gaping wound was the fact that neither of them said a word about this whole relationship. Not a word. Brenda and I were officially “only friends,” but great friends, all year. And it was more than that, too. We spent a ton of time together, and chemicals, or something, bounced back and forth when we were alone. I was funny with her like nobody else, and she had a special smile just for me. I’d never been in love before, but I knew when it was happening to me.
And I knew when it wasn’t happening anymore, too. Brenda and I stopped hanging around alone together. And she stopped smiling at me like she had before. We had conversations, I guess, about things, but nothing important. Like normal friends, I guess. Todd, on the other hand, disappeared altogether. Spring was busy, with sports and everything, and we only had a few weeks left before summer, but he never came to our floor in the dorm and, when he saw me around campus, he’d just go the other way or walk right past. He’d walk right past with this smirk on his face. I swear.
