She reached into her purse and pulled out a clear plastic bag with weed in it. I realized at once that it was mine. I swallowed my first whole glass of wine without noticing the taste. My heart raced, and for sometime, I was dizzy and couldn’t breathe. Was this the last straw? Had they had enough? Would I at last be kicked out of the Tappets? I was quite aware of their severe views on marijuana and other harder drugs. I looked into her eyes and had no idea how to respond, however, I found myself also angry that she’d gone through my private things.
“Maybe you should rate this for me,” I said. “Put it somewhere between the shoplifting episode and my pre-adolescent indiscretions with Sally. Then I’d know where I stand. It’s not exactly in league with Richard Nixon’s cover-up of the Watergate Affair.”
She and Stan were long time Republicans and had both voted for Nixon. I could see my sarcasm hit home and I was sorry I said it. “Are you making a joke?” she said. “It’s an illegal substance.”
I shrugged. “I can’t have Sally as my girlfriend even though I love her,” I said with indignation. “I don’t drink, smoke, or slack off. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. My marks are fine and my work at the office, according to Dad, is outstanding. Why are you going through my things? Was Sally right all along? Are you my jail-keeper?” I saw that I’d hurt her feelings and was again regretful. “I’m sorry,” I said, “But I don’t understand it.”
“I didn’t go through your things,” she said bitterly. “Una found it washing your pants. We hoped it was a willing slip, a cry for help.”
I chuckled a moment. Why would my mother think I needed help? I tried another glass of wine and decided I liked it. “I’ll do no more jaye, if you, Stan, and Una, agree to allow me to drink.”
“Everything is a negotiation.”
“Look who’s talking.”
We ate a little more in silence. “Stan will never agree to it,” she said after the waiter cleared our plates.
I shrugged in disbelief and saw that I’d ticked her plenty. She pointed at me in a threatening manner. “No inebriation,” she said. “No drinking if you’re driving, piloting or at work.”
I poured another glass of wine and ordered a piece of chocolate cake. “Shall we shake on it,” I said.
She smiled and shook her head. “You are as cutthroat as ever,” she said. “But I must say, you’re always good to your word. Now, about university. We are very proud of you and you may go where you wish, but if Sally is going to NYCU, Stan and I insist you go elsewhere.”
I ignored the fact that she had me figured out pretty well. “Now that we’re alone,” I said, “I’ve always been curious about something. Some people say that Una runs the company. I know that it’s partially true. Why do you and Stan encourage the perception?”
“No real reason exists, it just happened that way. We love her.”
It wasn’t the answer I expected. It seemed too simple. However, that was the thing about the Tappets that was so improbable, they were as good as it gets. That summer I was accepted at Princeton and planned to follow my parents’ wishes. My life still seemed to me somehow to be a Tappets’ life, not my own. It scared me, and all the more, because I really didn’t object. Stan bought me a Mercedes Benz, a red one that was two years old. They also gave me a few hundred dollars to spend on clothes. Sally didn’t get a car and I knew it bothered her, but she was attending NYCU after all.
At the end of the summer, the twenty-one-year-old heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, a family Mary and Stan knew through their business circles, was abducted at gunpoint from the driveway of his mother’s estate in New York State. He was held for nine days in a Brooklyn apartment while his multimillionaire father negotiated for his release. After over two million dollars had been paid, federal agents rescued him, retrieved the money, and arrested two men, a New York City fireman, and an operator of a limousine service. The following week, Stan put in a new security system and hired a New York City firm, The Burgess-Veld Investigative and Security Agency to monitor the family and make suggestions for our safety.
It was the first time I’d heard him openly talk of our estimated worth and I was startled to discover that it was in the billions. My head swelled, but even though I was stunned by the amount, I knew better than to ever repeat it. Peter Burgess, the co-founder of the security firm, personally came to the house. He was an African-American man, muscular, trim, and with short jet-black hair. He stood a half a foot taller than Stan, and was younger by almost two decades. I thought that his brown eyes radiated keenness and his muscular frame exuded a sort of killer’s strength; he looked exactly like a hunter, yet to me, I felt immediately comfortable with him and liked him.
He looked me in the eye and restrained himself from repeating any platitudes to the son of a wealthy costumer. I appreciated that, and I bet Stan did too. “He’d be gone to bed,” Una whispered at one point when he was out of earshot, leaning over to Sally and I. We both laughed.
“He’s very handsome,” Sally whispered back and I became envious of his body and clear complexion.
“No perfect security system exists,” he said after an hour of looking around. “The best in a free society are still flawed. Criminals walk the street unmolested.” We were all gathered in the main living room, including Isaac and Larry. “Much needs to be done just to close the huge gaping holes in security here,” he added. “I’ll check your office tomorrow. The cars should go. Replaced them with newer smaller less-expensive black or grey generic styles. Any brand will do, as long as they aren’t the most expensive. If you need big cars, you should rent a limousine but insist Larry drive it.
“The gates at the back and sides have to be replaced at once with the uniform metal fence that surround the property and which is otherwise pretty good. Outside cameras and motion-detection lights should be installed on the grounds. The front gate should close and lock automatically. Remote key codes can be activated from inside the cars and an intercom system installed at the gate for visitors.
“Inside, we’ll establish the whole gambit of a modern security system, access codes, motion detectors, bolt-locks, window bolts, and so forth. Don’t let this scare you. It’s a radical change, but a necessary one. It’ll neither be as hard nor as expensive as it sounds and our contractors finish up fast. We’re number one in the city and our products have shown to get results . . . to have literally saved people’s lives.”
“A word to the wise, Mr. Burgess,” Una piped in from behind the couch, “Larry, Isaac, and myself, need unfettered access to the mansion. I mean, I live here, but that’s besides the point. The Tappets are busy and can’t make it through their hectic days bogged down with letting us in and out of the bathrooms to go pee.”
We all laughed. “You’re from the island, Una?” he said with a friendly voice, obviously taken aback with Una’s outspoken manner and not understanding her position inside the family, but then, who would?
“You’ll see that where I’m from has nothing to do with it.”
He looked at Stan and Mary as though for an explanation, but they refrained from any remark and even Stan’s constant rejoinder that Una was our mad housekeeper didn’t get aired.
“I’m hearing you,” Peter said at length, reading the whole situation correct. “Secured, but not shackled.”
“Good,” she said, rising, and heading for the kitchen.
“That means she really likes you,” I said when she was out of earshot. We all laughed again. The next morning, Stan and I drove to Princeton University. I had been down alone several times to check everything out. The supplement classes were to be small and well supervised. They expected first year students to live in one of the assigned five residential colleges, where they would study, eat, and socialize, but I wanted nothing to do with that, or with the nonresidential eating clubs adjacent to it.
After having met some of the students, seeing them talk of their life and casually dropping the names of their family, or friends of the family
, or even neighbors in the who’s who world of wealth and fame, I began to feel ashamed of my own past behavior. I saw that they were as insecure as me and understood why Stan and Mary so ardently avoided any such vanity, and there was one other thing about them, none of them seemed cool.
About this time, I was experiencing roller-coaster cycles of blues and elation, but consistently my esteem was low. My view of the kind of person I’d become, my body, my behavior, and my overall appearance, began to sink. After Dad and I toured the area of the main campus, we walked to each lecture hall I would attend, and the tutorial areas off from them where the lectures would be supplemented by post graduate teachers.
“This is where the real learning will take place,” Stan noted.
How he knew, I’d no idea. Maybe he had been told that by Una. Stan and Mary had paid over fifteen thousand dollars for my five courses: Greco-Roman Civilization, The American Novel, Reason and Probability, A History of Five Major Religions, and Structural Engineering. I was dreading it, yet also excited. It drizzled much of the day and I was glad when Stan offered to head back.
“Would you like to go to the Gusto for supper?” he asked. It was my favorite steak place and was very near to where we played hardball at Pulaski Park. We sat in front of the window which looked on Willow which connected one way or another to the Skyway, the Turnpike, the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and JFK Boulevard. The busy streets were still wet but the drizzle had stopped.
We were served by a pretty blond-haired waitress who over the years we’d come to know. “Look,” she said in shock just as she came to greet us.
I stood up. A naked burly man, flailing his arms and shouting madly, ran down the middle of the street into oncoming traffic. If he was yelling anything discernible, I couldn’t make it out from the restaurant. I sighed loudly and grabbed my chest, as a huge city sanitation truck barely missed him, then a car screeched to a stop in front of him, then another behind that one. The naked man ran past them, hitting their hoods with his open palms in anger, returning to his shouting, and flailing. Two other cars sped past him, oblivious to his plight, then a city bus hit him dead-on. He flew back to the pavement. I gasped in shock.
Stan raced across the street toward the accident. My leaden feet slowly followed him. I feared to go any faster, but had to see what Stan was doing. The crowds and traffic had stopped for a moment and the streets seemed almost silent. Stan checked the man for vital signs, getting blood on his hands. The man was bleeding from the back of his skull, and pretty much everywhere else that I could see. His face was smashed, it had abrasions everywhere, and it appeared as if he’d stopped breathing. I felt sick. Stan looked up as though to say to me, ‘Why aren’t you down here beside me, helping.’
“He’s just a bum,” I answered to myself. I’d always despised panhandlers, druggies, and street-people. By the time the ambulance came, the man was dead. I couldn’t go back to any meal, and I think, Stan felt the same.
“I wonder why he did it?” I asked.
“Some folks call people like him the backwash of the system, but you have to feel sorry for them. Life is hard.”
We thanked the waitress and left without ordering our meal. That night I dreamt of lying with Sally, but every time I reached out to touch her, I saw the man’s face on her body.
When September came, I was jittery, but the year flew by like a cyclone. It struck me as an entire unified event, like a well written poem. I drank plenty of wine. Everyone who taught me seemed to like my posture toward them, my work-ethic to schooling, and my genuine manners. Of course, the other students thought I just kissed butt, I was friendless, and whether it was true or not, I didn’t care.
On the other hand, they did laugh at many of my jokes. I wished I’d been humble enough to say that I thought all the professors were geniuses. I thought some of them dull. Also, I ignored students on a social basis. I didn’t attend their parties and such. I completely extricated myself from any internal campus politics. My marks were exceptional, beyond even what I’d hoped. I felt I could ask Mary and Stan for the summer off. They held a conference on it. I spied on them, even though I was going on eighteen-years-old. Following Una’s advice, they flatly turned me down. Una’s view was that I wouldn’t get a jump on my second year school work as I promised, but would laze around all summer and be in her space. For the life of me, I couldn’t say she was being unfair. But it seemed so unfair at the time and she hurt my feelings. Was life nothing but work and more work? Even for the rich?
To compensate me for the fact that they turned me down, Una said I could have the cottage for a whole week at the end of the summer if I took Lloyd as a chaperone. Lloyd had completed his college in 1977 and now worked directly under Ken Roxton as a junior manager at Modal, with part-time training for a management position at Poss Fast-Discs under Hiroyuki Nakamura. I saw that the Tappets thought the world of Lloyd and he had hung his fate on our hook, but that didn’t trouble me, even though it should have.
When I spoke to him about the cottage, he laughed and said he would get us some young girls. It sounded exciting. A major heat wave struck New York State in July, and Sally, Andy, and I took to the pool for hours every evening. My body by that point was outright sloppy and I weighed over two hundred pounds. It was at that time that I half-heartedly began to workout and skip lunches. I visited a dermatologist, who convinced me to drink three to four quarts of water a day, combined with constant applications of accutane and tretinoin skin-cream, to clear up my acne. Over the year, it had become acute, or at least to my eye. By the time the end of August came, I’d lost twenty pounds, but my body still looked lumpy to me and my skin wasn’t completely free of pimples.
When Lloyd and I arrived at the cottage, he put on an explicit pornographic video-tape. “That’s what we’ll be doing tomorrow night,” he boasted.
I was astounded at the graphic nature of it. I’d heard of such things, but had never imagined I would be watching it, let alone doing it. “Where did you get this?”
“Good, isn’t it? Wait until you see some of the women on this thing. They’re hot.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Diddly-squat. Kwong leant it to me.”
Kwong was Kwong Katigbaki, an old friend of Lloyd’s from the Carling Street days. I was dumbfounded and grew excited by each sequence of lurid repetitive pumping and sucking. I could hardly sleep that night in anticipation. I dreamt of sex the entire time I slept.
If Jesus had visited me that night, he’d have been appalled. Good to his word, before noon of the next day, two young girls were dropped off by Lloyds’ friend, Kwong, who came into the cottage alone and looked around first. He was Korean, about nineteen or twenty years old, although this was hard to tell. His face was without hair and his deep almond eyes appeared penetrating, maybe even cruel. He’d a sturdy body with a developed chest and arms, emphasized in a tight cotton shirt, dress pants, and a sports-jacket. My immediate instinct was that he was a bad person, brutal, and greedy, but I hid my reaction. I became truly nervous of him.
“Nice,” he said with a thick accent, I assumed evaluating the cottage. “You like Korean girls?”
I shrugged. I’d seen now that he was armed with a pistol and I had grown nervous. My heart began to pound. “Maybe,” I said.
“You a Tappet?” he asked. I nodded. “They pretty. You not racist?” I shook my head. “You don’t hurt girls?” he asked further and I looked at Lloyd.
“Jesus, who does he think we are?” I asked.
By then it had dawned on me that they were street girls and my anticipation was souring by the second. I wanted to call the whole thing off when he called them in, then, when I saw them I went silent. They were young and had long black hair, both were svelte women, glamorous and fascinating. They were dressed modestly and didn’t at all look like any of the working girls I had seen on the streets. Kwong chuckled at my reaction and shook my hand.
“I see you nice. You like?” I nodded. Lloyd smiled an
d shook hands with Kwong. “I be back tomorrow,” Kwong continued, “Noon. Sharp.”
With a little flurry and a light kiss to both girls, he left. They introduced themselves as Kim Lai and Mi Ley, and whether these were their real names, was highly unlikely. Within minutes it was obvious they didn’t understand a thing we said.
“You can’t have everything,” Lloyd said in regards to their lack of English. “Who do you want first?”
I picked Kim Lai. She was the taller of the two. Lloyd began kissing Mi Ley and I watched them as they openly made out right in front of us. In a minute they were both naked on the couch. I was transfixed until Kim Lai came and took my hand, pulling me to one of the bedrooms. That afternoon, Lloyd and I took turns on and off with both girls. I lost all my modesty around him and the girls. To my shame, my body reacted excitedly even while I became perplexed when a deluge of loneliness for Sally washed over me with each passing encounter. I became so sad into the evening that I couldn’t sleep and was restless the whole night through. I counted the hours until the girls left.
“I don’t want to do that again,” I said to Lloyd when they were gone. “It’s like pretending.”
Then unfortunately, I preceded to tell him of my relationship with Sally and what had happened to destroy it.
The next year flew by like the first, except for one thing. I took a course on the History of Europe from the Renaissance through to World War II which was staffed and supervised by a tutorial leader, an undergraduate who was an adamant Marxist. He was a horrible fellow, a total ideologue who was too young and unpolished to hide it in any way. He wore this scraggly beard which always had bits of food in it and constantly sucked on Halls candy which had rotted out his teeth and which did nothing to mask his bad breath.
He preached that everything in history flowed through and from the labor movement. All capitalists were parasites. America was a country of white pirates who in 1492 stole the continent from the world’s most beautiful people, and after slaughtering them, brought over from Africa, the world’s second most beautiful people, as their slaves. However, the Capitalists weren’t just heartless, greedy, white and Christian, they were also responsible for India’s overpopulation, China’s scarcity of food, the Soviet’s intellectual chauvinism, South Africa’s apartheid, Germany’s former Nazism, Italy’s former fascism, Japan’s former imperialism and every other sin of the modern world, past, present and to come.
Stealing Flowers Page 16
