by J. G Hayes
With each house he’d design, Danny would spend the most time on the master bedroom. Usually it was L-shaped and the smaller wing contained the dressing area. He had seen this in a House Plans Magazine he’d once bought with his allowance. Dressing area. It sounded private, mysterious—almost sacred. Quickly this became his favorite space to envision and design. Quiet with sun, Danny always pictured it. A view of the sky through the large windows and skylight. The sky would always be the color of a particular cerulean china cup his grandmother owned. A soft wall-to-wall carpet that Danny’s bare feet would fall into. A mirrored wall to watch himself dress.
He could see himself in this room, see how he’d look as a man. Bigger, more polished. A registered architect by then. Quietly putting on a suit in the morning—quiet with the confidence and inner strength that came with being a man, as opposed to his quietness now, born of grief and bewilderment. Putting on a dark suit in the morning. Not too early—about the time when shafts of light would spill across the room and fall, tenderly, like music, from the skylights.
He never pictured the dressing area at the end of the day, never at night. He didn’t dare to think of whom he might share this space with. He’d see only himself, in the mornings, watching himself getting dressed after a shower. It was too much to hope for anything else. If he could make it to that master bedroom, if he could find himself standing barefoot on the sun-warmed rug in the dressing area—if he could make it that far from here, everything else he wanted and needed would fall into place. He knew this.
“IT’S ONLY A YEAR,” George said quietly when he came home from the gas company at 3:35 p.m. It took George five minutes to walk home from work and he was never late. He sat down on his twin bed across from Danny’s and took off his black work boots and thick pilly white socks, peeled off his blue chinos and bright orange gas company T-shirt.
They looked like twins despite the three-year age difference. For many years, especially after their father left when they would sleep in the same bed for comfort, they had thought of themselves as one person. Two years ago—when George went full-time and met Mary, the schoolteacher—George had grown a goatee to signify, Danny knew, that they were separate people. Still brothers but separate now.
“I know, but a whole year,” Danny had mumbled, looking up from his bed, where he’d spent the day masturbating with joyless eagerness. Plus, UMass Boston, an urban campus, had no large trees, no ivy-covered halls, but instead modern, mostly windowless box buildings designed by architects with unpronounceable names, whose own children would never go to such a place. By its appearance it could just as easily be a jail, or an overly swollen medical building on Route 1. And Danny could see UMass from down at the beach; it was right across the harbor. Too close. Much too close.
“You can have anything you want if you work hard enough for it,” George said, stretching out. In another minute he was sleeping, breathing lightly, his face and one knee turned away from the lean plane of his muscled body.
Danny raised his head and watched his brother’s breathing. He envied George’s fulfillment of his destiny, so soon in life. George was smart, too smart for the gas company, and he knew it. But he was set for life now. George gave them eight hours a day. In return they gave him a good paycheck, security for life, and zero stress, and he was home every day by 3:35 to nap. Then out each night with Mary, or off to a Red Sox game with friends exactly like himself. He’d marry Mary soon and buy a house on the West Side, upgrading every few years and hop-scotching closer and closer to the East Side until they were right on the water, the South Boston equivalent to Nirvana.
Danny wished that such a life, for him, would be anything other than a death sentence to his soul. That would make it so much easier. Instead he wanted to be an architect.
Or nothing at all.
HE CALLED MR. PALMER that night.
“I can work full-time this summer,” Danny told his answering machine, “and ah … into the fall too.” His eyes on the future, Danny had planned on working only until mid-August, twenty hours a week. He needed time to dream of the tree-covered campus he’d be going to. But that, of course, had changed now. Mr. Palmer had inherited a painting company from his father. When the old man ran it, it was called Ask Mr. Palmer!, and his truck would be seen all over South Boston, with smaller words above the company’s name asking WHAT COLOR SHOULD I PAINT MY HOUSE? WHO HAS THE BEST PRICE IN TOWN? WHO’S FULLY INSURED? Now that his son was in charge, the company name had been shortened to Palmer Painting, and they focused exclusively on the East Side, on the grand old homes that were being snapped up for almost a million dollars and, after that, being totally rehabbed. “New People,” his mother called them, nonnative professionals whom she blamed for driving up her rent. “It’s like an invading army,” she’d say, shaking her head, whenever she spotted a Volvo wagon or BMW on the street.
Mr. Palmer called back later that night and asked Danny to start the next day.
“The market’s going crazy,” he said. “We’ll have three or four jobs going at once all summer long.” Danny could see in his mind Mr. Palmer’s nervous tic, the twitching of the thin lips as they added up his growing profits.
“Okay,” Danny sighed. Mr. Palmer didn’t ask him, “What about college?” It wasn’t out of lack of courtesy, Danny knew; he just hadn’t remembered.
The crew was divided into scrapers, painters, and detailers. The detailers were the skilled people who painted scrolls, filigrees, grapevine motifs on lintels. Danny was a scraper. Danny felt he could do the detailers’ work better than they did, but he never said anything to contradict the young Mr. Palmer’s assumption that a native kid Danny’s age could do nothing better than scrape in the sun all day. Danny liked the scraping’s mindlessness, the way it left room in his brain for his dreams, for his master bedrooms and dressing areas.
This summer, Mr. Palmer told him the next day, Danny would be working mostly on his own. The crew was spread out all over the East Side on different jobs, he said, and he urged Danny to go as fast as he could while remaining as painstaking as he had been the summer before.
“Now, don’t let this responsibility go to your head,” Mr. Palmer said, dropping Danny off at a massive hundred-year-old Philadelphia-style duplex on O Street.
Danny turned as he hopped out of the truck to see if Mr. Palmer was joking, but his boss was staring straight ahead, twitching like crazy as his beeper went off again.
“I think I can handle it,” Danny said.
MAY SLID INTO June and the weather grew hot. Danny followed the sun—or rather, the shade—around the houses he scraped to protect his whiteness from the scalding he’d given it last year, when he first started this job. The afternoons were treacherous, for the sea breeze would kick in around 2:00, keeping him deceptively cool, and he wouldn’t know he’d been burned until he got out of the shower that night and turned purple. The others on the crew referred to Danny as The Mummy, for the light-colored clothes he’d swaddle himself in each day. One more reason he preferred working alone.
On the seventeenth of June, Mr. Palmer dropped him off at a three-story brick house on East Broadway, one block from City Point and the ocean. Ragged blue tarps and piles of scrapwood scattered around the small front yard spoke of extensive recent renovations and deep pockets. Dry-looking hydrangea bushes shoveled purple and blue color into the otherwise drab side yard.
“There’s forty-five windows in this place,” Mr. Palmer told him, ticcing madly as his cell phone birdcalled away. “Fifteen on each floor. They’re all wood and gotta be scraped clean, real clean.” Danny knew “real clean” meant Mr. Palmer was almost extorting the clients. “But there’s some really nice detail on the front casements, so you’ll have to use sandpaper on those.” Mr. Palmer paused to answer his cell phone, but was too late. He turned back to Danny. “Listen to me: this guy’s an architect so he will notice if any of the detail’s missing. The ladders and staging are on the side, like always.”
Danny felt a
tightening in his throat as Mr. Palmer drove his truck away.
An architect.
It had never occurred to Danny, in his wildest imaginings, that an architect would choose to live in South Boston. But of course South Boston was changing, especially on the East Side, filling up with the new people. If they hadn’t grown up here, of course architects would want to live here, in their million-dollar, totally rehabbed homes, five minutes to downtown and a view of the ocean from the top floors …
He stared stupidly at the building like he’d never done this before. The morning was still blue-ocean cool but his hands were wet with sweat. He wiped them on his white painter’s pants and noticed peripherally the changes these people had already made: the bronze pediment over the door, the antique-brick front walk, the brass lanterns on either side of the double Dorchester doors. The morning sun sauntered into the first floor’s large front windows, walking across lustrous hardwood floors and a large Oriental rug with a towering floor plant on it, some kind of palm tree. Danny’s breath was coming in jags. His head down, he crossed the street and hustled a block away so he could walk back to the house, slowly, looking at it from a distance, appraising it. As he walked he half closed his eyes, picturing himself in a suit, a leather bag large enough for his renderings slung over his shoulders, coming home. Like the other new people he’d seen around town, he would avoid eye contact with the locals and pick up trash he found blowing in front of his house. That’s how everyone could always tell.
It was half an hour before he could bring himself to begin.
DANNY ALWAYS STARTED on the west side of buildings because they were drippy with shade in the mornings. He hoisted up the tallest of the three aluminum ladders, extended it, then shoved it against the house. He almost slipped halfway up.
“Concentrate,” he told himself. His heart was racing. He took a few deep breaths, then continued climbing.
When he came to the third-floor window he realized he’d forgotten the scraper, wire brush, and sandpaper. He climbed down and went up again, slowing at the second floor as movement through a window drew his eye. A swiftly moving woman gibbering on a small phone passed by the window. Her dark pageboy-styled hair swung rapidly as she crossed the room. She was dressed nicely but stiffly, Danny thought. She looked about thirtyish. She turned as Danny stopped. Their eyes met for a second and he could hear the woman’s voice pause. Danny resumed climbing as she approached the window, her dark brows frowning. Through the slightly opened window Danny heard the woman’s footfalls stop. Then he heard the blind come down hard, and the click of the lock after she closed the window.
Back at the third floor, Danny saw through the window the largest room he’d ever seen, except for the gym and auditorium at his old high school. It appeared the entire third floor was one vast room. Newly installed metal beams ran left to right, holding up a gleaming white plaster ceiling. The hardwood floors here shone even more brilliantly than the first floor’s, as the sun was flooding unobstructed into the room. Through the luminescent windows across the room, the pale-blue ocean shimmered two blocks away. The walls were painted a deep blue, with arctic-white trim. In the middle of the room sat a vast metal drafting table. It was the room’s only piece of furniture.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
Danny jumped and grabbed onto the edges of the reverberating ladder. He looked down carefully. The woman was on the ground beneath him, still on the phone but holding it to her breast with her thin, tan arms folded.
“Uh, I’m the ahh—”
“Oh. Oh, you’re one of the painters, aren’t you,” she said rather than asked, putting one hand on her head as if she’d just remembered this. She rolled her eyes and groaned as if she felt overwhelmed. She lifted up the phone and said, “Hi, Valerie; thanks for holding. No, it’s just one of the painters. I forgot they were starting today… . No, no, no, I need ten thousand units in Chicago by Monday. Monday, Valerie … . Her voice trailed off as she vanished around the corner, picking her way carefully around the scattered scrapwood. In a moment Danny heard the heavy front door close and click. Solidly, like a bank vault.
Danny looked back into the third floor.
This must be his studio. The table looked to be made out of aluminum and it shone, blindingly, in the sun. Danny thought it looked like an altar. It was at least ten feet long and five feet wide, and was supported by eight aluminum struts that curved out halfway down to the floor, mimicking human legs. There were tubes and large rolls of papers on the table. Danny squinted and saw more: compasses and slide rulers, thin pencils and pens scattered here and there. A model of a modern-looking building rose from one end of the table. A computer, all of its components black, sat at the other end. There was a funny-looking black leather chair facing the computer.
Danny realized his mouth was open and he shut it abruptly.
He began scraping the flaky wood around the window. The chips sifted into the air. The ones that didn’t fly into Danny’s auburn hair or onto his red-haired forearms helicoptered downward, spiraling. He was thinking he had never designed—how could he have forgotten this?—but he’d never designed a workspace for himself in any of the houses he’d created. Entry halls, foyers, balconies, kitchens, libraries, dining rooms and, especially, master bedrooms and dressing areas— but never a workspace, an office.
He began to think he was a fraud; that his mind, whatever atom of talent he might have, was not large enough to create a space as big, or costly, as the one he looked at now.
Right before 11:00 Danny again heard the front door close ponderously. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman clicking briskly down the sidewalk, a black kid-leather briefcase slung over the shoulder of her navy blazer. The points of her swinging pageboy seemed to cut the air before her. She was still talking on her tiny cell phone. She passed the house, and Danny turned to watch her climb up into a pale-green Range Rover with a circular sticker on the rear bumper that said ACK. This phrase seemed as indecipherable to Danny as the knowledge one would need to have such a house, such a workspace, such a life.
It was not a life one got after attending UMass Boston.
By lunchtime, Danny felt small, nonexistent—light, as if the sea breeze might pick him up at any moment and blow him over to UMass; or possibly back home, to his and George’s tiny attic bedroom with the flimsy plywood paneling.
His shoulders stooped, he walked the one block up to McGillicuddy’s Spa. Bells jingled as Danny walked in. The place smelled like newspapers and cold cuts. Billy McGillicuddy was working the lunch counter at his parents’ place. He and George had played baseball together. Old Massachusetts license plates lined the wall behind him, going back to 1922.
“You been outta town, Danny?” Billy asked, putting down a book he was reading called Now It Can Be Told. He wiped his hands on his white apron and shook Danny’s hand over the counter. For a second Danny forget his smallness and became lost in the soft blue of Billy’s eyes, the sweetness of his smile. He looked different than Danny remembered him.
“Ahh … naw. I just … I’ve been painting.”
“Oh, cool. For who?”
“Mr. Palmer.”
“Ask Mr. Palmer!” Billy grinned. “That’ll keep you outta trouble. So, how’s Georgie Boy doing? Still with the gas company?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s doing good.”
“And how about you? How are you doin’?”
“Ahh …” Danny felt himself reddening. The more he tried to think of a routine answer, the more tangled his mouth became.
“I thought you were Georgie when you first walked in,” Billy said, generously extracting Danny from the mire of his embarrassment.
“Ahh … Georgie’s got the goatee,” Danny said, touching his own smooth chin.
“Well, your eyes are different too,” Billy said. His eyes lingered on Danny’s. Danny reddened further.
“Stop flirting with the customers!” Danny heard. Aghast, he turned and saw Billy’s father, the large Mr. McGilli
cuddy, sitting low behind the cash register eating a reeking hot-pastrami sandwich. The corners of his mouth were yellow.
“Just being friendly, Dad!” Billy called across the small store, laughing. “I know that’s hard for you, but it’s a good idea when you deal with the public.”
“Friendly, my ass!” Mr. McGillicuddy mumbled through a mouthful of yellow-and-pink food. He turned to Danny. “He flirts with them all, old and young, boys and girls. He’d flirt at his mother’s wake.”
“So what can I get you, Danny?” Billy asked, scratching his left ear but still smiling.
Danny scanned the menu, written with plastic red letters on a white board hanging from the ceiling behind Billy. He knew his face was as scarlet as the letters. He was looking for something the New People might eat, but could find nothing other than the usual meat-ball subs and cold-cut sandwiches.
“Ahh … lemme have a turkey on rye, a little mayo … and lots of black pepper and onions,” Danny said, staring at the floor. “Please.”
“How’s your mother?” Mr. McGillicuddy called.
“Fine, fine,” Danny said. Then he blurted out, too loudly, “Fine, thanks.”
“And where you working today?”
Danny snagged a small bag of Boyd’s potato chips (they had a drawing of a chef winking and making the okay sign) from the metal tree stand beside him and turned around. “Ahh—right down the street,” he answered. He pointed. “Right down on the corner.”
“Oh. Mary Shea’s old place, the Lord be good to ’er,” Mr. McGillicuddy nodded. His eyes expanded. “You know her kids got nine hundred-thousand dollars for that place last fall?”
“Wow,” Danny murmured, feeling small again. Such a sum seemed like money in a cartoon, a towering pile vanishing into a dizzy, misty height.
“Mary paid twelve-five for it back in the fifties. I remember the day they all moved in,” Mr. McGillicuddy went on. He took another boa bite from his sandwich. “Mary and her kids on the first floor, her sister’s family on the second, their mother up on the third.” He paused and swallowed, then leaned his heavy arms on the top of the cash register, which shifted under the weight. Winning scratch tickets taped to the front of the register jiggled. “Now, her mother was a queer bird. Would never eat in front of anyone. All her life, Mary said.”
