When he was twelve, he'd shut his sister up in an old chest freezer in the basement--a murderous prank the mothers never forgot, proof of one of Julia's maxims: "For Reputation lost comes not again." His teenage misery, that bottled rage, concerned some of the mothers. By lunchtime, the news had spread in its pathogenic way from house to house: everyone knew that Mikey O'Day was going to be the backup drummer--the star backup drummer, that is--in Jerry's band. During rehearsals, if Mikey could get away from the Dari-Dip, he was going to be allowed to sit, to have an actual seat behind the real drummer. He would have the privilege of being in the Pindels' loft, above the garage, where the group, The Spellbinders, practiced. It seems almost shameful now, that the neighborhood gangsters had such a clean, hopeful name for their band.
On the morning when Mikey rushed in the kitchen to tell Madeline he was going to be in The Spellbinders, a negotiation that must have been completed the night before, he neglected, in his excitement, to kiss her.
"Jerry's band?" she sniffed.
"I'm the drummer, the backup, the backup drummer! The star, the star backup drummer for Jerry, for Jerry--"
"You're too noisy," she snapped.
Russia happened to be having her breakfast, and she said, "Sit down here, Mikey, sit yourself down. What are you talking about? What's this about Jerry?"
"I'm the d-d-drummer. I'm the drummer for Jerry, for Jerry's, for Jerry's band."
"I told you, you're noisy." Madeline crossed her arms on her chest and moved her chair away from him.
"You make sure you have time for your girl," Russia said. "Don't you go leave your girl behind for an old drum set."
Mikey, to his credit, stopped in his tracks. "Leave? Leave my girl?"
Madeline was starting to cry. Already a drum widow. No longer would she be able to sit at the Dari-Dip like the First Lady, prim and admiring. No longer would Mikey say, "This song goes out to my girl, goes out to my girl, my b-b-b-best girl." Never again would the regulars clap and call out, "Yay, Madeline!" She was sobbing into her eggs.
"No! No, no, no, no." He knelt at her chair, he tried to lift her head, tried to catch her hand. "I'll never, I'll never, never leave my girl." It went on, as this particular sequence always did, her tears, his pleading, more tears, his promises. Eventually, she'd turn to look at him, such a sad sight, her blotchy face, her runny nose. He'd hold her, rocking her, until he was forgiven. Pretty soon she'd tell him where and how to sit, what to eat, she'd lick her finger and try to flatten his cowlick. He'd close his eyes, throwing his head back, breathing easy, smiling with satisfaction, as if he'd just finished the long race. They were in love, all right.
It must be said that Mikey used every one of his fifty-two IQ points for all they were worth. He was clearly able to acquire practical knowledge, learning to read Madeline's humors and figuring out how to butter her up. In addition to his facility, his temperament seemed to be ideally suited to hers. I have always found the idea of the noble savage and the joyful idiot suspect.
It's true, however, that one of Mikey's greatest assets was his inclination toward happiness. He seemed to have a neurological inability to be downcast for more than a minute or so.
"So you're going to be in Jerry's band," Russia said after the storm had passed. "You be sure Jerry's good to you, you hear me?" "Jerry, Jerry's nice, he's nice to me."
"I like Jerry!" Madeline pronounced.
In the olden days, when we'd only had Madeline at table, she didn't speak up too much. Now that Mikey was around, she was either bossing him or expressing herself. She'd found her voice, which we are all supposed to strive for, but I missed the ancient times when could better imagine, in her quietude, what she was thinking.
"I pray for Jerry," Russia said, "you know that? I pray he come to some use, just like I pray for our Buddy. Two bad boys who need the Lord. Two such bad boys."
That Buddy and Jerry should have an encounter two years later was right there foretold--the hoodlums on Russia's hit list, united by prayer. That Buddy would visit and beat Jerry up and all for good was a story Russia, even with her narrative gifts, couldn't at that stage have prefigured.
My mother had been on the telephone upstairs, and when she came into the kitchen Russia said, "You hear the news, Miz Julia?" "What news?"
"I'm the drummer," Mikey cried. "Jerry, Jerry needs me for the drummer, in his band, in his band."
"Does he need your drums, too?" I was finally able to get a word in.
Russia cackled into her napkin. "They don't call you smart for nothing, Timothy."
"He's using my drums, using, using my drums, so I can be the star, the star backup drummer."
"Ah," my mother said.
"Uh-huh," Russia said, "uh-huh."
Louise had made her entrance at that point, and she said, "Those drums should be repossessed. Jerry Pindel is such a lousy little jerk." "I like Jerry!"
"No, Maddy," was all I could think to say.
"Why?" Louise said with disgust in her voice. "Why do you like him?"
"He watches me walk," Madeline said.
We all turned to stare. Even Mikey looked momentarily startled. She hung her head. "I like him!"
"Of course you do," my mother said. "He's a fine boy. He's going to men out just fine."
Louise grabbed a piece of bread, tore it from its crusts, and made the dough into one meaty ball. "If Jerry comes around asking for my cello, you give it right to him, because he's a fine person." She popped the whole thing in her mouth and left the room.
Every Wednesday morning, Mrs. O'Day took Mikey to the record shop uptown so he could buy his one 45 of the week. He'd spend much of his energy for the next six days committing the songs, front and back, to memory, as well as anticipating his next purchase. It was what he called his work. Madeline was in on the routine, and shortly after Louise exited, the swain and his armpiece departed for their outing to Little's Music Shop.
"It ain't right," Russia said when they'd gone. "Jerry taking over those drums."
"Well," my mother said slowly, "I think there's a nuance, maybe, that we should consider."
"Nuance, Miz Julia? What do you mean?"
Miz Julia began by stating the problem: Jerry had in fact stolen Mikey's drums--yes, yes, he had. However. The fact that he'd invited Mikey to be part of the band should not be overlooked. We had all seen with our own eyes that Mikey was standing taller. He was proud and happy and excited-
"Mikey is always proud, happy, and excited," I said. "It's not possible for Mikey to be happier than he already is. Mikey has a continuous peaking point of happiness. In case you hadn't noticed." The morning's drama was making me feel satisfyingly high and mighty. "You know as well as I that Jerry is not going to let Mikey play his own drum set, his very own drums, in the band."
"I'm not sure that matters." My mother hacked away at her cold bacon with a knife instead of picking it up and eating it. "He's involved in making music with other people, even if he's standing by. He'll love that. He'll be thrilled. I think there's actually a nugget of generosity in Jerry--he's doing what he can to include Mikey."
"Generosity?" I said. "A nugget?" Even though Jerry cut through our yard every morning on his way to St. Rita's, we had never done more than grunt at each other. As little as I knew him, I was certain that if he in fact had some goodness within himself, it was far smaller than a nugget.
Russia agreed. "You are not of this world, Miz Julia. Not of this world."
"Aside from the flagrant injustice of it," I went on, "all of Grove Avenue will thank Jerry for grabbing the drum set. Now we only have to worry about The Spellbinders playing too late into the night, but that's probably better than Mikey splitting our heads open at sunrise. So, Mother, you can feel good about that. I'm sure most people will bow down before Jerry in thanks."
Russia laughed, wiping her eyes, shaking her head. "Ain't that the truth," she said.
It was my mother's practice to let a tangle work itself out, to be patient in conflict. Sin
ce there were remarkably few incidents through my childhood when she lost control, I remember them with a fair degree of clarity. You wondered, when you saw the eruptions, how she managed to comport herself with any serenity for months at a time. About the drums she remained true to her ideal. She did mean, eventually, to talk to Mrs. Pindel and Mrs. O'Day about the seizure of the instruments, but before she got around to it Cody Rockard was killed on the train tracks. The neighborhood went quiet. How was it that Cody couldn't take back the dare, playing up on the tracks, couldn't rectify the error of touching the third rail? Wait, wait, didn't mean it! We went to the wake to see the ten-year-old's powdered face in the white casket. Madeline and Mikey came along, too, leaning in to each other as if they'd been married for fifty years, as if they had only each other to depend on in a time of sorrow. Outside of the funeral home she cried into his neck, taking big sniffly breaths. It seemed to me that she was enjoying the tragedy, that having a padded shoulder--Mikey in a suid--to weep on in public made the death worth her while. And her man, while subdued, managed to keep the sun shining through the bitter gloom: "Hi, Mrs. Van, Van Norman, hi, hi, Mr. Mr. Van Norman, hi, Mr.
Rockard!"
We went on that summer behaving as if the old concerns were still important. We went on without speaking of Cody, but thinking of the boy we hadn't really known, carrying the implausible idea of his being dead, the idea that trumped everything else we knew. We went on as if we were preoccupied with the question--the pressing question--of whether or not Mikey O'Day was going to come with us to Moose Lake for all of August. Mrs. O'Day did not want to let him go fora month, and he probably, when it came down to it, didn't like the thought of missing the Dari-Dip in season. For the record, Joan O'Day never invited Madeline on any of their vacations. After several phone calls, it was decided that the O'Days would drive Mikey up and drop him off fora long weekend. Mrs. O'Day spoke about time alone with her husband as if it was a great inconvenience, as if there was nothing more disruptive to her schedule than having to pass seventy-two hours with him in a rental cottage in Door County. On our end, since Mikey was an unmarried male, a virtual boy, he'd have to sleep in the boathouse. My only consolation was that Buddy wouldn't be there, that I would not have to endure Mikey O'Day in the presence of my cousin.
Buddy had been sent to a wilderness camp, another effort to whip him into shape.
It was an intolerable August for Madeline, the two-week wait for Mikey to visit, the unbearable excitement of his being with her, followed by the pining for him after he'd gone. I don't think the aunts could have stood any more necking in the water, Madeline in his arms like a baby. Or the hullabaloo of their splashing. Or his singing, morning, noon, and night, around the campfire, with or without a burning log.
By the time we were home from Moose Lake, school was about to start. Jerry's band was broken up for the moment, and the drums were returned to the O'Days' back porch. That seemed to be the end of it. Years later, I thought about how Mikey's drums had given him a certain cachet in the neighborhood. Madeline, too, had some prize possessions she could hold out as her drawing card. There was the Judy Garland Teen doll, a Cindy Kay, a Betsy Wetsy, also a Betsy McCall, a Bare Bottom Baby, a Melody Baby Debbi, a TinyTeen, a Miss Deb-Teen, and a Twist and Turn Stacey. To name but a few. There was no one more electrified by the advent of the Cabbage Patch doll, and when Beanie Babies flooded the country, my father had to build yet another set of shelves for her room. Madeline, our fountain of youth. It was her collection that worked a charm on the Grove Avenue little girls, children too young and too dazzled by the display to worry over the fact that Madeline was taller than most of their mothers.
Julia was always firm in her insistence that the dolls belonged to Madeline, that she would not give them away. When Madeline still had us as her playmates, she and Lu and I would spread out the contents of the four trunks on the floor, emptying the drawers of the shoes and hats, stripping the metal hangers of their dresses. Naturally we always lifted the dolls' skirts to look underneath. Madeline would get angry if we were careless with the accessories, but she did like our inventions, the paces we put the characters through, their elaborate tragedies. Sometimes, though, we'd inadvertently tip her off into one of her legendary fits, if we put the wrong costume on a doll, or made a favorite into a silly figure. You couldn't always predict when or why she'd shriek and set off wailing through the house. We were used to the squalls, hardly noticing the turning point in the tantrum, when my mother could hold Madeline firm, rocking her until she was quiet. During the Mikey O'Day years, those outbursts, the hysteria for little reason, didn't occur nearly as often as they had. It was a good period for my parents.
There'd been an earlier time of relative peace, too, when Louise and I and Madeline were first roughly the same age, when we all started to play together. My parents were liberated into their own after-dinner conversation. It would have begun when I was four and Lu her precocious two. By day my mother could read the same book to us, Madeline in the crook of one arm, Lu and I in a heap on the other side, each absorbed in the adventures of Snip, Snap, and Snur. The three of us in my mother's circle, if given a chance just then, would have been happy not to grow even a minute older.
Chapter Eight
MIKEY O'DAY MUST HAVE COME TO OUR DOORSTEP IN 1963, A few months before Kennedy's assassination. The Fullers, then, had been on the East Coast for nearly three years. Figgy had moved to Georgetown with Arthur when Kennedy was elected, exactly as she'd envisioned. They'd dragged Buddy from the Princeton High School, and not long after sent him to a military academy in Fork Union, Virginia. You can pick out Figgy in the clips of Kennedy's inaugural ball, Mrs. Fuller standing right near Bette Davis in the few seconds when the stars were shown processing into the hall. Arthur worked for the State Department at first, was part of the Policy Planning Staff, an arm of State that was supposed to provide independent analysis and formulate long-term policies in relation to America's goals. Later, in the Johnson administration, he became an aide to the president. In 1960, it was essential to Figgy that Arthur get his appointment before the inaugural ball, so she'd be able to secure their invitation. Through his years in government, he remained one of the few men among his colleagues who did not have a real change of heart about the Vietnam conflict, as they called it then, who believed that we must not let our commitment to the South Vietnamese falter. There are blackand-white stills from the Johnson days, twenty or so haggard men around the table in their shirtsleeves, the sense that they've been there for days, they are never going to leave, and no one, but no one would think to make a wisecrack.
After their move to Washington, we might see Buddy and Figgy at Moose Lake for a weekend but they were no longer regular in their visits. Arthur usually didn't come along, because he was careening from crisis to crisis as his job required. But there was a memorable Christmas Eve party at our house in 1965, before Buddy enlisted, when they all showed up. The appearance must have been prompted by my grandmother's last illness, the Fullers alighting for twenty-four hours of their best attention.
Our family holiday affairs were formal, the boys and men in suits and ties, the girls in red and green velvet dresses, the wives also in Christmas colors, except for Figgy that year, who wore black. Decades later, the aunts were still talking about that dress, which my father said surely had been cut off of Sophia Loren, Figgy snipping carefully around the wavy decolletage.
Russia arrived early in the morning to start her dinner rolls rising and to set us up at the kitchen table to polish the brass candlesticks and the silver. She covered Madeline with a tent of an apron and each year showed her how, pouring the pink clot of cleaner onto a rag, getting all of us to rub the utensils dutifully until our cloths bled black. Russia wore one uniform for the preparation, and before the party she changed into a second, identical uniform. In honor of the occasion, she added the pearl clip-on earrings Figgy had once given her, and a red ruffled apron that tied in a girlish bow at the back.
&n
bsp; All morning Madeline would say, "Can I go upstairs now? Is it time yet?"
When the silver was done, Russia took her to the attic to retrieve the long green velvet dress from the garment bag. There was a matching headband, a tiara kind of thing with red silk roses on the top. Madeline was often at first shy in large groups, even among the relatives she knew, hanging back on the stairs, mysterious in her dreamy gown. Those were the moments when she looked like the Lady of Shalort, her eyes cast down, most of her in the shadows. Even though she'd come into her own with Mikey O'Day, if he wasn't with her, if she couldn't be with him in their bubble of love, she'd revert to her old tentative self.
At Christmastime Mikey always went to Kansas with his parents to visit the rich sister who had seven children and two massive trees for all the presents. So Mikey told us with a great deal of rapturous stuttering.
At our party, my mother, issuing her orders and manning the stove, was usually a little rattled, a little dazed. When she was sure everything and every person was in place, she'd come to the head of the table, and you could see, as she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then looked to my father, that she had laid down her heavy load, that she had at last arrived at the gathering. She always forgot to take off her apron, so that she'd sit through dinner with meat stains up her front, her moss-green dress hidden from view. She was at her best in that hour, brightly flushed, the soft light shining through her ecstatic hair.
When Madeline Was Young Page 11
