The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  Chris Hillman and I had a falling-out freshman year when he accused me of being “too cool” to be his friend.

  “You think you’re hot shit,” he told me outside the deli near school. He picked an acorn up off the ground and with unprovoked aggression, pegged me in the head with it. He rode off on his bicycle. Aside from cordialities in the hallway, we haven’t spoken since. So why does he want me at his wedding all these years later? What does it mean? Have I been invited in error? Does he have some horrible, shaming retribution in store? Does he have any idea how bad his timing is? Who decides to get married right in the middle of the most trying time in Moretti family history?

  My grandmother slices eggplant, dips the slices in egg and flour, tosses them into a frying pan. They sizzle.

  My mother washes spinach in the sink. “I heard his fiancé is three years older than him,” she says, fisting the spinach into a pot of garlic and oil.

  “What’s her name?” my grandmother asks. I look at the card.

  “Marie Gold.”

  “It was probably Goldstein when her people came over on the boat,” she says. She pulls cooked eggplant slices from the pan with a fork and lays them in a bed of paper towels.

  “Your people came over on a boat, too,” I remind her.

  “That’s different,” she says.

  “How is it different?” I ask.

  “My mother scrubbed floors for nickels,” she says. Her giant spectacles, rimmed with translucent red plastic, are starting to fog with steam from the eggplant. “On her hands and knees. Don’t talk to me about hardship.” There is sweat on her forehead.

  “You should open a window,” I say.

  My father appears in the hallway, heading slowly for the garage with his clipboard. He pauses to look in at us. His robe is not cinched tight enough and I can see his distended stomach.

  “Inventory?” I ask. He holds the clipboard up as an answer and continues on, out the back door.

  “Where is the reception?” my mother asks once he’s gone. She’s lit the burner under the spinach and is pouring salt into the pot. “I’m sure it’s costing a fortune.”

  “I don’t care how much it costs,” I say, throwing my hands up. “I’m asking, why do you think I’ve been invited? We aren’t friends.”

  “He’s such a smart boy, that Chris Hillman,” my grandmother says. Her pile of eggplant slices has grown to a sizable mound. Oil soaks the paper towels. “He went to Harvard, you know.”

  “How is it,” I say, “you remember where he went to school, but the other day you couldn’t remember that I was teaching at a preschool?”

  “You don’t forget a thing like Harvard,” my grandmother says. She takes her glasses off and lets them fall across her enormous bosom, where they dangle from one of those jeweled chains librarians wear.

  “He went to Yale,” my mother corrects.

  “Whatever,” I say. “He got a boner in gym class once. What do you say to a person like that?”

  “He’s in law school,” my grandmother says, shaking her head. “Probably going to make a lot of money.”

  “We should ask him for a loan,” my mother says.

  “I’m aware of how much this family values financial success,” I say.

  “As long as he’s happy,” my grandmother says.

  “You should be happy,” my mother says, stirring the spinach as it cooks down. “I hear people are dying to get invited to this wedding. It’s the talk of the town.”

  “You mean the talk of the country club?” I say.

  “Sadly, as part of our savings plan, your father and I have canceled our membership at the club,” my mother says.

  “Tough sacrifices,” I say.

  “I’m trying to make them,” she says.

  “There’s no way in hell I’m going to this wedding.”

  “I think you should go,” my mother says. “And I think you should take your father.”

  “You’re joking,” I say.

  She pulls a piece of spinach from the pot with her bare hands and tastes it.

  “That’s good,” she says. She licks her lips.

  “Why wouldn’t you want to go?” my grandmother says. “You might meet someone. Lots of single girls at weddings, you know.”

  “I’m not interested in meeting anyone who owns a pantsuit.”

  At dinner my father shows us three of his newest paintings. They are passed around the table. The first is dominated by a green landscape. The shadowy figure of a man lies on the ground with a flower growing out of his stomach. Neither Chip nor Elissa has anything to say about it.

  “Who is that supposed to be?” I ask.

  “That’s me,” my father says, rubbing his eyes. He has pieces of eggplant in his mustache, but I don’t tell him.

  The other two paintings are composed of violent slashing lines and random circular splatters in a range of dark greens and purples and blues.

  I eat more spinach than I have ever consumed at one sitting in my life. I don’t touch any of the eggplant or pasta. I grab the real estate section of the newspaper and hide up in the third-floor bathroom, feeling guilty and looking for cheap apartment rentals. I flush the invitation to Chris Hillman’s wedding down the toilet. I watch the late movie, Stroszek. Inside my Moleskine notebook, at the bottom of the movie list, I write: Stroszek—04.09.06.

  Spring break is over. The retards haunt my dreams, calling out to me, drooling on me.

  << 10 >>

  Work. Monday. I spend my lunch half hour talking with Georgie, the thirty-five-year-old hip-hop enthusiast who lives with his mother in the Dunwoodie section of Yonkers. A lot of his free time is spent in pursuit of the perfect neck fade. He has a gold chain collection. He supplements his assistant teacher’s salary with a modest amount of marijuana trafficking. He is fond of wearing Yankees jerseys four sizes too big for his body, drives a Camaro.

  “How’s business?” I ask.

  Georgie nods his head. “Pretty good,” he says. “Stocked up on this Asian shit. Real nice. Save you some?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say. “Payday’s coming.”

  “Ain’t gonna be selling much once summer comes around,” he tells me. “Getting outta here.”

  “We all are,” I say.

  “For real. I got my record almost done. It’s only a matter of time now.” He waves his hands in the air, gesturing over the parking lot, the trees, the nail salon across the street, as if he is scooping it all up, at once owning and dismissing everything.

  “What’s the plan?” I ask.

  “Aside from rapping?” he asks. He answers his own question. “Getting another job,” he says. “There’s a shit ton of money to be made in private tutoring, son.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I say.

  “Think about it,” Georgie says. He puts a finger to his temple. “These nut bags? They don’t want to leave the house. They hate it. They throw a fit half the time they get dragged down here, spit all over themselves. Whack you with a chair. Whatever. So? Go to them. Their own turf. Makes perfect sense. They feel better. Keep the cattle calm. Motto number one.”

  “I hear that,” I tell him. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Georgie says. He crams half a tuna sandwich into his mouth. “I’m always thinking next level.”

  Back in the classroom, I find Arham is having a better afternoon than usual. Today he is a sponge. I decide to work on his greetings. I take him by the hand. I lead him through the halls of the John W. Manley School. We say hello to everyone we come across. I make sure Arham maintains eye contact. I make sure that the people we see squat down to his level. That they take care to say clearly, “Hello, Arham.” To which he must reply, “Hello, ______.” This ideal interaction happens maybe 10 percent of the time. Mostly he stares at the walls, points at things we pass, calling out their names loudly. “Chair!” “Microwave!” “Door!” “Woman!” He speaks with utter confidence but a complete lack of
conception. He speaks because his mind has soldered together the visual connections. Beyond that, there is nothing. Dim and elusive for the rest of his life. I envy him in ways I don’t want to get into.

  On our journey we find Ceci coming out of the teachers’ lounge (a small room that smells like cigarettes). Inside the teachers’ lounge one can find a refrigerator, jars of instant coffee, Splenda in the drawers, two couches, and a sign that says NO SMOKING.

  Ceci lowers herself onto her haunches. I’ve been avoiding her all day because I haven’t even started working on the graph I promised her I’d present. Her hair looks like it has recently been dyed or cut or both. It flows over the shoulders of her blouse. I can see a little bit of her back. The top of her panties.

  “Hello, Arham,” she says, staring straight into his eyes.

  “Peepee,” he says.

  She touches his arm. “Hello, Ceci,” she corrects him. “Hello, Arham,” she repeats.

  He pauses. Raises his eyebrows.

  “Hello. Ceci,” he ventures. He smiles, rubs his face with his hand.

  “Very good, little man,” Ceci says. “You’re so special.”

  She stands, straightening her collar.

  “How are things with your dad?” she asks.

  “He’s going in for his stem cell transplant soon.”

  “I hope it goes well,” she says.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Listen, Cal,” she says in the tone I have come to know as the herald of uncomfortable work talk. “Everyone here loves you. You know that, and I would love to promote you. Give you more money.”

  “I could use it,” I say.

  “I know. But I’d like to see a little more from you,” she says. “More investment in the school. In the kids.”

  Arham is squirming beside me, slithering around my legs. I’ve got only a few more seconds before he rams his head into something.

  “I feel pretty invested,” I tell her.

  “But are you excited?” she asks, slapping my arm in what I imagine she thinks is a jocular manner. “Are you having a good time?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s a good fit for me right now.”

  “What about the future?” she asks. “That’s what I really mean. Where do you see yourself in five years?”

  “Do we have to have this conversation right now?” I ask. Arham is now pulling on my arm, urging me to let him move. He is antsy. I am antsy.

  “Have you thought at all about going back to school?” she asks. “I might even be able to convince them to pay.”

  “At this very moment,” I say, “my idea of financial responsibility is to never incur another ounce of student loan debt in this lifetime.”

  “You’re good at this,” she says. She sort of half points at Arham.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say. She turns to go but thinks twice about it.

  “Got that graph ready?” she says. I knew it was coming.

  “I have a few things that aren’t completely where I’d like them to be.”

  “Well, you’re off the hook at the moment,” Ceci says, “Tracy really wants to present the progress she’s been making with Samantha’s fine motor skills. I told her she can go ahead and get it ready for this month.”

  “I swear I will present a graph before summer,” I say.

  “I’m gonna hold you to it,” she says. She walks off, leaving Arham and me alone in the hallway. Her heels click like daggers.

  “You are so hot,” I say, under my breath. I look down at Arham. The index finger of his right hand is knuckle deep in his nose.

  “Don’t pick your nose,” I tell him. “It’s gross.”

  “Bathroom,” he says, pointing at the door to the ladies’ room.

  “Good job, buddy,” I say. “That’s the bathroom.”

  I DIRECT ARHAM to a free spot on the rug. I check the clock to confirm that indeed there is only one more hour until the bell rings. Music time. We’re all here. Everyone from our side of the building. Georgie and his pupil, a little girl named Shaynequa, who at the moment is spinning around and around in circles on the rug while Georgie stares off into space. Robyn and young, gifted Franklin. Elaine drags Tyrone into the room. He is screaming about something, but since he has the language capacity of a stapler, she has no idea what his problem is. Tracy enters, Samantha in tow. Samantha isn’t watching where she’s going and Tracy isn’t watching Samantha, so I’m not surprised when Samantha trips over Tyrone and they both go down in a heap.

  Tony, the music teacher, finishes pulling his hair back into a tidy ponytail and strums his guitar a few times, tuning up. Shaynequa stops in her tracks. She stares at Tony and the guitar as if she hasn’t seen him and it every Monday for the past seven months. She takes a few steps forward, falls on her face. Georgie doesn’t move to help her. Angela ushers little Hendrick Ramirez into the room. He is wearing his plastic fireman’s hat, business as usual for him. He is complaining about being made to attend music.

  “I don’t like this,” he says, waving a finger at Tony. “I don’t like you. My papi come here and get you.”

  “Thank you for that,” Tony says. Eventually everyone is seated, somewhat in a circle, though it looks more like a dented egg. Tony takes a seat on one of the small chairs and plays some chords. He sings, “I once had a rooster, my rooster had me.” His voice floats out over the kids, enchants them, draws their faces up. They sit, mouths open, eyes twirling. For these twenty minutes my mind can wander. Tony has the reins. “I fed my rooster on a greenberry tree,” he sings.

  Georgie keeps time, playing drums on his knees, closing his eyes as if he is really moved by the farm song.

  “My rooster goes cock-a-doodle-doo. A doodle-dee, doodle-dee, doodle-dee, doo.” Tony hits the chords and smiles, looking around the room. Angela sings along.

  How am I going to get out of this wedding? Why am I even thinking about it? Just forget it. Just don’t deal with it. It’s not important. Deal instead with things that are within your power to change. Deal with your family. Try to help them. Isn’t that what adults do? Isn’t that the mark of maturity—the ability to forget what’s forgettable and shoulder something harder? Something outside the comfort zone? Struggling outside the comfort zone. Surely I’ve read about that somewhere. I can do it. I can be more than I currently am. I might get lost in the course of helping them, I might never have money or a place to call my own, and four out of five girls consider guys who live with their parents undatable (I’ve read that somewhere, too), but I could hold my head high. There is a risk, though. If I join them in their quest to live on in that house? If I give them money? If I keep saving and put those savings toward the mortgage, or whatever needs a money Band-Aid, and the bank forecloses in spite of that? What then? It’s the equivalent of throwing my money into a wishing well. I’d be no closer to living on my own and we could still lose the house.

  Tony sings on. He sings about a cat. “I once had a cat,” the song goes. “My cat had me.” And so on. A dog, a cow, a goat all make appearances. Ceci stands in the doorway, checking in. I catch her eye and we smile and nod at one another, but I’m sure we’re smiling about very different things.

  In the car, waiting at lights on the way home, I look at myself in the rearview mirror.

  “Just do something.”

  I’M STRUCK WITH the idea while sitting on the toilet in the third-floor bathroom. There’s maybe a way to have it all. I see a way. Ceci’s advice is good advice. She’s right. I am in need of a new job, a higher salary—just not at the John W. Manley School.

  I sit with the newspaper and go through the want ads, hoping to find a new line of work. Something more suited to my interests, my life goals. Whatever those might be. I’m troubled to find nothing even remotely interesting or, for that matter, attainable. A few publishing jobs, all requiring two to three years’ experience in the field. A handful of executives are looking to pay between $20K and $25K for assistants who’ll book flights, make hotel reservation
s, pay bills, and shuttle their children to and from private school. Live-in nanny? Cash manager? Continuous improvement coordinator? Information technology project manager? Web developer (pro bono)? Insurance agent? Accounting assistant? Phlebotomist? Bilingual administrative consultant? Research events creator? Quality-control technician? No-pay externships? No-pay internships?

  Surely there is a job somewhere in need of my vast, impractical background in liberal arts. Where are the filmmakers? The photographers? The art gallery curators? Where is the golden ticket that will earn me the $57,116.40 ($41,220.85 + $15,895.55 estimated amount of accrued interest to be paid during repayment = $57,116.40) I need to get out of debt? The pay dirt I could use to alleviate my family’s looming financial demise? The entry-level job that pays more than it did in 1975? The company in whose employ I would earn valuable self-worth, confidence, life meaning? I take a few deep breaths and open the bathroom window, which looks out onto the driveway, our family cars. The garage.

  Finally, in dismayed frustration, I turn to the apartment listings, where I manage to find a few rentals that look within reach, should I decide, in the end, to keep what I save for myself.