“Damn, man. Better step on it if you want to see O.”
All roads lead to Pat’s. The crowd grows denser, more excited, as Michael approaches the King of Steaks. People are bouncing on the balls of their feet, trying to see over the shoulders of the gawkers in front of them. Television and newspaper beat reporters are recording the occasion for the evening newscasts and the morning headlines. Michael is careful to stay out of camera range. Any blowhards in the crowd are too intimidated by the menacing Secret Service and uniformed police guard to heckle the candidate with epithets. Michael pushes through a thicket of high school boys waving their phones to capture a blurry shot of the back of the candidate’s nappy-haired head for posterity.
Obama’s got a good two-fisted grip on his cheesesteak as he listens intently to his dinner companions, a father and daughter too startled to refuse his request to join them. His missus is nibbling french fries, a casual and approachable woman who isn’t intimidated by the local gastronomy.
“That’s one big girl,” a geezer in an IBEW Local 98 baseball cap and a filthy Flyers jersey, Broad Street Bullies vintage, remarks as he admires the strong, imposing physique of the senator’s wife. “I bet she could kick his ass.”
“Hey, Obama! Hey, motherfucker!” the bicycle truants shout, trying to get his attention by popping wheelies at the fringe of the crowd. They speed away, screaming obscenities, as Philly’s Finest come charging after them.
The Obamas seem to have healthy appetites, both of them. They don’t seem to mind being stared at like animals at the zoo; after all, they didn’t come wandering to Ninth and Passyunk in search of privacy and fine cuisine. The senator leans across the table and flashes his signature smile, all dazzling white enamel, and asks his new friends if he has cheesesteak in his teeth. The candidate and his wife are hustled back to their caravan, exasperating their handlers when they stop to shake every hand and sign every autograph. The door of their SUV closes behind them, leaving the hoi polloi staring at their table. A woman grabs a french fry bag left behind, a few sticky potatoes at the bottom left uneaten, and stashes it in her purse.
“This is gonna be worth a fortune someday,” she announces to her friend, triumphantly clutching her newfound treasure under her arm.
A pair of vans circles the traffic island, bullhorns exhorting the electorate with a pre-recorded message.
TODAY IS ELECTION DAY. VOTE FOR JOHN DOUGHERTY FOR STATE SENATE.
In a few hours the polls will close, the votes counted, the winner of the primary announced. Michael’s been existing on the periphery of time over the past week, consumed by his brother’s dilemma, only vaguely aware of the noise of the campaign in the background. This must be how an astronaut feels when he returns from the uncharted regions of space and discovers the world has gone about its business in his absence, barely missing him, leaving him feeling even more inconsequential than when he was navigating the immeasurable distance between the stars.
He’s dawdled too long. Jack Centafore is standing a block away. Michael is too tired for a lengthy explanation why he’s strolling the streets of the old neighborhood on a weekday afternoon. He turns and walks back to the house quickly, escaping while the priest is still too distracted by the Obamas’ surprise pit stop to recognize his best friend’s younger brother on the fringes of the crowd. He reaches for his phone and calls Kit with the sad, but expected, news that Polly has died. He’ll be home on Thursday. He misses and loves her. He has something important to tell her, but it can wait until he speaks to Steven Kettleman.
Frankie brought a light jacket, anticipating the cooler weather in the higher altitudes of the western side of the state. They bought toothbrushes and toothpaste and mouthwash at the travel plaza. Michael tried to reason with Frankie, arguing it was a waste of money to pay the outrageous price being charged for a small can of spray deodorant. They’ll sleep a few hours when they arrive in Latrobe, collect Polly’s ashes from the funeral director, change the locks of her house, and drive home.
They’re approaching the Hershey exit of the turnpike and the reception from the Philadelphia all-news station is fading to static as the announcer reads the shocking headline at the top of the hour. The body found beneath the interstate overpass has been identified as Christine Palmer, a native of Ridley in Delaware County, who authorities had been seeking to question in the Washington Avenue methamphetamine investigation. Frankie leans toward the dashboard, attempting to make sense of the string of barely audible broken phrases and isolated words of the rapidly vanishing broadcast.
“What about Cameron? Is he all right?” he asks, sounding as if he expects the radio speaker to answer.
“Is that the little boy? Is that his name? When this pack is finished, I’m done,” Michael promises as he fires up another cigarette. “I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to get the smell out of this car.”
“Jesus Christ, how fast do you think that bastard’s going?” Frankie asks, gripping the dashboard as the car sways in the backdraft of a tractor trailer doing at least thirty miles over the construction-zone speed limit.
“Too fast,” Michael bitches as he swerves to avoid sideswiping a barrier of orange warning cones. At least it’s a clear night, no misty rain. Maybe they’ll be lucky and the mountain peaks won’t be cloaked in fog.
“What do you think they did to Cameron? You know, those men who came looking for Mariano.”
“He’s fine. I swear. They’re not interested in hurting a little boy. Not even an animal would execute a little kid. He’s better off this way. Probably got taken in by his grandparents. Maybe Child Protective Services has him. Anything is better for him than the life he had before.”
“I should try to find him.”
Frankie’s stunned by his brother’s quick reflexes as Michael grabs his wrist and squeezes tightly, refusing to release him until he elicits a solemn promise.
“Don’t even think about it. Don’t even try. Do you hear me? Do you? I put it all on the line for you. Don’t be stupid and do anything that might lead anyone back to that fucking freezer in the basement. You want to worry about a kid? Worry about your nephew. Worry that he doesn’t end up with a father who’s locked up in a fucking prison.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I never meant for you to get mixed up in this, Mikey. I never wanted you to find out what I did until after I was gone,” Frankie says sadly.
“You motherfucker! I knew it! I knew it! I was right!” Michael howls, pummeling his brother’s shoulder with the fist of one hand, the car threatening to run off the shoulder of the road. “You lied to me, Boo! You looked me in the eye and lied to me! I knew you were going to do it! I just knew it!”
“But I didn’t.”
“Tell me you will never do that to me. Tell me. I want to hear you say it!”
He hates turning mawkish and, after the promise is made, the subject is dropped and will never be raised again. A loud dose of the Boss comes in handy at awkward moments and the familiar lyrics of “Glory Days” inspire him to make a confession.
“You want to know the truth, Frankie? I never wanted to play football. I only did it to piss Papa off. I wanted to be a musician. I used to fantasize about playing in Bruce’s band.”
“But you have a tin ear.”
“I know,” he laughs. “But sometimes I regret that I never even tried. What do you regret most in your life? What do you wish you’d done differently?”
“At this point? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“There’s nothing you would have done differently.”
“At one time, I thought there was. Do you remember Patrick Ryan?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“I was only seventeen. He asked me to run away to San Francisco with him. I thought it was because he loved me as much as I loved him. But he only wanted me to come because he was afraid to go alone. He would have dumped me within a month. Papa would never have allowed me to come home and I would have ended up living on the
street. Charlie and I went there years later. I thought it was the most beautiful place on earth. The steep hills and the sound of the trolley bells. I imagined myself living in a house with a hanging garden and a balcony overlooking the bay. I could sit up there at the top of the world, with the perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge, drinking my coffee and reading a book. But it was only a fantasy. Do you know where I’d be if I’d run away with Patrick? Morto. Patrick died in 1983. They cremated him even though his mother was a strict Catholic because they didn’t want her to see his body, wasted to the bones, covered with purple lesions.”
Michael’s never heard this tale before. He’d never thought of his brother wanting any life beyond the corner of Eighth and Carpenter, never knew he’d shared his own wild dreams and hopes of someday escaping that house.
“Why didn’t you go with him? Why did you stay?”
Frankie looks at him as if the answer is too obvious to state.
“You, Mikey. I would never have left you with Papa. I made a promise. I would never have left you alone.”
AFTERWARD
Ciascuno sa come si chiude la porta di casa sua.
October 31, 2008
The sun has cracked open the sky and the morning is awash with bright, brilliant light. The day’s as vivid and friendly as a kid’s pop-up book; even the brick and stone surfaces of the houses seem alive. The forecast is calling for a beautiful October afternoon, highs in the seventies, low humidity, absolutely no chance of rain, perfect weather for a parade of champions. It’s Halloween and the entire city will be in costume when the team steps off on Broad Street at the stroke of noon. The Phillies Nation, two million strong, men and women, parents and kids, rabid fans and bandwagon climbers who haven’t been to a ball game in decades, will be wearing red pinstripes today. The Gagliano men will be sporting their new MLB-authorized player jerseys, Utley for the son, Lidge for his father.
“Don’t let go of Daddy’s hand. You have to promise me,” Kit begs. “Don’t take your eyes off him,” she warns her husband.
“Do you have to pee, Danny?” Michael asks. “It’s going to be a long ride.”
Kit insists he make a last trip to the bathroom and sends her son running up the staircase.
“Make yourself useful, Michael. Put these out front while you’re waiting,” she insists, handing him two Obama lawn signs, as if the four already posted at the edge of their property weren’t sufficient declaration of the political affiliation of the owners. What the hell is everyone going to talk about come next Wednesday? Only a few weeks ago the campaign seemed endless, eternal, and now suddenly, it’s reeling to a swift, breathless conclusion. The real estate agent keeps begging her to remove the placards, not wanting to alienate potential buyers, but Kit is adamant, saying it would break her heart if Sleepy Peter’s Quiet Nook, the house where they raised their son, the only home he’s ever known, fell into the hands of partisan Republicans.
Michael’s far less sentimental than his wife. He’d sell to Dick Cheney if he made the best offer. The house is a money pit, its maintenance a Sisyphean task. Patch a leak and two more appear. Plaster the ceiling in one room and a crack appears in another. But he’s grown used to living in a world that’s landscaped rather than paved. He loves this financial black hole, the fulfillment of his boyhood dream of one day living in a house he could walk around. And he’ll miss his leisurely weekend afternoons running errands to the Norman Rockwell hardware store and shoe repair shop and spending Sundays in autumn drinking pints of craft beer at the local taproom, moaning about the number of turnovers by the hapless Eagles with his fellow husbands and fathers of the Friendly Village of Wayne. It’s hard to leave, but he’s always known he was a tourist here, that his stay was temporary and someday he would need to return home. The move is his punishment for an undiscovered crime and his unpardoned sin, and he will serve his sentence under his father’s roof, without hope of parole.
“Ready, champ?” Michael asks as he and his son step outside into this beautiful morning.
“Why are we taking the train, Dad? Why can’t we drive?”
“They’re expecting millions of people today, Danny. We don’t want to spend the entire parade sitting in traffic, do we?”
His cell phone vibrates in his pocket. It’s his brother, calling to reconnoiter.
“We’re walking to the station,” he answers, dispensing with the formality of saying hello.
“I heard on the radio they’re adding extra trains to handle the overflow.”
“We’ll get there. Don’t worry.”
“Well, hurry up. I’m so excited I can’t stand still.”
He’d bought Frankie a Cole Hamels jersey to wear to the parade today. His brother couldn’t tell a change-up from a sinker, but he knows a great head of hair when he sees one.
Maybe news radio is onto something. Maybe he shouldn’t be so blasé about getting into town. Half the population of Wayne is marching along the sidewalks, making their way to the station. The platform is already packed with folks waiting for the arrival of the eastbound Paoli local. More than a few of them look like they’re sipping something stronger than French roast from their thermoses.
“Come on, here it comes!” Danny shouts, dragging his father through the crowd. The little commuter train is approaching, chugging along the rails, nearly out of breath as it wheezes toward the station, just as it had that morning a lifetime ago when a frantic woman chased a dog across the tracks. The cars are standing room only, but no one complains about spending the next thirty minutes with a complete stranger breathing down his collar. The train begins gathering speed then lurches to a halt, more bodies wedged into the narrow aisle at each stop, until it plunges underground after exiting the commuter platform at Thirtieth Street Station. The grinding wheels and screaming air brakes echo off the walls of the tunnel, delivering them to their destination below the heart of the city.
Danny squeezes his father’s hand as they shuffle up the staircase to the concourse, following the flow as it meanders past the donut shops and coffee kiosks, the newsstands and salad bars. The station is decorated for a party, draped with red and white streamers and World Championship pennants. The already iconic hallelujah photo of the closer on his knees after the final pitch, his arms thrust toward the sky, is in every window. The improbable, the unlikely, the impossible, the incredible, the amazing, the astonishing, has been achieved.
Phinally! the headlines scream.
The crowd grows denser as they push toward the subway entrance. He squeezes Danny’s wrist until his knuckles are white, determined not to lose him. Danny doesn’t resist or complain, meaning he’s intimidated by the crush of bodies surrounding them, friendly and unthreatening as they seem. No one is shoving or trying to muscle their way ahead. But all it would take is one piercing scream to ignite panic in the station and start a stampede toward the exits. The momentum sweeps them forward, past the turnstiles, and into a subway car.
“Stay close to me, buddy,” he warns his frightened son.
Danny shakes his head, clearly rattled by the ripple effect of the jostling of a group of rowdy boys trying to squeeze through the closing doors. A pair of transit cops push the kids back onto the platform and the subway car leaves the station and barrels down the tracks. This crowd’s a rough sort; these kids weren’t fortunate enough to be born into families with budgets for orthodontia and SAT prep courses. The boys have crooked teeth and buzz cuts; the girls wear too much makeup and have long lacquered fingernails painted with elaborate designs.
“You have the most beautiful eyelashes,” a pretty young teenager, weathered beyond her tender years, tells Danny, making him blush. He buries his face in his father’s back, giggling.
“He’s shy,” Michael says.
“You tell him to call me in a couple of years. He’s gonna be a heartbreaker,” she says as she tries to retrieve an insistent phone from the pocket of her jeans.
The train rolls into the Snyder station and they fight
through the crowd on the platform trying to board the car. Michael wraps his arm over Danny’s shoulders and leads him toward the exit where, suddenly, the sea of bodies parts and they climb the stairs and step out into the glorious sunshine of the perfect morning. The police are cordoning off Broad Street though the parade won’t start for hours. Gray-haired mom-moms and pop-pops have parked their ample butts in lawn chairs on the sidewalk. They’d laid claim to front-row seats before daylight and pass the time gossiping and drinking coffee and sodas. Hawkers are doing a brisk business in soft pretzels and cheap commemorative T-shirts, ten-buck knockoffs of officially sanctioned gear, guaranteed to shrink three sizes in the first wash. Kids are blowing on those cheap plastic parade horns. One of them jumps in front of Danny, demanding a high-five.
“We better step it up, Danny. Your uncle is calling again,” Michael says, reaching for his phone.
“Where are you, Mikey? I got us a booth,” Frankie says.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“We already ordered. What do you and Danny want for breakfast?”
“Relax. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“This place is packed.”
“We’re right outside the door,” Michael says as he stops to greet a couple of cops smoking cigarettes on the diner’s wheelchair ramp.
“Paulie, this is my boy, Danny. Danny, this is Officer Ottaviano. Officer Ottaviano and your uncle went to high school together. His big brother, Bobby, is a fireman.”
“Used to be a fireman. The lucky SOB’s retired and lives down the shore.”
The kid’s eyes are wide as saucers. The cuffs and billy club are awesome. He’s clearly impressed that his old man’s on a first-name basis with a flesh-and-blood policeman in full riot-gear paraphernalia.
“So you’re an Utley fan, Danny?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter Page 37
