It Occurs to Me That I Am America

by Richard Russo

  Work, school, and soccer seemed like a whole life but it was a life I barely inhabited. I was somewhere else, helplessly yearning, yet constantly reminded—by Crotty, my teachers, the coach—of their importance. Your future, they said. But my future was a blank. How do you get from here to there?

  My dilemma was easy to explain, if anyone cared to hear it, though no one did. I was not adrift, I was stuck. Being fifteen years old was like being on the lower floor of my grandmother’s three-decker house where, on the floor above, a man was speaking to a woman out of earshot in a different room, who couldn’t hear him, but was talking back to him, though he couldn’t hear her. To a shout, which might be tedious or revealing, or shocking, or life-altering, or wise, each yelled, “What?” Other people, too, calling to each other on the floor above them, each deaf to the other.

  Though I could hear every word, they didn’t know I was listening, or even that I existed. But that was not my dilemma. My dilemma was: what do I do with all the things I am hearing?

  It was an intimation, not that I would be a writer in any important way, but that writing this down might help ease my mind.

  My secret dreams were of success, of good fortune, of heroism, and I could not understand how work or school or soccer mattered. No heroes, no glory boys, the coach had said. Yet I longed to be a hero—not a scorer on the field, or a brain at school, but big and dangerous. Heroism was like a blessing. It came unbidden: you were chosen, you were someone reckless, like Ray Mammola saying, “Who dealt this mess?” and some of the other men at the Stop & Shop, Vinny saying, “I’ll give him a hit on the head,” and Sal with his bloody apron, and Omar in produce who could juggle oranges, and Felix who brought me a tamale to try. The Stop & Shop was a team, too, but a more complex one, old guys and young guys.

  I loved the heartlessness of their talk. I remembered Ray’s gusto with the box cutter, swiping open the cartons of toilet paper and making himself a nest for a nap. He was a full-time employee, in charge of inventory, but he also broke the rules and got away with it. Mr. Crotty needed him, which was why he was always looking for him.

  “Kevin Crotty,” Ray said. “He doesn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass.” He was the talker, the smoker, the winner at whist. Seeing Felix and me coming out of the toilet he said, “You guys comparing tools?”

  “Stop and Shop’s merging with the A and P,” he said one day. “They’re going to call it the Stop and Pee.”

  Sal said, “What’s with this surprise visit of the supervisor?”

  “Hackler,” Vinny said.

  “Hitler,” Ray said. “No one knows what he looks like. He sneaks in and rats on us. If I ever find out who he is I’ll pinch his head off.”

  Except for Felix and me, they were all older men. They smoked, they swore, they teased each other, Ray talked about Korea.

  “Best feeling in the world?” Ray said. “It’s not sex. It’s after a long march, all day. You sit down and take your combat boots and socks off. And you feel the breeze on your toes and you wiggle them a little.”

  They jokingly complained about their wives. “My wife says to me—”

  “My day off tomorrow,” Vinny said.

  “Doing anything special?”

  “Stay home. Make babies.”

  I tried not to smile, but it excited me to hear it.

  Sal said, “It’s not how long you make it, it’s how you make it long.”

  “I live in a duplex,” Ray said, studying his cards. “You know, those places attract some strange people. Last year I was sleeping in my room and three naked women were pounding on my door. They just would not stop.”

  “So what did you do?” Omar asked.

  “I got up and let them out.” Then Ray pitched a card. “Trumps!”

  “Union meeting on Sunday,” Sal said.

  This was news. The men conferred about going there, who would ride with whom. Ray nudged me. “You can go with us, kid. You, too, Felix the Cat.”

  • • •

  On that Sunday I went to church with my grandmother. I sat, I stood, I knelt. Even the flowers and the candles on the altar seemed meaningless, but I went through the motions; I prayed, feeling that no one was listening. My old unanswered question: How do you get from here to there? “Have faith,” the priest said in his sermon. Back at her house, my grandmother said, “Andre, qui sont ces hommes?”

  They were in the car, beeping the horn.

  “Les gars—mes amis. Gram, I got a union meeting.”

  Ray and Vinny in the front, me and Felix in the backseat. Ray was ending a story he was telling Vinny about a Korean. “I’m drunk, I’m bollocky, I tip her over and she screams, ‘Me no dog!’ ” Then to me and Felix, “Hey, the union men!”

  I had no idea where we were going and was surprised when, after half an hour, we were in open country—narrow roads, a pond, woods in leafless November.

  “They hold these things in the sticks,” Ray said. “They can get a bigger function room that way, more parking, cheaper rental.”

  The hall was a high school gym, filled with Stop & Shop workers, all older men, sitting on folding chairs, talking among themselves, until a man on a platform called them to order. A banner over his head was lettered UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS 595.

  “We want more money,” someone called out.

  “Keep your shirt on,” the man said.

  It was not a team, it was more like an army—I thought of them as soldiers, and many of them like Ray had probably been soldiers, either in World War II or Korea. They had the heavy faces and the look of exhaustion and the tattoos and the toughness. One man near me was saying to another, “I’ve gotta put food on the table.” This wasn’t soccer or school; it was serious, their livelihood. They were all sorts, mainly white guys, and some women—I saw Veronica and Lucy from the cash registers talking with other workers—but also some black men conferring in a group, and Omar who had found some Arabs to joke with, and Felix relieved to be in a secure corner of Puerto Ricans.

  “Maybe they’ll vote you a buck ten,” Ray said.

  Men called out from the floor, some stood and made short speeches, which provoked arguing and interruption, and all of it happened in the air above my head, the talk, like the smoke, until a vote was taken and hands were raised and the men roared.

  “Know what I like about this?” Ray said, leaning back, relaxed, his hands behind his head. “Guys like Hitler aren’t allowed in. He’s management. We’re the workers.”

  “And like I say, if he tried to get in I’d give him a hit on the head,” Vinny said.

  “If we knew what he looked like,” Ray said.

  • • •

  Darkness had fallen by the time the union meeting ended. In the car, driving away, Ray murmured to Vinny, “Why not?” and farther down the road suddenly slowed the car and drove into a field at the far end of which was a tent decorated in Christmas lights.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Little surprise,” Ray said. “It’s a carnival.”

  He parked and we walked across the shadowy field of wet grass to the tent, where we slipped through a thick canvas flap. A man just inside asked us for fifty cents and gave us a ticket. Inside, men in heavy coats pressed against a bare, brightly lit stage. Some of them I recognized from the union meeting, all of us standing on grass. Behind me, Felix muttered, “¿Qué pasa?” After a while, a few of the men began calling out in impatience.

  Then an old man in a derby hat and bow tie and a striped vest walked onstage and said, “Welcome, gentlemen. Welcome! Let me present Miss Lana Lane!”

  A woman wearing a red two-piece bathing suit and a beret appeared from the curtains, did a few dance steps, and then paced back and forth, wiggling a little and laughing and waving. The men hooted at her. One called out, “Take it off!” She teased with her fingers and then reached behind her, unhooked her top, and held it carelessly against her breasts, teasing some more, while the men shouted. I was sho
ved on both sides by the much bigger men, and then pushed nearer the stage, separated from Felix. The woman quickly revealed her bare dog-nosed white breasts, then laughed and skipped offstage.

  “Gentlemen!” It was the man in the bow tie, returning. He fanned his face with his derby. He was white-haired, with yellow teeth in a wicked grin. He said, “If you want to see more, it’ll cost you more.”

  He shook his derby hat and handed it into the crowd of men. They passed it around, putting money into it, mostly coins, and some dollar bills, like a collection in a church.

  And that was when it struck me that this tent and this gathering was like a church—the attentive men, the flickering lights, the stage like an altar, the old man like an evil priest, taking the money, the painted pictures on the tent walls adding to the effect of a ritual or a mass.

  “Once again, Miss Lana Lane!”

  The woman walked onstage from the side curtains. She was entirely naked, except for her black beret, the first live naked woman I had seen in my life. Without her high heels she was flat-footed, and walked like a soldier, her yellow feet slapping the stage. Her breasts were small, her legs heavy. She lifted her arms and laughed, then walked in a circle, smiling, not looking vulnerable in her nakedness, but defiant in the glare of lights and the raw upturned faces of the men.

  The tent became more church-like, the men very quiet, concentrating, leaning and looking closely. When the woman walked near the edge of the stage I could see her flesh move, her arms, the nod of her breasts, the shake of her fattish thighs.

  The silence of the men seemed to embolden her. She laughed out loud and snatched off her beret and rubbed it against her belly and the hair between her legs, seeming to exult. She held the beret on her secret spot, clutching herself, then flung it.

  The beret sailed like a Frisbee towards me. I reached to smack it away and when it snagged on my fingers, a shout went up from the men.

  “The kid caught it!”

  By then the naked woman had walked offstage. Ray said, “Show’s over,” then “Put it on, kid.”

  I tugged the beret on my head.

  “On you it looks good.” Ray led the way back to the car and slammed the door and sighed. “Work tomorrow.”

  “I got school.”

  “Good. Get an education, kid,” he said. He squirmed in the front seat and faced Felix and me. “Or you’ll end up like us.”

  • • •

  Monday: soccer practice. I wore the beret (“What’s that supposed to be?” Coach Umlah said) but did not tell anyone where I’d gotten it or what I’d seen, even afterwards, at Brigham’s, when they were talking about girls’ bodies and sex and how to buy Trojans at a drugstore.

  “Big game Saturday,” Roy said.

  We practiced twice that week, doing sprints, exercises, headers, Umlah saying, “This is a team. Never mind that it’s Governor Dummer. We can win if we all work together.”

  That Friday afternoon, Roy said, “See you tomorrow on the bus”—he meant the game, the trip to Governor Dummer.

  And I thought, maybe—my last game. I’ll ask Crotty for Saturday off. Going with the team, I knew I wouldn’t play any serious time, I wouldn’t score, I’d be on the bench; but it also meant that I would not make myself conspicuous by staying away.

  “We’re collecting for the March of Dimes,” Mr. Crotty said, before I could ask for Saturday off. He handed me a large can with a slot cut in the top. “I want you at the front door.”

  A cold dark early evening in raw mid-November, I wore my winter coat over my apron, and my beret pulled over my ears; and I shook my collecting can, “March of Dimes!” ambushing the shoppers leaving the store pushing their carts, wagging the can at them, making it jingle. I wanted it heavy with coins to present it to Mr. Crotty: “Look—it’s full,” as a way of getting the day off on Saturday to go with the team to Governor Dummer.

  By seven thirty, the can was weightier, the coins slewing and clanking. I obstructed the departing shoppers and surprised them with the can. The store closed at nine, then empty shelves to be restocked; and the walk to my grandmother’s, and the game tomorrow. I did as I was told, I obeyed and behaved; yet I did not see where, in any of this, I belonged.

  As I shook the can I imagined the soccer game, and saw myself on the bench. Shake, shake. Shelves to stock. Shake, shake. School, work, shake, shake. The can like the derby hat at the carnival show, filling with money. I didn’t know what to do. Shaking the can was like shaking dice, trying to discern my fate, yet my belief that I was no one, I was nowhere.

  Absorbed in this I did not see the man approach me. I looked up and there he was, standing before me, too near, as though he knew me. He wore an overcoat and a wool scarf, and a green Tyrolean hat, a feather in the band. Carrying a briefcase, he peered at me through his gold-rimmed glasses, closing in, taking charge, as though he had chosen me and had an answer for me.

  I held him at bay with my collecting can, tipping it towards him.

  “March of Dimes, sir.”

  He leaned over the can and put his face against me, but he was not looking me in the eye.

  “I don’t think I like your hat.”

  He had a well-fed face, smooth cheeks reddened in the cold, his green velour hat tipped to the side, with the jaunty feather. He was too close to me—ridiculously so for a customer; nor did he have a coin for the can.

  I said in his voice, “I don’t think I like your hat.”

  Instead of laughing, as I’d expected, he panted and became fierce. “You don’t get it.” He panted some more. “I don’t like your hat.”

  “Right.” It seemed a game, a contest in which it was a mistake to back down. “And I don’t like yours.” It seemed when I said it that his hat did seem much sillier than mine.

  “Don’t talk to me that way,” he said, one of his front teeth snagging on his lower lip.

  “You just said that to me!”

  It seemed unfair—perverse. He could criticize my hat, but I couldn’t say the same to him? And all this time I was darting at the customers, calling out, “March of Dimes,” so they could put a coin in my can.

  “I like my hat,” I said, though until he had spoken to me I had barely been aware that I had it on. His mention of it provoked the memory of the carnival tent, and the naked woman, her flinging the beret at me, and Ray saying, “Put it on, kid.”

  “Just who do you think you are?” the man said, his cheeks tightening with anger. He began to shout at me, then gagging on his words and seeing that he was attracting attention he seemed to think better of it. He rushed back into the store. I sneaked a look inside and saw that he was talking to Mr. Crotty, chopping the air with his hand. When he was done, he rushed towards me, red-faced, his arms working, swinging his briefcase, and for a moment I thought he was going to hit me. But he hurried past, into the parking lot, and the darkness.

  Mr. Crotty was beckoning. I went inside.

  “What happened out there?” Out thay-ah.

  “The man said, ‘I don’t like your hat.’ ”

  “And?”

  “I said, ‘I don’t like your hat.’ ”

  Mr. Crotty winced, then said, “What else?”

  “He kept saying it. So did I. I thought he was joking.”

  Mr. Crotty did not look angry. He wanted detail, and the detail did not distress him—it seemed to fascinate him, as though he was hearing something reckless and bold, a kind of daring, and that he had found out something new and interesting about me. He did not want to betray his fascination yet I could see it a little like mirth, in his eyes, and in his nibbling lips.

  “Do you know who that man is?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He’s Mr. Merrick Hackler, the area supervisor. He’s very important. He doesn’t joke. It was his surprise inspection.” Mr. Crotty did not seem angry, and yet I fully believed I was going to be fired. But that did not dismay me. Being fired was something final—it was a direction, like knowing I was no good a
t soccer. “You upset him.”

  I said, “What should I do?”

  “Don’t do it again, ever.” Evah. Was he smiling?

  Now and then I’d had a glimpse of what it meant to be an adult, like seeing Ray at the carnival, or hearing “Making babies” or “I’ve gotta put food on the table.” Now I saw for the first time that Mr. Crotty had suffered, and hated Hackler, and that I had been an instrument of his revenge. But he could not reveal it to me. He looked sad and beaten, like a servant in his blue smock-like coat with his odd name stitched on the pocket. I had thought of him as powerful, yet he was like the rest of us, Ray and Omar and Sal and Vinny and Felix—perhaps more punished.

  By the next coffee break everyone knew—more proof that Mr. Crotty had approved, probably told the assistant manager, who spread the word. The others were laughing when I entered the room.

  Ray put his arm around me. “Tell us exactly what you said to Hitler.”

  I told it haltingly. In this telling I was older and stronger, and the story more orderly; I was defiant and satirical, a wise guy.

  “Know where the kid got that hat?” Ray said, and described the carnival, the naked woman, using the dirty words that came naturally to him.

  As though coaching me, he said, “Sit down, kid. I want to hear it again. This is beautiful.” He quieted the room with a shout. “Listen!”

  I told the story again, more slowly, and in this version I was a hero, standing my ground, and Hitler was red as a beet and had spittle on his lips.

  “I don’t like your hat!” Vinny shouted.

  “I thought Crotty was going to fire me.”

  “They can’t fire you. You’re union! We’re all union. We’d go on strike!”

  • • •

  Early the next day, Saturday, Roy Junkins appeared in the aisle I was stocking with jars of grape jelly, standing on a stepladder. He was carrying his gym bag. “The bus is leaving at noon.” And in his sorrowing voice, “Andy.”