THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY . . .
(Saturday, July 4, afternoon)
MACK:
The skies clear, the
heat drops off, the air dries out, and Tony’s peace medal doesn’t
stick to my chest. The restaurant is closed, but Vic and me are in
the kitchen spinning pies for Mrs. V.’s barbeque. She comes in to
check the eight trays of Fourth of July cornbread she had me baking
all morning. “They’re perfect,” she says. “You are the king.”
“All I did was put
’em in the oven, Mrs. V.”
“How many times do I
have to tell you: Call me Carmella.”
I nod, but no way I’m
calling her that.
She paints the
cornbread with red, white, and blue cake decoration.
“Icing on cornbread,
huh?” Vic says.
“Never been done
before,” Mrs. V. says.
“No, it hasn’t,” Vic
says.
“Mack, is your father
coming?”
“He has to work,
ma’am.” I hate liars, especially when they’re me. I didn’t even ask
the old man. I need him getting smashed and talking trash and
getting into a drag-out rumble in front of Céce?
“Mack, get that last
round of pies into the oven, and then I need you to come out to the
bar,” Vic says.
“I do something
wrong?”
He taps his temple.
“I know what I know.” He checks the pie dough to make sure I spun
it okay. He nods, says “Good,” and leaves.
Vic never finished
high school either. He started with a takeout-only window, and he’s
in business thirty-five years. Tell you what, I like working for
him better than anybody. He’s got me doing a lot more cooking
now.
I check my pies and
swing out to the bar. Vic has the radio and TV and computer going
with three different news shows, and he’s got the paper out for the
crossword. I don’t mind the Too’s radio, because with a satellite
there’s no chance of static. Either you get a perfect clear signal,
or you get nothing, which is the way it should be.
Vic flips his laptop
to me and explains how the bank and the bills work, and how you
need to pay them on time but not too early either.
I’m nodding, but
looking at the screen gives me a headache. All those words and
numbers and click on this word and drag that one to there and type
that number. I want to ask Vic to slow it down a little, give me a
chance to catch up, but when I used to do that in school, they
called me retard.
“You getting this?”
Vic says.
“Absolutely,” I
say.
“You need to know
this stuff.”
“Why?”
“This dog training
thing. Tony told me about it. You need to do it.”
“I’m doing it,” I
say.
“Professionally. The
school. The certificate. I looked into it. Ey, look at me. I
wouldn’t tell you to do it unless I was sure. I’m giving you the
money. You pay me back when you can. I made calls to dog trainers
on the east side. After you have the certificate, you can make
between fifty and a hundred an hour.”
“I heard
that.”
“You don’t look too
excited,” he says. “You’re making eight dollars an hour now. What
am I missing?”
“I can’t see anybody
giving me fifty an hour for anything legal.”
“When does the next
training class start?”
“Fall.”
“Perfect.
Done.”
“Look, Mister Vic, I
don’t mean to be a contraindication, but I’m too young to start a
business like that, all professional. Hell, I’m but
fifteen.”
“You’re fifty, not
fifteen, and don’t forget it. Fun is important, but so is work.
Kid, no matter how much money you make, you can never have enough.
You miss a chance to work, you never get it back. You’re going to
the school.”
“I’m a little
confused here. Are you, like, firing me?”
“The restaurant
business, people come and go. I try to help them, but usually the
person can’t get it together, and they move on, and that’s okay.
Once in a while, you get somebody like Carmella, and you see she
has to stay. You work for me, you need to have a dream. Carmella’s
is making people smile. She can get that here. Tony too. He could
be CEO of a multinational corporation, but that’s not what he’s
meant to do. You watch, he comes back a hero, and then he runs this
place.”
“The hero part, yeah,
but the restaurant business? I don’t know. I pegged him for an
athlete or president or maybe a teacher-type, the cool
kind.”
“Trust me,” says the
guy who lost an entire restaurant in one hand of cards with a woman
named Hammerhead. “Tony’s like his mother, has to see the joy
face-to-face. He needs to be here.” He taps the bar top hard and
twice. “But for you, this job is to help you for the next one.
It’ll kill me to lose you, but by the time you turn eighteen, if
you’re still working here, yeah, I’ll can you. Working here is too
safe for you. You’re like me, a gambler.”
“If I’m like you,
then I should stay working here.”
“Dog training. That’s
what you’re made for.”
I don’t get it, what
these folks see in me. “What about Céce? What’s her
future?”
Vic’s eyebrows go up
with a smile. “Céce has maybe the most special thing of all coming
her way.”
“And what’s
that?”
Vic nods and smiles
with his eyebrows up and says, “I know what I know,” and I have no
idea what the old man means half the time.
“The school,” I say.
“If I do it, I have my own money saved.”
“Even better. Kid,
just do exactly as I say, and you’ll be fine. And do yourself a
favor and look up the word contraindication .”
“Céce used it the
other day.”
“Not like that she
didn’t. C’mon, let’s get the food into the car.”
Vic drives slow and
whistles “God Bless America” over and over. Mrs. V. is on the phone
with Céce. “Relax, sister, we’ll be there in five minutes.” She
clicks the phone and turns to Vic. “Cheech says the yard’s packed
already.”
“You put out the word
there’s free pizza and beer, what do you expect?”
“And Independence Day
cornbread,” Mrs. V. says.
“And Independence Day
cornbread,” Vic says. “Mack, which building is yours?”
“I can jump out at
the corner. You all go on ahead. I’ll be over there in a
few.”
“Nah,” Vic says.
“We’ll pick up the dog and drive over together.”
“Nah, man, I don’t
want Boo stinking up your car.”
“The car already
stinks,” Vic says.
“Better I walk her
over for the exercise.” The car stops at a light, and I hop out.
“I’ll see you all over there.” I turn the corner, and my old man is
out on the stoop with his lady friend, and they’re good and twisted
already, tipping rotgut forties and smoking a blunt in the broad
daylight and arguing way too loud about God knows
what.
Me and Boo are at the
gate to the yard. If she passes this test, I’m going to start
leaning hard on Céce and Mrs. V. to adopt her. When we’re strolling
the park, she’s a typical pit bull, real good with folks,
especially kids. Today is about seeing how she does in a packed
crowd. And this is a block party all right, music blasting, folks
spilling out into the street. I open the gate and go in
first.
Boo’s eyes are soft,
ears back easy. Her tail wags nice and slow.
This lady says, “Get
that dog away from me!”
“She’s a peach,” Céce
cuts in. She sets a big bowl of chips onto the picnic table to
stroke Boo’s muzzle. “See?” she says to the lady.
“You’re getting more
relaxed around her every day,” I say.
“Still a little
freaked out when she tries to lick my face. My Boo-Boo,” she
says.
“No baby talking to
her now.”
She makes her voice
really deep, “My Boo-Boo,” and that’s pretty funny to me. She takes
my hand and introduces me to people. They’re nice. Her mom is
smiling at us.
The kids go crazy
over Boo. She’s gentle with them, even when this one girl pulls her
tail. She’s clowning too. She grabs a paper plate and taunts the
kids to chase her to get it back. She’s tearing circles around the
yard.
“Wait,” I command
her, but I’m not in her world right now. She’s all about having fun
with the kids, and that’s when I know it for sure: She’ll be
leaving me soon. I nudge Céce. “She’s ready to go.”
Céce nudges back
twice as hard. “We’ll see. You gonna be sad when she leaves?”
Céce’s smile is crooked and she has nine freckles on her nose. I
want to kiss them, each one.
“Sad? Nah. I’ll have
another beat-up Boo within the month.”
Boo jumps into Mrs.
V.’s lap for a belly scratch. Mrs. V. mouths to Céce I WANT THIS
DOG.
They have a tiny
aboveground pool back here, perfect for Boo. Vic and the other old
people are sitting around the edge, slow-kicking their feet in the
water. They’re sipping and arguing and laughing. The sun’s high and
clean, and the ripples in the water are gold bands almost too
bright to look at.
I could live like
this, I think. If Céce was with me. She’s got the prettiest long
brown hair. Her eyes are so dark and shiny you can see your
reflection in them, and you look better than you do in real life.
“Why you with me?” I say. We’re filling the ice tubs with two-liter
Sprites. “You’re smart and crazy pretty and cool. Sometimes I
wonder if you’re with me just to see what it’s like to go
slumming.”
“That’s got to be it.
Let’s go inside. The basement. It’s cool down there.” She pulls me
toward the back door to the kitchen.
“I better
not.”
“You’re afraid to go
inside my house,” she says. “Why?”
Somebody taps a
plastic fork on a plastic cup, and everybody does the same, and now
it’s quiet, except the music is still on loud with one of those
old-school metal bands. “I’m on the highway to hell,” the singer
keeps screaming.
“Just wanna toast
Tony today and everybody else looking out for us,” this old man
says.
Mrs. V. nods thank
you. She’s smiling, but she doesn’t look the dude in the
eye.
Céce tugs on my
T-shirt. “Let’s get Boo and go to your place.”
“Let’s hit the park,
catch the fireworks,” I say.
“Sunset’s three hours
away.”
“If we get there
early, we’ll get a nice patch of grass.”
“That dude you give
money to,” she says. “Where’s he live?”
“Why?”
“Wanna meet
him.”
“I don’t think he’d
like that. Maybe in front of you he’ll be embarrassed he’s got to
take money from me.”
“You swear that’s all
you’re doing, giving him money?”
“What else would I be
giving him?”
She studies me.
“Okay. Can we stop off at the church on the way to the
park?”
“I only like church
when it’s empty.”
“Saturday afternoon?”
she says. “It’ll be empty.”
“We’ll only start
making out. I heard if you get a boner in church, they send you to
hell.”
“The dreaded church
boner problem.” She nods. “Well, then I guess we ought to go to
Taco B instead. Frutista Freezes. Cherry Limeade
Sparklers.”
“I’ll sip off yours,”
I say. “Thanks for saving me.”
“Saving
you?”
“From going to
hell.”
Kids at the park
entrance have the M-98 crackers and bottle rockets going. I hate
that sound, a sharp whistle bleeding into a hiss. Boo doesn’t like
it either. Her tail is curled under and flicking fast.
Céce strokes the back
of my neck, and I can breathe again.
We take Boo into the
hills, past the spot where we kissed that first time. “Want to take
you to my most secret place,” I say. “Only thing is, it’s a little
scary.”
“Obviously I like
scary.”
“I warned you
then.”
“As long as it’s
someplace where we can lose our shirts, I’m down.” She takes my
hand. “Show me.”
We’re lying in the
graveyard, her, me, and Boo. The grass is tall and clean and hides
us. The trees give a nice swaying cover. It’s nice: At last, I
finally have a human being to share my secret place with. I kiss
her breasts, but she starts breathing a little too fast, so I come
right back up to kissing her mouth. I don’t want her to think I’m
into her only for her prettiness. But I also don’t want her
thinking I’m not into getting down with her, in case she wants to
get down, and I kind of think she does because she grinds on me
sometimes. Hard. That and she moans sometimes a good bit too. Or
maybe that’s me, except I hope not. Only girls are supposed to
moan.
I suppose I could ask
her about it, what she wants me to do.
Nah.
I’m kind of afraid if
we do it, she won’t like me after. But I don’t know how much longer
I can drag it out. I swear, like half my blood supply is in my
dick. My hands and feet are cold this crazy hot Independence Day,
and I’m light-headed. You can’t survive long like this. She puts
her hand on it, and now she’s got my fly down, and she’s trying to
get at it, but I’m wearing those fake fly underwear, and why in
God’s name do they do that? Damn dollar table gets me every
time.
“Does it hurt?” she
says. “Being hard for so long?”
“Psh,
nah.”
“Tell the
truth.”
“It
kills.”
She’s mad nervous.
Her hands are shaking on me. “I’m gonna take care of you,” she
says.
I check to make sure
Boo’s asleep. “Well, I, that’d be fine.”
“Should I . . . I
mean, do you want me to, like ... Or will that make you think I’m a
slut?”
I gulp, twice. I
think she’s talking about a blow job, but what if she’s only
talking hand job? “I, it’s like, no, I could never think you’re a
slut.”
“Except I’m not sure
I believe you.”
“Why?”
“Poor eye
contact.”
I force myself to
look into her eyes, but by now she’s looking down at my boner.
“Wow,” she says.
I can’t tell if that
means wow, that’s huge or wow, that’s it?
She’s moving her hand
now. “Cool,” she says.
“Definitely.”
You can tell she
doesn’t quite know how to do it, but no way I’m embarrassing myself
to show her, and anyway it doesn’t take long, and aren’t I just
embarrassed as hell anyway now with no tissues for the cleanup. She
pulls a fold of Taco Bell napkins from her pocket.
I check to see if Boo
is still asleep. No, she’s looking at me. She looks totally
bored.
Getting jacked off in
front of a dog. I am lame.
Takes me a bit to
catch my breath. I keep saying, “Wow. That was like ... wow.”
Natural born idiot twice struck by lightning.
Céce’s turned away,
but she says, “Why do you pinch the inside of your wrist like
that?”
I never realized I
did. I stop doing it. “I don’t know how to ask this any better, so
I’ll just say it. Like, can I do something for you
now?”
“Like
what?”
“Whatever you
want.”
And then she starts
crying real hard. I knew I would ruin it. “I’m sorry.”
“No no, it’s fine.
I’m fine.” And even though she’s crying she’s sort of laughing too,
and she’s hugging me hard and stroking my face and kissing my neck,
and we just stay like that for a time, and I get to wondering if
maybe God loves me a little. I roll her onto her back and talk
between kisses. “Been thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. I don’t want
you to be embarrassed of me.”
“What are you talking
about?”
I comb her hair with
my fingers and study its shininess. “Serious: Why do you like
me?”
She thinks about it.
“You’re like the only guy I know our age who isn’t
retarded.”
“I don’t know what to
say. Thank you.”
She bites my lip. It
hurts good.
“Maybe I’ll head on
back to school,” I say.
She stops kissing me.
She pulls back a little to look at me. She nods. “I think that
would be really good.”
“I don’t mean like
school school. Dog training school.
Tony sicced Vic on me about it. They both said I’d do real good
there. Actually, they said I’d do well. I almost have to believe
that, because the Tone would never lie.”
“No, he would never
lie.”
“Vic would lie,
though.”
“I know, but only to
do a good thing, like make an anonymous donation to pay for some
kid’s school, and then the kid says, ‘Vic was that you?’ and Vic
says, ‘What are you talking about?’”
“You been talking to
him about it.”
“He’s been talking to
me,” she says.
“Bit of a meddler,
Vic is, huh?”
“He knows what he
knows.”
“Just do what he
says, and you’ll be fine.”
She’s got a good grip
on my hand. “Then we should just do what he says.”
“I keep this Bible
box hidden under my bed. It’s pretty full of money, enough for the
school. I need to spend it anyway, before my old man finds it. I
just want you to be proud of me.”
“I’m proud of
you.”
“I want to get rich
for you, you know?”
“You don’t have to
get rich for me.”
“I’m gonna do it
anyway.”
“Just keep kissing
me.”
“I tell you,
Céce.”
“Tell
me.”
I want to tell her
I’ve got a picture of us. Her and me together forever. But it’s too
soon. “I’ll tell you sometime.”
“Tell me
now.”
“Sometime.” I smile
and look away and she tries to get me to look at her, and we’re
practically wrestling till we end up in a cuddle. We’re on our
backs and holding hands, and she’s looking at me and I’m looking up
at a sky that’s got just one pretty little cloud in it shaped like
a bent top hat. Boo tries to wiggle between us, and the fireworks
start. They’re far away. The crackles are soft, and the hiss can’t
reach me. The lights are bright and pretty and red, white and pale
blue, and it occurs to me: I’m happy.