CHAPTER ONE
Paul
I WAS TIREDof listening to Eisenhower on the radio, his enunciated vowels, clipped consonants, and the way he says the yearnineteen-hundred-and-fifty-eightas if he might be counting change from his pockets.
If I were truthful in all things, I’d say the reason I came outside with my book was to wait. But I am not truthful in all things.
So I’ll just blame Eisenhower.
While I wait, a breeze comes through and makes the pages of my book curl.
It’s an already battered book, with dog-eared pages and a torn back cover that I pasted together seven months ago. I used to carry it with me everywhere, thinking I’d need some comfort, some escape. I smooth out the pages as best I can and keep one eye on the sun making its arc through the western sky.
It’s the time of day when Aunt Amy’s dresses and underthings have dried on the line and the fresh scent carries over in the breeze. The day is old and hot and there are suppertime smells in the air. It’s perfect. As perfect as anything can be in my life, which is nothing really, and I turn in the lawn chair just enough so I can see without being seen. My secrets begin and end with the arc of the sun.
“Paul,” Aunt Amy calls. In my periphery I see her coming out onto the patio with a basket, her bare feet swishing in the grass. “Are you really reading that bookagain?”
I glance over at the apartment building just behind the fence. It’s a square brick building with exactly four apartments. The two on the bottom have sliding doors and a patio,and the top two have sliding doors and balconies of concrete and metal railings. A gravel alleyway separates Aunt Amy’s fence from the apartment building’s pathetic yard.
My fingers tighten around the book cover. “Mom liked this book.” I glance over at Aunt Amy and her expression goes solemn. I feel a pinch of guilt.
“I see,” she replies, forcing her voice to sound light. She begins removing clothes from the line. At the end, in a little collection, are my own clothes, dried and swaying. I sit up in horror at the thought of my underpants swaying about like a flag. I look up at the apartment building, relieved there’s no one outside to see.
Especially nothim.
From where I sit, behind the brown wooden fence, I can see that the bottom right apartment looks empty. I’ve peeked through a slit in the wood and there’s nothing on the patio. No chairs or ashtray. But there’s a frayed-looking rug just by the doors and sometimes there’s a light on inside. I’m guessing it’s an old man who doesn’t want to be bothered. Widowed and alone, suburbia lives and thrives while his golden years pass him by. And he’d just prefer it that way.
Aunt Amy puts the clothespins in her apron. “Maybe we’ll have dinner out on the patio this evening. If the weather holds up.” She glances toward the south where there are some threatening clouds rolling in.
The bottom left apartment has a maybe-married couple and some kids. I don’t know how many, but a dolly has been sitting next to the ashtray for a couple of months now. The hair is frizzed, the face browned, and every so often a lady with curlers in her hair and wearing a mint-green robe sits out on the patio with a pack of Chesterfields. Sometimes a guy yells from the inside or a kid shrieks like a banshee.
“What do you want for dinner?” Aunt Amy starts pulling down my clothes from the line. My shoulders relax.
“I dunno,” I reply absently.
The top right apartment has two girls. They look about my age, but I’m not so sure. They don’t come out much. For a while, one of them would come out to smoke and lean over the balcony rail, her hair up in a scarf. It always seemed like she was looking for someone down below. Romeo come to serenade her at last.
“I could get us a pizza pie,” Aunt Amy offers.
I shrug my shoulders and my gaze zeros in on the top left apartment, and by design, the furthest apartment from me. I always hear his Triumph first, the sound of the motor breaking through the birds’ songs and dogs’ barks in the neighborhood. He must park it in the front somewhere, because I’ve never actually seen it. From the time the motor cuts off to when he appears on the balcony with a can of Pabst and a Lucky Strike is anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes. I imagine my ears perking up like Bugs Bunny in anticipation.
“Well, I’ll fix us steak then,” Aunt Amy says, folding the last pair of pants from the line into the basket. “Steak and those little new potatoes. I’ll roast them, and I made a cake for dessert. You’d like that, right?”
I nod. It’s no different from what we have for dinner every night: meat and potatoes. Sometimes there’s ice cream instead of cake. Sometimes Aunt Amy burns the meat. Sometimes she over-salts the potatoes. I can’t really hold it against her. Out of all my father’s sisters, she remains the only one unmarried. She isn’t used to cooking for anyone but herself.
As she picks up the basket and turns to me, I hear it. A distant roar, avroom vroomthat bucks and canters as it gets closer, and I close my eyes, trying to picture him riding it. Five hundred pounds of steel between his legs, denim and leather, and the wind blowing past his slicked back hair.
“Paul?”
I open my eyes andLes Misérablesslips out of my hands and onto the grass. “Yeah?”
I glance over at her, and she’s got one eyebrow raised in disapproval.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I meant yes?”
“That’s better.” She tilts her head at me, and her eyes look down at the book. “Maybe you should consider going for a walk or something. It’s a nice afternoon.”
I shrug and fiddle with the thick, worn paperback. The engine draws closer until I know it’s right in front of the apartment house, right out of my sight. It cuts off.
