Blood Relations (7 page)

He gave me the cold fish eye. “So, what about next week, you gonna be an Indian with the war paint and feathers hanging down to yer ass?”

I didn’t hit him. He knew I wouldn’t, which was why he could say stuff like that. But I didn’t talk to him either. I folded my hands like I always do when I’m sitting at a desk and I don’t know what else to do. In a minute, he spoke. He had no heart for the cold shoulder, just like he was too soft for most things.

“Anyway,” he said in the same middle-of-nowhere voice that he says everything, “Honey’s gonna meet us after school. She’s gonna be outside. So tuck in your shirt and take that damn stupid greasy thing off your head.”

This is why I had to start sort of ignoring Sully. I couldn’t tell anymore if he was deaf, or insane, or just completely stupid. I used to be able to tell. Used to be able to tell everything about him, more than he could himself. When we were six, eight, fourteen years old. Not so now though. It was like at this point he didn’t understand a thing I said. Like that I wanted no parts of his sister. So I was just going to have to leave him alone for a while. He’d get better again.

I went the whole day without earning detention, and when the last bell rang I raced downstairs to wait at the door for Evelyn. In my new style. I couldn’t lose.

I stood in the middle of the sidewalk at the foot of the school steps, so that the road out led to me. I could
feel
my look again, and it made me bold. I spread my feet wide, clasped my hands behind my back and waited. As students filed out, I sorted, mentally plucking and tossing aside every one who was not Evelyn.

Then, one of them was Toy.

“Sunglasses,” he said, walking right up to me and blocking my view. “You need some sunglasses to complete the look. Wayfarers, maybe.”

“It’s not even sunny. It looks like it’s gonna rain, even.”

He clicked his tongue at me, the way parents do. “You still need a lot of work, boy.”

“I know, but can we work later?” I said, and pushed Toy out of my way. Pushed? Yes I did, I pushed Toy. When I realized what I’d done, I looked up at him with the right amount of fear and regret.

Fortunately, what he dropped on me was a fatherly smile. “This must be love,” he said, backing up to sit on the steps. “It’s got to be love. It
better
be love.” He pointed a big finger at me then, but it sounded like he was more happy about it than mad.

I waited, watching for her again.

Ruben came bounding down the stairs.
“¡Amigo!”
he said, rushing up to me. I heard Toy laughing in the background. “You waitin’ for me? How sweet.”

I looked beyond him, over his head for his sister. Where was she? “Don’t you have some other friends to play with for now?” I said. Not that I could really afford to be risking any myself.

He was offended. “If I did, would I be hangin’ wit
chu
?”

“Mira,”
Toy called, motioning Ruben to him. “I’ll tell you all about it.” They sat together, watching me, muttering and laughing. My new cool was quickly running out all over the sidewalk.

All the other people I didn’t want to see passed, a lot of them checking me out and smirking. Baba thumped by, brushing me with his shoulder and tossing me a look that was like spit.

Finally, finally, Evelyn emerged. A few strides behind her, a rotten freak of luck but the kind of luck I’m overblessed with, was Sully.

Evelyn’s eyes widened, and I remembered my look. I straightened, spread the feet again, clasped the hands at the back again.

“El Micko?”
she said, then politely covered her mouth as she began to laugh at me again.

“I’m going the hell home,” I said, to the background hum of Toy’s, Ruben’s, and Sully’s chuckles. It was only then she knew they were all there. She grabbed me by the hand, yanked me close to her.

“Please, it was laughter of admiration, I promise.”

Whatever the hell laughter of admiration is. But the words didn’t matter at all. What did matter was that her nose was pressed against the tip of my ear when she said it. Everything else washed away. Ruben for one and Sully for two didn’t seem to like that, at all. Toy mimed a little golf clap of approval.

“Let’s go someplace,” I said. “Want to?”

“Sure,” she said.

I was nearly trotting, trying to get out of there. Evelyn pulled me back by the shirt. “Easy. Where you running to?”

“No place,” I said. I saw that a few steps behind was Sully, following us. A few steps behind him were Ruben and Toy. “What you should have asked was what am I running
from
?” I said, pointing at the group.

Evelyn turned. “Well, hello, boys. Mick, this is very impressive. You have an entourage. Are you a boxer? A president?”

“I’m a fugitive,” I said, grabbing her hand and hurrying on. We had just started putting a little distance between us and them when we were stopped dead again. In front of the superette.

“Yes, hello, Honey,” I said, like the air running out of a balloon. “Nice to see you too.”

“Honey?” Evelyn said to me with arched brows. “Friend of yours?”

“That’s her name. Honey, this is Evelyn. Evelyn, Honey.”

While they shook hands and said their nice-to-meet-you’s, Sully caught up. “He did have an appointment, you know,” he said, taking his place beside Honey, looking at Evelyn as he talked.

“He did?” Evelyn looked at me.

“No. Sully, cut the shit.”

“He was meeting my sister here,” Sully said, again to Evelyn.

Toy and Ruben caught up, took their seats on the milk crates, and lit up.

“Hey, I could leave,” Evelyn said. “I’ve got things to do anyway.”

I
would
kill him over this. “Sul, man, I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, but I’ll kick your balls through the top of your head if you don’t—”

“Oh
that’s
pretty,” Evelyn said, drawing from Sully a small victorious smile. He was getting me to do his work for him.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m really not like that. I don’t know what—”

“Listen,” Honey cut in. “We didn’t have no date or nothin’ special like that. I was just comin’ out ta meet the boys is all. Don’t let me get in the way. You two make a nice-lookin’ pair.”

Sully turned tomato red. “Whatsa matter with you? You wanna be a old friggin’ maid or what?”

Toy and Ruben started commenting from within their cloud. “Booo!” they called at Sully. “Booooo! Go home. You stink.”

He was about to say more, not to them, but to Honey, when Evelyn headed him off. “That’s such a pretty name you have.” She hummed it, “Honey... Honey. It must be beautiful to hear it all day.”

Honey looked down, then up at Evelyn, smiling a shy smile. She looked unsure whether to believe the compliment or not. She probably wasn’t used to it. Honey was what the local ladies referred to as “plain” when they were pretending to be kind. Plain. Stop-a-train plain. But she seemed to live with that okay and never turned nasty over it the way some people would. Just stayed, like her name, sweet all the time. What she did have, though, was a pretty unbelievable body, the whole tight, hourglass, nothing missing package, settled under that big unfortunate head. That sorry kind of girl who, you know, all the guys want to take
on
, but none of them want to take
out
. Which, I hear, is what happens to her a lot.

“But it’s not really my real name,” she said. “My real name is Esther. A teacher started calling me Honey when I was younger, because, he said, I was such a sweet thing, and it stuck. That’s a nice thing, don’t you think?”

I watched Evelyn smile, reach out, and touch Honey’s hand as gently as you’d stroke a new kitten. “That’s a very nice thing,” she said.

“But Evelyn is a pretty name too, of course,” Honey said.

Evelyn backed away from that. “Yes,” she mumbled. Ruben hooted at her.

“Ya, about
your
name...” I said. “Is your name really Juana?”

She threw her brother a wicked stare. He looked at his feet.

“You can call me Evelyn,” she said harshly to me. “Or you can not call me at all.”

“Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn...” I said.

Even Toy seemed amused now. “Juaaana,” he said, drawn out and exaggerated. “Hhhhwwwaaaa-nnnaaa.”

She marched right up to him. “Yes?
Angel
? What can I do for you, Anhelll?”

“Hey,” he snapped, but she didn’t move.

“You have the most beautiful name of all, and you hide it. What’s that all about?”

“I like Toy,” he said, retreating.

“I like Angel,” she said.

“I like Angel too,” I said.

“I like
Toy
,” he barked at me.

“You’re right,” I said. “Toy sounds better.”

Ruben pointed at me. “This is freakin’ fun. Yo, Matt, what’s your real name?”

“Mick,” I said. I’d rather have said Esther.

“No, isn’t it really Michael?” Evelyn said because she knows everything.

The muck of my embarrassment was up over my ankles now, heading for my knees. “No, it’s actually Mick. My father thought Mick was the coolest thing, for reasons of his own, and I’d rather not go into it any further.”

Luckily, nobody else wanted to go into it any further, either. With the silence, Sully found his moment to get back into it.

“So, you gonna take my sister out, or what?” he said, deadly serious.

I had to smile. “I’m sorry, Honey,” I said.

“For what? Don’t worry about it. I got plenty a boyfriends.”

“No, Sul. I’m not gonna take Honey out.”

“I will,” Ruben said, jumping up and scurrying to her. He stood smiling up—she was a head taller than him—wiggling his tongue in the spaces where his teeth weren’t. She smiled back.

“The hell you
will
,” Sully said, grabbing her by the arm and whisking her away.

“Nice meeting you all,” Honey called back.

“Bunch a friggin’ phonies,” Sully called.

Evelyn walked to me. “We were going someplace?” she asked.

“We were.”

As we started to walk away, Ruben hopped up behind us again. “I’m havin’ a great freakin’ time today. Where we goin’ now?”

“Come on, man,” I said. Begged, actually. “Give us a break. Go hang with some of your other friends for a while.”

“He hasn’t
got
any,” Evelyn snapped.

“I do so got friends. I got two. But they dead now.”

Toy stepped up behind him, grabbed Ruben by the collar. “Have a good time,” he said, waving to us.

“I want to apologize, for Sully,” I said when I finally knew what I wanted to say. “He’s just crude. He’s ignorant and, I don’t know, I feel like he’s something I should apologize for.”

We were walking up the stairs of the old brick boathouse by the pond, to watch the boats and the ducks and the still water.

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “You should be proud. That boy loves you a lot.”

G
ETTING OUT OF MY
neighborhood, or getting out of my
family
, was a lot like getting out of the priesthood. You couldn’t just wake up one day and say “Okay, I’m not what I was anymore,” and that would be it. There was a lot of explaining to do, maybe some vows to be broken.

Also, both groups were big on ceremonies, and holidays. The big one in the neighborhood was of course St. Pat’s. But that one was a lot of show, and open to the public. The event that probably said more about The Terry Style was May Day. Because it was more secret. Because it was more violent. And because it neatly summed up my brother’s worldview: If you aren’t in our circle, then you’re in our sights.

Could it be May Day again already? Seemed like it was only last week it was May Day and all of us were sitting on the Cambridge side of the river at three
A.M.
watching the bonfire. Terry had broken into the boat shed and dragged out all the equipment of not one but two college crew clubs to make his personal flaming tribute to higher education. No actual boats—though he tried his ass off to get one out—but life jackets, rubber shoes, oars, white plastic first-aid boxes, and a generous splash of 151 rum that made a foul, brilliant, chemical-fueled green and blue and yellow and red flame that reflected off the flat river and popped with small explosions.

If I was at all serious about making a break from all the ignorance once and for all, I had to break from May Day. Only it’s not just a day. It’s forty-eight fearsome hours over the second weekend in May when Terry and his disciples gather and celebrate the exodus from
their
town of all the “faggot-ass college students who don’t belong here anyhow.” It officially starts on Saturday morning when Augie blows in through the front door towing two cases of Ballantine ale and his two dogs, Bunky and Bobo. He plunks himself down in front of the TV, turns up World Wide Main Event Super Heavyweight Battle of the Ages Championship Wrestling so loud you can hear the fighters drool, and he cracks open his first bottle.

From my bedroom I heard the first “psshht.”

“Did I hear a beer?” Terry yelled as he threw open his bedroom door. He punched my door loud on the way by.

“Have fun, you boys,” Ma said as she hurried to scram. My parents do their part by making their one smart move of the year. They clear out. Last year it was to Franconia to visit their friend the rich ignorant plumbing contractor who eats with his mouth wide open. This year it was North Conway for knickknack crap nobody wants.

“Don’t break nothin’ this year, Augie,” Dad growled just before stomping out. “And if you do, replace it before I get back.”

I heard Augie laugh. “Lighten up, old guy. Here ya go, have a suck for the road.”

There was a pause. “It’s a two-hour ride, for chrissake,” Dad said, disgusted.

“Pardon me,” Augie said, then I heard a lot of clinking as Dad left with an armful of bottles.

For a half hour the two of them yelled at the TV, belched, crashed around the living room body-slamming each other, hurled empty bottles down the hall, and howled high-pitched howls to make the dogs crazy so that together they sounded like a four-mutt barbershop quartet. I stayed in bed with my pillow over my head. Jesus, I hope they forget about me, I thought.

“Hey! Get yer ass out here... you,” Terry screamed from the bathroom as he took a loud leak with the door open. “You’re way behind. You don’t wanna miss the May Day festivities.”