Weeds in Bloom (6 page)

This machine was big-time!

Soup and I casually sneaked into the Diesel Fuel’s only restroom, bolted the door, looked around, and there it was. A foreign rectangular object hung on the wall, up high, flashing the brand name of its forbidden fruit:

TROJAN

Earlier, we’d cashed in our long-collected small change, a total of twenty-five cents, and now were
financially prepared. Inside my clenched fist I felt our quarter, burning hot, panting for adventure.

Reverently, we read the instructions:

Clearly printed, easy-to-follow directions. But a problem had suddenly confronted us. Select type desired? The selection was made, we then learned upon closer examination of the machine’s technical demands, by pushing one of its three flaming-red buttons:

The American Hero style, we concluded, lacked a certain man-of-the-world appeal. Yet choosing between the two remaining choices was no snap-judgment decision. It required that Soup and I exchange our vast reservoirs of romantic sophistication and social experience, weighing all opinions of French or Arab behavior.

“Maybe,” said Soup, “we ought to flip a coin.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Heads it’s French, and tails it’s Arabian.”

“You flip,” Soup told me, “and I’ll catch it.”

An errant toss, plus a fumbled catch, and our precious quarter went jingling to the concrete floor, then rolled across the dampness to underneath the toilet tank. Down on our knees, in unpleasant moistures and aromas, we groped for our twenty-five cents. “I can see it,” Soup said, “but I can’t quite seem to reach it.”

Whack. Whack
.

Somebody was outside the door!

“Hey, anybody in there?” asked a trucky male voice. “Open up. Or else.”

“What’ll we do?” I whispered too loudly.

“Be right out,” Soup croaked in a wavering soprano.

The trucker said a colorful word. A real zinger. “You kids got no right to be in there. Hurry up and come on out. And pronto.”

With a desperate ram of my hand into an area about which I knew (or wanted to know) nothing, I managed to reclaim the quarter, dirt and all. Rising, I inserted the gritty coin in the machine’s slot as Soup hurriedly mashed a button. At this point, any selection would do. I yanked down the lever. After a click, and an eternity of a full second, down
into the tray thumped our prize, an American Hero Trojan.

Patriotism had triumphed over exotica.

WHACK!

“Open that door,” threatened an irate voice, “or I’ll bust it down and throttle you kids. And I mean now!”

We opened the door. There stood a beefy trucker, holding a quarter. Behind him, seated in the cab of his truck, a lady was shouting a suggestion.

“Hurry it up, Harry. I only got half an hour.”

“In a minute, Gladice. Okay?”

Soup and I decided not to wait around to offer Harry any advice on what, of the three selections, he should purchase. We ran like flushed rabbits. I felt my face blushing with guilt, fearing that Soup and I would be caught and jailed for life. A bold headline on the front page of our local Weekly would trumpet the tawdry news to the entire world:

TROJAN BUYERS NABBED!

We ran for at least a mile.

Over fences, through bull pastures, splashing through a shallow crick and then pulling up to breathe.

A close call.

We stashed our American Hero in a variety of remote locations: Stoddard’s Ice House, under a rain barrel behind Higbee’s Hardware, and in assorted nooks known only to us.

Unfamiliar with Vermont’s codified Statute of
Limitations, we waited and played it cool, spurning the folly of flashing the take of our caper to any of our socially underachieving classmates. After several nervous weeks, we concluded that the proverbial coast was clear. At last we could offer our American Hero its long-awaited debut.

Its virgin excursion came on a Saturday night in May. As customary, we were allowed to come to town with our parents, wearing our good shirts, and promenade to and fro along a very short Main Street, to strut with the concealed confidence that Trojan ownership provides, and to give all the chicks a chance to admire our swaggering masculinity.

We took turns carrying the American Hero.

Having noticed where the high school boys packed theirs, we did likewise. Inside the right front pocket of blue jeans there’s another tiny pocket, about two inches square. Our mothers told us that this was a watch pocket. We both, however, knew its true purpose. It was where a tiger tucks a Trojan.

Days passed, and then weeks, the inevitable changing of seasons, year after year. Several pairs of blue jeans were outworn and outgrown, yet my American Hero managed to adjust to the transition for close to a decade. There it rode, secure in its
denim cockpit, ready to serve its ultimate purpose if ever the opportunity presented. Originally (we opened the package and peeked) it was white. But as the years flew by, it yellowed, turned green, and darkened into decay.

There wasn’t another American Hero Trojan ever vulcanized that provided more pleasure than this one. Neither a French Tickler nor an Arabian Stallion. Mine, by sheer rubbery endurance, stretched time into a championship of chastity.

At age seventeen, prior to entering the Army, I considered taking it with me. For an enlisted soldier, it seemed that one American hero might luck out and employ another.

Instead, I stowed it among my assorted souvenirs of youth, left it behind, and marched away to war.

Upon returning, I found it. The aging process had taken its toll. My perennial American Hero had retired to little more than a puny parcel of dust. Perhaps, I mused, I’d offer it to the Smithsonian, finally to prove my manhood.

Yet it isn’t easy to part with a cherished keepsake.

Though I considered establishing an Old Trojan’s Home, I didn’t relish the thought of having either Mama or Aunt Carrie learn the sordid truth of my reckless and feckless past. So, with an
appropriate ceremony, I dug a hole and buried it.

There, beneath the pristine Vermont topsoil, an American Hero still lies, a silent tribute to my unintended innocence, a monument to an eventual moral revolution that I had inadvertently spawned.

I had conceived Safe Sex.

N
O ONE REALLY KNEW HIM
.

Or wanted to, because he smelled worse than a wet barn dog. Yet everyone in town recognized him.

Joe was an orphan. If he’d had parents, they’d up and disappeared years ago. Few people knew or cared how old Joe Galipo was. Perhaps not even Joe himself. Bone scrawny, he was close to my size; I was coming up ten or eleven.

Miss Noe, the constable’s sister, would sometimes feed Joe, scrub him, burn or bury his filthy clothes, and supply him with a fresh outfit from the back-room stockpile at the Methodist church. Her brother, whenever he could collar him, escorted Joe to our school. Miss Kelly allowed Joe to sit anywhere he wanted: in winter, near the black upright woodstove, and in spring, close to the
door. Whenever her back was turned, he ran away.

Joe lived anywhere and everywhere, surviving any way he could. People claim he stole food, yet few could righteously object.

He tried to keep out of sight.

Rarely would he appear on Main Street. His home, if it could be called that, was a back alley. Joe moved in shadows, darting from one hiding place to another. Rather than being a child, he was a stray cat.

Miss Noe claimed that Joe would talk to her. But on any rare day when he was in school, he never spoke word one.

Joe was considered simple. People used the word
slow
. Because he was thought to be the village fool, nobody offered to adopt him, or take him inside. Time and again, Joe Galipo was chased out of barns for fear he’d stupidly light a match in the straw. In cold weather, Joe added layers and layers of clothing items around his body. When frightened, he ran, his rags flapping like broken wings.

A few of our local youngsters were cruel to Joe, cornering him to bully. To them, it was a kind of outdoor sport. Seeing this made me angry, but I was too small to do much about it. Except yell.

Joe Galipo never talked to me until I started giving him eats. I wouldn’t walk up to Joe and hand him anything. But once I discovered one of the
places where he slept, behind the boarded-up old Opera House, I’d leave an apple, a raw potato, or a tin can full of fresh milk nearby, where I figured he’d find it.

Once I found the empty milk can with a penny in it. A silent payment.

“Thank you, Joe,” I hollered behind the Opera House. “I’m Rob.”

I sort of guessed, or hoped, he heard me. Soon after, he let me see him and didn’t run away. He just stood in his soiled garb and stared. I smiled at him, raised my hand to a howdy, and Joe smiled back. When I tossed him a cucumber, he dropped it, stooped to retrieve it, and scurried off.

Perhaps, I reasoned, Joe wasn’t stupid. Just silent. Maybe because he might be deaf. I was wrong. Joe Galipo could hear, and speak. He just didn’t have any cause. When I asked Miss Noe about him, she told me that Joe could talk, and was possible smarter than a lot of our other citizens. But then she explained that Joe didn’t converse with a normal voice. He had a stammer. Miss Noe thought it was because Joe was afraid.

Joe wasn’t the only Galipo in town.

We had two families of them, living over by the lead mill, close to the crick. The Galipo kids, both families, weren’t very friendly. And to Joe they were meaner than a sin on Sunday. His worst enemies.
Miss Noe claimed they considered Joe an embarrassment, giving any other Galipo a bad name. To them, Joe was just a dirty joke.

Years passed.

When I was thirteen, Papa died, and we lost our farm soon after. Then there was only Mama and Aunt Carrie, and me. A good neighbor stopped by with an empty wagon. We loaded what little we had and moved into town, into two tiny rooms above a feed store. Mama found work, taking care of two elderly women. I took odd jobs. Aunt Carrie took sick.

We squeaked by.

As often as possible, I still sneaked food to Joe Galipo. We got to be friends. I handled most of our conversations. Joe didn’t have anything to say, but I knew he trusted me. One afternoon, Joe got roughed up by some of our local thugs. I found him in the alley, alone, curled up on the gritty ground and holding his belly like it hurt.

“I’m your friend, Joe,” I told him.

He actual spoke my name.

“Rob … you an’ Miss Noe. You’re … you’re my only friends.” His voice sounded puny. The words didn’t come out very plain, but at least he was saying something. “I got a secret,” he told me. “Do you want to see it? But don’t tell nobody about my secret thing. I never tell Miss Noe.”

“Where is it?”

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show ya.”

I followed him.

Behind the beat-up old Opera House, a place that hadn’t been open to the public since I could ever recall, Joe loosened a few rotted boards. We crawled inside. It was dark, spooky, and smelled musty. My face met a spiderweb. Secret or no secret, all I wanted was to leave.

“I sleep here,” Joe said. “And it’s where I talk. Alone. I talk all the time. Like people.”

Moving more boards, Joe allowed some light to sift inside. As my eyes adjusted, I saw we were on some sort of a stage. There were ratty curtains and hanging ropes.

“Here,” said Joe. “Here it is.” I watched him remove a large tarp of canvas off what appeared to be a big box. He lifted up a lid. “It’s my piano,” Joe said.

There it was. Joe Galipo had a piano but no family. I had a family and no piano. It made me smile. Nobody gets it all.

“I can play it, Rob.”

Blinking at him in disbelief, I asked, “You can?”

He could. Joe sat on a bench, placed his hands on the black-and-white keys, and played a little song. Something I’d never heard. It sounded pretty as flowers. All the way through to the end.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s really good. How’d you learn to play a piano? Who taught you?”

“Me.”

“You taught yourself to play it?”

Joe nodded. “It’s so easy. The hard part was fixing all the sour noise.” He showed me an old pair of pliers. “With these. Took a long time to tight up the wires inside. But I done it, so all the sounds mix together.” He grinned at me. “You wanna learn?”

“Boy, do I.”

“Watch. And listen. It helps to look at first. But now I don’t have to look no more. I can play at night.”

“Show me again.”

Joe’s left hand played a low note.

“Down yonder,” he said, “is the father. See where my little finger is? Then, five notes up, is the mother. Press ’em down together and they get married.” It sounded like a bagpipe. Yet it was correct, as if Joe actually knew how to do it. And how to teach me. With his right hand, Joe played a few higher notes. Three, then four. “Up here. These are the children. All together, they’ll make up a family. They’re my family now. Hear ‘em? They all love each other.”

The way he explained it, in such a sweet way, made me almost want to cry.

As we stood on that dirty old stage, the piano
wasn’t so important anymore. Joe sat there, moving his hands around, playing one family after another. The father and mother sounded so strong, and the higher-up kids so happy. They tinkled away like laughter.