Who is Charlie Conti? (19 page)

‘Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all?’

‘Tony’s scared of the ducks.’ Izzy raised her hand to her mouth to hide her laughter.

‘Oh really? Who’s Tony.’ Again that
dumb
question
look.

‘Have I met Tony?’ I asked.

‘Tony’s a big man.’

‘Really? I’m trying to think… I’m not sure I’ve met him. Is he a friend of yours?’

Judy McGrabe coughed dryly in the corner, then she said: ‘I think Izzy is talking about Tony in
The Sopranos
. She loves watching
The Sopranos
.’

‘Oh, right, I see.’ I looked back at Izzy. She was keen to pick up the thread.

‘Tony’s daughter is mellow,’ she said.

I smiled. The word reminded me that Izzy had never been able to say ‘yellow’; it was always ‘lellow’.

‘Mellow? Well, that’s good. Like mellow lellow?’

Another cough from the corner. ‘I think she means that Tony Soprano’s daughter is called Meadow,’ said Mrs McGrabe.

‘Right. Thanks.’

‘Tony’s scared of the ducks,’ repeated Izzy.

‘Yes, I know, you just told me.’

I was starting to feel frustrated. I wish it didn’t happen that way, but invariably it does. That’s the thing, when you want to get close to someone and you realize it’s not happening, it can make you kind of angry. Sometimes it even makes you mean, just to get a reaction, you know. I changed the subject.

‘Izzy, do you remember mom, and Italy, and throwing coins into the fountains?’

‘Mummy’s in heaven,’ said Izzy.

‘Yes, that’s right. But do you remember her?’

‘Excuse me, Mr Conti, I don’t want to interrupt but I feel it’s important for you to understand how hard we have to work to reconcile our residents to the feelings of grief and loss that they may have. It can take a very long time. We try to avoid stirring up painful memories.’

‘Yes, I think I understand. You’re saying that I’m not allowed
to talk to my sister about our mother, is that it?’ I could feel my scalp start to prickle.

‘Of course Izzy is allowed to talk about whatever she wants, but we would be grateful if you did not force her to engage with painful memories.’

The last thing I needed was this old cow telling me what I could and couldn’t talk to my sister about. I turned to Izzy. ‘Izzy, can we talk about mummy?’

Izzy sort of shrugged without replying. Mrs McGrabe said: ‘Izzy, what would you like to talk about?’

There was a pause. I could feel myself begin to lose it.

‘Tony’s scared of the ducks.’

‘Jeezus Izzy, fuck Tony Soprano and his fucking ducks!’

Of course that was an overreaction, but at the time I felt that I hadn’t come all the way to Maryland to talk about some dumb TV show. And of course I wasn’t angry at Izzy, but at everything else.

‘Mr Conti, I insist! Please don’t shout. Perhaps it would be best if –’

‘And fuck you too.’

Mrs McGrabe opened her mouth like some fat dumb fish. Izzy had hidden her face and was crying.

‘I’m sorry Izzy, I’m sorry. It’s just that I wanted to talk about mummy pretty badly because a load of stuff’s happened that you wouldn’t understand, and I’m not really myself right now. In fact I’m not really sure who I am. I’m sorry…’

‘Mr Conti, whether you are Izzy’s brother or not, I insist
that you leave right now, otherwise I shall be forced to have you removed.’ The old bag was brandishing her cell phone in her hand. ‘If you leave now I will consider scheduling another meeting when you’ve calmed down.’

‘I’m going to get the papers and then I’ll get Izzy and I’ll take her away from you and your child-molesting co-workers and your corny fucking Happy Lives,’ I said.

Then I turned to Izzy. ‘Trust me Izzy, I’ll come and get you and we’ll go someplace where people are honest, Japan or somewhere like that. Yes, we’ll live in Japan, in a paper house by the sea and we’ll leave the door open and no one will steal anything. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you like that?’

But Izzy didn’t reply and the horrible brown room reverberated with ugly emotions and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I marched out and slammed the door behind me which wasn’t necessary and I heard the poem on the back of the door fall to the ground and the glass shattered. I wish that hadn’t happened.

I
WENT STRAIGHT
to the Paradise Tavern and sat at the bar and started to drink. This time no one asked me for ID, I guess because of the state my face was still in. Anyway, I mixed different liquors to get intoxicated quicker. The Tavern began to fill up but my corner was pretty dark and no one paid me much attention. I didn’t know how I could get the guardianship papers and to be honest I didn’t know how I’d look after Izzy, at least not until I’d straightened stuff out. Even if we didn’t go to Japan, even if we just went someplace coastal and remote, someplace like Maine perhaps, even then it would be difficult to take her with me. That was obvious to me despite the fog of alcohol which was beginning to make the world feel a little warmer and a little softer. But I didn’t want to leave without seeing Izzy again, with her just remembering me shouting
and smashing the picture and all. That would be too sad. So I decided I’d stay in the Tavern and drink until closing time, then I’d go back to Happy Lives and I’d find a way to get into her room and I’d say goodbye properly.

My memory of the rest of the night is pretty hazy. I remember thinking that it must be cold because all the puddles outside were iced over. But like I said, alcohol makes the world feel warmer and softer than it really is. I guess that’s why I didn’t think twice about climbing the big old chestnut tree whose branches overhung a portion of the roof of Happy Lives – Izzy had said that her room was next to the big tree. I climbed the trunk and slid along with the branch between my legs, then I dropped from the branch down onto the roof and lowered my feet onto the sill of a first floor window. I guess it was pretty dangerous. I mean, if that hadn’t been Izzy’s room and if I’d got caught I could’ve been in a lot of trouble. That’s the other great thing about alcohol – it stops you thinking too much. But luckily it was Izzy’s room; I could see her through the gap between the curtains. Izzy always slept with the light on. I used to sneak into her bedroom and switch it off when we were kids, but it would always be back on by morning.

I remember my mother was very upset once because an orphanage had burnt down in Naples and the children had asphyxiated because they hadn’t been able to open the dormitory window. After that she’d get pretty angry if we went to bed without checking that the window was a little bit open, even in winter. But I guess it paid off for me now because Izzy’s window was open a fraction. I pushed it all the way up and climbed in no sweat.

The room was pink and decorated with posters of boy bands.
There were tiny sparkly stickers everywhere and a karaoke machine in the corner. I saw a framed photo of me on the table by her bed. The photo was pretty old but boy it made me happy that she had it there, right by her head, probably the first thing she’d see in the morning. In the photo I’m building a drip castle; you can just see Izzy’s leg in the corner of the shot. I think it was taken in Forte dei Marmi, on the grey sand beach. I remember the day pretty well – it had been very windy. After building the drip castle we went with the nurse to buy an ice-cream. I got a big scoop of chocolate on a cone and Izzy got strawberry. In Italy they used to make those scoops so big you’d have to spend a time licking the ice-cream into shape so it wouldn’t fall off the cone. They were pretty top-heavy too which made it more difficult. I don’t know whether it was the wind or just her clumsiness but Izzy’s scoop of strawberry fell off into the sand. The wind blew more sand onto it and it started melting pretty fast, bright pink rivers running into the dark grey grains. The nurse said that Izzy had to learn to be more careful and she wouldn’t get another. I could tell Izzy was about to cry and the bright pink in the grey sand made me so sad, I gave her my carefully licked chocolate ice-cream. You might think that’s pretty gross but it made Izzy happy. It’s one of the few memories I have from childhood in which I do something nice.

I fell into the armchair in the corner of Izzy’s room and watched her sleeping. When she sleeps it’s like she’s sitting with her legs crossed under the duvet but with her body leaning forwards, her folded arms resting on her legs and her head resting on her arms. It looks uncomfortable but people who have Down’s are very flexible so I guess it’s ok. I looked at her hands which were small
and pinkish and kind of wrinkly, like a cross between a baby and an old person.
Heaven’s very special child
… Oh boy, you’ve got to watch it with that corny stuff, it creeps up on you. Anyways, I was going to wake her but I decided not to. That was a good decision. Instead I thought to myself how pretty much everything that tied me to this world was in that room. An old photo, my sister, and what I was feeling at that moment; a shared memory, a shared genetic heritage and love. But the ties are not chains. They’re more like the silken threads of spider webs – beautiful but also complex and too easily broken.

Izzy woke me up as the first cold fingers of dawn were creeping into the room. My mouth was parched and my head was pulsating. Izzy didn’t seem surprised to see me; I guess she’d been watching me sleep. I hugged her and promised that I’d send her the complete Sopranos DVD box set for her birthday. She seemed pretty happy about that. Then I told her to go back to bed and I slipped out of the building.

F
ROM
P
ARADISE
I bussed and trained and hitched my way up here to Machiasport in Maine. I’ve been here two months now. When I first got here I thought about using my last dollars – everything that was left from selling the Buick – to buy a tent and then camping out on the headland. It’s pretty much the easternmost point of the continent and the first place to see the sun rise over the Atlantic every morning. I guess it’s probably also as far as it’s possible to get from LA. Problem is, it’s still really cold up here; there’s snow on the ground in places. The tourist season doesn’t start for another couple of months; lots of places are still closed, but I found a motel a short walk out of town that was open and that’s where I am now. It’s a cute place – you get a tiny wooden house of your own instead of a room. They look like kids’ toy houses, but even with the fire
going it’s still freezing at night. I think the wind gets in through the cracks between the wood. I’m fully clothed and wrapped up in my blankets as I write this.

First thing I did after finding this place was to buy an old typewriter. I got it in an antiques store. There’re a lot of antiques stores around here. It beats me how they make any money, most of the stuff they sell is just old junk. But I guess most of the people around here are pretty old too, so maybe they don’t see it like I do. God knows, this typewriter probably seems newfangled to Captain Dawson (that’s the old sea dog who captains the scallop boat that I work on). In fact I like this typewriter. You have to hit the keys pretty hard and that can be difficult when you can hardly feel your fingers, especially after a day in the water. But I like the feeling that I’m hammering out the truth – it’s more like chiselling stuff into stone than pushing a pen. Since I got here I’ve been writing most evenings and now I’m pretty near done. The napkins that I wrote the notes on in the diner are in front of me too, except a few of them are useless on account of the blood from where Kramer cleaned his hands. Not that it matters; I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything right.

I got the typewriter in Machias, a few miles west of Machiasport. I walked there along Route 1, past acres of bright purple,
ankle-high
blueberry bushes faintly dusted with snow. People round here call them ‘the barrens’; they’re very pretty, I have to say. Where the barrens stop the pine woods begin; from here they stretch unbroken to the great forests of the north, eventually coming to a ragged end in some snowy arctic waste. My own little motel-house is surrounded by pine trees. I like the thought of them stretching away like that.

On the way into Machias I stopped at the cemetery. It was a beautiful day, it really was. There were a few high, wispy clouds but the air is so cold here there’s never any haziness. The bright sunlight clarifies everything so much that it makes all objects look a little bit lonely, like they’re not connected to anything else. I sat on a splintered old bench overlooking the Machias River at the back of the cemetery. Occasionally I saw blocks of blue ice floating by, making the journey from Canada down to the sea. Then I wandered around the cemetery examining the headstones; some of them were so old you could hardly read the names. I didn’t know it then, but the first naval battle of the Revolution was fought in the mouth of the Machias River and the sailors who died in the battle were the first bodies to be buried in the cemetery. Captain Dawson told me that; he’s pretty knowledgeable.

As I watched the blocks of ice float gently past and the shadows of wispy clouds flit over the gravestones, I thought about killing myself. I mean, I thought about it as an experiment, just to see what it would feel like to think about it, like trying on clothes you know you won’t buy. People make such a fuss about people killing themselves but I don’t really see what the big deal is. I mean, if you’re in a cinema and you’re watching a movie which you don’t like then it’s fine to walk out. No one would try to make you stay, not unless you were there with your kids or your wife or someone. I wouldn’t kill myself if anyone else depended on me, or if it would ruin someone else’s life or anything like that. But if I killed myself, if I just disappeared permanently, well, I’m not sure anyone would really notice. And if anyone did notice I’m not sure they’d really care that much. Izzy would, and I’d like to think that Stella would
too, but if they didn’t hear from me for a long time I guess they’d just end up forgetting me. I mean, it would be one way out of my predicament: instead of giving up my identity I could just give up altogether. And I think it’s a nice word, suicide. I mean it sounds nice, particularly in Italian –
suicidio
. It sounds very peaceful, like the sound of ice slowly melting into the sea, or like the sound of sifting snow.

After I got the typewriter I walked back home the same way I’d come, along the road through the barrens. It was a beautiful day, far too beautiful to think seriously about dying.

I had just crested the brow of a hill when I saw a strange thing: the road in front of me was sprinkled with the shining silver bodies of fish, hundreds of them. They must have been very fresh because their skin had not dulled or tarnished, not one bit. In the cold clear air they reflected the sunlight with almost supernatural brightness. After a quarter of a mile or so the road turned to the right, back into the forest, and I couldn’t see any further. I continued walking past the silver bodies, wondering how they’d got there. I’d seen a documentary about a cyclone which had carried fish from the Pacific to the Midwest, dropping them in a small rural community. The community was very religious and they interpreted the shower of fish as a portent of the Apocalypse, until a team of scientists arrived and explained that they’d been tracking the cyclone. Anyways, I was remembering this as I rounded a corner and saw a bearded old man in enormous boots hobbling around picking up the fish and
laying them in wooden crates. He didn’t hear me or see me until I was standing right next to him.

‘Excuse me, sir?’

‘Huh?’ he said, looking up and lifting a cupped hand to his ear.

‘Can I help you?’ I asked.

‘Door opened. Fish fell out. Caught this morning.’

‘Can I help you pick them up?’

‘Huh? Help me? You? I’m not going to pay you.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘That’s fine.’

‘You hear? I’m not paying.’

‘I know, I heard.’ I couldn’t help thinking that the old man’s hearing might be better if he removed some of the hair growing out of his ears.

‘Huh. Crates in the truck,’ he said grudgingly.

So I got a crate and went back to the hill and started to pick up the fish. Some of them moved when I touched them, but I guess it was just a nervous spasm. Of theirs, that is. Half an hour later, after I’d picked up the last fish, the old man was still suspicious. ‘I told you, I’m not going to pay you,’ he said.

‘I know. That’s fine.’

‘What you doing here?’

‘I’m writing,’ I said. ‘And looking for work.’

‘Can ya dive?’

‘Yes sir,’ I said. I’d taken lessons in the pool back at Belmont though that seemed a long time ago now.

‘Huh. Wanna dive for scallop?’

‘Well, I’d have to learn,’ I said.

‘That’s ok, I can teach ya. I’ll borrow ya the suit and the tanks
and you pay me with half the catch, ok?’

‘Sure.’

‘Ok then. Come to the port at seven, berth 23.’

The old man blew a jet of steamy breath out of his nostrils and looked at me closely for the first time. Then he asked, ‘What’s yer name?’

‘My name is Charlie. Charlie Conti.’

‘Huh.’ He stuck out his leathery hand and said, ‘Thanks Charlie. Not a lot of folks will do something for nothing, so I ’preciate it. I’m Captain Dawson.’

As I walked back to the motel I thought how life is a lot less predictable than the movies. I mean, you just never know what’s going to happen next or who you might meet or whatever. I guess that’s a pretty good reason for not walking out.

From time to time I passed little roads that led off the main road. It was kind of hard to see where they went but I could hear the ocean nearby so I guessed they led to little coves or beaches. I turned off down one of the roads and the asphalt soon gave out and became a narrow dirt track, then just a pathway through the pine trees. I was thinking how my fingers were getting pretty numb from the cold and maybe I should turn back when I found myself on a wooden walkway leading out into the ocean.

I went to the end of the walkway – I guess people go swimming from there in the summer. I rubbed my hands together and blew on them to get back some feeling, and then I got to thinking
about nerve cells, the way they start with one big main channel called an axon and then they break down into smaller and smaller channels called dendrites. I guess nerve cells are pretty similar to the experience of going somewhere: from a main road you just keep turning off onto smaller and smaller roads and paths and walkways. And they’re also similar to being a person. I mean, if you take a person you can trace where they’ve come from by looking at their parents and their grandparents and the family tree and above that the species and the phylum and the genus and so on, and the whole thing looks kind of like a drawing of a nerve cell. But then if you look at the individual, I mean, if you look at their character and the things they’ve done, well, that’s kind of like a nerve cell too, because maybe people’s characters are the results of the choices they’ve made, and each time you make a choice you branch off along one particular dendrite or pathway or whatever. I mean, I was standing on a walkway in Maine because I’d decided to study acting and because I’d trusted Ray and because I’d allowed myself to be persuaded to go on a roadtrip and because of a million and one other decisions. It doesn’t matter why I made those decisions, fact is I made them and that’s why I am who I am. I know Ray wouldn’t agree with any of this because, like I said before, he wouldn’t agree that anyone ever really makes decisions. But as I stood on the wooden walkway, the last dendritic pathway before the shining ocean, well, it seemed kind of obvious to me that Ray was wrong.

Since I met Captain Dawson I’ve been living from hand to mouth; Sal Paradise would be proud of me. I go out on the Mary-Lou – that’s Captain Dawson’s scallop boat – four times a week. He borrows me a wetsuit and his tanks and takes half the scallops I catch. It’s lucky I learned to dive, otherwise I’d be starving by now, or shucking at the loading point. I like the diving now but at first I found it really spooky. For one, you’re always hearing the sound of your own breathing, like in a cheap horror flick. And then it’s pretty murky too, especially down where the scallops are. They like to hide in the shadows and the mud around the bottom of rocks. Sometimes you won’t see them and you’ll be swimming over them and the little ones will leap up all around you like fireworks on the fourth of July – with their hundred blue eyes they see you coming before you see them. They can move pretty fast too, opening and closing their little shells and propelling themselves through the water. They look kind of funny, like animated dentures. The big ones don’t move so fast so I just pick them up and drop them into my bag. Occasionally I’ll catch a lobster but the claws look even bigger through the magnification of the mask and it can be pretty hard to get them out if they’re hidden under a rock. Sea urchins and sea cucumbers are good business; they get exported straight to Korea.

The loading point is just down from the motel; I drop my catch off there on the way home. I’d be working there too if I didn’t dive. I’m lucky because it’s miserable work. You spend your whole day scooping the living insides out of the spiky shells. The slimy part is a delicacy in Korea; it’ll be served in a restaurant within twenty-four hours. Working there would depress the hell out of
me. I mean, catching scallops is one thing, pulling living things out of their own shells is another. It’s eviscerating work, literally. The people who shuck there say it takes weeks to get the smell out of your skin.

There are some pretty weird creatures in the sea around here, I swear. I borrowed a book from the Machias Public Library and I look them up when I get home. The other day I saw a wolffish; it was fat and grey with wrinkled skin and mean snarling lips and evil teeth as thin and as pointed as the filed teeth of the Gambian hunters in the book back at Belmont. It was about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. If people looked like what they actually are, then that’s what Ray would look like. The wolffish actually eats scallops, I mean it crunches the shells between its jaws, grinding them down and swallowing the whole thing.

I’ve seen a couple of sharks too. I think they were a type of mackerel shark called a porbeagle. At least, there’s a photo of a porbeagle in my book that looks similar. I guess these two were about six feet long. The really scary thing was that most of the time I could only see their shadows because the water was so murky. On windy days visibility goes down to about 15 feet. A couple of times they came closer but mostly it was just the outlines I could see. I was about to go up to the boat when I saw that they weren’t interested in me so much as the wall of pollock fifteen feet away on my other side. I was between them and the biggest chow of their lives, which is why they were hassling me. I got out the way and I didn’t see them again.

What I really like about diving is coming up to the surface. Down where the scallops are it’s green and muddy and murky. As
you swim up you’ve got to stop every ten feet so you don’t get the bends. The bends scare the hell out of me, more than the sharks. Just imagine, all your blood fizzing like sparkling water. It’s insane. I’m pretty conscientious about stopping at the right depths. In fact, I enjoy it. Each stop is a little bit brighter, visibility a little bit better. When I get to the surface it’s like a new world – the sunlight and the air and the sounds. I guess it’s like being born again, except without the trauma. It’s pretty cold when you get out the water, but breathing real air and seeing the big emptiness of the sea and the sky, that’s a great feeling. I guess that’s what I like so much about Maine – it’s a place where you can breathe.