Timmy was never home when I called him. His mom always said he would be right back, but I could just come by their house and wait for him or I could use their pool.
“I don’t know how to swim Mrs. Walker.”
“Oh that’s okay Davey, I’ll show you how. It’s easy. Stop by one day, and I’ll teach you.”
I called Sunny a lot and stopped by her house, but she was caring for her sick grandmother and couldn’t come out and play, so it was just my books and me.
When I sold mint to the two of the restaurants, they thanked me, but they told me it was August and business was slow for them so it was slow for me. Seven dollars left to pay Mr. Jost.
I would work some days, then sit under one of the big oak trees in the Gilson’s backyard, and read my next book. I loved to read and to write, but I kept looking for things to do to earn some more money.
I spent the days scouring the neighborhood for soda bottles littered around the main streets and the fields. It seems people loved to throw soda bottles from moving cars into the field by Sunny’s house.
Nielsen’s Deli and Weis Market each paid two cents a bottle. But I knew if I went into Nielsen’s that I would spend it on candy. They sold penny candy including jawbreakers, Bit o’ Honey, Mary Jane candy, black licorice in the shape of pipes and others that looked like a records with a red dot in the center. They also sold wax tubes filled with a sweet cherry liquid and Bonomo Turkish Taffy, Mallo Cups, Sweet Tarts, and little bits of multi-colored candy on long sheets of narrow paper. All the good stuff!
My brother Jack knew I was working hard to make money to pay for my radio, and he knew I was doing everything I could. Jack was always doing odd jobs to make money and worked part time as a caddy at the golf course, his paper route, and at the Legion as a lifeguard. He made two dollars carrying two golf bags at the golf course. But they said I was too young and scrawny to work there as a caddy.
“Hey Joe (he always called me Joe for some reason but I liked my nickname), I could use some help delivering my newspapers today and collecting for the month. I’ll pay you two bucks.”
I knew it didn’t take two people to deliver the papers, but I knew he was trying to help me make some money just like he did when he asked me to help the widow Miss Viola.
“Are you interested?”
“You bet. Let’s go.” I helped him load up the wagon with all of the papers. It was a local paper called The Wellston Journal located in Wellston, Missouri, near Ferguson. The paper ran multiple ads for local grocery stores, and everybody loved the coupons they contained in the paper. Jack had to deliver the paper to every house on his route even if the people didn’t want the paper or didn’t want to pay the monthly .35 cents for it.
We rolled over three hundred newspapers and put rubber bands around them and stacked them into my old red wagon. My hands were black from the newsprint ink. The route was a mile away and took us over twenty minutes to get there, but I liked it since it gave me time with my older brother. He delivered to one side of the street, and I took the other. I threw papers on the lawn near the front door of each house. As we finished each street we walked together taking turns pulling the wagon, talking.
“See those trees there. That big old one there is a sycamore tree like the ones we have out front of our house. That other tree is a chestnut tree. That one is walnut tree, they each have nuts.” He told me all about them and how he could tell how much snow we would get during the winter based upon how many nuts fell in September. He said the squirrels knew and they buried more nuts if it was going to be a snowy winter. But every winter in Saint Louis was snowy. I still thought he was so smart.
Once we delivered all of the papers, we went back to each house and knocked on the doors to collect for the month. Our paper route covered the “land streets” as we called it, Hartland, Graceland, Northland, Ashland, and finally Midland.
Collecting for the papers for me was always the best part. Jack would knock and just smile and take whatever money they gave to him. Some customers gave him a tip but most gave only .25 cents, not even the .35 cents it was supposed to be. Some paid nothing at all.
My approach was to hand the ticket to whoever answered the door and hold out my hand while saying thirty-five cents please and then smile at them. The last house I went to belonged to Mrs. Fermi. Many times, she had called the newspaper’s main office to say she had not received her newspaper but she never wanted to pay for it. The paper was still lying in her front yard next to her front porch, out of view. I knocked on the door and stepped back.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t little David Malloy. What can I do for you today?”
I handed her the bill and said, “I’m here to collect for this month’s paper, Mrs. Fermi. That’ll be thirty five cents… please.”
“Well, I never… I don’t want that paper, never did, and I certainly have no intentions of paying for that rag. So…”
I politely held up my hand. “I understand completely, Mrs. Fermi. I am so sorry for disturbing you.” I turned and walked down the steps, stopping only to pick up the paper in her yard. Dusting it off I turned as she held out her hand I said, “I am so sorry about delivering this by mistake. It won’t happen again. We aren’t supposed to leave it at houses that tell us not to deliver. Good day, Mrs. Fermi.”
She had a look of panic on her face. She wanted those store coupons. She was desperate. “Wait! Wait a minute, Davey. Just wait right there. I’ll be right back.” She turned and ran back inside the house and soon returned with two dollars in her hand. “This is for this month and last month’s paper, and the rest is a tip for you and your brother.”
I smiled and handed her the paper. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Fermi,” I said politely.
“I guess you’re not going to be a priest like your brother Jack?” she said with that certain grin.
“No ma’am, I guess not.”
“You’ll go far Davey Malloy,” she said opening the paper mumbling to herself walking back inside.
My brother could not stop laughing as I told him the story. We stopped at a small store on Graceland and went inside. He bought a jar of maraschino cherries. Later we sat outside the store under a big shady walnut tree and between the two of us we ate the whole jar of cherries. “Thank you, Mrs. Fermi,” he said holding up the cherry jar as a salute to her tip to us. “Cheers!” Then he gave me the two bucks for helping him.
When all the cherries were all gone, we took turns drinking the sweet juice as we sat at the top of a hill on Graceland Avenue. It was a beautiful street with big brick houses and large dark green lawns. I looked at him and he began to laugh, “You have a big red mark all around your mouth from the cherry juice.” I looked at him and started to laugh, so did he. We both laughed so hard, and I could not stop laughing until my sides ached. Then we just sat there, together.
“I love this hill during the winter,” Jack said sounding quiet.
“Yeah, this is the hill during snow storms that they close off on both ends for sleigh riding.” The hill was too steep to plow and became very icy after dark so the city of Overland just closed it off and everybody used it for sledding. One of the neighbors always brought out an old barrel with holes poked in it and filled it with wood that he would light. Everybody would stand around it and rub their hands together to keep warm.
Jack pointed at the old tree behind us and told me in his own scholarly way, “This walnut tree, in Latin they are called Juglans regia, and are late to grow leaves, typically not until more than halfway through the spring. They also secrete chemicals into the ground to prevent competing vegetation from growing up around them. Because of this, flowers or vegetable gardens shouldn’t be planted too close to them. The husks of walnut shells contain a juice that will stain everything it touches. It has been used as a dye for cloth for centuries, so be real careful when you handle the nuts, you’ll never get the stain out.” He had something on his mind, I could tell.
My brother looked at me for a moment with sad eyes and a serious gaze on his face. He took a deep breath, “I’m not going back to the seminary in the fall,” he said handing me the last of the cherry juice. “I’m going to Saint John’s High School instead.”
“What do you mean? You’re not going back to the seminary? You’re not going to be a priest?” I was devastated.
“No. I’m just not cut out for it I suppose.”
“Do Mom and Dad know?”
“Yeah, I told them last night. They were upset but understood when I told them my heart just wasn’t into it anymore. I told them I wanted to talk to you about it today. Just you and me. You understand, don’t you?”
No, I didn’t understand. I felt lost as if he had betrayed the family and me. First, he was going to be a priest and now he was not. Now I wasn’t going to be the brother of a priest?
“No, I don’t get it. Why aren’t you going to be a priest? And why are you going to a different high school? What gives?”
“Davey, listen to me. I decided I was going to the seminary for everybody else, everybody except for me. It just got more difficult every year. I was only fooling myself. And that’s not good for anybody. And if you aren’t going to be a priest you have to go to a different school. Understand?”
My brother wasn’t going to be a priest. I couldn’t go to church on Sunday where he was saying Mass and kneel down and pray with my head bowed and hands clasped together. Now nobody would point or nod their heads at me and solemnly whisper about me in church—”his brother is a priest.”
I had to think about this, this was something major in my life. Shit! No priest in the family? Whew. I can’t believe it. I thought him being a priest and all might give me a preferred pass to heaven or something like that. You know, Saint Peter standing there at the golden gates and saying, “Oh let him in. He’s an okay guy, his brother’s a priest” Oh well, it just wasn’t meant to be I guess. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know what it all meant until I thought about it and said, “I guess you’re right. You need to do it for the right reasons.”
Then changing the subject I asked him, “That tree over there is a walnut tree, isn’t it Jack?”
“Yeah, it’s a walnut tree, Davey.” He put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me like a big brother should. We talked for hours that day sitting under that big old walnut tree. It was getting dark as we started walking home, dragging the old red wagon behind us bumping along the sidewalk. It was noisy when it was empty.
“Mom’s going to worry. We’d better hurry up,” I told him.
“It’s okay. I told her we might be late. I said I wanted to tell you myself, and we would talk it out.” He put his arm around my shoulder again as we walked home. I smiled. He was a great brother.
We stopped at Roger Hornsby TV shop on the way home. Even though it was closed, we looked at the largest television set in the world that they had in the front store window with a TV show on the screen. It was huge. And it was in color! Jack said it was the new fifteen-inch color television. We watched a show standing out front with an outside speaker giving us the sound. Cars slowed down just so they could see the latest technological invention. Maybe one day we could have one of these color TVs.
“Come on, time to go home. You okay?” he asked me.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
It was late when we came in the back door, and the house was dark. I went to my room and found a note on the bed from my mom.
Boys—
There is chili in the fridge and for desert I made your
favorite—homemade shortcake and with fresh strawberries.
Keep the noise down and lights off. Your father has to be up
early for work tomorrow.
Love,
Mom
I showed the note to Jack when he came into the room, and we hurried off to the kitchen. I loved my mom’s chili, but all we both wanted to eat was dessert, the strawberry shortcake. I could taste it already. Standing in the darkened kitchen, we opened the Tupperware containers and put the fresh homemade shortcake into each bowl then poured heaping ladles of strawberries over the top of it finishing it off with whipped cream. We did all of this in the dark so as not to wake anybody.
With the bowl of shortcake in one hand and a cold glass of milk in the other, we made our way into the living room, far away from Mom and Dad’s bedroom. My mouth watered. I could hardly wait. It was my favorite dessert. Shortcake, strawberries, and whipped cream! As my spoon plunged toward the mouthwatering dessert, I looked with horror at the bowl. There before me was the shortcake smothered with—chili.
“Ughhh, God! Terrible,” I blurted out in horror. I couldn’t help myself and started laughing. I couldn’t eat it much less look at it.
Jack frowned at me and told me to be quiet until he looked at his bowl and found the same surprise. He began to laugh and soon both of us could not stop laughing.
My mom and dad appeared at the door ready to shout at us but saw the bowls of whipped cream and chili-covered strawberry shortcake and knew immediately what had happened. They too began to laugh with my dad laughing the hardest.
“You boys are going to be the death of me yet. Well, now that we are up, let me see if I have any of that apple pie left over from yesterday,” mom said.
Soon the other doors opened, and my sisters began to file in. Now that the whole house was awake and my mother asked, “Who’s for brownies? I’ll make up a fresh batch.”