21

 

 

Van Collins said “Let’s go out to fifteen and check in with the Dynamic Duo, Hacker and the Boz. Gentlemen?”

“Gentlemen?” the Boz said. “Is he talking about us?”

“Nah, can’t be,” I said. “I mean, you’re here.”

“Oof,” Boz said, chuckling. “First shot of the day. Good one.”

“Speaking of shots, here’s Jason Day getting ready for his approach to fifteen,” I said. “ He’s got one-eight-five. Has a nine-iron.”

“Nine iron?” the Boz said. “Do they ever make these guys pee in a cup after the round? I’d need two nine irons and a wedge from one eight-five.”

“Well, yes, I suppose you would,” I said. “Most of the rest of us would just take an eight iron and be done with it.”

“Well, Day’s shot came up a bit short,” the Boz said. “He’s putting, but he’ll need to make a full turn on that forty-footer. Say, Hack, my theory is that these guys do things like try to hit a nine-iron one-eighty-five because they think it impresses the chicks. You know, ‘hey, babe, I hit my nine from 185. Wanna feel my muscles?’”

“Naw,” I said. “It’s the size of their bank accounts that impresses the ladies.”

“Cynical,” Boz said. “You are so cynical.”

“Besides,” I said, “You people at home shouldn’t pay any attention to what clubs these guys are using. First, they’re professionals, and you’re not. Second, they all mess with their clubs, bending the lofts up and down over in the equipment trailer. So Jason’s nine-iron might have the same loft as your six iron.”

“And that, folks, is today’s advice from a Hacker,” Boz said. “Worth exactly what you paid for it, which was zip.”

“The voice in my ear is telling me to go to seventeen, so take it away Doctor Kenny Craig!” I said.

 

“What are you doing, Hacker?,” my daughter Victoria asked me.

I was sitting in my living room, watched a recorded version of last weekend’s broadcast from Memphis. I wasn’t actually taking notes on my performance, but I was trying to watch myself with a jaundiced eye. The Boz and I seemed to have created something the people liked, and I was trying to figure out what it was. So far, all I could see was two idiots having a good time watching golf and talking nonsense. That people seemed to respond to that? That was their problem, not mine.

“I guess I’m doing homework,” I told my step-daughter.

“Watching yourself on the TV is homework?” she said. “Where do I sign up for that? I’m supposed to be doing some math equations.”

“And I’d be happy to help you with that,” I said. “Except for the fact that I always got straight C’s in math. Total numerical idiot.”

She smiled at me. “That’s okay,” she said. “They’re pretty easy ones. And if I need help, my Mom is a teacher.”

“You are wise in the ways of the world, grasshopper,” I said.

“What are you guys doing?” Mary Jane came into the living room, DJ on her hip. “We need to leave for Paw Paw’s in twenty minutes.”

Both Mary Jane and DJ were recently bathed and he was dressed in new, and therefore momentarily clean, clothes. MJ’s wet hair was piled atop her head and she was wearing her robe. She dropped the boy on my lap and went back into the bedroom to finish dressing.

DJ squirmed around for a minute and then made a raspberry sound. It was one of the new party tricks he had recently learned: sticking out his tongue and blowing. It amused him no end, and when I made the sound back at him, he collapsed in giggles. So we played raspberry for a few minutes.

“Are all babies this disgusting?” asked Victoria, “Or is it just my brother?” But she was smiling. I suspected she wanted to blow a few raspberries herself. But that would be totally uncool for a hip twelve-year-old.

“Well, I didn’t know you when you were this age,” I said. “But I’ll bet you were just as disgusting. It’s what babies do best.”

“Have you guys decided where we’re gonna live next?” she asked, as DJ reached over and grabbed a handful of her hair. He held it in front of his face and blew a raspberry at it.

I sighed. “Your Mom has been working on that,” I said. “The rest of us are on a need-to-know basis. Are you okay with the idea of moving? Not having teeny angst attacks or anything?”

“Looking forward to it, actually,” she said. “Thanks to baby brother here, half my room is taken up with stuff that’s not mine, including the litter box for Mister S over there.”

She pointed at my cat, Mister Shit, who was sleeping peacefully on one of our dining room chairs. ‘Dining room’ being the thing we called the corner of our living room that was closest to the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s time for the household to expand. I’m sure your Mom has a plan for that.”

“Plan for what?” Mary Jane said as she came back in. She was now dressed and her hair combed and ponytailed. She looked like a million bucks. Only with nice curves.

“Our new location,” I said. “The Vickster is ready to move.”

“Well, the Vickster needs to go pick up the clothes on the floor of her room and get ready to go,” Mary Jane said, pushing her daughter down the hall. “You, too, big fella.”

 

An hour or so later we were all in Milton, gathered at the palatial estate of Carmine Spoleto above the marshlands that were part of the Neponset River basin. Carmine’s three daughters were there, along with husbands and children, and so were the handful of goombahs that Carmine kept around the place for security. Tiny Tony was there, but wasn’t cooking today. It was Easter Saturday and Carmine’s daughters had scheduled the big family to-do for today, so we could all celebrate Easter in our own ways. The Hacker family intended to sleep late, go out for lunch somewhere and watch golf in the late afternoon. Although I was not hopeful baby DJ would be down with the sleeping late part.

The party self-separated as always: the male adults gathered in the living room with cocktails and munchies, to talk about the Red Sox, Wall Street and other important topics. The womenfolk congregated in the kitchen, from which several amazing smells emanated. They were slamming the wine pretty hard, and bursting out with occasional loud peals of laughter. We menfolk just assumed that one of us was the subject. And all the kids, ranging in age from sixteen on down, were sent upstairs where Carmine’s goombahs had installed all the latest shoot ‘em up video games on the huge TV in the video room.

After a while, Carmine pulled me aside.

“Go get your wife and daughter,” he whispered to me. “I have something to show you.”

We met him outside the front door. Tiny Tony had pulled up one of the black SUVs that Carmine owned. Tinted windows and I assumed armor-plated. The head of the New England mob can’t be too careful.

“Where are we going?” Mary Jane asked. She was carrying DJ on her hip. “Do we need to get the car seat?”

“Get in, get in,” Carmine said, waving her into the back seat. “We’re not going far. The bambino will be fine. Andiamo.”

Victoria sat between her Paw Paw and Tiny Tony in the front seat. Tony drove us down the main driveway, but turned hard right just before the road onto a narrow lane that circled down behind the main house toward the marshes. In about a hundred yards, we pulled up in front of a two-story structure located on the shore. There was a narrow passage cut through the marshes leading up to the dock that extended out in front of the building.

“What is this?” Mary Jane said.

“This is my boat house,” Carmine said. “Casa de barca.”

“I didn’t know you had a boat,” Mary Jane said.

“I don’t,” he said. “I hate boats. Come see inside.”

There was a wooden stairway leading up to the second floor. Tiny Tony stayed with the car while we all climbed up, and Carmine unlocked the door. He stood back and motioned us to go in.

I heard Mary Jane’s intake of breath as she looked at the place for the first time. It was pretty impressive. We entered into a little vestibule with hooks along the wall and trays for shoes and things on the floor, and beyond that was a combination living room, dining room and kitchen. The front of the space was all window wall overlooking the acres of marsh and river that stretched out into the distance. There was a deep, black leather U-shaped sofa and granite-topped cocktail table in front of a large TV, a light-wood dining table with six chairs and a granite pass-through counter from the kitchen, which was full of stainless steel appliances and wooden cabinets.

The walls were cypress planks, stained a light cherry and filled with nautical art and artifacts, oars and steering wheels and the like. A hallway down one side led to the back part of the house, where I assumed the bedrooms were. And over next to the kitchen was a black metal circular staircase which led up to a loft space overlooking the living room space and sharing the same window walls looking out at the marshes.

“My God,” Mary Jane said, staring at all this, “I never knew you had this place down here.”

Carmine shrugged. “It was here when I bought this place twenty years ago,” he said. “I never used it much. Some of the boys would sleep down here when I needed them to be close by. Other than that, it’s always been pretty much vacant.”

Victoria ran over to the metal staircase and climbed up to the loft. I heard her muffled yell, and she leaned over the railing. “There’s a bedroom up here,” she called. “Plus a bathroom!”

Carmine smiled up at his granddaughter. “And two more bedrooms in the back, plus the master bath,” he said.

Mary Jane and DJ went to look. I stayed. There was a wrap-around porch in the front that extended down one side of the building. There was a big propane grill under a cover in one corner.

“This is a great space,” I said. “Really nice. Impressive. But I really don’t think we can …”

“Hacker,” Mary Jane called from the back. “You gotta come see this.”

I went down the hall. There was a small room on the left, a big bathroom in the middle and a nice sized bedroom to the right. Mary Jane was standing with DJ at the French doors which opened from the bedroom onto the wraparound deck. She pointed. Outside the doors, on the end of the deck, was a big, brand new hot tub.

“Jeezus,” I said.

“Does that mean you’re having some of those carnal thoughts again?” she asked sweetly.

I went back into the living room. Carmine, looking like the cat who swallowed the canary, was perched at the pass-through, half sitting on a bar stool.

“What is this all about?” I said.

He shrugged. “This place is practically unused,” he said. “The boys can bunk in the basement in the big house, if I need them. Your family needs a new home. This might work, yes?”

“I can’t take this place from you for nothing,” I said.

“Of course not,” he cut me off. “I would never make such an offer. I am a businessman. Also, that would be insulting to someone like yourself.”

“Well, I’m glad you understand,” I said, nodding. “It’s really a lovely place, but …”

“How much do you pay in rent now, there in Cambridge?” he asked.

I told him the number. He nodded.

“You will pay me the same amount,” he said. “Every month.”

Mary Jane came and stood next to me. DJ was looking around and cooing at things.

“That is a very fair offer, Paw Paw,” she said. “Are you sure the other girls will be okay with us living here?”

He nodded. “Si, I have spoken to them,” he said. “They all think it’s a great idea. Plus, I will have family close at hand if, Dio non voglia, something might happen to this old man.”

I assumed he was talking about a medical emergency, not the guns-and-bullets kind. He was, after all, in his eighties.

“So,” he said, turning his rheumy eyes toward me. “What do you think? Do we have a deal?”

I looked at Mary Jane, who was flush with excitement. DJ was chewing on a red rubber ring, but he looked like he approved. Victoria leaned over the railing above us. “You better say yes, Hacker, or I’ll never speak to you again!”

“OK,” I said. “I guess it’s a deal.”

Carmine and I shook hands. Victoria shrieked and did a loud clumping happy dance a floor above. Mary Jane leaned over and kissed me. DJ blew a raspberry.

“I hope you will be very happy here,” Carmine said.