Guys I’m certain my mother has slept with:
my father
Guys I’m not sure about:
somebody back in high school
Hatcher’s dad
Sunday afternoons my father’s mother comes over for dinner and to watch “Pocono Polka” at six. She doesn’t have cable at her house.
By six my father’s ready for cheese and beer, and the three of them sit in the living room to watch people from up the valley dance to the best polka bands around. I usually stand at the edge of the room, trying to prod myself to leave but staring at the set, mesmerized as if witnessing a horrible accident: Puffy women in “Lackawanna Polka Dots” jackets dancing with their sisters, and stiff old guys in polyester bowling shirts with big guts. They televise this, I swear.
Probably the last time my parents danced was when my aunt got married ten years ago.
A commercial comes on, and I go out in the kitchen. The oven-stuffer chicken is still sitting on the counter, and I bend down to get a sheet of foil to cover it. My grandmother comes in and yanks a hunk off the bird and shoves it in her mouth. “Best part about a chicken is snitching some later,” she says.
Yeah, Grandma. And it’s real appetizing for the rest of us when you get your fingers in there, too.
“Good strong sermon this morning,” she says to me with a tight smile.
The sermon seemed to be about vulgarity, and obscenity, and adultery, and hanging out on Main Street at night. The key thing you have to know about this town is that it disapproves. You don’t have to know much else, just remember that the higher powers—cops, council, parents, clergy—disapprove. My grandmother knows this and supports it.
“He’s a forgiving God,” she reminds me, tearing another bit off the chicken and dipping it in the congealed grease at the bottom of the pan. Grandma’s a great hinter. She just knows I’m up to the most vile, perverse activities any neighborhood kid ever dreamed up, and she’s waiting for me to see the light.
To her, I think, God is this force perched just above the town of Sturbridge, watching with a heavy hand, ready to strike us down if we sneak a beer by the river or touch a willing girlfriend below the neck. Somehow he gets his word across through the pale Reverend Fletcher, who grips my hand with a giant smile every Sunday—as if everything’s forgotten—and says he hopes I’ll be at the youth group meeting that night. I won’t be.
Grandma heads back to the living room. I cover the chicken with the foil and shove it into the refrigerator.
Al’s already dressed for practice when I get to the gym Monday, sitting on the bench by our lockers. “He wants to see us,” he says, pointing to the coach’s office. So we go in and sit down, and Coach has what I’d call his understanding frown on. Like he’s disappointed in us about something, but he’s ready to talk man to man.
“I heard you guys had a fight?” He’s looking at me.
I shake my head kind of slowly. “No.”
He looks at Al.
Al lowers his chin and raises his eyebrows. “No.”
“Were you guys drinking Saturday night?”
“Just Pepsi,” Al says.
Coach looks at me again. “No way,” I say. We’re all quiet for about twenty seconds. “There was no fight.”
“That’s not how I heard it.”
“I wouldn’t fight this guy,” Al says. “No way. We just worked some on takedowns. We were psyched up.”
Coach says, “Mm-hmm.”
He looks at me. I say that’s all it was.
“Al, you can go,” he says.
Al shuts the door and Coach still has that look on, a little more intense maybe. “I know this is tough on you, Benny,” he says.
“What is?”
“I’m the one who told Hatcher to cut to 140,” he says. “I made Al stay at 135. It’s real nice that they wanted to make room for you, but this isn’t about being buddies.” He picks up a pen from the desk and starts clicking it on and off, keeping his eyes right on mine. “The both of those guys could win state titles this year. You know how incredible that would be? They need every advantage they can get, and they’re staying at those weight classes.”
“I know.” I don’t get this lecture at all.
“I know you don’t like it,” he says. “But I better not hear about you taking any cheap shots at Al.”
Now I get it. He’s got to be kidding. “I never took a cheap shot at anybody.”
“That’s not how I heard it.” His favorite phrase.
He heard wrong, but I can’t say that to him. I just stare at him until he tells me to get ready for practice.
I’m numb for the rest of the day.
My grandmother comes over again on Wednesdays, but she doesn’t stay long. She and my mother, sometimes my father, go to the weekly covered-dish supper at the church. Eighteen different varieties of macaroni and cheese. And as an added bonus, the Reverend Fletcher offers a delightful and informative talk on how evil and sinful we all are, just in case the message didn’t get through on Sunday.
I walk into the kitchen as they’re getting ready to go. My mom is looking for her oven mitt to get the casserole out, and I catch Grandma saying, “He sure is a patient God.” Just about anything my mother or anybody else might have said could have triggered that response.
“Won’t you join us, Benjy?” Mom says.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “The movie’s at eight. I think I’ll shave.”
I’m taking Kim to the movies over in Weston. I asked her yesterday afternoon before practice, and she didn’t hesitate or anything.
“You’re going to a movie on a school night?” Grandma asks, as if it’s any of her business.
“It’s a date, Grandma,” I say. I turn to my mother. “Dad going?”
“He hasn’t come in yet,” she says, “so I doubt it. They’re very busy at work for some reason. Let me get you some of this,” she says as she lifts the stuff out of the oven.
“Nah. I’m gonna stop at McDonald’s with Kim.”
“Kim what?” Grandma wants to know.
“Chavez,” I say very clearly, knowing it will spoil her week.
“Sounds Catholic,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Sounds even worse than that, doesn’t it?”
Grandma doesn’t mind the few black people in the area, but if you’re Catholic and/or Puerto Rican, you’d better keep out of her way. I guess she figures that as long as her God is patient and wise and forgiving, she doesn’t have to be.
“Watch it, Ben,” Mom says, but she isn’t much more tolerant of Grandma than I am. Mom’s tough; she’s a nurse part-time at the hospital, and she stays in shape with jogging and cycling and stuff. She used to work at Hatcher’s dad’s office, but she walked out on him last summer. I never did figure out why.
“I’ll drive you down,” I say. It’s only a few blocks, but she’s got the dinner to carry and it’s pretty cold out.
I back out the driveway, and Dad’s walking up the hill so I stop for a minute. Mom rolls down her window and he comes over and kisses her.
“We’ll be back about eight,” she says. “There’s food in the oven.”
“I’m just dropping them off,” I say to him. “I’ll be right back.”
When I get back, he’s at the kitchen table in his undershirt with a beer and the plate from the oven. He’s picking at his teeth with his index finger. “What’s with you?” he says.
I shrug. “Got a date tonight.”
He nods approvingly. “Somebody I know?”
“I dunno. Kim Chavez. She’s a junior.”
“Oh.… How’d practice go?”
“Not bad.” It wasn’t. “I’m gettin’ there.” I am. I’m not sure where I’m getting to, but I’m holding my own, even with Al at times. “You guys are busy, huh?”
“Yeah. Some big deal went through.” He takes a swig of the beer, finishing it. He needs a shave a heck of a lot more than I do, even though it’s only been twelve hours. Last time I shaved was Saturday.
“Where you going?”
“Movies.”
I open the refrigerator and get a glass of milk, and hand him another bottle of Schaefer. He was out last night, doing one of his jobs, I think. “We got a scrimmage on Saturday,” I say.
“I know. I’ll be there.”
McDonald’s is crowded, and we get on the line nearest the door. There’s a skinny old lady in a violet kerchief and a big heavy coat standing to the side, looking flustered. “Speak up, Harold,” she says to a guy, her husband, who’s at the counter trying to get somebody’s attention; needing ketchup or something else they forgot. “He just stands there,” she says to me, shaking her head. “He stands there and they ignore him.… Speak up, Harold.”
Kim meets my eyes with a smile. She’s got on a white-and-pink striped button-down shirt, with designer jeans and running shoes. The silver chain’s there, too. We’re third on line, and I catch Chrissy Lane’s eye behind the counter and wave with two fingers. I motion toward Harold with my head, and Chrissy looks over at him attentively. She smiles and reaches under the counter for McNugget sauce, and he thanks her and moves away.
We get our food and head for a booth. A little kid in a purple YMCA SOCCER T-shirt comes racing around the corner and I have to juggle the tray to keep from dumping it. Kim grabs my arm and she feels pretty strong for such a little thing. Some guys from the basketball team are at one of the booths, and I nod in greeting and sit with my back to them.
She eats a lot, so we don’t talk too much during dinner. “You know that guy in the Syracuse sweatshirt?” I ask, referring to one of the guys at the basketball table.
“Yeah?”
“I heard his brother deals coke.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that,” she says. “People jump to conclusions. It’s not true.”
“No?”
She shakes her head. “Some of his friends. Danny’s okay.”
Kim’s only lived here about two years, but she knows more about certain aspects of the town than I do. She knows who’s getting what from who, and who’s into drugs and anorexia and things like that. I offer her a french fry because she’s already finished hers. She takes it.
I tell her what the coach said on Monday, and she frowns and clicks her tongue. “That’s really unfair,” she says. “I had a teacher like that in seventh grade. She couldn’t stand me and made my life miserable. She gave me C’s and B’s until my parents went to the principal about it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think Coach is down on me, particularly. He’s just protecting Al. He hasn’t coached a state champ yet, and he thinks I’m a threat to that.”
“Sounds real mature.” She’s smiling when she says this; she seems to have some understanding of this rutting behavior we males go through. Most girls seem to be repelled by it; Kim just seems amused. “I guess Coach is about as grown-up as you guys are,” she says. “He’d probably jump you in the backyard too.” We both laugh at this, but I think it’s got some truth to it.
“So … are you?” she asks.
“What?”
“A threat. To Al.”
“I don’t know.” I don’t. I ought to be. But I’m not really sure.
“He’s the best in the state?” she asks.
“Yeah.… He could probably win at any weight from 130 to 140.”
“Can you beat him?”
I think about this for half a minute, then I answer yes. “I have to.”
She folds her arms. “Why?”
“It’s what I am.”
“What is?”
“A wrestler. From Sturbridge. I’m a kid from Sturbridge.”
“That’s why you have to beat Al?”
I don’t know. “I think so.”
“I’m a kid from Sturbridge,” she says. Her voice is gentle, but firm. “I want to win a state title, too. I plan to. But for me.”
“Yeah.” I bite down on my lip. I haven’t talked this much to a girl in my life. “I don’t mean nothing bad by this, but … you’re not really from here. Not like I am.”
“I know,” she says. “But you don’t have a chain around your leg, either. I like it here, Ben. But this is a pretty small pond.”
She brings her fist down gently on my hand, then grabs her purse and gets up to go to the bathroom. I turn as inconspicuously as I can to watch her walk away, and I see that the basketball players are watching her, too. One of them—Damon Henderson, the point guard—gives me a sly smile. He waits a few seconds to make sure she’s out of earshot, then he points toward the bathroom door and gives me a raised-fist salute. I laugh, a little embarrassed but glad to have been seen with her.
She takes my arm on the way out and I can smell her toothpaste. I’m feeling pretty good about things. I go around and open the car door for her, then pull out to Route 6. We’re turning left, but I look the other way to check traffic and of course I can see the Mobil station up there. I’m torn for just a second, maybe even guilty, but I don’t even know that girl’s name.
Kim slides toward me just a little to turn on the radio, but then she stays there after it comes on.
I think I’m falling in love, but I’m not sure with who. Maybe just with the idea of it all.