26 Fairmount Avenue (2 page)

Mrs. Crane was scared of storms, especially thunderstorms. If there was one clap of thunder, Mrs. Crane would be knocking on our door and calling my mother. “Floss, Floss!” (That was my mother's nickname, for Florence. My mother liked being called Floss, but she liked Flossie even better!) My mom would open the door, and Mrs. Crane would rush in, pushing Carol in front of her. Nothing would 4 do except for my mom to get the bottle of Holy Water she'd gotten from Saint Joseph's Church and sprinkle some of it on Mrs. Crane, who wasn't even Catholic. I guess she thought that Catholic Holy Water was better than nothing, and it must have worked because Mrs. Crane never got struck by lightning.

On the day of the hurricane, my mom calmed Mrs. Crane down and promised she'd get the Holy Water, while my dad parked the car where there were no trees. First Mom lit some candles because the electricity was out. Then she took the Holy Water and sprinkled some on Mrs. Crane. Everyone else wanted to be sprinkled, too.

Mr. and Mrs. Morin and their daughter, Althea, who lived in the apartment upstairs, came down. I guess they thought, with all the voices and everything, that it was a party.

We crowded around the windows and listened to the wind howl and watched it blow stuff all over the yard—tree limbs, lawn furniture, garbage cans, even a birdbath. Then it got really quiet. We looked up and saw a little, round patch of blue sky through the dark clouds. “That's the eye of the hurricane,” my dad told us. I didn't see any eye, but before I could say anything, the wind picked up and the rain started all over again.

“I hope the new house is okay,” “ my dad said as the wind roared by like a freight train.

My mom pulled a book off the shelf and started reading a story to Buddy, Carol, the Adams twins, the Fournier brothers, and yours truly, just as she read to Buddy and me every night.

Finally, three hours later, the Hurricane of 1938 was over. People started coming out of their houses. “Do you have electricity?” someone shouted. “No, do you?” someone answered.

I pestered my mom so much that she let me go outside with Carol, her father, Buddy, and my dad. Branches, large and small, and leaves were everywhere. We could hear sirens wailing. We walked to Hemlock Grove, a small forest of tall hemlock trees at the end of the block.

It was a mess. “Be careful. I don't think it's all that safe,” one of the neighbors told us. Trees had fallen in all directions, criss-crossing each other like a giant game of pick-up-sticks. Some of those trees stayed there for a long time, and after we moved into 26 Fairmount Avenue and I felt brave, I'd take the shortcut to Columbus Avenue through Hemlock Grove. One tree lay across a little stream, and if you had good balance you could walk across it.

I guess 1938 was a special year. Not only because of the hurricane, but because it was the year we started building 26 Fairmount Avenue.

Chapter Two

W
hen my mom and dad decided to build a house, friends told them that they were building “out in the sticks.” That meant way out where not many people lived. There wasn't even a real street. Just a dirt road. But it wasn't that far from our apartment on Columbus Avenue.

It was really great watching the house being built. First a steam shovel dug a huge hole for the foundation. Next a cement truck came, and workers poured the cement down a chute that looked like a long sliding board. I pretended that the concrete gushing down was lava coming out of a volcano (I had seen that in a movie with my mother).

After the foundation was set and the cellar was finished, the builders came to start on the house itself. They covered the opening over the cellar with wood, and that became the floor. Then they put up these things they called “studs,” which were pieces of wood called “two-by-fours” because they are two inches thick by four inches wide.

They had just finished this part of the house when the hurricane struck. It was a good thing the walls weren't up yet, because the house probably would have blown away. A new house a few streets away was knocked down by the wind. All that was left was the cellar and a mess of broken wood. They had to start all over again. It was sad, but I was glad it wasn't our house.

All our relatives were excited about the house at 26 Fairmount Avenue. I guess a new house with a big yard and a view of West Peak with Castle Craig on top was exciting. I know I thought it was.

We had both Irish and Italian relatives in our family because my mom was Irish and my dad was Italian. The Irish relatives came to visit the most because they lived in Wallingford, which wasn't too far from Meriden. Some of the Italian relatives lived up in Massachusetts, and some down in the Bronx, in New York City.

I was pretty lucky because I had one grandfather, two grandmothers, and a great-grandmother. But my grandmothers and my great-grandmother were all called Nana, and that was confusing to me. And then there was this “great” business.

But I figured out what to call them, and everyone always knew who I was talking about.