A Lost King: A Novel (5 page)

“Oh, Paul.”

Tearfully, we hugged and kissed each other.

Just about then Andy was down in the cellar stealing a quart of wine. He failed to closed the spigot tight and the rest of that last barrel dripped away in the night while my father was raving.

My father never forgave him. Sometimes I went down the cellar and found him gazing at the old bloodlike stain in the cracked cement of that floor.

A girl may not know how to prepare a meal or sew on a button or sing a song to give hope for the day. It means nothing. It is good to have her in the house even if she sits for hours in front of a mirror brushing her hair and looking into her own eyes.

Disorder came when Nina went. Cups and dishes filled the sink. Dust gathered on furniture and floors. Towels and bedsheets and curtains turned gray as the sparrows. The windows went blind with soot.

“What the hell's the difference?” said my father. “There's no reason to look out or in.”

We kept forgetting things. We forgot to change our clothes. Now and again he would be watching me across the table as though picking up a strange new scent. He would go out to buy coffee and forget sugar for the coffee. I bought meat and forgot bread. For a time we forgot that we were human beings.

“Who goes there?” he'd say, at supper. “What disguise is that? Look at your hair. You need a haircut. And look at the collar of your shirt. Don't you ever wash your neck? When did you take a bath last? You're beginning to smell like a third cousin. No wonder I get notes and notes from that school.”

“School?” I said, paying little attention to him. I had learned to eat as much as possible before the dishes started to fly.

“School, yes, school. It's that yellow building on Scranton Avenue where you go to keep warm in the day. Did you lose your way again? Wait then. What about the list of things I made out for you? Did you change the beds? Did you wash the underclothes? Did you buy coffee and bread? Did you pay the electric bill? Did you put cheese out for the mice? Look at me when I talk! You're like a wolf at the table! One of these days you'll drown in the soup!”

It was better for me when he operated the fast-plant crane that unloaded ore boats in the steel mill. That work exhausted him. But his age and the stiffness in his back forced him out of the crane. The dock superintendent kept him on as a kind of janitor and watchman in the locker room. Every day after sweeping up he sat watching coats and hats and cats and the weather. The only break in that routine came when he was called on to help replace broken cables in the cranes. My father took no pride in being a watchman. He had to blame someone for wasted days and so he blamed me.

He gave me bad beatings. Night after night I went to bed with my body aching and my head feeling dead as a tin can from his slaps. When I stayed out of range he threw his slippers at me. He was quick as a cat. He had his slipper off and flying at me before I could move.

“Let's see if I got things right,” he said. “I told you to put cheese in traps for the mice. Now you were nervous after what happened with the electric bill. You took half a pound of Swiss cheese down the cellar. You forgot the knife to cut the cheese and so you came back upstairs. You forgot the cheese. And that was the end of it. Why didn't you put knives and forks and napkins for the mice? Do it next time. They'll be back. And what about this?”

He hit me on the forehead with a slipper.

“Wait, wait,” he said. “Don't go away yet. Let's talk about the electric bill. Now I gave you five dollars to pay that bill. You were on your way to the bank during the lunch hour at school. The next thing you knew you were in Lincoln Park playing the harmonica for the bums who sit there all day. A man called Lefty did an Irish jig. You enjoyed it. The next thing you knew you were across the street in Wheeler's Bar setting up drinks for them. One of them drank a toast to me. Was it Lefty? Have I got it right? And then you forgot about school. And the next thing you knew you had a dollar left.”

He hit me on the side of the head with the other slipper.

The next thing for me was work in that house. Soon I was doing the cleaning and shopping and cooking. For three months Nina came to help us on the weekends. My father threw her and Andy out the first time. He made a speech declaring his independence.

“I don't need help from him or anyone,” he said. “He robs the bank and throws me a few nickels. It'll never be! From now on I ask for nothing and give nothing! It's finished!”

As the house fell more and more into disorder he made another speech. He pointed out that Nina was his flesh and blood. Andy was still barred. My father was sensible enough under the uproar.

By the end of the third month, however, Nina let it be known she was neglecting her own house to help us. I knew the tide was turning when she insisted I watch close and learn how to prepare food and change beds and run the Easy washing machine. Soon she was coming every other weekend and then she started to turn up in the middle of the week when there was nothing to do but argue. She explained that she was being forced to make a decision between her husband and us. I didn't know who was forcing that decision but I knew which way it was going. Down went my father and I. Nina announced that she could not save everybody and so she had to save herself to save Andy. My father said that neither she nor insurance nor God could save Andy. There was a celebration of the disaster. Nina said something about her right to have the oak-leaf pattern dishes and cups of my mother as a sort of dowry for Andy. A shower of leaves was to follow. My father embraced the cupboard. It was too heavy and for an instant he was dancing in a fury down below it. Finally he tipped it forward and it smashed down on the floor. The house shook and plaster crumbled in all the walls. Nina burst into tears and ran out.

“They want everything!” cried my father. “They'll strip me to the bone! It's a good thing my clothes don't fit him! By Christ, I should have my head examined for raising children! I swear it's better to raise hogs and cattle! At least I can fatten them up and have meat for the winter!”

I was sitting there and so he turned on me.

“What's holding you?” he said. “Get your things and get out! That door leads both ways!”

I sat and thought about it. He went on raving. There was no place for me to go. Besides, I belonged with him.

Before and after school I did my best to keep the house in order. Each day I swept the floors and dusted the furniture. On the weekend I changed the towels and bedsheets and then I mopped every room. Cooking supper for him was easy. It turned out that the food was all right if he could taste hot pepper.

“I need some fire in my life,” he said.

I loaded the food with black and red pepper and hot sauces like Tabasco. Sometimes I went too far with it. He would sit there with mouth and lips aflame. Beads of sweat the size of pennies popped out on his forehead.

“This food's too hot,” I said. “I finish eating here and it's like a hot coal inside me all night.”

“A hot coal is what you need inside you. It's what's missing.”

“But I can't even taste the pork chop.”

“Don't eat then.”

“But I'm the one who cooked it. Don't you know you wake me every night with your cries? We'll be all ashes inside.”

“Then it's ashes in and out.”

I took out the harmonica and tapped it.

“Now what?” he said.

“I think I'll practice awhile.”

“Good, good.”

“Would you really like to hear it?”

“Why not?” he said. “What a surprise! It's like Santa Claus down the chimney! Can you really make music out of this misery?”

“I'll try,” I said, without thinking.

His dark eyes closed. The bones in his face bulged.

“Listen to me a minute,” he said, softly. “At your age I was working in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. Do you know that? You seem to be going backward. Now it's the harmonica. In a couple of years I'll be tickling your toes and warming a bottle for you. Get out. I'll clean the kitchen myself.”

Out I went. I strolled up to the Greek coffee house around the corner. I sat in the doorway and played the harmonica until the owner Theodore Ampazis called me inside. I played a few songs for him and the card players. He gave me a bottle of ginger ale and a piece of
baclava
, a pastry made with honey and nuts. Theodore had such a gentle way with me that I stopped to see him in the mornings on my way to Lincoln High School.

“I smell whiskey,” he said, one morning. “Do you drink, Paul?”

“My father lets me put some whiskey in my coffee. He says it wakes me up and takes the chill out of me.”

“Play a song or two while I mop up.”

I played for him. I played until I forgot about school.

“That's enough,” he said. “You better be going. Don't forget your coat. And your lunch.”

I went to school by way of Lincoln Park. I had packed a ham sandwich for Lefty Riley. Lefty was a retired lake sailor. He used to sit and wait for me in the mornings. Never did he fail to stand up and shake my hand. I looked forward to it.

“How's your father today?” he said.

“About the same, Lefty.”

“I was thinking about him. And about that ax you mentioned. The ax his father gave him when he left Italy.”

“What about the ax?”

“An oak log,” he said, smiling. “What you ought to do is order an oak log for him every day. Early in the morning he'll go down the cellar and chop hell out of that log. He'll get everything out of his system. He'll be at peace the rest of the day.”

“It's a good idea.”

“Thanks for the sandwich, Paul. Get going. I think you're late again. I'll bet you got a cherry pepper in the lunch.”

Lefty was right. I had a cherry pepper. I was always the center of attention when I opened my lunch in the school cafeteria. I would show off by eating that hot pepper with no bread to ease the sting of it. My friends were delighted by this performance. I did it for love of Peggy Haley who lived in the house at the corner of the alley. Peggy had black hair and pale blue eyes. She was plump and beautiful.

“Is Paul going to do it again?” said Sally Walters.

“He's just about ready,” said Joe Faflik.

“I think he's silly,” said Peggy.

I held the red pepper up like a magician so that everyone could see it and then I popped it seeds and all into my mouth. Carefully I chewed it. I sat there with that cherry pepper exploding in my mouth and scorching my tongue and lips. Tears filled my eyes. I looked at Peggy. Suddenly I forgot the burning pepper and I started to cry because I loved her so much. A moment later I thought of my mother and I was crying for her. At last I cried because my father and I were alone.

“Oh, Paul,” said Sally. “That pepper must be terrible.”

“It
is
terrible,” I said, with a sob.

“I got to hand it to you, Paul,” said Joe.

“It's the silliest thing I ever saw,” said Peggy. “It really is. The other boys go out for football and basketball. Edmund Hatcher is studying hard to make the honor society. You're the oldest boy in the class, Paul, and all you ever do is eat hot peppers. I don't even know why I watch you. I think I'll tell Miss Riordan on you.”

There was no need to tell Miss Riordan. Miss Riordan knew everything about me. I was usually late for school and I did nothing to make up for it when I arrived. I fell so far behind in my work again that I stopped trying to catch up. Miss Riordan sent a note to my father. He tore it up. She sent another note. Finally she made a special visit to the house. I knew when she was coming and so I hid in the cellar.

Miss Riordan spoke to my father without swallowing words. It was a surprising thing to me. After it happened I took a big bold tone with him and trumpeted around for my rights. He listened and watched me with wild eyes and that head cocked like a starved eagle. Suddenly he jumped up and slapped it out of me.

First of all he offered coffee to Miss Riordan. She refused.

“So you came over to tell me the boy's failing?” he said. “You could've saved yourself the trip.”

“Paul is always late,” said Miss Riordan. “It's only a matter of minutes at times, but it's a poor habit.”

“All right. I'll get him out of here earlier.”

“And he can't keep his mind on his work. The truth is, he can't seem to get his mind on it in the first place. He was looking out the window so much that I moved him to a desk near the wall.”

“And then he looked at the wall.”

“Well, yes. Sometimes I have the feeling he's asleep with his eyes open. These high-school years are important, Mr. Christopher.”

“It's one thing at a time with him.”

“I don't understand.”

“I mean just that. These days it's the harmonica. He sleeps with it under his pillow. Let me tell you exactly. One night I was cleaning the wine barrel in the cellar. The light burned out. I called up for him to bring a bulb. There were no bulbs. I told him to get the one from the bathroom. He brought it down. He was playing the harmonica all the while. The bulb didn't work. Something was wrong in the switch. I sent him up to get a candle. He came down playing the harmonica and holding the candle. I told him to bring the light close to me. I was scraping the inside of the barrel. He was playing and looking the other way. He brought the candle closer. Do you know where he put it? He practically put it in my ear. I hollered and knocked it out of his hand. He ran upstairs. I fell over the barrel and ripped my leg open. I was lying in the dark with my leg bleeding. That ear was like a red-hot bird on my head. It was quiet in the house. And then guess what? I heard him playing the harmonica on the porch. I think it was the same song he was playing before. I tell you the boy's not there!”

“You don't mean that. Isn't it true he works hard? I've heard from one of the girls that he helps a great deal in the house. By the way, Mr. Christopher, I had a feeling there was something on his breath the other morning.”

“I let him put whiskey in his coffee when it's cold out. It doesn't hurt him. It warms him up. He never catches cold.”

“I wonder.”

“You think it'll put a craving in him?”