November 27, 1985 / 11:10 p.m.
The steaks arrived. Steaks of a thickness that I'd never seen, and a flavor the likes of which my taste buds had never known. So good was the steak that I barely detected the rising voices at the bar, and a short, powerful figure moving out of the shadows. Didn't detect it until it was right behind my father, nostrils flaring, eyes glaring. And in just that instant, it all fell into place. The car. The car that had pulled silently down my street on the night of my first kiss. The night of the coach. The same car that I saw as we pulled into J.R.'s. And that short, powerful figure. I'd seen that same man vault onto the field and dive onto the pile. The man I felt then was Clem Baskin's father. He must have found out.
“You Tietam Brown?” the man practically yelled.
Holly turned to face Baskin, who looked to be five six, 220, and thick and muscular inside a white dress shirt and a pair of tan slacks.
Terri turned and let out a gasp, obviously startled by this crew-cutted bulldog who reeked of bad intentions.
My dad never turned. Just chewed his steak slowly, then swallowed and said, “I'm having dinner with my family. I would appreciate it if you'd leave us alone.”
Baskin was turning redder by the second, his fists were clenched and his body was tensed, ready to strike. “You'd appreciate that, huh?” he said. “Well I'll tell you what, you bald, skinny piece of crap, my wife and I are trying to enjoy our anniversary. But we can't do that because there is a smell over here that makes me sick. So I'll tell you what I'd appreciate. I'd appreciate you and your one-eared son getting the hell out of this place. You got me?”
Holly stood up. “Now stop it,” she said, but Tietam held up his hand as if asking a crowd for silence at a championship game. Terri was scared, and to tell the truth I was too, because Mr. Baskin looked about ready to burst at the seams. But Tietam Brown's expression never changed. Instead he began cutting his meat, and with great calmness said, “Like I said, sir, I'm having dinner with my family. I would appreciate being left alone. If, however, you would like to address this problem afterward, we can do so in the parking lot.”
A waiter tried to make peace, and a bartender offered to buy a round. But Baskin seemed to be appeased. “It's okay,” he assured everyone. “We're going to settle this . . . later.”
He turned to walk away, and life momentarily seemed to go on, but in an instant Baskin reached for a solid oak chair, wheeled around, and brought the heavy wood down on Tietam Brown's head.
“Dad,” I screamed, just an instant before contact, and my father brought up an arm. But the gesture seemed futile, and like a wounded deer, my father fell to the floor, obviously hurt.
Holly was the first to act, jumping up from her seat, rushing to defend this man she barely knew. “You basâ” she yelled, but the word never got out as Clem Baskin's father let loose with a powerful shove that knocked her over a vacant table.
Now I shot into action, but before I could grab him, I was met with the smash of a water glass to the top of the head, a shot that dazed me and sent me down to one knee.
“Andy,” Terri yelled, and she rushed to my aid. Another voice yelled, a voice from the shadows, and when she emerged, I saw Mrs. Baskin in that familiar red dress. “Stop, Brock, you'll kill him.” And as my eyes struggled to focus, it appeared that he might, as he was down on his knees throwing hard punches at my father, who showed no sign of movement.
Maybe I was still reeling from the blow to my head, or maybe I couldn't see through the blood that now flowed from my wound. Or maybe the move was so sudden that only trained eyes could see. Eyes that could pause and slow-motion the scene. But all I saw was a flash of an arm and a hook of a neck, and then a human constrictor wrapped around its prey.
A human constrictor wearing a mask of bright crimson, so thick and so wet that it stood in bright contrast to the whites of its eyes. Eyes that were calm.
My father was hooked around Baskin in a sickening way. A way that held the man's body at angles that bodies won't go. But the sounds. The sounds I think were most sickening of all. Low guttural wheezes from way back in his lungs. Animal noises from a prey that was done.
In the dim light of J.R.'s, I saw Brock Baskin's face. Impossibly red, and ready to burst. Through the blood in my eyes and the fog in my brain, I saw it. Amid the screaming of women and the panic of men I saw it. The face of Brock Baskin as it lost all will to live.
Mrs. Baskin screamed loudest. “Let him go, let him go. Tietam, please let him go.”
I'm not sure anyone else saw it. It was just a small glance. So subtle, it seemed, that for a long time I questioned whether it was real at all. My father's white eyes. Incredibly calm. Incredibly calm and looking at me. Only at me. Then one eye gave a wink, and Brock Baskin screamed. And a terrible smell fouled the air of J.R.'s.
Mr. Baskin, it turned out, was right. There was a bad smell in our general vicinity. But it wasn't my father. No, the smell came from Baskin's tan slacks, which were now kind of dark, at least in the middle.
Then Tietam Brown stood, bloodied but unbowed, and walked to his chair and calmly sat down, where he was embraced by his girl, whose white Cortland sweatshirt turned instantly red.
Then Terri helped me up and gave a hug of her own, and although my blood wasn't as thick or as abundant as Tietam's, I too stained a garment. Terri's beautiful sweater became smeared with my blood as, for the second time, she cradled my bloodied head in her warm, loving arms.
Mrs. Baskin, too, embraced her man. A man without a scratch, but far worse injured than we were. No red badge of courage for Brock Baskin. Just a brown smear of shame. And a wife who was crying, only feet from our table. “Goddamn you,” she said, in a voice low and shaking. Over and over, the same simple phrase. “Goddamn you, goddamn you.”
At first I thought her husband was the target at which her words were aimed. But as her voice grew in volume and the words grew in number, she left little doubt. “Goddamn you, Tietam Brown. If it's the last thing I do, I will get you for this. Goddamn you, Tietam, I will get you for this.” Then she broke down in sobs and her words ceased to make sense, but whatever they were, they didn't seem to be nice.
Then the police arrived on the scene, their lights splashing blue on Cortland's white canvas. Made me think of Auntie M, with her beautiful smile on her poor severed head.
They tried to slap handcuffs on my bloodied dad, but a quick word from J.R. himself, in his black cowboy hat, seemed to change their minds.
So the Cortland police, who usually broke up college fights at the Dark Horse Saloon, now took with them a very smelly prisoner. A prisoner who no longer possessed any will to live. And next to him, a wife with nothing left to lose. With only a promise of vengeance to hold the broken pieces of her life together.
My father, I must say, stayed remarkably calm. Even when an ambulance tried to whisk him away. “Twenty stitches at least,” one EMT said. But Tietam Brown was not to be swayed. His steak, he explained, was only half eaten. He would finish it here, and then his girlfriend would take him to Cortland General.
“Are you sure?” he was asked.
“Yeah, I'm sure. I can't let one guy . . . poop on my party.”
He finished his steak and then he was gone. Gone in a trail of blood drops. A red badge of courage that he wore with great pride. Earned in a fight he hadn't looked for, but that he had ended with force. A fight he hadn't started, but one that he had caused nonetheless. A fight that a sad lonely woman had promised to avenge.
I was bleeding too, but not nearly so bad. Bad enough maybe for stitches, but if so, just a few, and I couldn't quite rationalize a three-hour emergency room wait on a night such as this.
A night when the snow was now five inches deep. A night of kisses and hugs and black lingerie. Of sexy plans that gave way to a much deeper love. Of camels and mangers and chain-smoking Josephs. Of thick steaks and laughter and the stale scent of fresh blood. Of a father in love with a wonderful girl, and the whites of his eyes and the foul smell of shit. Of the sudden realization that a balding middle-aged man might very well be the toughest man on the planet. A true father for a kid who always wanted one, and a hero for a kid who never believed heroes existed.
The drunks were just starting to stumble out of the Horse as Terri and I drove by. Still a few hours away from the mass exodus onto Main Street where mom and dad's hard-earned money bought their kids late night breakfasts at the place where I worked. Damn, I had to work out some kind of deal so I could be a father to Jesus and still wash those dishes.
I saw the cutoff red flannel, dusted with white, the large frame standing motionless among the night revelers, who now lobbed snowballs and tried to work out late night sleeping arrangements in willing new arms. I followed his gaze, and I saw a young woman grabbing the ass of some drunk. And in that ass-grabbing instant, I knew right away that she once had been his. And within his snow-covered flannel, I could almost see his heart break.
My two-hour walk was but a ten-minute drive. Those minutes did not offer much conversation, but volumes in the way of understanding. As if I was really hers, and she was really mine. Like Rocky and Adrian. Like Zucko and Sandy. Like Joanie and Chachi.
“Good night, Andy,” she said as we got to my drive. I looked at the lawn, where only hours before Bethlehem lived. But now only cigarette butts where Joseph had been. Only camel poop where once wise men had stood.
“Good night, Terri, we had . . . quite a night.”
“You're not mad at me Andy, are you?”
“Mad?” I asked. “At you? No, why would I be?”
“I hope you don't think I'm a CT.”
“Of course not,” I said. I had no idea what she meant. College transfer? Colorado Tech? Cookie Toll House?
“Maybe I can T your C next time I see you.”
“That would be great.” What did that mean? What did that mean?
A good two hours later, I heard the Fairmont pull up, Springsteen drifting out into the quiet December night. “Show a little faith, there's magic in the night, you ain't a beauty, but hey you're all right . . . and that's all right with me.”
I heard laughter heading up the stairs, then I heard the bedroom door close, and then I heard something rather odd. No, not beds bouncing, or boards banging, or tape recorders clicking, or voices moaning, or deal-making. What I heard, what I swore I heard, was the sound of Antietam Brown IV cuddling. Actually cuddling.
And maybe the strangest sound was one I didn't hear at all. Strange because it didn't exist. I never heard the telltale sounds of the push-ups and free squats downstairs, or feet heading out after the second act was done, or a slamming door, or a departing car. Holly, the mystery woman, was staying the night.
December 12, 1985â December 23, 1985
Tietam and Holly spent all their nights together after that, and not once did I hear the signs of my father's special brand of lovemaking. Maybe that word was the key. Lovemaking. Maybe my father was actually making love next door instead of exploiting the vulnerabilities of lost souls. Apparently he'd dropped his “three strikes, you're out” rule as well, because Holly, the mystery woman, was pretty much a fixture at the Brown house for those next couple of weeks.
One morning I awoke to hear them singing (and I'm not kidding here) “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” You know, the Carpenters song. Which was horrible except for the way they were looking in each other's eyes while they did it, which was anything but. But then Tietam had to try to go soprano for the “ahh ahh ah ah ahh, close to you,” which really wasn't a pretty sight . . . or sound.
When the serenade was through, he wrapped his arms around Holly and said, “Tell me 'bout ol' Tietam.”
“Oohh I need 'im,” Holly sang back.
“Holly, you're a poet and my thing shows it, it's a Longfellow.” Then, “Let's bake some cookies.”
My father had managed to be cute, charming, crude, and innocent all in one sentence.
As for those cookies, they were everywhere. The smell of ginger-bread, chocolate chips, and peanut butter was with us practically around the clock. Not just for the performers, who were always around between six and ten, but for the tourists as well. Yes, tourists. Word of Tietam Brown's live Nativity scene had spread to the point where people not only from Conestoga and Cortland but Syracuse, Binghamton, and Ithaca as well were regularly lining our block. And they bought cookies while they were there. All of the proceeds from which went to our local Salvation Army, as did the money Santa collected at the foot of the drive. Sometimes Tietam took his turn inside the Santa suit, and I'll be damned if he wasn't the best, albeit thinnest, Santa I'd ever seen.
When it came to his scene, good just wasn't good enough for Tietam Brown. True to his word, he brought in music for atmosphere. Actually went out and bought speakers, a cassette deck, and some cassettes (I think eight-tracks were strictly in pawnshops by then) and filled the cool air with the classic holiday sounds of Como, Crosby, Sinatra, and others every evening for four hours.
But he didn't stop there. Not my father. No, he had an elaborate stair system built in the rear of the manger so that an angel could climb up and stand on a special perch he had made. A perch that he painted black, so on certain nights the angel really did appear to be flying.
Hey, let's not forget about the drummer boy. Not the little drummer boy. My dad actually went down to Wheeler Elementary School and obtained the services of two drummers from the school band, who took turns standing in the cold for hours, pretending to drum.
As for me, I threw myself into the role of Joseph with reckless abandon. Studied for it, lived it. I became Joseph. In the words of Stan Kellner, the creator of basketball cybernetics, who I once heard lecture at a basketball clinic in Richmond, “See the picture, think the picture, be the picture, don't be afraid to make mistakes.” Granted, there was not a whole lot of demand for one-handed point guards, but I was able to use Stan's cybernetical knowledge to become the best Joseph I could be.
But my two weeks of manger bliss came with a heavy price at Frank 'n' Mary's. In return for two weeks off, I had to work midnight till 8 a.m. on the twenty-third, twelve to 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and twelve to eight on Christmas Day. Damn, that was cutting things close, especially as I had been invited by Terri for Christmas Eve dinner at the Johnson houseâmy first face-to-face meeting with the reverend.
Holly had been especially upset over the scheduling. She said, “Andy, we want to spend the holiday together. That's the way families are supposed to do it.”
Family. She had referred to us as a family. I liked that. “Holly,” I said, “does that mean you're not heading âsomewhere other than here'?”
“Well now, Andy, your father has convinced me that âhere' is exactly where I need to be.”
When she said it, I had this corny idea that Holly should have been the angel atop the manger, because I really thought she'd been sent down from heaven to rescue my father.
“Holly, don't worry,” I said. “I can still spend Christmas morning with you, and I can still be Joseph on the twenty-third, before I go to work. But I think we'll have to find someone else for the twenty-fourth, because I'm going to Terri's after work.”
“Well I think that's wonderful,” she said. “Besides, I would never want anyone to stand outside on Christmas Eve. We'll just leave the manger open.”
My father, who'd been stringing popcorn for our Christmas tree, obviously had other plans.
He said, “Holly, Christmas Eve is going to be the biggest night of the year for us. Do you know how disappointed people will be if they drive by ol' Tietam's and there's no one out there? It will ruin their Christmas. No, the show must go on.”
“Come on, Tietam,” she said, “all the college kids go home on the twenty-third. And even if they were able, we wouldn't allow it. No, Christmas Eve is for family.”
“I'm offering a lot of money. Twenty-five an hour.”
“I don't care if you're offering fifty. No means no.”
I'd heard Robert De Niro say the same “No means no” line in
The Deer Hunter,
but somehow Holly seemed even more forceful with hersâin a sweet angelic type of way.
My father smiled and put his string of popcorn down. A mischievous, little-boy smile. “Holly, look what I've got,” he said as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and waved it in the air.
“What do you have there, you naughty old man?”
“It's an ad I just wrote. I'm going to put it in the paper.”
Holly walked to the couch and snatched the paper from his fingers. She read briefly, then put her hand over her eyes and shook her head. Then she laughed, paused, laughed again, and said, “Tietam, you can't print this.”
“Why not?”
“Because it's a little offensive.”
“How come?”
“Because it reads âAttention: Jews wanted.' ”
I burst out laughing. Tietam seemed confused and said, “What's wrong with that?”
“I told you, hon, it's offensive.”
Tietam got up from the couch, threw up his arms in disbelief, walked in a few circles on the same shag carpet that his penis had once brushed on a regular basis, and let out a loud sigh.
“I don't get it,” he said.
“What don't you get, hon?”
“Well throughout history, the Jewish people have never felt wanted, right? Now I make up an ad that tells them, Hey you're wanted, and you tell me it's wrong. I don't get it . . . So look, if I don't print the ad, then maybe I'll just offer the dough to anyone who wants it, and we'll weed out the people who need the cash more than the family bonding.”
Holly went over and kissed her confused man. I thought momentarily that my father was going to start making out with her, but then I remembered that this was the new Tietam Brown, and the new Tietam wouldn't do that in front of his son.
Holly said, “I'll tell you what. Why don't I make up a new ad that doesn't use the word âJews' in it. Then I will put it on the bulletin board of the local synagogues, along with our telephone number. When we get a call, we will explain what we're doing with our Nativity scene. And if, by, say . . . the twenty-second, we don't have anyone, then we'll run your ad. How does that sound?”
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“Oh, and Tietam.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I'm a Jew . . . and I know that you want me.”