What Happens Next (16 page)

“Tell me.”

“You don’t want to hear this story. Trust me.”

“Okay, now you
have
to tell me.”

“Not while you’re eating.”

“I have the stomach of a billy goat.”

“All right,” he says, shrugging. “You asked for it. You’re gettin’ it.”

Popping the last of his sandwich in his mouth, he leans back in his chair, like he’s going to need to get comfortable for a while.

“So I had this cat who’d just had kittens. My mom and I, we were living in this little house in Brookpark, right before we moved here, and next door was this crackhead with a kid. I think the kid’s name was Andrew or Andy or something. Anyway, he was like four and couldn’t speak because his mom was a junkie and didn’t pay attention to him at all. She would just set him outside at dawn and bring him in at sunset. He’d stand in the yard and grunt at cars like he was a dog or something. Weird. Anyhow, my mom and I started to feel sorry for him, so we would invite him over, feed him—we took him for ice cream once—and let him play with the kittens. He got to where he started just walking in our house without knocking and he’d just be
standing
there in your bedroom when you came out of the shower. Freaky. Anyhow, we kept trying to explain to him that he couldn’t do that… that he had to knock first. But he wasn’t getting it. One day he came inside while my mom was napping and I was at school. He came in and…”

Corey stops. His face goes solemn and slightly stunned. I can tell from his expression that this story just shifted gears. It is being mentally refiled in his memory bank, switched from the
Oh Man, Check It Out, This One Time
shelf to the
Ugh, I’d Almost Forgotten That Shitty Story
shelf.

“What happened?” I ask.

He looks at his hands and says more delicately, “He took the kittens out on the patio and doused them with a bottle of lighter fluid that was sitting by the grill.”

I jerk a little. I was expecting a twist, but not something that bad.

“So… he cooked them alive?” I say, feeling a little queasy.

“No, he didn’t light a match or anything. He… he didn’t know what he was doing. He was just playing. He thought the lighter fluid was like a squirt gun or something.”

“So he poisoned them?”

“Yeah. I came home from school and smelled gas so I woke my mom up. The cat was running around the house like a maniac, panting, and jumping, and freaking out. I picked her up and smelled the lighter fluid on her. My mom ran over to the cat box and the kittens were gone. The mother cat had carried them back in, one by one, and hid them all behind the fridge. She was sick from trying to lick the lighter fluid off them. We washed them all up really well. But one of them died later that day; he’d gotten the worst of it. The other four were okay in the end. We had to take the mom to the vet to get charcoal put in her stomach. She was fine after about a week.”

“That’s awful,” I say. “What happened to the crackhead and the kid? And how did you know it was him if you were at school?”

“Our back door was still open, and we knew who’d done it. He was in love with those kittens. My mom called the police and they found the kid in his closet, covered in cat scratches. We thought Crackey would get in some kind of trouble but they didn’t do shit to her. ‘It’s just cats and the kid’s fine,’ they said. After the police left, I freaked. I went over and started screaming at her and the kid, calling her everything in the book. I told her that my cat was a better mother than she was. That we were lucky he didn’t burn our house down and lucky we didn’t have a baby at our house. That her son would have killed a baby if he’d had the chance. The kid was crying. His doped-up mom was crying. My mom had to drag me off their porch kicking and screaming. All the neighbors were on their lawns watching. That’s what the kid two houses down told me, anyway. I don’t remember it. I don’t remember anything past watching the police pull down the street.”

“That is a terrible story. I’m so sorry that happened to you. And those poor cats.”

I look at him hard. I want him to know that I mean it. Then I look down and grimace at my food. I fold up the rest of my sandwich in the wrapper.

“Told ya,” he says.

“Yep, you sure the hell did.”

He rocks back in his chair a little.

“I still feel bad for yelling at the kid, though, even if I don’t remember doing it. He didn’t know any better.”

“You were eight. You were a kid, too.”

“Yeah, well, I guess the point I was making is that rage can do strange things to the mind. That, and don’t bathe cats in lighter fluid.”

He says this kind of joking, taking a halfhearted stab at humor.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say, going along with his feeble attempt to glean some sort of moral from this grim tale. He wraps the sandwich papers into a big ball and tosses them into the trash can that is sitting about ten feet away.

“Two points,” he whispers to himself.

Then we sit listening to a car commercial on the radio, trying to digest our corned beef, cabbage, and revulsion. I think about his words:
Rage can do strange things to the mind. Rage can make you forget things.

“You cold?” Corey asks.

“Huh?”

“You just shivered like you were cold or something. I can get your jacket from the front.”

“No, I’m fine. I just… um, was thinking about those kittens.”

I look around, not knowing what to say. As if sensing the need for a mood enhancer, Corey jumps up and heads toward the radio over on a shelf.

“Let’s listen to something upbeat,” he says. “And I’ll show you how to make pizzelle and clothespin cookies.”

“What?”

“You know. Um, pizzelle. It’s an Italian wedding cookie.”

I know what they are. When my mom was married to Vince, we made them every holiday with an old-fashioned iron brought over from Italy by his grandfather. The cookies would come out looking like a snowflake. But I let Corey continue to describe them. I am speechless that he knows how to make these things, and he looks cute talking about it.

“You know, they look like lacy waffle wafer thingies. And clothespin cookies, they’re, uh, those little cream-filled spirals you see on cookie tables at weddings and stuff.”

He realizes how ridiculous he sounds, sighs, and rolls his eyes.

“I have to make three dozen of each before I leave; they’re for a baby shower order.”

And then this towering hulk of a person, this enigma that I thought I knew to be a complete stone-bag loser, is up and moving, talking about lacy waffle wafer thingies and little cream-filled spirals. And he is putting on The Beatles.

My personal audio-kryptonite.

Fack!

My heart melts upon contact with George, Paul, John, and Ringo. We have every Beatles CD ever made at home. And all the old vinyl records. And the 8-tracks and cassettes. My mom’s mom loved them, then she passed it down to my mom, who loves them and passed it on to Liam and me, who love them. The Beatles are like honorary Murphy family members. I recognize the album cover from across the room.

Rubber Soul.
Double fack!

I should go. I’ve been here way too long. I don’t even know why I’m still here. I said I was sorry, he accepted my apology, we broke bread, and now I should go. I start to make an excuse to leave, but “Drive My Car” comes on, and he says, “Go wash your hands and pull up that hair, Irish. You’re helping. Corned beef or not, you still owe me. Plus, I still haven’t gotten you back for the Dr Pepper. I’ll let you work it off in trade.”

We spend the next hour making cookies and goofing around. While the pizzelle are fairly quickly made with a big, industrial-size pizzelle iron that cracks off six at a time, the clothespins are more tricky. His clothespins are wound flawlessly and come out looking like perfect “little cream-filled spirals.” The ones I make look like lumpy, crooked, falling-apart Play-Doh. The song “Michelle” comes on while I am rolling my sorry pat of dough out for another batch of clothespin rejects.

“Ahhh. This is my song,” I say. “My mom picked my middle name after this song.”

“What about your first name?” he asks.

“Cassidy? It’s Irish. For curly-haired. Go figure, right?”

I say this in a tone thick with self-loathing while pointing a doughy finger at the mop of bright red ringlets piled on the top of my head. Surely they sit in a tangled explosion, glowing like the Fourth of July.

Corey cocks his head and studies my hair with a serious look on his face.

“Curly-haired, hmmm. Nope. Not really seeing it.”

He grins sideways.

I roll my eyes, then concentrate keenly on my dough.

“I always wished she would have picked the first name Lucy. From ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’ I used to dance to it in my room when I was little. I’d turn off all the lights and spin around in circles until I was dizzy and then lie down and look up at my ceiling. I had all these glow-in-the-dark sticker stars. They’d swirl and spin and I’d think,
Wheeee!
I thought I was high.”

Corey laughs.

I look at him laughing and it occurs to me that I’ve never shared this story with anyone until now. I go back to my dough.

“Anyhow, she was afraid that with the hair, people would assume it was because of Lucille Ball. I should be thankful, though, that she didn’t go with what my dad wanted—Tallulah—Irish for
prosperous lady
. And thank god she gave me
her
last name; otherwise I’d be stuck with O’Tooley. Can you imagine?”

“Ta-
lloooo-
lah O’Tooley,” Corey crows, trying it out. Then he laughs and says, “Ah, no. That’s Irish for playground ass-kicking.”

“Eh-yah,” I agree. “Douchebag tries to name me freakin’ Tallulah O’Tooley and then takes off before I’m even born.”

“No shit. Me, too.” Corey says, pausing to look at me for a second before resuming the dough-rolling.

“Well. Mine stuck around until I was four,” he says. “Waited until I got good and attached to him and then flew the coop with a stripper. I saw him once when I was thirteen, for like an hour. He has two kids and lives in Mississippi or Missouri, or one of those M states, I dunno.”

We both look at each other and I feel a connection being made. A connection through abandonment. It’s something that none of my friends could ever understand, because even though they’ve got crazy divorced parents or miserable married parents, they’ve still got two.

“Well, at least your dad didn’t pick your name out of
Auto-Trader
,” he says, cutting his flattened dough into long strips. Mine picked my middle name after a car.”

“No. What is it?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Nissan? Corey Nissan Livingston?”

“Ha, ha,” he says dryly.

“Corey Corvette!” I blurt, absolutely sure I have the right answer.

“Nope.”

“Corey Mercedes Livingston. Corey Porsche Livingston.”

“What? No. Jeez, those are girl names. Forget it, Cassidy Sid Lucy Ta-
llooooo-
lah Michelle My Bell whatever your name is, ain’t gonna happen.”

“Oh, come on. I told you mine,” I say flicking flour at him.

He flicks some back and says, “Talloooolah O’Tooley…”

And now we are in a flour war.

Mr. DiRusso walks back and catches us horseplaying.

“Hey, you waste good flour!”

“There’s a sandwich for you on the table,” Corey says to him, nailing me in the head with a big blob of dough.

“Okay, truce,” I say, holding up my hands with my face half-turned away. Corey gives me his infamous dirty eyeball and we both put down our weapons.

“Okay. I’ll let it go for now,” I say, picking dough out of my hair and tossing it in the trash can. “Besides, I have other ways of getting my information.”

“You wish. I’m a man of mystery. You’ll never find out squat if I don’t tell you myself.”

“You’ll see,” I say, nodding and threatening him, when really I don’t have the slightest clue as to what I’m even saying at this point. Mr. DiRusso walks over to the table and sits down. He picks up the remaining sandwich and starts eating.

“Why you still here?” he says to me with his mouth full. “You no date Shaggy but you stay and do his work? Play tootsie with my flour? Sure. I no pay you though. I only afford one worker.”

“She’s my indentured servant for the day, Mr. D,” Corey says as he winds some dough onto a little baking rod. He looks at me, smiling, and adds, “Payback for being a big bee-yatch.”

“Nice! You hear how he talks to me?” I say to Mr. D. “I’d never date a guy who treats me so poorly.”

“Good for you. He’s a bum.”

Then things go quiet for second. A nervous glance passes between Corey and me. Were we just flirting?

Mr. D smacks his lips.

“Bee-yatch,” he says. “What is this bee-yatch?”

I hold back a laugh but Corey starts howling.

Mr. D. looks confused and says, “What? What I say funny?”

My laughter has been held prisoner for months. It has been pinched and folded, squeezed and shoved deep down into myself, but at this moment, it escapes from me with a thunder. The Incomparable Sid Murphy Cackling Guffaw has returned in all its obnoxious glory. And for the first time in so long, I let it fill the room.