One Good Punch (4 page)

Catherine Kerrigan

Catherine Kerrigan of East Scranton, 47, is still very much alive. Her husband is Thomas Kerrigan, Ph.D. They will celebrate their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary in August.

Born in Hackensack, N.J., daughter of the late Henry and Roberta DeAngelo, she is a graduate of Marywood University and was previously employed by Tiny Tots preschool in Dunmore. She is a successful poet, with her work appearing in such publications as
Riverview, Happenings Magazine,
and
The East Scranton Almanac.

She is devoted to her only son, Michael, but shares much of her husband’s somewhat clueless, detached style of parenting. Arriving home after 3:00 one recent morning, Michael stumbled into the living room to find his mother on the couch. She observed a strong odor of alcohol and asked if the friends he’d been out with had been drinking. Michael admitted that they had. “Well, I’m just glad that you weren’t,” she said.

Mrs. Kerrigan is a parishioner of Saint Anthony’s R.C. Church. She is a member of the Scranton Historical Society and the Northeast Poets Association, and she once served as vice president of the Jefferson Elementary School PTA. She is an excellent cook but has tended in her later years to just heat up Stouffer’s frozen dinners.

Study Connects Denial to Suppressed Guilt

I
WALK THE COLD STREETS
for an hour before going home, and by the time I get there, my dad has gone to bed. But Mom is watching the news on CNN. She calls hello as I come into the hallway.

“Hey,” I answer.

I sit on the edge of the couch and stare at the TV for a few seconds. Mom’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a University of Scranton sweatshirt. Her hair—which she dyes a sort of reddish brown to hide the gray—is pulled back in a ponytail. She has a half glass of red wine sitting on the end table next to her.

It’s cheap wine; they buy it by the gallon and ration it out. Mom’s the type that will drive over to Dickson City to buy groceries if she sees that cans of tuna fish are five cents cheaper. She knows that it costs more than the savings just to drive over there. “It’s the principle,” she says.

“How was the film?” she asks.

“Pretty good.”

“And did Shelly like it?”

“Seemed to.”

“Did you get a bite to eat?”

“Not really. Just a drink.”

Mom turns toward me and crosses one ankle over the other. She squints at me a bit and gives a half smile. “So what’s wrong?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I can tell. Something happen between you and Shelly?”

“No. Shelly’s fine.”

“Yes, but are you?”

I shrug. “I guess. Just thinking, you know?”

She looks at my face. “You seem a little shaken. Or am I imagining that?”

“Nothing shakes me.” I smile. “No. I was just trying to figure something out.”

“About you and Shelly?”

I roll my eyes and look down at the carpet. It’s an ugly blue-green. My parents are very big on carpet—every room in the house is covered. Even the stairs are carpeted. And most of it isn’t tacked down very well.

Mom is always prodding me about Shelly, subtly trying to figure out if we have sex. I’m still making up my mind about whether that’s going to happen. I can’t help thinking that Shelly’s still trying to figure out which way she’s leaning, and I don’t want to be the deciding factor one way or the other.

It would probably be a relief to my mom if we did. Trying to find out if I’m interested in girls has been a recurring theme of hers since I hit puberty.

I am, by the way.

So I tell her not to worry, everything’s cool. She believes me, I guess. It’s true that she can usually tell when something’s eating at me, but less true that she could help me with it. Both of my parents have always seemed a little stunned; every exchange between us is awkward, and we’re never quite sure what the other one is driving at. They seem to think that they can be subtle and leave things unsaid but understood. Maybe that works with other poets or professors, but it leaves me with a lot to figure out for myself. I’ve done pretty well, but the parental-guidance thing is understated here, to say the least.

They assume I’ll come to them with my problems, if I ever have any. Big assumption. And false.

I did ask her. We were walking home after watching a basketball game recently—we’d gotten hammered by Carbondale—and I said right straight out, “Are you gay?”

Shelly laughed sort of nervously. “
I
don’t know.” She stopped and put her arms around me and pressed her chest hard into mine (we were both wearing coats), got up on her toes, and kissed me on the lips for about six seconds. Then she reached around and grabbed my butt. “Not tonight, I’m not.”

So we ducked around the side of an abandoned building and made out on a stoop for maybe fifteen minutes. It was about twenty degrees, and some of our saliva started to freeze on my chin.

We went back to her house and talked to her parents for a few minutes, then they both yawned and said they were tired and went upstairs, obviously to give us some privacy (but not too much). By then, the mood had passed (at least on my end), so we turned on the TV but just left it on whatever channel it was tuned to and talked about “our futures.”

“School is so frickin’ boring,” she said. “Can’t you just not wait until we get the heck out of here?”

“Yeah,” I replied, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt.

“What?” she asked, picking up on my halfhearted tone. “You actually like it here?”

“It’s not
so
bad,” I said. “I don’t even know where I’m going yet.” Shelly’s already at Bucknell in her head; this is just a last long visit home. I’m still very much here. “I don’t hate it.”

“I don’t
hate
it either,” she said. “But, my God, that basketball game tonight was the highlight of my week. How pathetic is that?”

We stared at the TV. And then I realized that her eagerness to flee this place was part of the problem I was having with her. Sometimes when I can’t wait to just get the hell out of Scranton—get to some college far away and then find a job in California or Boston and only come home for Christmas—sometimes then I get to feeling guilty. Like somehow by leaving I’d be turning my back on home and letting it decay even further. Like I should be doing something to make this city great again instead of fleeing.

And that’s about the same reason I’m not so quick to jump into bed with her. We pretty much grew up together—we used to play board games every day after school; then we got to junior high and talked each other into going out for track; and we went to a couple of dances together, but we never danced and spent most of the evening laughing at how klutzy the boys who tried to were. I don’t want that capped off with a few months of sex and then it’s over. Use me up and never look back. If that sounds like I’m some prude or a wimp, then I guess I have to accept that.

I don’t tell her any of this.

“And I’m
not
gay,” she said. “I mean, we all fall somewhere along a sexual spectrum. I’m not saying I’m in the dead center, but I know I’m not one extreme or the other. Where the heck are
you
?”

“I’m
straight.
What do you think?”

She shrugged. “You seem kind of reluctant.”

“With
you
I am.”

She folded her arms and leaned back on the couch. “Thanks a lot.”

“It’s not—” I lower my voice to a whisper, remembering her parents upstairs. “It’s not—you’re great.”

She gave me a smirk and stuck out her tongue. “Then kiss me,” she said. And I did. For quite a while. It felt good. I relaxed.

But I was pissed off at myself the next morning.

Joseph Onager

Joseph Onager, 18, a lifelong resident of Scranton, isn’t dead yet. A senior at East Scranton High School, he may or may not graduate in June, but it won’t make much difference anyway. With or without the diploma, he will likely wind up as a laborer and continue living at home with his parents.

Joseph was a decent shortstop in the East Scranton Little League and later developed an interest in bowling. Friends recall that he used to collect interesting stones and pebbles and that he sang a brief solo during the fourth-grade holiday concert at Jefferson Elementary School.

He worked last summer as a dishwasher at Carmella’s Italian Restaurant, and in recent months he has been employed as a low-level drug runner for an outfit in South Scranton.

Also surviving are his abusive parents, Gustavo and Ellen, who appear to be absent even when they are present.

SECTION C

SPORTS

Costly Fumble Threatens Season

I’
VE BEEN IN A COLD SWEAT
most of the morning and not even trying to pay attention in my classes. I know I’ll be getting called to the principal’s office anytime now. Nobody’s said anything, so it looks like this is all still confidential. But it’s bound to explode soon.

I run into Jay in the hallway, and he raises his fist. “Ker-ri-gan,” he says. “Practice starts Wednesday, man. Be ready to kick some butt.”

I nod and swallow hard. I should have adrenaline pumping through me, uplifted by Jay’s enthusiasm and the knowledge that big things are going to happen soon on the track. But it’s not looking so good right now.

“I’m psyched,” Jay says. “It’s like our whole career has built to this season, you know? It’s gonna be awesome.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It is.”

I see Joey at lunch, and he waves me over. He’s at the end of one of the long tables by himself. I have no appetite, so I just grab an orange juice and some chocolate-chip cookies and sit next to him.

“You in the clear?” he asks.

I shrug. “Doubt it,” I say, but I suppose there’s a tiny chance that they’ll leave me alone.

“Nothing happened yet?”

I shake my head.

“I would have thought if they were going to haul you in, they’d have done it first thing this morning.”

“You would have thought.” I push away the juice; no way I can stomach anything. “You hear about anybody else?”

“Nothing yet,” he says.

But I don’t think it’ll be long. I can see the vice principal, Mr. Peterson, looking at us from across the lunchroom with his crew cut and running-back build, and I think he’s making sure we don’t leave. Maybe they’ve got Joey tied up in this now, too. Who knows? That would certainly ease things for me if they nailed him on their own without any word from me.

Joey sees Peterson staring at us and says, “Here it comes.” But he drops the tough-guy persona right away and whispers to me urgently, “I swear to God, Mike, I’m never trafficking again.”

“Right,” I say. You don’t just walk away from something like that.

“No way. I was scared shitless all weekend. Don’t turn me in, man. I’ll owe you big-time.”

This doesn’t surprise me. All Joey’s drug business and partying and hanging out all night is a front. He’s basically a poser without much happening. He does that stuff to try to impress the world that he’s got something going on, but he doesn’t.

“So I’m supposed to just take whatever they throw at me?” I ask. “I get kicked out of school to cover your sorry ass?”

He cranes his neck and looks at the ceiling, then turns to me. There’s fear in his eyes. I see him swallow hard. “They’d eat me alive,” he says. “My parents would kill me. I mean
kill.
And the school would be glad to see me hang.”

I know he’s right. His mom smacked him around in front of me plenty of times when we were younger. And he must have got worse from his father in private. Joey gets a bad deal from teachers, too, even though he asks for a lot of it with his attitude.

Peterson is walking toward us now. He’s looking straight at Joey, who sits up but looks away.

Peterson puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “We need to have a talk,” but he’s still staring at Joey.

“Now?” I say.

“Yeah. Now.”

I push the two cookies toward Joey and say, “Help yourself.”

Joey says, “Thanks.”

Peterson is standing there. He speaks to Joey. “So, Mr. Onager. How are you?”

Joey looks up at him blankly. “Okay.”

“I’m taking your friend for a little chat with Mrs. Davis,” Peterson says. “Maybe you know what it’s about.”

Joey shakes his head and frowns. “How would I know that?”

Peterson gives a menacing kind of shrug. “You guys are buddies. Maybe you could help him out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, maybe you should think about it,” Peterson says. “I’m just thinking you might be able to spare your good friend a lot of trouble. But maybe I’m wrong.”

“Sounds wrong to me.”

“Well, you think about it,” Peterson says. “Meantime, Mike and I will go have our talk with the principal. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

I stand and follow Peterson out of the lunchroom. When we reach the hallway, I ask, “What’s this about?”

He turns to me and gives a smirk. “Anything missing from your locker this morning?”

“Not that I know of.”

“That’s strange,” he says, “because we found an interesting package there over the weekend.”

I just keep walking. When we’re a few feet from the principal’s office, he stops.

“Listen, Kerrigan,” he whispers through his teeth, “you can play dumb if you want, but there’s a detective waiting in here, and we’ve got pretty strong evidence against you. You can be honest, or you can get squeezed until you squirm. Make it easy on yourself, bud. I know you’re not dealing, but you know who is.”

“No, I don’t,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows. “You and your lunch buddy are sharing more than cookies, Mike. He’ll be dead meat one of these days. The sooner, the better. For you
and
me.”

The meeting with the detective and the principal went something like this:

“How did the drugs get in your locker?”

“Somebody must have put them there.”

“And that somebody wasn’t you?”

“No. It wasn’t.”

“But you must have some idea who would put them there.”

I shrugged. “Could have been a lot of people.”

“Why would a lot of people have the idea to put marijuana in your locker?”

“They wouldn’t.”

“But somebody did.”

“Obviously.”

“Well, unless you think you know who it was, we can only assume that you’re lying.”

“About what?”

“About how it got there.”

“You mean, if I can’t say who put the stuff there, then it must have been me all along?”

“You can see how one would reach that conclusion.”

We kept going around like that, but I didn’t budge. I know the facts: Joey was trafficking drugs, and he’ll probably get nailed someday, but I’ll get hit with possession whether I turn him in or not.

So I’ve been suspended from school, and it’s likely to get worse. What they want to do is kick me out permanently as an example, but they’ll get over it and let me back if I turn in my dealer. Thing is, I don’t even know who the “dealer” is. Joey is just the delivery guy. But I think they’d be satisfied if I gave them his name. Then they could pressure him the same way to lead them up the chain.

Going to jail is very unlikely, but I’m sure I’ll get some kind of fine and probation. I’m more worried about getting expelled. That means no graduation, no track season, no college. So if I do the easy thing and rat on Joey, my life can be relatively normal within a couple of weeks. If I protect him, I’m pretty well screwed out of everything.

For now, I’m not saying a word. But in my head, I’m trying to figure who to blame for all this. Joey put that shit in my locker. That’s indisputable. So he carries a lot of the responsibility. All I told him was that I wanted a few joints and I’d pick them up from him sometime last weekend. I never said anything about dropping them off in my locker. As far as I can see, they were his until I took possession, which I never did.

Here’s some irony. Assuming that I keep my mouth shut and he stays out of trouble, Joey will graduate in June and I won’t.

I have to say that I’m not all that happy with Shelly either. She’s the reason I decided to buy the dope in the first place. You could almost say that I’m the victim.

Anyway, I can make things a whole lot better for myself by playing along with the system and telling them where the pot came from.

But I know better than that. I ordered the drugs. Nobody made me do it.

I have until noon tomorrow to come clean or get expelled.

Both of my parents are waiting at the kitchen table when I get there. I say hello.

“The principal called,” Mom says evenly.

“I figured she would.”

“So what’s the story?” Dad asks. “They say you know who put the drugs there.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know you didn’t. But they insist that you must know.”

“They can be wrong.”

“Are they?”

I scratch my head and lean against the counter. “
They
don’t know the answer to that.”

Dad’s tone heats up a little. “But do
you
?”

“Maybe I do. But I don’t like them just assuming that I’m lying to them.”

“But their assumption is correct in this case?”

I don’t say anything. Dad lets out his breath in a huff.

“Michael,” Mom says, “if you tell the truth, you’ll minimize the trouble for yourself. If you choose
not
to, then the consequences are looking pretty harsh.”

“I
know
that, Mom. You think I don’t know that?”

“Yes, I know that you do. But I don’t understand why you think you need to protect someone who’s put you in such serious jeopardy.”

Dad pipes in. “You haven’t been threatened, have you?”

“By who?”

“By whoever planted the drugs.”

“No,” I say scornfully. “Nobody threatened me with anything except the cop and the principal. Screw them anyway.”

My dad shakes his head slowly. “I think you’re the one who’s screwed, Sport. And you can get yourself out of it very easily. Tell the truth about who got you in trouble and get on with your life. It would be ridiculous for you to take the fall while some drug dealer walks free.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Mom says.

I stand there and stare at them, not sure what to say. Like I figured, they believe that I’m innocent.

I suppose that should make me feel good. They have faith in me.

Does that make them supportive or stupid?