Red Baker (10 page)

“God, we oughta get that bastard, Dad.”

“Yeah, that was what I thought.”

“But where does Dog come in?”

“Right about here. The next weekend was the St. Dominic’s Carnival, and I was going with Dog’s younger brother, Tim. See, Dog was older by two years, same as Vinnie. Anyway, I had once helped out his younger brother when some kids were pushing him around when we were playing marbles. And Dog had always kind of liked me. So the night of the carnival he comes around with Tim and he says he wants to take us up to the church. Now Dog was a lot bigger than me then, and I didn’t hang out with him much. I was still a little kid. I was real surprised by this, but I went along, and he said to me, ‘You know what we’re going to do tonight, kiddo, we’re going to have a game, a little competition between us, called Knock Down the Clowns.’ That was a softball game where you threw balls at these milk-bottle clowns with blue fringe all around them.”

“I know that game,” Ace said. His eyes were lighting up. And I was feeling pretty good myself, for the first time since I could remember.

“So, we get up there and I figure since Dog is a lot bigger than me, he’ll be able to knock down every one of those milk bottles, but he turned out to be the worst damned pitcher I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t even come close to hitting any, and the nuns are there laughing at him, and he’s going into these Bob Turley kind of windups and letting the softball go and hitting everything in sight, the roof, the backstop, Christ, he was even hitting the
prizes,
but not one damned clown. I beat him easy and won myself this bamboo cane. And Timmy and I were kidding Dog about it because he had bragged all the way to St. Dominic’s about how good he could throw. Then we split up. Dog went to talk to Carol, who he knew even then, and Timmy and I were wandering through the parking lot, playing the games and eating cotton candy, when suddenly I see Vinnie with Joey Capezi. They’re walking toward me, laughing and nudging each other, and I felt my heart jump into my chest. I was scared. I was mad as hell too, but I knew if I did anything to either of them, they’d gang up on me, and they were about maybe two feet away, and they’re laughing and starting in, ‘Hey, Baker, you like it down the sewer? You like it, Squirrelly?’ And I was so goddamned mad, you know, going nuts, but suddenly from behind me, before I know what’s happening, someone takes the cane out of my hand and kind of bumps me aside, and I look up and see Dog. And then he flicks out the cane and catches it right around Vinnie’s neck, you see? And yanks him toward him with a fast jerk, smacking Vinnie’s forehead into his own. I mean hard. Like walnuts cracking. And then in this low voice Dog has when he’s really pissed, he says, ‘I heard you fooled around with my man, Red here. Maybe you want to fool around with me now, huh, fat boy?’ Joey Capezi took a step forward, and I couldn’t resist it any longer. I jumped up off the ground and took a swing and smacked him right in the nose. He started bleeding like hell. Fell right on his ass. He couldn’t believe a ten-year-old kid had hit him like that. And then Vinnie makes a move, but Dog kicks him right in the shin hard, and he falls on the blacktop crying, and then little Timmy, Dog’s brother, kicks him in the ribs. That was really wild … I mean, this was a little kid, three feet tall, but ‘bang’ right in the ribs. Two, three times, and then Dog said, ‘I ever hear of you bothering Red or any of the other neighborhood kids again, I’ll put your fat Wop ass down the sewer and leave you there for good.’ Then Dog turned to me and said, ‘Hey, I told you two we were going to knock down the clowns. And we did. So let’s go the hell home, huh?’”

“That’s great,” Ace said, laughing, “that’s fantastic. Dog did that? Wow!”

“Probably shouldn’t have told it to you.”

“Why not, Dad? That’s great. ‘Knock down the clowns.’ Yeah, that’s fantastic. All
right,
Dog!”

“Yeah, Dog never lets Vinnie forget it to this day. Whenever we see him and he starts coming down on us about how rich and successful he is, Dog says, ‘See you up the carnival, Vinnie.’ Sends Vinnie into a fit even now.”

“Great, great,” Ace said. He was rocking back and forth now and banging on the cellar railing. “I love it. Wow!”

We both started laughing then; hell, I loved it too. But I knew how much Wanda hated me to tell violent stories to Ace. So I had to cut it off.

“Going to wake up your mother. Get on up to bed now, Ace.”

“Sure, Dad, but aren’t you coming?”

“Be up there presently,” I said. “Get going.”

“Dad, I almost forgot this. I just wanted to say that I know you’ll get a job, and I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about it. Okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. I got up out of the chair then and came over and gave him a hug and felt the damned tears coming down my cheeks.

“Get on upstairs,” I said. I didn’t want him to see me like that.

“Okay, come on up soon, Dad. It’s late.”

He headed on up to the dark kitchen, and I picked up my bottle and my cigarettes and the ashtray full of butts and threw them in the garbage.

Then I had the weirdest thought of the night. That Vinnie was God, that these were Vinnie’s eyes looking at me through the wood, laughing at me, mocking me, knowing that in spite of that day at the carnival he was still hanging over me, laughing because he knew something I didn’t. Something about being good.

Something about how it didn’t matter.

That thought scared me more than any other, and I turned out the light and thought of my kid’s face as I went through the dark up to bed.

• • •

It was near the end of the second month when they cut off my benefits down at the unemployment. The first couple days the check didn’t come I figured it was just held up in the November mail—people sending Christmas packages and all. But by the fifth and sixth days I knew there was no mistake. I called the office at nine in the morning, but the phone was busy. It stayed busy for the next three hours, but I was damned if I was going to go down there when I didn’t have to.

Finally, at two in the afternoon, I got ahold of Miss Motown, who gave me the good news in her high Bible school voice.

“Mr. Baker, you
had
an appointment on November 11 at nine sharp for your audit.”

“Audit? What audit? I sent in my cards every week so far, with signatures on them. In case you don’t have the picture straight, we’re in a recession. There isn’t any goddamned work.”

“It’s no use in you cursing me, Mr. Baker. We didn’t receive your cards for the last week, and we sent you a letter to that effect. In this letter we advised you that we had to review your case and see if you were legitimately looking for work. Since we didn’t get any reply from you, we have been forced to cut off your unemployment benefits until you’re able to get three character witnesses to write letters for you, and we can schedule a hearing.”

I heard this sitting on the edge of the couch. The words pushed me back, and I gripped the sofa arm so hard I could almost feel it melt.

“I never got any letters, Miss … Miss …”

“Torrance, Mr. Baker.”

“Miss Torrance, I never got
any
letter. I’ve sent in the cards every week just like you asked. I swear it.”

“Mr. Baker, I’m sorry, this matter isn’t in my hands any longer. We understand the importance of this check to your family and yourself, and we don’t wish to deny you your benefits, but there are laws.”

“Laws, hell,” I said. “I played by the laws. I sent in the cards, and you cut me off. What about that? You lose the goddamned cards over there, and you make me and my family pay for it. Is that what you call the laws?”

“Mr. Baker, I’m not going to get into a shouting contest with you. Why didn’t you respond to our letter?”

“Because I never got any letter.”

“Mr. Baker, I doubt that. Perhaps you misplaced it.”

I took a deep breath and ground my teeth together.

No money. No goddamned money coming in.

“Look, Mr. Baker, just as soon as you get your three character letters we’ll have the hearing, and you can be reinstated. It could happen in, say, two weeks.”

“Two weeks. What the hell do I do meantime?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Baker, but you should have thought of that before you failed to send in your cards.”

Her voice was like a needle cutting through my head.

“I’ll get the witnesses. Who should they be?”

“Well, Mr. Baker, I would assume you would try to get the most upstanding people you know.”

There was a real backspin in her tone when she said that. Miss Motown was enjoying this. She hadn’t forgotten the scene Dog and I made in the line, and this was her way of paying us back.

I put down the phone and felt as though the room was swirling around in front of me. A carousel at a cheap bayside park.

I picked the phone back up and called Wanda and told her the news. She was cool, God bless her.

“Don’t worry, Red, I can get Rev. Davis to write a letter for us, and the manager of Weavers, Bruce. If we could get one more person—”

“Wait, I know,” I said. “Tom Lusinki, the president of the union. I got to go over there this afternoon for a meeting anyway. I can get him to write the letter. Then I can take them down there personally and make them give us the hearing earlier.”

“We’ll make it, Red. Now don’t do anything crazy. Promise me.”

“I promise. Don’t worry.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I hung up the phone and stared down at our worn, fake Persian carpet and felt something die inside of me. Something like a shadow falling away, down through the floorboards to the dark cellar below.

I took a deep breath, threw on my sheepskin jacket, and headed out into the cold, dripping morning. Close to flat broke.

• • •

Tom Lusinki was a big guy with a huge red forehead with a big knot on it from where he ran into a forklift once. Lucky he didn’t break the prongs right off the mother.

I stood over at the union hall in his office, which was a lot like my basement, all done up in knotty pine. On the wall behind his desk was a deer head. Tom was a big hunter, always talking about guns, canoeing, blowing the hell out of small animals.

“Now listen, Red, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll get the letter written this afternoon. You can come pick it up tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Tom,” I said, sitting in the chair, twisting and turning as though chiggers had gotten under my skin. I stared at his old goose-necked lamp and at his big wide nose. And at the green-and-brown-spotted duck on his desk.

“These damned unemployment people are giving our boys hell,” he said. “But we’re going to deal with them. Got a bill we’re working on in the meeting tonight, you hear about it?”

“No, what’s that?”

“Well, a lot of the guys are afraid if this goes on much longer, the repossession boys are going to be coming around taking their houses and cars away. We’re giving this bill a big push. Going to ram it through in Annapolis, Red. It’ll say that for the entire year no guy in our union has to pay his mortgage or his car payments in full, just the interest on them. You see? Bill 212.”

“That’s good, makes sense,” I said. “But do you think we’re going to be out of work the whole year?”

“Hard to say, Red. But we’re working on it. Meanwhile we got to get you taken care of. You stop by tomorrow, and I’ll have that letter for you. Oh, and Red, listen, I know of a job, nothing much, I wouldn’t even mention it, but it might tide you over. It’s at the L and S Parking Lot down there on Eastern Avenue. You know the place?”

“Yeah, I know it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not much, couple a hundred a week. But you might look into it.”

“Parking cars,” I said.

I looked at him behind the desk, fat, with one of those big white plastic penholders with seven different colored ballpoints.

“Best I can do now. See me tomorrow. Have that letter for you. Oh yeah, there’s one more thing. Wait here a minute.”

He got up and walked by his Kiwanis club plaques on the wall and looked outside the door.

“Darlene,” he said, calling to his secretary. “They started on the line yet?”

“Yes, Mr. Lusinki. Just starting now.”

“Much of a crowd?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay, go get a box for me. Tell them I need it. Personally.”

I sat still, holding my hands in front of me, telling myself that no matter what happened don’t go back to Dr. Raines’s, don’t pop any of the few pills I had left. I looked up at the plaques, Man of the Year. Highlandtown Softball League, a team I’d been on five years ago.

Big Tom, Heart As Big As All Outdoors. He’d busted at least three guys’ asses I knew personally to make it as president of the union. Now he had his office, and his big chair, and his duck-hunting weekends down in Trappe, while I sweated it out with Miss Motown.

The Meek Shall Inherit Miss Motown.

He came back into the room now, a big cardboard box under his arm.

“Here, Red, you don’t have to stand in line.”

“What is this? A fucking CARE package?”

“Hey, don’t take it like that, Red. You know I always liked you, son, but you got the bad attitude. This here is just something we’re doing to help out. Cut the costs. Got some good food in there. Chicken, tinned ham, powdered potatoes, that’s all good stuff, same as you’d buy in the store. Just to tide you over, ya know?”

I looked down at the box, which now sat like a rock in my hands. I started to laugh then, shaking and laughing like I had been inhaling shit from the chem plant all day.

“Fucking CARE package. Too fucking much.”

Tom looked down at me now with his beet-red face.

“Look, Red, I try and do you a favor … you sit there and laugh at me. You want the letter or not?”

“Hey, take it easy, Tom. I’m sorry. I gotta go. I’ll get back tomorrow. Thanks for the job tip.”

“You gotta watch the attitude, Red. You screw yourself with the wrong attitude.”

“So I’ve heard.”

I got up with my box of food and walked out in the hallway, down to the other end; the men were lining up again. Some looked as they had in the dope line. Heads bowed down, hands deep in their pockets. One more piece of their hearts torn off and tossed down the sewer.