Tietam Brown (5 page)

Maybe you had to be there to understand, but trust me when I say that the tone was not sexual in the least. It was fun, and gentle and innocent, and when she told me to be careful, because they were actually dangerous weapons, well who was I to disagree. And when she ran after me with both boobs in her hands, yelling in sixties-horror-film-style, “GONNA PUT THEM ON YOU ANDY . . . GONNA PUT THEM ON YOUUUU!” I had no choice but to run.

When I looked back at her, as strange as it sounds, it wasn't the dangerous boobies that first caught my eye. It was her smile. The happiest, friendliest smile in the world.

October 30, 1985 / Evening

Tietam Brown looked out the front window, his arm pulling the curtain back, his face pressed to the glass like that of a five-year-old looking for the faint glow of Rudolph's red nose on Christmas Eve. He stood in that position for so long that I became a little concerned. “Dad . . . Dad, are you okay?” I said, and then waited for about a minute for some type of reply. Without moving his face from the glass, he finally said, “Will you look at that, Andy, will you look at that?”

“Look at what, Dad?” I replied, and Tietam Brown just said, “Damn Sugling,” and continued his long stare before adding, “Always trying to show me up . . . damn Sugling.” Finally he turned away and summoned me to his special reconnaissance perch, where the glass was still fogged from his breath.

I looked, expecting some type of small emergency, and instead saw Charlie and Gloria Sugling erecting a small scarecrow, surrounded by a couple of simple pyramids of pumpkins, outside on their front lawn. Behind me, I heard my dad say, “Can you believe it?” and I wondered in silence just what the hell he was talking about.

He then whispered, as if we were caught up in some web of conspiracy, “Always trying to get one up on ol' Tietam, Andy, always trying to stick it to your old man.” Finally I couldn't take it anymore, let out a nervous laugh, turned from the window, and said, “Dad.”

“Yeah, Andy?”

“You're starting to scare me a little.”

“Why's that, kid?”

“Because I have no clue what you're talking about. All I see is Mr. and Mrs. Sugling decorating their yard.”

Tietam put his palm to his balding head, joined me by the window, put his arm loosely around my neck, and said, “Exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about. They're decorating their yard.”

Great. That cleared up everything. Now my dad really was starting to scare me.

“Andy,” he said, “last year, before we got back together, I put up a hell of a Christmas display. Lights, an electrical Santa Claus, the works. Then Sugling, who had never so much as had a tree in his house, decides he's going to become Thomas Allen Edison and light up his whole house like it's Yankee Stadium. People were coming around in their cars just to look. So now here it is, October, I put out a hell of a Halloween display, and Sugling, who last year didn't even buy candy for the kids, and then hid in his house with the lights off so no one would knock, decides one day before Halloween that he's the Great Pumpkin or some damn thing and tries to outdo me again. Well screw them, I'm tired of the Suglings screwing Tietam Brown all the time.”

I tried not to laugh, but man, it was hard. The veins in my father's neck were bulging out, and his hands were shaking he was so mad, and I didn't have the nerve to burst his bubble and tell him that his big speech was about the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

First he'd talked about how he and I had “got back together,” as if we were Simon and Garfunkel planning a reunion concert instead of a father and son who hadn't seen each other in seventeen years. Then he'd mispronounced a middle name that most ten-year-olds would know, before talking about his “hell of a Halloween display” as if our house was the set for
The Shining
or something. The guy had literally put a pumpkin on each side of the front steps, and a sign that said “Boo” on our front yard. Total time invested . . . maybe three minutes.

But most ridiculous of all was his contention that the Suglings were always screwing him. Because how I saw it a week earlier, or I guess “how I heard it” might be more accurate, it had been Tietam Brown screwing the Suglings . . . or at least one of them.

My dad's face lightened up a little, and his veins disappeared back under his skin, and he shook his head and said, “Not anymore, Andy, not anymore. You know why?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Because this Christmas, Andy, we'll have a setup that you won't believe. People will drive by to see
our
house, Andy, and as for Charlie Sugling and that little wife of his, well they'll just have to live with it.”

He looked up just slightly, as if picturing this whole scene on our living room wall, and said, “I don't know how yet, Andy, but we're going to do it. And they'll just have to live with it.”

I looked up at the same spot on the wall, briefly tried to envision this holiday extravaganza, and had to admit to myself that it sounded pretty good. I'd been listening to Nat sing the season's virtues for years, but had pretty much been void of any Christmas cheer for the last decade or so.

A nudge from my dad brought me back. “I nailed her, you know,” he said, and when my mind drew a blank, he filled it right in. “Mrs. Sugling, I nailed her.”

“I know, Dad,” I replied, and looked at him looking at me, a big smile on his face, as if he was a child who'd just handed his mom a good report card and was waiting for a pat on the head. “I know you did, Dad.”

“And,” Tietam said.

“And what, Dad?”

“And . . . did she sound like she loved it?”

“Yeah, it sounded that way to me, Dad.”

Satisfied, he adjusted the curtain, patted me on the back, and walked up the stairs. Triumphantly. Then he walked halfway back down, looked down at me, laughed, and said, “You're damn right she did, Andy, you're damn right she did.”

Later over dinner, a microwavable monstrosity that was barely edible, he became the vision of the concerned parent. “So Andy, tell me about this big dance.”

I told him about the Superdance, an annual all-night affair that the school held to raise money for muscular dystrophy.

“Man,” he said, “that's a lot of dancing. You ever danced before, Andy?”

“No, how about you, Dad?”

“Only between the sheets, kid. Only between the sheets.” Then, while chewing a piece of chicken that looked to be tougher than the Pittsburgh Steelers front line, he said, “When does it start?”

“In about an hour.”

“Need a ride?”

“Yeah, Dad, that would be great.”

He swallowed hard, put his elbow on the table, and rested his chin on his hand as if he were Rodin's
The Thinker.

“Andy,” he said.

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Maybe you can have the car for the night.”

“Really?”

“Sure, I've got some work to do anyway. Besides, this is a big night, but hey, no drinking, all right?”

Man, this was pretty cool. Real interest in my life, real honest-to-goodness parental concern, and the keys to the car for eight hours of Terri. So what if I'd never danced. I could always learn, right?

Then Tietam spoke, and as was becoming his custom, he was right there to seize the special moment with just the perfect sentiment. “You might want to get her to polish your knob while you're driving, kid. No feeling like it in the world.”

Sometimes I kind of envied the little world my father seemed to live in. A world where making a scarecrow was a bigger sin than nailing the next-door neighbor's wife and where drinking behind the wheel was no good, but a one-handed kid with no license, spasming wildly while trying to drive along unlit back roads, was okay. I thanked him for the suggestion and told him maybe I'd try, and he slid me the keys and wished me good luck.

I put the keys in my pocket and headed up the stairs, where I turned on the shower. I stepped in and replayed the day in my mind, smiling a big goofy smile as the room turned to fog and the water beat down on my neck.

I thought about Hanrahan's class, and how not even his Neanderthal ways or his football cronies could ruin the day. I thought about Terri, and how she'd stayed so calm and strong on the outside even while boiling within. Then I thought about that wonderful smile, while she laughed and chased me with her breasts, and all of a sudden the thought of her holding her breasts while chasing me didn't seem so gentle or innocent. No indeed, it seemed pretty damn sexy, and I closed my eyes and imagined that same scene, except in this scene she was naked, and I wasn't running away. No, I was running right toward her, running hard. Literally.

I looked down and something about me had changed physically. Had changed quite a bit. I assessed the situation a moment longer, and, with the help of a handful of my dad's pale blue Head & Shoulders, participated in the ritual that so many millions of teenage boys before me have performed, and that so many million have likely performed since. But unlike those horny teenagers, who were just obeying their hormones, I was accomplishing a whole lot more. I was practicing. Practicing and building up endurance, getting ready for the day when I wouldn't be the only one involved in my sexual encounters. And when that time came, I knew I'd be ready. And that I'd be good.

The nuns at the Petersburg Home for Boys had referred to it as “touching oneself in an impure way.” One, Sister Fahey, had even tried to explain nocturnal emissions by likening our equipment to a kettle that just occasionally “boils over” as we sleep. I was thirteen at the time, and honestly had yet to touch myself in an impure way. To me, this boiling-over process sounded a little scary, and so I instantly concocted a solution that made a whole lot more sense, not to mention would ruin a whole lot less undies.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but if we know that our kettle is going to boil over, wouldn't it make sense for us to pour some water out ourselves before we go to sleep?”

The class roared with laughter, and I received a rap on the palm with a ruler and a lesson about “the sin of Onan” from the nun. But my hand didn't hurt because she had smacked the dead one, and to tell the truth I had loved the laughter from the class, as it was usually the only gesture of acceptance that I received. So a moment later I raised my hand, and shared with the class my biblical knowledge.

“Yes, Mr. Brown,” Sister Fahey said.

“Um, ma'am,” I began with a completely straight face, knowing that the consequences of my next words would be heavy, but that I was more than willing to pay them. “I do believe that the sin of Onan is not about touching one's self, but about the act of coitus interruptus.”

Bam! I caught a slap in the face.

I looked at the class, and they were howling. Even Richie Majors and Mel Stolsky, who only a few days later would attempt to forcibly sodomize me, seemed to be enjoying the moment.

I waltzed down the stairs a clean man, in body and conscience, despite what the nuns would have thought of me. Tietam Brown was waiting for me with a smile and another blue three-pack. He slipped the rubbers into the shirt pocket of my green-and-black plaid flannel, laughed a big fake laugh, and said, “What took you so long in there, kid?”

I thought I would die.

“Getting extra clean?” he said with playful sarcasm.

“I guess so, Dad.”

“Or were you doing something just a little naughty in there?” with the last four words spoken in a singsong voice so that they were extra painful.

I said nothing, but looked for a spare hole in the middle of the living room that I could dive right into.

“Hey don't be embarrassed, kid, we all do it, even ol' Tietam, just to keep my bald-headed champion in fighting condition.”

I haven't really enjoyed a boxing match since.

Then, as I was headed out the door, where I hoped the crisp October night might kill some of the heebie-jeebies my dad had just let loose on me, ol' Tietam let fly with some helpful advice.

“Don't take the dice down this time, son . . . Women love them.”

I hopped in the car and took the dice down immediately, but as I did so I thought of him calling me “son” for the first time, and realized that I liked it.

Eight hours with Terri, I thought, and it was going to be awesome. More like seven hours by this point, but still plenty of dancing to do. It was going to be a special night.

A special night deserves a special song, and I didn't want to get caught unprepared with only Barry Manilow to celebrate with . . . even if, as I've mentioned, “Mandy” and “Could It Be Magic” do still hold up well. But with all due respect to Barry, he had to go.

I looked in the eight-track player and saw that Barry had been replaced by KC & the Sunshine Band. I contemplated its possibilities. Nope, it wouldn't do. Then again, “Do a little dance, make a little love” was not bad advice.

No, wasn't right.

I opened the glove box with my good hand and pawed through the selections. Village People. Nope. Paper Lace? What the hell was that? ABBA? Was my father caught in some type of time warp or what? This was 1985, not 1975. Only two selections left. I reached in again and pulled out Manilow, who I believed might get the decision by process of elimination. Then, with hope fading, I pulled out the last of the ancient eight-tracks, and bingo! Springsteen.
Born to
Run. No offense to Born in the U.S.A., which was all over the radio in '85, but
Born to Run
was, is, and always will be
the
Springsteen album to have.

I backed out of the drive, saw my father waving to me, and wished that I'd left the fuzzy dice up until I was at least out of sight.

By the time I heard the piano on “Thunder Road,” I was over it. I took a slight detour en route to Conestoga High, opting to cruise past Terri's house for a little added inspiration.

I was handling that Fairmont like a pro, and had my right arm draped over the passenger seat, wishing my fingers could move so I could stroke Terri's imaginary hair, while I carried on an imaginary conversation complete with imaginary laughs. When it came to imaginary conversations, I kicked ass big-time.

Suddenly I had a premonition, and took my hand off the wheel to press the forward button on the stereo. In an instant I heard Bruce Springsteen singing my life story. “One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in.” I didn't really know what that breathing-the-fire thing was all about, but that part about me and Terri was perfect.