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SUNY at Stony Brook
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Site Designed by Melissa Bishop/DoIT Last Modified 03/10/2003 09:32:23 AM EST
© Christopher Castellani
Christopher Castellani
Our house had a big backyard, the size of one of the larger golf greens, and by the time he came that summer it had so many holes you'd think we had gophers. I had to keep cutting the grass every day to keep it flat for putting, which kept my parents happy for a while. But after it got tedious, I cut only the sections needed to play and let the rest of the yard get overgrown. My dad said it made us look retarded and told me to get things in gear. That was one of his favorite expressions, and one of the few he got right. He used to tell me to put my pedal to the grindstone. He'd stop for a second after he said it and add, "You know what the hell I mean."
When my mom announced that her brother was coming to stay with us for the summer, my dad said, "I don't think we could handle another bird to feed, Carol." But there was no use protesting. My mom's brother was in a bad way: unable to live in his own house after his wife suddenly left without explaining why, leaving only her aerobics tapes and five pairs of shoes behind. There were no children to think of, but the house was full of memories. She said my uncle Tom was sensitive to those sorts of things. I had met him only once and hadn't noticed.
He lived in Anaheim, California, the town where he and my mom grew up. He didn't have a lot of money, and he hated his job as the manager of the local hardware store. So he was going to sell his house and move cross country to settle with us in Kensington, Maryland. He was a lot older than my mom, and could retire in two years if he wanted. But he said he'd never retire as long as he could stand on his own two legs and have all his wits about him.
My dad told me secretly, "If he stays more than two weeks, I'm throwing him out."
"Why?"
"If he's anything like your grandfather, he knows how to milk people for all it's worth. And I'll bet he's got a fortune sewn into his mattress."
Personally, I wasn't too crazy about the idea either. I was sixteen, an only child, and used to the idea of having the whole house to myself. Plus he'd be staying in the room next to mine, so I couldn't play music as loud as I liked. But I didn't dare tell my mom. She hadn't seen her brother in six years, and kept telling us how wonderful everything was going to be.
"We have to make everything wonderful," she said, "in light of the circumstances."
From what I knew of my uncle Tom, he hadn't exactly aged gracefully. He and my aunt Serena never left Anaheim for vacations, not even for Disneyland, and certainly never to visit us. He worked long hours at the store, but wouldn't let Aunt Serena work, and so lived only on his manager's salary which was hardly ever enough. "It was a pride thing," my dad said, "and look where it got him."
My uncle Tom had a head of pure white hair and a new white beard. When he appeared on the back porch that day, smoking a long cigar and looking down at me with huge blue eyes, he looked like an old Texas oil baron, minus the white tuxedo.
"So you're a golfer, eh, boy?" he yelled down.
"Trying to be!"
I walked up to greet him and shook his hand. For such a big man (he was six-foot-two without the hair) his handshake was pretty weak. His skin was wrinkled around the eyes, and he had a mole under his left nostril.
"Nice to see you, Uncle Tom."
"It's good to be here, boy. You don't see your family for a few years and you think you're alone in the world, you know what I'm saying?"
"Yeah," I said.
My mom had come out from the house and said, "Did you see my big boy, Thomas? Grown up already. Did you show him a picture of your girlfriend, Jason? Jason has a girlfriend, Thomas."
"Doesn't surprise me, Carol. You remember me at his age, don't you?"
"Yes, but Jason's been dating Emily a lot longer than two nights," she said laughing.
Then he turned to me and said, "Take it from me, boy, they're not worth it. But if you want to keep them you got to follow three rules. One, tell 'em nothing. Two, take 'em nowhere. Three, treat 'em like you've got plenty of other girls knocking down your door, and nine times out of ten, if you do things right, there will be."
I smiled a little and looked at my mom, who quickly grabbed Uncle Tom's shoulders. She turned him toward the house and said, "Let's go inside, Thomas. Chuck's getting us some cold beers."
"Beer!" he said, winking at me over his shoulder. "That's the best thing you've said all day."
*****
My dad and Uncle Tom played tennis every night that week, after my dad had gotten home from work, and Uncle Tom home from job-hunting. In three days, he had been to all the hardware stores in the area, and none of them wanted managers, not even floor help."They think I'm an old fart," he said. "They think I'll croak if I lift any boxes."
"You should take them to see you play tennis," my dad said. "You could give anyone a run for the money."
He didn't have a high school degree. "It was the war, boy. We wanted to fight, not sit in a classroom," he said one night as we sat alone watching basketball. Pointing to the TV, he said, "None of these guys can write a word, but they're all millionaires. Now tell me life's fair."
"Well," I said quietly, "some of them are actually pretty smart, they've just got..."
"It's all bullshit."
I sat back and politely smiled. He was rubbing his chin and frowning severely, his eyes like blue stones. "It's all showbiz bullshit. Not one of them loves the game. They just want to get their asses on television
and wave hi to mommy."
I didn't say anything. I wanted to go to my room, but my mom and dad were out and I had to keep Uncle Tom company. It was his fourth night with us, and he had applications in to a lot of different places, but no one had called him, not even for an interview. My dad didn't believe he even applied to half the places he said he did, and told me in secret that he would never hire a man like that for anything.
"He has been kind of abrasive," my mom said as we watched him from our window one afternoon, the first weekend he was here. He was watering the grass in the front yard, the hose in his right hand and a beer in the other. When he saw us watching him, he called out, "Anybody call for me?"
We both shook our heads, and my mom grimaced. He shut off the hose and came in the house, water dripping from his flip-flops. "Who's that box across the street, eh, Carol? Is she single?"
"Mrs. Cassidy?" asked my mom, putting her hand to her mouth. "She's been married thirty years!"
"Thirty years! For Chrissake, in twenty-six years of marriage Serena didn't look half as good as that! Half of her dragging on the floor while the other half bitched and nagged."
"Thomas, Serena was a beautiful..." she started to say, but stopped when she saw him turn away.
"Twenty-six years of marriage and that girl couldn't turn on a lightbulb," he muttered, and crunched the beer can in his right hand.
"Now really," my mom said, under her breath.
*****
I wasn't getting any better at golf, though I practiced every night for a week, and things weren't getting much better with Uncle Tom. After he had been there a week and a half, I noticed my dad beginning to get more and more agitated. He'd make throat-slitting gestures behind him when no one but me was looking, and refused to play any more tennis with him.Uncle Tom began to spend most of his time in his room, and wouldn't tell anyone what he was doing in there. But he had made it very comfortable for himself. When I passed by on the way to my room, I saw all his clothes on the floor, and piles of cigar boxes and beer cans in the corner. And on the wall he hung a poster of a blonde woman, dressed in a small red bikini that looked like it was about to fall off.
I never had to be alone with him again, and I spent most of my time playing golf with Sam or visiting Emily. Whenever I announced I was going to her house, I'd hear him mumbling under his breath, "They're not worth it." He was angry that I wasn't following his three rules, and I secretly wanted to say, "Look where they've gotten you," but didn't have the heart or the nerve.
One Thursday afternoon I made the mistake of bringing Emily to the house after school, thinking that Uncle Tom would be out "in the field," as he called it. Before he came, I'd always have the house to myself after
school, since my parents both worked until five. We were sitting in my room when he knocked, yelling, "Hey, boy, you got any matches?" as he let himself in. He was carrying a beer and dangled an unlit cigar from his mouth. "Wellwellwell," he said, looking straight at Emily, "what have we got here? This must be the in-famousEmily." Extending his hand, he said, "Thomas Foley," and winked at me.
Emily shakily offered her hand, and murmured, "Pleased to meet you, sir." She was a very polite girl, but nervous around adults, even around my parents, who had known her since we were kids.
"Pretty as a picture you are. Where've you been hiding her, boy?"
"Nowhere," I said quietly. "I don't have any matches. I don't smoke."
"That's right, that's right. A wholesome boy. The wholesome boy doesn't smoke smelly cigars. Is he a wholesome boy, Emily?"
Emily looked at the floor, and I stood up. I only came up to his neck, but I said in my deepest voice, which cracked, "I think we'd like to be alone now."
"I bet you would," he said, and laughed. "Hey, Carol, they want to be alone," he yelled into the empty hallway. "Hey, Chuck, get this!"
*****
My parents were having a dinner party that Saturday, two weeks after Uncle Tom came. Four of their closest friends: the Martins and the Brodys. No one had called about a job, and my mom admitted (long after my father and I tried to convince her) that Uncle Tom drank entirely too much."It's just so sad," she said.
"Sad or not," my dad said, "it's time he cleaned up that act. We can't have a drunk living in our house, Carol."
"Sunday I'll tell him he has to leave or stop drinking. Leave or get a job and stop drinking."
Late at night, after I got home, I would see the light on in his room, and press my ear to the wall to try and hear what he was doing. He had stopped talking to me as much as he used to, and spent even more time in his room. At meals he'd say, "No luck today" through glassy eyes, and my mom and dad would shake their heads. He'd go on eating, and excuse himself before dessert to go back to his room.
*****
My best friend Sam had gotten much better than me at golf (he beat me by almost ten strokes), and so that Saturday I was not in the greatest mood when I got home from playing. I saw the Brodys' car in the driveway and knew I had to go in and greet them and tell them how wonderful it was to see them. All I wanted to do was go in the back yard and practice."It's wonderful to see you again, Mrs. Brody," I said. "How's Cameron?" Cameron was their son of about my age, and I always felt obliged to ask about him, although I only met him once.
"He's just wonderful, Jason. You boys should go out together sometime. I'm sure he'd love to see you again."
"Yes, we should." I shook Mr. Brody's hand and smiled, and looked over at Uncle Tom, who was pouring himself a glass of wine. He was wearing a white jacket and white pants with a black tie, and now he really did look like an oil baron, and I couldn't help laughing.
I took a shower and changed, and when I came back, Mr. and Mrs. Martin were talking to Uncle Tom on the porch. Mrs. Martin was nice enough, but very nosy, and all Mr. Martin talked about was business. He was in the contractor business with my dad.
"Have you met this girl Emily?" Uncle Tom was asking them.
"Why, yes, of course we know Emily. All our families go back years," Mrs. Martin said.
"What kind of girl is she, anyway? Is she good enough for my boy there?"
I walked to them and said, "Dinner's ready," and, brave, grabbed Uncle Tom's shoulder as hard as I could. His eyes looked big and heavy.
My father served the meal because my mother was wearing a white dress, with sequins on the shoulders, and didn't want to get it dirty. I sat next to Mrs. Martin, who kept asking me how my friends were doing, probably hoping to get some dirt that she could use on their parents.
"They're all fine."
"Hmm," she said.
"You getting married again, sis?" Uncle Tom blurted from across the table.
"Excuse me, Thomas?"
"You're all in white. You look like you're about to walk down the aisle."
"I think Chuck's got a good group of guys this summer," she said, ignoring him and looking at Mr. Martin. "For the new building I mean."
"You need any extra workers, you know where to come looking, Chuck," said Uncle Tom, laughing. "I got a strong back, no matter what they say. You know I'm sixty-three years old, Mary?" he asked Mrs. Brody. "Sixty-three and I don't look a day over fifty. Just yesterday I saw Mrs. Cassidy looking at me through her window, staring like, like she'd never seen anything like me in her life."
"That's enough, Tom," my dad said.
"Linda Cassidy?" Mrs. Martin asked.
"Thomas likes to have his little jokes, right, Thomas? Jason, get some coffee for your uncle."
I got the coffee as my dad served the main course, veal marsala. It was eight-fifteen, and I wanted to be out of there by ten, since it was Saturday night and Emily and I had a date. But Uncle Tom started to sing, and my mom kept shooting glances to me as if to say, "Stop him," and I had the feeling that I'd have to stay home and make sure he didn't embarrass her. My mom got embarrassed pretty easily.
He sang, "Fly me to the Moon," and "It's Impossible." My dad tried to ignore him by talking about basketball, but no one listened to him. Mrs. Martin was all over Uncle Tom, asking him about his life and his future.
"What are you planning to do, now that you're here?"
"Find someone smart enough to want to hire a good man, if there's anyone like that out here. Then get myself the hell out of this house and stop putting my dear sister out like I'm doing, and let my nephew here get back to his old life, so he can be alone together with his girlfriend in the afternoons."
Mrs. Martin laughed. I cringed, and felt the same anger I felt for him that afternoon coming back.
"His girlfriend," he mumbled, pouring wine into his now empty coffee cup. "A pretty lady." He took a drink and then looked away. "A pretty lady," he said quietly, and drank the rest. "When I was in school, I didn't have time for the ladies. I had to fight, defend my country, like any good man I was fighting."
"You were only eight," my dad said, under his breath. He glared at my mother and shook his head.
"She's very smart, too," Mrs. Martin said. I wished they would stop talking about Emily.
"Is she now," Uncle Tom said, so loud it seemed like a yell. Everyone looked at him. My mom got up to clear the plates. Her hands were shaking, and the dishes clanged together. "Is she a smart girl, and pretty too, as a picture. She'll break your heart." He looked at me, nodding his head, spilling wine on the tablecloth. "She'll break your goddamned heart in two and then where the hell will you be?"
"Tom," said my dad, no longer under his breath.
"When she breaks your heart, boy, you can call me up and we'll go out and get drunk, cause there's nothing the hell else to do."
He stood up, and Mrs. Martin said, "My God, Carol, he's crying." My dad and I went to him and helped him to his room. We could hear my mom apologizing and saying, "He's had a rough time of it lately. He's too sensitive. He feels too much. It's the curse of my family." His room was so cluttered that there wasn't even enough room for him on his bed, and so we cleared the empty bottles and loose papers from it and laid him down.
My dad told me to clean up his room a little for him, so that when he woke up he wouldn't have to see things so messy. So I got a cardboard box and threw all the bottles, cans, magazines and newspapers into it. It all smelled like him, a thick musty odor, kind of like how you'd expect a western to smell. The air was heavy, and he grunted as he thrashed around in his bed.
He had a Popular Mechanics, a Playboy, and a Car and Driver. He had four or five Washington Posts, and two weeks of Baltimore Heralds. I noticed an envelope under his bed, and when he turned the other way, I grabbed it.
I took the box to the garbage, and opened the envelope on the porch. There were three pictures. One was old, of a much younger Uncle Tom kissing a long-haired Aunt Serena. They were at a party, it seemed, because there were lots of dressed-up people in the background. The second picture was of Aunt Serena in her wedding dress. She had her hand on her forehead pushing her hair back. She was laughing, and had what looked like cake icing around her lips.
The third picture must have been taken at Disneyland, because it was of the two of them with their arms around Mickey Mouse. My aunt was wearing brown shorts, a white shirt, and dark sunglasses. Uncle Tom was carrying a toy Donald Duck and smiling.
There was something else in the envelope, something heavy. When I reached in, I picked out a gold ring. It was scratched all over, but on the inside you could still read, "All my love, S" etched in fancy, shiny letters.
I heard a lot of noise inside, so I put the envelope in my pocket. I felt a little guilty, like I had read someone's diary and found out some horrible secret. I felt like Mrs. Martin. I didn't know why I had even taken the envelope in the first place. When I walked in, I heard Uncle Tom screaming, "Where's my pictures, where's my pictures?" and I ran to his room.
He had thrown up, and his face was wet with tears that caught the edges of his beard. He was throwing his sheets around and reaching under the bed.
"You mean these?" I said, handing the envelope to him. "I just found it."
He took out the pictures and looked at them one by one, first holding them out and then bringing them close to his eyes. New, faster tears began to run down his cheek, and he made no effort to hold them back. He cupped the ring in his hand and squeezed it tight, closing his eyes. Then he put everything back in the envelope, placed it under his pillow, and passed out.
*****
The day he left I was outside hitting the tennis ball against the house. I had given up on golf, since Sam had gotten so much better than me and had found another guy to be in his foursome."Well, I'll be. The next McEnroe," he said, holding one of his suitcases in his left hand. He was moving to a hotel. My mom told him she loved him, but that she couldn't handle him anymore. She said he was welcome to visit, but only after he started seeing someone. He didn't remember I knew about the pictures.
"He's got to turn over that new leaf," my dad said, "if he wants to go on."
Uncle Tom shook my hand, weakly for such a big man, and said, "They're not worth it, you know." He took out a cigar. "Come twenty years from now and you'll be saying the same thing."
And I went back to practicing, feeling oddly worried. He got me scared I'd never fall in love, like they do in the movies, and that even if I did it wouldn't be worth it. I hated him for letting me think it and imagined his head on the face of every tennis ball I hit into the wall.
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