Twentieth Century Limited Book One - Age of Heroes. Jan David Blais
empty rows away from the others. The front desk belonged to Stevie Burns, the dumbest and meanest kid in the school. It was a peculiar tribute to be lumped with him, though I didn’t like him or his friends and refused their overtures. Stevie was one of the few kids at St. Teresa’s from the Project, a public housing sprawl off Manton Avenue which after its opening deteriorated into what my mother called the worst slum in the city. Buildings in disrepair, broken-down cars, littered sidewalks, poorly clad kids running wild, police there all the time, a blight on the neighborhood. She forbade us to have anything to do with the people who lived there. Our standing in the community required that we avoid bad families. Unemployment, welfare, delinquency, no man in the house or if a man, not the husband – those were the indicators of bad. A Project address was an automatic.
My advancing years brought on a family crisis. It was assumed that St. Teresa’s boys would attend La Salle Academy, the French Christian Brothers School where Jim went, and the girls, St. Xavier’s, where Catherine was in her first year. At this tender age we were hardly prepared for atheistic teachers, not to mention the perils of a co-ed institution. My friends and I weren’t so much worried about the impact on our immortal souls as being known for attending Mt. Pleasant, the huge public school a half mile from our house. Only dolts, troublemakers or those too poor to afford La Salle attended Mt. Pleasant, is how we saw it. Project kids went there, the ones who went anywhere, that is.
The nuns pushed La Salle hard, particularly its science program. Everybody said our country needed engineers to stay strong and I thought that might be the thing for me, designing bridges, televisions, even planes. I demolished La Salle’s entrance exam and a personal letter from the principal, Rev. Bro. S. Jerome, congratulated me on my admission. My mother begged to differ. To her, the Brothers offered an inferior education and until recently, I’d displayed no need for their vaunted disciplinary skills. She had a different plan.
My mother was a graduate of Classical High in downtown Providence which, despite being public, attracted especially capable students – many from well-off or accomplished families – skilled in music, drama, the arts. Their sports teams were terrible except for those where individual excellence counted, like tennis. Classical was on a par with Moses Brown, the private prep school on the East Side, and miles ahead of Mt. Pleasant, Central, Hope and the other public schools. It was co-ed, which offered the intriguing prospect of getting to know girls, perhaps well enough to ask them out, possibly even (a radical idea) as friends. My mother saw Classical as her last chance to mold me into an educated, cultured person.
Though my athletic career was kaput, I was reluctant to break entirely from that milieu. Plus, if I attended Classical I would need to make all new friends and take a bus to school. Benny was going to Classical, a plus, but not enough of one. In February, to my mother’s everlasting disappointment, I mailed my acceptance to La Salle along with my father’s check for $125, half the first year’s tuition. By now I had settled down and was in an advanced math group working with concepts in Algebra and Geometry.
ONE APRIL AFTERNOON, trudging up my street I looked ahead... police cars! In front of our house! I started to run. As I neared I saw a policeman leading Jim down the steps, another one talking to my father. They were putting Jim in the police car! He flashed me a grin and winked, then the door shut and off he went. My father had already disappeared into the house. My mother met me at the door. Her eyes were red and watery. “It’s Jim. He... he may be in trouble,” she said in a trembly voice, “they’re taking him in for questioning.”
“But why? I asked, terrified, “what’d he do?”
My father appeared at the door. “Marty’s on his way to the station.”
“Who’s Marty?” I asked.
“Our lawyer.” I didn’t even know we had a lawyer. My father looked down at me. “Paul, I’m going to tell you something you do not repeat. You understand me? Do not repeat what I tell you.”
I nodded. He paused, searching for words. “Some girl is saying Jim... forced himself on her. Him and two boys. Says they had their way with her.”
“Well, did they?” I asked, unthinkingly.
“Of course not!” His face got red. “It’s a damned lie but the little tramp’s parents went to the cops. I’m on my way downtown, make sure they don’t do anything stupid.” As he turned to leave he wagged his finger at me. “Not a word!”
My mother squeezed his hand and they walked together to the car. When she returned I couldn’t contain myself. “This girl, who is she?” I followed her inside. She reached in a drawer for one of my father’s Chesterfields. I hadn’t seen her smoke for a while, she’d been trying to quit. “Someone from the Project.” She snapped the match. “No one we would know.”
“Who were the others?”
“Billy Moore, for one. No surprise there,” she drew the smoke in hungrily, “and somebody named DiMaio. He supposedly goes to Mt. Pleasant.” Billy Moore was on the football team with Jim. They were always driving around in Billy’s red convertible. His father was a car dealer and had his picture in a big ad in the Sunday paper. She shook her head, “I have never trusted that Billy Moore, not from the day I laid eyes on him.” Her eyes began filling with tears.
I was puzzled. “Why are you crying? Dad said there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t know, Paul... I just don’t know. Even if it’s not true, it’s so shameful, police coming to our home, being treated like common criminals.” She reached for her purse. “I need to go see my mother.” She wiped her eyes and ground out the cigarette.
I threw my books on my bed then came back downstairs. The telephone cord led under my sister’s door. I banged on it and pushed it open. Catherine was sitting on her bed, her legs folded underneath her. “You little turd!” she yelled at me, covering the mouthpiece. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone!”
“Until I opened the door, I couldn’t.”
“Well, you can now! Get lost! And close the door!”
At sixes and sevens I roamed around the house, thought of starting my homework. While I was inspecting the fridge, Catherine appeared. “Sorry I yelled, but next time, knock.”
“I did knock,” I replied.
“You’re supposed to wait.”
She had me there. “What is going on?” I asked.
She flopped down at the kitchen table. “Her name is Gloria Russo. She’s a sophomore at Mt. Pleasant. A friend of mine has a friend that knows her. She’s from the Project.”
“Dad said she’s a tramp.”
“Dad is so stupid! Jim this! Jim that!” She tossed her head angrily. “Well, this time big brother has really gone and done it!”
“Done what? What do you mean?”
“Come on, do I have to spell everything out for you?”
I flushed. “Jim, he’d never do anything like that. He wouldn’t, would he?”
“He is a boy, isn’t he?” She leaned forward on her elbows. “Look. Everybody knows about him and that Billy Moore, what they do. The wonder is somebody had the nerve to say something. Maybe because it was three of them, I don’t know.”
“Jeez.”
“Supposedly they were out cruising and that creep DiMaio knows this girl so they pick her up and supposedly there’s a lot of beer in the car and they go to Merino and park and, well, after a while they did it to her. All of them.”
I was floored. This couldn’t be true.
“I guess she was really messed up, her clothes were torn and everything and she smelled of beer so her mother said where have you been and she told her everything.”
“Dad said not to say anything.”
Catherine