Twentieth Century Limited Book One - Age of Heroes. Jan David Blais
was late when my father returned with Jim in tow. I was upstairs when the car pulled in. I raced down, my mother and Catherine already in the kitchen. “Well, that’s that!” my father announced. “There is no problem, absolutely nothing to worry about. The lying little slut!” Jim was standing there, absolutely still, white in the face, staring at his shoes. My father poured a drink from the whiskey bottle they kept in the dining room but rarely used. He took a big swallow, then another.
“She and that DiMaio! Ha! They know each other, you bet! They been going together! So the boys pick her up at her job and they drink a little beer and leave them off at the Project. Big deal!”
He looked sharply at Jim who still hadn’t moved a muscle. “What happened between her and that DiMaio, that is no concern of ours!” He took another swallow. “Only thing, the police are taking it much too serious. It’s a lie and they damn well know it!” I looked into my father’s eyes. Between rounds – bloodied but defiant. Zale or Graziano or Sugar Ray from the TV fights. Quick on his feet and powerful, that was my dad.
My mother finally spoke up. “Well, what next?”
My father took a cigarette from his shirt pocket. She motioned at him and he shook another out of the pack. “They’ll have to finish the investigation but Marty’s on top of it.”
“Our name won’t be in the papers, will it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They’re all juveniles.” My father glared at Jim then shook his head really hard, as if trying to clear it. “Aaggh! It’s so ridiculous! That kind of girl is trouble, the way they dress, the big come-on, dragging good kids down to their level. A little Project tramp, that’s all she is!” I glanced at Catherine who was staring at the floor, her mouth a thin hard line. Suddenly my father reached over and punched Jim on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Jimbo! It’s not your fault! Everything’ll turn out okay!”
That seemed to loosen Jim up. He looked pleadingly at my mother. “I didn’t do it, ma. Honest, I didn’t do nothin.’”
Never had I heard that tone of voice. It was obvious my father had talked to him in no uncertain terms before the ranks slammed shut. My mother stood up and gave Jim a kiss on his cheek. “You’re a good boy, son. Your father’s right, everything will be fine.” She swept her hand around the kitchen. “Now, to bed! All of you! Tomorrow’s another day.”
During recess next day one of the Project kids, a seventh grader I barely knew, came up to me wearing this big grin. “What’s this I hear, somebody’s brother’s in big trouble?”
“What’re you talking about?” I replied warily.
“Don’t shit me, Bernard – him and his friends knocked up that girl.”
“You’re lying! Jim didn’t do anything like that!”
“Oh, no?” He looked at me belligerently. “You people, your big houses and fancy cars. Too good for the rest of us til we got something you want, like a little pussy!”
“Hey! Cut that out!” I stepped up next to him, shoving my face in his. We glared at each other, then he turned.
“Aw, why bother,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away. “You’re not worth the trouble. The cops’ll take care of it.”
During the day I noticed kids in little groups glancing at me. At my desk I thought of all those afternoons I’d spent at Merino, at practice, how at times my eyes would be drawn to the bushes behind first base and the trees behind the bushes, the deep, cool woods and the lane where kids and girls went and did things to each other, terrible things, wonderful things. Then I’d spit in the pocket of my glove and bang my fist. Hum boy hum boy hum it in no stick let ’im hit it no stick no problem. No problem, Jimbo. No problem at all.
That night we sat down to dinner, the five of us. It was eerie. Nobody mentioned what was on all our minds. After supper, I wandered into Catherine’s room where she was lying on the floor doing homework and listening to the radio. Secret Love. Doris Day. I kind of shrugged and looked hapless, my way of asking what did she think about things.
“Some kids were talking about Jim today,” she said. “I almost got into a fight. Can you believe it, me, a fight?”
“Me too,” I replied. She turned the radio off and told me to shut the door.
“Jim’s in more trouble than mom and dad are letting on.” Her face became serious. “They took him out of school today. He was in a lineup...”
“At the police station? But nobody identified him, right?”
“...and two cops were here and went through his room. You know that red checked jacket of his, they took it with them. I’m worried, Paul. Dad was down there all day with the lawyer.”
I hesitated. “They wouldn’t... he won’t have to go to jail, will he?” It hurt even to ask.
She took a deep breath. “My friend told me her family is really mad. They said somebody’s going to pay for this.”
The rest of that week was truly miserable. Each day more people were in the know. A couple of my friends tried to cheer me up, saying I must be a real stud too, how about showing them some tricks, that kind of thing, but that only made it worse. On Wednesday a three-line item appeared in the Journal – several boys questioned about a sexual assault on a fifteen-year old girl. No names, but there it was, in black and white.
A week went by. The next Friday night my father called us all together in the living room. Jim wasn’t there, he hadn’t been around much since this started. “I want you children to know what is going on.” My father still had on his best suit which he wore every day to make a good impression at the police station. “Our lawyer met with the District Attorney. They were trying to make a case to charge Jim and the others with rape...” My sister gasped, “...but they didn’t have any proof, besides, that kind of girl, anybody can have their way with her, they know that for a fact, so we made a deal, we would plead guilty to assault. They gave Jim a suspended sentence. The others, too.”
“Suspended sentence?” Catherine asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means that’s the end of it but he has to check in with a probation officer and he’d damn well better stay out of trouble.”
“And thank God our name won’t be in the papers!” my mother exclaimed. “Jim has been a foolish, foolish boy, but he needs our love and support,” she looked at Catherine and me, “and I want you to give it to him. Generously. He is paying for his mistake.”
“That’s for sure,” my father added, somberly.
“But he’s not going to jail,” I interjected.
My father shook his head. “It’s La Salle. They’re... they might expel him. Marty knows the principal but if that doesn’t work,” he spread his hands, “all that hard work, the chance to make a name for himself, gone. Down the drain.” My father looked across the table. “Fiona, this would be an excellent time for some of those prayers you’re so good at.”
As it turned out, Jim wasn’t expelled or suspended but what they did was devastating. They took away his extracurricular privileges. No football. No All-State. No college scholarship. Our lawyer went before the alumni association which gives the school a lot of money, Billy Moore’s father weighed in too, but the decision stuck. According to the principal, the boys were fortunate. Their attitudes must be reformed, otherwise this sordid affair will have no value for anyone. Soon after, I heard my parents arguing, the worst fight I ever remember. Nothing was broken, it was the passion in their voices. “Over my dead body!” my mother screamed. “Rather you rip out my heart!” Dad wanted Jim to transfer to Mt. Pleasant for his last year so he could play football, something might come of it.
“This is the boy’s life, Julien! Not some game! You drop him in that snake pit and mark my words, he’ll not come out alive!”