Twentieth Century Limited Book One - Age of Heroes. Jan David Blais
it weren’t for the Brothers where would he be now! No, Julien, I cannot,
I will not give my consent!”
So it was decided, Jim would finish La Salle. He was quiet around the house, no swaggering or cracking jokes, but beneath the sullen exterior he was really hurting. He’d lost what he loved best and had no way to get it back. Everybody knew what happened and the talk would start again when the varsity took the field in the fall minus their star fullback. Already resigned to living in Jim’s shadow, now it wasn’t his success I’d have to contend with, but his shame.
One night a few weeks later my father came home early, more depressed than usual. He could hardly speak. What’s wrong, my mother kept asking. Finally he spat it out. “The jewelry account... half our business. They canceled it today.”
“No! How could they!”
“Traficante... their President. I got a letter... said they couldn’t honorably do business with us any more.”
“Those hypocrites! It makes no sense.”
My father sighed. “It makes perfect sense. Marty checked it out. That girl Jim was involved with. You have any idea who the mother is?”
My mother stared at him blankly.
“She’s a Rosati. Big Anthony, from Federal Hill. She may be a black sheep but she’s family.” His eyes bored into hers. “They’re paying us back.”
ON A BRIGHT SUNNY JUNE DAY I graduated from St.Teresa’s. I was called up in front of the packed church. Top student award, English prize, Math prize, it would have been embarrassing, but despite being an exceptional student, I had a lot of friends. Everybody knew my heart was in the right place. Many of my classmates, even a couple of the girls, even Margaret, signed my autograph book, adding funny drawings and sayings. We had a party at home, cake and ice cream, just the five of us, King had wandered off which he sometimes did. Catherine was being especially nice, she and Jim went in on a portable radio for me. Midway through the doorbell rang and I got up. Nobody there but there was a box on the step. Stuck under the green and orange ribbons, an envelope with my name. I picked the box up, it wasn’t that heavy and shaking it, I went inside. Something bumped around inside.
“Another present!” my mother exclaimed. “Why didn’t you ask them in?”
“Nobody was there.”
“Well, don’t keep us waiting, open it!” Catherine said. I ran my finger under the envelope flap. There was no card, just a folded-up piece of paper, ragged along one edge like it had been ripped from a notebook. Puzzled, I unfolded it and read.
On his graduation day, for Paul the brother of James the rapist.
Memento Mori.
James the rapist! My heart leapt into my throat. Everybody crowded around, staring at the paper. I looked at my parents. My mother’s face had turned white. “Julien!” she said in this fierce voice I’d never heard before. “Take it outside!”
“But...”
“Take it outside! NOW!”
I followed my father through the door. He placed the box on the cement in front of our garage door and stripped away the paper. With his pocket knife he slit the wrapping tape. “Sacre Bleu!” he said softly.
I couldn’t see. He was in the way. I peered around him... He tried to hold me back, then his arm relaxed. “Go ahead, Paul. Look, but make it quick.”
Blood! There was blood everywhere! I moved closer...staring up at me was King’s head! KING’S HEAD!!!
“OH, NO! NO! NO! NO!”
I slumped to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. That’s all I remember. When I came around, my mother was bending over me, tears streaming down her face, whispering, over and over, “Memento mori...memento mori. Remember, man, you too must die.”
8. Neon Interlude
JONATHAN LEAVES TOMORROW. He seems uptight but we plow ahead and manage to put in a good day. At one point he looks up from his reading, shaking his head. “Can you believe somebody doing that to a little kid?” he says.
“Paul took it very hard, one time he told me the story. At least he learned something from it though perhaps not enough. National purpose, historical necessity, the glory of God, whatever you call it, Jonathan, it is always a living, breathing person on the receiving end. There is no such thing as a crowd of victims, people die one by one. Just ask the families. The big shots of the world never learn.”
“You were a military man, how can you talk that way?”
I smile. “That is precisely why I talk that way. Just like that priest, that chaplain. For me, war is the absolute last resort. Odd, isn’t it, that’s the old Catholic teaching. Did I mention, Akiko was Buddhist – she lived through the firebombing. Being on a lucky ship I was spared the misery she saw but it had its effect on me.”
We put in a good day and morning, then he excused himself to get ready. I insisted on driving him so we piled into the Volvo and proceeded up the road toward Bar Harbor Airport which is actually in Trenton, nowhere near Bar Harbor. A half hour later I watch the little jet scream down the runway and lift off, heading for New York and the offices of The New Yorker Magazine.
* * * * * * *
FOR A LONG TIME I’D WAKEN with a start. Eventually the nightmares faded but to this day the shock has not, that someone would do that to a little animal. Evil. More real to me than Adam’s sin ever was. My parents said they’d get me another dog but the memory of my friend demanded that I grieve. It troubled me too, that I blacked out. Only for a moment but it scared me to think there was a page in my life of which I knew nothing. I vowed never again to disappear to myself, and aside from one slip it didn’t happen again until years later. Oddly, the bright spot that summer, Jim went out of his way to be considerate. Though I desperately wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to blame him. It was somebody else, one mean, twisted person. Would I have returned the favor in kind? Good question.
The police said they could do nothing and that’s exactly what they did. Oh, they took the box away, and they returned it a few days later. The policeman who came to our door said it was the mob but the note was no help and nobody was talking. Omerta. I buried King’s head beside the doghouse, putting a wooden cross I painted white on his grave.
Again I went to CYO Camp, this time two full weeks. The country saved me, plus learning I would meet up with many camp friends at La Salle.
Things were bad at home. My father had to lay off more people, even Lorraine – no great loss there, my mother sniffed. Every day the tension between them asserted itself in new ways. Grownups were so unpredictable. Who would have thought my mother would be the one to rally round Jim? They grew closer as my father withdrew to spend all his time trying to find new business, he and Uncle Antoine even driving to Wilmington, Delaware, to follow up a lead. All I could figure, her first-born was a part of her spirited nature she couldn’t deny. As it turned out what saved us was, of all things, the Russians.
I was now reading the newspaper front to back and had a good idea what was going on in the world. The Supreme Court had ordered Negroes admitted to regular schools and people expected trouble in the fall. I read about the McCarthy hearings. In our parish McCarthy was a saint and I had to admit he had a point when he said why should Americans join an organization that was out to destroy us? But what I saw on TV was a shock – the slippery look, the exaggerations. This raised an important question for me. If you find a person is lying about one thing, what else might he be lying about? How can you know he’s telling the truth about anything? I still don’t have a good answer for that.
Dad and Uncle Antoine had been getting up at dawn and driving to the General Electric plant north of Boston, returning late then turning right around next day to save money on a hotel. But after months of worry, a contract came through to sell