AT 29 Read online

  He started slowly with alternating strokes, doing lap upon lap. Running and his other routines worked various muscles, but swimming challenged them all. The first few visits to the Liston YMCA pool had left him aching and exhausted. Now, after a month, he was accustomed to the workouts as he picked up speed and glided smoothly through the water. As he switched to backstroke, he opened his eyes. The ceiling was twenty feet above with skylights that let the sun shine over the pool. It must have been magnificent in its day, Jimmy thought. Now, many of the yellowed tiles were water-stained and cracked. A few were missing, leaving dark squares that spoiled the symmetry. He let his mind wander to the days ahead when he would confront the issues and the people he’d left behind before his music took him away. He stroked harder, looking for a way to escape the mistakes he’d made and the people he’d hurt. Part of him wanted to hide. The other part compelled him to face the truth.

  Outside on the sidewalk, showered and shaved, he stopped to look up at the gray sky. It was just after noon and he still needed to do some free-weights. The weeks had passed quickly since he left New York, mostly because the workouts had exhausted his abused body and all he could do was exercise, eat and sleep. Lately, however, he needed less time to complete his routines and less rest. Reading and throwing shots at the old hoop filled the time just so much and then the restlessness took hold. He crossed the street, electing to postpone the weights as he headed down the block.

  Sometimes he could remember his recurring dream. The fleeting visions seemed so real that he was sure it was true, a ship bobbing on the ocean then listing and sinking as a woman and child slipped away, leaving him heartbroken and ridden with guilt. It was more vivid since he’d stopped drinking, harder to ignore. He didn’t fear sleep. It wasn’t a nightmare that left him shivering in horror, just an emotional puzzle. He thirsted for scotch to make him immune.

  A storefront came into view with a several men forming a line at its entrance. As he drew closer he saw that it was a soup kitchen. He stopped and peered through the doorway as the last broken man went inside, holding the door, assuming Jimmy wanted to follow. For some unknown reason he did.

  Eleven

  March is a drab month in New England. The mornings often dawn gray with a coldness that belies the promise of the lengthening days. Saint Patrick’s Day was one of these, except it brought a dusting of wet snow that added a depressing dampness to the ever-present wind. Jimmy arose from his sleep, looked out at the snow and debated going through his routine.

  Ellis still called from time to time. A new boss had taken charge at Blossom. He was acting fast, dropping many of the artists Daisy signed, sending Cindy to London for a look at two groups and putting the staff through a rigorous review of everything. Ellis had yet to meet him, but before Cindy boarded the plane to London, she said to expect a call. Jimmy didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t give it much thought. That Ellis could find no work, continued to depress.

  He had finally taken the Gibson from its perch against the wall. After wiping off the dust and tuning its old strings, he found that it felt good in his hands. Just like those days in high school when he taught himself to play, holding it upside down and backwards because he was left handed and didn’t know any better. Now, in the evenings, he picked his way through his old songs. He ran his fingertips along the frets with ease, remembering how hard it had been to get it right in those early days.

  He used the Liston YMCA for everything now, riding ninety minutes on an exercise bike, running seven miles on the indoor track, and lifting weights. It was much easier to do it in one place, especially since the rest of his day was taken up with the soup kitchen. He didn’t know why he signed on to serve stews from huge pots over gas burners, but it took his mind off himself for a few hours. He was cautioned to come in early on this Saint Patrick’s Day so he sped up his routine and cut short on the weights.

  The line already spiraled down the sidewalk as he approached an hour before the doors would open. Those waiting chatted among themselves, paying little attention to the young man who threaded his way to the front. He was given a key when it became apparent that he would stay for a while. He put it in the lock and turned the knob. After donning an apron, he took his place among the kettles, wafting a huge ladle through the mixtures and making sure the gas flames were set at the right height, not too hot lest the steaming mixture rise up and spill over the sides. Other volunteers began to remove trays of freshly baked biscuits from the ovens. Their magnificent odor made his mouth water.

  When the doors opened Jimmy positioned himself behind the serving table. One by one, the men and women shuffled past, some smiling and talking, others silent, concentrated solely on their plates, too shy or embarrassed to look up at the man serving them. Jimmy was used to this. He did not try to engage them. He was sure everyone had a story, but he would not pry. Where a smile was given he gave one back. Otherwise, he stuck to his serving routine. He did not notice the small man who waited in line a few feet away.

  “Is that a Kendall boy?”

  It may have been twelve years since he’d heard that voice, but it was unmistakable.

  “George!” he almost shouted, looking up with surprise and delight.

  It was late afternoon before the two men could talk. The homeless who had come for the annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner more than doubled the number who came on other days. George looked much the same, older than he remembered, but that was to be expected. His hair had gone white and the bald spot encircling the back of his skull was larger. He stooped a bit, but the jocular disposition remained.

  “Don’t see many Kendall boys in a place like this. I was standin’ in the line when you first went in the door. I thought it was you, but I wasn’t sure ‘til I got inside.” They talked for hours about the one thing they had in common, Kendall Academy.

  “I stopped by a month ago to look around,” Jimmy said, “I wondered about your old digs behind the locker room. Do you still live there?”

  George shook his head. “Naw, it was turned into an apartment like the rest of the place. I couldn’t afford to stay there. Besides, once the Brothers left I was out of a job.”

  Jimmy looked closely at his friend. The fact that he was taking a meal at the shelter could not be a good sign. George probably had little to fall back upon when the school shut down. He decided not to ask where he was living now.

  “Liston looks about the same. Maybe a bit grimier than when I was here last.”

  George gave a look of disappointment. “Don’t go knockin’ this town. A lotta good people livin’ here and a few famous ones got their start here.”

  The conversation settled into a comfortable give and take. When it was time to close they agreed to get together again the next time George came in for meal. As it happened, that was twice a week for the next two months. Their conversations centered upon Kendall. Although they both knew Jimmy had few close friends at the school, George still went through what he knew about some of his classmates.

  “Tucker never got over that car accident. I mean mentally. He couldn’t figure out why he was the only one to survive. They was all drunk that night, remember?”

  Jimmy remembered. Six kids piled into a convertible early one Sunday morning after a Kendall dance. Everybody had gone out to Shaker Park where beer was pulled from the trunks of a dozen cars. The driver was a Kendall senior, Artie Malloy. Jimmy wasn’t there, but he knew the story. In the throes of drunkenness, Artie decided to make a run downtown for pot. Five others, including Tucker, the only underclassman, jumped into the car as Artie roared off, top down, into the warm May night.

  The Liston Observer speculated that Tucker survived only because he was seated in the middle of the backseat. The Boston & Maine freighter had already tripped the signal as it rumbled close to the intersection, but Artie either didn’t see the flashing lights or chose to ignore them too late. With no chance to even apply the brakes, the engineer watched in horror as his engine split the convertible
in two, carrying the front section far down the rails. The boys on either side of Tucker and two in the front, but not Artie, were ejected on impact and found dead many yards away. Artie was crushed inside the front half of the hulk. Tucker was barely alive, still seated, even though the back half of the car had been deposited in a ditch.

  “What’s he doing now?” Jimmy asked.

  “Never finished college. Worked for his father for a while, but that didn’t pan out, either. Last I heard he’s livin’ at home not doin’ much.” A quick smile crossed George’s face. “You remember that play against Central when he came off a block and took the ball right out of the opposin’ quarterback’s hand? You came over from defensive end, hit the fullback.”

  “I was still playing then.”

  “That block sprung Tucker. Took’m a half hour to rumble into the end zone with you screamin’ at him to go, go, go!! Jeez, he was mad at you after that.”

  “I remember.” Jimmy smiled. “I embarrassed him.”

  “He was madder when you quit the team.”

  After their twice-weekly conversations had exhausted all of the typical reminiscing, they were left with the deeper curiosity each had avoided. George struck first.

  “So what’re you doin’ here? I mean it’s funny findin’ you servin’ up food in a place like this.”

  “Taking a little time for myself. I’m enjoying it.”

  George mulled this for a moment. “A lotta kids showed up for an unofficial reunion when the word got out about the school closin’. How come you didn’t come back?”

  “I never had a warm feeling for the place.”

  “Brother Patrick woulda enjoyed seein’ you.” The stoic face of Kendall’s Headmaster came into focus. Jimmy remembered most of his interactions with the tough, but fair man who tried in vain to keep the school open long past its prime. It was Brother Patrick who took a special interest in him, like he somehow found a way to do with all of Kendall’s students. George continued, “He always made you boys a little nervous.”

  Brother Patrick was responsible for Jimmy going to college. Much of the faculty’s attention was devoted to writing recommendations for other Kendall students who were more aggressive. Jimmy never sought their aid and fell through the cracks. One morning, Brother Patrick collared him in the hallway before class.

  “What are you doing next year, Mr. Buckman?” Jimmy remembered cowering before the headmaster as he explained his passive efforts, but the rebuke he expected never came. Brother Patrick simply ordered him to report to his office after classes.

  “Brother Patrick pulled some strings for me, got me into Saint Virgil’s.”

  The afternoon meeting in the Headmaster’s office included another man. He was introduced to Jimmy as a recruiter from a small liberal arts school tucked in the mountains of northern Vermont. Jimmy had never heard of it. After the introductions Brother Patrick left him alone with the recruiter.

  “I haven’t even applied,” Jimmy stammered.

  “Brother Patrick thinks you should.”

  “I don’t have the grades to get in.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t be talking with you today if Brother Patrick didn’t call. We make the time when we hear from educators we respect.”

  “I don’t want to flunk out.” Jimmy remembered his fear.

  “Then don’t.” Came the terse reply.

  He brought his eyes back to George. “Where is he now?”

  “Married.”

  “He left the order?” Jimmy was shocked.

  “A lotta them did. There was a lotta dissatisfaction around the time Kendall closed. I mean with the diocesan regime. They all figured some money shoulda been put up to keep the school runnin’. The Bishop did a Pontius Pilot. A few a the younger Brothers got disillusioned and turned in their collars. The older ones took posts at other schools. Brother Patrick coulda taken over at another place or even some colleges, but when he reconnected with Sister Catherine his outlook changed. Big shock when they both put in their papers. They settled out west somewhere, Arizona maybe. There was some bitterness from their families and, of course, the diocese.”

  “Reconnected?”

  “He and the good Sister grew up together in South Boston. You know the old Irish. They think a religious vocation is the whole family’s ticket to heaven. Plenty of pressure on both of’em to commit, so they did. Went their separate religious ways, but kept in touch over the years. When she got stationed at a grade school a coupla towns over they had the chance to see each other again and that was it.”

  Jimmy decided to put George on the spot. “Why are you taking meals here?”

  “Am I down on my luck you mean?”

  “I tried not to put it that way.” Over the weeks Jimmy had studied his old friend closely. His clothes were worn, but clean. He arrived at the soup kitchen clean-shaven with no obvious hardship. If he stood out from the others it was because he didn’t seem to be troubled or in need.

  “I’m doin’ good. I have a room on Dutton Street near where I work at Hinckley’s gas station. I get kinda sick of my own cookin’ so occasionally I come here. Before you showed up maybe I came in once a month. I’m only comin’ more now ‘cause it’s nice to chat with a Kendall boy.”

  “What happened to you after the school closed?”

  “I thought about leavin’ Liston, but where was I gonna go? I don’t have no family nowheres and I like it here. I’ve been pumpin’ gas and doin’ oil changes at Hinckley’s ever since. Not so bad.”

  “Mind if I ask how old you are?” Jimmy always wondered.

  “I’m comin’ up on seventy.”

  “Never married?”

  “Yep, still am. Met her in Germany at the end of the war. When my hitch was up in forty-seven I retired from the service and we got married. Germany was still a mess, so I brought her over here. We settled in Florida where I took a job as a waiter in one a them resorts on the beach in Miami. She was a nurse, worked nights.”

  “You live together in a room?” Jimmy stifled his disapproval.

  “No, no, she ain’t here. We tried to have a kid, but nothin’ happened. She didn’t like Florida much. After a while we started to argue. She wanted to go back to her family in Germany. I came home from work one day and she was gone. No note, no explanation. I figure she went back to Mannheim where she grew up.”

  “Why didn’t you get a divorce?”

  “I thought she might come back someday. It’s not like I didn’t love her. I wrote a few times, even after I moved up here. I think she got the letters ‘cause they never came back. Anyhow, I never heard from her.”

  “What brought you to Liston?”

  “Boom and bust. Every time a hurricane hit I’d get laid off. I got sick of it and decided to try my luck up north close to where I grew up. I got the job at Kendall and that’s where I stayed.”

  “I don’t mean to pry.”

  “No problem.”

  “Just one more thing. Why’d you stay so long at Kendall?”

  “Some places just feel right. Brother Patrick said the school needed somebody, couldn’t pay much, but I could have room and board. Sounded fair so I took it. That was 1954.”

  “You were an institution there.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. I never had no kids of my own, but I’m thinkin’ I got a lotta the same feelin’ from all of you. Plenty of ups and downs, just like you’d have with your own family. I loved the sports most of all, them games and track meets, three seasons of pure fun, watchin’ you boys from the first day to graduation. This little school with maybe four hunnerd students, tryin’ to compete with them big schools around Boston with five times as many, held our own most of the time, too. That’s what kept me around, you kids. I made it a point to get to know all you boys. I figured if I told a few jokes now and then and listened, I’d be helpin’ a little bit.”

  “You did.”

  “Not for you, I think. Course you was only one of a lousy bunch.”


  Jimmy smarted at the jab. “You mean the drug bust?”

  “Yep. That bust was the beginnin’ of the end for Kendall. Your problem was somethin’ else and we both know who.”

  Jimmy recalled that strange day in spring of his senior year. In the gym, where everybody congregated before classes, the usual rough housing and loud talk were replaced with a hushed atmosphere. The tougher kids, who often stood together in the corners, were nowhere to be seen. The leaders, Jack O’Keefe, Brendan McGrath, Marco Antonucci and Tomasz Markoski were missing. After the bell sounded the silent climb upstairs to class was deafening.

  Once in his seat, Jimmy looked around, suddenly intent on deciphering what might be happening. There they were, Jack, Brendan, Marco and Tom, seated glumly a row away. Brother Gabriel was standing sentry near their desks, visibly rattled. As the last of the students entered and took their seats, Brother Gabriel walked to the front of the room and closed the door. Then he turned to face the class.

  “Open your books!” His voice was strained. “Read silently. Absolutely no talking!”

  One of the boys up front raised his hand. “I forgot my…” The class was shocked when Brother Gabriel stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face.

  “What about ‘no talking’ don’t you understand!”

  Fifteen minutes went by. Brian McGrath, Brendan’s cousin who sat next to Jimmy, passed a note under the desk. ‘Cops’.

  The events of the next few minutes were hazy. Jimmy remembered Brother Patrick entering the room, followed by five uniformed police officers and a burly detective in plain clothes. The detective coldly called out the four names.

  As each boy stood, the cops rushed forward and put handcuffs around their wrists. Tomasz, the toughest of the four, struggled, but two of the cops grabbed his arms and held them until the cuffs were locked. Brendan started to cry. Brian shook his head as he watched his cousin being led with the others from the room.