Because I Come from a Crazy Family Page 6

  “It’s a bad habit, smoking. I smoke, too, you know. But not nearly as much as Mr. S. When he starts drinking, then he chain-smokes. That means one cigarette after another. I’m sure he doesn’t like all he has to go through the next morning, though.”

  “I’m never going to smoke,” I said.

  “I hope you’re right,” Joey said, as she offered me the bowl to lick. I was wrong. I smoked senior year of high school and didn’t quit until Lucy, our first child, at age three, said to me, “Daddy, when are you going to stop sucking on cigarettes?”

  Back of the house was a carefully kept emerald-green yard. I’d never seen greener grass until the magical moment I first walked up out of the bowels of Fenway Park and beheld grass as green as grass could be.

  Unger’s backyard was bordered by well-tended lilac bushes and swaths of lilies of the valley, which gave way to spontaneous blackberry patches, and then a tangled panoply of various wild, knotted growth, common weeds, but lush with the clashing colors Nature awards her uncultivated, unplanned vegetation, like purple strife, bittersweet, and jimsonweed. And beyond all that lay the currents and salt airs of Monomoy Sound.

  When I was feeling unhappy, Uncle Unger would teasingly try to cheer me up by suggesting I go out back under the lilacs and dig worms. I didn’t get the joke, nor did I ever take him up on his suggestion.

  The scent of lilacs and lilies of the valley, as well as the idea of digging worms, still bring me back to that yard, as well as to the memory of Mom sitting on the grassy slope behind the driveway, sewing nametags, with a needle and thread, onto clothing I was taking to summer camp.

  I also remember her and Unger, and sometimes his two grown-up daughters, Allison and Hope, telling jokes and laughing as they drank bourbon on the rocks with a splash. There would be a silver ice bucket and water pitcher perched nearby in the grass while they snacked on hard-boiled eggs with a dash of salt—saltshaker in the grass as well—and Ritz crackers spread with Underwood deviled ham, its paper wrapper with the little red devil holding a pitchfork still on the can.

  I never understood the Stileses’ jokes, but it was fun that they laughed a lot. I also didn’t know then about the tragedy that had befallen them before my mother met and married Unger. Even as they hid it, I don’t believe that the three of them—Unger, Allison, and Hope—ever fully recovered from it. They lived fully, drank a lot, ate the great food Joey cooked, played music, danced inside and outside, and seemed for all the world to be happy as could be.

  The girls would go on to excel in college, and Hope would marry and have several children. I lost track of Allison, but my brother Ben tells me she never did marry.

  And those nametags. What a labor of love, sewing nametags one at a time onto countless socks, underpants, jerseys, shorts, and everything else I had to take with me and might lose at camp.

  Six years old was young to go to sleepaway camp for two months in New Hampshire, a three-hour drive from Chatham, to Lake Winnipesaukee, but my brother Johnny would be at Camp Kabeyun as a counselor, and Jamie would be there as well. Johnny would ignore me, but as long as Jamie was there I’d be OK.

  I ended up loving Kabeyun, going there for five eight-week summer sessions, learning to shoot a rifle and a bow and arrow, paddle, steer, and portage a canoe, climb mountains, build a fire with no matches, wash tin plates in cold streams, and pitch a tent. During one of those summers a man named Fidel Castro overthrew a dictator named Fulgencio Batista, about which I knew nothing except that the head of Kabeyun, John Porter, a spunky seventy-year-old lefty and his chain-smoking, bridge-playing, highly intellectual wife, Anna, along with most of the counselors, let out loud cheers when the news of Castro’s victory reached us on Lake Winnipesaukee.

  12.

  I sat in the passenger seat as Joey drove. We were heading to Harwich to visit Vera, Joey’s cousin, and Vera’s daughter, Pokey, as well as their friend Bernice, and whichever men were hanging out at Vera’s place.

  She always had good snacks to offer, and the yard was full of chickens, which I had fun chasing. I also liked Pokey. She was much taller than me but about my age.

  When we got there, Vera and Bernice were in the kitchen, smoking as usual. No men today, and no other children except Pokey. After Joey gave Bernice a little envelope, that looked a lot like the one she’d taken from Topper, she lit up a cigarette, too, as Vera called, “Pokey, time for your bath.”

  There was a big aluminum tub in the kitchen, which Vera had filled with hot water. “Neddy, you ought to take a bath with Pokey.”

  I stared at the tub in disbelief.

  The ladies laughed a little at this idea, but I could also sense they meant it. “C’mon, jump in the tub.”

  Pokey came in and, without so much as a by your leave, stripped off her clothes and climbed into the tub. Wow. I was excited because I had never seen a girl naked before. I didn’t see much beyond a fleeting glance when she got into the tub, but I was eager for more. Still, I felt beyond shy about taking off my clothes. No way was I doing that.

  “It’s OK,” Bernice said to the others, “they’re still babies. I don’t think we need to worry about any hanky-panky.”

  Vera giggled at the thought, and Joey chimed in, “C’mon, Neddy, take your bath now and you won’t have to at home.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “C’mon,” Pokey said. “It’ll be fun.”

  I looked up, I looked down. I didn’t know what to do.

  “C’mon, Neddy,” Joey said. “You be gettin’ naked with girls for the rest of your life!” They all laughed.

  I don’t know what gave me the courage, I guess Joey’s urging was all I needed, because in a moment I was naked in the tub with Pokey. The women took their cigarettes and iced tea—or whatever was in those tall glasses—into the sitting room, leaving Pokey and me alone in the tub.

  Even though she wasn’t older than me, Pokey seemed more mature, less silly. She could tell I was nervous, so she said, “I bet you ain’t never seen a girl naked before, have you?” And then she laughed, not like laughing at me, but like she was saying it was really OK not to have seen a girl naked.

  “I guess not,” I said. “Well, I did bring my stepsister a drink when she was in the bathtub, but she was covered with soapsuds, so I couldn’t see anything.”

  “You want to see me?” Without waiting for an answer, Pokey stood up so I could see what was, or wasn’t, between her legs. I looked up at her face, then down at her vagina, staring at it for what seemed like forever, except it wasn’t forever.

  Before I knew it, Pokey giggled and sat down again in the tub. “Now it’s your turn,” she said and giggled again.

  As if it were simply what I had to do, I stood up and let Pokey see me, then quickly sat down, making a splash.

  “What’s going on in there?” Vera called.

  “We’re just washin’,” Pokey called back, giggling again. Pretty soon we were splashing each other and making a racket, so Vera called in, “You two better quiet down in there or I will come in and give you what-for!”

  “Shhh!” Pokey said to me.

  “What’s what-for?” I asked.

  “It’s a spankin’,” Pokey said, “and you surely do not want one from my mom!”

  “OK,” I said, still giddy over what I’d just seen, “I’ll try to be quiet.”

  When we finished our baths, dried off, and got dressed, Vera gave us each a drumstick and a scoop of potato salad.

  Driving home, Joey asked, “Why you so quiet?”

  “No reason,” I said. But of course there was a huge reason. I didn’t know what that space with what looked like vertical lips actually was on Pokey, but I guessed I’d find out someday. It meant Lyndie had one like it, only not brown, and so did my stepsisters, and all the girls in my class.

  I also knew I liked seeing it. I hoped Pokey and I could take baths together often.

  I turned over lots of questions on the car ride home, but I didn’t know who to ask them
of. Jamie, I thought. Jamie will know.

  That turned out to be the only bath Pokey and I ever took together. It was one of the sweetest, most educational experiences of my life.

  13.

  “Josephine, Sammy Sanders is coming over this afternoon. Let’s do the caviar today.” Hearing Uncle Unger’s words from downstairs, I looked up from what I was reading while lying on my bed. It was a short book about Abraham Lincoln, assigned by Mrs. Brown, my second grade teacher, whom I adored. I may have been a slow reader but I still loved to read. However, the prospect of Uncle Sammy joining Uncle Unger for backgammon was enough to pull me away from Honest Abe.

  Sammy Sanders owned a hugely successful seafood restaurant right on the water a few towns up Route 6 from Chatham. He was nice to me, he was funny, he was the absolute fattest man I had ever seen in my life, and he wore loud Bermuda shorts—yellow, green, or pink—along with loafers and no socks.

  Coming downstairs when I heard Sammy arrive, I saw Joey greet him, then saw Unger come out from the living room, saying, “Welcome to the land of opportunity!”

  “Fuck your opportunity,” Sammy said. “With the money you’ve taken off me, I could open three new restaurants.” People swore a lot in the Bridge Street house, which, looking back, is odd, because Uncle Unger always stressed that the most important thing in life was to be a gentleman.

  “Being a gentleman means you are always considerate of others,” he’d say to me. If I’d questioned him about the swearing, he probably would have said that it puts other people at ease, which is why a gentleman can swear.

  “Josephine is preparing a plate of caviar,” Unger said, ushering Sammy into the living room. I followed.

  Sammy took his customary seat in a wing chair next to the fireplace. The backgammon table was already in place between Sammy’s chair and Unger’s.

  Before Unger sat down, he said, “I think we need a fire.” He’d already laid it, so all he had to do was light the pumice head of the Cape Cod lighter that sat in a brass canister on the hearth. Soon a blaze would warm us.

  I sat on the oriental rug on the floor, legs crossed, and watched. For some reason Sammy liked having me around, and he didn’t mind my questions. Unger called me the Question Box, but he put up with me. Also, I’d run into the kitchen and serve as errand boy as needed.

  Walking over to the mahogany table that served as a bar, Unger said, “Are you ready for some silver bullets?” Early on, I learned that meant martinis.

  “Of course!” Sammy replied.

  Glasses in hand, Unger went back to his chair, sat down, and began a ritual I would witness many times in the seven years he was married to my mother. Like a chef preparing a signature dish, he’d carefully chill each glass by holding its stem in his thumb and forefinger so he could agitate the glass to make the chip of ice he’d put in it spin around inside, rising up the side of the glass to the rim, chilling the entire glass until the ice chip melted. Then, as if casting a fly-fishing rod, he’d flip the resulting water out of the glass, creating a long and graceful liquid arc, onto the rug. Once he’d done this twice, he had two frosty glasses ready to be filled, so he asked me to go get the silver shaker in which he’d already mixed the gin and vermouth, and to bring along two twists of lemon peel as well, which he’d precut and left sitting in a small Canton china dish on the bar. Jumping up, happy to join in, I did my job.

  Taking a generous sip of his martini, Sammy let out an “Ahhh,” purring in sheer delight. Years later, I would learn the singular pleasure a drinker enjoys when he takes his first sip of that day’s first martini. “Today’s my lucky day, Stiles. Just you wait.”

  In a few minutes Joey called out to me from the kitchen. I went in, and she gave me a platter with caviar in a small crystal dish sitting in a larger crystal bowl of crushed ice with a mother-of-pearl spoon for the caviar lying atop the ice. This larger bowl was surrounded by lemon wedges and toast points, as well as small piles of chopped egg white, chopped egg yolk, capers, and chopped red onion. “Can you bring this in to Mr. S. and ask him if he need anything else?”

  Like a little ringbearer, I carefully carried out the platter and put it on the mahogany side table next to Uncle Unger’s chair. All but drooling, Sammy slapped his knee and purred again.

  In moments, they were eating, drinking, and shaking dice. Mom was off visiting Duckie, as she disliked these afternoons of drinking and backgammon. I watched, knowing what would happen but always finding it funny. I’d wonder why Sammy was so stupid. But still, he was nice and he was funny, so I liked him a lot. As usual, Uncle Unger let Sammy win the early games while he gloried in getting drunk. Uncle Unger drank just as much but never got nearly as drunk.

  It was the key to his success. Once Sammy was good and soused, Uncle Unger would start doubling, which Sammy couldn’t resist accepting and doubling back. I watched until I’d seen enough to know that once again Uncle Unger would win big. I went back to reading more about Abe.

  After a few hours the doorbell rang, on cue. Joey answered it and said, “Come in, Gerald.” Gerald was Sammy’s aide, the man whose task it was this day to assist Sammy to the car and drive him home. Sammy was so drunk he couldn’t walk without both Unger and Gerald propping him up. But he was a happy drunk. “You’re a lousy, stinking, cheating bastard, Unger Stiles, but I love you all the same.”

  “And you’re a gentleman and a scholar, Sammy Sanders,” Unger said as he gave him a kiss on his cheek.

  14.

  A year or so after she married my stepfather, my mother asked me if I would mind if the three of us moved from Chatham to Charleston, South Carolina.

  All of seven years old, I stepped up and said yes, I would most definitely mind, that I actually thought it was the worst idea I’d ever heard of. Lyndie, Jamie, Duckie, Uncle Jimmy, and Joey, they were my family, people I absolutely did not want to leave.

  A few weeks later, bags packed, we were being driven to Boston to catch a train to Charleston.

  Leaving Cloverluck Farm had been no big deal for me, but moving to Charleston sure as hell was. I should have learned then and there that you can’t depend on anything. But the paradox is, I kept depending and trusting just the same. Some people trust no one; I trusted and still trust everyone. I saw what a mess life can be but somehow didn’t see it as a mess, just as life in progress. Things were never so bad that I didn’t always have some solid person nearby who kept an eye out for me.

  My protectors provided moorings in the surge, points of stability that to this day I count on for balance and support as much as the bones in my feet. I never knew when or where I’d find these people, but miraculously they always appeared.

  The move to Charleston began innocently enough. After the car ride with Uncle Unger and my mother to Boston’s Back Bay Station, chauffeured by Chatham’s only taxi/limo service in what I remember was a chubby 1955 Cadillac sedan, we boarded the first sleeping car I’d ever been in. It was called a Pullman car. My mother told me that my uncle Dick, my father’s sister Nancy’s husband, worked for Pullman, so I felt proud to be in one of my uncle’s cars, as if he owned it.

  On the train, we had what was called a bedroom. It was a sleeping compartment with three bunks. I thought it was just so cool how they could fold down beds and turn what had looked like a sitting room into a room full of neatly made bunks. The clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the train making its way down the Eastern Seaboard while I fell asleep cut a soundtrack in my brain that’s still there.

  Just as I fell in love with words playing ghost, on that train trip to Charleston I fell in love with trains, and with long trips in general. Even though leaving Chatham was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, that train ride cured my sadness. I didn’t know where I would be going to school, but I knew I would not be seeing Jamie and Lyndie for a long time. I had no idea what kind of house we would live in or what the people were like in Charleston or why we were moving. In spite of my saying it was a terrible idea, the rocking movement of th
e train and the rhythmic clickety-clack made me forget all those concerns and instead focus on the adventure of being in this fantastic world created by the Pullman car. That train barreled its way past my misgivings and into the welcoming darkness. The darkness didn’t frighten me in the least. As far as I was concerned, it set the stage for an adventure.

  After a few hours we stopped at Penn Station in New York City. I was in my pajamas, in my bunk, snug under a white sheet and blue blanket, with the lights off, looking out the window, as we slowly pulled into the station, at a host of people dressed in all kinds of clothes, walking with leather suitcases, hatboxes, and other bundles on the platform. I wondered who they were. So many people. I’d never seen a train station that was underground. But here we were, in a huge electrically-lit cave. The yellowish lights of Penn Station filled my otherwise dark sleeping compartment while I watched the many grown-ups, and a few children, bustle along.

  Slowly making its stately way past the hurried people, the great and powerful locomotive gradually brought the train to a full stop. As if exhaling from its long haul, the train let out a long hiss while a throng of people filed out of the train and onto the platform as eager others boarded. Uncle Unger and my mother were in the lounge car having drinks, so I was gloriously alone. It was thrilling to watch and listen to all the action as I reveled in the panoramic sweep of the Penn Station platform. Propped up on my left elbow, lying on my side in my bunk, I felt I was watching a real-life movie. Just from watching I could feel a definite excitement in all the hubbub, the coming and going, as if these people, like me, were heading on to some new adventure in their lives.

  In a few minutes, fully rested, the mighty locomotive started up again. I was back sleeping to the clickety-clack before Unger and my mother returned to the room.

  The next morning, the three of us got up and dressed as the train sped down the eastern shore. When I peed, I asked my mother where the pee went when you flushed the toilet. “It goes out onto the track,” Uncle Unger replied. “That’s why you’re never supposed to go to the bathroom when the train is stopped in the station. There are signs everywhere that say that.” I had trouble imagining how a train full of people could pee and poop onto the railroad track all the way to Charleston, but I didn’t question Uncle Unger.