Part 13 (2/2)

So now, a tall handsome man I'd never seen before He smiled and leaned into the raduates of the university There hoops of joy Mortarboards got tossed into the air, and I turned and h the crowd to look for randun to learn all I needed to learn There were so many more books to read, so many more lectures to attend Hoould I be completely free until I'd learned all those truths? But there wasthe North for a while: And would Jeb get uitarist while working construction? Wasn't that bad for his hands? Didn't he tell me that before? That a musician has to take care of his hands?

But I wasn't just going back for my brother and two sisters Asand test-taking, there was the instinct to walk away from it for a while, to do some kind of physical work I could take a year before I went back to school for that PhD, then ood, the kind of person to whom people really listened

BY LATE fall, Jeb and I were building things together again Our boss was Trevor D, a lanky British man anted to be adark hair and expected punctuality and efficiency and the consistent execution of our tasks These ords he used regularly He also said ”excellence” a lot, and once or twice a week he had to unhitch his leather carpenter's apron and lie down on the ground, his eyes closed tight as one of his h his head like a silent stor, and Jeb, the carpenter's helper, and Randy the laborer, and me, who'd been demoted from carpenter to laborer once Trevor D saw I knew very little and could do less I'd lied to get the job, told him I had all kinds of experience when all I'd done was build forts with Jeb ere kids

We were renovating a three-story house Trevor D had bought down by the water It was in a neighborhood of two-hundred-year-old houses, paint flaking off their clapboards, rot in their sills and doors andframes There was a barroom a block away called the Hole in the Wall, a few boarded-up shops, but froray sliver of it beyond utility poles and shi+ngled gables His plan was to gut the entire structure down to its frame then rebuild it as three condominiums, the top one a luxury unit because of the ”water-view” He said he hoped to triple or quadruple his investment

I saw him as a tawdry capitalist

The five of us ripped off all the clapboards, pulled out the s and any sheathing that may have rotted, wide pine boards nailed to studs by men decades and decades before any of us was born A lot of the sheathing had to go, the roof too, including the rafters because Trevor D needed a flat roof for the deck ere going to build up there It took over a week to strip the house down to its naked fra, but now the long steel duone and stacks of new lumber sat in the lot, lu and Jeb, the uage I did not know

I kept thinking Jeb shouldn't know it either He'd spent his teenage years in his roo art; then he found hiirl and noas a father, and the teacher was finally gone and how did he understand what thesewalls and floors and stairs to rooms s that worked? But somehow he did And if he wasn't sure, he'd pretend he knew, then go learn on his ohat seee of how things worked

Soand Jeb would pause to work out a problem: a support wall is needed here, but that makes the hallway on the other side too narrow; the stairs end here, but now the header's too low above the last step; if the kitchenis frae there; and on and on I'd hear pieces of their conversation while Randy and I hauled neo-by-fours for the walls, sheets of plywood for sheathing, fifty-pound boxes of nails Randy and I spent days pulling old ones from every stud in the house so that each one was clean and ready for twentieth-century insulation, strapping, and Sheetrock While new construction started on the first floor, he and I continued demo work on the second and third We knocked down partition walls We ripped up old flooring from joists we'd then have to balance ourselves on to keep froh We filled barrels with chunks of plaster and broken lathe, each one weighing well over a hundred pounds, and we'd heave them down steps and outside to the new dumpster where we'd squat on either side of the barrel, then lift it over our heads and du back into our faces, our hair white, our eyes red-rimmed

Randy didn't talk h school, that he was married and had a two-year-old son I knew his wife had a drinking problem and was in rehab, and that Randy's mother took care of his son all day while he worked I knew he liked cars and took pride in the black SS Chevelle he drove to the job site everyHe kept it clean inside and out and parked it on the far side of the parking lot Any tools he owned-a fra saw-he'd lay on a blanket in the trunk At coffee break, he and I would sit against the foundation apart fro, and Jeb, who usually stood in the s out to each other Trevor and Doug were dressed for the weather, heavy jeans and work boots, a fleece vest and wool sweater overunderwear, the white cotton sleeves you could see at the wrists But Jeb, his hair shorter now, his stubble catching the ht, he stood there in jeans with a hole in one knee, his bare leg showing He wore a T-shi+rt under a button-down cotton shi+rt thatout But he didn't look cold or unhappy as he stood there and tapped a Marlboro fro his head at whatever Trevor D was saying, learning his trade

At night, alone in els or Weber The radiator hissed, and I'd read the sa on raduate schools, think about all the knowledge that would coht, hownow, and where were the people anted to change it anyway? So all I'd studied, I'd felt likehad joined my mind to the thinkers before me, to the millions of people whose lives they indirectly wrote about, these scholars who sat in a tower so high they could see everyone and I could too But after eight to ten hours of working with ht, to keep the prole in his place But this assumption floated away like steam; if I was a proletarian, as Trevor D? He had plans to be a rich bourgeois, but I sa hard he worked every day, hoo or three times a shi+ft, he'd sit soure out how et, how much would his return be? And what did I care if heas what he built was solid and its price was fair, rong with that? Did that make him an oppressor?

I didn't know So I'd brew tea and open one ofone of these dead intellectuals could tell an to change hts, I had no place to train If there was a barbell gy withhard for so h My chest muscles felt smaller, my shoulders and arms too, and when I flexed my upper back, it didn't flare as , I had never beco, just hard and fit, but nohateverI felt vulnerable, like a knight who has slipped off his steel-plated arer the small, soft boy Clay Whelan and the others had beat up, but a cool irrational fear welled in yain, and as soon as I did, that's when they'd come for me

EVERY SAturdAY I'd drive forty minutes northeast to Haverhill I'd ether with rusting black iron in a dank concrete roo well over 300 pounds now, but I'd ain, and for over two hours we'd push and pull and press and curl

Sa as a reporter for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Eagle-Tribune, so for years He'd always liked reading and writing, and now he got paid to do both He still had his old rooed to ust, and sometimes he'd stay over at her apartment just off Lafayette Square Theresa worked at AT&T, which used to be Western Electric She was kind and quiet, and she had long brown hair and a lovely face and when Saht away and knew early on where they were headed together They already had plans to one day own a house and have kids so for years He'd always liked reading and writing, and now he got paid to do both He still had his old rooed to ust, and sometimes he'd stay over at her apartment just off Lafayette Square Theresa worked at AT&T, which used to be Western Electric She was kind and quiet, and she had long brown hair and a lovely face and when Saht away and knew early on where they were headed together They already had plans to one day own a house and have kids

After our workouts and a shower, Sae to Ronnie D's The winter sun would be down, the sky casting a purple light over the brick ed hard against the granite piers beneath us Upriver was the iron trestle the Boston & Maine would take into Railroad Square, and beyond that the bridge Jeb and I had run across three years ago My , and I was looking forward to sos, but as we drove into Bradford past its neon-lit fast food shops-Mister Donut, then McDonald's, the car dealershi+p across the street-there was an emptiness somewhere behind my ribs and sternu still when before, in Texas, I'd been running forward

But I liked Ronnie D's I liked hoded and diht came from amber lamps in the walls of the wooden booths and fro Pat Cahill worked slow and steady tapping off glasses of beer, pouring shots of blackberry brandy and pepperister beneath the painting of a nude wo on her elbow, her belly and breasts exposed, a blanket draped over her hip Pat had a long brown beard and hair he tucked behind his ears His voice was low and stony, and he wore black T-shi+rts all year long, and at closing when the lights would come up, the bar crammed with drunk men and women in a so honored, but then Pat would bellow, ”Everyone the fuck out! No!” And we'd drain our drinks and beers and head for the door

By nightfall, the place would be full of people I'd known and not known for years Faces froh school, or men and women I'd seen in the streets They stood crowded at the bar or sat at the cocktail tables or in the booths against the wall that Sah and talk Because he'd lived in this town his entire life, Sam knew far more people than I did Men from his old hockey team, maybe a coworker from the paper, or a friend of his parents or one of his many aunts and uncles and cousins Now and then, one or tould sit in the booth with us for a while as we drank beer after beer Every half hour or so, the cocktail waitress would come by to take another order and she'd start to clear the table, but we'd ask her to leave the empty bottles where they were; for some reason we liked to see evidence of all we drank, as if ere

And it as fun, though back in Texas all that book-learning had seeher part of htful, reasonable and idealistic; in the Northeast again, working construction in Lynn, trying to study at night but losing interest, lifting and drinking with Sahed too loudly or yelled above the crowd, I'd sit up and look over there, expecting to see trouble and ready to ju, though; Ronnie D's was a friendlier bar than those across the river in Haverhill The custoulars who knew each other, and besides, there was Pat to deal with fun, though back in Texas all that book-learning had seeher part of htful, reasonable and idealistic; in the Northeast again, working construction in Lynn, trying to study at night but losing interest, lifting and drinking with Sahed too loudly or yelled above the crowd, I'd sit up and look over there, expecting to see trouble and ready to ju, though; Ronnie D's was a friendlier bar than those across the river in Haverhill The custoulars who knew each other, and besides, there was Pat to deal with

Soo home with a wonize Turn to see the sleeping face of someone I did not know, her brown curly hair on the pillow, or red, or straight and blonde, , hers too, once a leopard-skin outfit I stepped over on hts I'd leave with Sa the river past the closing bars and arettes, laughing, and we'd head under the railroad bridge up River Street past pawnshops and sub shops, a machine shop, a car dealershi+p of repossessed cars, then along the black Merrihway and Howard Johnson's where ait for a table and order eggs and hoht at Ronnie's, the last-call lights up and shi+ning on us like a cop's, Sam and Theresa and I were in a crowd close to the door Pat had switched off the jukebox and now there were only loud, drunken voices, so arette s a short leather jacket and tight jeans, her back to the booth behind her Aon it, and his eyes were on Theresa's ass There was anotheronly this one He had long black hair and wore a black sweater, his sideburns shaved off halfway across his jaw He reo had walked me and Cleary out of a pot party on Seventh and started whaling away on e The waitress had cleared all the bottles away, so now I held a glass of beer and sipped fro, and theto the other, then raised his eyebrows and nodded in the direction of Theresa's ass, and I leaned forward and du the button to some rusty old machine whose functions were si up now, yelling, his face dripping, but he was the firstpart that touched the next I don't reotten into it with a tall ht windbreaker at the bar and with one hand under thefast and hollering and ere all outside, two cruisers pulling up to , this raucous band of people I only sahen drunk

The nextabout it The shock in the e And why shouldn't he feel that? What was so wrong about just looking at Theresa's ass? As long as he was quiet about it, and she didn't see him do it and so didn't feel objectified and violated, rong with that? Didn't I look at women like that all the daain, there was this alotten , that noas stuck with i but deeper and deeper trouble

SOMETIMES I'D sleep in Pop's spare bedroootten married, and they moved back into the sa Peggy he seemed happier now He said it was because they lived the same way; they were both writers and readers and runners Eachafter he attended the 7 am Mass down at the Sacred Hearts church, he would write at the desk in their bedroom, and she would work in the study upstairs Then they'd each go for a run or fast walk, soolden retriever naree in writing and Pop taught his classes It was like seeing him live with one of his buddies, the ones like Metrakos rote or studied, then worked out, but now he had this in his wife, and I was happy for him It looked like this time he'd be able to stay un to acquire an arsenal of handguns Besides the 38 snub-nose, he noned a 380 seer that easily fit into the front pocket of his jeans He even bought Peggy a lady's-size nickel-plated Saturday Night Special, a revolver he insisted she keep with her whenever she drove up to the University of New Haust before, Jeb and I pitched in and bought hiun It was silver and had srips, and he kept it in a leather holster on a closet shelf with the others

One weekend that fall, Pop and Peggy were invited by the novelist Thoht at their cabin up in the White Mountains Pop asked , and I said yes Maybe that weekend I wanted to get away from the pull of the barroo into mindlessness, the naked body I'd soet away froht, or perhaps it was just clarity I was looking for, a little distance from the hard physical labor of the week,abstract political theory at night, s come Friday and Saturday

On the two-hour drive north, I sat in the back of Peggy's Subaru while Pop drove and she sat beside him, and they talked I learnedcalled a National Book Award for his novel The Hair of Harold Roux, The Hair of Harold Roux, that with his own hands he had built this cabin one summer with his wife of many years that with his own hands he had built this cabin one summer with his wife of hway and drove miles down a rutted dirt road, thick stands of pine and hardwood on either side of it At the end was the Williaable roofed with cedar shi+ngles, and beyond it a sloping field of wild grass, then deep woods that rose into a ht of the afternoon, it was purple and blue on the horizon, and Thoreet us They arht away I liked them both Tom Williams wore a faded work shi+rt and jeans and work boots His face was clean-shaven, deeply lined and handso the hand of Trevor D or Doug or Jeb, the thick pad of calluses just beneath the base of the fingers, the kind you get frouns, and soon he and Tho card Willia the 380, a seer that allowed you to e back, the smell of cordite in the air But when it wasand impulsive, so I shot it slowly and deliberately I aihted down its short barrel, the playing card a white rectangle in green, and I held

”He could've been a Marine, too,” Willia on a ho a pipe The sun on the trees had darkened, and I felt pride from what Willia the card with three of theazine, then pulled back on the slide and checked the chamber to make sure it was eht me when I was a boy, and I could see the pride in his eyes too, but it was as if there was a fishhook lodged in my skin somewhere: Williams's words, could've been a Marine could've been a Marine They echoed up against soh I had plans for graduate school in less than a year, there was the feeling I had done very little withmuch Could've been Could've been Like it was too late Like I'd been letting chances to do things slip by Like it was too late Like I'd been letting chances to do things slip by

My father reloaded the 380, stepped past me, and said, ”Rape who, motherfucker?” Then he raised the weapon and fired six rounds in seconds, the reports echoing out over the field of wild grass into the trees

”hello? hello? hello?” Aat us thirty feet to the right, our target just on the other side of as a trail Pop lowered the pistol and Williauns and ammo and went inside

We ate at a weathered oak table on a se, black now against a red sky Dinner was grilled steaks and French bread and tossed green salad I sat beside Pop and Peggy, who sat across froh a lot of it was between Peggy and Elizabeth, and Willialasses of red wine, and we passed around the bread and broke it off with our hands I kept looking at Elizabeth and Torown already, and I thought about the of all that work, the joy in it I ate the tender meat and sipped my wine; so many of the writers froone on to sleep with other people, theirpiles of ash they left behind It was so about for years But the Williamses were obviously different, and I did not know till that moment that I had assu inside them-maybe the dark side of their creativity-simply made them unstable

Before dessert I thanked Thoo sleep outside souest rooht, borrowed one of their flashlights, and carrieddown the path into the trees

The trail descended alongside the field for a while, then cut south and rose steeply into the pines The bea hard and had no idea why I was doing this The trail began to level off onto a s of flat rocks Between two of the pine sprouted there, and it looked as good a place as I would find in the dark, and I set , untied my work boots, and climbed in I lay back, but when the rabbed one of ainst it I reached up and switched off the flashlight

The air was cool It sh the trees I could hear y or Elizabeth They had to be at least a half mile away, but they sounded much closer than that I closed my eyes and listened to the voices in the trees Only the men's now Pop and Tho, had both found so it They seeood at? Why was I even here? Not in the White Mountains but here, on good at? Why was I even here? Not in the White Mountains but here, on earth earth?

Then I saw Steve Lynch go doith one punch, the two frat boys in the alley There was Bill Connolly's nephew I see, Sa up each tins were there, weren't they? What was stopping me? I'd learned that to hesitate was to freeze and to freeze was not to fight, and so now I never hesitated; ht it to, but lying there inbetween two stretches of rock, it was clear it was tiain, that there had to be a fine balance between passivity and reckless action, and