"All right," I would say.
Then I took the reading lamp, crawled under the blanket, pulled the pillow under there, and read each new book, propping it against the pillow, under the quilt. It got very hot, the lamp got hot, and I had trouble breathing. I would lift the quilt for air.
"What's that? Do I see a light? Henry, are your lights out?"
I would quickly lower the quilt again and wait until I heard my father snoring.
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.
I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the overheated reading lamp. Reading all those good lines while suffocating. It was magic.
And my father had found a job, and that was magic for him…
36
Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had graduated but they were replaced by another group of seniors with sports cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronted by them. They left me alone, they ignored me. They were busy with the girls. They never spoke to the poor guys in or out of class.
About a week into my second semester I talked to my father over dinner.
"Look," I said, "it's hard at school. You're giving me 50 cents a week allowance. Can't you make it a dollar?"
"A dollar?"
"Yes."
He put a forkful of sliced pickled beets into his mouth and chewed. Then he looked at me from under his curled-up eyebrows,
"If I gave you a dollar a week that would mean 52 dollars a year, that would mean I would have to work over a week on my job just so you could have an allowance."
I didn't answer. But I thought, my god, if you think like that, item by item, then you can't buy anything: bread, watermelon, newspapers, flour, milk or shaving cream. I didn't say any more because when you hate, you don't beg…
Those rich guys like to dart their cars in and out, swiftly, sliding up, burning rubber, their cars glistening in the sunlight as the girls gathered around. Classes were a joke, they were all going somewhere to college, classes were just a routine laugh, they got good grades, you seldom saw them with books, you just saw them burning more rubber, gunning from the curb with their cars full of squealing and laughing girls. I watched them with my 50 cents in my pocket. I didn't even know how to drive a car.
Meanwhile the poor and the lost and the idiots continued to flock around me. I had a place I liked to eat under the football grandstand. I had my brown bag lunch with my two bologna sandwiches. They came around, "Hey, Hank, can I eat with you?"
"Get the fuck out of here! I'm not going to tell you twice!"
Enough of this kind had attached themselves to me already. I didn't much care for any of them: Baldy, Jimmy Hatcher, and a thin gangling Jewish kid, Abe Mortenson. Mortenson was a straight-A student but one of the biggest idiots in school. He had something radically wrong with him. Saliva kept forming in his mouth but instead of spitting on the ground to get rid of it he spit into his hands. I don't know why he did it and I didn't ask. I didn't like to ask. I just watched him and I was disgusted. I went home with him once and I found out how he got straight A's. His mother made him stick his nose into a book right away and she made him keep it there. She made him read all of his school books over and over, page after page. "He must pass his exams," she told me. It never occurred to her that maybe the hooks were wrong. Or that maybe it didn't matter. I didn't ask her.
It was like grammar school all over again. Gathered around me were the weak instead of the strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers instead of the winners. It looked like it was my destiny to travel in their company through life. That didn't bother me so much as the fact that I seemed irresistible to these dull idiot fellows. I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted to live alone, I felt best being alone, cleaner, yet I was not clever enough to rid myself of them. Maybe they were my masters: fathers in another form. In any event, it was hard to have them hanging around while I was eating my bologna sandwiches.
37
But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the neighborhood, Gene, who was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson, who had had one professional fight (he'd lost). I was over at Gene's one afternoon smoking cigarettes with him when Harry Gibson showed up with two pairs of boxing gloves. Gene and I were smoking with his two older brothers, Larry and Dan.
Harry Gibson was cocky. "Anybody want to try me?" he asked. Nobody said anything. Gene's oldest brother, Larry, was about 22. He was the biggest, but he was kind of timid and subnormal. He had a huge head, he was short and stocky, really well-built, but everything frightened him. So we all looked at Dan who was the next oldest, since Larry said, "No, no I don't want to fight." Dan was a musical genius, he had almost won a scholarship but not quite. Anyhow, since Larry had passed up Harry's challenge, Dan put the gloves on with Harry Gibson.
Harry Gibson was a son-of-a-bitch on shining wheels. Even the sun glinted off his gloves in a certain way. He moved with precision, aplomb and grace. He pranced and danced around Dan. Dan held up his gloves and waited. Gibson's first punch streaked in. It cracked like a rifle shot. There were some chickens in a pen in the yard and two of them jumped into the air at the sound. Dan spilled backwards. He was stretched out on the grass, both of his arms spread out like some cheap Christ.
Larry looked at him and said, "I'm going into the house." He walked quickly to the screen door, opened it and was gone.
We walked over to Dan. Gibson stood over him with a little grin on his face. Gene bent down, lifted Dan's head up a bit. "Dan? You all right?"
Dan shook his head and slowly sat up.
"Jesus Christ, the guy's carrying a lethal weapon. Get these gloves off me!"
Gene unlaced one glove and I got the other. Dan stood up and walked toward the back door like an old man. "I'm gonna lay down…" He went inside.
Harry Gibson picked up the gloves and looked at Gene. "How about it, Gene?"
Gene spit in the grass. "What the hell you trying to do, knock off the whole family?"
"I know you're the best fighter, Gene, but I'll go easy on you anyhow."
Gene nodded and I laced on his gloves for him. I was a good glove man.
They squared off. Gibson circled around Gene, getting ready. He circled to the right, then he circled to the left. He bobbed and he weaved. Then he stepped in, gave Gene a hard left jab. It landed right between Gene's eyes. Gene backpedaled and Gibson followed. When he got Gene up against the chicken pen he steadied him with a soft left to the forehead and then cracked a hard right to Gene's left temple. Gene slid along the chicken wire until he hit the fence,.then he slid along the fence, covering up. He wasn't attempting to fight back. Dan came out of the house with a piece of ice wrapped in a rag. He sat on the porch steps and held the rag to his forehead. Gene retreated along the fence. Harry got him in the corner between the fence and the garage. He looped a left to Gene's gut and when Gene bent over he straightened him with a right uppercut. I didn't like it. Gibson wasn't going easy on Gene like he'd promised. I got excited.
"Hit that fucker back, Gene! He's yellow! Hit him!"
Gibson lowered his gloves, looked at me and walked over.
"What did you say, punk?"
"I was rooting my man on," I said. Dan was over getting the gloves off Gene.
"Did I hear something about being 'yellow'?"
"You said you were going to go easy on him. You didn't. You're hitting him with every shot you've got."
"You callin' me a liar?"
"I'm saying you don't keep your word."