Gowanus Crossing/A Life Along the Canal Chapter 5

On Monday, Americo shuffles into Malachy’s classroom, his mind whirling back to the lot and the dead ... He flashes on the filthy rubber dolls New York City sanitation men, for some stupid reason, tied to the radiators of their Mack trucks. No torsos, just the heads. He rubs the grease streaks on the corduroy pants he’d tried to clean. It was real, but already he couldn't picture it. An hour later, the nun orders him to stand in the dunce corner at the back of the classroom.
Punishment for behaving like a “vulgarian.”
At 11: 00 A.M. Malachy steps into the hall. Shouts and shrieks erupt all around him. Ernie fires a spitball, a strike that splats against his head. Another boy follows, then the rest. Americo stands there, Saint Stephen pierced by arrows, until the bombardment slows under the weight of his stillness.
Two rows away, Jenny Wilcox whispers.
"I take good notes. Can you read my writing?"
"I…I can't see that good."
Americo glances at the door and crosses quickly to Jenny's desk. He leans over, conscious of the perfume in her hair, the white satin brassiere strap visible under her blouse. He squints at the notebook. The letters, written in purple ink, are plump, elaborately curved, the lower case i's and j's dotted with circles and miniature hearts.
"I can read that easy. Thanks."
Conscious of his crooked front teeth, the worn-down heels on his shoes, the scrim of acne on his cheeks. Americo’s eyes flick to the door. Jenny scribbles in the margin of her book.
"Thanks for loaning me your records. Can you carry my record player for me this afternoon? It’s heavy!"
She’d lugged the boxy Victrola to class. Our Lady of Peace School had two portable record players and 18 classrooms. Malachy was preparing for the Christmas talent show. She wanted a dozen students waltzing gracefully around the stage while the rest hummed Rigoletto’s La Donna e Mobile in perfect harmony, and stalked the rehearsals in her black and brown habit. A Grim Reaper, slapping, punching and pulling hair.
"I...don't think..." Americo begins.
Jenny smiles, enjoying him squirm.
"PLEASE!!" she scribbles in big purple letters.
He wants to say yes.
Without knowing why, he blurts, "I can’t. I .... got to study.”
Hurt flashes in Jenny's blue eyes. Quickly overlaid with anger.
"I’ll get somebody else. You jerk!”
At 3:00 p.m., the dismissal bell clangs. Malachy waits until most of the students pass into the hall.
’Merico, Boy-Boy, ” she pronounces the names with repugnance. “Back to your desks."
Eboli, Naples, Sicily…Fiji, Mauritius, Borneo. What is the difference? The Archbishop needs missionaries not grammarians.
Boy-Boy—Shaky Manzo’s kid brother--slams down his books. A head shorter than Americo, Boy-Boy looks like Fabian with green eyes and long lashes. He wears mohair sweaters, pants with buckles in the back, leather jackets, featherweight shoes.
Malachy opens the storage closet, hands out brooms and dustpans.
"Preparation," she says, "for your futures."
Half-an-hour later, Boy-Boy throws down his broom andwalks out
“Fuck her!” he snarls.
Americo stands, cradling a broom, at the fifth-floor window. In the distance, the Gowanus is a sparkling green ribbon winding among the lofts and factories. He hears the squeals of the last departing students. Feels his distance from them. On the sidewalk, he picks out Jenny and Lorraine, their blonde pony tails trailing down the backs of green stadium coats. Jenny is lugging the record player. Lorraine carries her purse and school books.
He spots his cousin JuJu, black fedora squashed on his pumpkin head, sitting on a stoop across from the school. JuJu gets up, flicks his cigarette at a passing car, and hurries across the street. He turns and waves, crooked grin on his face. Boy-Boy hurries after him.
JuJu says something. Americo can see the fedora bobbing. Jenny shakes her head.
“No!”
JuJu flings out his arms in exasperation. Americo clenches his fists.
Now a third punk, a kid from President Street called “Catman” angles across the street cutting in front of the girls. JuJu struts alongside Jenny, hands in the pockets of his leather trench coat. Suddenly, he lunges for the record player's handle. Americo sees his fingers curl around Jenny's hand.
“Jerk!” Americo shouts
Lorraine begins pounding—not too hard, Americo notices—on JuJu’s broad back. He jerks the record player just as Jenny lets go. It crashes to the ground and pops open. 45 rpm records roll along the sidewalk. JuJu kneels to pick up the records. Catman follows a few disks as they rolled, like pitched pennies, down the sidewalk. He stomps a transparent yellow 45—Americo’s 1954 copy of "The Wind" by the Diablos.
“When the cool summer breeze sends a chill down my spine,
And I long for my love deep within...”

A white Grand Prix screeches to a halt. Shaky jumps out. He motions for Boy-Boy to get in the car. JuJu, hesitates then dodges, quick for his size. Shaky kicks at him, misses, then goes after Catman, who darts between two cars and escapes down the block. Shaky picks up Jenny’s record player—Americo can see him gesturing—and Boy-Boy and the two girls get into the car.
He pushes against his broom, moving up and down the narrow aisles, sweeping everything before him.
"Guzzi, are you deaf?"
Americo jerks around..
"No Sister."
“Just dumb. Clean the blackboards and out of my sight!"
Americo considers telling Malachy what he’d found. He'd felt the words hot in his throat all afternoon, afraid if he opened his mouth the secret would spill out. Yesterday, in church, Saint Luke’s parable of an infant "wrapped in swaddling clothes" had struck him like a blow. Only his was a shroud. He clamps his mouth shut, wipes the boards and runs out the door.

                                                           * * * * *
Five blocks away, Jenny Wilcox lies on her back in her rumpled bed staring at the photos taped to the cracked plaster ceiling. She places a stack of 45s on the record changer, then begins scribbling in her diary.
“Shaky’s car is so cool!! He’s really cute for an older guy!”
She can’t think of anything else to say and drops the book. Something is wrong with the record player. It’s broken, she thinks bleakly.
“‘Merico! You immature jerk!” He makes her so mad. She picks up the diary and scribbles, “You and your stupid books!”
She stretches and yawns. Five P.M.. Already dark. She switches on the radio.
"Murray the K” and his “swinging soiree,” was whispering about submarine race-watching. Spinning records, “red, hot and blue all the way.” A constellation of stars—Frankie Avalon, Fabian Forte, Paul Anka, Ricky Nelson, Tab Hunter, Frankie Valli—smile down at her. Jenny was sure the guys would dig her if they got to know her, but, like the song, they were.
“So near yet so far away.”
She imagines a hot date with Shaky. He did wear his hair just like Fabian. What would she wear? She’d order a lobster at the fancy place in Sheepshead Bay. How far would she go? Wouldn’t Lorraine be jealous!
The doorbell rings. She ignores it. Jehovah’s Witnesses. The lady upstairs complaining about her music. Boring. Jenny lived in a broken home, a world of frayed slips and graying underwear hidden beneath her brown Our Lady of Peace uniform. She hadn’t seen her father in ten years and kept seeing him in every older man walking along Fourth Avenue.
She’d thought about becoming a teacher, falling in love, building something together, but she was only sixteen (“The prettiest, loveliest girl I’ve ever seen.”), and was waiting for that special guy (“…The one with the wavy hair.…”) who would sweep her off her feet, take her from South Brooklyn to the city or Philadelphia, (“The kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol.”) Even Memphis where Elvis was.
A key turns in the front door, ending her reverie. Dorothy Wilcox is working the afternoon shift at the Mrs. Wagner’s Pie Company and won’t be home until 8:00 P.M. This had to be Reynolds, her mom’s boyfriend, half-soused. Jenny jumps up, pushes the door to her room closed. Throws the latch.
“Jen you home?”
It’s Reynolds. Definitely.
“Shit.”
A moment later, she hears him piss loudly. The bathroom is next to her room. Doesn’t bother to flush., The door of the refrigerator opening; the clink of beer bottles, A cap skittering like a hockey puck into the sink. Reynolds smacking his lips.
Reynolds runs the coconut custard line at the pie factory. He’s kind of cute, with freckles and a shiny duck-tail haircut. Unfortunately, he front teeth that had come in sideways, almost perpendicular to the rest. He hissed when he spoke like a cartoon snake.
He stands outside her door.
“Your mother home?”
"You know she’s working late today.”
“I forgot.”
“Yeah right,” Jenny thinks.
“Want a beer?”
"No.”
A nonsense rhyme her father used to sing when he’d push her on the kiddie swings in Prospect Park flashes through her head.
“See-saw. Knock at the door.
Who’s there?
Grandpa.
What do you want?
A glass of beer.
Where’s your money?
In my pocket.
Where’s your pocket?
In my pants.
Where’s your pants?
I left ‘em home.
Get out of here. You dirty bum!”
Jenny feels like crying.
“Hey pussycat, brought you a present.”
He rattles the doorknob.
She jumps.
“I’m not dressed.”
Unconsciously, she smoothes the pink baby doll pajamas her mother had given her for Valentine’s Day. A moment later, Reynolds uses a butter knife to flip the latch open. He blinks, then grinned as his eyes adjusted to the light.
“Surprise!”
Reynolds is holding a blue jewelry box in his hand.
“I got this special for you at Mays’ on Fulton Street.”
“What about Mom?”
“Sheee’d want you to have it.” The snake hisses.
He sits on the edge of the bed a moment, then twists toward her, putting his hands under her shoulders, thumbs running over her breasts as he tries to lift and push her against the wall. His hands leave a slug’s trail of grime under her arms.
“ Move over! You’re hogging the bed.”
Jenny giggles, squirms away from him. Reynolds opens the box pulls out a silver chain. A jewel flashes in the lamplight.
Wow! Is that a diamond.
"Just like a diamond. Called a Marquisite.”
“It’s beautiful!. Thank you!”
She kisses him modestly on the cheek.
“Here let me put it on for you.”
Hot breath hissing like a radiator, Reynolds puts the necklace around Jenny’s neck. He reaches up and grabs a mirror from her dresser, holds it for her to see.
“Looks great!” .
She smiles, imagining it's Fabian's breath on her neck…Fabian’s hands in the mirror sliding under her pajama top
Reynolds drops the mirror, cups her breasts with his hands, buries his face in her hair, bites her neck with his sideways teeth. Jenny lay still, saying not a word as Reynolds plunges his blunt fingers into her pajama bottoms, rubs, then roughly strips her. Quickly, he’s out of his pants and boxer shorts, groaning as he spreads her long legs and mounts her.
Jenny clutches the necklace in her hand and stares at the ceiling. The stars smile down at her.