Townie_ A Memoir Part 6

Cleary and I hadn't been there since we'd gotten kicked out and beat on, but there were enough people we would get lost in the crowd and the noise and the smoke. It was too crowded, though, too loud, too smoky, the windows open to let in the winter air, the radiators steaming and too hot to touch. Then Billy G., a scrawny, sunken-chested collector who had a room one story below, he took a syringe and drew blood from his thin white arm and started shooting it at whoever was closest. One girl, a frizzy-headed Dominican, ran screaming into the bathroom, Billy G.'s blood dripping off her chin, and that's when Cleary and I left.

Close to Pleasant Spa and Columbia Park, beyond the stone steps of the Jewish temple, a man was walking toward us on the sidewalk. We'd been watching him come from a long way off. He had hair that fell past his shoulders, his hands inside the pockets of his jean jacket. He wore heavy work boots and was walking fast, then he was under the streetlamp and I could see his hair was red, scruff on his cheeks and chin.

Cleary poked me in the arm. "That's the f.u.c.kin' van van guy." Cleary picked up his pace. "Hey! 'Member us? You owe us ten guy." Cleary picked up his pace. "Hey! 'Member us? You owe us ten bucks. bucks."

Everything always seemed to happen so fast, like a fuse was forever lit and you never knew when a bomb would actually blow. The man had Cleary on his back against the granite steps of the temple, one hand around Cleary's throat, a big fist raised high over his shoulder. "You want to die? Do you want to f.u.c.kin' die die tonight?" tonight?"

There was something wrong with his voice, something jagged and wired about it, and I thought he might be high on angel dust or some kind of speed. His raised fist was poised in the air where I could have just reached out and grabbed it, yanked his arm back, done something to him after that, anything. But I did nothing. Cleary said nothing. And soon the man was walking away from us down Main Street, his big hands back in his pockets, Cleary sitting up and rubbing his back.

Now, a year later, my body changed, my friends shooting pool not far away, the same man was walking in with his friends after hockey and his eyes caught mine, and I said, "Where's our ten bucks?"

I could feel my heart against my sternum, but I felt strangely calm, almost confident.

"f.u.c.k off, kid. I don't even know know you." And he brushed past me, looking back at me over his shoulder like I had just wronged him deeply. He looked away to order bowling shoes at the counter with his buddies, and I stood there staring at him. I believed he didn't recognize me, but there was a nagging itch that I should go up to the counter and do more, a slowed-time feeling a fuse was lit inside you." And he brushed past me, looking back at me over his shoulder like I had just wronged him deeply. He looked away to order bowling shoes at the counter with his buddies, and I stood there staring at him. I believed he didn't recognize me, but there was a nagging itch that I should go up to the counter and do more, a slowed-time feeling a fuse was lit inside me, me, its low flame sparking at its own pace, but this wasn't the one. its low flame sparking at its own pace, but this wasn't the one.

I walked back to my friends, and I could feel something coming farther down the road I just barely sensed I'd been training myself for all along.

LIFE IS what happened between workouts. When I wasn't down in the bas.e.m.e.nt on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons working first my chest, then shoulders, back, and arms, ignoring my legs because I never wore shorts, even in the summer, then I was thinking thinking about workouts, reading about workouts, reading Muscle Builder Muscle Builder magazine I now subscribed to, eating a lot of eggs and tuna fish, so much my mother began to complain about the cost. I began to think of getting some kind of job. magazine I now subscribed to, eating a lot of eggs and tuna fish, so much my mother began to complain about the cost. I began to think of getting some kind of job.

By the spring of 1976, I could bench-press just under 200 pounds; I could do deep parallel-bar dips with 40-or 50-pound dumbbells hooked to my training belt. I could do rep after rep of wide-grip chin-ups, pulling myself so high the bar touched my chest. As the weather warmed and the snow melted, the streets smelling like mud and rotting leaves and twigs, I left my leather jacket at home and began to go out in a T-shirt; I had muscles now. They weren't big, not nearly as big as Sam Dolan's, or even Jimmy Quinn's, but enough that people glanced at my chest and upper arms, took in my shoulders. There was the feeling that a good thing was happening to me, that all my hard work was bringing about a good thing.

And I liked how much energy I had all the time, how I rarely got sick, though one weekday morning in May, I woke up with a fever and stayed in bed, and that morning Jimmy Quinn got stabbed.

Artie Doucette did it. I didn't know him well, though I'd seen him out behind the M and L wings smoking on the grates. He wore a brown leather jacket and had long black hair and pale skin. He was stocky-looking and was always talking loud and swearing too much, and he had black sideburns he let grow below his ears. Like a lot of people, he wore a folded Buck knife in a snapped leather case at his belt.

Since the weekend, word had gotten around about what Doucette had said, that Jimmy's girlfriend, April S., was a s.l.u.t. This got back to Jimmy on Monday and for three days he'd been looking all over the school for Doucette, who'd learned of this and stayed home. By Thursday, though, he could hide no longer. He had to get back to school, and that morning he took the bus. When it pulled up behind the M and L wings just before seven-thirty, the sun rising in a blue sky, hundreds of kids standing around or starting to stream inside, Jimmy was waiting. It was Daley who told me what happened next, that Doucette stepped off the bus and scanned the crowd and saw Quinn pushing past people to get to him, that Doucette ran, begging Quinn to leave him alone.

"I didn't mean nothin'! Jimmy, I didn't mean-"

Quinn grabbed the back of Doucette's leather jacket with both hands, and Doucette jerked free and spun around, the sun flashing off the five-inch blade just before he drove it into Jimmy's hip.

"All the way in," Daley said. "Right to the f.u.c.kin' handle." the way in," Daley said. "Right to the f.u.c.kin' handle."

Then Artie Doucette was running through the student parking lot, and Jimmy was down, his blood pulsing onto the concrete.

Daley helped Jimmy stand. His pant leg was soaked, blood running down his leg into his boot, and Quinn pressed his hand to the wound and limped through the crowded corridors all the way to the gym and Mr. Scanlon's office, the man who coached Jimmy on the baseball team. He called an ambulance and later we learned that Doucette's knife had just missed one of Jimmy's kidneys, that Jimmy Quinn, tall handsome crazy Jimmy Quinn, the one who had beaten up that grown man in front of Sam's house, had almost died.

For over a week Sam and Kevin Daley and Big Jeff Chabot and I walked the halls looking for any of Doucette's friends. One afternoon after lunch we found one, a skinny kid with long red hair and buckteeth. Daley backhanded his face and knocked him into a wall of lockers and the kid fell to one knee and Daley leaned close and pointed his finger an inch from his face. "You tell Doucette he's f.u.c.king dead, dead, all right? You f.u.c.kin' all right? You f.u.c.kin' tell tell him." Then he kicked him in the ribs, and we turned and went looking for more. him." Then he kicked him in the ribs, and we turned and went looking for more.

I don't know if it was having the others beside me, or that we were united in our rage, but I felt little fear, only a heart-thumping, dry-mouthed desire to hurt somebody, really hurt hurt someone. someone.

JIMMY STAYED home the rest of the school year, and it seemed a long, long time before we saw him again.

It was June, one of those hot days when you could smell the Merrimack River all over town-the faint smell of sewage and diesel and drying mud, of dead fish and creosote, of rusty iron and the melted plastic of some chemicals we couldn't name. It was after school, and Sam drove the two of us to Quinn's big family house on Main Street. His mother answered the door. She looked happy to see us and led us through cool dim rooms to the backyard where Jimmy lay in a lawn chair in the sun.

His hair was longer than I'd ever seen it, and his skin was tanned a deep brown. He wore a tank top and cutoffs. When he saw us, he smiled and grabbed the walking stick at his side and stood.

"Hey, Sam. Andre."

"Hey, Jimmy," Sam said. "You look good."

He did, and he didn't. He was handsome as ever, but he'd lost muscle in his chest and shoulders and arms. We stood there awhile. I don't remember what we talked about, just Jimmy nodding and smiling, his eyes on the sunlit trees of his backyard, the gra.s.s, his lawn chair in the middle of it. He had both hands around his walking stick, and I could see where the bark had been shaved away with a blade. If Quinn was planning to get Doucette for what he'd done to him, he didn't look it. Instead, he looked diminished by it, not by what Doucette had done, but that it could happen, that he could actually die before he got out of high school.

We didn't stay long. Sam and I had gotten jobs washing dishes, and our shift started soon. Jimmy laughed at something Sam said, then he walked back to his lawn chair, most of his limp gone, but the big stick still in his hand like something he wasn't quite ready to do without.

CAPTAIN CHRIS'S was a family restaurant overlooking the Merrimack on Water Street. On Friday and Sat.u.r.day nights, it was crowded from five till closing, and it was one of the places Pop would take us to on our Sunday visits with him. It was air-conditioned, and the floors were carpeted and the tables were covered with rose-colored linens and heavy silver, Muzak playing over the sound system. From wherever you sat, you could see through the tinted windows the river moving by thirty feet below, and now I worked there in a kitchen that was hot and loud and crowded. Between the flaming stoves and the serving counter were four cooks, men in white who never stopped moving. They called out orders to each other, filled gleaming plates with baked haddock or stuffed lobster or prime rib, dropping a cruet of tomato and lemon onto the side, a sprig of parsley, then shouting for Doris or Ann Marie or Nancy to pick up! pick up!

And these women my mother's age, professional waitresses like Sam's mother, were dressed in a uniform of skirt and ap.r.o.n and white soft-soled shoes, and they would whisk the plates from under the warming lights of the counter onto loaded trays they'd heave over one shoulder, then punch open the swinging doors for the muted cool of the restaurant. Busboys would roll in a stainless steel cart, its rubber tub full of dirty dishes they'd quickly sc.r.a.pe, then load onto plastic trays, pushing them onto the conveyor belt for one of us to spray down before it entered the machine and came out steaming clean on the other side for another dishwasher to heave and carry back through the side doors to the busing station where he'd stack plates on a shelf, cups and gla.s.ses, sort knives and forks and spoons into the right trays, then push the empty tub into a stack of others in the corner and run back into the kitchen to do it again and again and again.

In the back were full-size stainless steel sinks for pots and pans and that's where Sam spent most of his time in an ap.r.o.n scrubbing bits of fish and potatoes, pasta, grease, and meat off of the bottoms and sides of ma.s.sive containers. My job was to either load the machine or unload it, and I liked how hard it was to do well, how fast and efficiently you had to move, how quickly I broke out in a sweat and how much like a workout it became. That summer, the man who sprayed down the dishes and worked the machine was a drifter named Charlie Pierce.

Tall and scrawny, his arms scarred with blue tattoos, he was deep into his fifties and had thin gray hair and a coa.r.s.e voice, though we never heard it much because he rarely smiled or spoke to anyone. Whenever there was a lull in the shift, he'd take a cigarette break out on the back stoop. He'd pull off his white ap.r.o.n and drape it over the railing, then light up a Raleigh and squint out at the river, exhaling smoke through his nose, taking his time.

One night very late, the cooks gone, the last of the waitresses too, it was just me and Sam and Charlie Pierce. Sam and I were wiping down the steel counters, and Charlie was mopping the floor. The transistor radio near the sink was playing, "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

We kept working and the singer kept singing over and over how she's leaving on a jet plane and Charlie straightened up from his mopping and shouted, "So f.u.c.kin' leave leave then!!" then!!"

Sam and I started to laugh, but Charlie was staring at us wide-eyed, like he'd just been insulted and couldn't we see that? He shook his head and went back to his mopping, swearing under his breath, mumbling to himself.

IT WAS a Sat.u.r.day night in July, the place filled to capacity, and the kitchen was a loud, steaming machine of cooks calling out orders, the sizzling of hot oil, the swinging of the kitchen doors, Charlie spraying down the dishes before they went into the washer. There was the hollow clank of pots Sam was scrubbing out back, the chatter of the waitresses as they loaded their trays, some of them balancing three full platters of food up one arm, and the busboys were wheeling in carts of dirty dishes and were so backed up I had to move from the rear of the machine where I was unloading it to the front. The busboy had already run to his station to go set up recently cleared tables, and there were two full carts of food-streaked dishes, gla.s.ses, cups, and silverware, and I grabbed plates and bowls and began sc.r.a.ping them clean, sliding them into plastic trays and pushing them onto the belt for Charlie to spray.

"Slow down, kid." His voice came from behind the rack of plastic trays, and I could only see his waist and hands as he sprayed down the dishes I'd just pushed to him. down, kid." His voice came from behind the rack of plastic trays, and I could only see his waist and hands as he sprayed down the dishes I'd just pushed to him.

"I can't, we're backed up." I dropped a salad bowl into the loaded tray, then shoved it under the rack onto the belt and a hot sting shot across my arms and chest, water dripping from my elbows, the scalding water Charlie Pierce had just sprayed at me, and I was rushing around the corner to get him, the head cook dropping a sautee pan and jumping between us, another cook there too, then an older waitress with gray hair in a bun, Charlie saying, "I'll kill him. So help me, I will take that kid's life. I will take his life."

The head cook sent him outside to cool off. He put Sam in his place at the machine, then he turned to me and said, "And you, hothead, calm the f.u.c.k down." In seconds the kitchen was back to normal and I was pushing loaded trays to Sam, my heart still going, and even though Charlie's words were in my head, I wasn't afraid.

After smoking two or three slow cigarettes out on the stoop, Charlie came back in and relieved Sam, and we worked the rest of the shift without a word to him or from him.

Five years later, standing in my father's small campus house he shared with his third wife, I saw a photograph of Charlie Pierce in The Boston Globe The Boston Globe. It was a mug shot, and he was looking into the camera with the same expression I'd seen before, as if he'd been deeply insulted and couldn't we all see that? I read the article below him, learned that he lay dying of cancer in prison and was confessing to over thirty years of murdering children. He was telling the police where he'd buried two bodies in Lawrence, one of a ten-year-old boy he said he'd raped and killed the summer of 1976, the summer he worked with us at Captain Chris's Restaurant down on Water Street overlooking the brown and swirling Merrimack River.

IN THE seventies, the only gyms were the ones we read about in Muscle Builder Muscle Builder magazine, iron gyms in Southern California where the professional bodybuilders trained. There was the Y down near GAR Park, but the dues were expensive, and besides, from the outside it was a cinderblock box with few windows and looked like a prison, the only other place where I'd heard men regularly lifted weights. magazine, iron gyms in Southern California where the professional bodybuilders trained. There was the Y down near GAR Park, but the dues were expensive, and besides, from the outside it was a cinderblock box with few windows and looked like a prison, the only other place where I'd heard men regularly lifted weights.

Connolly's Gym was down near Railroad Square, a few blocks north of the river on Grant Street. It was on the first floor of an old shoe factory that must've been turned into a store at one time because there was no front wall, just floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto Grant and an empty lot surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. On the other side, weeds had grown up between cracks in the asphalt, and there were a few empty oil drums, a stack of mattresses, an upside-down shopping cart.

Sam and I went down there hoping to see a weight-training gym like the kind we'd only read about, but when we walked into the hot open s.p.a.ce, the carpet blue and commercial-thin, the walls whitewashed and still smelling like paint, we saw just two weight benches not much better than what I had in my bas.e.m.e.nt. I almost turned to walk out when I saw the barbells; they were the seven-foot-long Olympics the pros used. They weighed 45 pounds and held big black iron plates. Around the corner a kid was working on a heavy bag, and he wore red Everlast hitting gloves, his wrists wrapped with tape. He looked pretty good, throwing fast punches, bobbing and weaving away from the swaying bag.

"Don't shlap it, Shtevie, punch it! Punch Punch it!" Bill Connolly stood a few feet away. He was over forty and an inch shorter than I was, but he had a deep chest and thick upper arms, and we found out later that when he was younger he'd been a professional fighter up and down the East Coast. He was clean-shaven, and whenever he spoke he blinked a lot and all his it!" Bill Connolly stood a few feet away. He was over forty and an inch shorter than I was, but he had a deep chest and thick upper arms, and we found out later that when he was younger he'd been a professional fighter up and down the East Coast. He was clean-shaven, and whenever he spoke he blinked a lot and all his s s's sounded like sh sh's.

He shook our hands and showed us around. There were more weights and another bench, a couple of incline sit-up boards. He looked us up and down. "A middleweight and a welterweight. You boys gonna shign up?"

I had no desire to be a boxer. I was more interested in lifting the black iron weights I saw there, the same kind all the bodybuilders used in California. It was hard to get big if you were boxing, too. Sam may have been more interested than I was. His coach still had him off the weights, but he liked the idea of doing his push-ups and isometrics where other people were working out too.

"Yeah," he said. "We are."

The dues were cheap, and when we handed our dishwashing money over to Bill Connolly, he smiled and thanked us and took a pen and carefully wrote our names in a notebook. He blinked a lot and asked us twice about the spelling. I began to think this came from taking shots to the head, from getting punched over and over again in the brain.

WE STARTED working out there right away. Sam did his 666 push-ups, isometric curls and press-downs, pushing and pulling one hand slowly against the other, flexing his big biceps and horseshoe-shaped triceps. And I borrowed money from my mother she didn't have and sent away to southern California for an advanced bodybuilding course from Franco Columbu, a Mr. Olympia who was also a powerlifting champion and at 185 pounds could bench-press over 500.

Columbu's pamphlets were full of warnings that these were advanced routines for compet.i.tive bodybuilders, but I ignored those. Now, instead of one or two exercises for each body part, I was doing five, four or five sets each, and I moved my workouts from three times a week to six, and they were no longer one hour each but two and a half to three hours. Many times Bill Connolly would walk over and say, "Andre, you're doing too much. You want power, come hit the heavy bag."

But I didn't want to hit the heavy bag. I wanted to be as big as Franco Columbu. I wanted his flaring back, his huge bulbous shoulders, his pecs he could crush a pencil between. For weeks I ignored how tired I was getting, how I was always sore and avoided looking in the mirror because there was never much to see, even less less than a few months earlier. than a few months earlier.

One afternoon, Bobby Schwartz walked into the gym. He was over 200 pounds and six feet tall and wanted to lose some fat around his waist. He worked for his father, Saul, who owned a police supply business up on Washington Street, his shop across from Saldana's bakery that'd been closed down because the owner hired only Puerto Ricans and Dominicans straight from their homelands and was accused of never paying them. Bobby was outgoing and good-looking, and he liked how long I worked out, how skinny I was. He asked if he could be my training partner and I said sure.

One Thursday, after a three-hour workout, we drove up to Bobby's father's store for Bobby's weekly pay. It was a small, musty shop, blue uniform pants and shirts hanging from racks. Under a gla.s.s case were silver handcuffs and black regulation billy clubs. Bobby's father was in the back office sitting at a desk cluttered with catalogues, a telephone, and Rolodex under a flickering fluorescent lamp.

Saul was talking on the phone when we walked in. He nodded at his son, his eyes pa.s.sing over me, then he squeezed the receiver between his neck and shoulder and leaned back and reached into his front pocket and pulled out more cash than I'd ever seen before, fifties, twenties, tens, all in a wad three inches thick. Clipped to his belt was a semiautomatic pistol in a leather holster.

"Yeah?" he said into the phone. "Well f.u.c.k him, too." And he fingered some bills away from the fold and handed them to Bobby. He winked at him, then nodded at me as if we'd known each other a long time. He pushed the money back into his pocket. On the way out of his office, we pa.s.sed another gla.s.s case, this one lined with bra.s.s knuckles and weighted black saps and boot knives.

Bobby saw me looking. "You didn't see those." He smiled. "Cops carry 'em, but they're not 'sposed to."

LATELY, EVEN though the weather was warm, I'd been wearing my leather jacket more. All I ever seemed to do was work out, but whatever muscles I'd begun to build in the last year were getting smaller. I was tired all the time and never felt like walking the two miles down to the gym or even having Bobby pull up to my house in his pickup. Still, I'd go.

One September afternoon, I had gotten to Connolly's ahead of Bobby and lay down on the incline sit up board, waiting for him. Outside there was a soft rain ticking against the gla.s.s. I could hear the transistor radio Bill sometimes played out back where he slept-talk radio, men speaking heatedly about some kind of game. Around the corner where the heavy bag hung, somebody was punching it, the shots coming hard but far apart.

"That's good," Bill's voice said. "That's good, Tommy."

My eyes were closed and I began to drift off, all the sounds becoming one sound I was floating away on.

"Hey."

I sat up. Bill was standing a few feet away looking at me, a pair of red Everlast hitting gloves in his hand. He smiled and held them up. "Get over here."

Then I was around the corner, this part of the gym unfinished, the walls naked brick, the floor concrete. It was cool and damp and smelled like sweat and rust.

"I know you want to be a muscle man, but let me show you a couple things, all right?" Bill was wrapping my wrists with two-inch-wide strips of what felt like Ace bandage. "This is sho you don't hurt yourshelf. Watch me." Bill pulled on the hitting gloves. They were made only for punching the bag, not for sparring, and they fit the hand close to the skin. Sewed inside the palm was a small iron bar. He raised his hand and shot his left fist into the bag. "That's a jab to throw 'em off balance." He threw two more, the bag jerking on its chain, then he threw a punch from his right shoulder, his back foot pivoting on his toes. There was a loud whop whop and the bag swung back three feet and Bill followed it, both hands up at his ears, and he dropped his left shoulder and got off two more quick lefts that jerked the bag to the right. He weaved to the left and shot another right, the bag jolting to a stop. and the bag swung back three feet and Bill followed it, both hands up at his ears, and he dropped his left shoulder and got off two more quick lefts that jerked the bag to the right. He weaved to the left and shot another right, the bag jolting to a stop.

He was breathing hard, sweat breaking out just above his thick eyebrows. "Shee what I'm doin'? The jab shets you up for your combinations. I just threw three jabs, then a right crosh, a double left hook, then a shtraight right. Here, put these on."

I did. I liked the feel of the iron bar in my fists. Bill told me to raise my hands up and to turn more to the side, to put my weight on my back foot. "Now bring your elbows into your midsection and throw a jab."

I punched the bag. It was heavier than it looked. It barely moved.

"Rotate your fist as you throw it. That'll cut your opponent up good. Now jab three times, then throw a right."

I punched the bag three times, then threw the right as hard as I could, an ache jolting up my arm into my shoulder, the bag swaying away from me.

"Good power, but do it with your legs, too, Andre. Just like shwingin' a bat in baseball. You squash the bug with your back foot." I nodded like I knew what he meant. He raised his fists up. "Look at my feet." He threw a slow-motion right, his weight on his back foot, his toes corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with the punch. "A knockout comes from the legs, Andre. You try it."

I stood in front of the bag, my hands up, my body turned sideways to it.

"Put your weight on your back foot."

I did and could feel the concrete under the ball of my foot, my heel up. I threw a right, my back foot like a spring, the bag swinging away nearly as far as when Bill had punched it. It swung back and hit me in the knee. Bill steadied the bag and looked at me. He took in my chest and shoulders, my small arms. "Andre, you are deshieving. You are a lot shtronger than you look. You hit shomebody in the shtreet like that, they're going down."

I nodded and smiled. It'd felt good to hit the bag. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to find other ways to do it.

Bill said, "Give me them gloves."

For the next thirty minutes, he showed me how to throw a left hook, a right hook, the uppercut and straight right. He showed me how to weave away from the bag, then counterpunch. He showed me how to combine different shots, how to set my opponent up with pesky jabs, all while putting myself at the perfect distance to set my feet, then let go with a fight-ending right cross.

I was sweating and breathing hard, and when Bobby came in wanting to get to our chest workout, I was slow to unwrap my hands and wrists. I wanted to learn more, to keep punching that bag that began to look like Tommy J. and Cody Perkins, Clay Whelan, and Dennis Murphy and all the rest, the worn Everlast label on the canvas not letters, but eyes and a nose and a mouthful of teeth.

BOBBY GOT himself a new girlfriend. She had brown eyes and long shiny brown hair and she worked at a restaurant down the river in Newburyport. He started missing a lot of workouts, and I went back to my old routine of three days a week. Right away my energy came back. In a month my shirts were getting tight in the shoulders and upper back again, and before and after every weight workout I did three to four rounds on the heavy bag.

I was looking forward to going to the gym now. I was getting faster and trying new combinations, though I really liked going from the jab, then weaving to the left where I'd throw two left hooks to the body, then a right uppercut, a left hook to the head, then I'd find my range, set my weight down onto the ball of my foot, and throw a right cross that would shoot the bag backwards, Bill usually standing there shaking his head.

"You are are desheivin'. A real shleeper." desheivin'. A real shleeper."

This was brand new, a grown man taking note of me. It felt good, and I wanted more of it.