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about. In the end, I decided that Dad was no more a Communist than a baseball bat.
Joel clomped to the front of the class and began his report. The only words I heard were “It’s not fair.” They repeated in my head like the slapping of a flat tire on the road.
Pete stayed in his seat, his mouth shut tight. Then he yanked off his blue tie and stuffed it into his pocket. Pete Collison, the only Giants fan in Brooklyn.
rang. Kat didn’t even pretend to wait for me.
PETE COLLISON ACCUSED OF BEING A RED KAT BOYER DUMPS BEST FRIEND PETE STRIKES BACK BY BECOMING A GIANTS FAN BROOKLYN FURIOUS
“Pal, it’s a cliché, but in life’s journey, if you don’t take some wrong turns, you aren’t going anywhere.”
But these days your past can mean a bad future.”
I knew perfectly well that Dad told me not to tell anyone about our conversation, but I trusted Kat more than anyone else. And by meeting me, she was trusting me, too. Besides, the questions in my head were too big. I needed to share them with her.
Grown-ups hide stuff they don’t like talking about.”
I even had this thought: Blind men can’t tell if you’re invisible.
Knowing your parents are afraid is like being in the middle of the ocean and discovering your boat has a big hole in the bottom.
A beam of sunlight had slipped through his window and was pointing to the floor as if accusing it of something.
Questions tumbled in my head like a clown in the circus.
He was the kind of guy who kept a fence all around him.
“You are. How’re your parents?” “Still fighting.” “About what?” “Their marriage.”
A few minutes later, Mary Geary went by across the street. She was spying on Kat. The whole world was full of spies.
The library was a gloomy place, with high ceilings and dull lighting. Cracked brown linoleum covered the floors. Heavy tables, chairs, and bookcases were all dark wood. On the tables were reading lamps with green glass shades that looked like large green mushrooms. Paintings of old-fashioned-looking men with whiskers like Brillo hung on purple walls. The few adults sitting there were reading, though one guy was already asleep. The place had as much life as a funeral parlor.
The place had as much life as a funeral parlor.
They say you win some, lose some. I just wanted to win once. So
The men sat around in big chairs, like a movie that didn’t move, just talked.
By the time we arrived, everybody else was already there. Sometimes I thought my folks got to these gatherings late on purpose to shorten the visit. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but now I wondered why.
Aunt Betty’s apartment was a musty, cluttered place, like a museum exhibit that never changed.
Okay. Dad taught us history, but not much about his family history. How come? That was the first question.
But even as she knitted, her gaze darted about over members of the family, like the gaze of an old, skinny white cat, choosing where to pounce.
“The old days, what they called the Great Depression, were bad times. I was a waitress. On my feet all day and night. Just thinking about it, my feet get sore. These slippers make them feel good. They tell me that those days are gone.”
“Do you know what memories are?” she said. “Dead-end streets. You can’t go anywhere with them even if you want to. Not worth trying.”
listened. I kept sneaking peeks at Dad, wondering who he was and what he had done.
I felt like I was looking through a kaleidoscope. Every turn I made, things changed: shape, color, and the connections between them. It’s a strange world when you can’t put names to the colors you’re seeing.
He folded his hands. “When a young man talks to an old man, it is always a gift.”
Mr. Ordson sat quietly for a few moments and then said, “Man has unraveled the complexities of the atom and how to release its force.” He smiled. “Yet nothing is more complex or explosive than families.”
“Yes, sir.” Mr. Ordson said, “Somewhere I recall reading that a parent’s secret is the child’s burden. But generally speaking, I believe it’s always better to learn the truth.”
“Sometimes when parents aren’t happily married, kids pay a price.”
Leaving the sunlight behind, Pete Collison walked into the BMT Borough Hall station.
Ten minutes later a train burst in like a rocket on wheels.
his hairy chest, probably marking the low boundary for his razor. His knobby-toed feet were bare and a lit cigarette was wedged into one corner of his mouth like a lollypop stick that had lost its sweet.
“I fear that in an age of suspicion the last people we suspect is ourselves. Tell
New City College was in Manhattan, a bunch of large, square buildings that reminded Pete of a cemetery with giant tombstones.
It didn’t seem like the best spot to start searching for secrets, but even dull rooms can hold tons of dynamite. Like the blonde.
The waitress delivered the pizza. It was a wheel of flat bread on a big tin platter. The bread had this tomato sauce on it along with cheese and meat bits. It looked like someone’s throw-up. I lost my appetite.
“Being silent is a kind of death.”
As far as I was concerned, those D grades were like Dad’s Purple Heart. I had survived.
Sorry is a sorry word.
I crept closer. Hardly knowing what to think, or feel, I tried guessing what Dad felt. He’d told me that Frank had always listened to him. Was he sorry now for telling Frank to go away? Had he missed him all these years? Are you still a brother if your brother disappears? Not knowing what else to do, I took Dad’s other hand.
“Hey, Pal, families are like ghosts. You may not believe in them but they haunt you anyway.”
What the room had, mostly, was silence. But it felt powerful. I felt small.
History is memory researched. Historical fiction is memory brought to life.
