A Way With Words - Chapter 3
Ennis and Jay hadn't seen much of Joe since his arrival nearly two weeks before. Of course there had been the predictable jokes, but reaction to Barney Frank’s outing of himself had been mild. Joe had been kept busy nonetheless; he came back to the apartment late each night and in the morning left earlier than Ennis. The Red Sox were playing away that weekend so they couldn't even use a game as a way to spend some time alone together.
On his final evening, Joe took them out to dinner at Grendel's Den in Harvard Square. Jay and Joe sat side by side across from Ennis at the rectangular wood table, and as they studied their menus, Ennis studied his friend, mulling over the changes. The wide-eyed, spiky-haired blond joker he'd met his first day in Boston was long gone; Joe took politics seriously now - he’d joined the family business. Ennis was sure he would rise higher than his parents had, or even his sister, if he wanted it enough. Joe claimed he wasn’t interested in running for office, that he preferred working behind the scenes, but Ennis wasn’t sure he believed him. He could easily imagine Joe’s handsome face on a campaign poster.
In college, Joe had taken few things seriously - everything was a lark. Considering the reputation for wit of the congressman he worked for, Ennis was sure there was plenty of scope for fooling around. Except that now he mustn't put it that way. He couldn't help wondering, though, if Joe had been hired for his looks and charm. Because it was Ennis who had given him the words that opened those doors. You jerk. Joe would've gotten this far anyway, without your input. It's your own fault you haven't.… He was relieved when the waiter appeared and stopped his train of thought.
"Whatever happened to Tracy, Joe?" Jay asked suddenly, as soon as the waiter had left with their orders. "You haven't said a word about her in at least a year."
Ennis set down his beer and glanced at Joe. He'd wondered too, but hadn't wanted to utter her name. He found it easy to pretend she'd never existed.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? We split up," Joe replied, so casually Ennis winced. "She's dating a guy who works for a state senator in Pennsylvania now.”
"I bet he’s a Republican," Jay laughed, nudging him with her elbow.
"Yeah, he is - and viciously ambitious too, so they're a perfect match. He plans to run for a Pennsylvania seat in the House in 1990."
This was the first time Ennis had heard Joe use the very words the rest of his friends did to describe Tracy and he allowed himself a tiny smirk. Since Joe couldn’t see her face, Jay answered it with an eye roll.
"Is he from Philly? What's his name, so I can start badmouthing him now," she said.
Over Jay’s shoulder, at the next table, Ennis noticed a fortyish man with a salt and pepper beard turn his head to listen. Then he leaned forward and whispered something to the woman opposite him. Not again. It was amazing how often this happened whenever they ate out in Cambridge.
"He's from Pittsburgh. Rick Santorum." Joe looked at Ennis and grinned. "Remember that name. I bet you can come up with something good. I mean, baaaad."
Joe's smile full on him, and the memories the conversation evoked, warmed Ennis but gave him a pang as well. If only the Sox were in town. He picked up his beer and raised the bottle to Joe.
"Meet me at Fenway Park in three years and I'll give you a line," Ennis said, mock seriously. He at least would not forget the appointment.
Then their food arrived and Jay steered the conversation to the visits with refugees she had arranged for Ennis, and the article he (she, really) hoped would make it into print.
"Do it, Ennis," Joe urged him, leaning toward him. "Make that degree work for you. You have such a way with words. You're letting it go to waste."
Halfway through the meal, Ennis saw the bearded man get up and walk a few steps to their table. The man stood behind the empty chair next to him and bent deferentially toward Jay.
“Excuse me, I just want to say how much my wife and I love your show.”
Jay looked up at him and smiled apologetically. “I’m really sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not Terry Gross.”
Jay sounded exactly like the host of an interview program on National Public Radio whose voice apparently sent middle aged, liberal Democrat men into a swoon. Cambridge was full of them and they all seemed to eat at Jay and Ennis’ favorite restaurants.
The man straightened quickly and looked abashed. “Oh god, excuse me. It’s just that she’s in Philadelphia and-”
“It’s alright, I get that all the time,” Jay said, flapping her hand. “It’s kind of an honor, because she’s such a great interviewer.”
The man apologized again and slunk back to his table, where Ennis could see his wife was smiling wryly.
“Haven’t you ever just pretended to be her?” Joe said in a whisper, leaning toward Jay but loud enough for Ennis to hear. He had been a witness to this little scene several times.
“Don’t ever do it,” Ennis said to her. She stared back solemnly; they both knew she wouldn’t - his words were for Joe.
“Why, what would be the harm? It would make the guy happy,” Joe said with a grin.
Ennis frowned. Joe had been in Washington too long. “Someday he’d see her photo and feel like a fool,” he mumbled.
“She’s on radio. When would he ever see her picture?”
Ennis felt his anger rise at Joe’s shrug and then fade when he felt Jay’s foot rub against his ankle.
“Forget it.” He’d never told Joe about Chris Perkins.
After dinner, they went around the corner to The Casablanca for a few beers and then lingered among the throngs in Harvard Square, watching the jugglers and musicians and magicians. A young English guy with a bowler hat and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows did sleight of hand tricks that made the small crowd of spectators gasp. The three of them lingered a long time because Jay insisted on taking pictures; she wanted to show his hands as a blur as he slid around on his little table first thimbles, then tea cups, and finally tin cans that hid a bean, a cherry and an apple respectively. Not one person could pick the cup with the fruit under it no matter how carefully they had watched his lightning-fast movements. And when he lifted all three cans, there was no apple to be seen.
They each put a dollar in his hat, then walked the mile and a half home, Ennis and Jay tipsy and laughing. Joe was drunk. He stumbled between them, his arms draped over their shoulders. They each had an arm around Joe’s waist, their forearms pressing together; Ennis held him tightly. What has happened to the friend that I once knew, he hummed the tune in time to their steps.
"Bet that cockney accent was fake," Joe giggled and bumped his head against Ennis’, his whiskey breath hot in his ear. " S ‘ard innit? Try gin mate! '"
Chapter 3b
Like all the kids out where we were, I got my driver's license as soon as I possibly could -- the day of my 16th birthday. Once Kathy had left for nursing school and KE was no longer a boy, my parents focused all of their loving attention on me. I was desperate to find an excuse to stay away from the house. None of the school clubs interested me, so that left sports. Of those available, I chose baseball because unlike football and basketball and hockey, it involved more thinking than running around. I had spent many hours watching Cardinals games on TV with Dad since the accident; now I studied the players intently, searching for my place in the game.
In the fall of my junior year I tried out for the team and was made catcher, as I'd hoped. It wasn't a natural position for me physically, because it's hard for a tall guy to hunker down close to the ground. But I was already good at reading people. I quickly mastered how to frame my catches, fooling the umpire into thinking I'd caught a strike. I could size up the batter before me in seconds, knowing from the cant of his hips or the way his muscles flexed as he gripped the bat how he would swing. I liked wearing the mask and all that padding, and the way the pitcher stared at my fingers between my thighs as he read my signals. Why, then, did I never learn to read myself?
For Christmas, my parents gave me a small cassette player the size of a shoebox. It came with a single white earphone on a long, thin wire. Kathy had once given me an old style stethoscope with a bell end; I taped the earphone to it so I could pretend I was listening in stereo. It had a radio too, which was just as well because I had no tapes of my own. At night I could tune in stations from far away. That's how I found the University of Kansas radio station and Jack Tornado.
Late one Sunday night when I couldn't get to sleep, I lay in bed and slowly turned the dial, searching for something other than country music. Just before midnight I suddenly came upon a deep, harsh woman's voice singing, almost speaking, words that would make no sense to normal people; the song seemed to go on for a long time. But I already knew I wasn't exactly normal and the words sliced through me. The next day I could recall only "Dip in to the sea, to the sea of possibilities." At the end of the song, a young announcer said the name of it and of the singer but there was a burst of static and I couldn't make out his words. Then he signed off, and I did hear him say "This is Jack Tornado saying cheerio till next time." Cheerio? I didn't believe for a minute that Tornado was his last name, but I did believe in "Jack."
Every night that week I tried to find him again. At last, at 11:00pm the following Sunday night I caught his voice, just the last few words before a song. The music he played on his show wasn't what kids at my school listened to. It was rougher and stranger. He played four songs with no interruption. Finally he spoke, gave the call letters KJHK at KU and a phone number for requests. As I rummaged in the bedside table drawer for a pen I whispered the number over and over. Found a pencil stub and wrote it on a scrap of paper then crept downstairs. It was cold in the kitchen so after I punched the number on the wall phone I stretched the long cord around the corner into the living room. I sat down on the couch in the dark, pulling one of my mother's knitted afghans over me.
Jack "Tornado" realized I was a high school kid right away but he was kind to me. He asked why I was whispering, and when I explained where I was, he didn't laugh, though he did when I confessed that I wanted him to replay the song from the previous Sunday so I could tape it. He said he'd give me time to get back up to my room. It was his last song again, and he introduced it by saying "I ended with Patti Smith last week, but I'm playing the same track again for Dennis, a new listener, because it speaks to him. Now here's Horses. Night all." I blushed, alone in the dark, because I hadn't told him that. Even though he'd missed my name, he'd heard me.
For the rest of my junior year I tuned in to Jack's show every Sunday night, no matter how tired I was, and taped each one. I discovered Patti Smith, the Talking Heads, the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Devo, Joy Division. I worked up the nerve to call Jack again and again, lying on the couch in the dark while my miniature boombox upstairs recorded his show. He didn't mind, said he had few listeners. At first we exchanged comments about the music until he had to change the track. Then I told him where I lived and it turned out he was from a farm family, too, from up near the Nebraska border. Eventually I gave more details about my family and my life; after that, Jack always called me back to spare our phone bill. I put the ringer on very low so as not to wake my parents. Soon he was just leaving the receiver on the table while making announcements, so we could pick up where we’d left off. Curled on the couch during that pause I imagined I was the phone, lying on my side near him, listening. At the end of his show, he would amaze me by playing a song whose lyrics had some bearing on what we'd talked about.
I lived for Sunday nights. All through the week I would save up anecdotes to entertain Jack, who laughed with me. I had many mates, of the class and team variety, but he was my only friend. Once he had my number I had hopes -- fantasies - that he would call me at other times but he never did. I built up an image of him in my mind, though I had absolutely nothing to go on as he never said one thing about his appearance. But because of his warmth and easy confidence I presumed he looked nothing like me.
One night in May, he asked me where I planned to go to college. He just assumed I would, which flattered me, but that's a sign of how little self-awareness I had. I told him I guessed I would go to KU. But to my chagrin he wasn't pleased.
"Ennis, if you're into this music you should get out of Kansas. Go to school in a city, like Chicago or on one of the coasts. Boston has a great music scene and there're like a million colleges there. There's bound to be one that'll take you. In fact, if you're as smart as you sound, they'll snap up you up in the name of geographical diversity. Maybe even give you a scholarship."
I'd had this vision of meeting him at last once I got to KU, of becoming friends for real. Jack must have read, yet again, the thoughts behind my silence because his voice turned gentle.
"I won't be here by then, Ennis. I'm graduating and this is my last show."
I felt my little balloon of happiness fill with lead and sink. I hadn't known he was a senior. But just as I was about to ask him where his family lived, he dropped a bigger bomb.
"Fact is, I'm flying to London on Friday. There's a kind of exchange program that gives a certain number of Americans who just graduated six month work permits in Great Britain and an equal number of British graduates get permits to work over here. I applied and got one of those. I'm hoping to find a way to stay longer if I like it there."
I was still processing this loss, in my mind's eye watching him recede into the distance. But now I was aware that there could be an escape route for me, too.
"Well, uh, good luck in England," I croaked out.
"Thanks. It's been... thanks for your calls and... well, try and get away from here, okay? Now go to bed and I'll play a song just for you. 'Night, Ennis. "
"Goodbye, Jack." I rolled off the couch, padded back into the kitchen and hung up the phone. Back in my room, I flipped the tape over and crawled into bed. Then I put on the stethoscope to listen to the final minutes of the show.
Just a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh...
I sat up, my eyes welling. I didn't hear Jack's final sign-off because by that time I was crying. For the first time in my life someone really got me. And now he was gone.
Who is Terry Gross?
Click to viewJust a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh...
Another lonely day, no one here but me oh
More loneliness than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair oh
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