A Way With Words - Chapter 7
When Ennis got home from the detention center, he and Jay went out onto the back porch to eat the cannolis he'd bought, sitting in the matching director's chairs that Joe had given them when they moved in together. The air was mild, but as the sun slipped behind the other houses they could feel the hint of autumn chill that was due to arrive in earnest soon. From their second floor perch they watched fiery red and gold leaves drifting down from all the neighbors' maples and could hear them rustling as they landed on the freshly swept asphalt below them. Their elderly Japanese landlady was perpetually at war with nature; Mrs. Ono had paved over the back yard of her three-decker so she wouldn't need to cut grass.
"That reminds me," he said while he licked the cream from his fingers. "Can you cut my hair this weekend?"
Jay made a face and reached over to gently box his arm. "You always do that."
"What?"
"Say that reminds me and then go on about something totally unexpected while I'm looking around and wondering what in the world reminded you of that. Sometimes your train of thought is-"
"I know, I know… like the Green Line.” It was an old joke.
He told Jay about the visit and the cock remark and she agreed to have a go with the scissors the next day. She also mentioned there was a small Indian grocery in Central Square, where she used to live. They had bags of spicy snacks that the men might like.
Saturday morning they cycled down Mass Ave together, as she had an errand to run there too. He could have found the shop with his eyes closed. The aroma of spices was detectable from the curb as he was locking his bike to a parking meter. The shop was small and cramped inside, the shelves piled with sacks of rice, cans of coconut milk, bottles of strange oils and other food he’d never seen before. He found the snacks near the counter and picked out a pack of something called Bombay Mix, which seemed to be composed of fried lentils, chickpeas and some bright yellow squiggly bits.
Also near the counter were bars of soap, individually wrapped in tan paper with gold and white flowers. He picked one up and sniffed it; to his surprise he recognized the unusual fragrance. Jay had a stick of sandalwood on a shelf along with other mementos and this soap smelled like that, only more intense. He took three bars and as he was paying for the items he noticed video cassettes in the glass case by the cash register. He remembered the men had said the TV in the detention center also had a video player. When he inquired about them, the shop owner told him that yes, he did rent Indian films, why? When Ennis explained whom they were for, the man's expression softened. He handed him a list of all the titles, in Hindi it turned out (but written in the western alphabet).
"They can choose from this list. Here, I know this is one they will like," he said, handing Ennis a cassette. "Everybody likes this actor. Take it. You can have three days free."
That evening they watched the movie while Jay cut his hair. Ennis sat on a straight back chair in the middle of newspapers spread on the floor in front of the television. He thought that was overkill - she wasn't supposed to cut that much off. They couldn't understand any of the dialogue but it seemed to be part love story, part action adventure and part musical with a lot of singing and dancing.
"You know what's weird?" Jay said as she snipped away. "You never see the couple kiss. I mean, they do kiss but just before their lips meet it cuts to an exploding flower or they hide behind an umbrella."
In one of the scenes, the lovers embraced at the foot of a wooden staircase outside a house and just at the crucial moment the camera was suddenly under the stairs, shooting through the gaps between the steps so you couldn't see their faces. The director seemed to go to a lot of trouble to block those kisses while making it clear what was going on. What was the big deal?
"I guess a kiss is not just a kiss over there," he said.
"But a sigh is just a sigh, I bet." She handed him a mirror. "Here, have a look."
He gasped.
On Monday morning he took the T to work, leaving early so he could drop Ravi's documents off at his lawyer's office, which was two blocks from South Station on Essex Street.
The firm had several partners, but this lawyer Twist didn't seem to be one of them, going by the plaque on the door. When Ennis walked into the reception area, a man was sitting at the desk, rummaging in the middle drawer. Ennis guessed the guy was several years older than him, but maybe it was just the beard and the suit. He looked up unsmiling when he heard Ennis enter.
"I have a package for John Twist from one of his clients," Ennis said, holding up the envelope.
The receptionist looked at the parcel and then narrrowed his eyes as he stared at Ennis intently. "Just leave it here and I'll give it to him."
"Well, I'd like to talk to him about the case, actually."
"Mr. Twist isn't in yet."
"I can wait, if he's going to arrive soon."
"And your name is...?"
"Ennis Del Mar. I'm, well, a friend of one of his clients."
The man continued to study him. "And who is that?" he said suspiciously.
Ennis had had enough. He didn't really have time to talk to the lawyer and didn't particularly want to anyway. "Never mind..." He looked down at the nameplate on the desk. "...Mr Malone. I'll just leave this and call him later." He slid the envelope onto the desk and quickly left. The receptionist's glare had unnerved him.
As he was walking back to the T stop, he glanced at his reflection in a store window and stopped in his tracks. With his black leather jacket and Jay’s haircut he looked like a hit man from a Spenser novel. No wonder Randy Malone hadn’t let him near John Twist!
Spenser is the very literate private detective in a crime novel series set in Boston.
Chapter 7b
When she was young, Jenny used to embarrass me in front of company by saying "Daddy, tell about the first time you saw a Post-it note." I think she really did that to hear Jack crack up, even though she didn't know exactly why he was laughing. But one day, when they were both in high school, Junior told her to shut up when she started to ask and then I realized with a pang that now he got the joke.
Anyway, my contemplation of the Citgo sign was soon interrupted by Joel.
"I see you got my note," he said, pointing to my thigh. The yellow square was stuck to my jeans.
I plucked it off, looked at it and pretended to give the matter some thought. "Well, I guess so. Really think you can handle it?"
"Hardy har har. Are you that experienced?"
I told him about sharing a room with KE and that we'd had bunk beds. I'd slept on top for years, so it was no big deal for me, but I found out Joel had never once spent a night in an upper bunk.
It took less than five minutes to put away my clothes, half of which now looked out of place to me. The jeans could pass, but my button snap shirts were way too countrified for this place. I saw Joel eyeing the one I had on, a blue denim shirt I'd had for years. I'd worn it for the bus trip because it was comfortable but also because it wouldn't matter if it got filthy since I considered it to be near the end of its useful life. Though it turned out I was wrong about that.
I felt even more self-conscious when I pulled the sleeping bag out of my knapsack. "My mom's gonna send me some sheets and my winter coat," I explained. "But I think I'll need to buy some other clothes here."
Joel was straddling his desk chair, his arms folded over the back as he watched me.
"How'd you get to Boston?'
"Bus."
"Man, that's a long trip."
"Almost thirty hours."
"Meet any interesting people?"
Now that was a question I didn't expect. To me, the bus was for getting from point A to point... well, it was more like point Z in this case. But I came to learn that for Joel the journey was almost as important as the destination. He liked meeting people; they were like the sparks flying up from a fire. Most would disappear but occasionally one would touch down somewhere and grow a new flame. I didn't think this up - it was Joel's thought on the matter, though it was someone else who told me about it a few years later.
"Not really." I was putting my socks and underwear in the top drawer of the dresser. They didn't take up much space. I wondered what we did about laundry. I sat down on the bottom bunk and felt exhaustion creep over me, joining hunger, which had quietly settled in already. I had other questions for Joel, but these two needs were getting the upper hand.
"You wanna go down to lunch in the dining hall or get a sandwich down the street?" he asked.
"Too tired to deal with a lotta people," I mumbled. "Rather go out, get some air."
"Okay." He didn't get up though, but looked out the window. "Still raining."
"Mmm." I was on the verge of keeling over on the mattress.
"Why don't I just go get us both something and bring it back here," he said when he looked back at me and saw my drooping eyelids.
"Sounds good..." I stretched out on the unmade bed, with no pillow, and fell instantly alseep.
I woke up in the kind of non-dark you get in a city after sunset. I thought for a moment I was in my room at home, KE's bed above me and the window in the same position opposite. But the light playing over the wall and ceiling reminded me I was somewhere very different.
I stretched and pushed aside my sleeping bag, which was spread over me though I didn't remember unrolling it. I swung my legs off the bed, knowing automatically not to straighten up completely so as not to bang my head. I got up and walked to the window and watched the headlights of the cars moving along Commonwealth Avenue and over the bridges whose names I didn't yet know. Then I realized I was standing beside the crates that held Joel's record collection. I bent and started flipping through them. Suddenly a simple cover caught my eye and I lifted it from the crate. So that was what Patti Smith looked like. In the black and white portrait her slight figure looked so fragile, but her face-
"Psychokiller, qu'est-ce que c'est?"
Fwwwwiip! Clang! "AAAAGGGHHH!!!"
I'd started so violently that my jerking wrist catapulted the vinyl disk out of the sleeve and it clattered against the guardrail of the top bed. Joel's yelp spun me around and there we were, our mouths and eyes wide open in fright. He was sitting bolt upright in bed. He fumbled a moment and switched on the reading light on the wall next to his head.
"Shit! What the fuck happened?" he yelled. But I was staring at his ears.
"Hey, you have a Walkman?" I blurted out. They'd first come out at the end of my junior year but were expensive; nobody I knew back home had one. No wonder I'd startled him: he'd been lying in bed listening to music - and singing along, it seemed - with his eyes closed so he hadn't noticed me get up.
"Oh yeah, I got it as a graduation present," he said. He pulled out the earphones and held them out to me. I walked over and put them in my own ears, then he handed me the device. I can't sleep cause my bed's on fire, don't touch me I'm a real live wire... Real stereo. I vowed never to tell him about my stethoscope contraption.
"I don't know what the other French bits mean," he said when the song was over and I gave it back to him. "I took Spanish."
"Something like, ‘realizing my hopes, I launch myself towards glory.’ My French teacher gave extra credit if you translated a song you liked into French," I explained when he gaped at me. "I did that one, but I had to translate the parts that were already in French into English."
"Shit, that's... weird, Ennis."
I shrugged.
"I launch myself towards glory," he repeated. "I like that. Hey, I meant to tell you before, you can call me Joe instead of Joel."
"Oh. Okay... Joe." I paused. "Don't ever call me En, though. I hate that."
"Heh, don't worry!"
"What kind of name is Angstrom?"
"Swedish. But I'm Jewish."
I must have looked as confused as I felt because he added, "My mom's Jewish and that's the half that counts. If only your dad is, even if he has, like, a super Jewish name, you're not a Jew yourself."
"Oh. Well, my parents are Methodists," was my inane response. But that suddenly reminded me that I hadn't called them to let them know I'd arrived safely. I told him what I needed to do and he directed me to the lounge near the elevators, where I'd find an alcove with a pay phone.
The noise level in the hallway was much lower than when I'd arrived but it didn't seem calmer. There was a kind of buzz that I sensed rather than heard. I know what it was now because when I drove Jenny out to Amherst almost two months ago, we arrived at her dorm late after the other parents had gone and I felt those same vibes again. Jenny obviously picked them up too, because as soon as I'd set down the boxes I was carrying, she said "Thanks, Daddy, have a good trip back, I'll tweet you" and gave me a peck on the cheek. She whispered "I know you'll kiss Daddy Jack for me." Why didn't she just yell it at the top of her lungs? After all, the Residential First Year Experience theme of this dorm was Our Society, Our World and she was living in the My Two Dads suite of the Students with LGBT Parents wing.
Now where was I? Oh, how could I forget: my first phone call home. My mother was frantic with worry and my dad was pissed at me for making her that way. To every "how is...?" question I answered "fine" or "just great". I would fill them in on everything when I came home for Christmas. But hearing their voices told me that there was nothing here they would understand. Still, I gave them the number of the pay phone, which I later came to regret.
When I got back to the room, Joe was unwrapping one of the sandwiches he'd bought us earlier. I didn't really want to go down to the dining hall for dinner anyway, just then. I'd be meeting plenty of new people in the days and weeks to come. For now, one was enough for me.
Post-it notes were first sold in the US in 1980
A cannoli... a three-decker house in Cambridge... the Citgo sign seen from Cambridge
Click to viewChapter 8 >>