A kid named Mike Scully from the low-income Prospect Heights area sparked Art Foster’s interest in Anna. Mike idolized Art and started the ball rolling when he whispered that she was the most beautiful girl in Rhode Island and maybe the world. He was a jumpy kid, always pacing, rocking or twitching, constantly talking about a lightweight fighter named Jackie Weber. Mike’s family lived in the apartment where Jackie had grown up. Scully wanted to be a Marine. A homemade tattoo of a snake on his arm looked like a worm. The dagger it wrapped around was a sad likeness. The “N” in HONOR was backwards. Whenever Art pitched Pony League ball, Mike was in the stands cheering as if he were his brother. Art thought he might be gay until he revealed his love for Anna.
Art’s father was in real estate, and they lived in Countryside, the best place to live in Pawtucket, RI. Mike was an outcast no matter how you looked at him. The Heights kids scorned him because he went to a Catholic School, St. Teresa’s, instead of Goff Junior High. The St. Teresa’s kids dismissed him because of his home in the Heights.
One night, Art stole a car and picked up Mike at May’s Bakery, a loitering spot for Heights types. Mike pointed out Anna leaning against the wall, cigarette in hand. Her hair was long and bleached. Her jacket was black, jeans faded. A transistor radio kissed one ear. She turned briefly to exhibit her fine ass. Art swallowed hard then took Mike for a ride down a long, lightly traveled road that passed a pig farm.
“I’ll fly you past those swine so fast you’ll miss the smell, faster than the speed of stink,” he told Mike. Art pushed the speedometer to 105 and emboldened his hero status in Mike’s mind.
Art’s first and only encounter with Anna took place a month later, a couple of days after Mike got the living shit kicked out of him. Mike had been hanging out on a corner in the Heights when a couple of older guys said loud enough for them to hear, “Slut’s too good a word for her.”
Mike had responded, “Asshole’s too good a word for you.”
After hot-wiring a red Ford Victoria at the Fram Corp. parking lot, Art headed for Beverage Hill Avenue. He pulled up by Anna as she walked across the street from the Heights to her hangout spot in front of the bakery.
“You don’t know me but you’d like to. I’m a good friend of Mike Scully’s.”
“That and a nickel will get you a day old chocolate donut at May’s.”
“You wouldn’t be so sassy doing 110 on Pig Street.”
“Hey, punk car thief, you’re not talking to a new house, goody-goody girl.” She jumped in, scrunched her long legs, and propped her feet against the dashboard. She switched the radio station to an echo chamber, big mouth DJ. He played Del Shannon’s “Runaway.”
The speed didn’t slow her wisecracks. She egged him on, “Snap the speedometer cable!” He tried but was at the A&W after hitting just 112. He bought her root beer and onion rings. She left half behind. After embarrassing him into leaving too large a tip, she suggested a ride to Newport. When they crossed over the Mt. Hope Bridge, she was like a little kid, wondering how many people had jumped. Art figured it was her first time out of Pawtucket. “You’ll probably leave the world in a splash the day before your sentencing for all your felonies.”
“You gonna rat me out underprivileged project girl?”
“You might be privileged to be blackmailed by a Heights girl, Criminal Creep!”
He heard, “wow” after “wow” while showing her the mansions. He pulled over to let her out to run on the lawn of one. She did somersaults. He had beach-walking on his mind. She told him forget it: it was a corny new-house thing to do, and the waves were too puny anyway. Art imagined her ass grinding into the sand, the sea caressing their nakedness, decorating her with shells of strange shapes matching star formations like on a robe a stripper wore at the F.E.I. Club before dropping it on the stage to dance.
Art remembered drinking wine on the beach one night with his friend Higgy. They saw sex not twenty yards away – sailor was screwing a gal like he was going off to battle and she was Uncle Sam’s anti-war daughter. He left his white hat behind. Higgy made a big deal out of the name stenciled on it, “Melville.” He gave Art a nutshell Moby Dick. Art added there was nothing “Moby” about that sailor. Higgy was brainy but his gray matter didn’t mean law-abiding. Their biggest triumph was breaking into a big house on Blackstone Boulevard. It was a snap, a couple of hundred bucks to split and a heavy gold ring with a pearl on its face surrounded by 5 diamond chips was claimed by Art. Inscribed inside was “Mr. Sand Wedge.” Higgy wasn’t interested in the ring or its pawn value. He took a Siamese kitten he later traded for a piece of ass from a former Central Falls mayor’s niece.
Anna ordered Art back to Pawtucket and the projects. She directed him to stop near a man-made pond called Jacques Dunnell’s that the city filled every summer. It pretty much belonged to Heights kids; outsiders feared disease, regardless of the amount of chlorine dumped in daily. Anna was banned one summer for helping Bobby Howard push over a lifeguard chair, scaring the living shit out of a star high school quarterback twirling his whistle on a lanyard. Art knew that outsiders regarded it as the largest toilet in Rhode Island but he wasn’t about to tell her. Art’s brother had been a lifeguard there. He was an All-State swimmer.
She took his hand as soon as they left the car, hurried him to a cave-like orifice where the pumped-in pond water drained. It was located in some sparse woods. She offered to take him on a tour, an honor few new-house guys get she said. He silently snickered to himself. At the entrance, she pointed out a mulberry tree in the moonlit distance.
“I’ve climbed to the top of that and pissed into the wind. I’ve walked in these woods barefooted over rocks and burrs; no new-house bitch could.”
“I’m impressed,” laughed Art. She punched him hard in the arm.
They crawled about twenty-five feet on hands and knees to a point where they could stand. Anna pulled a candle from a crevice in the rock wall. Lighting it, she led him to a mattress resting in soft beach sand. Initials covered the walls and ceiling. Art imagined her putting theirs inside a slim rectangle like a stick of dynamite, man-oh-man. He jumped when he heard something bang.
“Do you think there’s someone in here?”
“Shit, 112 on Pig Street, and you’re shaking in your boots! Ha! Or are you wearing Hush-Puppies? A little farther you’re under Prospect Street. A car hit a manhole cover. You’ll hear it again, precious.”
“Not scared, just wouldn’t want us to get crushed in a cave-in.” Anna rolled her eyes.
Anna was his second sex partner. The first was an escapee from the girls’ reform school in Cranston who’d taken on him and six other guys in the freezing dugout at McCoy Stadium. Even though he’d been the first in line, it was uncomfortable, and he felt guilty taking advantage of her situation. She told him he was the first train boy to bother sucking her tits.
Anna casually undressed and all he did was drop jeans and underwear. He felt like a jerk, wished he had her cool, calm and collected poise. He was in Fantasyland. In all his fifteen years he’d never imagined a girl moving and moaning like Anna, running her fingers through his hair, whispering, “Art, Art,” like his name was part of a rock and roll song or he was on a stage singing one. She held him so tight it seemed as though she was trying to weld herself to him, such was the degree of heat. Nuns talking about filling up with sanctifying grace flashed in his mind. He filled her right full, he would brag later. He worried as much about a kid as he did about cops catching him in a hot car.
When they finished she clung to him. He panicked, imagining he’d been set up – Heights kids waiting to attack, Anna smashing his head with a rock. He pictured a truck accident above, oil rushing in, drowning them. What if he knocked her up? Thinking about Countryside and his parents, he pushed her away, pulled up his pants, crawled away like a whipped dog. Looking back once, he saw her on all fours in the candlelight. Was she smiling in triumph? He bumped his head scooting out and saw stars. As he drove the Ford back to the Fram Corp., he concluded that his bravery was limited to car theft and burglary. He skidded at a stop sign he usually ran, and it was a good thing, as there was a cop parked nearby. That bitch could ruin him. Yet every time he rested his eyes in school or any-damned-where, his nostrils filled with the flower shop smell of her hair, the tobacco taste of her mouth and lips, and her uninhibited, confident voice. He could feel her arms and legs clamped on him like pythons, or vines, or a wrestler’s scissor hold. Her tits, slightly larger than baseballs, boasted remarkable nipples his tongue could not forget. He bet one could support Mr. Sand Wedge. His fingers argued up and down a stolen gold fountain pen calculating the rare wonder and dimension of them.
Art went to five colleges before he finally completed two years. His father’s connections kept him out of Vietnam but not Higgy, who was killed by small arms fire. Art had his obituary laminated and kept it in a cigar box with Mr. Sand Wedge. Hell, without the help of Higgy the Brain, he would never have graduated from St. Raphael’s Academy. Daddy tried to set him up in real estate, but houses weren’t sold in barrooms and lounges. He took a stab at computer sales, but that led to a brush with the law when he pocketed a down payment of five thousand. His father bailed him out. Art was a gambler, would bet on just about anything, except what day, week, month or year he would kick the habit.
One day, out of the black and blue of a beating over poker-cheating, he broke free – free like Anna seemed to be. Drinking away the hurt and embarrassment at Rock’s Bar, he met a golf hustler who boasted that he’d once taken Arnold Palmer for a couple of grand. Bullshit or not, Art wondered if he possessed some country club talent. He was built for it, he thought: six-four, wavy, black hair and maybe handsome in a jock sort of way. A week later, he was spending more time at driving ranges and putting greens in South Attleboro than at watering holes. He could drive a ball a mile but was erratic with the rest of the game. That didn’t hamper his hustling. He’d challenge anyone to a driving contest; sometimes spotted them 10 or 15 yards. He made a name for himself around the ranges and a couple of nine-hole courses. A fertilizer salesman Art knew from Rock’s approached him at a nine-hole night course called Firefly. He told Art that Wannamoisett was looking for an assistant pro who could help some of the members with their tee shots. The head pro saw Art crank one like a missile shot and that was that. It was the first time he’d gotten a job without his father’s help. He wished Higgy were around just in case and chuckled remembering the ring, sort of a prophecy.
One morning, three weeks into the job, Art walked to the rail overlooking the golf cart garage to count the warm bodies in the caddy shack. Among the teens, he spotted Anna and Mike. It had been six years. She blew him a kiss. Mike tipped his Red Sox cap. They were disheveled and overweight, smoking and holding cans of beer. Art returned to the pro shop to compose himself. After he spent a half-hour distracted with panic, the first foursome of the day was ready to go. No way to get around picking two caddies. Sweaty from head to tasseled loafers, he rushed to the rail. The intruders were gone. He breathed several sighs of relief and repeated them throughout the eternal day. The last golfers were finished at seven. Unwinding at Rock’s like old times would be heaven. Rushing to the parking lot after locking the pro shop, he froze. The green Thunderbird convertible his parents bought him to celebrate his employment success was gone, replaced with a beat up Chevy Impala two tires were flat. Mike’s childhood tattoo was spray painted on the driver side door. The “N” in “HONOR” was correct. It was larger than its mates were.
Thomas Michael McDade is a former computer programmer (wrote and maintained software used in the wholesale / retail plumbing supply field) living in Fredericksburg, VA with his wife, no kids, no pets. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. He served two hitches in the U.S. Navy. McDade’s short fiction has most recently appeared in The Heater.
