Because of the legnth of this story - 80 pages - only the first chapter is printed here.
You may click this link to download the entire MS:
I
A Rosary for Mr. Kelly
Fall 1950
It is Dick Kelly who takes me to Paulson’s garage the first time. I like Dick Kelly, especially because he pretends to ignore me, the way a big kid treats a younger brother. I think he likes having me around. He shows me the neighborhood on our bikes, and Paulson’s garage is an important part of it, at least for boys our age. If you can ride a bike, you might get a job delivering the Sacramento Bee every afternoon. Paulson decides who gets a route.
To work for Paulson you have to be at least twelve. I’m a few months shy of that, but I keep asking him for the job anyway, even offering to do it for free until my next birthday. He says he never bends a rule. He says I’m a pest and to not come around there any more until I “grow up”. But I follow Dick Kelly to the garage every day anyway, helping and learning, and staying out of Paulson’s way. I want to be a Bee Boy.
The Bee Boys gather every afternoon at the garage to fold the papers and prepare for their routes. When the Bee bags are stuffed and strapped to the handle bars of the bikes and slung over the back fenders, the Bee Boys ride out of the garage, down the alley and into the streets, scattering in all directions to deliver their papers. They are sure of themselves and work together as a team. I want to be one of them.
Some of the older boys pick up Paulson’s attitude toward me and occasionally give me some crap, having nothing better to do while they wait for their bundles of papers to be delivered. I put up with all this without much concern, even enjoying the attention, though I secretly fear that they will one day decide to “pants” me, as I once saw them do to another young kid. In this game the older boys corner one of the young kids, hold him down and pull off his pants, release him and then play keep-away with his pants as he runs around in his underwear, bawling and pleading. In the worst case they climb the telephone pole and fling the pants over the wires, making the kid ride his bike home in his underwear. I desperately fear this embarrassment, but even stronger than this fear is my determination to become one of them, a Bee Boy, so I take my chances.
They get me one damp Saturday afternoon when the papers are late and no one has anything better to do. I get my first hint of trouble when I ride up to the garage and see all the boys sitting around waiting for the papers to be delivered. I know I’m in trouble when I notice that Dick Kelly is not in the group. Dick is bigger and older than most of the kids, and always protects me when the others start to get rowdy. With him not there the others see their chance. Before I can get away they surround me and pull me off my bike. I plea with them to leave me alone while struggling to get free. Then I get wild, kicking and squirming to free myself, but the more I fight with them the more they seem to enjoy the game. When they begin to pull at my belt and shoes I scream, and kick, and swing my fists wildly, landing a blow on Donny Allen’s mouth. He’s a fat piggish kid who doesn’t have the nerve to attack even a skinny kid like me without the others to support him. Blood leaks out of his mouth and down his chin. This only serves to incite the others who toss my shoes and pull down my pants. A little blood trickles out of my nose, which I wipe with the back of my hand. They stand in a circle around me, roll my pants up into a ball and throw them around the circle to one another. I stand inside the circle in my socks, my underwear, my skinny white legs, and my bloody nose. Blood is on my arm from wiping my nose. Out of the corner of my eye I see Paulson leaning against the garage door smoking his cigar, idly watching the game.
“What are you gunna do about it, snot nose? Want your pants back, ass hole?” I stand still glaring at them as my pants sail around the circle. When I refuse to try to catch the ball, they hold it out to me, “Want your pants, ass hole? Huh? Huh? Huh?” Finally I make a desperate grab and catch hold of a pant leg. They yank back and we all hear a big rip as the pant leg tears away from the crotch. This brings a roar of delight from the group and Bruce Ingle begins swinging the pants over his head as he goes for the telephone pole. They boost him up to where he can grab the climbing spikes and he starts climbing the pole intending to add my pants to the two other pair that still hang from the wires from earlier games. Just then we all hear a loud voice. “Bruce, give him back his pants.” It’s Dick Kelly, standing over his bike near the garage door. Paulson stubs out his cigar and goes in to his office to avoid being witness to what might happen next. Dick repeats his order: “Give them back, Bruce.” But Bruce just glares at him from his perch half way up the pole. No one has ever challenged Dick Kelly, but if anyone is going to do it Bruce Ingle will be the guy. He’s as big as Dick, but a year younger. He’s a tough kid, a bully, and doesn’t like to be told what to do. “Give them back,” Dick says. Bruce just glares, weighing his options. “I’m warning you Bruce. Give the kid his pants.” A long silent moment passes as the two stare at one another in contempt. Just then the big Sacramento Bee truck bounces into the ally, beeps its horn to clear the way and creaks to a stop. Everyone swarms around the back of the truck as the driver starts throwing out the bales of newspapers. Bruce climbs down the pole and throws my pants at me with a smirk, and heads for the back of the truck to get his papers. Without a word I pull on my tattered pants, retrieve my shoes and ride off down the alley without looking back, wiping away the tears of anger.
• • •
The family is together again, just the three of us. My room is in the back of the house with a wall of windows that face the fenced yard. My sister’s room is near the front and my mother’s bed and closet is in the passageway between. The railroad tracks run next to the house. The passing freight trains rattle the windows, startling and annoying us for a few days until the noise becomes a routine element of the soundscape. There are plumb and cherry trees in the neighborhood, and apricots, peaches, and a few pomegranates to stain the lips and fingers and clothing, the most precious juice, sweet and wild. We help ourselves when the fruit is ripe, sneaking into the yards to snatch what cannot be reached through the fence, often scrambling back over the fence ahead of the housewives protecting their fruit with brooms and threats.
Free to investigate the neighborhood, I soon discover the great weeping willow two blocks up the tracks, where the hoboes often camp. I am intrigued by the hoboes who are adults but live outside the adult world, free and world-wise. When they are not there it is my fort, and when they are there resting, talking, sleeping or cooking in tin cans over the small fire, I stay back on the fringe, curious but shy. Sometimes they call to me, “Hey, boy, come on over, have a cup of Joe.” But I never do. Later, when they come to our door asking for food, my sister and I invite them in, give them cool-aid and peanut butter sandwiches. They are always grateful and polite but mom is unhappy when she learns about this and tells us to stop. “They put an X on the sidewalk in chalk when you feed them”, she says, “then the others see the X and pretty soon they all come begging.” Now, we don’t let them in but give them fruit through the door. I look and look but never see the X on the sidewalk.
Dick Kelly’s mother is active in the neighborhood, and the first to greet us when we move in. Their house is across the street and up the block, on the corner. Mrs. Kelly and my mother talk through the screen door for a few minutes. “Tell Tommy he should come over and meet my boy Dick. I’m sure they will be friends.” I do go over, nearly every day, and fortunately Dick tolerates me good naturedly. If Dick mows the lawn, I help. If he rides his bike to the store for his mother, I tag along.
Mrs. Kelly is always busy in her kitchen apron, cooking and cleaning, ironing and caring for her only child. She makes thick ham and cheese sandwiches for me to take home, with an apple or a small box of raisons and a homemade oatmeal cookie. She knows my mother works two jobs and I’m on my own most of the time and is moved to do what she can to help. She seems to like me though I’m not sure why and I’m not completely comfortable with her. She is an adult, from the other world.
Dick’s father, however, pays me no mind at all, sitting in his easy chair under the tall lamp reading his paper. He doesn’t go to work anymore, but is always dressed in a suit and tie. I don’t know what his work had been, but now he is always home, in the living room reading the paper, his spit-shined black shoes laced up tight. He is dark in spirit and holds himself within. I pay him high regard and stay out of his way.
The other boy on the block is Ricky Hawley, the son of a successful plumber. The Hawleys live in a large house across the street. Ricky is a year younger than me and whines whenever he doesn’t get his way, yet I often go over to play with him because he has a pinball machine in his garage and a ping pong table. I spend hours racking up scores on the pinball machine. My friendship with Ricky is confirmed when his family becomes the first on the block to get a TV. Then there is Captain Kangaroo and cartoons to watch, and I occasionally see an evening show like The Hit Parade or I Love Lucy. I stay clear of his parents as much as possible while being polite and quiet in their presence. I know how to stay out of the way and avoid trouble and get along OK on my own, with as little adult contact as I can manage.
On the second day of 1951 I turn twelve and Paulson gives me a route. I have my first job. It is a short route not far from the garage, only about 50 papers. I quickly learn every house that takes the Bee and develop the skill of throwing the newspaper onto the porch near the front door, while riding full speed down the sidewalk. I love the feeling of flying along the sidewalks, flipping the folded newspaper with a flick of the wrist so that it sails in a spinning arc up the walkway and onto the porch. Every house is different and presents a unique challenge. Some are fenced, some have long walkways, and some of the porches have columns, which are all obstacles for me to negotiate. Occasionally, when my aim is off, a paper sails onto the roof, bangs into the screen door, or knocks over the empty milk bottles that have been set out for the milkman to collect. These mistakes only serve to energize me even more and I fly along even faster on those sidewalks which are often littered with pot holes, tricycles, and pedestrians. On my Bee route I am in my own world, being tested, showing my skill. The wind is in my face. I am good at what I am doing and filled with joy. When I am alone, on my bike, doing my route, I am happy as a kid can be.
Paulson comes out of his office chewing on the cigar, thumbs latched in his belt on either side of his belly. His hair is curly, cropped short around his head, eyebrows bushy and as black as his hair. He surveys his kingdom, feeling sure of his power over the boys. “I treat them like men”, he thinks to himself, “and they know who’s boss”.
On the wall near the garage door there is a Coca Cola pin-up poster with a girl in a tight one-piece bathing suit smiling coyly out at us, and next to that, a picture of a long red Studebaker convertible. By now I am a member of the group and the older boys let me be. Bruce Ingle is gone and everyone is happier for it. Bullies have a way of attracting followers when they are on the scene, but as soon as they are gone everyone is relieved, and those that had followed him tend to relax and blend in with the rest of the group.
There are ten tables in the garage where we fold and bag our papers. Each table is backed by a row of pigeon holes where we keep our route guides and collection books. It is not only our job to deliver the papers every day of the week, but to collect payment from our customers every month as well. The bills are due on the 1st of the month and we have to pay The Bee for our papers by the 10th. Whatever money is left over is what we get to keep. If a customer is late in paying, that’s our problem. If they skip out, we lose. When we are late in paying The Bee, Paulson is on our ass big time. Some customers hide when they see us coming to collect. Others might give us a tip of fifty cents, or occasionally even a dollar. It’s all part of the job.
“Reddock, come into my office,” Paulson shouts. He almost never speaks my name and my skin jumps. What have I done?
The cigar smoke is thick in the small office and I immediately think of the word ‘robust’, a word I remember from a big billboard for Red Injun Cigars and Chewing Tobacco I used to see on Broadway near the Tower Theater. Right in the middle of the ad was a huge ROBUST. Now I know what it meant.
There is no obvious sense of order in the office. There are stacks of paper everywhere, some covered in dust. The drawers of the two wooden filing cabinets are part open with papers jammed into folders. A rain coat is laying over the only chair in the office other than the wooden chair with four wheels and two thick green cushions that Paulson occupies. I stand near the door and wait for whatever is coming. Just then the large black telephone that sits on his desk near his left hand rings loudly. Paulson looks at it with displeasure and waits for it to ring again. He picks up the receiver, tries for a moment to unravel the twisted black cord, and speaks, “Paulson”. While he listens to the receiver he stares into my face with a blank look as if I’m not even there. “Right. Right. I already know. It’s covered. Right.” And he hangs up. “You’re taking over Kelly’s route starting today, so get your route done quickly and get your butt back here for Kelly’s papers and route guide.” I stare at him, dumbfounded. “Any questions?” he asks irritably. “No. I mean, what happened to Dick?” “Nothing. His old man just croaked. Now get your ass in gear.”
I do my route and somehow manage to get Dick’s route done just before dark. His route has over 100 customers. The papers fill the bag on my handlebars as well as the saddlebags that hang over my back fender. It is slow and tedious because I have to read the addresses off the route guide house by house. All the time I keep hearing Paulson’s voice: “His old man just croaked.” I’m perplexed by the idea of death. No one I have ever known has died. I can’t imagine what Dick is feeling. I never had a father and never felt the need for one so it doesn’t seem like such a big deal for Dick to not have a father any more – but death! That is something unknown to me.
I don’t see Dick the next day, which is Saturday, but on Sunday morning when we have the thick Sunday papers to deliver he shows up at the garage. Because the Sunday paper is thick with special inserts we have to fold them in half and put each one in a waxed paper bag and then hand carry most of them up to the porches. Usually, we can’t carry all our Sunday papers on our bikes at one time, so we make two or three trips out to the route and back to the garage to re-load. I have finished my route and am just starting to fold and bag Dick’s papers when I look up and there he is standing there watching me.
“You taking over my route?”, he asks. I smile at my friend.
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess. If you want me to, I mean, at least until you come back.”
He gets a serious look on his face. “I ain’t comin’ back.”
I look away for a moment to think about what he has just said. “But why?”
“My dad died on Friday, and I think we’re going to move away to Stockton.”
“Oh. But why do you have to move away?”
“My mom says so.”
“Oh.”
We start working together. I fold, he bags.
After a while he says, “My dad died from cancer.”
“Oh. What’s cancer?”
“A bad disease that kills people.”
I wonder about that for a while but don’t ask any more about it because I don’t want to seem dumb. We bag the papers, load up both of our bikes and wheel out of the garage, wobbling a bit from the heavy loads. I do one side of the streets and Dick does the other, so in a couple of hours we are finished and riding side by side on our way home.
Suddenly Dick says, “We’re having a rosary for my Dad at St. Patrick’s tonight. Do you want to come?”
“Sure”, I say, without hesitation. I would go anywhere with Dick Kelly if he wanted me to. I wonder what a rosary is, but don’t ask. I’ll find out when I get there.
“I’m going with my aunt and my mom”, he says, “so I’ll just see you there.”
At six o’clock that evening I ride my bike over to St. Patrick’s and push through the big doors of a Catholic church for the first time in my life. My family are not church goers and the subject has never come up between us.
Now I’m standing in the dimness of the vestibule sensing the unusual aromas and cool atmosphere, wondering where to go and what to do. There are several small candles burning at the feet of a statue of a lady in a blue dress with a silver circle over her head. She has a serious look on her face, and is holding her hands out, as if to give me a hug. There is a bowl of water on a pedestal near the door. The air is dim and quiet and heavy, as if underground. After a moment a lady, whom I hadn’t noticed standing in the shadows, steps forward and says in a low voice, “Are you family?” I look at her without understanding and shrug my shoulders. She is dressed in black, a black bandana over her head, tied in a knot at the chin. Only her face glows in the dimness, cool and hard. “Are you a member of Mr. Kelly’s family?” I shake my head. She leans forward a little. “Are you a friend of the family?” I nod my head. She gives me a patient smile, which she holds for the next few moments, and takes me by the elbow with a black gloved hand to lead me through the carved inner doors into the church.
Holding her smile she walks me to a pew near the back of a gathering of about fifty people and releases my elbow. I sit down and look around.
Most of the pews are empty except for the first five or six rows. The ceiling is high and domed with a cross at the very top. A long row of stained glass figures in dramatic poses and colored robes run high along the wall to my left. On my right are niches carved into the wall for statues of the men, women, and children of the Holy Family. In front, behind a low, polished fence, there are two steps leading up to a platform. On the platform is a long table that is covered with white, lacy sheets, candles burning in golden holders at either end. On the table is a stand and on the stand is a rather large circle of gold, like a sun, with a white center. Above the golden sun is a huge crucifix with a suffering Jesus, naked except for a cloth around his waist. Blood is running out of his hands and feet, which are nailed with large spikes to the cross, and down his face from a circle of thorns that is on his head, like a crown. His eyes are open and his face is contorted in pain. Blood is coming out of a stab wound in his side. You can see that he is almost dead.
To the right of the platform, facing the congregation, a priest in purple and white robes sits in a large gilded chair with his hands folded in his lap. His eyes are closed as if he is listening carefully to the organ music which is coming from somewhere in the back. A purple and gold casket is just inside the fence at the end of the center aisle that divides the pews. The lid is open on the left side with a silky white lining. I notice Dick sitting in the front row near the casket with his mother and a few others. He turns to look back my way and I am about to wave when he turns away again.
The room is large, high and grand. I had been in the State Capital Building as a nine year old when we lived on 12th and P near Capital Park, and it, too, was decorated with painted images and stained glass windows and statues of important people. But the Capital Building was cold as marble and stale, like a museum of history. This church, the painted figures, the suffering Jesus, the aroma of incense, the organ music in the silence, the priest in his robes, hands folded and eyes closed, creates a pious appeal that makes me feel small but protected, as if I am being watched over by the Lord, Himself. I am self-conscious and unsure of myself, but I am also taken in, mesmerized by these surroundings.
Suddenly everyone stands up and starts singing. I quickly stand and look around to see if anyone is watching me. A lady to my left points to a book that is on a shelf on the back of the next pew. I open the book and turn the pages randomly. The book is full of songs. The lady leans over to show me her book, pointing to the page number, singing all the while. By the time I find the right page, they are singing another song, so I just close the book and hold it in my hands without looking back at the lady on my left. When the next song ends, the priest in the purple and white robes stands up and says something in a foreign language, sort of singing the phrase in a dramatic way, and then motions for us all to sit down, which we do. He walks a few steps to a podium with a microphone and says, “Let us pray.” Everyone kneels down on a padded strip of wood in front of us, bows their heads, puts their hands together and says the “The Lord's Prayer”. I have heard this prayer before but have never tried to say it and don’t know the words, so I just put my hands together and listen. When the prayer is finished we all sit down again and the priest starts talking. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here tonight…”. He talks about Mr. Kelly as if they had been old friends. I hadn’t known Mr. Kelly very well and had never spoken to him that I can remember, and I am not much interested in what is being said about him now. Instead I look around at the statues and paintings and notice a long row of carved plaques on one wall that seem to be telling a story about Jesus carrying the cross. Everything I see is new and mysterious. I am in a strange place with people I don’t know, yet I feel comfortable and relaxed. The high ceiling, the paintings and statues, the stained glass windows all surround me, enclose me, and seem to be protecting me in a way I have never before known.
When the priest stops talking we all kneel again and start another prayer. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” I have never heard this one before. It is a short prayer, but when they finish saying it they say it over again and then again and again. I notice that some people have a string of black beads in their hands and seem to be counting the number times the prayer is being said. This goes on for a very long time and my knees are aching so I sit back against the bench and try to relax. Eventually they stop and we finally sit down again.
The priest chants another few lines in that other language while waving a small, smoking incense cage on a chain at the casket. He speaks softly as he waves the cage, and then sets it down, spreads his arms out wide and chants several lines with his head lifted and his eyes closed. It is a striking scene with the large crucifix high over the golden sun, the candles burning, the priest with his arms spread and his eyes closed chanting in another language over the casket. And then, as if by some cue I haven’t noticed, everyone stands up and begins filing into the center aisle and then down toward the open casket. I wasn’t prepared for this and I don’t want to go, but the lady to my left and the others behind her are waiting with strained patience for me to move so that they can join the procession. I step into the aisle and begin walking toward the casket with the others. I notice that some people stop next to the casket and look in while others just walk by. Many are dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs. After they pass the casket almost everyone goes out a side door into the night. I want to get to that door but know that I must first pass the casket. I decide that I will walk by quickly without looking and then make for the door. Then it is my turn and I find myself standing next to the casket looking in.
There he is, Mr. Kelly, looking just like he always had, only not quite. He is dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie. It’s a suit meant for special occasions, like this. I imagine his shoes are highly polished. His face has no expression at all. His eyes are closed and his chin is tilted slightly up. He looks fake, like he is made of wax. I look closely, trying to find any sign of the living man I have seen so many times in his chair reading the paper under the tall lamp, but he is as lifeless as stone. Finally, I move on and out the door into the night. I am puzzled by this experience with death. How can it be? Alive, and then not alive. Dick is standing with his family in a group of people. I smile and gave him a slight wave, hesitating. He waves back but stays with his family. I go to the front of the church for my bike and ride home in the warm Sacramento evening that smells of star jasmine, filled with the wonder and mystery of all that I have just experienced.
Because of the legnth of this story - 80 pages - only the first chapter is printed here.
No comments:
Post a Comment