Chapter XXXXV: The Heat is On

Part 4: Lore
Chapter Forty-Five: The Heat Is On

My father's first attack on my shine box came before Poncho's engine had cooled. “I'll bet you're happy to be home,” were his exact words, and while this would have been true if I were a toaster oven being returned to the store, it missed--wide right--in summing up my current worldview.
“Overjoyed, Dad. I'm doing flips. Look,” I said with a plastic grin that exposed my glazed snappers.
I was camped on the couch, naturally, watching commercials for lemon fresh floors and berry scented bathrooms. Food was infused into everything from lip gloss to panty liners. I could barely categorize products anymore. Was it edible? Did it involve my bathroom? Did a celebrity endorse it? The only items I understood were microwaveable dinners. Speaking of M.D.s, I'd done some soul searching on the return trip from Connecticut and came to the conclusion that I didn't mind a fate that brought me face to face with TV dinners each night. Why should I mind? They prepare themselves, taste pretty good, and, if you aren't a brand name loyalist, are often on sale. They were the perfect food. There were worse fates than to be old and alone in a supermarket with an armful of TV dinners. At least I would have a TV. I scratched out a note on a scrap of paper: “To Vance-I'll have TV when old.”
My father's weak laugh at my mockery was his last gesture to my fragile condition. I suppose if I was making gobs of money and he could count on me to kick some down to him in his golden age, then he would address me with a little more sympathy. As it was, I got the basic bootblack treatment.
“Another adventure under the belt? What? This one didn't last very long, Ogden. Why was that?”
I've seen X-Wing fighters less loaded than those questions. I chose a diversion strategy.
“Can I have some peace? Can I? I just drove back from Connecticut in a car that moved slower than a Mookie Wilson ground ball.”
It had actually taken several days to travel the several hundred miles. Poncho stalled at the slightest hill forcing me to back track around three mountain grades. I had to hug the shoulder to let other cars pass me. Then, in pure desperation, I visited Jack Kerouac's grave in Lowell to ask for guidance. He led me back to Ironbury, my 2nd and 3rd grade haunts west of Boston. I visited the old Carr School and found deluxe condominiums. The playground where Chuckie and Tony D'Amato and the others had played Zipper Tag and traded baseball cards was now a parking lot. The quarter I hid under a stone in 1979? Gone. Now, I don't expect everything to stay the same for the duration of my trial, but Jeez! How many people's 2nd grade playgrounds were turned into parking lots?
“Do you know how many people honked at me, Dad? Millions. I'm feeling a little bit vulnerable right now. So...”
“Vulnerable? Why is that, Ogden? Is it because you are a criminal? Is it because I got your IRS form back and it looks like you earned about twenty-seven dollars in 1991? Or is it possibly because you dropped out of college after one semester to clean toilets and live as a beach bum in Florida?”
See, that's what I'm talking about. It's getting harder and harder to live in this country. I made 27 dollars in 1991, but I was broke by January 1992. A dollar just doesn't go as far as it used to.
“I'm boycotting work until the war is over. I told you that before. We must bring the government to its knees.”
“First you have to have some skill to withhold. Remember Atlas Shrugged.”
He was right, of course. The whole idea of Atlas Shrugged was that John Galt had some valuable skill he refused to sell. There isn't much demand for bootblacks these days. I could have started the whole “Principles, Dad.” thread, but chose another approach.
“It must be nice to have all the answers,” I yawned. “You sit on your velvet throne and just wave your hand around, decreeing stuff. Everything must fit so nicely in your world.”
“I don't have all the answers, Ogden. But I do...”
“Oh? Well, you talk like someone who has all the answers. Take your psycho-philosophizing elsewhere. I have a game to watch. Today is the day Schiraldi whiffs that bum.”
My Pop shook his bean like he always does. I wasn't even going to bother to show him the '86 team photo. Why waste my time?
“You're chasing a White Whale, Ogden. You are hunting the White Whale.”
I sniffed, “Ha! Now who's crazy? Do I look like I'm in any condition to fish? It takes me twenty minutes to tie my shoes!”
“No. You are pursuing that which will destroy you.”
Too much book knowledge had clearly warped my father's brain. He had tossed out another disposable analysis for no ones benefit.
“The only person who is going to be destroyed is Ray Knight. That is, if you will leave me alone for ten seconds. I can win! I played Whiffle Ball with Clutch.”
“You only have one life, Ogden,” said my father as he picked up a glass I was finished with. “You act like you'll live forever. You just float along in the breeze without a care for the future.”
“Me? Look at you. You drive your middle class car, live in your middle class house, go to your middle class job, fund your middle class war, muddle along in your middle class funk. When was the last time you did anything for yourself? Huh, Mr. Drone?”
“Why don't you calm down,” said my father backing away.
“This is calm, Dad. You should see me when I get angry. Which one of us is gonna look back on their lives and be satisfied? You? All you did was fly from flower to flower getting sugar for the queen Bee. I live like I'm gonna die tomorrow. You're the one who lives like he's got a million years to grind the stone down.”
“You have one life, Ogden, and spending it in front of the television watching reruns of Hogans Heroes and The Jetsons and the 1986 World Series, is not very productive. I may be a worker Bee, but at least I work. You're one of the Bees that gets kicked out of the hive.”
“Let me do you a favor, Dad. You know that big To-do list in your head? Well, take my name off of it. I'm done. This is what I do now. I watch Game Six, and when Dewey wins then I'll be done.”
“That isn't good enough, Ogden. When you are laying on your death bed with your family around you, will you cling to memories of this...this idleness?”
The F. jutted his hands in my direction like he was performing some rice ritual that would appease the gods of sloth. I sneezed again since Twain hair was everywhere and a good sample was currently lodged in m nose. Another tissue was added to the growing pile on the carpet.
“Haven't we had this conversation before? Yes, Dr. Freud. I'm a failure. Happy?”
“No, Ogden. Being a failure doesn't mean you're excused from responsibility. If you continue to act out you will suffer.”
“So I've been told. Everyone has an opinion about how I'll die. You think I'll be some bum who deeply regrets my idle youth. Vance thinks I'll be an old man shuffling in the supermarket. Lacy thinks I'll end up on a coroner's slab in Louisiana. There should be an 800 number. People could call and press #1 if they think I'll end regretting my life and #2 if I'll be a befuddled old man. It'll be cool.”
I was tired of having my fate projected by people who couldn't even tell me how many home runs Don Baylor hit in 1986. There ought to be a set standard to bust my shine box.
“More mockery? Well, at least you had fun on your latest little trip. At least you got one more little adventure out of your system. Maybe you can grow up now.”
I chewed cud and surfed a few channels on the television while the Pater stood between me and the screen. It was hard not to get back into Poncho and drive south again, starting the whole cycle over, but there was the whole matter of the transmission and lack of money. All the monkey wrenches and hacksaws in the world weren't going to put those dogs to sleep. Like E.T. was to Earth, I was in the dip.
“Are you done, Drone? Are you? Because you can go back to your velvet throne any time now. Go on. Shoo. You are dismissed. When I feel my self-esteem climb above the 'Scum Beneath The Sink' level, I'll call you. I wouldn't want to consider myself a success. No, not this shine boy.”
My father nodded in that knowing, priestly way that was supposed to cast fear and doubt into my heart.
“I just thought you might like to know, Mr. Sarcastic, that your court case is tomorrow morning at eleven. Is your legal council ready?”
Any sudden movement aggravates my back injury; thus, the gymnastics I did when I heard the court case was in less than twenty four hours nearly split me in half.
“What! Already? How? I never sent in the thing, the slip.”
“I found the summons in your room,” the Drone said proudly. “It said you needed to return it. I guess you forgot about that before you went traipsing off on your little adventure to Connecticut. While you were having fun, I returned it. While you were playing around, the state set a court date. Your end is nigh.”
“No. How? I was going to Mexico.”
“I knew you'd be back. You always come back.”
There it was: My death sentence.
“So you broke my shine box once again? Et Tu Brutus? I'm out there doing my best, keeping my shine box out of the mud, and when I come back I learn you have stabbed me in the back? You stuck a shiv in my liver? You really did it this time. Congratulations.”
“That's the sum of your defense? I thought you said that you studied law when you were in California.”
Ernesto and I had researched the extent to which you can challenge the constitution when a President loses his mind and begins to drop bombs on capital cities.
“No. I'll tell you what I'm gonna say. I was abused as a child. Yeah. I was sexually abused as a child by my demented father. Brooklyn will back me up on that. Years of sexual abuse caused me to go crazy that night. I could say that Rachel was wearing a perfume that reminded me of the perfume you used to wear when you chained me up in the basement and whipped my naked adolescent body.”
My father wasn't amused, or even horrified. The power of my trademark hyperbole had waned. Something was indeed nigh, and it wasn't lunch.
“That will go over real well in a small claims court. Try that and they'll put you in jail for false accusations and contempt faster than your friend Charlie Manson.”
Why was Manson suddenly my friend? Just because you start a High School fan club for a guy doesn't me we're best pals, snapping off a “How-R-You” every chance we get. On the contrary, Charlie had failed to keep up his end of the hellos. By 1989, I was forced to turn my back on him just like every other significant person in his life. I wasn't concerned since, as far as serial killers go, Manson ranked up there with Eisenhower and Nixon; he wasn't much more than a crazed conspirator who got himself in a position where his orders to kill were followed. It probably surprised him more than anyone. Sad really, but I had other veggie fish sticks to fry.
“I will win that case, Dad. And when I win it I will vindicate the wrongfully imprisoned Manson. Just watch. Manson will be proud of me.”
From the fake fireplace mantle, my father picked up a picture of me and my brother in 1985. We were smiling, laughing in the summer before I entered High School. Brooklyn had his arm around me and I was pretending to punch him. My braces flashed in the sun and a hint of a mustache was on my lips. My Red Sox cap was bright blue and red, hardly five years old..
“You used to be normal. What happened? No, let me guess. The Red Sox lost. Ray Knight got a hit. Stanley threw a wild pitch. Buckner let a ball go through his legs. Blah, blah, blah. What happened to this boy, the boy who did his homework, who shaved, who took out the trash when I asked him to?”
“That's the whole problem, Dad. He hasn't gone anywhere. I still want the Sox to win. That's all. Now that you have killed me, will you at least let me watch the game.”
I had the Game Six tape in but was waiting to be alone before I started it. There was still a chance that I could channel all my frustrations, my failed trip to Mexico, my inability to capture Lacy, the grievous loss of my Word Up tape into Schiraldi's 0-2 pitch to Knight, thus negating the need to go to court. A little more outside and low and Knight would wave at the pitch. Dewey could have his celebration. I could have mine. But my father was like those leeches in Stand By Me.
“How do you plan to pay off the settlement?” asked the leech. “Maybe Grandma will give you a loan. Or you could work at the Pic-n-Pay.”
I would rob Pic-n-Pay before I ever worked there, but this was a point not worth mentioning.
“Good idea, Dad. Maybe I could shine shoes, too. Sure. I'll set my shine box up downtown and be a bootblack. Would that make you proud, seeing me under the North Church shining shoes in the rain? Huh? I might be able to sell single cigarettes too. You son, the cigarette selling bootblack. In the summer I could pick cotton. How cool would that be?”
This new life plan actually didn't seem too bad at the moment. Not only would it make for interesting conversations at class reunions, it was also very close to what I had planned to do in Mexico. When no one needed their shoes shined I could play violin for quarters. And how hard could cotton picking be? Still, the point was to be sarcastic, not actually come up with alternative life goals. One thing at a time.
“I know you like to judge me out of hand. I realize you love to predict the worst for me, but at least wait until I'm being led away in chains before you hang your head and notch up another failure for your curse family.”
“I won't have long to wait,” quipped the Drone.
“I haven't lost yet, thank you very much. I thought this was a free country. I thought I was innocent until proven guilty.”
“It is, but I seem to remember you relinquishing your American Citizenship two years ago. I remember you writing a certain letter to the editor that went something like, “I can no longer accept the privileges of a nation that destroys cultures and over-consumes resources as a matter of government policy. I hearby...”
Though this had been some of my finer writing, inspired by the revolutionary giants, Thoreau, Paine, and Black Sabbath, I was in no mood to hear it recited by my old man.
“Thank you for that reminder, Mr. Store-Up-Emotional-Ammunition-On-His-Sons. Are you going to stand there and recite all of the proclamations I've made since I could speak?”
“No. I only remember the ones you typed out, copied, and stapled to half to telephone poles in Bone Harbor, Ogden.”
See, that was my point. If this is such a “free” country why did the police have such an issue with my freedom of speech? Was it so bad that I posted my political convictions on a telephone pole? Were they worried I might be right? Then they fined me because I wouldn't remove the flyers. I was treated like a shine boy.
“They made me a martyr, Dad. It was just like Gandhi when he burned his ID card in South Africa. They might as well have hung me in Market Square. There would have been no difference at all. Right? So, Dad, since you admit the Government is a fascist regime, can you explain why they bother with fines that criminalize my speech and uses the poor as ammunition? Why don't they just shoot me? Can you explain that, Mr. Thurgood Marshall? What are they afraid of on their velvet thrones?”
“Why do I try?”
More importantly, I didn't know why I tried. I could hear the words spill out of my mouth like I was a spiritual medium for Malcolm X, but I had no idea what I was saying. I had said all of this before, countless times. My father had asked, “Why do I try?” countless times in the past five years. My normal response was, “Because the Government has corrupted your free will and is using you to destroy mine.” But after the Lacy incident and nearly dying on my return trip to Bone Harbor, I was too tired to say it. My father stood like an actor on stage waiting for a cue I couldn't supply.
“Please, Dad. Give me some peace. You were right. I can have no impact in this world. None. I'm obviously at its mercy. Are you happy?”
“I never said that, Ogden.”
“Sure you did. Last Christmas. You said, 'Ogden, you can have no impact in this world.'“
“...By standing naked under the North Church with a sign that says 'Capitalist exploiters repent!' You can have no impact in this world standing in naked protest to a war. That is what I said.”
My naked protest had been well conceived but poorly executed. The fliers strictly forbade the use of alcohol. I thought that implied any narcotic or inebriate. Still, charging me with drunken insurrection and providing controlled substances to a minor were blatant political targeting.
“I'm not gonna split hairs with you. Same difference. I lost. That is what it comes down to. They won and I lost. Happy? Can I watch the game now? Dewey is waiting.”
“It isn't about you, Ogden. It is bigger than you,” my father proclaimed from the kitchen.
“It's never about me,” I said as I prepared to concentrate on Schiraldi's 0-2 pitch to Knight. Outside and Low. Outside and Low. Knight swings...Gedman picks it up...Sox win! Just as the crucial moment came, just as I felt I had a chance to push that ball past Knight's bat, my father called to me from the kitchen.
“Your car is parked behind mine. Come move it!”
Parked? No, that was where it rolled to a stop after some neighborhood kids had helped me push it down Elwyn Avenue. I tried to explain this and at the same time maintain the spiritual bridge I'd built to Calvin Schiraldi, but it was too much. The pitch. The swing. Carter scores. Again and again. Then the phone rang. Another complication?
“Ogden's shoeshine service,” I said into the receiver. “How may I help you?”
“So you try to kill Rachel and then you try to kidnap Lacy? You're doin' real good, Oggy.”
It was Cristo. He'd called Piper and learned where I'd been and what had happened to make me turn around. Once again, I was the bootblack.
“So what? So I'm back. Carter scored again. Just a curveball in the dirt, Sticky. Maybe high heat. Anything but that fastball over the plate. There was just no need to throw that pitch. At least give him a ball outside first. Even if Gedman misses it he still strikes out because Mitchell is on first. See? It kills me every time. Why can't Sambito come in and pitch? Why?”
“At least ya came back. Ya belong here, buddy. Let's go get a grilled cheese at Gillies, a slice of pie. I got my mom's car,” Cristo said casually. “We'll go out to the Mall and you can dig through the Girl's Pre-Teen underwear department like the good old days. Moony and Roddy are having a big party tonight. They cleaned up last weekend in football. I lost a dime.”
For all I cared, Cristo could have been reciting Shakespeare. After fourteen years together, longer than many marriages, his words, and probably mine, were so much static. If he said anything important, he would probably repeat it eventually.
“If only I knew someone like Doc Brown from Back to the Future then I could just return to 1986 and warn McNamara that Schiraldi was going to get hit in the bottom of the tenth. It would be simple.”
Nick called something in his house a Malaka and then said, “If you had a time machine all you would do is warn McNamara about Schiraldi?”
I didn't like Cristo's tone of voice. It sounded like more than one person was in possession of a velvet throne.
“Well, come to think of it, I'd punch that Mets fan, the bitch who did that rally thing with her arms behind the plate. Remember? I'd punch her in the head just as the Sox won. And I'd warn myself about following Cindy into the swimming pool that one time with the police. Oh, and I could get my Word Up tape back. And Falco 3. And remember that time I tore up Don Mattingly's baseball car because he hit that grand-slam off Nipper? Well, I'd keep that card. Come to think of it, I guess there's a lot I could do if I had a time machine.”
Anyone who's seen Back to The Future has pondered what would happen if they visited their parents' high school, helped their own father meet their mother, pretended to write songs by Prince and Hall & Oates, and introduced New Wave pop to kids in the Fifties. But what I really wanted to do--after replacing my tragically lost cassettes--was run onto the field at Shea Stadium and convince Schiraldi to hand the ball to Stanley before starting the inning. Even better, I could convince McNamara to pinch hit Don Baylor in the top of the inning. That would break the chain of events and thus ensure a Sox victory. Sure, I would be in jail for the celebration, but I could just tell the cops that I was from the future and I had returned on a mission to save myself from a lifetime of torment. I know my rights.
The only problem with that strategy was that I didn't know if my consciousness would switch over to my 15 year-old self, thus allowing me to enjoy the celebration. See? Time travel is a tricky thing. Sure, the Red Sox would have won the World Series and my 15 year-old self would celebrate in Bone Harbor, but what about the 21 year-old self in a New York jail? What about him? I couldn't share a consciousness even with myself. Would he just start his life over again as a time refugee? Would he go visit his 15 year-old counterpart in Bone Harbor and warn him about driving without a license and goofing off too much in Chemistry class? Or would he disappear from existence because his 15 year-old self was able to do something that would prevent his future encounter with a time machine? If so, what would happen to my collection of Bazooka Joe bonus points? There were a lot of questions. I didn't want to go back in time and not be able to enjoy the celebration.
What I really needed was the chance to go back to October, 1986, to erase everything that had happened and start over with the Red Sox as World Champions. That was the ticket. Even though I was currently trying to concentrate on making Bob Stanley strike Mookie Wilson out, I still knew that no matter what I couldn't start over in October, 1986. I could celebrate in 1992, eat Gillies grilled cheese sandwiches, have my own victory celebration at Fenway Park, make banners for my house and enjoy other victor's spoils, but it wouldn't be the same as if I was able to return, body and mind, to when I was fifteen and the world lay before me like a Chinese buffet. But Bonigan claimed I would be able to enjoy the celebration. He's made that promise at every Youthfire. My job was to protect the past, his job was to help me relive it. Why else would I be clinging to these scratched vinyl memories of JJ Newberrys, Mack Wynter, Gordy Clutcher and Dwight Evans? Why else would I wear this smelly 11 year-old cotton practice hat?
But the question remained: How would I be able to enjoy the celebration if I was the only one who cared?
Cristo was naturally oblivious to my musings.
“You're fahking pathetic, Oggy. You get a time machine and you buy Falco 3? What's wrong with you? You know what? I don't even want to go to the Mall with you. You disgust me. Why did you even come back? You should've stayed in Connecticut with your butt buddy Skinski. Use a time machine to win a baseball game? Are you nuts? If I had a time machine I'd go back to 1986 and punch you in the face.”
Cristo had hung up on me in the past. It was his way of asserting what little power he possessed in the world. He would call back, but not before the Drone herded me into the car and drove me to Queensland to visit my grandmother.