The Temptations of St. Frank

By Anthony Bruno

A rollicking coming-of-age comedy set in 1970s New Jersey, from a multiple award–nominated author.
 
In this hilarious and biting novel, seventeen-year-old Frank Grimaldi wants one thing more than anything else—to have sex before he graduates. Too bad his crazy teachers, his insane parents, the Catholic Church, and the Mafia are all standing in the way . . .
 
From the author of Bad Apple and the Anthony Award finalist Devil’s Food, this is an involving and entertaining story of a parochial high school and the many intrigues—romantic and otherwise—of its students.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781626812369

Anthony Bruno

Anthony served in the US Army, during the Viet Nam era, and is currently retired from the New York City police dept. Married and the proud father of two, he was born in Brooklyn, and now resides in Middle Village, New York.

Book preview

Chapter 1

April 10, 1970

The warm breeze coming in through the open passenger-side window hit seventeen-year-old Frank Grimaldi in the face, whipping the hair off his forehead and fluttering his tie over his shoulder. He looked at his reflection in the side mirror—dark eyes behind black Clark Kent glasses, big head because he was a big guy, too-big nose, grim mouth over a strong chin—and he could see the feelings of devastation in his expression. He couldn’t fucking believe it. He wasn’t totally surprised—it was a long time coming—but he still couldn’t believe it. It was official now. The Beatles had broken up.

Frank’s best friend since grammar school, Dom Nunziato, a Guido who actually thought the Four Seasons were better than the Beatles, drove his father’s Cadillac along Ferry Street in Newark, New Jersey. The radio was on loud, Paul and John singing Hey Jude, the endless nah-nah-nah-nah-hey-Jude part at the end. WABC had been playing Beatles songs all day.

Dom drove with his elbow out the window, just like his old man, flicking the ash off a Marlborough with his thumb. Mr. Nunziato’s Caddy was two-tone green—a light dusty green body with a dark spruce vinyl top—same colors as a Gretsch 6118 archtop. George Harrison used to play a Gretsch when the Beatles first came to America but not that color. Frank just couldn’t stop thinking about them, about them breaking up. He felt heavy, like he was made of lead. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. Christ, if the Beatles could break up, anything could happen. Or not happen. That’s what frightened Frank.

The big car sailed past the red-brick Rheingold brewery and the city park with the big pool where all the black kids swam in the summer. The yellow forsythia bushes that grew along the wrought-iron fence around the park were in full bloom. This part of Ferry Street was a jumble of factories, warehouses, and sad-looking residential houses. Dom’s father had grown up in this neighborhood, but Frank couldn’t imagine living in Newark now, not after the race riots three years ago. The riots that kept him from seeing Jimi Hendrix at the Mosque Theater the night they started. Frank still had the unused ticket stuck in the mirror over his bureau in his room.

Dom steered the Caddy onto the truck-route bridge that crossed Newark Bay, tons of ancient black steel girders, like Godzilla’s charred skeleton, the tail in Newark, the nose in Jersey City. It was so ugly it was beautiful.

Hey Jude ended, and Dan Ingram, the afternoon deejay, came back on. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The end of an era. If you haven’t already heard, a spokesman at Apple Corp made it official today. The Beatles have broken up…

Frank tuned him out and reached down into his navy-blue book bag, which looked like an oversized bowling-bowl case. He pulled out a thick spiral notebook with the St. Anselm’s Preparatory School crest printed on the cover and turned to the last page, which looked like the tattooed lady’s back. It was full of doodles and caricatures of teachers and students from St. A’s—including Michael Vaseline Boy Vasily, the smartest kid in school, as a greasy-haired groundhog with glasses; Larry Vitale, the class clown, as a mosquito; Mr. Whalley, the disciplinarian, as a fat-ass, harpoon-wielding walrus with a pipe in his mouth and a crown cocked on his head; and Monsignor Fitzgerald, the headmaster, as the Grand Inquisitor with a Satanic goatee and a pointy tail dangling over his shoulder. There was also an assortment of naked and semi-naked girls with big tits and great hair. Interspersed with his artwork were abbreviated lists—guitars he’d like to own, rock stars he’d like to be, movie and TV stars he’d like to fuck.

But in a box at the top of the page was the crucial list, The List.

1. Dart.

2. Syr.

3. BU ?

4. Am. ?

5. Mont. St. *

6. Rut. *

This was the list of colleges he had applied to. Dartmouth had rejected him early, back when there was still snow on the ground. He knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance to get into Dartmouth, but his Uncle Rick, his mother’s brother who lived in New Hampshire, had insisted that he at least try and even offered to pay the application fee. Frank went along with it, but Frank really didn’t want to go there. Dartmouth wasn’t coed, and it was in the middle of nowhere. Bad enough that St. A’s was all boys. Frank had come to the conclusion that four years of hanging out with just guys was unnatural and unhealthy, and with all the religious indoctrination and having to wear a blazer and a tie everyday, Frank was ready for some freedom. Still, the Dartmouth rejection letter had stung when he read it. He didn’t want to go there, but he secretly wanted to get in. Just to prove that he could.

But Syracuse has rejected him, too. He had never been there, but the catalogue looked good and they had a journalism school. Frank wanted to be a writer. It was the one thing he did well—his English teachers all praised him for it, and he liked doing it. After he got the Syracuse rejection letter, someone told him it was just as well because the winters in upstate New York are brutal and all the freshmen get so depressed they end up seeing shrinks. Frank convinced himself that Syracuse probably wasn’t the place for him. But it was still a rejection, and a rejection is a rejection.

He’d been accepted to Rutgers and Montclair State, his safety schools. Montclair State was nothing to get excited about, everybody got in there. All you had to do was apply, and the application was only two pages long. It was supposed to be the best community college in New Jersey, but it was still a community college. Worse than that, it was too close to home. If he went there, he’d have to commute and live with his parents. A slow painful death would be better.

Same problem with Rutgers. It was in the middle of the state, and his father—who wasn’t all that keen on him going to college anyway—had already made it clear that Frank could commute to New Brunswick. It wasn’t that far, he kept saying. Living at home with a long commute to school—a slow painful death with traffic.

So his hopes were riding on American University and Boston University, still waiting to hear. American was in D.C., and B.U. was in Boston, both far enough away that he would have to live there. If he really believed in all that Catholic bullshit, he’d be praying ‘round the clock. The way he saw it, anything could happen. Or not happen. He was standing on the diving board of life, and he could either dive in or not dive in. Either he went away to school and started living his life, or he stayed home and lived like a prisoner. Or like some oppressed person behind the Berlin Wall, constantly under surveillance, repressed, put down, and discouraged from having a thought of his own.

He looked out the window at the sunlight shimmering off the dirty bay. There was always the third option. He could just run off and seek his fortune the way characters in novels did. Huck Finn, Gulliver, Sal Paradise, Ishmael. Call me fucking Frank.

But at the bottom of the page Frank had another list, a tiny one in small distended psychedelic print that hardly looked like writing at all. The list was camouflaged inside a series of three-dimensional, infinitely joined cubes, a doodle he drew all the time. It was a very important list, a personal to-do list, so personal he didn’t want anyone else to discover it. He stared at it from time to time just so he could savor the joyous possibility of completing it.

1. Col.

2. Band

3. G.L.

The first item was obvious—college. He had to get into college, an away college.

The second was something he’d been wanting to do since he was in sixth grade when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. He wanted to start a band. He and Dom had been talking about it seriously since Christmas. Dom had gotten some decent equipment, and they’d been shitting around on their guitars together, but this summer they were really gonna do it. Dom said he knew a kid from his school who was getting a drum kit for graduation, so all they needed was a bass player and they’d have a band.

Which lead to the third item on the list—G.L., get laid. Frank had made out with girls, felt one up, and even fingered another one, but he hadn’t gotten a hole in one yet, and he felt like a pussy. Meeting girls wasn’t easy when you went to an all-boys school, but he was determined, and he had a plan. He and Dom would start a band, they’d play at parties, and Frank would meet girls. Girls who dug guys in bands. The band was the key.

Unless, of course, he got lucky and made it with some girl without having a band. It could happen. It could actually happen with Yolanda. It was possible. That’s why they were driving to Jersey City. Frank was hoping for a miracle.

Dom took the last drag off his cigarette and flicked it out the window. I don’t know why you Catholic school kids have to travel so goddamn far just to go to school. This girlfriend of yours must have to get up at the fuckin’ crack of dawn to get to Mother of Peace every day.

Frank didn’t say anything. Dom kept referring to Yolanda as his girlfriend, and Frank didn’t like it. If it ever got to the point where she was his girlfriend, he wouldn’t mind Dom saying that, but saying it now could just jinx things.

Frank stared out at the chalky gray water below the bridge as the Caddy slid through Godzilla’s ribcage, moving with the flow of gear-grinding trailer trucks. The Empire State Building and the World Trade Center were up ahead in the distance, left and right. Frank spotted the golden onion-dome of an Eastern Orthodox Church near a cemetery just on the other side of the bridge. He wondered if that was Yolanda’s church.

That must be the Ukrainian section over there, he said.

I know where that fuckin’ neighborhood is, Dom said, acting like the boss as usual. I’ve been there before.

Frank had a pretty good idea why Dom knew where the Ukrainian neighborhood was. Probably had something to do with his father’s work.

Dom took the first exit off the bridge and cloverleafed down to Routes 1&9, heading north toward the Pulaski Skyway, another charred steel skeleton but more like a giant python. Dom gunned the engine to pass an Esso tanker truck and a little beat-up red Toyota crammed with Hispanic guys. He swerved in front of the Toyota and took the next right without signaling, tires squealing. The Hispanic guys honked their nasally little horn at him.

Go fuck your mothers, Dom shouted.

Frank just looked at him, and Dom caught him looking. Oh, excuse me, Dom said. You think spics and niggers are okay. I forgot.

What if that was Santana? Frank said.

Oh, you mean what if they were, like, ‘good’ spics? Because they play in a cool band?

Yeah… maybe.

Dom shook his head and smirked. You’re so fucking dumb, I can’t believe it. You just don’t get it.

No, I get it, Frank said. You—

The Rascals came on the radio, and they both stopped to listen. Everybody’s Got to Be Free. Great song. Frank glanced at Dom, waiting for him to say something nasty about what a fucking shame it was that a bunch of straight-up Italian guys from Garfield—well, three of them at least because the guitar player didn’t have an Italian last name—ended up getting into that hippie shit, singing about peace and love and all that crap. Dom loved rock’n’roll as much as Frank did, but he hated the psychedelic stuff. Frank waited for Dom to make some crack about the Rascals, but he didn’t say a word, which made Frank happy. That band was too good to badmouth.

Dom slowed down as they drove into a residential neighborhood. The houses here were all old and kind of haphazard, no two alike, but they looked cared for. The cars parked along the street were mostly dark-colored American sedans and cheap-o compacts. No Camaros, no Firebirds, no Barracudas, no muscle cars at all. You could tell Italians didn’t live here.

As Dom drove farther into the neighborhood, they passed more of the same kind of houses. Frank was a little disappointed that Yolanda came from a place that was so plain and worn around the edges.

So where’s she live? Dom said, an unlit cigarette bobbing between his lips as he pressed the Caddy’s cigarette lighter.

How the fuck am I supposed to know where she lives?

She’s your fuckin’ girlfriend.

She’s not my girlfriend. I keep telling you that.

Yeah, right. The lighter popped, and Dom pulled it out, holding it to the tip of his cigarette. So what’re we supposed to do now?

"What’re you asking me for? Coming down here was your idea. Not mine."

Well, you gotta talk to her if you want something to happen, numbnuts. You said you can’t do it at school because her girlfriends are always around. Okay, fine. So you just happen to run into her down here. Neutral territory. No interference.

Dom’s confidence irritated Frank. He had a plan for everything, no problem. Frank, on the other hand, saw problems everywhere.

As Dom braked for a stop sign, Frank spotted a gang of people standing by a cyclone fence a block away. I wonder what’s going on over there.

Dom looked. I dunno. Let’s go find out. He hit the gas and hung a left, driving toward the gathering.

Maybe they’re protesting the war, Frank said.

Here? Not fuckin’ likely. These people love America. Apple pie, baseball, all that shit. They came here to get away from the Commies.

Like I don’t know that, Frank thought.

Up ahead he could see about thirty people facing the landfill on the other side of the fence, a huge field of uneven soil dotted with mounds bigger than houses for as far as he could see. Dump trucks rolled over the terrain like prehistoric wooly mammoths. Thin trails of smoke drifted across the forbidding landscape, but Frank couldn’t see anything burning.

Dom pulled over to the curb and turned off the engine. They got out and walked toward the group.

What the hell’s goin’ on? Dom said.

Like I’m supposed to know? Frank said, a little annoyed with his friend’s cocky walk—chest out, long strides. They were in someone else’s neighborhood for chrissake.

An old guy with thick yellow-white hair and a face as lumpy as a potato turned around and scowled in disgust. Hell! he said, pointing to the landfill. Vee leeve in hell. He had a thick accent, and he was really pissed off.

Dom went up to the man. What do you mean, you live in hell?

In hell! Potato Man snapped. "You do not know hell? There is hell! He pointed with a crooked, wicked-witch finger. Burning, burning, all the time, burning!"

Frank sniffed the air, but it didn’t smell all that bad. No different from the rest of north Jersey.

Potato Man shook his fist. Everybody sick! Everybody die!

Frank remembered a film clip he’d seen of Lenin standing at a podium, shaking his fist the same way. Or was it Trotsky? He couldn’t remember.

Potato Man scowled at them when they didn’t react properly to his outrage. He dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a worn newspaper clipping. He unfolded it with shaky hands and thrust it at Dom. Here. You read.

Dom looked at it and passed it on to Frank. The headline said, EXPERTS CLAIM BURNING LANDFILL IS A HEALTH HAZARD.

You read! the old man said, smashing his finger into the clipping in Frank’s hand. He scowled deeper. Read! He took the clipping back, folded it, and put it in Frank’s shirt pocket. You read! He abruptly turned around and stomped off toward a group of potato-faced old people just like himself.

What the fuck’s with him? Dom said.

Huh? Frank was distracted. He was staring at the pleated gray skirts of the Mother of Peace Academy for Girls uniform and the two girls who were wearing them. Frank focused on their bare legs, hems hiked well above the knee, skirts belling out around their asses. Frank’s heart was doing a Ginger Baker tom-tom beat. It was Yolanda and her friend Tina.

Tina turned around and spotted him as if she had sensed him staring. She flashed her ironic—or was the word sardonic? he wasn’t sure—half-smile at him. Tina was tall and on the skinny side. Her hair was dirty blond, and she wore it short with short bangs—too short in Frank’s opinion. She had big eyes, but they had dark rims under them as if she needed a good night’s sleep, even though she never seemed sleepy. Just the opposite. She had a quick wit and a sharp tongue. She wasn’t bad looking really—she just wasn’t Yolanda.

Yolanda was as tall as Tina but better built with shapelier legs and actual tits. She had long light-brown hair that hung below her shoulders and small but penetrating eyes. She was a little shy—but not retarded shy like some kids—just quiet, which made her kind of mysterious. She was a closed door that Frank wanted to open.

Both girls were very smart. Honors students. He regretted for the millionth time that he wasn’t in 4H, the senior honors class at St. A’s, because if he was, he would’ve been able to take the special coed honors physics class. It was the only coed class either school offered, and it was held first period at St. A’s. He would have seen Yolanda in class every day, and they would’ve been dating by now because, face it, the geeks in that class all had slide rules for dicks. No competition whatsoever.

If only…

Yolanda turned around and started walking toward him, and his stomach clenched. This was what he’d wanted, to run into her, but he didn’t expect it to happen this quickly. He wished to hell Dom wasn’t there, dreading what embarrassing thing his friend might say. She had her books in her arms, carrying them close to her chest the way girls do. But she wasn’t looking at him. In fact she hadn’t even noticed him. She veered off toward Potato Man and put her hand on his shoulder, rubbing it affectionately. Frank could see that she was talking to Potato Man, and he wondered if they were speaking Ukrainian. Even though he’d been lusting after her for months, he’d only heard her voice a few times. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she had the tiniest trace of an accent. Of course he might have just imagined it because he wanted her to be exotic.

She glanced over her shoulder and looked at Frank. At least he thought she was looking at him. He tried to read her expression, but she turned away and he couldn’t tell if she had recognized him or not. If she had, her lack of reaction wasn’t a good sign. Maybe she disapproved of him because he wasn’t in the honors class. Maybe she hated him. But why would she hate him? She didn’t know him. Was it because he was here in her neighborhood, on her turf? What the fuck? This wasn’t West Side Story.

Or worse, maybe she just didn’t give a shit about him. Maybe he was nothing in her book, not even worthy of a reaction one way or the other. Maybe she preferred nerdy boys. Maybe that’s what got her hot—guys with high GPAs and early acceptances into top-shelf colleges with scholarships. Maybe she didn’t care that the Beatles had broken up. Maybe she liked classical music, opera, highbrow stuff. Maybe she thought guys who liked rock’n’roll were low class and beneath her. Fuck, he thought, they would never get together. It was doomed from the start.

Yo, Dom said. Who’s the chick?

What? Frank had been so involved in the rise and fall of his yet-to-be-but-never-will-be relationship with Yolanda, he hadn’t noticed Tina walking toward them, looking right at him with her little sly-cat smile, hugging her books and covering up the bust she didn’t have.

What’re you doing here? she said to Frank. They kind of knew each other from school. He always hung out in the yearbook office in the morning, which was next to the physics lab. They’d said hi a few times, but he didn’t think she knew his name. Do you live near here?

Frank tried to think up a plausible excuse for being there, but he couldn’t come up with anything. He shrugged. Just hanging out.

Here? She gave him a skeptical look. Why?

I dunno. Just checking out the… He nodded toward the landfill. You know.

Yeah, it’s really bad. She frowned at the smoldering landscape. It was the first time Frank had ever seen her with a serious face.

Dom said, So what’re all these people doing here?

The breeze blew wisps of hair across her cheek, and for a moment Frank thought she was pretty cute. She looked down and moved the hair off her face with a graceful sweep of her fingertips. When she looked up again, she was looking at Dom. Who’re you? she said.

This is my friend Dom, Frank said.

But she didn’t pay any attention to him. She only had eyes for Dom. She pointed to the cigarette in his hand. Can I have one of those?

Sure. Dom took a pack of Marlboroughs out of his shirt pocket, tapped one out halfway, and held it out to her.

She took it and held it to her lips, waiting for a light.

Dom struck a match, but the wind blew it out. He moved closer to her and struck another match, cupping his hand around it and the cigarette in her mouth. It took a second to get it lighted.

Thanks, she said, exhaling smoke as she moved the hair out of her eyes again, this time with the cigarette in her hand. She was incredibly sexy, sexier than Frank ever imagined she could be.

So what’re all these people doing here? Dom asked again.

Complaining. They come here all the time. They think the stuff burning underground is toxic and that it’s gonna kill everybody. She brought the cigarette to her lips.

Is it true? Dom asked.

She shrugged. Some of the old people have a hard time breathing. Like Yolanda’s grandfather. She nodded toward Potato Man. But they’re, you know, old.

Frank focused on the trails of smoke blowing across the landfill. It could be toxic, he thought. It didn’t smell terrible, not like burning tires and shit, but he’d read somewhere that sometimes the most toxic stuff doesn’t smell at all. And truckers dump all kinds of chemical crap around here, any place they can get away with it. Everybody knew that.

Tina!

Frank recognized Yolanda’s voice as soon as he heard it, high and sweet. She waved to Tina, calling her over. Yolanda was at least three car-lengths away, but Frank could see the sapphire-blue of her tiny eyes. She had a concerned expression on her face, but she didn’t seem to know that he was there. She was focused on Tina.

I gotta go, Tina said, and hurried off toward Yolanda, taking one last drag off her cigarette before she flicked it into the gutter. She looked back and flashed a flirty little cat grin, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth. But who was she looking at? Dom or him? Frank couldn’t tell.

She walked over to Yolanda and Potato Man, who was holding onto Yolanda’s arm, and took his other elbow. The three of them started walking away, slowly because Potato Man couldn’t go that fast. When he started to cough, they all stopped. It was a harsh dry cough that rattled his whole body. He coughed for nearly a minute. Frank felt bad for him, but he couldn’t help staring at the girls’ legs from behind as they stood on either side of the old man. Yolanda’s legs were definitely the winners, but Tina’s skirt was hiked up higher, showing more thigh.

Is that her? Dom asked. Yvonne?

Yolanda. The one with the long hair.

You’re backing the wrong horse, pal. Go for the other one.

Tina?

Definitely.

Really? Why?

Your girl’s a prude.

How can you tell?

Dom shrugged. You can just tell. Look at her.

Frank looked. He kinda saw what Dom meant… maybe. But maybe not.

Trust me. Tina’s the one. Definitely. The other one? She’ll just jerk you around.

You really think so?

I know so.

Yolanda, Tina, and Potato Man started walking again. Frank stared at them, studying the girls. Compare and contrast. He knew what Dom meant, but he still liked Yolanda better.

Look, Dom said, if you don’t want Tina, maybe I’ll ask her out. He took a slow drag off his cigarette, staring at Tina with squinty John Wayne eyes, the Marlborough Man on the toxic plains.

Frank had a sudden urge to punch him in the face. He didn’t want Dom going after Tina.

But he didn’t say anything.

Chapter 2

Frank squeezed the purple rubber gorilla as he flipped through the latest Ramparts magazine. The gorilla had a gummy consistency that clung to Frank’s skin. He wasn’t at all in the mood for school, and the fact that it was only Tuesday bummed him out. He sat behind the big wooden desk in the yearbook office on the top floor of Mulvaney Hall, St. Anselm’s main building. He was the Summit’s literary editor, which meant he was in charge of all the copy in the book. He’d come up here to finish his math homework before school, but instead he’d started reading an article about guys who had fled to Canada to avoid the draft, guys not much older than himself.

Assholes in the government were talking about getting rid of the student deferment for college kids because too many people were complaining that it was only poor kids who were getting their asses blown off in Vietnam. There were rumors that the government was going to start some kind of lottery system, putting the 366 days of the year in a big hat and picking them out one by one. You get a low number, you got a pretty good chance of getting a rifle, a buzz cut, and an all-expenses-paid trip to the Mekong Delta. Get a number in the middle of the pack, you get an ulcer worrying that you’re gonna get called up. Get a high number, you pray that the goddamn war ends before they get to you. Goddamn fucking Nixon.

Frank had no intention of going to Vietnam. The war was fucked, and he knew for a fact that it really messed up the guys who went there. He had a cousin who had actually enlisted. The guy wasn’t even on the front lines—he was a fucking garbage collector in Saigon. But one day, out of the blue, a sniper took a shot at him. The bullet hit the garbage can he was carrying and saved his life, but the experience spooked him for good. He got jittery and paranoid and was never the same afterward. Well, fuck that. Better Canada than Vietnam, Frank figured. He just wondered what the hell it was like up there. How cold did it get in the winter? Did they have any good FM radio stations? He had a feeling it was probably pretty boring up in Canada. Everybody wearing snorkel parkas and using maple syrup on everything.

No one in the building before eight o’clock, gentleman!

Frank’s head shot up. He looked toward the voice, thinking it might be Mr. Whalley, the school disciplinarian, even though it didn’t sound like him. But it was just Tina standing in the open doorway, scowling the way Whalley always did. She’d gotten Whalley’s words right, but her imitation of his pissed-off walrus voice was girly and pathetic. She grinned her little cat grin at him, hugging her books to her chest. His eye went directly to her thighs and the hem of her skirt, remembering what Dom had said about her.

What’re you doing? she said, stepping into the small, jam-packed office. It was cluttered with chairs, a couch, a table, and the big desk, which was wedged into the corner farthest from the door with a tall beige file cabinet right next to it. To get behind the desk, a person had to step onto the desktop and drop into the chair as if it were a fighter cockpit. Frank liked that seat. It was cozy and commanding.

What if Mr. Whalley catches you here? Tina said.

Frank shrugged. He didn’t worry about Whalley. The fat-ass bastard was never subtle—you could hear him coming a mile away. Whenever he patrolled the hallways before school hours, trawling for guys violating the eight o’clock rule, he would always bellow, No one in the building before eight, gentlemen! Walking jug for anyone I catch in the building! Mulvaney Hall was four-stories tall with high ceilings, and Whalley’s booming voice carried loud and clear all the way from the first floor. Whenever Frank was in the yearbook office, which was most mornings, and he heard Whalley coming, he’d just close the door, lock it, and turn off the lights until the man was gone. Frank had done this dozens of times since school had started in September, and the only reason he risked getting caught was because of Yolanda. Every morning she was out in the hallway with the other honors girls from Mother of Peace, waiting for first-period physics. For some reason, the girls could be in the building before eight but not the boys.

The first time he saw her, she was sitting on the floor, with her legs stretched out, ankles crossed, writing in a loose-leaf binder on her lap. It was lust at first sight. He prayed that she would look up and notice him, but she didn’t. And here it was April and she still hadn’t noticed him, not the way he wanted to be noticed. That’s why he came up here every morning, to get her to notice him through the open door of the yearbook office, him in the cockpit behind the desk with his take-out cup of coffee and a copy of Ramparts or Crawdaddy or the newspaper in front of him, his tie loosened, top button undone, cuffs rolled up, trying to look cool, hoping she would look at him and give him an opening. Unfortunately they hadn’t gotten much farther than hi, how ya doin’, mainly because she was shy and her ever-present friend Tina was always around, and bigmouth Tina did all the talking. All year he’d been waiting for Tina to be out sick so that Yolanda would be alone, but Tina was healthy as a horse and was never absent. He wished the landfill smoke would get to her, just for one day, so that he could talk to Yolanda by himself.

You’re gonna get caught one of these days, Tina said.

But Frank wasn’t listening. He was looking past her, looking for Yolanda. He saw the other three nerd girls from Mother of Peace (all of them skanks) but not Yolanda.

She’s not here yet, Tina smirking, reading his mind.

Frank didn’t respond. He didn’t want to acknowledge that he liked Yolanda even though Tina had obviously figured it out. He also thought it was kind of rude and insensitive to show that he liked Yolanda because it might hurt Tina’s feelings. And besides, who he liked was none of Tina’s business.

Tina dropped her books on the couch and plopped down on the end that touched the desk. Can I have a sip? She pointed to his cup of coffee.

He stared at her. Drinking from his cup was kind of a boyfriend-girlfriend thing. What if Yolanda saw her drinking from his cup? And why was Tina asking anyway? Was this a come-on? He looked at her Olive-Oyl legs. She did have a cute face, he thought.

She reached for the cup and helped herself. So what were you doing in my neighborhood yesterday? She took a sip, looking at him over the rim. You working for the Mafia?

What?

How did she know? he thought. Well, not him or Dom, but Dom’s father.

The goddamn landfill, she said. That’s who owns it. The mob. She took another sip. And the church.

Are you tripping or what?

No. It’s the truth.

"You’re telling me the mob and the Catholic Church own