Fortunate Isle

By Dan Kavulish

During the tumultuous last three decades of the 20th Century, two brothers, raised in the working-class Clarcek family, each come to terms with the fact that they are gay. Two seismic events, their father's death and the Stonewall rebellion, steer their lives down two very different paths. Andy, the younger brother, leaves his provincial Connecticut town for New York City, where he is soon swept up in the 1970s sexual revolution. His older brother Jimmy sets out for San Francisco, arriving in time for the peak of gay liberation.

 

Andy's struggle to stay afloat in his new surroundings leads him to a momentous decision that irrevocably impacts his life and the lives of his family and friends. Over the years, the secrets, hopes and fears of the characters are revealed through letters, diary entries and tape recordings. Despite disappointment and disillusion, they continue searching for that elusive fortunate isle, part real and imaginary, just beyond the horizon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Kavulish
• Release date: Feb 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393563679

Book preview

Cover, Fortunate Isle

Table of Contents

Book One: Departure

Book Two: Tempest

Book Three: Rendezvous

About the Author

FORTUNATE ISLE

Dan Kavulish

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FORTUNATE ISLE

Copyright © 2020 by Dan Kavulish

AMETHYST PRESS

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – spoken, written, photocopy, printed, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise through any means not yet known or yet in use – without prior written permission of the publisher, except for purposes of review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Jaye Manus

Cover Illustration 6174085 © Vates| Dreamstime.com

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This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother.

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Acknowledgements

Fortunate Isle would probably never have been completed without the constant encouragement I received from Dennis, Judith, and Mathilde, members of my writing group. They were my weekly audience as each new installment was read aloud, pushing me in the direction of getting it out there.

I am eternally grateful to Peter, the love of my life, whose companionship keeps me on a steady course. He was the first to read my book from beginning to end, offering valuable insights and encouragement.

To my dear friend Julia, I owe a debt of gratitude for sharing her love of literature and reading with me through the years, and for her unflagging support for my writing efforts.

To Steve, whose enthusiasm for my book spurred me on to the finishing line.

To Ed, a fellow writer, who has lent a ready ear whenever I’ve needed help sorting through the daily angst of confronting that scariest of a writer’s demons: putting words on the page.

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. . . where the air was never extreme, which for rain had a little silver dew, which of itself and without labour, bore all pleasant fruits to their happy dwellers, till it seemed to him that these could be no other than the Fortunate Islands, the Elysian Fields.

Plutarch

Life of Sertorius

BOOK ONE

DEPARTURE

"Know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls."

Walt Whitman

Louise Clarcek

Rhodes Landing, PA

April 27, 1962

Dear Bill and Mary,

I’m so happy that you’ll be here for Andy’s confirmation at the end of May. Hopefully, this summer we’ll make it up to Detroit to see you. Vic started working for the state, paving roads, stuff like that. I thank my lucky stars I’m able-bodied and that I had no trouble finding a job at the supermarket. Jimmy is in his third year of college now and Andy will be starting junior high in the fall. He’s really looking forward to your visit. As you know, you’re his favorite relatives.

You have both been so good to us and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. Since Vic lost his job in the mines last year it’s been a real struggle making ends meet. We’re still able to make the payments on the Oldsmobile, but we had to fork over some money for this little ’53 Ford that gets me back and forth from the supermarket each day. Jimmy works at the checkout counter there a couple nights a week. The Davises, who run the place, are really nice people and I imagine I’ll be able to stay on there if all goes well. I’ve been there a little over a month and well, it’s a big adjustment punching a time clock every day and doing what someone else asks you to do. I’m so used to running my own household and raising two kids sure hasn’t been easy.

The problem now is Vic. He’s really been hitting the bottle lately. And then his mother dying last year, well, he took it pretty hard, but she was a burden on him. She sure had him wrapped around her little finger. The real trouble started one Saturday night last summer right after she died when he came home from one of his binges. I don’t want to go on about it but I think you should know. We got into an argument and he got up off the couch and started for me. I ran for the door but he caught me and started hitting me right in front of Andy. It was terrible. Andy started screaming for him to stop but then he turned on Andy and that’s when I really got scared. Andy ran for the stairs and I got away from Vic and stood on the stairs between him and Andy. I told Vic that if he didn’t cut it out, I was calling the cops. Then I told Andy to go up to his room. Thank God Vic finally quieted down. I went up later to tuck Andy in and there he was kneeling at the side of his bed saying his prayers, looking up at that picture of Jesus pointing to his Sacred Heart.

He looked up at me and said, What’s wrong with Dad?

I could only shake my head and tell him, I don’t know.

Did he hit you like this before?

I realized that he must have been really small when the last time something like this happened, so I said, Yes, but it was a long time ago. I didn’t say much more because I couldn’t say everything’s going to be alright because I have no way of knowing that.

It was a warm night in late August and the sounds of crickets filled the night and then I heard the water rushing over the dam down at the locks on the river. I knew Vic was passed out in bed and we were safe for now so I didn’t say much more to Andy about it, but I could tell he was worried. How I hate this town, his town, his mother’s town. How was I ever persuaded to move here? Twenty years now.

Was it my fault his father left the family when Vic was 17 and that he had to support his mom and two sisters right out of high school? How did I let him talk me into eloping with him? No church wedding for him. Oh, he was a very persuasive character. Living in his mother’s house was hard. I thought it would only be for a short time. Oh, and then I found out how awful he was after he had a few drinks in him. He became a totally different person, like Jekyll and Hyde.

It was when I was expecting Jimmy that it all hit me like a ton of bricks. His mother, may she rest in peace, had me out pushing a lawnmower while I was pregnant. I became her slave while she just sat there and gave orders. Then Vic started showing his true colors, running around drinking, and carrying on like he was single. I’ve never told you about the time when Jimmy was just an infant. This state trooper knocked on our front door and asked to speak to Vic. Vic went out and talked to him and when he came back in, he told me what it was all about.

He got some girl from Carmichaels pregnant and they were going to arrest him unless he agreed to pay her so she could have her baby. I just couldn’t believe it – it was like being struck by lightning. I knew that I should have left him then and there, but he apologized over and over. Even bought me flowers, but like an idiot, I believed him. He managed to hold down his job at the mines, even got promoted to foreman and we bought our own place. But he never changed.

Last New Year’s Eve we went out to celebrate, but I just sat on pins and needles the whole time while he kept guzzling down his booze. There was a blizzard that night and I prayed all the way home that we weren’t both going to end up dead in some horrible crash.

We made it home, but once we got in the door, he started up, accusing me of flirting with some man at the club. He’s always pulling that one out of his hat. Of course, nothing was going on, but he insisted there was. Then he comes swinging at me with both fists and I screamed for him to stop and then Jimmy came down the stairs and got in between me and Vic. Then Vic started hitting Jimmy and soon we were upstairs in Jimmy and Andy’s bedroom. I didn’t hear a peep out of Andy, who was in his bed in the corner. Watch out, Jimmy, I screamed as Vic threw a punch at him, throwing him against the wall. Then Vic chased him out of the house into this blizzard. I don’t know how long he was out there, but it was getting light when I heard him coming up the stairs. Vic was sawing logs by this time and I just lay there, unable to move for fear of waking him. The next day not a word was spoken about it, but I got Jimmy to one side and he told me that he got into the Ford and sat there until he thought it was safe to come back in.

I know you told me there isn’t much you can do about this situation. But I wanted to let you know how much worse it’s gotten. I honestly don’t know how much more of it I can take. Since I started the job, Vic has been pitching in more, helping prepare some meals even, I’ll give him credit for that. Saturdays, I work till eight and it always gives him the excuse to go off and gallivant around. I’d like to have a chat with you both when you come down for your visit. This situation is not good for me or the kids.

I wonder if you might consider my coming to Detroit with Andy and staying for a short while. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you don’t know what it’s like living with him. I come home in the evenings from work, and if he’s not here, I start to worry. Where is he? Out drinking again? When is he going to show up and what’s he going to pull with me this time? Is he going to drag me out of bed like he did once and threaten to burn down the house? I can’t sleep at night, so terrified he might kill us all.

I wouldn’t ask this of you, but I have nowhere else to turn. So please think it over and consider it and bear in mind I only ask it out of concern for the safety of my family. I understand that both of you will need to talk this over. It would probably not be for long, until I got on my feet. I could use my experience in the supermarket to find something in Detroit, so you don’t have to worry about that.

I can’t wait for your visit because you always light up the whole place and make the world livable again for me. I just want you to know that. I’ll close now. You are in my prayers, my very special prayers.

Your devoted sister,

Louise

Jim Clarcek

2732 N. Drake

Chicago, Illinois

July 10th, 1962

Dear Joey,

You’ve got to see this place to believe it. This city is so huge, stretching for miles. Lots to do. Went on some interviews. Might get a job at one of the banks downtown. Been here three weeks now. Ron drove all night from PA and we got to the city on a Sunday morning just as the sun was coming up over Lake Michigan. They call the downtown area the Loop. Really impressive. Grant Park runs along the lake for miles up Michigan Avenue which is the main drag. We’re living about a twenty-minute drive from the Loop. Our apartment is in a really nice building, a brownstone they call it. Not far from Wrigley Field where the White Sox play. The first day Ron brought me down to the Navy Pier. It runs right out into Lake Michigan. Sailors galore! I couldn’t believe my eyes. And the bars here! It’s a pretty open city about that. They say Illinois just passed a law and that it’s no longer illegal, so I guess that’s the reason. Haven’t seen so many great looking guys in my life. I have to be careful, though. Ron doesn’t know about me and I don’t want him to catch on. He’s engaged to this girl who lives in Oak Park, a suburb, so he’s out there a lot and I have the place to myself.

How’s everything back home? You really have to visit. It took all my power to convince my parents to let me come here for the summer.

Chicago is a drop in the bucket compared to Pittsburgh, my old man said to me.

Damn right, it sure is. If I didn’t have another year of college to complete, I might just stay here. But they’d never let me do a thing like that. If I told my mom I wasn’t coming back, she’d have a cat. Weird being so far away from them and all. I miss them, but I don’t miss the Landing. Small town life sure isn’t for me.

I think my little brother Andy was really upset about my coming out here. He looked like he didn’t quite know what to make of it. Of course, my mom was all broken up, crying and carrying on like I was never coming back. As you know, it was a rough year at home. All my grandparents died within this past year. One morning, I woke up to hear my mother wailing from downstairs. Oh my God, she kept saying. I thought someone had died. I went down and she was standing there in the kitchen, her face buried in her hands, my old man stood next to her, his arms at his side, looking small and helpless. After twenty years, he’d just been laid off from his job in the mines. It was the day after Christmas.

My mom sat me down right then and there. She put her hand on mine and said, You’re going to finish college, I don’t care how little money we have. Oh, she’s tough, alright, and determined that we’ll all get through this. That was last year, but things just kept getting worse. As the saying goes, when it rains it pours. I was tired of coming home from school seeing my old man sitting there on that old red couch, just staring at the TV and looking like a lost soul. My mom is frantic because he’s been drinking more. He goes off in the car and spends long stretches away from home and comes back all lit up. He’s really in a foul mood most of the time so I just stay out of his way.

I’ll never forget how you helped me out last New Year’s Eve when he started that big ruckus at home and chased me out of the house during a snowstorm. I never told you that he was screaming at me to go off and be with your queer friend Joey Wolfe as I ran out the door. And that’s just what I did. I got into my mom’s ’53 Ford and drove to your place. I don’t know what my old man has always had against me. From day one he’s always been trying to knock some sense into me. I’m big enough to take him on now so he’d better be careful. I worry about Andy. One night I came home to find him just pacing around looking so nervous and concerned. He was worried about Dad not being home yet knowing there’d be hell to pay later. I told him that worrying wouldn’t help matters any.

I miss our trips to Pittsburgh, cruising Schenley Park. But I discovered Lincoln Park, a very cruisy spot out here, especially on Sunday nights. I’ve met a few very handsome men there, even a few sailors. One night, I ran into this tall, blond number. He was like a Greek god, muscular and trim, with a beautiful smile. He invited me up to his apartment. He lives in one of those fancy buildings right on Shore Drive. He was on a high floor and had a beautiful view of the city. We exchanged phone numbers before I left, well, I gave him mine. He told me he’d call but never did. Maybe I’ll run into him again.

Coming here from a hick town like the Landing was really a jolt, I have to tell you. Out here, people rush around like there’s no tomorrow. I can see how easy it would be to just get swallowed up. You have to keep your eyes peeled. The other day right on State Street this guy started yelling Pickpocket! – he stole my wallet! and this other guy comes barreling toward me and races across the street with the other guy in pursuit. I mean, things like that you’d never see in the Landing. At night, I can hear the cars passing down the street. It was keeping me up the first few nights I was here but now it’s not so bad. The only noise at night back at the Landing was the hissing sound of the water going over the dam on the river. Kind of miss that sound at night, but not the town at all.

Once I get a job and am settled in more, it’ll be a lot better. Tomorrow I have an interview at LaSalle, one of the big banks downtown. It’s a real modern building, all in glass. Very space age. Well, wish me luck.

Jimmy

85 Vauxhall Street

New London, Connecticut

August 18, 1967

Dear Bill,

I missed you this summer and the fun we used to have together. Wish you were coming home soon. I can’t believe I’ll be starting my senior year at St. Augustine’s. We seniors will be wearing red blazers instead of the gray ones we wore for the past three years. We’ll be top dogs and will get to razz the freshman class on the first day like they did to us when we were Freshmen. Make them run the gauntlet, two rows of us standing, some holding paddles and others shooting water pistols filled with water, while the Freshmen run between us with their arms over their heads or behind their asses while the Seniors squirt and swing their paddles. I got it right square in the face when I was a freshman and it dribbled down the front of my shirt and tie. I knew right away it was pee, and I had to sit like that for the rest of day. I was mostly worried about what my mom would say when I came home smelling like pee, but I don’t think she noticed because she never mentioned it.

It’s quiet now as I write this. It’s night time. I’m sitting in the red swivel chair in my bedroom. I can hear my mom and dad talking from the living room. It’s almost eleven and they’ll watch the late news and then go to bed. I just heard the front door close. It’s one of the roomers who live upstairs on the third and fourth floors. I can hear him climbing the stairs now. My mom is still pretty mad at my dad because the whole roomer thing was his idea. She’s always bringing up how nobody appreciates all the hard work she does around the place.

There’s no divider between our living room and the foyer, so the roomers come and go, up and down the stairs, in and out the front door. They can see us and we can see them. A year or so ago, there was one roomer who I thought was very handsome. Sometimes he’d come in while I was sitting in the living room watching TV. He’d turn and say hello to me and I’d watch him walk up the stairs. I started having fantasies about him, like he’d invite me up to his room and talk with me. I found out what room he was in and one day when he was out, I tried his door and it wasn’t locked. I went in and did some snooping. I found some magazines with pictures from what they call a nudist colony. There was a naked man and a woman playing volleyball. I couldn’t take my eyes off the naked man. I wondered what this roomer would look like naked. I knew that I shouldn’t have snuck into his room like that. Every time he’d come in, I’d say hello to him, and he’d say hello back and look at me like I was invisible, then kept walking up those stairs. When he moved out a few months later, I missed seeing him.

My mom does the laundry once a week for all the rooms and all the cleaning. Of course, my dad goes to work every day at Electric Boat in Groton working on the nuclear submarines. I’m still not sure what a pipefitter is. After they go to bed, I listen to my transistor radio that I got for my birthday last May. It has FM on it. That stands for frequency modulation and I get this station WDRC from Hartford which comes in clear as a bell. Tonight, they played White Rabbit by the Jefferson Airplane. I know the song pretty well already because I have the album which is from Surrealistic Pillow. It’s one of the first record albums I ever bought since l started working this summer and making my own money.

The two other albums I bought are Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles and Changes by Johnny Rivers. My mom hates Sergeant Pepper. It’s really the wildest music I’ve ever heard. They call it psychedelic. Every time I play it, she tells me to turn it down. So, I’ll play that one first when I come home from work because a lot of times she’s upstairs working on the rooms and I know she won’t hear it up there. I play the Johnny Rivers album at night. I think he’s really handsome. The music’s relaxing and that helps me because I’m usually tired from working all day. I worked all summer at Hartford National Bank down on State Street. I work in the mail room and coin vault which are in the basement. My brother helped me get the job because he works for the bank too. I started the third week in June just after school let out.

I work most of the time in the coin vault. I dump bags of pennies, nickels, dimes or quarters into this machine. You sit in front of it and hold the empty paper roll (pennies have red rolls, nickels are blue, quarters are green) under this metal tube. Then you push down on a lever and the right amount of coins comes rushing down the metal tube and fills up the paper tube. Then you push the open end of the paper roll into a crimper that seals the roll of coins. I don’t like that part because it vibrates and sends shivers up my arm.

Then you fill up metal containers with either the rolls of pennies, nickels or whatever, and place them on their proper shelves in the coin vault. When Sal, the head teller on the main floor needs coins of whatever denomination, I bring up the correct number of containers to him. Then the rest of my job is to go to every desk in the bank and pick up the outgoing mail. I use a mail hamper on wheels and wear a blue smock (I also have to wear a tie and a dress shirt, which isn’t a problem because I already have to wear those for school). I roll my hamper through the whole bank. That part makes me feel important because everyone can see that I’m doing my job. Usually they have the mail waiting for me in their out box on their desks, but sometimes they hand it to me and say hello and I usually like the fact that they say hello to me.

Around four o’clock I make my final rounds (the bank closes at three but only to customers). Then I wheel the hamper back down to the basement where I sort all the mail into different piles by weight. Most of the envelopes are thin and I don’t weigh these because I know they get five or ten cents postage. These I push through the Pitney Bowes machine that seals the envelopes and stamps the postage in blue ink. The fat envelopes get weighed on a scale and the postage machine spits out individual stamps for them. Then you have to seal each envelope using a water wheel because if you had to close every envelope by licking it, your tongue would get very dry. At the end of each month, we send out monthly statements to all the customers. That’s a big job and sometimes we stay until nine o’clock at night to finish it. These envelopes are light blue. After the envelopes are stamped and sealed, I stack them into plastic postal bins which I then load onto a dolly and then into the bank car which is a Chevy Nova station wagon. Then I drive the mail over to the post office.

The Nova has a stick shift which I’m not very good at driving. It’s got a high clutch, meaning you have to raise the clutch pedal really high with your left foot before the gears engage while you let up on the brake with your right foot at the same time. Then you shift it into first gear and press down on the gas pedal, still with your left foot on the clutch. I still don’t have the hang of it, so my drives over to the post office are very jerky with some stall outs on the way. After my first night of doing the statements, I dreamt about blue envelopes. They were everywhere. They floated around me, and then on top of me, building up into piles like snowdrifts. That Beatles song Fixing a Hole was playing in the dream so clear and distinct but still the blue envelopes fell around me until I couldn’t get my breath and I knew I was suffocating. That’s when I woke up in a cold sweat, the song still in my head, clear as a bell.

That’s why when I come home from work at night I like to listen to my albums. The music relaxes me. You should hear the crickets outside – they’re very loud tonight. Maybe they know the summer’s about to end. Oh, Jimmy moved out of the house two weeks ago so our bedroom is now all mine. He lives in Essex in a really modern apartment complex. He’s got a roommate named Ben Shepard who moved up from New York City. His home is in North Carolina, so he’s got a little bit of a southern drawl. I like him. He’s very good looking. They both invited me down last weekend. There’s a swimming pool in their complex and I brought my bathing trunks. After we went swimming, I was changing out of my wet trunks in their living room. Ben had the door to their bedroom open and I caught a glimpse of him naked as he was changing out of his trunks. His back was to me and I don’t know if he realized I saw him, but I’ve kept that image in my head and it’s come to me at night this past week.

I think he’s the same Ben who wrote that letter to my brother that I found in his drawer last winter. I told you about that, didn’t I? Okay, I was snooping and shouldn’t have been. He was living in New York City at the time and said he could hardly wait till my brother got down there again for the weekend. At the end of the letter he said Love, Ben. That really struck me. When I met him, I pretty much knew it was him who wrote the letter and when I saw the two of them together, things started to fit. It started to make sense to me because the two of them together looked, I don’t know, really happy. My brother has been very nice to me, nicer to me than he’s ever been to me in my life. That must mean something, but I’m not sure what. Except it’s good. Jimmy’s going to be 26 in September. That’s nine years older than me and Ben looks to be about the same age. So that’s where my brother was going all those weekends when he did his disappearing act last summer. He’s got his own car, a blue 1966 Olds Cutlass. Really classy car. He picked me up in it one weekend and drove me down to their place. They slept together in one room and I slept in another bedroom. It’s all on one floor, with white walls and a big dining room table. Through the glass sliding doors in their living room is a patio where we had a cookout that day after we went swimming. I hope they invite me down again. It was nice getting out of this house, even if it was only for a day or two.

I can hear the news wrapping up and my father is having one of his coughing fits. He’s probably getting ready to go back into the kitchen for his late snack. I’ll stay up later and watch Johnny Carson after they go to bed. I think he’s really funny. I can do it as long as I keep the sound really low. Oh, here comes Dad now. Bill, I’m going to sign off now and finish this later on.

August 26, 1967

Dear Bill,

It’s been almost two weeks since I started this letter to you. I’ve been really busy getting ready for the new school year. Just came back from a drive up to my high school in Uncasville where I bought my text books for senior year. They built a new Saint Augustine’s school up there just for the boys while the girls will continue at the old school in New London. There’ll be nothing but boys in the new building. I don’t think any nuns will even be teaching. There won’t be any gym class either, like there hasn’t been since I started. That’s the one thing I really like about Catholic school – no idiotic gym class.

I had the top down on the Oldsmobile and the radio going – WABC from New York. The Young Rascals were singing How Can I Be Sure? Love that song – maybe I’ll buy the 45. One of the textbooks I had to buy was for English class. It’s being taught by Father Nadeau. He looks a little like Alfred Hitchcock. The guys call him Natty Daddy behind his back. The book is a big purple one – English Literature is all it’s called. Looks like we’ll be studying some poetry – if so, it looks like I’ll really enjoy that class. I’ll also be taking Geometry. I’m way behind in my math classes for a high school student because I didn’t decide to go academic until the beginning of my junior year. Before then I was vocational. One day I decided maybe I’d like to go to college after years of saying I didn’t want to. I’m not sure what made me change my mind. The war in Vietnam is getting a lot worse and I heard they might not take me if I’m in college. Remember a couple years back when we wanted to join the army together? Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t.

While I was driving back from school today, I started actually imagining myself liking school more than ever this year. My grades last year were really pretty good; my lowest grade was a B– in Algebra. The books they had us read over the summer were pretty interesting. I loved the Flannery O’Connor stories. They reminded me a lot of being back in Pennsylvania. And The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy is really good. I loved the opening, with the guy wearing his corduroy pants. It reminded me of my corduroy pants. And his descriptions of the countryside in Wessex are so vivid. I started imagining myself walking around this countryside in my corduroys after a while. I’m finally reading adult books, I guess.

I wonder if Tom will be back in school this year. Last year was a little rough because I realized I have a big crush on him. I like how he sits at the back of the class and cracks everybody up with his jokes. He calls me Andrew but he doesn’t say it in a mocking way or anything. Wonder if I’ll ever get up the nerve to talk to him. He’s part of the in crowd, Pete Smith, Kevin Walters, Jim Barrow, and the rest of them. Those others I have a hard time with, but Tom’s different. I think if he got away from those other jerks, he’d be a real nice guy. Most of them don’t want to have much to do with me and well, we just don’t talk the same language. I’m not into going out and partying and drinking or stuff like that. Pete Smith is always bragging about what girl he laid and how he got blasted over the weekend. Getting blasted means getting drunk and I know that they drive down to New York where the drinking age is 16 and buy bottles of liquor and that doesn’t appeal to me at all.

After all my mom’s been through with my dad, I don’t want to take up with drinking. Things were better this summer. I didn’t see my dad drunk once and there weren’t any big fights. It was really exciting finally getting my driver’s license just before my birthday. I had to take the driving test three times before I passed. Guess I was really nervous with that state trooper sitting right in the seat next to me. One Sunday afternoon my mom and dad and I went down to New Haven. My dad let me drive down. We didn’t stop anywhere to eat or anything since we don’t know anyone there. We drove by Yale University which looked beautiful and then dad drove back. It was kind of like we were a family again.

Every weekend I go off on a long drive in our 1960 Oldsmobile convertible. Last weekend I drove to Niantic and then the weekend before that I drove all the way to Westerly, Rhode Island. I have to be careful not to stray too far because gas is pretty expensive and the money comes right out of my pocket. But I do love driving. I turn the radio up high with both the front and back speakers on and I just fly. I got up to seventy last week on the turnpike. My mom doesn’t want me to put the top down on the car, since the top is old and getting all worn and sometimes gets stuck halfway. What I do is wait until I’m out of sight of the house and pull over and lower the top. One time I came back and forgot to raise the top and my mom happened to be standing in the front lawn pulling weeds from her flower garden and she saw me and said. Who told you to put that top down, mister? Well, of course no one told me to, so I just didn’t answer and I told myself to be more careful next time.

It’s not like I’m a sneak or anything, although I do feel like I’m sneaking sometimes when I go off on those long drives. My night drives especially. Like last Saturday night, I drove downtown and parked the car in the municipal parking lot behind State Street. I like to hang out at Parade News and look at the books and magazines. As I was getting out of the car, I saw a sailor walking along the parked cars. He kind of looked like he was waiting for someone and when he saw me, he gave me such a look. It kind of gave me a tingle, making me so nervous I had trouble locking the car. I walked over to Parade News, and it wasn’t too long after I got there and was flipping through the new magazines that I noticed the sailor from the parking lot down the end of the aisle. I got a really good look at him. He had wavy black hair and his sailor hat was tipped to one side. I couldn’t help noticing his tight-fitting sailor suit and shiny black shoes. He seemed to be looking at some of the dime novels on sale. I don’t know why, but seeing him again made me really nervous, so nervous, in fact, that I couldn’t concentrate on my browsing. I noticed I was trembling a little and my heart was beating faster. For some reason, I found myself moving down closer to him, and then closer, until I was standing right next to him. I reached in front of him to pull out a book. Excuse me, I said and could hear that I said it a little too loud. He didn’t say anything, but just looked real quick at me and gave me a little smile, almost like a wise smile, like he knew something about me that he thought was amusing, but wasn’t going to let on he knew. I was so close I could see he had blue eyes and had some freckles on his nose.

Anyway, I started flipping through this novel and realized it was My Life and Loves by Frank Harris. I remembered flipping through it once before down there and to be honest with you, it got me hard. It’s really dirty but not in a really bad way, I mean, he doesn’t swear or use bad language, but some of those scenes! When I realized that I was holding this book, I thought, maybe that’s why this sailor smiled at me, so I quickly put it back and moved down to the magazines where I’d been standing before. Then I noticed that he was moving in the opposite direction, down toward the front of the store and he glanced over his shoulder and gave me a really intense look, like he was trying to tell me something, but couldn’t say it out loud. Then it was like there was something pulling on me and before I knew it, I had followed him outside.

My heart was pounding as I looked up and down State Street to see in which direction he had gone. I caught a glimpse of him as he headed back toward the parking lot. By now it was totally dark and I saw his white uniform glow softly in the distance. He turned around again, and I froze, because now he knew I was following him, but he kept walking until he stopped right next to my car. Then he leaned on the parking meter, his hands clasped ahead of him, with his rear end kind of sticking out. My mouth felt really dry and as I approached him, I felt my knees start shaking. He looked right at me and said very casually, Didn’t find anything to your liking? And then he gave me that sly grin again, like he knew what I was up to.

Well, I just didn’t want to spend the money I guess, I told him and realized it was just about the lamest thing I could have said.

He looked me up and down like he was examining me. What are you into? he asked, and then kind of looked off to one side.

My knees were shaking so bad by this time that I thought I’d have to sit down. Oh, just about anything, I guess, I told him, feeling again like I’d just said something really stupid.

He turned and looked right at me and said Well, I like to s*** and f***. His words kind of startled me and then he didn’t give me any time to respond, because he said right after that, How old are you?

Seventeen, I blurted out and felt my heart sink as he shook his head.

Sorry, but I don’t fool around with anyone that young. Not a good idea. And with that he turned and walked back down the line of parked cars.

I was really shaking by this time but I managed to unlock the Oldsmobile and get inside. Why did I have to say seventeen? I could have said nineteen and he probably would have believed me. I drove home and when I got in the door, Mom and Dad were watching Hollywood Palace on TV. I just said Hi and went straight to my room, sat on my bed and turned on my transistor radio. Bobby Vee was singing his new song Come Back When You Grow Up Girl and I listened to every word of that song and imagined it was being sung to me because it all felt so true. I wonder if I’ll ever see this sailor again but it won’t even matter because I’ll still be too young. Maybe next summer, but that is such a long way off. All I know is I really missed a big opportunity. And there won’t be any more opportunities because the summer’s really over. I’ll be back in school next week and I really better hit the books this year because I want to start applying to colleges. Maybe it’s better that I just stay away from Parade News and that parking lot for a while. Tomorrow I’m going to walk around the backyard and take some movies with my Super 8 camera Mom and Dad bought me last Christmas.

I will really try to get up to see you soon. I’m so sorry that you’re back in that hospital again, Bill. Did you really pull a knife on your old man? I’ll never forget my visit up to see you just after Christmas right after the first time they committed you. I remember these sad looking people hanging around in the hallways – I guess other patients. You came home a little while after that but then you took up with that girl Sissy again and we had a fight on the phone and I stopped coming over to your house. I couldn’t really understand what you saw in her. I still remember right after we met in the eighth grade, you came over to my house after school one day while my parents and brother were still at work. We took off all our clothes and got into my bed. You rubbed your hair against me down there and I did it to you. It felt wonderful. We did that a few more times. I miss those times. I hope you can come home soon, but even if you do, we probably won’t be able to see much of each other since I’ll be busy with school. Hope you’re doing better. Write me back when you’re able.

Your friend,

Andy

July 28, 1970

Dear Walter,

I’m your cousin Andy. Do you remember me? Last time I saw you I must have been around seven. My dad and your dad were brothers. I’m writing because I’m trying to fill in some missing pieces about my family, about my life. I’m writing a play where the main character is based on you, at least it’s based on what I heard about you from my parents. Excuse me for bringing this up, but as they put it, you got into some kind of trouble as a teenager and then sent to reform school. If this isn’t true, please correct me and if it is true, please let me know what really happened. It would help clear up this mystery that’s really intrigued me.

What I do know for sure is you lost your dad back in 1953 in Washington DC where you were living at the time. After that, you, your mom and sister went to live with our Aunt Valetta and her husband in Pittsburgh. I wanted to find out what really happened back then. Since our aunt and uncle are dead now, I can’t very well ask them and I’m not even sure if they were alive, they would tell me the whole truth. So, I’m depending on you.

There is a picture my mom has of you taken at our house in Rhodes Landing, PA at Christmas time. I must have been no older than four at the time. I’m in the picture and you’re wearing a white shirt and tie, and I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you were a very handsome kid and you had the most intense look in your eyes. It’s as if you’re peering into my mind, wanting to tell me some dark secret you’re hiding.

How is your mom? Aunt Marie I called her. She was so different than the other members of our family. For one thing, she was Indian, that’s what my mom told me. Not American Indian, but from India, or at least her parents were. She spoke perfectly good English as far as I can remember. I remember her as a very sweet lady, very soft spoken. She and your dad met when he was working at Walter Reed Hospital in DC. This is what I’ve been told. You’re the same age as my brother Jimmy. Do you remember him? He’s nine years older than me, so having a brother who’s so much older, well, I guess it’s like having a third parent. Jimmy could really be mean to me at times and I suppose I was kind of a pain to him. My parents used to make him take me with him to the movies and it was obvious he didn’t want me along. I guess it was a drag for him to have this tagalong little brother. How’s your sister Dolores? She’s a little older than you, right?

When I was around five, you spent a couple weeks living with us while my brother Jimmy went to live with your mom and sister in Pittsburgh. I don’t remember much about your stay other than the fact that there was something about you that attracted me. You were quiet and certainly didn’t mistreat me. You were the nice version of Jimmy. I’d really love to find out what you remember about that time. Please send a current picture of yourself. I’m enclosing one of me. It’s my high school graduation picture taken a couple years ago. I was trying to look so serious there in my seersucker jacket. It’s almost a scowl. I was used to being made fun of and certainly didn’t fit in with the crowd at St. Augustine, a Catholic high school. By the time I was a senior, when this picture was taken, I had only one friend. I guess that serious look on my face was my way of saying to the world that I was going to be taken seriously whether they wanted to or not.

I’m going to tell you some things that have happened in my life recently. Some of them are quite personal and painful. I know that although we’re related, we’re complete strangers. So, if you think this will make you feel uncomfortable, maybe don’t read past this point. Anyway, here goes. I lost my dad last year. Your uncle. He had a sudden heart attack. Gone just like that. It was a terrible thing. I had just started my sophomore year at Eastern Connecticut State College, in Willimantic, about 30 miles north of where we live in New London. It was a Saturday morning and my landlady woke me up by knocking at my door telling me I had a phone call. It was my brother. He told me that something terrible happened but wouldn’t tell me what. He said he was coming to pick me up and would be there in about an hour. I couldn’t imagine what had happened, but this horrible creeping dread just crashed down on me. I went back upstairs to my room and just sat there in a daze with all these racing thoughts. Maybe both my parents were dead. The Manson murders had just happened a month or so earlier, and it flashed through my mind they were slaughtered, maybe by one of their upstairs tenants. Maybe my dad had finally burned down the house like he had threatened to do a couple of times. Maybe he killed my mother. I sat on my bed with all these wild imaginings in my head for the good hour it took for my brother to arrive.

When he finally appeared at the door and told me the news it almost felt anti-climactic. My mom and dad had been sitting in front of the TV, on a typical Friday night for them. It was getting close to the eleven o’clock news that they watched without fail, when my mom got up to get a snack for them from the kitchen at the rear of the house. On her way back to the living room, my dad came rushing toward her, clutching his throat, like he was choking on something. Then he just collapsed, hitting the corner of the desk in the foyer as he fell. My mother ran out of the house in a panic to the next-door neighbors’ house. Doc Westcott, our family dentist, came over and tried to revive my dad. By this time, according to my mom, his face was starting to turn blue. An ambulance was called but by the time they got him to the hospital, he was pronounced dead.

I’ll never forget that drive back home with my brother. I sat looking blankly out at the houses and fields as they swept past the passenger window, not really seeing anything. I felt like I was in a dream or a movie. All I could feel was a vague sense of dread, that I kept trying to push away. Occasionally, I glanced over at my brother. His hands gripped the steering wheel as he guided the car along the two-lane country road, his face stern, as it’s always looked to me, a mask, unreadable. The only time it softens is when he’s around Mom. My dad often berated him at the dinner table for being so bull-headed. I thought of the time my dad threw the contents of a glass of iced tea in his face. I don’t remember why. Jimmy just sat there for a second, totally still, the muscles of his face twitching. Without saying a word, he got up and left the table while my mother started crying and then laid into my dad for what he’d just done. I looked again at Jimmy and realized that was the look I was seeing on his face now, a tense mask ready to erupt any second into anger. We spent most of that drive home in silence, and at times it felt excruciating. At one point, I asked him how mom was doing. She’s taking it very hard, he answered, as the dread of what lay awaiting us at home swept over me.

As he pulled into a parking space in front of our house, I heard him say, Well, there are only three of us left now. Those words sent a shudder through me as I walked with him up to the house. Yes, Dad was gone, out of the picture forever. There was only Jimmy, Mom, and me.

As I walked into the house, it was eerily quiet. I looked down and saw a dark stain on the green wall to wall carpeting in the foyer and realized this is where my dad had fallen. We walked toward the rear of the house and into the kitchen. My mom stood there, her face red from crying. When she saw us, she threw her arms around Jimmy and just kept saying, "Boze moj, boze moj which is Polish for Oh my God." It made me feel really uncomfortable and I stood there as she clung to him for the longest time. She looked over at me, and burst into tears. I was relieved when she didn’t hug me, but to be honest with you, I felt a little hurt. I must have said something to her, but maybe I didn’t. To be honest with you I don’t remember because all I could feel at the time was numb.

That afternoon the three of us went down to the funeral parlor to pick out a coffin for my dad. I remember how nice the coffins looked, almost like we were shopping for an automobile. Some of them opened all the way and some only half way. They were all very polished; some were a slate gray, some a dull burnished copper, some a deep burgundy. My mom was really in a daze, so my brother stepped up and made the decision on a nice copper colored one. He chose a steel vault rather than a concrete one. I stood off to one side, feeling like I was outside myself, watching them in a movie. Then, I walked over to an open coffin lined with thickly padded satin in a soft cream-colored hue. Along with the matching satin pillow, it almost looked inviting to me because for a split second, I had this weird fantasy that I was lying there and wondered how comfortable it would be. I mean, after all, if you’re shopping for a coffin, wouldn’t you be concerned with how comfortable it is? When you buy a car, you take it for a test drive, right? That and other crazy thoughts went racing through my head.

My mom spent most of the rest of that day alone in their bedroom. I wondered if she might be in danger of losing her mind. I wondered if I might lose my mind as well. How was I going to get through the next few days? I felt my stomach rumbling and realized I was hungry. Eventually she came out of her bedroom and told us she wasn’t up to cooking, so we ordered a pizza for dinner. She kept saying how nice and fluffy my dad’s hair looked last night because he had just washed it and that she’d heard the death rattle in my dad’s throat as he was lying there. I couldn’t imagine that sound and never want to hear it, but it made me wonder if he was already dead by the time the ambulance came and not on the way to the hospital as my brother told it. Guess it doesn’t matter.

I was relieved the next day, a Sunday, when the relatives started arriving. The wake was to begin that night, continue on Monday night, and the funeral was to be held Tuesday morning. I never saw so many people in that house at once before, all relatives from both sides of the family. They stayed upstairs in some of the empty rooms. The whole house seemed alive with a kind of electric energy. It was like a big reunion from both sides of the family, some meeting each other for the first time. Every time I walked through the foyer it was difficult not to look down at the dark spot on the carpet.

As I walked into the funeral parlor that first night of the wake, Jimmy had one arm around my mom as if she was in danger of collapse. When she saw the coffin, she burst into tears and rushed up to it, while both my brother and I stood behind her, looking helplessly on. I thought she was never going to stop crying. She reminded me of a wounded bird, almost as I remember her after she’d had one of her bouts with my dad. It was a sound of anguish that I remember all too well. I dreaded her crying and she cried a lot. At my grandmother’s funeral when I was ten, I worried every night of the wake. When was she going to start crying? Sure enough, she did, and like Pavlov’s dog, I’d start crying too. It made me feel awful, out of control. But now, I didn’t feel the slightest urge to cry as Jimmy walked up to her and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. I stood back, trying to summon up the courage to step closer. I edged forward and looked down at my dad. He looked pretty much the same way I remembered him so I guess the funeral directors had done a good job. His face had a waxy look to it. The corners of his mouth were turned down as if he were angry about something. I guess he had a right to be.

Then I remembered something that happened when I was four or five. I was sitting on the couch between him and my mom. He was high as a kite, and they were arguing about something. You love me, don’t you, Andy? he said, and put his arm around me to pull me closer. I tried to wriggle away, when his cigarette brushed up against my arm and burned me. I shrieked, more out of anger than pain, and began crying hysterically. My mother looked bewildered, not knowing what I was screaming about. When I screamed that daddy burnt me, she looked at the red mark on my arm, saying I’d be alright. Then she yelled at my dad for what had happened. As for my dad, he looked confused. I don’t remember him saying anything. I only remember the silence.

That night, as I lay in bed, I thought back to the last time I saw him alive, a week earlier. I was getting ready to head back to school after having spent the weekend home. It wasn’t long after supper, in the early evening, and as usual my mom was stuffing several Tupperware containers full of food into my knapsack. Jimmy was there and was planning to drop me off at school and then head back to his apartment in Hartford. Dad lingered at the table as we got ready to leave. As usual, he sat bare chested, as he’d done ever since I can remember. Often, my eyes were drawn to his large flabby breasts covered with hair. But gone now was his protruding belly. Under doctor’s orders, he’d slimmed down considerably since he’d been hospitalized a few years earlier with emphysema. He now looked almost malnourished and his face had a gray pallor. I left him sitting at the table and walked down to the