”The salvation of Paul Giacomin?“
”Yeah.“
”I’m willing to consult,“ she said. ”But I don’t want to see you overinvested in this. The chances of success are slight. What happens if next week his mother runs out of money?“
”We’ll worry about that when it happens.“
”It’ll happen soon,“ Susan said.
”Woman’s intuition?“
”Believe me,“ Susan said. ”It’ll be soon.“
I shrugged.
”You’ll keep him anyway,“ she said.
I didn’t say anything.
”You will,“ she said, ”you big goddamned sap. You know you will.“
”He needs to grow up quick,“ I said. ”He needs to get autonomous. It’s the only hope he’s got. For him he’s gotta stop being a kid at fifteen. His parents are shit. He can’t depend on them anymore, He’s gotta get autonomous.“
”And you’re going to show him how?“
”Yes.“
”Well, no one better. You’re the most autonomous human being I’ve ever seen. It’s a grim prospect for a fifteen-year-old boy though.“
”How do you like his prospects if he doesn’t grow up quick?“
Susan was quiet, looking down at me. ”Spring will be a little late this year,“ she said.
”For Paul? Yeah.“ I laughed with no pleasure. ”Spring is gone. It’s early autumn for Paul. If I can do it“
”And if he can,“ Susan said.
CHAPTER 15
It was early May and the sun was thick and warm. The forsythias had begun. The birds were about and the joggers were out of their sweat pants, legs gleaming white in the spring sun. Paul Giacomin came out of his house with a big green plaid suitcase and a white drawstring laundry bag. He was still wearing his pea coat. He needed a haircut. His corduroy pants were too short. He was straining to carry the two bags.
I was driving Susan’s Bronco. I got out and took the suitcase from Paul and put it in the back. He stuck the laundry bag in beside it and left the drawstring hanging out over the tailgate. I flipped the string inside and put the power window up with the key. Patty Giacomin came out and stood by the Bronco. Pale green slacks, lavender shirt, white blazer. Big sunglasses, bright lipstick. Stephen was with her. He was as beautiful as she-jeans with a Pierre Cardin patch on them, Frye boots, a half-buttoned tailored collarless shirt in vertical blue-on-blue stripes, a gray sharkskin vest, unbuttoned. His dark maroon Pontiac Firebird was parked in the Giacomin driveway.
”The Firebird’s not right,“ I said. ”It doesn’t go with the rest of the look.“
”Oh, really,“ Stephen said. ”What would you suggest?“
”A Z maybe, or a Porsche. Extend that clean sophisticated continental look, you know?“
Stephen smiled. ”Perhaps,“ he said.
Patty said to her son, ”I’ll write you a letter.“
He nodded. She made an awkward gesture of hugging him. But she didn’t seem able to carry through and ended up putting one arm across his shoulders for a moment and patting him slightly on the back. He stood silently while this happened. Then he got into the Bronco. The high step into the front seat was difficult and he had to struggle, and finally squirm up onto the seat. I got in the driver’s side.
Patty said, ”Bye.“
Paul said, ”Bye,“ and we drove off. As we turned off Emerson Road I saw tears fill Paul’s eyes. I kept watching the road. He didn’t cry. We took Route 3 to 495, 495 to 95 and went north on 95 to the Portsmouth Circle. In that time Paul didn’t say anything. He sat and stared out the window at the unvarying landscaping along the highways. I plugged a Johnny Hartman tape into the stereo on the assumption that it was never too soon to start his education. He paid no attention. At the Portsmouth Circle we took the Spaulding Turnpike and then Route 16. We were in rural New England now. An hour from Boston cows grazed. There were barns and feed stores and towns with a mill that no longer milled at the center.
We got to North Conway, New Hampshire, about one thirty in the afternoon. I stopped at a restaurant called Horsefeathers opposite the green in the center of town. There was a softball diamond on the green and some kids were playing a game without umpires.
I said, ”Let’s eat.“
He said nothing, but got out of the car and went into the restaurant with me. We’d been in rural New England. Now we were in rural chic North Conway is a major ski resort in the winter, and summer homes abound around it in New Hampshire and across the border in Maine. Horsefeathers had brass and hanging plants and looked just like restaurants in San Francisco.
The food was good and at two twenty we were in the car again heading for Fryeburg. At a quarter to three we were parked at the edge of Kimball Lake. The land Susan had gotten from her husband as part of the divorce settlement was nearly three quarters of an acre at the end of a dirt road with woods all around. There were cabins along the lake close enough to keep you from feeling like Henry Thoreau, but it was secluded. Susan’s ex-husband had used the place for hunting and fishing. At one edge of the property he’d built a small cabin with running lake water for showering, a well for drinking water, electricity, and a flush toilet, but no central heat. There was a free-standing fireplace in the living room, a small electric stove and an old electric refrigerator in the galleylike kitchen, and two small bedrooms with metal bunk beds in them, and no closets. Susan and I came up occasionally to cook steaks over a wood fire, swim in the lake, and stroll in the woods until the bugs closed in.
Paul said, ”We’re gonna stay here?“
”Yes. We’ll live in that cabin and tomorrow we’ll start building a new and better one.“
Paul said, ”What do you mean?“
I said, ”We’re going to build a house. You and me.“
”We can’t do that“
”Yeah, we can. I know how. I’ll teach you.“
”How do you know how to build a house?“
”My father was a carpenter.“
The kid just looked at me. It never occurred to him that houses were built by people. Sometimes they were built by construction companies and sometimes they probably just generated spontaneously.
”Come on, unload. We’re going to be very busy up here. There’s a lot to do.“
”I don’t want to build a house,“ Paul said.
”I’ll need help. I can’t do it alone. It’ll be good to work with your hands. You’ll like it“
”I won’t“
I shrugged. ”We’ll see,“ I said. ”Help me unload.“
The back seat of the Bronco folded forward, leaving a lot of cargo space. The cargo space was full. There was the big old tool chest that had been my father’s. And there was a radial arm saw I’d bought last year and used in Susan’s cellar sometimes. There was also a set of barbells, a weight bench, a heavy bag, a speed bag, my suitcase, a large green cooler with perishables in it, a big carton with other food, a pump-action Ithaca shotgun, ammunition, some fishing equipment, two sleeping bags, some boots, a five-cell flashlight, an ax, some books, a machete, a carton of records, two shovels, a mattock, and one hundred feet of rope.
I unlocked the cabin and opened all the windows. We started to carry and stow. A lot of the things were too heavy for Paul and everything he carried he seemed to handle badly. He picked things up only with the tips of his fingers. When I told him to take the shotgun in, he carried it awkwardly by the butt rather than where it balanced. He carried one of the shovels by its blade. When we were through, there was sweat on his face and he seemed red and hot He still wore his pea coat.
It was after five when we finished. The bugs were out and it was getting cool. Last fall Susan and I had bought a cheap stereo and put it in the cabin. I put on the Benny Goodman 1938 jazz concert while I made a fire. I had a beer while I started supper. Paul came in from looking at the lake and got a Coke out of the refrigerator. He went into the living room. In a minute he was back.