Read Online Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra - Free Book Online Page A

house lookin’ like that,” I said.
    “I can’t believe her husband lets her outta the house,” John said.
    “She fool around, you think?” Tommy asked.
    “I hope so,” Michael said. “And I hope someday she’ll fool around with me.”
    “Like you would know what to do,” I said.
    “What’s to know?” Michael demanded.
    “It’s like the old song,” John said. A smile spread across his face and his eyes lasered down on Mrs. Hudsonas he broke into a high-voiced melody. “My body lies over the ocean. My body lies over the sea. My father lied over my mother. And that’s how I came to be.”
    “Shakes is just nervous because he ain’t ever done anybody,” Tommy said.
    I was incredulous. “What? You have?”
    “You know Katie Riggio?” Tommy asked.
    “The one with the iron teeth?”
    “Braces, moron,” Tommy said. “Anyway, I kinda did her last month.”
    “Where?” I asked.
    “Forget where,” Michael said, turning away from Mrs. Hudson. “How?”
    “We went to a movie.” Tommy started blushing, sorry now he ever mentioned the night and the girl.
    “What movie?”
    “I forget,” Tommy said. “Something with James Coburn.”
    “He’s pretty cool,” I said. “You ever see
The Magnificent Seven?”
    “Forget James Coburn,” Michael said. “Get to the good stuff.”
    “After the movie we went for a walk.” Tommy now lifted his face to the sun. “Then I bought her an ice cream cone.”
    “Bought
her an ice cream cone,” John said, his eyes wide. “You
must
be in love.”
    “It was nice, you know,” Tommy said. “Just walkin’ and holdin’ her hand.”
    “When did she drop her pants?” Michael cut in.
    “In the hall of her aunt’s apartment.”
    “Standing up?” I said.
    “Against the wall,” Tommy said.
    “What did you do?” I asked, watching Mrs. Hudson appear in her window, breasts flopping against her chest.
    “Fingered her,” Tommy said.
    “How’d it feel?” John asked.
    “Like I had my hand in a glazed doughnut.”
    “Lucky bastard,” Michael said.
    “Wonder what it would feel like having your fingers inside Mrs. Hudson?” I asked.
    “Like being inside a glazed doughnut
factory,”
John said.
    Our loud laughter caught Mrs. Hudson’s attention. She stood up, stretched, and smiled.
    “Maybe someday we’ll know,” I said.
    “Maybe someday we’ll all know,” Michael said.
    “It’s something to live for,” Tommy said.
    “Sure is,” John said. “It sure is.”

    T HERE ARE FEW secrets inside the thin walls of a tenement.
    Many nights would be spent staring up at a white ceiling, listening to passionate moans coming from a back room or an apartment across the hall. Our parents conducted their sexual lives as openly as they pursued their violent fights. We lived in the midst of a peasant stronghold, bred on foreign soil and lacking in physical inhibitions. Our folks were not, as a rule, liberal-minded, so talk of sex made them uncomfortable. But they would always return a direct question with a direct response.
    The apartments were so cramped that private moments were difficult. During the summer, every available window was opened wide, dozens of voices bouncing off the back alleys below. Inside the shabby buildings, the men stripped down to their socks and underwear and women paraded about in bras, slips, and house slippers, shame taking a backseat to comfort.
    Winter brought the opposite.
    The rooms would turn so bitterly cold, the lack of heat would be so numbing, there was little else to do but huddle together under however many blankets couldbe found. We slept sitting up, on chairs, in front of the gas stove which would be left on all night, our stocking feet resting on the open door. You were never alone.
    Out on the street, sex was a hot topic. Older guys talked in graphic terms about girls they had seduced, winking as they spoke. Pictures of naked women, ripped from the pages of skin magazines, were regularly passed down the aisles at