half a day, you disappear. You don’t answer the phone, book out of work, don’t do one single thing. Have I got it about right, Paul? Is this pretty much what you accomplished today?”
I wish Dizzy had just silently beat him up instead.
Pauly is nearly crying. “It’s not like that, Diz. I was working. I was doing some serious planning, designing, figuring….” He picks up off the counter a napkin on which he had been drawing while talking to me. I was not even aware that the talk and the drawing were related.
“Good, Paul,” he says, “so you drank Coke and doodled. Big day.”
Dizzy reaches out and practically decapitates his nephew with the chain as he takes back the sunglasses. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But, ah, no …”
Paul’s still whispering. “Diz. My house—”
“Excuse me?”
“My house. You said we could work something. With the house. Do a deal. Then it would be my house.”
Dizzy grabs Pauly’s face with his two hands and holds it there, talking slowly and directly into it. He is a surprisingly powerful man, but he holds Pauly’s face with great gentleness, restraint.
“Pauly. Pauly. I was just talkin’. Don’t you understand? Don’t you know the difference? You’re a talker yourself, right, so you should know. You’re supposed to know the difference.”
Pauly hands over the phone. Already Dizzy seems different, no longer all that angry, a little regretful. That’s Pauly’s life for you, right there.
“Pauly, Pauly, Pauly. You’re just … dangerous, is what you are. You don’t think like the rest of us think. You’re a good kid with some nuts and bolts that just ain’t tightened all the way up.”
With his phone and his glasses and not another word, Dizzy heads out.
I expect drama. I expect now for Pauly to take a bite out of the Formica counter or remove his shoes and throw them through the plate-glass window. I think that’s what I would do. And if he wants me to help him damage something that isn’t himself, I believe I will.
But he quietly sits back down in front of his drink. I sit in front of the other. He takes a big slurpy-sound drink, then grins. He has a beautiful smile, Paul does.
“I’ve got your nuts and bolts right here, Dizzy,” he says, jingling the keys to the house.
When Lilly comes by at ten that night, I’m already ready to go.
“He never showed,” she says, in a voice I know pretty well.
“Uh-huh,” I say. “You up for a walk? Probably take us an hour.”
She sighs, takes my hand.
The part I know is that we will find him in the house he thought would be his. And Lilly’s. And mine. The part I worry about is what kind of antics he will be up to when we get there.
We find him in the kitchen. He’s eating a bowl of cereal. He sees us come in and pours, as if we are right on time, two more bowls.
I pray that he has at least rinsed them out, because I will eat in this kitchen. The three of us eating in our kitchen.
Bibliophilia
M OST PLACES I GO , I want them with me. Or anyway I want at least one of them with me. Like, at the movies, I want either one of them with me and I don’t particularly care which one as long as it’s not both because together they talk too much. At the schoolyard basketball court it’s Pauly, and at loads of other places it’s Lilly. It all makes its own and of sense and we don’t for the most part need to question it too much. But then sometimes we do. Sometimes we need a place apart.
The library is that place. The Whitechurch Library. If ever my friends cannot find me, that’s where they search, and that is where they usually succeed in locating me. The way an old dog finds his way back over miles and miles to his home when somebody tries to shove him off on a farm someplace, that is how I find my way back to the library. It’s my place, even more than my place is. Though I find myself spending less time here over time. As a kid I spent day and night in this building, warmed and
I wish Dizzy had just silently beat him up instead.
Pauly is nearly crying. “It’s not like that, Diz. I was working. I was doing some serious planning, designing, figuring….” He picks up off the counter a napkin on which he had been drawing while talking to me. I was not even aware that the talk and the drawing were related.
“Good, Paul,” he says, “so you drank Coke and doodled. Big day.”
Dizzy reaches out and practically decapitates his nephew with the chain as he takes back the sunglasses. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But, ah, no …”
Paul’s still whispering. “Diz. My house—”
“Excuse me?”
“My house. You said we could work something. With the house. Do a deal. Then it would be my house.”
Dizzy grabs Pauly’s face with his two hands and holds it there, talking slowly and directly into it. He is a surprisingly powerful man, but he holds Pauly’s face with great gentleness, restraint.
“Pauly. Pauly. I was just talkin’. Don’t you understand? Don’t you know the difference? You’re a talker yourself, right, so you should know. You’re supposed to know the difference.”
Pauly hands over the phone. Already Dizzy seems different, no longer all that angry, a little regretful. That’s Pauly’s life for you, right there.
“Pauly, Pauly, Pauly. You’re just … dangerous, is what you are. You don’t think like the rest of us think. You’re a good kid with some nuts and bolts that just ain’t tightened all the way up.”
With his phone and his glasses and not another word, Dizzy heads out.
I expect drama. I expect now for Pauly to take a bite out of the Formica counter or remove his shoes and throw them through the plate-glass window. I think that’s what I would do. And if he wants me to help him damage something that isn’t himself, I believe I will.
But he quietly sits back down in front of his drink. I sit in front of the other. He takes a big slurpy-sound drink, then grins. He has a beautiful smile, Paul does.
“I’ve got your nuts and bolts right here, Dizzy,” he says, jingling the keys to the house.
When Lilly comes by at ten that night, I’m already ready to go.
“He never showed,” she says, in a voice I know pretty well.
“Uh-huh,” I say. “You up for a walk? Probably take us an hour.”
She sighs, takes my hand.
The part I know is that we will find him in the house he thought would be his. And Lilly’s. And mine. The part I worry about is what kind of antics he will be up to when we get there.
We find him in the kitchen. He’s eating a bowl of cereal. He sees us come in and pours, as if we are right on time, two more bowls.
I pray that he has at least rinsed them out, because I will eat in this kitchen. The three of us eating in our kitchen.
Bibliophilia
M OST PLACES I GO , I want them with me. Or anyway I want at least one of them with me. Like, at the movies, I want either one of them with me and I don’t particularly care which one as long as it’s not both because together they talk too much. At the schoolyard basketball court it’s Pauly, and at loads of other places it’s Lilly. It all makes its own and of sense and we don’t for the most part need to question it too much. But then sometimes we do. Sometimes we need a place apart.
The library is that place. The Whitechurch Library. If ever my friends cannot find me, that’s where they search, and that is where they usually succeed in locating me. The way an old dog finds his way back over miles and miles to his home when somebody tries to shove him off on a farm someplace, that is how I find my way back to the library. It’s my place, even more than my place is. Though I find myself spending less time here over time. As a kid I spent day and night in this building, warmed and
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