Chapter One: The Coming
[From the Willow manuscript, Part 1.]
I had two younger sisters, eight and ten, and in the summer of 1981 I was thirteen. My parents must have grown more conservative as they got older considering they named their second two children Eileen and Karen. They named me Willow.
I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to name me after a tree, but as unhappy as their decision was, I don't think it would have been altogether bad had either of them been tall and slim. Sadly they were rather heavy boned and tended to gain weight easily, and so there was only the remotest chance that their daughter would be any different. At thirteen I had given up all hope of developing a runway model's figure, and I am sure that it became clear even to them that instead of a willow they got a bush, low, wide and a bit thorny.
There wasn't much hope for Eileen or Karen either, but they were blonde and cute, and they had no name to live up to. I truly loved my sisters and enjoyed seeing them dressed like dolls though it seemed I spent too many hours braiding their hair which always came undone in minutes. My hair was darker and more coarse but at least it stayed put. Mother insisted that we wear dresses, and I didn't mind, especially in the summer. But the truth was that I had always felt most comfortable in coveralls and sweats, and as often as I mentioned that, she would always look up and to the right in mother’s exasperation. Mom was from Charleston, and Southern belles always wore dresses, period. That we were living in northern New Jersey seemed not the least relevant.
From our back porch we could see across the Hudson River to Manhattan. It was an old house, large and dark with small rooms. The narrow halls were a maze leading from one door to another, some of which were always locked, all of which were solid and thick with white paint. The children's rooms were in the front, guest rooms on the sides, and our parents' room in the back facing the river. Everything in the house was old, and it smelled like it. Woolen rugs worn down to their backings were prized heirlooms, chipped furniture that matched nothing else were unique antiques, and original Hummels someone would no doubt pay a lot of money for were placed strategically around the place. Yellowed doilies covered each chair and sofa as much, I thought, to cover the worn parts as to add to the “look.” Mother called it Southern living, partly because she had a subscription to the magazine, but Dad called it Southern poverty. It didn’t matter though because everyone who visited thought the house had charm and bespoke old money contempt for the newly rich. I liked the big bathtub which sat on lion legs and which allowed me to submerge to my nose.
First children tend to do best in school, and that was so in our case. Our exposure to television was minimal, especially since my parents seldom watched it, except for talking head shows, and they had strict rules about not allowing the TV to be turned on before 7 PM, except for Sesame Street. And it was turned off by 9 PM, except if there was a special show that was good for the family to watch together. Naturally reading became an important means of entertainment, and the three Frederic sisters did well in school. But while Eileen and Karen were good, they weren't the best, and I suspect it was harder for them following their older sister who was. Of course, school then was largely memorizing details, especially at St. Timothy's. Neat handwriting and good spelling impressed nuns, and as we were seldom asked to explain things, it appeared I was smarter than others. I was smart enough to know that was untrue, but I was nevertheless proud of my A's.
My parents, Donald and Carolee Frederic, met at Duke University. Dad was from New Jersey, a lawyer, very Catholic, and politically liberal. Mother was a Colby, an affluent Charleston clan that made its fortune in paper processing. They were charming, Methodist, and more than a bit conservative. Unlike Dad, Mother never discussed religion or politics lest others be made uncomfortable. She was a typical Southerner who told you what you wanted to hear. Dad, a typical Northerner, told you what he wanted to hear.
Don and Carolee set up house in New Jersey because he had gotten a good position at Temple & Zimmerman, a small but successful Newark law firm. In truth, Mother was happy to leave Charleston as she had become a bit estranged from her family when she converted to Catholicism to marry Dad. Nothing was ever said, of course, and our yearly Thanksgiving Day visits were always pleasant. Though she would flash her beautiful smile often, Mother was always more quiet than usual during those trips.
She lacked the long-limbed elegance of some other women, but she had a cherubic face that dimpled when she smiled. Many times I saw it light up a room. She was most gracious, of course, and her Southern accent became particularly pronounced around men. They seemed to sense that she liked them, or at least liked being a woman, and that made her a most successful money raiser for Kane, a philanthropic organization devoted to providing scholarships for inner city youth. She received no pay for her work, but Daddy said she was worth more to his firm than he could calculate. When the firm became Temple Frederic it doubled its billings in the first year.
It was in the early summer of 1981 that we learned of a houseguest for whom we were to prepare ourselves. We were instructed to treat him as a brother and maintain our best behavior for the length of his stay, however long that might be. Never having had a brother I was unsure what particular treatment we were to afford him, but as we were cautioned to be on our best behavior, I had general misgivings about the entire arrangement, "however long that might be."
It was mid-June and school had been out for a few days when Mother returned with our visitor. While she was gone we had been left to ensure every room in the house was perfectly tidy, especially our rooms. Why our rooms had to be part of the campaign was puzzling since I would not have expected any boy to enter my bedroom nor the bedrooms of my sisters or parents. His bedroom, in the guest wing on the kitchen side, was already perfect since it hadn't ever in my memory been used and had so little in it. The girls dusted and I washed the windows, inside only. We were told also to be in the house and perfectly neat and unheated. Our dresses were to be spotless which meant that after the cleaning we were to dress and remain motionless until they arrived --- which we did, more out of nervousness than obedience.
He followed Mother in the side door carrying a suitcase in each hand. He was sixteen but only a bit taller than I, thin and pale, with very dark and wavy hair that seemed never to have seen a comb.
"This is Argo Malle," said Mother signaling us to smile our best smiles. "This is Willow, Eileen, and Karen." We curtsied but I don't think he saw us, thankfully. I looked to find his eyes, but his head was down. It seemed as if he said Hi or Hello but it really was more a grunt.
"What's an Argo Malle?" popped from my mouth. I know I didn't think it first. Mother shot a dagger at me. He looked at me shyly from under his brow and grinned. He had dark eyes that sparkled in the light. His black eyebrows were thick and wide, and he had lush eyelashes any woman would die for.
"Willow, I'm surprised at you. One would think by your age you could tell the difference between a person's name and an object."
She had of course already told us his name and other things about him, by way of preparation, no doubt. I didn't learn until the next school term that his name was indeed an object --- a boat. The Argo, it turned out, was the name of the ship in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts.
Argo’s mother had recently died leaving him in the temporary care of his aunt in Brooklyn. He had only a few months before he was to graduate from high school, and he stayed with his aunt who took him in until then. His mother had been working for an associate of my father as a housekeeper, but at sixteen, Argo could not be left to live alone, and his aunt, an alcoholic who made little, had nothing but a roof to offer the boy. The Kane Institute took on the case, my parents were contacted, and Argo became their ward.
I learned that Argo's father was a French chef who emigrated from Europe with his wife. She had been in France on a student visa from Greece when she met and married Henry Malle. Their son was born in France, came to this country at six, and was naturalized when his parents became citizens five years later. Not long after, his father abandoned them never to reestablish contact and leaving them to live in a small apartment over a bakery on 65th Street in a Brooklyn working class neighborhood named Bensonhurst. Aside from my dad’s telling me that Bensonhurst was an “Italian neighborhood,” my parents never said more about his situation, and I suspected that was because they did not know anything more.
What they did say about him then was that he was "special" and needed us to make him feel at home. We were going to be his family while he lived at a dormitory at Rutgers, which was only twenty minutes away. It was explained that in two years he would be of legal age, at which time he could live on his own. Daddy had seen to the legalities that would make Argo an official New Jersey resident and thereby qualified for a scholarship to Rutgers.
Between that day in June and the last day of August was to be the Summer of Argo.
l
Argo was quiet, almost uncomfortably so at first. He had a soft voice and almost always looked down, not so much out of shyness I thought but as if his head were too heavy. It wasn't until he brushed his hair back one morning that I realized his head was larger than it should have been given his slight frame and reedy neck. His big eyes moved quickly from under his brow as if he were trying to see everything but not wanting to seem too curious or stare.
That first night at supper Mother placed him across from me on Dad’s left, and that made Argo appear even more fragile, more pale and more delicate than he had at first. Daddy was broad and had thick hands with stubby fingers which he attributed to his peasant Italian heritage. Argo’s hands were small with thin fingers which he used to work his knife and fork like fine instruments, and he ate everything, even chicken wings, with a knife and fork. He cut his food into the smallest pieces and chewed almost imperceptibly. If there had been a poster boy for Emily Post, he would have been it. Daddy, who smacked through meals like an AK-47 and was anything but delicate, said that anyone that good with a knife should be a surgeon, and we all laughed, except Argo who blushed.
The first words he said to me, whispered though they were, was at dinner that first night as I cleared his plate from the table.
"But I know what a willow is."
I'm sure no one else heard him, and as I looked down I caught a glimpse of his eyes from under his brow. They were bright, and they were laughing. And I felt a twitch low in my stomach. It was my first time. He was beautiful with his finely chiseled features and jet black hair and eyes setting off white ivory skin, and I understood for the first time how women called some men dolls.
I showed him the way to the local library and Mother took him to the one at Rutgers. Other than those two times in the first week he did not step out of the air conditioning except when the family went to church.
Argo was dressed for church that first Sunday in a white shirt with an open collar and blazer. He had tan slacks, loafers, and looked like he had stepped out of a 1950’s Family Circle magazine. I realized then how thin men look best in clothes. Dad wore much the same outfit but looked like a box in a jacket.
Clutched in Argo’s had was an old missal. It was well worn, and Argo followed the Mass with it. With the prayer book opened, the right page was in English and the left page was in Latin. We sat together in church, flanked by Mother and Dad, and I could see over Argo’s shoulder that he had written notes on the English side but that he was reading from the Latin side.
“Are you reading in Latin?” I whispered.
He nodded and I looked at him, stunned. When he sensed I was staring, he looked over to me with a boyish grin.
“What?” he whispered. I didn’t know what to say.
He pointed to the Latin and pointed to each word as the priest was mumbling them at the altar. On the English side I could see references to the Gospels he had written. When we came back from receiving Communion and I asked him why he wrote in the Missal, he ignored me. I wasn’t sure whether he was lost in prayer or felt it inappropriate to whisper after just receiving Communion. In either case, I knew I should not have been whispering, and I knew Argo’s faith went far deeper than mine.
Every Sunday after church, Dad would ask me what, if anything, the gospel reading meant to me personally. The sermon was on the Gospel story of the master who hired day workers for one drachma each. When in the afternoon other workers asked for jobs, he hired them at the same rate. Those workers who had worked all day objected, but the master told the complainers that deals he may make with others do not affect the fair deal had had made with them. I was prepared to make an answer, but this time Dad asked Argo what the sermon meant to him.
Argo answered resolutely, “I should not resent the fact that God has given others what he has not given me.”
“Excellent, Argo. I doubt I could have been more succinct.” Argo seemed to take the compliment for granted; I beamed.
“He reads in Latin,” I said proudly.
“You do?” remarked Mother in her most charming Southern belle.
Argo nodded modestly.
“Did they teach that in public school?” she asked, knowing that he had not gone to Catholic school in Brooklyn.
“No, in released time.”
Released time was a program in which children were released an hour early from public school on Wednesday afternoon to attend religious instruction at the local parochial school.
“Do they teach Latin at released time?” Mother asked.
“No. A nun gave me a primer to study on my own.”
“Why did she do that?”
There was a pause. “Probably because she thought I would enjoy it,” Argo said with some uncertainty.
“And did you?” Mother asked with a smile knowing the obvious answer.
“Yes.”
Mother encouraged us to finish our meals so that we could have the ice cream cake she had bought at the always-crowded-especially-on-Sunday Avalon bakery. Half of the haddock still sat on my plate, and that had not escaped Mother’s notice.
“Willow, finish your dinner; everyone’s waiting for desert.
“It’s too fishy,” I said picking at it.
“Fish is a brain food,” she said as she walked to the kitchen. I looked across to Argo whose eyes were laughing.
“Brain food!” I said under my breath.
“How can fish be brain food considering how dumb they are?” whispered Argo.
“What?” asked Dad.
“Fish aren’t terribly smart creatures, are they?” asked Argo.
“No, they aren’t,” Dad answered with a knowing smile to Argo. Then he turned to me and told me to finish what was on my plate.
l
We were at supper, when most uncomfortable situations seemed to arise, and that day the conversation turned uncomfortably around to my summer assignment. We were taught just before summer recess about sonnets, and I was to write one before school resumed. Two months did not seem long enough, nor for that matter did a lifetime, which I am sure would not have been incomplete without having written one. But Sister Mary Esther loved Shakespeare and was convinced that the best way to teach us thirteen-year-olds to love him also would be to require us to produce a sonnet.
I am not sure why I remember to this day that a sonnet requires fourteen lines of ten syllables each, every second syllable of which must be naturally stressed. Compounding the problem is that the lines had to rhyme in a special order, and if that weren't enough, the final two lines had not only to rhyme but also summarize the previous twelve lines. Why there was a need for a summary of only twelve lines was never explained. Sister Mary Esther said that I would understand when I got older, her answer to many questions.
I asked Argo, the soon to be college freshman, why there had to be a summary, and he said in a way that suggested I should not have to be told, "That's a bad question. Nothing about poetry is needed." Stupid me.
"What's wrong with haiku?” I grumbled more to myself than to anyone at the table.
Summer vacation had dwindled to four days, and still I had no poem to show Sister, and this fact did not go unnoticed by Mother. I had no poem I said because it was simply too difficult to write, "And besides," I added, "I don't know what to write about."
"Of course you do," she insisted. "You can write about what happened this summer, your week with Grandma and Grandpa, the day we all spent at the shore. There are plenty of things you can write about."
I resisted saying that if I had wanted to write about those things I wouldn't have to write in sonnet form. Argo looked at me as if he knew what I had been thinking. A wry smile crept across his face.
"Certainly if Sister Mary Esther assigned the work it cannot be too difficult," added Mother. If she were right, and she probably was, that meant I was not destined to be a threat to Robert Frost, or Alan Ginsberg for that matter.
"Have something to show me by tomorrow afternoon," Dad said with an air of finality that ended the discussion and my dinner.
That night as I lay on my bed, pen in hand, legal pad reflecting the light from my night light, I heard a slight rustling at my door and saw a slip of paper being pushed through. It had to be Argo. I called to him, but there was no answer.
The paper had a poem with exactly fourteen lines, it was printed neatly and had an unusual title.
Sonnet
True as the light that wakes at each new dawn.
Soft as a mother’s hand on aching brows.
True as the love a doe has for her fawn.
Soft as the rain that washes grazing cows.
Warm as the brilliant sun that lights the sky.
Sweet as a songbird’s call in early spring.
Warm as the glowing in a lover’s eye.
Sweet as the smell that new mown hay does bring.
Bright as the smile on children lost in play.
Deep as the ocean’s floor so dark and still.
Bright as the hope of goodness for each day.
Deep as a hero’s great resolve of will.
True, soft, warm, sweet, bright, deep as these things are,
My love for you exceeds each one by far.
Each line has ten syllables, every second of which is stressed (So the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth syllables are unstressed. The word goodness, for example, could never be used to start a line since good- is stressed over –ness.) All lines are written in this same pattern or rhythm, called iambic pentameter.
As every second line must rhyme, the first line ending with dawn means that the third line must end with a word that rhymes with dawn, in this case it is fawn. The last two lines, however, must rhyme and serve as a summary. It is called a concluding couplet and must have a different rhyme from the other lines:
True, soft, warm, sweet, bright, deep as these things are,
My love for you exceeds each one by far.
Now while this poem falls short of Shakespearean standards, the sixteen-year-old Argo managed to follow the form of a sonnet, and like most of the Bard's, its theme was about love and nature. But Argo added something.
In Argo's sonnet, each line that rhymed started with the same word. So, both the first and third lines, which rhyme, start with the word true. The second and fourth lines, which rhyme, start with the word soft. Completing the scheme were the words warm, bright, sweet, and deep. The concluding couplet included those words. I suppose the standard Shakespearean sonnet was not challenging enough for Argo.
To say that representing this poem as mine was the embarrassment of my childhood would be litotic (I learned that word from a poetry class. It means understatement.) First I was asked to read the poem to the entire school in the auditorium, then it was published in the Newark Star-Ledger, and finally to make matters worse, I won first place among the ten thousand entries in the 1981 New Jersey Poet Search program. And while I "misplaced" the plaque I, or Argo, had won, I saved the poem. I fancied then that he had written it not only for me but about me. Looking back and given the title, I suppose I was wrong. It was more than likely an exercise, a means by which Argo could measure himself against the greatest writer of the language, and I knew then why my parents said he was special.
I had a notion before that about the special nature of the young Argo Malle, but it was in a different context, and it frightened me.
l
It was another impossibly hot afternoon in August, and On the Waterfront was playing at the Graham, a local theatre that played only arty films and reruns. Argo agreed to come with Eileen, Karen, and me probably because it is a film classic; for me it was just something to do on a lazy summer afternoon. The girls came because Mother insisted.
The young kids behind us were obviously less than rapt by Brando and began kicking the backs of our seats. Argo told them to stop, but that only spurred them on. It was when Argo finally got up to complain to the matron that he was jumped on by an older boy and punched viciously. Argo was helpless and the fight ended when the bigger boy stopped hitting him.
We were all made to leave the theatre despite my insistence that it was the boys behind us who should have been ejected. At least the management gave Argo a wet paper towel to blot the blood from his nose. When we got outside, the savage, named Jimmy Ross, warned Argo not to walk on the same side of the street and to run away when he saw him. Argo, the towel up to his face, did not meet Jimmy's glare and softly said okay. I could feel Jimmy's gaze on us as we headed for home.
My father filed a complaint, but the police told him it would not amount to anything since Argo was sixteen and no longer a juvenile while Jimmy, a public school pupil, was not yet sixteen and was a juvenile. In those situations, my father was told, nothing could be done. Age, not size, mattered. When Father said the same to Argo, whose both eyes were blackened, Argo shrugged slightly and insisted that it made no difference since it was just a bloody nose. I guess he hadn't looked in the mirror.
It was about a week later when Argo and I were coming home from the library that we saw the boys from the movie theatre. They were throwing stones at a tin can that lay at the curb. "Come with me," Argo said as he crossed the street toward the boys.
"I don't think we should, Argo," I said. Those boys were not the kind of kids you approached if you could help it.
"Why not?" he answered flatly as he picked up the pace. One of the boys whispered to another as we approached.
"So where's Jimmy Ross?" asked Argo in his gruffest voice. There was no answer. "I don't see him around here," Argo added looking around like a bad actor.
"In the hospital," said one of the boys.
"Hospital? What happened to him?"
Two of the boys answered simultaneously. "He got a concussion. He got hit by a marble."
"A marble? How can that be?"
"No one knows," said one.
"It came from a building --- from the roof or a window," said another.
"Damned shame," said Argo. He started back across the street. "A marble!"
We were silent on the way home, and I never said anything about the marble to him or to anyone else, and neither did he I am sure. It was obvious he wanted me to know what happened, and I thought I did know. It frightened me a little, or course, but it also excited me. We were walking home and Jimmy Ross was not around to bother us. Argo saw to that, and I was proud of him in a way.
But then there was the Joey incident.
l
We saw Argo once after that first summer when he left for the dorm at Rutgers, that was for Thanksgiving dinner, but he was due for a long visit during Christmas vacation. I remember how excited Karen and Eileen were when they knew he would be with us the next day; it was if their older brother were coming home from war. After only two months, Argo, the quiet, sweet young man, had become one of us. That, of course, made things even more exasperating. He was my brother, too, and a brother was not what I wanted him to be.
I had intended to knit him a sweater for Christmas, but once I started I could see that I was neither a patient Penelope nor was I cut from the same cloth as my mother, so to speak. The best I could do was an Afghan, and that took me right up until Christmas Eve to finish. It was the first time I remember looking forward more to giving a Christmas gift than to getting one, and when he opened it he seemed genuinely pleased. He looked at me from across the room with the most appreciative expression, and I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. Abruptly his expression changed. He was a wily fox laughing inside at what he but no one else knew.
"Thanks, I can use this. But I thought for sure you'd write me a sonnet."
Mom and Dad laughed and so did Argo. Those tears finally overflowed, and I did my best not to be noticed wiping them.
"So how long did you say you were staying?" I managed to say with my best pixie smile.
"He’s staying the week," Mother assured everyone, and we returned to the presents.
Argo was truly special, and despite his shyness, it wasn’t long before anyone could see just how special he was. But I learned things about Argo that no one else knew or could possibly guess. I suppose my parents knew I hadn’t written that sonnet, and if they did, they never let on. They knew how talented he was and suspected his generosity.
However, they did not know about the marble incident and what it said about his desire for vengeance, vengeance which sent a boy to the hospital. It seemed incongruous to this young teenager, but I simply accepted it. And as I said, I was even a little proud of him. But what I learned about him next, and only I knew about it, was not so easy to accept; and now, so many years later, I realize just how telling it was. My idol was truly more complex than I could ever have imagined.
Little Eileen since school started had been being bullied by the boy two doors down the street. His name was Joey, he was eleven, and his parents were psychiatrists. Father spoke to the boy and then spoke to the parents who said they would talk to Joey. There was no change, and when Father spoke again to the parents, they again said they would speak to their son. Father said they were less than pleased when he suggested they do more than talk.
Still, every now and then, Eileen would come home crying that Joey had been mean to her. Two days before Christmas Joey left the impression of his fingers on Eileen's face. Father threatened Joey's parents with a law suit if they could not control their son, but this time his parents did not say they would talk to him: they denied he was out of the house. Someone else must have hit her and she probably accused Joey out of habit.
When for Christmas Eileen got her bicycle with training wheels, the worst kept secret of the year, it was my job to stay outside with her to protect her if Joey were also outdoors. Eileen was forbidden to go outside and play unaccompanied either by my parents or me. Karen had no similar restrictions, as she seemed not to be among Joey's preferred victims.
I told the story to Argo as we watched Eileen peddle herself into eight-year-old ecstasy.
"Did you talk to Joey?" Argo asked as if I should have.
"No. Anyway, my father talked to him. Nothing works."
"Did your mother?"
"She hollered at him once from the porch," I said. "He was saying nasty things to her, and she came home crying."
"No, that's no good," said Argo looking at the Michael's house.
"What?" I asked. "Saying nasty things or hollering from the porch." He didn't answer because he seemed to be studying their house. "What are you looking at, Argo? I’m talking to you."
"The house."
My parents went to a Christmas luncheon the following Saturday, and I was left to mind my sisters. Argo was up in his room, and we started dressing to go outdoors so Eileen could ride her bike.
Argo hurried down the steps saying that he had to go out for a short while. He also asked if we could go in the back yard to play.
"She wants to ride her bike," I said. Argo turned from the door and gave me an impatient look. "She wants to ride her new bike; she can't on the lawn; she can't peddle on the grass."
"Just for five minutes, then you can let her ride on the sidewalk," he said looking at me as if to say something more.
"Why?"
"I’m asking you please. What’s the big deal?"
"Okay, ladies. We're taking a walk around the back yard,” I said taking Eileen by the hand and motioning to Karen to head for the back door. On his way out Argo let the front door slam rattling the stained glass. That was the first time he had done that or done anything loud, for that matter, and it was obvious that something was different.
"Stay here a moment," I told the girls as I went to the bay window. I saw Joey.
Argo rushed up to him and seemed to usher him down the driveway of the house next door. I could still see them from the bay window at the side of the house, and Argo was talking but I couldn’t hear. He motioned to our house, then he pointed up and down the block. Joey seemed to nod his head that he understood when suddenly Argo punched the boy in the stomach then grabbed him by his throat. Joey didn't cry, even when Argo threw him to the ground. He stood for a moment over the doubled over boy then started back to the house.
"Karen, you go out back with Eileen and I'll be out there in a minute," I said taking my knit hat off and unbuttoning my coat. "Keep her mittens on, Eileen."
Argo opened the door, took a quick look at me, and headed for the stairs.
"You punched him."
He looked at the bay window. "I thought you were out back."
"And choked him and threw him down."
Argo looked down and continued to the stairs.
"How can you punch a little kid? He's eleven." Argo stopped and turned toward me.
"And how old is Eileen?" he asked in his normal half whisper.
"That's beside the point. You punched him."
"So he won't punch Eileen."
I moved to the back doors. "How do you know? And what if his parents have you arrested?"
"Well, I'd simply say that someone else must have done it and that he accused me because he's used to directing his anger toward the Frederic’s."
"And what if he makes things worse for Eileen? He can get even with her when you're not around."
He drew closer. "He can't. I made him Eileen's protector." Argo spoke softly, but his eyes were black ice. "I told him that if anything were to ever happen to Eileen, if someone were to slap her, or call her names, or throw something at her, that would mean that he didn't protect her, and then I would blame him." He paused. "Then I showed him what it would be like if I blamed him."
"And you punched him."
"That's because words didn't work. Sometimes people learn that it really doesn't matter what is said. They ignore the words and do what they please. Then other methods have to be used." He started back toward the stairs. "Unless, of course, you don't mind being ignored.” And after two more steps, “Eileen would mind, though."
I got the girls from the backyard and let Eileen ride her bike, twice passing Joey’s house. Everything was eerily normal on Crane Street, and I felt chilled on that dark, gray day that was threatening to snow. I remembered how I felt when I found out about the marble hitting Jimmy Ross. It was wrong what Argo did, but it seemed right, and that puzzled me. Could something be both wrong and right at the same time, and more importantly, how could someone be kind and loving and also violent and cruel? I think it was then that I first realized that things were not as clear as they were in Sister Mary Esther’s classroom.
I went up to my room to get started on studying for my first high school finals after Christmas, but on that day I got no studying done. On my bed was a slingshot made from a branch. Wide rubber bands were knotted together and pulled tight around the two prongs. The bands were attached on the other end by a square piece of soft leather. There was a marble and a note.
Willow---
I got the idea from the Bible. Growing up in Bensonhurst made it worth my while to become proficient in its use. I never thought I would need it in a neighborhood like this. But there are many things I was surprised to learn about how "the other half" live.
Forgive me,
AM
P.S. I know how much you like haiku; maybe you'll like mine.
Children out playing
Their parents keep protecting
Their children hate them
P.P.S. In case you don’t like that one, here’s another.
A little frog
Hopped blithely across my path
And into my heart
AM
[From the Willow manuscript, Part 1.]
I had two younger sisters, eight and ten, and in the summer of 1981 I was thirteen. My parents must have grown more conservative as they got older considering they named their second two children Eileen and Karen. They named me Willow.
I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to name me after a tree, but as unhappy as their decision was, I don't think it would have been altogether bad had either of them been tall and slim. Sadly they were rather heavy boned and tended to gain weight easily, and so there was only the remotest chance that their daughter would be any different. At thirteen I had given up all hope of developing a runway model's figure, and I am sure that it became clear even to them that instead of a willow they got a bush, low, wide and a bit thorny.
There wasn't much hope for Eileen or Karen either, but they were blonde and cute, and they had no name to live up to. I truly loved my sisters and enjoyed seeing them dressed like dolls though it seemed I spent too many hours braiding their hair which always came undone in minutes. My hair was darker and more coarse but at least it stayed put. Mother insisted that we wear dresses, and I didn't mind, especially in the summer. But the truth was that I had always felt most comfortable in coveralls and sweats, and as often as I mentioned that, she would always look up and to the right in mother’s exasperation. Mom was from Charleston, and Southern belles always wore dresses, period. That we were living in northern New Jersey seemed not the least relevant.
From our back porch we could see across the Hudson River to Manhattan. It was an old house, large and dark with small rooms. The narrow halls were a maze leading from one door to another, some of which were always locked, all of which were solid and thick with white paint. The children's rooms were in the front, guest rooms on the sides, and our parents' room in the back facing the river. Everything in the house was old, and it smelled like it. Woolen rugs worn down to their backings were prized heirlooms, chipped furniture that matched nothing else were unique antiques, and original Hummels someone would no doubt pay a lot of money for were placed strategically around the place. Yellowed doilies covered each chair and sofa as much, I thought, to cover the worn parts as to add to the “look.” Mother called it Southern living, partly because she had a subscription to the magazine, but Dad called it Southern poverty. It didn’t matter though because everyone who visited thought the house had charm and bespoke old money contempt for the newly rich. I liked the big bathtub which sat on lion legs and which allowed me to submerge to my nose.
First children tend to do best in school, and that was so in our case. Our exposure to television was minimal, especially since my parents seldom watched it, except for talking head shows, and they had strict rules about not allowing the TV to be turned on before 7 PM, except for Sesame Street. And it was turned off by 9 PM, except if there was a special show that was good for the family to watch together. Naturally reading became an important means of entertainment, and the three Frederic sisters did well in school. But while Eileen and Karen were good, they weren't the best, and I suspect it was harder for them following their older sister who was. Of course, school then was largely memorizing details, especially at St. Timothy's. Neat handwriting and good spelling impressed nuns, and as we were seldom asked to explain things, it appeared I was smarter than others. I was smart enough to know that was untrue, but I was nevertheless proud of my A's.
My parents, Donald and Carolee Frederic, met at Duke University. Dad was from New Jersey, a lawyer, very Catholic, and politically liberal. Mother was a Colby, an affluent Charleston clan that made its fortune in paper processing. They were charming, Methodist, and more than a bit conservative. Unlike Dad, Mother never discussed religion or politics lest others be made uncomfortable. She was a typical Southerner who told you what you wanted to hear. Dad, a typical Northerner, told you what he wanted to hear.
Don and Carolee set up house in New Jersey because he had gotten a good position at Temple & Zimmerman, a small but successful Newark law firm. In truth, Mother was happy to leave Charleston as she had become a bit estranged from her family when she converted to Catholicism to marry Dad. Nothing was ever said, of course, and our yearly Thanksgiving Day visits were always pleasant. Though she would flash her beautiful smile often, Mother was always more quiet than usual during those trips.
She lacked the long-limbed elegance of some other women, but she had a cherubic face that dimpled when she smiled. Many times I saw it light up a room. She was most gracious, of course, and her Southern accent became particularly pronounced around men. They seemed to sense that she liked them, or at least liked being a woman, and that made her a most successful money raiser for Kane, a philanthropic organization devoted to providing scholarships for inner city youth. She received no pay for her work, but Daddy said she was worth more to his firm than he could calculate. When the firm became Temple Frederic it doubled its billings in the first year.
It was in the early summer of 1981 that we learned of a houseguest for whom we were to prepare ourselves. We were instructed to treat him as a brother and maintain our best behavior for the length of his stay, however long that might be. Never having had a brother I was unsure what particular treatment we were to afford him, but as we were cautioned to be on our best behavior, I had general misgivings about the entire arrangement, "however long that might be."
It was mid-June and school had been out for a few days when Mother returned with our visitor. While she was gone we had been left to ensure every room in the house was perfectly tidy, especially our rooms. Why our rooms had to be part of the campaign was puzzling since I would not have expected any boy to enter my bedroom nor the bedrooms of my sisters or parents. His bedroom, in the guest wing on the kitchen side, was already perfect since it hadn't ever in my memory been used and had so little in it. The girls dusted and I washed the windows, inside only. We were told also to be in the house and perfectly neat and unheated. Our dresses were to be spotless which meant that after the cleaning we were to dress and remain motionless until they arrived --- which we did, more out of nervousness than obedience.
He followed Mother in the side door carrying a suitcase in each hand. He was sixteen but only a bit taller than I, thin and pale, with very dark and wavy hair that seemed never to have seen a comb.
"This is Argo Malle," said Mother signaling us to smile our best smiles. "This is Willow, Eileen, and Karen." We curtsied but I don't think he saw us, thankfully. I looked to find his eyes, but his head was down. It seemed as if he said Hi or Hello but it really was more a grunt.
"What's an Argo Malle?" popped from my mouth. I know I didn't think it first. Mother shot a dagger at me. He looked at me shyly from under his brow and grinned. He had dark eyes that sparkled in the light. His black eyebrows were thick and wide, and he had lush eyelashes any woman would die for.
"Willow, I'm surprised at you. One would think by your age you could tell the difference between a person's name and an object."
She had of course already told us his name and other things about him, by way of preparation, no doubt. I didn't learn until the next school term that his name was indeed an object --- a boat. The Argo, it turned out, was the name of the ship in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts.
Argo’s mother had recently died leaving him in the temporary care of his aunt in Brooklyn. He had only a few months before he was to graduate from high school, and he stayed with his aunt who took him in until then. His mother had been working for an associate of my father as a housekeeper, but at sixteen, Argo could not be left to live alone, and his aunt, an alcoholic who made little, had nothing but a roof to offer the boy. The Kane Institute took on the case, my parents were contacted, and Argo became their ward.
I learned that Argo's father was a French chef who emigrated from Europe with his wife. She had been in France on a student visa from Greece when she met and married Henry Malle. Their son was born in France, came to this country at six, and was naturalized when his parents became citizens five years later. Not long after, his father abandoned them never to reestablish contact and leaving them to live in a small apartment over a bakery on 65th Street in a Brooklyn working class neighborhood named Bensonhurst. Aside from my dad’s telling me that Bensonhurst was an “Italian neighborhood,” my parents never said more about his situation, and I suspected that was because they did not know anything more.
What they did say about him then was that he was "special" and needed us to make him feel at home. We were going to be his family while he lived at a dormitory at Rutgers, which was only twenty minutes away. It was explained that in two years he would be of legal age, at which time he could live on his own. Daddy had seen to the legalities that would make Argo an official New Jersey resident and thereby qualified for a scholarship to Rutgers.
Between that day in June and the last day of August was to be the Summer of Argo.
l
Argo was quiet, almost uncomfortably so at first. He had a soft voice and almost always looked down, not so much out of shyness I thought but as if his head were too heavy. It wasn't until he brushed his hair back one morning that I realized his head was larger than it should have been given his slight frame and reedy neck. His big eyes moved quickly from under his brow as if he were trying to see everything but not wanting to seem too curious or stare.
That first night at supper Mother placed him across from me on Dad’s left, and that made Argo appear even more fragile, more pale and more delicate than he had at first. Daddy was broad and had thick hands with stubby fingers which he attributed to his peasant Italian heritage. Argo’s hands were small with thin fingers which he used to work his knife and fork like fine instruments, and he ate everything, even chicken wings, with a knife and fork. He cut his food into the smallest pieces and chewed almost imperceptibly. If there had been a poster boy for Emily Post, he would have been it. Daddy, who smacked through meals like an AK-47 and was anything but delicate, said that anyone that good with a knife should be a surgeon, and we all laughed, except Argo who blushed.
The first words he said to me, whispered though they were, was at dinner that first night as I cleared his plate from the table.
"But I know what a willow is."
I'm sure no one else heard him, and as I looked down I caught a glimpse of his eyes from under his brow. They were bright, and they were laughing. And I felt a twitch low in my stomach. It was my first time. He was beautiful with his finely chiseled features and jet black hair and eyes setting off white ivory skin, and I understood for the first time how women called some men dolls.
I showed him the way to the local library and Mother took him to the one at Rutgers. Other than those two times in the first week he did not step out of the air conditioning except when the family went to church.
Argo was dressed for church that first Sunday in a white shirt with an open collar and blazer. He had tan slacks, loafers, and looked like he had stepped out of a 1950’s Family Circle magazine. I realized then how thin men look best in clothes. Dad wore much the same outfit but looked like a box in a jacket.
Clutched in Argo’s had was an old missal. It was well worn, and Argo followed the Mass with it. With the prayer book opened, the right page was in English and the left page was in Latin. We sat together in church, flanked by Mother and Dad, and I could see over Argo’s shoulder that he had written notes on the English side but that he was reading from the Latin side.
“Are you reading in Latin?” I whispered.
He nodded and I looked at him, stunned. When he sensed I was staring, he looked over to me with a boyish grin.
“What?” he whispered. I didn’t know what to say.
He pointed to the Latin and pointed to each word as the priest was mumbling them at the altar. On the English side I could see references to the Gospels he had written. When we came back from receiving Communion and I asked him why he wrote in the Missal, he ignored me. I wasn’t sure whether he was lost in prayer or felt it inappropriate to whisper after just receiving Communion. In either case, I knew I should not have been whispering, and I knew Argo’s faith went far deeper than mine.
Every Sunday after church, Dad would ask me what, if anything, the gospel reading meant to me personally. The sermon was on the Gospel story of the master who hired day workers for one drachma each. When in the afternoon other workers asked for jobs, he hired them at the same rate. Those workers who had worked all day objected, but the master told the complainers that deals he may make with others do not affect the fair deal had had made with them. I was prepared to make an answer, but this time Dad asked Argo what the sermon meant to him.
Argo answered resolutely, “I should not resent the fact that God has given others what he has not given me.”
“Excellent, Argo. I doubt I could have been more succinct.” Argo seemed to take the compliment for granted; I beamed.
“He reads in Latin,” I said proudly.
“You do?” remarked Mother in her most charming Southern belle.
Argo nodded modestly.
“Did they teach that in public school?” she asked, knowing that he had not gone to Catholic school in Brooklyn.
“No, in released time.”
Released time was a program in which children were released an hour early from public school on Wednesday afternoon to attend religious instruction at the local parochial school.
“Do they teach Latin at released time?” Mother asked.
“No. A nun gave me a primer to study on my own.”
“Why did she do that?”
There was a pause. “Probably because she thought I would enjoy it,” Argo said with some uncertainty.
“And did you?” Mother asked with a smile knowing the obvious answer.
“Yes.”
Mother encouraged us to finish our meals so that we could have the ice cream cake she had bought at the always-crowded-especially-on-Sunday Avalon bakery. Half of the haddock still sat on my plate, and that had not escaped Mother’s notice.
“Willow, finish your dinner; everyone’s waiting for desert.
“It’s too fishy,” I said picking at it.
“Fish is a brain food,” she said as she walked to the kitchen. I looked across to Argo whose eyes were laughing.
“Brain food!” I said under my breath.
“How can fish be brain food considering how dumb they are?” whispered Argo.
“What?” asked Dad.
“Fish aren’t terribly smart creatures, are they?” asked Argo.
“No, they aren’t,” Dad answered with a knowing smile to Argo. Then he turned to me and told me to finish what was on my plate.
l
We were at supper, when most uncomfortable situations seemed to arise, and that day the conversation turned uncomfortably around to my summer assignment. We were taught just before summer recess about sonnets, and I was to write one before school resumed. Two months did not seem long enough, nor for that matter did a lifetime, which I am sure would not have been incomplete without having written one. But Sister Mary Esther loved Shakespeare and was convinced that the best way to teach us thirteen-year-olds to love him also would be to require us to produce a sonnet.
I am not sure why I remember to this day that a sonnet requires fourteen lines of ten syllables each, every second syllable of which must be naturally stressed. Compounding the problem is that the lines had to rhyme in a special order, and if that weren't enough, the final two lines had not only to rhyme but also summarize the previous twelve lines. Why there was a need for a summary of only twelve lines was never explained. Sister Mary Esther said that I would understand when I got older, her answer to many questions.
I asked Argo, the soon to be college freshman, why there had to be a summary, and he said in a way that suggested I should not have to be told, "That's a bad question. Nothing about poetry is needed." Stupid me.
"What's wrong with haiku?” I grumbled more to myself than to anyone at the table.
Summer vacation had dwindled to four days, and still I had no poem to show Sister, and this fact did not go unnoticed by Mother. I had no poem I said because it was simply too difficult to write, "And besides," I added, "I don't know what to write about."
"Of course you do," she insisted. "You can write about what happened this summer, your week with Grandma and Grandpa, the day we all spent at the shore. There are plenty of things you can write about."
I resisted saying that if I had wanted to write about those things I wouldn't have to write in sonnet form. Argo looked at me as if he knew what I had been thinking. A wry smile crept across his face.
"Certainly if Sister Mary Esther assigned the work it cannot be too difficult," added Mother. If she were right, and she probably was, that meant I was not destined to be a threat to Robert Frost, or Alan Ginsberg for that matter.
"Have something to show me by tomorrow afternoon," Dad said with an air of finality that ended the discussion and my dinner.
That night as I lay on my bed, pen in hand, legal pad reflecting the light from my night light, I heard a slight rustling at my door and saw a slip of paper being pushed through. It had to be Argo. I called to him, but there was no answer.
The paper had a poem with exactly fourteen lines, it was printed neatly and had an unusual title.
Sonnet
True as the light that wakes at each new dawn.
Soft as a mother’s hand on aching brows.
True as the love a doe has for her fawn.
Soft as the rain that washes grazing cows.
Warm as the brilliant sun that lights the sky.
Sweet as a songbird’s call in early spring.
Warm as the glowing in a lover’s eye.
Sweet as the smell that new mown hay does bring.
Bright as the smile on children lost in play.
Deep as the ocean’s floor so dark and still.
Bright as the hope of goodness for each day.
Deep as a hero’s great resolve of will.
True, soft, warm, sweet, bright, deep as these things are,
My love for you exceeds each one by far.
Each line has ten syllables, every second of which is stressed (So the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth syllables are unstressed. The word goodness, for example, could never be used to start a line since good- is stressed over –ness.) All lines are written in this same pattern or rhythm, called iambic pentameter.
As every second line must rhyme, the first line ending with dawn means that the third line must end with a word that rhymes with dawn, in this case it is fawn. The last two lines, however, must rhyme and serve as a summary. It is called a concluding couplet and must have a different rhyme from the other lines:
True, soft, warm, sweet, bright, deep as these things are,
My love for you exceeds each one by far.
Now while this poem falls short of Shakespearean standards, the sixteen-year-old Argo managed to follow the form of a sonnet, and like most of the Bard's, its theme was about love and nature. But Argo added something.
In Argo's sonnet, each line that rhymed started with the same word. So, both the first and third lines, which rhyme, start with the word true. The second and fourth lines, which rhyme, start with the word soft. Completing the scheme were the words warm, bright, sweet, and deep. The concluding couplet included those words. I suppose the standard Shakespearean sonnet was not challenging enough for Argo.
To say that representing this poem as mine was the embarrassment of my childhood would be litotic (I learned that word from a poetry class. It means understatement.) First I was asked to read the poem to the entire school in the auditorium, then it was published in the Newark Star-Ledger, and finally to make matters worse, I won first place among the ten thousand entries in the 1981 New Jersey Poet Search program. And while I "misplaced" the plaque I, or Argo, had won, I saved the poem. I fancied then that he had written it not only for me but about me. Looking back and given the title, I suppose I was wrong. It was more than likely an exercise, a means by which Argo could measure himself against the greatest writer of the language, and I knew then why my parents said he was special.
I had a notion before that about the special nature of the young Argo Malle, but it was in a different context, and it frightened me.
l
It was another impossibly hot afternoon in August, and On the Waterfront was playing at the Graham, a local theatre that played only arty films and reruns. Argo agreed to come with Eileen, Karen, and me probably because it is a film classic; for me it was just something to do on a lazy summer afternoon. The girls came because Mother insisted.
The young kids behind us were obviously less than rapt by Brando and began kicking the backs of our seats. Argo told them to stop, but that only spurred them on. It was when Argo finally got up to complain to the matron that he was jumped on by an older boy and punched viciously. Argo was helpless and the fight ended when the bigger boy stopped hitting him.
We were all made to leave the theatre despite my insistence that it was the boys behind us who should have been ejected. At least the management gave Argo a wet paper towel to blot the blood from his nose. When we got outside, the savage, named Jimmy Ross, warned Argo not to walk on the same side of the street and to run away when he saw him. Argo, the towel up to his face, did not meet Jimmy's glare and softly said okay. I could feel Jimmy's gaze on us as we headed for home.
My father filed a complaint, but the police told him it would not amount to anything since Argo was sixteen and no longer a juvenile while Jimmy, a public school pupil, was not yet sixteen and was a juvenile. In those situations, my father was told, nothing could be done. Age, not size, mattered. When Father said the same to Argo, whose both eyes were blackened, Argo shrugged slightly and insisted that it made no difference since it was just a bloody nose. I guess he hadn't looked in the mirror.
It was about a week later when Argo and I were coming home from the library that we saw the boys from the movie theatre. They were throwing stones at a tin can that lay at the curb. "Come with me," Argo said as he crossed the street toward the boys.
"I don't think we should, Argo," I said. Those boys were not the kind of kids you approached if you could help it.
"Why not?" he answered flatly as he picked up the pace. One of the boys whispered to another as we approached.
"So where's Jimmy Ross?" asked Argo in his gruffest voice. There was no answer. "I don't see him around here," Argo added looking around like a bad actor.
"In the hospital," said one of the boys.
"Hospital? What happened to him?"
Two of the boys answered simultaneously. "He got a concussion. He got hit by a marble."
"A marble? How can that be?"
"No one knows," said one.
"It came from a building --- from the roof or a window," said another.
"Damned shame," said Argo. He started back across the street. "A marble!"
We were silent on the way home, and I never said anything about the marble to him or to anyone else, and neither did he I am sure. It was obvious he wanted me to know what happened, and I thought I did know. It frightened me a little, or course, but it also excited me. We were walking home and Jimmy Ross was not around to bother us. Argo saw to that, and I was proud of him in a way.
But then there was the Joey incident.
l
We saw Argo once after that first summer when he left for the dorm at Rutgers, that was for Thanksgiving dinner, but he was due for a long visit during Christmas vacation. I remember how excited Karen and Eileen were when they knew he would be with us the next day; it was if their older brother were coming home from war. After only two months, Argo, the quiet, sweet young man, had become one of us. That, of course, made things even more exasperating. He was my brother, too, and a brother was not what I wanted him to be.
I had intended to knit him a sweater for Christmas, but once I started I could see that I was neither a patient Penelope nor was I cut from the same cloth as my mother, so to speak. The best I could do was an Afghan, and that took me right up until Christmas Eve to finish. It was the first time I remember looking forward more to giving a Christmas gift than to getting one, and when he opened it he seemed genuinely pleased. He looked at me from across the room with the most appreciative expression, and I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. Abruptly his expression changed. He was a wily fox laughing inside at what he but no one else knew.
"Thanks, I can use this. But I thought for sure you'd write me a sonnet."
Mom and Dad laughed and so did Argo. Those tears finally overflowed, and I did my best not to be noticed wiping them.
"So how long did you say you were staying?" I managed to say with my best pixie smile.
"He’s staying the week," Mother assured everyone, and we returned to the presents.
Argo was truly special, and despite his shyness, it wasn’t long before anyone could see just how special he was. But I learned things about Argo that no one else knew or could possibly guess. I suppose my parents knew I hadn’t written that sonnet, and if they did, they never let on. They knew how talented he was and suspected his generosity.
However, they did not know about the marble incident and what it said about his desire for vengeance, vengeance which sent a boy to the hospital. It seemed incongruous to this young teenager, but I simply accepted it. And as I said, I was even a little proud of him. But what I learned about him next, and only I knew about it, was not so easy to accept; and now, so many years later, I realize just how telling it was. My idol was truly more complex than I could ever have imagined.
Little Eileen since school started had been being bullied by the boy two doors down the street. His name was Joey, he was eleven, and his parents were psychiatrists. Father spoke to the boy and then spoke to the parents who said they would talk to Joey. There was no change, and when Father spoke again to the parents, they again said they would speak to their son. Father said they were less than pleased when he suggested they do more than talk.
Still, every now and then, Eileen would come home crying that Joey had been mean to her. Two days before Christmas Joey left the impression of his fingers on Eileen's face. Father threatened Joey's parents with a law suit if they could not control their son, but this time his parents did not say they would talk to him: they denied he was out of the house. Someone else must have hit her and she probably accused Joey out of habit.
When for Christmas Eileen got her bicycle with training wheels, the worst kept secret of the year, it was my job to stay outside with her to protect her if Joey were also outdoors. Eileen was forbidden to go outside and play unaccompanied either by my parents or me. Karen had no similar restrictions, as she seemed not to be among Joey's preferred victims.
I told the story to Argo as we watched Eileen peddle herself into eight-year-old ecstasy.
"Did you talk to Joey?" Argo asked as if I should have.
"No. Anyway, my father talked to him. Nothing works."
"Did your mother?"
"She hollered at him once from the porch," I said. "He was saying nasty things to her, and she came home crying."
"No, that's no good," said Argo looking at the Michael's house.
"What?" I asked. "Saying nasty things or hollering from the porch." He didn't answer because he seemed to be studying their house. "What are you looking at, Argo? I’m talking to you."
"The house."
My parents went to a Christmas luncheon the following Saturday, and I was left to mind my sisters. Argo was up in his room, and we started dressing to go outdoors so Eileen could ride her bike.
Argo hurried down the steps saying that he had to go out for a short while. He also asked if we could go in the back yard to play.
"She wants to ride her bike," I said. Argo turned from the door and gave me an impatient look. "She wants to ride her new bike; she can't on the lawn; she can't peddle on the grass."
"Just for five minutes, then you can let her ride on the sidewalk," he said looking at me as if to say something more.
"Why?"
"I’m asking you please. What’s the big deal?"
"Okay, ladies. We're taking a walk around the back yard,” I said taking Eileen by the hand and motioning to Karen to head for the back door. On his way out Argo let the front door slam rattling the stained glass. That was the first time he had done that or done anything loud, for that matter, and it was obvious that something was different.
"Stay here a moment," I told the girls as I went to the bay window. I saw Joey.
Argo rushed up to him and seemed to usher him down the driveway of the house next door. I could still see them from the bay window at the side of the house, and Argo was talking but I couldn’t hear. He motioned to our house, then he pointed up and down the block. Joey seemed to nod his head that he understood when suddenly Argo punched the boy in the stomach then grabbed him by his throat. Joey didn't cry, even when Argo threw him to the ground. He stood for a moment over the doubled over boy then started back to the house.
"Karen, you go out back with Eileen and I'll be out there in a minute," I said taking my knit hat off and unbuttoning my coat. "Keep her mittens on, Eileen."
Argo opened the door, took a quick look at me, and headed for the stairs.
"You punched him."
He looked at the bay window. "I thought you were out back."
"And choked him and threw him down."
Argo looked down and continued to the stairs.
"How can you punch a little kid? He's eleven." Argo stopped and turned toward me.
"And how old is Eileen?" he asked in his normal half whisper.
"That's beside the point. You punched him."
"So he won't punch Eileen."
I moved to the back doors. "How do you know? And what if his parents have you arrested?"
"Well, I'd simply say that someone else must have done it and that he accused me because he's used to directing his anger toward the Frederic’s."
"And what if he makes things worse for Eileen? He can get even with her when you're not around."
He drew closer. "He can't. I made him Eileen's protector." Argo spoke softly, but his eyes were black ice. "I told him that if anything were to ever happen to Eileen, if someone were to slap her, or call her names, or throw something at her, that would mean that he didn't protect her, and then I would blame him." He paused. "Then I showed him what it would be like if I blamed him."
"And you punched him."
"That's because words didn't work. Sometimes people learn that it really doesn't matter what is said. They ignore the words and do what they please. Then other methods have to be used." He started back toward the stairs. "Unless, of course, you don't mind being ignored.” And after two more steps, “Eileen would mind, though."
I got the girls from the backyard and let Eileen ride her bike, twice passing Joey’s house. Everything was eerily normal on Crane Street, and I felt chilled on that dark, gray day that was threatening to snow. I remembered how I felt when I found out about the marble hitting Jimmy Ross. It was wrong what Argo did, but it seemed right, and that puzzled me. Could something be both wrong and right at the same time, and more importantly, how could someone be kind and loving and also violent and cruel? I think it was then that I first realized that things were not as clear as they were in Sister Mary Esther’s classroom.
I went up to my room to get started on studying for my first high school finals after Christmas, but on that day I got no studying done. On my bed was a slingshot made from a branch. Wide rubber bands were knotted together and pulled tight around the two prongs. The bands were attached on the other end by a square piece of soft leather. There was a marble and a note.
Willow---
I got the idea from the Bible. Growing up in Bensonhurst made it worth my while to become proficient in its use. I never thought I would need it in a neighborhood like this. But there are many things I was surprised to learn about how "the other half" live.
Forgive me,
AM
P.S. I know how much you like haiku; maybe you'll like mine.
Children out playing
Their parents keep protecting
Their children hate them
P.P.S. In case you don’t like that one, here’s another.
A little frog
Hopped blithely across my path
And into my heart
AM
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