Flynn's World (22 page)
Mr. Anthony’s speech shifted from the lyrical to the straight dramatic. Eyes wide he shouted: “He wrestled with a girl!”
He shouted so loudly Flynn’s ears were stunned.
“What?”
“The Thursday before! At school! At a wrestling match with another school! I was not there! Billy wrestled with a girl! I had to read it in the newspaper. William Capriano, Jr., physically wrestled with a girl!”
“Ah.”
“I called him to come over immediately on the Sunday afternoon I read it. I hit him with the newspaper! I said, ‘What’s this? My grandson wrestling with a girl?’ He said he felt bad about it. That he hadn’t wanted to do it. He pleaded with his coach not to make him wrestle with a girl. Some nonsense about her being a member of the other school’s team. That he had to wrestle a girl, or get off his team! Think of that! Our schools teach boys to fight with girls! I hit him again with the newspaper. I said, ‘You’re a Capriano! Caprianos do not beat up women! Not under any circumstances! You should have refused! Absolutely!’ He said he couldn’t refuse. ‘Rules,’ he said. I said, ‘You obey Capriano rules! You should have sent your coach to me! I’ll wrestle with him! Men do not beat up women!’ I dragged him by his ear to where his family is buried and nailed his ear to a tree before their graves and said, ‘There! Now you think about that!’”
Flynn was thinking.
Professor Louis Loveson, in trying to explain culturally why a boy had had his ear nailed to a tree, had said, “I suspect he did something unmanly.”
Indeed he had.
Unmanly in his grandfather’s eyes.
Flynn said, mildly, “These days girls are on school wrestling teams. Boys, girls—”
“Never!” Mr. Anthony shouted. “Greeks, Romans, invented wrestling. Boys wrestle boys. Men wrestle men!” He waggled his index finger like a windshield wiper gone berserk. “Never in history, never in anybody’s culture, have boys wrestled girls! Have boys been taught, encouraged to fight with women!”
“Of course not.”
Mr. Anthony went into the kitchen.
Flynn heard pot lids clashing.
“Look!” Mr. Anthony returned to the living room. “Men cook! Look!” He took his clean, folded handkerchief out of his pocket and threw it on the floor. Then he picked up his handkerchief. “Men can pick up around the house! I make my bed! Do my laundry! There is no shame in that! I helped my wife around the house. For years she worked with me in the store! She even cut meat. There was nothing unwomanly in that! We made love, made children! Never did I strike her! Never did I fight her! Never did I ever want to give her physical pain, make her feel she was my victim, physically or in any other way. Never did I beat her! We did not wrestle! We made love! That is what you do with a woman! Not beat her!”
He sat back down in his chair.
He rubbed his eyes with the strong fingers of one hand.
He said, “Men fight men. Men and women make love.”
Flynn said, “Yes.”
“Why did you free Billy from the tree?”
“He had time to think. What you wanted to happen to him in the cemetery did happen. I was convinced he would tear his own ear from the tree.”
“Still . . .”
Flynn laughed. “I have a daughter, Mr. Anthony. She loves Billy’s ear!”
Mr. Anthony began to chuckle. “She bought him an earring for the nail hole!” Looking at Flynn, he laughed out loud. “A gold earring!”
“Yes,” laughed Flynn. “How can you buy one gold earring?”
“She must have bought two of them!” said Mr. Anthony.
“Good!” said Flynn. “Next time Billy does something unmanly, you can nail his other ear to a tree!”
“I will,” Mr. Anthony said. Then he said, “I doubt he will.”
“I do, too,” Flynn said. “But if he does, for Jenny’s sake, please make sure the nail holes match!”
Flynn rose to go.
Holding his coat for Flynn, Mr. Anthony said, “A lesson. I gave my grandson, Billy, a lesson. No matter what the world says for you to do, even orders you to do, you do what you know is right. Fighting with girls, beating them up, is not right. Even if she volunteers to be on other team. Billy knew that. Billy knew that from the family.”
Flynn said, “From the Capriano family, anyway.”
“Da! What are you doing here?”
Violin case gripped in one hand, Billy’s hand gripped in the other, Jenny found her father on the sidewalk outside Mr. Anthony’s condominium.
“Visiting a friend.”
In the misting dusk Jenny and Billy were straightly erect, happy-eyed, fresh-skinned, rosy-cheeked. They looked like they had been well exercised during that day; that they knew they were loved, respected, respected themselves; loved and respected each other.
Self-consciously, Billy stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. “My grandfather lives here.”
Flynn said, “He’s the friend.”
“You know my grandfather?”
“We just met,” Flynn said. “Became friends.”
Billy frowned. “You didn’t talk about—”
“Yes. Your grandfather nailed your ear to the tree because you wrestled a girl.”
Jenny gasped. “Billy! Your grandfather—”
“Yeah.” Billy watched the toe of his sneakered foot clean out a crack in the sidewalk. “He was right. I was ashamed to wrestle a girl. I didn’t want to. I was afraid of . . . you know.”
Flynn said, “I know.”
“Coach said I had to. Or get off the team. Well . . .” He blushed. “What I was afraid would happen did happen. You know?”
“Yes,” Flynn said.
“I was embarrassed. Ashamed and embarrassed. I had to finish her off quickly. It wasn’t fair to her. I mean, as a wrestling competitor, you know? I felt stupid. Ashamed, embarrassed. I knew it was wrong. I wanted to stay on the wrestling team. I knew it wasn’t right.”
“Billy,” protested Jenny. “You and I have wrestled together.”
“Oh, no.” Looking into Jenny’s eyes, gently he put his fingertips on the back of her hand. “No, we haven’t, Jenny.”
Blushing, Jenny looked at her father. “No. We haven’t.”
“That’s fine,” Flynn said, a bit embarrassed himself. “That’s all right.”
“It’s not right to beat up women,” Billy said. “In any way. At any time. For any reason.”
The silly gold earring dangling from the top of Billy’s ear flashed in the streetlight.
Flynn said, “You youngsters go in to dinner now. It smells delicious. I’ll talk to your coach Monday morning, Billy. I expect, if strongly enough urged, he can jiggle your match schedules sufficiently so this occurrence will not happen again.”
“Oh, no,” said Billy. “State law—”
On a misty sidewalk at dusk this Saturday, Inspector of the Boston Police Department Francis Xavier Flynn, No Name 13, said to his daughter, Jenny, and her boyfriend, Billy Capriano, as he walked away from them, “To hell with the law.”
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, JULY 2004
Copyright © 2003 by Gregory Mcdonald
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:
Mcdonald, Gregory, 1937–
Flynn’s world / Gregory Mcdonald. p. cm.
I. Flynn, Francis Xavier (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. College teachers—Crimes against—Fiction. 3. Police—
Massachusetts—Boston—Fiction. 4. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3563.A278 F’.54—dc21 2002192601
eISBN : 978-0-307-42594-2
Author photograph © Nancy Crampton
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