Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle (8 page)

A
T THE CEMETERY,
everyone has a story to tell about Vinnie Pizzarelli. Cousins, friends, aunts, uncles, neighbors. They all stand up and tell about their special times with Vinnie.

Tim tells about how he and Vinnie both lost their first tooth on the same day. And about how they liked the same girls in school. And how Vinnie was the one who convinced him to go to college.

Marshall twitches. I bet he thought that he was the one who talked Tim into going to school. All this time, it was Vinnie, whose grades were bad like mine.

When Vinnie's cousin, Joey, tells about how when they were both five, they took all the doorknobs off of every door in the house, the crowd laughs. Vinnie's Uncle Joey tosses back his head and chuckles.

“This is just wrong,” I whisper to Shirley. “You can't laugh at a funeral.”

Shirley, who is standing next to me, just says, “Shhh.”

There are tons of things I learn about Vinnie. Some of them I wish I could ask Vinnie about. I thought I knew him, since he was my brother's best friend and all. But each person says something different.

They say he was a brave man. I never doubted for a second that Vinnie was brave. It's the “man” part that gets to me. My father is a man. Mr. Pizzarelli, who is staring down at a blade of grass, sobbing quietly, is a man. Vinnie wasn't a boy exactly, but a man? That sounds funny. That means that Tim is a man, too. I look at Tim, who is standing next to Marshall, in a new way.

They say that Vinnie thought of his Aunt Carmella as his second mom. Everyone knew that Vinnie's real mom died when Vinnie was seven. Aunt Carmella is Mr. Pizzarelli's sister. She came over every day to take care of Vinnie when he came home from school. Vinnie always called Aunt Carmella “the old lady.”
“I gotta go. The old lady cooked dinner, and she spits nails when I'm late.” “Can't do it, Tim. The old lady will get mad.”
But in a card he made for her only last spring, he called “the old lady” the world's best mom.

I glance over at Aunt Carmella, who's standing with her arms locked around Mr. Pizzarelli. When Vinnie's cousin holds up the card, she buries her face in a tissue.

They say that he was a practical joker. Well, everyone knows that. They tell about the time that he wrapped every car on Ramble Street with toilet paper. He even wrapped his own car so no one would suspect. He sure had me fooled. I didn't think he did it.

They say that his favorite color was orange.

That he always said grace before he ate.

That he believed that the 1969 Mets were going to go the distance and win the World Series. Behind me I hear Mr. Grabowsky whisper, “Amen.”

That his favorite toy as a baby was a stuffed teddy bear named Merlin.

That he'd never leave someone in the lurch.

When everyone's done telling stories, seven soldiers fire their rifles three times. With each sharp crack of the guns, I feel Vinnie slipping further and further away.

They fold the flag that's draped over his coffin and hand it to Mr. Pizzarelli.

“On behalf of a grateful nation,” a soldier says.

Mr. Pizzarelli clutches the flag to his chest. Aunt Carmella collapses, and it takes three Pizzarelli cousins to hold her up. Tim and Shirley sink into each other, and Marshall has his arms around both of them. I stand apart from them, until Shirley pulls me toward her.

All of Ramble Street, except for Muscle Man McGinty, huddles together.

The laughter has stopped. There are only tears.

Except for me. I look around and notice I'm the only one not crying. All I can do is think about a book that Mrs. Webber read to us, the one where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn show up at their own funeral. And I expect Vinnie to do it too. He's the kind of guy who'd pull a trick like that.

Even when they lower the coffin into the ground, I keep waiting for him to come back and say, “Hiya, Beanpole,” and joke with Tim and call Aunt Carmella “the old lady” and tell us that it was all a terrible, horrible mistake.

O
N
S
UNDAY MORNING,
there's a note taped to my front door. I recognize the crinkled-up paper immediately.

I wait, like I did the last time, to read by moonlight. But at night, when I crawl out onto the garage roof, the moon that greets me is only a sliver. I struggle with my flashlight. After three sharp bangs on the tar paper, it works.

“Wanted to say I missed you in the last note but I couldn't?” “Don't be too hard on Muscle Man?” Another lame letter.

Kebsie Grobser is turning into one giant disappointment. I'm about to toss the letter over the rooftop when I see something written in pencil way down at the bottom.

It's faded, but I hold it up to the flashlight.

“Arroooo!”

As soon as I see the word, I am filled with hope.

Kebsie wrote, “Arroooo!”

A hundred million bits of happiness wash over me.

Kebsie Grobser, my fearless friend who howls like a lone wolf in the moonlight, is back.

I read her note over and over again. I try to find more of Kebsie in it. I wish she'd said something smart-alecky. Or made a comment about Muscle Man, like “Don't take any guff from the runt.” But there's nothing. The only thing that I can really hold on to is that one “Arroooo!” The rest of it is a riddle.

I
SPEND THE
whole next morning reading the letter over and over, and I still don't understand it. The funny thing is whenever I had something that needed to be figured out, I'd turn to Kebsie.

But now Kebsie is the one who needs to be figured out.

Kebsie is a straight shooter. The girl says what she means and means what she says. That stuff about meaning more than words has me stumped. She might be trying to tell me something, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what.

I run my hands over the note so many times that the words smudge together. No matter how much I try, I have no answers.

I need help. I am desperate.

I go through my options of people to ask. It's slim pickings. First I think about showing the note to Big Danny. He knew Kebsie, and he didn't roll his eyes when she came his way, the way most of the kids on the block did. But Big Danny is such a boy. Anytime I try to talk to him about something serious, he makes lame jokes and changes the subject.

There's always Tim. He understands these things, but he's hardly been around. He spends all his time at Mr. Pizzarelli's. Besides, he's not in a talking mood these days.

For a crazy second, I think about having a heart-to-heart with Miss Know-It-All Grabowsky.

Instead, I go to the living room, where Shirley is watching her programs.

On TV, there's a commercial. A group of ladies are in a grocery store squeezing toilet paper. I wait for it to be over before I speak. “Do you think that sometimes people mean more than they say?”

Shirley pats the couch next to her, but I don't want to watch. I want answers.

I ask again. “Do you think people tell you things in ways other than words?”

“That's a very difficult question, Tamara,” she says. But before she gives me a decent answer, the show comes on, and Shirley is lost in her soaps. I edge toward the kitchen, figuring my time is better spent making a peanut butter sandwich.

“Look.” She points at a tall, skinny man on the television. “Don't you remember from the other day? That's Brad. See how he's telling Emma that he loves her? What he really means is that he loves her, but he loves Anna more. It happens all the time, Tammy.”

Brad is holding Emma close, and I can't see how she'd know that he loves someone else. “How can you tell?” I ask.

“It's not easy, but you can learn a lot from the TV.” She motions again for me to sit next to her. “Watch and learn.”

The next scene comes on. Emily tells Michael to go to Peru in search of his treasure. “Now, why do you think that Emily says she'll be fine, even though her heart is breaking?” Shirley asks.

Before I can finish my shrug, Shirley continues. “She's hiding her feelings. Emily doesn't want Michael to know how much she's hurting.”

Another scene comes on, and a bunch of ladies are sitting in a hospital room, telling the one in the bed that no one will notice her injury, even though she is wrapped up like a mummy with bandages and gauze. “Why do you think they're telling her that?” asks Shirley.

“Because they're the stupidest group of ladies to walk the planet?” It's probably wrong, but it's my best guess.

Shirley presses her lips together. “No, they're not stupid. They're trying to spare the feelings of their friend.”

“Oh.” I sink back into the couch, wondering if that's why I told the lie to Tim about delivering Vinnie's message.

“Relationships are complicated, Tammy. Friendships. Family. And especially marriage…” Shirley's voice fades. “Marriage is very complex. You'll see. Just wait till you start dating.”

“Great.” I sigh. On TV, a blonde woman smiles right at us. “Do they ever send notes?”

“What?”

“These people.” I wave at the television. “Do they ever send notes?”

Shirley nods. “Sometimes they do. Notes are very mysterious. They are always filled with clues about other things. Notes are very tricky.”

The blonde woman is crying now, and Shirley is captivated. But I have one more question.

“What about real life?”

Shirley doesn't answer.

I stand in front of the TV, right in between my mother and the theme song to
As the World Turns
. “I want a real-life example. Tell me a time when people said things and they really meant more.”

“It's the same in real life.” She motions for me to get out of the way. “Come on, Tammy, I've been waiting all week to see this part.”

“How? Tell me.” I hold my ground.

Shirley puts her arms on my shoulders, and I wonder if she's going to push me aside. Instead, she pulls me toward her. “Remember when you were upset at Vinnie's funeral service? When the people laughed?”

I nod.

“I suppose,” she says softly, “what they were saying with their laughter was that they loved Vinnie and they're going to miss him very much.”

Neither one of us speaks.

I touch Shirley's arm. “Me too,” I say, and my mother nods.

The blonde lady is smiling again, and Shirley pats the couch again for me to sit next to her. Instead, I head back upstairs and into my room.

T
HAT EVENING
, S
HIRLEY
serves dinner in our backyard. She puts a large cauldron in the center of the picnic table and lights the flame underneath it.

“It's cheese fondue,” she explains. “I thought since Tim is heading back to school tomorrow, we'd have something fancy.”

Swirls of barbeque smoke float in from the Grabowsky's house next door. I try to guess what they're cooking. There's a hint of sweetness that makes me think of chicken, but then the smoky aroma of char-grilled burgers fills up both our backyards.

“Who wants homemade potato salad?” I hear Mrs. Grabowsky say. She always sounds like she's singing when she talks about food.

I take one look at the charred flecks of burnt cheese simmering at our table, and it takes all my strength not to shout out, “Can you pass some over to the Simpson's, Mrs. Grabowsky?”

Shirley places a piece of stale bread on a long fork. “See, you each take a cube and dip it in the cheese.”

“Is this sanitary?” grumbles Marshall. He's so busy shooting nasty looks at Tim's hair that you could have put a king's feast in front of him and he wouldn't have noticed.

I close my eyes and imagine the hamburgers on the Grabowsky's barbeque.

I listen for the sizzle.

Next door, Mr. Grabowsky must have said something funny, because Mrs. Grabowsky, MaryBeth, and Janie Lee laugh. All three Grabowsky girls sound exactly the same. Their high-pitched giggles float into our yard with the barbeque smoke.

It's easy to pay attention to the Grabowsky racket because in Simpsonland, there's not much conversation going on. Although it is just like Kebsie said, every single one of us is saying more than our words.

“Tim, please pass me the bread cubes,” says Marshall, but I can tell from his glare that it's not all he wants to say. What he really wants to say is “Tim, please pass me the bread cubes,
and when are you going to straighten yourself out and get a haircut
?”

Now I'm pretty sure the sweet, tangy smell wafting over from the Grabowsky's is grilled chicken. I bet that Mrs. Grabowsky made some of her famous honey barbeque sauce.

“Here,” grunts Tim, and passes over the bowl, but what he really means is, “Here,
and when are you going to stop working for the man and pay attention to the war and all the bad stuff that's going on in the world
?”

“Thanks,” says Marshall, but what he really wants to say is, “Thanks?
This is the thanks I get for having to get on the 7:11 train every morning and go into the city to make money so I can pay for your college tuition so you could grow your hair too long and tell me that I'm working for the man
?”

Hamburgers. It's not chicken. It's burgers. That's what they're eating next door. Smoky. Juicy. Burgers. And I bet they're filled with Mrs. Grabowsky's special homemade relish.

“The food is good, Mom,” I say, but what I mean is, “
Shirley, can we have a barbeque instead of fondue, and can you please say something that will stop Marshall and Tim from fighting
?”

“Anyone want a meat cube?” asks Shirley, but what she really means is, “Anyone want a meat cube
for the cheese fondue I slaved over, and I will not have either of you ruining this precious family time so you both better simmer down
.”

But from the look on Tim's and my father's faces, neither one has any intention of simmering down.

“My pitching is really good this year,” I announce. “And we're right in the middle of a game with this new kid—”

Marshall interrupts. “Are you still playing that game all day? You could try reading.”

“In the middle of the summer? While I could be playing kickball?” I shake my head. “I can't see it.”

“You are as obsessed with kickball as your mother is with her soap operas.” Marshall waves his hand in the direction of Shirley and me.

I put down my fork and chew on a stale bread cube, trying to figure if what my father said is true.

“All kids like kickball,” says Tim. “She's not obsessed. It's nothing like Mom.”

This time, Shirley puts down her fork and chews. For a while the entire Simpson family does nothing but chew.

“Anyone want seconds?” Mrs. Grabowsky sings in the next yard.

“I do,” cry the other Grabowskys at the exact same time.

“Anyone want seconds?” asks Shirley in our yard.

“No, thank you,” mumble all of us Simpsons at the exact same time.

“Are you sure, Tim?” Shirley sighs. “I made it special.”

Tim glares at Marshall. “I'm not hungry,” he says.

“You could eat a little more. Your mother worked real hard to cook this food,” Marshall says, and what he means is, “Your mother worked real hard to cook this food and
even though it's filled with burnt specks and is probably unsanitary, you are being ungrateful by not eating the cheese fondue.”

“I'm tired of this. I'm leaving,” says Tim. And that
is
what he really means.

“Where are you going?” cries Shirley. “I made chocolate fondue for dessert.”

“Let him go,” says Marshall.

Marshall and Tim stare at each other one last time.

Tim gets up to leave. “See you later, Beanpole.”

But I know that means he's not coming home for a long, long time.