The Book of Joe (3 page)

Sammy. It takes just that one image of him for me to realize that I've been cheating my memory up until now, relating to him strictly within the confines of a literary character, unwilling to connect with him on a personal level. I thought I'd exorcised my demons by writing the book, but I now see that I've merely appeased them temporarily. And now I'm heading back to the Falls, where his ghost and others await me, and I'll have to deal with him and everything that had happened all over again, this time without the structured buffer of my pages and chapters to hold them in check. I shudder, wiping away the warm dampness on my cheeks as I wrestle my breathing back under control. Cars hurtle past me on the Merritt like missiles, their force gently buffeting my car as it idles on the shoulder.

There was a time when I wasn't like this, when I had friends and I cared. Sammy, Wayne, and me, three misfits who somehow managed to fit. And then things got all fucked up and we didn't anymore, but for a while there we had something. And beyond that, even, I had Carly.

Time doesn't heal as much as it buries things in the undergrowth of your brain, where they lie in wait to ambush you when you least expect it. And so, as the years passed, Sammy became little more than an exhibit in the museum of my memory, and Wayne was reduced to an enigmatic hologram fading in and out of perception. Only Carly persevered as a living fixture in my consciousness, stubbornly eluding any and all efforts to retire her behind the glass wall of memory, maybe because I had loved her as an adult or maybe because that was just Carly, whose sheer force of personality would never allow such diminishment. Whatever the reason, my every feeling and experience is still colored by a dim awareness of her, and wherever I go, she floats, ever present, in the background. She's still such a part of my life, the pain is still so fresh, that it's unbelievable to me that we haven't spoken in close to ten years. Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.

The tears threaten to return, so I willfully banish all thoughts from my head and take a few more deep breaths. I'm suddenly dizzy from the panic attack I've just suffered, and I close my eyes, resting my head against the warm leather of my steering wheel. Loneliness doesn't exist on any single plane of consciousness. It's generally a low throb, barely audible, like the hum of a Mercedes engine in park, but every so often the demands of the highway call for a burst of acceleration, and the hum becomes a thunderous, elemental roar, and once again you're reminded of what this baby's carrying under the hood.

five

1986

Sammy Haber moved into Bush Falls the summer before our senior year, a baby-faced skinny kid, with sandy blond hair gelled to an audacious height, tortoiseshell glasses, and an unfortunate affinity for pleated slacks and penny loafers. He and his mother had moved up from Manhattan, where, it was whispered, they'd been forced to leave in the wake of some kind of scandal. The lack of concrete details didn't hinder the powerful gossip engine of the Falls, was actually preferable, since it left the field wide open for sordid speculation.

Lucy Haber, Sammy's mother, did nothing to dampen the gossip. She was wildly beautiful, with thick auburn hair worn long and free, wide, uncomplicated eyes, and stark white skin that offered a perfect contrast to both her hair and her impossibly full lips, which came together in a thoughtless pout. In her platform sandals, long, flowing skirts, and clinging tops with plunging necklines, she exuded a casual, bohemian sexuality as she ambled distractedly past the stores on Stratfield Road, humming to herself as she went. Connecticut mothers, for the most part, weren't big on cleavage when they grocery shopped. The Bush Falls aesthetic tended more toward Banana Republic blouses tucked neatly into Ann Taylor slacks. Cleavage, like the good china, was reserved for special occasions, and even then was displayed sparingly. But Lucy Haber seemed oblivious to the catty looks she received from the women she passed, or the appreciative double takes she garnered from the men. Everyone agreed that she seemed much too young to have a son Sammy's age, and it was undoubtedly her abundant sexuality that was responsible for that, as well as the mysterious troubles back in New York. There apparently was no Mr. Haber, which was, of course, perfect.

That summer, as I did every summer, I went to work in my father's display factory on the outskirts of Bush Falls. My father was one of the few men in town who were not directly employed by P.J. Porter's, the immense discount department store chain whose national corporate headquarters was based in the Falls. With over seven hundred retail outlets nationwide selling everything from apparel, cosmetics, and jewelry to furniture and major appliances, Porter's was one of the largest employers in Connecticut. Bush Falls had originally been developed as a planned community for the employees of the retail giant, whose corporate campus was situated on seventy acres just a few miles north of the town proper and housed over a thousand offices. Just about every family in Bush Falls had at least one member working for Porter's. It was well-known that Porter's preferred to hire from within the community, and they ran a highly successful summer jobs program with Bush Falls High School.

My father had originally worked at Porter's as a purchasing agent before going into business on his own, manufacturing store displays, and Porter's subsequently became his largest account, thanks to his friends there, who ordered all of their promotional displays and packaging from him. While he was no less dependent on Porter's for his livelihood than he had been when he'd worked there, he was now his own boss, a distinction of which he was immensely proud, and pleased to point out at every opportunity.

So while my classmates went to work as summer interns at Porter's, I took my place alongside the stooped Peruvian immigrants who comprised my father's labor force, operating one of the hydraulic vacuum presses. My job consisted solely of continuously loading four-foot-square styrene sheets onto the press and setting the aluminum molds beneath them before lowering the press and activating the heating bed and the hydraulic pumps that melted and sucked the styrene onto the molds. Then I would lift the press and pull off the hot styrene, now formed in the shape of the mold, cut away the excess plastic with a box cutter, and toss the raw piece into a cart, which would periodically get wheeled out onto the floor for assembly and finishing. It was sweaty, monotonous work, and I trudged tiredly home every afternoon with stiff shoulders, smelling of burnt plastic, reminding myself that at least I didn't have to wear a suit. As a point of pride, my father always paid me marginally better than Porter's paid its summer interns. “Your old man is not a spoke on someone else's corporate wheel,” he would say to me from behind the scuffed aluminum desk in his small, cluttered office in the rear of the factory. “And there's no reason for you to be one, either.”

Summers were always busy, as we desperately churned out product for the fall retail season, and that summer we were particularly inundated with orders. Because of this sudden increase in production and the pressure to meet delivery dates, my father leased a second vacuum press, which he installed directly behind the first, and asked me if any of my friends would be interested in operating it for the summer.

My best friend was Wayne Hargrove, who had proven to be such good company over the years that I was willing to overlook his regrettable status as a starting forward for the Cougars. A tall, sinewy kid with a thick mane of blond hair and a perfect swimmer's body, Wayne was one of those guys who effortlessly navigated the vast complexities of the high school caste system by being genuinely unconscious of its existence. He seemed to lack the innate filtration system we all had that automatically categorized geeks, dweebs, preps, stoners, jocks, goths, and the various subcategories therein. It's generally those occupying the lower positions on the food chain that are occasionally unmindful of the social boundaries, and their trespasses will usually engender swift repercussions worthy of a John Hughes film. Wayne's jock status exempted him from such concerns, and he was consequently one of the most genuinely liked people at Bush Falls High. His wit, while sharp, was never cutting or caustic, and he possessed an infectious energy that seemed to breed goodwill wherever he went. I was jealous as hell of him, but never resentful, since none of it was a conscious effort on his part.

I tried insistently to convince Wayne to forget about his internship at Porter's and come work at the factory. Linguistic and social barriers prevented me from having anything more than a nodding relationship with my coworkers, who I was always convinced were mocking the boss's son in their indecipherable native tongue. Wayne's presence would be the perfect antidote to my isolation, and a diversion from the sheer boredom of the work.

“Thanks, man,” he said as we walked home on one of the last days of the school year. “But I'm already gainfully employed.”

“We get off at three,” I pointed out.

“You wake up at the ass crack of dawn,” he countered.

“This pays more.”

He raised his eyebrows. “There are things in this world besides money.”

“Such as?”

“Air-conditioning.”

He had me there.

I came home later that evening and found my father eating a frozen dinner in the den, bitching to the professional athletes on his television.
He's got nothing left. For Christ's sake, send in a goddamn closer already. What do you bother having a damn bull pen for anyway?
I told my dad that Wayne wasn't interested in the job. “So ask someone else,” he said.

“There's no one else I can think of.”

He turned away from the television to look at me, an event that should have been heralded by trumpets it was so unusual. “You really have no other friends besides Wayne?” he asked, frowning incredulously. That was my father, sensitive to a fault.

“None that are interested in working in an oven,” I said.

“It's a good wage.”

“No need to convince me. After all, I wasn't given a choice.”

My father appeared ready to retort when his head suddenly jerked back to the television as someone hit or slid or did something clearly more important than the second fruit of his loins. “Okay,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “If you really have no other friends . . .”

“Thanks for pointing that out once again,” I said, but he was already submerged in his baseball fog.
The goddamn Mets might actually go all the way this year.
I stood there for another moment to verify that the conversation was truly over, and then, with a sigh, headed into the kitchen to forage for my dinner.

         

The first time I met Sammy, he was standing in my father's office, looking atrociously colorful in a brown cotton vest over a mint green T-shirt, gray Gap chinos rolled at the cuff, and black penny loafers, nodding nervously as my father frowned skeptically at his gangly form. “This is Samuel Haber,” my father said dejectedly, as if pointing out a troublesome wart on his toe. “He's here about the press job.” My father was a broad, hulking six foot three, thick Polish stock, with a square jaw set just beneath his perpetual frown, and a wrestler's neck that looked as solid as a tree trunk. Next to his intimidating bulk, Sammy looked like a twig.

“A pleasure,” Sammy said, extending his hand and shaking mine crisply. “I don't have any friends yet, but if I did, they'd call me Sammy.”

“I'm Joe,” I said. Looking at his skinny frame and his hairless baby face, I understood my father's skepticism. I wondered how often, if ever, Sammy shaved. “I guess you're new to the neighborhood.”

“Just moved in,” he said. He turned to my father. “So, big guy, when do I start?”

My father's eyes narrowed to slits. He was not the sort to appreciate jocular familiarity from his own children, let alone a strange boy. Arthur Goffman didn't relate well to any boy who wasn't an athlete, as I knew so well from painful experience, and Sammy was definitely a whole other breed. I liked him immediately.

My father grunted. “Listen, Samuel, I'll be honest with you,” he said, which is what he generally said when he was about to put you down. “That's a big machine, and you're a skinny little guy. If you can work it, the job's yours. But if you can't handle it, you'll just gum up production, and I can't have that.”

“Understood. Understood,” Sammy said, nodding emphatically. “Don't worry. I'm stronger than I look.”

“You'd have to be.”

“Good one, sir.”

“And you lower those guardrails, you understand?” my father continued, before turning to me with a stern look. “You show him the guardrails and watch him lower them, you got it?” I nodded and he turned back to Sammy. “If you leave your arm on the bed when that press comes down, you'll be going home with a stump.”

“Duly noted,” Sammy said. “The management frowns on amputation.” And then, lowering his voice theatrically, he added, “Thank you for the opportunity, big guy. I won't let you down.”

My father stared at him for a long moment, trying to determine if there was some joke he might be missing. “Don't call me big guy.”

“Understood, Arthur.”

“Mr. Goffman.”

“That was going to be my next guess.”

My father sighed deeply. “Okay then, you're hired.”

Sammy said, “Cool.”

         

“You lower those rails.”
Sammy imitated my father's growl surprisingly well as I walked him over to the press.
“We can't have a severed arm gumming up production.
Jesus! Was that guy toilet trained at gunpoint or what?”

“Now might be the right time to tell you that he's my dad,” I said, not sure whether to be offended or amused.

He stopped walking and looked at me uncertainly. “You're kidding, right?”

“Afraid not.”

“Fuck me very much,” he said emphatically.

I decided to go with amused. “Don't worry about it.”

“No, really. I'm a schmuck. Sometimes in my efforts to win friends and influence people, I just make a complete ass of myself.”

“Forget about it. It was a good impression.”

“And for my next impression, a skinny putz with his foot in his mouth.”

“It's really okay.”

“I really am sorry. I'm sure he's a great guy.”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

Sammy studied my face intently for a moment. “Well, then,” he said with a grin. “Fuck him if he can't take a joke.”

         

Sammy's father was a music professor at Columbia University. His mother had divorced him because of his unfortunate proclivity for bedding his female students, aspiring musicians being highly susceptible to passion and therefore easy prey. I learned this and many other things about Sammy during his first few days on the job. Working side by side for eight hours a day, we got to know each other pretty well. Sammy was a huge Springsteen fan and would unabashedly break into song as he worked the press, bobbing his head to the beat, serenading the immigrant women when they walked by, oblivious to their averted gazes.
“Rosalita, jump a little lighter,”
he would sing out without warning. “Come on, Carmen—sing it with me!
Señorita, come sit by my fire.”
He was fiercely passionate about Springsteen and would often lecture me on the profundity of a particular song, reciting the lyrics and punctuating them with his own commentary. He was terribly concerned about the recent commercial success of
Born in the U.S.A.
“I'm not saying it isn't a great album, but it doesn't compare to
Greetings from Asbury Park
or
Born to Run.
And all these airheads dancing to it on MTV are totally clueless. He's singing about the plight of our Vietnam vets, and the youth of America are shaking their asses like it's Wham! or Culture Club.” He punched the air with his finger for emphasis. “Bruce Springsteen is not Wham!”

The summer of 1986 was on record as the worst to hit Connecticut in over ninety years, a hot, bleeding ulcer of a season. The air was laden with a cloying humidity and the pervasive stink of melting tar as the sun beat down mercilessly on the streets and roofs of Bush Falls. The neighborhood vibrated with the combined hum of the hundreds of central air compressors, nestled in side yards, that ran at a fevered pitch day and night, serving to further raise the already blistering outside temperature. People generally stayed indoors, and when forced to venture out, they moved sluggishly, as if under a greatly increased gravity.