Tietam Brown Read online

  And what a tear it was too. A big fat solitary drop, which made a slow journey from the right corner of my eye down the side of my flushed face. Terri saw it, she had to have, but said nothing, until breaking the silence a good minute later with a simple but daunting request. “Andy, give me your hand.”

  Oh no, not the hand. I had sat on her left-hand side, meaning that the hand in question, the hand in demand, the hand she wanted, was the dead one. I panicked, and for a moment thought that the single solitary tear might well be joined by a parade of his brothers, before calming down sufficiently to risk a daring strategy . . . the truth.

  “Terri.”

  “Yes.”

  “Um, Terri.”

  “Yes, Andy.”

  “Um, my right hand, um, doesn’t work.”

  The declaration was met with silence, and surprise, but, turning my head, I was relieved to see, not with disgust.

  I continued, “It was an accident when I was little.”

  She smiled sadly and said, “The same accident as the ear?” I nodded in silence. She knew of my ear, or lack thereof, indeed it was the subject of my missing ear which had led to her laugh and our first mutual smile in Hanrahan’s class. Hey, if she wasn’t turned off by my stump of an ear, then maybe she wouldn’t mind the dead hand, either.

  “Andy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How about the other hand?”

  “What about it?”

  “Does it work?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  And with that she stood up, oblivious to the fact that Rambo was now in mortal danger, and, like Jesse Owens claiming Olympic gold in the high hurdles in Berlin in ’36, deftly vaulted over my lap, pirouetted, and dropped into the seat to the left of me. She then lifted my curly locks and playfully, just a tad seductively, whispered into my good ear, “So how about it?”

  I should have known what she was talking about, but I’ll admit right now to being somewhat distracted by the pleasant tingling that her whisper had caused in my penile area. So I said the only thing I could think of. “How about what?”

  “How about giving me that hand, big boy,” she said, and before I could reply, her hand was entwined with mine, in what was the most romantic moment of my young life, with all due respect to the two young men who tried to forcibly sodomize me during my stay at the Petersburg Home for Boys.

  But on that night, at the dilapidated Lincoln Theater, those two young men, attempted sodomy, and the first seventeen years of my troubled life were a distant memory. Because on that night, the world was right. John Rambo was making the world safe for democracy, and Terri Johnson was holding my hand, her head leaning on my shoulder, with just the slightest hint of a beautiful, wonderful breast touching my arm.

  And then I saw it. The mere sight of it repulsed me. It was terrible. The lump in my jeans. No, not that lump, which if detected might prove slightly embarrassing, but not necessarily repulsive or terrible. And truth be told, that lump was not all that prominent. It wasn’t the quarters in my right pocket that concerned me either. No, the lump that terrified me was in the left front pocket of my jeans, and if detected, it would certainly spell the end of my one-hour-old romance with Terri. How could I have forgotten to have thrown it out, after my dad had handed it to me? I literally prayed that her hand wouldn’t move one inch and a half up and two inches to the right. Terri, I’m sure, could have forgiven me for having a first-date boner while she held my hand at the Lincoln Theater. Forgiveness would not be so easy, or even borderline conceivable, if she discovered that I had brought three rubbers with me on my first date.

  Over the years, there have been times I have doubted God’s existence, and there have been times I have cursed his very name, but the night of October 23, 1985, I had no doubt that he was smiling down on me, willing Terri’s hand not to touch the foil three-pack that housed my dad’s Trojans with their helpful reservoir tips and spermicidal jelly for added protection. Yes, God was with me, and not only did he provide protection from my protection being detected, but he seemed to bestow upon me the ability to not be a total bone-head when we got into the Fairmont and headed for home.

  Indeed, the conversation flowed inside that crappy car, and I was not only comfortable, but I was funny as well. Actually, I’d always had a decent sense of humor, but I usually brandished it almost as a defense, as if a self-deprecating wit could smooth over the fact that most of my life had pretty much sucked. But on this night, my humor was different. It was irreverent, it was topical, and it elicited genuine laughs from Terri. Big, wonderful laughs.

  I wished that ride, like the night itself, could have lasted forever, for besides loving Terri’s company, I loved the unique feeling of liking myself. So when I pulled that Fairmont into the Johnson driveway that led to her estate-like home surrounded by her huge manicured lawn, the vehicle seemed to be filled with love. “I had a great time tonight, Terri,” I said, and I stuck out my hand. As in the customary good-night handshake.

  She stared at me for what seemed like minutes, with a flabbergasted look, then regained her composure, and accepted my hand in the gesture of respect and friendship that it symbolized. And a fine handshake it was at that. “I had a great time too, Andy,” she said, while I shook that hand as if I’d just sold her an insurance policy. “I’d like to do it again.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Then the handshake ended and she got out of the car. It didn’t dawn on me to open the car door, or to walk her to her house, maybe because dating etiquette hadn’t been covered all that well at the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center.

  “Good night, Andy.”

  “Good night.”

  “I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  And then she was gone, at least momentarily, for as I put the Fairmont in reverse, she reemerged in a flash and headed for my window, which I was kind enough to open. In a blur of auburn hair, she moved her face within inches of mine, to the point where she was actually leaning into the car. Her breathing was a little labored, as if she’d just run a lap around the track instead of hopping down two steps and walking ten yards.

  “Andy,” she said, so close that I could almost taste the sweetness of her breath.

  “Yeah.”

  “I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t get lost on your way home. Do you know the way?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said with a shrug, “I live off this same road. I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure, but thanks for checking on me.” And to show her my appreciation, I stuck that left hand out the window and we shared another good shake. She paused momentarily, and I gave her a wink, and then she turned and walked back to her house. And as I watched her go, I couldn’t help but wonder, Why would I need directions? Then she turned, waved, opened the door, and disappeared.

  Strange indeed. I mean, I couldn’t possibly get lost. Sure it was a back road, and sure there was that one fork with the red light to contend with, but it was still the same road. I shrugged my shoulders and headed out, and somewhere between a sixteenth and an eighth of a mile from the Johnson house, I suddenly figured it all out. Oh my goodness. She had wanted me to kiss her!

  I was singing along with Barry when I pulled into my own drive, which led to a much less illustrious house, surrounded by a much less manicured lawn. “Now, now, now, and hold on fast—could this be the magic AT LAST!” So I’d screwed up. I didn’t kiss her. It was a big screwup, but one that I felt confident I could redeem. Hands down, there had not been a better night in the history of my life, and there was only one way to celebrate it. A half gallon of vanilla ice cream and the scratchy old Nat King Cole Christmas album that still carried my mother’s maiden name on it. Kathy Collins. It was the only thing, memories included, that I had of her to call my own.

  Nothing could have ruined that night for me, but the next moment came pretty close. For in that moment, I saw my father’s silhouette in ou
r living room window, moving up and down, up and down, doing a steady stream of deep knee bends. My father was “doing the deck,” which could only mean one thing.

  “Hey Andy,” my father’s voice called out as the front door opened to herald my return from the world of first dates. “Just a sec, kid, I want to talk to you.” Then, with his body continuing its up-and-down motion, he called out the last repetitions of the card he’d drawn. “Fourteen. Fifteen.”

  With that my father picked up his Genesee Light Beer, to be known hereafter as a “Genny,” took a gargantuan swig, and set it down. “Hold on, Andy, sit down, I’m almost through my second deck.”

  He turned another card, a joker, and let out a loud sigh. “Oh man, they’re killing me,” he said with a snort, and then commenced to drop down to the ground and reel off twenty-five textbook push-ups, followed by the cracking open of what looked to be about his tenth Genny, which he proceeded to not so much drink as inhale.

  “How was the big date, kid . . . any action?” he said, but before I could answer he turned another card, a king, reeled off another fifteen deep knee bends, and just about polished off another Genny.

  “No, no action, Dad, but we had a really—”

  “Hold on there, Andy, I’ve only got two cards left to go, and then I want you to tell your dad all about it.” He turned up a card. “Three, well damn, that’s no challenge.” He dropped down, did three push-ups, with a casual clap in between each one, rose up, took a small sip on the Genny, and turned over the last card. A queen.

  I watched my dad rise up and down, up and down, as he concluded his solitary ritual. For many years he’d been doing this routine, shuffling his deck of cards and then turning them one by one, alternating between push-ups and what he called Hindu squats, with the numbers on the cards dictating the number of repetitions he performed. I never did the math, but completing a deck meant doing hundreds of repetitions of both exercises. I tried it on my own one day and barely made it through half a deck before my legs betrayed me, turning to jelly during the twenty-five Hindus the joker required of me.

  My dad’s legs never betrayed him, however, seeming instead to get stronger with each turn of the card, and with each drink of the Genny. With only one huge exception, doing the deck was the only time I saw my dad drink.

  Looking at him in action, my dad seemed not so much human as machinelike in function, his sinewy muscles popping through his lean frame like steel cords. The kind of guy who looked almost wimpy in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, but whose muscles stood out like a relief map of the human anatomy when in the nude. And I should know, for whenever he was “in the deck” Tietam Brown was in the nude. Yeah, maybe I should have mentioned that earlier, because it does tend to alter the perception of his exercise regimen just a bit.

  You see, for Tietam Brown, doing the deck wasn’t just about exercise. It was about a whole lot more. Exercise, sure. Beer drinking, yeah. But for my father doing the deck was primarily about sex.

  Doing the deck was a sure sign that intermission was under way. That the second act of a long passion play was about to commence. “The first one’s for them, Andy,” he’d told me once, “but the second one is all about ol’ Tietam, even though by the sound of things they seem to have a pretty good time too.”

  I’ll say they did. As the inhabitant of the room next door to his, I would say that was an understatement.

  Usually the commencement of his ritual would send my dad bounding up the stairs to begin act two immediately, a very sweaty, very drunk, very physically fit, and very horny man. But this night was special. His son had just had his first date and he wanted to spend some quality time right there in the Brown living room, surrounded by the odd potpourri of sweat, beer, and sex.

  “So Andy,” he said as he dried the sweat off his balding head with a dish towel, “tell me about the big night.”

  His smile was big and happy, and I had to smile back, not just in reflection of the momentous night I’d just had but also at the walking, talking, drinking, Hindu-squatting contradiction that stood before me.

  “Dad, it was probably the best night of my life, I mean we had the—”

  He cut me off. “Which means you used the Trojans, didn’t you, kid?”

  The guy was actually beaming, he was so happy. I considered humoring him, but couldn’t bear to stain Terri’s reputation with even a phantom sexual encounter. “Actually, Dad, I didn’t use any of them.” With that the huge smile became a mask of concern.

  “Don’t tell me you rode bareback, Andy, not in this day and age. You know they’ve got that AIDS thing floating around.”

  “No, Dad, I didn’t ride bareback, I just—”

  He cut me off again. “Oh, did you opt for a little—”

  I interrupted him as he was making the universal hand-and-tongue signal for oral sex. “No, Dad, we didn’t do anything, we didn’t even kiss, but I had a great time, I really like her . . . and she . . . she held my hand.”

  “Whoa! Ho ho! Whew! Sheeeew!” my dad laughed. “We’ve got a wild man on our hands. Watch him, officer, he’s a hand holder!” Then, in an instant, I saw his expression change. I can’t call it compassion, but it seemed almost to border on understanding. “Andy,” he said softly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you like this girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And did it feel nice when you held her hand?”

  “Yeah it did, Dad, it felt nice.”

  “Well that’s what counts, kid. You’ll have plenty of time to do that other stuff later.” Then he stepped forward, and for the first time he hugged me. I hesitated just for a moment, just to make sure that it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t. Then I hugged him back. I hugged my drunk, naked father . . . and how many kids can say that?

  My dad stepped away, not embarrassed, but obviously not used to this father-son bonding thing. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m glad you didn’t use those condoms tonight, son.”

  I didn’t quite know what to say, so I opted not to say anything. In the wake of my silence, my dad finished his thought. “Because I’m all out, and that broad upstairs would never forgive me if I didn’t plow her field another time.”

  “Hey Dad,” I said, smiling in preparation for what I had to say next.

  “Yeah, kid.”

  “I thought you said the second one was all about ol’ Tietam.”

  With that my father grabbed me and tousled my hair the way he might have if I’d been ten and hit the winning home run in Little League, or any other number of reasons that fathers who don’t disappear for sixteen years and nine months might have for tousling their son’s hair. He then followed the hair tousle with a bit of verbiage that most children won’t hear from their dads in their lifetimes. “Now give me those condoms, you little muskrat.”

  Then he was off, condoms in hand, bounding up the stairs, gold medallion slapping off his chest, middle-aged balls slapping off his thighs. “Hey Gloria,” he yelled as he opened the door, “let’s just hold hands tonight!” Gloria laughed.

  Gloria, I knew, meant Gloria Sugling, as in next-door neighbor Gloria Sugling, whose cop husband Charlie worked the midnight shift in Cortland, keeping the streets safe while my father, in his own words, plowed his wife’s field.

  By my own count, this was Mrs. Sugling’s third visit to Tietam Brown’s bed, which meant, whether she knew it or not, it was also her last, in accordance with my dad’s “three strikes, you’re out” rule. As I pulled the half gallon of vanilla out of the freezer, I couldn’t help but think my dad was right. Over the sound of bouncing bedsprings and the thumping of the headboard, I could hear Mrs. Sugling’s voice, and she certainly did seem to be having a good time. Or maybe she was just agreeing strongly with whatever my dad had to say.

  I lay down in my little bed with my half gallon of vanilla, and Nat King Cole’s angelic voice competing with the not-so-angelic acts in the room next door. It took a couple of flips of the album, but then the headboard a
nd bedsprings stopped, and Mrs. Sugling headed down the stairs and out our door for the very last time, and now Nat had the room to himself. I closed my eyes and listened in the darkness, the last taste of vanilla ice cream still cool upon my tongue. I listened to the beautiful voice sing about “the dear Savior’s birth,” and I listened to each sacred scar and crack of my mother’s old LP, each one as beautiful to me as the music itself. With my eyes still closed, I thought of Terri, her head against my shoulder, her hand holding mine, and even that slightest hint of her breast against my arm. And then, for the second time in ten years, a tear rolled down my cheek. I slipped into a beautiful dreamless sleep with one last thought . . . she had wanted me to kiss her.

  The Rage / 1973

  My mother died giving birth to me in 1968, and after Antietam Brown IV realized that changing diapers and warming bottles wasn’t his heart’s desire, I was sent to live with Maria DelGratto, the wonderful woman I would come to call Auntie M, my mother’s best friend in the town of Boyer, just outside of Richmond.

  She was a big buxom woman, my Auntie M, and Italian to the core. Indeed, my initial remembrance as a part of this world was not one of sight or sound, but of smell, taking in the fragrance of her culinary efforts, which never seemed to end, as she cradled her ladles, spoons, and spices with one hand and took turns cradling me and her one-year-old son Johnny with the other.

  A year later, little Rachel was born, and Maria DelGratto took turns handing out generous portions of love, attention, and her patented big-boob hugs. When she pulled me close, I would close my eyes and nestle in real deep, and there was not a place in the world that I would rather be. Come on now, don’t read too much into it, I was just a baby. I didn’t equate those boobs with sex, but with warmth, comfort, and most of all safety. And safety, unfortunately, was often a scarce commodity in the DelGratto house once Big Vinnie came home.