Fade. Part 2

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about, Paul," she said, pulling her robe around her, hiding those objects of my l.u.s.t.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked even as I knew the futility of that question.

"Do you know how to pound some sense into a person?" she asked. "That's what I could use. A good dose of common sense. About men. About everything." She wiped her cheeks with a lace handkerchief and managed a small smile. "Then maybe I wouldn't be so stupid...."

"You're not stupid" I protested. "You're ... you're ..." And hesitated, the words stuck in my throat. For weeks I had been wanting to declare my love for her, to tell her of the storm she had created in my heart and the sweetness she had brought to my life. But I couldn't even open my mouth as I stood before her.

"What am I, Paul?" she asked, and I searched for the sound of teasing in her voice but it wasn't there.

With trembling fingers I groped for the poem in my pocket, saw to my dismay as I drew it out that it was wrinkled from being folded and refolded so many times and soiled from my sweating fingers.

"Here," I said, thrusting it at her, unable to utter more than one word.

She unfolded the sheet of paper and after a glance at me, soft and full of tenderness, she began to read, her lips forming the words. I recited the words to myself as she read them.

My love for you is pure As candle flame, As bright as suns.h.i.+ne As sweet as baby 's breath. ... ...

Yet even as I said the words I knew they were a lie. Because my love for her was not pure and sweet. It was hot with desire for her body. I wanted to caress her, to gorge myself on her.

My love for you Is a whisper in the night A silent prayer at vespers ... ...

This was the worst of it, I saw now. Bringing church and prayer into the poem, a sacrilege, and yet I needed to show her that I was not like the others, the men I pictured groping for her in saloons, the men who whistled at street corners. I wanted to a.s.sure her that I was different from the others. Despite my shameless thoughts and my desires. Underneath all of that was something pure, unsoiled, chaste.

She sank onto the bed as she read the poem, and I could see by the movement of her lips that she was reading it again. Her robe had fallen open once more and the tops of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were again visible, round and full and white as milk. She had crossed her legs and I saw the red garters on her thighs, a sight that made my eyes bulge and my heart pound and a terrible hotness race through my veins.

"It's beautiful," she said, her voice gentle as she held the poem in her hands, her eyes liquid blue as always but the liquid now resembling tears.

My own eyes were fastened on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-it was beyond my power to look elsewhere-and for a glorious moment I feasted on them while I squirmed before her, face flushed, juices thick in my mouth. Then I felt the surge of ecstasy developing and struggled, bringing my knees together, stricken, as she looked at me, the poem still in her hand, her expression soft and tender. I bent forward, trying to make myself small and, at the same time, to hold back that quick beautiful terrible spurt but unable to do so. As our eyes met, my body quivered with delight. I had never known such piercing happiness, such an explosive moment of sweetness. I trembled, s.h.i.+vered, as if strong winds were a.s.sailing me. And then, as always, came the swift shame and flush of guilt but this time worse than ever before because it had happened while she watched and I had seen her eyes grow puzzled and then alarmed and then-what? I could not read her expression-surprise, disgust?-I saw her mouth shape itself into an oval and heard her voice.

"Oh, Paul."

Could she see the stains on my trousers?

"Oh, Paul," she said again. Such a sadness in her voice but beyond sadness. Accusation, maybe, or betrayal.

For a split second I could not move, stood pinned and fixed before her in my shame and disgrace, feeling the terrible stickiness in my trousers, trying to swallow and almost choking on the juices that had turned sour in my throat.

"I'm sorry," I cried, backing away, tears blinding me so that I could not see her through the blur they created. Then I was out the door, sobbing my tears away as I ran through the parlor and the kitchen to the back hall and the piazza. Down the steps and into the street I ran, past the three-deckers, the stores, the church, the school.

Why did I always seem to be running from her?

Omer LaBatt.

There on the corner of Fourth and Mechanic, waiting for me in front of the First National Store, his feet planted firmly on the sidewalk, hands on his hips, the visor of his green plaid cap tilted over his eyes.

Bad enough that I had probably lost my aunt Rosanna forever, but now on the very next day I was confronting my enemy, my nemesis. Although he was across the street, I saw his dark scowl and, as he pushed up his cap, the dull, l.u.s.ter-less eyes without a flicker of mercy in them.

Omer LaBatt always appeared before me this way, like a phantom, without warning, out of nowhere. Sometimes I'd burst out of the alley between the two five-deckers on Second Street-the tallest buildings in Frenchtown after St. Jude's Church-and find him waiting for me, hands on his hips. Other times he stationed himself near places he knew I would visit sooner or later-Dondier's Market or Lakier's Drug Store-and confront me as I came out the door.

Like at this moment.

I gulped, preparing to make my getaway.

He was older than I was, yet seemed to have no age at all- was he fifteen or nineteen or twenty? He was not tall, which accentuated his wide shoulders and broad chest. His legs were stumps and he wasn't a good runner. I could easily outrun him and that was my saving grace. But I had nightmares about tripping, falling down and lying helpless on the ground as he approached.

Because I was so miserable about the loss of my aunt Ro-sanna and figured I had nothing more to lose in the terrible place my world had become, I called out: "Hey, LaBatt, why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

I had never spoken to him before. He didn't answer, but continued to glare at me. Then he grinned, a vicious grin that revealed jagged teeth.

I pondered my chances. My chances, of course, depended on what he did. Omer LaBatt didn't always chase me. Sometimes he was satisfied if he merely forced me to change directions, to cross the street, giving him wide berth, letting him dominate whatever piece of the planet he stood on. Other times we engaged in a wild chase through streets and alleys and backyards.

Made a bit bolder by having spoken to him and not having the earth crumble at my feet, I yelled: "Why me, LaBatt? Why pick on me?"

This was a mystery I had long pondered and never solved. He had been the bully in my life for at least three years and I couldn't figure out the reason. He was a stranger to me. I had never done him harm. I didn't know his family or friends, if he had any. He had simply appeared in my life one day, in front of Lakier's, our eyes meeting in a fatal deadlock, and I knew in that instant, looking into those pale yellow eyes, that here was my enemy, someone who had the power and the desire to hurt me, maim me, to destroy me, maybe.

I never talked to anyone about this, not even Pete Lagniard. But shortly after that first encounter, I pointed him out to Pete one day and asked: "Who is that guy, anyway?"

As usual, Pete had the answer.

"That's Omer LaBatt," he said. "A tough guy. He just moved here from Boston. He does things for Rudolphe Toubert."

This information was enough to cause me s.h.i.+vers because I had an idea what he meant by "does things." Pete wasn't finished, however.

"He quit school," he continued.

"Everybody quits school," I said, pointing out the truth. Most of the boys and girls of Frenchtown ended their education at fourteen, the legal age for going to work in the shops.

"Yeah, but he quit in the fifth grade," Pete said. "Fourteen and still in fifth grade."

This knowledge sealed my doom. You could reason with someone who was halfway educated and appeal to his intelligence, but I felt helpless in the face of utter stupidity. Trying to approach Omer LaBatt to make some kind of peace would be like coming face-to-face with an animal.

I was face-to-face with him now as he called out: "You're a dead man, Moreaux."

He came after me.

Hurtling himself toward me, leaping over the curb and into the street, legs pumping away, huge shoulders looking even broader and bigger as he came closer.

Off I went, as if shot out of a cannon, my feet barely touching the pavement, proud of my single athletic accomplishment, running. Something else in my favor: the ability to hide, to find places in doorways or on piazzas, behind bushes and fences and banisters.

I cut through Pee Alley between Bouchard's Hardware and Joe Spagnola's Barber Shop, hustling over the ground that was littered with broken bottles left by drinkers who gathered there for quick gulps of booze or to pee against the brick wall. In Mr. Beaudreau's tomato garden, I crouched behind the plants, the smell of the tomatoes making my nostrils itch. Peering through branches heavy with tomatoes, I saw Omer LaBatt standing indecisively near some rubbish barrels. He looked my way, squinting, and I ducked my head.

But not quickly enough.

"Dead man," he raged as he galloped toward me.

I leapt up and the chase was on again. I ran along a warped wooden fence that I knew contained a loose slat through which I could squeeze. Protected from exposure by the outlaw bushes that sprouted in empty lots, I scurried forward, hearing Omer's curses-son of a b.i.t.c.h, dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.d- as he thrashed through the tomato patch. My hands found the loose board and I inhaled, trying to make myself thinner as I slipped through the opening. Omer LaBatt would have a bad time, I figured, sliding his wide shoulders through that slender s.p.a.ce. Panting furiously, drenched with sweat, I paused as I found myself in the widow Dolbier's backyard.

Mrs. Dolbier supported herself and her brood of children by taking in was.h.i.+ng and doing ironing and sewing. Her backyard was an unending series of sagging lines always filled with clothing of all shapes and sizes and colors, like a small tent city. I crouched down low so that I could scoot beneath the clothes as I made my way toward the front of the house. But I tripped over the wooden crate in which she carried the clothing. When I scrambled to my feet, I found myself mixed up with a long pink nightgown. As I fought to free myself, I heard Omer LaBatt grunting and swearing his way through the slat in the fence. Panicking, grabbing hold of a pair of overalls, I found my face covered with a lumberjack s.h.i.+rt while the nightgown clung to my body.

Omer charged into the hanging clothes with a ferocious scream while I flailed desperately, overcome momentarily by my exertions, trying to catch my breath, my body flas.h.i.+ng with pain, fear turning my blood cold. As I tugged at the clothes, a blue s.h.i.+rt draped itself around me as clothespins flew through the air and I fell down. Looking around, I saw Omer LaBatt had blundered into the same trap, desperately fighting the s.h.i.+rts and blouses that entangled him.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Omer cried.

Suddenly, there was a third presence among the billowing clothes. Mrs. Dolbier's voice, shrill as a factory whistle, tore at the air.

'Out of here, b.u.m," she cried, vaulting into the melee, wielding a broom that she swung at Omer with pa.s.sion. I ducked away on all fours.

"b.u.m," she screamed again. "All my hard work ..."

I looked up and saw her pummeling Omer LaBatt with the broom. He tried to get away but was trapped in an a.s.sortment of s.h.i.+rts and trousers, at the mercy of her blows. In an effort to protect himself, he raised his arms, a movement that brought down an entire line of s.h.i.+rts upon him.

I howled with glee and the widow's head popped out of the confusion of pajamas and nightgowns. She looked in my direction, paused, frowned, and then attacked Omer again with the broom, her voice rising to a dangerous pitch. "b.u.m ... thief ... sinner."

She had looked straight at me, and then had turned back to her a.s.sault on Orner LaBatt. Safe from her now, I untangled myself from the clothes, glad to be rid of my disguise, trying to catch my breath, enduring the pain brought on by my fall, still s.h.i.+vering with cold.

Free at last, I ran through the yard, across her front lawn, down the street, streaking to safety. I rested in the shaded doorway next to Dondier's Market and waited for my heart to resume its normal beating, my breathing to become regular.

Trudging homeward, I took solace in acknowledging that Omer LaBatt's pursuit of me that day had served one purpose, at least. For a little while I had not been thinking of my aunt Rosanna, my pain and anguish absent as I ran for my life through the streets and alleys and backyards of French-town.

What I did not know was that I had faded for the second time.

Women never wore high heels in Frenchtown on weekday afternoons. Except my aunt Rosanna. I spotted her one day hurrying along Seventh Street in bright red high-heeled sandals with straps that wrapped around her ankles like thin fingers caressing her flesh.

I ducked behind the big oak tree across from the Lachance Steam Laundry as she pa.s.sed and, after counting to fifty, began to follow her.

Once or twice she glanced over her shoulder as if suspecting a follower, but I was too quick for her to spot me. I slipped from tree to tree, skittered between houses, hid behind banisters on piazzas, crouched behind bushes in my hot pursuit, feeling clever and resourceful, trying to ignore the small sense of shame that grew within me as I dogged her footsteps. Shame at following her like this, shame at how I had betrayed her in the bedroom.

She approached the corner of Fourth and Spruce, where men and boys on short time at the shops hung around, and I grimaced, knowing the remarks the men would make as she pa.s.sed. Watching from a piazza across the street, I silently cheered as she held her head high and paid them no attention. But this didn't prevent them from whistling and yelling at her. "Hey, baby, want some company?"

At the intersection of Mechanic and Third where St. Jude's steeples climbed to the sky, she paused. Would she go into the church? Confess herself, maybe? Confess what? But she continued on her way. She went toward Fourth Street again, walking aimlessly, more slowly now, head down, as if deep in thought. She didn't glance behind anymore and her movements were not at all furtive. It was easy to follow her now without much risk of being spotted, but I still took precautions as she turned at Fourth and Mechanic.

She stopped suddenly in front of the three-decker at 111 Fourth, bent over to straighten the seams of her stockings, then patted her hands around her waist as if to make certain her blouse was still tucked into her skirt. She fluffed her hair and the rings on her fingers caught the sunlight. I knew who lived at 111 Fourth and my spirits sank as I crouched behind the bushes across the street.

Make her walk away, I prayed. Make her change her mind.

But my prayer wasn't answered.

She marched into the driveway, her high heels kicking up small pieces of gravel. She pa.s.sed the steps leading to the back door and headed toward the garage at the rear of the three-decker. A sign on the garage proclaimed: TOUBERT ENTERPRISES. TOUBERT ENTERPRISES.

Not him, I cried silently as I watched her knock on the door, tilting her head like a child about to ask for candy. Even in my despair, she melted my heart with that tender inclination of her head.

The door opened and she stepped inside and I caught a glimpse of waiting arms.

Of all the people in the world, I thought, why did she have to choose Rudolphe Toubert?

Rudolphe Toubert was the closest thing to a gangster in Frenchtown and yet no one ever spoke that word aloud. He was known as "the man to see." The man to see if you wanted to place a bet on a horse or a football game. The man to see for a loan when the Household Finance Company downtown rejected your application. The man to see if you needed a favor. It was well known in Frenchtown that if you were faced with trouble of some kind-at the shop, on the streets, even in your family-Rudolphe Toubert was the man to see. Of course, you paid for his services in more ways than one. For instance, people still changed the subject when the name of Jean Paul Rodier came up. Jean Paul was found bruised and bleeding in Pee Alley one morning and it was said he had not paid back a loan he had taken out with Rudolphe Toubert. But there was no proof. And no witnesses.

Rudolphe Toubert was a das.h.i.+ng figure who commanded instant attention. Tall and slender with a movie star moustache on his upper lip, he always wore a suit with a vest and drove a big gray Packard that rolled majestically through the streets of Frenchtown, a pretty girl sometimes at his side. My mother said he was cheap-looking with his slicked-down hair and his pinstripe suits, like someone in a B movie at the Plymouth. My father said it didn't matter whether he looked cheap or not-he was a success at what he did. My father bought a lottery ticket every week from the runner at the shop who worked for Rudolphe Toubert. A twenty-five-cent ticket of hope, my father called it. Old man Francoeur on Ninth Street had once won fifteen hundred dollars on one of Rudolfe Toubert's tickets, and Mr. Francoeur's name was still spoken with awe and wonder by people who remembered his good fortune and had memorized the winning number: 55522. But it never came up again.

Rudolphe Toubert controlled all the newspaper routes in Frenchtown, including the delivery of the Boston newspapers-the Globe, Post, Globe, Post, and and Daily Record Daily Record- as well as the Monument Times. Times. He paid the boys a flat fee for each route instead of a commission. As a result, Frenchtown newsboys earned far less than the boys who delivered papers in other sections of town. He arranged the routes to suit his own purposes, giving the best routes to boys he favored. The routes everyone wanted were those that covered a small territory of three-deckers where papers could be delivered quickly and the customers always paid on time and gave big tips. He paid the boys a flat fee for each route instead of a commission. As a result, Frenchtown newsboys earned far less than the boys who delivered papers in other sections of town. He arranged the routes to suit his own purposes, giving the best routes to boys he favored. The routes everyone wanted were those that covered a small territory of three-deckers where papers could be delivered quickly and the customers always paid on time and gave big tips.

My younger brother, Bernard, was struggling that summer with the worst of the routes, the longest, least profitable, and spookiest route in Frenchtown, which Rudolphe Toubert always gave to the newest and youngest boy. Although the route consisted of only twelve customers, it stretched more than two miles from the railroad tracks at the edge of downtown Monument along Mechanic Street to the small cottage of Mr. Joseph LeFarge at the gate of St. Jude's Cemetery. Mr. LeFarge was the parish bedeau, bedeau, which meant that he was the church janitor as well as in charge of the cemetery, where he dug the graves and cut the gra.s.s. He was a silent, forbidding man with thin lips that never softened into a smile and eyes that seemed to contain secrets. He could have stepped out of a Boris KarlofF movie, although my father claimed he was actually a gentle man who wouldn't harm a fly. which meant that he was the church janitor as well as in charge of the cemetery, where he dug the graves and cut the gra.s.s. He was a silent, forbidding man with thin lips that never softened into a smile and eyes that seemed to contain secrets. He could have stepped out of a Boris KarlofF movie, although my father claimed he was actually a gentle man who wouldn't harm a fly.

But then my father didn't have to deliver papers to Mr. LeFarge's house day after day, especially during the fall and winter months when darkness had already descended or was threatening by the time you arrived there, the tombstones visible from his front walk. Not only was his house isolated, a quarter mile from the nearest three-decker, but it was located across the street from the city dump, where clouds of smoke from smoldering rubbish rose like pale ghosts against the sky. The worst time of all was Friday, collection day. Instead of flinging the rolled-up newspaper to his piazza and hurrying away, you knocked on the door and waited an eternity for him to respond, while trying not to look toward the cemetery and those lurking tombstones. He never hurried to answer your knock and he never gave a tip.

I sympathized with Bernard when he set off off each day on the route because I had undergone the same ordeal a few years before. each day on the route because I had undergone the same ordeal a few years before.

Bernard was only eight years old. I, at least, had been ten. He wanted to quit after the second day but knew he couldn't. Every penny was important to the family. I worked afternoons packing potatoes and doing errands at Dondier's and Armand did odd jobs at the comb shop.

"I don't mind the long walk and the dogs," Bernard said as we sat on the piazza steps after supper. He was trying not to cry. "But it's ..." And his voice faltered.

"Mr. LeFarge's house, right?" I asked.

"It's summer, for crying out loud," Armand said. "It's not even dark when you get there." Armand spoke with the bravery of his 145 pounds, the strength of his muscled arms and legs. He did not believe in ghosts and never woke up at night from bad dreams.

Later, when we were alone, I struck a bargain with Bernard. I told him I would deliver the paper to Mr. LeFarge's house every day after I finished my ch.o.r.es at the market. I bragged that I was the master of shortcuts and a.s.sured him I could easily do the delivery and be here in time for supper.

"What about my part of the bargain?" Bernard asked.

There was nothing Bernard could offer me. "I'll think of something," I said.

His smile was beautiful to see, almost like a girl's. It was no wonder my sisters Yvonne and Yvette envied his good looks and his hair that curled without the touch of a comb or a curling iron.

So, every day that summer, I delivered the Monument Times Times to Mr. LeFarge's house. Bernard left the newspaper at the market and I raced after work to Mechanic Street, cutting through backyards and across empty lots, avoiding houses with dogs in their yards and always on the lookout for Omer LaBatt. Despite my thirteen years and all my experience, I was still uneasy as I approached the to Mr. LeFarge's house. Bernard left the newspaper at the market and I raced after work to Mechanic Street, cutting through backyards and across empty lots, avoiding houses with dogs in their yards and always on the lookout for Omer LaBatt. Despite my thirteen years and all my experience, I was still uneasy as I approached the bedeau bedeau ' s house, averting my eyes from the cemetery and trying not to inhale the fumes of burning rubbish from the dump across the street. ' s house, averting my eyes from the cemetery and trying not to inhale the fumes of burning rubbish from the dump across the street.

Now I stood across from Rudolphe Toubert's house, thinking of my aunt Rosanna inside the garage with him. I tortured myself with images of his long, tapered fingers caressing her flesh, his lips on hers, their mouths opening to each other the way it happened in the movies.

Scanning the windows of the three-decker, I searched for the figure of his wife lurking behind the curtains. She was confined to a wheelchair and never left her tenement and spent her days, they said, wheeling from one window to another. Sometimes I caught glimpses of her thin pale face as she peered out at the street or watched people in their comings and goings as they did business with Rudolphe Toubert. Women visited him at odd hours as my aunt was doing now, and this flaunting of his love affairs seemed to me the worst thing about him.

Finally, my aunt Rosanna emerged from the garage, closing the door slowly behind her, lingering a moment in the yard. Did she look disheveled? Was her hair a bit mussed and her orange lipstick hastily put on? Or was jealousy feeding my imagination? How could I be certain of anything as I crouched miserably behind a hedge across the street, worried that a dog would find me there and bark me out of my hiding place?

As she left the driveway, tugging at her skirt, she surprised me by turning left instead of right, which meant that she was not going to my grandfather's house. She was heading in the direction of the Meadow down at the end of Spruce Street. The Meadow was a place for family picnics on the sh.o.r.es of the Moosock River, which meandered without design among stands of birches and pines, in the shade of elms and maples, and on through the long, open fields. The Meadow remained unspoiled despite constant rumors that the city's rubbish would be carted to the place once the city dump was filled. The kids of Frenchtown frolicked there on occasion, building bonfires at night, swimming naked in the river, playing games. Boy Scouts often pitched their tents on the grounds and pursued their merit badges in camping and nature studies and such. I often visited the place with pad and paper and tried to write poems as I sat with my back against a tree trunk or dangled my legs on the banks of the river, watching the changing colors-red or green or a murky brown, depending on which dyes had been used that day in the shops.

I remained safely behind my aunt as she left Spruce Street and walked quickly across the narrow footbridge that led to the Meadow. It amazed me that a woman could move so fast on high heels without wobbling or tripping. I was glad for my rubber soles as my feet glided over the wooden bridge with barely a sound.

As she made her way toward a picnic bench under a cl.u.s.ter of birches, I paused, watching her, struck as always by her beauty. The sounds of summer filled my ears, birds scattering in the trees and the high buzzing of the sewing needles, which I used to believe could sew up a person's lips before you had time to cry out. A dog barked, but far away, too far to be a threat.