Advance praise for In Jupiter’s Shadow
“Greg Gerard delights and entertains as he energetically and systematically tackles the mysteries of God, family, and later, sexuality. Making use of all the clues (in pop culture, relationships, and religion), Greg takes readers along on a colorful quest to solve the ultimate mystery; to discover a sense of self.”
~Sonja Livingston, author of Ghostbread
“On a quest for the authentic self, a precocious, gimlet-eyed young Gerard sets off to discover his true identity. Along the way he finds clues in the most unlikely of places. Generous, bighearted, and filled with homespun wisdom, In Jupiter's Shadow is a mystery story of a different stripe!”
~Alison Smith, author of Name All the Animals
“One of the literary pleasures of this year...In Jupiter's Shadow is one of those books the reader wishes would never end...filled to the brim with brilliant writing, with page after page of hilarious storyline, and equally suffused with sensitivity for issues of living and dying we all learn to face.”
~Grady Harp, Amazon Top 10 reviewer
“Gerard’s writing is casual, comfortable, and easy to read. It’s as if he’s an old friend telling the story over hot coffee and warm baked goods. At times heart-wrenching and at others heartwarming, In Jupiter’s Shadow is ultimately a funny, poignant, and uplifting tale that does not disappoint.”
~Georgia Beers, reviewer, The Empty Closet
“In this disarmingly honest, poignant portrait of innocence slowly lost, Greg Gerard takes us through the joys and sorrows of self-discovery, and the importance of emerging from the shadows of other people’s expectations.”
~Greg DiStefano, author of Breakdown: Diamonds, Death and Second Chances
In Jupiter’s Shadow
Gregory Gerard
Published by Gregory Gerard at Smashwords
Copyright 2009 Gregory Gerard
This book is available in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and other online retailers.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Hiding from others is easy.
Hiding from yourself is trickier.
Coming of age in rural Western New York in the early 1980s, Greg is the youngest of six in a devout Catholic family. They rely on faith to cope with adversity, including a brother’s congenital hydrocephalus and the father’s alcoholic mood swings. Greg dreams of escape and adventure, mostly through detective stories, which prepares him to tackle the profound mystery he stumbles across—in the bathtub on the second floor.
A fictional detective, Jupiter Jones, provides guidance to explore the clues, but mentorship from a Jesuit priest (an actor with a Hollywood past) ultimately helps Greg reverse his escape path—and solve the mystery between the shadow of “should be” and the light of self-awareness.
This story is dedicated to my brother, Paul, who’s been “offering it up” since the day he was born.
This story is true, recognizing that memory, at best, is subjective. I have taken some author’s liberty with names and details, both to preserve the anonymity of those depicted and make the story more accessible to readers.
Contents
Chapter Two: Prickers and Fudge (1974 continued)
Chapter Three: Secrets (1974 continued)
Chapter Four: The Nature of Sexuality (1977)
Chapter Five: Gregory Gerard, First Investigator (1978)
Chapter Seven: Covert Research (1979 continued)
Chapter Eight: Crime Scene 1 (1980)
Chapter Nine: Crime Scene 2 (1980 continued)
Chapter Ten: Triangulation (1983)
Chapter Eleven: Jupiter, the Roman God of Lightning (1983 continued)
Chapter Twelve: And Then You Die (1984)
Chapter Thirteen: Acorns Dropping (1984 continued)
Chapter Fourteen: Escape (1984 continued)
Chapter Fifteen: My Future Character (1984 continued)
Reading Group Discussion Guide
RUNAWAY PLAN: Cincinnati/Day Sixty-Three (1984)
I grabbed Bufford’s keys from the edge of the kitchen counter. Scooping change from my bedroom coin dish into my jeans pocket, I headed down the stairs, two at a time.
I needed to eat.
In the car, I tore out of the Park At Your Own Risk lot. Bufford’s tires spat gravel in my wake. Reaching the grocery store, I headed for the snack aisle. Pulling coins out of my pocket, I counted out five dollars in quarters. I miss Dad’s store, I thought, grabbing at a dollar bag of pretzel rods. On my college budget, I could only afford to add a medium-sized bag of M&Ms and a one-liter bottle of 7-UP. It would be enough.
Rushing through the express lane, I hopped into the front seat of my car and yanked at the candy bag. A jagged slit tore down the side as pieces of chocolate flew onto the floor and disappeared down the crack of the seat.
“Shit!” I swore, trying to contain the rest.
I poured the remaining M&Ms into my car’s drink tray and opened the pretzel bag more carefully. Positioning it on the seat next to me, I began to chew, watching people come and go.
A man and woman rode up on bicycles. They pulled their bikes together, locking them to a pole in front of the store. Two teenage girls giggled as they walked through a group of parking-lot pigeons. An older couple loaded brown grocery bags into the back seat of a station wagon like Dad’s. I could faintly hear them arguing.
Everybody was in pairs. Everybody seemed to know who they were. And how to belong. Everybody except me.
I turned the key in Bufford’s ignition and tore out of the brightly lit lot. Pigeons scattered in my wake.
Continuing to cram pretzel rods into my mouth, I headed down the one-way street, away from our Park at Your Own Risk apartment.
I had to move. I had to think.
I headed toward the river.
Sheena Easton’s Best Kept Secret cassette was still in the stereo. I cranked up the volume and rolled down both front windows.
Streetlights flashed like lightning into the car’s interior as I raced through Cincinnati. I pulled onto Route 50, the five-lane highway that hugged the river’s bank for miles. I pushed harder on Bufford’s accelerator.
The drop-off to the river’s edge increased as I left city limits. Sheena’s driving beat cut through me. I could feel the bass pounding in my chest, in my belly. I was glad there were hardly any other cars on the road.
Thoughts rushed at me as quickly as the night air that whipped past my head. The speedometer jumped as I worked to outrun them.
Route 50 goes all the way to Ocean City. I could go there.
You don’t have enough money for gas, the Jupiter part of my mind whispered.
I thought about the recent conversation with my dad, telling him I wanted to quit college. It conjured the image of him sitting at Big Brick’s kitchen table years before, a glass of scotch in his hand, deciding that I, The Caboose, would be the only one of his children to attend Catholic school.
My stomach groaned.
Other images emerged from the rush around me. The shotgun pointed at my chest during the store robbery. My nightly habit in my Big Brick bedroom. Dead flies trapped in the ceiling fixture.
Shame and fear flushed fresh and bitter into my throat.
Thoughts of my friend, Roy, surfaced. The raft floating on Duck Lake. Hands flailing in the burning van.
Hot tears struggled to flow from the corners of my eyes. I fought them, turning up the radio another notch. I glanced at the mucky water of the Ohio River, but its dark surface reflected only secrets.
Nothing worked. Not quitting college. Not eating my favorite snacks. Not driving eighty miles an hour.
I just couldn’t escape.
“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”
~Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Cast of Characters
Gregory Gerard: The baby of the family, a.k.a. The Caboose; a kid whose interests lie in all things mysterious
Darwin Gerard: Greg’s dad; his mellow scotch whiskey persona is known to the family as Drinking Dar
Betty Gerard: Greg’s mom, dubbed The Booker, who won’t have fighting in the house
Gram Gerard: Darwin’s mom; she tells her grandchildren gritty stories even though Betty doesn’t approve
Paul Gerard: Oldest son whose hydrocephalus requires lots of neurosurgery
Molly Gerard: Oldest daughter; Greg’s Cincinnati companion and laughing buddy
Kathy Gerard: The thinnest sibling, never seen without a matching outfit
Mike Gerard: A middle child; when he’s not taunting Greg, he mentors him
Anne Gerard: The tomboy daughter; her boldness earns Mike’s respect
Father McFarland: A parish priest whose confessional inspires obedience
HALF-WAY THROUGH the homily I started to get anxious.
I was wearing the new pale-gray coat I received on my seventh Christmas. It was toasty inside Saint Patrick’s, where the brightly-colored figures on the window glass held the crisp morning outside, yet sent prisms of sunlight to bathe the parishioners in warmth.
Nonetheless, I wore my jacket in the polished wooden pew near the front on the left where we always sat. The coat was my favorite; it had snaps everywhere. I had begun experimenting with the snapping combinations on Christmas morning.
The Gerard clan filled a whole row, like the Dernbecks, who chose the middle right and the McCormicks with their bright red hair, who always came in late and got whatever seat they could.
I sat at the end of the pew, closest to God in His tabernacle, trying to get my arms separated. There were two snaps at the end of each sleeve, designed to make the wrist opening smaller. While Father McFarland spoke passionately about Jesus and His immense love for us, I’d discovered that the right sleeve snaps were a perfect fit to the left and had managed to join all four. Initially pleased with this variation, I now struggled to get my hands free. The game’s appeal diminished exponentially with my wrists bound.
My oldest brother, Paul, the church organist, launched into Faith of Our Fathers as I lifted both arms and yanked. The snaps didn’t yield – but I toppled sideways out of the pew and crashed hard into the center aisle. Hitting the floor with a tremendous thunk, I didn’t move for a moment, adjusting to my new perspective.
I saw mortified faces as my oldest sister, Molly, jumped to help. I watched Father McFarland, his long beige robe billowing, as he stepped down from the altar to assist.
In the brief moments before they rescued me and I sat safely back in the pew, I lay there struggling, awash in embarrassment and shame, knowing that the priest and my family and the congregation and God were all watching me, wondering if I was okay.
I WAS VISITING Gram the day I hatched my runaway plan. At eight, the youngest in our crowded Western New York farmhouse – Big Brick – I was different from the rest of them; I sensed it.
Everybody else seemed meant to be born, but I’d overheard that I was “a surprise.” Everybody else had a regular name, but I went by nicknames: The Caboose to my dad; The Baby to my mom; Greg-ums to the others. Everybody else had a little brother, someone to babysit, boss, or tease. Everybody except me.
I longed to get away through the craggy forest behind our property and discover my own adventure. Something like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys might encounter. A place to keep my own secrets.
My grandmother’s living quarters had originally been a two-car garage attached to our laundry room. Before she moved in, Dad and some workers converted the space into a one-bedroom suite with a kitchenette and separate entrance. A bay window in the dining area looked out over the three-tiered lawn. Beyond, an expansive field ended in a grove of fruit trees down by the creek.
Gram was not satisfied.
Dad gave her the initial tour because she was his mom. I tagged along.
She looked at the new appliances and fresh paint, her old-lady golden wig and large white earrings dipping forward in silent evaluation. As he showcased the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bath, I watched her bracelets slide back and forth loosely on her bony wrists.
When they had seen the entire apartment, she drew back, clasped her hands, and nodded toward the tan walls of the living area. “Now, if ya had it to do over again, would ya have picked that same color?”
I held my breath and watched my father closely, to see if he’d yell. A heavyset man, he could raise his powerful voice to shout or swear at a moment’s notice.
Instead of shouting, he only snapped “Aw, Mom,” and brought the tour to a quick finish. I breathed more easily when he left me and Gram, and returned to our end of the house.
“They put me in the garage,” Gram told me later, her muted tangerine dress gathered about her legs as she sat in the living room. I knew she meant my mom and dad, but it was hard to understand why she didn’t like the place. I had to share a bedroom with my brother, Mike. With five older siblings, somebody was always telling me what to do. To me, her three rooms seemed spacious and private, a place where she could do what she wanted when she wanted.
I visited her often, after school or during summer days, winding down the back hallway of our home, through the laundry room, to the double doors that entered her apartment. She served me maple walnut ice cream when we sat at her small Formica table in front of the bay window. She told true crime stories my mother didn’t approve of, stories of life ending mysteriously for unlucky victims she’d encountered in her eighty years. Kids, dads, drunks – no one escaped the cool hand of death in her tales.
“He was never up to no good,” she shared one day, about a man she’d known a long time ago. “He was a hard man. A drinkin’ man. That night he wandered out on the tracks, he’d been drinkin’, don’t you doubt it.” She stared at me over her gray-framed glasses and stabbed an index finger at my face. “That train came along and good night shirt!”
I recognized one of the strange phrases that often accompanied her stories. Phrases like “Get off my foot!” Or, when she balled her gangly hand into a fist and shook it at someone, “Smella that, Brother.”
My mind spun. A train clacking through the night. The guy – maybe a crook! – crushed like a soda can, right here in our little town. I sat riveted to the chair, soaking up the intrigue between mouthfuls of creamy maple.
I hadn’t been planning to run away. The idea just sprouted one day as I looked out Gram’s bay window at the two hundred acres of farmland beyond the barn. Logistics immediately pushed their way through the folds of my mind: what mysteries I might encounter (find a lost treasure); which direction I would head (north); what gear I might need (a compass).
Gram interrupted my thoughts of escape. “Go into the bedroom and get me the picture with five boys in it,” she instructed. “They took that picture and a week later one of ’em drowned. Good night shirt!”
I located the small frame on top of her sewing table. Reaching for it, I noticed the bottom drawer was not completely shut. A hint of Reese’s orange peeked out at me. I opened the drawer another inch, slowly, so it wouldn’t squeak. There, snuggled against her stationery and envelopes, lay a ten-pack of peanut butter cups. Perfect sustenance for my trip. I looked around the room. The window was open a crack.
I could do it.
As I slid the drawer fully open, my mind saw Father McFarland pull back the tiny window in the confessional at our church, Saint Patrick’s. There in the darkness, I would have to shamefully whisper of my theft, praying the mesh screen masked my identity. He’d whisper back my penance, concern evident in his low tones. Would it be ten Hail Marys? Apologize to my grandmother? Something worse?
I loved most things about church. Mystery peeked out at me from every corner; darkened shadows whispered the secrets of Saints long dead. At Mass, I watched the priest lift his shrouded arms toward Heaven, muttering prayers only God could hear. Desire to be holy like him, like my mother, always flooded me. To be a son of God. To belong.
But the confessional was another story. Whenever I entered the tiny wooden room, I felt embarrassed and exposed. My budding crime came to an abrupt halt. I considered the Reese’s carefully. Was it worth it?
“Do ya see it, Honey?” Gram called from the living room.
“Yeah, I got it.”
I grabbed the frame and, with no time to consider further consequences, the candy as well. I shoved the ten-pack through the narrow gap of the open window. The orange wrapper flashed as it fell to the grass outside.
I handed Gram the frame. She pointed to the different children in the aged photo, including the one who had met with an untimely death. Normally this would hold my attention, but I worried about the peanut butter cups melting in the afternoon sun.
She talked mother’s tears; I pictured tears of chocolate dripping off my candy. I finally told her I had to go and raced through the laundry room to one of Big Brick’s back doors. Outside, I crawled low under her window to snatch the Reese’s. I felt them through the wrapper. They were intact.
I brought the orange package to my bedroom and laid it on my sleeping bag, then gathered more supplies. A pillow, some Hardy Boy books. I looked at the pack and evaluated. It needed a goodbye note.
I sat on the corner of my bed and wrote a long letter to my family, listing how sorry I was to leave, but for them not to miss me. I drew eight round faces – my mom, dad, gram, my five older siblings – and penned streams of tears running down their tiny paper cheeks. There wasn’t a dry eye on the page.
The goodbye note went in with the other supplies. I rolled the sleeping bag into a tight cylinder and hid it in the back of my closet.
The excitement of my impending departure distracted me from the guilt of my theft. I did worry that Gram would miss the candy and tell my dad but, as two days passed, the paternal wrath I anticipated never materialized. I continued to imagine my adventure, waiting for the right opportunity to escape.
The next morning I woke to rain, a steady, pounding curtain of water on the upstairs windows. Using the delay of weather to tighten my plan, I decided to add a map to my runaway kit. On my adventure, I’d travel further than our rural twin towns, Palmyra and Macedon, known as Pal-Mac to the locals, where I’d lived all my life. Heading to the downstairs bookshelves, I pulled out a thin road atlas – which promised Up-To-Date Construction Information in a little yellow bubble – and carried it upstairs.
Opening my bedroom door, I discovered Mike and Anne, my brother and sister, sitting in the center of the carpet.
Mike was six years my senior and wiser about everything. He wore his brown hair short and straight-cut across the bangs, giving him a serious, tough-guy edge. He wrestled at school – which showed in the tight bulge of his arm muscles.
Just a year younger than Mike, Anne was often at his side. My tomboy sister, her hair hung in a long dark splash to her shoulders, curling slightly near the ends, as if in defiance to the straightness of the rest. Her boldness earned my brother’s respect. I envied her.
My sleeping bag lay between them on the floor, unrolled. Mike had my goodbye note in his hand and was reading it aloud.
They were in hysterics.
“What – is – your – problem?” he asked, barely able to get the words out.
I reached for the note, my face flushing with familiar warmth. He held it toward me, waving it back and forth. I grabbed, missed, then snatched it from him. I tore it up quickly.
“So you’re gonna run away?” Anne transitioned from laughter to concern.
My meticulous plan evaporated into embarrassment.
“NO,” I said.
The impact was gone – now that they knew about it. Besides, it was really raining outside, and the reality of sleeping on soggy grass diluted the portrait of my grand escape.
“Where’d you get the peanut butter cups?” Anne interrupted my thoughts.
“At the store,” I said, mentally adding lying to the list I’d review with Father McFarland, as Mike tore open the package and divided the spoils among us.
RUNAWAY PLAN: Cincinnati/Day One (1984)
My sister, Molly, and I arrived in Cincinnati, my college destination, nine hours after pulling out of Big Brick’s driveway. I welcomed the chance to get away from the turmoil that tightened my insides.
The downtown skyline was brightly lit. A huge suspension bridge stretched out across the Ohio River, connecting Cincinnati to Kentucky. The dark, slow water drew my attention.
I’d read about the river back at high school. One of the deepest waterways in the country, it rumbled through Ohio on its way to the Mississippi. I wondered how many secrets had been swallowed up in its murky depths.
I turned my attention to the lighted skyline. My sister had described the city to me in letters and over the phone. In person, the buildings loomed much taller than anything we had back in Rochester.
“Holy crap,” I said.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Molly said. “I love living in a big city.”
She gave street directions to the apartment she’d picked out for us at the beginning of the summer. The closer we got, the more trash I saw scattered along the curbs.
A few people loitered in front of a massive brick apartment building. Carved stone trim framed the many windows, but it was crumbled and cracked, like some of the surrounding bricks.
“Welcome home.” Molly pointed. “Turn right in here!”
“Just ignore the Park at Your Own Risk sign,” she continued as we entered the lot. “I’ve been here for months and there haven’t been any problems.”
Was she serious? We’d never had a sign like that back in Pal-Mac. I parked and looked around. The beat-up, rusty cars with their Ohio license plates made my car, Bufford, a ’77 Plymouth Fury, look out of place and unwelcome. I knew how he felt.
I glanced at all my belongings in the backseat and groaned. My sister had prepared me for the long haul up four flights. The elevator hadn’t worked since she moved in.
Molly got out and we surveyed the pile together. “Okay, let’s just take up the stuff we really need right now and leave the rest for later,” she suggested.
I reached in and selected my Sheena cassettes, the Xavier University orientation packet, and my suitcase. Molly grabbed the nearest box, stuffed with clothes.
Before locking the car, I draped a couple of tee shirts across the rest of the load in the back seat. I tried to arrange them as though I had thrown them there by accident. Jupiter Jones, my favorite detective, would have taken more elaborate precautions to thwart potential crooks, but I made do.
“Just in case,” I said.
We climbed two lengthy flights, then stopped, gasping for breath. As the two heaviest Gerard children, we looked at each other and began to laugh at our lack of fitness. “I guess nobody’s gonna mistake me for Mary Lou Retton,” Molly joked. Our laughter increased, making the next two flights even more difficult.
At the top, Molly unlocked a plain wooden door and both of us plopped down at her kitchen table.
“This – is – the – kitchen,” she gasped out, waving her hand around. I detected a faint turpentine smell.
“Have you – been painting?” My lungs began to fill normally again. She stood and, opening the cupboard above the sink, pulled out a small jar. Several paint-brush handles stuck out. The smell intensified.
“Yeah, I painted the kitchen in June and I was soaking the brushes. I sorta forgot about ’em.” The giggles returned, a hot, anxious release after the long day on the road – and, for me, the meaning behind the trip.
I walked to the first room down the hall, my bedroom. The twelve-foot ceiling soared above a mammoth fireplace encased in marble. A beat-up brown couch sat facing the marble. Molly pointed to it.
“I pulled the couch outta the trash last week. I thought you might want it. Danny helped me carry it up. He’s our upstairs neighbor. You can meet him later.” I sat, sinking deep into the couch until only my legs and torso were visible.
“So what’s it feel like to be in your first apartment?” she asked, sinking a comparable depth into the opposite end.
“It’s pretty awesome,” I said, surveying the space. “Show me the rest of the place.” We struggled to eject ourselves from the couch.
More laughter.
In the next room, clothes were strewn everywhere, an ironing board standing sentinel above them. “I always wanted to have a big enough place to set up the iron and not have to take it down,” Molly said, walking further to a small bend in the hall. “When I got to this point, I knew this was the place!”
Beyond the bend, the apartment stretched on for another thirty feet, ending in floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Holy crap!” I said for the second time that day.
“Bathroom, living room, my bedroom,” she checked them off with her fingers as we continued the tour. “You can tell it used to be a pretty ritzy apartment building, but since the neighborhood has gone down a bit, it’s spacey – and in my price range.”
I looked out one of the tall windows. A couple of guys dressed in ripped jeans and dirty tee shirts sat on the curb far below. I thought of the robberies at our father’s store. “Do you feel safe here?”
“Yeah, it’s been fine. The landlord and his wife live right next door and Danny lives upstairs, so I feel safe. I just love that it’s so big! We can co-egg-zist but each have our own space.”
I caught my sister’s enthusiasm and we made dinner plans to celebrate our new place. I welcomed the distraction from the thoughts that choked my introspective moments.
Thoughts about Roy’s death.
Thoughts about my own damnation.
Chapter Two: Prickers and Fudge (1974 continued)
AS AN ALTERNATIVE to running away, I spent the next month making mini-treks through the two hundred acres behind Big Brick. My dog, Pete, our collie-beagle puppy, accompanied me on every trip. I loved the solitude of the outdoors – a contrast to our active household.
We were eight in total – Mom, Dad, and six kids. Nine, if you counted Gram. “We’re like The Brady Bunch,” I once pointed out to my brother, Mike. “Except our order is wrong, boy, girl, girl, boy, girl, boy,” I compared us to my ideal TV family, seeking a pattern, as was my habit. “Paul, Molly, Kathy, Mike, Anne. And then me – I’m the last Gerard.”
“The Brady Bunch are queers,” Mike snapped.
Our property fostered nature in every direction: a pear tree with a hollow center near the creek; cattails and field grass circling the pond; a tangled patch of shoulder-high thistles behind the garage. The latter confounded my father. He and Mom wanted a swimming pool in place of the prickly weeds.
My dad attacked the area with vigor, using the bulldozer he’d purchased to assist with ongoing renovations at Big Brick. His balding head gleamed as he dozed the thistles to the ground, spreading the displaced earth in even layers across the bumpy acres behind Big Brick. One of the guys who’d helped build Gram’s apartment rode a small tractor behind him and spread grass seed.
Four weeks later, Dad exploded with rage when he discovered that the thistles, bulldozed into apparent oblivion, had seeded with the new grass. Spiky fronds pushed up everywhere among the fuzzy clumps of green. Two acres of prickers. I watched from the safety of the garage as my father kicked at the unfriendly weeds with his heavy work shoes. Pete hung at my side, whining softly.
Dad launched into one of his rants, yelling about Murphy’s Law, his face twisted into a fierce scowl. After a few minutes, he headed in my direction. I pretended to be organizing our croquet set as he entered the garage.
I wondered why Dad got so angry so often. Was he mad because Gram acted like he never did anything right? Mom had told me a few things about my father’s childhood. That his own dad had left town when he was twelve, right after the divorce. How it was just him and Gram during the Depression. How he’d played piano in the local bar when he was fourteen. When he’d started drinking.
He’d flown a bomber in World War II, but he rarely talked about that. Mostly, when he wasn’t yelling, he sat at the dining room table in the evenings, drinking scotch whiskey and writing long letters to his relatives in California – the great aunts and uncles I had never met. He never yelled when he drank. Instead, he became a mellow talker, using big, formal phrases like “considering your command of the English language” and “I’ll accept that course of action.”
We called this version of my father Drinking Dar, a shortcut of his first name, Darwin, to reflect the change in his personality. After just one glass of whiskey, his vocabulary trebled and smooth words flowed from his mouth – although he often didn’t remember what we had talked about the next day. Drinking Dar never made my stomach feel tight.
Entering the garage, my father scrounged through the piles of lawn equipment and pulled out a wooden pole with a metal fork at one end. Dad turned toward me. I noticed his scowl had softened, as it always did after one of his rants.
“I got a job for you, Caboose. I’ll pay you a penny for each pricker you pick.” He led me outside and demonstrated. “Just stick the business end into the ground like this.” In response to his quick jab, a thistle popped from the ground like the head of a dandelion flicked off by a thumbnail. “You have to get the root or it’ll just grow back.” He looked at me. “You have any questions before I run some errands?” I shook my head.
My father handed me the tool and climbed into his station wagon. I watched him pull out of the winding drive and felt a guilty sense of relief that often accompanied his exits.
I thrust the metal groove into the ground and began my tally. A penny a pricker. The sun intensified as I worked; the day was a scorcher. I spotted Gram in her bay window. We both waved. Maybe she knows a story about somebody who was stabbed to death with a pricker-picker, I thought. Good night shirt.
An hour later, I reached my first hundred. A dollar. I leaned on the tool, feeling a chapping in my palms from the rough wooden handle. Pete had retired to the cool shade of the garage.
Mom stuck her head out of Big Brick’s back door and called for me to come inside. “See ya later, boy,” I waved to Pete. More wagging.
Our house was quieter than usual today. Molly, who’d just enrolled in nursing school, had gone to the mall to buy a uniform. Kathy, my sister who refused to be seen without a matching outfit, went along for the shopping opportunity. Mike and Anne had left hours earlier, riding their bikes toward town. And Paul, the organist at Saint Patrick’s, was playing a wedding.
“How’s it going?” my mother asked when I came into the kitchen.
“Good – I picked one hundred so far!”
“Good for you, Honey.”
“My hands are a little sore,” I said, holding them out in front of me.
“You should probably wear some gloves. But you go ahead and take a break for now. You’re not going to get them all in one day.” She looked down at me. “I’m going to make some fudge and I thought you’d like to help.”
“You bet!” I shouted. Mom smiled at my enthusiasm. In our family, making fudge was a ritual almost as sacred as attending Mass.
“Wash your hands,” she instructed.
Dousing my hands in the sink’s soapy water, I rinsed quickly, then pulled a chair toward our countertop range. I watched my mother closely. Her ample day dress fluttered as she turned from the stove to reach into the cupboard. Her brown hair was shorter than any of my sisters, but it had the same Gerard thickness. Hints of gray peeked out from all over her head.
Mom matched my father in girth, but never in temperament. Instead, she often laughed and sang. “Sing with me,” she coaxed as she pulled sugar and vanilla down from the cupboard. We launched into the family favorites, including You Wore a Tulip and Good Night, Ladies.
My mother heaped cocoa and butter into the fudge pan. I studied the swirl patters while she stirred the batter. Our red-and-white checkered pot holder lay on the counter nearby. My finger flicked the burn mark on its corner, a reminder of the time Dad had been drinking and had caught the pot holder on fire.
It had been a hasty accident – a quick flame, a quick douse under the faucet – but, like the blackened edge of the pot holder, its effects had lingered. Now whenever my father pulled out the whiskey bottle and puttered around the stove, I saw my mother keep an extra eye on him.
When the fudge mixture bubbled to the correct rhythm, Mom poured the gooey mass onto a platter and handed me the nearly empty pan. She gathered the other utensils and turned to the sink. “Good cooks clean up as they go,” she instructed.
I worked at the fudge pan with a spoon for awhile, scooping out every trace of chocolate. Surrendering it for washing, my focus turned to the fudge platter. I stared at the shiny blob, willing it to solidify. “Did you eat fudge when you were a kid?” I asked her.
She looked over from the sink where she was elbow-deep in sudsy water.
“Yes, Honey. It was the Depression when I was little, so nobody had any money. But we always had the supplies for fudge. We’d make a batch every Friday night.
“We had to make a lot of sacrifices back then, but Dad was a salesman and Mum – that’s your Gramma Trudy; you never knew her – she was a nurse, so we were luckier than some people. Dad and Mum always found work.
“There were six of us kids and I slept on a little square blanket on the floor of my brother John’s room.” She stopped lifting the dishes out of the sink and stared out the window. The afternoon sun lit her dark hair with a soft glow, like the halo around the Blessed Mother’s statue at Saint Patrick’s.
She looked at me and smiled. “Enjoy yourself, Kiddo. It goes so fast,” she said, taking a seat and slicing the fudge into chunks.
When we’d each had a couple of pieces and all the dishes were cleaned and dried, I headed into the adjoining family room. My favorite cartoon, The Flintstones, was just beginning. I flicked on the TV while Mom pulled out her car keys. “Greg, I’ve got to run some errands. Gram is back in her apartment if you need anything. And the other kids should be home pretty soon. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, barely glancing up from the television. Mom kissed my head and left.
Fifteen minutes into The Flintstones, I heard Big Brick’s front door bash open against its frame as it sometimes did when the east wind picked up.
“Goddamn it!” I heard my father yell.
My gut seized.
There was a clattering crash as though someone had dumped a load of cans onto the slate floor of the foyer. The family room door, a thick slab of solid oak, burst open. It swung rapidly on its antique cast-iron hinges, the doorknob striking the wall just below the family crucifix. Jesus’ body gave a little jerk as the door rebounded.
Dad entered, his face twisted tight, his bushy eyebrows jutting toward me. “What’re you doing?” he growled. He clutched an empty grocery sack in his right hand. The bottom was ripped wide open.
“Watching Flintstones,” I said.
“Well, get outside! I told you to work on those prickers!” He slapped at the TV’s power switch. The image of Fred and Barney blinked out, leaving a small dot in the center of the screen.
My father came at me. I jumped out of my mom’s rocker, my stomach completing the square knot it had begun with the crash of the front door.
He grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the back hall. “March!” he commanded, wrenching the back door wide. Thrusting me through, he kicked at me, landing a quick smack on my bottom, then slammed the door shut behind me.
I didn’t fall, but my rear end burned with the sting of his shoe. I stood for a moment, blinking at the brilliant afternoon. Tears welled in my eyes.
Pete appeared from the open garage doorway and greeted me enthusiastically. His sandpaper tongue dragged across my face, helping my stomach to settle.
Reconsidering my runaway plan, I returned to the prickers. Two hours passed before my mother pulled into the driveway and I felt safe enough to go back inside our house.
RUNAWAY PLAN: Cincinnati/Day Two (1984)
The next morning, Molly led me upstairs and knocked on the door of the apartment directly above us. A young blond man answered. A bounding German shepherd pushed past him into the hall. “Danny, I want you to meet my brother, Greg,” she said.
“Hi Greg!” he shook my hand. I drank in his blue eyes, his sweet smile, his worn jeans. Could he be gay? I wasn’t sure how to tell. Jupiter Jones had never taught me that deductive skill.
“Hi,” I returned his handshake, trying not to stare.
“And this is Chauncey,” Molly said as the dog jumped at me, demanding my attention. I got to my knees and tried to greet Danny’s energetic pet.
“Hi Chauncey!” I said. He heard his name and landed on me, his tongue drenching my face. I thought of my own dog, Pete, and our twilight walks back at home. The memory tugged at my heart, but I fought it. I was done with home; this was college; this was my escape.
I had eight days before classes began, but I wanted to scope out the Xavier campus. Like any good detective.
Telling my sister I’d catch up with her later, I popped Sheena’s Best Kept Secret cassette into Bufford’s player and headed to Xavier University. I sang along enthusiastically with my favorite songs – Telefone, Almost Over You, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.
I neared my new school. A plush carpet of grass surrounded the entire campus. At the center, a brick castle-like string of buildings towered above a long, sloping hill. It was much bigger than McQuaid, my Jesuit high school back home.
From inside the car, I mentally ticked off the locations I’d seen on my orientation map. Football field. Student parking. Chapel. On paper, everything had seemed orderly and close.
In person, it was immense.
On the way home I picked up a five-scoop sundae from a Cincinnati ice cream shop. Alone at the apartment, I devoured the ice cream.
Later, I packed my journal, beach towel, and Sheena cassettes into my book bag. I climbed two more flights up the stairwell, walkman in hand, and headed to the roof.
Molly had done some sunbathing up there. She told me the roof was available to all tenants. I prayed none of them were up there today. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think.
I cracked open the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out. Silvery tar covered the surface – to reflect the sun, I guessed. It felt hot against my bare feet, but the peaceful stillness immediately overrode the sting. Other than a few pigeons, who skittered away at my approach, I was the only one there.
Our building stood taller than the others in the neighborhood, so I could see for miles in every direction. The downtown skyline and river to the south. The hint of green hills to the north.
The quiet reminded me of the field behind Big Brick’s barn. Despite my efforts to move on, a heavy wave of longing washed over me, intensified beyond the levels I’d learned to cope with. The image of the Jesuit castle on the hill flooded my mind.
I spread the towel and lay in the warm sun, wondering what college would be like. And, even if I were careful, whether my secret would be found out.
Chapter Three: Secrets (1974 continued)
MOM CARRIED FORWARD the theme of self-sacrifice from her childhood to our household. If we grumbled about having too much homework or complained about jobs that Dad assigned us around Big Brick, she would gently encourage us to offer it up.
As Catholics, we knew that God welcomed our smallest sacrifices: for the conversion of sinners on Earth; for the saving of souls in Purgatory; for the preparation of our own hearts to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. When something was unpleasant and unchangeable, it was to be offered up to Heaven.
I had some personal experience with Catholic sacrifice. The previous spring, I discovered a book on the downstairs bookshelves: Our Lady of Fatima. In just a couple of days, I devoured the story of the Blessed Virgin – Jesus’ mom – visiting three children in Portugal back in 1917. Each of them had seen Our Lady floating on a cloud while they knelt by a stone. They’d been entrusted with secrets, just like something out of Nancy Drew, except real.
The kids in the book made sacrifices to help the souls of sinners everywhere. They wore wool against their skin and suffered itchy consequences. They slept on boards and didn’t complain about being tired. Instead, they offered it up.
The story fascinated me. I wanted to do my part, to help the sinners’ souls. And maybe, if I tried the same thing, the Blessed Mother would appear and tell me secrets.
In the barn, I found a couple of thin boards. I sneaked them into the house when Mike wasn’t around and placed them underneath the bottom sheet on my bed. I got to my knees. “God, I promise to sleep on these boards for the conversion of sinners,” I whispered.
The wood was stiff and the edges jutted up through the cotton, pressing into my stomach and hip. I repositioned the boards long ways, so my body would fit on a single slab. That was a little better.
I slept restlessly for a few nights. The fourth night, Mom tucked me in. She touched the bed and felt the hardness.
“What’s this?” she asked me.
I explained what I was doing.
“Oh no, Honey, that’s not necessary, God doesn’t expect you to do that.”
We removed the boards and she kissed me goodnight. As I lay back on the soft sheets, I reconsidered the whole situation. It seemed that God did want the kids in Fatima to make sacrifices like that – and they were only my age. Plus, Mom was the one who taught us to offer things up in the first place.
Nonetheless, she said not to sleep on the boards and, other than Father McFarland, she was the holiest person I knew, so I listened.
If desire for holiness didn’t provide enough incentive, Mom had a second line of defense to stave off our grumbling. “Think of what Paul’s been through,” she’d say. That always brought us to a quick stop. Our oldest brother had problems that eclipsed any complaints we could muster.
I knew Paul had indentations on his skull from brain surgery, but I wasn’t clear on the details. One day in our shared bedroom, I asked Mike about it.
Setting down the barbells he’d been assembling, he looked straight at me. “When Paul was six weeks old, his head got really big and his eyes started going from side to side. Mom and Dad rushed him to the hospital and found out he had hydrocephalus. Do you know what that is?”
I’d heard the word around our house. A lot. “Not really.” I lay across my bedspread and listened as Mike continued.
“That means your brain doesn’t drain fluid the way it’s supposed to. It makes your head get really big and it’ll kill you if you don’t relieve the pressure. He was probably born with it.”
His voice lowered. “That’s when the miracle happened.”
I sat up straight. Miracles were like mysteries.
“When Paul was a baby, only three doctors in the whole United States knew how to put in a shunt. That’s the tube Paul has inside him to drain fluid off his brain. The miracle is that God had one of those doctors right at Paul’s hospital in Rochester.”
“Wow!”
“When he was little, he had to go back for a lot of surgeries to get his shunt to work right. It was such a new thing, it would sometimes back up. They had to try different ways to make it work. At one point, they even drilled a little hole in his skull to let the fluid drain off if the pressure got too much. The spot used to swell up like a ping pong ball whenever he got a headache and he’d just pump it up and down. Whatever was clogging his shunt would clear out and the lump would go down.”
“Is that why he’s got a dent on the top of his head?”
“Yeah, that’s where the hole is.” Mike picked up the barbells and continued their assembly. I sensed the end of the story.
My brother looked at me as I stood. He paused, then spoke. “That’s why Mom’s so protective of him, you know,” he added. “When he has headaches or throws up, she gets worried that he might have to go back to the hospital. And she’d always afraid that he might hurt his head by lifting heavy stuff or tripping and falling.” I nodded in understanding. I’d seen our mother fuss over Paul many times.
???
A month after my father kicked me out the back door, our backyard was pricker-free – thanks to a chemical weed treatment by the local garden store. Dad had finally called them after I’d picked twenty-three dollars worth with no discernable progress.
Lush grass now circled Big Brick, the newly installed pool, and our willow and maple trees, stretching long and green toward the barn. At our lawn’s borders, overgrown fields extended in every direction. Beyond that, stalks of corn sloped in gentle rows past the pond up to the edge of the forest. A farmer from down the road owned the cornfield; he spent every spring tilling and planting with his tractor.
Together, Pete and I spent July searching the entire property for crooks or buried treasure. Things like the Hardy Boys always found. So far, the only evidence I’d discovered was three lonely boards – a makeshift ladder – nailed to a huge maple tree at the forest’s edge. Maybe kids had once built a tree house there. Or maybe thieves had used the tree for a lookout. Back before I was born.
Throughout our investigation, no other mysteries surfaced, which is why my brother’s bet took me off guard. Mike bet me twenty dollars that there was a secret room somewhere inside our barn.
I considered his proposition carefully. I only had twenty-three dollars – my pricker funds – in my account at the Macedon branch of the Rochester Savings Bank. I’d worked too hard for this money to part with such a significant chunk unnecessarily.
Experience had taught me to be cautious around my brother. At eight years old to his fourteen, I often worked to convince him I was a capable sidekick, like Joe Hardy was to Frank. Circumstances had encouraged the opposite.
When he’d insisted I ride shotgun on the snowmobile the previous winter, I cried, convinced I’d fly off during one of his speedy turns. When we’d cleaned the cellar that spring, I ran from a spider, even after he’d yelled at me to be brave.
Betting ground seemed safer territory, especially considering the detecting Pete and I had accomplished. Granted, twenty dollars was a lot of money, but I wouldn’t lose any limbs or be poisoned by some vengeful tarantula.
I accepted his challenge.
We headed outside and approached the barn’s main entrance. My brother slid back one of the massive wooden doors as daylight showered the interior.
The barn had once been used for dairy production, but only hints of the former occupants remained. A rusted neck clamp. The smell of petrified dung. Now our family used the space to store extra belongings. Mike and I stepped around boxes of Dad’s tools, Gram’s spare furniture, and Mom’s record albums. We climbed a ladder to the next level.
Most of the second floor was wide open – like the insides of an armored dinosaur. The frame of the tin ceiling was visible; no drywall covered the guts. Very little natural light permeated the darkness, with only two small windows at either end, fifty feet above our heads. Twin ceiling bulbs fought unsuccessfully to illuminate what the windows couldn’t.
Pigeons had roosted in the rafters over the years. They rustled nervously at our entrance. Mike stopped and gave a loud “HEY!” which reverberated in the cavernous space. The satisfying sound of flapping rose in a crescendo as the birds relocated to the south end of the barn. Darkness masked their flight.
I turned to face my brother. “Okay, where’s this secret room?” I said, trying to sound like a tough negotiator. In response, my brother led me to the raised platform at the north end of the second floor. We called this area “the stage.”
I’d never had the nerve to venture onto the stage’s surface. Instead of nailed-down flooring like the rest of the upstairs, the stage looked hastily assembled. Long planks lay loose across the stage’s support beams. Bare holes between the planks showed light from the first floor – holes big enough to stuff a kid’s body through. Through them, I could see the first floor fifteen feet below. Enough of a drop to make my skull as lumpy as Paul’s.
The stairway to the stage consisted of three short boards nailed to a rickety wooden frame. I tested the first. It creaked under my weight. “I’m not sure about this,” my voice cracked as my Hardy Boy resolve diminished.
Mike worked his way across the stage. I made it to the second, then third stair, imagining how my head would look cracked apart on the cement below, goo flowing freely from the gash. Gram would retell the story for years to come. “Good night shirt!” would become my epitaph.
“Come on!” Mike pressured me. “It’s safe. I’ve been up here before. You just have to stay over the supports.” He stepped carefully, always keeping his weight directly above one of the massive support beams. I watched as he reached his goal: a half-wall on the far side of the stage, which hid the area beyond.
“See?” he said, reaching a wooden ladder on the far wall. He looked back at me and lost his patience. “Greg, why are you so scared all the time?! I wouldn’t tell you to do it if it wasn’t okay!” He turned away and started up the rungs.
Weighing the humiliation of my brother’s disappointment against the image of my brains splattered on concrete, I gingerly stepped onto the planks. I advanced in small, precise steps, ensuring I didn’t come close to any of the gaping holes. My stomach remained a tight knot across the short distance. Reaching the far side, I hugged the built-in ladder in relief.
“Come on up!” Mike said. “We’re almost there.”
Securely fastened ladders seemed less frightening in comparison. I climbed to the top of the half-wall and discovered a twin ladder on the opposite side. It led down into darkness. My brother had already climbed to the bottom and had flicked on the flashlight he’d brought. With the stage crossing behind me, the intrigue of a secret room quelled the panic in my gut.
I crawled down the ladder into the deep wooden well, holding tightly to each rung. Reaching my foot out, I tested the floor. Dirt covered the bottom like a rug; I had to push it around with my shoe to find the solid boards beneath. A swirl of dust shot into the flashlight beam as a sneezing fit seized me.
My brother laughed at me. “You gonna make it?”
“Yeah,” I said, holding my nose to stave off more sneezes.
My curiosity overrode the threat of insects lurking in the pitch-black space. It was as good as any hidden room I’d ever read about in a mystery story! In our current location, we couldn’t be seen from any point inside or outside of the barn. If we stayed absolutely quiet, nobody could hear us. Crooks on my tail might search for hours in vain.
We walked around, dust rising in a thick cloud from our movements. I kept a clamp-hold on my nose as Mike measured the distance across the space with his stride. “I’d say it’s about twelve feet by twelve feet. Pretty good, huh? Whattya think?”
“It’s great!” I said. “How did it get here?”
“These were grain bins back when this was a cow barn. There’s three of them total, but this is the biggest one. It makes a pretty good secret room, huh?” I nodded and sneezed at the same time.
My brother laughed again. “Well, you lose the bet,” he reminded me. “I know you only have twenty-three dollars in the whole world, so I guess you don’t have to pay me.”
I smiled to myself. Frank Hardy often looked out for Joe’s best interests. Once in awhile, Mike did the same for me.
“It’s great!” I said again, imagining the bin filled with grain. Maybe a farmhand had once fallen in. Maybe he’d suffocated. My neck hair bristled appreciatively.
The dust began to settle as we stopped our exploring. Mike held the flashlight beneath his chin, casting a fierce shadow across his features. “Greg Gerard is a boy retard,” he moaned in a raspy voice.
I punched his muscled arm. “You know Mom said not to say ‘retard’!” Mom never let us use that word. Especially around Paul.
Mike shined the flashlight into my eyes as if in defiance of Mom’s authority, then resumed the below-the-chin position. “Wanna know another secret?” he whispered.
“Okay,” I said.
My brother leaned closer. “Do you know how a mom and a dad make a baby?” he asked.
I stared at him, searching for a clue, but his expression remained superior and indifferent. From his tone, I suspected this secret was something naughtier than a hidden room in the barn.
I turned the clues over in my mind. Married people had babies. Didn’t it just happen after you got married? I imagined my parents trying to make a baby. I knew they slept in the same bed. I’d seen them both in the bathroom once with no clothes on, getting ready to go out to dinner. Maybe – hmmm. I envisioned my mom and dad standing naked, rubbing their bottoms together, cooking up another kid.
I shook my head.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. After all…you are only eight.”
“Come on!” I yelled, louder than was allowed indoors. Whenever our voices rose in volume inside Big Brick, Mom reminded us of her main rule: “I won’t have fighting in this house!” Here in the barn, we were safe to be as loud as we wanted.
“Well…I guess it’s okay…” he offered one final tease, then began to explain how it all worked. Penises and vaginas. Sperm and egg. My eyes widened. It sounded silly – and bizarre.
“You’re making this up!” I said.
“Greg, I am not!” Athough I didn’t always agree with my brother, I could sense when he was lying. This was the truth.
I relented, trying to imagine a girl touching me down there. My stomach grumbled.
“That’s gross,” I said out loud. Mike laughed.
We climbed out of the secret room and made our way slowly back across the stage. I continued to offer passionate objections to what he’d told me. My brother laughed again. “You’ll understand about making babies when you get older,” he assured me. “You’ll want to do it.”
I deferred to his older wisdom but, listening to the anxious rustling of the pigeons far above our heads, I wondered.
“One should always look for a possible alternative, and provide against it.
It is the first rule of criminal investigation.”
~Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Cast of Characters
Caroline: Greg’s new neighbor; her parents’ sex book is hidden in the guest room drawer
Sister Helen: Her guitar playing brings Greg closer to his favorite movie, The Sound of Music