Early Autumn

CHAPTER 6

It was Friday night, and Susan Silverman and I were at the Garden watching the Celtics and the Phoenix Suns play basketball. I was eating peanuts and drinking beer and explaining to Susan the fine points of going back door. I was having quite a good time. She was bored.

“You owe me for this,” she said. She had barely sipped at a paper cup of beer in one hand. There was a lipstick half moon on the rim.

“They don’t sell champagne by the paper cup here,” I said.

“How about a Graves?”

“You want me to get beat up,” I said. “Go up and ask if they sell a saucy little white Bordeaux?”

“Why is everyone cheering?” she said.

“Westphal just stuffed the ball backward over his head, didn’t you see?”

“He’s not even on the Celtics.”

“No, but the fans appreciate the shot. Besides, he used to be.”

“This is very boring,” she said.

I offered my peanuts to her. She took two.

“Afterwards I’ll let you kiss me,” I said.

“I’m thinking better of the game,” she said.

Cowens hit an outside shot.

“How come most of the players are black?” Susan said.

“Black man’s game,” I said. “Hawk says it’s heritage. Says there were a lot of schoolyards in the jungle.”

She smiled and sipped at the beer. She made a face. “How can you drink so much of this stuff?” she said.

“Practice,” I said. “Years of practice.”

Walter Davis hit a jump shot.

“What were you saying before about that boy you found Wednesday? What’s his name?”

“Paul Giacomin,” I said.

“Yes,” Susan said. “You said you wanted to talk about him.”

“But not while I’m watching the ball game.”

“Can’t you watch and talk at the same time? If you can’t, go buy me something to read.”

I shelled a peanut. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just that I keep thinking about him. I feel bad for him.”

“There’s a surprise.”

“That I feel bad for him?”

“You’d feel bad for Wile E. Coyote,” Susan said.

Westphal hit a left-handed scoop shot. The Celtics were losing ground.

“The kid’s a mess,” I said. “He’s skinny. He seems to have no capacity to decide anything. His only firm conviction is that both his parents suck.”

“That’s not so unusual a conviction for a fifteen-year-old kid,” Susan said. She took another peanut.

“Yes, but in this case the kid may be right.”

“Now you don’t know that,” Susan said. “You haven’t had enough time with them to make any real judgment.”

The Suns had scored eight straight points. The Celtics called time out.

“Better than you,” I said. “I been with the kid. His clothes aren’t right and they don’t fit right. He doesn’t know what to do in a restaurant. No one’s ever taught him anything.”

“Well, how important is it to know how to behave in a restaurant?” Susan said.

“By itself it’s not important,” I said. “It’s just an instance, you know? I mean no one has taken any time with him. No one has told him anything, even easy stuff about dressing and eating out. He’s been neglected. No one’s told him how to act.”

The Celtics put the ball in play from midcourt. Phoenix stole it and scored. I shook my head. Maybe if Cousy came out of retirement.

Susan said, “I haven’t met this kid, but I have met a lot of kids. It is, after all, my line of work. You’d be surprised at how recalcitrant kids this age are about taking guidance from parents. They are working through the Oedipal phase, among other things, often they look and act as if they haven’t had any care, even when they have. It’s a way to rebel.”

The Celtics threw the ball away. The Suns scored.

I said, “Are you familiar with the term blowout?”

“Is it like a burnout?” she said.

“No, I mean the game. You are witnessing a blowout,” I said.

“Are the Celtics losing?”

“Yes.”

“Want to leave?”

“No. It’s not just who wins. I like to watch the way they play.”

She said, “Mmm.”

I got another bag of peanuts and another beer. With five minutes left the score was 114 to 90. I looked up at the rafters where the retired numbers hung.

“You should have seen it,” I said to Susan.

“What?” She brushed a peanut shell from her lap. She was wearing blue jeans from France tucked into the tops of black boots.

“Cousy and Sharman, and Heinsohn and Lostcutoff and Russell Havlicek, Sanders, Ramsey, Sam Jones, and K. C. Jones, Paul Silas and Don Nelson. And the war they’d have with the Knicks with Al McGuire on Cousy. And Russell against Chamberlain. You should have seen Bill Russell.”

She said, “Yawn.” The sleeves of her black wool turtleneck were pushed up on her forearms and the skin of her forearms was smooth and white in contrast. On a gold chain around her neck was a small diamond. She’d removed her engagement ring when she’d gotten divorced and had the stone reset She’d had her hair permed into a very contemporary bunch of small Afro-looking curls. Her mouth was wide and her big dark eyes hinted at clandestine laughter.

“On the other hand,” I said, “Russell ought to see you.”

“Gimme a peanut,” she said.

The final score was 130 to 101 and the Garden was nearly empty when the buzzer sounded. It was nine twenty-five. We put on our coats and moved toward the exits. It was easy. No pushing. No shoving. Most people had left a long time ago. In fact most people hadn’t come at all.

“It’s a fine thing that Walter Brown’s not around to see this,” I said. “In the Russell years you had to fight to get in and out”

“That sounds like a good time,” Susan said. “Sorry I missed it.”

On Causeway Street, under the elevated, it was very cold. I said, “You want to walk up to The Market? Or shall we go home?”

“It’s cold,” Susan said. “Let’s go home to my house and I’ll make us a goodie.” She had the collar of her raccoon coat turned up so that her face was barely visible inside it

The heater in my MG took hold on Route 93 and we were able to unbutton before we got to Medford. “The thing about that kid,” I said, “is that he’s like a hostage. His mother and father hate each other and use him to get even with each other.”

Susan shook her head. “God, Spenser, how old are you? Of course they do that Even parents who don’t hate each other do that Usually the kids survive it”

“This kid isn’t going to survive it,” I said, “He’s too alone.”

Susan was quiet

“He hasn’t got any strengths,” I said. “He’s not smart or strong or good-looking or funny or tough. All he’s got is a kind of ratty meanness. It’s not enough.”

“So what do you think you’ll do about it?” Susan said.

“Well, I’m not going to adopt him.”

“How about a state agency. The Office for Children, say, or some such.”

“They got enough trouble fighting for their share of federal funds. I wouldn’t want to burden them with a kid.”

“I know people who work in human services for the state,” Susan said. “Some are very dedicated.”

“And competent?”

“Some.”

“You want to give me a percentage?”

“That are dedicated and competent?”

“Yeah.”

“You win,” she said.

We turned onto Route 128. “So what do you propose,” Susan said.

“I propose to let him go down the tube,” I said. “I can’t think of anything to do about it.”

“But it bothers you.”

“Sure, it bothers me. But I’m used to that too. The world is full of people I can’t save. I get used to that. I got used to it on the cops. Any cop does. You have to or you go down the tube too.”

“I know,” Susan said.

“On the other hand I may see the kid again.”

“Professionally?”

“Yeah. The old man will take him again. She’ll try to get him back. They’re too stupid and too lousy to let this go. I wouldn’t be surprised if she called me again.”

“You’d be smart to say no if she does. You won’t feel any better by getting into it again.”

“I know,” I said.

We were quiet. I turned off of Route 128 at the Smithfield Center exit and drove to Susan’s house.

“I’ve got a bottle of new Beaujolais,” Susan said in the kitchen. “How about I make us a couple of cheeseburgers and we can eat them and drink the Beaujolais?”

“Will you toast my hamburger roll?” I said.

“I certainly will,” Susan said. “And who knows, maybe later I’ll light your fire too, big fella.”

“Oh, honeylips,” I said. “You really know how to talk to a guy.”

She handed me the bottle of wine. “You know where the corkscrew is,” she said. “Open it and let it breathe a little, while I do the cheeseburgers.”

I did.