The Turnaround

Three

Alex Pappas had the ticket stub from the Rolling Stones concert up on the bulletin board in his room. The Stones had played RFK Stadium on July 4, a few weeks earlier, and Alex and his friends Billy Cachoris and Pete Whitten had been there. Alex had spent hours in line at the Ticketron outlet at Sears in White Oak, waiting with the other heads to score seats, but it had been worth it. Alex did not think he would ever forget that day, not even when he got to be as ancient as his old man.

Also on the board were tickets from Baltimore Bullets games he had attended with his father, who had generously driven him and his friends up to the Baltimore Civic Center. Earl the Pearl, Alex’s player, had been traded to the Knicks this midseason past, and with him had gone some of the attraction of the Bullets. It wasn’t the same, rooting for Dave Stallworth and Mike Riordan instead of Monroe.

Alex was in his bedroom, waiting for his girlfriend to call. The record by that new group Blue Oyster Cult was playing on his compact stereo system, an eighty-watt Webcor home entertainment unit that included two air suspension speakers, an AM/FM radio, a record changer and dust cover, and a built-in eight-track deck. He had saved up his tip money and bought it with cash up at the Dalmo store in Wheaton. By the unit were some eight-tracks, Manassas, Thick as a Brick, and Broken Barricades, but Alex preferred records, which sounded better than tape and didn’t have channel breaks in the middle of the songs. Plus, he liked to take the shrink-wrap off a new album, read the credits and liner notes, and study the artwork as he listened to the music.

He was looking at the Blue Oyster Cult art now, while “Then Came the Last Days of May” played in the room. The song was about the end of something, its tone both ominous and mysterious, and it troubled Alex and excited him. The cover of the record was a black-and-white drawing of a building that stretched out to infinity, stars and a sliver of moon in a black sky above it, and, hovering over the building, a symbol that looked like a hooked cross. The images were unsettling, in keeping with the music, which was heavy, dark, dangerous, and beautiful. This was Alex’s favorite new group. They were due to open for Quicksilver Messenger Service at Constitution Hall, and Alex planned to go.

The phone on the floor rang, and Alex picked it up. From the tremor in her voice he knew Karen had been crying.

“What’s wrong?” said Alex.

“My stepmother is such a bitch.”

“What she do?”

“She won’t let me go out tonight,” said Karen. “She says I’ve got to stay and babysit my sister. She says she told me about this last week. But she never told me anything.”

Karen’s sister was her half sister. The baby, no longer an infant, was the result of the union between Karen’s father and his youngish second wife. Karen’s mother had died of breast cancer. Karen’s father was a prick. Everything was wrong in their home.

“Can you sneak out later?” said Alex.

“Alex, the baby’s only two years old. I can’t leave her.”

“Just for, like, fifteen minutes.”

“Alex!”

“Look, okay, I’ll come over. After your folks go out.”

“What are we going to do?”

“You know, just talk,” said Alex. He was thinking of Karen’s pink nipples and black bush.

“We better not,” said Karen. “You know what happened last time.”

Her parents had come home early and surprised them during a make-out session on Karen’s bed. Alex had emerged from Karen’s bedroom with a bone protruding from under the fabric of his Levi’s and some excuse about having gone in there to try and fix her stereo. Her father had stood there red-faced, unable to speak. He was a class-A jagoff who had been lousy to Karen since the new wife had come into the family.

“I guess you’re right,” said Alex. “I’ll just go out with Billy and Pete.”

“Maybe tomorrow?” said Karen.

“Maybe,” said Alex.

He hung up and found his friends. Pete could get the family’s Olds that night, and Billy was ready to go. Alex put on jeans with a thick belt, a shirt with snap buttons, and Jarman two-tone shoes with three-inch heels. He shut down the stereo and left the room.

His brother, Matthew, fourteen, was in his bedroom down the hall. Matthew was close to Alex’s size and excelled on the football field, the baseball diamond, and in class. He was more competent than Alex in every way except the one way that counted between boys. Alex could still take him in a fight. It wouldn’t be that way for much longer, but for now, it defined their relationship.

Alex stopped in the doorway. Matthew was lying atop his bed, tossing a baseball up in the air and catching it with his glove. He had thick, wavy hair and a big beak, like the old man. Alex’s hair was curly, like their mom’s.

“Pussy,” said Alex.

“Fag,” said Matthew.

“I’m headin out.”

“Later.”

Alex went along the hall, past his parents’ bedroom, and stopped at the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. The air drifting out smelled like soapy water, cigarettes, and farts. His father was in there, taking one of his half-hour baths, something he did every night.

“I’m goin out, Dad,” said Alex through the break in the door. “With Billy and Pete.”

“The three geniuses. What’re you gonna do?”

“Knock down old ladies and steal their purses.”

“You.” Alex didn’t have to look in the bathroom to see the small wave of his father’s hand.

“I won’t be late,” said Alex, anticipating the next question.

“Who’s drivin?”

“Pete’s got his father’s car.”

“Idiots,” muttered his father, and Alex continued down the hall.

His mother, Calliope “Callie” Pappas, sat in the kitchen at the oval eating table, talking on the phone while she smoked a Silva Thin Gold 100. Her eyebrows were tweezed into two black strips, her face carefully made up, as always. Her hair had recently been frosted at Vincent et Vincent. She wore a shift from Lord and Taylor and thick-heeled sandals. Second generation, she cared about fashion and movie stars, and was less Greek than her husband. Their house was always clean, and a hot dinner was always served promptly. John Pappas was the workhorse; Callie kept the stable clean.

“Goin out, Ma,” said Alex.

She put her hand over the speaker of the phone and tapped ash into a tray. “To do what?”

“Nothin,” said Alex.

“Who’s driving?”

“Pete.”

“Don’t drink beer,” she said, as a horn honked from outside. She gave him an air kiss, and he headed for the door.

Alex left the house, a small brick affair with white shutters on a street of houses that looked just like it.

Billy and Pete had bought a couple of sixes of Schlitz up at Country Boy in Wheaton. They held open cans between their legs as Alex got into the backseat of the Olds. Billy reached into the bag at his feet and handed a can of beer to Alex.

“We’re way ahead of you, Pappas,” said Pete, lean, blond, agile, and tall, a Protestant white boy among ethnics in the mostly working-to-middle-class area of southeastern Montgomery County. His father was a lawyer. The fathers of his friends worked service and retail jobs. Many of them were World War II veterans. Their sons would grow up in a futile, unspoken attempt to be as tough as their old men.

“Drink up, bitch,” said Billy, broad of shoulder and chest. He carried a shadow of a beard, though he was only seventeen years old.

Billy and Pete usually swung by Alex’s last, so they could commandeer the front seat. It was understood that Alex was not the lead dog in this particular pack. He was somewhat smaller than they were, less physically aggressive, and often the butt of their jokes. They were not cruel to him, exactly, but they were often condescending. Alex accepted the arrangement, as it had been this way since junior high.

Alex pulled the ring on the Schlitz and dropped it into the hole in the top of the can. He drank the beer, still cold from the coolers of the store they called Country Kill.

“You guys got any reefer?” said Alex.

“Bone dry,” said Pete.

“We’re gettin some tomorrow morning,” said Billy. “You in?”

“How much?”

“Forty for an OZ.”

“ Forty? ”

“It’s Lumbo, man,” said Pete. “My guy says it’s prime.”

“Not like that Mexican ragweed you buy from Ronnie Leibowitz.”

“Hebe-owitz,” said Billy, and Pete laughed.

“I’m in,” said Alex. “But, look, pull over soon as you get off my street.”

Pete curbed the Olds and let it idle. Alex produced a film canister that held a thimble-sized portion of pot. “I found this in my drawer. It’s a little stale…”

“Gimme that shit,” said Billy, who took the canister, looked into it, and shook it. “We can’t even roll a J with this.”

Pete pushed the lighter in on the dash. When it popped back out, he pulled it and Billy immediately dumped the small amount of reefer onto the lighter’s orange coils. They took turns snorting the smoke that rose off the hot surface. It was only enough for a headache, but they liked the smell.

“Where we goin?” said Alex.

“Downtown,” said Pete, turning the car onto Colesville Road and driving south for the District line.

Billy pulled a Marlboro from a pack he had slipped behind the sun visor and fired it up. The windows were down and the warm night air flowed into the car, blowing back their hair. They all wore it long.

The car was a white-over-blue Cutlass Supreme. Because of the color scheme, and because it was not the 442, Billy often needled Pete about the vehicle, saying it was a car for “housewives and homos.”

“What,” said Billy, “did your mother pick this out while your father was at work?”

“Least we own it,” said Pete. Billy’s father, a Ford salesman at the Hill and Sanders showroom in Wheaton, brought home loaners. Pete’s father was an attorney for the UAW, a “professional,” which Pete never tired of mentioning to his friends. Pete got good grades and had recently scored well on the SATs. Billy and Alex were C students and had no special plans. They had gotten high and drunk the night before the test.

The boys argued over the choice of radio stations all the way down 16th Street. Alex wanted to listen to WGTB, the progressive FM station coming out of Georgetown U’s campus, but Billy blew that idea off.

“He’s hoping they play Vomit Rooster,” said Billy.

“ Atomic Rooster,” said Alex.

“Nights in White Satin” came on the radio, but Billy switched it because they weren’t stoned. He switched off another station that was playing that Lobo song about the dog and stayed with another one only long enough to change the words of the Roberta Flack hit to “The first time ever I sat on your face.” Billy found a station that was spinning music with guitars and let it ride. They listened to singles by T-Rex, Argent, and Alice Cooper, and when “Day After Day” came on, Billy turned it all the way up. They were down near Foggy Bottom by the time the song had finished. Pete found a place to park.

They walked to a nightclub owned by Blackie Auger. They weren’t old enough to drink, but all of them had draft cards they had bought from older guys in the neighborhood. The doorman had a look at them, saw three guys in jeans from the working-class side of the suburbs, and balked at letting them in. But Alex talked them through the door by saying he knew Blackie, the legendary Greek restaurateur and bar owner. Alex did not know Auger and neither did his parents. In fact, he was in an entirely different class of Greek American and had never come in contact with him. Alex’s family attended “the immigrant church” on 16th Street, while Auger and others of his standing were members of the “uptown” cathedral at 36th and Mass.

The doorman let them pass. The chance that the kid might be telling the truth was their ticket in.

They knew they were out of place as soon as they entered the club. The men were in their twenties and wore stacks and tight double-knit trousers, with rayon big-collared shirts opened to expose chest hair, medallions, crucifixes, and gold anchors. The women wore dresses and did not look their way. Those on the dance floor seemed to know the current steps. Alex, Billy, and Pete could do stuff they’d seen on the Soul Train dance line, but that was all. Their stay was cut short when a guy with a dollar sign for a belt buckle said something to Billy about being “in the wrong club,” and Billy, who was smoking a Marlboro at the time, said, “Yeah, I didn’t know this was a fag bar,” and flicked his live cigarette off the dude’s chest. The same doorman who had let them in told the boys to get out and “don’t never” come back.

“Don’t never,” said Pete, out on the sidewalk. “Dumbass used a double negative.”

Billy and Alex didn’t know what Pete meant, but they figured it was something about Pete being smarter than the bouncer. Being tossed had been momentarily embarrassing, but none of them felt bad about it for long. It had been fun watching the sparks fly off that dude’s chest, hearing Billy’s cackle of a laugh as the guy balled his fists but didn’t step forward, Billy not giving a good fuck about anything, which was his way.

They drove around some more and drank beer. They thought about going to the Silver Slipper, but the club had a drink minimum and enforced it, and anyway, the Slipper featured burlesque dancers, and burlesque to them meant the ladies didn’t show snatch and took their time about showing bare tit. They ended up buying tickets to a movie called The Teachers, down at 9th and F, at a theater called the Art, which was the wrong name for the place because it was just a stroke house. In the auditorium, which smelled of tobacco, perspiration, and damp newspapers, they sat apart from one another so no one would think they were like that and watched the movie and the older guys in the audience who moaned while they jacked off. Alex got an erection but nothing like the strong one he got while making out with Karen, and thinking of her made him lonely and sad to be where he was. The other guys must have been feeling something like that, too, since they mutually decided to leave before the end of the film. On the way to the car they joked about the fact that all the girl characters were named Uta.

They drove over to Shaw. The beer was warm now, but they continued to drink it. At 14th and S they talked about the time they had bought a whore on that corner for Pete’s sixteenth birthday, a rite of passage for boys in the D.C. area, and joked with Pete about how he had shot off the second he got inside her. In fact, he had blown his load on the dirty sheets of the bed in a tiny third-floor row house room before he had the opportunity to insert his pecker, but he hadn’t related this to his friends. It was bad enough that he had lost his cherry to a black hooker named Shyleen. These guys were the only ones who knew that he had done this thing, and the story would die with their friendship. He would be gone in a year, off to college and a new life. It couldn’t come fast enough.

“Remember when we gave her the fifteen dollars?” said Billy. “Right out on the street? She said, ‘Put that money away; you tryin to get me ’rested?’ ”

Alex had been there. The girl had said “arrested,” not “ ’rested.”

“What do you expect from a boofer?” said Billy.

“Don’t talk about your mama like that,” said Pete.

At U Street, they started up the long hill, going north. From U up to Park Road, the commercial and residential district had been burned and virtually destroyed in the riots. What was left was boarded and charred. Many businesses that had managed to remain standing had closed and moved on.

“Man, did they fuck this up,” said Pete.

“Wonder where the people who lived here went,” said Alex.

“They all out in Nee-grow Heights,” said Billy.

“How do you know, you been out there?” said Pete.

“Your daddy has,” said Billy.

“’Cause you’re always talking about it,” said Pete. “When you gonna stop talking and do it?”

Billy, Pete, and Alex lived a few miles from Heathrow Heights, but they knew of it only by reputation and had not come into contact with its residents. The black kids who lived there were bused to a high school in the wealthier section of Montgomery County whose white students were bound for college, while the boys who went to the high school in down-county Silver Spring were known to be an unpolished mixture of stoners, greasers, and jocks, with a few closet academics in the mix.

“What, you think I’m afraid to go there?” said Billy. “ I’m not afraid.”

Billy was afraid. Of this Alex was certain. Like Billy’s old man, who told nigger jokes on the steps of their church, where everyone gathered after the liturgy. Mr. Cachoris was afraid of black people, too. That’s all it was: fear turned into hate. Billy wasn’t a bad guy, not really. His father had taught him to be ignorant. With Pete it was something different. He always had to look down on someone. Alex wasn’t very book smart, but these were things he knew.

“I just wanna go home.”

“Alex got himself a nig girlfriend down at his father’s coffee shop,” said Billy. “He doesn’t like it when I talk bad about his peoples.”

Billy and Pete gave each other skin and laughed. Alex got small in his seat. Wondering, as he often did when he was coming down at the end of the night, why he hung with these guys.

“I’m tired,” said Alex.

“Pappas wanna go night-night,” said Pete.

Pete Whitten tipped his head back to kill his beer, his long blond hair catching the wind.

The boys grew quiet on the ride home.

Raymond was in his bed, listening to the crickets making their sounds out in the yard. He and James kept the windows open in their room three seasons of the year. Their father had made wood-frame screens that slid apart like wings to fit the space and hold up the sash windows, which no longer stayed up on their own, as their tracked ropes had long since torn. Ernest Monroe could fix most anything with his hands.

Raymond, wearing only briefs, lay atop the sheets, wide awake. He was excited by what he’d found and also feeling a bit guilty for going through his brother’s dresser drawers. James had come in a while ago, said he was tired, and flopped down on his bed. That would have been the time to talk about the gun, but Raymond had been hesitant. He had been wrong to do what he’d done. He’d have to admit that his interest had been stirred by Charles and Larry, and Raymond knew that James didn’t think much of them. It was complicated, trying to find the best way to start the conversation. By the time he’d gotten up the courage to do it, a stillness had fallen in the room that told Raymond he had waited too long.

“Hey, James,” said Raymond.

The crickets rubbed their legs together. A little dog barked from the backyard of the tiny house down the street where Miss Anna lived.

Softly, Raymond said, “James.”