The Temptations of St. Frank Page 9

  “That’s not true!” he shouted. He stared hard at Frank. “Tell her! I pay you. Tell her!”

  “Well…” Frank just let the word hang there, implying what he wanted to say, that no, his father didn’t pay him, not the way he promised. They had agreed that he should get two dollars an hour, but every time he worked, there was always some excuse—his father hadn’t gotten to the bank; he was a little short that day; he had to pay Raul, the guy who worked for him full-time, and there was nothing left; he needed to buy gas, fertilizer, flowers, grass seed, coffee, you name it. There was always a more pressing need for his money than paying his son.

  But occasionally he did pay Frank when the mood struck him, but it was never pay for hours worked. He’d dig into his pocket, peel off a few bills, and hand them to Frank, making it seem more like a gift or a handout. And he expected Frank to thank him as if he was getting money for nothing. If Frank didn’t show the proper amount of gratitude, that would spark another fight. But in these arguments, his father always held the trump card.

  Who got you the guitar and the big amplifier you wanted? his father would always say. Who? Me. That’s who.

  Frank had to admit that his father had come through on that one, which is why Frank usually bit his tongue instead of saying what he really felt.

  Frank’s mother poured some ginger ale for his sister. “Don’t work for him anymore, Frankie,” she said. “Not until he pays you everything he owes you. Everything!”

  “Ah, shuddup, will ya? The kid can think for himself.” Frank Sr. ripped a huge chunk out of his sandwich. “See how you’re aggravating me?” he said with his mouth full. “You’re making me eat.”

  “If you’d bill your big-deal customers once in a while, you’d be able to pay him!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” He bit into his sandwich like a lion devouring a carcass.

  “Yeah, for Mrs. Trombetta we drop everything because she’s having a party on Saturday. You love those people. You want to be one of them. That’s why you don’t bill them.”

  “Shuddup and eat! You’re giving me a headache!”

  Frank reached for the bottle of ginger ale. He knew this was gonna go on for a while. It did most every night. For his parents, fighting was like breathing. They didn’t even think about it. It was just something they did. Thank God, he only had to put up with this craziness for four more months, he told himself. Four more months and he would be going away to college. He hoped.

  His mother was on a rant. She opened a box of Entenmanns’s cherry cheese struddle and picked up the knife that lived inside, waving it like a conductor’s baton. “You love those goddamn rich people up in Short Hills. You ought to move in with them. Go ahead. Ask Mrs. Trombetta if she’s got a bed for you. Then you could work for free all the time!”

  His father slid another slithery manicotti onto his plate. “Be quite, will ya! You’re upsetting the kids! You’re upsetting everybody!”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn! I’m upset!”

  Frank brought his glass to his mouth, closed his eyes, and gulped some ginger ale, tuning out his parents. This would go on until his mother made coffee. That’s when they usually ran out of steam and settled in front of the TV for the night. It was Monday. The Carol Burnett Show would be on later. His mother liked that show. His father would probably go out for more coffee with his buddies.

  Frank turned to his sister to see if she was eating since no one was paying attention to her.

  “You want some—“ he started, but then he saw that her eyes were squeezed shut. Her hands were folded, the rhinestone rosary beads tangled in her fingers, naked Barbie in the crook of her elbow as she mouthed a Hail Mary.

  Frank suddenly felt bad for her, bad that he would be leaving her alone with his nutty parents when he went away to college. How would she ever survive?

  He leaned toward her and heard her whispering, “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen…”

  Chapter 9

  “Hey, watch this,” Molloy said.

  He was sitting next to Frank at a long table in the school library with the rest of his class, all of them slumped in their chairs with open books and notebooks in front of them. It was fourth-period study hall, and Frank had his math book open, trying to finish his homework. The library was just two large musty rooms in a building attached to the chapel. Unlike Mulvaney Hall and Grady Gymnasium, this building had no name other than “the library.”

  Molloy turned around in his seat and grabbed a book at random from the shelves. Frank could see that it was old by just looking at it, like 1920s old. The mustard-brown cover was faded and frayed, and the spine was split. The color reminded Frank of the inside of a baby’s diaper. The title on the cover was well on its way to fading away completely: Missionary Adventures in the Congo by Fr. Raymond Montgomery, S.J. A Jesuit, of course.

  “You’re gonna read that?” Frank said.

  “Watch the Root,” Molloy said. “Let me know if he looks this way.”

  Mr. Rutowicz, the school librarian, sat at his desk on the other side of the room in his usual position, bent forward over an open book, glasses on the end of his nose, left hand glued to his cheek in the “oh my!” position. That hand rarely left his face. Frank used to think it was some kind of karmic punishment for doing too many Jack Benny imitations, but the Root had no sense of humor whatsoever, so that probably wasn’t the reason for his affliction.

  Molloy bent sideways, dug into his book bag on the floor, and came up with a package of Twinkies.

  “You’re not supposed to eat in the library,” Frank said. He didn’t give a damn about the rules, he just didn’t want the Root to go into one of his screaming shit-fits because he always spit when he yelled and Frank would be in the line of fire if he spotted Molloy scarfing down a Twinkie.

  “Cough,” Molloy whispered to him. “Loud.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it. He’ll get suspicious if I do it.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I do it all the time in here.”

  “What the fuck’re you doing, Molloy?”

  “Just cough. You’ll like this.”

  Frank shrugged and did what Molloy wanted, coughing into his fist.

  “Louder.”

  Frank obliged and coughed louder. As he did, Molloy ripped open the noisy cellophane wrapper on the Twinkies. The Root didn’t flinch.

  Molloy slipped one of the two Twinkies out of the package and dropped the other one back into his bag. He opened up Missionary Adventures in the Congo to a page somewhere in the middle, shoved the Twinkie inside, and slammed it shut.

  “What the fuck, Molloy!” Frank couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.

  Molloy inspected the edges of the book, swiping away the squished cream that had spurted out. He licked his finger and put the book back on the shelf where he’d found it.

  “What’d you do that for?” Frank said.

  “I’ve been doing that every school day since Easter junior year.”

  “What?”

  “Nobody looks at these fucking books, and this is the proof. As far as I know, no one—not even the Root—has found any of my little ‘bookmarks.’”

  Frank was stunned. He calculated in his head. Twenty school days a month. About three months last school year, almost eight this year. Eleven months times 20. There were roughly 220 books with smashed Twinkies inside, and no one knew. Way to go, Molloy!

  “You always use Twinkies?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah, mostly. They work best. But I have used Ring-Dings and Devil Dogs a few times. Problem is, they crunch kind of loud because of the chocolate coating.” Molloy was as serious as a nuclear scientist talking about bomb technology.

  “Ever try a Sno-ball?”

 
“Yeah, once. In an atlas. I had to sit on it, though, to get it flat. It was like trying to flatten a tennis ball because of the goddamn marshmallow.”

  “What country did you smash it on?”

  “I did a city. Washington D.-fucking-C. Right in Nixon’s asshole face. I’ll show you where the book is. You can see for yourself.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll take your word for it.” Molloy was easily the most radical kid in school. He went to anti-war marches and bad-mouthed Nixon and Agnew every chance he got. He’d also managed to get himself to Woodstock last summer. Just about everybody Frank knew wanted to go, but Molloy actually went.

  A devilish grin curled the ends of Molloy’s mouth. “Hey, I got something to show you.” He reached into his book bag. “Take a look at these.”

  He put a contact sheet in Frank’s lap under the table, and Frank didn’t understand why he was being so secret-agent-man about it until he took a closer look. The whole sheet had tiny shots of the unholy trinity in the bleachers—Monsignor Fitzgerald, Mayor Palmeri, and Mr. Trombetta. Shots of them talking, shots of them not talking, shots of them watching the game. Frame after frame, the three of them in the same position—the mayor on the left, Trombetta on the right, and the monsignor in the middle and a step higher like God the Father. Molloy must have wasted a whole roll on them.

  “What’d you take these for?” Frank said. “You were supposed get shots of the game.”

  “Hang on.” A mean glint sparkled in Molloy’s eyes, and his little grin was downright diabolical as he reached into his book bag and pulled out a portable cassette player, balancing it in his thigh. He reached down again and came up with a spaghetti tangle of thin tan-colored wires. They were earphones, the small ones that went in the ear like hearing aides. “Here.” He handed them to Frank and plugged the jack into the tape player. “Listen to this.”

  Frank glanced at the Root to make sure he wasn’t looking before he stuck the earphones in his ears. Molloy pressed the Play button.

  Frank heard a jumble of crowd noise, voices cheering for the Owls. Then he heard Monsignor Fitzgerald’s voice. “So that’s the message you want me to deliver to the archbishop, that you intend to do nothing about the fire.”

  “That’s it. You got it.” Mr. Trombetta’s voice.

  Crowd noise filled in what possibly could have been awkward silence between the two men.

  Then Trombetta again: “You know, if you guys are so hot on putting this thing out, why don’t you call the Pope, get some money out of him? Why do we have to foot the bill?”

  “Because you own most of the land,” the monsignor said.

  “But not all of it. And how do we know the poisonous stuff isn’t on your side. That fire is underground. Who knows what’s under there?”

  The mayor piped up. “The studies show that the toxins are coming from both sides.”

  “Screw the studies!” Trombetta said. “Nobody knows nothing for sure. This is all guesswork here. How do we even know this stuff is really hurting anybody? We don’t know that for sure. It’s just smoke. People don’t die of smelling a little smoke.”

  The mayor again: “There are strong indications that this smoke causes certain forms of cancer.”

  “Indications?” Trombetta said. “What the hell’s an indication? It’s a guess. It’s not a fact.”

  Frank remembered seeing Yolanda’s grandfather on the street near the landfill, how sick he seemed, him yelling about toxic smoke coming from the landfill. Was that what they were talking about? The landfill? That landfill? Tina had told him that it was owned by the church and the mob.

  Frank pulled the earphones out of his ears. “How did you get this?”

  “My electronic ear. I was up on the roof of the gym, trying to eavesdrop on you talking to that girl from the physics class.”

  Frank wanted to kill him. “You made a tape of it?”

  “I tried. Just hooked up the electronic ear to a tape recorder. I figured I could bust your balls with it.”

  “You are fucking evil, Molloy.”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t get you, I got them. This is gold. We have hardcore surveillance evidence that the church is in bed with the mob. They’re polluting the air, fucking killing people. They’re just another part of the goddamn establishment, man. Dropping napalm on innocent people in Vietnam, putting carcinogenic shit in the air in New Jersey. Same fucking thing.”

  Frank nodded, trying to get a handle on all this. It was big. It was political, and it was criminal. But it was personal, too. Yolanda, her family, her neighborhood. Frank tried to focus on the bigger picture, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Molloy snooping on him and Yolanda when they were under the bleachers. He was still humiliated that he had blown it with her, and he didn’t need a greatest hits tape to relive the event. He hoped Molloy was being straight with him when he said he didn’t get them on tape. But Molloy was crafty. With him, you never knew for sure.

  “So what’re you gonna do with this ‘evidence’?” Frank said. “Give it to the Ledger?”

  “Fuck no. They won’t use it. The mob stuff, maybe, but they definitely won’t go after the church. I was thinking maybe Ramparts. Or maybe 60 Minutes. Can’t you just see Mike Wallace storming into the archbishop’s office with a film crew? That would be so cool.”

  “Yeah… maybe.” Frank was still trying to wrap his brain around all of this. It would be great to do something to help Yolanda’s neighborhood. Stop the pollution, save some lives, keep kids from spitting up blood. And if she knew he was the one who did it, that might work out nicely for him. She’d be grateful. He’d be, like, a hero. She might actually like him.

  “So what do you think?” Molloy said. “I like the idea of Ramparts. I think we can trust them. 60 Minutes, I’m not so sure. They act like good guys, but they work for CBS, and CBS is just part of the establishment. They might not want to take a shot at the Catholic Church. You know what I mean?”

  Frank stared at the green and black linoleum squares on the library floor. He was thinking hard. “Before we do anything, let’s think about this. We don’t want to waste this.”

  He was thinking about Yolanda, about how he could use this to get close to her, how he could do a good thing that would be good for him, too. He knew he was being kind of selfish thinking this way, but if he played it right, it would be good for everyone—except the unholy trinity.

  Frank noticed that the library had gone silent—no hushed conversations, no shuffling of feet, no rustling of pages. It was as if someone had sprayed odorless knockout gas into the room. Then he saw the reason for the change. Monsignor Fitzgerald had slipped into the room like a midnight mist. He stood near the Root’s desk, staring at all the boys in the room with his usual look of disdain and mild disgust.

  “Motherfucker,” Molloy grumbled under his breath.

  That was exactly how Frank felt about the headmaster. Frank had never like him—his imperious attitude, his clear preference for the honors students, the creepy way he used the Walrus King to do his dirty work, cracking down on students for no good reason, constantly putting them down and making them feel bad about themselves.

  Fitzgerald scanned the long library tables, eyeballing each student one by one as if he were looking for a juicy neck he could tolerate biting. The Root’s eyes were wide as if he expected something awful to happen, his hand stuck to his face. The monsignor was Count Dracula and the Root was his Renfield. Fitzgerald walked slowly toward the tables, his black, rubber-soled shoes making small squeaks on the linoleum as if he were walking on a carpet of bats. He moved like a slow-motion crop duster, spreading bad feelings in his wake.

  Frank hated Fitzgerald so much his heart was pounding.

  Boys looked down or stared straight ahead, afraid to make eye contact with the headmaster. But not Molloy. He looked right into Fitzgerald’s face.
/>
  Fitzgerald noticed his insolence and drew a bead on him from twenty feet, keeping the same even pace as he moved forward. He stopped right in front of Molloy and stared down at him. Frank had never realized how pale the monsignor’s eyes were. Spooky blue, not human.

  “Have you heard of razors, Mr. Molloy?” the monsignor said, his words dripping with sarcasm.

  Molloy had a perpetual reddish-brown stubble over an angry red zit farm.

  Molloy pointed at his face. “Acne, monsignor. The doctor says shaving makes it worse.”

  “Do you have a note from this alleged doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid, Mr. Molloy?”

  “Monsignor, my situation is written all over my face.” He couldn’t suppress his wry little grin.

  “Mr. Whalley has disposable razors in his office. He will escort you to the mens room and supervise proper grooming according to school rules. You’ll be called out of class later today when he has time to attend to you.”

  “But I have a medical condition. I’ll bleed all over the place.”

  “Then I suggest you call home and have your mother get a note from your doctor. And get it here before two o’clock.”

  “My mother works. She can’t—“

  The monsignor raised his hand like a traffic cop. “Don’t bother me with the details, Mr. Molloy. You’re a St. Anselm’s student. Use your brain and figure something out. You have until two.”

  Molloy grumbled something under his breath.

  “Did you say something, Mr. Molloy?”

  Molloy’s chest was heaving. He was furious. “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No… monsignor.”

  Fitzgerald rolled his creepy gaze toward Frank. His eyes seemed to have a life of their own. They reminded Frank of St. Lucy, the martyr who had her eyes gouged out and had to carry them around on a plate before she was killed. “Mr. Grosso, I suggest you find someone else to associate with. Perhaps someone in the honor’s class. Someone whose company will lift you up, not drag you down.” His eyes glanced sideways at Molloy.