fifteen grand from the Slater and Morrill shoe company in South Braintree. Of course this line of thinking failed to explain why both Sacco and Vanzetti had none of this fortune in their hands, and why they then perversely chose to continue to live in tiny workingmen's dwellings and to work eighty-hour weeks.
Looking up at our red-brick house on Old Stone Mill Road, which looked very big and splendorous, I thought of Sacco and Vanzetti and all the old ladies on the oil-soaked floors who were deaf from the looms, and felt guilty.
'I think we should sell this place, Mary,' I announced, 'and get something a bit smaller. What do you think?'
'What?'
'Well, don't you think it's a bit big for us? Jack and Tony are off at school now, and I just thought-'
'You're losing your mind, Charlie. Okay, sit out here and moon and pout all you want. We're not selling this house; we've got way too much at stake here. And a large part of it's mine, kiddo. You forgot that? See you later; Joe and I are going in to make bouillabaisse. And if you're not a good boy you won't get any.'
But I couldn't have cared less. Oh, they tried to distract me, all right. A few times I almost weakened. First the aroma of the olive oil with onions, shallots, and leeks sauteing in it. I didn't even flinch. Then Joe brought out a glass of cold Soave, and shortly afterward I heard the strains of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major. I sipped and listened and sniffed, but not a quiver. I just kept thinking of the pouch, the empty pouch… the anterior bridge, and those two working-class Italians strapped into the electric chair at Charlestown Prison and coming out in those black boxes.
I heard the hum of the microwave. Mary was defrosting frozen fillets of striped bass and containers filled with littleneck clams and mussels, shrimp, lobster claws, and maybe even some king-crab legs
… big, thick, spiky golden sticks full of white meat… I squirmed a bit and stared out over the wide lawn.
The pouch was empty. Why had they come back for it? Maybe it was somebody else who'd come back. Some other party entirely. That would explain why the guy we'd gotten the drop on had been digging in the wrong section of the old wall. He hadn't been there when the pouch was dropped down into the 'How you doing?' asked Joe, who had sneaked up on me. 'Mary just added the fumet. Smell it?'
'Yeah. Hey Joe, how did your old man get to be president of his company, anyway? That's pretty good for an Italian peasant who landed broke at Ellis Island. I know the broad details. But you know Mary doesn't talk about it that much. I know he started out as a carpenter, right? But how'd he-'
'Pop made it on hard work and luck. And common sense. He was no genius, but he wasn't dumb, and he listened to the right people. I tell ya, Doc, next to common sense, genius isn't worth shit.'
'I agree.'
'Well, Pop went from New York up to Schenectady, where he had some relatives. He learned to be a plasterer, and he earned good money, which he saved. He got married and Mom worked too, as a pastry cook. They saved and saved. just before World War Two, rock lath came in. Most people dismissed it as a fad, but Pop saw the writing on the wall- no pun intended. He knew rock lath was here to stay, and that it would put him out of business. I don't know if you know this, but it took a week to put up a real plaster wall. The wooden lath, sometimes wire lath, then the rough coat. Day or so later the brown or scratch coat. Finally the finish coat. A great wall, but a lot of time and dough. So Pop, using his common sense and some of the saved money, got some young greaseballs off the anchovy boats and trained them to put up rock lath. That was the start of his contracting business.'
'Ah sooo.'
'It was small at first, and Pop worked with them, doing the fancy cornice work and stuff. Before long he hired more greaseballs to work as carpenters, putting up studding and door frames. About that time Pop ran into a young Polack named Ray Woznicki, who was a plumber. Well, both guys were looking for a shop and some rolling stock, and they thought if they could go together on the capital equipment both would benefit. Ray wasn't Italian, but he was Catholic, which was almost as good. They were in the same parish. So they went in as partners, and each guy moved out of his garage and into their new rented building in the center of town. Result? Central Construction Company. Hah! Original, huh?'
'And so it just grew and grew.'
'And so it just grew and grew. Right. Pop went overseas in the war and fought at Anzio and all up through his old country, then came home. Ray didn't come home; he got shot to pieces on Iwo. Broke Pop's heart. Old Mrs. Woznicki, Ray's widow, she still owns a lot of the company. Anyway, Central Construction grew like Topsy in the postwar boom, and they went into retail… started a lumberyard and supply house along with the contracting company. Now Pop was hiring greaseball architects, for Chrissake.'
'Amazing!'
'No, not amazing. You're forgetting it all happened real gradually, Doc, over years and years. And sometimes, growing up, I remember some pretty lean years. But it kept growing mostly, and Pop paid off his notes, and then he did the smartest thing of all.'
'What?'
'He got out. As Kenny Rogers says in the song, he knew when to fold 'em. Around nineteen sixty Pop saw the dramatic rise in union scale. The greaseballs were now making more than he was. No good. It was the rock-lath story all over again to Pop. You couldn't pay a guy nine bucks an hour to slam nails. Again, common sense. Forget the financial rags and the guys with MBAs… good old common sense, eh?'
'Right.'
'So in sixty-one Pop sold the contracting business for a bundle, and put the money into three big retail stores specializing in what Pop saw would be the new thing: do-it-yourself home improvement. So there you are.'
We sat in silence for a minute.
'America is a great country,' I said.
'It sure as hell is. Got some warts, but we're the best around. You bet! So come on in now and have some bouillabaisse.'
When the fish stew was ready Mary served it in big crocks she had made. Each one held over a quart of bouillabaisse, which we ate with huge wooden spoons. There was a long baguette of French garlic bread, and more cold Soave. Okay, they'd done it to me.
'Well I wish you luck on this bad business, Joe,' I said, refilling my glass. 'I really hope you catch the guys who did Johnny in. And I hope Sam doesn't get hurt, either. But one thing's for sure: I'm out of it. My mouthpiece is nowhere to be found. So they chucked it into some old trash can somewhere and it's gone for keeps. So that lets me out. Exit Doc.' '
'About time,' growled Mary, who was cracking a lobster claw in her teeth. 'No more screwing around in old factories and getting shot at.'
But she was wrong, and so was I. Because my mouthpiece was about to surface in a most surprising manner. And like so many things that come back at you- like the late john Robinson's voice- it came with strings attached.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Life's biggest problem is that it's boring. At least it's boring most of the time. When it's not boring it's terrifying. But when the panic subsides the needle does not settle back to mid-range, which consists of stimulating, interesting, exciting. No. Instead it drops right back into boring. There's no middle ground in life, or precious little of it.
So, in accordance with this zero-to-red line-to-zero pattern of life's tachometer, I was bored and depressed following work the next afternoon. My day's labors had consisted of removing impacted third molars. It's a painful but necessary procedure. It's how I make the bulk of my living. I hate it. None of my patients had been happy to greet me. Afterward, though glad the operation was over, they departed sullenly, with swollen jowls, in anticipation of the pain to come when the local wore off. Bad. I went for a slow run out along the Old Road to Nine-Acre Corners, then back around to Old Stone Mill Road where we live. I took a sauna, assembled and fiddled with my new compound archery bow, and took the mail into the study to go through it. I listened to Wagner. It was the funeral march from Seigfried. Very stirring. Heroic. When the Chicago Symphony plays Wagner, with that great brass
