June 26, 1975

JUNE 26, 1975

I woke to the sounds of seagulls squawking and waves rolling up to the shore. I’d slept with the window open and the room smelled wonderfully salty. I bounded out of bed and leaned my head out to breathe in the sea air and look out at the beach—it was nearly empty save for a few older people taking their morning walk. I’d forgotten to plug in my alarm clock so I had no idea what time it was. With nothing better to do, I ambled down to the kitchen to see if anyone else was up.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking, and drinking coffee. She gave me a weary smile.

“Mornin’, champ. Sleep okay in the new room?”

“It was great,” I replied, telling her about the sounds and smells I’d woken up to.

Her face brightened. “That’s great. I think we’re going to be happy here.” Then her momentary brightness dimmed and I knew she was thinking about Matt.

“He’ll come around,” I said. “Did you sleep okay?”

She shrugged. “Pretty good, I think. It’s just . . . ”

I was glad she let her words trail off; I didn’t want to hear anything about my father. “Do you know where the cereal is?” Even at eleven, I knew when to change the subject. I liked it when Mom smiled.

We both had a bowl of Corn Flakes and talked about getting the house set up properly and checking out the beach and the rest of the town. My brother joined us—well, he had a bowl of cereal, but he didn’t add much to the conversation.

“What’s up with that horror movie bathroom?” He asked, between mouthfuls.

Mom laughed. “Oh, I forgot to tell you about that. It’s . . . out of order.”

“That’s an understatement,” he muttered.

We could always count on Matt to accentuate the negative. I guess after what he’d been through, that was just his way of looking at things.

“The landlord said he’d get around to fixing and updating it, but probably not until the fall. He’s too busy with all his other summer rentals. There’s a bathroom off my bedroom and the one down here, so it’s not that bad. It was part of the reason we could afford a place so close to the beach.”

“One less bathroom to clean,” I said. The truth is, we’d all been through a lot. Maybe because I was younger, I was more resilient. Or maybe Matt was just a grumpy teenager. Whatever the case, he kicked me under the table for my cheeriness.

“That’s a great way to look at it,” Mom said, pointing at me.

When she stood to put her bowl in the sink, my brother made a face and flipped me the bird. We both grinned.

Mom snuffed out her cigarette. “How about we unpack a bit while it’s not too hot, grab lunch in town, then check out the beach this afternoon?

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, earning another kick, but I could tell Matt was as antsy to check out the place as I was.

It didn’t take me long to get my room set up just the way I wanted it. I’d packed carefully, which made unpacking a breeze. I finished a little before noon, the final steps making sure all my books were in the right order on my shelf. When I poked my head in Matt’s room, it didn’t look much different than it had the night before. He was on the bed, flipping through an old comic book.

“Ready for lunch?”

He tossed the comic book on the floor and slithered off the bed. “Yeah, I’m starving, let’s go see what kind of hillbillies live around here.”

Mom drove through town, taking different roads than she had the night before when we’d gone to get the Chinese Food. “It’s pretty deserted,” I said, craning my head this way and that and finding mostly boarded-up houses.

“Bayport is mostly a summer town,” Mom said. “A lot of the houses aren’t winterized and the owners only use them in the summer, or they rent them out to vacationers. Most of the ones that do use the houses themselves are probably retired in Florida. Snow birds, they call them. Wait another week, this place will be jumping.”

I wondered how rich you’d have to be to have two houses and never have to shovel snow. I glanced up when Mom turned the car into a sandy parking lot. The Daybreak Diner. I could almost hear my brother rolling his eyes.

“Lunch is served!” Mom hopped out of the car and bounced toward the front door. She could have been a college girl in her summer dress, her blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. She had a lightness in her step I hadn’t seen in a long time.

I followed her in, turning to see if Matt was going to bother joining us or just mope in the car as usual. He slouched against the backrest, staring in his usual Matt way, at nothing. I followed his gaze and saw her. He wasn’t staring at nothing, not this time. The girl was about his age, wearing tight white shorts and a bikini top. The dark brown tan on her legs and stomach made the shorts seem to glow in contrast. Even at eleven I knew she was the kind of girl who would steal your heart and your senses with just a smile. And she was smiling at Matt. Maybe she could get him out of his crabby mood. Crabby . . . beach . . . not bad. I followed Mom into the diner.

“Three please,” Mom said to the hostess or waitress or cook . . . or probably all of the above. She turned to me, then looked around. “Where’s your brother? If he’s pouting in the car—”

She stopped mid-rant when I pointed out the window. Matt was leaning against the car in his best too-cool-for-school slump while the girl stood talking to him. He was a good-looking kid, tall and thin, but athletic, not skinny. His hair was long but neat and on the rare occasions he smiled, it was a good smile. Matt said something and the girl laughed, tossing her hair to the side in a practiced move. I knew that was it: she had him. “Let’s sit down, Mom, okay? If he doesn’t come in we can get him something to-go.”

Mom looked out a moment longer and I saw her face do something weird. She looked both happy and sad at the same time. It was a look I couldn’t understand then, but which I can now recognize for what it was. Her son was growing up. Parents gets that look countless times watching their kids grow, and my mother seeing her son fall in love was one of those times. Not that Matt was even old enough to know what love was, but he probably thought he was in love already, just from that one burst of laughter the girl gave him.

“Good idea,” Mom mumbled, following the waitress to a booth by the window.

“I’ll be right with you,” the waitress said, dropping a menu on the table and rushing to greet the next family that came in.

The diner had a long Formica counter with round stools covered in red vinyl. Those spinning stools were the bane of every parent: “Stop that! You’re gonna fall off and split your head open!”

There were a bunch of tables and booths, also in that same red vinyl, and the floor was black-and-white checkerboard linoleum. There were advertisements hanging on nearly every inch of the wall, hawking everything from Coke to Marlboros to Gold Bond. Nowadays, a place like that would be “retro” but back then, they were everywhere.

I checked out what they had to offer, not surprised to find such New England delicacies as fish and chips, clam rolls, and Lazy Man’s Lobster. Naturally, I despised seafood. But they served breakfast all day so I was in luck. I put the menu down and watched my mother. She would glance at the menu, crane her neck to try to spot my brother, then focus on the waitress, who was busy greeting new customers and rushing back to pick up orders every time someone dinged one of those bells like you see on hotel counters.

“Mom,” I said, mostly to check to see if she was still on this planet, “what are you getting for lunch?”

She gave me a smile. “Hopefully a job.” Then she stood up and walked over to the counter.

It made sense, the way she was watching the waitress. The woman was clearly overworked and frazzled. The place wasn’t terribly crowded, but it was definitely too much work for one person. Good for her, I thought, the concept of our needing some form of income to survive having not yet crossed my mind. I watched her, the waitress, and a guy I assumed to be the cook, chatting it up at the counter. Then the waitress double-timed it over to the door to start her pattern all over again. Mom and the guy shook hands and she practically floated back to the table.

“You are looking at the new, up-and-coming waitress at the Daybreak Diner,” she said with a wink.

“That’s great, Mom.” I held up a palm for a high-five and she slapped it clumsily. I thought about it for a minute, realizing something. “But, have you ever waitressed before?”

“Waitressing is how I got through college . . . well, the three years I finished, anyway.” And in that moment, she looked twenty years younger again, like the girl who had hustled for tips to get through college.

It was no secret that Mom and Dad had married young and that Mom had never finished college. Matt came along first, and then me. Dad worked, Mom kept house.

“I start tomorrow, working whatever shifts May can’t cover. It’ll be hectic, I might be working early mornings or evenings to cover the dinner shift.”

She looked around again, then her eyes found mine and I saw they were glistening with tears. It hit me then just how hard this was for her. How worried she’d been about being able to take care of us by herself. This job was a huge relief for her, and it made me feel bad that I’d ever given her a hard time about moving us away. Then I got angry thinking about what a jerk my brother had been about the whole thing. I reached across the table and held her hand, something I hadn’t done in years. “We’ll make it work. Matt and I can help out around the house, it’ll be great.”

That was all it took to release the tears. She squeezed my hand back, smiling. May came over, smiling brightly, and Mom quickly wiped away the tears.

“You’re a lifesaver, Paula. I was at my wits’ end trying to help Chuck keep this place going.” She turned to me, “And this must be Ryan.”

I said hello and that it was nice to meet her. When we’d first come in, I thought she was an older lady, but now up close and looking less frazzled, I thought she might only be a few years older than Mom. We placed our orders—scrambled eggs and ham for me, a lobster roll for Mom, and a cheeseburger to-go for Matt—made small talk for a minute, then May was gone in a blur.

My brother entered the diner just as May was bringing the food to the table. He was red-faced and sweaty and had a wild look in his eyes I’d never seen before. “Mom, Kelly and a bunch of other kids are going to the beach across the street, can I go?”

I watched Mom’s face carefully, curious to see her reaction. Her eyes darted to the window, as if seeing these kids would be enough to determine if they were the right crowd or the axis of evil. Finally, she looked at Matt with that same “my baby’s growing up” look and nodded. “Go ahead, but make sure you put suntan lotion on — and no horseplay in the water.”

Matt rolled his eyes and gave me a grin. “Mom,” he said, as if he was being put out somehow by her concern. I had to admit, it was about as mom-like as you could get. All she left out was the old “no swimming for at least an hour after eating” thing.

She handed him the greasy cardboard box that held a burger and fries. “You need to eat, but stay out of the water for at least an hour after.” That was it. She’d gone Full-Mom.

Matt took the box, waved to us, and was gone. I must have had a goofy grin on my face because Mom said, “You know you can get cramps and drown.” I burst out laughing and finished eating my eggs.

***

Mom and I got back to the cottage feeling full and lazy, what with the diner’s food and the heat of the afternoon. She went to her room to finish unpacking and I went to mine to be bored. As much of a jerk as my brother could be, it was lonely without him; he was generally good for some entertainment. I left the bedroom, thinking it might be cooler downstairs, when that gurgling noise started coming from the bathroom again. That’s when I saw it. I must have already walked past it half a dozen times without noticing, but there was a cord hanging down from the ceiling that pulled down a set of stairs to the attic. Curious, I gave it a tug and it came down without a sound, on well-oiled hinges. I unfolded the rest of the ladder-like steps and put my foot on the first rung, then hesitated. Better ask Mom.

I backed up and went down the hall, calling out as I approached, “Hey, Mom, is it all right—” Apparently, her idea of unpacking was to plug a fan in, point it at the bed, and take a nap. I tried, I thought, and went back to the ladder. I crept up the stairs, waiting for the inevitable creaks and groans that might be enough to wake Mom, but the steps were sturdy and silent. As soon as I reached the top, the blast of hot, stale air engulfed my head. It had to be well over a hundred degrees. Still, it was worth the heat for a little adventure.

There was a pull-string directly above me and when I yanked it, a bare bulb lent dirty light to the attic space. There wasn’t much to see anyway. The pitch of the roof left little walkable space. The floor itself was just a few scattered sheets of plywood. It smelled dry and somehow gamey and I wondered if there were squirrels or raccoons finding their way in. There were a couple of old chairs, a dresser with the drawers missing, and a bunch of cardboard boxes splitting at the seams. I squinted at the boxes. Are those comic books? I shuffled over, careful to keep my head low.

Back in Malden, my friend Timmy MacDougal had told me a story about this kid that was crawling under the farmer’s porch of a house during a game of hide-and-seek and put his hand right into the guts of a dead cat. It grossed him out to the point he forgot where he was, and stood up to run. An exposed nail dug into his head and he needed a bunch of stitches and a tetanus shot. The very thought always made my legs go rubbery and I was obsessively cautious anytime I was under a porch or in a basement or attic. There were plenty of roofing nails poking through the wood above me.

I made it to the boxes with my skull intact and knelt to examine the magazines. My stomach fluttered when I realized there might be Playboy or Penthouse magazines among the contents. At eleven, I knew what they were, but I wasn’t quite at the point I understood what the big deal was, though that fluttering in my gut told me I was almost there. As it turned out, there were no skin mags in the boxes, but to a kid my age, what was in them was an even greater treasure. Old comic books. Tons of them. Spider-Man, Superman, The Avengers, Planet of the Apes, Archie, Scary Tales, and a bunch of others I’d never heard of. I grabbed a handful and hunched back to the steps, always vigilant for those nails. At the bottom, I folded the steps away as quietly as I could and took my new-found treasure to the bedroom. The heat of the day was forgotten as I thumbed through adventure stories, some horror, and a lot of zany antics from Archie’s gang.

***

When Mom had decided it was time to leave, time was one thing we didn’t have a lot of. Dad was on an overnight fishing trip with his derelict buddies and Mom was still recovering from the argument they’d had about him going. It had looked like it might remain just an argument until she’d said the trip was just an excuse for him and his Neanderthal friends to get shit-faced and bitch about their wives. She was right, of course, but violent assholes don’t generally care about right and wrong. A black eye and a bleeding ear were her payback. Matt had stepped into the last few frays and ended up with minor bruises —and a lot of anger. That last fight was my first foray into my father’s abuse, which ended quickly with my being thrown into a wall. I think that was the last straw for Mom. I think she always knew she couldn’t protect herself from him, but the fear of being unable to protect her children, that was different.

Dad left for his trip, and we skipped town. Took everything we could fit into the station wagon and a rented truck, then got the hell out of Dodge. Remember, this was the seventies. There was no Facebook or Twitter, no Internet search engines. If someone left, they were gone, unless you hired someone to find them. The hurried exit meant we left a lot behind. Mom called it “the non-essentials,” but to a nine-year-old boy, comic books don’t fit that bill. I negotiated the books and left the comics behind. And now, I’d stumbled upon three times as many as I’d owned, and a lot of cooler ones besides. This is going to be all right, I thought.

The front door opened some time later and Matt yelled up the stairs, “Mom? Ryan? Anybody home?”

I put the copy of The Avengers aside and bolted down the stairs. “You’re not gonna believe what I found,” I said, breathlessly.

“Your dick? You’re right, I don’t believe it.”

My brother could be witty when he wasn’t being all teenage-angsty. “Whoa,” I said, “Mom is going to kill you. If that sunburn doesn’t.” His skin was a shade of red I’d never seen on a human before. He was going to be one sorry sack later.

He just glanced down and shrugged. His eyes were wide, though, not his usual bored, sleepy-lidded expression. “It was worth it,” he said, and looked me up and down. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

I chuckled. Matt played that card way too often, usually when he’d done something I’d never done, or he was pretending to understand something that I didn’t. “Enlighten me, oh, wise one,” I said with a bow. I had a pretty good vocabulary even then, or maybe I’m rewriting history to make myself sound smarter. That’s the thing about memories, they can be hard to trust sometimes.

“That girl I went to the beach with, Kelly? She’s . . . ”

He had a faraway look in his eyes that I’d never seen but somehow knew what it meant: he was in love. At least, the fourteen-year-old version of it. I debated singing “Matt and Kelly sitting in a tree,” but that was beneath me. I went for sarcasm instead. “Gee, that’s terrific, Matt, when’s the wedding?”

“What wedding?” Mom’s sleepy voice came from the top of the stairs.

“Oh,” I said loudly, staring at my brother, “while you were napping, Matt found true love on the beach and is now sworn to Kelly, till death do they part.” I barely felt it when he cuffed me on the back of the head; I was having too much fun.

Mom appeared, her face puffy and her hair looking as though she’d stuck her finger in a light socket. “That’s nice. Can I bring a date to the wedding?”

I cracked up. Even though the bruises hadn’t faded from her last beating, Mom’s sense of humor was a treat.

“You two are hilarious,” Matt said haughtily, “but I don’t have time for your juvenile behavior. Kelly asked me to a cook-out on the beach—” He turned to Mom, “—Her parents will be there, don’t worry. Their cottage is just a ways down the beach towards town, I don’t even need a ride.”

Mom had finally noticed the screaming red hue of Matt’s skin. “You are gonna peel like a rotten banana. What was the last thing I said to you before you left?”

Matt probably blushed, but it was impossible for his face to get any redder. “Not to swim for at least an hour after I eat. See, I listen.” He scurried away before Mom could reply.

“I guess it’s just you and me for dinner, kid. What are you up for?”

“Pizza and a movie?” I suggested.

Mom smiled, “Sounds delightful.”

The phone rang, cutting through the house like a fire alarm. Mom’s face creased as her eyes narrowed. I knew what she was thinking: nobody has this number. “It’s probably Matt’s future wife calling tell him to say she can’t stand being away from him a minute longer.” I raced into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

I’d read a lot of books where people’s blood went cold, but until that moment I didn’t think it was really possible. The eerie silence on the other end of the phone made my spit dry up. “H-Hello?” I said again, this time croakier. A soft click as the person—Dad—on the other end hung up. “Wrong number,” I called to Mom, hoping I didn’t sound as close to peeing my pants as I felt.

I got a glass from the cabinet and poured myself some cherry Kool-Aid. Remember, this was before Jim Jones, when Kool-Aid was still, well, cool. I chugged half the glass down, filled it up again, and went back to the living room. Mom looked pale and scared. “Was the last person that lived here named Farraday or Falladay or something like that? The lady that called sounded like she wanted to give them a piece of her mind.” The lie came so quick and so smooth that it scared me. But seeing the stress fall away from Mom’s face made it worth it.

“I’m not sure if the real-estate agent mentioned it. If she did, I don’t remember. The owner’s name is Howard Quinn, I know that.”

I shrugged. “Ready for some pizza?”

The pepperoni pie was great but the movie was a bust. We were limited to the underwhelming choices of ABC, NBC, CBS, or PBS. Unless you count the fuzzy “UHF” channels: 38 and 56 out of Boston, which were like watching television through a blizzard. Instead, we started a jigsaw puzzle of a lake surrounded by mountains. The trees were blazing fall colors: yellows, reds, and oranges, and with the reflections in the lake, there were basically two of everything. Mom kept asking me what was wrong, and I prayed she didn’t notice me glaring at the phone, willing it not to ring.

Matt rolled in around 9:30, gave a very vague “it was all right” response when Mom asked how the beach was, and trundled off to his room. I feigned a few yawns a bit later and went up myself. I knocked softly on his door, not expecting a reply. When I heard my name whispered from behind the door, I opened it slowly. Matt was sprawled on his bed, looking ridiculous with his inflamed skin, his eyes two white marbles in a sea of red.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Better than okay, my brother.”

He sounded funny, like he was half-asleep already. I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. “The cook-out was fun? How are the kids around here?” I wanted to hear him talk more, to figure out why he sounded so weird.

He laughed, and I understood immediately. And with that understanding, an icy ball was born in my gut and started traveling north. Being my father’s son, the smell of booze was unmistakable. It scared me, more than a little. More, even, than that ominous silence on the other end of the phone earlier.

“You’re drunk,” I finally said. I’m not sure if my voice was steady but I did manage to hold the tears at bay.

Matt laughed again, sending another wave of noxious breath in my direction. I watched him, seeing my father’s face superimposed over his. I stood, and I stared. Part of me was afraid he might get up and hurt me. But most of me was just . . . sad. I walked out, leaving the sound of his drunken laughter behind me. When I got to my room, safe behind the closed door, the tears came.