Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [11]
He is much nicer than most of the other fathers around here who work at the Feelin’ Good Cookie Factory and sing Danny Boy or That’s Amore at the top of their lungs when their beer bottles get empty out on their front steps. Henry’s mother is also a very sweet person who does crossword puzzles during Mass. I think she musta lost her faith in God, too, so we’ll have a lot to talk about when she comes to our future house for a chicken dinner and a game of Sheepshead every Sunday.
“Hi, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I say back. “Mother is gettin’ better by the day. Thank you for askin’.”
When he notices my sister messing around up at the front of the store, Mr. Fitzpatrick calls out in a sterner, but still kind way, “Can I help you find something, Margaret?”
Troo shoves her hands into her back shorts pockets. “Oh, no, thank you, sir.” She says that real pleasantly but when she sits down at the counter, she bosses Henry, “Gimme whatever Sally’s havin’.”
“You got it,” he says. “Two cp’s comin’ up on the double!”
(I just adore it when he talks soda fountain lingo like that.)
After Henry gets done stirring the long spoon in the tall glasses and it makes that great clanking sound, he sets our phosphates down in front of us. Mine looks especially scrumptious. Because he is my boyfriend, he gave me extra squirts of chocolate.
He bends across the counter and says quietly, “Have you guys heard about Greasy Al Molinari?”
“For cryin’ out loud, Henry,” I say. “You know we have.”
Henry was there when Greasy Al jumped Troo last summer in front of the drugstore after the Fourth of July celebration. Molinari has a gimpy polio leg, but his arms are the size of a side of beef. That bully punched my sister and almost broke her nose when he was trying to steal her bike. The only reason she wasn’t beaten to a pulp is because Henry took a gun outta the cash register and waved it in Greasy Al’s pepperoni-smelling face and Mr. Fitzpatrick, who heard me screaming, came rushing outta the store and called Officer Dave Rasmussen and he had Molinari sent to reform school.
Dave’s always coming up with good ideas like that. He’s also the one who suggested that Troo and me should make a list of ideas on how to spend our vacation.
My THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER list is:
1. Never, ever take my eyes off Troo.
2. Practice not blinking.
3. Help Mother.
4. Write my charitable story.
5. Read to Mrs. Galecki on Wednesdays.
6. Visit Granny every Friday.
7. Spend as much time as I can with Henry.
8. Try not to have so many flights of imagination. Pay attention to the details!
9. Work harder to keep my sunny side up!
My sister’s THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER list is:
1. Figure out more ways to get back at Molinari.
Troo used to do that by standing in front of Molinari’s house and singing the Banana Boat song, changing the words to: Daaago . . . da . . . da . . . da . . . daaago, but since Greasy Al got shipped off to reform school she can’t do that anymore, so she came up with the next best way to torture him. She writes to him every Friday, she hasn’t missed once. Her letters always say the same thing. So she doesn’t get writer’s cramp, Troo uses carbon paper:
Dear Greasy Al,
I hope you get polio again and somebody kicks the plug out of your iron lung in the middle of the night.
Fuck you for all eternity.
Troo O’Malley
My sister rips the top off a straw wrapper with her teeth and asks Henry very ho-hum, “What about that goombah?” but she can’t fool me. She may be acting cool, daddy, cool, but Molinari is the most important subject there is to her.
Henry takes a quick peek to the back of the store and says, “I heard something about him at the game last night.” Since there are no pharmacists teams, his father plays catcher on the police baseball team with a “special dispensation” like you can get up at church when you want to do something that’s not allowed by the rules. I wanted to go last