More Than I Had Asked For

More Than I Had Asked For

It was more than I had asked for. When I walked out into the sharpness of the winter air, my pockets were impossibly heavy with the money that I had just received.

Mr. Saunders lived a few houses down Fordham Street from my family. Two kinds of people lived on Fordham Street. Mr. Saunders was of one kind: Those who had lived in the neighborhood since it was built twenty five or so years ago in the fifties, and who had the money to remember when it was a nice place to raise kids. I was of the other kind of people, just a single boy in the crowds of first generation families fleeing the city. Our movement no doubt led to the steady decline of the new neighborhood. My family escaped the city, but could not afford to leave their house on Fordham Street.

Mr. Saunders must have had the money to live wherever he wanted to. He must have been handsome at some point in his life, too. That could explain the confident way he still held himself. He stood up so straight that I thought he had served in Korea. Mr. Saunders was not much of a looker when I knew him, though, even with his moustache combed twice a day. His jowls sank down below his lips, and when he smiled, they seemed to drag his mouth into a shape that was slightly surprised. He was mostly bald, but what remained of his tight black curls made it look as if he still had a full head of hair when he wore his woolen cap. His forearms were thick and his stomach bulged in between his suspenders. Mr. Saunders was not the kind of man to wear a belt.

I knew Mr. Saunders because he was my friend Noah’s uncle, but Mr. Saunders felt like everyone's uncle.

“He was born to be an uncle,” Noah would say. We would walk to my house after school and then Noah was driven home by Mr. Saunders for dinner with Noah's dad.

Mr. Saunders always greeted us with a smile and a wink. He smiled at me even when Noah and I had our fights or when I was in a bad mood. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

Other kids had different opinions of Mr. Saunders. That probably came from their parents. Our friend Greg was fascinated by Mr. Saunders.

“Let’s go further down the street,” Greg would say, and Noah and I would follow Greg and play outside Mr. Saunders’ house. But when Mr. Saunders came out, Greg would leave quickly afterwards.

“I don’t like it when people listen to us play war games or when we pretend we’re Yaz,” he told us. I think his parents were like mine: “temporarily” poor and always suspicious of those who weren’t.

When Noah and I were ten or eleven, I asked Noah why Mr. Saunders lived alone at 44 Fordham Street.

"It was my grandpa's house, I guess," Noah replied. "He grew up there. When my grandpa died he kept living there."

I imagined my dad living with my grandfather. My grandfather‘s face, a thin line drawn into a sneer, was as far from Mr. Saunders’ fat cheeks as possible. When we visited the stacks of old newspapers and leftover TV dinners, my grandfather’s spiny fingers clenched his beer bottle like a scepter and he would shout orders at the grandchildren in his doorway. I shivered thinking about his yellowing fingernails scraping on the glass. If my father had spent any more time in that house, he would have decayed in a similar way, he told us.

"If you kids still talk to me ten years from now," my dad would say each time we returned to the cramped backseat of his car, "then you'll know that I was twice the parent he ever was." Noah didn't have any grandparents anymore, but I liked to think they were more like Mr. Saunders than my grandparents.

"Isn't he lonely?" I asked Noah. Noah shrugged.

"I see him every day, and he talks to my dad."

Mr. Saunders never seemed lonely when I saw him. He seemed content enough with his transistor radio perched on the railing of the porch and a fat cigar in his mouth. He would fiddle with the dial from his chair, searching for the baseball scores or local news. When I was thirteen, he even let me try a cigar.

"Good attempt, Michael." He told me as he put the cigar back up to his mouth. "I think you've got to wait a few years until you're ready, though."

"It wasn't that bad," I lied. My stomach twisted and I coughed more than a few times. Mr. Saunders chuckled and his eyes twinkled as he watched my struggle.

"Don't worry about the cigar. I didn't even start all of this nonsense until after high school." I sat down on his steps and he asked about my classes. He told me about his latest project and the new, bumbling apprentice he had been given. Mr. Saunders was an electrician.

Even though I still suspected that he was lonely, Mr. Saunders’ house felt comfortably lived in. Mr. Saunders’ house was much older than mine, but it was always tidy, and was in much better shape than mine, too. The roof, porch, and siding were all fresh from the last decade. Mr. Saunders had done all of the work himself because he didn’t trust contracted workers. The only part of his house care that he didn’t do himself was the lawn mowing. Noah’s dad made Noah cut the grass with the rotating push mower every Saturday morning for a few cents.

One evening, as the sun disappeared below the last houses on our street, Mr. Saunders sent me home for dinner.

"Have you been getting enough to eat, Michael?"

I stopped at the bottom of his steps and turned around to wave goodbye.

"I'm good, Mr. Saunders," I said. "Good night."

“How is your family?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Ah. Have a good night, Michael,” he said. He waved me on and puffed on a cigar.

When I sat down for dinner, my dad asked me where I had been.

"I was hanging out with Noah," I told him.

"You been visiting that creep down the street?" he frowned. I tried to ladle out my food in silence.

“Why can’t I spend time with Noah?” I said a few minutes later.

“You know who I’m talking about,” my dad sneered. “You trying to suckle a few bucks from the old man’s teat, just like you do with me?”

When I said nothing back, he asked: “Where the hell have you been the last few days anyways?” I shrugged and left the table.

When I was eighteen, my dad threw me out of the house.

“I’m calling the police if you don’t leave,” he snarled towards me. “You don’t talk about your parents that way, or your family, and you don’t live in my house when you’ve got that kind of attitude.”

It was about a week before Christmas. My mother was away, probably with her newest fling. I liked to imagine that she spent her nights in the company of a Boston movie star or one of those athletes you saw rowing on the Charles River. Why else would she be gone for days, crawling through the back door with foreign scents on her clothes? What else could explain the time she spent absentmindedly running her slender fingers through cheap magazines in the bathroom? I had to find some kind of excuse for how she acted.

I couldn't forgive my siblings as easily. My older sister was married and lived in Newton now. But my two brothers and my younger sister had watched, mute and blind, as my father and I began to throw punches in the family room.

"I can’t believe that I’ve wasted so much of my life trying to raise someone like you,” he said as I walked out.

I kicked the lamppost. I probably stubbed my toe. I couldn't feel my feet anyway. I swore loudly.

I needed to get drunk, I told myself. My wallet was in my bed room, but my brother had stolen my cash last week. He bought cigarettes to give to his girlfriend.

I breathed into my cupped hands and rubbed them together. I turned my palms upwards and watched them shake in the evening air. If even my father couldn't afford both alcohol and food, how could I? I began to think of the best places to panhandle in Boston. That was no solution, though. The cops could round you up with no hesitation and no questions. Besides, the crowd of holiday beggars left little room for a kid without experience. I was no professional.

I knew what I could do, but the thought of it made my stomach just as sick as my first cigar. What other options did I have? For the first time in years, I walked up the steps of 44 Fordham Street and knocked on the door. The doorbell didn't work. I waited for his footsteps to shuffle up to the entryway.

"Michael," he said slowly when he saw me. The way he turned my name over in his little mouth, it clear that he wasn’t surprised I was here after all of these years. It seemed as if he was surprised it had taken so long.

"I don't usually do this," I started. With the warm air from his house in my face, I was less cold, but my hands were shaking still.

"Come inside," he said. He interrupted my plea before it could begin. I was thankful that it didn’t have to be any more awkward than it already was. He turned to the side in his doorway and I walked cautiously into his kitchen. There was a stream of dry air barely circulating through his house. There was a coffee pot brewing on the counter, but it smelled so sour I thought it must have been sitting there for hours.

I looked at him under the kitchen light. He didn't seem to have aged when he was standing in the doorframe, but now I saw how his body had changed. His few curls of hair were now gray. His bushy moustache was groomed in the same straight-cut fashion, but the skin around his eyes drooped to match his jowls. There were offensive sweat stains beneath his armpits and he stiffly moved from counter to chair.

"Sit down, Michael," he implored. I shook my head.

"I don't want to stay for too long or interrupt anything," I said.

"Never," he replied. "I'll always have the time."

"I haven't eaten in a few days," I began, rolling out the story as I thought of it. "I was trying to save up to buy Christmas presents for my family, but I realized that I won't have enough."

Mr. Saunders looked me in the eyes.

"I know this is a lot to ask, but I really want to make my family happy this Christmas," I lied. "Do you know what I mean?"

I forgot that Mr. Saunders didn't celebrate Christmas. The gift giving, for him, had long since passed.

"Mr. Saunders -- Uncle," I began to shake. My cheeks stung as they grew more and more wet. This was not a lie.

We sat in near silence. Mr. Saunders stood up abruptly from his stool with a creak and moved carefully over to his wallet, which sat by his car keys. He wasn't looking me in the eyes anymore. His fingers moved deliberately and tapped a quiet rhythm on the leather.

"Five dollars, even, Uncle, and you know that I'll pay you back." He definitely knew this was a lie. He opened up his wallet, and turned in my direction.

He pressed two five dollar bills into my hands. Then, he put several quarters into my pockets.

"That's train fare," he explained. He continued to avoid my eyes. I couldn’t control what was splashing down my face, but I managed to keep my lips still.

He walked me to the door. It was completely dark outside now, and it had finally begun to snow. When I reached the bottom of the steps, he called my name out for the final time.

"Michael," he said, and waited for me to turn around. My wet cheeks burned as I stepped into the colder air. "What are you giving your father this year?"

I flinched, but held his eye contact.

"I'm getting him a new necktie,” I told him.

He smiled, but in my blurry eyes it looked like a grimace.

"Good night," he told me.

Even after his door closed, he left the porch light on.

I ran down the streets, clutching the unbelievable money with my clammy hands. I bought as much beer as I could and a bottle or two of bum wine. I was so drunk that I came back to my house just after midnight. I started to punch the front door when nobody answered the doorbell.

“Open the goddamn door,” I shouted. “I know you’re in there.”

My younger sister’s face appeared and I swerved towards it. My fingertips were numb and my bloody knuckles left spots on the door.

“Michael, dad’s not going to talk to you,” she said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You have to promise you’re going to sleep if you come back inside.” My sister withdrew behind the screen as I tried to peer inside the house. “Dad’s gone to sleep, Michael. We’re all too tired to talk now.”

“I don’t want to talk to the bastard,” I howled. “I want to give him a necktie.”

She must have pulled me inside and dried me off because I woke up on the couch the next morning. All of Mr. Saunders’ money was gone. I felt a hard lump in my shirt pocket and pulled out a crumpled necktie with the tag still attached.

Merry Christmas.

My birthday was in early January. My mother made some casserole and I got to eat most of it. I was hoping to get some money from her, too. I wanted to pay back Mr. Saunders anything that I could, but I couldn’t tell my parents that. Even after everything, I knew that my dad still wouldn't let any money through my fingers. I figured it was worth asking my family anyways.

My older sister had given me two dollars from her husband that afternoon, but my brothers took their share before I could complain. I would just have to save up slowly, and be more careful with where I kept my things. Mr. Saunders would understand if I was a few weeks late.

Noah called my house towards the end of dinner that night. I took the phone from my sister in the kitchen and put my ear up to the receiver hesitantly.

"I thought you would want to know that my uncle passed away," he said. "Last night."

"Oh." My ears began to feel warm.

"I know you hadn't talked to him for years," he continued, and I let out a sigh of relief. "But he always thought you were a good kid, and I guess he liked you."

"Thanks, Noah," I mumbled. "What happened?"

"Some kind of heart failure. We were sure it was gonna be lung cancer like my mom. He didn't ever stop smoking cigars, though."

He invited me to the funeral but I turned it down.

"I don't have the right kind of clothes."

"There are no right or wrong clothes, Michael. Just come and have a big heart like my uncle."

When I hesitated more, he changed his request.

"He had two cigars left in his last box. Look, let's smoke 'em for him, like some kind of memorial?"

I tried to picture two estranged childhood friends, standing in the quiet of that sour-coffee kitchen, both of our stomachs fighting the idea of losing Mr. Saunders. Then, I tried to imagine Noah's face. From when I had last seen him, it had grown long and sallow. He never looked unhealthy or skinny - just sad. We never talked anymore.

"I really shouldn't," I told Noah as I got ready to hang up the receiver. "My dad says it's a waste of time and money."

"Since when do you listen to your dad?" he asked.

"Maybe he knows things I don't." I shrugged by force of habit even I knew Noah couldn't see me.

"Good night, Noah," I told him. "Sorry about your uncle." I hung up the phone and went back to the dining room to finish dinner.

December 16, 2013