To Die For (7 page)

I
DON’T NORMALLY WATCH
daytime television of course, but I have to admit I was tuned to “Wheel of Fortune” when Suzanne called to tell us she got the job. I admit it, I think Vanna White is a real sweetheart. Not so much in the brains department, of course—not like Suzanne. But she’s got this presence that practically comes right through the screen and into your living room. Like Suzanne always said about Vanna, “She understands the camera. It’s like she was born on TV.”

“You better be tuned to Channel 37, Mom,” my little girl told me. “Because from now on, that’s my station.”

“You got the job!” I said, and then I started screaming like I’d won the “Wheel of Fortune” myself. Earl was upstairs in his den. To hear me carrying on, he must’ve thought someone had been murdered.

“I knew you’d get it,” I told Susie. “I’ve been thinking positive.” Which was the case. All that morning I was picturing her, sitting at a desk in front of a microphone, reading the news, interviewing celebrities, and so forth. Ever since she was a little girl, basically, I’ve been visualizing that scene. And now it was finally coming true.

I said she’d be needing some new clothes. We’d better make a trip over to the mall. Then her father got on the extension. We were both just so proud of her. Who wouldn’t be?

We asked her when she was due to start. You didn’t want to miss her debut, that was for sure. She explained to us that she wouldn’t be on camera right away. A person had to put in their time, getting orientated. They were planning to start phasing out the guy they had reading the news, but he had seniority. They couldn’t step on too many toes, you know? But it was only a matter of time before our Susie would be the main on-camera talent. Well, as far as her father and I were concerned, she was always the main talent. The rest of the world just took a little longer to recognize that fact, was all.

“At first I may have to do a little filing and typing,” she told us. “But that’s only temporary. I just know that once the station manager sees what I can do, he’s going to give me my big break.”

“Sure you will, honey,” Earl told her. Suzanne could always get a man to do what she wanted. No one knew that any better than her daddy. When Suzanne set her mind on something, she got it.

O
NE THING YOU’VE GOT
to understand: This isn’t some NBC affiliate I’m running here. We’re talking local cable, broadcast range forty, fifty miles tops. Your church holding a bake sale? Senior class got a car wash going to raise money for a trip to Washington? We’ll put it on the air. This is the station to watch, if you’re interested in a public service short on how to do the Heimlich maneuver, or you want to know if school’s going to be cancelled on account of snow.

You couldn’t exactly call it a news show, what we produce here. But three times a day we broadcast what we call our community events listing. Such and such an organization is holding introductory square dancing lessons. So-and-so lost their kitten. That kind of thing.

The job I actually advertised was your basic secretary, gal Friday position. Girl I can send over to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee, type me up a memo to the oil company saying they made a mistake on our last bill. That kind of thing. We’re talking minimum wage. No benefits. Kind of job you give a gal with nothing but a high school diploma, that’s just biding her time till her boyfriend pops the question.

Then Suzanne Maretto shows up for her interview. She’s got this little suit on, with a bow at the neck, and she’s carrying a briefcase. High heels, hairdo like she’s just come from the beauty parlor, a nose kind of like a cartoon character, I’m telling you, George and me—he’s the cameraman, sound man, all-purpose studio technical crew—we just shot each other a look when she walked in the door. Like, I think you got the wrong idea, sister.

I told her that too. First thing she does when she comes in my office is shake my hand really hard and look me dead in the eye. You got the feeling she must’ve taken a class one time where they told her that made a good impression, but she didn’t quite get it right. Then she hands me this resume she’s got listing all her college broadcasting experience, video credits, workshops she’s attended, what have you. She’s all wired up, like she’s been psyching herself all morning. “Here’s a list of my references in the media field,” she tells me. “I encourage you to contact any or all of the people on this list for confirmation of my credentials.” Et cetera et cetera.

I wanted to stop her then and there and explain, this wasn’t that kind of job. She was overqualified. I was looking for your basic gofer. But it was hard getting a word in edgewise. You had the feeling she had this speech all set, and if you interrupted in the middle she’d have to start it all over again from the top.

So I just sat and watched her. You had to admire the kid, she was trying so hard. And here she actually thought I was some kind of media bigwig, and my two-bit job might actually be a stepping-stone in her career. I can still remember the gist of how she finished off her little speech there. “In our fast-moving computer age,” she says, “it is the medium of television that joins together the global community, and the television journalist who serves as messenger, bringing the world into our homes, and our homes into the world.” She had a line in there about Paul Revere, and how the television journalist carries his or her news across the countryside, bringing us all together. “It has always been my dream to become such a messenger,” she says—looking me in the eye again. “I look to you now to make that dream a reality.” End of speech. You kind of felt like you should applaud.

“Listen, Suzanne,” I tell her. “Sounds like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’re ambitious and nice-looking and you got a lot of natural poise. You seem like you’re the type that might really have a future in broadcasting. But I got to tell you, you won’t find that future here. This place would be a dead end for you. Not a beginning.”

Now it’s her turn to just sit there. She’s got her legs crossed at the ankle. Hands folded in her lap. Briefcase propped against her chair leg. Up close I can see it’s imitation leather. And something else I’ll always remember. Her makeup, you know that liquid foundation stuff women put on? Up close, you could see how she only applied it out as far as her jaw line, so her neck and under her chin is a different color, like she has on this peach-colored mask. For some reason, seeing that made me kind of sad. Sorry for her, almost. All of a sudden she didn’t look so pulled together after all. You had to wonder if maybe she was about to cry.

“Take my advice,” I told her. “Go to Mansfield. Go to Troy. Find a network affiliate.” It wasn’t till later I found out she tried all those places before she came to me. They turned her down.

“I just need to get my foot in the door,” she says. “A person has to start somewhere. I’ve had this dream all my life, and I’ve just got to pursue it.”

“Working here won’t be pursuing your dream, believe me,” I told her. “I’m looking for a person to run errands and type memos. Minimum wage.”

“At least I’d be working in my field,” she said. “Just give me a chance. You won’t be sorry.”

So I did. And I have to say, she was the best gal friday we ever had, for a while there anyway. Up until she got too big for her britches and started spending all her time trying to get a job in a bigger market. I’ll tell you one thing: She was the only gal friday I ever had who showed up to work carrying a briefcase.

O
K.
I
’LL TELL YOU, SAVE
you the trouble of asking. My grandmother married her first cousin. Had two sons never grew no teeth and three daughters, one leg six inches shorter than the other. Youngest one, that was my mother. She married her great uncle, on my grandfather’s side. Had two sons never grew no teeth, one daughter, leg six inches shorter than the other one, and me. My only problem is, I don’t got no money and I don’t got no whiskey. Tide’s coming out though. Figure on raking me some clams, and soon’s I get paid, you can bet where I’ll be going. You want to know about my son Russell, I’ll tell you.

First day Russell goes to that school over there, he’s real happy. Riding the bus and all. Comes home and tells me he needs a lunch box. “Every other kid in his class got a lunch box,” he says. “Every other kid in his class got a dad that don’t rake clams for a living,” his mother tells him. “You carry your goddam brown bag and be glad there’s Spam in it.” Next thing you know, he’s got a note in his pocket. Teacher wants to talk to his mother and me. Says our son don’t know his alphabet letters. Don’t he watch “Sesame Street”?

First problem is, I tell her, we don’t got no TV. Next problem, no electricity. Is she beginning to understand?

Russell, it takes him longer. He wants to go play with these kids, over in Lancaster. Wants to join some kind of team they got over there. Wants a dollar for a field trip, a dollar-fifty to have his picture took. Wants to sell me a Santa candle, come Christmastime. Wants a goddam shirt with some kind of cartoon character on the front, don’t ask me why. He says his class is singing these songs over there in the gymnasium, and can we go listen. And what am I supposed to wear to this concert of yours, says his mother. You ever think of that?

Now my boy may not be no egghead, but he finally figures it out. That school over there, they don’t have nothing in it for him. What they teach him over there I can tell you in two sentences. Shit happens. Life’s a pisshole.

Fourth grade, maybe fifth, note comes home. Ain’t I concerned to know my son’s been skipping school? Can’t say I been losing sleep over it. Red tide now, that’s a problem. Two months, clams all over the flats, but who’s going to eat them? Then the tide clears and the rain starts. Ever try Purina Dog Chow casserole?

Seventh grade some girl gets knocked up, and they say Russell done it. Boy takes after his old man. At least it’s not his sister. Not his cousin, even. Baby’s legs come out, both the same. “Not bad,” says his mother. “Keep up the good work.”

Russell, he’s just been marking time till he’s old enough to quit school and get his clamming license. And when he does, he won’t get no grief from his mother and me. All my boy ever got out of school was a bunch of letters from the principal. That and this TV reporter woman, thinks she can get a couple of young boys to do her dirty work for her, do old hubby in and leave her hands clean for counting the insurance money.

I’ll say one thing about Russell. Ain’t no liar. Reporter’s husband kicks the bucket around February, I guess. Ten days, maybe two weeks later the cops start sniffing around, asking questions. Murder took place on the good side of town, but it don’t take long before they make it out to the flats naturally, on account of the reputation, and of course my boy’s a prime suspect on account of he’s got a record in the first place, plus he knew the guy’s wife.

So I ask Russ what’s the story here. We may not have your regular father and son talks, but we got our moments, and he tells me straight. “Ernie,” he says. “Could be I was in on this murder business.”

“Spit it out,” I say. So he does. Maybe it was my boy pinned the poor sucker on the floor, but it wasn’t my boy that pressed the gun up against his head. Alls he did was rough the guy up a little and drive the car, afterwards, just like she told him to.

And the way I figure it is, someone’s gonna tell. And whoever it is that gets to the cops first, that’s the one they lay off of, before they start screwing the others. “It’s every man for himself out there,” I say. “Don’t you go treating that buddy of yours any better than he’d treat you, because if you don’t squeal on him he’s sure to squeal on you.”

I take him over to the cops myself. Seemed like what you might call the fatherly thing to do. Of course I knew when we walked in the door what they was all thinking. Here comes a Hines. What’d they do now?

So Russ, he told them. Told them about the girl there, getting her mother’s gun, and Jimmy, that fired it. And how the TV reporter dame put them all up to it for her old man’s insurance money. For Russ it was money. Jimmy, he got his payment between the sheets. He was sticking it to the reporter, if you can believe it. A college graduate and all, but when the lights go out she’s no different from nobody else. Fucks like a mink.

They put a warrant out for Jimmy, and they took my boy Russ into custody too. Well, we figured on that. He’d of ended up there sooner or later, the way he was going. Maybe they’ll go easy on him, on account of confessing, and let him out sooner. Not that it’s any picnic out here neither.

S
HE WAS MY LITTLE
princess. Everybody said it. Even when she was a tiny baby, the age when all most of them want is their mother, our Susie was Daddy’s girl. Saturday mornings, Faye would be home watching cartoons or playing with friends or something, and Susie would climb up in my lap and say, “Where we goin’ today, Daddy?” It didn’t matter if I was going to play a few holes of golf or just head over to the barbershop—she just took it for granted she’d be coming along. She’d sit on the back of the golf cart, over at the club. Afterwards I’d always take her for a soda. “Just you and me, Daddy,” she’d say. Those blue eyes of hers. How could you ever say no?

And she never let us down. Some of our friends would tell us about their kids—on drugs or hanging around with a rough crowd, dropping out of school or what have you. Our Susie was honor roll all the way. Never stayed out past her curfew—in fact, she usually got home early. “Ease up,” we’d tell her. “Nobody will die if you get a B once in a while.” She never gave us one thing to lose sleep over.

You love all your kids. It’s not a question of that. But there was always a special bond between Susie and me, I won’t deny it. When she was little she used to say when she grew up she wanted to marry me. Once she got older, and she understood things better, she’d still say, “How’m I ever going to find a guy like you, Dad?” Most of the boys in her school were just too immature, she said. Even as a kid, she had goals and ambitions.