For nearly all of the time I was seeing Kathy Scully she lived in her father's house and shared their telephone. And she never held a job, so there was no way I could reach her. It was all one direction; she made the choice to call or not to call. She ran the show. Talk about lack of control, it was maddening. Not surprisingly, the more I didn't see her the more I wanted her. And so it was on the night after our ride along the Brooklyn seashore when she was to come to my place. After waiting two hours past the time we'd set I'd run through all the feelings I was capable of experiencing. Anxiety, anger, fear, sorrow and of course the one I usually ended up with, loneliness. I walked out to my car three times between nine and ten, each time I decided that she still might show up and if I wasn't there... Finally I sat down on the sofa, put on the TV, and accepted the fact that I was too down to go hang out at Mahoney's. It was Saturday night, for heavens sake; it may have been a sports bar, but the same guys who hung out there alone three or four nights a week would have a date tonight. And I'd feel worse than I already did, which was bad enough. I remember slowly thinking through my entire relationship with Kathy and deciding it stunk, it really stunk.
By Monday I had determined I wouldn't tell Jim about Friday, because I didn't want to tell him about Saturday. We had a meeting coming up with another unhappy manufacturer, and I was counting on the preparation for it taking my mind off of Kathy. I think I had slipped into a kind of limbo, undecided if I should begin the process of trying to forget her. I was pining over the boss's verboten daughter, fifteen years my junior, with a lifestyle out of the imagination of a sixteen-year-old boy. I wanted to convince myself that it was all just dumb, but a huge chunk of me said, no chance, you're really in love with this girl, whatever the obstacles.
My AAA "TripTik"-- the detailed maps and routing instructions members can have sent to them-- says it's fourteen hundred and twenty-six miles from the Throgs Neck Bridge that gets you off of Long Island to Mitchell, South Dakota, which will get me back in time. I'm in western Ohio, still on Route 80, and I'm beginning to doubt the decision to make this trip. I mean I know why I wanted to go, I know what I'm looking for, but the odds that I'm going to find it are incalculable. And if I do, do I wind up like Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate, sitting in the back of the bus saying to himself, "Now what?"
As it turned out, the company that was threatening to fire us, the week after Kathy stood me up, didn't want anyone but Jim and Jack at the meeting. Jim felt that wasn't good, and I was sure he was right. Usually, the smaller the group requested at these kind of reviews, the worse trouble you were in. But without being involved in the preparation, I lost my best opportunity to change the subject in my head. I decided to go another direction. I would plan out my next trip back into my past.
With the Learys saved for last, that left the Hornings, the first people to take me in, and the home with the worst memories. This one would be hard-- talk about lack of redeeming qualities. I decided I wouldn't give it a lot of thought, I'd just do it. Look them up, make sure they still lived in that little house in Riverhead, and drive out there. Jim and Maureen had plans for Saturday, so it was for that day that I made plans to go to the Hornings. They were in the phone book. I called in the morning, got the voice of an old woman, apologized for dialing the wrong number, and took off east.
The trip took me close to the Wading River Church and Sister Colleen, and I decided I might drop in and see her after the Hornings. I'm like that, I don't want to do anything enjoyable-- hell, I don't want to do ANYTHING-- until I get the thing I'm dreading over with. And man, was I dreading this. This was worse than seeing the Caputos; the problem here would be me, how I reacted to them. Maybe it was because I was so young with the Caputos, and with the Hornings I was old enough to understand more. Maybe it was the fact that I experienced physical and mental abuse in the forms of a strap and disdain. I considered the possibility that it might be good for me to get it off my chest, out of my heart. To let these people know just how I felt about them and what they put me through. I considered that for about three seconds.
I found the house on Doris Avenue. It reminded me of the Caputos home, in that it had pretty much gone to hell. In fact, it was worse. The grass in the front yard-- what was left of it-- was burnt. The house needed a coat of paint badly, and the cement driveway was filled with cracks. When I opened the screen door to get to their bell, it just swung open-- the spring mechanism was gone. And the bell didn't work. I knocked several times with no response.
There was an old Chevy station wagon directly in front of the house, so I took a walk around to the back yard, home of many a wiffle ball game with Billy, before he went away. I had to walk around the garage to get behind the house, the same garage that Mr. Horning would bring Billy or me if we had to get what he called a "lickin'". The strap was black, it had a large silver buckle on it. He called it a garrison belt. Just the thought of it today sends chills though my body. Different offenses resulted in different amounts of whacks. The most I ever got was eight. Mrs. Horning had a big jar that she kept change in, and Billy and I would often take a quarter or fifty cents out to buy candy. One morning before school I knocked it over reaching in. She came in the kitchen, calmly pushed me out of the way and picked up all of the change that had fallen on the floor. She barely looked at me as she told me to get the hell out of here and go to school, but I knew what was going to happen. That day remains the worst one of my life. I was so terrified that I became physically ill, throwing up in the boys' room and in the nurse's office. By the time I got home I had practiced my plea a hundred times.
"Mrs. Horning, please don't tell Mr. Horning. I promise I'll never do anything bad again. Please give me one more chance. I'll do anything. Please, one more chance." It really wasn't much of a statement for my case, and I had nothing to barter. Billy and I already were responsible for keeping our room clean, emptying the wastebaskets, taking out the trash, changing the cat's litter box, and any and all other jobs possibly handled by a seven- and an eight-year-old. And I knew volunteering to do Billy's work would have no bearing on my chances-- where was the gain for Mrs. Horning?
"You know how it is, Sean. I'm not going to keep something like stealing from Mr. Horning. We're a family here and we have family rules. I'd be as bad as you if I didn't tell him." It's hard to recall exactly, but I have no recollection of her speaking in anything other than a quiet, controlled monotone. Which would have made it even more terrifying.
Richard Horning came home every day at a few minutes after five. After spending most of his days mopping and waxing the floors of an elementary school an antiseptic smell followed him around our house. To this day the smell of any cleanser or floor wax nearly makes me vomit. And I vomited that day, for the third time when I heard his car pull in the driveway. Mrs. Horning heard me in the bathroom and yelled in to me to hurry up and 'finish your business, wash up and get out here.' When I did the two of them were standing in the narrow hallway just outside the bathroom.
"Tell Mr. Horning what I caught you doing, Sean." I just stood in front of them, motionless; I was totally unable to speak. I don't think I was crying, but I know I almost threw up again-- only a totally empty stomach prevented it.
"What did you do, Sean?" His voice wasn't as controlled as his wife's. I'd never gotten more than two whacks, but that pain had been intense, and my butt was sore for days. I knew there would be far more this time. I somehow gathered the courage to speak.
"I was going to take a quarter out of the cookie jar, and I knocked it over, and Mrs. Horning heard the money hit the floor, and she came in and cleaned it up, and I'm very sorry. I'm very, very sorry. Please don't hit me with strap too many times. I'll never do it again." I was trembling; I'm practically trembling now thinking about it.
Richard Horning took my hand and walked me into the garage. I don't remember him saying a word until it was over but I knew what to do when we got inside, and I did it. With my pants and underpants down around my ankles, I placed my two hands on his workbench and leaned over. By the fifth or sixth whack I had started to become numb. When he finished the eighth and final whack, he told me to pick up my pants, and by the time I did he was already out of the garage. There was blood on my hands when I walked in the house, and Mrs. Horning saw it.
"Wash your hands extra clean before you come to the table, Sean." The numbness had worn off and my ass felt like it was on fire, so I asked to eat standing up. The question wasn't even deemed worthy of a response.
After dinner Billy helped me as best he could, applying some cream that he found in the medicine chest. To this day I don't know what it was-- neither of us were sure of most of the big words on the tube. I slept on my stomach for two or three days, and in school I sat leaning over, resting on my upper thighs. That was the last time I got whacked, though it wasn't the last time I took quarters from the cookie jar.
Those were the thoughts in my mind as I made the turn around the back of the garage into their yard. They had no fence but each of the properties bordering them did, making for a strange looking site. Their perimeter was one-third rather high stockade, one-third low chain-link, and one-third colorless picket fence. There were a few good-sized trees, enough to allow two very old people to be sitting in the shade on a small, colorless cement slab. She was in a green folding chair, he in a gray lawn chair. She was smoking a cigarette and there was a small portable radio on the ground next to her. She was facing away from my direction, he directly towards me. The radio was giving off the sound of some guy pontificating about politics; I heard the words "First Amendment." As I got closer I noticed Mr. Horning seemed to be staring into space.
"Mr. and Mrs. Horning, it's Sean, Sean Murphy. Remember me?" I was standing slightly behind Mrs. Horning and to her right. She stayed in her chair as she got up just enough to turn it toward me.
"Yes I do. How are you? What brings you out here?" There was no emotion in her voice. She was wearing dark shorts and a blue shirt that said "Atlantic City" on the front; she had the cigarette in her left hand. She made no attempt to get up, and neither of us reached out a hand. I was now no more than five feet from Mr. Horning, and he hadn't a clue that someone new had come near him. He didn't look like he had a clue about anything.
"I was in the area, and I just thought I'd look you folks up. Hello, Mr. Horning." I knew he couldn't hear me, but I wanted her to have to tell me that.
"He's got Alzheimer's. At this moment, he doesn't know we're here. Can I get you something to drink?" She was still in her chair; I hadn't moved an inch.
"No, I'm running late. I just thought I'd drop by. Ever hear from Billy?" She looked puzzled for a moment.
"Billy? Oh the fat one. No. you're the first foster child to ever come back here. You know how it is-- kids grow up and go their own way." I had so much to say, but I was nearly as tongue-tied as the day I took my lickin' from Mr. Horning.
"Yeah, I guess I do. Nice to see you again."
"Nice to see you, Sean." I turned and walked a few steps
before stopping and turning back towards these two old people of
my nightmares. She had swung her chair back facing her husband,
and was lighting a cigarette from the one still lit in her hand.
I turned away again, and as I walked out of their yard I felt
like throwing up.
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