“Uh—sorry I’m late,” he mumbles, staring down at the floor. “My father’s car wouldn’t start.” As he slides into the chair next to me, we have just enough time for a “Hi, Augie,” “Hi, Andy” before Phyllis tells us that she’s thankful for healthy kids and (with a nod to Andy) cranberries that don’t come from Ocean Spray. Then it was our turn.
“Andy and Augie?” asks Pop, coming around the table to stand behind us. “What are you grateful for?”
“New friends,” says Andy, glancing over at me with a shy smile.
“Doorbells,” I blurt automatically while the whole table breaks into laughter at the same time. Does everybody know??
* * * * *
The dinner plates have been cleared and we’re waiting for three different kinds of pie. Tick and I are arguing about whether wishbones only count if they come from turkeys or whether chickens rate too, at the same time Dad and Andy are reviewing the backfield for today’s Packers game over a bowl of carrots. By complete accident, Andy’s right hand bumps against my left one down between our chairs, and all of a sudden the fingers tangle up together. Then it hits me. Oh, my God! We’re holding hands. The two of us. Under the table. Me and Andy Wexler. And he started it! Okay, maybe it’s just for a second, and maybe that’s only long enough for one quick squeeze—but it’s out there, and nobody’ll ever be able to take it back. HOLY SHIT! WE’RE ACTUALLY HOLDING HANDS!! ON PURPOSE!!
ACT II
I know there must have been more things that happened after 4:32 p.m., but who remembers? It was like the anesthetic I got before my appendix operation, except it lasted six hours and there were only dim flashes of reality: Tick took one of our chocolate turkeys over to Hucky, and the Dolphins won 40–21. People ate, people left, Andy and I avoided eyes, and Dad drove the Hwong family home. Next thing I knew it was dark and I was in bed. So I dropped a Barbra Streisand CD into my Discman and played myself to sleep with a song I used to hate. “He Touched Me.” It actually isn’t half as cheesy as I thought it was.
Love,
Augie
INSTANT MESSENGER
AugieHwong: When he made sure our fingers were locked together, I figured it probably qualified as hand-holding.
TCKeller: Nothing gets by you, does it?
AugieHwong: “It wasn’t accidental, no, he knew it.” I wonder how Barbra Streisand knows Andy Wexler.
TCKeller: Dude, you’d be like so easy to barf on. I’m worried about Alé.
AugieHwong: Don’t be. Maybe we had to drag her by the hair into the talent show, but notice how she didn’t exactly put up a fight when they asked her to audition for Kate. Now she’s snapping orders at me like she’s Ethel Merman on speed.
TCKeller: How do we get her away from her family long enough for her to figure out that she doesn’t need prime ministers or Imelda Marcos half as much as she needs us?
AugieHwong: It’s a two-part program. I got her onstage and you were supposed to make her fall for you. (Can you spell “slacker”?) Because when you’re in love, you can be talked into anything. Trust me. I’m an authority on this.
TCKeller: Hello? I’d have gotten there first if some gink hadn’t kept putting roadblocks in my way. (Can you spell “um”?) BTW, Hucky had a pretty lousy Thanksgiving, even with our chocolate turkey. Since he’s the littlest kid there, they let him win the wishbone tug. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon looking out the window and waiting for Mary Poppins to come live with him. She didn’t.
AugieHwong: Ouch.
TCKeller: Tell me about it.
Dear Betty,
When Aunt Babe tells us she’s taking us out to buy our first couple of Christmas presents, she doesn’t mess around. But there are two rules that drive our parents crazy in the don’t-spoil-the-kids category: Rule 1: “If it’s something you want, it’s a Christmas present.” Rule 2: “If it’s something you didn’t ask for but that I think you should have anyway, it doesn’t count.” Technically, Tick’s Red Sox DVD and “1918 World Champions” sweatshirt clock in as genuine stocking stuffers, just like my Betty Hutton CD and the Inside Daisy Clover poster do. But the shirts and the slacks and the bomber jackets and the blue and gold wristwatches and the inkjet color printers don’t. It’s a good thing she rented a car. We never could have gotten all this stuff onto the Green Line.
Aunt Babe used to live five blocks away from Tick until Aunt Ruth was elected to the House of Representatives when we were eight. After that they had to move to Washington—which is only a short shuttle flight, but it’s still too far when you miss somebody. Tick took it harder than I did because Aunt Babe was the one who stepped into the mother part of his life after his mom died—but we promised each other that when we grew up, we were going to buy an apartment near Congress so that we could have everybody we loved in our lives whenever we wanted, and not just on holidays.
The first time I met Aunt Babe was right after Tick and I decided to be brothers, which was the same week Aunt Babe opened her own law practice downtown. Pop took us to her office-warming, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to expect. The only lady lawyer I’d ever heard of was Katharine Hepburn in Adam’s Rib, and you know how intimidating Katie could be. But I didn’t need to worry. It was a pretty big party with lots of important people there, but when Aunt Babe saw us step out of the elevator and onto the polished wood floors of the reception area (great place to sock-surf, by the way), she left the group of senators she was talking to and came toward us with her arms open wide. Guess who got the first hug?
T.C. AND AUGIE—SHOPPING TRIP
Breakfast at the Brookline Café (where, incidentally, Bobby Kennedy used to eat when he was attorney general)
Pick up Hucky at Children’s Residence
Red Sox Store
Tower Records
Filene’s Basement
Lunch at Pizzeria Regina
Cinema Collectibles
Faneuil Hall
Best Buy
Toys “R” Us
Dinner at Legal Sea Foods, Park Plaza
Surprise
Hucky was a last-minute addition because he’s not even all-the-way sure of Tick yet, let alone strangers. My brother was right. Communicating with him was like trying to get a reaction out of the drapes.
“Honey, did anybody ever tell you that if you were any cuter, you’d be a cartoon?” asked Aunt Babe, buckling his seat belt and re-tying one of his sneakers.
Silence.
But this is a tough group to stay shy around, and Hucky was no exception. Everything turned around at lunch when he stole an anchovy off my brother’s plate, realized what he’d gotten himself into once he’d started chewing it, and then got angry at the plate for fooling him. Literally. I mean, he stood up, stuck out his bottom lip, put his hands on his hips, furrowed both eyebrows together, and glared at it. This was how Aunt Babe and I learned that it’s not a good idea to laugh when you have a mouth full of food, because we sprayed everything within range. (The people in the next booth hated us.) You could tell that Hucky didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted, but as soon as he realized he was in his own spotlight, he figured out pretty quickly how to play a room.
“Show me your mad face,” Aunt Babe kept begging.
No.
“Please?”
Okay. Here. I’m doing it. Now laugh again. We did. I mean, you couldn’t exactly help it.
During dessert Hucky taught us how to say “mad face” and “show me” in ASL, and we even found out that there’s a sign for “gink”—probably the same one as for dork, cheeser, and anything that ends in “hole.” Actually, Tick’s gotten pretty fluent with his hands. I couldn’t tell you for sure how he’s managing to pick it up so quick, but after you’ve seen how Hucky stays glued to his side while they’re walking down Congress Street together, it isn’t too hard to understand the why. Especially from my brother’s point of view. Does he have any idea how much he and Hucky could have been six-year-old twins? Or is that my job to notice thes
e things? They’d have shared the same way of pretending that nothing’s wrong, and they’d have both lived in the same bubble that nobody else was allowed inside of. It may just be a coincidence, but most of what Tick talks about these days is his mother. And it doesn’t make him sad anymore either. Yesterday he told me the story about the time she wanted to surprise Pop by making lobster bisque for his birthday but didn’t realize when she got them home that the lobsters were still alive. When she came back to the kitchen after a long phone call, they were gone. Pop found one of them behind the dryer, Tick turned up another one in the geraniums, and his mom used to say that the third one was still growing somewhere in the basement. I feel like I know her the same as I would have if she’d always been a part of my life.
Once we’d discovered his mad face, Hucky was the center of everybody’s attention for the rest of the afternoon—and he played the part like he’d been waiting to do it all his life. Hasn’t anybody appreciated this kid before? How could they not?? Whether we were chasing him through Faneuil Hall while he tried to hide-and-seek from us, or watching Aunt Babe plop him onto a shiny blue bicycle at Toys “R” Us, or seeing his face light up like a supernova when she bought him a production shot of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins at Cinemabilia, you had to wonder how he got to be such a regular six-year-old without being able to hear. Or maybe being deaf doesn’t matter after all.
“Who’s your favorite friend at school?” I asked, while Tick translated.
“My ‘loving girl.’”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is she?”
“She sat down next to me on the bench. So I kissed her on the head and then I farted.”
After twenty-one purchases and dinner at Legal Sea Foods (where we all gave our crab legs to Tick and Hucky so they could fight each other with them), the “surprise” at the end of Aunt Babe’s list turned out to be tickets to a preview of Hello, Dolly! at the Harborside Arena—which she somehow managed to keep a secret from us right down to the wire.
“You’ll have to guess,” she insisted, turning right onto Saint James Avenue.
“Movies,” said Tick.
“Fireworks,” said Augie.
Ice cream cones! signed Hucky, once he’d figured out what was going on. We’d already snaked through half of Boston’s curvy downtown streets—still clueless—when Aunt Babe suddenly yanked the steering wheel to the right and pulled our green Hertz Saturn into the theatre’s parking lot. Out of four people in the car, one of us went nuclear.
“Oh, my God,” I shrieked, when I saw the marquee. Aunt Babe winked at me in the rearview mirror (letting me know that this was a special present from her to me), while Tick and Hucky turned to each other in the backseat.
What’s going on? signed Hucky. Where’s my ice cream cone?
“Sorry, dude,” groaned Tick in reply. “It’s one of my brother’s musicals. But we can go to sleep in there if we want to.” I’m pretty sure that Hucky understood the “go to sleep” part.
Hello, Dolly! turned out to be the perfect ending to a day that deserved it. The Arena is one of the biggest theatres in Boston, but Dolly Levi didn’t have any trouble filling either the stage or the house. The sets were pink and white, and the lights made everything look like cotton candy and Valentine’s Day. But I think I got my biggest kick watching Hucky. He was too short to see anything from his seat, and he squirmed out of Aunt Babe’s lap (Hucky doesn’t do laps), so he stood between me and Tick for the entire performance with his eyes riveted to the stage and his mouth hanging open. Especially during the title song in the second act—with thirty waiters dancing around the orchestra pit and Dolly coming down that long red staircase—when he actually stood on his tiptoes in order to get a better view.
Look! Look! he signed to Tick.
“I know, I know,” mumbled my brother. “I’ve lost you to the Dark Side.” When the nine curtain calls were over and the house lights finally came up, the vote was pretty unanimous: three raves and one favorable. Aunt Babe told us how impressed she was, Hucky finger-spelled W-O-W, and even Tick had to throw in the towel.
“Not bad,” he conceded, as we were making our way up the aisle. You have to understand what this means coming from my brother, who thinks Rodgers and Hammerstein is a furniture store. “‘Not bad’—T.C. Keller” is an ad quote that would have kept it running on Broadway for twenty-three years.
And Aunt Babe had planned it all just for me.
I mean it, Betty. As soon as I’m old enough to have a driver’s license, Tick and I are moving to Washington.
As time goes by,
Augie
The Word Shop
BROOKLINE’S FAVORITE BOOKSTORE
E-Memo From the Desk of
Craig Hwong
Hey, Teddy.
You know you’ve earned your wings as a father when you drop by your kid’s bedroom to kiss him good night and on your way out the door he stops you cold with “Dad? Is love supposed to hurt?” I’m not sure if there’s an easy answer to that particular riddle (yes, I am—there isn’t), but hearing that question from my son is the reason I wanted to be a parent in the first place. How did he know?
So I asked him to tell me all of the things he feels when he thinks about Andy, and I’d tell him what it was like when the same roller coaster got ahold of me.
“I’m afraid he doesn’t love me back.” (That was Alene. And she was worried that I didn’t love her either. Yikes! Kids.)
“If he doesn’t answer my e-mail right away, I panic.” (Marta. She’d always wait a day to return my phone calls, and it was always deliberate. She knew how to play me like a 1959 Buddy Holly Fender Stratocaster.)
“He’s going to get tired of me.” (Laura. Actually, all she got tired of was me whining about how she was going to get tired of me. That’s why she started dating Eduardo Cué.)
All he really needed to hear was that he’s not the first kid who’s had to go through this. (Isn’t that usually what it takes?) By the time I came back from the bathroom with his glass of water, he was already out like a light. And while I was tucking him in, I realized that we’d never had the “I’m gay” conversation. Has this generation finally made it superfluous? If only.
Anyway, thanks for walking me through the minefield. When Alejandra holds T.C.’s hand for the first time, I’ll brief you on the running order.
Craig
P.S. I saw Lori accept the Celtics ticket when you handed it to her, which probably qualifies me for the witness protection program if she ever finds out. Suggestion: Don’t pull the usual sneaking-down-to-the-empty-courtside-seats-at-halftime routine. She doesn’t strike me as a willing co-conspirator in that kind of larceny.
ALEJANDRA PEREZ
Mr. Fred Hoyt
Assistant Superintendent
Manzanar National Historic Site
Independence, California 93526
Dear Mr. Hoyt:
I read with interest an article in today’s Boston Globe regarding the restoration of the Manzanar National Historic Site as a permanent memorial to the internment of 120,313 Japanese Americans during World War II.
While I appreciate the plans for a museum, the display of some of the camp’s artifacts, and a reconstructed barracks and guard tower, don’t you think it’s all perhaps a little bit gloomy? These people weren’t exactly passive victims, you know. Even with guns pointed at them by their own military, they built a community that included a K-through-12 school system, fully equipped hospitals, professional dance bands, lavish productions in their new auditorium, and baseball diamonds every few blocks. (Manzanar alone had over thirty baseball teams. Some of them—such as the Gophers, the Pioneers, and the Señors—were made up in camp, and some of them—like the San Fernando Aces—were already existing teams before they were sent away. Their diamond was on Block 25, near the fire break.)
Please consider amending your plans to include a more uplifting portrayal of the way our count
ry’s citizens of Japanese descent continued to celebrate their lives as Americans, even under such appalling circumstances.
Very truly yours,
Alejandra Perez
FROM THE DESK OF LISA WEI HWONG
Dear Alé,
Bravo.
Don’t expect too much from your letter alone. Communicating with the federal government is like talking to a computer that’s crashing. So you might want to explore a few ideas of your own, e.g., rebuilding the auditorium or re-creating one of the camp’s Christmas shows. That way you’ll have a more specific battle plan to pursue in the event you receive a stuporous and non-responsive response from Mr. Hoyt.
Incidentally, where did you learn so much about baseball? You’re beginning to sound like T.C.
Wei
Dear Jacqueline,
Consider yourself fortunate that Jack’s most serious offense was not getting rid of his girlfriends’ panties before you found them under the love seat. Tacky, but at least ironic. Instead, you might have been married to Franklin Roosevelt, who ended a Depression, revived the economy, won a two-ocean war, and used the Constitution to light his cigarettes. Without even blushing:
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT SENDS
AMERICAN JAPS TO CAMP
President Franklin D. Roosevelt today signed Executive Order 9066, calling for the designation of “military areas” along the west coast of the United States, from which “any and all persons” may be excluded in the interests of national security. The measure has been urged by California attorney general Earl Warren and Gen. John L. DeWitt, who are now free to implement the round-up of the approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans residing in California, Oregon, and Washington.
“A Jap is a Jap,” said DeWitt. “And it doesn’t matter where he was born.”
FDR stated that E.O. 9066 would take effect immediately.
Even Eleanor was shocked. And she already knew he was a schmuck.