Page 1 of The House on Haven Way

Chapter One: At Least The Neighbors Are Quiet

June 16th, 1954

“Aaay! The phones work out in the sticks. How’s my boy?”

I put my greasy bandana in my back pocket and hold the shiny black phone under my chin while I scrub my hands in the kitchen sink. “Heeeeeyyyy,” I gotta give my old man grief. “The phones work in Brooklyn.”

“It’s a day for miracles. My son, the putz, the nogoodnik—a homeowner. An upstanding member of society. A God damn sergeant.”

“Grandpa Lou would be proud,” I say, craning my neck to look at the Chevy Bel-Air in my driveway. My own little drive, in my own little rancher with a God damn picket fence. “And what’s this ‘nogoodnik’ noise I hear you spouting?”

My dad laughs, which is a new sound, one that didn’t happen too much before I left home.

“You and those boys. The Lions...”

“It was the Hellcats, Pop.”

“Even worse. What kind of good Catholic boy would be in with such people?”

“A good Catholic boy raised by Lou Miller’s crazy son and his hot-tempered Sicilian wife.”

“Now, now. Don’t you blame your mother for nothing.”

“I’m not blaming her.”

“Sounds like you were blaming her.”

I groan. This is how three-hour screaming matches always started between my old man and me. The first ones were over the Hellcats. Then, quitting my job at the butcher’s, and then the bike, even though I got my old Indian for a song and polished her up to look like new. Finally, we argued over my giving Mama a stroke— it was a tiny one—the left side of her mouth droops a little, and she drags her left foot just a touch. I said no way that could be just on me, not with her worrying about my older brother in the Navy and two younger brothers at home raising their own kind of hell.

But no. Johnny did it. Johnny’s the bad boy in the Miller family, the one breaking Mama’s heart.

That’s when I got “voluntold” to join the army, even though I hadn’t gotten my draft papers—courtesy of some snafu marking me down as a necessary member of the agricultural workforce during my eight months at Piccatello’s Meats and Imported Cheeses.

“You gonna go to college on that G.I. Bill?”

“I don’t know. I got the house with no down payment and a mortgage rate that’s better than yours.”

“We rent, you ass.”

“I know, Pop, it was a joke.”

“Your older brother went straight to college when he got out of the Navy.”

“Good for Joe. He’s the smart one.”

“You could be smart, too. Don’t they have some little college out that way?”

“Not in Pine Ridge. Not yet. Maybe one day. Right now it’s a lot of woods, a couple other empty houses,” I turn my head and look past the driveway, beyond the dip in the road, “and a real nice cemetery. Seems a little crowded for such a tiny place.” Don’t know why it feels that way. So many little white and gray stones, all in neat rows.

“At least you got quiet neighbors. Not like us. The Zampitellas had twins. Twins, yet, after that little four-year-old terror and his tin horn. All of them in that two-bedroom firetrap.”

“Next to the two-bedroom firetrap where you raised four boys, right, Pop?”

“Yeah, well, you knew how to behave—until you turned seventeen.”

If I don’t end this call now, it’ll cost Pop a fortune in money and gray hairs and ruin the nicest conversation we’ve had in five years.

“You know, Pop, there’s a real nice guy in town, Manny. Got a nice shop—auto shop. Everything I learned in the motor pool, I’m putin’ to real good use and earning more money than I ever could have at the butcher’s or even as a lieutenant. There’s money in these new cars.”