Art on Fire (17 page)

Suburbia Dissected
Cape Cod, 1981-1988

Francesca hitchhiked for two days, through crowded Connecticut towns, past the sharp metal skyline of Providence, Rhode Island. Everything appeared deadly familiar: stores, fast-food restaurants, ranch houses, strip malls, as if she were going nowhere or worse, there were nowhere to go. When finally the Sagamore Bridge rose like a giant arched creature from the shivery sea, she sat forward and held her breath. At last, something different. From that point on, the world seemed to have transformed. Quaint clam stands and clapboard houses crowded the narrow strip of land that separated the ocean from the bay. Sand tiptoed onto the highway, pitting the black pavement with tawny dust and bits of shell.

The driver, a curly-headed hippie gone AWOL from a small, liberal arts college in Vermont, was headed to Provincetown to wash pots for a living. She'd considered staying on for the ride, but he was irritating with his drawn-out, nasal accent and milk crate full of Grateful Dead bootleg tapes. She feared he was getting the wrong idea about her and, anyhow, she was hungry. The pizzeria across the road provided an excellent point of departure.

She thanked him, patted his dashboard, and ran recklessly across the highway, suddenly famished—she hadn't eaten since she and Lisa finished off the leftover birthday pizza. The aroma of tangy sauce and baked garlic blew hot through the exhaust fan of the small storefront, overriding the fumes of passing cars and the rich salt air.

“Two cheese slices and a Coke, please,” she told the person behind the counter. She pressed her stomach to the glass counter to silence the audible gurgling. Heat rattled through the radiators. The person was either male or female, Francesca knew that much, and seemed medicated or half-asleep, maneuvering through a thick, heavy fog.
Ravenous now, she tried not to glare spitefully as he/she slowly separated the slices and guided them into the oven. ‘Give me the fucking pizza,' she wanted to scream. She drummed her fingers on the countertop and searched for clues: short, cropped hair and a chiseled face; a small body like the tidy engine of an appliance; small, comma-shaped ears slapped onto the sides of the head. All indicated female.

“I don't need them hot,” she said.

“It only takes a minute.” The voice, too, was female.

Finally, the employee transferred the steaming pieces onto a cardboard plate sheathed in thin paper. The cheese was running off the sides and the thick lip of crust at the top had burst large craters, the hollow edges blackened and thin. Francesca held up her money. The aroma was painful now; her stomach seemed to simmer with a boiling liquid. The person carefully counted out two dollars in change. The slices were beginning to cool, the paper beneath them darkening with oil. ‘Please, please, please,' she silently pleaded.

At last, the employee handed over the plate, then filled a waxy cup with a combination of cola syrup and soda water that spat from an old-fashioned machine.

“Thanks, Ma'am,” said Francesca, snatching the food and soda, peeking upward for a reaction. There was none. Like a hungry dog, she ran to the front of the empty restaurant. She finished the first piece in five bites—crust and all. Never before had she eaten pizza crust. She always left it, dejected, on the side of the plate for her grandmother to conquer when everything else had been consumed. Grandma. She would never see her again.

The employee had tired of her reading material. She walked to the front of the store and peered out the glass door, watching someone walk a dog across the street.

Francesca cleared her throat, mustering courage. “Do you know of a place to stay?” she asked.

“What kind of place?”

“A cheap place.”

“Not if you need running water and a toilet.”

It took Francesca a moment to measure the value of these extra
perks: running water. A toilet. She supposed she didn't. At this point—the sky beginning to darken, her feet tender from walking the paved highway—she'd sleep in the back of a car if she could find one with the doors unlocked. “I don't care,” she shrugged.

The employee ripped down an index card that was tacked to a small bulletin board at the front of the restaurant. “This is my boyfriend's place. It's a dump.” She dropped the card onto the table and returned to her position in front of the window. “There's a pay phone right there,” she said. “I think he's home if you want to call him.”

Francesca examined the card: One room cabin. No runing water. $30 a month. 487-0983. “Runing” was underlined several times. Francesca spread her money out on the Formica top of the booth and counted what was left: $54 dollars, most of it in ones and fives, and 23 cents. It was all she'd saved from her weekends spent helping Alfonse with his landscaping jobs. She stepped outside and dialed the number.

“Hello.” It was more of a bark.

“I'm calling about the cabin.”

“The cabin?” He moved away from the phone and succumbed to a coughing fit, then returned. “It has no running water. Only a spigot in back.”

“I saw that on the sign,” said Francesca.

“And no toilet.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What do you want it for?”

“To live in.”

“By yourself? With no water?”

“Yes.”

“I want $30 a month.”

“I know.”

“Cash only.”

“Okay.”

The man hesitated, trying to think of a few more disincentives. “I could meet you there tomorrow, I guess.” His voice was hoarse, seemed to force itself up from the deep.

The door to the restaurant swung open and the employee stepped outside.

“Would it be possible to move in tonight?” Francesca asked, tears forcing their way up.

“Give me the goddamn phone,” the employee said, reaching her large hand over Francesca's shoulder. “Get off your lazy ass and meet her there, you moron.” She returned the receiver to Francesca and stormed inside, down the length of the restaurant and behind the counter.

Sherry, as the employee was called, described how to get to the cabin. To facilitate the effort, she loaned Francesca a rusted bicycle kept in a shed out back. Francesca thanked her profusely, comforted by the kindness that hid in the most unconventional places. She rode quickly the half a mile or so that separated the pizza place from the small cabin, and leaned the bike against the front. The building was run-down and small, covered in cheap asbestos tiles.

The landlord arrived promptly. He was short, homely, with dark, thin hair, a heavy five o'clock shadow, and broad shoulders. He climbed out of his truck and walked across some sunken train tracks, then pointed to the ground. He followed the tracks with his finger as they dissolved into a distant curve. “These here are functioning train tracks. You can expect a train to come ripping through here four times a day.” He looked her over uncertainly.

Francesca took the money out of her pocket and placed it on the palm of his hand.

“I told you there's no running water. Just a spigot.” He fiddled with the rusty padlock. “That means no toilet.” He turned and looked at her, then pushed open the heavy door and handed her the key. “I want the rent on the first of each month. You can bring it to Sherry.”

Francesca stepped into the dark room. The mustiness was so thick, it made her eyes water. The room was dark but for the large, paned windows that let in the weak evening light. A dry sink was surrounded by cabinets, a hot plate, a mini-refrigerator; several cubbies were built into the wall. There was a bunk bed, and a wood stove occupied the center of the room.

“Spigot and outhouse are in the back,” he said. “I'll get the outhouse cleaned for you tomorrow.” The smell of liquor wafted between them, even as he moved a wad of peppermint gum from one jaw across his tongue to the other. “Lights work,” he tugged on a string, illuminating a bare bulb in the center of the ceiling.

“Thanks,” she said.

After he'd left, Francesca rushed outside to scavenge for firewood before night settled. Behind the cabin a small field was surrounded by woods. She piled sticks on her right arm, straining her fist around a bundle of kindling, then returned to the cabin and dumped her bounty in the center of the floor. She removed her shoes, tucked them neatly under the bottom bunk, and bolted the door.

It was quiet. The whisper of Route 6 traffic blended with the grass sashaying in the ocean wind. She sat on the thin mattress. “I must learn every sound,” she said calmly, “so nothing will startle me.” She remained still for quite a long time, listening for the nearing of large black birds, vehicles, the creaking of the cabin's foundation. Semi-darkness made the windows fade and the room grow chilly. For the first time since leaving New Haven, she was frightened. She remembered her grandmother scowling. Lisa standing on the lawn—a slim, dark-headed form against the dawn. Everything moved in her memory but Lisa herself—clouds overhead, ambulances approaching, Francesca's own heart and blood. Neighbors cluttered the driveway to investigate. For one moment Lisa stood certain as a stain, her head turned, looking at something off to the right. Then she was gone.

She could run out and use the pay phone by the pizzeria. Call Lisa and tell her to come quick. They could be together. Away from Mr. Sinsong.
You'll never believe where I am
, she'd say.
I'm here. In Cape Cod
. Or was it
on
Cape Cod?

And then darkness descended thoroughly. She unpacked her knapsack and covered the large panes of glass—several of them cracked—with her clothes, tucking sweatshirts and jeans into the crevices between the window frames and the walls. Better not to know what's out there. The train passed later in the evening, making the walls shudder and the floor vibrate: The whole structure seemed on the verge of collapse, more frail even than the hovel she'd constructed so
many years ago. Still, it was hers; she'd gotten away. She unraveled her sleeping bag on the top mattress, then persisted gallantly in trying to light the wood stove, relying on Sam Gribley's advice: (1) Roll the paper into logs. (2) Straddle them with kindling in the shape of a teepee. (3) Add logs, the smallest ones first. (4) When the flames are as tall as your finger, blow gently.

Fortunately, there was a pile of old newspapers, yellowed and crisp, from 1978, beside the stove. She lit the paper logs in several spots and puffed hopefully until a small, red ember swelled. Patiently, Francesca listened for the popping sounds of burning wood, but heard only a dry hiss, like someone was trapped in there. Spooky. Worse, it meant that the wood was rotted and wet. That there would be no fire.

She slept on the top bunk, in all of the clothes she hadn't used to cover the windows—two sweatshirts and an extra pair of jeans. At 4:30 a.m. a freight train seemed to be gunning directly through the room—rattling cans, tossing the legs of the iron bed. When she opened her eyes, her first thought was that she was home, amid an earthquake or explosion. She sat straight up and looked around at the unfamiliar room. Then she remembered.

Sherry told her about a nearby flea market, the major source of industry in the milder months of the off-season. Sherry's old friend, Gus, ran a booth called Antique Alley, and she offered to put in a good word for Francesca. He was always looking for some kid to help him peddle his secondhand merchandise—bottles, lamps, broken musical instruments.

“You got any experience in retail, kid?” he asked her, lighting up an Old Gold, throwing the paper match on the ground. He wore crazy pants made of patchwork like you'd find on a quilt on some grandmother's bed and a New York Yankees hat that said Redsocks Suck on the back.

“I'm very adaptable,” said Francesca. Truer words had never been spoken.

He hired Francesca to work alongside him for the first two weekends so she could learn the ropes. “It just needs strings,” he would tell the customer, or “You just have to oil it,” and he'd demonstrate the
stickiness of the keys. He paid her fifty dollars a weekend to work all day Saturday and Sunday.

It turned out she possessed a knack for convincing people to buy things they didn't need: little glass sun-catchers, mobiles, dusty antique bottles in unusual colors. She couldn't squeeze a twenty from a millionaire, Gus teased, but she could get a quarter out of almost anyone. Even Jack, the sneaker guy across the way, visited every afternoon to listen to Francesca pitch something frivolous (an embroidered napkin for his wife, a synthetic scarf that said “Made in Portugal” on the label, a candle in the shape of a frog with the words “Prince Charming” across its waxen sweatshirt), and he always walked away with something.

It wasn't long before Gus left her to run the table alone, freeing him up to work another flea market further inland. For Francesca, New Haven took on the shape of a morning dream, reduced, finally, to flat pages shaved from a picture book. Each day it became easier to stay away. She passed the pay phone on her street and sometimes thought of calling Lisa, but she could no longer imagine what she'd say. She wondered whether Evelyn, having had some time to think things through, might be sorry and, upon hearing Francesca's voice, beg her to return. But she didn't want to return. She was solitary now; it suited her. At night she ate hot dogs, beans, and Snickers bars, cooked dinner on the small hotplate, read comic books as it grew dark outside. Sometimes she'd crack the door to the bar refrigerator, lie on the top bunk, and admire her home in the dense yellow light of the utility bulb. “Mine,” she'd whisper, unafraid.