In some ways things didn’t change. The families still came to Indian Mound each summer where Artie, his brother and sister, and countless cousins (including Cuzzin) spent seamless days chasing minnows and listening to Red Sox games and having seaweed fights and catching horseshoe crabs and playing mumblety-peg. Each day was capped by a lingering night of chasing fireflies, counting shooting stars, and re-telling family secrets. On Sundays the brothers Gordon would assemble their clan for potluck dinners. Sometimes it was franks and beans, brown bread, tomato aspic and Jello molds. More often, the bounty of the sea—steamers, mussels, battered flounder fillets, or Gordon’s Seafood Chowder.
But times change, and so do people. Everyone was excited when Bull arrived at a Sunday dinner in his first Cadillac, but then he wasn’t coming to the dinners as regularly. Business, don’t you know. Then, there were family whispers and meetings from which the kids were excluded. Then, there was news that Bull had a fancy house in Florida, followed by the news that he was divorcing Aunt Jenn and marrying a new woman down there.
And so it came to pass that Cuzzin was sent to fancy, schmancy Milton Academy to be groomed as the heir to the Gordon family fortune. Artie was sent primarily to look after his little cousin. It may have been only the next town over, but it was light years from Indian Mound.
Artie fared well in prep school, going from Milton to Harvard (Harvard, for chrissakes!), then onto film school at UCLA, and his critically-acclaimed first film The King of California. Ten films later he was one of the most bankable directors in Hollywood , until My Mother, My Lover…. that is. In one swell foop his world came crashing down.
Cuzzin fared less well at Milton. He was the youngest and rowdiest of the Gordonians. Maybe he had to be to get attention. It took him less than two years to get kicked out of Milton. By this time Artie was focused on his own life and was content to monitor reports from his Mother. Cuzzin was caught drinking. Cuzzin was kicked out of school. Cuzzin was in a barroom brawl. Cuzzin was married, then divorced. Cuzzin was in a motorcycle gang. Cuzzin caused a scene at his father’s funeral. Cuzzin was taking the old seafood store and turning it into a bait & tackle shop.
On a dazzling April morning, two middle-aged men, one whose life has come full-circle and another who hasn’t made it more than a stone’s throw from Indian Mound share a beer.
Cuzzin’s voice tells its own story. It’s too loud, and the words come out in thick bunches. Every tire squeal, every cigarette, every shot of tequila can be heard. The voice is equal part seagull shriek and throaty moan of a Harley. It hangs in the air like cigarette smoke, even after he leaves the room.
Cuzzin reaches into the cooler and pulls out a fresh sixteen ounce Old Milwaukee Light for himself. “I try to keep one of these going all day. That way I always have a little buzz on, but nothin’ so that I’m falling down drunk. You remember Tubby Tropiano?”
He silences the rock music that is filling the shop.
“He’s now a cop. You believe that? One of Quincy’s finest, and he’d like nothing better than to nail me for drunk driving, selling liquor without a license, whatever. Not that he and I aren’t buddies, ‘cause we are. He still lives on Indian Mound, the Donovan Place. But he’d nail me just to bust my chops and just because he’s a dickhead cop. And so I make sure I stay nice and clean to bust his chops.”
“Tubby Tropiano, a cop” muses Artie.
The two men observe each other, across the counter, through the beers, across the years.
