Liam Gordon balanced himself by holding the overhead handle on the Red Line Train hurtling from South Station to the Quincy Station. A mini-disk player was clipped to his belt, filling his head with Bach’s Magnificat in D, Cantata 140 by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with Blanche Honegger Moyse conducting. In his left hand he held Come As You Are, Michael Azerrad’s biography of Nirvana. In other places the sight of a thin, spindly young man with armfuls of tattoos might have drawn attention, but in Boston with its hundreds of thousands of students, Liam did not warrant a second look.
In Liam’s own words: I think “Hair Shirt” would be a good band name, but I think “Agenda” is perfect, because that’s the problem with the world today. Everyone has their own fucking agenda and thinks that their issues are more important than the rest of the world’’ combined. You can have millions of starving children and people dying of AIDS, but if that sweater isn’t available in the right size and right color at the mall, nothing else matters.
The other thing about “Agenda” is that “genda” is the how they pronounce “gender” around here and gender is the biggest issue of our time. I really think my Dad got it right in My Mother, My Lover….. and that’s the main point of the movie. Too many of the “gender” special interests have an “agenda” which doesn’t allow for anyone to present a view that is anything other than the one that is politically correct for the moment. My Dad, asshole that he is, is getting a raw deal with all the flak he’s catching.
I don’t know how it’s going to be hanging out in Indian Mound. He says the place needs a lot of work. To me it was always a place to play without being worried about the rest of the world. So I guess I’ll see a lot of him this summer, which will be … different. I don’t know what to expect.
Meanwhile, it’s nice to be going anyplace that isn’t Dunkin’ Donuts. I’m grateful to have a job and some pay, but I learned everything I needed to know to do that job in fifteen minutes! I can’t imagine even making it there until classes begin, but I need to pay the rent. I know my Mom or my Dad would be glad to give me the money, but I like not having to ask them.
I know! “Hair Shirt” can be the name of our first album.
I also like the name “Lug Nuts.”
Artie pulls up in the official company vehicle for Cuzzin’s Bait & Tackle. He waves to Liam and the two embrace, a bit perfunctorily. Liam says “Nice Wheels.”
“We’re going to have great fun this afternoon.,” says Artie, walking to the driver’s side.
“Where are we going?”
“The Depot. Today we are going to be model American consumers.”
“I’m going to be needing a little assistance,” says Artie to a clerk wearing a nametag that identifies him as Atherton, the departmental manager. The young man has red hair and glasses, and appears to be several years younger than Liam.
“I’m as good as it gets, at least at this store.”
“Let me tell you what we need:”
I’ve got this little cottage out on Squantum. It’s a summer cottage, no heat, but it’s very simple and very cute, adorable really. Problem is, it hasn’t been well maintained, so the yard is kinda skuzzy and the flower gardens are overgrown and weedy. I’m not exactly a master gardener, so I can’t articulate exactly what I need. I want to have flowers blooming and hummingbirds humming and butterflies everywhere. Most of my tools are shot, so I’ll need them, too. Can you fix me up?
“What’s your budget?” asked the red head.
“I dunno. What’s it going to take?”
“To do it the The Depot way, about a thousand dollars.”
“More than I would have guessed, but let’s do it.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. By the way, do I know you? You look familiar.”
“You guessed it. I’m Brad Pitt.”
“ No really. I feel like I’ve met you, but I can’t figure where. Why don’t you two grab some shopping carts and follow me.”
First, let’s think about the lawn. You need to make it grow, so let’s grab some turf builder and a bag of lime. Before you apply it, you should aerate the soil with these spiked shoes .You’ll also need a spreader, over there. Now, once the grass begins to grow–guess what?– you’re going to need to cut it. Grab one of those Lawn Boy mowers with the 3.5 Briggs & Stratton. You’ll need the grass catching attachment. Definitely a weed whacker, and I strongly recommend one of these leaf blowers to give everything that finished look. And you probably need a hedge trimmer Here’s a gas can that you can use for all of them.
For the weeds, you can use this Weed-B-Gone Herbicide and one of these power applicators. You’ll also want plenty of Miracle-Gro to get things looking good fast. A shovel, a hoe, a rake, gardening gloves, and hand tools. Let’s give you one of each of these. There, just sit back and enjoy the flowers.
They were now at the checkout, with two giant shopping carts laden with bags, power tools, and equipment. The young manager stood by as the merchandise was scanned by the checkout clerk. The bill came to $1053.91. After Artie signed the charge card slip, the manager said:
“And how about an autograph for me, too.”
“Why would you want my autograph?” asked Artie, suddenly nervous.
“Because I know ‘Arthur Gordon’ is famous and that I’ve seen you on TV recently, but I can’t remember where.”
“Atherton … believe me, you don’t want my autograph. I’m no celebrity.”
“Were you on the news?” asks the red head, reaching into his memory banks.
“You’ve got me mixed up,” says Artie, now looking for the shortest escape route. He begins wheeling his cart out the door and toward Cuzzin’s truck, Liam right behind him. They load the truck hastily as the manager comes out the front door and approaches them, his face ablaze with the light of recognition.
“Shit,” mutters Artie getting behind the steering wheel. Then, he pre-empts the manager. “Yup, I’m the guy. Now, do you still want an autograph?”
The manager is momentarily befuddled, but also delights at his proximity to celebrity.
“Uh, yeah, I think I would. I saw Cynthia Twiddlecunt review your movie.” Artie signs a used Burger King bag from the floor of the truck. The red head looks at the bag and intones “You’re the director guy who Rosie O’Donnell says should be castrated with a rusty knife.”
“That’s me.” Artie looks over at Liam who has a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression. “What’s with the ‘Twiddlecunt’ thing?”
“She’s got two last names, and she says them like that makes her superior, that her shit don’t stink. Anyone who offends Twiddlecunt is all right in my book. Come back and see me, Atherton, if any of that stuff gives you a problem.”
Sixty Minutes made their segment with Artie the lead story, entitling it “The Great White Wail.” After being churned and regurgitated by the CBS News editing room, Artie came across as a whiny, small-minded bigot, blaming women and minorities for his personal shortcomings. After every unflattering twitch or gesture, most of which were shot when Artie had a brief sneezing fit while eating lunch, the camera would cut to Mike Wallace’s cocked and skeptical brow. Even Andy Rooney kicked the corpse by retelling the “Artie Gordon Jokes” cropping up on the Internet. With the ticking clock welling up in the background, Rooney smirked:
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Artie.”
“Artie-who?”
“Artie-you glad you’re not Arthur Gordon?” Ha-ha.
Liam’s first job is to tune the spinet piano in the cottage living room. It’s a job he thoroughly enjoys, as it brings back memories of staying at Indian Mound as a boy. Everyone in the family played at least a little piano. Maybe that’s where his impetus to be a musician came from. It isn’t a hard job, but the cottage is stuffy, so he works up a light sweat and removes his shirt. He goes outside to take a break, lighting a cigarette and wandering over to the Shea’s perennial garden that borders their property. He is examining the new growth on a plant when she surprises him.
“Hey, get away from that nicotiana.”
Startled, Liam takes a quick step back. “I was just looking at it.”
“You were looking at it, and breathing tobacco smoke on it. Tobacco smoke is toxic and noxious to many plants. Just a little can kill them.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt anything—“
“I know you didn’t,” she interrupted, “but I couldn’t let you blow smoke on any plants. You literally will kill them instantly.” A natural silence followed, during which she examined all five feet, nine inches of Liam. Her expression could have spoken for her, but she was compelled to augment her disdain with words:
“Your mother must be so proud of you.”
“Actually my Mom likes my tattoos.”
“No, your mother says she likes your tattoos, because she loves you and doesn’t want to hurt you. I guarantee she doesn’t like them any more than she likes your smoking. If tobacco smoke will kill plants on contact, think of what it’s doing to your lungs.”
“Thank God you’re not my Mother.”
“I know I’m way of line saying this, but I see this self-mutilation and self-destruction, and I can’t help feeling the pain of a Mother somewhere. But why should I care?”
She leaves. Liam flicks his butt into her garden and goes inside. He finds his father lying on the floor in the breezeway, cleaning out an accumulation of leaves, acorns, and rodent nests from under the floorboards. He is filthy, but good-naturedly wallowing in the filth.
“Someday, Son” says Artie, pulling another handful of detritus from under the floor, “this will be all yours.”
“I just met the neighbor,” says Liam. “I just met the Garden Bitch.”
That night it is still too primitive for cooking, so Artie and Liam go to Anna’s. Walking toward the front door, Artie hear Cuzzin’s unmistakable laugh. “You’re about to be re-acquainted with your Uncle Cuzzin.”
The evening is filled with food, fun, and fellowship. It is the first time that either Artie or Cuzzin has spent any time with the adult Liam. Ample portions of nostalgia are served, including lots of stories of working in the kitchen frying seafood under the tutelage of Seamus “Bull” Gordon. When the waitress comes by and says “Jizzwanna order, now?” Liam pronounces that he has discovered a new language, Squantese, in which Cuzzin is fluent.
By the end of the evening, Cuzzin, well into his cups, has turned the corner into sentiment.
I never got along with my old man, except in the kitchen during those summers. And that’s because you couldn’t question his authority there. The man was a genius. Kind of a cruel asshole to his kids, but a genius when it came to frying seafood. What made him special is that he was looking for perfection and coming pretty damn close The perfection he was striving for was simplicity itself. The fish or clams or scallops had to be fresh, and not just fresh, but tasting of the sea fresh. Even a detail like tartar sauce can be totally screwed up if you don’t do it right. Tartar sauce is just mayonnaise, pickle relish, chopped onion, and pepper, but the ingredients have to be right. You can’t use just any mayonnaise. The proportions have to be right; the utensils have to be right, and the process has to be right. If you don’t refrigerate tartar sauce for at least two hours before serving it, it won’t taste right. Did you taste the tartar sauce they served tonight? The only thing wrong with it was everything. You know why? They take it pre-made out of a bottle. No one in this kitchen knows how to make real tartar sauce.
Liam takes note. The word in Squantese for “Tartar” was “Tahtah.” Cuzzin continues:
Of course, Bull was responsible for the success of both Howard Johnson and Dunkin’ Donuts. Yeah, I’m not shitting you. Howard Johnson was serving ice cream from a little stand down by Wollaston Beach. He was doing great, but his right arm was about falling off and come Labor Day, all his business went away. He was a regular at Bull’s, always ordered the scallop basket.
It was Dad who told him that he had to get into the restaurant business. All these GIs home from the war. Everyone’s buying cars and all prosperous. Highways were opening up the country. It was Bull who showed him how to fry a clam, and Bull who told him about the secret of cleaning the grease. And, when the restaurant was successful, it was Bull who suggested that he open up a second and that he make the menu exactly the same as the first. Then he told him “You should make it so that someone driving down the highway at sixty miles per hour can recognize your restaurant in one second. Something big, that really stands out. I don’t care if you make the roof orange, just make it big and attention grabbing so people know they’re going to get the exact same fried clams whether they’re in Quincy or Dubuque.”
Pretty soon there’s an orange roof at every highway interchange in the country. “You better switch to sea clams” Bull tells Howard. “You can chop them up into little uniform bits of rubber.”
“But they don’t taste as good as whole clams,” Howard says.
“Don’t worry,” Bull tells him. “People in Chicago or Kansas City wouldn’t know a real clam if it bit ‘em on the arse. What’s important is that some pimply, sixteen year old kid in Denver can make the clams taste the same as some pimply, sixteen year old kid in Cincinnati.”
“There was another guy hung out at Gordon’s SeaFood. Guys’d hang out there just like they do at the bait shop today. This guy’s running a little donut shop up on the Southern Artery that he calls the Open Kettle, and he comes in every Thursday and orders the fisherman’s combo and onion rings. His name’s Bill Rosenberg, and he’s whining that his business is going nowhere.
“To begin with,” Bull tells him, “your product stinks. You’re making these lumps of dough that taste like they’ve been cooked in an open sewer more than an open kettle.”
“They taste good when the fat is fresh,” says Bill.
So Bull takes him out in the kitchen and shows him his filtering device. “Golly,” says Bill. “Will you make one of those for me?” Sure, says Bull, but one more thing. Get a better name for your business. Something simple, but catchy. People like to dunk their donuts in their coffee. Figure it out!
Cuzzin’s Recipe for Tartar Sauce
Put 1 ¼ cup of mayonnaise into a medium-sized glass bowl. Use only Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, or a rich commercial brand. Do not use Hellmann’s Light, or for chrissakes, Miracle Whip. Shoot yourself instead.
Add ½ cup undrained dill pickle relish and ¼ cup finely chopped sweet onion, such as Vidalia. Do not use Bermuda onion or any yellow cooking onion.
Mix well. Cover bowl tightly with Saran Wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. Will keep in refrigerator up to one week.
The night in the cottage is unexceptional, meaning that it is marked by at least one critter incident. Liam goes to the kitchen to investigate a commotion and finds himself face to face with a giant white rat. He screams, a reaction not inappropriate upon the occasion of encountering a giant white rat in your house during the middle of the night. This isn’t a little scream, or by any interpretation a muffled gasp. It is a bone-chilling wail that originates near Liam’s coccyx, is powered by his lungs, and then is forced through the narrow channel of vocal chords that have been conditioned by years of rock and roll. This, in turn, draws Artie, who also starts screaming, through not nearly as effectively as his son. The men arm themselves with a broom and a mop and commence to shout and swat at the creature that responds by snarling and ambling away. When the house is secured they are back in bed, Artie notice the lights on in the Garden Bitch’s home. They’ll hear about this in the morning.
“What’s in that bureau?” Artie and Liam are cleaning out the bathhouse, which means they are opening drawers that haven’t been opened for years. Liam begins with the top drawer.
“Well, in the top drawer, there’s a lot of mouse turds. Then, in the middle drawer, lots more mouse turds. And in the bottom drawer, oh, whole lot more mouse turds.”
“Just what I’ve always wanted,” says Artie, “a old bureau full of mouse turds.”
“It’s a family heirloom,” says Liam.
“And someday this, too, will be yours.”
“Howcome we’re not millionaires?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Cuzzin’s stories about how Uncle Bull was really the man responsible for the success of both Howard Johnson’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. Shouldn’t some of that have filtered down to us, or at least him?”
“Um, let me think of how best to put this. I think the world of your Uncle Cuzzin, but he has this little problem with reality. My Uncle Bull had something to do with Howard Johnson and Dunkin’ Donuts, but he was hardly the power behind the throne. Also, Cuzzin and his father never exchanged a civil word after the age of fourteen. Cuzzin never even went to his funeral. Tomorrow we’ll hear about how Bull taught Ray Kroc how to make French fries. Let’s just say time has healed a few wounds for your uncle.”
“You know, ‘Uncle Cousin’ would be a pretty good band name.’”
This is the day that Nucking Fuff Construction is formed. The inspiration comes when Liam is holding a piece of trim that Artie is trying to nail back onto the house. It’s in an awkward position, and Artie is hardly a maestro of the hammer, so it’s a success when the board is actually attached to the house. There’s a one-inch gap between where it is and where it’s supposed to be, but Artie deems it “Close-e-fucking-nough.” Somehow this is morphed into Nucking Fuff Construction where “pretty close is close-e-fucking-nuff.” As they work together, father and son begin to banter back and forth in the form of radio commercials.
Tired of high construction costs? Sick of quality craftsmanship? Here at Nucking Fuff Construction, we promise that your job, no matter how big or how small, will be completed in one day. That’s our Nucking Fuff Guarantee. Any job, one day, it’s done, you’re history. Remember, we’re Nucking Fuff, where pretty close is close-e-fucking-nough.
Liam Gordon
Doesn’t it fry your ass to have to deal with plumbers, roofers, electricians, carpenters, and painters? Let’s admit it, they’re all overpaid prima donnas who whine about how busy they are. Here at Nucking Fuff, you deal directly with the big guys. We work fast; we work cheap; and we’re not afraid to take the blame when we screw up.
Arthur Gordon
We know what the competition says. ‘Nucking Fuff is incompetent, Nucking Fuff has no standards.’ Well, now it’s our turn. Of course, we’re incompetent. Who else would promise to finish any given job in one day? But as for having no standards, nothing could be further from the truth. Here at Nucking Fuff we do have standards. For instance, it’s ok to paint over cobwebs and insects, but not over mammals. Or, for instance, when painting around a rug always try to overlap just a little bit, so it looks like you’ve painted the entire floor.
Liam Gordon
Officer Tropiano comes by in the afternoon. After checking on progress and explaining pleasantries, he says:
“Artie, there’s been a complaint.”
Artie, ably assisted by Liam, tells him about the giant white rat. Officer Tropiano can’t help but laugh at the image of the two men thrashing about with their weapons of rat destruction.
“Artie, what you’re dealing with is a possum, not a rat. And you can deal with it with a gun, a trap, an exterminator, or a bazooka for all I care, but just do it quietly so the neighbors can sleep.” It is so agreed.
That afternoon Artie buys a Hav-a-Heart trap. Just after midnight they hear it spring. Father and son go out to the kitchen and find red eyes staring back at them. “Don’t scream,” whispers Liam. “Don’t you scream,” retorts Artie.
They have captured a possum.
“Omigod, look at the babies!” Clinging to the possum’s back are six little possums.
“What do we do now?” says Liam. Artie realizes he hasn’t thought this one through.
“Let’s put a blanket over the trap, and deal with it in the morning.” The men sleep fitfully, interrupted by the rattle of mammal on steel.
In the morning Artie puts on leather work gloves, picks up the trap, blanket and all, and drives across town to the salt marsh near Germantown Flats where the possum mama and her babies wander nonchalantly into the tall grass. Back at the cottage Artie and Liam congratulate themselves on a job well done. Liam has to be at work at four o’clock, so Artie suggests they take a break from work and go for a walk on the mudflats.
Quincy Bay is like a saucer. The tide rises and falls on average about eight feet. Because the Bay is so shallow, at low tide the shoreline is exposed for several hundred yards out. The area beaches are ok, but don’t compare to the open ocean beaches like Nantasket to the south and Crane’s to the north. The mudflats, however, are a unique window into a world that is half ocean, half land. It may be just as interesting in other places, but at Indian Mound you can walk right out on the ocean floor and explore.
I’ve been walking these mudflats all of my life. Looking down at your feet is like reading the natural history of the Harbor. Look up and you see the story of humanity, the story of Boston. I know that sounds grandiose. Ok, it is grandiose, but hear me out. See this horseshoe crab? I actually know something about horseshoe crabs. They’ve been around in relatively the same shape and form for 450 million years. Yes, that is a long time. That’s 200 million years before the dinosaurs were on earth. Man? Forgedaboudit! Homo Sapiens has been around less than a million years.
Now look up at the skyline. All those pretty buildings. You know how many of those were there when I was a little kid. Two! It’s hard to conceive how ephemeral it all is.
But back to our friends, the horseshoe crabs. First of all, they’re not really crabs. They are arthropods, more closely related to spiders and scorpions than true crabs. This is their mating season. The males come in first and then the women just a week or so later. It used to be just that way on Indian Mound. The men would come down to open up the cottages, drink beer, and get them ready for the season.
The highest tides are on the full moon and the new moon. The female lays her eggs and the males, attracted by the pheromones that she has released, are right there to fertilize them. The eggs gestate for the next two weeks, alternately warmed and cooled by the tides and the sun, and then hatch on the next flood tide.
It’s really not that different for human beings. When you pick a mate, it won’t be because you decided on it, it’s because she smells good!
Of course, man is doing his level best to eradicate horseshoe crabs by so totally screwing up the habitat to make life impossible, even for creatures that have made it for the last 450 million years. This is despite the fact that scientists are finding all kinds of uses for a miracle substance called Chitin that’s found in the shells of horseshoe crabs.
But maybe there’s hope. This harbor had become a cesspool by the 1980s, but the water quality is somewhat better now. I’ve told you about digging clams here and fishing for flounder when I was a kid. You can’t do that now, but maybe it will come back. Maybe we’ve actually learned a lesson, or maybe we’ve just transferred the problem somewhere else.
That night Artie hears a familiar disturbance in the kitchen. He gets up to a possum with six babies, looking disturbingly like the one he released earlier that day.
Artie tells his possum story to Cuzzin. His solution is to catch the possum in the Hav-A-Heart, then to take the cage down to the waterfront and drown them all. It’s real convenient, says Cuzzin, because everything stays right in the cage.
Artie tells his possum story to Officer Tropiano, who offers to shoot the possum the next time it is caught. He seems a little squeamish about killing the babies, however.
Artie tells his possum story to the Animal Rescue League, but they rescue only cute puppies and adorable kitties.
Artie tells his possum story to South Shore Exterminators, who say they will be glad to come over and lace his house with rat poison.
Meanwhile the nightly visits have become regular and predictable. Artie spray paints a dot on the possum after he catches it again and leaves it off on Germantown Flats. The next night it is back. So is the dot.
Artie attacks the lawn, and for several days the air is filled with bits of grass, gas fumes, and the roar of a 3.5 Briggs & Stratton. Through it all Shea sits contemplatively on her deck, breathing deeply and repeating the mantra, “Endure. Endure. Endure.” Finally, there is a break in the two-cycle hue and roar, and Shea comes to the property line.
“Arthur,” she says calmly.
He looks up warily, prepared to go in any of several directions.
“It’s a lovely evening. When you are done with the lawn, would you like to join me for a gin and tonic on the deck?”
Artie is ready with an assortment of one-liners and comebacks. None are appropriate to this situation. He nods.
Shea serves a cracklingly good gin and tonic. Artie tells her so. There is a nanosecond of peace. Then Shea says, “Let me be brutally honest. I don’t like you. I don’t like having you here. We’re completely different people who will never see eye-to-eye, but you’re here. You’re not going away, so let’s try communicating with each other.”
Artie considers the proposal, takes another sip, and says “Ok, let’s communicate. Why did you report us to the police the other night.”
“There seemed to be some kind of domestic disturbance going on. I thought someone needed help.”
“Someone did need help. Me! There was a giant, white, ugly rat in the house.”
Shea laughs. “A possum?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. And the worst part is, he’s still there, or I should say ‘she’ because there are six little possums clinging to her. And I don’t know what to do.” He recounts his litany of unacceptable solutions.
“I’m glad you didn’t take any of those options. Have you tried talking to the possum?”
“The possum doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak possum.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but this is a frightened creature who’s looking out for her family. There must be some level at which you can communicate.”
“Talking to a possum? That’ll be the day. It does sound crazy, and by golly, it’s coming out of your mouth.”
“Think of your options.”
That night, instead of baiting the Hav-a-Heart trap, Artie puts the bait (a can of sardines) on top of the trap, leaving the entrance doors closed. When the midnight commotion begins, Artie approaches the kitchen slowly, without his customary broom in hand. The possum reacts with snarls and bare teeth, but Artie stands quietly on the opposite side of the room. Finally, the possum calms down and goes back to licking out the sardine can. Artie lets her finish before beginning.
I don’t want to hurt you, but I can hurt you. I know you are a mother doing the best for your children, but coming back here is not the best for them, because if you do this again I will have to hurt you. I live here now and will be here for the next few months. After that you can live under the house, but not in the house, because it’s my house. I’m going to open the back door for you and let you leave peacefully. For the next few days I will leave a can of sardines for you out by the edge of the marsh, but I don’t want you back in the house again. I hope I’ve been completely clear.