Raising Jake by Charlie Carillo

Author:Charlie Carillo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Families, Humorous, General & Literary Fiction, Fathers and sons, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), General, Fiction - General, Family Life, Queens (New York, Divorced men, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, Fiction, N.Y.)
ISBN: 9780758235046
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2009-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

The clapboard house is still standing, though the yellow paint is peeling and faded. Jake points at it from half a block away. “That’s got to be it. Am I right?”

“You are right.”

“Think he’s alive?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

A tall privet hedge blocks our view of the front lawn, but as we approach we can hear digging sounds, the scrape of steel against stone, and as we reach the front walk there he is on his knees, in jeans and a green T-shirt, prying up a chunk of cement with a crowbar.

He’s got his back to us. His thick hair has gone completely white, the radiant white of a healthy old man, and it’s cropped close to the scalp. All around him are pried-up chunks of the short cement path that used to lead from the front door to the sidewalk, and then I see a sledgehammer, which he’s obviously used to smash the cement path to smithereens.

Sledgehammers and crowbars. So much for my premonitions about a feeble old man.

He wiggles the crowbar from side to side, loosens a chunk of cement, pulls it free with a groan of satisfaction, and chucks it aside. Now the entire path has been removed, down to the dirt. My father gets to his feet, and claps his gloved hands together to knock off the dirt. He turns toward the sidewalk and freezes at the sight of us standing there.

Except for the totally white hair, he hasn’t changed very much since the day Jake was born. He’s still as lean as a leopard, his big blue eyes twinkle with mischief, and his bare arms are ropy with sinew and muscle.

“So, Dad,” I begin. “How are you, anyway?”

He stands there and stares at me, squints at me, as if maybe his eyes could be playing tricks on him in the wake of the enormous physical effort he’s just expended to demolish the cement path.

But he quickly realizes I’m no mirage. He pulls off his gloves and tosses them to the ground, like a hockey player ready for a fight.

“Holy shit,” says Danny Sullivan, in a voice many decibels quieter than the voice I remember from my childhood. Still looking straight at me, he points a finger in Jake’s direction. “My grandson?”

“Yeah.”

“Come here, kid.”

A wide-eyed Jake obeys my father, stepping up to him and stopping before him as if a medal is going to be pinned to his chest. Instead, my father reaches out and gingerly touches his cheek, then his chest, then his arms, as if Jake is an oil painting, a work of art that is not quite dry. A smile that’s half a smirk creases my father’s face. “You’re taller than your old man.”

“A little.”

“You happy about that?”

“I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

My father turns to me, smiling broadly now, and I see that he still has his teeth. They gleam a golden yellow in the early afternoon light.

“How about that?” he says. “The Spick-Mick is taller than you!”

Political correctness was never one of my old man’s strengths.

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