The owner greeted them with a full blast of Art Carney and C.B. talk: "Ten-four there, good buddies, can I help you? For sure, it's a hot one there."
"Seven thousand dollars," Lou replied.
"No sir, that's a negatory there, sir. But can I help you with it, good buddy?"
Carlo had engaged one of the truckers in a Consumer Report analysis of C.B. sets, but Mrs. Lou noticed his eye drifting over the magazine rack. She nudged Lou, who turned on the owner with a new line:
"You oughta be ashamed to have that shit in here. How come you got no good books in here?"
Lou was a peaceful man, but was guilty of a vicious ethnic stereotype: he looked like someone who broke the kneecaps of people with bad debts. The owner, a man with an obvious desire to die only of natural causes, became conciliatory:
"Aw gee, I'm sorry sir, those are just for me and my good buddies, sir. Not for boys from the College, no spr."
The truckers swallowed funny and Lou glared back, as Carlo realized he would have to go elsewhere forhhis future bouts with the munchies. The snickers worked their way into guffaws and Lou led his troupe out, steam shooting from both ears.
"Seven goddam thousand dollars for this?" Lou took in the whole scene with a sweep of his arm--the superette, the bunker, the parking lot where the '68 Olds sat piled high with Carlo's Advents and his homemade afghan and his old movie posters. "What's so goddam special about this place?"
Carlo had learned enough about the Harvard mystique to take offense at that one, Whaddaya mean what's special he shot back, moving into the type of diatribe they would have loved to hear up at Byerly Hall. You're looking at the oldest-collgein America with the finest-facultyanywhere and thebest-studentbodyaround. It's the people who are important he argued, slowing down a bit as he noticed the cords standing out in Lou's neck, which was purple. It doesn't matter where you live in Harvard, it's who you meet, it's hwat's you learn that's important, quoting what they had told him at the housing office when he had first gone down to complain. That's what's special, he said. People count, not buildings, and why couldn't his father realize that?
Lou looked over at the fortress walls on one side of the street and then glanced into the superette, where a crowd of Matherites was disucssing the relative virtues of that month's Raunch cover girl. The C.B. crackled and everybody laughed and the owner leaned over to point out the centerfold and Lou shivered like a man who just lost a lot of money betting on a very slow hogse with a very fast bokkie.
"Gee, that's too bad," Lou said, "'cause I could almost learn to like the concrete."
"Now for Chrissake, Dad," Crlo said, and immediately knew he had made amistake. In his family Lou was the only one allowed to take the Lord's Name in vain--it was like a franchise, Carlo knew and you can get in a lot of trouble by messing around with franchises. "I mean, for Pete's sake," he corrected, "it's not that bad. I mean, there are lots of good people here, too. They have these clubs where you can go and it's nice as hell, I mean heck, all you have to do is know somebody in there and then you get punched--that means invited, Ma--and they have dinners every week and everybody wears tuxedoes and they talk about important stuff, not that C.B. junk. And they have parties where lots of really good people come in from other schools, like Wellesley and Smith and it's a great way to get to know the kinda girls you'd want me to know, y'know?"
Carlo had them now, and he knew it. As soon as he started to talk about "the right kinda girls" Mrs. Lou had put on her lighthouse smile, and even Lou's neck grew a few shades lighter. Carlo's parents hadn't even let him see "Return of the Wild" when he was seven because the local Catholic newspaper said it had some questionable "female scenes" in it, so he knew how his parents thought about "the right kind."
"So anyway," he went on, moving in for the kill, "I know this guy, well actually the guy who used to sit next to me in Physics knows him, and he's almost imto the Fox Club, and he could probably get me in, too. I mean, I'd have to get to know him a lot better and everything, but my friend says he's a nice guy, and he knows a lot of people out at Wellesley, too. He's got a car and he goes out to visit his girlfriend every weekend--I mean, he only goes to see her for the days--and a lot of times he takes his friends from the club with him. So next year could be really great, y'know?"
As they walked back to the car Carlo felt a little like Rex Humbard, or Oral Roberts, or maybe Billy Graham. He glanced at his mother, who by now was beaming like the lady in the wheelchair who gets up and hollers "I Believe" every night at the Oral Roberts meeting, and at his father, who looked pretty well converted too. In fact, Lou looked like he'd been born-again, all fire and enthusiasm and eagerness to give all he owned for the cause.
"Yeah, I guess it is pretty special," Lou said as he got into the car for the trek back to Jersey City and a summer full of expectations. "A real special place."