Mario Puzo - Fools die

Even as a child Artie was not vain. But the week that followed was the only week in our lives that we were estranged. I hated him that week. On Monday after classes, when we had our touch football game, I didn’t pick him to be on my team. In sports I had all the power. For the sixteen years we were in the asylum I was the best athlete of my age and a natural leader. So I was always one of the captains who picked their teams, and I always picked Artie to be on my team as my first choice. That Monday was the only time in sixteen years that I didn’t pick him. When we played the game, though he was a year older than I was, I tried to hit him as hard as I could when he had the ball. I can still remember thirty years later the look of astonishment and hurt on his face that day. At evening meals I didn’t sit next to him at the dinner table. At night I didn’t talk to him in the dormitory. On one of those days during the week I remember clearly that after the football game was over and he was walking away across the field I had the football in my hand and I very coolly threw a beautiful twenty-yard spiral pass and hit him in the back of the head and knocked him to the ground. I had just thrown it. I really didn’t think I could hit him. For a seven-year-old boy it was a remarkable feat. And even now I wonder at the strength of the malice that made my seven-year-old arm so true. I remember Artie’s getting off the ground and my yelling out, “Hey, I didn’t mean it.” But he just turned and walked away.

He never retaliated. It made me more furious. No matter how much I snubbed him or humiliated him he just looked at me questioningly. Neither of us understood what was happening. But I knew one thing that would really bother him. Artie was always a careful saver of money. We picked up pennies and nickels by doing odd jobs around the asylum, and Artie had a glass jar filled with these pennies and nickels that he kept hidden in his clothes locker. On Friday afternoon I stole the glass jar, giving up my daily football game, and ran out into a wooded area of the grounds and buried it. I didn’t even count the money. I could see the copper and silver coins filled the jar almost to the brim. Artie didn’t miss the jar until the next morning and he looked at me unbelievingly, but he didn’t say anything. Now he avoided me.

The following day was Sunday and we were to report to the matron to be dressed in our adoption suits. I got up early Sunday morning before breakfast and ran away to hide in the wooded area behind the asylum. I knew what would happen that day. That Artie would be dressed in his suit, that the beautiful woman I loved would take him away with her and that I would never see him again. But at least I would have his money. In the thickest part of the woods I lay down and went to sleep and I slept the whole day through. It was almost dark before I awoke and then I went back. I was brought to the matron’s office and she gave me twenty licks with a wooden ruler across the legs. It didn’t bother me a bit.

I went back to the dormitory, and I was astonished to find Artie sitting in his bed waiting for me. I couldn’t believe that he was still there. In fact, if I remember, I had tears in my eyes when Artie punched me in the face and said, “Where’s my money?” And then he was all over me, punching me and kicking me and screaming for his money. I tried to defend myself without hurting him, but finally I picked him up and threw him off me. We sat there staring at each other.

“I haven’t got your money,” I said.

“You stole it,” Artie said. “I know you stole it.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I haven’t got it.”

We stared at each other. We didn’t speak again that evening. But when we woke up the next morning, we were friends again. Everything was as it was before. Artie never asked me again about the money. And I never told him where I had buried it.

I never knew what happened that Sunday until years later when Artie told me that when he had found out I had run away, he had refused to put on his adoption suit, that he had screamed and cussed and tried to hit the matron, that he had been beaten. When the young couple that wanted to adopt him insisted on seeing him, he had spit on the woman and called her all the dirty names an eight-year-old boy could think of. It had been a terrible scene and he took another beating from the matron.

When I finished the story, Janelle got up from the bed and went to get herself another glass of wine. She came back into the bed, leaning up against me, and said, “I want to meet your brother, Artie.”

“You never will,” I said. “Girls I brought around fell in love with him. In fact, the only reason I married my wife was that she was the only girl who didn’t.”

Janelle said, “Did you ever find the glass jar with the money?”

“No,” I said. “I never wanted to. I wanted it to be there for some kid who came after me, some kid might dig in that wood and it would be a piece of magic for him. I didn’t need it anymore.”

Janelle drank her wine and then said jealously, as she was jealous of all my emotions, “You love him, don’t you?”

And I really couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t think of that word of “love” as a word that I would use for my brother or any man. And besides, Janelle used the word “love” too much. So I didn’t answer.

On another night Janelle argued with me about women having the right to fuck as freely as men. I pretended to agree with her. I was feeling coolly malicious from suppressed jealousy.

All I said was: “Sure they do. The only trouble is that biologically women can’t handle it.”

At this, Janelle became furious. “That’s all bullshit,” she said. “We can fuck just as easily as you do. We don’t give a shit. In fact, it’s you men who make all the fuss about sex being so important and serious. You’re so jealous and so possessive we’re your property.”

It was just the trap I hoped she would fall into. “No, I didn’t mean that.” I said. “But did you know that a man has a twenty to fifty percent chance of catching gonorrhea from a woman, but a woman has a fifty to eighty percent chance of catching gonorrhea from a man?”

She looked astounded for a moment and I loved that look of childish astonishment on her face. Like most people, she didn’t know a damn thing about VD or how it worked. As for myself, as soon as I had started cheating on my wife, I had read up on the whole subject. My big nightmare was catching VD, gonorrhea or syphilis, and infecting Valerie, which is one of the reasons that it distressed me when Janelle told me about her love affairs.

“You’re just making it up to scare me,” Janelle said. “I know you when you sound so sure of yourself and so professorial; you’re just making stories up.”

“No,” I said. “It’s true. A male has a thin, clear discharge from within one to ten days, but women most of the time never even know they have gonorrhea. Fifty to eighty percent of women have no symptoms for weeks or months or they have a green or yellow discharge. Also, women get a mushroom odor from their genitals.”

Janelle collapsed on the bed, laughing, and threw her bare legs up in the air. “Now I know you’re full of shit.”

“No, it’s true,” I said. “No kidding. But you’re OK. I can smell you from here.” Hoping the joke would hide my malice. “You know usually the only way you know you have it is if your male partner tells you.”

Janelle straightened up primly. “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Are you getting ready to tell me you have it and, therefore, I must have it?”

“No,” I said. “I’m straight, but if I do get it, I know it’s either from you or my wife.”

Janelle gave me a sarcastic look. “And your wife is above suspicion, right?”