Chapter 49

Nothing much happened for the rest of the school year. I saw Bill in school, but we didn't speak. Kate stayed on her good behavior, pleasing both of my parents. Kate had never wanted to study ballet, preferring modern dance, jitterbug, or ballroom dancing, but when Agnes asked her to come to her advanced ballet classes just to work on her grace and smooth out her dance movements, Kate agreed to do it. She started taking two back to back advanced ballet classes each week from Agnes. Instead of regular component exercises like the other girls worked on, Agnes would have Kate show her whatever dance moves she liked doing, and then she would have her work on improving 'presentation aspects' of each part of the dance. I watched them a few times, and it seemed that Agnes kept changing Kate's posture, and the way she held her head and arms while she moved.

When school let out, I got a job for the summer with a neighbor, Mr. Hennessey, helping him deliver produce to markets and restaurants in the area. We had to start work at four o'clock in the morning, because that was when the train brought in the produce from Cleveland. Mr. Hennessey was about sixty years old, and his back had been giving him a bad time, so that's why he needed someone to help him for awhile. I did the loading of his truck every morning, and then carried the cartons into the stores or restaurants that we delivered to. Mr. Hennessey collected the money, and took the order for the next delivery while I went to the truck and made the actual delivery. We were usually all done by one o'clock. I earned forty dollars a week, but my paycheck was only for thirty two dollars and eleven cents because of taxes, social security and other small things they took out of it. We drove all over the place, even as far away as Lawn Glen, which was almost forty miles from where I lived. We worked five days a week, but took off on Wednesdays and Sundays. Fridays and Mondays were our busiest delivery days.

Clara lived in Lawn Glen with her father. We went there on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but I never saw her during any of my visits. I didn't try to find out her address, but whenever we were in the truck or making deliveries in the three restaurants and four markets in that town, I kept my eyes peeled for her. I didn't want to talk to her, but I would have liked to have seen her again.

When he first hired me, Mr. Hennessey told me that I might only need to help him carry stuff for a week or so, but, even when his back started getting better, he still preferred having me doing all of the lifting and carrying. He told me that his orders got bigger when he had more of a chance to talk to the restaurant owners, and the owners of the markets while I did the actual delivering.

He told me at the end of June that I could keep working for him for the rest of the summer if I wanted to. I worked until the end of August, just before the time for my sixteenth birthday, and when I quit, he hired an older boy, Jimmy Clancy, who had dropped out of school, and needed a job. Jimmy didn't last too long, because he wouldn't get up in time to get to the train station to help load up all the cartons.

By the middle of September, Mr. Hennessey was back working by himself. A few times, when his back really was hurting him, he'd call me the night before, and ask me to help him load his truck in the morning. I'd get up at three thirty, get dressed, and go down to the train station to load the produce onto his truck. I'd be finished before six o'clock, and then he'd drive me back home and give me three dollars in cash.

I'd be too tired in school on those days, but I didn't say anything to my parents, because I knew that Mr. Hennessey really needed my help whenever he called me. This went on for another month, until Mr. Hennessey's brother sent him a man to help him out from Cleveland. The funny thing was, the new guy was a recent Hungarian immigrant named Tibor Lakatos.

I met Tibor at Mr. Hennessey's house about three days after he arrived from Cleveland. I came over to wash Mr. Hennessey's windows, and Tibor was now living with the Hennessey's. He was tall for a Hungarian, maybe six feet tall, and he had a funny looking haircut. It looked like he'd put a bowl over his own head and cut all the hair that still stuck out. He looked about thirty five or forty years old. He looked strong though, built solid. Mr. Hennessey said that Tibor could do the work of two men.

Because he was Hungarian, and because he didn't speak very much English, I felt sorry for him, and invited him over to my house the next Sunday afternoon, for a good home cooked meal and some Hungarian conversation with my parents. I had to ask him in English, but I used a few Hungarian words like paprikash, kolbas and hulka. He understood me well enough to smile and rub his stomach.

I told him to come at two thirty, but then I changed my mind and told him I'd come and get him, because I wasn't sure about how long it would take my mother to make a nice Hungarian dinner for company. I went home when I got done with the windows, which Tibor insisted on helping me with. When my mother got home, half an hour later with Kate, I told her about Tibor, and how I'd invited him over for dinner on Sunday. My parents had brought home lots of Hungarian people over the years, most of them total strangers to all of us.

I invite one Hungarian man without checking with them, and you'd think I'd invited Hitler to eat with us or something. I answered a ton of questions from my mom, and then my dad asked me even more. My answer to most of these questions was always the same.

"I don't know, his name is Tibor and he's a Hungarian. He's been here about three months. He doesn't speak English yet."

I told my mother that he was tall, and about thirty five or forty. I told my father that Mr. Hennessey said he was a good worker and very strong. My mother started worrying about what she should make for dinner, and my father asked her why she was so worried about pleasing a stranger. Better, he said, that she worried about pleasing him, since he was the one who paid for the food on his table. I was lost in the shuffle after that, which suited me just fine. I didn't find out until after church on Sunday that Agnes was invited to Sunday dinner with us too, and she was really dressed up, a lot more than she usually did, just for church.

I went and got Tibor at two thirty. My mother and my aunt had been in the kitchen for the past two and a half hours, working on dinner. When I came to fetch Tibor, I found him wearing a black suit, one that didn't fit him very well. I figured it must have been Mr. Hennessey's at one time, because it was too short on him, and with his hair, the effect wasn't very promising. I didn't think he'd make much of an impression on Agnes, and that was apparently what my mother and father had in mind.

I guess I was wrong about that too. Almost as soon as we walked in the door, Tibor was the hit of the whole dinner. There were five people all jawing in Hungarian, including Kate, but I was just left there, not understanding anything that was being said.

It turned out that Tibor had been a Freedom Fighter, during the uprising, and had been imprisoned, sentenced to hard labor, until about six months before by the Soviets. He was smuggled out of Hungary right after he was released, and came to the U.S. under the sponsorship of a family in Cleveland, who were somehow related to Tibor, on his mother's side. He had been a school teacher in Hungary, before the revolution. Now, he was happy to find work with Mr. Hennessey, even working for forty bucks a week. He was thirty four, and apparently, the Soviets hadn't been too nice to him while they had him in custody. He was a big hit with all of the rest of my family. He would have been a bigger hit with me if we had spoken English about any of this. The only thing my parents found wrong with him, was that he was agnostic. That didn't seem to bother Agnes any, and as soon as dinner was done, she took Tibor into the kitchen and sat him on a chair in the dinette, and, using my father's hair scissors, she gave him a new haircut.

While she was busy cutting his hair in the kitchen, my mother and father were speaking rapidly and cryptically, in Hungarian in the living room. Kate was frustrated, because they were talking so fast and so low, that she couldn't understand what they were talking about. Disgusted that she was unable to eavesdrop, she started telling me, in English, all of the things they had found out about Tibor. When Agnes led Tibor out of the kitchen, his new haircut made him a lot more presentable. Something still had to be done about the clothes he was wearing. My father was too short for any of his clothes to fit Tibor.

No one apologized to me about giving me so much grief for inviting him over for dinner in the first place. Now, they were all falling all over themselves to make him feel welcome. I'd never understand how their minds worked. I did understand that my parents were hoping to set him up with Agnes. It surprised me that Agnes was seeming to go along with this so happily. Tibor certainly looked happy about this turn of events too. When he spoke in Hungarian, I guess he was funny, witty and charming, judging by the response he was evoking from the three females present. I had to admit, he was a lot better looking without that ridiculous haircut. Once, when they were all laughing about a story that Tibor had told, Agnes leaned over and touched Tibor's knee. I felt a little stab of jealousy when she did that. My parents noticed that touch too. I saw them look at each other and smile.

After Tibor left, everyone switched back to speaking English again. That's when I found out that Tibor was divorced, with a seven year old daughter who lived in Hungary. He hadn't seen her since she was two years old. My father was talking about trying to see if he could get Tibor a job at his plant, and Agnes and my mother were going to ask at church about whether anyone had any clothing to donate for him to use. My parents started teasing Agnes about how nice it was that she was interested in helping the cause of Hungarian refugees now. It was good natured teasing though, and Agnes took it like that. She didn't deny that she was interested in Tibor, when Kate asked her about that.

When Agnes decided to go home at around seven thirty, I volunteered to walk her home. We were just outside the door when Agnes put her arm through mine and we walked home that way.

"You were so quiet today, Larry. Are you having a problem with something?"

"Yes. I don't understand Hungarian. It's hard to say much when people are speaking in a foreign language to you."

"Tibor was the guest, Larry. Of course, we would make him feel welcome and included. What do you think of him?"

"He's all right, I guess. I could see that you really liked him."

"As you say, he is all right. Part of what I did, was for your papa's benefit. Your mama thought this might be best. I agree with her that it wouldn't harm anything for me to take an interest in Tibor. As for my really liking him, we shall have to wait and see. He was not my first choice of men in the room tonight, but my first choice isn't available to me."

"Papa?" She laughed and squeezed my arm tighter to her.

"You, Larry! I can't even imagine your papa and me together."

"You can imagine the two of us that way?"

"I'm sorry to say, I can, and I have. I try not to have those thoughts, but it isn't easy. The mind has a will of its own. We must be strong, and it will eventually pass."

"I'm not sure what you mean, Agnes."

"I don't know sometimes myself. After that one time, I felt like it would be much better for everyone if we just stopped our flirtations. I felt so guilty. Time is passing now, and I have tried to be good. I have been good. The pressure builds up though. My needs get stronger, until I don't know where I can turn. I think of what we did more and more now. My mind plays tricks on me, telling me that it wouldn't hurt anything if I was to give in to my desires and be bad with you once again. I think of what limits I could set so that it wouldn't be too bad. I think of what you told me your punishment would be if I were to be bad with you again. It is only the punishment that I need. If it were just a man, or even a woman, it would be an easy thing for me to satisfy. That wouldn't satisfy my underlying craving."