CARTER'S DUTY: WILLIAM CARTER
III
Chapter 10 - By Christopher Patrick Lydon
June 9th 2003
It was utter chaos; within just minutes Will knew what it must
have been like to be a part of the Blitzkrieg, to suddenly turn around and
find himself a victim of an invasion by a malicious occupying force that was
intent on taking over utterly. That was how it felt for Will at that moment.
When Jeff had said family, Will had assumed just his parents. Instead he now
had brothers, a sister, and a pair of grandparents as well. All stuffed into
his little split-level townhouse. There were only two guest bedrooms, meaning
that the couches in the living room and the den had been commandeered as well.
With only one bathroom to share between everyone, things were about to become
very crowded.
He had retreated to the kitchen balcony while everyone settled
in. The sounds of pots and pans rattling in his kitchen heralded doom for
his plan to order food. Jeff's mother and grandmother, old-school Italians,
had taken one look at the pizza when it arrived and decided to cook a real
meal. He winced, so much for that idea. Andrew wasn't too happy about having
to postpone his dinner again, but Will couldn't exactly refuse Jeff's mother's
insistence that she repay the hospitality in this manner. Even if the pizza
had been paid for.
At first Will had thought to retreat with Andrew to the living
room, but Jeff's father and two younger brothers had discovered the digital-cable
box, and more importantly, the hockey game on the sports channel. Andrew had
settled onto a couch with them. But Will wasn't about to subject himself to
another attempt to understand the damn game. He would leave that to the French-Canadian
and the three Italian-Canadians who hooted and yelled at the television at
every call.
He had sat for a while as he tried to make conversation with
Jeff's gruff father. Mr. Sternosti was a severe man who worked as a contractor
back in St. Catherines. But the man had flatly ignored Will every time a burst
of excitement erupted on screen.
Jeff's two teenaged brothers weren't much better; they laughed
as they joked in Italian to each other and Will understood that they made
fun of the teams on the screen, but much beyond that he was lost.
And he had given up altogether. He preferred to find a corner
to brood over the preferred methods of exacting his revenge on Jeff.
Even his den/study had been overrun. Jeff's 18-year-old sister
had claimed that as her makeshift room, and was downstairs blasting his stereo
as she unpacked her mountain of suitcases. Will reflected she seemed set to
spend a week somewhere exotic rather than a few days in Ottawa. But for the
St. Catherines-born-and-bred girl, this was her first chance to go to the
big city.
"Where do you keep the strainer?" Jeff's grandmother,
a thickly-accented, wizened, Italian woman asked through the open screen door.
"The colander is in the second cupboard to the right of
the stove," Will replied, wondering for the umpteenth time how he had
allowed Jeff to talk him into this. He was too nice for his own good he surmised;
it was only for a few days, he reminded himself.
He rested his arms on the rail and loosened his tie; the bedroom
arrangements would have to be planned out. Jeff's grandparents would have
to take the master bedroom; he couldn't expect them to weather the futon in
the guest bedroom or the narrow single bed in the third. It was the only considerate
thing to do. Breaking the news to Andrew wouldn't go well, especially since
Jeff's parents had already set their belongings into the room with the futon.
Andrew hated the narrow bed, and for the two of them to have to share it,
Andrew would only be more aggravated.
It was only for a couple of days. That was becoming his mantra
lately.
Jeff stepped out of the house, gently sliding the patio door
closed on the kitchen. "Hey Will, thanks, eh?"
Will contemplated several acrid responses before he shrugged,
"Yeah, well what's a best man for?"
Jeff joined Will at the rail looking down at the rented minivan
that had displaced Will's Jeep out onto the street. "Mum brought some
of her spaghetti sauce with her, it's her specialty."
As if on cue the patio door slid open and the aged grandmother
looked out, "These mushrooms are no good!" she declared as she held
up a zip-lock baggie containing dried mushrooms, "they bad, make you
sick!"
Will winced, "I know Mrs Sternosti, just leave them where
you found them..."
She shook the bag again; adamantly "I will throw out for
you." She turned and before Will could react, emptied the bag into the
sink, turning on the trash disposal with a flip of a switch.
Will rounded on Jeff, "Remind me once again why I am such
a nice guy?"
Jeff held up his hands, "I'm sorry, look I'll replace them..."
Will returned to his view, "Don't bother, they weren't
going to get used anyway..."
Jeff shifted uncomfortably.
"What now?" Will asked, as he began to feel his annoyance
bubble into anger.
"It's just that..." Jeff shifted uncomfortably again.
"What?" Will closed his eyes, what else could go wrong.
"It's just that my family aren't that open minded..."
Jeff looked pleadingly at Will.
Will's eyes narrowed, "No!" he stated firmly.
"It's just for a few days," Jeff begged, "they
won't understand..."
Will's temper finally flared, "This is my house!"
His voice hardened, but dropped to a whisper, "I am not going to deny
who I am in my own goddamned house!"
"Will," Jeff's voice dropped as well, looking back
at the open patio door, "Please!"
Will chewed on his lip and followed Jeff's gaze back inside
his home, "What did you tell them?" he asked after long consideration.
"That you and Andrew are just roommates."
"Well, that is going to be hard to explain when he and
I are sharing a bed tonight," Will replied as he shook his head. "And
Andrew isn't going to like this at all." He swore again, this time in
resignation, "All right, so I guess I'm the one stuck having to tell
him... oh, you owe me big for this one, Jeff!"
Jeff clapped a hand on Will's shoulder, "I know."
By the time they re-entered the house, the chaos had escalated
to a fever-pitch as the table was laid and the places set. Nothing quite compared
to an Italian-Canadian family preparing to eat, there was so much regimentation;
it was almost a disciplined hierarchy of who sat where. They had pulled Will's
table out from the wall and had collected chairs from everywhere to ensure
people had places to sit. And every inch of it had been covered by plates
of food. It looked more like a feast than dinner.
Grandmother Sternosti laid plates as Jeff's sister Maria was
setting the cutlery. Will glanced at the table a moment before he reached
out to pick up the wineglass from the place setting at the head of the table.
"I don't drink," he stated, as he returned it to the
cupboard. He blatantly ignored the glares grandmother Sternosti threw at him.
He had to make some kind of a stand, a small gesture; but it was the small
things that made him feel marginally better, after all it was his home, and
he wanted to remind everyone of that. It wasn't that he wanted to be inhospitable
-- he appreciated that Jeff's family had their own way of doing things --
but there were limits to his patience.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and smiled when he realized
it wasn't one of Andrew's. He allowed people to filter to the table before
he returned to the table and sat down, a ghost of a smile on his face. Andrew
looked at him quizzically.
Will reached out to pick up the platter of pasta, and hesitated
as he noted that everyone around the table was watching him. The tension in
the air was palpable and he looked down the table at Jeff.
"Grace-?" Jeff's mother inquired softly, "Would
you mind if my husband..."
Will held up a hand, "No, it's fine, it's my table after
all. I'll do it." He narrowed his eyes at Jeff as he began, "For
what we are about to receive, we are truly grateful."
"Amen," rang out around the table as people scrambled
for food in a no-holds-barred race to get to food first.
Will watched the pandemonium and the rush of conversations,
and he realized that his position at the top of the table left him isolated
from Andrew who was stuck down at the foot with Jeff's younger sister. They
appeared deeply engrossed in a conversation, and Will listlessly picked up
a dinner roll and broke it open as he waited for the first rush to be done
so that he could eat.
Jeff's mother sat and waited as well, a shepardess who watched
over her flock of rabid wolves. Every so often her hand would snake out to
rap the knuckles of one or the other of her sons who tried to pile too much
onto their plates at once. In that hierarchy there was no doubt who was on
top. Andrew seemed to be the only one at the table she encouraged to pile
more on; she murmured something about him being too thin and that he should
eat more.
When she noticed that Will's plate was still empty she took
it from him and began to heap spaghetti onto it, and before he could protest
she liberally poured her sauce over top.
"There you go," she said with an affectionate smile
as she murmured, "Such a good boy; such a hard-working one with such
a nice house."
Will watched everything with immense, solemn eyes. He supposed
it was because he had never experienced such good-natured chaos.
Jeff's brother Jerry quickly grabbed a baton of garlic bread
before his mother could give his knuckles another stout rap. She glared at
him.
"You have dessert to go!"
Jerry stared down at his half-finished plate of food, "I'm
not gonna have enough room, Ma."
Jeff's father gaffawed at him, "Use the washroom, make
room."
Will's eyes stared in shock as he tried to focus back on his
food. He had never been faced with such a free discussion of bodily functions
at the dinner table. He picked at his plate as he tried to think of a way
to change the subject.
"So," he said as he turned to Jeff's father, but got
sidetracked as Jeff's mother spoke.
"Do you remember when Jeff was little," she directed
across to her husband, "and he fell down the stairs?"
Jeff changed colours further down the table, "Ma..."
he warned.
Will gave her his undivided attention as she explained. "When
Jeff was little I couldn't leave him alone for a minute, he was always running
off." She shook her head, "He was always scaring his dear old mother,
but this one night his papa had told him to go to bed; but Jeff didn't want
to go, so after I put him to bed he wanted to run away. But he couldn't sneak
down the stairs to get past us so he decided to go out the window..."
She shook her head, "He got as far as the ledge when he realized it was
too far and wanted to go back inside, but he slipped and fell off. Now Papa
had just mowed the lawn so when Jeff landed he rolled through freshly-cut
grass, he was covered in it. Papa went out to find out what the noise was
and found Jeff covered in grass and crying. When he asked Jeff what happened
he said he had fallen down the stairs..."
"I did fall down the stairs!" Jeff protested loudly.
Jeff's papa shook his head, "You were outside covered in
grass..."
Jeff shook his head, "I fell really hard." He looked
over at Will, "Don't believe them."
Will glanced over at his own stairs, "Should I be worried
you'll hurt yourself?"
Jeff threw up his hands, "That was twenty-one years ago,
why won't anyone believe me!"
Jeff's mother leaned closer to Will, "I think he hit his
head too hard when he fell."
Will nodded, "Yeah I always thought Jeff had been dropped
as a baby."
"Hey!" Jeff protested, "At least its not as bad
as the time Dad thought Jerry was a bear."
Will's brow furrowed, "Oh dear."
Jerry winced as Jeff carried on, "Well we were out at the
cabin having dinner under the stars..."
