The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(49)

“Hello?”

The voice was groggy, muffled, someone awakened from a dead sleep, face maybe still buried in a pillow, brain not quite aware.

But most definitely male.

“Hello?” he said, this time more forcefully.

And just as I was about to say, “Sorry, wrong room,” I heard covers rustling and the faint whisper of Eva’s panicked voice.

“Shit,” she said.





3





1971


Saint Joe’s High School San Mateo, California My transition to high school was not the same as my rude introduction to grammar school, but it was also not a smooth landing. I believe my high school teachers were forewarned about the kid with the red eyes. As for my classmates, there was an initial coolness; those first few days I caught them staring at me and whispering in the hallways, but my friendship with Ernie went a long way toward breaking the ice. At a school where sports were revered, Ernie became an instant rock star, and I was accepted like one of his roadies. No one dared to insult me with Ernie Cantwell at my side, and eventually, the larger environment allowed me to blend in—to the extent I was ever able to blend in.

At Saint Joe’s, kids were lumped into groups. You had your jocks, the nerds, the dorks, and the stoners. I straddled the lines between the nerds, dorks, and jocks, with jock being the most tenuous. Though I was far from an impressive athlete either in build or ability, I did make the freshman basketball team on sheer determination and hustle. My coach told me, in a not so ringing endorsement, “How can I cut a kid who tries so hard with so little success?” I didn’t care. Making the team gave me the chance to show my classmates that I was just a normal kid, except for my “condition.”

I didn’t get the chance to play in games very often, but when Coach did put me in—usually when we were way ahead or way behind on the scoreboard—I swarmed my opponent like a whirling dervish, and the combination of my red eyes and pest-like defense frequently rattled him into mistakes. My teammates, and the few fans that came to those games, loved it, and responded with cheers like, “Give him Hell! Give him Hell!” The nickname stuck. For the remainder of my four years at Saint Joe’s I was “Hell.” My mother didn’t like it, but unlike “Devil Boy,” I did not perceive the name as derogatory or negative. At an all-boys’ school, it seemed everyone had a nickname, and mine was rather benign compared with others’.





4

I was six the first time my parents took me to the Sixteen Mile House restaurant to celebrate my birthday. My father had me convinced that at any moment Wyatt Earp and other gunslingers of the Wild West would push through the swinging doors and mosey up to the wood-and-copper bar in boots with spurs, or sit at one of the round tables to eat a flame-broiled New York steak. I loved the wood-plank floors strewn with sawdust and the man in the top hat and striped shirt who played an upright piano. Every year I ordered the steak, baked potato, and salad. I thought it just about the best restaurant in the world. But this night, my sixteenth birthday, I was preoccupied.

“Sam, slow down,” my mother said as I dug in to another piece of meat. “You’ll choke if you don’t chew your food.”

That morning my father had kept his promise and taken me to the Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain my driver’s license. I passed with a ninety-four. My test and score are right there in the scrapbook labeled 1973. Ernie, a month older, had also passed on his birthday, and his parents had surprised him with a tomato-red Volkswagen Beetle. I had my hopes up that my parents would do the same, though I knew money continued to be tight for my father.

“I don’t think he’s chewing,” my father said. “I think he’s inhaling.”

“Just hungry,” I said.

“Well, even hungry people can have manners, Samuel,” my mother said. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Half an hour into the meal, I pushed my plate aside. “I’m stuffed.”

“You haven’t finished your baked potato,” my father said. “That isn’t like you.”

It wasn’t like me. My mother liked to tell everyone that I was eating her out of house and home. I wasn’t big, like Ernie, who had shot up to six-three and more than two hundred pounds of lean muscle, but I had grown to nearly five-nine and 140 pounds with the metabolism of a jackrabbit.

“I’m saving room for cake,” I said, which awaited us at the house, along with, I hoped, that car I wanted.





5

My heart sank when my father pulled the Falcon into the driveway. No car blocked our path. I told myself I had no one to blame but myself. I had allowed myself to get my hopes up, and I, of all people, should have known better. My father was working even longer hours at the store, and a new car was simply not realistic. I appreciated that, certainly I did, but I was sixteen with a new driver’s license burning a hole in my wallet.

I pushed out of the back seat and slowly made my way up the walk.

“All night you’ve been giving us the bum’s rush, and now we finally get home and you’re as slow as molasses in the dead of winter,” my mother said.

As my father opened the front door, he turned to my mom. “I think I left my reading glasses in the car,” he said and stepped as if to get past me. Then he pivoted and gently pushed me into the house.