oil. So at those times when his father told the children they were going to kill their mother if they didn’t quiet down, Paul knew that it was true.
His father’s rules, as Paul understood them, were simple: no noise in the house and no motorcycle riding. He tried to be a good boy at home. School was another matter. When he arrived at first grade at St. Theresa’s, he felt a certain freedom: “Inside my house it’s strict. Outside my house I can do what I want.” He liked to play little tricks on his young teacher. She often gave the class written quizzes. Paul would rush through them, getting all the answers right. She would still be handing out copies of the quiz when he finished his. Then he’d run up to her desk and smack his paper down beside her blotter. That poor young thing quit teaching after a year of him, Paul’s mother said. He didn’t believe it, but it might have been true.
At the end of that school year, according to family lore, the head nun at St. Theresa’s told his mother, “Paul is a very special child. We believe he belongs at another school.” In the seven years between nursery school and Boston Latin, Paul changed schools seven times. For some of those years he was placed in classes for the gifted and talented, but even then he usually felt cooped up and bored, and wherever he went he served time in detention.
When he was ten years old, his mother went to a Catholic priest who was said to have the power to heal those with great faith. She recovered and was never sick again. Of course, some feelings from that time remained with Paul. Some he carried through childhood in recurring memories: the times of stony silence between his parents, for example. After one tense morning, he was walking his little sister down Perham Street to school. She was crying. He was holding her hand, and he was crying, too, and ashamed of it because he was supposed to be her protector.
One memorable evening, Paul was sitting in the living room, watching his father watch TV, when someone outside started banging on the front door. His father opened it onto a tall, beefy, snarling man. “Your son beat the shit out of my son!” Paul’s father was about six feet tall but wiry thin, much smaller than the man in the doorway. And yet, without any hesitation, Paul’s father poked a finger in the man’s chest and said, “Don’t you
ever
bang on my door again!” And instantly, the big angry guy got quiet. He actually apologized. How did his dad do that? It seemed as if his dad had access to a magical power, like the power possessed by the good guys, the Jedis, in the
Star Wars
movies.
Once restored to health, Paul’s mother was unquestionably in charge of the household. She cooked all the meals and served them at hours she appointed, and she never asked her husband for help in the kitchen or with the laundry or the cleaning, nor did he offer any. But she had never played the submissive housewife beloved by advertisers of the 1950s and ’60s. She had gone to college, while Paul and his siblings suspected that their father had never finished high school. After her cure, Paul’s mother became increasingly independent. “She decided to live again,” Paul’s brother Tim remembered, adding that it was also the mid-1970s, “the era when women were stepping out.” She started playing tennis. She worked as a volunteer docent at the Boston Public Library and the Arnold Arboretum, adjacent to West Roxbury. She began to study the family genealogy as a hobby. She also worked as a substitute teacher, and one day, to everyone’s surprise, she announced that she was going to buy her own car.
Paul’s father argued with her. They had a family car, an old Plymouth Grand Fury, which she could use whenever she wanted.
She said, “I’m getting my own car.”
She chose a standard shift, not an automatic, and most astonishing of all, she chose a Honda—“a damned foreign car,” Paul’s father said.
She knew a lot about
His father’s rules, as Paul understood them, were simple: no noise in the house and no motorcycle riding. He tried to be a good boy at home. School was another matter. When he arrived at first grade at St. Theresa’s, he felt a certain freedom: “Inside my house it’s strict. Outside my house I can do what I want.” He liked to play little tricks on his young teacher. She often gave the class written quizzes. Paul would rush through them, getting all the answers right. She would still be handing out copies of the quiz when he finished his. Then he’d run up to her desk and smack his paper down beside her blotter. That poor young thing quit teaching after a year of him, Paul’s mother said. He didn’t believe it, but it might have been true.
At the end of that school year, according to family lore, the head nun at St. Theresa’s told his mother, “Paul is a very special child. We believe he belongs at another school.” In the seven years between nursery school and Boston Latin, Paul changed schools seven times. For some of those years he was placed in classes for the gifted and talented, but even then he usually felt cooped up and bored, and wherever he went he served time in detention.
When he was ten years old, his mother went to a Catholic priest who was said to have the power to heal those with great faith. She recovered and was never sick again. Of course, some feelings from that time remained with Paul. Some he carried through childhood in recurring memories: the times of stony silence between his parents, for example. After one tense morning, he was walking his little sister down Perham Street to school. She was crying. He was holding her hand, and he was crying, too, and ashamed of it because he was supposed to be her protector.
One memorable evening, Paul was sitting in the living room, watching his father watch TV, when someone outside started banging on the front door. His father opened it onto a tall, beefy, snarling man. “Your son beat the shit out of my son!” Paul’s father was about six feet tall but wiry thin, much smaller than the man in the doorway. And yet, without any hesitation, Paul’s father poked a finger in the man’s chest and said, “Don’t you
ever
bang on my door again!” And instantly, the big angry guy got quiet. He actually apologized. How did his dad do that? It seemed as if his dad had access to a magical power, like the power possessed by the good guys, the Jedis, in the
Star Wars
movies.
Once restored to health, Paul’s mother was unquestionably in charge of the household. She cooked all the meals and served them at hours she appointed, and she never asked her husband for help in the kitchen or with the laundry or the cleaning, nor did he offer any. But she had never played the submissive housewife beloved by advertisers of the 1950s and ’60s. She had gone to college, while Paul and his siblings suspected that their father had never finished high school. After her cure, Paul’s mother became increasingly independent. “She decided to live again,” Paul’s brother Tim remembered, adding that it was also the mid-1970s, “the era when women were stepping out.” She started playing tennis. She worked as a volunteer docent at the Boston Public Library and the Arnold Arboretum, adjacent to West Roxbury. She began to study the family genealogy as a hobby. She also worked as a substitute teacher, and one day, to everyone’s surprise, she announced that she was going to buy her own car.
Paul’s father argued with her. They had a family car, an old Plymouth Grand Fury, which she could use whenever she wanted.
She said, “I’m getting my own car.”
She chose a standard shift, not an automatic, and most astonishing of all, she chose a Honda—“a damned foreign car,” Paul’s father said.
She knew a lot about
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