The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez Read Online Free Page A

and metaphor have a lot to learn, which is why my poet-friend Caulfield Thomas Jones is coming to class tomorrow.”
    â€œNot that dweeb,” Beanie mumbles, but Ms. D pretends she doesn’t hear him.
    Caulfield Thomas Jones is a poet and novelist who’s supposedly from England and who the school pays to make classroom visits, even though none of us have ever heard of his books.
    â€œNow, let’s get back to basics,” she says. “I asked you to look up Jack London last night. What did you come up with, Paige?” For the next ten minutes, we all sit comatose, listening to how Paige stayed up until three a.m. making sure her paper would be longer than anyone else’s.

Grandpa
    W hen I get home, my father’s finishing up laundry. He seems distracted, so I know he’s been working on his book about the stock market crash of 2008. I should say he’s rewriting the book, because every time he sends it to a publisher, they tell him it’s “too general.”
    â€œIf I hear that one more time,” he says, “I’m going to blow up something.” You might think someone who talks like this is pretty crazy, but he exaggerates on purpose to jerk people around.
    My mother would say this rant is a “negative response to rejection.” But she’s not saying anything right now, because she’s at work. She’s a hospital administrator. I’m not sure what she does, but that hospital must be the most positive one in Providence. I imagine nurses sticking smiley-face decals onto your head as they wheel you into the operating room.
    â€œWhere’s Crash?” I ask, watching Dad empty the dryer.
    â€œUp in his room.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œFor shooting off his mouth.”
    â€œBoy, is he having a bad day.”
    â€œThe whole world’s having a bad day, Benny.”
    I let that one go. “Can I help?” I ask.
    â€œWith the world?”
    â€œNo, with the laundry.”
    â€œYou don’t think it’s feminine to do housework?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œThat’s what Jocko or whatever-his-name-is-this-month said.”
    I try to place that conversation but can’t.
    â€œYou were on the back porch talking about your English teacher again.”
    Now I recall Jocko saying something about my father being like a mom.
    â€œYou got Jocko wrong, Dad. He thinks it’s cool you’re home and that I have an older dad.”
    â€œHe won’t feel that way when I’m dead before you even get to college. You know, three out of my five best friends have bitten the dust.” He makes this point quite frequently, which annoys my mother, who’s thirteen years younger than him. She thinks this kind of talk scares Crash, who has obviously demolished the mood of the house today. I often wonder whether he’d be different if my parents had called him Jay or Asher, since both those names mean “happy” in other languages.
    â€œYou’ll live forever, Dad,” I say.
    He can always detect a fake positive response, so he ignores me. “Look,” he says, “I’m going to finish this pile. Then we’re taking your grandfather putting. He’s not doing too well.”
    â€œYou want me to get our clubs?” I say.
    â€œWhatever you do, don’t forget Crash’s putter or we’ll have to sedate him.”
    Ten minutes later, we’re on the road to my grandfather’s house in East Providence. It’s a pretty uneventful ride. Crash seems exhausted by eight hours of his own orneriness, and my father doesn’t discover any rich CEOs or incompetent drivers to yell at.
    When we pull up to the house, my grandfather is sitting on the front porch, holding his putter between his legs. It’s October but warm, so he’s wearing tan shorts and a striped polo shirt, along with golf shoes and his blue Navy PT Boat hat, whose headband is stained white with sweat.