Portrait of a young con artist
Chapter one:
Religious School
"I wasn’t always a naughty boy," Kenny McDonald later recalled. "Not the way Davie and Louie were, whispering in my ears about naked ladies and the secret uses of my untouchable parts. But I was a wild boy. At least, that’s what Uncle Ed said, his fat face quivering as he yelled, telling Grandma and Grandpa that I should go to Religious School, where the nuns could teach me how to behave."
Kenny's grandfather, a prematurely gray ex-construction worker turned boat builder, never liked the idea. The older man liked to keep the boy underfoot where to keep an eye on him.
"But they sent me off to Religious school anyway," Kenny recalled. "I remember grandma gripping my arm as we climbed the steps to the church doors. I remember the rounded section above the door where there were slats that I imagined I could pry off easily if I ever got the chance."
"Behave yourself," his grandmother warned, as if reading Kenny's mind, her eyes as silvery and hard as marbles. "And keep your mouth shut when we get inside."
This was 1956. The world seemed so modern to Kenny then, full of fast cars and big buildings, and the church, with its stained glass and carved icons seemed out of place there.
"I remember marveling at the look of the windows, how they seemed made of bits of different colored glass," Kenny recalled, "as if someone had come along an fixed one of the factory windows I'd broken -- using all the old pieces."
Before he could ask about the window, his grandmother rang the bell, letting loose a series of tolling that took his mind off everything else.
A moment later the big door rolled in and a short woman in a black dress stared out, squinting through thick round lenses.
"I remember how the sunlight glinted on the glasses," Kenny said. "She looked silly to me, like a perverted version of the clowns I used to see on Saturday morning TV. She had rose cheeks and a crooked nose. But her smile was mean."
"I’m Mrs. Grimes," Kenny's grandmother said.
"And this," the short woman said tilting her hooded head in Kenny's direction, “is the child?"
"I remember being utterly horrified by her," Kenny said. "When she bent towards me, I backed away. She had knobby fingers and she kept reaching towards me to pinch my cheeks, the way my aunts used to do every Christmas."
"Kenny!" his grandmother snapped. "Behave."
"Such a nice boy," the nun said. "I'm sure he'll be no trouble."
"Don’t let his size fool you," Kenny's grandmother said. "He can be a devil at times."
The knobby-fingered nun laughed and said, "Devils are our specialty."
"So Grandma left me, and hobbled back down the stairs to where she could catch the bus," Kenny recalled. "She didn’t look back. Not once. Even though I cried out for her not to go."
"Come along, child," the nun said, her voice sweet, but her grip firm.
"I didn’t want to go with her, and shouted when she shut the door," Kenny recalled. "I wanted to peal back the strips above the door so I could climb up and see Grandma again."
"I said, come, child," the nun said more sternly.
"I wanted to cry, but didn’t, wouldn’t," Kenny said. "I was afraid to show anything like that to this lady."
***********
"Can you believe this!" Uncle Ed shouted his fat fingers holding up the note Kenny had brought home from school. "One day there and already he's in trouble!"
"We were in the kitchen," Kenny recalled, "huddled around the table, grandpa, grandma, Ed and me. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, cigarettes and coffee."
"What did you do, boy?" Ed shouted at Kenny.
"I didn’t do nothing," Kenny replied.
The kitchen swelled with heat, the big black corn pot bubbling and the oven stuffed with meat.
"Grandpa and Grandma sat at two sides of the long table with me and my uncle sitting across the shorter sides," Kenny recalled.
"Didn’t do anything?" Ed roared "That’s not what this here note says! They want to see one of us down at that school. One damned day, boy, and you’ve got them crazy, too. You need a beating boy, and one of us ought to give it to you."
"No!" Kenny grandfather side firmly, although his voice was neither loud nor mean. "That’s your sister’s boy and you won’t touch him."
"But the boy’s causing trouble, Pa," Ed said, rising slowly from his chair, hands flat on the table. "We can’t let him go on like he is. Last week he shot Mr. Williams in the face with his peach shooter, this week he’s getting tossed out of school. Where will it stop?"
"No one said anything about tossing the boy out," Kenny's grandfather said. "They just want to see one of us. There’s bound to be trouble trying to put the boy in a place like that."
"The trouble is him!" Ed shouted. "I’m sure that school got along just fine before he came along."
"He’s your sister’s boy, Edward," grandfather repeated, even more sternly than before. "He’s blood."
"That’s why we should be the ones to deal with him’ we should knock the devil out of him."
"And you don’t think Religious School can deal with the Devil?"
"Not his kind," Ed said, jabbing a fat finger at Kenny. "Only a good whack from one of us will do that."
"Did I ever whack you?" grandfather asked.
"That’s different. I didn’t go around terrorizing the neighborhood. People in this neighborhood are afraid of the boy. They tell me when they see him coming, they pull their kids inside and lock their doors."
"It’s true, Carl," grandmother said from her side of the table. "Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t call complaining about something Kenny did."
"Like what?" grandfather demanded.
"Like Mrs. Gunya’s flowers," Ed said. "Two days ago she caught him picking her flowers and you know how that woman feels about her yard. We were lucky she didn’t call the police."
Grandfather smiled. "You call the boy a devil for picking flowers?"
"That’s not all he does," Ed said. "We caught him playing with matches down by that sewer again."
Again grandfather smiled. "And what boy doesn’t play with matches? You did much the same thing when you were his age."
"It’s not me we’re talking about, Pa! It’s him," Ed shouted and pointed again at Kenny. "He’s the one they want to throw out of that school."
"It was just a note, Edward!" grandfather said.
"But on his first day..."
"Your Ma can go with the boy tomorrow and see what that’s all about. Or better yet, did you even think to ask the boy?"
"I did!" Ed said, throwing up his hands. "He just sits there with those wide, innocent eyes of his, claiming he doesn’t know."
"Maybe you didn’t ask him right," grandfather said. "Let me."
"I remember grandfather leaning toward me, his breath smelling of cigarettes and beer, his body of the boat yard -- sawdust and motor fumes," Kenny recalled. "But his smile told me not to worry."
"So why did the nuns give you that note, Kenny?" grandfather asked.
"They all looked at me: Grandma, Grandpa, Ed, and I remember swallowing slowly and shaking my head," Kenny said.
"I don’t know," Kenny told them. "I only told the nuns I didn’t believe in God."