“He’s cold,” Malcolm disagreed.
“Well,” Amalia said, “yes, he’s cold, but maybe that’s not his nature. Maybe he wasn’t born that way. Maybe life has made him cold. Maybe disappointment and regret and who-knows-what has made him the way he is. Maybe he wishes he weren’t that way, but he’s just stuck in that mode, kind of frozen and doesn’t know how to thaw.”
“He was born that way,” Malcolm declared, “and the last thing he wants to do is thaw.” To me, he said, “Amalia’s getting out. She’s got a full scholarship, food and board and everything, to the state university. Leaves in September. She’s going to be a writer. She’s brilliant.”
Her blush was lovely. “I’m not brilliant, Malcolm. I just love the language, I’m full of words, and I’ve got kind of a knack for putting them together. But I’m not sure I should go. Maybe I should get a job, wait a few years. The scholarship doesn’t come with any spending money.”
Malcolm looked pained. “You’ll have spending money. Even if the old man doesn’t want you going to college, he’ll probably cough up a little pocket change. And I know you—you’ll get a part-time job, and you’ll still get top grades.”
He had picked all the slices of black olives out of his macaroni salad, but it wasn’t that he didn’t like them. When he finished his serving of macaroni, he then ate the olives.
I asked Amalia, “Your dad doesn’t want you to go to college?”
“It’s not that he doesn’t want me to go to college or to become a writer, it’s just maybe that he’s dreading the day when Malcolm leaves, too, because then it’s only the two of them and the parakeet, which would be a kind of hell.”
“He resents you getting more education,” Malcolm said, “because already you have more than he does. Quote, ‘Pomerantzes don’t need college, they never did, we don’t mix with the hoity-toity.’ ” Malcolm turned to me, and his magnified, sad eyes were haunted by the fear that she might not take the scholarship. “She’s afraid to go to the university and leave me home with them, because I’m already a social misfit.”
She said, “You’re not a social misfit, Malcolm. You’re just awkward, and that will pass.”
“I’m an awkward social misfit, and proud of it. If you don’t go to college in September, it’ll be my fault, all mine, and I can’t live with that, so I’ll blow my brains out.”
“You won’t blow your brains out, little brother. You faint at the sight of blood, and you don’t have a gun.”
“I’ll get a gun, and I’ll be dead before I have a chance to see the blood. You better go to college.”
I tried to help out. “He won’t be a social misfit when I’m done with him, Amalia. And there’s Grandpa Teddy and my mom, and with them he’s welcome here anytime.”
After we finished the rice pudding—which Malcolm ate with a clean fork—we never did get back to making music. We talked while we cleaned up the kitchen, and then we sat at the table again and talked some more—mostly she did—and the time flew.
One thing she said about Malcolm that I’ll never forget. “He thinks he’s got music in him because he got it growing up with me, from me always with the clarinet as far back as he can remember, but that’s not right. What music I have, I got it with iron-headed determination and grueling practice, and it’s a thimble of spit compared to the ocean of natural talent in Malcolm. You heard me play, Jonah. I’d be fine for some dance band at the VFW and the Moose hall, but Malcolm’s like you, he’s got the real thing, and he’s got it all. Mom and Dad, they’re as interested in music as they are in chess tournaments, so Malcolm can’t believe somehow his music came through them, but it did, just like my way with words.” She turned those lime-green eyes on her brother and said, “Without me here to buck you up and keep you focused on how wonderful you are … what if I come home for Christmas my freshman year and you’ve already given up the saxophone and bought your own parakeet?”
“If you don’t go to college in September,” Malcolm said again, “I’ll blow my brains out.”
“And even if you could do that, little brother, where is a twelve-year-old going to buy a gun?”
“There’s a lot of bad people in a city like this, a lot of completely wicked degenerates who’d sell a kid anything.”
“And you know a great many of these wicked degenerates, do you?”
“I’m working on it,” Malcolm said.