Heft (26 page)

Perhaps because it was a nice day, there were more cyclists & runners than I had ever seen. In the 90s the park was not a place to go except for on bright summer days or weekends or peak times of the day. One would not go there close to dusk, which was what we were approaching by that time we were under a darkening sky. Now, crossing the interior road was as difficult as crossing Prospect Park West. I had a near-collision with a cyclist who screeched to an angry halt. & again Yolanda was my protector, cursing at him & saying to watch where he was going, though in this case I believe he was in the right.

At last we reached a place where I could see the meadow. & I breathed in deeply. & Yolanda did too. It felt as if we were off in the country someplace or even in England, & I told her so, & she said I never knew you were from England, & I told her O I am not, but my parents were.

There were whole families gathered together under the winter sky. They were bundled up well and the little ones in strollers had hats on and mittens. It seemed to me that everyone was wearing brighter colors than I had remembered.

“You wanna sit down?” asked Yolanda, indicating a bench. “Because I do.”

I said all right, tho when I sat I took up most of the space between the wrought-iron armrests & Yolanda had to squeeze herself in to my right.

I thought what an odd pair we must make: me in my custom overcoat, the tie dangling; and the girl, almost forty years my junior, with a belly bigger than she was.

A family of four walked by us. They had bought nuts someplace, roasted in a cart, and the children—twelve and thirteen, maybe—were eating them out of white paper baggies. Their parents were stealing them from time to time. “
Dad
,” said the daughter, and swatted his hand from the bag. “Get your own next time.”

Here is what I have always thought: that people, when they eat, are very dear. The eager lips, the flapping jaws, the trembling release of control—the guilty glances at one’s companions or at strangers. The focus, the great focus of eating. The pleasure in it. I remember—when I went out more—I remember watching people in restaurants. People who ate alone, lost in the pleasure of it, O the pleasure of it. Digging for food in the bottoms of their bowls, guarding their fork, bringing the food to their mouths. Staring off into some middle distance while chewing. Thinking of things known only to them. To watch others eat is a thing of joy to me. & it is the only time I can forgive myself for what I have become.

We sat in silence until a big dog ran up to us, free from its leash, jawing a stick, and Yolanda shied away from it. “I’m so scared of dogs,” she said, and tho I’m not fond of them either I took the stick from its mouth and tossed it far away from us. The dog went running after it.

“There,” I said. “There.”

It was time to go back when there was only a bit of light in the sky. There was a nice purple sunset that we both noted.

Most of the families had gone home & I was thinking of the walk still ahead of me. I was thinking I could tell Yolanda, if things got really bad, that she could go ahead of me & I would meet her. I was also thinking of the steps up to my home, all twelve of them, looming in my imagination like the Empire State Building.

We started out as slowly as we’d left, stopping every so often to admire a bird or a tree. But I soon came to realize that the return trip was going to be much more difficult, for I believe my muscles had stiffened considerably after sitting for a while, and it had gotten colder too. My saving grace was that it was downhill for most of the way, & so I was able to use my own momentum to help me along.

It was fully dark by the time we reached the house. I paused for a moment, one hand on my railing, in preparation for my climb.

“What should we have for dinner?” Yolanda was asking me, & I was trying hard to formulate an answer, when all of a sudden I noticed that the family who lives next door to me was coming toward us on the block. The father was staring at us intently.

“Your neighbors!” said Yolanda, delighted.

I was afraid & shy. I remembered the father approaching my door one day this fall & I was afraid he had something nasty to say to me.

Their little boys were bouncing around like jumping beans, & saying Daddy Daddy. His wife was looking at him too.

He had his key in hand, as if he were about to walk up his stoop and open his front door, but instead he came toward me.

“Hank?” his wife said.

I was a mess. I had sweated on the walk back & had a damp film across my forehead. I was quite badly out of breath.

“Hi!” said Yolanda, as the man approached.

“Hello,” said the man, “sorry to bother you—”

“No bother!” said Yolanda, speaking for me, but in fact I felt it was a bother, talking to this man unexpectedly. I felt as if my knees were going to collapse. He had no idea what an ordeal I’d just been through.

“I’m—your neighbor there,” he said, gesturing to his brownstone, which was not quite as nice as mine but still very attractive and perhaps better kept. “I’m Henry Dale.”

“This is Arthur Opp,” said Yolanda.

“I actually know that,” said Henry Dale.

I assessed him. He was a young man, perhaps in his late thirties, but his hair was gray at the temples. He was as tall as I am but thin. He had a handsome face & a nice face. He wore tan corduroys & a blue oxford & a strange jacket the likes of which I had never seen—sort of a suit jacket in the shape of a denim one. & shoes that looked elfin and worn. His wife was blond & pretty & very thin & dressed in an outfit that reminded me of the gym.

“I work for a firm called Crandall and Stone,” said Henry Dale. “Have you heard of them?”

“Architecture,” I said. It was the first time I’d said the word aloud in years & years. I thought of Dad in a blue flannel suit he had. I thought of Mother.

Yolanda looked at me expectantly.

“When we bought the house from Marie Spencer,” said Henry Dale, “she mentioned you and your family to us.”

I said nothing. Henry Dale waited.

“Your father is one of my heroes,” he said. “Architecturally.”

I said nothing.

“You know there was a show—”

“I heard that,” I said.

“At the public library,” he said. “I went.”

“It was great,” he said.

I think Yolanda could no longer bear my silence so she chose this moment to speak. “You guys should come over sometime!” she said. It burst out of her.

We both looked at her.

“Well—” said Henry Dale. “I’d hate to impose.”

“No, you should,” said Yolanda. “I could cook.”

Then, upon seeing his gaze drop to her belly, she said, “I work for him.” As if to clarify that I was not, in fact, the father.

At that moment one of his young sons ran up to him and tugged at his hand, & his wife came over too, pushing the stroller, holding their third boy by his hand, and introduced herself as Suzanne.

“Hello, Suzanne,” I said. She had very nice eyes & a good firm handshake. I decided I liked her, & therefore I had to like Henry Dale, as well.

The best part of the day was the evening. I felt a sense of euphoria almost—perhaps it was endorphins from the exercise I had taken—& I was tired and calm for the first time in years.

Yolanda came downstairs wearing the outfit she almost always wears at night: sweatpants and a too-large hooded sweatshirt. I wonder if it is Junior Baby Love’s sweatshirt & I hope that it is not.

I had a glass of wine & Yolanda asked if she might have one too.

“Not good for the baby,” I said.

“But the doctor said,” she replied. “She said I could have a little glass if I wanted.”

“She just said that out of the blue?” I asked. “Or you asked her?”

“No,” said Yolanda. “She just said it.”

“You’re too young, anyway,” I said, tho it felt absurd to say this to someone who would soon be a parent.

“Nineteen,” she said. “Almost twenty.”

So out in the kitchen I poured her a little bit of Chardonnay in a juice glass, & then I splashed it with water.

When I brought it out again we sat there without the TV on. & even though we were quiet it felt fine, it did not feel uncomfortable, the silence.

“You ever put a fire in that fireplace back there?” Yolanda asked. She got up to peek behind the television.

“Not for many years,” I said. Not since Marty, I thought. Marty was someone who liked a good fire.

“Can we put one in there?” Yolanda asked.

“I’d have to get a chimney sweep to come first,” I said. “Who knows what’s up there now.”

“But why not?”

“Because it’s dirty,” I said. “Because it could smoke us out.”

We sat there quietly for a while more. Until Yolanda asked, “What should we make them for dinner?”

“Who dinner?” I asked.

“Your neighbors,” said Yolanda. “What do you think they like?”

“They’re not really going to come for dinner,” I told her.

“Yes they are,” she said. “They are.”

I thought perhaps I hadn’t been as happy since Marty died, & I thought Perhaps this will be my life now: full of Yolanda & her child, & walks, & watered-down wine by an imaginary fire. I could be happy like this.

• • •

T
he other Kel walks around the corner into view. I have
spent years and years forcefully bringing him to mind, recalling whatever memories I have of him, turning them over in my head. His father face. He does not know me. He is smaller than I had remembered. When I was four he seemed huge to me. My father. My daddy. He doesn’t smile and doesn’t know me. His eyes are blank. He is no cowboy. He’s wiping his hands on something when he walks around the corner of an aisle, going What is it already? to Connelly, going, I’m busy over here!

He has more of an accent than I remembered.
Heeeeeere.

He has long hair—almost as long as it was in the pictures I have of him. I guess I’d always thought he would have cut it.

He’s skinnier and more rascally-looking, someone who’s been in trouble all of his life. Under his eye sockets his cheeks are hollow.

He looks nothing like a ranch hand.

Visitor, says Connelly, and tilts his head in my direction.

I’m holding a rake.

Help me
, I want to say. It is all I want to say.
Help me
.

He’s looking at me, waiting.

Can I talk to you for a minute? I ask him, but he doesn’t hear me, and puts a hand to his ear to tell me so. He doesn’t come closer.

I try again. Are you Francis Keller? I ask him.

Who’s axing? he says.

Were you ever, do you know—Charlene Keller?

His face changes, the eyebrows lifting, the head tilting back. Connelly’s watching us both, going back and forth with his eyes.

Holy, says Francis Keller, or Kel, or my father.

He tells Connelly he’ll be back in an hour.

Oh yeah? says Connelly, looking at his watch.

Hang on, says the other Kel, and runs into the back. I prop the rake up against the wall and turn my back to Connelly. I’m having second thoughts about everything. I want to apologize to my ten-year-old self. I want to push this man away violently. I want to jump into his arms and say Daddy, Daddy. I want my mother back.

He comes trotting back out with a denim jacket, then holds the door open for me. I tower over him. I have half a foot on him.

I haven’t been warm in days, and the cold that hits me when we’re outside feels familiar. The other Kel walks to the right and I follow him. He’s two steps ahead and he doesn’t slow down. His denim jacket is so big on him that it swings like a bell around his waist. He lights a cigarette and offers me the pack and a lighter wordlessly, and I take one even though I don’t smoke. Cigarettes.

It looks as though it will warm me.

After twenty yards he says, I always figured.

We keep walking.

How old are you now? he says.

Eighteen, I say.

—Jesus.

Did she send you? he asks.

No, I say, and start to say more—gone, tell him she’s gone—but I can’t do it.

We’re both silent. I pull smoke into my mouth and then my lungs. I let it out slow. He turns a corner and then stops outside a little red door next to a garage. He pauses while we both smoke our cigarettes in silence. He looks at me, squinting, while he inhales.

You shouldn’t smoke, he says. Bad for you.

But he seems like he’s joking. His voice is growly, all smoked out.

He drops the cigarette and grinds it into the sidewalk. I notice his boots, black and scuffed on the toe. Ten years old. More. He could have had them when he lived with us. I try to remember.

He unlocks the door and ushers me in and then follows me, slamming the door hard behind him. We’re in a stairwell that’s almost pitch-black until he switches on an overhead light.

It reeks of garbage and cigarettes in here. It reeks of staleness. Worse than my mother’s house ever did.

This way, he says, and squeezes by me on the stairs, then leads the way up them to the only door, which he opens without unlocking.

G’wan, he says. Sorry about the mess.

It’s one room. A bed in the corner. There are beer cans everywhere. Miller Lite. Tipped over on their sides or stacked on top of one another: on the floor, on the two tables, a couple on windowsills. There’s a little kitchen with a bar separating it from the rest of the room. On the wall, there’s a calendar open to a picture of a bikini-wearing girl on a motorcycle.

It hits me suddenly that he’s young. Just a little older than Pottsy—in his thirties. That my mother too is young. Was.

You want a beer? he says, and I say no.

Good, he says. He walks to the fridge and gets one for himself. He cracks it and tells me I can sit anywhere. I choose a chair that’s tucked into a table in the center of the room. I slouch in it, not knowing where to put my hands.

What should I call you? he asks me. He’s leaning against the bar in the kitchen. He still has this look on his face like he’s trying to recognize me.

Kel, I say, that’s what everyone calls me.

Me too, says Francis Keller, and grins suddenly, shaking his head. How ’bout it, he says, two Kel Kellers walk into a room.