Kramer vs. Kramer (18 page)

T
HE WEATHER TURNED RAW
in the city. Weekend outdoor activity was going to be limited, and city parents would be relying on their inner resources and museums. Ted took it upon himself to entertain three of Billy’s friends at home on a Saturday—Kim and two of Billy’s classmates—for lunch and an afternoon of play. The child would have buddies and, in turn, their parents would reciprocate. He was the referee for occasional disputes, but for the most part stayed in the bedroom reading, guarding against his temptation to check to see if Billy was standing up to the others. They all seemed to be content. Left on their own, they organized themselves into dress-up games, hide-and-seek, and they took turns in the adventures of The Children Eater. He heard the sound of chewing—friendly chewing, he presumed. For several hours, he had a play group in his apartment. When the mothers appeared to claim their $85,000-through-age-eighteen parcels he delivered them intact, pleased with his administration of the day.

“Presenting the fantastic Super Jet”—Billy announced from his room—“with the secret of its fantastic speed!”

Earlier, Ted had heard the children discussing the construction of an airplane of Billy’s, and they had apparently taken the metal toy apart as a scientific experiment.

“Here it comes!” Billy burst out of the room flying his plane, making a whirring sound, holding the disassembled toy in his hand. When he reached the door, he tripped on the doorstep and fell forward. Ted was standing in the hall a few feet away and saw him coming straight at him, as if in a sequence he could not stop—the body hurtling forward, the fall, the impact, the elbow hitting the floor and then driven upward, the metal piece in his hand, the scream—“Daddy!” the metal like a razor. It ripped into the boy’s skin at the cheekbone, slashing upward from the outside of his cheek to his hairline, blood leaking into the boy’s eyes and across his face. For an instant, Ted was frozen. He saw it, but he could not have seen it. “Daddy, I’m bleeding!” he cried, and Ted was already over him, cradling him, carrying him, grabbing towels, “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right, baby,” fighting off the feeling he was going to faint, rocking him—ice, he needed ice, it helps a wound—patting his head, kissing him, dabbing the blood with ice and the towels, his shirt covered with blood, Don’t faint—I think I’m going to faint—checking him over, trying to see the damage through the blood. “It’s stopping, Billy. You’re going to be all right.” And he rushed out into the street and hailed a cab to the hospital, patting the sobbing child, cradled in his arms.

At the emergency ward they were behind a broken arm of a teenager and an old woman who had fallen, but Billy was actually next, the attendant informed Ted, “because he needs the surgeon.” Surgeon? It stopped bleeding so quickly, he thought it might not be so bad, after all. He had taken Billy to the hospital where his pediatrician maintained an office, and he asked the attendant to call up to see if the doctor was in the building. Billy had stopped crying and he watched every movement of the people around him on guard for whatever terrible thing might happen next.

Ten stitches were required to close the wound, a line from the topmost part of his cheek, running nearly parallel to his sideburn. The surgeon applied a head bandage and said to Billy, “Don’t go knocking your head against any walls, little fella. And don’t take any showers, okay?” “Okay,” he said in a frightened, quiet voice. By chance, the pediatrician had been in his office and he came down. He gave Billy a lolly for being brave and then Ted had Billy wait outside the room for a few moments.

“You’re lucky. Our best man was on,” the pediatrician said.

“Will it leave a bad scar, do you think?” Ted asked in a whisper.

“Any time the skin is broken, you can have scarring,” the surgeon said.

“I see.”

“I did my best—but, yes, there will be a scar.”

“Think of it this way, Mr. Kramer,” the pediatrician said. “He’s a very fortunate boy. One inch and he could have lost an eye.”

Billy picked at his hamburger that night. Ted had a double scotch on the rocks for dinner. They went through the normal rituals of the night, time to brush teeth, time for a story, both trying to create a normalcy to neutralize the event. Ted put him to sleep early and the child did not protest, exhausted by the tension.

I was so near. If only I could have caught him.

Ted went through the house wiping up blood stains. He took Billy’s clothes, which he had tossed to the side along with his shirt and the towels and stuffed them down the incinerator. He could not stand looking at them. At 11
P.M
. while trying to watch the news, seeing it happen all over again, Ted got up and vomited scotch and bile into the toilet bowl.

He could not come close to sleeping. In the next room, Billy was having tortured dreams, whimpering in his sleep. Ted came and sat on the floor beside the bed.

Scarred for life. Scarred for life. He was repeating it to himself as though the words “for life” had some additional meaning. He began to replay the fall, if only he had come into the room earlier, seen the toy, anticipated what Billy was going to do, been nearer, caught him, not planned a day like this, he got too tired, he might not have tripped …

He sat there, holding a vigil, thinking back. How did he get here—with this child who was so connected to him? In the beginning, when Joanna was first pregnant, the baby did not seem to have a connection to him, and now, the child was linked to his nervous system. Ted could feel the pain of the injury so acutely that his body could very nearly not absorb the pain. Was there a turning point, a moment when his life might have been different? If he had stayed with one of the others? Who were the others? Who would he have been? Who would his child have been? Would there have been more than one child? No children? What if he had not gone to that one beach house party that night? If he had not said exactly what he said to the man with Joanna? If he had not called her, who would he be with now? Would his life have been different? Better? Was there a smoking gun? Would he have been happier if none of it had happened the way it did? Then Billy would not exist. Would he have been better off if Billy did not exist? The boy whimpered in his sleep and he wanted to gather him up in his arms and make him sleep more peacefully, which was not within his power.

There was no one moment when it might have been different or better, he decided. It is not that simple. And there are accidents. Billy, Billy, I would have caught you if I could.

A
FTER KEEPING HIM OUT
of school for a few days, Ted released Billy, who wore his white bandage like a symbol of bravery. “You had ten stitches?” Kim said in awe. “A tight healing,” the surgeon pronounced­. The boy was left with an indentation of the skin, four inches long on the right side of his face, not marring the child’s appearance, but a scar nonetheless. Ted’s healing went more slowly. He would think about the fall. It would flicker across his consciousness at odd times and he would shudder, a knife-like pain in his bowels. As a catharsis he told some of the people he knew about the accident, reinforcing the positive: “It was tremendously lucky. He could have lost an eye.” He would get to telling the grandparents later.

T
ED WAS AT THE
zoo with Charlie, the children going around on a pony cart ride. “It’s like with teeth,” Charlie said. “A person chips a tooth and thinks the whole world is looking at that chipped tooth. Or he has a silver crown in the back of his mouth and he thinks everybody can see it.”

“Wouldn’t you have noticed the scar? Really, Charlie?”

“Maybe not. Maybe only if you told me.”

“I see it. Sometimes I see it when my eyes are closed.”

“D
ADDY, A KID IN
school told me his brother told him that a hockey player got twenty stitches.”

“Hockey can be a rough game. They get hurt sometimes.”

“Could I have a hockey stick?”

“I don’t know. They’re for older kids.”

“I won’t play on ice. Just by the house.”

“Boom-Boom Kramer over here.”

“What do you mean, Daddy?”

“Boom-Boom Geoffrion—he was a hockey player. When you’re a little older I guess you can have a hockey stick if you still want one.”

“How old do you have to be when you don’t sleep with your teddy and your people any more?”

“No special age. Whenever you want.”

“I think I’m old enough. I think I’d like to try not to sleep with them.”

“If that’s what you want—”

“Well, they can still stay in my room. Sort of like statues. And I can still play with them during the day. But they can be on my bookcase and watch me when I’m sleeping.”

“When do you want to do that?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

The night his son gave up his teddy, the father was feeling the sentiment more than the child. Billy was very proud of himself the next morning, having slept through the night without a baby’s security. He was passing through crises. He went about his days at full speed, without caution. When he raced through the house or in the playground, Ted was apprehensive. “Careful, Billy, not so fast.” “Not so fast” held no meaning. Billy had forgotten the fall, the stitches. He was five and growing.

But the injury lingered for Ted. He would never forget the moment. The piece of metal like a razor cutting open the boy’s face. The blood. And the end of self-delusion—that his child was perfect, that his beautiful face was to bear no scars, that the child was to bear no scars. His son whom he loved so deeply was imperfect, perishable. He could be hurt again. He could die. Ted Kramer had envisioned a safe, controlled world for his son. The wound was testimony. He could not exercise such control.

T
ED KRAMER RETURNED TO
the office after meeting with a client and was given his telephone messages. Joanna Kramer had called. She asked that he call back and left a local number. His work day was effectively terminated at that moment.

“This is Ted.”

“Oh, hello, Ted. How are you?” she said warmly. “This is a new job, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s a new job. How did you get the number?”

“From your housekeeper.”

“You called the house?”

“I didn’t upset Billy, if you’re worried. I called when he was at school.”

“Yes, he is at school.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Joanna, could we get to it? I’m pretty busy.”

“Well, I’m in New York and there are some things I’d like to talk to you about. I don’t think they should be said over the phone. Could we meet for a drink?”

“What things?”

“When can I see you?”

He could spar with her on the phone, put her off, hang up, but just as his day was over the moment she called, he did not think he could delay knowing why she called.

“Today is probably best for me.”

“Good. There’s a new place—Slattery’s, on 44th Street—”

“Right.”

“See you there at six, okay?”

“Right.”

“It’s nice to talk to you again, Ted.”

“It is? Why?”

He shuffled papers at his desk, called Etta and asked her to stay on, looked at some trade papers and then left work at five. He stopped in a bar on the way and had a drink in preparation for his drink.

S
LATTERY’S WAS A NARROW
bar with several tables in the back. He moved past the bar to the rear, and Joanna was waiting at a table. She did not have a tan, as in her last time through. She was wearing a sweater and skirt, and she could have been any of the working women who were in the room, except of course, she was the prettiest woman in the room.

“Hello, Ted. You look well.”

“You do, too.”

They ordered vodka martinis from the waiter, and Ted sat back, permitting her to take the lead. She seemed nervous.

“How is this new job, Ted?”

“Fine.”

“That’s good.”

She was after something, he was sure.

A couple took seats at a nearby table.

“Look at us, Joanna. Just like any old couple out for a drink. Who would believe it?”

“Well, I guess you want to know why I called you here.” She smiled, but he did not respond, his throat muscles pulling with tension. “Ted, I’ve been living in New York for the past two months.”

“You have?”

“I’ve got an apartment on East 33rd Street—”

“That’s extraordinary. You’ve been living here?”

She was awkward, fumbling with her drink. Was this an overture? Was she here to broach a reconciliation, he wondered. Last time that was certainly not her intent, but this was nearly a year later.

“Things change. I’m working for the Grand Central Racquet Club. Sort of a girl Friday. And I get in some free court time.”

“It seems to me you’ve put a lot of people through a lot of shit so you can get yourself some free court time.”

“I suppose you think of it that way. How is Billy?”

“He’s great … except … he fell …” He needed to tell her, nearly as a confessional. “And he cut his face. He has a scar, Joanna, from here to about here.”

“Oh.”

“It’s lucky it wasn’t worse.”

They were both silent, the closest they had been since the breakup to shared feelings.

“You can’t tell from a distance, Ted.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen him.”

“You have?”

“A few times I sat in a parked car across from the school and watched you take him to school.”

“Really?”

“He looks like he’s a great kid.”

“You sat in a car?”

“Watching my son …”

Her voice trailed off. The loneliness of the scene, Joanna in a car across the street, got through to Ted and he shook his head.

“I couldn’t do anything more. I was thinking it out, trying to make my decision—”

So she does want to reconcile! That’s why she’s trying to be so friendly.

“Ted—I want Billy back. We can work out an arrangement so you can see him on the weekends, but I want custody.”

“You want him
back
?”

“I’ve established residence here in New York. I’ll live here in New York with him. It wouldn’t be right to separate you two.”