What Is All This? (49 page)

My younger sister and I were told he was a major in the army dental corps in San Diego—my mother even got out the atlas to show us where San Diego was—taking care of the teeth of soldiers who were about to be shipped across the Pacific to fight the Japanese.

“After his release,” my mother said, “with his license taken away and all our savings gone and the war still on, so no opportunity for him to make a pile of money—that time was the hardest for your father, I think worse than being in prison. It was also the bitterest period of our marriage, and we've had some beauties.”

Worked in a war factory in Brooklyn when he got out. After the war, he sold shoes and then paints and then textiles and quickly did so well at it that in a few years we were able to keep a maid.

Forced to give up dentistry for good because of his worsening Parkinson's disease and diabetes. For a couple of years he was falling down on subway platforms and streets after work, and strangers had to help him home. Thank you,” I'd say at our front door or in the building's vestibule when I'd see them through the peephole, “I'll take him from here.”

The last few years of his life I'd shave him and clean his dentures and give him his shots and exercise him and clean him up after he went to the toilet and come in every night around twelve—I'd rented an apartment on their block to help out my mother with him—to give him his pills and turn him over so he wouldn't get bedsores and to make him comfortable for the rest of the night. Sometimes I got mad at him while he was lying in bed—that he'd just pissed or shit right after I'd changed his diapers—and would turn him over too hard or curse him under my breath or curse my own fate out loud that I had to be coming here every night to take care of him. “You want to do the right thing,” he said a few of those times, “but it's just not in you, so you shouldn't even try. Don't help me from now on. I'll live longer without it. Anything's better than you acting like an animal to me.”

When my parents were first introduced, he was a handsome dentist with a thriving practice and she worked as a receptionist in a doctor's office during the day and at night and Saturday matinees danced in a West 42
^nd
Street musical review. He used to meet her at the stage door two to three nights a week and give her flowers and boxes of candy. “You laugh,” he said to me, “because you can't see anyone your age doing that today. But then, if you wanted to win a beautiful girl nine years younger than yourself, that's what you were expected to do.”

“I couldn't get her to bed so I had to marry her,” he said. “But I already knew that bad girls you sleep with and nice ones you marry. Look at your mother. It's obvious she doesn't like me talking about it, but I think it's an important lesson all my sons have to learn.”

“Hook up with a
shiksa
,” he used to say, “and she'll wake you up in the middle of one night and start shouting into your ear how much she hates Jews. It's bound to happen eventually, so stick with Jewish girls. Much less confusion with your kids later on, and they're prettier than
shiksas
and make the best wives.”

“When we were kids we went barefoot in the summer to save on the shoe leather,” he'd say.

“We had so many relatives and
landsleit
living with us in our small apartment on Ludlow Street that we had to sleep in shifts, sometimes two to three to a single bed.”

“It was two for five to go to the movies then—two people for five cents. So I'd stand out front of a movie theater and say ‘I got two, who's got three?' and always got someone to go in with.”

“No matter what a cop or teacher smacks you for, you deserve it. Always respect authority.”

This is my youngest boy,” he said to a couple of his cronies in his waiting room. “Maybe not the sharpest of the bunch, but so far the hardest worker and the one most interested in making money, so the son I have the highest hopes of following me into dentistry. If he doesn't become one, like the other three, I'll really consider my life a flop.”

“Dad emotionally cool?” my mother said. “It's just a front. He doesn't like showing his deeper emotions around you kids. Afraid it'll give you the wrong way to act and later make you vulnerable to people who take advantage of sensitive men. So he wants to always look chipper and strong, even tough, able to endure and stand up to anything. But weeks after your brother died he was still crying to himself to sleep every night. With his mother, he was even more inconsolable. At least with your brother he let me hold him in my arms sometimes, though don't let on to him that I told you.”

“Why would you want to move out when you've got free room and board here?” he said to me when I started looking for an apartment after I graduated college. “Stay with us till you have a pile of dough in the bank and can afford a long layoff from work. The food's good, bed's comfortable, you have your own room now, so if you want to be left alone to type your head off in it, the room's quiet enough with the door shut where nobody's going to complain.”

“Don't be a dope,” he said when I told him I'd stopped signing up for my weekly unemployment insurance check because I was no longer looking for work. “You and your last employer put good money into that plan, so take it while you can. If you were doing something really illegal, that'd make it a different matter. But you want to write and just live off your savings, do it when the government checks run out.”

“I don't care what you say,” he said, “that girl's ugly as sin and dull as dishwater and is making a fool of you if you think she's good-looking and has a nice personality.”

Went through the apartment a few times a night turning off all the lights in rooms nobody was in. “You people,” he'd say, “must think I've got stock in Con Edison.”

“Get off the phone,” he'd say on the extension when I was trying to make a date with a girl or talking to a friend. “I've only been on two minutes,” I'd say, which was usually how long it was before he picked up the extension, and he'd say “It's been ten minutes, don't tell me. The phone company charges by the minute, you know, and not a single flat fee for the call. Besides, I'm expecting some very important calls from my patients, so say goodbye.”

“Close the icebox door,” he'd say when he saw me looking inside the refrigerator for something to eat, “or get what you want fast. You're spoiling all the food.”

“You already eat like three Greeks,” he'd say sometimes when I'd open the refrigerator or breadbox shortly after dinner, “you want to make it four?” “I'm a growing boy,” I said once, “you've said so yourself,” and he said “Yeah, don't I know, but give it a little rest, will ya? You're eating us out of house and home.”

That woman's got a beak and bad breath on her that's driving away fine prospects,” yet he made a match for her as he did for lots of his patients. “I hate to see two people lonely,” he said, “so when they sit in my chair and tell me they're looking for somebody, I almost immediately know which of my other patients is the right one.” If the couple got married—several couples did—he hinted to them that he expected as a thank-you for bringing them together a new suit from Harry Rothman's or four custom-made shirts from the Custom Shirt Shop.

“When I was a boy I walked to work even on the worst days to save on trolley fare. Thunderstorms I'd go through—blizzards like we don't get anymore—and I never got even a cold or where the weather stopped me from a single day's work.”

I kissed his lips on his hospital deathbed, something I'd never done with him—it had always been the cheek—and didn't want to do it then but for some reason thought I should. I was alone in the room with him when he died.

I knew he was dead; everything about his body said so and I'd heard a death rattle and put my ear over his mouth and heart. I didn't check his pulse because I was never good at finding it on anyone but myself. I wanted to kiss him with nobody around before I summoned the hospital staff and they examined him and declared him dead and shooed me out of the room so they could clean up him and his bed. From a pay phone down the hall I called my mother to say Dad had died peacefully and then my brothers and sisters. I had lots of change on me because he'd come into the hospital in a coma and we didn't think his room needed a phone. Kissing him was something I think he never would have done with me if I were the one who died, and why should he? He had more sense than me in many ways—he never did anything unless he was sure he wanted to—and no fake sentimentality. I'd come every day to the hospital—it was an easy cross-town bus ride from my apartment—and stayed the last two nights there sleeping on a couch in the visitor's lounge and every hour or so looking in on him and sitting by his bed and dabbing his forehead and cheeks with a towel if they were wet and swabbing his lips with glycerin swabs if they were dry. He probably would have done what he did with my youngest sister, who died in the same hospital of cancer when she was twenty-three, though like him the cause of death was listed as pneumonia: visited me after work the first two days, stayed half an hour and then gone home to have dinner. And after those two visits—maybe even after the first—said to my mother “I can't go anymore”—this is what she told me at the time—“It's too tough to. I can't take seeing one of my kids in this condition.” So he wouldn't have seen me alive after the first or second visit and would have left it to my mother to tell him how I was doing, I'm almost sure of it. With my brother he never had to go through any of that because Gene drowned and was never found.

“Kiss me, I'm your father, and I don't deserve it after the nickel I just gave.”

“Listen to me, I'm your father, and you know anyone else better to advise you with your welfare in mind? I've been around; I know the ropes. Believe me, I won't steer you wrong.”

“Leave the house for good, why don't you,” he said a couple of times. “All I ever wanted was for my kids to be civil to me and for there to be a bit of peace in my life. But I can't have any of it when you're always kvetching and squabbling with me and making speeches and getting angry at every third thing in the world.”

I think what hurt him most, other than the deaths of my sister and brother and of course his mother, and more my brother than my sister since she'd been sick since she was five, he said, “and we never thought she'd live as long as she did,” was that while he was in prison my mother got him to go along with a name change for all the kids. “She forced it on me. Shoved the powers of attorney at me and said ‘Sign them or I won't be there when you're released.' I should've told her to stow it, but for the sake of keeping the family together, I didn't. She was ashamed of my last name because I was all over the newspapers in this big graft scandal and was doing time and she said all your lives would be ruined by having my last name. That people remember, but she knew damn well they forget or don't care. As for me, I never regretted going through any of it except for losing my dental license all those years. So I had to find another profession when I got out, and it worked. I was a terrific salesman; made a bundle and would've stuck with it but I loved dentistry more. But I'll never forgive her. She did the worst possible thing she could do to me, and all out of spite. That's why I get so mad at the dinner table sometimes. I see you kids and I think of it, and it makes my blood boil.”

“Change your last name back to mine,” he said a few days after my eighteenth birthday. “You're of legal age now where you don't need both parents' consent,” and I said “I can't.” “Why not? Come on, please, change your name back and I'll give you anything you want within reason.” I said “I wish I could, just because I know how happy it'd make you, but with the other kids keeping the name we have now, it wouldn't be a good idea. I want to have the same last name as them, and they all want to keep the name they've had for almost fifteen years.” He said “Look, what am I asking for? Just for one of my sons to carry my name—the two older girls will marry and get new ones—and I'd pay for all the legal costs involved,” and I said “Honestly, it's just been too long.” “Ah,” he said, “you were always such a weak jerk. Get out of my sight.”

“You know, it sort of looks like spit in a way.”

“My God,” she said, “what does?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I was just thinking out loud.”

“No, really, what? I wasn't being cynical. I'm interested.”

The rain driveling off the arch there. Also the way it smacks against the sidewalk.”

She looked at both places. The rain didn't look like spit or anything close to it. But if he insisted…

“You're right. It does resemble it.”

“Resemble what?”

“Oh, come off it, Peter—like what you said. Like spit, then, I suppose.”

“You couldn't quite get the word out for a moment, could you.” He laughed in that ridiculing way he knew she disliked, half to himself and half aloud. But she wouldn't let it upset her, since that was what he wanted. Then he'd have excuses.

“Well,” she said, “it's never been one of my pet words. But I will go along with your description.”

He turned away and looked at the doorway's granite arch, which had been shielding them from the rain the last five minutes.

Then, without meeting her eyes, he shifted his blank stare past her to a row of Georgian townhouses across the street, the slicing rain looking more now like snow or sleet than anything else. She wondered what he was thinking.

“What are you thinking, dear?” she said.

“Nothing much.”

“I hope you're not angry with my remarks before, I was only trying to be accommodating.”

“And my most profound humble thanks to you, m'lady,” and he swept his arm in front of him and bowed low to her in mock gallantry. Straightening up, he said “Now what do you say we drop the subject and walk?”

“It's still raining.”

“Just a ways—I promise. Then we'll duck in someplace for coffee.”

“Now that's the most intelligent idea you've had since you suggested lunch.”

He walked out from under the arch, and she followed him. The rain had let up a bit and the cloche hat she'd bought yesterday was all the protection she needed. But he was walking much too fast again—acting like a disgruntled schoolboy and not making any secret of wanting to lose her, though she wouldn't let on she knew. She'd play his little games, have coffee and tolerate his moody silence and get him back to the hotel for a nap and later some cocktails and dinner and a show, and maybe by tomorrow, or the day after, she'd have convinced him he'd already tied up half the pewter imports to American so didn't he think it was time they headed back to their children and home in New York?

“You don't feel you're walking too fast?” she said.

“Maybe it's you who's walking too slow.”

Then how about if we compromise? You go a little slower and I'll do my best to stay even with you. I'm sure we can work out a delightful walking arrangement that way.”

He continued to walk fast.

“Now you're not fooling anyone,” she said from behind. “I know you're only doing it so you can get way from me.”

“Oh geez. So I'll stop if you want,” and he stopped, giving her only enough time to get beside him before he set out again, this time walking so slowly that she was always a step or two in front of him.

There's no end to your playful games today, is there?” she said, slowing down herself.

“No games. I just don't like dragging my behind. I don't know, for some reason I feel extremely energetic,” and he widened his stride till he was a good ten feet in front. She ran after him and tugged his arm till he stopped. “What?”

“If you don't want me with you today, fine. But at least have the balls to tell me.”

“I certainly appreciate you're harping on that again.”

“But you would rather be alone—I mean: right?”

“If that's what you want me to say, okay.”

“You'd rather be with that woman friend you met on your last buying trip—isn't that true too?”

“Again, if that's what you want me to say, okay.”

“Stop mimicking yourself. You sound simpleminded.”

Then stop being a pain in the ass. Stop bugging me.”

“All I want is for you to say if you want to be alone. An honest yes or no. I'll find something to do without you.”

“You really expect an answer to that? Because all your suspicions and assertions have been groundless since you first started up about this fictional beauty.”

“Sure they have. But ever since we landed in Ireland you've been beating the drums to get to London like some breathless Romeo.”

“Oh yeah, I can really see myself doing that.”

“Who is she, Peter?”

He stuck his palm out and squinted at the sky. “It's stopped raining.”

Thank you for the weather report, but all right, when did you first meet her?”

“Who?”

“Just tell me. I'm no kid anymore. And I'd never ask if I felt I couldn't accept the answer. I've been half expecting it for a couple of years.”

“Make sense: expecting what?”

“Hey. Why don't we just separate for the afternoon right here? You could then do whatever you want without me and I could finish my shopping.”

“Knock it off, Cyn, I'm tired of it.”

“It's for your benefit I'm making the suggestion.”

“And again, I appreciate it to no end. Your considerateness is an absolute wonder to me.”

“Yes,” she said, eyeing his composure and not as sure now. “Let's see then.” She placed her hand on her chin. “You know, I really don't know how many hours I should give you—for the truth now: how long does a man need to make love to a woman he hasn't seen in four months.”

“Four months.”

“With me you hardly take four minutes these days.”

“I do my best.”

“Your best—but never mind. Tell me, did you drag us around this wet neighborhood because she happens to live here? I'm not complaining about the choice, mind you, because it's a lovely part. London can be so pretty, and so clean.”

He looked away from her to a few cars passing.

“Well, then is her apartment done up Modern? Neo-Victorian? Old Depression? No furniture at all? Poor dear, and quite an inconvenience for the two of you, but maybe you can fix that. All right, if the topic fails to interest you, then just tell me what color hair she has. Women are curious about such things. It's probably a well-brushed mousy brown, although you've always preferred real blond—long and artsy-like and casually billowing over the shoulders like those California college girls you said you used to flip over so much and who never gave you a tumble.”

He continued to look at the street, then at his shoes, then at her new suede walking shoes, the soles caked with mud because the storm had opened up on them while they sat reading in a little park nearby.

“Don't stand there gaping like an idiot at nothing—pretending she doesn't exist. I saw her envelopes in your pockets—even in your billfold once. She writes you at the office, right? About once a week from what I can make out. For a moment she thought she had him: his bottom lip dropped and his face froze. She was excited at the prospect of his spilling the whole story of the woman and thus clearing up the fuzziness of it in her own mind, because just by his silence and cunning avoidance of the issue she was starting to feel like a fool. But now he returned to his old maneuvers, gazing out at the street, at nothing at first, then at a passing bus, trying to give the impression he wasn't concerned with anything she said.

That last one got you, didn't it? Well, you needn't have looked so worried. I didn't pry inside the envelopes. That's not saying I wouldn't have, but I just never had the chance.”

Those letters you refer to—that is, if they're the same ones I'm thinking of, were business correspondence from a silver company in England.”

“London, England?”

The main office is in London, yes. But the factory's in Edinburgh.”

“And this company always makes it a practice of writing you on salmon-colored stationery and with pale-blue feminine script?”

“Knock the ways of British business if you want, but it's what helped send us over here on the cuff.”

“And doesn't that make me delirious. But the owner, or salesperson, couldn't by any chance have the first name of Margaret?”

“If you mean Miss Pierce—she's their corresponding secretary. She must be a damn efficient woman from what I can make out, though I've never met her. Both times I was in the office, she wasn't there.”

“It's a lovely name, Margaret—as if it fits for this quiet English Sunday. Seems any woman who'd have it would be the type to light your fires, eagerly mix you drinks and such, and later make perfect shy love.”

This one's probably a pursy seventy and maybe an Anglican deacon on the side.”

“If I ever wanted to be named anything, it was Margaret. I think I would have been much different for it.”

“I kind of always preferred the name Morris for you myself.”

“Would you like my being called Margaret? If you did, I might even change it for you.”

“If you feel that name would suit you better, fine. Now let's get a move on then, sweetheart, though to where, I don't know.”

She sailed. “Just lead the way, my dear.” She looped her arm through his and they began to walk at an even pace. After a minute, he broke away from her and walked ahead. She kept abreast of him for a while. Then he walked faster, his arms and fists pumping back and forth like those people in sweatsuits she's seen on the park side of Central Park West from her apartment window, looking as if they were in a speed-walking race.

“I can't keep up with you,” she said.

“You have your thirty-dollar walking shoes on—so walk.”

She stopped, wheezing from nearly running a block alongside him, and said “I was right before. You do want to hurry off somewhere without me. Every action of yours says so.”

He stopped and trotted back. “When are you going to give up on that worn-out crap?”

“When you start telling the truth.”

“I can't insist what I say is the truth. And there are people around. This is getting embarrassing. You'll just have to start believing what I say, that's all.”

“But you do want to walk much faster. At least admit that.”

“Yes, I want to walk faster. It felt good, but not for the reason you have. I just feel like moving today—almost like running like a kid.”

“So why don't you then?”

“Yeah, I can really see myself doing that too.”

“I'm serious—run. Don't let me hold you back.”

“If you don't shut up, I will.”

“But that's what I'm saying—run. I'm being honest with you, and you're a dope not to take me up on it. Say your goodbyes and run the hell away from here, back to the hotel for your things and then back to this neighborhood or some other, or wherever, but run, goddamnit—just go.”

“Oh, screw it then,” but he stared at her a few seconds as if waiting for her to change her instruction, and then began walking in the direction they'd been heading, quickening his steps when he was a few feet away from her and then starting to run. People on the street turned to look at him as he ran past. At first all she could think was how silly he looked from behind, his jacket waving and his buttocks jiggling and his legs cockeyed and flailing as if this were the first time he'd tried running, although he more likely forgot how to run as he used to or was running that way because he'd been out of shape so long. By now he was more than a block away, surprising her with his wind and at a distance much farther than she expected him to get in such a short time.