Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction (12 page)

On one of Peary’s expeditions, their boat was struck by moving ice, pressed between two icebergs by the current, and as the ship was sinking, water coming in through the port side, the crew and the scientists gathered a few things and scrambled onto the icy bluff. Finn Hamilton went below three times, because he couldn’t decide what to take. He brought a compass and threw it to a crewmate already on land. He went down for his pipe, and halfway up the stairs, he went back down again for his Bible and he slipped and drowned, tangled up with a footstool
.

Some of us are Finn Hamilton and some of us are Beth Shenker, I guess. I have somehow not had the right things for this journey and I have packed and repacked a hundred times as if somehow the right thing will be found in some small pocket, put in by someone with more sense or gift than me, but I’m always scrambling for the last-minute thing and I am always, always watching the boat pull away without me
.

Your family was one of my early boats and you were the bright and amazing sail, and I am, as I said at the beginning, very, very proud of you
.

SLEEPWALKING

I was born smart and had been lucky my whole life, so I didn’t even know that what I thought was careful planning was nothing more than being in the right place at the right time, missing an avalanche I didn’t even hear.

After the funeral was over and the cold turkey and the glazed ham were demolished and some very good jazz was played and some very good musicians went home drunk on bourbon poured in my husband’s honor, it was just me, my mother-in-law, Ruth, and our two boys, Lionel junior from Lionel’s second marriage, and our little boy, Buster.

Ruth pushed herself up out of the couch, her black taffeta dress rustling reproachfully. I couldn’t stand for her to start the dishes, sighing, praising the Lord, clucking her tongue over the state of my kitchen, in which the windows are not washed regularly and I do not scrub behind the refrigerator.

“Ruth, let them sit. I’ll do them later tonight.”

“No need to put off ’til tomorrow what we can do today. I’ll do them right now, and then Lionel junior can run me home.” Ruth does not believe that the good Lord intended ladies to drive; she’d drive, eyes closed, with her drunk son or her accident-prone grandson before she’d set foot in my car.

“Ruth, please,” I said. “I’d just as soon have something to do later. Please. Let me make us a cup of tea, and then we’ll take you home.”

Tea, her grandson Buster, and her son’s relative sobriety were the three major contributions I’d made to Ruth’s life; the tea and Buster accounted for all of our truces and the few good times we’d had together.

“I ought to be going along now, let you get on with things.”

“Earl Grey? Darjeeling? Constant Comment? I’ve got some rosehip tea in here, too—it’s light, sort of lemony.” I don’t know why I was urging her to stay; I’d never be rid of her as long as I had the boys. If Ruth no longer thought I was trash, she certainly made it clear that I hadn’t lived up to her notion of the perfect daughter-in-law, a cross between Marian Anderson and Florence Nightingale.

“You have Earl Grey?” Ruth was wavering, half a smile on her sad mouth, her going-to-church lipstick faded to a blurry pink line on her upper lip.

When I really needed Ruth on my side, I’d set out an English tea: Spode teapot, linen place mats, scones, and three kinds of jam. And for half an hour, we’d sip and chew, happy to be so civilized.

“Earl Grey it is.” I got up to put on the water, stepping on Buster, who was sitting on the floor by my chair, practically on my feet.

“Jesus, Buster, are you all right?” I hugged him before he could start crying and lifted him out of my way.

“The Lord’s name,” Ruth murmured, rolling her eyes up to apologize to Jesus personally. I felt like smacking her one, right in her soft dark face, and pointing out that since the Lord had not treated us especially well in the last year, during which we had both lost husbands, perhaps we didn’t have to be overly concerned with His hurt feelings. Ruth made me want to be very, very bad.

“Sorry, Ruth. Buster, sit down by your grandmother, honey, and I’ll make us all some tea.”

“No, really, don’t trouble yourself, Julia. Lionel junior, please take me home. Gabriel, come kiss your grandma good-bye. You boys be good, now, and think of how your daddy would want you to act. I’ll see you all for dinner tomorrow.”

She was determined to leave, martyred and tea-less, so I got in line to kiss her. Ruth put her hands on my shoulders, her only gesture of affection toward me, which also allowed her to pretend that she was a little taller, rather than a little shorter, than I am.

She left with Lionel junior, and Buster and I cuddled on the couch, his full face squashed against my chest, my skin resting on his soft hair. I felt almost whole.

“Sing, Mama.”

Lionel had always wanted me to record with him and I had always said no, because I don’t like performing and I didn’t want to be a blues-singing Marion Davies to Lionel’s William Ran dolph Hearst. But I loved to sing and he loved to play and I’m sorry we didn’t record just one song together.

I was trying to think of something that would soothe Buster but not break my heart.

I sang “Amazing Grace,” even though I can’t quite hit that note, and I sang bits and pieces of a few more songs, and then Buster was asleep and practically drowning in my tears.

I heard Lionel junior’s footsteps and blotted my face on my sleeve.

“Hey, Lion, let’s put this little boy to bed.”

“He’s out, huh? You look tired, too. Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll do the dishes?”

That’s my Lion. I think because I chose to love him, chose to be a mother and not just his father’s wife, Lion gave me back everything he could. He was my table setter, car washer, garden weeder; in twelve years, I might’ve raised my voice to him twice. When my husband brought his son to meet me the first time, I looked into those wary eyes, hope pouring out of them despite himself, and I knew that I had found someone else to love.

I carried Buster to his room and laid him on the bed, slip ping off his loafers. I pulled up the comforter with the long-legged basketball players running all over it and kissed his damp little face. I thought about how lucky I was to have Buster and Lion and even Ruth, who might torture me forever but would never abandon me, and I thought about how cold and lonely my poor Lionel must be, with no bourbon and no music and no audience, and I went into the bathroom to dry my face again. Lion got frantic when he saw me crying.

He was lying on the couch, his shoes off, his face turned toward the cushions.

“Want a soda or a beer? Maybe some music?” I pulled at his shoulder.

“Nope. Maybe some music, but not Pop’s.”

“No, no, not your father’s. How about Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan?”

“How about something a little more up? How about Luther Vandross?” Lion turned around to face me.

“I don’t have any—as you know.” Lionel and I both hated bubblegum music, so of course Lion had the world’s largest collection of whipped-cream soul; if it was insipid, he bought it.

“I’ll get my tapes,” he said, and sat halfway up to see if I would let him. We used to make him play them in his room so we wouldn’t have to listen, but Lionel wasn’t here to grumble at the boy and I just didn’t care.

“Play what you want, honey,” I said, sitting in Lionel’s brown velvet recliner. Copies of
Downbeat
and packs of Trident were still stuffed between the cushion and the arm. Lion bounded off to his room and came back with an armful of tapes.

“Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston … what would you like to hear?”

“You pick.” Even talking felt like too much work. He put on one of the tapes and I shut my eyes.

I hadn’t expected to miss Lionel so much. We’d had twelve years together, eleven of them sober; we’d had Buster and raised the Lion, and we’d gone to the Grammys together when he was nominated and he’d stayed sober when he lost, and we’d made love, with more interest some years than others; we’d been through a few other women for him, a few blondes that he couldn’t pass up, and one other man for me; I’m not criticizing. We knew each other so well that when I wrote a piece on another jazz musician, he’d find the one phrase and say, “You meant that about me,” and he’d be right. He was a better father than your average musician; he brought us with him whenever he went to Europe, and no matter how late he played on Saturday, he got up and made breakfast on Sunday.

Maybe we weren’t a perfect match, in age, or temperament, or color, but we did try and we were willing to stick it out and then we didn’t get a chance.

Lion came and sat by me, putting his head against my knee. Just like Buster, I thought. Lion’s mother was half Italian, like me, so the two boys look alike: creamier, silkier versions of their father.

I patted his hair and ran my thumb up and down his neck, feeling the muscles bunched up. When he was little, he couldn’t fall asleep without his nightly back rub, and he only gave it up when he was fifteen and Lionel just wouldn’t let me anymore.

“It’s midnight, honey. It’s been a long day, a long week. Go to bed.”

He pushed his head against my leg and cried, the way men do, like it’s being torn out of them. His tears ran down my bare leg, and I felt the strings holding me together just snap. One, two, three, and there was no more center.

“Go to bed, Lion.”

“How about you?”

“I’m not really ready for bed yet, honey. Go ahead.” Please, go to bed.

“Okay. Good night, Ma.”

“Good night, baby.” Nineteen-year-old baby.

He pulled himself up and went off to his room. I peered into the kitchen, looked at all the dishes, and closed my eyes again. After a while, I got up and finished off the little bit of Jim Beam left in the bottle. With all Lionel’s efforts at sobriety, we didn’t keep the stuff around, and I choked on it. But the burning in my throat was comforting, like old times, and it was a distraction.

I walked down the hall to the bedroom—I used to call it the Lionel Sampson Celebrity Shrine. It wasn’t just his framed album covers, but all of his favorite reviews, including the ones I wrote before I met him; one of Billie’s gardenias mounted on velvet, pressed behind glass; photos of Lionel playing with equally famous or more famous musicians or with famous fans. In some ways, it’s easier to marry a man with a big ego; you’re not always fretting over him, worrying about whether or not he needs fluffing up.

I threw my black dress on the floor, my worst habit, and got into bed. I woke up at around four, waiting for something. A minute later, Buster wandered in, eyes half shut, blue blankie resurrected and hung around his neck, like a little boxer.

“Gonna stay with you, Mama.” Truculent even in his sleep, knowing that if his father had been there, he’d have been sent back to his own room.

“Come in, then, Bus. Let’s try and get some sleep.”

He curled up next to me, silently, an arm flung over me, the other arm thrust into his pajama bottoms, between his legs.

I had just shut my eyes again when I felt something out of place. Lion was standing in the doorway, his briefs hanging off his high skinny hips. He needed new underwear, I thought. He looked about a year older than Buster.

“I thought I heard Buster prowling around, y’know, sleepwalking.”

The only one who ever sleepwalked in our family was Lion, but I didn’t say so. “It’s okay—he just wanted company. Lonely in this house tonight.”

“Yeah. Ma?”

I was tired of thinking, and I didn’t want to send him away, and I didn’t want to talk anymore to anyone so I said, “Come on, honey, it’s a big bed.”

He crawled in next to his brother and fell asleep in a few minutes. I watched the digital clock flip through a lot of numbers and finally I got up and read.

The boys woke early, and I made them what Lionel called a Jersey City breakfast: eggs, sweet Italian sausage, grits, biscuits, and a quart of milk for each of them.

“Buster, soccer camp starts today. Do you feel up to going?”

I didn’t see any reason for him to sit at home; he could catch up on his grieving for the rest of his life.

“I guess so. Is it okay, Mama?”

“Yes, honey, it’s fine. I’m glad you’re going. I’ll pick you up at five, and then we’ll drive straight over to Grandma’s for dinner. You go get ready when you’re done eating. Don’t forget your cleats—they’re in the hall.”

Lion swallowed his milk and stood up, like a brown flamingo, balancing on one foot while he put on his sneaker. “Come on, Buster, I’m taking you. I have to go into town anyway. Do we need anything?”

I hadn’t been to the grocery store in about a week. “Get milk and OJ and English muffins and American cheese. I’ll do a real shop tomorrow.” If I could just get to the store and the cleaners, then I could get to work, and then my life would move forward.

Finally they were ready to go, and I kissed them both and gave Lion some money for the groceries.

“I’ll be back by lunchtime,” he said. It was already eight-thirty. When his father got sick in the spring, Lion gave me hourly bulletins on his whereabouts. This summer, Lion was house painting and home constantly, leaving late, back early, stopping by for lunch.