Dad

Dad William Wharton After being summoned home by the news of his mother's heart attack, John Tremont is forced to confront his own middle age.While John’s mother begins to make an astonishing recovery, his father deteriorates; having long ago handed over the running of his life to his domineering wife, he is unable to cope without her. With the help of his nineteen-year-old son, John assumes the role of carer. Before long, John finds himself caught between his son's feckless impatience to get on with his life and his father's heartbreaking willingness to let go, as both sons become trapped in the consuming, terrifying and repetitive world of looking after a dying loved-one.Brilliantly capturing the relationship between sons and fathers with humour and poignancy, Dad is a story of the love that binds generations of fathers and sons. WILLIAM WHARTON Dad Table of Contents Title Page (#uf6140b1e-5667-5f99-b2dc-0f377e3570c6) Dedication (#uc1ba0725-783b-5b7e-aff8-d0012422a41c) Epigraph (#u523b93ca-6d58-5d9f-9ca5-1198f0888ea2) Chapter 1 (#u44614d1a-0c46-509b-9d70-baba8a6ca434) Chapter 2 (#uc4ebe894-e546-5246-aead-1d5b4fbc2023) Chapter 3 (#u3ccd879b-00b5-52c8-b82d-ff5650b6ee7d) Chapter 4 (#u3d216a66-1a9f-53f7-b667-e29ab4587c05) Chapter 5 (#u4bb15426-afc7-5a2a-ab20-e0f896b5faf8) Chapter 6 (#u831f62df-bd75-5b31-a75b-238eae322822) Chapter 7 (#u857cce7e-77cc-5e09-80cc-49ceeec4f26d) Chapter 8 (#u106cb8e6-8fcf-523b-a97b-bfbafa23ad12) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Also by William Wharton (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) To the women in my life: Mother, sister, daughters, wife That man’s father is my father’s son — Second half of a riddle 1 (#ulink_9586ef7d-bae3-540a-aa06-527035183cf4) AAA CON is the first name in the phone book of most large American cities. This outfit arranges drive-aways; searches out people to drive cars for delivery from one place to another. My son Billy and I are waiting in the L.A. AAA CON office. I’ve had my medical exam, deposited a fifty-dollar bond, filled out forms and given references. Billy’s too young to take a drive-away; the minimum age is twenty-one. A car’s already been assigned to us and we’re waiting now for them to drive it up. Billy’s excited because it’s a Lincoln Continental. I dread telling him he isn’t going to drive. I’m not a super-responsible person, but I’m that responsible, especially with someone else’s fifteen-thousand-dollar automobile. So I’ll be driving all the way across this huge country and I’m not looking forward to it. The office here is grim. These places are only processing centers; nothing’s spent on carpets or fancy furnishings. I figure they make a hundred bucks or so on each car they move cross-country. Finally, the beefy fellow at the desk calls us over. He asks what route we want and agrees to 15–70–76. It’s the least trafficked by trucks because of the high, unfinished pass at Loveland. After that, it’s double-four most of the way. We’ll be delivering this car to Philadelphia, my old hometown, then we’ll take a plane to Paris. Paris is our real home now, has been for fifteen years. Half an hour later we get the car. It isn’t new, maybe two years old, deep maroon with a black vinyl top; flashy-looking affair; looks like a gangster’s car. We’re delivering to somebody named Scarlietti, so who knows, maybe we’re driving a bump-off car. This must be the twentieth time I’ve driven cross-country; more than half those trips Drive-Away. One time we moved a pale yellow Chevy Impala convertible. That was in the days of convertibles, before air conditioning and stereo. We tied our kids in that car with jump ropes so they couldn’t fall out, then zoomed west to east mostly on 66, top down, wind, sun in our faces. The kids could fight, scream, play, holler, make all the noise they wanted; we couldn’t hear a thing. It was almost like a honeymoon for Vron and me. We got good mileage on that Chevy, too. But this Lincoln’s going to put me down an extra thirty bucks in gas. At least we’ll be comfortable; it’s no joke beating a car three thousand miles across the whole damned country in eight days, and I’m getting too old for this kind of thing. The part I’ve been dreading comes after we pull out with the Lincoln. We need to pick up our bags and say goodbye to Mom. Billy’s jumpy too. We know it won’t be easy; nothing’s easy with Mom; but considering all that’s happened this is going to be especially hard. We ease our giant floating dark red boat up Colby Lane. A car like this isn’t designed to move around narrow, old-fashioned residential streets. Dad bought the lot here for twenty-six hundred dollars about twenty-five years ago. He built the house himself at a total cost under six thousand bucks; it must be worth over eighty thousand today. We park on the driveway and go inside. Mom’s dressed to kill, looking damned good for someone who’s had two heart attacks in the past five months. Still, she’s weepy around the eyes, pale; walking with her new peculiar shuffle. It’s as if she has a load in her pants and is balancing a book on her head. She starts straight off crying, asking what she’s going to do when I leave; insisting she’ll be all alone, because, according to her, Joan, my sister, doesn’t care if she lives or dies. I’ve been listening to Mom complaining all my life, especially during the last months. I keep thinking I’ll get immune to it; I should be thoroughly inoculated after fifty years, but sometimes it still hurts. Sometimes I really listen and sometimes I can’t take it anymore. This time I’m only numb. I wait until she slows down. I tell her again how some things must be. I need to go home. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Vron and Jacky. I can’t spend the rest of my life taking care of her and Dad. She knows all this, we’ve been over it enough. Billy stands in the background listening. He starts turning television channels, looking for something, anything. I can’t blame him. Mom keeps at it. I’m nodding my head as I work our bags to the car. She’s also pushing a child’s lunch box filled with pills on us. It’s her way of showing love, taking care, making us feel dependent. But we do finally get away. The next part’s even tougher. We cruise up Colby to the convalescent home where Dad is. The home is only a block from my parents’ house. We chose it so Mom could be near. We experimented with another place but settled on this one. It has its limitations but Mom can walk here when she wants. It probably isn’t good for Dad but nobody can deny her this. We park around the corner and go in. The smell is something I’ll never get used to. It’s a combination of the smells in a men’s room and an animal shelter. When I was sixteen, I worked for a small-animal vet. I’d come in mornings and hose down the cages, wash out all the dog and cat crap from the night before. This is a combination of those smells, plus the smell of general decrepitude. I never knew what the word decrepitude or corruption really meant. As kids, we used to say piss, shit and corruption. Now I know. Corruption is when something is being corrupted; rotted by bacteria. These poor, old people here are being corrupted, rotted, decayed. The result is decrepitude, being wasted, worn out, used up. Smells like this are hard to cover. All the carbolic acid, strong soap and aerosol in the world won’t do it. This is the smell of death, the going back to earth none of us can avoid. A German-born brother and sister run the home. People couldn’t be kinder. Of course, they’re doing it for money, lots of money. The cheapest you can have a shared double is twenty-five bucks a day. But I wouldn’t do it, night and day, day in and day out. I couldn’t. They tell me Dad’s still in the same room but they don’t think he’ll know us; he’s under sedation. I’ve accepted this; sedation is the best thing for him now, anything to make it easy. There don’t seem to be any real, practical, permanent answers. There’s no room for him in this world anymore. I know something about old age now. You’re old when most people would rather have you dead. We walk along the hallway looking into rooms. We peek in at thin, worn shells of human beings; people with oxygen tubes on their noses and catheters coming out from under bathrobes. They’re propped up in bed or sitting in wheelchairs. It’s only afternoon, but they’re all dressed in bed clothes. Some are hunched over, listening to radios or staring at television sets; mouths open, mostly toothless. As we go by, some look out, latch on to us with their eyes, like prisoners peering from cells. I feel guiltily healthy, young, with an unending future. How must Billy, beside me, feel at nineteen? Dad’s on the men’s side; so stupid to carry that farce to this point in life. He’s in a gigantesque kind of crib. He’s lying in the darkened room with the drapes drawn. His eyes are open, fixed on the ceiling. There’s a roommate. The man is deaf and smiles at us. They chose him on purpose because sometimes Dad screams out in the night. All together, Dad’s been in this place two weeks. He came out of the hospital again a week ago. He’d begun dehydrating. I look down. He’s somehow dead already; yellowish skin but not a wrinkle. He’d lost so much weight, then gained some of it back; now he’s skeleton thin again. We lean close over him. I say hello. He hears and turns his eyes but there’s no recognition. He stares at our eyes just as a baby or a dog does, not expecting anything, only seeming fascinated in a passive sense by the eye itself. He’s gripping and ungripping, twisting the blankets and sheets the way he does most times now. It’s a constant tight turning; nervous movements. Sometimes he’ll grit his teeth and bear down, pushing one side against the other, trying to make it all hold together. But right now he isn’t too active, only twittering with his fingers, maybe proving to himself there are still things; that he’s still here and alive. He looks past me and speaks through quivering lips. ‘I have to take a piss.’ This is so unlike Dad. He never used those words. It’s hard seeing Dad in this condition, saying ‘piss’ in front of Billy. If he knew what he was doing, it’d never happen; he wouldn’t even say that to me. We pull a catch lowering the side rail to the bed, help Dad swing his legs out. I slip his robe over his shoulders; his slippers onto his feet. He’s wearing socks. He has no catheter yet. I’m hoping he can stay off one long as possible. He’s so privacy-conscious, a catheter makes him go downhill fast. Having nurses check and change it is degrading to him. When they do use one, it won’t be indwelling, only a condom you slip over the penis with a tube into a bag; at least it won’t hurt. Billy and I lift Dad up and he grabs hold of us. His fingers, hands and arms, though shaking violently, are still strong. We help him slide across the gray asphalt-tile floor to the small bathroom. He’s moving one foot in front of the other, but only with enormous concentration. In the bathroom, he leans over the toilet with his hands against the wall. He’s not looking at us, only into the toilet. He spits into the bowl; but he can’t piss. We stand there and nothing comes. Billy looks across at me. I flush the toilet thinking it might help but Dad only spits again. He never spit, I know of, or maybe he’s always spit in the toilet, a closet spitter. Actually, I never saw him even go to the toilet till these last months. I figure we’d better maneuver him back to bed. But, when we try taking him away, he has a tight hold on the pipes over the toilet. He has such a tight grip his knuckles are white. I try unlocking them. ‘Come on, Dad. Let go of the pipe.’ He won’t. He won’t look at me either; he only bears down and grits his teeth. I try undoing his hand, opening one finger at a time, the way you do with a baby when it grabs your beard. Then, suddenly, he lets go and latches on to another pipe. This pipe’s the hot-water line; his hand must be burning but he holds on tight with manic fury. Billy’s pulling at his other hand. ‘Come on, Gramps; let go! Come on, let go now.’ I’m almost ready to give up, call for help, when we finally pry him loose. We turn him around. As soon as he’s turned away he seems to forget the pipes. We try working him through the doorway but he goes into his usual hang-up, checking molding, running his hand up and down as if it’s some new thing he’s never seen before. This is a man who built his own house from the ground up and has done carpentry work since childhood. These days, it’s almost impossible to move him past any doorjamb; but we manage. We slide him to the bed, sit him down, take off his robe and slippers, then help him lie back. As usual, he’s afraid to put his head down. I cradle his head in my hand and lower him slowly onto the pillow. He’s deeply tense. He stares at the ceiling and his mouth starts moving, chattering, his lips opening and closing over his teeth, up and down with a quivering, uncontrolled movement. Strangely, Dad still has all his teeth. Here he is, a seventy-three-year-old man and he has all his perfectly beautiful teeth, somewhat yellowed, long in the gum but not a filling. I’m already missing six, and Billy beside me has several teeth missing, three root canals, filled with gold and porcelain-covered. If anyone ever X-rayed Dad’s head and Billy’s, not seeing anything else, they’d think Dad was the young man. He continues staring at the ceiling. I stroke his head, try to calm him. He holds my hand and squeezes it hard. He gives me a good squeeze as if he knows, and then squeezes again. I like to think of those squeezes as the last real message Dad gave me. We go outside. I’m barely making it. For some stupid reason, I don’t want Billy to see me crying. When we come out the door, who’s standing there leaning against a tree but Mom. She’s pale and breathing hard. We run over to her. She’s got that damned lunch box in her hand. We’d forgotten it. She puts one of her digoxin pills under her tongue. She’s in a bad state, gray-white. She gasps out her story of how she’s worked her way up the street, stopping and popping pills so she can fight her way to us. I can’t hold myself back. ‘Mother, it couldn’t be that important. It’s insane for you to run up here with a box of pills. You’ll kill yourself for nothing.’ But she had to come. She knew we were only up the street, here with Dad, and she wasn’t. She couldn’t stay away. We help her into the car and drive home. I put her to bed, make her take a ten-milligram Valium. We go through the entire goodbye scene again. I signal Billy to get in the car. I tell Mother, firmly as I can, I must go. I say goodbye, kiss her, turn around and leave. Joan has finally found somebody to come twice a week, and she herself will come twice more; still, I feel guilty into my very soul. Our plan is to head straight toward Vegas, packing as much desert as possible behind us during the night. Summers, it’s damned hot out there even in an air-conditioned car. We begin having trouble before we get near the desert. We’re twenty miles from San Bernardino when the voltage indicator starts flashing. The only thing is to turn back; we might make it to L.A. but that’s about all. We pull into a garage I know on Pico Boulevard. The voltage regulator is shot, has to be replaced, a minimum hundred bucks, parts and labor. Damn! I call AAA CON and tell them what’s happened. They tell me to call the owner, collect. I do that. After considerable shuffling around I get an OK. This means money out of pocket but we’ll get it back when we deliver. The garage says the car will be ready by morning. I get a few extra days’ travel time from Scarlietti, too. We can’t go back to Mother’s. I don’t think I could sleep again in that back room, too many bad memories, bad nights. Marty, my daughter, lives near the garage so Billy and I hoof it over there. Marty gives me two aspirins and puts me down in their bedroom. I can hear them, Marty, her husband Gary and Billy in the front room watching TV, a rerun of Mission Impossible. I have a tremendous yen to cry. Twice I go into the bathroom, sit on the toilet, but the way Dad couldn’t piss, I can’t cry. I spread-eagle on the bed and it catches up with me; I’m gone. Marty and Gary sleep on the floor and Billy sleeps on the couch. I have the only bed in the house all to myself. We sure have nice kids. We’re all up at seven for breakfast. Both Gary and Marty need to be at work by eight. When I call, the car’s ready; but the bill’s twenty-five dollars over estimate. We walk down and pick it up. We cruise out Wilshire Boulevard. I bid a silent farewell to L.A.: all its artificiality, the sugar-coated hardness. I can’t say I’m sorry to go; it’s been a rough stay. I know I’ll miss Joan but I’ve learned to live with that. We drive into the sun, due east. Then out through San Bernardino and up over the pass. Coming down the other side, heading toward Vegas, maybe a hundred twenty miles outside L.A., an enormous dog dashes in front of our car. I jam the brakes but they don’t grab straight and we almost flip. Lucky there isn’t much traffic because we rear-spin and I hit the dog anyway. He thumps front left and bounces off right. I pull up on the shoulder and we run back. The dog’s spinning around; his hindquarters are smashed. He should be dead but he’s twisting and howling. It’s hard to look or listen; he’s snapping and we can’t get near. It takes almost five awful minutes for him to slow down and die. There’s no collar or identification so we drag him off to the side of the road, into the bushes. It’s some kind of German shepherd, big as a wolf. We take out the tire iron and use it as a shovel to dig a shallow grave in the sand. We cover it with dry grasses and pieces of brushwood. There’s not a mark on the front of our car. It’s incredible the difference between machines and animals. We must’ve hit him with either the tire or the bumper. Back in the car, we don’t talk much for the next hundred miles. Then, about forty miles this side of Vegas, there’s some kind of motor-cross race up on the hills beside the road. Billy’s excited by this so we stop. I stay in the car. To me, it looks baked, barren, violent, but this is terrific for Billy. Everything that’s attractive to him – the unfinished, random quality, the rough-and-ready atmosphere, the noise, the smells – only reminds me of things I don’t want to remember. At Billy’s age I had too much of it, enough to last more than a lifetime. Comfort gets bigger as I grow older, comfort and the illusion of predictability. After ten minutes, Bill’s back, eyes flashing in vicarious thrill; he’s seen some new four-stroke he’s never seen before. An hour later, we roll into Vegas. The town’s just had a flash flood. Caesar’s Palace is thick packed clay up to the terraces. The parking lots are caking mudflats. It makes even more obvious how Vegas, plumb smack in the middle of a desert, is an insult to nature. It’s weird seeing this counterfeit world inundated with thick, caking, beige mud, cracking in the sun like a Christmas tree in a trash can, tinsel still sparkling. We park close as possible and hurry in from under the heat. It’s well past noon. Lead-heavy sun is forcing itself hard into the tops of our heads. It must be a hundred or more in the shade. We walk into a sudden shock of cold. We tromp mud onto pus-yellow and blood-red carpets, on into the dimness. There’s the whir and tinkle of slot machines. There’s a refrigerated-air smell mixed with the heavy smell of perfume, money and fear. We’re wrapped in the cloying atmosphere of this warped, hopeful, hopeless world. We’re going to spend a buck in nickels each. Billy loses his in five minutes. He says the percentages against throwing in twenty nickels without a single payoff are astronomic, but that’s what he does. I only want to get through mine but I’m having the opposite problem. I’m soon to where I have over twenty bucks in nickels; my hands are full, my pockets bulging. I keep giving handfuls to Billy so he can lose them. I want to get the hell out. Something in me doesn’t want to win; I don’t want to take any of those nickels with me. But it takes an hour of hard work before we finally do it. We’d be down to ten nickels and I’d hit another jackpot. Bells would ring and girls dressed like twirlers would come over to help me! Thank God, Billy’s having such awful luck or we’d still be there, pumping machines with bloody hands while slots spat nickels. We go out in the heat and drive on, looking for something to eat. We both want a Mexican restaurant for our last Western tacos, but settle on a place called Pizza Hut. We go in; more air conditioning; checkered tablecloths. We split a pitcher of beer and have a pizza each. I’m beginning to feel I just might, at last, be getting away; going home. It’s past three in the afternoon when we roll again. We’re pushing to make Zion. I know a good motel there, right at the opening to the park. But I make a mistake between Zion and Bryce. We drive through my place and it’s eleven o’clock before we get to Bryce. There are no restaurants open and we can’t find a motel. I’ve really screwed us up royally but Billy isn’t complaining; not out loud, anyway. Finally, we find a small bar, just closing up. The counterman makes us pork sandwiches with mayonnaise. He serves us a beer each. This guy also phones some cabins in Bryce and there’s room. One of the great things about traveling is you find out how many good, kind people there are. We drive up into a wooded area, right in the park; the cabins cost fourteen dollars a night. I take a shower, hoping it will calm me. I’m jittery, nervous. I have some Seconal but I won’t use it if I don’t need to. I have Valium, too. I’ve gotten to be quite the pill freak from this whole experience. I’d never taken a tranquilizer or sleeping pill in my life before. I lie back and decide to give myself an hour. If I’m not asleep by then, I’ll do something. That’s the last thought I have. 2 (#ulink_b73c3bb7-d0ba-50f3-9480-cde695beeae2) It was just after New Year’s Day and we were down at the moulin for Christmas vacation. The moulin is an old water mill we bought ten years ago and fixed up. It’s in an area of France called the Morvan. We spend most summers and other school holidays there. We were having unusually warm weather for winter in that part of the country, so I’m out painting. I’m wearing three pairs of socks and gloves but it’s good painting light. There’s something special about painting landscape in the cold when it isn’t snowing. The colors are toned down, muted, and the forms are much more visible. I’m on the road out to the woods where Billy built his cabin. There are beautiful views from there toward our village, with rolling hills behind. There’s a pair of tall poplars closing the left side and a spreading linden leaning over a road twisting under on the right. I’m doing a horizontal composition on a size 25 Figure, about two feet by three feet. The weather’s warm enough so the paint doesn’t thicken but I’ve turned cold, so I’m packing my way in for some vin chaud. I have the box on my back with the canvas strapped to it. I’m lazing along, pretending I’m walking into my own painting, when I see Jacky, our youngest, running up the road toward me. He has a blue paper in his hand. I recognize it, even at a distance, as a French telegram. They write them in longhand so they’re almost impossible to understand. I’m old-fashioned enough so a telegram starts my adrenaline going, especially in this deep country. I’m feeling open, vulnerable, there’s nothing to prepare me. I put down my box. Jacky’s wearing boots and a jacket with a hood. He ran out without buttoning his jacket. ‘Daddy! Mommy said, “Give this to Daddy.”’ He hands me the telegram. I hug him and button his jacket. I really don’t want to open the damned thing. Jacky doesn’t ask to look at the painting. None of our kids are interested in my work. It’s as if I work for IBM. It’s what Daddy does. He puts a wooden box on his back, goes out and paints pictures for money. I pick up my box and we begin moving toward home. The ground’s hard but there’s no ice. I open up the telegram; it’s from my sister. MOTHER HAD A SERIOUS HEART ATTACK STOP CAN YOU COME STOP LOVE JOAN Well, that shakes me. In her special way, my mother has always seemed so indestructible. When we get back to the mill, I show the telegram to Vron. I sit down but I’m not hungry. It’s obvious I must go back. Joan is not a panic type. If she says it’s serious, it is. With Vron’s help, I start packing. She’s so calm, so reassuring; definitely the cool head in our menage. I’m still not believing what I’m doing. I’m going to be leaving all this quiet beauty. Within a day I’ll be in Los Angeles, in Palms, on the dead-end street where my parents live. I try to be calm, try not to frighten Jacky. I tell him his grandmother’s sick and I must go see her. It’s hard for an eight-year-old to comprehend what it means. He has no idea how long I’ll be gone; neither do I, for that matter. Vron drives me to the train for Paris and I catch an Air France flight direct to L.A. Eight hundred and fifty dollars for a twenty-one-to-forty-five-day excursion ticket. Excursion, hell! But it’s significantly cheaper than a regular ticket. I’ve telegraphed from Paris, giving my flight number, so when I step out of the plane, Joan and her husband, Mario, are there. We pile my things into their VW camper. Joan and Mario always drive either a camper or a station wagon; they have five kids. We’re pulling up onto Sepulveda when Joan starts telling me what’s happened. She came over to see Dad and Mom but they weren’t home. She took the opportunity to vacuum and wash some windows. Then she began to worry. They’re probably shopping, they don’t go much of anywhere these days; but it shouldn’t be taking so long. She drives over and finds them in the shopping mall. Mother is sitting on a bench next to the Lucky Market, white-faced. Dad, not knowing what to do, not believing what’s happening, is packing and unpacking groceries in the trunk of the car. Joan’s frightened by the way Mom looks. She drives them home in their car, leaving hers in the parking lot. At the house, she tells Dad to put the groceries away and rushes Mom off to the Perpetual Hospital. Mother doesn’t want to go. She’s a hypochondriac who likes doctors but doesn’t like hospitals. At the hospital they spot immediately she’s having a coronary crisis. They rush her into an intensive care unit and plug her onto monitoring systems, IV, oxygen; give her tranquilizers, blood thinners. On that first night in the hospital, she’d had the big coronary. If you must have a coronary, an intensive care unit is a good place for it. They tell Joan it was massive and if she’d had it outside the hospital, she’d never have survived. The final tests aren’t all in, but they’re sure she’s lost a significant part of her lower left ventricle. Well, she isn’t dead, but it doesn’t sound good. We go directly to my parents’ house. One reason Joan wants me here is to look after Dad. She seems more worried about him than Mom. I’m the same. I don’t know why we both have this feeling Mom can always take care of herself, but we do; it doesn’t make sense. It’s probably only a defense. Dad’s standing at the screen door waiting. I’m sure he’s been getting up and looking, every time a car’s come near. We shake hands; men don’t hug in our family. He isn’t crying but his eyes are filled with tears and his face is yellow. He’s nervous and his hands are shaking. He sits down in his platform rocker just inside the door while I carry my bag into the middle room down the hall. He seems much frailer than the last time I saw him. It’s been almost two years. He doesn’t look particularly older, or even thinner, only less vital. On the way, Joan said I should make as little of Mom’s attack as possible because Dad’s scared out of his wits. So we have a glass of that crummy muscatel my folks drink for wine. They buy it in gallon jugs, then pour it into a fake crystal bottle. It’s part of Mother’s effort toward elegance. It’s not bad if you’re munching on a toasted cheese sandwich, but God, it’s sweet as candy. If you don’t like wine it’s fine, somewhere between cream soda and a Manhattan. We sit there. Dad still hasn’t been to the hospital; Joan told him there were no visitors allowed. So when I leave, I sneak out the side door and ease my parents’ car out of the patio. It’s a 1966 Rambler, and has all of twenty-five thousand miles on it. Here’s an eleven-year-old automobile in showroom condition. They keep it covered with plastic; even the seat covers are plasticized. It has air conditioning, a radio, power brakes, power steering, the works. It’s like stepping into the past when you drive this car. It drives smooth as hell with automatic drive and is heavily horsepowered for a small car. Dad bought it, when he was still interested in cars, as his final, retirement automobile. He made a gamble on this one, and it’s been a real winner, simple classic lines, square back. At the hospital, in the lobby, a nice woman tells me how to find intensive care. Most likely, nobody ever gets used to hospitals, or is comfortable in them, except perhaps doctors or nurses. The vibes are all trouble: pain and death. But this hospital is somehow different, modern. There’s carpeting, and Muzak playing everywhere. There’s no hospital-white-tile-and-shiny-waxed-floor feeling. It doesn’t even smell like a hospital; more like a Holiday Inn. Even the elevator: little ding when you get in, self-operated; Muzak. Muzak on every floor, same soothing music playing all the time everywhere. Following signs, I work my way to the intensive care unit. At the desk I identify myself, ask if I can see my mother. They tell me she’s very sick and can’t take excitement. I tell them I’ve come all the way from Paris. There’s a brief conference; it’s decided I can go in but must be very quiet. I move softly past rows of cubicles. Everybody’s plugged in and taped up, most of them unconscious. This is truly the final stop before the grave, the modern version of an Indian dying house. I don’t know what to expect; even without heart attacks people change tremendously in two years. It’s always a shock to see somebody this age after some time has past. I know we’re all changing, the kids, Vron, me; but we see each other so often we don’t notice. I look in and there she is. Probably, since I was a kid, I haven’t seen Mom in bed. I left home for the army at eighteen, and before that I don’t think I ever went into their bedroom, at least not after I was ten. Now I see her there, bed tilted, oxygen tube up her nose, all the monitors, IV, catheters. There’s a computer readout screen over her head showing an ongoing cardiograph, there’s also a little red dot indicating her pulse with a digital readout. She looks like a failed astronaut. She’s a greenish-white color and her eyes are closed. Her face is a mask. It’s a strange thing about Mom’s face. It has all the lines and marks of her past expressions, most of these negative. There are hard traces of suspicion, strong lines of dissatisfaction and complaint. They’re deeply incised, even in repose. At the same time, there’s something young about her. She keeps her hair tinted toward black and her hair is husky, hard, thick. So different from Dad. His face is smooth, satin smooth, his hair only white tufts over his ears. Mother uses a medium amount of makeup, not exaggerated for a woman seventy. She’s never looked her age. I look at her, even here sick, maybe dying, and she doesn’t look much over fifty-five. I sit down in a chair beside the bed and watch the machines trying to tell me what’s happening. I know they have monitors out there in the central nursing station. I wonder what would bring them rushing in. I watch the pulse rate and it’s up to 87 down to 83, up to 92. I never knew the pulse varied so much. Could it be because of her heart? I’m staring at the screen and more or less inside myself, when I hear her voice. ‘You did come, after all. I must really be sick.’ This’s classic Mom. First, recrimination, doubt I’d come; second, self-pity. I lean down and kiss her on the turned cheek. ‘Oh, you’re not so sick, Mom. I came for something else anyway.’ What a stupid thing to say! She might be half dead, but nobody could fool my mother that easily. A person who’s suspicious even about truth is hard to fool. ‘Don’t kid me, Jacky.’ She closes her eyes, then slowly begins her dramatized version of the heart attack. She ought to write soap operas. She can make almost anything interesting and gives herself terrific starring roles. ‘Daddy didn’t know what to do … I’m staying alive by willpower, telling Daddy it’s only indigestion. I’m praying to Saint Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases, when Joan comes in the nick of time and saves my life.’ She grudgingly gives this to Joan, then takes it back by saying the McCarthys, her side of the family, are always good in emergencies, while the Tremonts crack up. Thank God, Joan has good McCarthy blood. Now there’s the scenario about what the doctors have told her. If they talked to Mother as much as she says, she couldn’t find time to sleep and nothing else in the hospital would get done. And they’re all so impressed with her strength; she has the willpower of somebody half her age. Mother probably considers this an insult; nobody half her age has her willpower. But she does admit she’s scared. Next we start the planning, stage-managing. ‘Don’t say anything to Daddy about a heart attack! Just tell him it’s something with my “insides”. ‘He’ll understand that, Jacky, because I had the hysterectomy. You tell him it’s only something went wrong with my “insides”.’ She likes that idea. ‘And whatever you do, Jacky, don’t mention cancer, you know he’s scared to death of cancer.’ I don’t know what cancer has to do with the whole thing but I nod. I’ll talk to Joan and we’ll figure how we can handle Dad. There’s no way to keep it from him that Mother’s had a heart attack. Having a heart attack is not like having a hysterectomy. When you’ve had a heart attack, even if you survive you’re a coronary patient for life. But there’s no sense saying these things to Mom now. I stay on for a while and watch. She drifts in and out, sometimes thrashing in her sleep. Once, she pulls off the monitor and three nurses come dashing in. Boy, are they ready for action! Mother is an extremely active person, even in her sleep; she’s nervous and moves quickly. The nurse tells me it’s the fourth time she’s torn off the monitor. This time they do everything but nail it to her arm; gluing and taping from elbow to wrist. The IV tube is another whole problem. When I leave, I’m surprised I don’t feel any tendency to cry. Mostly, I feel discouraged and peculiarly restless. Seeing her down that way is like looking at an old, familiar tree that’s been struck by lightning and is stretched across the path. I go back determined to put on the brightest face possible. In our family my role is the joker, the comedian, the clown. I know what’s expected; you get a feeling for a role like this. I park Dad’s car up the street, then walk to the house. Usually we park this car on the driveway or in the patio. Dad meets me at the door. ‘Where’s the car, Johnny?’ ‘Well, Dad, I visited the hospital. When I got there, Mother was all packed, ready to go. The doctor said she ought to take a vacation and rest up, so she’s on her way to Palm Springs. I gave her the car and took a bus back.’ Now, this is cruel. Dad’s believing me. He’s glad Mother’s well, but he’s crushed she’s going to Palm Springs without him. Joan pushes past me and looks down the street. ‘Jack, you’re impossible! The car’s right down there, Dad. You have a real screwball for a son.’ It gets us past the hard point anyway. I have some time to pull myself together. The TV’s on and I settle onto the gold chair, Mom’s chair. They’re watching a game between the Angels and Oakland. Oakland’s winning, of course. Dad realizes I’ve been to the hospital and he’s trying not to make a big thing of it. ‘How’s she look to you, Johnny? Does she seem all right?’ Then, with hardly a pause. ‘When’s she coming home?’ ‘She’s fine, Dad, but she’ll be in the hospital for a while. She said to say hello and sends you a big kiss.’ He doesn’t ask what’s the matter with her. I don’t think he wants to know. I look over at Joan on the couch and she puts her finger to her lips. We watch silently. Oakland’s ahead by five. Joan stands quietly, points to the first back bedroom and leaves. I think it’s called a back bedroom because it’s behind the living room, kitchen and bath; she means the side bedroom. There’s another bedroom further back; the real back bedroom. This house is built in an L, the bottom part facing the street. This is the living-and-dining room. The long part of the L extends on the left toward the rear, with a patio on the right. Along this are the kitchen and bathroom, back to back; the middle, or first ‘back’ bedroom, then the real back bedroom at the end of the hall. Actually, there’s another bedroom in the garden; this is sometimes called the back bedroom, too. My folks’ house has three back bedrooms, no other kind. Joan’s waiting for me. With men on first and third, one out for the Angels, I leave as if I’m going to the bathroom; Dad and Mario don’t look up. I go in and close the bedroom door quietly. Joan’s stretched out on the bed, I sit on the floor. As children, Joan and I developed our own world, fighting what I now call the poverty mind. This poverty mind constantly suspects anything out of the ordinary, anything not known or accepted; also if it isn’t practical, it isn’t good. Now Joan has five children. She’s a natural mother, one of the incredible women who truly play with their children. And I don’t mean only when they’re babies; she plays with them all the time. She has a twenty-four-year-old son, Yale graduate cum laude, and she still plays with him. You might find them out in the yard playing marbles or shooting a BB gun. Mother calls Joan the ‘simp’ when she does this. ‘Look at the simp playing on the floor with her grown kids.’ ‘Simp’ in Mom’s lexicon is short for simpleton, I think. I’ve never asked her. Whenever anyone does anything she doesn’t agree with, they’re automatically classified as ‘simp’. She snorts through her nose when she says it. Joan is a ‘simp’ (snort) because she plays with her children; ‘They’ll never have any respect for her. Honest to God, they think she’s only another kid.’ Joan and I still play together. Here I’m fifty-two and she’s in her late forties, but when we get together, it’s playtime. Our play is based on deep confidence. What’s hide-and-seek if you peek? Can you relax and have fun on a seesaw with someone you don’t trust? ‘How’d Mom look to you, Jack?’ She laughs when I tell her Mother’s first line. I admit she didn’t look so hot. ‘The doctor says we just have to wait and see what damage was done.’ She pauses. ‘I’m worried about Dad. I could move him out to our place but he’s better off here where he can putter around his garden and greenhouse.’ I nod. ‘How long can you stay?’ ‘The ticket’s for twenty-one to forty-five days.’ ‘That should be enough, I hope.’ She rolls onto her side, slips off her shoes. ‘Don’t worry, Joan. I’ll stay with Dad. It’ll work out. At home, I’m a newfangled house husband.’ She shoots me one of her ‘straight on’ looks. ‘Are you sure? You know he’s practically a baby.’ ‘Don’t worry. He’s my father too, you know.’ ‘That’d be great.’ Joan gives me a rundown on a typical day here. She says the main thing is keeping everything on an even keel. She explains how Mother has a schedule and their whole life is essentially one long routine. ‘First, Mom gets up early and does her exercises. For her, it’s the best time of day; she has the whole house to herself. At about ten she takes a cup of coffee in to Dad, gives him his blood-pressure pills, vitamin pills and any other pills she’s into. The morning coffee is real coffee, not decaffeinated. ‘You know, Jack, Dad has somehow managed over the past eight years to keep alive the feeling he’s on an extended vacation; that sooner or later he must go back to work. He lives each day as if it might be his last.’ She tells me the pills Dad takes. I recognize some and he’s heavily medicated. I think maybe I’ll try getting him into meditation or even yoga. I hold my own pressure down that way. I’ve brought my cuff with me, so I’ll check him when I do myself. That reserpine he’s on is deadly stuff; it’s basically poison. Joan reels off the rest of this daily routine, including mandatory soap operas. I tell her I’ll try sticking it out; but my mind is spinning, figuring ways to sharpen life up. I can’t leave other people’s lives alone. I especially want to wean him from those three hours of ‘soaps’ in the middle of the day. What a waste, to be living in California with all the sunshine out there, sitting inside staring at moving colored lines. My God, the ocean’s less than ten minutes away. ‘Another thing, Jack, Dad works a bit in his shop but he doesn’t have his old coordination; this drives him crazy. You know how he could fix almost anything? Now he has trouble keeping his own electric razor running.’ Her eyes fill and she looks down. ‘He’s beginning to think I’m a mechanical genius because I can fix his razor; clean it, replace the blade, things like that.’ ‘But you are a mechanical genius!’ When we were kids, she was roller-skating at four when I was seven and I couldn’t even stand up on the damned things. She rode a two-wheeler before I did. I got the Erector set for Christmas and she played with it. That’s the way it was. ‘Try going along with him, Jack; help without making him feel inept. He’s fine as long as he doesn’t get flustered.’ She gets up from the bed, slips on her shoes. ‘We’d better get out there before they think we’ve flown the coop.’ The game’s still on. Oakland’s running away with it. We come in just after Rollie Fingers hits a bases-loaded homer. We watch the replay. Joan and Mario leave after the home run. I’m alone with Dad. I can’t remember when I was last alone with him. As we watch the end of the game, I go over in my mind the things Joan told me. I’m a fair-to-middling cook and housekeeper but it scares me trying to fill in for Mother. Before she left, Joan fixed dinner, so, at about six-thirty, I go in the kitchen and heat it up. I set the table for two. Dad’s in his regular place at the end of the table and I take my usual place to his left. I don’t take Mom’s place on the kitchen side, even though it’d be more convenient. Dad’s watching me. I bring out the butter, salt, pepper, dishes, knives, forks, spoons. I carry the meal hot from the stove and put it on a plate in the middle of the table. ‘Where did you learn to cook, Johnny?’ Dad usually calls me Johnny; once in a rare while, John. I don’t know how he decides which. Mom always calls me Jacky. I changed my name from Johnny or Jacky to Jack when I went to high school. But at home it never took. I don’t know why Mom and Dad call me by different names but that’s the way it is. It’s almost as if I’m a different person to each of them. ‘I didn’t cook this, Dad; Joan did. I’m only putting it out. Come on, let’s eat.’ I know he doesn’t believe me. I’m bringing food out of the kitchen so I must be cooking it. People cook food in kitchens. He designed this kitchen, put in the stove, sink, refrigerator; built the cabinets; maintains it when anything goes wrong. But using it is an absolute mystery to him. He can no more use a kitchen than he can use one of those jet airplanes he helped build at Douglas for twenty years. It’s a fine meal and afterward we watch more TV. During the station breaks and ads, I scoot in the kitchen and clean up. Then I begin hauling my things to the back bedroom out in the garden. I carry some blankets along with my bags. Dad’s watching me. ‘I wouldn’t sleep out there, Johnny, it’s awfully cold and damp; you’d be better off sleeping in here. I leave the heat on low at night so it’s warm.’ Frankly, I like sleeping in the cold. My parents keep their house too hot for me and besides, they’re electric-blanket people. I’m not. I don’t feel comfortable, even in California, unless I have weight on top of me; a light electric blanket with only a sheet leaves me feeling vulnerable. I know I’m warm but I don’t feel I should be. But I can’t tell Dad these things; he’d take it as an insult. Still, I’m getting the message. He’s scared. He’d probably like me to climb in bed with him back there but he could never ask; even if I volunteered he couldn’t. He probably hasn’t slept alone since the last time Mother was hospitalized, over thirty-five years ago. He’s dreading it. So what do I do? I can’t take him by the hand, lead him to the bedroom and dress him in his pajamas. ‘Well, Dad, we’d better hit the sack.’ Reluctantly he gets up and turns off the television. Then he sets the thermostat down a fraction. He checks all the doors and windows to see if they’re locked. These are his routines I know about. He puts out the lights except for a night-light on the baseboard in the hall. He goes back to his bedroom. I decide I’ll sleep in the side bedroom; I can’t leave him alone feeling the way he does. I’ll shut the vanes on the heater vent. I’ll close the door and open the window. I’ve just climbed into bed when he knocks on the door and opens it. ‘Johnny, I can’t find my pajamas; I don’t know where she keeps them.’ I paddle barefoot into his bedroom with him. There’s a closet and a chest with three drawers. I look through the drawers and find them right away. Mother’s organized herself into the top drawer; the middle drawer is for Dad and the bottom drawer is filled with sweaters. I hand him the pajamas. He looks at me as if I’m a wonder man. We say good night again and he asks me to leave on his baseboard night-light in the hall. He’s holding on; he doesn’t want to be left in that bedroom alone. If I were a really sensitive, loving, thoughtful son, I’d’ve offered to have him sleep in the side room and I could’ve slept back there. That big, empty bed without Mother is scaring him. It’s hard to know the right thing. 3 (#ulink_4d54c15f-8807-54c2-9a7c-46def71409a1) ‘Hey, Dad; wake up! Come on, Dad!’ Christ, maybe he’s dead. He’s breathing; man, is he ever breathing; sounds like the death rattle. ‘Come on, Dad, let’s go. It’s eight o’clock already.’ That’s real time, Pacific time. We still haven’t crossed into Mountain time. He moans and rolls over. Maybe he isn’t dead. With all the crap he’s been through, he could easily have a heart attack or stroke. I look at him close; he seems OK. I take a shower, bumping around and rattling things, making’s much noise as I can. This isn’t like him at all; he’s usually up hassling the whole family every morning. I come out drying myself. ‘Hey, Dad; let’s go. Time to get up.’ It’s like he’s stoned. Now I’m beginning to really get worried. What would I do if he dies out here in the middle of nowhere? I sit down on the edge of the bed and shake him. ‘Hey, Dad. You OK?’ He moans, and opens his eyes. They don’t focus and he rolls away from me. ‘Come on, Dad! Let’s go, huh? It’s almost eight-thirty!’ Finally, he swings his legs and sits on the side of the bed. He hangs there completely drag-assed. But he’s awake, he’s alive. After a shower he’s fine. We’ll take right off and have breakfast on the road. That way, we get in some cool morning driving time. God, I wish he’d let me drive; we’re wasting this bomb crawling at fifty-five. He drives as if he’s being punished. He sits hunched over the wheel, sulking, surrounded by open roads, trees and high empty skies; not even looking; just tensed up, expecting the worst. With a power tool like this, you can lean back and let the damned thing drive itself. The great drivers all say you should relax, get a feel for the road. It’s criminal running a supercharged motor at these speeds. Before we get in again, I ask once more. ‘I’m sorry, Bill.’ ‘Why not? I’ve got my license.’ ‘Don’t, Bill. We can’t afford to take those kinds of risks; it’s not worth it.’ So we start rolling. I look out the side window at the scenery going by. If I watch his driving, I’ll go crazy. He has fast reactions, and they’re not too fast, but there’s something about it makes me nervous. He’s so dead serious; if you get involved with his driving, you tense up yourself. It’s no fun. My dad’s good at the small things. People usually think artists are easygoing, loose people. Well, that’s not him. He’s tight as a witch’s cunt. Like getting Bryce and Zion confused. He was so convinced. We went past a great spot I knew was the place he wanted all the time, but he had his mind set and there’s nothing to do; he has some kind of tunnel vision. Maybe he’s getting senile. That seems to be what getting old is; you aim yourself more. Both Mom and Dad act old lately. Mom’s so quiet and doesn’t want anything exciting or new. Even if I fart or burp at the table she makes a whole scene. They don’t roll with the punch, adapt to the new life. And, Christ, it was grim saying goodbye to Gramps. Dad was his usual self then, too; bearing down, eating it. And Grandma’s such a pain. I don’t think she’s ever done anything for anybody without expecting something back. Life’s one king-size Monopoly game to her. Dad’s got the radio on again. All we get is cowboy music and static. There’s nothing good between towns and we’re mostly in the middle of nowhere. We should stop and buy a cassette of real music, the Stones or Dylan or the Doors, something reasonable. I’ve still got a hundred and fifty bucks on the money belt, but I’d hate spending any on a stupid cassette. I’ll need every cent and I don’t want to beg for money. He still hasn’t said anything. He knows I’m not going back to school but he hasn’t mentioned it, yet. Oh, God! Now we’re going to pass a truck. This is the wildest, watching him pass a truck. He won’t budge till the view’s clear to the horizon. Hell, there’s nothing behind us for at least a mile. He’s checking the side mirror for the tenth time. Here we go! We’re out there, cruising slowly along the side of a big semi. This guy’s totally freaked, looking down at us as we go past two miles an hour faster than he’s going. He must think we only have three cylinders firing. If Dad’d floor this thing, we’d be around clear in three seconds. No, we’re taking the leisure trip, maybe saving on gas. I’ve got to relax. 4 (#ulink_aaa132c3-6e80-5f6c-8c07-bf6a58c42e14) Next morning I wake at eight-thirty, feeling more with it. That nine-hour time difference knocks me for a loop. I make breakfast. At home we’re not coffee drinkers but my folks are. Thank God they’re not serious coffee drinkers; they don’t grind or perk or filter, just instant. It’s an electric stove, flat coils; I’m not sure if the hottest is 1 or 6. I try 6. I look in the cabinet drawer near the dining room and there’s the card with Dad’s medication written out, just as Joan said. I sort pills and work from lists, how much in the morning, at lunch and before bed. I’ll go along for now but Dad’s got to take over this part himself. I’m prepared, after breakfast, to talk about Mother’s condition. Joan and I agree he’ll take it best from me. Now, this is weird, but Dad’s convinced I’m working for the government in some kind of secret intelligence. He’s had this idea for more than ten years. He won’t refer to it directly. He’ll look at me slyly, bashfully, and say, ‘How’s the job going, John?’ He apparently could never accept that a grown man would paint pictures for a living; it isn’t within his parameter of sensible behavior. Mother has no trouble; she has me pegged for an old hippy. I have a beard, I live in Paris and I’m mostly likely a drug addict. She dismisses my life as a total waste. But Dad needs some excuse and he’s come up with this one. Joan thinks it’s the world’s greatest joke. One Christmas she mailed me a man-sized Zorro costume she’d sewed up herself. With it was a toy detective kit for taking fingerprints and a magnifying glass. At first, I tried disclaiming my spook status but then decide to go along. What the hell; he’s doing it for me. Now I only say, ‘Things are fine, Dad.’ That’s usually enough; we never go further. I gather the pills, pour coffee in his cup and knock on the bedroom door. I’m determined not to give him coffee in bed. I call through the door. ‘Time to get up, Dad; coffee’s ready.’ ‘OK, Johnny, OK, I’ll be right out.’ I realize, as I’m standing there, we’re playing another game. Dad was born in 1904. For men born in that year, World War I ended when they were fourteen and World War II started, at least for the U.S., when they were thirty-seven. Dad missed war. This is lodged somehow in the back of his mind. I’m sure he knows he’s lucky to have escaped, but he never lived that phony ‘man’s man’ life in the field. It bothers him. Dad stayed at home until he was married, and then Mom took over. He’s always lived in a woman-dominated environment; never lived as a single man or with other men. All his brothers have had brief bachelorhoods; one was in W.W.I. They’re also much involved with hunting. For years, Dad wanted to take me hunting with his father and brothers, but Mom wouldn’t have it. ‘Oh, no! If you two go, you wash all your own clothes and stinking underwear. And I won’t have any of those smelly deerskin gloves or wild-Indian moccasins around this house either. I’ll tell you that!’ Each fall, the whole bunch, including all my male cousins on the Tremont side, would go up to Maine. They’d usually get deer and sometimes bear. They’d butcher and tan the hides at Grandpa’s. My cousins would tell me stories of waiting in deep, cold woods, playing cards and drinking beer. I felt it separated me from them; I’d never grow up to be a real man. And now, my coming down the hall, knocking on the door is playing army. My saying ‘Time to get up, let’s go’ does it. I don’t say ‘Drop your cocks and grab your socks’, but it’s the domestic equivalent. Dad comes plowing out in his pajamas with his slippers on, dragging his feet down the hall on his way to the bathroom. This foot-dragging is a new thing with him and I’m not sure if it mightn’t be related to minor stroking. On the other hand, it’s more likely he feels he’s getting old and old people drag their feet, so he’s dragging his. There’s something about sliding slippers along a rug in the morning which appeals to his sense of ‘rightness’. He comes out of the bathroom and starts toward the dining room. ‘Dad, why don’t you get dressed first? It’ll be a while yet before the eggs are ready.’ He looks at me bare-eyed. ‘Where are your glasses, Dad?’ ‘I couldn’t find them, Johnny.’ I go back to the bedroom with him and they’re where he’d put them, on the bedside table, before he went to sleep. I should be glad he took them off, I guess. There’s a creamy haze on them, rim to rim. I take them to the bathroom and wash the lenses in warm water. I’m careless with glasses myself, but when things start to blur, I usually wipe the damned things off anyway. He stands beside the bed and fits them carefully several times over his ears. He’s always claimed glasses hurt his nose and ears, so he’s continually changing frames, from rimless to metal to plastic and back. He didn’t start wearing glasses until he was over fifty and has never adapted. The coffee’s getting cold. I know he’s waiting for me to find his clothes. I see yesterday’s clothes on the floor beside the bed where he dropped them. I pick these up and spread them on the bed. ‘Here, Dad. You can wear the clothes you wore yesterday. They’re not dirty.’ He looks at me closely, tilts his head. ‘I never wear the same clothes two days in a row, Johnny. Your mother would kill me.’ He’s not complaining, only stating a fact. To be honest, I’m not a clean-underwear-every-day man myself. I search around and find some underwear. Dad wears Dacron boxer shorts and the kind of undershirts they had before T-shirts were invented. These look like tops of old-fashioned bathing suits or jogger shirts; shoulder straps and big holes you stick your arms through. Pinned to the inside of his old undershirt is a scapular of The Sacred Heart. Dad slips on the new undershirt and feels around with his hand. ‘Where’s my scapular, John?’ It’s as if he thinks he has a scapular built in on each undershirt. I unpin the old one and give it to him. He has one hell of a time pinning it on; you can tell he’s never done it before. He’s pinning it with concentration, bunching the underwear shirt into a ball, pinning, then smoothing out wrinkles. He pats the scapular three or four times and smiles. He’s proud he didn’t pin it to his skin, I guess. I give him a shirt and a pair of trousers from the closet; I put out clean socks. ‘Look, Dad, you have to learn where all these things are. Mother’s sick and can’t do this anymore.’ He smiles a wide, eager smile. ‘You’re right there, Johnny. I’m going to learn all these things. You’ll see.’ I go back to the kitchen and warm up the coffee. I cook some eggs. The pills are beside his plate. I wait and it takes forever for him to come out of the bedroom. What can be taking him so long? I lean close against Milly and wash her teats clean with warm water. The udder is heavy, the milk vein swollen. The fresh water streams from the turgid pink teats into the dim, new dawn light. I push the bucket in place, squat on the stool and start the singing rhythm of milk on metal. My fingers warm with every rolling squeeze. When Dad comes out, I serve the eggs with hash browns. Dad sits and looks at them as if they’re strange outer-space food. ‘Isn’t there any bearclaw?’ ‘Sure, but let’s have some eggs first, then you can finish off the bearclaw.’ ‘Johnny, I never eat so much in the morning.’ ‘Try it this one time, Dad. It’ll give you a good start. Coffee and a roll isn’t enough, even with all the vitamin pills.’ Hell, he ought to have some breakfast; at least orange juice, and an egg. He eats nimbly, not breaking the yolk till the white is eaten, then finishes by wiping his mouth with the napkin. He wipes as if he’s going to wear off his lips. And this must be a cloth napkin; cloth with every meal and clean. Joan reminded me but it’s something I remember. Dad sits back and drinks his cup of cooled-off coffee. ‘Right now, Johnny, Mother usually turns on the record player and we listen to music.’ The player is there beside the table. It’s an old-fashioned, wood-cabinet Magnavox. There’s a sliding lid on top over the turntable. I find the right dials and turn it on. There’s a record already in place. I close the lid. Covered, it looks like a dish cabinet; the front is a woven, metallized cloth with jig-sawed wooden curlicues. Bing Crosby comes on singing ‘I Wonder What’s Become of Sally’. It’s a deep, wooden tone, blurry but nice. All the new stereo and high-fidelity sets are very clear, very precise, but I hear that gray, smoked, transparent plastic in the music. It’s so incredibly accurate, transistor-perfect. This murky, dark, wood sound of old Bing is comforting. I’m sure any serious stereo addict would curl up and die but it sounds OK to me. I sit and sip coffee with Dad. When the record’s finished, I clear the dishes. I start running hot water into the sink. Dad’s followed me into the kitchen. He leans over my shoulder as I squeeze soap into the hot water. I scrape plates and slip them into the suds. ‘You know, John, I think I could do that.’ ‘Sure, Dad, nothing to it. You put hot water with soap on one side and rinse water on the other. You scrub the dishes on the hot, sudsy side, run them through the rinse and stack them in the dish rack.’ He’s watching and following through with me. He insists I leave the kitchen and he’ll finish; his first housework, breakfast dishes for two. I start sweeping. There’s a vacuum cleaner but I prefer sweeping. I find a broom in the heater closet, and begin on the back bedroom. Mother’s an every-day-vacuum person. The rugs are going to have a slight change in treatment. I sweep everything into piles. When I have enough to make a pile, I concentrate it, then move on. This is a four-pile house. Our apartment in Paris in a three-pile place, the boat a two-piler. The mill’s a one-piler, or I can make it two, depending on how dirty things are. Everything gets dirtier down there but it’s earth dirt, not soot or grime the way it is in Paris. The dirt here is between the two, but definitely four piles. I look for Dad, expecting to find him out in the garden or greenhouse. But he’s still in the kitchen washing dishes, with intense, inner concentration. I wonder where his mind is. Down by the well, a small bird flits its tail and takes off with a dropping upturn as I lean, lowering my pail into the water. I sneak up and watch, he’s taking each dish and examining it minutely for dirt, then washing off a spot at a time. If he had a micrometer, a centrifuge and a sterilizer he’d be happier. He’s scraping away as if he’s trying to rub off the flower pattern. When he’s satisfied they’re clean, he dips them in and out of the rinse water at least ten times. The thing is, he’s getting a kick out of it, water play. He’s enjoying washing dishes, playing with hot and cold water. Dad can get super perfectionist over almost anything. I know I’ll go crazy if I watch too long. This has always been one of Mom’s laments. There’s a lot of her in me, and I don’t want to believe it. Her claim is she needs to do everything herself because Dad drives her crazy making mountains out of molehills. It could be he still knows something about joy, while Mom and I are only getting through things. I back out of the kitchen. Sometimes Mother calls Dad ‘Kid Kilowatt’. That’s one of her favorite titles. Another is ‘Mr Fixit’. He’s also ‘Jack-of-all-trades’. Finally, Dad thinks the dishes are done. They’re clean enough for a TV ad but it hasn’t occurred to him that other things are usually classified under wash the dishes. These are the small, important jobs marking the difference between someone who’s been around a kitchen and someone who hasn’t. I’ve watched this with our children growing up and with various friends who’ve passed through our lives. They say they’ll ‘do’ the dishes and that’s it. They ‘do’ the dishes. Everything else is left. They might not even wash the pots. They definitely will not wipe off the stove or clean the sink, wipe off the surfaces of tables, cabinets. They won’t put things away; butter, salt, pepper, spices, cutting boards. One young woman left the dirty water in our sink. She was twenty-five years old and wanted desperately to get married. After this scene I had trouble working up much sympathy; my own old-maidness got in the way. So I explain things to Dad. He follows everything I do, shaking his head in amazement. ‘Where did you learn all this, Johnny? In the army?’ Anything I know Dad can’t account for, I learned in the army. ‘Yeah, maybe, Dad.’ Sometimes now, I think of those poor officers and noncoms trying to keep things running with a mob of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old males. I go crazy with just one or two around the house. All the sweeping, bed-making, the KP we complained about, was only normal housekeeping. Now, don’t get me wrong, cleanliness may be next to godliness but it doesn’t mean much to me, and Vron is as casual about dirt as I am. But my mother is something else again. She’s the cleaning maniac. Dirt is the devil! She used to take a toothbrush, reserved for this, and clean out the cracks in our hardwood floors. According to her, they harbored (that’s the word) dirt and germs. In Philadelphia, we had a house with hardwood floors in every room except the kitchen and cellar. Once a month, Mother would scrape out the germ-harboring dirt. She’d keep it in a pile for us to admire when we came home, to see what we’d ‘tracked in’. Mom’s also a window nut. The windows are washed once a week, whether they need it or not. When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to come within a foot of any window. If there were some danger I might breathe on a window or touch it, she’d panic. The slightest smudge and she’d be at it with Windex, a piece of newspaper and a soft rag. One of my great pleasures now is leaning against a window, pushing my nose close and making lip marks. I love to write on damp windows and draw pictures. All our kids are window smudgers and finger painters. Sometimes it gets hard to see out our windows. Still, even now, when I go close to a window, there’s a mother-barrier I need to crash. These little things clutter the soul. With the kitchen done, Dad and I sit down in the living room. He gets up to turn on the television but I ask him not to. In this house, if you sit in the living room, you turn on the TV the way you lock the door when you go to the bathroom. I’m not sure how to approach this; we’ve been carefully avoiding the subject all morning. ‘Look, Dad, you should know that Mother’s really sick.’ He tenses. I watch his eyes. He’s looking at me and it’s pitiful; he’s preparing himself for the worst. ‘Is she still alive, Johnny?’ ‘Sure she’s alive, Dad, but she’s had a heart attack, not a really serious one, but bad enough. Her heart’s never going to be the same. For instance, she can never work as hard as she used to.’ He’s nodding his head. I can tell he’s not getting the message. ‘I always tell her she works too hard, Johnny. She works too hard.’ ‘You’re right, Dad, and you’ll need to take on a lot of the work around here. I’ll teach you to do most of the light housework. Joan will come and do the heavy cleaning, washing, shopping, things like that, but the everyday stuff, cooking, picking up, simple housecleaning, you’ll have to take over.’ He’s listening now, listening but still not comprehending. ‘Then, Dad, you’ll need to take care of Mother. You know how she is, she’ll kill herself if we’re not careful. You’ve got to watch over her.’ He’s still nodding, not looking at me, looking down at the floor. ‘Yes, I can do that. You tell me what to do and how to do it, then I’ll do it, all right.’ ‘First we’ll go see Mother this morning. Remember she’s sick, she doesn’t look so hot. The main thing is not to make her excited or worried. We need to convince her we’re getting along OK ourselves.’ I look at him carefully. He’s hanging on to every word. I’m the captain giving orders. ‘You know, Dad, Mother’s convinced nobody can take care of you except her. We have to prove you can do it yourself.’ Now he’s shaking his head back and forth, a slow no, holding in one of his fake laughs with his hand over his mouth. ‘That’s right, Johnny; that’s right; we’ll fool her.’ Oh boy! Then I realize Dad’s dressed but he hasn’t washed. His pattern is broken or something, because normally he’s a very fastidious person. I imagine Mom would say, ‘Now you go wash up, Jack,’ and he’d wash himself. Then probably she’d say, ‘Now get yourself dressed.’ I haven’t been giving the right signals. So I tell him to get undressed again, go in and wash. After that, we’ll put on some good clothes and go to the hospital. ‘We’ll try to look nice because Mother likes to see you dressed up, Dad.’ This means Mother’s idea of dressed up, a cross between George Raft and John Boles. He wears a hat with a wide brim, a wide-lapel suit. This is all coming back in style now, so Mom’ll need to work out a new outfit; maybe thin ties, button-down collars, narrow lapels. Or maybe that’ll be my old-man costume. But I know the drill. He’ll wear a striped tie, with tie clasp; a gold wristwatch; clean fingernails; flat-surfaced, shined leather-soled shoes. I find everything and lay it out on the bed. What a crappy job I’m doing. Here I’ve gotten him dressed, and now, less than two hours later, I have him undressed again. It’s like playing paper dolls. Dad asks if he should take a bath. ‘Usually, Johnny, I only take a bath once a week; an old man like me doesn’t get very dirty.’ ‘You just wash your face and hands, Dad; clean your fingernails and brush your teeth; that’ll be enough.’ I’m not going to wash and dress him. I’m not going to hold up each arm and rub soap in his armpits. Ha! Little do I know what I’ll be doing. I’m having a hard time adapting. Dad has always been a very capable person. I don’t think it’s senility, either. He’s become lethargic, inertial, inept. It’s fairly good survival technique; if someone else will do for you, let them. But he’s lost the knack of doing for himself. He’s debilitated. Painfully, slowly, he washes and gets dressed. When he comes out, his necktie is crooked but I restrain myself. I roll out the car. He insists I warm it for five minutes before we take off. I have a strong respect for Dad’s feelings here. It’s a whole story about Dad and driving. He’d driven from the time he was sixteen till he was seventy. He’s never had an accident or an insurance claim. Most years he averaged over fifteen thousand miles a year, right up till he retired. Then, when he went to get his driver’s license renewed on his seventieth birthday, he panicked. He’d passed the written without any trouble, but, because of his age, they wanted him to do a road test. When he heard that, he turned in his driving license to the D M V examiner and quit. Now, this didn’t make sense because he’d driven over for the test. He was driving almost every day. He’d lost his nerve, that’s all. He was overwhelmingly nervous and frightened. In any competitive-comparative society there are hundreds of losers for every winner. Somewhere in Dad’s life, deep back, he developed a dichotomy between bosses and workers. He considers himself a worker. One of the things Dad feels about me is I’m a boss. I can’t convince him how ridiculous this is. I don’t have anybody working for me and abhor the idea. ‘No, Johnny, bosses are bosses, workers are workers, and you’re a boss. You have all the ways of a boss.’ Anyway, Dad sees this guy working for the D M V, just doing his job, as a boss. He freezes, turns in his driver’s license and hasn’t driven since. Also, he’s convinced he couldn’t’ve passed the test; he’s sure he’s not good enough anymore; there are too many things he doesn’t notice, things that could cause accidents. ‘John, when you’re a good driver, you know when you aren’t a good driver anymore.’ Mother’s another whole story. She didn’t drive till she was in her late thirties, although Dad tried to teach her from the time they were married. He’d built his own car from discarded parts when he was seventeen. That was some automobile; it didn’t even have a windshield. I’ve heard stories and seen one photograph of it. My Aunt Trude said her father, my grandfather, absolutely forbade any of Dad’s sisters to ride in it with him. When we were kids, the standard thing on a Sunday afternoon was taking Mom out for a driving lesson. At that time we had a 1929 Ford. Dad’d bought a wreck for fifteen dollars and fixed it up. Fifteen dollars then was a week’s wages working for the WPA. As a child, I got the idea driving a car had to be one of the hardest things for a human to learn. Dad would keep saying, ‘Now take it easy, Bess, relax, it’ll be all right.’ Joan and I would be in the back seat scared, cringing, peeking, giggling. Mom’s best trick was jamming the car into reverse while going forward. There would be a grinding, growling sound from the transmission and we’d be slammed against the front seat. Mother’s tough on any automobile; people, too. Mom’s so hypernervous she can’t put her mind and body together. She’d have wild crying fits and call Dad cruel. Several times she jumped out of the car. Dad would drive beside her, coaxing her back in, and she’d walk along ignoring him, crying. In California, Mom finally passed her test. The guy who passed her made a big mistake. She’s a menace on the roads. Is it possible to have too fast reactions? She’s too imaginative, at least to be driving a car. She’s constantly twisting this way and that on the steering wheel so the car weaves down the road. Under her hands, a car takes on a mind of its own, a mind totally in opposition to hers. Mom also talks to cars and conducts a running commentary on any driver within crashing distance. Despite all this, or maybe because of it, she can’t maintain concentration on the road. She’s had a series of minor accidents and totaled one car. It’s a working miracle she’s never killed anyone or seriously hurt herself. When Dad stopped driving, Mom became the family driver. This is nuts. Dad, at his worst, is ten times better than Mom ever was at her best. But, in a sense, it’s the story of their relationship. Mother, in her determination to dominate, took over. She’s become the leader. Dad, in his timidity, awareness, sensitivity, his superdeveloped sense of responsibility, gradually handed over the reins. Probably this isn’t too uncommon with life in general. If you’re good at something, you don’t fight so hard; you don’t have to. Still, even now, Dad’s the one who keeps their car in running condition. He makes sure there’s water in it, has the oil changed regularly. He keeps the tire pressure right and has a full tune-up every six months. We drive off toward the hospital. I want to see if Dad can show me the way. He had a gall-bladder operation there ten years ago and did a lot of driving back and forth. But he can’t direct me at all; he’s like a child. He’s stopped thinking of streets and directions; he’s only watching things go by the car window. I ask what’s the best route, and he shrugs. ‘I don’t know, Mother usually drives us.’ This is such a role reversal. It’s always been a joke in our family how Mom never knows where she’s been. She actually got lost once four blocks from home because she’d taken a wrong turn. She went into a police station to ask her way. I have something of this myself; I get lost easily. But I’m beginning to feel Dad is operating at less than a quarter of his capacity. I sense how this happens, how easily it could happen to me. It’s frightening how a combination of resignation and lack of confidence can debilitate far beyond any physiological loss. I determine to press Dad into naming the streets. I want to force his mind out from the back corner of his hand-built house on a dead-end-street nestled quietly between the arms of giant freeways. I’m pointing out streets as we go along, encouraging him to respond. Then, in the middle of my spiel, I realize he has something else on his mind. He gives off vibrations like dead air before a storm. ‘You know, John, this is a good hospital; the union recommends it.’ I nod my head and turn left on De Soto. ‘But there’s an awful lot of niggers there; not just niggers, Japs.’ He pauses, looks over at me. ‘Even so, Johnny, it’s a good hospital.’ I try not to respond. I don’t want to get into it, especially right now. When we go in the hospital, the receptionist is a good-looking black woman and remembers me from the day before. ‘Hello, Mr Tremont, your mother seems fine today.’ I’m impressed she remembers not only me but the situation. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t noticed she was black when I came by myself. I’d registered her prettiness, kindness, efficiency, but not her color. It’s only because of the car conversation it hits me; that’s the way it goes. Dad’s standing there smiling, but it’s peculiar, as if he’s looking at someone in a cage at the zoo. She is in a kind of cage, a glass cage; maybe that’s part of it, or maybe it’s all in my mind. We start toward the elevator wading through Muzak. ‘Do you know her, Johnny?’ ‘I talked with her when I came to see Mom last time.’ ‘She certainly was nice.’ ‘Yup, she seems like a fine person.’ He shakes his head and speaks to the floor. ‘The world’s changed, Johnny; you wouldn’t believe how the world’s changed.’ We enter the elevator. Dad’s becoming more nervous; his face is blanched, his hands are shaking. I put my arm over his shoulder. ‘Come on, Dad, it’s OK. They’re taking the best possible care of Mother. She’s getting exactly what she needs, a good rest.’ We walk down the carpeted blue corridors; wild fantasy decorative paintings are on the walls. We arrive at the intensive care unit. It’s another black woman. I ask if we can see Mother. She checks her clipboard. It’ll be all right but we’re not to stay long. We walk around the nurse’s station over to Mom’s cubicle. She’s awake and sees us come in. Dad kisses her, and she cries. Dad starts crying, too. I’m feeling embarrassed. Mom and Dad have never been much for public demonstration of affection or emotion. I can’t think of any time I’ve seen them really kiss except for a peck goodbye or hello. Joan and I talked once about this. We were also trying to remember when Mother ever held or kissed us as children. Neither of us could remember this happening. Mother had a terrible experience as a young girl. She was one of ten children living in a three-bedroom row house in South Philadelphia. She had two sisters whose names were Rose and Anne; they slept three in a bed, Mom, the youngest, in the middle. Anne and Rose, in the course of one year, died of tuberculosis, called, in those days, galloping consumption. Mother, all her life, has been convinced she has tuberculosis. The horror of the whole experience was that Rose, the second to die, died in Mom’s arms. Mother was trying to hold her out the window on a hot summer day so she could breathe. Rose hemorrhaged suddenly and died within minutes. Mother was fourteen at the time and had what was called a ‘nervous breakdown’. She never went back to school. All her life, Mom’s had a bizarre fear of germs. She’d never kiss us on the mouth, neither my sister nor me. If she ever did kiss anybody, she’d wipe the kiss off right away as if she were wiping off lipstick; she was wiping off germs. Mom puts her arms out and wants me to come kiss her. She kisses me on the lips and doesn’t wipe. Maybe now she’s dying, germs don’t count. Dad stands looking at her, tears coming down his face. Mother gives him a fast once-over. ‘He looks marvelous, Jacky; you’re such a wonderful son. What would we do without you?’ She pulls herself up in the bed. ‘Are you all right, Jack; are you taking your blood-pressure pills?’ ‘Oh, yeah, Bette, I’m fine. You know, Johnny can cook and clean house, all those things; he’s like a regular wife.’ Mother gives me a quick look, a short almost-snort. ‘You two just try keeping things going. I’ll be out of here soon. Eat at McDonald’s and there’s food in the freezer compartment.’ Now she begins a detailed description of different menus Dad likes and can digest. This involves no onions, no garlic, no seasoning except salt. It gets down to various kinds of hamburger with either noodles or those fake mashed potatoes made from powder. I nod along. I figure I’ll use up what she has in the freezer but I have no intention of eating that way. Mom might be the world’s worst cook. I don’t want to perpetuate the tradition. I like cooking and prefer variety in my food; if I have to, I’ll cook twice, once for Dad, once for myself, but I’m sure Dad’ll enjoy what I cook. The poor bastard’s been living on poverty-hospital-type food for over fifty years. Dad’s staring at Mother as if he’s surprised to see her in bed, staying there, not getting up and taking over. It must be worse for him than it is for me. When we’re about to leave, he kisses her again; he can’t keep himself from saying it. ‘When are you coming home, Bette? How long do you think it will be?’ Mom turns and gives me one of her looks. Now, these looks are special. In one way, it’s as if she’s trying to hide an expression, usually negative, from another person, but she does it so obviously everybody must notice; a Sarah Bernhardt dramatic gesture aimed for the last row in the balcony. This time she looks at me, raises her eyebrows and turns her eyes to the ceiling. She’s saying, ‘See, he’s helpless, he has no idea.’ In a sense, this is true, but he’s standing right there; he sees it. It’s either incredible cruelty or insensitivity. She does this kind of thing about my sister, about our children and about me; it’s something I’ve never been able to take. ‘You know, Mom, Dad really would like to have you home. It’s perfectly natural; we all would. We’d like to get you out of here soon as possible.’ I’m trying to ride over those crazy signals. ‘But you just have to take your time and relax. Do what the doctor says. You’ll be fine but you’ve got to change your way of living, Mom. You’ve had a heart attack and can’t go back to your old wild and woolly ways.’ Her eyes fill up. ‘I don’t know if I want to live like that, Jacky. If I can’t do what I want, what’s the sense?’ I hold back; it won’t help getting her upset. ‘OK, Mom. But do what the doctor says. He knows best and he’ll let you out when he thinks you’re ready.’ Then she comes on with the kicker. ‘You know, I’m not sure I had a heart attack, anyway. How do these doctors know for sure? It felt like gas pains to me.’ This had to come but I keep my big mouth shut. What else. I kiss her goodbye and we leave. As soon as we get in the car, Dad begins. ‘Johnny, when do you really think she’ll come home?’ ‘She should stay in the hospital just’s long as possible. The longer she stays, the better off she is.’ ‘I guess you’re right there, Johnny; I guess you’re right.’ But he isn’t believing it. That evening, we don’t do much. We watch some TV, then I roll my old Honda 175 motorcycle out of the garden shack and into the patio. It needs some heavy cleaning and tuning; it’s been sitting there almost two years. Dad comes out and works in his greenhouse. He can putter around in there by the hour, his private world. The sun leans quietly up over Ira’s barn. Each day a mite sooner, a bit to the right. The start for the day, an end to the night. 5 (#ulink_5114a119-00e3-5efe-a34f-42996b2af5e6) I must’ve slipped off because my head jerks and the country’s changed, higher, not so dry. I only hope to hell we can keep off the subject of what I’m going to do; at least for a while. He’ll never understand why I cut out of Santa Cruz. He did all the paperwork for the scholarship, establishing residence, getting high-school records in, all that crap. And now, after a year, I don’t want it. Sometimes I don’t even understand, myself. But, Jesus, if he could only have seen that place. It was a giant baby-sitting operation. I mean, Santa Cruz is an old people’s home for kids. I about vomited when I arrived on my motorcycle, after ten days on the road. I’m caked with dirt from head to toe; everything I own’s in my saddlebags. I couldn’t believe it. There were trucks and cars pulling in with stereo sets, wall-to-wall sound systems, rugs, teddy bears, ten-speed bicycles, tennis rackets, golf clubs, fencing costumes, huge suitcases full of clothes. God, you wouldn’t believe all the junk these people were dragging along. It looked like a junior-high-school garage sale. Then, there was my crazy roommate, Flash. My mother, my own mother, picked him for me. She filled out a form with what she thought I’d like for a roommate. Would you believe it, Santa Cruz even has a form for that. Mom said how I’d like somebody with a good stereo set who’s interested in electricity, motorcycles and running. I actually hunted up this form in the Registrar’s Office to find out how it happened to me. I get a guy with a terrific stereo set all right; in fact, he’s an electrical genius. He’s also crazy. For one thing he has a bicycle hanging on pulleys from the ceiling of our room with a monster lock on it. He designed and built the lock himself. There’s a sign on this bike. It says: IF YOU STEAL THIS BICYCLE, YOU WILL BE STEALING THE BEST BICYCLE IN THE WORLD PROTECTED BY THE BEST LOCK IN THE WORLD AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THE BEST DETECTIVE IN THE WORLD CHASING YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD. Now, you know this is an out-and-out challenge. We wind up constantly locking our door. Nobody in Santa Cruz is locking doors except us, nobody even closes doors! Flash wears black clothes; he wears black T-shirts, black jeans, black socks, black jockey shorts, black shoes, black pajamas. He has long black hair combed straight down on all sides, even across his face, and a brush cut on top so you can see the white skin on his skull; it’s the only white you can see. He looks like something out of Mad magazine. Except for examinations, I don’t remember Flash ever going to class. He only left the room to ride that bike or get something to eat. That’s the way it is at Santa Cruz; nobody’s watching you. It’s a place where nobody gives a damn what you do. At the same time, you wind up with a guilty feeling all the time that you’re not doing enough. They use a pass-no-record system, meaning either you pass or else it didn’t happen; you can’t fail. Still, in some twisted way it’s a superman nursery school; the place is like a hothouse for sequoia trees. To be honest, I actually felt more on my own at that crummy American high school in Paris; at least you could fail. The dorms at Santa Cruz were weird. Living in a Paris apartment is like living alone in a cave on the side of a mountain compared to living in a dorm at Santa Cruz. Everybody’s into everybody else’s room, and after the third week it was musical-bed time. The lights were lit all the time; there wasn’t one dim corner, let alone dark. I used to close my eyes sometimes, trying to remember what the dark was like. I’ve gone out at three in the morning and looked back. The whole building vibrated with noise and light, electricity being burned by the kiloton. And, the next day in class, these same people would talk about ecology and conservation. Just to get away, I practically live in the library. I even work a job there; helps me hold on to a corner of my mind. Those people have no moments alone. They write their term papers surrounded with junk, noise and smells. And God, the smells would knock anybody over. The floors in all the rooms are covered with paper, food, dirty socks, clothes, books. Everybody tramps over these piles. People walk around half dressed; it’s a zoo, nothing private. Dad hasn’t really gotten into why I don’t want to go back. He’s strange that way; he doesn’t talk about things. He can talk to people; I mean, conversation; he’s a great story-teller, and shit, painting’s communication; but he doesn’t talk where something’s important. He tends to ignore anything he doesn’t want to hear. Mom’s the same. But we’ve got to talk this out sooner or later, only I’m not going to bring it up. What I want to do is write. Writing’s something I enjoy doing. That’s the way he got into painting. I know I bullshit better than most people; that should help. First, I’ll try a novel or maybe a screenplay; it doesn’t matter. I only want my cabin and some quiet. I’ll bear down and get something done for a change. Christ, my days go by and I’ve nothing to show. Maybe Debby will come. She’d groove on my cabin. She’s shit tired of Berkeley and it’d be fine having a good woman around. The trouble is I don’t know how I can make money. I can’t get a carte de travail. With the common market, there’s no way for an American to work in France, legally. Maybe I’ll hire myself out picking sugar beets. I hear you can work up a thousand bucks a month that way. I could live easy on a couple thousand a year. Debby’s old man will chip in something, too. ‘Hey, Dad, let’s stop someplace for breakfast. I’m starved.’ He nods his head. He’s off spinning somewhere. We’ll be crossing from Utah into Colorado soon. The Rockies are somewhere in front but out of sight. When I pushed across on my Yamasaki, I was so much closer to things. I knew every hill, every bump. I sucked in each goddamned mile and spit it out, a mouthful at a time. I was holding down those handlebars, rattling teeth, jiggling kidneys. At nights, I was a wreck. Twice I peed blood. Also, sleeping out with gnats and mosquitoes was hell. I’d packed a tent but no mosquito net. I swear I’m allergic to mosquitoes; every morning I’d be swollen up like a balloon. Just grabbing the handle and shifting gears with thick sausage fingers was hell. ‘Dad, how about if we roll down a window; OK? This canned cold air gets to me.’ ‘Good idea. We’re through the desert now.’ He pushes buttons and both windows start rolling down; the bionic man. Wind blows through and around us. ‘Ah, this is more like it, Bill. I get inside a box like this and lose track where I am.’ Half an hour later we stop for doughnuts and coffee. Jesus, it’s impossible! Just the two of us, nothing else, the bill pushes two-fifty. The world’s sure a shitload. You work your ass off just staying alive. Most any job you get only pays enough to rent a roof, feed your face and buy clothes, even secondhand junk. And there’s no way to live without working; we’re all locked in. Look at Gary and Marty; they’ve thrown the key away. It’s a bummer all right. 6 (#ulink_d02bcf6b-ebf8-52f9-a9f7-d3649d6d15de) Next day, after we come back from the hospital, I begin working on my Honda. First, I spread some newspapers to catch any grease or crud. I blow out the carb jets, then pull the plugs, scrape and set them. It’s been sitting so long there’s mold on both plugs. I push the bike back and forth in gear to see if the motor’s frozen but it’s OK, the pistons are moving. I clean the points and adjust the timing as best I can without proper tools. Even though I’m a crappy mechanic, I like fooling around with a small simple machine like this; it’s a thing my mind can handle and I’m needing something in that category just now. Dad comes out and watches me. He’s always been such a tremendous mechanic he makes me nervous. It’s the joke of our family how I’m rotten with machines. For years I was called ‘Hatch’ because I hatcheted things requiring skill. I was away from home five years before I realized my mechanical talents were only low in comparison to Joan’s and Dad’s. Dad stands over me. I point out what a fine piece of machinery a motorcycle is; nothing extra, just a motor mounted on wheels; the ideal solution for overland travel, the next best thing to wings. I know Dad thinks it’s dangerous and undignified for a grown, middle-aged man to be balancing on two wheels. I find the key where I’d hung it on the shed door. I hook up the battery, but, of course, it’s run down. I pull the battery, put it in the car trunk; Dad and I drive to the nearest service station for a quick charge. They tell me there it’ll take an hour. ‘OK, Dad, while we wait, let’s go have a beer in that bar across the street.’ He looks at me. ‘What?’ ‘There’s a little bar there, let’s go chug one down while we’re waiting.’ ‘Do you think that’ll be all right?’ ‘Sure, come on, we’re both over twenty-one; there’s no law against having an afternoon beer in a bar. That’s what they’re for.’ It’s an ordinary bar; dim, mildly air-conditioned, an old window blower humming away. There’s something I like about going into a bar daytimes, especially here in California. After a while, that high, bluish sky and the strange blankness of everything bears me down. It’s a relief ducking into the dark, thick air of a bar. We sit in a booth. This is a classic place; a few regulars are standing or sitting at the bar and there’s at least one hustler working up after-lunch customers. ‘What’ll you have, Dad?’ ‘Well, a beer would be fine, but we’ve got plenty of cold beer in the refrigerator just around the corner.’ I order two beers and ask Dad if he’d rather sit at the bar. ‘Do you think that’d be OK?’ ‘Sure, come on.’ We climb up on stools; the bartender shoves a bowl of peanuts down to us. ‘Do the peanuts cost extra, John?’ ‘Not usually, Dad, unless inflation’s really hit hard here.’ I take a handful and Dad carefully picks out one. Dad tells me he hasn’t been in a bar by himself for over fifty years, not since before he got married. He’s looking at the people, using the mirror behind the bar. He’s peeking at the women; one of them gives him a nice smile. He looks away fast and stares into his beer. ‘Do you come into bars like this often, John?’ ‘In Paris, it’s not so much bars, Dad; we have caf?s. You can sit, drink a coffee or a beer, but it isn’t like this; some of them you sit outside. Its different. Not many days go by when I don’t stop in one of my favourite caf?s.’ Dad looks as if he isn’t sure this mightn’t be wicked. I glance at my watch; we still have almost half an hour. I try encouraging Dad to talk about what it was like before he was married, when he was working at Hog Island carpentering with his father and brothers. I don’t get anywhere. It’s difficult to know if he doesn’t remember or just doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t even remember when Uncle Harry lived with us at home in Philly. That’s an important part of my personal life and it’s hard for me to accept he doesn’t remember at all. I know Vron has strong memories of things we did together, things I don’t remember, and it’s the same with me. In a terrible way, we’re all alone. We pick up the battery, drive home and mount it on the bike. I turn the key, kick it and the motor turns right over. It’s a terrific feeling getting a motor moving again, bringing something back to life. I buzz the bike up and down the street a few times. It’s been sitting so long it blows off black smoke and backfires but then smoothes out. I roll in and park on the driveway. It idles, ticking over. It’s coming on to dinnertime and I consider a restaurant but decide the business with the bar was enough excitement for one day. Dad’s already missed his ‘soaps’ and is wandering around looking at the clock, turning the TV on and off. A big part of his life didn’t happen today. He’s gotten to a point where that TV world is real life, and I’m responsible for a missing day. I decide to compensate by whipping up a tasty dinner. I scrounge the freezer and find a pair of reasonable-looking Spencer steaks. I’ll put together one of my quickie specials. I defrost, then fry up the steaks in a sauce made from mushroom soup. Then I pour a touch of wine over this, simmering it slowly for an hour on the back burner, set low with a cover. It comes out a savory dish somewhere between steak and stew. Using one of those toaster-oven affairs with the glass front, I unfreeze some packaged French fries, and open up a can of peas. I’m enjoying myself. Dad’s out in the garden watering, then he goes into the greenhouse. I keep looking to see if he’s all right but in there he’s invisible to me. Fixing a spade in the potting shed, locking its shaft in my vise; smooth hickory, shined by calluses, like time. I set the table and call Dad. He’s surprised again that I’ve pulled food from the kitchen; that it’s hot, and on plates. He asks if there are any onions in the meat and I assure him there aren’t. I suggest we have beer with the dinner. ‘We’re going to get drunk drinking beer all the time, John.’ ‘A couple bottles of beer never hurt anybody I know of, Dad. Come on, it’ll help us both relax.’ So we have beer with the meal and coffee after. I make a reasonably strong cup; it’s instant, and only a matter of how many spoonfuls you put in boiling water, not such a big deal. Dad pours in his usual single level spoonful of sugar, stirs it intently for almost a minute then dinks off the last drops from his spoon on the inside edge of his cup. He lifts the cup carefully, his lips sticking out the way a horse or mule goes into a bucket of water. He blows gently before he sips. My father’s lips are notorously sensitive to hot drinks. He pulls his head back and looks into the cup, puts in two more spoonfuls of sugar, goes through the stirring and dinking routine again. This time he sips his way through the rest of the coffee as if he’s drinking calvados or a good marc de Bourgogne. ‘Boy, John, that’s some coffee. Was that decaffeinated? Your mother and I only drink real coffee in the morning.’ I assure him it’s decaffeinated. ‘Well, it certainly is strong. Is that the way they make coffee in the army?’ ‘No, that’s French style, Dad. They drink tiny cups of very strong coffee, usually without cream or milk.’ ‘I sure hope I sleep tonight.’ After dishes, we head off to the hospital. This time Dad can point out a few street names. It’s coming back. I explain how in an emergency he might need to drive Mother to the hospital. ‘But I don’t have a driver’s license, John.’ ‘It’d be an emergency, Dad. If it’s a question of life and death, they’re not going to arrest you.’ I ought to have him drive me around the block a few times, for practice. Mother’s complaining. They won’t let her watch TV. There’s a TV hanging on the other side of the room but the nurses won’t allow her a control panel. She wants to know if there isn’t some way I can make them take off the monitors. ‘It’s driving me crazy, Jacky; those dumb green lines wiggle up and down and that red dot’s blinking all the time making different numbers. It’d drive anybody insane.’ I explain about the pulse and the electrocardiograph; how the nurses watch all the time. ‘See, they’re only using me as a guinea pig! I knew it! How’s all that going to help me get better? They’re experimenting on me. We pay good money and they don’t care if I live or die.’ Dad shakes his head. ‘Now, Bette, you just do what the doctors say. They know their business. You’ve got to trust them.’ As we’re about to go, he comes out with it again. I was hoping I’d get him away in time. ‘When are you coming home, Bette?’ Mom gives me another look. She has a way of not only raising her eyebrows but dropping her left eye in a slow, lewd, knowing wink. Dad sees and shrivels. ‘Don’t you worry, Dad; Mother’s comfortable here and we’ll have her home soon’s the doctors say she’s ready.’ Mother charges in. ‘Believe me, nobody wants to get out any faster than I do.’ Mom insists I talk with the doctor about her indigestion theory. I tell her I’ll make an appointment. When we get home, I talk to Dad about the things he has to learn. ‘I’ll never remember all that, Johnny. You have to remember I forget.’ I start making lists. I print these lists in capital letters with a felt-tip pen on five-by-seven cards. It’s like computer programming. I reduce it all to yes-no facts, on-off thinking; binary. I try to make everything simple and clear. For example, when I say wash dishes, I list every act involved in washing dishes. There are thirty-seven distinct steps, such as: put one squeeze of soap in the water, or pull stopper from sink, wring out sponge. I hang this card over the sink. For dusting, I list all the things that need to be dusted, where the dustcloth is and finish with ‘put dustcloth back on hook in hall closet.’ It’s fun for me; and Dad enters into the spirit of things. He isn’t insulted. He likes having me tell him what to do in clear terms so there’s no chance he can make a mistake. It’s the boss-worker syndrome again. I put one set of cards on a clipboard with the jobs in order as they need to be done during a typical day. He carries that clipboard around. At night he puts it on his night table beside him. Next morning he dresses himself, makes his bed and comes out, heading for the bathroom, with his aircraft-carrier cap on his head. He’s reading from the clipboard as he shuffles down the hall. It’s pitiful and funny, but he’s happy; it’s like a treasure hunt. That evening, when he isn’t watching television, he goes over his board, looking at the different cards, asking me questions. ‘I can do this; I’m sure I can get this all worked out.’ I also begin preparing him to care for Mom. I’m worried she’ll have another heart attack at home after I’m gone. So much can be done in those first minutes. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and external heart massage can be the difference between life and death. Dad has to learn. I start talking to him about it, but something in him doesn’t want to listen; he doesn’t want to be involved with such a stressful situation. But I press on. It’s somewhere in here I can’t baby him. ‘Look, Dad, I’ll show you how. You only need to follow instructions.’ He won’t meet my eyes. ‘This is something I learned in the army, Dad; hundreds of people’s lives have been saved this way.’ I hate lying to him, but I’m pulling out all stops. The only time I ever gave mouth-to-mouth or external massage was to an old lady in France and she was already dead. I learned what little I know from my personal bible, the Merck Manual. When the station break and ad come on, I talk Dad into getting down on the floor in front of the TV. He lies out and crosses his hands on his chest like a corpse. He stares at the ceiling, still not looking at me. I kneel beside him, put a hand under his neck and lift. ‘Now open your mouth and stick out your tongue, Dad.’ He does it, I grab hold under his chin, lifting and pulling back at the same time; I pinch his nostrils shut with my fingers; he’s looking at me. All the time, I’m explaining in what I hope is a calm, quiet voice. ‘Now right here, Dad, is where I put my mouth over yours and breathe for you.’ He begins struggling. He twists his head and turns on his side. ‘Oh, no; don’t do that!’ He gets to his knees. ‘I wasn’t going to actually do it, Dad, I was only explaining!’ I lie down on the rug and ask him to take hold of me the way I did him. I work his hand under my neck and stick my tongue out. I position his other hand so he can pinch my nostrils. His hands are shaking so he almost pulls my nose off. He keeps sneaking looks at the TV for the show to start again. He looks down. ‘Do people do this to each other in public, John?’ ‘Sure, you might have to do this for Mother. If she has another heart attack, you’ll need to force air into her lungs so oxygen gets to her brain. It’s the only chance she’ll have.’ He leans back. He pushes himself up onto his feet and backs his way to the platform rocker. ‘That might be right, John, but it looks sinful. Do men do that to each other? Maybe sometimes God just means for us to die.’ I relax and watch TV with him. I can understand his feelings but he’s got to get over it; it’s too important. At the next break, I want to show him something about external heart massage. I talk him into getting down on the floor again. ‘Now look, Dad, while you’re doing mouth-to-mouth, you should also give external heart massage. This is to get the heart beating again. You have to push hard, once every second, right in the center of the chest.’ I lean over and begin pressing him with the heel of my hand on his sternum about half as hard as you should for effective heart stimulation, but hard enough so he gets the idea. ‘Hey, that hurts! That would really hurt a woman; you’d be hitting her right on the … in the … breasts.’ ‘She wouldn’t feel anything, Dad, she’d be unconscious. It’s better having a few black-and-blue marks than being dead, isn’t it?’ He lifts himself up on one elbow. ‘She’d never let me do that, Johnny. She’d never let me hit her like that. I’ve never hit a woman in my life. I could never do that.’ ‘You’d have to, Dad; it’d be a matter of life and death.’ The program’s on again; it’s about some smart dolphin, if you can believe it. Dad settles with a deep sigh into his rocker. He’s breathing hard and sneaks a look at me as if he’s narrowly escaped from a crazed sex maniac. While he’s busy with the TV, I write out on cards, in big letters, the hospital phone numbers, the fire department, the nearest ambulance and Joan. I stick these cards on the wall over both phones, the one in the living room and the one in the bedroom. The big trouble is Dad never uses a phone. It’s hard even getting him to pick up a phone and hold it when someone else has called him. To be honest, I’ve never seen him dial a number. We didn’t have a phone when I lived at home. It’s only here in California they’ve had one. I hate phones myself, but Christ, in this world, spread out as it is, you can’t just ignore them. So it’s going to be tough preparing Dad to dial a number, then get across an emergency message. I try reducing it to simplest terms. I tape the message over each of the phones. It says: THIS IS A HEART ATTACK EMERGENCY. THE VICTIM IS UNCONSCIOUS. COME IMMEDIATELY. ADDRESS 10432 COLBY LANE, OFF OVERLAND AT PALMS. I have Dad repeat this till he knows it by heart. We practice dialing Joan’s number with the phone on the hook till he can do it. Then I go into the bedroom and call Joan. I tell her Dad’s going to phone and practice his emergency-call routine. She says she’ll wait. I put the phone down and go into the bathroom. When I come back into the living room, Dad’s watching dolphins again. I crumple onto the floor in front of him and lie there with my arms spread. ‘Now, Dad, I’m Mother and I’ve just had a heart attack. Call Joan and give her the message.’ He gets up and stands over me. ‘Are you all right, Johnny?’ ‘Yes. Now do what we practiced.’ He drops to his knees and starts putting his hand behind my head, pulling away and back. ‘No, Dad. Call Joan first, give her the message.’ He struggles up and goes over to the phone. He dials without lifting the receiver. ‘Lift the receiver, Dad.’ He lifts it and holds it against his ear listening but now he isn’t dialing. ‘Dial, Dad.’ He has the receiver wrong way around, the wire coming out of his ear. ‘Turn it around, Dad.’ He turns the phone around on the table. ‘No, the receiver, Dad. Turn it so the wire comes out the mouth part.’ He pulls it away from his head, stares at it, then slowly turns it around. He smiles. Now he concentrates on the card tacked to the wall. ‘Remember, Dad. Call Joan, not the ambulance or the fire department or the hospital. Call Joan.’ ‘Yeah, I got it, John, Joan.’ He begins dialing. He dials each number with great precision, keeping his finger in the hole to and fro. From the floor I can hear the phone ringing. Thank God, it’s Joan’s voice. I strain to listen. Dad’s holding the receiver two inches from his head. ‘Hello, Dad?’ ‘Oh! Hi, Joan, how are you, nice to hear from you.’ I loud-whisper from the floor. ‘Give her the message.’ ‘Here, Joan, Johnny wants to talk with you.’ He starts trying to pass the receiver down to me on the floor but the cord isn’t long enough. ‘No, Dad. Give her the message, remember, the message.’ ‘Oh, yes. I remember. Joan? Johnny’s lying on the floor here, in front of me, and he says he’s Mother and he’s had a heart attack.’ I’m not sure at this point if he’s kidding. I get up and take the phone. ‘Hello, Joan; guess who.’ I can’t get a sensible word out of her. I’d been so involved with making my invincible plan work I hadn’t been seeing how funny it all is. I start laughing, too, and Dad’s sitting in the chair smiling. He’s glad to hear us laughing. We practice this sociodrama till Dad has it down pat. I phone the ambulance company and ask if they’ll handle a dummy call. They’re cooperative and go along with it. Dad spends half an hour afterward opening the door, expecting an ambulance. The next day he takes his usual hour making the bed. I peer in. He’s carefully smoothing out every wrinkle, crawling around on his knees, checking to see if the covers are hanging evenly on all sides. I try to show how he can just pull the covers up, tuck them under the pillows, pull the spread tight and smooth it all out. It’s one of those chenille bespreads with little white bumps in a swirling diamond pattern. Dad’s worrying there are hidden folds in the sheet underneath. I’m building a Frankenstein monster. He’s only got two sheets, the electric blanket and the bedspread but it’s enough to occupy him for an hour. I move along slowly with the heavy burlap sack hooked to my belt. Every foot length I push a hole in the moist earth with my staff, drop in a seed potato and stomp it down. It’s like sliding eggs under a brooding hen. I give up. It keeps him happy and gives him something to do. I have more time for myself. I begin doing my yoga while he’s fooling with the bed. I’m already fitting into Mom’s routine. Two years ago she saw me doing yoga and went into a whole drama about it being a heathen Hindu religion and I could be ex-communicated. She wanted me to confess to a priest. After that, visiting them, I carried on as a closet yogi. But Dad’s dressing himself. With the help of his cards he’s finding his own clothes, getting washed and generally taking care. He comes out for some ham and eggs. I give him his bearclaw, too. I turn on the music. He does the breakfast dishes and kitchen, using his card, while I do the sweeping and general picking up. With only the two of us there’s practically nothing to do. I scrub out the bathroom sink and tub with Ajax, then scour the toilet bowl. I show Dad how to put his dirty underwear, shirts and socks in the bathroom hamper and where to hang his slacks. He even learns how to look in that bottom drawer for his sweaters. The next trip to the hospital, he directs me all the way. He’s beginning to enjoy his newfound capacity to participate. He even asks questions about what it’s like living in Paris and how Jacky’s doing in school. Mother’s groggy. I don’t know whether they’ve medicated her or if this is the normal aftermath of a heart attack. I have an appointment with her doctor, Dr Coe. I leave Dad with Mom, and go downstairs to Coe’s office. He’s a young fellow, considerate and reasonable. He gives me a rundown on what’s happened to Mother; shows me cardiograms and points out significant details. Apparently an arteriosclerotic condition has caused an occlusion and insufficient blood is reaching her heart. It’s a question of how much damage was done and how well the heart can compensate. If it gets desperate, they might try a bypass, but at her age it isn’t recommended. He feels bed rest with a medical approach is best. He reiterates how it’s all a dangerous and treacherous business. I’m impressed with Coe but depressed about Mom’s condition. I go back to her room and she’s more awake. I tell her how I’ve talked to her doctor, seen all the cardiograms. She’s distinctly had a heart attack, there’s no way around it. I tell her she’ll be fine if she only follows the doctor’s advice. She just must relax, take it easy; she’s worked too hard all her life anyway. Her eyes moisten; she’s working up her ‘fight back at all costs’ look. ‘But how can I relax, Jacky? How can I possibly take care of your father? You know how he is.’ ‘Don’t worry. We’re working things out. Dad’ll be able to take over when you come home. He made his own bed this morning and washed the dishes. I’m teaching him to cook. He’s watering the garden and keeping the lawn up. It’ll all work out fine.’ Now she’s crying, crying mad. ‘Don’t tell me. You’ll go back to your beatnik life and Joan’s too busy with her own family. King Kong, the big-shot wop, will never let her come over more than once a week. He won’t even let her phone me, even though I pay so she can phone free. I know, don’t kid me!’ I wait it out. Dad leans forward. He’s suffering seeing Mother cry; she doesn’t cry all that much. ‘Honest, Bette, you’ll see. I’m really trying; I’ll get on top of this. Don’t you worry; we’ll make out OK.’ Pause for three seconds. ‘How long do you think it’ll be before you come home, Bette?’ It’s not so much the question as the plaintive note in his voice. Mother shoots me one of the looks through tears. ‘Don’t worry, Dad! It’ll be a while yet. The doctor will tell us when she’s ready. It costs over two hundred dollars a day keeping Mom in this intensive care unit and they don’t hold people here any longer than they need to. When her heart’s settled down and is working better, they’ll move her to another part of the hospital, then home. We’ll set up our own private little hospital for her right there in the side bedroom.’ Mother’s crying again. ‘I’d rather be dead than live like this. You mean all my life I’m going to be a cripple, a burden to everybody? It’s not fair. It’s not fair this should happen to me of all people. I’ve always taken care of myself, exercised, eaten a balanced diet with vitamins; everything, and all for nothing. It’s not fair.’ This is so true. It’s never been any fun eating at our house. As kids, when we sat down to eat there’d be three vegetables with each meal. Not only that, we had to drink the pot liquor from those vegetables. I dreaded meals: string-bean juice, spinach juice, pea juice, carrot juice; we’d sit down and they’d be there, each in a separate glass. No matter what you did: salt, pepper, catsup; it all tasted like dishwater. Mother’d savor these juices as if they were the elixir of life; she was a big fan of Bernarr Macfadden. Dad never touched the stuff, and when Grandpop or Uncle Harry lived with us, they got off, too; but Joan and I were stuck. Then, every morning, we had to slug down cod-liver oil. I think if old Bernarr said cow pee was good for you, vitamin P, she’d run around behind cows with a cup. When we complained too much about the codliver oil, she got a brand with mint in it, like oily chewing gum. She’d hide it in orange juice, fat, minty globules of oil floating on top. Also there was brewer’s yeast. We had to take a slug of that every morning; the taste of rotted leaves and mold. This was supposed to have some other kind of vitamins in it. Mother knew about vitamins before they invented them. She ran her life, and ours, along the ‘live forever’ line. She was years ahead of her time. Now, with all the health food stores and health freaks, she’s actually more a hippy than I’ll ever be. She’s right, it isn’t fair. She’ll never accept. I know. Right now, in her mind, she’s figuring some way to lick this heart attack. And it doesn’t involve lying around in bed; that’s for damned sure. I can see her inventing some crazy exercise for the heart. It’s wonderful she has that kind of gumption but this time it can do her in. Dad and I get home in time for the soap operas. I go into the garden back room and collapse; the strain’s catching up with me. When I wake, I make more detailed lists for Dad. I break down a few jobs like cleaning the bathroom and defrosting the refrigerator. When the soaps are over, Dad takes me out to his greenhouse. He’s a great one for starting plants from tiny cuttings, especially plants that don’t flower. He has an enormous variety of fancy, many-colored leaf plants. He has Popsicle sticks stuck beside each one with the Latin name, the date and place he found it. It’s a genuine jungle. Dad’s always pinching cuttings of leaves or twigs from every interesting bush or plant he gets near. In Hawaii he must’ve snitched a hundred bits and pieces. He packed them in his suitcase with wet towels. I’m sure Mother wasn’t too enthusiastic but there’s no stopping him here. Then, somehow, he manages to grow plants from these tiny snips, sometimes only a leaf or a bit of stem. He’s rigged a unique sprinkler system in the greenhouse to give a fine spray. It’s tied into a humidity gauge so it turns on automatically, keeping the place jungle fresh. It even smells like a jungle; you almost expect to hear parrots or monkeys screeching in the top branches of his creeping vines. Dad spends a fair part of his free time in the greenhouse. He’s more at home there than in the house. Staking tomato plants, spindly, soft-haired, long-legged, easily bent or broken. Heavy with dark leaves, blossms and new rounding fruit. The strong green pungent smell surrounds me. I carefully lift and catch each sprawling branch, turning it gently to the warming sun, a joining of earth to sky. In the outside garden, Dad has avocado trees, three different varieties, so they almost always have avocados. There’s a lemon tree and what he calls his fruit-salad tree. This is a peach tree but he’s grafted onto it nectarine and apricot branches. The tree bears all these fruits simultaneously; it looks like something from Hieronymus Bosch. He also runs a small vegetable garden, with Swiss chard, beets, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, carrots; easy crops. Dad keeps this garden just for fun, says all those things are cheaper to buy than to grow but he gets a kick bringing homegrown vegetables into the kitchen. After dinner, Marty calls. She’s just come back from her gynecologist and knows she’s pregnant. They’ve been trying for two years and she’s so excited she can hardly tell me. I’m ecstatic! I’m going to be a grandfather! I put Dad on the line so she can tell him, too. He holds the phone out from his ear, listens, grins and nods his head. He doesn’t say anything more than grunts of pleasure and uh-huhs but he’s smiling his head off. Tears well up in his eyes, then run down the outside of his cheeks. It must be great for him being a potential great-grandfather, to know it’s going on some more. We put the phone down and look at each other. We’re both smiling away and wiping tears. It’s a big moment, too deep for us to even talk about. Dad gets up and turns on the TV, but I don’t feel like watching Merv Griffin pretend he’s talking to us. I’m itching to move; I want to work off my swelling restlessness. ‘Come on, Dad; let’s go out and celebrate!’ ‘What do you mean, out, Johnny?’ ‘I know a place, Dad. It’s down in Venice and it’s called the Oar House. Let’s go there.’ ‘What! The what?’ I say it clearly and laugh. ‘The Oar House, Dad: oar, O—A—R.’ The Santa Monica chamber of commerce made such a fuss they took down the sign. There’s only a giant pair of crossed oars over the door now. This place has wall-to-wall stereo vibrating like a discotheque but with a terrific selection of music; music from the twenties to Country Western, rock and electronic moanings. They sell a pitcher of beer for a dollar and a half with all the popcorn and peanuts you can eat. There’s a barrel filled with roasted peanuts in the shell and an ongoing popcorn machine. A guy could probably live on beer, popcorn and peanuts, plenty of protein, carbohydrates, and corn’s a vegetable. But the best thing is the walls and ceilings. They’re covered with planned graffiti, and plastered, hung, decorated with the strangest collection of weird objects imaginable. There are Franklin stoves, bobsleds, giant dolls, bicycles, broken clocks, automobile parts. Everything’s painted psychedelic colors. On Friday and Saturday nights, people dance mostly barefoot. The floors are an inch thick with sawdust so it smells like a circus: sweat, peanuts and sawdust. The light is pinkish and constantly changing. It’s the kind of place I like, a good non-pressure feeling; run-down Victorian; an English pub gone pop. There’s something of an old Western bar, too. So we drive down; it’s near the beach about ten minutes from my folks’ house. Dad stops in the doorway and looks around. ‘My goodness, Johnny, these people are crazy. Look at that.’ He points. There’s a doll hanging from the ceiling upside down without any hair and somebody painted her blue. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Nothing, Dad, it’s only decoration.’ I pick up a pitcher of dark beer and two cold frosted mugs at the bar. I steer Dad to my favorite booth in back, perfectly located for the sound system. In this spot you feel the sound’s coming right out of your head. I get handfuls of popcorn and peanuts, spread them on the table. The tabletop has a laminated picture of a girl in a very tempting pose. I hadn’t noticed that before. I’m seeing things differently, like going to a zoo with a child. We look out at the mob. There’s a fair amount of pushing and flirting going on; strictly a jeans-and-sweatshirt crowd. You’re supposed to be twenty-one to get into this place and they’re strict, but the girls look young. Then again, almost any woman under forty looks like a child to me these days. Dad’s watching all this. He hardly remembers to drink his beer. ‘Gosh, Johnny; this is better than Fayes Theatre in Philadelphia, back in the old days.’ He swings his head around and laughs. He has a way of putting his hand over his mouth when he laughs, covering his teeth. Both Dad and I have separated front teeth; I mean a significant separation, about half a tooth wide. Dad’s incredibly sensitive about this. His father had it too, and I’m obstinate, or vain enough, to be proud of mine. I feel it’s a mark of the male line in our family. Still, neither Billy nor Jacky has it; Marty did, cost a small fortune in orthodontics bills. I even like separated teeth in women, but you can’t ask a girl to keep something like that if she doesn’t want to. Dad’s so embarrassed by his parted teeth he’ll never smile or laugh without putting his hand over his mouth; so he’s sitting there snickering behind his hand. We drink our beer slowly, listen to the music and watch the action for about an hour. We get home by ten. We’re both tired and manage somehow to climb into bed without turning on the TV. The next day things start fine. I hear Dad back there fumbling around dressing, making his bed. I do my yoga and sweep. By nine o’clock he’s out. He even finds his own medicine, then sits down for a big breakfast with me. All his movements are stepped up by about half. He’s sitting straighter, eating faster. I remember how when Dad was young he used to wolf his food; I wonder if he’ll go back to that. We even have a reasonable breakfast conversation. We talk about painting. Years ago, I gave Dad a box of paints. There was everything he’d need, including two middle-sized canvases. So Dad took up painting and did some of the most god-awful paintings I’ve ever seen. He framed them for Mom and they’re hung in the bedrooms. One trouble is Dad didn’t use the canvases I’d left. He said he was saving them; saving them for his great masterpiece, I guess. He went out and bought canvas board, crappy cotton canvas stretched over and glued to cardboard. These were all of about six inches by nine inches each. Dad sees paintings as hand made, hand-colored photographs. So he paints paintings the size of photographs. He paints from photographs, too. Nothing I say can get him to paint from nature or from his imagination. He wants something there he can measure. He did one painting of an Indian weaving on a vertical loom in the middle of a desert; all this on a canvas not bigger than a five-by-seven photograph. Dad is probably the twentieth-century master of the three-haired brush. This Indian picture is an outstanding example of eye-hand coordination; but it’s a perfectly lousy painting. He’s also done two paintings by the numbers. This is right up his line. The paintings are a reasonable size, maybe twelve by eighteen inches. One is The Sacred Heart, the other The Blessed Mother. He framed these, too; they’re hung in the side bedroom beside the bed where I’m sleeping. Again, he’s done an absolutely perfect job, perfect color matching, and he’s stayed completely inside the lines. These two could be used as models for a paint-by-the-number set. But this morning at breakfast he tells me his painting career is finished. It turns out he’s tried painting one of the San Fernando missions. For him it’s a grand affair, practically a mural, fifteen by twenty-four inches. I hope for a minute he’s really gone out to San Fernando but its another photograph. He shows me this photo; has it squared off in coordinates. It’s a terrible picture to try painting. I’m not sure I could make a composition from this mess myself. There’s a clump of foreground bush, then about half the photo is empty California sky. Between the bush and sky is squeezed a yellowish adobe building, cornered at an angle to the plane of the photo. Worse yet, there are arches running across the near side of the building. It’s practically uncomposable, an arrowlike thrust from left foreground to right rear. Dad tells me how he’s had one devilish time with those arches. The composition doesn’t worry him but those arches drove him crazy. Perspective is a mystery to him. After dishes, we go out back and he shows me his painting. It’s hidden so Mother won’t see it. It’s a muddy mess with great green globs in the foreground. I do a little drawing on it, showing him how to correct the arches and rough in a perspective idea, but it’s impossible to make any kind of painting from such a piss-poor photograph. Painting from photographs is never a good idea anyway; cameras have cycloptic vision, the dynamics of bioptic human vision is lost. I’m dying to write Vron and tell her about the baby but I’m sure Marty wants to do this herself; it’s her baby; I’m having a hard time restraining myself. Dad goes into his greenhouse. He sure spends a lot of time out there. Soil’s just right now, soft enough so the spade sinks to the shaft but not muddy. New dirt opening up, shining where the metal’s pressed tight against it. We visit Mother and tell her Marty’s news. Mom takes it easily, as if she’d been expecting it. Maybe when you’re almost dying, being born isn’t such a big deal. She might even be feeling pushed. When we come back, I’m still restless so I go back and work some more on my motorcycle. When I’m finished, I get an impulse to take Dad for a ride. It’d be fun rolling slowly down to Venice beach. I think the sensation of riding might help brush away some cobwebs. We happen to have two old helmets here. I search them out of the garage. Dad’s watching me. ‘How about it, Dad? How about a slow ride on my motorcycle down to the ocean; it’s a fine afternoon; let’s go watch the sunset.’ He stares at the bike. ‘I don’t know about that; it looks scary to me.’ ‘If you get scared, we won’t go. Let’s try it around the block here one time to see how you like it.’ I help strap the extra helmet on him. I don’t know why he looks so out of it, not like a motorcycle rider, more like Charles Lindbergh in one of those old leather aviation hats. Also, the helmet makes his head lean forward as if it’s too heavy for his neck. I straddle the bike and kick down the foot pegs. I show him how to get on. I tell him to put his arms around me and hold tight. ‘Is that the only way I can hold on?’ ‘It’s the best way, Dad. I want you to lean when I lean, as if we’re one person.’ He grabs hold; I kick the starter, put her in first gear gently. We ease out the driveway and cruise very slowly up and down some of these short dead-end streets. I never get out of second gear. We roll back to the house and stop. ‘Well, Dad, how was that?’ ‘It’s no worse than riding a bicycle. I haven’t been on anything with two wheels since I was a kid.’ ‘You ready to take a chance going down to Venice? I’ll take back streets and we won’t hit any traffic.’ ‘It’s OK with me, Johnny, but, boy, I hate to think what your mother would say if we have an accident.’ He giggles and straightens his helmet. ‘There she’d be in the hospital and we’d both be dead.’ ‘Don’t worry, Dad, we’re not going to get killed. I’ve been driving motorcycles for twenty years. We’re safer than in a car.’ He starts climbing back onto the bike. I hook my helmet strap. ‘The trouble is, Dad, most people who drive motorcyles are maniacs. If those same people drive cars, they’ll have car accidents.’ I kick but it doesn’t turn over. I give her a little choke. ‘What kills you in a car is the steering wheel, the windshield and a face full of dashboard; the car stops and people keep going. On a motorcycle, there’s nothing to run into; you go flying through the air and slow down some before you hit.’ I hear what I’m saying and decide to shut up. It’s not exactly encouraging. Dad grabs hold and giggles again. ‘John, you could sell holy cards to the devil.’ He tilts his head back and laughs; he doesn’t put his hand over his mouth; he can’t, he’s holding on for dear life. We start slowly along Palms. It’s a beautiful afternoon and the sun is low in front of us. There are gentle hills along here, almost like a children’s roller coaster. We lift up one side and lower on the other. We go along the Palms golf course and across Lincoln. I roll down Rose Avenue and park on the boardwalk. We walk out toward the ocean; there are some good-sized breakers; spray is flying up, refracting the sun. There’s a bicycle path built along the edge of the sand; it’s well designed in easy, twisting curves. We tuck our helmets under our arms like a couple of beached knights. There are people coming in from the water; kids are sitting in the and playing bongos and a drunk is trying to dance with the music. It’s mellow and I hope Dad’s relaxing and not fighting it all too much. We stop and listen to the music. There are a few guitars with the bongos. It’s like the tropics; hard to believe Lincoln Boulevard is only eight short blocks inland, crowded with cars, light industry and thousands of signs screaming for attention. Dad turns toward me. ‘You know, Johnny, I’ve missed my calling. I think I could be a hippy.’ We stroll along the boardwalk. It’s peculiar they call it a boardwalk, because it’s cement and isn’t up on piers. It’s only a street without cars next to the sand. It might’ve been boards once or it could be a cross-country carry-over from the boardwalks on the Atlantic shore. Or maybe I’m the only one who calls it a boardwalk. We come on a place called The Fruits and Nuts. A young couple, Tony and Shelly, run it. They take all the time in the world with us. They’re interested in Mom and suggest herbs to strengthen her heart. They offer big glasses of carrot juice squeezed from fresh carrots. They make it with a blender and it’s sweet, not like Mother’s pot liquors. Dad’s peeking at me from the corner of his eye, drinking carrot juice and smiling away. Tony has a beard with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. This is a surefire hippy, the enemy. He tells Dad how he has herbs to help with blood pressure. I want to buy these for myself; I’ll try anything! But Tony gives them to me. I’m feeling so guilty I buy some apples and bananas; Tony assures us they’re fresh and tasty. He quarters an apple with a penknife so the four of us can share around. It’s hard to get away. We walk along munching our apple. Dad can make more noise crunching into an apple than anybody in the world; he makes an apple sound like the most delicious food ever invented. ‘Goodness, John, those people are nice; do you know them?’ ‘Nope. I don’t know how they stay in business either; they give everything away.’ Dad takes a bite into another apple from the bag. ‘Maybe they’re rich. Maybe they only have this store for fun.’ ‘Yeah, that could be it.’ ‘But they don’t look rich.’ We put on our helmets, climb on the bike and roll slowly back to the house. The sunset is still redding the sky behind us. It’s one of those balmy evenings you get sometimes in California, when the coastal fog holds off till dark. We’re just inside the house, and the phone rings. It’s Marty. She and Gary want to phone Vron and tell her the news. They want me with them. I say they should come over here, we’ve got an extension phone. They arrive as we finish eating. Marty’s eyes are bright with excitement. We direct-dial and get straight through. Marty starts crying soon as she gets the words out of her mouth. I’m on the extension in the bedroom. It’s so good hearing Vron’s voice. She could be crying, too; I am. We spend ten dollars crying at each other over six thousand miles by satellite. When we hang up and I come back in the living room, Dad’s pulled off his glasses and is wiping his eyes. He looks up at me. ‘What’re we crying about, Johnny?’ That cracks us up and we’re practically dancing with excitement. We drink some wine together before they go home. Dad turns on the TV. I’d asked Marty to bring me a book. I try reading it, but every time I start, Dad interrupts me. Reading’s a vice in this house. Mother’s a great one for burning all newspapers and magazines the day after they arrive. Paper, for her, is like falling leaves, a natural continual nuisance you have to fight. A book is only paper; after you read it, burn it. Keeping books is like not making the bed. Also, reading softens the brain, ruins the eyes and gives Protestant or Communist ideas. Dad has something of the same reaction to reading but for different reasons. His father, my grandfather, insisted bookwork was only for girls. He educated his girls, sent them through high school, but the boys were pulled out soon as they were old enough to learn farming, carpentry and metalwork. He believed men do things; women remember and pass it on. This idea is deep in my father’s family. At about ten-thirty I sneak back into the bedroom. I don’t know how long Dad stays up watching Johnny Carson. Three days later Mother’s out of intensive care. Dr Coe tells me she’ll be in the hospital two more weeks. All the tests show she’s had a severe heart attack and it’s going to be a long uphill recuperation. In the meanwhile, Dad’s been coming along fine. He’s practically self-sufficient. One Sunday we even go sailing with a friend of mine and neither of us gets sick. We only sail inside the marina an hour or two and it’s an exceptionally calm day. It’s while we’re sailing I notice Dad needs a shave. I can’t ever remember my father having more than half a day’s whiskers. On the way home I ask if he has a skin rash; I think maybe he’s missed an item on his morning bathroom list. He looks at me as I’m turning onto Jefferson Boulevard. ‘No, Johnny, my skin’s fine.’ He runs his hands over his stubble. I wait a minute, not knowing how to approach it. ‘Well, Dad, I only asked because I think you missed shaving this morning.’ He smiles and runs his hand over his face, covering his smile. ‘You know, John, I’ve never seen my beard. I started shaving when I was fifteen, and I’ve been shaving every morning all my life. Even before I was married, when I went hunting with Dad and the rest, I shaved with cold water. Just once, I’d like to see what it looks like. I think that’d be all right, don’t you? Mother’s in the hospital and I’ll shave it off when she comes home.’ I’m surprised at my own reactions. I’m worrying what the neighbors will say. Maybe they’ll think I’m letting Dad go to seed. Then it hits me. I start laughing. Dad’s laughing too; we’re still laughing when we pull into the driveway. Sure as hell the neighbors aren’t going to think we’re completely broken up over Mom’s heart attack. We watch a Dodger ball game on TV. Afterwards, Dad starts up a conversation. He begins with how he’s always been an Angel fan because there are too many niggers on the Dodgers. My first impulse is to back off; I don’t want to ruin the good feelings we’re having. But he wants to talk; there’s something bothering him. ‘You know, John, when I was a kid and we first came from Wisconsin to the East Coast, we lived down there in southwest Philadelphia near a lot of Negroes. It wasn’t safe for us to walk through some parts of town and we’d kill any nigger who came west of Sixtieth Street or north of Woodlawn Avenue. It was like a war going on all the time. ‘It’s the main reason we moved to Upper Darby. I hated moving five miles from my family but we were afraid of those niggers. Saint Barnabas Church had the only school with no niggers in it and we were proud of that; even the priests used to talk about it in those days.’ He stops. I wonder what he wants me to say. ‘Now, Johnny, they tell us in church we have to forget all that. Our priest says it’s a mortal sin having those kinds of feelings. Honest, I don’t have anything personal against niggers, Johnny; it’s just a feeling I get down my spine, like a dog’s hair standing stiff when he’s mad or scared. And I’ll bet them niggers have the same feelings about me, too. ‘When Bette and I go to church at Saint Augustine’s, we always look around for some place away from any niggers or Mexicans. With this “kiss of peace” business, you’re supposed to smile and shake hands with the people near you, and we can’t get ourselves to do this with some Mexican or a nigger. ‘John, you can’t change people so fast. I tell the priest in confession and he tells me to pray for love and charity. ‘I pray, Johnny, but nothing comes. I’d sure as the devil hate going to hell just because I can’t work up love for a nigger. It’s not fair. You do what you’re supposed to do when you’re young, then they change the rules.’ He stops. I still don’t know what he wants from me. I’m glad it isn’t my problem, not just the race part but the whole business of somebody else saying whether I’m a good person or not. People give up control of their lives too easily. I fix us a snack: beer, potato chips and pretzels. Dad goes to turn on the TV, checks himself and settles into his platform rocker; I sit in Mom’s gold chair. ‘You know, Dad, one trouble with your growing a beard is Mother’ll have a fit when we visit her. You can’t go to the hospital looking like this.’ He gives me one of his sly smiles, gets up and goes into the bathroom. He comes out a few minutes later with a surgical mask over his face, eyes twinkling. ‘Mother wears this when she dyes her hair. We’ll tell her I have a cold and we don’t want her to catch it.’ I choke on my beer and run to the kitchen sink. He follows me, worried. I peek at him again; he looks like a distinguished surgeon. Considering Mother’s fear of germs, it’s so diabolically clever. We work out the mask routine in the hospital just fine. Dad even develops a creditable sniff and cough. His beard grows in a hurry. Within a week, it’s past the itchy stage and beginning to curl over. It’s curly and compact, a pubic-hair-type beard, wiry. The most amazing thing is it’s a grizzled, dark chestnut. Dad doesn’t have much hair left on his head, and it’s white. There are still a few dark hairs in his eyebrows, all that’s left of his original hair color. But this beard is something else. It’s more dark brown than white. He looks at least ten years younger, incredibly vital. I keep catching him staring in the bathroom mirror. Those split teeth of his are perfectly framed by a beard. I have a hard time adapting myself. It’s as if Dad’s stepped back a generation and we’re contemporaries. Joan flips. She strokes his beard while he smiles and she gives him a big kiss. She almost laughs herself to death when we show her the trick with the surgical mask. But she’s worried Mother will find us out anyhow. During that last week, Dad and I go regularly down to the Oar House, evenings. We have our pitcher of beer and it’s fun watching; one hell of a lot better than T V. We even have almost-conversations. We talk about Mother, her health and all the things we’ll arrange to make the house comfortable for her. He’s begun having ideas of his own. He rigs an intercom system between the side bedroom, where she’ll be, and the back bedroom; even into the garden bedroom. It’s a regular Amos ‘n’ Andy ‘Miss Blue, buzz me’ affair, but it works. Once, he scares the bejesus out of me by ringing in the middle of the night. He says he wants to check if it’s loud enough to wake somebody who’s asleep. This is at three o’clock in the morning when he gets up for his nighttime pee. There’s a strong strain of joker in Dad. Several times, I take Dad over to visit Gary and Marty. He doesn’t say much but obviously enjoys the conversation. Mostly we talk about the new baby or how Mom’s doing. We don’t watch TV. The day comes to bring Mother home. We have everything ready. Dad comes out of the bathroom that morning clean-shaven; nothing said. We drive Mom home in the car and she’s babbling away ten miles to a minute. She’ll have another heart attack before we even get her in the house. I put her to bed, pull all the blinds and insist she take a nap. I hadn’t realized before what a tremendous responsibility it’s going to be having her home. If anything happens, it’s more than fifteen minutes to the hospital. I’m having more panic feelings than Dad. He and I share beer and sandwiches on the patio. He asks when I think he can sleep with Mother again. That one I hadn’t even considered. Immediately after her nap, I find Mom sitting on the side of her bed working her arms into a bathrobe. She wants to use the toilet, insists she can’t get herself to ‘go’ sitting in bed on a bedpan. Nothing I say will stop her. We move down the hall, slowly. She’s holding a wall with one hand and me with the other. I maneuver her into the bathroom, she shoos me out and locks the door. Dad and I hover outside, hearing her pee hit the side of the bowl, then the flush. We wait but she doesn’t come out. Finally, Dad can’t take it any longer. ‘Are you all right in there, Bette?’ Bette, by the way, is said as in ‘pet’. ‘I’m fine. Don’t hang over me so, it makes me nervous.’ Then she unlocks the door. She’s made up, and her hair’s in curlers. Guts my mother’s got; good sense I’m not so sure. Things go a bit better every day. Mother’s color is coming back or maybe it’s only rouge. Our trouble is keeping her down. She’s wanting to take over again. At the same time, she’s complaining about how hard it is to breathe. On the third day, we take her out on the patio. It’s a warm day with no wind and she’s been cooped up for a long time. It seems to help; she lies in the sun and tries to relax. Dad’s doing most of the cooking. He’s justifiably proud of himself. Every morning he’s out of bed by eight and we take turns sweeping or making breakfast. It turns out he’s the mad sweeper, too. This drives poor Mother crazy; she wants us to vacuum; says we’re only pushing the dirt around, making everything dusty. By the end of that week, there’s a full load of wash; Dad volunteers to do it at the Laundromat. He wants me to drive him there and show him how. Joan’s willing to do our laundry but Dad wants to do this himself. So, while Mom’s napping, I drive Dad to the shopping center and demonstrate the machines. He’d gone with Mother before, but hadn’t paid much attention. This turns out to be just the kind of thing he likes. The efficiency and predictability of it all give him enormous satisfaction. I say if he gets bored to look around the Lucky Market or go across to the bowling alley. I leave him there. He’ll be off on his own in the big world for a whole hour. When I get home, Mom’s awake. She asks where Dad is. ‘He’s at the Laundromat doing the wash.’ ‘Oh, Mother of God, Jacky, he can never do that! I take him along, but he’s more in the way than anything. He keeps folding sheets so there won’t be any wrinkles till I almost go nuts!’ ‘Oh, he’ll be all right, Mom.’ She snorts, instantly classifying me in the great, growing category of ‘simps’. ‘You’ll see. He’ll put bleach in with the colored things or some goofy trick. Joan said she’d do the wash; don’t you two worry about it. She isn’t doing much of anything else.’ ‘It’s all right, Mom, and it’s something for him to do. Joan has enough on her mind.’ But Mother’s lack of trust gets to me. I refuse to go back but I’m checking my watch. It’s like the first time you send a young child to the store alone; the temptation is to follow. When I leave, I tell Mother I’ll fix lunch soon as we come back. I can see she’s feeling itchy; things are getting out of her control. It won’t be long before she’ll do something dumb. At the Laundromat, Dad’s sitting with all the clothes dried and piled in the basket. He’s even broken down the clothes into Mother’s things, my things and his. I can’t believe it. And he’s so proud of himself; he’s sitting there sucking on a raspberry Popsicle. ‘Gee, John, I had a fine time. I went over and watched the bowling. I haven’t bowled since I used to bowl with Ira Taylor up on Sixty-ninth Street; that has to be over thirty years ago. I’d forgotten what fun it is. Here we are living only two blocks away and I’ve never even been to this place. You get in the habit of working and then forget how to have fun. It’s only fifty cents a line. We can afford it and I have all the time in the world. I’m not too old.’ I’m packing clothes into the laundry bags. ‘Sure, Dad, maybe we can come up and bowl. I haven’t bowled in a long time either.’ We pile our clothes in the car and Dad finishes his popsicle. I don’t want him charging in the house with a Popsicle hanging out of his mouth; that’d do Mother in for sure. We drive the car into the patio and start unloading. Mom is out of bed and opens the side door. Dad and I carry the clothes in. When I go into the kitchen, I see she’s fixed lunch. I stand a minute trying to figure how to handle it. I resent treating her as a child; I don’t want her seeing me angry, either. I decide to accept. I can’t figure any other procedure more likely to discourage this kind of stupidity. Well, that’s the way our days go. Mom’s into everything and there’s nothing Dad or I can do right. She’s even complaining Dad isn’t brushing his teeth at night. ‘You have to watch him, Jacky; he’ll only scrub the front and forget the rest.’ This is about a man with every tooth in his head. Mother has bridges across the whole back of her mouth. At first, we keep trying harder. We sweep, vacuum, line garbage pails, scrub toilets, dust, beat rugs, the whole scene; but it’s all wrong. Joan comes and I tell her what’s going on. She laughs and sits down. ‘Don’t you know, Johnny, nobody can please Mom? I thought you knew that. Every week I come here to help with heavy cleaning like washing windows, scrubbing floors. I know she’ll do it all over again, wash every window a second time, muttering the whole while. It’s Mom’s pleasure to convince herself, and everybody else, that nobody’s as good at anything as she is. The world is filled with two kinds of people, Bette McCarthy and the rest. The rest are incompetent and basically filthy. Relax, Jack, live with it. You and Dad have a good time; you can’t win.’ Hell, I know all this. Only in my enthusiasm about how well Dad’s doing, I forgot. Joan can’t get over how sharp, full of life, he is. It’s hard to believe it’s the same man. I tell Joan some of the things we’ve been doing; the Oar House, sailing, motorcycling. She thinks it’s all fine but we’d better not let Mom find out. ‘She’ll make life miserable for him, Johnny. And if she ever hears about that beard; God in heaven. All the noise I’ve listened to about your beard; it’d kill her for sure.’ We’re both giggling. Mom’s napping, Dad’s out in the greenhouse. Plowing for sod corn, new-cut ground turned close, one row onto the other, small tufts of grass and reeds marking the depth of furrows. Jimmy pulls, slowly, easily; and I lean, just strong enough to turn over topsoil; corduroying the earth. The next day when I go to do the bathroom, the tub’s been scrubbed. This is too much. If there’s anything a heart patient shouldn’t do, scrubbing a tub must be high on the list. Mother’s in the patio sunning with Dad. I go out. ‘Mother! Did you scrub the tub?’ ‘Jacky, it was such a mess, rings of dirt and water splashes all over everything, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m sure you two step straight out of a tub and never look back; you leave curly hairs over everything and an inch thick of scum. I may be sick but I don’t have to live in a pigpen.’ ‘Come on, it wasn’t that bad. I just went in to scrub it out. You only had to wait another ten minutes. For ten minutes with a few hairs in a bathtub you put your whole life on the line.’ I’m working up a stupid mad. ‘Dad and I are doing our best while you spend your time making things difficult. Mother, I’m telling you right now, if you don’t lie back, take it easy and do as the doctor says, I fly home tomorrow. If what we do isn’t good enough, hire a professional nurse. Do whatever it is you have to do but I’m not taking any more nonsense.’ Mother looks at me, then starts crying. ‘If I can’t even do a little work around my own house, what’s the use of living. You know he can’t do anything.’ She flings her arm in Dad’s direction. ‘Joan never comes and you’re only waiting so you can go back to Europe with all the foreigners.’ I turn and walk into the house while she’s raving. Dad comes in after me. I’m getting lunch ready. He’s upset; we all are. ‘It’s not her fault, Johnny; don’t be so hard; it’s not easy for her to relax, you know how she is.’ ‘Sure, Dad. But remember: this isn’t only the usual spoiling, letting her have her own way; she can very easily die. I don’t intend to watch her kill herself out of pride, and a frustrated need to dominate. ‘And you’ve got to stand up to her, too, Dad; for her good and yours. It’s something we can’t put off. If she’s going to wash out bathtubs, there’s no chance she’ll live; I’m not kidding.’ I can’t tell if he understands. He’s so scared he’s into his nodding routine, looking serious and doing his worker-boss thing. ‘You’re right, Johnny. You’re absolutely right. I’ll talk to her. She’s crying out there alone; she doesn’t cry much; crying can’t be good for her heart, either.’ ‘It’s better than scrubbing tubs, Dad.’ God, will we have to watch her all the time? I go back out with sandwiches, beer and some Coke for Mom. She’s still red-eyed, wiping away tears. She won’t look at me. ‘Listen, Mom. You’ve got Dad worried to death with your bullheadedness but I’m not going to say another word. If you want to climb up on that roof right now and start tap dancing, I’ll sit here and applaud. If you get a scrub brush and start scrubbing the lawn, that’s OK with me. ‘Then, when you have your next heart attack, I’ll try to help, I’ll try getting you to the hospital on time again and maybe they can save you. If they can’t, I’ll make arrangements for the funeral and help set Dad up. But that’s it. I refuse to treat you like a baby! You’re a grown woman, you’re not senile and it’s your life. If you want to kill yourself, that’s up to you.’ I pause to let it sink in. She’s looking at me now. ‘Do you understand, Mom? There won’t be another word from me. It’s up to you; you take hold of your own life. I think you have more sense than you’ve shown so far. I think you really want to live but you enjoy pestering the life out of Dad and me. Eat your lunch.’ After this it’s better. Now she has to prove she isn’t stupid. But her idea of what she can do without hurting herself is bizarre. I feel sorry for Dad because the whole guard duty falls on him. I shake my head in disbelief when she makes a bed or washes out undies, but I say nothing. Marty calls most evenings and says she’ll come over to spell me if I want. I tell her it’s OK; I know how much Mom bugs her and almost everything about Marty annoys Mom. Mostly that she’s young and has her own life. After two weeks, it’s time to take Mother back for a checkup. I call the doctor ahead of time and ask him to throw the fear of God into her because she’s too active. He does a great scene but I can see Mother sitting inside herself resisting. He shows her the X-rays but she scarcely looks. He gets out the cardiograms, explains her blood chemistry, pulls out charts to show which part of her heart is affected. It’s not registering; she doesn’t want to know. Afterward, when I’m pushing Mom out to the parking lot in a wheelchair, she turns and looks back at me. ‘Jacky, I don’t think he’s a real doctor. I’m sure he’s not a heart specialist. Did you see that belt he was wearing and those tight pants? He’s another hippy. They let anybody get through medical school these days. He’s probably only a student anyhow, he can’t be thirty years old.’ I disappoint her and keep my mouth shut. All the way home she stays on the same themes, knocking Dr Coe and the Perpetual Hospital. Then she starts on the ‘nigger nurses’. She’s pulling out all stops. I keep smiling, nodding like an imbecile and concentrate on the driving. Mother’s putting on the brake and clutching all the way. I swear next time I’ll slip a sack over her head and put her in the back seat. At home, she begins telling Dad how she’s had a very light heart attack, so light in fact it’s doubtful she had one at all. She isn’t saying anything of what the doctor told us, only what she wanted to hear. I’ll give Dad a straight story later; I don’t want to start her crying again. Dad’s right, crying can’t be the best thing for a heart patient. After lunch she’s at full steam. ‘Look how the paint on this house is peeling. The garden is going to pot, nobody’s weeding. The windows are filthy. We haven’t had any really balanced meals since I’ve been home. Dad isn’t taking his pills regularly, he doesn’t look well and he’s running around so much he’s going to have another stroke.’ Far as I know, he hasn’t had a first one. I try to reassure her Dad’s doing fine and he’s getting good food. But nothing will do. Things are slipping away from her, and she’s in a minor panic; her very reason for living is being pulled out from under her. The truth is Dad is getting away, gaining independence. He’ll go back, and in his new breezy way ask how she’s doing and what he can do. This bugs Mom, the roles have been reversed, so quickly, easily. He’s bringing her glasses of water, fixing her medicine, straightening her bed, regulating the electric blanket, giving her massages and trying, generally, to help her relax. Everything he does makes it worse. She’s caught in an unplanned double bind. Dad’s cooking is improving, too. It isn’t serious cuisine, but then there’s never been anything resembling good cooking going on in this house. Dad’s opening cans of soup and making sandwiches in the toaster. He makes a couple complete dinners without my assistance; nothing difficult – lamb chops with canned peas and mashed potatoes, or some steaks with canned string beans and defrosted French fries – but it’s good. Sometimes Dad will go into the bedroom to see how Mom is and he’ll forget to take off his apron; this drives her up the wall. I almost begin to suspect he does it on purpose; that apron, like his aircraft-carrier cap, has become a badge of authority. And I know all this is almost worse for Mom than her overexertions, but I can’t think of any other way. I’ve got to leave sooner or later and Joan can’t do everything. Joan’s concerned, but can’t see any way out either. Dad has to take over. It would be even worse having a professional nurse. Mother makes no bones about that; no strangers living in her house. Well, this goes on another week. Dad’s getting better every day while Mom fumes and keeps overdoing herself. Dad’s seventy-third birthday is rolling around. We decide to have a quiet party for him, just the four of us; Joan, me, Dad and Mom. We don’t want Mother getting involved with the preparations, but we can’t keep her down. I’m baking the birthday cake and she’s convinced I’m going to burn the house down; wants me to buy a cake at Van de Kamp’s. She opens the oven door so often the damned cake falls. It’d drive anybody bats. I haul her back to bed at least ten times. She’s on the point of tears. Her lines are: ‘This might be the last birthday I’ll ever celebrate with my husband and you want to do it all. I know myself; I feel just fine; you can’t know how I feel …’ and so on. Joan buys Dad a pair of blue striped flannel pajamas, also a button-down-the-front sweater from Mom. I buy him a new dark green aircraft-carrier hat. I want to give him a roller singing canary but there’s not one to be found anywhere; the Newcastle blight’s almost wiped out canaries in America. Dad enjoys helping with the cake. We do it from scratch, no cake mix. He can’t believe you can make a cake with only flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter and salt, with a little flavoring and baking powder. It’s terrible how far removed from the fun parts of life most men get. We bake another cake after the first falls, and put them on top of each other. The party’s a big success. We cut the cake and it’s a bit compact but delicious. Dad blows out all the candles in one fell blow; seven big ones, and three little. He makes a thing about opening each present, shaking to see if it rattles, making wild guesses and insisting on untying every knot and preserving the wrapping paper. He folds the paper carefully before he’ll go on to the next present. He’s dragging out the pleasure. ‘Come on, Jack, open it; stop playing with the paper; we don’t have all day.’ Dad turns to Mom and smiles. ‘Oh, yes, we do, Bette; we have all day; today’s my day, all day.’ He says it nicely and he’s smiling but it’s the first time I’ve heard him come back in more than twenty years. Joan looks over and gives me one of her looks. Joan’s look is to close her mouth, with her eyes wide, so white shows all around the iris. While doing this she nods then tucks her head into her shoulders. It’s best translated as ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Because I couldn’t find a canary, I give Dad the Swiss army knife Billy gave me for my fiftieth birthday. I hope Billy doesn’t mind. There’s something fulfilling about owning a knife like that. This one has thirteen different blades and instruments, including a magnifying glass, an ivory toothpick, scissors, tweezers, a saw, two blades, two screwdrivers (regular and Phillips), a can opener, a bottle opener, a corkscrew and a leather punch. Dad’s fascinated and opens all the blades simultaneously. It bristles like a hedgehog. Mother comes on with the expected ‘simp’ remark, and the three of us laugh. ‘You’ll see, he’ll probably cut off his finger before the day’s out.’ She’s also worried about washing the flannel pajamas; they take so long to dry. Later, Dad goes into the bathroom and comes out with his pajamas on, his new sweater over them, and the aircraft-carrier cap on his head. He stands there smiling and opens up the Swiss knife to the magnifying glass and peers through it like a lorgnette. Mom claims this proves he’s getting more senile every day and soon he’ll be crazy as his son. Dad says he feels like Dagwood, or a prisoner, in the striped pajamas. He sings a few lines from one of his all-time favorites. ‘Oh, if I had the wings of an angel, O’er these prison walls I would fly; Into the arms of my loved one and There I would so safely hide.’ His voice is tremulous but strong and in tune. I don’t think I’ve heard him sing since he used to sing us to sleep when we were kids. That night they want to sleep together. I move from the garden room into the side bedroom and Mom goes to sleep with Dad in the back bedroom. He smiles and says it’s the nicest birthday present of all. This is verging on the risqu? from him; Joan laughs and he blushes. In the middle of the night I hear the buzzer beside my bed. I pick up the receiver but there’s Dad at my bedroom door; his face is white in the dim light. ‘Mother thinks she’s having another heart attack, Johnny. She looks awful.’ I jump up and run back to their bedroom. She’s pale and sweating but conscious. She says she’s having terrible pain and tightness in the chest. She’s crying. I give her some digoxin but it doesn’t help. Now I have to do all the things I’ve been preparing Dad for. I leave him with her and tell him to yell if she goes unconscious. First, I call an ambulance, then phone the hospital to alert them we’re coming in. I go back to the bedroom. She’s still conscious but in great pain, crying. I think she’s crying mostly from disappointment and discouragement; she’d actually almost psyched herself out of that heart attack. She’s also scared. The ambulance arrives in less than ten minutes. They roll in a stretcher and oxygen; they put her on oxygen immediately. The paramedic takes her blood pressure, shakes his head and says we’d better hurry. We wheel her out to the ambulance; I say I’ll go with them and ask Dad if he wants to come along. He says, no, he’ll stay home and pray. We take off in the ambulance, with the orange light twisting and sirens blaring, through the red light on Palms. At the hospital, we go straight through emergency and they move her up to intensive care. I’m left in the emergency waiting room. Half an hour later, a young doctor comes down and asks for me. He tells me she’s having another attack and they’re doing everything possible. He says there’s nothing I can do and I should go home. They’ll call me if there’s any major change. He means if she dies. I need to take a piss something awful, and go into the rest room. I glance in the mirror and I’m almost pale as Mom. I’d no idea how much shock I’m in. I’m also feeling guilty about the birthday party and them sleeping together. She fooled me. She probably fooled herself, too. It’s so hard to know where to draw the line. I take a cab home. Dad’s standing at the door waiting. He’s still in his pajamas but he’s had the sense to put on a sweater and his new cap. I pay off the taxi and go in. ‘How is she, Johnny? How’s she doing?’ He’s close to tears; he has his rosary in his hand. ‘She’s OK, Dad; don’t worry. She’ll be OK. They put her back in the intensive care unit. The doctors are doing everything that needs to be done. They have all the backup machinery.’ I lead Dad to his bedroom and help him into bed. While I was gone, he remade the bed completely in his meticulous way. I put out the light and close the door. I think of phoning Joan but decide against it. It’s out of our hands. There’s nothing we can do and Joan needs her rest. I’m feeling wrung out. I go back to bed and somehow do get to sleep. The next morning I phone the hospital; there’s no change. I go over things with Dad. He seems OK; he hasn’t gone into any withdrawal symptoms like the first time. He’s with it, wanting to help. ‘This has to be a lesson for us both, Dad. We can’t listen to her. She doesn’t want to believe she’s sick so she isn’t to be trusted. We need to protect her from herself.’ Dad nods. ‘Yep, it’s hard keeping ahead of her, John. You never know what she’s really thinking.’ I call Joan and tell her what’s happened. She’s shocked and feels as guilty as I do. She agrees to meet me at the hospital. Dad says he’ll stay home, clean up the kitchen and work in his greenhouse. It’s best not laying too much on him. Mother’s heavily sedated and all the monitors are on. She’s tied into IV and catheter; the whole works spinning to keep her alive. The nurses remember us. They say Dr Coe has examined Mother and wants us in his office. We go down. He tells us there’s definitely been another attack but it doesn’t seem’s severe as the first one. He asks if there’d been any sudden shock or stress situation. I tell about the birthday party and Dad sleeping with her. He shakes his head. ‘We need to be more careful with her, Mr Tremont. You’ve got to see she doesn’t overdo herself; she can’t take many more of these traumas, her heart’s not up to it.’ On the way home, Joan and I stop for a pizza. We’re both depressed. We try to think out what we can do. Dad can’t keep her down any more than we can. I want to remove all the cleaning equipment from the house so she can’t get to it. I’ll lock the dirty wash in the garden bedroom. It’s like hiding razor blades from a potential suicide. Joan shakes her head. ‘Look, John, we’ve got to let her live her own life. She has a right to that, at least.’ I can’t be so sure. It’s hard for me to let go. Joan says she’ll come twice a week and try keeping things impossibly clean. I volunteer to buy her a toothbrush so she can clean out cracks in the hardwood floors. We talk about my ticket; I’m almost run over the forty-five days. Joan says she and Mario will split the cost of the return ticket if I can only stay on. She knows I want to get home but what else is there to do? Next day I take Dad to see Mom. She’s conscious but still heavily sedated. She’s weepy. Dad’s crying, too, and in shock seeing her so low. He hadn’t seen her at the worst part the first time. Mother speaks in a thin, broken voice. ‘If a little thing like a birthday party is going to give me a heart attack, what’s the use of living? Just to stay alive I’m not going to be an invalid all my life.’ I hesitate, then play my last trump. ‘Mother, that’s despair; the more you talk and think like that, the less confidence you’re showing in God. It doesn’t help your chance for recovery and you’re endangering your immortal soul. Also, it’s cruel to Dad.’ I hate using this line, but it’s looking desperate to me. If Mother decides not to live, nothing in this world could keep her alive. Dad looks at me as if the local paperhanger had suddenly turned into an axe murderer. ‘Mother, when you talk this way, it’s sinful; false pride, an insult to God and his mysterious ways.’ What the hell, it probably won’t do any good but it’s worth the try. Mom’s torn between spite and salvation, but gradually settles down. She doesn’t have many choices. Dad and I go back to our old routines. Dad begins perking up. We both enjoy the camaraderie we had before. With Mother home it was a rat race: scurrying around trying to please her; continually feeling inadequate. First, we build a handrail for the staircase from the side door to the patio. It’s healing to work with good tools and oak in the sunshine. Later, after we store the lounge chairs and turn the sprinkler off in the back garden, we stand staring at the lowering sun. ‘Johnny, what would you say if we go down to the ocean and watch that sunset?’ I jump at the chance. ‘Sounds good to me; maybe get our minds off things.’ Dad goes inside for his coat and I start warming up the car. Dad comes out with the motorcycle helmets. ‘No use dragging the car out, John; I thought we’d go on the motorcycle.’ So we strap on the helmets and putt on down to Venice. At the beach, Dad takes off his shoes and rolls up his pants as we stroll along the edge of the sea. There’s a soft, slow sunset with red approaching purple. The ocean is calm; long, easy rollers. The tide’s out. Sunlight reflects on the wet sand as water slides back under breakers. There are other people walking along; a few joggers. Everybody smiles or says hello. An Irish setter is running and chasing with a young girl; she’s throwing sticks, stones or shells out over the breakers. It’s a magic moment; a chance to forget how hard life is sometimes. We don’t talk much. Stolen pleasure like this, undeserved, unplanned, you don’t talk about. It’s almost seven o’clock and we haven’t prepared anything for dinner. I suggest eating at a restaurant called Buffalo Chips next to the Oar House. It’s owned by the same people and has a similar general atmosphere. In fact, you can walk from one place into the other by a backstair passage. We head over and I find a parking place right in front. They’re already checking ID cards for the Oar House because it’s Saturday evening. These young guys must get a kick seeing a fifty-two-year-old dude riding a ten-year-old motorcycle with his seventy-three-year-old Dad hanging on back. A pair of them come over while I’m pulling the bike up on the kickstand. ‘I sure hope you two have your ID cards; nobody under twenty-one’s allowed in here.’ Dad’s slowly taking off his helmet, his feet straddling the bike. He’s smiling. ‘Well, I’ll tell you something, sonny. I’ve been working on being twenty-one for years. This is the fourth time around but I just can’t get the knack of it.’ We laugh and shake hands. They say they’ll keep an eye on the bike for us. The restaurant specializes in sandwiches, from pastrami to steak. The hot roast beef sandwiches are something special. We order two with a pitcher of beer. They serve the roast beef with a good dab of horseradish. Dad and I both love it. We talk about the Italian horseradish vendors in the streets back in Philadelphia. The crowd here is just as informal as the Oar House. There’s laughing and kidding around, flirting and counter-flirting. After we eat, we go through the backstairs into the Oar House. We luck out with two seats high on one wall where we can watch the dancing. I get another pitcher of beer and we sit there in the center of chaos. I see the ID checkers and bouncers drifting toward us. They’ve been picking on the younger-looking people and checking. They come up to us. ‘Ah, here they are.’ It’s the taller one, a husky guy with a great bushy handle-bar mustache. ‘I knew you guys went in the restaurant just to sneak in here.’ He smiles. ‘OK, let’s see your ID there, fella.’ Dad looks up, smiles, laughs. ‘You’ll have to throw us in the clink, sonny; we don’t have IDs. I don’t drive anymore and my son here lives in Paris, France.’ It’s good hearing Dad so proud and assertive. They laugh and move on. We finish our beer slowly. It’s getting close to eleven; I figure we’d better be on our way. We go toward the door. Some of the crowd’s been tipped off about the motorcycle and come to watch us take off. I help Dad strap his helmet because his hands are shaking. I strap on mine, kick the starter and she turns over first time. It’s a cool, relaxing trip home. Dad’s getting to be a good rider; leaning on the turns, not fighting me. Next morning when he comes to breakfast, I see he’s not shaving again. I don’t say anything. We’re going to see Mom at two and by then it’ll be really obvious. Dad does the dishes and I sweep. When we’re finished, we go out to straighten up his shop. He has some of the finest tools I know. They’re fitted to the walls with painted silhouettes in white to signal when they’re not there. The tools which aren’t on the walls are in metal toolboxes with rollered drawers. His old carpentry box is there too, everything in order, including a wood-handled Stanley hammer and three Deitzen saws, two crosscut, one rip. Dad’s always been a toolman and knows how to use them. Dad’s tools are a biography and description in themselves. Out there in the shop, I ask Dad what he’s going to do about Mother and his beard. He can’t pull the mask routine again. He says he’s going to tell her he’s growing a beard. ‘Gosh, John, she gets her hair cut and dyed without asking me; why shouldn’t I be able to grow a beard if I want?’ ‘But, Dad, it’ll kill her for sure.’ He looks up at me from his bench. ‘You really think so, Johnny? I don’t want to kill her.’ The way he says it, it’s as if he’s thought it through and decided not to kill Mom after all. ‘OK, then, I’ll shave. I’ll wait till she’s in better shape before I tell her.’ Afterward, we go inside and he shaves before we head for the hospital. 7 (#ulink_3e23a4f3-fb83-503b-8112-4473e8227997) We’re still plodding along at a regular fifty-five. Dad seems to think he’s in France driving that tin-can Renault 4L of his. Actually, America’s too damned big. We should split into five or so countries. We could have an uptight country for Puritans and phony New England liberals in the Northeast. We could have a down-home farmers’ sort of country in the middle somewhere. The South could be an old-fashioned slave-based country for people who go for that kind of thing. Texas would be a militarist, Fascist country and California with parts of Oregon could be the swinging place. On our map, we’re hardly making any progress at all. Dad points his finger to a town called Glenwood Springs and decides this’ll be a good place for us to stay tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be going through Vail, a big ski resort where Ford used to hide when he was supposed to be President. It’s beautiful country around here: pinkish rock out-croppings with shades of purple; even some blue rock, almost black. We push hard the rest of the afternoon. Once, believe it or not, he actually cracks sixty. I get thinking about school again, maybe preparing myself for the big knock-down-drag-out discussion. UCSC; ‘UCK SUCK,’ we called it. All the students seemed so dull, placid, weirdly na?ve. At the same time, I was continually running into karate black belts or champion archers or chess champions. I played tennis with some schmuck from my biology class and he pounded balls past me so hard I couldn’t touch them. It was enough to give anybody a permanent inferiority complex. In classes, though, I thought I was way beyond the rest. I’m asking the only intelligent questions and the professors are talking directly to me. But then, when we take exams, these freaks wipe me out. Those California robots are tough competition; I almost failed that first quarter. I’d no idea how hard I’d have to work. In their laid-back, casual, California way, they were learning like crazy. What they knew was how to take exams. They were expert learners for examinations. They didn’t bother shit learning anything not likely to be on a test. Also, they were absolutely psychic figuring what would be asked. They’d learn only this stuff, not thinking too much about it, then give it back in blue books. In the beginning, I’m trying to understand. I’m asking questions and trying to think. But there’s no room for questions or thinking at UCK SUCK. No way! It takes all your brain power passing exams. Maybe some of it’s supposed to stick to the sides of your mind when you pour it back, like making pots with slip in a dry plaster mold. Anyway, I don’t want any more. I don’t know what all that forced feeding has to do with survival. What good is it having a piece of paper saying you went to college, licked ass and crammed for four, six or eight years? I can say I went. Who checks? I’ll say I graduated, say I have a Ph.D. Who knows the difference? Nobody will call up and ask. Most times you take a job and fill out an employment form. I’ll say I have a Ph.D., two Ph.D.s, what the hell, do it right. I have a Ph.D. in physics and another in chemistry. There aren’t enough people in the world who can ask an intelligent question in those areas. Hardly any physicists could even trip me up. They all get specialized so soon, none of them know what the other guy’s doing. One peon’s off tracking down a wee bit of charm from a quark falling off the side of a neutron and doesn’t know from hell what an optical physicist might be into. None of them remember anything about general physics. I’ll just say, ‘That’s not my area.’ I’ll spend three days memorizing twenty or so of those constants and I’m home free. I’ll get myself a good printer to mock up a beautiful diploma and dingle some names to sign on it. Rupert Crutchins or Part Faley. Or I’ll make friends with somebody working in a registrar’s office at a university; have them mail off a set of photostat bogus credentials and records for me, give myself a 4.0 average; make it impressive, scare everybody. Most likely, I’m only going out to work in industry anyway; help Exxon make another billion or two, what’s the difference. The whole thing’s so phony. If you can do something, you can; if you can’t, you can’t. School and papers don’t change much. Up in Oregon I passed myself off as a choker. I faked the name of an outfit and said I’d worked there. They didn’t dash out and check. Sure, I made some booboos the first few days; they must’ve thought I was a raving idiot. But by the end of a week I was making it, same as everybody else. The trouble is, choking’s one bitch of a dangerous job. You earn that seven bucks an hour. The third week I was knocked cold. When that cat pulls back and those logs roll, you’d better be quick getting out from under; you can wind up smashed into a pancake. Two days later I was floored again. I went in to cash out. But already I was a good enough choker so they offered me more money to stay. You can get by with anything. I worked as a boatbuilder in Portland. I told them I’d built boats in L.A. I looked up a boatbuilding outfit in the L.A. phone book at the library. I’ve never even built a model boat. I get seasick watching a boat. But I landed the job. They set me to sanding mahogany pieces of wood and filing rough edges off fiberglass. Then I was promoted to cutting forms out of plywood using a jigsaw. An hour at any of those jobs and you’ve learned all there is to know. The thing I don’t understand is how guys stick all their lives with these jobs. No wonder they wind up stoned, or glued to the boob tube. We pull into Glenwood Springs before dark. The Rockies stand up in front of us like a wall. The sun, coming from behind, looks as if it’s trapped, totally blocked, on this side of the mountain. From here, you’d think it’s dark on the other side, all the way to the East Coast. We find a hotel built into some foothills. It’s an old-time place, not a motel. There’s a foyer with worn-out rugs, an oaken check-in desk and a punch bell. There’s even a regulation-size pool table. The price is about the same as a motel, so we splurge. I can’t remember ever staying in an American hotel before. The room is old-fashioned, with twin beds and paint-thick, castmetal steam radiators under the windows. This place must be freezing cold winters. In the bathroom there’s a genuine bathtub sitting up on lion’s paws. We take turns in the tub and there’s all the hot water you could ever want. I usually take showers, but there’s no shower. I fill the tub till it’s at the edge, then let myself float. I make the water hot as I can stand, then gradually cool it off to cold. I dry myself at the window while Dad takes his bath. It sounds as if he only puts in about three inches and doesn’t stay in more than five minutes. He’s always in such a hurry about everything. Downstairs we rent cues for the pool table. I played some in the rec room at Cowell in UCK SUCK; I’m no shark but I’m reasonable. We play rotation. Dad’s awkward as hell, looks as if he’s going to drive the damned cue straight through the table, but he puts them in. I hardly get to play at all. When and where the hell’d he learn pool? Maybe in the army. Neither of us can face another pizza. There is a Pizza Hut across from the hotel but we find a steak house on the far side of the river. With the steak, we have hash browns and corn on the cob. You hardly ever get corn on the cob in a restaurant. But the mother’n bill comes to almost twelve dollars. How in hell can a person live with food costing like that? Dad’s barely holding up his head as we go back to the hotel. He puts on his crazy sleeping-running suit and climbs into bed. He goes right out, snoring like a train till I push him over on his side. I’ve snitched a Mad magazine from a table in the foyer, so I stretch on the other bed. I turn on the TV in the corner, low. There’s only one channel and it’s a cowboy film to go with all the cowboy music. I’d go nuts if I lived around here. In ten minutes I’m bored; I’ve read the Mad before, it’s two years old. I think of going out and wandering around town, maybe investigate the river, but I’m too tired. I wish I could figure out just what the hell I’m going to do. 8 (#ulink_b942a8c5-6323-5bc7-9d2c-915a9369f73c) The next morning I’m in the kitchen making breakfast when Dad comes in still wearing his pajamas. ‘Johnny, something’s wrong in here; would you step into the bathroom and have a look?’ I go back to see what it is and the toilet bowl’s full of blood! I turn to him. ‘What happened?’ I’m looking to see if he’s cut himself somewhere. He stares into the bowl. ‘I don’t know. When I peed, it came out like that.’ I’m scared. Big quantities of blood always set off my adrenaline. ‘Geez, Dad, we’d better get you in and have this checked. All this worry and everything maybe has you mixed up inside.’ He looks at me. ‘You don’t think it might be cancer or something like that, do you?’ Dad has an absolutely deadly fear of cancer. His father died painfully from liver cancer; two of his sisters from breast cancer; it seems to run in the family. ‘I’m sure not, Dad. But just to be safe we’ll make an appointment to see a urologist when we go visit Mother this afternoon.’ At the hospital, Mother’s more reconciled to things. She promises she’ll do as the doctors say and she’s really going to take care of herself. She’s glad I talked to her and she hadn’t thought of it that way. ‘Besides, Jacky, I have to live for his sake.’ Afterward, I take Dad down to the urology clinic. We don’t tell Mother. Down there they give us a bottle and point out a bathroom. I show Dad how he’s to pee in the bottle, then attach the paper on the outside with a rubber band. He’s nervous, but says he can do it. In a few minutes he comes out smiling, the bottle filled with urine to the brim. It’s still reddish but not so bad as the urine in the toilet this morning. The nurse looks and schedules him for an emergency appointment. The next day, I take Dad in at nine o’clock. I stay with him instead of going over to see Mother. I can’t be everywhere, and this is more important right now. He’s nervous, pale, quiet. After ten minutes, a great, handsome black fellow comes out. He tells us the doctor will see Dad now. I ask if I can go in with him. He looks at Dad and nods. The doctor’s named Santana. He says he’ll need to do a cystoscopic examination. Well, I know about this trick; it’s a very painful affair. I ask if it’s really necessary. ‘It’s absolutely essential. We can’t tell anything for sure until we look in the bladder.’ Dad’s so nervous he’s physically shaking. We go outside to wait for Sam; that’s the name of the black guy. Dad wants to know what’s going to happen. ‘Well, it’s not really much, Dad. They’re going to stick a thin little tube up the hole in the end of your penis. They use this to look around in there.’ ‘You mean, up the hole I pee out of?’ ‘That’s right. They have a tiny light on the end and they can look into your bladder and see what’s the matter.’ ‘That must hurt, Johnny!’ ‘It does hurt. But there’s no way around it, it has to be done.’ When Sam comes out, he tells us we should come tomorrow at eight o’clock. Dad isn’t supposed to eat anything from six o’clock this evening. I take him straight home. He just can’t visit Mother in this state, and I’m afraid to leave him alone. He’s getting more anxious by the minute. At home, he asks two or three times an hour when we’re going for the examination. He reads the simple instructions Sam gave him over and over. He’s terribly concerned about doing it right and, at the same time, frightened out of his mind. Myself, I’m turning into a nervous wreck. I’ve been separated from my own life too long and I’m missing the daily support of Vron. I call Marty and talk to her but it doesn’t help. I almost ask her to go visit Mother but that would probably be a catastrophe. Soon as Dad knows he isn’t supposed to eat, he gets ravenously hungry. I don’t feel I should eat in front of him so I get hungry too. We’re like a pair of hungry wolves prowling around the house, peering into the refrigerator every ten minutes or so. I dig him out early without any breakfast and we dash to the hospital. Sam’s waiting. He takes Dad away to prepare him. I go into Dr Santana’s office. There I explain how my father has a deep worry about cancer. I ask Santana to be careful explaining things if there’s anything seriously wrong. Santana’s reading X-rays but assures me he knows how to handle these things. I go back and sit in the waiting room; Sam and Dad pass through to the examination room. I ask Sam if I should stay with Dad through the examination, but he smiles nicely and says he doesn’t think it’ll be necessary. Dad’s more relaxed; despite his prejudices he’s put himself in Sam’s hands. He has to recognize Sam’s natural authority. He really has it, presence. Dr Santana comes out after Sam’s taken Dad away. I ask what he thinks might be the trouble. He runs his hand through his hair. ‘Well, Mr Tremont, it could be any number of things but I most suspect small growths in his bladder. It’s a question of whether they’re malignant.’ ‘Will you be able to tell after the cystoscopic?’ ‘Not really, but I’ll know whether or not they should be taken out. The fact they’re bleeding is not a good sign.’ I say it once more. ‘Honestly, Dr Santana, whatever you do, please break it lightly. This is all a terrible experience for him. He’s a very modest man; just someone manipulating his penis is a big shock.’ ‘Don’t you worry, Mr Tremont; we’re very careful, especially with older patients.’ He goes in with Dad. I sit there in the waiting room. I can hear Dad through the door. He’s trying to hold back but there are grunts of pain. A cystoscopic is no fun. After fifteen minutes or so, Sam and Santana come out; Sam motions and says I can go in the examination room. Dad’s face is white-green. There are edges of tears in his eyes; he’s sitting on the side of a Gurney table. ‘Boy, Johnny, that really hurts.’ ‘I know, Dad, I had it once.’ ‘In the army?’ ‘No, afterwards. I had it done in Germany when we were living there. I thought for sure those Germans were trying to get even with me.’ ‘Well, John, I hope they don’t do this again; it’d kill me for sure.’ He’s pulling on his shorts and packing in his penis. It’s wrapped in a piece of gauze and there’s blood. I hand him each article of clothing as he gets dressed. I’m buttoning his shirt when Dr Santana comes back in. He has a clipboard in his hand. ‘Well, Mr Tremont; we’ll have to look at that.’ Dad stares at Santana, then at me; his voice quavers. ‘What does he mean, Johnny; look? I thought he just looked.’ Dad turns toward the doctor. ‘I mean I’ll have to schedule you for surgery, Mr Tremont.’ I’m standing behind Dad, signaling like crazy; Santana’s ignoring me. Dad looks around for assurance and I try to smile. Christ, it’s hard to smile when you’re scared out of your mind. Santana goes on. ‘Yes, there are some small growths in there and we’ll need to excise them. We’ll go in through the penile canal the way we did today. We won’t do any real surgery. Don’t you worry, Mr Tremont; there’s nothing to it.’ Big deal. Not to worry. Dad’s already halfway worrying himself to death. He’s wilting; slipping into deep shock. This guy Santana must have skipped all his classes in ‘bedside manner’. Santana smiles and leaves. Dad stands there, silent. He looks so damned vulnerable. ‘Does he mean I have cancer, Johnny? Growths. That sounds like cancer.’ I laugh as if this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. ‘Hell, no, Dad! Lots of people have growths all the time. He’ll just go in and snip these out to make sure.’ I’m thinking fast as I can, trying to calm him, reassure him, fool him, help him back on his feet. ‘These’re nothing but tiny cysts, Dad, the kind Mother’s had out lots of times. That’s why they call this a cystoscopic examination. If it were cancer, they wouldn’t let you out of here today; they’d cut you right open and operate.’ God, it’s pitiful watching him watch me; wanting to believe, afraid. I finish dressing him; his hands are too shaky to tie shoes. We go into Santana’s office. Dad sits down and I stand in back of his chair. Santana is sitting at his desk, still looking at X-rays. I keep trying to catch his eye but can’t. At last he looks up and says, ‘OK, Mr Tremont, I’ve scheduled you for the tenth of March; we should get at this soon as possible.’ That’s in about two weeks. Dad sits there, nodding his head. This is the boss talking to him again and whatever the boss says is right. Even though he’s scared to death, he’s shaking his head and smiling, putting his hand over his teeth; doing the whole thing. I want to confront Santana about his blunt presentation, but even more, I have to get Dad out of there fast. I hate dashing off again without visiting Mom, but she’d see right through Dad. That’s all she needs. So what do I do now? Mostly, I want to talk with Joan. But first I need to help Dad settle down. I take him home and pour us both a drink of the muscatel wine. I turn on one of those contest shows. Dad sits in his platform rocker, not looking at the TV. ‘Johnny, really; do you think it’s serious?’ ‘Dad, if it were serious, do you think they’d wait two weeks? They wouldn’t wait like this. You have an ordinary everyday cyst. You know how many cysts Mother’s had taken off. It’s nothing at all. Stop worrying.’ At least he’s listening to me. ‘Oh, it’s a cyst, just a cyst.’ I pick it up. ‘Sure, just a cyst, nothing to worry about.’ I’m lying like hell. I don’t know; it could be anything, but there’s no sense having him worry for the next two weeks. We try to watch the TV. There are people sitting on top of each other in something like a giant three-dimensional tic-tac-toe design. Different boxes light up and they’re trying to beat each other answering questions. Dad’s mumbling half to himself. ‘Just a cyst, that’s nothing. Nothing to worry about, only a cyst.’ Sometimes he turns his head and looks out the window at the car and I think he’s seeing something, then he turns to me and smiles. ‘It’s only a cyst. Nothing to worry about there. Nothing at all.’ I wish I could get asshole Santana to sit here and watch this. I tell Dad the lie again about the cystoscopic examination only looking for cysts. I don’t really know why they call it a cystoscopic examination but I’m glad for the coincidence. Finally, he begins to relax, to smile naturally sometimes. I go all out for dinner and cook a couple big T-bone steaks. We have beer with them and coffee afterward. We really eat. Dad enjoys this. He’s coming around, gaining back some of his confidence, making up lost ground. We try some man-talk, at least as much man-talk as we can manage. It’s hard with him. It’s not just because we’re father and son, but he hasn’t had much experience. Not long after dinner, Dad goes to bed; he’s completely pooped. I sit up in the living room and turn on the television. I find an old movie I really like called. It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. This might just be the most romantic film ever made. I’m needing a woman’s care, love. I’m lonesome, not just horny, lonesome. There’s something about being with a woman, knowing mutual pleasure, sharing the most natural part of being alive. It’s been more than a month now, sleeping alone, no one to share with, just alone in a bed. I fall asleep in the platform rocker and wake at first light. I haven’t even kicked off my shoes. That’s not like me. I take a shower. I make sure I get all those walls wiped and the tub is spotless. That’s how it is living around Mom. You spend your time making sure of everything. It’s the story of my childhood, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of recrimination. I work on Dad not to tell Mom about his operation; to let me break it gently, give her as much time as we can. Then we’ll only tell her Dad’s having a cyst removed, but not until just before he goes. When Mother comes home, I put her in the middle bedroom again. I’ve rented a special mattress attached to a pump; it’s to keep her from getting bedsores. I’ve rented an oxygen setup too, in case she needs it. This time we’re ready for anything. I have my cuff for her blood pressure and I can take her pulse or temperature. It’s not exactly an intensive care unit but it’s a homemade approximation. I quietly read the riot act to Mom about taking it easy. She seems willing to go along this time. One thing that’s haunting Mother is the notion of having a joint wedding anniversary celebration. I guess she cooked it up lying there in the hospital. My folks’ golden anniversary was three years ago, but Joan and Mario’s twenty-fifth was in January, while Vron and I will have been married twenty-five years in June. Mother is determined to put on some kind of event while I’m here, even though Vron is still in Paris. Joan thinks it might spark her up; it’s just Mom’s kind of thing. Joan made Mom a wedding dress for the fiftieth celebration. There was a mass, renewing of vows, the whole thing. I didn’t come; spending money that way seems stupid; so I’m feeling guilty and go along with it. Two days before Dad’s to go in for his operation, we get dressed up. Mario, Dad and I wear suits with white shirts, ties. Joan and Mother are in wedding dresses. Joan’s baked a three-layer cake and she still has the bride and groom dolls from the top of her original wedding cake. She also has the decorations from her wedding, silver collapsible bells and white crepe-paper streamers. We decorate the dining room. Mario and I take turns snapping pictures with a Polaroid camera. We take pictures stuffing cake into each other’s mouths. We keep faking it as if Vron’s there. Both Joan and Vron were married in the same dress. We were married five months after Joan and Mario, so Vron saved on a dress. Naturally, Joan still has it and that’s the dress she’s wearing. She stays out of the frame and shoves wedding cake in my mouth. Since it’s Polaroid, we see the pictures right away. It always seems like an accident Vron’s not there. One time, Mario takes a picture with my arm out as if I have it around Vron’s shoulders. He says he’ll frame it so nobody will know, but he doesn’t correct for parallax and it looks as if I have my arm around somebody invisible. We do this Tuesday night and Dad’s to be operated on Thursday. Looking back, it’s weird; maybe Mother has some kind of premonition. You’d never know we were virtually lifting Mom out of bed, snapping pictures, then lowering her, wedding dress and all, back into bed. I hate to think what Dr Coe would say. Over my objections, Dad and Mom sleep together that night in their own bed. Dad promises to behave himself; I’m almost ready to rig a bundling board. Of course, in the morning, Mom knows about Dad’s operation; he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I imagine after more than fifty years’ confiding it’s impossible to hold back. She wants to know what it’s all about. I tell her he has a cyst, that some blood showed in his urine and I took him to the hospital. I tell her there’s nothing wrong except a cyst on his bladder they found in the cystoscopic examination. Mom sucks in her breath when I mention the cystoscopic; this is something she knows. She’s had trouble with her bladder since I was born. It’s something she’s never let me forget; ‘I ruined her insides.’ I remember as a kid feeling guilty, wishing I hadn’t done it. I’ve heard a hundred times about my ‘big head’. I’d look at myself in the mirror and was sure I had a head half again bigger than normal people. I do wear a size 7? hat but I’m not exactly macrocephalic. As a result, Mother’s bladder dropped and had to be sewn up. It’s always been small and she’s constantly having it stretched, a painful process. My birth was such a trauma she came home and told my father she wouldn’t have any more children. One’s enough and she’s had it. He’s to leave her strictly alone. They’re rigid Catholics, so contraceptives are out of the question. At first Dad goes along; she’s scared the daylights out of him; they stay immaculate for six months or so. They’re sharing a single-row house with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Mary. I was born in early November and all through the winter, Mother’s hanging out diapers and having them freeze on the line, fighting diaper rash, and I have colic for the first three months. But Dad’s a normal guy with more than normal sex drive. This is something I’ve only recently realized. After six months, he comes home from work and hands something wrapped in a piece of paper to Mother. Inside, there’s a beautifully carved wooden clothespin, not the spring-clip type but the old squeeze kind. Dad’s good with a knife and he’s carved a small man from this clothespin. It has arms, hands, fingers, everything. Written on a slip of paper is ‘This is the kind of man you need. I’m not it.’ Mom got the message. She’s carried that clothespin all her life and the note is in her cedar chest of valuable things, along with baby books, birth certificates, baby bonds, war bonds, defense bonds, savings bonds. But she’s still scared, so she worms a contraceptive remedy out of a Mrs Hunt down the street. Why this is going to be all right with the church and Dad wearing a rubber isn’t, I don’t know. But she’s only eighteen years old. She’s still nursing me, so she’s probably not going to get pregnant anyway. The remedy is to drink a teaspoonful of bleach every morning. After a few days of this, I start turning green and sickly; I don’t know how Mom feels. She rushes me to the doctor when I go into a convulsion. The doctor can’t figure the trouble. He asks what she’s been feeding me. She says she’s only been nursing and giving me a little baby food. He decides to check her milk. He asks what she’s been eating, if she’s been drinking heavily. She admits she’s been slugging down bleach. I’ll bet that doctor flipped. As soon as she stopped the bleach, I improved. I don’t know what they did after that. They didn’t get pregnant for three years, so they must have been doing something. If Dad put on a rubber before he went to bed, Mother could just pretend it wasn’t there. You read this kind of stuff in all the Irish-American novels but it keeps going on, over and over. Nobody seems to learn; humans must want to torture themselves in as many ways possible. But to go back. Mother does know a lot about cystoscopic examinations and isn’t nearly as panicked as I thought she’d be. But Dad is scared deep inside. That day I drive Dad to the hospital for tests and pre-op things, Mother gets weepy and Joan comes out to stay with her. At the hospital, I take Dad to his room and help store his clothes in the closet. I show him where the john is and assist him with getting dressed in the hospital gown. I speak to some of the nurses and try telling them how scared he is, but they’re mostly only professional. They listen but have their routines and are too busy to do much in the way of personal care. Dad’s embarrassed by the hospital gown and wants to wear his pajamas but they won’t let him. The gown is a long shirt with a neck-to-bottom opening in the back and no buttons. ‘Do I walk around in this, Johnny; with the back open and all these nurses here?’ I want to reassure him but can’t; I don’t know why hospital gowns are made that way. It’s basically degrading. There must be another solution. They spend billions of dollars on hospital buildings and doctors. They charge hundreds of dollars a day, but they still use the same gown they used during the Civil War. I settle Dad in bed and show him how to work the TV. He finds a program he likes, and it all doesn’t seem so strange. I leave and tell him I’ll be back as soon as possible. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/william-wharton/dad/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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