“Elizabeth,” I say, seething as I do, “risky plotting is contemporary.”
“If you’re not concerned with your novel being successful, do it your way.”
And Elizabeth started pounding away at me as if I was on a losing streak.
On each of our dates, I became more and more impressed with Elizabeth. She had common sense. Was obviously a woman who would enhance a lover’s growth, progress, and creativity. The point she was making about my Leslie Kore novel, well, it was valid. I began to think about continuous flow, and right in the middle of that, I excused myself, raced home to my Smith Corona and focused on a sliver of text that I was going to insert to make it more to Elizabeth’s liking.
Two days later, I climbed those flights of stairs. Liz was waiting for me at the door.
“Tell me why you despised Leslie so much.”
“It’s not easy for me to talk about this stuff, Elizabeth. I’ve always blamed Leslie for everything bad that happened in our marriage. It was so much easier then—” I paused. “Elizabeth, I’ve never spoken to anyone about this before.”
“What is it?”
“This is difficult for me to say. Not to you. To me. You know how I always tell you the best thing I’ve ever done with my life was reinvent myself each time I found it necessary. That’s not exactly true. With Leslie, it wasn’t that I had a need to leave or to reinvent myself. It was my own paranoia that destroyed us. What I’m trying to tell you is that it wasn’t all Leslie’s fault. The truth is she was never aware of how I felt. Imagine living with someone you feel murdered your baby. That was me! I didn’t think it was crib death that took our daughter. I felt it was Leslie. It’s difficult for me to confess this even now, Elizabeth. I could have lived with Leslie’s bigotry. Her contempt for my writing. My refusal to make a better living. With everything else that she was freaking out about. What I couldn’t live with was my feeling that Leslie murdered our baby. They say one thing leads to another. The money issues. Working in civil service. My guilt over Jessica. My gambling. My writing. The police knocking on our door every other day. One fight after another. Living the way we did. We were never compatible. All we had to give each other was our lust. Leslie had the kind of demonic madness that turned me on. She never stopped competing. That’s not even the correct word. What I’m saying is—she was my demonic equivalent.”
“You’re not making sense. I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m trying to tell you that I’m not like I was with Leslie. After we divorced, Leslie remarried. She went from shrieking ‘Gambler!’ to being more specific. Once Leslie started to give me rational explanations as to why she was so unhappy with me, I began to see her side of the coin.”
“I understand, David.”
“No, you don’t. That’s the story I tell everyone. It wasn’t anything like that. Even Leslie thinks it was. It wasn’t.” I stopped. Took a deep breath. “I never once thought of our infant as an obligation. From the day our daughter, Heather, was born, I loved her. Leslie, on the other hand, had told me a hundred times, ‘Having Heather is not something I’m looking forward to. She’s going to make my life miserable.’ And Leslie never relented about our money issues, my working uptown, my gambling. As I said, one thing leads to another. We were such a disaster, that even Solomon stepped in. He offered me a shot at managing one of his sleazy clubs. ‘I’ll even throw in twenty percent ownership, Davey boy, if you turn it around and make me a profit.’
“‘No, thank you,’ I said, ‘I’m not going into the pole-dancing business.’
“Then he offered to introduce me to Leon Mancuso, who’d started out as a bookkeeper in 1929 for Clinton Concrete and became chairman and chief executive officer. ‘Leon’s good people. I’ll talk to him, Davey boy. He’ll start you off at a really good salary. Within five years—seven at the most—you’ll be a multi-millionaire.’
“‘Working with concrete isn’t my dream job.’
“Solomon tried. He even hooked me up with his sister. She and her husband owned one of those portable toilet companies. They placed toilets on construction sites all through Staten Island.
“‘Solomon, I’m not going into the shit business.’
“Whatever Solomon tried to do for me, I turned down, Elizabeth. All legitimate opportunities—hell, great opportunities for anyone—but me. I wanted to be a novelist. Working in Welfare for me was like an actor waiting on tables until he gets a break.”
“I still don’t get it, David.”
“I always had the feeling that Leslie was responsible for our daughter’s death. I couldn’t shake it. I know now that’s not true. But that’s how I felt. And because of that, I never gave Leslie a moment’s peace. I’m not even talking about love or affection. I’m talking about peace.”
“What changed?”
“I came home one night and found Leslie in the bathtub. She had slashed her wrists. Can we drop it now? I still have trouble talking about it.”
“David, I have one more question.”
“What is it?”
“Are you now who you want to be?”
Elizabeth and I would talk for hours. For me, it was a catharsis of sorts. For her, it was new beginnings. By now, we were going into our second year. I made every effort to make sure that she knew exactly who I was. I knew that I didn’t want to fail. I had failed enough.
“David, your generation has a real problem with living life on the ground. Love isn’t splendid. It’s hard work. It’s sacrifice. When two people get together, it’s not always a many splendored thing. It’s clogged toilets. It’s an everyday plumbing chore. My dad worked for the fire department when I was young. He was disabled on the job. The department had to let him go. Being a fireman was all my father had ever wanted to be. After his accident, my mother had to take over. And she did. My father was never the same. He’d stare out the window all day. When I came home, he’d smile at me as if nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong. We lost our house. My big sister got pregnant. Left home. My younger brother took up with some bad dudes. Got into serious trouble. He too disappeared. My father was an invalid. But somehow, my mother managed to keep me in check. I got through high school and, after that, I got my college degree. That was only because I worked two jobs. And one of the deans looked out for me. My mother worked a trillion times harder than me. My dad, well, he smiled and tried to be there for us, and, in some ways, he was. He was a very brave man. Ask any of the men he worked with at his fire station, but, after my brother disappeared, my dad withdrew into himself. Sort of vanished. And then, one morning, his heart stopped. Just like that, he was gone. My mom died, too. Cervical cancer. I’ve been on my own for a long time, David. Now I’ve had this setback, but the doctors tell me I’m almost all better. Life’s been hard for me.”
“Elizabeth, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should move in with me. And don’t worry about being frightened because of you know what. I’m more scared than you are. It might not occur to you, young lady, but I’m soon going to be sixty-three. Every time I think of going into the bedroom with you, I get frightened. I mean, about the way that I’ll perform. Maybe both of us are cowards in similar ways. Maybe both of us must learn to trust each other. Start to laugh more. I think one thing is true for sure: neither of us are anything like Leslie Kore. That’s a win-win for starters.”
“That’s also true with your late friend, Solomon, David. I hate to say this to you, but I think your friend—whom you believe walked on water—was an evil man. If we’re going to live together, you must promise me that you’ll give up your romantic notions concerning that man. You’ll have to start living an authentic life. I’ll do my part. You must do yours.”
“I’m ready.”
I’d been traversing this swirling earth for sixty-two years, definitely in a fog. Then I encountered Elizabeth Dunn. Once her health was restored, what emerged was the strong woman
that she is today.
“Elizabeth, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not saying the money I made means everything to me, but the truth is I never looked at myself the same way once I started living my life as a handicapper.”
“I know you like talking about all the money you made, and that’s all great. Nothing wrong with being proud of professional accomplishments. But the secret to you continuing a successful life and feeling good about yourself is to do what you’re passionate about. That means working on a novel. Writing for you is a whole lot more important than handicapping or sleeping around or buying a Maserati.”
I had put on twenty-seven pounds doing absolutely nothing. I was going to the movies, the theater, watching TV, taking long walks, over eating, spending money like water. All of it should have made life damn good. But it wasn’t enough. Elizabeth, before she became my wife, took me out of my sloth and prodded me back into a life worth living. The fact that Elizabeth became the centerpiece in my world made it all the better. Maybe that’s what I should be telling Squirt, that his mother reinvented my life.
One morning in the middle of breakfast, Elizabeth set her coffee cup down and reached for my hand. She started to ask the kind of questions that in the past I would have answered with boldness, a spontaneous blindness to the other’s regard. At this advanced and mellowed age, I was domestically trained to euphemistically answer just about anything.
“Why me?” Elizabeth asked.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You know what I’m asking. All night you were ranting about that ‘happiness pill’ of yours, Debbie Turner, from, what is it, forty-five years ago or such? About how much you loved her. How happy the two of you were from the first day you met. How it wasn’t Debbie’s fault, but yours, that she left you. Well, David, if you felt that why, why is it you let her leave?”
I didn’t let Debbie leave. I raced after her. As Solomon Lepidus’ wife told me more than once, “David, you’ve been walking around on tip toes for six months now. It won’t happen. You will never get Debbie back. She’s gone. If not physically, then on an emotional level, she doesn’t feel anything for you”
I desperately tried to get Debbie back. We both tried. You know what she said after six months of trying? “The plug has been pulled. There’s nothing inside of me. I have nothing left to give to you.” And she went on and on between sobs telling me why there was nothing left to give. I looked at Elizabeth.
“I’m grateful I learned how to love a human,” I said. “With you I’m different. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself.” I paused. “I’m so different than the young man that I was. Cruel, dumb, reckless. I thought I was God’s gift...You know what I mean. I loved Debbie, and she loved me, but I treated her as if that was enough. It isn’t. Every day I tell myself that unconditional love is a figment of the imagination. A relationship needs tenderness, caring, sensitivity, thoughtfulness, awareness of the differences between two people. It doesn’t matter if you’re an identical twin or conjoined at the hip. People are different. Each one of us an individual. Each one of us needs vigil, awareness, keen ear-and-eye that allows the other to be a person, an individual, and you must be cognizant of that reality. When it came to Debbie Turner, I treated her as if she were my conjoined twin. That was my mistake, Elizabeth. I didn’t listen to Debbie.” I paused, took a deep breath. Then said “I love you, Elizabeth, but hopefully I never forget that you’re your own person, separate from me. An individual that I love completely, but at the same time a person, a strong, independent woman with wings to fly away like Debbie Turner did. Fly away and never return.”
And after saying that, I didn’t have any other eloquent words to add, no other emotional framework or context for the bombardment to continue that had just rained on Elizabeth. I think my wife got what I was trying to say. I know it sounds like gobbledygook, but, on the other hand, I think it also sounds like what it is: the confession of a dumb man who had lost everything and learned his lesson. I am acutely aware that I got lucky once again and found what I was looking for. Thank whomever, I found Elizabeth. I’m holding on. Not giving her up. And that’s what I was trying to convey that morning.
Later in the same day, Elizabeth spoke to me again. “One thing that made me sad was that day we were making love, and you told me the more you went over your life, the more you realized not how much it meant but how little it meant.” She squeezed my fingers and raised her cup for another sip of coffee. “The other thing I’ll never forget is that when I asked you what the best of times in your life was, you told me working on a book. Starting with a blank page. Being surprised by what you wrote. That was the very best that you had to offer, and that’s when I fell in love with you, David. I was sure I knew exactly what you meant. At least I think I did.”
Then she held my hand in both of hers.
“I don’t have the words to say this right. I don’t read like you do. I can’t come up with reference points or authors like you do, but I do know that I find flashes of some of the positive things you’re saying every time I walk in a children’s playground or look into a shimmering lake or up at the blue sky or at city people just scurrying around in Central Park. When you start gabbing about the enormous contributions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian authors, my mind wanders, yet I realize it’s your way of telling me something I think I already knew deep inside. I think that when you say the best about you is a blank page to fill up, what you’re truly saying is you’re trying to replenish your life with significance through possibility. That without possibility, life is seriously diminished. What you were bereft of wasn’t wealth but what all of us so desperately need: a way to feel that we have something pure to strive for. Something that would again give us the feeling that life is worth living. What I love about you, David Lazar, is that I’m sure til your very last breath you’ll be trying to fill that blank page. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“You’re telling me two things, Elizabeth. One is that you want me to work on a novel. And that I title it Possibility. The other is one day you would like to have a baby. And that we should call it Possibility.”
“David Lazar, I love you...I love you.”
Chapter 19
And not long after, Elizabeth said, “What do you think about us having a baby? And, David, honey, before you answer, know this: It’s important to me. I really want a baby, your baby. Think about it. Don’t answer me now. The only thing I ask is for you to be honest with yourself and with me. If it doesn’t make sense to you. If it’s too much of a sacrifice. Hell! If you think it’s too much for you to handle, we won’t do it. Either way, I’m not going anywhere.”
Some weeks later, I took the Metro-North train up to Ossining, New York, to visit Sing Sing. My friend, Anthony Marcello, is rooted there with an eighteen-year sentence for manslaughter. Marcello was reputed to have been the biggest bookmaker on the east coast. He was the one bookmaker that I considered a close friend. Of all the men I have known, Anthony Marcello was the guy I would want with me in a foxhole. For years I had been corresponding with him. Long personal and biographical letters. In return, I’d receive brief, up-to-date communications on how bad the food was at Sing Sing. How the only thing he had to look forward to were the “trailer visits” with Gloria, his wife of thirty-two years. She’d come for two days with enough food for six people, and the two of them were allowed some privacy away from the correctional facility’s principal grounds. I was in the minority in my belief that Marcello was innocent. Most law enforcement officials believed that Marcello belonged in a cage for life.
“Antony, the one thing I never forget is the first time Elizabeth and I spoke on the phone. ‘My name is David.’ ‘Hi, I’m Elizabeth,’ she said. After seven minutes I told her I felt we had a special connection. ‘I think so, too’ she said. Another thing that still holds true is when I hold Elizabeth’s hand. It’s everything: You know all that B.S about the
sex Leslie and I had. It means nothing next to holding Elizabeth’s hand. It’s as if our souls are touching. Don’t look at me like that. I mean it. It’s more than I could have ever asked for.” I paused.
“Anthony, I didn’t want to tell you this in a letter. I wanted to tell you in person.”
“What are you saying? Not the RICO people again?” Marcello stopped. “Who died?”
“No, nothing like that. Elizabeth is going to have a baby.”
Marcello’s face broke out into a big smile. He jumped to his feet. Kissed me on both cheeks. “That’s the best news I’ve heard since my daughter told me the same news. You’ll be a great father, David. I’m gonna pray for you.”
Marcello paused. Waved a finger at me.
“It’s a smart thing you did, Davey. I mean, walking away from handicapping. You don’t need to put that kind of pressure on yourself any more. You’ll see. This thing you’re doing. Turning domestic. It’s a good thing. You’re going to love being a dad.”
When the eavesdropping guard moved on to another inmate’s table, Anthony Marcello’s face turned grim. His watery eyes connected with mine.
“Lazar,” he whispered, “you made a lot of enemies before you retired. Many of those nasty boys are still mean, and too many of them are still around. I don’t want to have to send your wife a bouquet of flowers or a fruit basket. Stay retired. Have a son.”
By the time I left Sing Sing’s gray and grime, I had the feeling that I could handle being a father.
“Elizabeth, I definitely want this baby. Elizabeth, stop crying. You know I can’t take it when you cry.”
We brought Liam home in an Afghan blanket when he was two days old. He was tiny, tiny, and he looked up at me and smiled. That first week, every night, I’d extend my thumb. Liam would hold it tightly until dawn. Right away, I knew that Squirt was everything that’s good in the world. Squirt has always been that to Elizabeth and me. Liam might have fierce temper tantrums, but he’s honest and intelligent and thoughtful and such a good boy that on Parents Day at Choate Rosemary Hall, all his teachers compliment him effusively when we visit. Liam studies without being told. He is an activist for human rights—civil rights, women’s rights, transgender rights, and a ton of other rights.
David Lazar Page 16