by Lee Siegel
I will make one exception for you, but only this once. If you don’t meet your obligations after this, you will not get a second chance. If you can send me five hundred dollars, I will authorize you to take out another loan. Do you have five hundred dollars?
Yes, I said. Absolutely.
Are you sure? she said.
Yes, I said. I can get it to you.
And will you repay this loan? she asked me.
Yes, I will, I said. Dear God, I meant it. I meant it with all my heart.
She was silent again. It was nice to talk with you, she said, after transforming my life, with one gesture, by breaking the cardinal rule that she had been assigned to enforce. Good luck, she said.
* * *
My mother was the last person I wanted to ask for the money, and she was the only person I could ask for the money. I sped toward the inevitable encounter up the Garden State Parkway at about eighty miles per hour. Parking in front of the old split-level, I jumped out of the car and bounded up the steps onto the front stoop. The faster I could do this, the faster it would be over.
Lola came to the door in her nightgown. It was about three in the afternoon. Yes, honey, she said wearily. I explained the situation to her. I was breathing heavily. We stood there staring at each other, two different people in a force field of genetic complicity, absolutely opposed to each other. She laughed. Why don’t you ask your father? she said. You know he has no money, I said. But I have no money! she cried. Here we go, I said. Here we go. That’s right, she hissed. Here we go. Here we go because you dream and dream and dream, like your father, and like your father, everyone else has to pay for your dreams. Do you think I owe you this money? Do you? No, I said. I don’t think you owe me anything. I’m asking you to loan it to me, that’s all. I’ll pay it back. Like you paid back your loans? she said. I’ll pay it back, I said. Enough, she said. Enough. I brought you into the world. Do you know how much that hurt? It hurt a lot. Try it sometime. It’s not easy to bring another person into the world. Then I cleaned you. I wiped you. I soothed you when you cried. I stayed up all night with you. Do you know how tired I am? Do you know how many nights I stayed up with you and how tired I am? This is my one chance to have a better life, I said. To be where I belong. Please lend me the money. Mr. Kafka, she said. Mr. Kafka doesn’t like where he is. He always wants to be somewhere else. Montclair was not good enough for you. You had a career ahead of you in the shoe store. Audrey Castor could have helped you, but no, you had to go and push her away. Yes, I know all about that. Thank you very much. Audrey knows people at the Board of Education. Thank you very much. Do you think a fancy school is going to change you, Mr. Kafka? Huh? Do you think your books are going to save you? Huh, Mr. Kafka? Mr. Tolstoy? Mr. Prowst? Proost, I said. It’s pronounced Proost. Oh, my little professor. Well, Proost thanked his mother for wiping him, believe me. Kafka didn’t keep his mother up all night while he talked with his girlfriends on the phone. Get the money from Kafka. Ask Kafka. Kafka! she yelled into the front yard. Send money! Send money, Kafka! You’re nuts, I said. You are out of your fucking mind. I turned around. Goodbye, I said. I’ll find the money somehow. I walked down the stairs into the front yard. Fuck it, I thought. People like you don’t go to Columbia. You have Gretchen. You have the shoe store. Luke will get you into the post office. This is the way it was meant to be. All this suffering will lead to something. People go through worse in life. Je m’en fous. Wait a minute! my mother cried. She disappeared. Then she appeared again. Holding something between the fingers of her right hand, she raised her hand in the air. Take my engagement ring, she said. It’s the only expensive piece of jewelry I have. Take it and sell it. Here, she said. She threw it into the yard. Take it. Take the only precious thing I have. Go ahead. That’s what a mother does for her son, she said. I dropped to my knees and crawled around in the grass for a few minutes before I felt the ring under my hand. Did you find it? she asked. Yes, I said. Getting to my feet, I climbed back up the steps to where she stood in the doorway. Now you’re too proud? she said, her eyes glinting with satisfaction. No, I said. I took her hand and pressed the ring into it. You sell it, I said. Then send me the money. Her face began to twitch. She started to cry. You son of a bitch, she said. You coldhearted son of a bitch.
Three days later a check from her for five hundred dollars arrived in the mail.
* * *
In late August of that year, I was on a subway traveling uptown under Broadway. If I had stayed on the train to the end of the line, I would have passed the stop at 231st Street, just a block from where I had once said goodbye to Menka. Columbia, though, was at 116th Street. When I emerged from underground, the sun was blazing overhead. I crossed the street. Then I strode through the university’s wide-open wrought-iron gates, toward the bursar and my new life.
Acknowledgments
My committed and unsparing editor, Ileene Smith, has wisdom and heart. My exquisitely astute agent, Markus Hoffmann, has stood by me through thick and thin.
Three dear, gifted friends read the manuscript. Their enlightening responses helped bring the book to completion.
Without my wife, Christina Gillham, and our children, Julian and Harper, I would not have been able to tell this tale at all.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee Siegel is the author of five previous books and the recipient of a National Magazine Award. A widely published writer on culture and politics, he lives with his family in Montclair, New Jersey. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
1. Have Mercy
2. Screaming from Cars
3. What Now, Voyager?
4. Heartland
5. Showdown
6. Sink and Swim
7. Send Money, Kafka!
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2017 by Lee Siegel
All rights reserved
First edition, 2017
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Siegel, Lee, 1957– author.
Title: The draw: a memoir / Lee Siegel.
Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016033248 | ISBN 9780374178055 (hardback) | ISBN 9780374714000 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Siegel, Lee, 1957– . | Authors, American—20th century—Biography. | Critics—United States—Biography. | Debt—United States. | Downward mobility (Social sciences)—United States. | Social values—United States. | United States—Moral conditions. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
Classification: LCC PS3619.I3785 Z46 2017 | DDC 818/.603 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033248
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
www.fsgbooks.com
www.twitter.com/fsgbooks • www.facebook.com/fsgbooks
rayscale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share