by Jack Livings
And he wasn’t entirely wrong. It was his nature to stay out of the fray, but he’d known about Albert’s plan—he’d been aware of the existence of a plan, at least—and despite that natural tendency to avoid participation at all costs, he’d been instrumental in bringing Albert to the point of executing that plan. And the execution was taking a different shape than what he’d imagined. Why would he ever have thought Albert intended to go quietly? None of it made much sense—if he’d tried with pills at home, why had he called an ambulance? If he had wanted to OD at the hospital, why had he disappeared? Whatever form my father thought it would take, the reality of the old man’s suicide now fully asserted itself on his psyche. He felt as though his blood had been drained and replaced with mercury. That’s why, when John had tried to set out on his own, my father insisted on accompanying him, and had been keeping pace alongside him, a self-appointed minder charged with ensuring his safe passage.
They’d gone another two blocks when John turned to him and said, Really. If you’re doing this to keep me company, don’t.
I have my reasons, my father said—shouted, actually, over the gusting wind. They both were shouting.
This is family business.
I can go a different way if you prefer, my father said.
Suit yourself, John said.
They passed the next ten or so blocks in silence. At every cross street the wind bullied them from the sides, the snow plastering them like buckshot. My father barely noticed. At 1:01 a.m., he followed John through the revolving door at Roosevelt.
The sanitary warmth enveloped him and he set to brushing off the drifts that had piled up in his jacket’s every crevice and crystallized little arctic kingdoms in his hair, rivulets retreating around the ovoid arch of his ear and down his neck. A skirt of beaded ice clung to the lower edge of his sweater, resisting all efforts to remove it, glinting wetly, flaunting its snotty tenacity. He yanked at one wet crystal and succeeded only in ripping out a flag of gray wool.
My father was ashamed at where his thoughts had gone. Albert had made sure to protect him, hadn’t he? He’d sworn to my father’s safety, legally speaking. Hadn’t that been an essential aspect of his participation? He should have insisted on seeing the letter, but he’d taken Albert’s word.
The lobby was full of strandees sprawled over the modular furniture. A security guard leaned against a pillar, gazing across the lobby at his reflection in the plate-glass window. His arms were crossed and his cap was tipped back on his head. A toothpick slid from one corner of his mouth to the other and back. Black pro-grade shoes. Off-duty cop. Did a cop ever put his hands in his pockets? Thumbs in belt or arms crossed, done and done.
At the opposite end of the lobby was a vending nook, the lintel helpfully labeled VENDING, inside which was a soda machine, a snack machine, and a coffee dispenser, backlit COFFEE emanating little brown wavelets. My father felt the familiar twang in his chest, a twinge of weakness in his knees. The potential energy within the soda machine, a mammoth, a Vendo V-528, was on the order of fifty thousand psi. That took into account only the Coke cans, none of the machine’s refrigeration mechanisms, none of the Freon, the pressurized tubing. My father’s brain immediately offered up at least three ways to initiate a chain reaction culminating in the simultaneous explosion of five hundred cans of soda, a wide dispersion shrapnel profile that would result in a +50 percent casualty rate. And then there was the coffee dispenser, a huge brown cabinet filled with spaghetti towers of copper tubing, heaters, cisterns of pressurized, scalding water, which made the Coke machine look like a Molotov cocktail next to an ICBM.
John was at the information desk, playing the role of concerned son, decisive and forthright. The woman he was addressing, a battle-hardened veteran, gave no indication that she intended to help or even acknowledge his presence.
My father is a patient here. I’m told he’s gone missing.
The woman said nothing.
Is there an administrator I can speak to?
She adjusted her glasses, cat-eyes on a silver chain. Her hair was salty gray and fell in long kinky strands down over her shoulders.
I need to find my father, John said, louder this time. The security guard moved his head with such turtle-like dispassion that it seemed possible he was reacting not to John but to some unrelated thought that coincidentally occurred at the same time.
Hello?
I’m not deaf, the woman said. She produced a clipboard with a pen attached by a chain made of miniature silver balls. As she handed them to him, the pen made a dive for the floor, the chain thrushing against the edge of the clipboard.
I’m not signing in, John said, groping blindly for the pen, down there somewhere, oscillating. Not a patient.
You said your father is a patient. Fill out the form. Relative’s name, pertinent information.
And then?
And then? she said. Then you bring it back, dummy.
John looked around, hoping to engage the sympathies of a witness.
My father took a step closer, but not close enough to cross the threshold of that particular theater of the absurd.
Not here, the woman said when John began to fill out the form atop the desk. She gestured languidly at the waiting area, which at the moment resembled a bus station. John walked in the opposite direction, toward the vending machines, and my father followed.
Jesus, what a performance, John said. They sat down on a ledge by the window.
My father had his eye on the machines. He was about fifteen feet from them. He swiveled until he was looking at the plate glass. He put his nose close to it, and shielded his eyes from the light, creating a viewfinder through which to see outside. The snow was peach.
You’re worried? my father said to the glass.
He’s fine. Wherever he is, he’s fine.
Where do you think he is?
No idea. Maybe he needed to make a phone call. Maybe he got hungry, John said.
You think he went out for an egg roll?
Maybe.
I suppose you could threaten to sue them if something happens to him, my father said.
Exactly why there’s no point in trying to figure out where he went. Their problem, not mine.
John worked through the form, then took the clipboard back to the counter.
So? my father said when he’d returned.
So I wait.
You’re not worried.
We’ve established that.
You want to go poke around the halls or something? my father said.
John shrugged.
This, my father said. Pretending you don’t care.
I do care.
What happened to your hand?
Nothing, John said. I slipped. John looked at the ceiling and said, I’ve read your books.
You haven’t read my books. No one’s read my books. And the last one doesn’t count.
I didn’t read the last one.
Which ones, then? my father said.
El El Narrows. The Horseshoe Crab. The one about the shipping company.
Plover, my father said.
Yeah, Plover.
You didn’t read Plover. No one read Plover. Why would you do that?
Suicidal, I guess.
They were assigned for a class.
Nope. All on my lonesome. Your books are witness to the blasphemies of the twentieth century, John said.
What is that? Jacket copy?
Absolutely. I read the jacket copy. I read them inside and out.
But you didn’t bother with Slingshot.
I’ll get around to it after everyone else is done. Library’s only got twelve copies.
Your father never mentioned that you’d read them.
When did he mention me at all, is the question.
Only when things were going wrong.
Yeah. You going to write him into your next book? John said.
He’d probably sue me if I did, my father said.
He’s a blasphemy of
the twentieth century if ever there was one.
Which is why you don’t care what happens to him? my father said.
John worked his pinkie nail around the bowl of his pipe, a gesture of consideration, and as he did, he was struck by what a performance it was, like everything else he did. How well do you know my father?
I know him well enough.
So you might understand that who he is now is just a sharper version of who he’s been his whole life. It’s like he’s gained superpowers. He’s broken the bonds of mortality. This disappearing act? Just a new and improved way to torture the family.
I see.
Let me guess how you met. Co-op board run-in? Nothing makes him happier than putting the screws to someone in the name of due diligence.
No, not exactly.
You some kind of friend? John said.
I’m not sure, my father said. We had a standing appointment to meet every Monday.
A drinking buddy.
Not really.
John studied my father’s face. What, getting his affairs in order?
In a sense.
In what sense?
My father drew up inside his enormous sweater, exhaled, examined his palms. In the sense that I was his proctor. I gave him a memory test.
You’re a shrink, too?
No. He just needed someone dependable. Someone with nothing better to do. I just read him questions. A machine could have done it.
A memory test.
He’d written it up himself. He said he’d consulted some neurologists. Some psychologists.
Never mentioned a word about it to me, John said.
You know, he did talk about you from time to time, my father said.
In glowing terms, I’m sure. Strange that he never talks about you.
I doubt I count for much in his universe. I’ve only known him a few years. Now that I think about it, I suppose we did first meet because of the co-op board. I had to get his approval to fix the plumbing in our bathroom.
He gave you a hard time?
A little grief. But rubber-stamped it. I expected more trouble given that we’re right on top of him.
Directly upstairs?
That’s right.
So you bought your place from the Mellins?
Yes, my father said.
You know the KGB designed the vent work in that building, John said. Used to be that I could lie in bed and hear every single thing Cynthia said. What a piece of work she was. Her bedroom was right over mine. She cried herself to sleep every night. This is when we were both teenagers. I mean, it scarred me. You could hear everything.
Hm, my father said.
Do you know what she does now? John said. She lives in Afghanistan and exports rugs.
One way to make scratch, my father said.
She’s a millionaire. She lives in a castle. An actual castle, a medieval stronghold. She’s got connections everywhere. Embassies, Afghan government, she knows everyone. She’s got fixers, she’s in with the banks. What a piece of work. They must have blown a million dollars on therapy for her.
That which does not kill us, I guess.
Yeah. Strange my father never mentioned you. He talks about your kid enough.
Does he? my father said.
Hazel, right?
The one and only, my father said.
She’s got potential, according to him. You know how he is, always scouting for self-reliance. He can tell you who’s going to be a bum, just from looking into the crib. It’s very scientific. Cynthia? Right from the start, there was no hope for her. You want to turn out like Cynthia Mellin? he’d say, and this was when I was, you know, a kid. How the hell had she turned out? She was eight!
And what’s his prediction for Hazel? my father said.
World domination, of course. He says she has a skeptical eye. I don’t even know what that means.
Means she’s from Manhattan, I suppose.
Condolences, John said.
He told me you two hadn’t talked in years, my father said.
Probably not the only fabrication he laid on you, John said.
He told me you lived up the street and that you hadn’t talked in years.
True and false, John said. I go by to see him once a month, John said. Maybe we don’t talk all that much, but I go. It’s like being in a waiting room. Toughing it out until we get the bad news. Maybe we watch a game or something. He was never much of a sports fan and he can’t keep track of who’s who on the field, anyway. We sit there and watch the game and every two minutes it’s, Who’s that? Who’s got the ball now? Who’s that in red? Who’s that in white? If he’s not soused, we have the carousel conversation. He asks me about my wife, and I tell him she’s not my wife anymore, then he tells me Fil and Tracy are saints, which is just teeing up for telling me about what pieces of shit their husbands are, then he goes on about Nixon for a while, then Carter, then he asks me about my wife, so I tell him again, and we’re back to Fil and Tracy being saints and their husbands being pieces of shit. Those boys figured it out years ago. They’re the ones who haven’t laid eyes on him in years.
He’s an uncompromising critic, my father said.
An uncompromising critic? Are you kidding? He’s an asshole.
Arguably, his behavior owes something to his condition.
It’s a sieve, his condition, John said. It’s clarified him. This test you gave him. How’d it work?
My father paused to consider the legal jeopardy he might be putting himself in, then considered the fact that he deserved his fate. Names and dates, he said. I’d ask him—you know, I’d ask him for the date of an event, and he’d tell me.
Clinical as ever. Of course he’d enlist a near stranger. Did he give you his bank account numbers, too?
He wanted an impartial judge. Someone who wouldn’t give him hints.
Jesus, what a stonehearted— He really said he never saw me?
He’s not well.
How many times do I have to say this? He’s no different than he ever was.
That’s a convenient thing to believe, my father said. Keeps the fires burning, but it can’t be strictly true, can it?
John detected the challenge in my father’s voice, and at that moment recognized that my father felt some warmth toward Albert.
I’d wager that by any standard, he’s the same man he’s always been, John said. Eats at the same diner every day. Talks about the same damn things he always talked about. His core hasn’t been affected a bit.
Well, now you’re talking about the soul, my father said. That’s above my pay grade.
How often? John asked.
Sorry? my father said.
To the shrink. You.
Oh, my father said, laughing. Three. Three sessions a week.
That’s the spirit. Don’t let them get you in there every day. It’s not your day job. Five days a week and you’ll never get cured.
Let’s say I’m in semi-retirement, then.
Your idea or the shrink’s?
To go to three a week? Mine.
Bravo. He’s dependent on you, not the other way around. Just make that your mantra and you’ll survive.
Spoken like an old pro.
Trained courtesy of the Albert Caldwell Foundation for Assholic Children. John tugged at his scarf. So how’d he do?
My shrink?
My old man. On the test.
Some weeks better than others. The last couple of times, though. Not so great.
He’s still sharp in a lot of ways, you know, he knows how to cover, John said.
I know.
Have you noticed he’ll get polite when he doesn’t know what you’re talking about? Nice change of pace. So maybe there’s an upside.
How old are you? my father said.
Thirty-one.
He moves like an old man, my father thought, especially when he talks about Albert.
My father said, When I agreed to proctor the evaluation, he gave me a packet of mimeogr
aphed sheets and a letter. He told me to hold on to the letter until he failed the test. So I did. Then, last Monday, he failed it, so I went upstairs to my place and got the letter. I don’t know what it said, but he told me we were done.
Done as in don’t come back?
Yes, my father said.
Hm. Mostly dates of naval battles, I assume, the questions?
Family dates. Other highlights. But mostly family.
Like what?
What year he made partner. What year he got married. That sort of thing.
What other family questions? John said.
Names. Dates of birth.
Date of death?
My father blinked. Yes. Of course. That was the only question that mattered.
How long has this been going on?
About a year. I’m a quarter through the stack of mimeos. I don’t know if that meant he thought he’d last longer.
You know the important dates.
I suppose.
Okay. So at this point you’re a more reliable family historian than my father.
If an encyclopedia’s better than a novel, maybe.
And what’s the most important date? John asked. If there was any challenge in his voice, my father didn’t hear it. He heard only genuine curiosity.
The day your son died, my father said.
An important question.
Yes, my father said. When I said it was the only one that mattered, I mean it was the only one that mattered. None of the other questions counted toward the final score.
Only the last one.
And he never missed it?
No.
Not until the last time?
That’s right.
So that letter, John said.
Instructions to himself, I suppose, my father said, and he understood that John had reached the same conclusion, the only possible conclusion, and he watched the younger man with apprehension. What had he done?
I’m sorry, my father said quietly, as though he couldn’t bring himself to speak so useless a sentence.
That’s what they say. John cleared his throat.