by David Amsden
Anyway, Dad ends up naming it after Uncle Ray, this kid. I guess that’s what I was talking about. Little Raymond, my half brother. When the kid was finally born, two months later, I had finished high school. I had actually called up Dad. He was so thrilled. He said the baby was fine. It was eight pounds exactly. Then, because Dad never knows when to be quiet, he said it was just like me. You would have died. Dad couldn’t get over this. I mean, he really couldn’t shut up about it.
Do you want to hear how he put it?
Looks just like you, he said. He never cries! Just like you, feller! He never cries! Just like you! He really looks just like you, only Filipino!
It was funny. Right as he said this all I wanted was to tell Liz about it. She would have cracked up. It was her type of thing. She would have said that’s fucking hilarious. But I didn’t talk to Liz anymore, just thought about her too much instead. I never talked to her after that one night. I don’t know why exactly. I just didn’t talk to her again, and I think I was sort of in love with her, despite how obvious it was what she was about to become. I guess I might just be a little frightened of women. It sounds funny, I know. But I swear a lot of the ones I’ve known are always trying to bleed all over me.
LUCK?
I wanted to bankrupt the guy. It’s true. Dad was like where do you want to go, anywhere you want, and I thought of the most expensive restaurant I knew. It was this seafood place up on Union Square. I’d never been there before, but I knew it had a reputation for being real pricey. They served ten dollar oysters, had supermodel hostesses, things like that. It was the type of place where people go, look over the menu, and then go on about how reasonable the prices are, just because they’re that rich and don’t know any better.
But I really wasn’t interested in any of those kind of frills—actually, for the most part, that kind of thing drives me mad. I don’t know why, but I just wanted to sit across from Dad at some fancy table watching him spend more money than he had.
You should have seen the guy when he showed up at my apartment. The most perverted minds at Kodak couldn’t concoct such a reunion. I buzz him up, open the door, and you just should have seen the guy standing there on the other side.
I mean, Dad started going gray when he was around twenty, but now his whole head was gray. There probably wasn’t one of his signature greasy jet-black hairs left. And his moustache—he had shaved it off. So he didn’t really look like himself anymore. This was sad. Dad was smiling, but his smile wasn’t the same, wasn’t his. I was used to seeing his moustache move when he smiled, like it was caught up in some breeze. Now he just had this thin upper lip. It was actually the exact shape as mine, if you want to know the truth.
And he had put on weight. Dad had a paunch now. This was a good thing, I guess, because Dad was always thin as hell when I knew him, like you’d give him a hug and your fingers got caught up in his ribcage. But it sort of upset me too, in this funny way. Looking at him, at this slightly over-weight, smiling, gray-haired guy about to enter my apartment, you came to only one conclusion: that this guy was a bona fide father. He had the look down. The whole time I knew him, he always came off just like some guy, a kind of warm, lost, skinny guy with a moustache and a car you were amazed could actually move. I mean, his eyes were still watery, still all cracked with a little pink, but really he just looked like someone who had to pick up the kids at noon. Someone who’d pick them up on time even. It was almost embarrassing.
To be honest, there was this kind of idealistic part of me that was entertaining the notion—had been entertaining it for some time—that I’d open up the door, and me and Dad would give each other this big old hug. You know, like he’d be whispering something poignant in my ear, I’d be telling him I know, I know, he’d be patting my back all tough guy, all that stuff.
But it wasn’t like that at all.
He just stood there. That’s what he was doing right now, just looking at me blankly, like I was some fascinating zoo animal that he’d heard about but never believed really existed. I was a platypus or whatever, a puffin. This didn’t upset me, though. I always figured it must’ve been weird for Dad, seeing me once every few years, how fast I changed. I mean, for me he was just like a middle-aged guy getting a little more middle-aged, but to him I was a completely different person every time. You could see it in his eyes, how it wasn’t really sinking in that this person he was looking at was still actually his son. I felt a little guilty.
But whatever—I come up with idealistic notions like that everyday, mainly with strangers. Like take every good-looking girl I see—there’s a part of me that’s literally convinced she’s about to come over, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me right there to marry her. I’ll get so sure of this that I start fretting about the exact way I’m going to say yes, of course, darling, let’s go. But then the subway doors always close or whatever.
So Dad’s standing there, real still, just looking at me. It was awkward, to say the least. I really had to come up with something genius to say—
“You have no moustache,” I said. “Your moustache is gone.”
“Yup,” Dad said. “Mary says I look younger. I say I just look bald.”
“You just look like you don’t have a moustache.”
“So, this is where you live?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “This is it. Come on in.”
It had been two years. And the one time we talked in between he was so busy telling me about his new kid, little Ray, that I forgot to tell him I was going to college. So he actually called up the house in Maryland, and Mom had to explain that I’d moved up to New York, had to give him my address and phone number. I bet that was a fun chat. I mean, they always got on well enough, like they never went at each other in front of me the way my friends’ parents did, but still, the last time they’d spoken, Mom was telling him how much of a freak he was for trying to name his love child after me.
So Dad contacted me, with a card. It was pretty much the most hilarious, earnest greeting card you’ve ever seen. On the front there was a little illustration of a hapless pig, just kind of hanging out on a piece of grass, looking sad as hell. Under him it reads, in that ersatz kiddy handwriting that Hallmark can’t get enough of: I suppose you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from me lately. I think I can explain… Then you open the thing up and it reads, earnest as hell: It’s because I haven’t called or written.
On the left side, this is what Dad wrote:
It grieves me that we have not spoken for over a year. I don’t know what happened other than pure laziness on my part. I miss you and I love you and care about what is going on in your life. How is school? Please call me. I was in Maine for another family reunion in July. Everyone is asking about you. Your grandparents would like to hear from you. Their health is good, but they are not getting any younger.
Let’s talk.
I miss you.
Love,
Dad
I admit it: the thing wrecked me. It was so expert, so grown-up and mature. I just know that stuff is next to impossible for Dad. It’s not an issue of pride or anything. Dad’s just deficient in whatever gene it is that allows people to turn into adults as they get older. Call it bad luck if you want. The point is, it would have killed you too, you would have been there just like me, sort of reading the thing and laughing like a psychopath, and then you’d find yourself suddenly going crazy, crying like a legit baby, your face puffed out like there’s no tomorrow, just like I was. I mean, especially if you saw the real thing, that greeting card, if you had the chance at seeing Dad’s handwriting. It was exactly the same as the one Hallmark used.
I called him right when I got it, or right when I pulled myself together at least. It was a pretty stellar chat. Dad knew exactly who I was, right away. He sounded all depressed. Like I almost didn’t know who he was.
He’d be in New York on Sunday, he said. And the thing is, he actually came.
“You paint these walls yellow?” Dad was asking.
>
“That I did,” I said. I knew it would impress him, the work I’d done on my apartment. I swear, Dad should have worked at a hardware store—it would have made him the world’s happiest man. He can’t get enough of fixing things up—like remember that Mercedes? I have a slight knack for it myself, I guess, but nothing like Dad. Especially since I really started becoming Mom’s kid—I’d just rather call up someone like Dad to fix what isn’t working, the faucet or whatever. “And the floors, I finished them myself. Not bad, huh?”
“I could never do floors,” he said. “Drove me nuts.”
“I went a little crazy,” I said. “Can you believe that this is actually where I live?”
It was this studio downtown, on the Lower East Side, about the size of a fancy outhouse. I’m still living there, on East Broadway, in this neighborhood where I’m about the only white guy who isn’t a Hasidic Jew. It’s a pretty sweet location though. Mom knew some wealthy types up in New York, the kind of people who know all the right people, and one of them hooked me up with this sort of permanent, sort of illegal sublet. I think he knew some realtor, or some dead aunt. I can afford the rent, and that’s all I really care about. It’s funny. Sometimes I look around and I’m convinced everyone in New York lives illegally. At least to some degree.
Anyway, I was going to Hunter College, which I’ve told you, but what I haven’t mentioned is that I had two more years left to get the diploma, and I wasn’t so pressed to finish. I decided that the two years I’d had were plenty, and had given notice that I’d be dropping out, which they reworded as a leave of absence. I found this flattering, like they were sort of begging me to stay, even though I knew it wasn’t my dazzling personality and intellect they’d be missing, but my money. I had to choose a major if I stayed, and I was still a little bit into everything—and, to tell you the truth, I knew I wasn’t really genius at anything yet—so choosing one now seemed like a risky idea. People make it out like becoming an adult, with a real job and all that, is this big hard thing to accomplish, but to me it doesn’t seem that way. I mean, when I’m ready to be some hot shit accountant or whatever, believe me, I’ll go back and get the degree, and before anyone knows what happened I’ll be picking up the check all the time.
Besides, I was waiting tables full time at this tourist trap, bringing scared-looking people ten-dollar slices of New York cheesecake made in some Milwaukee factory. And the manager may have been this jackass pedophile that I often imagined murdering in the most dramatic scenarios, but I still liked waiting tables a whole lot better than going to class. The money was great, and, at least in my experience, it’s the people who never finished college who are the smartest. Or at least the nicest, which is just as well. People with degrees tend to spend most of their time making sure everyone around them feels real dumb.
Mom wasn’t so into my dropping out. As close as I am to her, there’s still some things that I’ll just do, like out of nowhere, and leaving school was one of them. All the paperwork was done before Mom even knew. We had a pretty tense chat about it, but then Mom just got all quiet on the line. I asked her what’s wrong and she said nothing, nothing at all.
Then you know what she says?
“Hey, it’s your life now.”
“Wait. What do you mean exactly?”
“Just what I said.”
Is it me, or are mothers always saying things like this, these subtle things that remind you of how much of an idiot you can be? I don’t know. Truth is, I’ll probably go back pretty soon. You’ve got to understand, this was only a few months ago, and I’ve basically just been hanging around since. I’m just kind of tired, real tired, actually, and trying to relax. I just wanted to make some money, still do. I’ll tell you, there may be some good colleges here, but New York is a horrible place to go to school. Unless you’re rich. If you have money, you might be okay. You might be able to feel productive. But it just drove me mad. Everyone around you is working, making money, and all the while you’re stuck staring out the window of some classroom, getting poorer and poorer, going into tremendous debt. It makes it impossible to concentrate on what the teacher’s telling you about some ancient theory, some stone tablature. Like is it really worth tens of thousands to know what the Rosetta Stone is, when if you’re really dying to know you can just buy a book about it for a couple bucks?
“You know somethin’?” Dad was saying. “I’ve never lived alone.”
I thought this was a peculiar thing to say. I had actually thought about this before, when I first moved into my apartment, that he’d never lived on his own. A lot of getting older has been figuring out these kinds of things about Dad. I decided to ignore him.
“Are you getting hungry?” I asked.
“You know me,” he said. “I can always eat.”
There was something about the way he said this. I don’t know. It’s such a simple, meaningless thing, that probably everyone says a thousand times before he dies. But right now Dad’s tone made it sound important, and not just because he barely ate anything when I knew him. He just sounded really out of it.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “You sound a little, I don’t know, tired.”
“Oh, I’m fine, feller,” he said. “You’re right. I’m just tired. Tired as hell.”
“What are you in the mood for, for food?”
“Oh, anything you want, feller,” Dad said. “You know me.”
“Well,” I said.
I pretended to mull this over for a second, like I was thinking of every single restaurant in the city. That way Dad wouldn’t detect that I already had it all planned out. It was a covert operation.
“I know this seafood place,” I said. “It’s supposed to be great.”
Dad just ordered a martini, a beer for me.
It was around one in the afternoon, an hour I typically don’t spend drinking beer but I figured I’d make an exception for Dad. The restaurant was actually pretty fantastic, lots of marble, these high ceilings laden with plastic leaves and flowers—it was in an old bank, so that’s why it was so ornate. It’s kind of funny to think that a bank can go out of business these days and make more money as a restaurant, but what do I know?
I just liked looking around the place. You should have seen the hostesses—you’d have given up a thumb to suck one of their toes. And everyone was so clean-looking. You know the type, like they’d sacrificed the chance at ever having interesting thoughts in their heads for eternal youth. Half of them were wired with one of those cellular phones that you jam right up in your ear. You know, so it was impossible to determine if they were talking to the person next to them, or someone on the phone, or if they were just babbling to themselves like a homeless person.
I’ll be honest. I can fit in pretty well with these types. Even though I’m from Rockville, I was pretty much meant to be from New York. I don’t carry a cellular phone or anything, don’t kid myself that I can afford one, but I still find myself on dates with some of these real clean women. My two years in New York, I’ve gotten in the habit of going out with a lot of older women, like thirty-year-olds, even ones older than that. I told you, people are always thinking I’m a lot older than I am.
I’m just always convinced older women will understand everything, but every time they end up just as misguided as the girls my age—just as misguided as me. Half the time they end up crying to me about something like their jobs. They want me to give them all the answers, I swear. And all I ever want is for them to stop touching my face like that. I’m trying to get better about all this, I just don’t really know how.
I guess I’m just saying that it was nice having Dad here with me, in the restaurant. That’s all. Screwed up as he was, the guy was the only honest-looking person in the place. I almost felt bad about the dent it was about to make in his finances.
“Didja get a look at that hostess?”
“Oh yeah” I said. “The women in New York are ridiculous.”
“They’re all bitches?”
; “Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much. How’s your drink?”
“Damn good,” he said. “Wanna taste?”
“I’m cool,” I said. “Hey, wanna know something funny?”
I had so many stories I was dying to tell Dad, and this one was probably top of the list.
“What’s up?”
“You know I wait tables, right?” I began.
“No,” he said. “You do? You work in restaurants?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Anyway, I was subbing for the bartender the other day and this woman comes in at like three in the afternoon and orders a martini. I make it with vodka and vermouth, and she flips! Gives me this whole lecture on how it’s a gin drink. She goes on and on. It’s gin, it’s gin. She was around ninety, but I still didn’t believe her. So I look it up, and it turns out she’s right,” I said. “And you know what? It’s your damn fault I was wrong.”
“Well,” Dad said, “cheers to that!”
I couldn’t tell if he actually understood what I was talking about. But just then he seemed happy, like himself, tapping his glass to mine, the icy liquid all coming right up to the lip but not spilling over—so I didn’t care. I’m telling you, the guy was in bad shape. I don’t know if I’ve been clear enough on this. Like on the phone, he really sounded depressed. And seeing him in person, he had this kind of deflated walk. It had nothing to do with the paunch. And I don’t just mean he seemed worn out from having to deal with the painful life he had up in Jersey, drilled into a hunchback by Mary and her yelling, Melanie and her wet little face and noisy eyes, by this new kid, little Raymond, my Asian clone. You could just tell there was probably more, something else.
Which is why I was like—
“So Dad, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know, feller,” he said. He took a sip of his drink. “I guess you could call it marital issues.”