Excuse Me for Living

by Ric Klass

  An almost unnoticeable shaking of the head, no, from Daniel.

  “I can’t hear you, dear,” David replies, pointing at his ear. The men all wait in silence.

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Diane says and disappears from the ledge. Two minutes later. Nervously standing just inside the sliding glass door to the patio. Shaking slightly and with a soft voice, “I said, would anyone like something to eat or drink?”

  “Nothing for me,” the men all reply nearly in unison. Except for Danny.

  “A coke. Any soda is fine. Or even ice water. Thank you, Mrs. Ansterman,” Dan responds, ignoring the disapproving expressions of the others.

  Five long minutes elapse and Diane appears again at the door. She wants to walk onto the patio but can’t quite gain the courage. David gets up, takes the glass of cola from her hands, and kisses her cheek.

  “Thanks again, Mrs. Ansterman. This will hit the spot,” Daniel Topler, Harriet and Albert Topler’s polite young son from Long Island, tells her.

  Diane searches the seats at the table, “Where’s Jack, Dave?”

  “His operation’s tomorrow. We’re all going to visit him when they let us,” Harry says.

  “Such a nice man, and his daughter Laura is so sweet and beautiful. Wish him well for me. Please tell Jack to come and visit me when he’s better, so we can talk. David, ask them if they want something to eat. Don’t starve our guests. Barry must be famished. He’s still a growing boy,” Diane jests to snickers from the men. Exhausted by her efforts, she returns upstairs for the evening.

  “Yeah, Barry. You must have trimmed down to three hundred pounds,” Morty cracks to his unusually well-groomed friend. “Getting some exercise you’d like to share with us?” he jests. “Since when is your shirt pressed, and what’s with the shit-eating grin?” makes Barry blush.

  “You’ve got a smile pasted all over your punim too, Morty,” taunts Rob. “What’s going on? Is everybody here getting laid but me?”

  Lightening up, Sam breaks his silence with, “No one here’s supposed to be getting any except Barry, Morty, and Dan – they’re single.” The men break into uproarious gurgling, choking the men so that tears come to their eyes.

  When the laughter subsides, “Men, I need to confess something. I hope you’ll let me continue to come to meetings. I’m not a medical school student. I’m a patient of Jack’s trying to recuperate at a rehab clinic, Live Free or Die, in East Hampton.”

  “So what else is new?” says Morty.

  “Did you think Jack wouldn’t tell his friends that he wants to bring some nutcase to our meetings?” asks Sam.

  “You’re doing a great job as our new leader. Fuhged-daboudit,” says Harry with a mob cadence.

  “No one told me,” Glen protests.

  “Who can reach you, Mr. Big Shot? No one has your private number except Dan, I guess,” Rob responds.

  Dan realizes that Jack always keeps one step ahead of him. Live and learn. “I thought we might discuss our children – that is, your children. I don’t have any yet, I hope.”

  “I finally saw my daughter, Alicia, guys. She’s beautiful but not too well. I picked her up at the hospital today where she’s recovering from bronchitis. Then I took her to the same place where Dan’s at to finish her recovery.”

  “I’m so sorry, Glen,” Barry sympathizes. “You introduced me to her once. Marvelous girl. She has quite a mind of her own, if I remember correctly.”

  “Thanks. You couldn’t be more on the mark,” Glen agrees.

  “How’s your daughter Jennifer, Harry?” The men don’t ask about his wife, Frances, who has never stopped grieving for their son, who was killed in an automobile pileup. She separated from Harry shortly after the accident. It’s still his fault. He had asked his son to go out and buy a six-pack for him that night.

  “She’s great. Just great. Hasn’t found a boy yet. But she will,” Harry tentatively answers.

  “I thought she was engaged,” says Glen.

  “She was. But you know how these things go for kids these days.”

  “A kid? She’s over thirty, for crying out loud,” says Morty.

  “Where does she live now?” asks Rob.

  “She bought this house in San Francisco. A condominium, really. You can’t believe how expensive it is there.”

  The men have often discussed their personal finances, so David’s not too timid to ask, “I thought she was a school teacher. She can afford it?”

  “No. She quit her job. Wants to be a writer or something. I send her a little money now and then.”

  “Who’re you kidding?” says Morty, not letting go. “You bought her an apartment and now you support her. Right? ”

  “She hasn’t found her way yet,” Harry protests. “But she will. She will. What am I supposed to do? I’m her father.”

  “What are parents supposed to do?” asks Dan.

  The men reflect on how to relate to their grown children. None of them has an easy time communicating. Their sons and daughters will talk pleasantries with them but slam the door shut on personal problems.

  “Last week, my son, the successful litigation attorney, tells me he’s in Boston heading for D.C. on Amtrak.” Sam’s slight head-shaking palsy becomes more pronounced as he continues. ‘I’ll fly up and meet you at the station and we’ll go together,’ I tell him. Anything to try to open the door a little bit. He’s reluctant, but agrees. So I meet him and we sit opposite each other in the café coach. At a table you know, so we can talk. After an hour we’re through. He won’t talk about anything – only brag about winning his cases. Not a word on his children or wife. I get off at Penn Station even though I had a ticket to go all the way to D.C.. So when I get home, my wife’s still not up, of course. It’s the middle of the day. And I say to the motionless frame, ‘Did you know they’re going up to Maine to spend a week with his mother-in-law? She’s so wonderful?’ So Margaret turns over. She looks at me and says, ‘Yeah. She’s perfect. She didn’t have to raise him.’”

  “There’s no competition there. No history. It’s easy to be friends with in-laws. Although I don’t know that from experience,” the three-time-marriage-loser says laughing. Then a heated discussion on the role of parents. When to watch. When to intervene. Mostly how to listen.

  “Our kids don’t want to hear from us about our ailments or that some day we won’t be there,” Rob says.

  “When I called my son and told him I was taking Coumadin and couldn’t take aspirin also because it would make my blood too thin, he said good-bye in thirty seconds,” Morty complains.

  “We’re part of the furniture. They don’t want to talk to us. They just like to know we’re around. They think we’ll be here forever,” sighs Harry.

  “I went to Turkey last summer for a tax treaty meeting with firms we do business with there. I called my two older daughters and asked them if there was some kind of special present I could buy for them in Istanbul. I haven’t spent any time with them in some time and thought I’d make the gesture. No, they all say. We don’t want anything. Kids are so hard to relate to.”

  The men move on to Turkey’s history. I can’t believe how knowledgeable these men are, Dan thinks, as they discuss Mustafa Ataturk’s role in creating the modern secular nation. Barry talks about its historical military importance in keeping Russia from a warm water port. Bob describes how the U.S. keeps submarines in the Bosporus to monitor submarine traffic into the Sea of Marmara past the Dardanelles and into the Mediterranean. Then the discussion segues to the expulsion of Jews from Spain and their migration to Greece and then to Turkey where they were welcomed centuries ago.

  The conversation drifts to the Middle East and Gertrude Bell’s drawing the map of modern Iraq in 1921 and her peculiar role as an anti-suffragette. Dan, the forever critic of everyman’s foibles, listens with esteem at the temple men’s vast knowledge on such diverse topics. And not just one or two of the group.

  Harry asks Glen if he visited any synagogues in Turkey wh
ile he was there. “Yes. But I had to email photocopies of my passport to the rabbi. Security’s very tight at temples. Almost all of them are Orthodox synagogues in that Moslem country, regardless of the official stance of neutrality toward Israel. They have central chambers with one-way mirrors to inspect visitors before entering. I was warned to take off my yarmulke when I forgot I had it on and walked outside after the services.”

  “Are you taking more political science courses this term?” David asks Rob. After weeks of mostly listening to their conversations, only now does Dan discover they almost all regularly take college courses in economics, literature, art, or music. It’s so easy to look at aging men and only see their lost hair, wrinkles, and liver spots.

  At 9 PM, Dan breaks up the meeting. “That’s it for tonight, guys. Dr. Bernstein’s daughter’s picking me up and taking me to that LFOD as a favor to her dad.

  “Bullshit,” says Morty. “I know Jack’s daughter, Laura. When you said goodbye to her in the car, the two of you coulda charged tickets to watch the fireworks. She almost got pregnant French-kissing you. What’s the real dope? Don’t just come here like some voyeur. Come clean with us for a change,” he demands.

  He doesn’t embarrass easily, but Dan turns a bright red. “OK. All right. She’s my girlfriend. Maybe a lot more than that.”

  “You love her. Is that it?” Rob says, sharing a grin with the other guys.

  “I met her in the parking lot outside after the first men’s group meeting I came to. We’re still making up over a fight we had.” Dan opens up to revealing more about his life to his new friends, “So this fantastic woman. . . .”

  “Yeah. Yeah. You mean Laura,” Morty urges him on.

  “No. Some other woman named Charlotte – practically a hypnotist. She’s a divorce attorney and close to Laura. Screwed my brains out Friday night, then threw me out of her penthouse apartment on Central Park South. Then she blabbed to Laura and got me into deep doodoo.”

  “Your brains out?” asks Glen.

  “You’re laying your girlfriend’s friend?” from Sam.

  “I guess it’s a modern thing,” says Harry.

  “What kind of kids are these nowadays?” Rob wants to know.

  “They’re all young. They’ll figure it out,” David good-naturedly tells them.

  “Friday night, Dan?” asks Barry quietly. The story fully sinks in.

  “Yes. Why?” Dan senses after keeping secrets from the group maybe he’s said too much now in his zeal to become one of them.

  “No reason. I’m just getting old, but slow to realize it,” and stands up.

  “I’ll give you a lift to the train station, Barry. You can still catch the nine fifteen to Penn Station,” says Harry.

  “I’ll walk. Thanks Harry. It will do me good,” he says in an undisguised lonely voice and almost seems to limp like a colossal wounded bear from the patio into the house, out the front door and into the neighborhood he’s known so well since he grew up there over fifty years ago.

  “What was that all about, Dan?”

  “I have no idea,” he tells the men.

  “Aw. He’s one of those intellectuals. Your story probably made him think of Hamlet or something,” says Morty.

  Or maybe his very own Jezebel, Danny guesses without saying it to the others. Laura mentioned to Dan that Charlie has an interest in an older man – a college classics professor. Could it be?

  “Do You Know

  a Friendly Giant,

  Professor Barry Blackmun?” Danny asks Laura in his cabaña later that evening. “He’s one of your dad’s friends from the group.” Daniel had snuck into LFOD from the beach side when they both returned from David Ansterman’s house. They’re not finished making up.

  “That’s why he looked so familiar there.”

  “Where?”

  “At Charlie’s dad’s funeral. I wasn’t used to seeing him in a coat and tie. I didn’t recognize him. He’s the man I told you about last night. Charlie’s first true love. That’s where they met, at the cemetery. She’s moving into his place in SoHo as we speak. Maybe she’s crazy for him because he’s the first man in her life who could say no to her besides her father.”

  Dan glances at his watch. It’s almost midnight. “He might be saying no to her again right about now. Don’t be angry with me. Tonight I told the men maybe a little too much about us and the reason for our spat on Friday. Barry was there.”

  “I’m Not a Modern Man,

  Zoë. I told you at the park. . . .” Barry sadly starts to explain when he arrives back at his loft that night.

  She’s setting up the telescope on the open-walled top floor where the stars can be seen through the skylight. Thomas brought it there from her co-op.

  She hears his heavy footsteps. “How was the ancient order of grumpy men?” The fever of never letting her guard down has gone. She turns to greet him, but he stops her from kissing him. “Hello, darling. What’s the matter? I know you’re an old fuddy-duddy. That’s why I love you,” she says trying to tease him from whatever’s bothering him.

  “Daniel Topler, I think you know him, a patient of Dr. Bernstein’s, runs the club meetings while Jack’s sick. One of the men decided to prod Dan about his own private life.” The clouds begin to gather over SoHo. A storm begins to brew inside and out the loft. “Without giving her last name, he talked about a strange experience last Friday night not long before you rang my buzzer. A deliriously magical woman named Charlotte, a divorce lawyer, commanded him to get in her bedroom and fu. . . . ”

  “Barry. Don’t think about anybody but us. We’re all that counts. Listen to me. I’ve been thinking. I’m selling my father’s business . . . changing my law practice just to become a woman you can be proud of. I’m not the same person now. I know. . . . ”

  “Please don’t explain. You’re a young and beautiful woman. It’s not for me to judge you. But I can’t take part in the kind of life you’re enmeshed in. You’ll never know how much you meant to me.”

  “Hear me out, Barry. Won’t you?”

  “Please extend to Thomas my mea culpa for moving your things once again.

  This was entirely my fault, sweet girl.” Then Barry lumbers out of what he thought had been his sanctuary from the foul grasp of contemporary culture. He doesn’t return until late the next day when he plans to ensure modern life won’t intrude on him ever again.

  She’ll Die Soon,

  he tells himself. The KGB spy carefully sneaks up on his prey. A nitwit to expose herself – so easy to kill. She’s asleep. Completely unaware.

  “Bang, you’re dead,” Terrence O’Connor shouts into Ally’s ear as he squirts yellow Dijon from his water gun all over her swimsuit. He blows the invisible smoke away from the barrel – video-game-style. With a staccato Russian inflection, “A pity to die so young,” he tells the motionless body. He’s not sure if the PlayStation World War II commando said it just that way, but Terry does know his Commie accent stinks. He also knows he likes his new girlfriend.

  She knows how to play dead and waits for him to lean closer. “Wham, so are you,” and returns the favor by pumping out a half-pint of ketchup from the plastic squeeze bottle hiding underneath her directly atop his long curly hair. Ally likes him, too.

  “Whatcha wanna do now?” Terry asks her as they both rinse off in the outdoor shower by the pool. Neither of them expects any visitors this Monday afternoon.

  “Dunno.”

  “Hey, there’s a giant empty TV box at the back of the building. Let’s take it to the beach ’n have a pretend funeral. It’ll be a coffin. You wanna die, don’t you? I’ll be Reverend Pilatus, the principal back at Riverhead Episcopal where I go to school. He loves to bury people.”

  Not quite sure if that sounds like fun. Ally agrees. “OK. I guess.” Lately death doesn’t sound so inviting.

  “Hi, Ally. It’s great to see you,” Dan waves to her as he approaches.

  This sucks, thinks Terry, “Who’s he?” he wants to know.


  With a silly fake woman’s voice, “He was my boyfriend. I’m still very fond of him.”

  “What’s going on, guys?” the intruder asks. “I’m Dan. What’s your name?” and sticks out his hand to Terry, who declines the offer. The teen treats the greeting as if he had just been offered cholera.

  “We were just going, Mister,” Terry tells Dan. He’s not interested in sharing his only possible playmate at this detention center.

  “Yeah? Where?” Dan asks.

  Ally – still with the tone. “Just somewhere, Daniel. Older people probably wouldn’t be interested.” She didn’t want their affair to end this way. As Ally and Terry whisper to each other on the way to retrieving the TV carton, Alicia Sobel very considerately hopes that she didn’t let Daniel down too hard – poor boy.

  “What a Lovely Bathroom.

  My favorite shades of brown,” Harriet Topler lies to her future son-in-law. She and Dolores have finally been invited to Coco and Ronnie’s co-op by the secretly engaged couple to hear the news they both suspected some time ago. The three women exchange knowing looks. Every happy home must bow down to one room – preferably a small, rarely used one – to be decorated by the male of the species. The apartment tour continues.

  They enter the microscopically decorated purple-hued master bedroom – Harriet’s favorite color and therefore, by genetic design, so too her daughter’s. Dolores takes in the fluffy, gray valance over the aubergine shades and the monstrous mauve silk pillows. She can only manage to choke out, “Very original, my dear,” to Coco.

  Now Harriet knows a backhanded compliment when she hears one – especially from a woman she knows so well. “What’s the matter with it?” She won’t let the insult go by.

  Nothing if one wishes to live in a bordello, Dolores thinks but says, “It’s marvelous, Harriet. I wish Coco had helped me when I redid my bedroom.” White lies were invented for this occasion.

  “Next time you redecorate, I’d be happy to help out, Mrs. Schwartz,” Coco happily volunteers to unwelcoming ears. Neither the Toplers nor the Schwartzes ever approved of the now modern vogue – children addressing adults on a first-name basis.