Implosion

by Elizabeth W. Garber

  Woodie told us the daily news on every step of the project at dinner. That night he was relieved, no one could see the difference. They could stop this costly delay and get on with the building.

  But after the Board meeting, he was trembling with rage again as he sat down at the table, staring past us through the glass walls of our living room to the gardens beyond. “The Dean insisted he could see the difference. He made it clear that the ‘pink’ panels were now a milder pink. They could live with them this way.” His hands shook as he tried to cut his steak. “He demanded that all the glass panels on the whole goddamned building be turned around. Sheer stupidity!”

  Woodie repeated to us what he had explained to the Board. “This change will halve the energy savings of the glass. The individual air conditioning units for every single dorm room will have to be replaced with more powerful units. Who will pay for all this?”

  They had done calculations. If they turned all the windows on the North, East, and West sides it would cost $14,000. Then at least they would keep the windows the right way for the solar protection on the South wall. The other option the University wanted was turning all the glass in the tower and the dining hall. This would mean 280 dorm and 137 cafeteria mirror glass panels would be turned and reinstalled. In addition, 290 air conditioning units would be removed and replaced. They did the math, adding in costs for delays, insurance, engineering, and modifications in installation. This came to $30,000. (In 2012 dollars and increased cost of labor, this would be equivalent to a quarter of a million dollars.) The Board would let them know in writing in a few days.

  At dinner that night, after he mapped out these options, we kept our heads bowed, ate quietly and truly felt sorry for our dad.

  Two nights later, when he told us about the letter from the dean of the University, his voice barely contained his fury. “They want all the glass turned. They see this as my error because the glass does not look like a sample we passed around at a meeting three years ago.”

  He looked dazed. “And they expect me to pick up the tab.” He stabbed at his chest with his strong stubby forefinger on every ‘I.’ “I have to pay for the changing of all the panels.” Stab. “I have to pay the re-installation of the air conditioning units.” Stab. “And I pay the bill? Forget it.” Then he looked at us. “Do you know the value of that money?”

  We shook our heads, looking down.

  “Of course not. You have no idea about the value of money.” We glanced up, scared that now we were in trouble too. “That’s the equivalent of six years of college tuition and board thrown out the window. It’s armed robbery.”

  At sixteen, I had no idea how much college cost, or how much my dad made. I made fifty cents an hour babysitting on weekends, saved up my crumpled dollars in a jar, and spent it all on fabric and patterns to sew my own clothes. Living in a house filled with art and sculpture, I assumed I’d apply to college and my dad would write a check. None of us could know that this dorm would be his last commission, that in a few years my father’s total yearly income would tumble to less than $5,000 a year.

  Construction resumed, every glass panel was turned, every air conditioning unit replaced, the wiring adapted, the heating and cooling systems adapted. Finally the work could resume. Under pressure, and behind on their deadlines, they were pushing for months to finish the dorm on time for the start of the school year.

  As summer heated up, my father oversaw the final construction decisions while wrestling with legal action against the University over this bill. His lengthy deposition recounted every detail of the process, yet the University demanded his office pay $30,000 for what was called “a mistake on the architect’s part.” Despite Woodie’s articulate explanations, it was decided that he had to pay the bill.

  WHEN HE CAME home from battling with the University, seeing Alvin and me together became the match that lit my father’s short fuse. We didn’t wonder why he was home for dinner nearly every night and sometimes during the day. We didn’t know there were no new jobs coming on the heels of the fiasco of his prized high-rise dorm. We didn’t know that the recession we read about in the paper, like all recessions, hit architects first. No one builds in uncertain times. What we knew was that Woodie was a time bomb set to go off at dinnertime.

  Anything could set him off. For years, we’d flinch as he verbally slashed away at our brother Wood who sometimes walked to school weeping. Now I had become the enemy.

  “You! You have no work ethic. You never apply yourself.” His lips thinned and he’d hit harder. “You have no integrity.” His pointed finger hammered at us under the spotlights as he reached his final point. “You are never going to amount to anything.”

  My brothers, mother, and I learned the art of resistance, quick glances with our down-turned eyes as we were interrogated in his glass cage. Over the years, we each fought back, saboteurs, secretly carrying on with our own lives behind the lines. But when we got caught in open fire, when we argued and defended ourselves, he pounded our defense relentlessly. We never knew when the next assault would begin.

  One night at dinner, I recounted how funny it was teaching Alvin to shift gears on our VW bus.

  “Now I understand how patient you had to be with me when I was learning.” I laughed. “The bus jolted and shook and stalled out over and over as he tried to drive up the hill.” My mother and brothers nodded, smiling.

  My mother agreed. “But then he finally got the hang of it, after all. Good job, Elizabeth.”

  My father’s words lashed out like a slap at my mother. “You coddle these kids.” He glowered at her. “They’ve got to face up to the facts of the real world. Your daughter is playing with fire and it has got to stop.” Sweat beaded on his bald head. He wiped his face with a folded white handkerchief from the stacks I ironed every week.

  His furious mind turned on me. “For your own safety, I have laid down rules and you have defied me at every turn.”

  “We followed your rules,” I protested. “We only go out in odd-numbered groups.” In fact, we did follow his rules when we were in public. When we were alone at my home or his, it was our secret.

  “I made it very clear to Alvin and to you that you were to end this.”

  “At school we are in classes all day together. This summer we are studying for SATs together. He helps me. He’s the best friend I ever had. I won’t stop seeing him.”

  “You disobey me and I won’t stand for this.” He repeated what I said, twisted it, and threw it back at me. He’d roar, “Answer me. What did you say?” I tried to repeat what I’d said, but eventually after his distortions and roaring words back in my face, I couldn’t remember anything.

  Sometimes he paused, mid-assault, as if admiring his work, saying, “I should have been a lawyer. I’ve had to fight so many battles in my day.” He found pleasure in the chase of an argument, building a relentless attack, and creating strategies to get to an admission.

  Then he turned on me. “I told you this relationship had to end. Why do you defy me?”

  One night he slid open one of the glass doors, gestured me outside onto the porch with the gardens spreading out beyond us. He nearly choked with rage. “Where is he touching you? Has he touched your breasts?”

  “No,” I’d glare back. “No.”

  “You have no morals.” Spitting the words. “Have you touched his penis?”

  Shocked, I turned on him. “No, of course not. No.” Despising him. This father who hated me because someone else was touching his possession, my body. Did he hate me because a black man now stroked my back? Was this a battle over who owned me? Becoming his enemy had miraculously saved me from my father’s evening visits for “back rubs.” Now my body was my own, no longer having to submit to my father’s touch. My only comfort now was knowing I could tell Alvin everything the next day. He would listen and hug me. Soon we’d be laughing and happy again.

  One summer evening my mother invited Alvin for dinner. We shucked corn and set the table. He helped Wo
od and Hubbard on the parallel bars on the porch, and talked music with my dad. Afterwards my father took him aside, “I need to speak to you.”

  He had set up two folding chairs on the stone spiral in the garden. He launched into his lecture, building his case. Because high school and college are a time to study and not to be distracted with relationships, because I was young for my age and immature, because, and because, always coming back to and “because of the issues of safety for blacks and whites, I don’t want you to see my daughter again.” He wanted Alvin to know he was a sensible, thoughtful father making a sensible, thoughtful, and logical case.

  Alvin listened and did not engage in discussion. He did not answer yes or no. He was a student of Aikido. He did not fight, he did not engage in discussion, he did not take the bait. He listened until my father finished speaking. He nodded to simply acknowledge the speaking. As they walked away, my father was certain his will would be done.

  Alvin knew we would do nothing of the kind. We loved each other. We were not going to be ordered around. My father never raised his voice against the broad-shouldered black athlete standing in front of him, who did not call him sir, who did not provoke, who did not obey. With Alvin, he was cautious, but he walked back into the house, turning his fury on his wife and children.

  UNDER SIEGE

  A daughter who does not obey is not a daughter; she’s an enemy.

  —FREDERICO GARCIA LORCA, THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA

  ALVIN AND OUR FRIEND PETER FROM YOUTH GROUP lay belly-down in the snow on the little hill behind the orchard, passing binoculars back and forth, watching our house. Beyond the blue shadows of trees, the series of sliding doors blazed with light, the crushed glass panels glinted. They heard my father’s voice attack. “Jo, you allowed this to go on!” Phrases biting with rage. “Over my dead body!” They could see Jo and the boys hunched in chairs at the dining room table.

  “Can you find her?” Alvin and Peter asked each other, scanning my room and the rest of the living room until they made out my profile in the orange Womb chair, head down, arms crossed, knees pulled up tight against my father’s ranting. “You will obey me or you will never leave this house!”

  Nearly two weeks before, I had made my last phone call to Alvin, the first day of Christmas break. I whispered, “I’m grounded.” My father had said I couldn’t leave the house until I stopped seeing Alvin. “Can’t talk anymore. I love you.”

  THAT FIRST SATURDAY of Christmas vacation, my father announced his coup. He had no choice but to put me under house arrest. He mapped out the terms. You are forbidden to leave the house for the two weeks of vacation. Because you have refused to obey me, you will never return to Princeton High School. “You will be sent to a military boarding school in January where you will be taught the meaning of obedience, once and for all.”

  Our house was locked down, our family sucked into a war zone, the language of Vietnam seeping in under the door. I spent days staring at the floor, shrinking from the onslaught of words, furiously glaring at my captor when his back was turned.

  He raged, “You have no morals.” Cross-examining me with impossible questions that were unanswerable. He’d demand “Answer me!” over and over, until he broke me down, until I couldn’t think how to answer any more. Then he turned on Wood, on my mother. We argued and defended ourselves, while he turned and twisted everything we said, used it against us. He roared, “Answer me! What did you say?” We tried to repeat what we’d said, but couldn’t remember our own words after a while.

  He picked us off one by one, breaking us, snapping our minds like dry kindling before starting a fire, until silence, enduring, and hating was all that was left, until we shuffled away, finally dismissed.

  Alvin and Peter hid out in the dark, watching the house from the demilitarized zone. Peter came to the house to visit, pretending to be neutral, and my father was instantly polite and friendly, shaking his hand, inviting him to a meal. Before leaving, Peter secretly handed me love notes from Alvin.

  My mother didn’t know what to do. Finally, at the end of the second week, she went to the Episcopal minister. The word had spread through the village that something was going on in the glass house where the lights were left on all night as my father paced and lectured. Somehow my mother convinced him to let the minister come and speak with us. She spoke quietly, “We can’t keep going on this way. School is about to begin. We have to get through this.”

  On a grey winter afternoon with rain-stained trees hovering outside the transparent walls of the house, a soft-spoken, middle-aged minister asked my family to sit around the low Eames coffee table. He looked at each of our weary, drawn faces. At seventeen, with straight hair reaching below my shoulders, I slumped in the Womb chair and flashed glances at my father, glaring and defiant. Wood and Hubbard, now fourteen and eleven, looked confused. How had they gotten trapped in this nightmare for two weeks? Couldn’t they just leave? My forty-one-year-old mother sat upright, her face serious and hopeful. Sixty-year-old Woodie filled his yellow legal pad with furious notes. He rotated a modern metal and leather sling chair back and forth, ready to begin the proceedings.

  The minister spoke kindly and carefully. “I want to hear each person’s point of view.” He set up a structure where we would each speak and listen with strict time limits.

  My father spoke first. “Elizabeth trapped me in a terrible position until I had no option but to act. Here I’m worried sick about her safety being in this relationship with a black man yet she flagrantly disobeys me.”

  The minister asked me to reflect back what he said. I stared at the floor and muttered, “It isn’t worth saying anything to my father.”

  The minister said, “Everyone will be heard around this circle.”

  He asked me again if I could reflect back what my father had said. I tried to do that without zinging it full of sarcasm. “He said he’s worried about my safety.”

  He asked my father, “Did she hear you correctly?” He waited until my father clarified, “She doesn’t understand the dangers of being in an interracial couple.”

  I reflected back again on what I’d heard.

  My father nodded, “Yes, she heard what I said.” He started to add, “If she’d only...,” but the minister stopped him.

  “No comments, please. We are concentrating on speaking and listening.”

  Then the minister asked me to speak and my father to reflect back. He spent hours with us. Hard work to listen and respond carefully. Then he said, “This is enough for today. I don’t want any more talk about this tonight. I want you to eat together and go to bed early.”

  He came back the next day. The room was more sober, calmer, less like a war zone. He commented to my father, “Woodie, it seems that you need to shoot cannons to make yourself heard.”

  He spoke directly to me. “”You are fighting guerilla warfare, shooting arrows from behind trees, firing sarcastic quick remarks.”

  This quiet man negotiated a ceasefire. I was allowed to go back to school. I was allowed to see Alvin. I would see him in odd-numbered groups. My father was to stop shooting cannons. I was to stop shooting arrows. A peace treaty. We all agreed. He brought a spell of sanity into our home.

  THE FIRST DAY back at school, Alvin and I were ecstatic. We had won. We couldn’t stop hugging at our lockers, holding hands as we walked to class, gazing into each other’s eyes. We’d almost lost each other. But we had won. My father had not separated us.

  After school, when we were finally alone, we flew into each other’s arms with a new passion that was unstoppable. We held each other as waves of desire washed over us. We gazed at each other and stroked each other’s faces with deepened tenderness. We arranged an elaborate ruse, where we would each sleep over at a friend’s house when, in fact, we went to another friend’s house whose parents were out of town so we could have a night to be together. We held each other all night. I woke up to the reassurance of his arms, his body wrapped around me, and slept again. Yet I was
terrified and trembled uncontrollably when our touch inched below the waist.

  A few years before, my mother had advised me about sexuality. You should save your virginity until you meet the love of your life who you will marry. She daringly hinted that it could be okay before marriage, since she had broken that rule herself.

  I agonized over my decision. I bored my friend Billie Jean with endless discussions of my dilemma as I studied The Harrad Experiment like a new Bible of sexuality. Alvin and I lost our virginity in February of our senior year and vowed to always love each other.

  Yet within the month my father orchestrated our separation.

  Garber house exterior

  GRADUATION

  A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

  —LOUIS KAHN

  A MONTH AFTER OUR FAMILY COUNSELING SESSIONS, Woodie glowered at me at dinner. “I was tricked and coerced by that minister. You got everything you wanted. I completely lost.”

  I shrugged. He no longer had the upper hand. He wasn’t able to restart the war. I smiled and jumped up from the table. “Gotta go.” I dashed out the door. Senior year and graduation seemed to have a momentum he couldn’t stop.

  Then, he saw an article in The New York Times about an experimental high school on a square-rigged sailing ship. It was his dream to sail around the world and the school captured his imagination as the place to send his “problem” son. After Alvin and I had slipped out of his grasp, he had turned on my brother again, hammering him about his grades, his attitude, his lengthening hair, and his black friends at the Corner. When he spoke to the director of the school in Manhattan, he also mentioned his “problem” daughter.