He was sitting at the kitchen table. I glanced at him and then I looked again. His eyes were clear and steady above the swoop of his nose. The bones in his face bulged white to give him that wild starved look. His mouth was trembling a little as though with the singing rush of strength inside him. He wore his shiny blue serge suit and a white shirt that had gone yellow at the collar tips and cuffs. He wore a black knit tie. He looked at me and then down at his scuffed shoes.
“I’ll shine them for you,” I said.
I brought the polish and brush. Kneeling, I started to shine his shoes. It was good to kneel before him. I put my hand around the back of his thin ankle while brushing each shoe. The strength in him seemed to leap through me and yet there was an ache in my heart reminding me of the absence of that strength in recent days.
I went across the street to call Sophie Nowak. She came back with me to help prepare the food. We sliced ham and salami and then we fried the hot sausage. We set the table with dishes of pickles and olives and tomatoes and hot peppers. In the center of the table was the big sponge cake baked by Lemko. There were six white candles across the top and six across the bottom.
The first guest to arrive was Lefty Riley. He was wearing a brown cap with a chunk missing from the peak. Bowing, he swept that cap off as though he had brought it for that purpose. He glanced at the loaded table and then shyly looked away. I introduced him to my father. They sat and talked like old friends. Presently the neighbors were coming in to fill the house with talk and laughter. They drank toasts to my father. They lingered to talk with him about baseball and politics and the economic recession. He seemed to be drinking in every word spoken to him. Now and again a strange sweet smile would light his face. So warm and alert was he that the neighbors began to interrupt each other in their eagerness to tell him things. At one point Rakowski was saying that he had disowned his daughter while Florio was shouting that life had no meaning and that God was a great comedian.
“We haven’t got a chance here!” said Florio. “Not a chance!”
I went over to the coffee house to get the television set. Poulos helped me lift it into his painting truck. Theodore told Marko to watch the coffee house. He brought a tray of baclava and rode back to the house with Poulos and me. There were cries of delight as we struggled through the door with that television set. We staggered through the kitchen and set it down in the middle of the living room. Everyone milled around it. My father nodded to me.
“It’s beautiful,” said Sophie. “Paul is such a good boy.”
“It’s about time you had one of these,” said Kroger.
“You’ll see what’s going on,” said Florio. “And then you’ll say to hell with it.”
“This calls for a drink,” said Rakowski.
“With a beer chaser,” said Lefty.
There was a movement to the table for food and drink. Glasses of beer and whiskey were lifted lights of gold all through the house. The men raised their voices. No one listened and so they talked louder. There were bursts of laughter like reckless invitations from the women. A gray cloud of cigar and cigarette smoke hung from room to room like a ghostly fish dissolving against the ceilings. Sam Ross walked in. He smiled and his golden tooth flashed.
“Where’s the watermelons?” said Poulos.
“This calls for a drink,” said Rakowski.
“With a beer, God bless us,” said Lefty.
My father kept glancing toward the door. I realized that he was watching for Nina. I stepped out on the porch. After a while I went over to the coffee house and called her on the telephone.
“But Andy isn’t home yet,” she said.
“Leave a note for him,” I said. “Come right over.”
“He wanted to come, too.”
“Where is he?”
“He went to work out at a gym.”
“At this hour?”
“He must be on his way home by now.”
“Pa’s been waiting for you. He really has. Don’t disappoint him, Nina. Not tonight.”
“All right, Paul. I’ll be right over.”
I went back to wait for her on the porch. Half an hour later she came in a taxicab. She kissed me. She had a white package tied with a green ribbon. We went inside. My father smiled when she leaned over to kiss him. She burst into tears and gave him the package. He turned it around in his hands. He fumbled with it and finally got it open.
“It’s an electric razor,” said Kroger. “A Schick.”
“This calls for a drink,” said Rakowski.
“Not a chance,” Florio was saying.
“How about some music?” said Lefty.
He cleared a space in the kitchen and set a chair for me. I played the harmonica. There were calls for a jig and a polka and a tarantella. When it was time to light the candles on the cake I played happy birthday to my father. Nina put the lights out. I was playing and watching my father as he stood over the dancing golden lights of those candles. It seemed his face had been cut from white stone and then washed clean by his foaming hair. He blew out the candles. Everyone was singing to him in the dark.
After that the neighbors started to leave. They shook hands with my father and wished him well. Rakowski and Florio invited him to supper. Lefty invited him to go fishing at Gordon Park. My father thanked them. Sophie Nowak was the last to go. My father took her hand. He thanked her for preparing and serving the food. She was like a young girl afraid of her longing to be kissed.
Nina offered to help me put the house in order. She kept talking about Andy and so I told her to go along home. She called a taxi.
“Now I want you both for dinner,” she said. “I want you to come next Sunday. Will you promise, Pa?”
“All right,” he said.
“We should see more of each other,” she said.
“Andy likes you.”
“Andy?” he said.
“He really does,” she said. “He always asks about you.”
“Andy who?” he said, gravely.
“Please, Pa,” she said. “Don’t be like that.… Here’s the cab. I’ll call you tomorrow. Good night and happy birthday.”
I moved chairs back into place. I swept the kitchen and emptied the ash trays. I washed the dishes and glasses. My father sat there smoking his pipe. He looked exhausted and yet peaceful.
There was wine left in one of the bottles. I filled two glasses and took one to him. We drank a toast. Suddenly a mouse was nibbling in the kitchen wall. The fragrance of all that food had put daring in him. We listened to the nibbling. Plaster crumbled softly.
“There isn’t much for him,” said my father.
Delicate scratching started in another corner of the wall. Plaster crumbled again. Both mice were still.
“I better be going,” I said. I didn’t want to embarrass him.
“It was a good party,” he said.
“Don’t worry about these bottles. I’ll get rid of them tomorrow.”
“Come for dinner. If you want to.”
“Maybe we should have some spaghetti. I think there’s hot sausage left. We’ll put it in the sauce.”
“Good.”
“And then we can try the new television.”
“All right.”
“Well, Pa, I guess I’ll be going. Good night.”
“Good night then.”
I turned away.
“Paul,” he said, softly.
My heart stopped when he said that.
“Yes, Pa?” I said, turning to him.
He was watching me.
“What is it, Pa?”
“Well, I was thinking,” he said.
“About what?”
“I was wondering here.”
“Go right ahead, Pa. You can say whatever you want.”
A sudden dancing light was in his eyes.
“Theodore,” he said.
“Theodore? You mean Theodore Ampazis?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“Has he really got that aluminum ladder?”
“He really has,” I said.
I was going to tell him about that ladder and then I saw the look on his face. He was teasing me. Laughter came into his eyes. For a long moment we were watching each other. It was good between us and so I turned to leave him before something happened.
15
It was in the dark of morning that I woke to the deep free snoring of Theodore in the next room. I thought of my father. I was longing to be with him and to see again the light of laughter in his eyes. Quietly I washed and dressed. I started to go out the kitchen door and then I remembered the aluminum ladder. I went into the coffee house. Laughing softly, I lifted that ladder with one finger. I put my arm through it and carried it out.
Morning light was climbing in the east over a coil of cloud like the fallen tower of night. I carried the ladder through Lincoln Park. Sparrows gossiped among the brown leaves. I turned the corner of the alley and glanced down at our porch. I was disappointed. I had hoped that my father would be watching for me.
I carried the ladder up the porch steps. I called out a good morning and walked into the kitchen. I waited and listened. There was no sound in the house. The door of the bedroom was closed. I tapped it. I listened and tapped again.
“It’s me, Pa,” I said, opening the door.
The curtains were stirring in the breeze.
All else was still.
My father was on the floor at the foot of the bed. He looked broken. He was dressed the same as when I left him. I was gazing down at him. I started to watch for movement. I was watching until I realized that I was not really watching at all.
Carefully I stood the ladder against the wall. I went down on my knees to lift my father. Breathing deeply, I put my arms under him. It took everything in me to lift him and to stand with him. I held him in my arms. I was holding him and feeling a new strength that finally made him one with me.
I put him on the bed. I buttoned the coat of his suit and folded his hands over it. I looked at him. After a moment I went to the bathroom for a washcloth. I wiped his face and combed his hair. I kissed him on the mouth and then drew the sheet over his face.
I went across the street to tell Sophie Nowak. A kind of excitement was gathering in me. Sophie was getting ready for church. Her hat looked like a black war helmet. A red flower soared from it.
“Good morning, Paul,” she said.
“Good morning, Sophie.”
I waited a moment.
“Sophie, I think my father is dead.”
She looked sharply at me. She turned very pale. She ran out of the house. I ran after her. I was wondering why we were running. I followed her up the porch steps. She hurried through the kitchen into the bedroom. She closed the door against me.
When she came out she put her arms around me. She kissed me hard on the mouth. She was hugging me so tightly that we swayed. I wanted to stay in her arms. As though sensing it she stood away from me. She filled a glass with whiskey and gave it to me. It went flaming down into me. It was delicious.
I sat at the kitchen table while Sophie made telephone calls. I was beginning to feel a little reckless. Sophie called Doctor Fisher and the police and Nina. Doctor Fisher lived right around the corner in Grant Court. He came in a few minutes. He was carrying his black bag as though he had forgotten all about it. The shrunken dissatisfied look of him stirred laughter in me. I wanted to tell him that we meant to call him in earlier on the case. I had to bite my lip against crazy laughter. I pointed to the bedroom. I got up to follow him and he told me to wait.
The police ambulance like the paddy wagon pulled up in front of the house. A policeman hurried in. I told him the doctor was with my father. He went back to the porch and called something to the other policeman. Doctor Fisher came out of the bedroom. He saw the ambulance and waited for the policemen to come inside.
“Probably a coronary,” he said. “Three or four hours ago. You didn’t hear anything, Paul? Where was your father?”
“He was on the floor,” I said. “I didn’t spend the night here. We had a birthday party for him and then I went over to spend the night at the coffee house. I’ve been staying there awhile.”
“The police will take your father, Paul.”
“Take him where?”
“Well, the authorities have to satisfy themselves as to the cause of death. Your father had bursitis and maybe some arthritis, Paul, but he wasn’t under my care for anything really serious. Call the funeral director after while and he’ll make the necessary arrangements.”
One of the policemen asked me questions about my father. He was writing the information down. Sophie interrupted him.
“I’m putting the coffee on, Paul,” she said. “And I’ll make some eggs for you.”
“I don’t think so. Thank you, Sophie.”
“How would you like them?” she said, stolidly.
I looked at her. She was determined.
“Fried in butter,” I said. “With some dried hot pepper.”
“Where’s the pepper?”
“The pepper’s in that jar on the stove. Put the pepper in first, Sophie. It fries black and flavors the butter.”
The policeman waited. It seemed he was waiting for further word about the pepper and eggs. Finally he asked me a few more questions and then he nodded to his companion. Doctor Fisher leaned over to say he was leaving me pills to help me rest. The policemen went into the bedroom with a wheeled stretcher. They closed the door. Doctor Fisher expressed his sympathy and squeezed my hand as though to keep hold of me. Presently the bedroom door opened. The policemen were carrying my father through it. A blanket covered him. The policemen went stiffly through the kitchen and out the screen door. Doctor Fisher followed them. Sophie put the eggs in front of me. The yolks were fried solid. I hated the look of those eggs. I was running my hand around the edge of that dish. Suddenly I wanted to throw it against the wall.
After eating a little I sipped coffee and watched for Nina. I was anxious to see her. There was a kind of curiosity dark as greed in me. I was beginning to be ashamed of it when she arrived with Andy. I got up and went to her. We hugged and kissed each other.
“Oh, Paul,” she was saying. “Oh, Paul.”
She was sobbing and trembling in my arms. I nodded to Andy. His wild curly hair had gone gray at the temples. He looked like a lost child. I reached over to shake his hand.
Everyone sat down. Sophie served coffee. I put whiskey in mine. Nina wanted to know what happened after she left the house.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “Everything.”
“Everything? Pa’s dead.”
“What happened after I left here?”
“I cleaned up the house. I put things in order. We had a glass of wine and then we talked about having dinner together today.”
“How did he look? How was he acting?”
“He looked tired. But he looked nice, too. Sort of smiling.”
“Smiling? About what?”
“It was about a ladder. I kept talking about painting the house and borrowing this aluminum ladder from Theodore Ampazis. I mentioned it several times.”
“Then what?”
“Well, I wrote him this letter for his birthday. I told him about the ladder again. Last night I was leaving and he called me back. He started to say something and then he changed his mind. Maybe he was going to tell me to come home. But I don’t think so. Well, he didn’t know what to say and so he ended up asking me if Theodore really had that aluminum ladder. He was teasing me.”
“And then what happened?”
“That’s all.”
“She means today,” said Andy.
“You see what happened,” I said.
“She means all of it,” said Andy.
“I woke up early. I decided to bring the ladder to the house. I was really going to start painting this week. And there he was.”
“Where?” said Nina, softly. “Where was he?”
&n
bsp; “On the floor. At the foot of the bed. Doctor Fisher said he died about three hours ago. It’s a couple of hours after I left him. Probably a heart attack. I remember him saying he didn’t know why his heart went on beating.”
“How did he look?” said Nina.
“The same as last night. All dressed.”
“I mean how did he look exactly?”
“Do you want to know?”
“Of course I want to know. What’s the matter with you, Paul? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I’ll tell you how he looked. He looked like he was all used up and God threw him aside.”
“Paul!”
“It’s the truth. Do you want me to lie about it? It’s what went through my mind when you asked me and I remembered him on the floor.”
“He was all alone,” she said. “O my God.’
She burst into tears. She stood up and started for his bedroom. Abruptly she turned and went into my room.
By and by the neighbors were coming to pay their respects. Some of those men strode into the kitchen as though taking command to save a ruined ship. Their eyes flashed. The word of death had filled them with strange power. Others came in a gentle whispering way. They were moving around me like men balancing on ropes. They shook my hand. It was a kind of dark precious welcome. They lingered to talk with me if I wished. They were careful not to intrude. The women came with bread and cake and pots of hot coffee. Their eyes were big with tenderness and sudden love for me. They touched my hands and my face. Several of them kissed me. Afterward they went in to comfort Nina.
I thought of Peggy. I wanted Peggy to come and see me at the heart of things. I was watching for her while listening to the talk that started in the house. I tried to follow every conversation. The words were like stones in the air.
“He looked good last night,” said Mrs. Rakowski.
“Yes, he did,” said Kroger.
“Didn’t he look all right to you?” she said.
“I thought so,” he said.
“You never know,” she said. “You never know.”
“Do you remember his wife?” he said.
“Jenny,” she said, quickly. “Her name was Jenny.”
A Lost King: A Novel Page 15