“Well?” asked Millard. “How are things going?”
“The same,” said Lysander.
“Something must be different. What do you do with your time?”
They crossed under an arbor and onto a sloping lawn. On the other side of a stubby hedge, men in their sixties and seventies played league bocce.
“What does anyone do with his time?” asked Lysander.
Sometimes Millard wondered if this gumminess wasn’t the norm for father-son conversations, if his own ease with his father hadn’t been the exception. Or maybe Lysander was more forthcoming with others—that it was his own fault that he couldn’t draw anything from the boy beyond a few terse syllables.
“I haven’t seen you in a month. Something must be new.”
“I did come up with a great idea for an invention,” said Lysander.
“That’s something,” said Millard, fishing. “We’ll make another Edison of you yet.”
Lysander didn’t acknowledge his prediction.
“My idea is for a car that can’t speed. You place sensors on the headlights that read traffic signs and then reduce the fuel delivered to the engine accordingly.”
Not an earth-shattering idea, thought Millard—but not hopeless. Hadn’t some 3M clerk banked millions of dollars off Post-it Notes? In any case, it was far better than Lysander’s last attempt at innovation: a self-opening umbrella for dogs.
“That sounds promising,” he said. “What will you do with it?”
“Nothing,” said Lysander. “It’s just an idea . . . .”
Arnold would already have secured the patent and drawn up a blueprint for monetizing this proposal. Maia might have developed a working model. But Lysander, not surprisingly, was perfectly satisfied to let the notion float to the heavens like stardust. Millard swallowed the urge to prod him—that was a different battle for another day. Although, now, there would not be another day. More important, at the moment, was engaging the boy in a broader discussion of his future. Yet how to do this left Millard at a loss.
In hindsight, he sensed something had been off in his relationship with his younger son since the boy’s earliest years. How else to explain the smog that enveloped his memories of Lysander’s upbringing—so different from the concrete moments of discovery and joy that his other children vividly evoked. With Arnold, he’d brushed up his knowledge of philately and numismatics: Jenny Inverts, buffalo nickels, mercury dimes. They’d driven five hours one Sunday to the Smithsonian, and another five hours back, to glimpse a special display of a rare Swedish stamp called the “Treskilling” Yellow. Maia had wanted to know the differences between “New World fruit” and “Old World fruit,” between African and South American monkeys, between stalactites and stalagmites. She’d grappled with beastly llamas and priestly lamas, tocsins that warned and toxins that afforded no warning. He’d mapped the three parts of Gaul for her on a paper napkin in an Indian restaurant, revealed the cycle of clocks springing forward and falling back with the seasons, recited irregular plurals at her bedside while she recovered from a bout of pneumonia. Why aides-de-camp and coups d’état, she’d asked at age nine, but tête-à-têtes? He had no idea. And Sally, whose intelligence ran more visual than verbal, had been able to sketch the inaugural gowns of every First Lady by her twelfth birthday. But Lysander? Millard had a vague memory of the boy catching a water snake in a net, another of his training a pet chinchilla to rear on its hind legs for food. What could one say to a boy whose greatest feat, in forty-three years, had been teaching a crepuscular rodent to stick out his ass?
They exited the park at 110th Street and meandered into Harlem, pausing periodically for the dogs to paw at a tree root or sniff a passing mongrel. Construction workers on lunch break, greased, shirtless, lounged against a timber parapet. Taxis crawled toward a service station, honking their hunger and frustration. To their southeast, the glass façade of the Hapsworth Annex loomed with futuristic macho, reflecting clouds. From his penthouse office suite, St. Dymphna’s president, Harvey Bloodfinch, a former navy sharpshooter turned healthcare economist, could likely have spotted them with his binoculars—or put a bullet between Millard’s eyes. But to Harvey Bloodfinch, clinicians like Millard were slightly less significant than barnacles. He’d demonstrated this countless times, turning down requests for expanded retirement options, and enhanced security on locked wards, and staff discounts for overnight parking. Millard’s death, if Bloodfinch even noted the event, would merely mean inconvenience: an irksome moment for the hospital’s optics, maybe a sympathetic email dispatched to the psychiatry faculty. How different from Millard’s first day on service, in 1968, when the hospital’s chief medical officer, a chain-smoking Brahmin, had invited him to lunch.
They drifted along the northern border of the park, weaving their way through bicycle traffic. Lysander paused near the Warriors’ Gate to let the dogs relieve themselves. Millard couldn’t find the right words to broach the subject of the boy’s future, so they rambled in silence, past the women’s detention center and the gargantuan statue of Duke Ellington. He found himself missing Delilah—wondering if he shouldn’t have spent these evaporating hours with her instead. She’d be dictating her final letters now, verbal missives packed with wry humor and disarming sincerity and snippets of Alexander Pope. (She’d probably have arranged to send him one too, he realized, not knowing that he wouldn’t be present to receive it.) Or maybe she’d turned on the record player with the voice-activated remote, as she’d done the previous afternoon when he’d surprised her, to hear von Karajan conduct The Merry Widow. How different it was to sit in silence with Delilah, where nothing needed to be verbalized, than to walk in silence alongside his layabout son, when so much still had to be said. He wondered what the boy was thinking. Was the boy thinking anything at all? Maybe the inside of his son’s brain looked no different from the floor of his apartment, strewn with tooth-pocked dog toys and wrappers from vegan cheeseburgers. The hush between them didn’t seem to faze the young man at all.
On the corner of 103rd Street—they had approached within a few blocks of the hospital—a homeless derelict wearing a leg brace called out to them for coins. He had a youthful face and crystalline gray eyes, giving him a gaminesque appeal that might prove charming, or evidence of criminal intent. He looked vaguely familiar to Millard—but after years covering the psychiatric emergency room on intermittent weekends, most undomiciled young men acquired an aura of familiarity.
“Yo, brother,” he called out, from his perch on the sidewalk. “Help a vet in need.”
Millard wished to keep walking, but his son paused—almost as a reflex—and fished a five-dollar bill from his pocket. “Here you go,” he said.
The gesture infuriated Millard. Not that he had any particular objection to aiding the downtrodden—although he believed systematic assistance, such as a donation to City Harvest or a local soup kitchen, to be far more sensible. Even if this fellow weren’t a veteran, a claim which he sincerely doubted—even if the man planned to exchange the bill for crack or crystal meth or PCP—that was forgivable in Millard’s book. He’d long ago gotten past the need to blame desperate souls for their addictions or their petty deceits. If well-intentioned but clueless medical students wanted to yield their hard-earned pocket change to panhandlers, why did he care? But in this case, none of Lysander’s pocket change was hard-earned. Not by Lysander, at least. Every dime the boy spent came directly out of Millard’s wallet, out of the inheritances of his siblings. And the notion of his son giving away money that wasn’t truly his—at least, not in the sense of earned income, of blood, sweat, and tears—defied Millard’s most fundamental sense of justice. The only real difference between Lysander and the recipient of his largesse was that Lysander had a well-off father. Millard’s anger mounted as he watched the homeless guy slide the bill into the pocket of his camouflage pants.
“It’s good to meet a fellow vet,” he volunteered. “What branch did you serve in?”
“Marines,
” the man replied. “Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“I was in the navy,” said Millard. “Korea.”
None of this was true, of course. Millard had been thirteen years old, resisting his bar mitzvah lessons, when the armistice was signed at Panmunjom. Later, a bone spur in his heel and a friend of his uncle’s on the draft board had kept him far from Vietnam. “Just out of curiosity,” he asked the vet, “what’s your E-grade?”
E-grades, and O-grades for officers, were the universal ranks that transcended branches of the service for matters of ceremony and pay—so that no confusion existed between the precedence of an army captain (O-3) and a naval captain (O-6). Every enlisted man knew his E-grade. Hal Storch, who had flailed for two years in the merchant marine before med school, had educated Millard on the nuances of the E-and-O hierarchy. He found these ranks proved invaluable in establishing that someone had not served his or her country.
The vet looked up, puzzled. “I got an honorable discharge, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Millard.
He turned quickly and tramped away. Taking out his frustration on the bogus vet had distracted him momentarily, but hadn’t placated him.
“Jesus. What was that about?” asked Lysander. “I didn’t know you were in the navy.”
Millard took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. He sensed they’d reached the brink of the wrong fight. Instead of saying, That’s five dollars that could be spent on your nieces’ college fund, he merely replied, untruthfully, “I was probing him. If he’d been a real veteran, I’d have given something too.”
He looked at his watch. Approaching twelve thirty. Roughly one-sixteenth of his remaining hours wasted on this fruitless trek across Manhattan. “We should be able to find a restaurant along Madison,” he announced, cutting down a side street. “There’s a new pan-Asian place on Ninety-Fourth, if you’re up for it . . . .”
Lysander assented with his feet and, soon enough, they had commandeered an outdoor table at Bamboo Landing. Not surprisingly, with the mercury well over ninety, they were the only customers seated along the sidewalk. Inside, the place teemed with the retinue of tertiary care centers: conclaves of patients’ relatives, rumple-coated post-docs, residents wolfing in packs. Patrons eyed them warily through the green-tinted glass—as one might a disturbed stranger on an aircraft or an elevator. Who dined outdoors in such heat? They’d be fortunate if they didn’t collapse of dehydration or sunstroke. Although the menu covered a vast swath of Eastern geography from Thailand to Japan, the waitstaff was overwhelmingly female, blond, and well-endowed in the bust. Their server, who sported blue liner over brown eyes and a visible panty-line under her skirt, appeared less than thrilled with their choice of seating. She handed them their menus as though distributing live grenades.
“Miss, can I have a bowl of water?” asked Lysander.
“Just water?”
“For the dogs.”
Puddle and Onion loafed on the pavement, panting; Lysander had hooked the leashes over the edge of the makeshift metal rail.
“Health department won’t let us do that,” said the waitress. “You can buy a disposable bowl across the street at the Superette. I’ll be glad to fill it with water for you.”
Millard detected a hint of satisfaction, even spite, in the girl’s words. If you’re going to make me schlep you food outside in this unbearable weather, she seemed to be saying, then no dog bowls for you.
“If you’ll excuse me a second,” said Lysander, rising.
“Can you wait until we order?” asked Millard. “I only have a little while . . . .”
Lysander glanced at the dogs and slid back into his chair. Millard feared he’d sounded testy, as though he viewed his time with his son as lacking value. “I hear the noodles are excellent,” he said, striving to take the edge off his previous remark.
“They’re probably boiled in chicken broth,” said Lysander. “I may just order a Coke.”
So get your lousy Coke, thought Millard. Why does everything with you have to be so goddamn difficult? He wanted to say “Your brother would eat a used Jeep if it were the only item on the menu,” but he held his pique and surveyed the specials. He felt an obligation to choose wisely, this final meal, like a death row inmate or an early Christian martyr. Most probably, he’d have a snack at Delilah’s that evening, maybe a can of soup or half a grapefruit, but he didn’t want to kill himself on a full stomach. So he splurged now: Singapore rice noodles, Thai-style lamb curry, sweet-and-sour breast of duck. From the Japanese fare he added a platter of sashimi, a side of pumpkin tempura, and taro potato stew. “I’ll take home the extra,” he assured the waitress. “For lunch tomorrow.” Lysander ordered a cup of brown rice to accompany his soda.
Once they found themselves alone again, Millard wanted to broach the subject of Lysander’s future before the boy wandered off to purchase his disposable bowl. He felt sorry for the thirsty dogs, but a man had to have priorities. How could one weigh a brief moment of canine discomfort against his son’s prospects for long-term stability? He rested his cheeks on his palms, searching for the right mode of entry, and looked up only when he sensed the buxom torso of the waitress shielding his face, however ephemerally, from the sun. Instead, he discovered that the shadow over their table belonged to Elsa Duransky.
“Elsa,” he exclaimed. “Twice in one day.”
She’d stopped on the sidewalk, opposite the railing. His neighbor had her husband in tow: Millard’s colleague hunched over an orthopedic walker—the sort that used tennis balls for slider feet. Eyebrows as thick as kudzu sprouted above his bulbous nose; his hearing aids hummed to their own tune, possibly “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” Millard rose long enough to shake the endocrinologist’s hand. Saul’s blink lacked recognition. It was hard to imagine that this man’s laboratory had once transformed the field of hormone synthesis or that he’d treated the likes of Nelson Rockefeller and Adlai Stevenson.
Elsa picked lint off Millard’s shoulder. “Did you hear there’s a lynx on the loose?”
“I hadn’t heard,” he said.
“Well, there is. I’m surprised you don’t know. There are flyers everywhere.”
“I’m not very observant.”
“You’ll have to be—with a lynx on the loose,” said Elsa. “Anyway, when I told Saul, he thought I’d said a baby minx, not a lynx. Didn’t you, dear?”
Saul rested his forearms on the walker. “What’s that?”
“I was telling Millard what you said about the lynx,” said Elsa, in a half-shout that carried like a foghorn. “Tell them what you said.”
“Really, doll. I don’t think they’re interested.”
Elsa turned back to their table. “What he said was, ‘I already have the only little minx I need right here.’ Isn’t that just darling?”
Lysander cleared his throat. “I should go buy that bowl.”
“It’s so good to see you again,” said Elsa, directing her remarks toward Millard’s son. “And your dogs are just adorable.”
She stooped forward and ran her manicured fingers through Puddle’s nape.
“They’re getting thirsty,” said Lysander. “I should get them some water.”
Elsa nuzzled the other dog. She lowered her voice to a braying whisper and asked, “Which one is Hitler?”
Lysander flashed a look that hovered between surprise and self-doubt. “What?”
“Which one is Hitler?” Elsa asked again, her voice louder. “And which is Mussolini?”
Millard sensed he ought to intervene. But what could he possibly say?
“This is some kind of joke, isn’t it?” said Lysander.
“It’s irony,” interjected Millard. “I thought your generation was into irony. If gays can say queer, and blacks call each other nigger, what’s wrong with Jews naming their dogs after fascists?”
Saul, who’d appeared to have absorbed only one or two choice words, looked bewildered—as though mistrusting his own e
ars. Millard relished this dash of irreverence. Let the associate dean stuff that in his tobacco-free pipe.
Lysander made an effort to puzzle out the matter. “Okay,” he agreed. “I can play along.”
Elsa paid them no heed. “This one here looks a bit more German, don’t you, Little Adolf?”
“His grandfather was a German shepherd at a POW camp,” replied Lysander, grinning—and, for an instant, Millard could see himself in the boy. “Pure Aryan blood.”
Saul’s eyes drifted from Lysander to the collies to his wife. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Lysander was telling me about his dogs,” said Elsa, bellowing into her husband’s ear. “One of them is named Hitler and the other is named Mussolini. It’s ironic.”
“I don’t think I heard you, doll. It sounded like you said Mussolini.”
“Hitler,” repeated Elsa, loud enough to alarm passersby, “and Mussolini.”
The waitress arrived at that moment with Lysander’s drink and the first of Millard’s entrées. “Will your friends be joining us?” she asked.
“Oh, no. We must be on our way,” said Elsa. “Good to see you again, Millard. Lysander. Too-da-loo.” She waved farewell with her fingertips, while wrapping her other hand around her husband’s elbow. A moment later, Millard found himself alone with his son.
“Now I’m really going to go,” said Lysander.
“Hold on a second,” objected Millard. “I have something I want to discuss . . . .”
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