Mama liked for the two of us to be dressed up in hats and gloves and be driven to Neiman’s, Sanger’s, Titche’s, Harris’s, Dreyfus’s, James K. Wilson, all the big downtown Dallas stores, by the dignified uniformed colored chauffeur in the big black courtesy car limousine Cadillac. The driver opened doors, bowed, said, “Yes ma’am, yes ma’am” about a million times, but I could see he didn’t really want to talk to us. I examined the little Cadillac symbol shield. Why are there tiny ducks on it? I wondered.
Mama would talk on and on about what Nana would think of this or that store, or this or that dress, how we should go by and show Nana what we’d bought, how if Nana were there, she’d make us walk to every single store to be sure we couldn’t get the same dress for less, how Nana is this amazing, energetic, thrifty, clean Scottish woman who might be found on her maid’s day off scrubbing her pots and pans on her kitchen floor because the maid didn’t get them anywhere near clean enough.
Mama would say that Nana is the one with “real class,” is the “brains of the operation.” She would say that we are not the old land and cotton people or the old ranching and cattle people in Texas, how we are not the oil people or the banking or real estate people, but we are the people who sell everybody their Cadillacs. And how it’s all because of Nana that Cadillacs are so big in Texas, how our family is synonymous with Cadillac in Texas, how everybody knows that we are among the nicest rich people in Dallas, how we are so lucky and special to have a family business like this, because we still think about the Depression, and you never know what might happen next in this world. So we are so lucky and special, even though we’re really only car dealers and newspaper people, and how all of this is because of Nana’s being so smart and so stylish and having so many friends.
And this all must be true, because everywhere we would go, the salesladies would know Nana and would ask about her, their voices all high and singsongy, the way Mama’s gets with bridge-club friends, saying what good taste Nana had, what a nice person Nana was, and not a snob like some others, how Nana was their favorite, best customer, and remembered all their names and birthdays.
“Oh, are you her grandaughter?” they would say. “Your grandmother is famous around here!”
Then driving home, Mama said how she knows she’s Nana’s favorite daughter-in-law, even though Daddy’s not Nana’s favorite son, because Nana said poor Daddy has “always been just awful,” and because Nana’d always liked Ted best. And Mama said that I am Nana’s favorite grandchild because I’m the eldest, and the little ones give Nana a headache, because even though Nana’s a wonderful person, she is just so nervous, and on and on about who are the favorites, until I didn’t want to listen anymore.
Then the courtesy car took us to the downtown Dallas Athletic Club for lunch with Daddy, and they let me order the twelve giant shrimp with red sauce for a dollar fifty.
An ancient colored man seemed to be in charge, small, wiry, and very black, with white hair and a face like a tree. He greeted us, while Daddy called his name several times and seemed to want to joke around with this old man. And the old man would just smile sternly and nod. At the table, he took our order, and when he left, Daddy leaned over to Mama and me and said, “That old spook knows everybody in this town.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way,” Mama said.
Daddy blinked and snorted and ordered a vodka tonic.
I pretended not to see, not to hear. I looked around at the polished dance floor, the white columns. I chewed on a shrimp with red sauce, and another and another, as I watched them both.
After lunch, the courtesy car took us all back to Lone Star, where Daddy clump-CLUMPed toward the service department again. As he was going through the door, I saw Uncle Ted coming the other way, walking fast, and the two of them bumped into each other hard as they both tried at the same time to get through the door first. Uncle Ted went through, and somehow Daddy lost his balance, spun around once, twice, and then fell down hard, one of those long, struggling falls. Mama and I both jumped toward him.
“Oh, excuse me, Dick,” Uncle Ted said, and then he just went on walking out to the parking lot.
One of the salesmen pushed a chair over to Daddy and then looked away while he struggled with pulling himself up, cursing and violently pushing Mama away when she tried to help him.
“I don’t see why you have to act like that,” Mama said.
“There’s a lot you don’t see, Jane,” he said. And then Daddy clump-CLUMPed away to his office and slammed his door shut. So now we’d have to pretend that this hadn’t happened.
THE BLANKET GOT TO BE ITCHY, my arm had fallen asleep, and it was getting light outside, but I could still see the one star out there through the blinds.
Daddy started trying to call out, but he seemed to be asleep, or partly asleep, or starting to wake up. I stayed horned toad–flat there on the floor.
Daddy sat up on the other side of the bed. I scooted closer to the bed on his side, then up underneath the creaking springs. Please God, don’t let Daddy see I’m here!
Mama turned over, making a sound.
Daddy stood up, breathing heavily, moaning to himself. He pulled the sheets and blankets off the bed, then, clutching the huge wad of them, limped heavily out of the room, as though his feet were especially bad.
I lay listening to him clump-CLUMP into the bathroom down the hall, then close the bathroom door and lock it the way he always did, even when alone. He came out finally, clumping into the kitchen. Noises in the kitchen. I waited, sleepy again, not scared of shadows anymore, since something as real as Daddy was stomping around the house.
Mama turned over again. Then it sounded like the back door closed. I crawled out from under the bed, tiptoed into the hall, my eyes used to the dark. I looked into the living room at the wood bin. Daddy didn’t seem to be in the house at all.
Looking out the back porch windows, I saw the dark figure of Daddy standing in the moonlit yard, looking up at the sky, still holding sheets and blankets, and turning slowly around and around. He was holding something else in one hand; a bottle glinted in the moonlight as he turned around again with a moan. He was saying something in a regular voice. Then he was saying something in a loud voice that sounded like crying, at the sky. The dogs barked and whined. Then Daddy was clump-CLUMPing out to the toolshed where he often would work on model boats or planes, on which he would often paint with a tiny brush the name Astro Solo.
I waited a long time, nodding with sleep. The light didn’t come on out there, and Daddy didn’t come back.
Back in my room, I saw that hunched black thing was just clothes on top of a chair. I got into bed, put my arms around myself, the way I wanted to hold on to them, the way I wished all of us could hold on to all of us.
The Age of Reason
Daddy sits at one end of the dinner table, Mama at the other. I sit between them on one side. On the other side, opposite me, sits a baby, the elder of two babies, in a high chair pulled up to the table. The other baby is still in a crib in the back room. The maid is in the kitchen, waiting to be called.
There are place mats and stainless steel. Our napkins are in our laps, and we sit up straight at the dinner table. We do not sing or whistle or read at the dinner table. We do not interrupt. We do not tap or kick the chair legs or swing our feet back and forth at the dinner table. White bread is stacked on a plate. Salad plates are set before us. Iceberg lettuce, section-cut red tomatoes, a pink dressing—I poke my fork at it.
“Don’t play with your food,” says Daddy.
“Eat your salad,” says Mama.
Normally, I would argue, saying “I hate salad!” and trying to bargain for something.
But just then, Mama says, “You should eat that salad instead of so much bread and so many cookies.”
“That’s right, you know,” says Daddy. “You are getting fat.”
So that’s that.
Everyone is tense, because for the older baby across from me, tonight’s di
nner is a test: Will she or will she not be able to eat properly enough to stay and have a place at the table throughout the meal? This would be a first.
It doesn’t look good for the baby, as she has just caused a bit of cut-up tomato to fly across the table and land on the bread plate. And Daddy saw it land.
Daddy groans. Daddy doesn’t like having a baby at the table. Mama reaches and takes the tomato bit onto her own plate, saying, “That’s all right. It’s just one little thing, Dick.”
A few drops of tomato wetness are sitting on the plate, threatening to spoil the perfection of the white slices. But maybe he doesn’t see it.
I look across at the baby. She hasn’t noticed what’s happening yet. She’s a happy baby, almost two now, with bright black eyes. Everyone says every single day how she is so cute, which makes me want to do something to her.
I eat a few tomato bites and push my lettuce around. Daddy devours his salad in seconds, ready for the meat of the meal. Mama eats slowly, cuts up her lettuce with care. The baby drops her baby fork on the floor with a clang. Daddy flinches, looks at Mama. Mama picks up the fork, then stands and picks up her plate and mine.
“Jane,” says Daddy.
“Yes, Dick?” says Mama.
“Let the maid do it.”
“That’s okay; I need to get something from the kitchen.” And she walks out with the salad plates, then returns quickly, carrying dinner plates, followed by gigantic May-May, the white-uniformed black maid, carrying a platter with meat loaf. May-May is as tall as Daddy, so dark that sometimes I can barely see her Indian-sharp features, and hugely big. Her uniform doesn’t fit right, apron crooked, slip hanging out. I see Daddy noticing this. He has a look on his face. Daddy doesn’t like May-May, says she’s a slob. But Mama says May-May loves the babies and is a good soul. Mama sits. May-May goes back to the kitchen, cut-open loafers flapping, then brings out mashed potatoes and peas.
Daddy begins slicing the steaming meat loaf, his birdlike eyes appraising its blanket of tomato sauce and slices of bacon on top. We pass our plates.
“Jane, how many times do I have to say I want it pink in the middle?” says Daddy.
“It is pink in the middle,” says Mama.
“You call that pink?” says Daddy.
“It looks pink to me,” says Mama.
“Well, next time.” He takes a long breath, exhales it, then speaks very slowly. “Could you please make it pinker than this?” he says. He isn’t that mad yet.
Mama takes a plate for the baby and starts cutting up small bites. I am seven now and I cut up my own food. The baby bangs excitedly on her tray. Daddy leans and suddenly grabs her little arm. Her eyes widen. We all freeze.
“Now, do you think you can settle down and eat right?” he says, holding her arm, glaring into her face. Her little face crumples. She starts to cry. Mama shoves a bite of mashed potatoes into her mouth. She stops crying and works to swallow.
We receive our filled plates and start to eat. I watch each of them, and I watch the baby staring wide-eyed at Daddy. She’s starting to catch on.
I am waiting for my moment. Thanksgiving is past, and Christmas is coming. I’m in second grade now, not a baby anymore, and I hear the things other kids say. I am ready to hear the truth. Even though I pretty much know the answer, I need to hear it from the two of them. I’ve taken my questions mostly to Mama up to now, but this time I’ve waited until they’re both here at the table, because Daddy will often tell you things, and I am always looking for somebody to tell me things.
For example, one time Daddy showed me how to use the index in The Book of Knowledge, and he told me to always find things out for myself and to always think about things for myself, and not just take what other people say.
And one day last summer at the dinner table, Daddy told me about the solar system. I had asked about the man in the moon. Was there such a thing as a man in the moon? Was this a man living inside the moon, or what? And if so, what about the moon being made of green cheese? How did that fit in? And what about the cow jumping over the moon? Could that happen?
I couldn’t imagine the cows I’d seen at Aunt Lee’s farm jumping over much of anything. So which of these things was true and which not true?
When I said this, Daddy had looked over at me with sudden interest.
“You see this?” Daddy had said, holding a fat red radish right in my face.
I glanced at Mama, who seemed to think something was funny. But Daddy pushed back his chair, went clump-CLUMPing into the kitchen without his cane, grabbed a grapefruit, an apple, an orange, a lemon, and came back to the table, May-May behind him, looking out the swinging door with a face of alarm: What could he be doing now?
Then this rare thing happened. Daddy leaned forward to me excitedly and started showing and telling me about how all things in the huge universe revolve around each other, how all things are affected by each other, how the sun is this gigantic ball of fire, the moon a small cold planet that mirrors it.
Mama said, “Oh, she can’t understand all that, Dick!”
“Yes I can! Yes I can!” I shouted, jumping up and down in my chair, hoping he would never stop.
And he did go on and on, looking right into my eyes as if I were a serious person, not just a little kid to be brushed aside, telling me how the Earth we live on is actually a wet green ball constantly whirling around and around, and yet we don’t feel the whirling and whizzing through space because we are stuck to the Earth like magnets by this thing called gravity, which even the wisest men in the world don’t really understand. But the wise men are studying it right now!
Daddy picked up rolls and olives to show how all the planet worlds are zooming and rolling around the super-hot sun, while the sun is boiling up a billion explosions all the time, even though we humans are walking around on Earth every day and not noticing a thing.
He drew pictures on napkins, talking low, leaning forward to me, confiding the secrets of the universe into my eager ear, including little-kid me inside his mysterious smart-daddy circle. It was thrilling. I would ask questions, he would get pencils and rulers and answer, and Mama would keep on protesting from the other side, trying to put a stop to this.
After dinner, I ran out to the backyard to look up at the moon and wonder at the millions and trillions of stars. The dark yard didn’t seem so scary with all those stars out there, shining and twinkling above in a sky full of promise! In spite of everything, I’d have to love Daddy forever for this!
I decided then to at least go ahead and like Daddy, on a trial basis.
But Mama didn’t like this, for some reason. Why didn’t she like for Daddy to talk to me like that? What was she so worried about? Why didn’t Mama want me to know things?
The baby is putting her fingers into the mashed potatoes, then into her mouth. Peas fall to the floor and bounce. Daddy groans. Mama jumps up. The baby looks from one to the other and starts to cry.
For some reason, I want to save her.
“Kids at school say there’s no Santa Claus,” I blurt out loudly, even though this is not my perfect moment yet.
“Who says that?” says Mama, “Is it Nathan?”
“No, it’s not Nathan—just kids at school.”
Mama looks mad. The baby is fussing and twisting in her high chair. She knocks a glass of milk, which spills across the table, then rolls off and shatters on the floor. Crash!
“Good God, Jane!” Daddy jumps up as if a bomb has gone off, and gasps as if hit by it, then knocking back his chair, which falls on the floor with a clatter. He grabs his cane with one fist, tottering, almost falling, grabbing the table.
I duck down. The baby freezes for a second, holding her breath, then makes a long, high-pitched wail. Mama stands, calling for May-May, who rushes in with a towel, as if she’d been waiting just behind the door.
“Out! Take her out of here!” shouts Daddy, clump-CLUMPing away from the table, turning his back, as if he can’t stand to watch while the dining room e
xplodes into a million pieces!
The poor baby has failed again. She shrieks in protest as Mama picks her up and carries her to the kitchen, then to the bedroom, banished.
May-May cleans, down on the floor, shaking her head.
I eat what’s on my plate as fast as I can. We hear the baby screaming from the back rooms, but everyone settles down again. Then the littler baby wakes up fussing. May-May goes back there and closes the door.
We three eat in silence, Daddy wolfing his food the way he does, as if starving, Mama frowning and picking at hers.
Finally, she speaks. “It’s Nathan, isn’t it? I’m going to speak to his mother.”
“No, it’s not Nathan!” I yell. “It’s not!”
Mama doesn’t answer. Maybe this is an opening.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? There is no real Santa Claus, Mama, not really. Is there? Why won’t you tell me? Because how could he fly around to all the houses in the world in one night? And how could he know what everybody wants for Christmas? How?”
“He just does, that’s all. Maybe you don’t know everything there is to know! Did you ever think of that? What about all those presents you got from Santa last year? You liked getting all those presents, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but what about . . .”
“Well, maybe if there’s no Santa Claus, we should just forget about Christmas this year!”
Mama’s angry now, her forehead wrinkled. Why does she look like something’s hurting her feelings?
“What makes you think you know so much?”
“I just don’t see . . .”
“You have to believe,” she says. “It’s important just to believe. You have to.”
I look at Daddy. He’s watching the two of us with a little smile. I figure Daddy might understand. Because there is just something about Daddy.
Hap and Hazard and the End of the World Page 2