Father Knows Less

by Lee Kalcheim

  There is no doubt that I fell in love with Julia because I knew she would be a phenomenal mother. Just as I had found the apartment and projected ahead, “This would hold a family someday,” I had felt, “This is a woman to mother a family someday.” Of course, it’s not as all hard-nosed as that. You fall in love with all aspects of a person. And of a place. But something quite visceral pushes you past reservations you’ve had to commit to this person. Especially when you’ve past forty. Life is not endless. There’s more to it than being young. There’s something big you haven’t done. Just because your parents did it and their parents did it, doesn’t mean you can dismiss it. Family. It need not be solely the badge of responsibility. Of giving up your youth. It could be, just maybe …an adventure you have been all too blind to embrace.

  And indeed it was. And bringing Julia and the boys home to this place, this too-big-for-a-single-man place began not only the anchoring of these family years in “the village,” but also a renewed love affair with the city.

  The idea of “neighborhood” came from the kids. I’d lived on the same street for twenty-three years before they were born, and I lived in my neighborhood, the Village, without a tremendous sense of belonging all those years. Oh I loved it. Wouldn’t live anywhere else. I knew some of the local shopkeepers. But it didn’t feel integral. Of course, part of this may be me. I find the idea of “belonging” elusive. And I have the feeling that most people feel the same way. Part of it comes with the territory of being a writer. I work alone. And before my family came I was alone most of the time.

  When the boys were born, we spent part time in New York. Pushing them around the Village in our double stroller, we found of course that dozens of people would stop us, and stick their faces in the stroller and coo, “Twins?” and then smile and ramble on about their own kids. The boys were stranger magnets. But more important, when we went out with them to shop or to eat, we were recognized in a different way than I was when I lived in the hood alone. People don’t forget twin boys. And as they grew up and toddled and walked and especially talked, neighbors looked forward to seeing them.

  Case in point: when we returned, and the boys were now going to elementary school there, we “discovered” the local coffee shop, Joe Jr.’s, right across the street from the school. I tended toward the dark, villagey cafés. Joe’s was a Greek/American coffee shop. Big windows. Vinyl booths. A counter. But because the booths were big, we could all slide in. And we were recognized. And of course, welcomed.

  “Hey guys! What are we havin’? Waffles and sausage?”

  “French toast.”

  “And bacon!”

  “You got it. Good game last night eh? Another save for Mariano.”

  “Dadoo said Mariano has more saves than Jesus.”

  “Whoaaa!”

  It became our hangout. And when the boys began going to school, across the street from Joe’s, it became their hangout. If, for some reason, we could not pick them up after school, they could go to Joe’s and have a snack and wait for us there, and Louie or Gregg or whoever was on duty at the time would take care of them until we arrived. And it’s pretty damned good coffee shop food. The fact that the staff there were Yankee fans didn’t hurt. Greg got them Joe Torre’s autograph. The fact that they knew what we would order before we ordered it made it … well … a club. This began to happen with other merchants. The two old Jewish guys at Jon Vie Bakery knew the boys and always slipped them an extra cookie when they came in. And when we got a dog, oy, it was the only place we knew we could take the dog while we had a coffee and a croissant. So that was another home. Jefferson Market, where I’d gone since I arrived on Ninth Street, became my substitute for the Roman open-air market. Now, back from Rome, Gabe, who has my shopping gene, would come with me to meat counter to stew over what looked best for dinner that night while bantering with the guys.

  “What’ll it be tonight Gabe? We’ve got a special on lamb chops.”

  “Can we afford them, Dadoo?”

  “No, but we haven’t had them in a long time.”

  “They’re 12.99 a pound! Is that supposed to be special?”

  Slowly, but surely, the neighborhood became my neighborhood, because our kids had charmed the merchants when they were tots in strollers. And those merchants had watched them grow up year after year, and we belonged to them, so we became part of their club. Once they were in school, the time to work the neighborhood with them disappeared, but as Julia or I go about our rounds alone now from market to market, we elicit the same interaction we did when the boys were in tow. The normal feeling of being an outsider was dispelled, thanks to our kids, and we now get the full feeling of living where we live. Of belonging.

  The boys made me feel that this little corner in New York was our place. We were known and welcomed here. It was a small town within the big city. And there were hundreds of them around the city. New York had a bad rep as a cold place. But, living here, especially with kids, treated us to this notion of little cities within the big one.

  Sam and Gabe signed up for violin school at School For Strings at Fifty-Fourth and Ninth Avenue. So Julia and I schlepped uptown to take them three times a week.

  “Honey, do we have to go all the way up there? Isn’t there a school in the Village?”

  “This one’s the best.”

  “But … way up at Fifty-Fourth Street??”

  “You won’t get a nose bleed.”

  I just didn’t want to leave the hood. I barely left the apartment. We did everything there. We put a curtain rod with a sheet draped over it across the hall and the boys could play volleyball with a spongy soccer ball, a “palla di spuna,” that we’d found in Rome. The ceilings were high, so we tried badminton in the living room, but a broken glass lampshade ended that. We made their small bedroom into a submarine, with beds up near the ceiling and desks below, and a basketball net clamped on their closet door. This once-regal Victorian apartment, an uptown pied à terre for nineteenth-century downtown bachelors was being transformed. The apartment that I had been scared to buy, the apartment that was too big for me had filled up with books and toys and robes and pajamas and soccer balls and computers and more books. It had become in many ways funkier than the fourth-floor skylighted walkup I’d cherished so when I was single. It had all the charm and all the warmth and none of the sudden solitude of being alone. It had the neighborhood around it, to which I finally belonged. It had the smell of old wood, and moldy books and simmering bolognese sauce. It had the smell of “family.” Something I could not have imagined to have been so precious until it was upon me. So precious in fact that, when we have a crush of guests over for a weekend or a party, when they’ve left, when the four of us are finally alone sitting around the table, we look at each other and we shout, “Just Family!”

  It is an exquisite moment. It is the ultimate club. And no matter how badly we behave we are in it forever.

  SCENE: THE KITCHEN OF THE NEW YORK APARTMENT.

  (Sam is doing his homework at the kitchen table. He can hear an argument ensuing in the bedroom. Julia enters the kitchen.)

  SAM

  What’s going on in there?

  JULIA

  Dadoo and Gabe are having an argument.

  SAM

  About what?

  JULIA

  I have no idea. I think sometimes they just like to argue.

  SAM

  Want me to go in?

  JULIA

  No, you’ll make it worse. You’ll take Gabey’s side, and Dadoo will flip out and storm out of the room, and then I’ll have to calm him down.

  SAM

  Yeah, but it’ll end the argument.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE LAST WORD

  I don’t know when it began, this preoccupation with having the last word, but I think it was when the boys were about nine or ten. I got into a bit of an argument with one of the boys and then found, when I thought it was over, it wasn’t! It went something like this:

 
“Why did you hit your brother?”

  “He called me a stupid jerk.”

  “You really hit him. He wasn’t even looking at you.”

  “He hurt me by calling me that.”

  “No matter what he calls you, it doesn’t justify hitting.”

  “Okay, okay, but he’s been doing this to me all day. Calling me this.”

  “Still …”

  “And I was tired of it.”

  “Okay, but still … you didn’t have to hit.”

  “Okay, but I wouldn’t have hit him if he hadn’t said it so often.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “I know, but that’s no excuse for him to call me names.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes sense to me. He can’t call me names.”

  “Fine. I’ll talk to him. But you can’t hit him no matter what he calls you.”

  “Fine. But I only did it because he was doing it a lot.”

  “No excuse.”

  “I know, but what’s his excuse for calling me names?”

  And this discussion would still be going on if I didn’t leave the room. The point is—my son, both of my sons, had to have the last word. A “still” or a “but” had to come after my “That’s no excuse,” so his statement could be the last one. Why? Because it made him feel somehow that he’d won the argument. Last word equals won. Or something close to winning. Outlasting.

  So then the question is, once I realized that this is what he was doing, why did I have to add another word to his last word and prolong the agonizing discussion? Because, of course, I, at a distinctly more advanced aged than my son, was caught in the same trap. I wanted to win the damned argument.

  The fact that it wasn’t a winnable argument did not occur to either of us. My son, wanting to rationalize his actions, had to justify slugging his brother so that, even if he knew he was wrong to do it, he was not at fault!

  Say what?

  Yes, folks, when the forty-third President of the United States “apologized” for some major screw up by saying, “It was wrong that this happened” as opposed to “I was wrong,” he was doing exactly what our kids do. He is acknowledging that wrong was done, but can’t quite acknowledge that he has a part in the doing. He’s saying, “The buck stops … well … over there.”

  It took a few of these discussions for me to realize that I had done the same thing. Until I had to square off with my own kids, I hadn’t realized how often I’d acknowledged I was wrong but … not at fault. There was always a justifiable excuse for my wayward action.

  “Julia, did you leave the light on in the bedroom?”

  “I was going back there.”

  “When? You’re reading on the living room couch.”

  “It’s one light.”

  “Electricity is expensive.”

  “You leave lights on all the time.”

  “No, I don’t, only if I’m going right back into the room.”

  “I was going back into the bedroom.”

  “When? Next Christmas?”

  “It’s a light. It’s one light. Shall we talk about your leaving the refrigerator door open all day?”

  “That was because the fridge had shifted and the door didn’t close all the way. I didn’t know that till we found it open.”

  “I didn’t know the light was on until you reported it.”

  “But, you said you knew and were going back to turn it off.”

  STOP! Sound familiar? Why couldn’t I (a) Just not mention the light? It’s no big deal. Julia is as frugal and responsible a person as I have ever known. But my father was a maniac about turning off lights. He’d turn them off while I was in the room. Had I inherited his mania? Or (b) Once having made the criticism and having heard her excuse, why couldn’t I just let it go? Because, as I saw my sons doing, I had to win the argument.

  My favorite Julia retort to me was when I walked into the bathroom and noticed a full toilet.

  “Who didn’t flush?” I yelled.

  From down the hall, came Julia’s reply, “Get a life!”

  I laughed and laughed. She’s good.

  But I couldn’t lighten up with my kids. I had to make sure I had made my point e.g.: “hitting is wrong under any circumstance,” and not have them believe that under this circumstance it was okay because etc., etc., etc.

  But I had forgotten to realize that his wasn’t a real debate. My son had heard me. He’d gotten the message, but he still wanted to win the argument so he could feel good, and I had to allow him that, even though it drove me nuts. Allow him the last word because, ultimately, the last word is bunk! The last word is only the last word. Making your point is what matters, and having him understand my point was all that mattered. If I thought he understood my point, then I could allow him the last word, even if it was a silly rationalization of behavior. Even if it, or rather simply, because it made him feel good.

  By fighting to win, to beat their dad, I saw how dogged I had been, not just as a young boy, but as a goal-oriented, somewhat mature male. And seeing myself, in them, I could now … let it go, and yes, “get a life.”

  SCENE: N.Y. APARTMENT

  (Boys rush in after school.)

  SAM

  We’re going to try out for the fifth-grade musical—“Guys and Dolls.”

  LEE

  My favorite musical. I saw the original production when I was just about your age.

  GABE

  You saw the original? Wow.

  LEE

  Yup. When I was a kid, the Broadway shows did out-of-town tryouts … in Philadelphia before opening in New York. I was sitting way up in the back of the balcony at the Shubert Theatre watching Nicely Nicely sing “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ The Boat,” and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do!’”

  SAM

  Be a gambler?

  LEE

  Be in the theater. Write a musical like that.

  SAM

  I’m gonna try out for Nicely Nicely.

  GABE

  I’m gonna try out for Sky Masterson.

  LEE

  Wouldn’t that be something if you were both in the show that made me fall in love with show business?

  GABE

  There’s only one problem.

  LEE

  What?

  GABE

  If I get the part of Sky, I have to kiss a girl.

  LEE

  What’s wrong with that?

  GABE

  On stage? In front of hundreds of people?

  SAM

  Come on, Gabe … you don’t have to mean it. It’s just a play.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE “CLEVELAND RESPONSE”

  You know that, just because they are twins, they are not alike.

  But, knowing that one is more shy, or one is more loquacious, or a dozen little differences doesn’t really define their difference. But then something happens that does.

  In the fifth grade, at P.S. 41, they were both cast in their senior-year production of Guys and Dolls. Sam got the showy role of Nicely Nicely. Gabe got the “cool” lead—Sky Masterson. He was awfully pleased. And as is his wont, he worked awfully hard. We heard them rehearsing their lines, singing their songs in their “submarine room.” And on opening night, we “kvelled” in the midst of all the video camera-ing parents and after the show went to hug them to death.

  “Gabe, you were great. You were just great. Your sweet, clear voice. We just … You couldn’t have been better.”

  “Well, I could have been. I got lost in ‘My Time of Day’ and ‘Luck Be a Lady’ wasn’t strong enough …”

  “We were blown away.”

  “I’ll get better.”

  Whoops. Gabe’s reaction took me back twenty-six years to Cleveland, Ohio. A play of mine was opening at the Cleveland Playhouse, a musical—believe it or not—about the revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1968, entitled The Prague Spring. On opening night, after the show, I stood outside, and sev
eral audience members came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed the play. To each of them I said something like, “Well, it’s not quite there yet. Needs some more work.” As I was saying these words, I looked over and saw one of the actors in the play, receiving compliments from another audience member. But the actor was beaming, and saying “Thanks! Great! Glad you liked it! Send your friends!” Instantly I knew that what the actor was doing was enormously attractive. And I was a complete bore. I could not believe what a jerk I was being. And had been for years when, in like situations, people complimented my work. The actor’s enthusiastic response to the audience members reinforced their delight in the play. My tepid self-criticisms were saying to the fan, “Well, you may have liked it, but you don’t really know what you’re talking about!”

  I was insulting someone who liked my play. This is not something a playwright can afford to do!

  Since that evening in Cleveland I have never ever done that again. I practice the “Cleveland Response.” When someone waxes enthusiastic about my work, I reply with equal enthusiasm, starting with “Thank You!” I am enormously receptive. I gush at his or her great good taste. Well, I don’t gush, but I sure as hell don’t say anything that would in any way dampen their his enthusiasm. Which is exactly what Gabriel was doing then. He didn’t know he was doing it. He, in fact, probably felt he was only being honest. I’m sure he was. But he had no idea of the effect it had on those paying him compliments.

  Julia would occasionally do the same thing.

  “I like that dress on you. You look great.”

  “I don’t know. It makes my arms look beefy.”