by Herbert Gold
He pressed her hard. “I nominate me.”
“I’m afraid of D’Wayne.”
“What? What?” He had never suspected anything. He knew the stories about black men and white women, but not D’Wayne, no, not him.
“He’s in pain, Dad. He loves me, he loves Sergei, he’s in pain, we don’t know what to do.”
“He might hurt you?”
She pulled away, furious. “What! That was what you thought? Dad, what’s wrong with you? I mean he feels helpless, he’s trapped, he won’t run away from me, from us, he doesn’t do anything except, except be miserable …”
“You should have said you’re afraid for him.”
She pulled away and glared across the immense distance of disdain and eighteen inches. “I stand corrected, okay. How about trying to know me a little, Dad?”
Kasdan might have been better at the squalls of family if Amanda had grown up with him instead of revealing herself only when she was already a citizen of a poverty and lost souls district. He may have seen her without knowing she was his daughter. Now she was saying he was too busy correcting her language to see her. “So what’s your deal with the shyster, Dad?”
“Ferd Conway?”
“You know he comes around? When nobody’s home but me and Sergei?”
“Ferd?”
“… when he thinks I’m alone, and he sits and sighs and runs his mouth and sighs, like he’s got the hots or something – he’s not just waiting for the bus, Dad – it’s creepy. Keeps coming around, ‘popping in,’ he says, says he just wants to say hello, so hello? Says he’s your best friend, he’s just in the neighborhood anyway, so how am I doing, what’s happening, don’t I get lonely all day here or wish I had some fun ...”
Ferd does that? Ferd did that?
In a rush, she got out the rest of what was on her mind, some of it, because with a daughter there is always more: “He says he’s very good, excellent, outstanding in bed, so I said sure, I’ll bet, specially when you’re there alone, and he acted like he liked that, haha, said you make jokes, too, like father like daughter, blood tells – he said that... He put his hand here, here...”
Along her knee, sliding; along her thigh, sliding.
“… and he asks if I’m still nursing, cause my boobs are nice and humongous, so that means I don’t have to worry about having an all-white kid with him …”
In court, Kasdan once had to translate something the prosecutor said to Kasdan’s client, a Bolivian: “That just makes the cheese more binding.” He had trouble with the translation and the Bolivian dishwasher said, “I don’t get no constipation.”
“What? He’s talking to you about your breasts? He’s talking to you about birth control?”
“Don’t say anything, Dad. I know you wouldn’t slap him around or anything because you’re such good homies, probably high-fiving a lot. I guess D’Wayne’d slap him around – you know, respeck – big thing around D’Wayne – so I don’t tell D’Wayne this stuff. Anyway, things are like they are, so what’s the point, Dad?”
Ferd was just making the cheese more binding.
It seemed to Kasdan that there had been sufficient family sociability and confiding for one day, but then D’Wayne showed up, happy to find his father-in-law visiting. He flipped open two beers, didn’t offer to pour Kasdan’s into a glass – they were family, after all – checked on blessedly sleeping Mose Sergei, said he’d be insulted if Pop left as soon as his son-in-law arrived, threw himself into a chair, removed his shoes, invited Pop to do the same. Kasdan felt good about being called Pop for the first time, and twice in a rush of his son-in-law’s hospitality.
It turned out to be an interesting day to visit his daughter, her husband and Sergei. He asked why Amanda and D’Wayne had given their son a name that sounded partly Russian to him. D’Wayne said, “Man, I don’t do those African names no more, Katanga, Lumumba, Stokeley. H. Rap ain’t even an African name, man. But D’Wayne, that’s bad, I don’t know where my mom got her input. D’Wayne? Shee, man, Wayne with a doohickey? So Russian looks kinda nice. They got a great history, you know what I’m sayin’? Sergei Pushkin was an African prince, least his grandaddy was.”
“Pushkin’s name was Alexander.”
“It was? Middle name, man. Whatever, I don’t want no kid of mine be call Aleck.”
“I guess.”
“Which is the natural thing in life, Pop” – third time! – “not to disrespeck you askin’.”
Out of respect for his father-in-law, D’Wayne had taken to saying shee instead of shee-it. Also he no longer tucked a giant magenta plastic comb in his hair, but kept it in his back pocket for use as needed. Kasdan appreciated his sensitivity (street smart, D’Wayne had caught a judgmental glance some months back).
They were just hanging out, enjoying a brew, Amanda relaxing sleepily in the rocking chair Kasdan had bought for her after Margaret Torres informed him that this was what a new mother needed, when Sergei woke up. His eyes blinked open and he stared into the world. His fists with their tiny pink fingernails clenched, his mouth opened, and he began to howl his protest against the universe into which he was born. He had no choice. Amanda held him against her breast. He twisted and screamed, seized the nipple, and as she rocked, abruptly subsided into greedy suckling sounds.
When D’Wayne sampled the Muslim creed, he liked the idea about taking one step toward Allah, then Allah takes two steps toward him – like a dance, see – but it got crowded in the mosque in Oakland, it was a trip across the Bay Bridge, all those shoes off the dudes’ feet raised a stink, especially during the hot nights of Ramadan. D’Wayne sampled it pretty good, but then moved on. Until he and Amanda got together, he didn’t have no call to stick with things, not necessarily. But he still liked that Muslim black bread, whenever he happened to pass by the bakery, although he tended to eat it with pork chops, which was strictly against the Koran.
“We had this kid, what, thirteen months now,” D’Wayne was saying, “We know the story.”
“You can never tell,” said Kasdan.
“You the optimist, Pop. We know the story and it ain’t gonna improve much.”
“Maybe not entirely, but in advance you can’t …”
Careful not to awaken the sleeping child nestled against her, Amanda said softly, “Not, Dad.” Not improve.
D’Wayne stared at Amanda, blinking at her, at Sergei, and then turned back to Kasdan. “But he’s still the main thing. You understand that, Pop? If you do, explain it to me.”
Kasdan couldn’t explain it. But Amanda was the most important person in the world to him, and before he found her (okay, she found him), nobody had been what he lived for, not even himself. He didn’t understand it, but it was obvious. D’Wayne didn’t need it explained, either, but he wanted his father-in-law to try for both of them.
Sergei existed. He was born. Therefore, no deal. It just was. D’Wayne was telling him what he felt, what almost everyone felt, which just made it more mysterious. So then what? Get Amanda, D’Wayne, and Kasdan’s grandson the tax-free help which Kasdan wasn’t telling them about. Ferd Conway happened to exist, too. The satisfaction that came alongside taking and giving was his right. This was America, wasn’t it?
Amanda was stirring in the rocking chair which was good for a nursing mother, easing her stressed back, rocking the child to peacefulness. She was holding Sergei and he was fussing. It would be a hard time again, as it frequently was, day and night, if he began to thrash and scream. Kasdan knew babies were supposed to fuss sometimes between wakefulness and sleep, despite the rhythm of rocking along with a feed at the mother’s breast.
He thought he smelled milk. He had been surprised that it was bluish and watery, not at all like the milk at the Caffe Roma. When Amanda met her father’s eyes, watching her as she rocked Sergei, tears came flowing silently, without sobs or a catch of her breath, just flowing, familiar.
Kasdan knew not to ask why. His own feeling for the child was a drawing p
ain in his chest, a peristalsis of hurt pulling at him, pity for Sergei, Amanda, and D’Wayne, and enough left over for himself, the man who was trying to pay his debt for the years lost by Amanda and her father. He had bought her a bentwood rocking chair with a cane seat. He planned to do more to make things between them more like right.
Sergei emitted a soft snore, a warning snort, signaling that he would wake unless someone pulled him snugly to her breast. “This one doctor said we should put him in a.... a home. This other doctor, second opinion, said it was up to me which way I want to ruin my life.”
“Up to us,” D’Wayne said. “Not ruined, Mandy.” He took the child to his chest, standing, slowly swaying. He moved Sergei’s thumb to his mouth and the child took it. Kasdan, knowing he was ignorant, knew he shouldn’t ask if that would be bad for his teeth, helping him sleep that way.
“I’m not gonna send him away, Dad, like the first opinion said. Some people do that.”
“I didn’t send you away. I had no idea about you at all.”
“Dad! It’s not about you! But it felt like you sent me away. I’m gonna keep him. I’ll take care of him. He’ll be okay.”
The face of Ferd Conway floated through the room, invisible to all but Kasdan. His needy crinkling eyes. His grin. D’Wayne swayed, touching the chair, rocking himself, Amanda and Sergei. Kasdan was still seeing Ferd, reading the print of scam on his face, while Amanda took the baby back, touched the thumb in his mouth, the baby snoring a little, not snorting now but making tiny soapy bubbles. D’Wayne was grinning because he had put Sergei more soundly to sleep. “Hey, blue is a good color for you, I like denim on you, Dad,” Amanda said.
“Sidewalk sale. They left it in the sun too long and it got this color.”
“Kind of like bleachy white you can call it? I should try that on D’Wayne.”
D’Wayne laughed in his rumbling coughing caramel way, not a smoker’s wheeze but a big man’s style, like Harvey’s indulgent roll of sociability. “Keep you in the dark, you be black like me, Mandy? So far it’s only your heart is black.”
Their eyes met, D’Wayne’s and beautiful Amanda’s, and Kasdan marveled again at the gifts his errors had brought him, this once-fatherless daughter now a young woman with freckles dusting her nose and hurts dusting her soul, quick to resentments and griefs but her edges softening. She had found, in rapid succession, a father, a husband and a son. There in beautiful Amanda’s arms nestled Kasdan’s grandson, while the grandfather thought: Maybe we can all be forgiven, maybe we can be redeemed.
Sergei was sleepy too much of the time, then awake and howling too much. Kasdan woke too much at night, needing to pee, having to stand patiently in the dark for the relief that used to occur with vigorous abruptness. And during the day... Now he was standing in the bathroom. “What’re you doing in there?” Amanda called.
“Thinking.”
“Thinking?”
He was supposed to be giving his attention to his family. So he came out of the bathroom. And for no reason that Kasdan could understand, like an avalanche without a storm or an explosion, Sergei’s face suddenly turned purple, his eyes rolled up so that only the ghostly white was visible, his mouth gaped open and he began to scream. Amanda said, “Hush, hush baby, quiet,” speaking very calmly although the piercing shrieks were like toothpick thrusts to the ears. She had achieved this calm by living through the explosions. There was a cost Kasdan couldn’t calculate.
I can’t calculate it, Kasdan thought, head down, making his way out. I have to do something else.
There was a rush of footsteps behind him. “Dad, you forgot to say goodbye!”
He stopped, confused. “Didn’t I?” He didn’t even recall saying he was leaving.
She threw her arms around him. “Are you thinking about something?”
He considered a proper answer to this complicated question. “Sometimes.”
“You’re worried?”
“Sometimes. No, I’m not.”
She hugged him tightly. “I have to get used to how you are, Dad.”
“Me too,” he said.
“I never had one before. I don’t know how dads are.”
“Neither do I.”
They stood in the hall. She dropped her arms. “So goodbye, Dad.”
And he could feel her watching him, that laser penetration on his back, as he proceeded down the stairs, bouncing a little on his soles, not a care in the world, emitting backwards zaps of carefree, the mechanism of defense operating as it was intended to against laser penetration by a daughter. Sergei abruptly gurgled away his last shrieks, erratic even in his metabolic despair, again fallen asleep, just as if he too chose not to worry about the state of the world. It was a normal infant’s right. Dan Kasdan decided an older person could also claim this right.
The outer door lurched before he could reach it and an energetic visitor propelled Kasdan back upstairs. “Surprise! I don’t care what, you can’t leave now.”
“I was on my way…”
“I don’t care what!” Ferd repeated, vibrant, encased in charm, accepting no answer but the one acceptable to him. With steamroller good cheer, a loudness that included not just the company but the walls of the apartment, he declared, “Hey, you guys! I’m popping over just to say hello and catch a look at the progeny. Look at this!” He had brought a blue plastic bathtub boat for Sergei. “Does he go seafaring by himself yet, Cowboy? Proud gramps! Man, to run into you visiting like this…”
D’Wayne rolled his eyes, sank into his chair, head between massive shoulders. Ferd was bringing too much cheer for the occasion.
“… find you like this without an appointment, Cowboy, it does my lonely heart good, it’s a bonus, because at least somebody got himself a nu-cular family. Is what I hear squawking in there the progeny waking up? Aw, isn’t it cute? Does it like boats yet? Pink is for girls, am I right, Sergei – blue is for boys and you’re a boy?”
Amanda held the child close again. Ferd’s eyes darted from Kasdan to Amanda to D’Wayne. He set the blue boat down. He sniffed the air meaningfully. “Diaper time! Somebody around here now gonna show me if it’s a boy or a girl. Little details like that, not so important at its age, but gets to be vital when it grows up, are we on the same page, Cowboy?”
– 4 –
Since two’s company and four or five, counting the kid, were a crowd, Ferd made it a quick visit. He presented his enthusiasm, good wishes, and blue plastic boat, and then, once the diapering started, backed gladly out of there. No need for a non-father to share the smeared caca experience. Leaving along with Dan also gave him an unexpected opportunity to develop the friendship plus business combo while the proud grandfather hurried on his way. Ferd Conway, proud senior partner, could just trot along with his junior partner.
“You think,” Ferd inquired, “hey, slow down, you think he’ll ever learn to go potty? You know, like on his own?”
He gave Kasdan a sideways, pursed-lips look, even his nostrils twitching and pinched, as if Sergei Mose smells were pursuing them down the street. When Kasdan said nothing, possibly insulted on behalf of his family, Ferd quickly made peace. “Jeez, maybe he’s just having fun. The nice mommy rubbing him, tickles his chubby ass, kinda like that? I don’t blame him.”
Again Kasdan’s infuriating abstention from response, not even a kidding one, followed Ferd’s friendly probe. Ferd pitied the fretful court translator with his withdrawals, distractions, his addictions to gloom and the loser’s life. Ferd was trying to rescue him, pull him out of cocksucking doldrums. He inhaled noisily to illustrate the oncoming thought. “I could just breathe the love in there! The family feeling!” He nudged Kasdan with his elbow. “Excuse the wake up poke, Cowboy, but besides the whole family devotion, very moving... the baby piss? Not being able to afford help? Clean-up?”
“We all pitch in,” Kasdan said, while admitting to himself and not to Ferd that so far he had pitched in less than needed.
“Right,” Ferd said, conced
ing the point, “and okay, we’ve had the nice visit, we’ve bid hello to your loved ones, we stayed until it was time to bid goodbye because it was in my heart to analyze what your situation and dire need is. So now we have a little summit conference, Cowboy?”
Early on, before Ferd used Kasdan for anything but translation services, he tried to call him Ace; once or twice he tried Big Guy, although Kasdan was actually only a medium guy in size, although diligent in Spanish interpretation; sometimes Ferd still used Amigo or Chico as a tribute to the profession. But he had settled on Cowboy, probably because Kasdan seemed to dislike it most. Ferd only teased someone he really cared about; he hoped Cowboy understood.
Because life should be a festival, Ferd led Dan to a place on Folsom where few summit conferences but many festivals were celebrated. He called it a “venue.” Matey’s Down Under wasn’t an Australian saloon, despite its name; it was the West Coast headquarters of NAMBLA, the National American Man-Boy Love Association, which was going through difficult times because of recent hostile publicity about friendship between consenting children and mentoring adults. Ferd had offered the volunteer staff his legal advice, free of charge. (Of course, any billed expenses had to be covered.)
Since boys like snacks, sweet things, pretty bite-sized goodies to tease the palate, and plain saloon olives and hard tack don’t fill the bill, Matey’s Down Under was a tavern with a small kitchen, microwave and fridge, and pleasant semi-secluded booths with wooden partitions to shield courting couples from jealous eyes, at least partially. The courting couples often enjoyed demonstrating their mentoring activities. The benches had been rubbed shiny by backsides and etched with spillage from lazy snackers. There were also sticky spots. Ferd sighed contentedly. “Cozy,” he said. He rubbed his hands together and ordered a pitcher of a microbrew draft. He poured for both of them, like a mentor himself, against the side of their glasses. “Some guys like foam, we don’t,” he declared.
“Tell me more,” Kasdan said.