Interstate

by Stephen Dixon

  INTERSTATE 5

  Notices the car on his left. Nothing unusual. Car driving alongside his, two guys in it. Looks at it, passenger in front smiles at him, he smiles back, looks front, car stays even with his, looks over, no particular reason, just something to do on the road, passenger talking to the driver, he accelerates a little to get ahead of them, for he doesn’t like driving alongside another car on the highway or really anyplace at the speed they’re going, sixty, sixty-five. It’s dangerous or could be. One wrong move and their cars might touch. Then he’s thinking about other things, what mail might be waiting for him at home, drink he’d like to have sometime soon after he gets home, kids are quiet in back, maybe sleeping or looking out the windows, and that’s that. Then the car’s on the other side of his. How’d it get there? Could it be the same car, for it was just over here. Looks more closely and it is. Same men, driver with the same two fingers from each hand, ones to the left and right of the thumbs, hooked under the top of the steering wheel same way as before as if he doesn’t really have that much control over it or wouldn’t in the slightest kind of ticklish driving situation. Couple of years later he thought maybe that’s what first gave me the impression it was a bad idea driving so close beside them. That if anything was unusual at first that was, driver holding the wheel with just four fingers and from under rather than over so opposite from the way he should if he was going to do it that way and loosely it seemed, though he had a strong face and the confident look of someone who was competent and experienced behind a wheel. And maybe he was holding the bottom of the wheel straight with his thighs or even his belly—he seemed heavyset—but that still wouldn’t have given him much control over it in an emergency situation. What he also should have done, he thought, was drop back instead of move ahead, for moving ahead of a car you’ve been even with awhile and which is being driven by a man and certainly when there’s nothing but men in it is a challenge of sorts to some guys, especially when you’re doing it from a slower lane. The guy might have looked like a good driver but not very bright, and neither did the guy with him, so that should have been another tip-off not to move ahead of them, for neither of them looked the type to say to the other “Hey, leave the guy alone.” Maybe in fact that’s when they thought “Let’s get on the other side of this guy as a joke, and without him even knowing we’re there till he suddenly sees us, which should freak him out good, for who’s he think he’s speeding ahead of? Hey, he wants a race, we’ll give him one and something more. We’ll give him a piece of my fucking fist if that’s what he wants,” they looked like they could also have said. He at least, if he was going to move ahead of them, he also thought, should have done it slowly, inconspicuously, so they wouldn’t think he was trying to show them up in any way, for he did at first sort of dart out, wanting to get away from them fast. Driver looks at him. He smiles, driver smiles and takes the left two of those four fingers off the wheel and waves them at him, as if he knows he’s concerned about them, and then speeds up and in a minute or so is about half a mile in front of him and then he loses sight of them or just stopped looking or caring about them, when he thought about it years later. He goes back to thinking about the first things he should do when he gets home. Go to the basement and turn the hot water heater dial from Vacation to Normal just in case the kids want a bath or his wife, when he later talks to her on the phone, tells him they should have one or one of them should. He might want a shower right away too. Driving a distance of around two hundred miles makes him feel clammy and a shower always feels good after the trip. Saved about fifty cents the past three days by putting the dial on Vacation, or maybe a dollar, who knows? But what the hell, it’s just a few seconds out of his time and he doesn’t like the idea of water staying piping hot while nobody’s home for days. He’ll also probably have to go to the basement to do a wash, for there are the kids’ clothes and his for the last few days and maybe some dirty clothes in their rooms. So the water will have to be hot for that too, or what does he usually set the washing machine at?—warm, not hot, so as not to stretch the clothes or run the colors, or something; forgets. Get the mail, of course, and put the trash cans out for tomorrow morning’s pickup and maybe raise the heat thermostat a few degrees if the house feels cold. Raise it something, that’s for sure, for he lowered it to sixty when he left to save a dollar or two on gas, or maybe for the time they were away, three or four. Open the curtains downstairs if it’s still light when they get home, which it should be unless there’s a major tie-up somewhere between here and there, and disconnect the automatic light control or whatever it’s called that turned the living room floor lamp on at six every night and shut it off next morning at two. Why two? Why didn’t he adjust the dial to shut off at one, or midnight, which would have been a lot closer to when he normally shuts off all the house lights? But first thing to do—that’s right, he chose two because he’d read where most burglaries occur between eight and one in the evening and as a safety margin he extended it to six and two—but first thing to do before he does anything, or maybe right after he switches the water heater dial to Normal, is feed Brad. And replace his water and clean his cage, for the bird’s gone almost three days with the same seeds, water and floor liner, and lettuce and apple slices stuck between the wires. Water probably has his shit in it and apple slices might have ants on them, even covered with them, which happened the last two-or three-day trip they took to New York, which he hates though he loves spraying the bastards out of the cage till they’re all down the kitchen sink drain and then turning the garbage disposal unit on, something he doesn’t like but has to do to finish them off. In fact, maybe with Lee away for two days he’ll spray the house for ants, outside and in, which she won’t permit because of the spray smell and what she says are dangerous poisons. The house has a serious ant problem, where they sometimes swarm around the bathtub and sink on the second floor, even on the toothpaste tube and toothbrushes, but she won’t let him deal with it except with boric acid in cupboard corners and places. He bought the ant spray months ago and never used it, but he will, maybe tonight when the kids are asleep. He’ll shut their doors, open all the windows downstairs, put the bird in the basement and all the exposed food, dishes and utensils away. She’ll never know, or he’ll lie if she says she can still smell some of the ant killer and say the oven pilot light was out for a day without him knowing it and he just relit it today: he must be coming down with another head cold. Also rub Brad’s chest a little, talk to him awhile, maybe lift him on his finger inside the cage if he lets him—does about one time out of five—for he must have been lonely last couple of days. Maybe also cold, for is sixty really high enough for him, and at night when it’s chillier and nobody to cover his cage? Hopes he doesn’t come home to find him dead and with ants on him. If he did he’d just chuck the whole thing into a plastic trash bag and put it out with the garbage inside a can and say never again a bird, though the kids would probably insist on a burial in the backyard. If they did he’d give it but just the bird dumped out of the cage into a shoebox into a hole and no words after he kicked the dirt in. Wonders if he sang while they were away. Would if he heard birds singing outside or some rattling truck noises from the street, which often set him off. Does having the family around inhibit or encourage him to sing? Should have brought him with them as he wanted to, but his in-laws don’t like pets, especially noisy ones—“Singing isn’t noise,” he told them, but that didn’t do it; “What’s music to you,” his father-in-law said, “could be noise to me, and same thing reversed”—and thought he might get out of the cage and mess up their place and worse yet get lost where he wouldn’t be found till after Lee left. “What would you do then?” he asked them and his mother-in-law said “Let him out the window and tell him to fly home, what else?” “He’d probably hook up with some outdoor birds in the park and wouldn’t live through the next winter,” he said and she said “Birds like that have a short life anyway so one half-year free with friends would be worth another year or
two alone in prison, I’d think. Naturally, I’d hold him for you if you wanted to drive up to get him and he’d flown back into his cage, but for no more than a day; I couldn’t take the squawking and I wouldn’t know how to take care of him.” “It’s simple; what is this, run in the family? He was originally Margo and Julie’s but they also say it’s too difficult looking after him. You change the water—that takes ten seconds; you dump the top of the old seeds and put in some new ones—that’s another thirty seconds. And as sort of a treat for him, if you want, you squeeze a lettuce leaf and fruit slice between the wires someplace where he can reach. Then you put a fresh paper towel on the liner and maybe clean any kaka that might have stuck to the wires, which you do with a damp paper towel, and comes to all told about three minutes, and for someone new at it, four. I do this once a day because I think every caged animal deserves a clean roost and fresh food and I feel it’s the least I can do till I train him to fly out of the cage and then back when I want him to, but if you did it every other day that’d also be okay.” Then he notices a car on his left, same one, how’d it get there from where it was way up front before? Well, he hasn’t been following it, but it could have slowed down and got around him somehow. Passenger looks at him, snaps his fingers and points to him as if he wants to say something pretty important, rolls his window down, smiles as if he recognizes him, “Oh you, how ya doing, buddy?” passenger seems to say and he nods and says through his window “Fine, thanks,” but also doesn’t like quick chats with cars alongside, feels they’re even more dangerous than just driving beside them and close, and looks front and picks up speed and their car speeds up too and stays even with his. What’s with them? he thinks. Years later he thought I should have known something was wrong right off and not looked at them or rolled down my window or smiled and said “Fine, thanks” or just not looked after my first look, rather, or played around or anything. I didn’t play around, but just not bothered at all with them after my first look. Or maybe “Fine, thanks” was enough, for saying nothing, ignoring them completely, might have triggered them too. I should have switched to the slow lane after my “Fine, thanks” and when I saw they were staying even with me, and if they started switching lanes to stay next to me I should have stopped on the shoulder first place I could and I’m sure that would have been that. I also should have started looking for a state trooper, for maybe there was one on the road or median strip then or in one of the opposite lanes going north and I could have flashed my headlights that something was wrong and maybe it would have worked and he’d have slowed down and crossed the median and eventually pulled me over to see what’s up. But by staying in the next lane to them, having an exchange of sorts with them, maintaining some contact with them, in other words by not doing more right away to get away from them other than speeding up some, it started things—familiarity, whatever—where they thought they got to know me in a way, something, but enough time had gone by where they’d decided I was going to be their target of the day, of the week, the year, even if there were kids in back—just their target, period, and maybe for some peculiar reason they even liked the idea better that there were kids with me; more to scare; more targets if they knew all along they were going to shoot at our car. It could even have been that enough time had gone by where they had begun to dislike me for some reason, though I didn’t do anything I know to encourage that. It could have been my face all along and only my face that they didn’t like, an expression I’m unaware I give to people in passing cars when I quickly look at them, or to people in general—unaware of till even today. No, today my expression’s different than it was then, I just know that. I’m sure it’s almost never been the same anytime since that day—since that moment when the guy started shooting—when he first stuck the gun out the window, even—except maybe when I sleep. When I’m driving, for instance, I rarely look at people in other cars and when I do, and it’s almost always because I think their car’s getting too close, it’s with a dead expressionless look I’m conscious of giving—I’m not even giving it, it’s just there. Or at least I think it’s dead and expressionless—again, I might not know my own look—but anyway the feeling is that every time I look at another car and especially on an Interstate or any main highway, I bring back to myself that particular day. It also could be those guys didn’t like my look from the moment they saw it when they were on my left the first time; in the end, who the hell knows? But what I’m getting at is that if I’d acted sooner—got on the shoulder sooner, let’s say—things would have been different. Much different. Altogether different. They would have passed us, I feel, and disappeared. Maybe. Or maybe nothing I did would have changed things except maybe if I’d had a gun and shot them first, and they would have followed our car to the shoulder, if I’d gone there sooner, and pulled alongside instead of shooting from a few hundred feet in front and opened up on us broadside with two guns instead of one, the passenger with two guns, the driver still driving or maybe getting in on the gun fun and shooting past the passenger at us too, with a semiautomatic rather than just a pistol or something like a machine gun and sprayed our car with bullets and killed all three of us but definitely one or two of us and wounded badly the third. Did I ever once think I would have preferred dying with Julie that day? Sure, thought of it before, plenty. And of course I would have wanted Margo to stay alive and unhurt, of course both of them alive and unhurt and me dead if anybody had to take Julie’s place. Thought all that before. But it probably would have been, if I’d gone to the shoulder sooner, different in a much better way. They would have driven on, never seen again. Wouldn’t that have been something. I would have then started up the car on the shoulder—but I actually never would have turned the ignition off. I’d have kept the car running in case they got on the shoulder in front or behind us and I had to go forward or reverse. Or maybe I would have turned it off unconsciously, doing what I usually do when I make a complete stop like that, even shifted into Park and pulled the key out and done what with it—put it in my pocket, thrown it on the dashboard?—but what did I do with the key that day? I forget. And if the key was out and they had stopped on the shoulder, what would I have done then? Stuck it in the ignition fast, but why my thinking that? And then driven off the shoulder—if they had gone on—and taken the next exit, reported the incident to the state police perhaps. Maybe I would have remembered better what they looked like if they hadn’t shot at us and what happened to Julie from it. I would have looked for a trooper station, at least, or probably just stopped at a gas station to find out where one was and gone to it and then gone home another route to reduce the chances of coming up against them again on the same Interstate. There are a few alternative routes, though longer, but so what? They’re probably more traveled, possibly because there are no tolls on them and there’s cheaper gas because there are more gas stations, and a wider variety of restaurants, and probably also because of their greater activity they’re more patrolled. And then, once home, done all the things I said. Fed the bird and cleaned his cage. Turned the water heater dial to Normal, house heat to sixty-eight. Got the mail, put out the garbage. Had a drink and started the kids’ dinner. Opened the living room curtains if there was still daylight, maybe taken a shower. But by then, having come home the long way and stopping to report the incident to the state police or at least phoned them about it and so forth—probably driving slower and more cautiously after what happened with those men, and forced to drive more slowly because I’d be on slower roads and some of the alternative routes have stoplights—it would have been dark. Sat down with the kids at dinner, had a glass of wine while they had juice, read the mail or glanced at it and the front pages of the newspapers, and so on. The automatic light switch. Gathered laundry from around the house and out of the bag of dirty clothes they brought back from New York and started a wash. Called Lee to tell her what happened that afternoon—just to speak to her and maybe as part of that conversation, what happened, or maybe I wouldn’t say anything till she got home, not
wanting to alarm her or send her to sleep that night with bad thoughts. And maybe because of what happened on the road that day or because I was still keyed up from the long drive, or a combo of both, another scotch after dinner, maybe a third or just more wine. Cleared the table with the kids’ help, washed the dishes, got the kids in pajamas and washed up for bed, the story, from a book or my head, kisses, hugs and final words before they went to sleep. Next day, school for them and work for me. I’d set the table for them the night before, make their school lunches the night before too, put the washed laundry in the dryer. Day after next we’d all go to the train station to pick Lee up. Maybe during the drive home I’d tell her. I certainly by then wouldn’t have forgotten about it or thought it too small to talk about. In a few years Julie would be fifteen, he thought, five years after that, twenty, and so on. Twenty-five, thirty. Twenty-six, thirty-one, thirty-two, what’s the difference? Life isn’t divided by fives. They used to celebrate the kids’ half birthdays but stopped when she was killed. Just, was never brought up again by Margo, who started it when she was around six. “What’re you going to get me for my half birthday?” Margo and Julie would say and I’d say “I don’t believe in half birthdays,” but would always get them something but nothing expensive or big. She would have done well in grade school, I bet, gone to a good college, probably on scholarship. She was that smart and there probably would have been a financial need. Like Margo, tops in her grade-school classes in reading and math—probably grad school after. Become a scientist of some sort as I predicted she would when she was four, or a doctor or scholar or done something with the piano—performing, composing. She was that good and precocious at it too, her piano teachers said. Married, worked, had kids, continued to work or even while she was having kids, all of that. She would have been a great daughter, I just know it, he thought, and I would have been a better father, though her dying so young and no doubt the way she died and that I was there and perhaps could have done something to prevent it, though if she’d died slowly or quickly of a disease, let’s say, and at any age, it might have been the same, killed off a lot of it for me. I’d pass her room or go into it for something, suddenly go crazy. Go crazy sometimes when I was mowing the backyard grass, for instance, and looked up at what had been her bedroom window on the second floor; was tired, taking a break of a minute or so from mowing, looked around just to do something and happened to catch her window, one time remembered her looking out of it at me and waving and rapping the glass; depression, would just break down and cry. Sometimes in her room, fall across her old bed and bang the mattress and walls with my fists, burrow my face into the pillow, kick the head-or footboard, wouldn’t speak to anyone for hours after that even when they pleaded for me to, would go to the linen closet for her old comforter to lie under, would get drunk that night, usually, and eventually pass out and maybe stay that way for days, drunk, depressed, out of it, doing odd things, and it still happens occasionally but doesn’t stay for days. Anything reminding me of her can start it off. When I noticed a pimple on my nose in the bathroom mirror while I was shaving I suddenly heard her saying what she said once when I was in the bathroom brushing my hair: “I know I’m going to have ugly pimples and lots of scars from it when I grow up; it’s in our blood,” for I had a row of acne scars on each cheek and at the corners of my jaw. Saw on TV her favorite actress on a kids’ show from a few years back presenting an award—like that. Suddenly couldn’t make it, would crash. Someone else had to turn the TV off; my wife took the shaving brush out of my hand. Became overprotective of Margo; that’s one place where I meant I could have been a better father. When we crossed the street sometimes, even when she was twelve and thirteen: “Hold my hand, I said hold my hand, a car can come out of nowhere and knock you down. Do you know how I’d feel if that happened and you were really hurt, do you know what I’d go through? I’d kill myself; with Julie I almost did, but both of you, I’d be dead.” She’d be at his funeral most likely—odd how thoughts connect, unintentionally, subconsciously, whatever goes on down deep or just below the brim—but anyway, attend with her husband and kids and maybe her in-laws. We had her about twenty years after most men father their last child and her in-laws would probably be a lot younger than I. She’d cry, say we were very tight her entire life, were so much alike temperamentally, intellectually, physically, our long legs, slim frames, joined eyebrows, big lips and dimple in the chin. That I read or told her and Margo stories almost every night and how that gave her a love of literature or contributed to it, things like that or one would hope. Went out of my way for them on special holidays and their birthdays, even celebrated their half birthdays after Margo made the day up, and then might explain what they are. Was a wonderful grandfather, devoted, delighted, indulgent, extravagant to a fault, and so forth. Maybe mention the pimple incident and how it ended where she never got them or at most only a few and no scars. Nah, people don’t speak about such things at funerals in front of guests, but it might be a lighter one than usual since she could preface her remarks by saying “He had a weird sense of humor and irreverent and idiosyncratic view of life and no feeling for religion or any particular philosophy or belief and a cavalier acceptance of his own death. ‘What will be will be be will be be be and so on,’ he used to say. And ‘The only things I’ll miss are your mom and an occasional hot H and H plain bagel from the Broadway place where they make it and you two kids, and maybe some other things.’” How overprotective I was of their doing things like crossing the street when they were kids: Maybe she could say “Maybe we weren’t ever hit by cars because he had overprotected us so much, but who could ever know?” “Taught us to ride a bike, dive and swim and swing a bat and was always kissing and hugging us, our heads and hands. There were some bad things too, when I hated him for an hour or two to overnight or at least till I fell asleep, but these were outweighed by the good.” He looks at the car and passenger’s smiling and making a motion with his hand for him to roll his window down. Why, he thinks, something wrong? Looks at his door and one by Margo right in back of him. Everything seems okay, both flush with the frame and locked. “Margo, yours I know, but Julie, your door closed tight and locked?—I can’t see from here, the seat,” patting the one next to him and she says yes. Instrument panel hasn’t lit up that anything’s wrong. Maybe one of his tires is low—doesn’t feel it or that he’s got a flat. His seatbelt or some other thing could be hanging out of one of their doors—that’s happened. No, both seatbelts on his side are all right, he sees by checking his and quickly swiveling around to Margo. Julie’s he can’t see and it’d be too complicated to get her to check, though it could still be something hanging outside—coat sleeve, doll leg—well, last one not out of his—but like that. Passenger’s still looking at him and when he sees him looking back he motions to roll his window down. What is it, he mouths, something wrong? “No, nothing, I only want to say something to you.” Years later, but certainly not before the first or second year after it’d happened, since during that time he didn’t speak to anyone about it, he said to someone “So why the fuck did I roll my window down? Guy had said nothing was wrong so why didn’t I ignore him and go on or drop back or do anything to get away from them? I knew I didn’t like their faces. They weren’t nice faces. And this feeling about their faces didn’t come from after what happened that day either. They were sort of hard-boiled almost mean and kind of sly faces, especially the passenger’s. No, his was definitely mean and sly and much worse. It was disgusting, evil, thoroughly repulsive. Putrid. I didn’t read into his face well then because I wasn’t really looking at first and my feeling about people when I first met or saw them then was, well, everybody’s all right till they prove or someone else has proven it otherwise, but I can see it now. Evil also because he was trying to pass off that mean, sly, repulsive, putrid face as kind and helpful and nice, your gentlemanly next-door car passenger, and for a few seconds, after I’d had this much better instinctive bad reaction to or at least was skeptical about hi
s face, I fell for it. The driver’s face was just go-along-with-anything-no-matter-how-evil-or-wrong, and look what that pig went along with. Die, you dirty bastard, die, die, and I hope by now he is dead from a knife or gun somehow and not just brain-damaged let’s say from some guy’s beating or clubbing, for what pain’s that if you don’t know it? But even better, some other evil bastard slowly and painfully clubbing his head and face at whatever prison he probably ended up in, till it killed him. The passenger was hopeless, bent or geared for the kill from the outset—something—for mayhem, rottenness, destruction, the game, intent upon it, which sounds fancy that ‘intent upon’ and ‘mayhem’ and ‘outset’ and ‘geared’ and ‘bent’ and so forth, or maybe that’s all of them, but that’s what he was. But the driver could have stopped him or just stopped it. He had control over the wheel. Unless the passenger took the gun off me and put it on him, or first put it on him and then me, or had two guns, one for him and other for me, and ordered him to stay close to our car, which he never would have done. They were buddies, for Christ’s sake, not that anything like friendship or that sort of thing would have had any hold on him. But he still wouldn’t have pulled a gun on the driver, for to do it means he might have to use it and if he did where would that have left the car? Off the road, smashed into one of those median barriers or a bus or truck on the other side. But I’m losing it, I’m losing it here. What I was saying was that the driver could have gone on, dropped back, done anything to pull his pal away from alongside us. So to me—nah, what’s in it to say that one was as bad as the other, et cetera. One killed, one could have dropped back or charged forward, either could have done something not to kill my kid, neither did. Life’s slime, they can’t be seen inside of or explained. But when the passenger asked me to roll my window down, to get back to before, I sensed something was wrong with his asking, for everything seemed okay with the car and us. Yet I still rolled it down—you figure it. Actually, I thought I’d maybe misinterpreted what he’d said that nothing was wrong and he only wanted to speak to me, and thought maybe he’s saying something’s wrong but nothing that important now but what I’d definitely want to know about for later. A brake light not working, for instance. Well, that I’d want to know about right now, though if one works maybe it’s not so immediately bad if the other doesn’t, but anyway it wouldn’t be something you’d signal or want to speak to a guy on the road for, is it? or maybe I’m wrong. But something—I just don’t know now what. Back directional signal not working or just that I didn’t signal when I changed lanes. Or better, as an example, that my exhaust pipe was hanging by a thread or one of my hubcaps was ready to come off—those would be things to know about right away. My mistake was an honest one, I’m saying, though where’s that get me today? Sly and slippery as they both looked, passenger more than driver, to be very honest I was thinking more of the safety of my kids and driveability of my car and also what it might cost if something like a hubcap flew off and got lost or the exhaust pipe hit the ground and smashed. And how else do you find out if your brake light and back directional signal light or one of those other things isn’t working—forget that I wasn’t signaling, for I always do—except through someone behind you on the road who sees it or when you take your car in for a tune-up or service and with the oil change they give you a twenty-point checkup as part of it as they often do. Or if you think to check the brake lights and so forth yourself because you’re taking a long trip—halfway across the country to Des Moines or whatever’s halfway across, which I of course wasn’t doing—or up to Canada as we’ve done. For those trips, to Nova Scotia and so forth, I always give the car a thorough check-through if I haven’t taken it in for a lube job recently, or even get a tune-up if it’s around that time for one or a few thousand miles before, and they do it. So, I thought this guy might know something I didn’t about my car and should find out, and rolled my window down. I never should have, I don’t know what I should have, but that for sure isn’t what I should have done. Which of course goes so much without saying, that it’s one of the dumbest things to have said, even if the same thing that happened to us could have happened if I hadn’t rolled the window down.” The passenger already has his window down and says “Hiya, Harry,” and he says “I’m not Harry, you must have the wrong person, is that all it was?” slowing down and looking at him and the road back and forth, and starts rolling the window up, thinking it was a mistake and this guy could mean trouble. Their car slowed down with his, maybe doing fifty now, and the guy’s smiling and says “You’re not Harry the hairy monster, or is it Hairy the harried monster? Is ‘harried’ a word?—tell me, I’m a little thick,” and he says, window half rolled up, “I think it is and I’m neither of those guys.” The girls are laughing; must have heard some of it about Harry and hairy and thought it funny. “Quiet down, kids,” he says and the man yells to them “Yeah, kids, cool it, pipe down, do what your hairy Uncle Harry tells you to or you’re in deep hot water with me.” “I’m their father, not their uncle, and if you don’t mind, please don’t threaten them. And really, it’s dangerous talking to another car while driving and staying so close like this, so I’ll see ya, okay?” and speeds up even if he thinks they’ll speed up with him, but he has to try it, and maybe they won’t or maybe they’ll shoot past him, the guy giving him the bird as he passes, and be on their way. They stick with him and he has his hand on the handle about to roll the window rest of the way up when the guy yells out, their cars just a few inches apart, “Oh it is now, Harry, oh is it, dangerous you say, talking to not a person but to another car, right? Well, my fucking Harry or hairy, and you are hairy, very faggot-fucking hairy, it’s as simple as all this, so touché. I don’t like hairy or harried or married heavy Harrys or anything like them and never did. Always with their oh-poo-poo-poo polite warnings and words to the wise and bigshot goodbyes and put-downs, and this is what I do about these I’m-better-than-you attitudes and noses in the air, plain as simple, simple as plain peach pie,” driver behind him laughing like mad and walloping the steering wheel with his hand. Later—years later—couple of years at least, he thought what could Julie have been thinking of at that particular time and a short time before? Margo he could always find out, and did ask her about a year after he thought this and she said “I think I was thinking—no, I don’t want to talk about it, the whole subject is too sad.” “Please, just a little, if it gets too terrible for you or even starts to, stop. But I really think it’ll help me get over everything somewhat. For maybe with the complete picture of what everybody was thinking and saying in the car that time or as close to it as I can get, it’ll just be too much for my head, filling it way beyond where it can hold that much till it all just blows up and then blows away, or at least what’s left I can live with. No, that doesn’t make any sense, does it? or just some.” “Not that I can see,” she said. “But I think I was thinking, and naturally I’m unclear about it since everything then seemed to fly out of me because of the screaming and shots and our car quickly stopping and my being thrown against the front seat and then the shock of after. But that the man was all of a sudden acting strange after he’d been kind of nice and funny, and his smiling face changing with it, which I liked up till then and I think Julie did too—” and he said “Why, how could you tell?” and she said “She gave me a look that she thought him funny because of the things he was saying, like ‘hairy Harry’ and ‘homely hippie’—” and he said “I didn’t hear any ‘homely hippie,’” and she said “I did, almost all H’s, but for those things I thought she gave me a look for and also his funny face, which like me I bet she thought he was making just for us. But when the sudden change came I got scared, for his face also went from funny to ugly.” “So you immediately knew something horrible was about to happen, that it, and you think Julie did too?” and she said “For me, not till he took out the gun. And even then for a few seconds, till I saw how scared you suddenly got, I thought the gun was fake and he might still only be having some fun with us but now
with a scary mean face.” “And Julie, our dear little Julie…you know, it’s still difficult, after three years is it?—did I mention this to you before?” and she said “What?” and he said “Talking or even thinking of her without crying—yes, I’m sure I did, or might have, and I think I even remember asking you another time about a year back if I’d mentioned this before—but what do you think she was thinking right before the guy showed the gun and after he stopped acting kind of funny and started acting very strange?” and she said “Probably the same as me if she was looking and catching everything I was,” and he said “Do you think she was?” and she said “I can’t remember—for a while, like I said, she did have the look that she was; but then my eyes got drawn only to the man, so it’s not possible to say for sure for her and that’s the way it’ll always be.” “Try a little harder to remember, sweetie,” and she said “Oh, all right,” and shut her eyes and seemed to try and then said “I can’t, that’s all, I can’t see anything after that but the man and the gun and your being scared of it and lots of shouting and shrieking and the car swerving and then us pulling over to the side and you yelling for us to duck, or maybe that was before or both before and after we stopped, and the shots.” Julie might have been thinking, he thought, “The man was funny, but now Daddy doesn’t seem all right. He seems worried and the man doesn’t seem funny anymore either. He seems crazy and angry, shouting like he did so loud and now some more. And he cursed. Bad words too. The f one; I think I also heard the p one. Daddy hates when people curse in front of Margo and me, even if he does it sometimes when we’re around and he’s mad at something or us, which he gets a lot, and even curses at us sometimes too, and once the f word.” She had a little memo book in which she jotted things down: pictures, thoughts, math problems she made up, poems. Once: “What day is it, Daddy?” “You mean today’s date? April twelfth.” “Well, I wrote down here ‘Daddy used the s word, twice, April twelfth.’” Other times when he thought about what she might have been thinking at a particular time, incidents or moments that for some reason stand out. Like when he went into her room to say goodnight, lights in it were out, and got on his knees by her bed, thought she might be sleeping, a little light was on her face from the hallway and eyes closed and expression quiescent, and then her eyes flipped open and he said “Oh hi, I came in to say goodnight, thought you were asleep,” and she sat up and slowly moved her face to his and then just stared deadpan at him a few seconds, so close he was looking at her cross-eyed, and after he pulled back, for his eyes were hurting, and said goodnight, she did and turned around, patted her pillow and rested her doll on it and covered it up to its neck and lay down and put her arm around it and he said “No kiss?” and she said “Not tonight,” and he said “How come?” and she said nothing. So what was on her mind when she stuck her face next to his, he’d thought at first to kiss his lips, and those few seconds she stared at him and also when she hugged the doll while facing the wall and he said a couple of times “You’re not going to say anything?” Time they were sitting in a movie theater, just the two of them and her only time in one, picture kind of loud and fast like a toy commercial, and she nudged him, he looked at her and she just stared up at him and he whispered “What? What is it?” and she stared for what must have been a minute and then turned back to the screen. He never asked her again what it was; should have, later. Time he was serving the kids dinner and she said “Can I have something to drink?” and he said “This isn’t a restaurant. You know where the juice is and how to pour it and your pouring arm isn’t lame, so go in and get it yourself,” and she said “I only wish it was,” and he said “Wish what was?” and she said “This was a restaurant. Then we could get another waiter.” “Oh ho ho ho, so sophisticated untongue-in-cheek siss-boom-bah ridiculing humor,” and she put her fork down, elbow on the table and palm holding up her chin and she seemed to be studying him and he said “So what’s so interesting, tell me—my stupid rejoinder, saying words and phrases way over your head?” and Margo said “Yeah, tell Daddy,” and she shook her head and continued to stare. That he was crazy to make these requests, use those words, that he’s always getting excited or irritated over nothing, that he can ask nicely for once if he wants her to do something—“Please isn’t a dirty word, you know,” as she once said and he said then “I know, I’m sorry, I’m setting a bad example, adults should be, well, role models when it comes to behavior in front of children, and for other things, so please, please, and I mean it, triple and quadruplicate please—no, that doesn’t seem as if I mean it, so just please,” followed by whatever he was asking her to do, or was she just looking his way but lost in some thought that had nothing to do with him? She got that way lots and he always loved looking at her when she did. Time she was sitting on the couch, book she’d been reading on her lap, legs under her, fingers pulling at her bottom lip and letting it spring back, eyes off somewhere contemplatively. Must have been the book she was thinking of, or—she did this—she’d heard a bird or some other sound from outside and was wondering about it, listening for it again, something, but picture of her sitting there stayed with him, including the light—it was night—this time from the floor lamp, slit across her face. Time she was on the merry-go-round at her school fair and he called out “Julie, Julie, Daddy here, give me a look” every time she came around where he was behind the railing separating him from the ride, for he wanted to wave and take a picture, but she kept looking straight ahead, big smile, perfect for a picture but not at him though he should have snapped it but he was waiting for her to look his way for a full-face shot till it was too late and the ride had stopped—imagining she was on a real horse? Exhilaration of the whole thing—tinny calliope music, breeze on her face and through her loose hair, other kids’ squeals, different sounds from the fair melding and changing around her as she rode? As he lifted her off the horse he said “What were you thinking of when you were riding round and round?” and she said “Something,” and he said “But what?” and she said “I’m not sure, maybe nothing, why’s it important?” and he said “It isn’t, just thought I’d ask, but your face—staring out and looking so happy and smiling into space,” and she said “What’s the matter with that?” and he said “Nothing, it was beautiful, let’s forget it.” Time she snuck quietly up to him at home with fluorescent pink-framed sunglasses and headphones on, attached cassette player in her hands, tapped his back, after he jumped and turned to her and said “Oh my goodness, look at you,” she did a quick dance to the music he faintly heard from the phones, and smiled—knowing the joke? Knowing he knew? What? Pleased he liked it and that she’d also startled him but where he didn’t get mad over it and it in fact made him laugh? But how’d she know he’d appreciate it or did she only guess or was trying it out if he would? He knew she’d like him doing this so he said “Hey, yeah, cool, babe,” and held his hand open for her to give him five, which she did and he said “Looks great; Elvis, right?” and she said “Who else could it be?” and he said “But Elvis Barry Schwartz, no?” and she said “Oh really, Daddy,” and he said “But how’d you know who he was?” and she said “On TV, and Margo told me about him and has this tape,” and he said “You know, and don’t tell anybody because I can be shot for saying this, but I always thought he was way overrated, in fact that he was practically talentless and gruesome, and I grew up when he was thriving and alive, but who am I, right?—and his movies, phooey,” and she said “Well I like him and so does Margo and all her friends,” and took the phones, cassette player and sunglasses off and set them aside—he’d later have to say “Could you bring these Elvis relics back to their rightful places?” but she ignored him so he did it which she proba bly thought he would, for they all knew how compulsive he was at trying to keep the house neat and clean. Time she was reclining on the couch in her pajamas and he’d come back from a run that had ended up at a couple of stores—had to be a Sunday or national holiday for them all to be home, since it was within a half-year of when she died and there was
no lazing around early Saturdays then, the kids had to be at swimming lessons by 8:50 and it was a twenty-minute drive there—and tapped her knee, she was up, he saw before, looking dreamily at the ceiling or again maybe through it, and said “I got you a chocolate croissant and Margo a plain one, freshly baked from Natural Pastry,” and she stared at him, said nothing, he’d expected a big grateful smile and thanks, for a chocolate croissant was maybe the best thing she liked for breakfast, but got a mysterious little enigmatic one. What’s she thinking of? he thought. And years later: Do I know any more than before what she might have been thinking of that morning or what her face was trying to say? Waved his hand in front of her eyes to make sure she was looking at him and she continued to stare and smile that way and he said “Everything okay, you have a good night?” and she nodded when he thought she’d say what she usually did, “Sure, why?” “And your dreams,” he might have said, for this was how he usually pursued things when she was very quiet or irritable after she awoke, “no bad ones or anything in them you want to tell me?” and if he said that and she didn’t want to answer, she probably just shook her head. So? So most of those times when he thought of what she might be thinking, she was smiling one way or another. So? So there were other times not smiling. Time she said in the car when he was driving them to school “Would you be very sad if I died?” That was months before she did. “Why, you expecting to kick the bucket soon?” quickly looking around and seeing she was serious about it, so “No, that’s the wrong thing to say. ‘No jokes now, Daddy,’ right? and you’d be right, because this is serious subject matter you’re talking now, very serious. So of course I’d be sad, deeply sad. So deeply sad that it’s probably beyond the deep. It’s into something I don’t know what it is. Total feeling-death, like. Meaning where I don’t feel anything. I’m a zombie, walking around like one or not even walking but comatose. Paralyzed, on my back, can’t get up, can’t eat or drink, can only think about my zombiehood, or not even do that. Can only feel what I don’t know I can, or not even that. No, I can’t feel anything, as I said, and all that’s not a definition of being comatose, but something like it. A person who’s nothing anymore, who can’t react or respond to anything. Who doesn’t know he’s alive so might as well be dead himself, though shouldn’t be because they often come out of it. Listen, do you know what a coma is, either of you?” and they both said yes and he said “Well that’s what it is, comatose—a coma, but in this case in sadness or what that beyond-the-deep sadness brings you to. I don’t know, I really can’t think straight today. But don’t think such terrible thoughts as would I be sad or not of what you said, because it’s never going to come to anything like that. Though why’d you ask, if I can ask—I’m curious?” and she said “I had a dream last night you died and I didn’t show any sadness to it. No, it was Margo who died and you didn’t show it,” and Margo said “Oh thanks a lot, that’s special. It must mean you want me to be dead so you can have Daddy all to yourself,” and she said “No it doesn’t, does it, Daddy?” and he said “It doesn’t have to, Margo, really. Who knows what she was thinking of in the dream, but we’ll forget it, okay? I shouldn’t have continued the discussion. I don’t mind talking about most subjects with you if they’re appropriate for your age—on your level, you know. Where they can be dealt with and aren’t disturbing, but not that subject even if you think you can handle it. You aren’t going to die—she isn’t—neither of you. Who was I talking to?—I was talking to Margo, but I mean this to you both. It’s in fact so far away it’s going to seem like forever. And maybe it will be forever, for by the time you’re my age, they—scientists—may have discovered something to keep people alive for as long as anyone wants to stay alive that way,” and Julie said “But that means you’d die if it’s so far away, and I’d hate that. It’s too sad, you or Mommy,” and he said “Well, we’re healthy, aren’t we? Exercise, we eat the right foods, keep a slim stomach, don’t drink much, at least Mommy doesn’t if at all—beer here, beer a week later—and I’ve come down a lot the last couple of years too, maybe one shot every other night’s the extent of my heavier booze, and only to relax me. Vitamins, and we don’t smoke and I never have, sufficient sleep, things like that. Have a good attitude or good enough, I think, especially Mommy, who never lets the nuisance things annoy her as they sometimes do me. And I’ve never really been sick yet with anything worse than a bad flu a few hundred times—exaggerating; Mommy once had her appendix out but that’s all, other than for a mole or beauty mark she tore on her back and which had to be removed. Ooh, I’m sorry. So, I might live, and Mommy for certain, and also because she’s eight years younger than I, long enough to take advantage of this live-forever-if-you-want drug or discovery too.” “Good, we’ll all live forever together,” Julie said and he said “No, you and Margo will have to get out of the house after a while—we’d want you to, you would too, to do things, have homes of your own. But there’ll always be room for you with us, always, I promise. But you gotta give me some peace sometime, sweethearts, you gotta. Only kidding,” when he looked in the rearview and then quickly around and did see her face, “stay with us forever. We’d love for you to, me no more than Mommy, I mean ‘no less,’ meaning a whole lot, I mean it,” and he drove. Time when she was seated beside him in the car and the street they were on was blocked by a tree that had fallen across it, firemen in helmets cutting it apart with power saws, crowds in this normally quiet neighborhood where maybe the most you see when you drive is another car and occasionally someone jogging or walking a dog or two women together pushing strollers, local TV remote team, policemen, one pointing angrily at him to turn around as if, like his father used to say, “What’re you, a dumbbell, it’s right in front of your face,” and she asked what happened and he said “What you see—did you see it? This huge tree must have lost its roots or gotten hollow inside by termites or some other thing, a tree disease, without anyone knowing it till this happened, and fallen,” and after about a minute, when he was looking for another side street to get to the avenue he wanted, she said “What if someone put me in front of that tree and I ran away?” and he said “You mean what would I do with the guy who put you there, for of course I’d be deliriously happy you ran away,” and she said yes and he said “And put you there before the tree fell, right? for you got to know when to use ‘had’ in a sentence or to put in helpful phrases like ‘before the tree fell,’ and when not to,” and she said “What would you do though?” and he said “I’d try to catch him and then hold him for the police,” and she said “That’s what I thought you’d say,” and looked front and continued to be serious awhile, he was glancing back and forth at her, trying to figure out why she’d asked that and did she mean he should have said something else? and what was on her mind now, when she said “What if a tree fell on a house—it would make the rain come in but would it kill somebody inside?” and he said “It would make a big hole in the roof and if it was a direct hit, meaning right through the center and someone was directly underneath, and the house was only one story, yes, it could kill someone inside,” and she said “What if it’s a brick house?” and he said “But the roof wouldn’t be brick; at best it’d be made of slate which is probably just a little stronger than the shingles we have on our roof, so again, direct hit and only one story?—maybe somebody would get killed, but the brick walls might stop the tree from going all the way to the floor where the person is,” and she said “If the person is lying under a table would it help any if it wasn’t a brick house?” and he said “Maybe by a tiny amount. But a tree falling down would be gaining speed fast, even if it was slightly stopped by the roof, so I think a direct hit on the table in a one-story house would still kill him,” and she said “We have two stories, right?” and he said “Two and a crawl space, so we’re much safer from a tree falling than a one-story person is if we’re on the first floor,” and she said “And if we were in the basement?” and he said “If we’re in our basement and a tree falls, nothing would happen to us e
xcept maybe a little soundproof ceiling tile breaking on our heads and making our hair dusty,” and she said “Would we be dead if the tree fell on our car?” and he said “A tree that size? Did you see how big and round it was? Six of my arms couldn’t have got around it, and it stretched across the entire street into the house-across-the-street’s front yard. And it looked like an oak, a very heavy tree—I got a quick look at its leaves, tree must have been at least a hundred years old—so yes, I think we would, even with a steel or whatever metal’s used for the car roof instead of a house’s shingle or slate, much as I hate the thought of anything like that for you. I also think I’m wrong about a slate roof being even a bit stronger than our shingle,” and she said “What if we’re in the front seat and the tree falls in the back?” and he was about to say “This isn’t a city bus, know what I mean?” but looked at her, she didn’t seem scared, was serious, just wanted to know his answer and he said “Then I think we’d be saved, though maybe bounced out of our seats but probably onto someone’s cushioned front lawn,” and she said “No, we’d still be in our seats buckled in, but I think we’d be out of the way of the tree, so saved too,” and he said “So we agree, good,” and wondered “What brings all of this stuff up?” but didn’t want to ask because didn’t want to continue it, and she took from that little well in the door to hold things like change or a pen or just to hold on to or whatever it’s for, two figures Margo had made for her out of pipe cleaners, or made for herself and Julie had taken from the house before she left, and started walking them together up opposite arms till they met on her chest and then held them high and said “This one’s Millicent, other’s Magnificent, say hello,” and he said “Hello, girls, how’s it going? nice names, twins I suppose,” and she said “No, they’re different colors,” and he said “Oh,” and drove. Time they were in the Aquarium on line for the second floor, kids up front, he several people behind and they were standing by the escalator entrance just looking at the ground and he wondered why they were staying there with so many people behind them wanting to get on. Maybe looking at the flat steps sliding out of the opening and slowly popping up, and after a while when there was a long line behind him he said “Girls, what’re you doing? stop fooling, people want to get on,” and Margo scowled at him, Julie was hidden behind some people now, a man near them said to him “There’s a lady here trying to get her stroller on, it’s not them,” and he said “Sorry, thought it was my girls, sorry,” and the man cocked an eyebrow and faced front and the woman and man behind her holding the front of the stroller with the kid in it and the girls and the man from before got on, and when he got off the escalator and looked for his kids he saw the woman un-snapping her boy from the stroller and he said “Excuse me, you must have been bent over taking care of him when I yelled and I didn’t see you, so I thought it was my girls holding up the line,” she didn’t say anything, shook her head as if he was terrible in some way—way he treated his girls, way he just shouted out like that without knowing what was going on, that he was lying and had seen her but used the girls-excuse as a way to get her to get the stroller on the escalator faster and which might have turned it over and hurt her child—more people are hurt on escalators, he once read, than in proportion—in ratio—how do you say it?—to people hurt on any other moving conveyance including cars—and he said “Anyway, I’m sorry,” and went to his girls, Julie seemed embarrassed by him, Margo gave him a dirty look and he said “I know, you both, I done wrong, I thought it was you two holding up the works downstairs, and don’t say it, I shouldn’t have yelled out, but I apologized to the woman with the stroller and she said she understood, she’d done it once herself but not at the Aquarium,” and Margo said “Yelled? You screamed like a hyena, making everybody wonder,” and he said “Who screamed? And after I explained, nobody wondered. I spoke loud, loudly—maybe not even a yell—to reach over the heads of the people in front of me, that’s why. Anyway, it’s crowded here, there really should be more space for people, with all these exhibits on both sides, so stay close,” and took Julie’s hand and she pulled it away. Why? he thought, looking at her, and she looked away. Because Margo’s mad and she thinks she’s got to side with her? She’ll cut you out of her will if you don’t? Ah, okay, better he keeps his trap shut when she gets like this—hey, he’s learned that much—and in a few minutes, so long as he doesn’t touch her or make any signs to try and reconcile her or look at her searching for some clues to her mood—if he did she’d say “What, what’re you looking at me like that?”—it’ll be over; usually. Half an hour later or so—nothing more was said about the escalator incident, he didn’t stare at her, acted as if nothing was wrong and everything was normal, and it really did seem things were back to being okay between him and them—they were in the basement cafeteria waiting for the dolphin show to begin, and first they didn’t want anything when he said he was getting himself a coffee, they wanted to look in the gift shop a few minutes, so he said okay, “but you know I’m not buying you anything in there, if you want something it’s with your own money if you brought any with you, for I’m not loaning you any either—I mean, that junk, once we get home, just gets lost, is wasted,” “We said we only want to look,” Margo said, “and they have some very good things, even Mommy said so, ecology things, and I still have that shark mobile you bought me when Julie was just a baby,” and he said “Yeah, ecology—you mean the ecology market, come on, go,” and he sat with his coffee at a table, they came out of the shop and Margo said they were hungry now and wanted a hotdog and soda, “No soda, your teeth,” he said, “and you’ll eat a hotdog each?—they’re two bucks here, I don’t want to waste any more money,” and Julie said “When did we waste any of yours today, Daddy?—we have membership cards, so that’s already paid for, and we haven’t asked you for anything so far,” and he said “Please, first split a hotdog, and also a juice or iced tea or something good but with two cups, and if you finish those you can have more,” and they got a hotdog, he cut it in half with the penknife he keeps on his key ring, they didn’t want anything to drink if they couldn’t get soda, “That’s all right,” he said, “you get too much sweet stuff as it is—I’m not blaming you but I’ve been too easy with you on that,” Margo took a bite, grimaced, put her hotdog down, Julie put hers down right after without taking a bite, Margo had that guilty look, Julie’s a bit bewildered, he said “What’s wrong?—no, I bet if I asked Julie she wouldn’t know, for she’s just following you,” “I am not,” Julie said, he said “I won’t test you, sweetie, I’m not here to even old scores,” “What’s that mean?—something nasty I bet,” “It means nothing, it means I’m saying the wrong things—what’s the matter, Margo, suddenly stuffed?” and she said “I’m sorry but it tastes awful, full of ugly fat-juices,” he said “That’s the water it’s cooked in probably, so a tiny bit greasy, so what?” and she said “I don’t like grease, I’m not eating it,” and Julie said “That’s what’s wrong with mine too and I’m not saying it because Margo did—it looks greasy,” and he said “But we paid two bucks plus tax for it—why do you two always ask for things—not ‘always’ but often enough for things if you know you’re not going to eat them?—just think if I had let you have two,” “You’d be crazy with anger now,” Margo said and he said “A little angry, sure, maybe, for the waste,” “Well, the second one might have been a good one and we’d split it, for this one isn’t—taste it yourself,” and he said “I don’t like hotdogs, at least this kind, full of pork and junk,” and she said “Then you shouldn’t have let us get it if it’s that,” and he said “You wanted it, I didn’t think half of one would be bad for you, you have them so infrequently,” and she said “I wouldn’t have wanted it either if I’d known what was inside, but it also just doesn’t taste good, Daddy, it tastes spoiled and I’ve lost my whole appetite,” and Julie said “I did too,” and he said “Oh boy, you two are a real pair,” and bit into Julie’s half—it looked more palatable, cleanly cut, not chewed, for he has no compunction a
bout eating food his kids had their mouths on, in fact they’re the only ones he’d do that with, he doesn’t even do it with his wife except maybe if she wants to give him a spoonful of her soup because she thinks he has to taste it it’s so good, he doesn’t know why, maybe some thing that goes way back to when older people talked to him about diseases and germs and he thinks at least he and the kids have the same kind—and chewed and swallowed and said “It’s fine, not poisonous, an overcooked pork hotdog like all the rest but less spicy than the ballpark kind, but if I was going to have it with anything, then mustard, not ketchup, which you kids slopped on—here, eat it,” and held it out to Margo, she pushed his hand away and said “I told you, I’m no longer hungry,” “Come on,” he said, “eat, eat, my child, have some, but at least you tried it—but you too, Julie, you haven’t touched it and this half was yours,” and put it up to her mouth, she shut her eyes, mouth was open and he pushed the hotdog against her teeth, some of the ketchup got on, tears were coming, the chest starting its heaving, he took his hand away and said, didn’t want to but did, wanted to placate them in some way but didn’t, “What a goddamn waste my family is, a waste, from top to bottom, the worst, I wish I was through with you all,” and looked away, knew he was hurting Julie more than Margo because Margo stood right up to him while Julie cringed and probably now felt humiliated, that ketchup taste in her mouth, that in front of everyone he’d jammed that ugly hotdog against her clenched teeth, tears were probably dribbling down her cheeks or about to explode out of her eyes, probably a what-did-I-do-for-you-to-hurt-me-like-this? look, so he didn’t look at her, either of them, didn’t want to see Margo looking reproachfully at him for what he did to Julie, closed his eyes, opened them on the balcony-mezzanine above them and the railing around, people up there, for the time being happy families, boy on his mother’s shoulders, father on one knee pointing something out to his daughter on the huge model whale hanging from the ceiling, his fingers, always back to his fingers, nails needed clipping and cleaning—that white stuff—wished he had one of his nail clippers he was always buying and losing or Margo and his wife were always borrowing and not returning, he’d maybe not clip—made too ugly a noise, that sharp ping and you could almost see from the sound the clipped nail piece flying off—but he’d clean his nails under the table, does that now, nails of one hand doing the nails of the other, after about a minute Margo said “Julie, let’s go to the gift shop again—that okay, for a few minutes, Daddy?” he nodded without looking at her and said “No longer,” and later, finishing his coffee—not bad for a big public cafeteria like this, richer roast or something like chicory in it—looked at his watch and thought Where the hell are they?—it’s four, show begins at four and doors opened ten minutes before that, and looked around—place was almost deserted, Julie was on the balcony-mezzanine looking through a bolted-down telescope at some part of the whale—the barnacles under an eye if he remembered right from one of his last times here with them when she told him to take a look—and he yelled “Julie, what’re you doing?—the show’s starting; Jesus, what’s with you two kids?” and she seemed frightened, confused, something, hand shot up to her mouth, looked around for Margo, maybe, to explain or help or just be with her—she think he was going to go crazy on them again, maybe even hit them, drag them out of here without seeing the show? he felt like leaving because of their actions but wasn’t going to, wanted to see the show himself, got a kick out of the way the two dolphins together plunged and jumped and flipped and dived and at the end slid into the wading area and waved their tails to the audience, and why was he getting so angry so many times today? she could be thinking—he didn’t know, it happened sometimes, maybe it was chemical, the brain, a couple of times or more he thought maybe he has some pressure like a blood clot or tumor or another kind of clot on it that makes him act that way, but he did get like this about once a month for a few hours a day, unexplained anger and losing control and sometimes total rage, kicking over chairs, sweeping things off tables, at the top of his lungs yelling “shit” to no one in particular, sending the kids running into their rooms or outside and provoking his wife to come in if she was outside or into the room he was in if she was in another, for he never did any of these things in front of her, and say “What is wrong with you today? It’s horrible for the girls and not so pretty for me. Maybe you should see a therapist about it—if it were me I would,” and thirty seconds after he’d told himself to control himself there’d be a similar rage—“Julie,” he yelled, “where’s your sister?—we’re late, the announcement just said the thing’s starting, get Margo,” and she leaned on the railing and said “She’s probably still in the gift shop,” “So go get her, now, now,” and she said “But the show’s on this floor and I’ll have to walk up again to see it—it’s closer to you, Daddy, right over there,” and she gave him an opening and her gestures and look said she was ready to put it all behind her but he said “No arguments, I said to get her,” and she ran around the balcony and downstairs and into the shop and quickly came out with Margo who had a look-for-angry-look look, her defense, offense, meeting him halfway, whatever, well okay, he can understand that, he’s been acting insanely, or just some way—testily, irritably, disagreeably, belligerently, tyrannically—but at least he wasn’t shouting and snapping now, his face might still be a petulant mess but he was, he felt, calming down some, and he had embarrassed them, don’t forget that, they hate it when he lashes out at them in front of others or just anytime, any criticism when people are around, really any criticism anytime, though at least here it wasn’t in front of anyone they knew, and he said to himself as he walked upstairs with them “Now keep calm, go easy, be gentle and understanding,” and said under his breath a few seconds later “Damn freaking kids,” and Margo said “What?” and he said “Nothing,” and she said “You still angry at us?” and he said “No, why should I be, it’s over with,” and Julie said “You are too angry, your eyebrows are down,” and he said “I said I’m not, so I’m not, do you hear? I’m not, not, though don’t bloody hell tell me I’ve no reason to be, two of you disappearing like that when you knew, Margo the most because she’s the oldest, that we had a show to go to in a few minutes,” and Margo said “You should have reminded us better,” and he said “What did you want me to do, stick a sticker on you with the reminder and an alarm on it that went off ten minutes to four and also with some recorded voice equipment attached that said ‘You should be with your daddy, find your daddy, you have to go to the dolphin show with your daddy,’” and Julie was laughing and he said “What’s so goddamn funny?” and she shut up and looked scared again and he said “Ah, nothing would have stopped Margo from staying in that stupid shop and having a fifth and sixth look at those chintzy knickknacks and assorted trash,” and walked ahead of them, telling himself “Why didn’t you stop when you had the chance?—not because you can’t, you could have, that stuff about brain chemistry and clots is pure crud, and when she laughed that was when you could have relaxed things, said ha-ha to yourself, ‘What a dumb bunny I am,’” and looked back, they were several feet behind and he went back and said “Okay, I’m acting wrong, I know, but so what?—we’ll work it out later but now we really have to move if we want to be let in—you don’t want to see it, fine, we’ll go home,” and Margo said “No!” and moved faster but Julie, downcast, dragged even slower behind and he said to her “Come on, come on, what is it, you got to give me a fight with everything I ask?—move, move,” and shoved her shoulder forward to get her to walk faster and right away knew what it would do, “Oh, you’re impossible,” and walked fast to the nearest entrance, gave the man their tickets and said “Other two are for the little slowpokes behind me if they’re still there, I really don’t care,” and went through, what the guy must be thinking now, he thought, and knew if he turned around he’d see Julie crying, Margo comforting her, turned around, they were past the turnstiles, man was taking a few more tickets, she was holding Margo’s hand, staring at the ground a
nd about to cry, and he looked around: place is packed, show hadn’t begun, window curtains have already been closed, “Come on, girls, hasn’t started yet, we’re lucky, but no seats except at the side sections way on top—knew we should have got here earlier,” and went up the stairs—did he have to add that about “earlier”?—and into one of the left-side aisles with three to four spaces together on the bench, and sat, “Damn,” he thought, “ruined everything for the day when it could have been so nice, sitting here with them, talking about what’s to come, seeing their excitement, and then for hours after, ruined it for them, himself, who knows what else?”—kids were standing in the aisle, not wanting to sit with him?—“Come on in, water’s fine, everything’s okay, really—sit before someone takes your seats,” and Margo pushed Julie in first, and when they were seated he said to Julie “Listen, my dearest, I’m so sorry, I got excited, it wasn’t your fault and I didn’t mean to hit your arm and I apologize, deeply I do,” and she looked at the two women and men in wet suits hustling from opposite sides to the center of the bridge behind the main pool, and he touched her hand, she pulled it back and he said “Please speak to me—I’m not so bad, and like everyone else, I have my off days, and I truly hate being mean to you, which I admit I was, I was, and seeing you sad and I want to apologize and I’ll do my best not to act like that again—I am apologizing, in fact,” and she said while looking at the huge monitor above them showing the trainers patting the heads of the two dolphins and sticking fish in their mouths “It wasn’t my arm, it was my shoulder—I’m sure it’s sprained it hurts so much,” and he said “It’s not, believe me, and I’m sorry, your shoulder, not your arm, I forgot,” and one of the women said into what must have been a portable mike attached to her suit “Hello, everyone,” and a few people in the audience said hello and she said “Say, where am I?—there’s no response out there—is there human life in this big beautiful space?—hello, all you bipeds, welcome to the”—“What’s a biped?” Margo asked him and he said “Two feet, walking,” and she said “Like a person?” and he said “Only,” and she said “Ostriches walk with their two feet and don’t fly,” and he said “But they’ve wings, even if they’re not working—I don’t know, maybe you’re right”—“National Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Pavilion show”—“Or maybe an ostrich’s feet don’t count as that-kind-of-feet bipedal,” he said, “for they’re two-or three-toed, aren’t they? and penguins and other flightless birds like that neither because their feet are webbed, I think—we’ll look it up when we get home…Margo asked me what’s a biped,” he said to Julie, “—do you know?” and she said “I don’t care”—“Now this time let’s hear a rousing boisterous hello so I know you’re out there,” and hundreds of people including Margo and he shouted hello—he never had before at any kind of event like this, just thought it might do something to get Julie more interested in the show and away from her hurt, Daddy as one of the excited guys instead of his usual just watching things quietly—“Say, now that’s a lot better, because for a moment there I thought you folks had fallen asleep into the arms of Morpheus on me just when our wonderfully charming dolphins are about to do their superextraor-dinary things,” and he said into Julie’s ear “I swear, my darling, I only meant to give you a tiny push to move faster and I accidentally must have done it harder—I was afraid there’d be no seats left and we did get here just in time for these—you saw,” and she said “You pushed me hard because you were angry and wanted to hurt someone—you get like that; Mommy and Margo even say it,” and he said “When do I? and what an accusation, and saying the family agrees with you—it’s totally untrue, I’m not like that, or only a little, which is no more than anybody, but let’s talk about it later and watch the show, it should be good.” Later: kept sneaking looks at her to see if she was still angry at him or just if she was starting to enjoy the show, which would mean she’d taken her mind off the shoving incident and his other blowups, and she seemed to—laughed, slapped her hands, said “Oh my gosh” to something the dolphins were doing, slipped some Aquarium brochure into the book he was holding, and near the end of it—they’d seen the same show three or four times this year, or it was a little changed from the first one they saw when there was a third dolphin who’d since died—she got up and sat on his lap with her back to him, not once looking at him when she was on it—maybe her way of making him feel better or saying she felt better and had accepted his apology and even now believed his excuse for the shove or maybe just to see the show better, though couldn’t be that since they were up too high already and no one had been blocking her view, or because the wood bench was getting uncomfortable or she was cold or tired or scared of something in the show, or something. Anyway, after about a minute of her being up there he kissed the back of her head and she didn’t turn around or say or do anything.