It wasn’t until he got off the train and was fighting his way through the bitter wind, skirting patches of ice in the station parking lot, that he remembered tonight was the night he and John were to talk. The last thing in the world he wanted was that, tonight. But he’d made a point of telling the boy to block out the time, and he had to go through with it. You’ve got to follow through with kids, as with everything else in life, he’d long ago decided. John was goofing off. It was time he thought seriously of where he was heading, and into what was he heading. How he was going to go about it. Middle-class parents had a tendency to keep their children in cotton batting, keep them young too long, to baby them. His father hadn’t babied him, and he had no intention of babying John.
He unlocked his car and got in, resting his head for a minute on the steering wheel, its cold so piercing he felt as if his forehead had been penetrated.
A Cheever character would get back out of the car, methodically lock it, then climb back on the train and ride it to New Haven, to the end of the line. Go then to a bar, pick up a redheaded woman, buy her a drink, talk to her in a somewhat high-blown fashion until she excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, from which she never returned. Or the Cheever character might cross over to the southbound side and ride the train back into Grand Central Station and spend the night in an all-night movie eating popcorn while musing on his youth, his mistress, the complexities of life. Or he might sit all night on a station bench, eyeing the derelicts, thinking there but for the grace of God, waiting for his office to open.
But he wasn’t a Cheever character, not nearly that interesting. He turned the key in the ignition several times until it caught, put the car in gear, and drove home.
As he turned into the driveway and saw the lights, saw figures moving behind the curtains, he remembered he’d read in the paper that Grand Central was locked after midnight these nights. In an effort to curtail crime, the story said.
4
Keith’s voice on the telephone had been calm, matter of fact. His mother was acting up again. But Keith could handle it. He had before.
“I’d ask you over,” Keith had said when their friendship was brand new, shining, back in the sixth grade. They’d been scuffling through leaves on their way home from school, planning what to wear on Halloween. “But you probably wouldn’t want to come.”
“Why?” he’d said, wanting to very much.
“My mother, she, lots of times she drinks.”
“That’s okay,” he’d said, worldly-wise, naive. “So does mine.”
“You don’t understand.” Keith had planted his feet firmly, arms crossed on his chest, color rising in his smooth cheeks. “Sometimes she drinks all day. So when I get home from school she’s passed out cold. I never know for sure.”
“Oh,” he’d said, sorry and embarrassed. He thought of asking about Keith’s father and decided against it.
“My mother and father are divorced,” Keith had said, reading his mind. “My father’s in real estate in Florida. Palm Beach, where all the richies live. He calls every month or so to find out how I’m doing. Once he sent me a plane ticket to fly down over Easter vacation. I was seven. I flew by myself. The stewardess was supposed to look after me but she was too busy putting the moves on some rich, fat guy in a vest. It was fun, we went to the Bath and Tennis every day. I had a cheeseburger and a Coke and strawberry shortcake. Same thing every day, that’s what I had. It was cool. If you’re in real estate you have to mess around, play a lot of tennis, golf, go fishing with your customers. Get to know people with big bucks. Everyone in Palm Beach has big bucks. I think I might be a highwayman.”
It was a minute before he’d realized that Keith meant to be a highwayman on Halloween, not as a career in Palm Beach.
“I’ve got this big cape my mother gave me and a hat with a feather and a big brim, and she said I can wear a pair of her boots.”
“You can wear your mother’s boots?” He remembered being incredulous. “My mother would never let me wear hers. She’d be afraid I’d ruin them.”
“Oh, she’s pretty loose about stuff like that. Even when she’s not drinking, she’s pretty loose. I might also go as Poseidon. I like to have an alternate plan, in case something gets fouled up.” Keith had, apparently, experience with things getting fouled up.
“Poseidon?” He was out of his depth, never having known another Keith. “What’s that?”
“You mean ‘Who’s that?”’ Keith had said, his voice tinged with scorn. “He’s the ancient Greek god of the sea.”
Keith’s eyes had more light in them than most people’s. They were spooky eyes, he thought, and wished his were the same.
“I could always hang a sign on myself that said ‘Poseidon,’” Keith had said, looking at him with contempt. He hadn’t recognized it then as contempt. It was only later, after he’d known Keith a while, that he knew contempt for what it was.
“On the other hand, I might go incognito. Let those dopes figure it out. I’d dye my long johns green and wear flippers and my mask. I bet I’d win a prize.”
He’d been astonished by Keith’s ingenuity. “How would you walk with flippers on? Wouldn’t that be kind of hard? On the flippers, I mean.” Practical John. He had learned then, and later, that when Keith was involved with a plan, it didn’t do to fool around. Keith’s mind blanked out the laughs. He was a single-minded guy.
“I’d take ’em off between stops. No prob.” Keith had an answer for everything.
“When she isn’t in the bin,” Keith had continued, shutting off further discussion of Halloween, “she’s all right. She’s fun. She lets me do anything I want.”
Bin? He ventured, “What bin is she in?”
“The loony bin, dope.” Keith’s voice indicated everyone knew about the bin except him. “When she’s on the sauce, she goes kind of loco and she goes away to dry out. Then, when she gets straightened out, she comes home. She’s fucked-up. My father is, too. They’re both fucked-up. It’s a wonder I’m as normal as I am.”
With an effort, he kept his face expressionless. He imagined his mother’s face if she could hear the things Keith was saying, the language he was using, and he began to laugh. He couldn’t help himself.
“What’s so funny?” Keith had turned on him, looking ferocious.
“Nothing. It’s just that I never heard anyone say their parents were fucked-up before.” He pronounced the word softly.
Keith’s eyes worked their color change, and he said, “You ought to get around more.”
Why? he wanted to ask, and didn’t. He almost said, “I’m only twelve,” but Keith was the same age, and look at him. Keith overwhelmed him. He was amazed and dazzled by their friendship, by the artistry of Keith’s plans, his mind, his ideas. His life-style. It was like being friends with a king. Everything Keith said and did was a revelation. Now that he knew they were fucked-up, he was anxious to meet Keith’s parents. To get a good look, to see what that meant. At the same time, he was terrified at the prospect. He’d never known anyone who was on the sauce or who had been in the loony bin. He wisely kept these things to himself, mostly to protect his parents from the knowledge that such things went on. And also to protect his friendship with Keith.
Eventually, Keith had said it was all right for him to come home with him. “She’s back in AA,” Keith had said. “Once she gets back with those guys, she’s great. If she gets into trouble, you know, if she can’t handle things, she gives ’em a call and, day or night, they talk to her, come over and talk it out. They’ll talk all night, if that’s what she wants.” So one afternoon he’d gone home with Keith. He was very nervous, not sure how he should act when he met Keith’s mother. Should he shake her hand and pretend not to notice she was fucked-up? Should he say “Pleased to meet you,” or should he just keep his hands in his pockets and smile and say nothing? There was no one he could ask.
But it was all right. She was waiting at the door. “How are you, John? I’m glad to meet you,�
� she said, as if she meant it. “Keith’s told me about you. Come in.” The place smelled of ammonia and floor polish. A vacuum cleaner stood in the living room.
“I made cookies,” she said. “I’ve been working my buns off all day cleaning and cooking.” She laughed and ran her hands through her already tousled dark hair. Her face was nice, he thought, pale but pleasant. She was very thin, and wore blue jeans and a sweater with a cigarette bum smack in the middle of it. She smoked a lot, lighting one cigarette from the butt of the one she still had. She listened hard to everything they said, listened with great intensity, nodding her head in agreement or shaking it slowly from side to side. He couldn’t imagine her passed out on the couch when Keith got home from school. Maybe Keith was putting him on, trying to make his mother seem more unusual than other people’s mothers. He didn’t really think Keith would do that, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure.
Then, out of the blue, she’d said, “John, why don’t you stay for supper? I have to go to an AA meeting, and I don’t like to leave Keith alone. I’m an alcoholic. Maybe Keith’s told you.” Her fingers were very long, very thin, like the rest of her. Very nervous. “I’m sure he’d like the company if you could stay. Why don’t you call your mother and ask her if it’s all right? We’re having cube steaks. I’m a whiz at cooking cube steaks.” She smiled at him, her lips stretched wide in her lean face, her lipstick smudged in the corners of her mouth. “And all the cookies you can eat.”
He hesitated. His mother didn’t like him to stay at other people’s houses on school nights.
“Mom,” Keith sounded weary. “John’s got to get going. His mother runs a very tight ship. She wants to know where he is when he’s not home.” Keith’s eyes glittered in that way they had. “Isn’t that right, John? Doesn’t your mother want to know where you are all the time? She’s very strict.” Keith’s voice lent the word new meaning.
“Not exactly.” He defended his mother, although many times he railed against her strictness. But he didn’t like the tone in Keith’s voice, the way he made her sound like a prison warden. She wasn’t like that. “She likes me to check in once in a while,” he apologized for his mother.
“Don’t let him kid you, Mom. John’s mother is a tiger. And he’s her cub,” Keith had laughed. He hadn’t stayed for supper.
Twice Keith had been threatened with expulsion from school because his school fees hadn’t been paid. “My mother doesn’t get the money from her trust fund until January,” he’d explained nonchalantly. “They’ll have to wait until then. Gleason knows what’s what. He knows she can’t pay until then. He’ll have to cool it. She pays when she gets the bread. That’s what rich people do. They don’t pay their bills every month. Only squares do that.”
With shame, he thought of the neat pile of bills his father laid on the hall table the first of every month, stamped and tidy, waiting for the mailman. The first of the month was bill-paying day in his family. Once, when his father had been sick with flu, he remembered his mother doing the bills. Nothing but death would stop their inexorable bill paying, he was sure. Another fact to be buried, hidden from Keith’s voracious gaze. God, how middle-class his parents were.
“Is your mother rich?” he’d asked.
“Her family has money. That’s how she latched onto a trust fund. Her grandfather was loaded. He owned a railroad. He left her and her sisters a bundle. But she can’t get her hands on it,” Keith had said, grinning. “The way the money was left, the lawyer doles it out, inch by inch. Boy, does my mother hate that lawyer. She claims he’s stealing her blind. If she could figure out a way, she’d scrag him good. Sometimes, when things are really tight, when my father doesn’t kick through the way he’s supposed to, she calls the lawyer and sings the blues. But he always cuts her off at the pass. Nada is what she gets unless the time is right for him to cough up some bucks. That guy’s got a heart of stone. Probably a good thing, too. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any dough left. When she drinks, the money disappears.”
It was like a soap opera on TV. He’d never known anyone who had a trust fund. There was a world waiting out there of which he knew nothing. A world inhabited by people like Keith. And Keith’s mother and father. It excited him and, at the same time, frightened him. He wasn’t an adventuresome person. He wished he were, wanted to be exciting and daring. Wanting wasn’t enough. Wanting wasn’t being.
Keith’s mother hadn’t looked rich to him. Although what rich people looked like he had no idea, except for what he’d seen in the movies and on TV. He imagined rich people climbing in and out of long black cars driven by chauffeurs. They were constantly suntanned and spoke in foreign tongues, to keep poor people from understanding what they said. A lot of poor people spoke in foreign tongues too, he knew, but they didn’t have their own planes and ski at St. Moritz. Rich people dressed differently, too: either shabbily, in old clothes, or elaborately, with diamonds and furs. Like royalty, and like poor people, too, they never carried cash. They used credit cards, or a guy with them shelled out. This interested him. He almost never carried cash either. So they had something in common, he and the very rich.
“Who’s this Keith that John talks about all the time?” he’d heard his father say shortly after he and Keith had become friends. He’d been lying on the floor reading the Sunday comics and had discovered, to his immense pleasure, that if he stayed absolutely still, unmoving, they forgot he was there.
“He’s new in school,” he heard his mother say. “I think the parents are divorced. At any rate, the father doesn’t live with them.” How did she know that? Not from him. “He lives in Florida,” his mother continued. “Palm Beach, Gertie said.” Gertie was a gossip, he knew. His father called her a female Walter Winchell. His mother said that, unlike most gossips, her friend Gertie had her facts straight most of the time.
“Palm Beach?” his father said.
“Yes, Palm Beach.” His mother rolled the words on her tongue as if tasting something tart and vaguely unpleasant, something she was loath to swallow.
“I’ve never laid eyes on the mother. But Keith has nice manners,” she who was big on manners admitted reluctantly. Still, he detected something in his mother’s voice that told him Keith hadn’t passed her inspection. How could nice manners be bad? It was important to him that his mother like Keith. He would never let her know how important. She was too critical of his friends, and he wanted her to like Keith.
“He’s a good-looking boy,” his mother continued. “Almost too good-looking.”
Too good-looking for what? he asked himself. He admired Keith’s looks, thought him extraordinary in all ways. No one else looked like Keith. He recognized a certain truth in what his mother had said about being too good-looking. And began to notice and take notes.
Girls collected at Keith’s approach, voices shrill and strident as they clamored for his attention. They milled about, pushing and shoving one another in mock combat, hoping, no doubt, to fall wounded at Keith’s feet; wounded and swooning, in need of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. If they’d asked Keith for his autograph, he, John Hollander, wouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe that was the way it was to walk down the street with Woody. To walk side by side with a luminary whose light obscured other lights. He was not offended by his own lack of notice. When people made a fuss over him, it would be because of a play he’d written, or a great, hilarious film he’d not only directed but also written and starred in. A triple-threat man, not unlike W. Allen.
Last year, a boy two classes ahead of them had called Keith “pretty boy,” and then said it again, right there in the hall. Keith had punched out the kid, knocked him down all on his own. John had been at soccer practice and not there to help. Next day, reinforced by two bulky brothers, the older kid had waylaid Keith and jumped him. Three against one. Keith wound up with a purple bruise under his eye and two loose teeth.
“Next time they’d better bring the whole family,” was all Keith had said.
“He’s very conceite
d, isn’t he, John?” his sister, Leslie, had said after she met Keith for the first time. “I can’t stand conceited people.”
“No, he’s not,” he’d defended his friend. “Can he help it if he’s handsome and well-built?”
“So are you, sugar,” Leslie had cried, pulling him to his feet. She was teaching him to dance disco and it took every ounce of his energy to keep up with her. Leslie was a dancing fool, a madwoman on the dance floor.
“Abandon yourself!” she kept hollering. “Lose your inhibitions! Let yourself go! And for God’s sake, John, quit looking at your feet!”
That was his trouble. He was always looking at his feet. The subject of Keith had never come up again.
5
Keith showed up halfway through history class. Walking jauntily up to Mr. Simons’s desk, he handed over a note, doubtless written in his mother’s handwriting, which he’d become adept at copying. Simons read it without comment, nodded curtly at Keith, the go-ahead for him to park his carcass.
After class, they headed for study hall. “Gleason didn’t say anything,” he said, containing his curiosity. “I guess he didn’t even notice you were among the missing.”
“That’s my forceful personality,” Keith said. “I’m missed immediately. I got things settled down. She’s asleep. The doc gave her a shot. Said it should keep her quiet until I get home. He thinks it would be a good idea if she went to her drying-out place again. For a week or two, he says.” Keith spoke in a detached way, as if none of this were important.
He wanted to ask what had set Keith’s mother off when she’d been doing so well. But he had learned from experience. It was better if Keith volunteered information. One direct question and he’d clam up: Keith would tell when he felt like telling.
“My father’s getting married next week,” Keith said abruptly. “And you know what?” Keith’s voice and face betrayed a rare excitement. “He wants me to be best man. Get that. Best man for my own father! It’s my official coming of age, right? Some guys get a new car, some get shares of stock. Me, I get to be my father’s best man. How about that?”
Other Plans Page 4