With John out of earshot, Grandy smiled and said, “It’s amazing how his hands and feet get in his way, just as yours did at that age, Henry. Have you noticed?”
Henry shuffled the cards without answering. Then, in a voice that trembled slightly, he said, “Do you remember how you used to compare my coordination with Ed’s, Dad? Ed had superb coordination, you used to say. You’d never seen such hand-to-eye coordination as Ed had. You told me that quite a few times, Dad. I used to go out to the field in back and practice my hand-to-eye coordination but it never seemed to get any better. Never close to Ed’s.”
Grandy cleared his throat. “I don’t remember saying that, Henry. If I did, I’m sorry. That was exceedingly tactless of me.”
Henry continued to shuffle the cards.
“What ever happened to Mona Abrams, Dad?” he asked.
Grandy pulled at his cheek. “Why, I don’t know, Henry. I haven’t heard of her in years.”
“I don’t know if I ever told you, Dad.” Henry’s hands were still, his eyes on his father. “Shortly before Mother died, the time I visited you out at the lake, she and I took a long walk and she told me that you and Mona Abrams had been lovers. For some time, she said. I was stunned. But, as we both know, Mother didn’t lie. Or imagine things. I knew she was telling me the truth. I just couldn’t figure out why she’d told me, after all that time.”
Grandy’s skin looked taut and grainy, his eyes almost black. He shook his head once or twice, but said nothing.
“What a strange choice for you to make, Dad. Mona Abrams. She wasn’t even good-looking.”
A heavy silence, like old draperies thick with dust, settled over them, held them in a stifling embrace.
The clatter of china, the sound of John’s feet as he whistled his way down the hall, made them sit very straight in their chairs and rearrange their faces into a semblance of cheer, like two store-window dummies.
John set down the tray with a thump. “I let it perk ten minutes, the way Ma said.” He backed off, squinting at his handiwork. “I didn’t forget anything. I even remembered spoons.”
“Good for you,” his father said.
Grandy took a clean handkerchief out of his bathrobe pocket and wiped his face. “Perfect,” he said faintly. “Just the thing.”
“You okay, Grandy?” John said, dismayed at Grandy’s pallor.
“Fine. It’s getting a bit late for me but I want to try your coffee, John. I had no idea you could do such a good job in the kitchen.”
“You should taste my french fries,” John said proudly. He poured out the coffee and passed the cups. Watched as they tasted.
“That’s first-rate, John,” Grandy said. “Absolutely first-rate.”
“Very good, John,” his father said.
John looked from one to the other, trying to figure out what was different. They both looked wiped out. He probably shouldn’t have made coffee, after all.
“Well, I better pack it in,” he said. “Big day tomorrow. See you,” and he went, taking the stairs three at a time. He almost fell over his mother on the top step. Her head was against the wall and her hands were dangling between her knees. She was asleep.
“You better hit the sack, Ma,” he said, touching her lightly on the shoulder to wake her. She opened her eyes and sat up.
“I heard them talking,” she said, “and I wanted to make sure he was all right. I’m glad I didn’t go down. It would’ve spoiled it.” She kneaded her cheeks with her fingers, trying to wake up. “Did you have a nice time, just the three of you?” She sounded wistful.
“It was okay. They played gin and I watched. I made us some coffee.”
“I smelled it.”
“I hear them coming,” he whispered. “Better take off, Ma. You don’t want ’em to catch you here.” He watched her hurry into her room and close the door soundlessly. It wasn’t often he called the shots with his mother.
He had overslept. Lucky for him he still wore his underwear. That was a real time-saver. When he stumbled down, his father was reading the paper, drinking coffee. Duded up in his city clothes. Otherwise he might’ve thought his father hadn’t slept at all.
“Grandy and Ma still in the sack, huh?”
His father nodded, continuing to read the paper.
“You going to work today?”
“Of course. You better get going, John. You’ll miss your bus.”
“I already have. I can hitch.”
Cars whizzed by, sending road crap onto his pristine clothes. He walked backwards, thumb out, trying to look like a harmless teenaged vagrant worthy of a ride in a well-heated BMW that also had some good tapes going.
Finally, an old codger, about forty, driving a ’76 Chevy with a scabrous ruff of rust around its body panels, pulled up.
“Thanks.” He hopped in. The codger was suited up in a Harris tweed balmacaan and smelled like a musk ox in beat.
“Where you bound for?” the driver asked, accelerating until the Chevy wheezed in protest.
“Oh, you can let me off a mile or two up the road,” he said, leaning on his door. “I’m headed for school.”
The man kept turning to smile at him. “Smoke?” He fished a silver case out of his voluminous tweed pocket. “It’s good stuff. No weeds, no stems, no nothing. Pure gold. The best.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking the joint. “I’ll save it for later. Last time I smoked when I was in a car, I tossed my best buddy out and he was doing eighty at the time.” He managed an ingenuous look and the man’s smile disappeared. The Chevy leaped forward, laying a strip of rubber on the road.
“Thanks,” he said again as the codger let him out, presumably without regret. “See you around.”
The man’s glance said, not if I see you first. Probably the guy would’ve liked to ask for the joint back but didn’t quite dare.
“You are some smartass,” he told himself, starting to walk. “Some terrible smartass.” But it came in handy at times.
25
Halfway through one of Simons’s oft-repeated monologues on the glories of Appomattox, he allowed his mind to wander. Recently, he’d read about a well-known writer who’d gotten his start at age fifteen, writing a sports column for his hometown paper. This happened during World War II, of course, when manpower was scarce. But why couldn’t he try writing a humorous column and sell it to the local weekly, which, as far as he was concerned, could use some humor. It would give him experience, which was what he sorely needed, if he was going to write for the likes of Woody. And the writer who’d gotten the early start was now so famous his name was a household word.
He smiled at the idea of his name becoming anyone’s household word. And bent over his notebook, jotting down a few random thoughts.
“Mr. Hollander.” It was Simons, breathing down his neck. “I hate to interrupt your train of thought. May we see what causes you so much amusement?” And Simons snatched up the notebook and read aloud in his high, penetrating voice, “Pulitzer for Humorist Hollander. Hollander Inks Six-Figure Contract.”
The class, appreciating any diversion, guffawed.
“Get off his back.” Keith’s voice came, low and furious. “Let him alone.”
A hush fell. Simons’s angry face ripened into rage.
“This is a history class, Mr. Madigan, not one in creative writing. I will ask you please to butt out of what is not your concern. Mr. Hollander, your marks indicate your lack of attention has caught up with you at last. I will be forced to take up this matter with your father.”
His throat tightened. He felt Keith looking at him but he was too weary, too depressed to return the look. After the bell sounded, Keith said, “Why don’t you tell him what’s bugging you? He’d feel like a heel.”
“Yeah, I tell the guy and he starts oozing guilt and gives me an A-plus for effort. To hell with it. But thanks, anyway, for standing up for me.”
“You want to throw the Frisbee around?” Keith suggested. “Or we could try some lacrosse. I kno
w a guy who has a couple of sticks he’d let us use.”
“No, thanks. I think I’ll head for home. I’m a real drag these days.”
“You have a right.”
“Thanks again, Keith. I’ll see you.” He began walking. The bus passed and slowed and Gus sounded the horn, but he raised his arm and waggled his hand to show he wanted to walk. He jammed his hands into his pockets and discovered the joint. No stems, no seeds, no nothing, the man had said. He found a moth-eaten pack of matches in another pocket and lit up.
The few times he’d smoked pot, it had loosened his tongue and words had spouted effortlessly from him. His own eloquence had astonished him. His friend at Duke, on the other hand, had told him he’d cut out smoking marijuana entirely because he thought it was destroying his brain cells. But that guy had started getting stoned when he was in the seventh grade. What did he expect.
This joint tasted okay. Not pure gold, but okay. He’d make it last—put it out halfway down so he’d have the other half to look forward to.
A car pulled alongside him and stopped.
“Hello, John,” his father said.
Talk about being caught with a smoking gun. He considered tossing the half-smoked joint into the bushes and decided he’d tough it out.
“Hi, Dad. What’re you doing here?”
“I took an early train.” His father leaned over and opened the door. “Hop in. I assume you’re headed for home.”
He wasn’t stoned, just light-headed and loose-tongued. His father seemed not to notice the joint, made no mention of it. He didn’t think his father even recognized the smell of marijuana.
They drove in silence. If his father asked him what he was smoking, he’d tell him. What the hell. But his father didn’t ask, and in an odd way, he was disappointed.
He leaned back in the seat, suddenly tired.
“Are you afraid, Dad?” The words slipped out. He was appalled at himself. But it was a question he’d wanted to ask for some time.
His father slowed for a red light.
“It’s not so much fear,” he said slowly, “as it is sorrow at leaving you all. I had so many plans. I worry about what will happen to you.” They sat waiting for the light to change and his father looked directly at him.
“When I was a kid, a man lived on our street who was dying of some debilitating disease. He would walk up and down very slowly, waiting for someone to speak to him. I can see him now. No one spoke to him, they avoided him the way people avoid the dying. I’d hide behind the curtains and peer out at him and every time he’d turn in my direction, I’d duck down so he couldn’t see me. I think of that man now, years later, and know how lonely he must have been and how he wished for someone to care, someone to talk to him, maybe even ask the question you’ve just asked me.”
The car behind them honked impatiently. The light was green. He inhaled and held out the joint to his father.
“Want to try it, Dad? I got it this morning from a guy who gave me a ride to school.”
“No thanks, John. I’d watch that stuff if I were you. I hear it’s habit-forming.”
“Not any more than alcohol is,” he said. “Probably less.” In the old days, that would’ve started a fight. Now his father only shrugged.
“To answer your question, John. No, I’m not afraid to die. But if I am going to die, I’d like to do a good job of it. I’d like to be brave, not to whimper. I’d like people to remember I didn’t whimper.”
He looked out the window, too moved to speak.
“Dad.” He swallowed hard. “I would lay down my life for you. If it would do any good.”
His father pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition.
“I know you would, John,” he said. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to know that.”
The joint had burned down dangerously low. He could feel the heat from it against his hand. Carefully, he opened the car door and got out, stubbing the butt against the garage floor. Then he put it in his pocket and he and his father went into the house.
26
“Henry.” Grandy patted his son’s shoulder, thinking, such fragile bones. He really is down to nothing. “I have loved you all the days of my life. I loved you even before you were born.”
Grandy was going home. The visit had actually aged him. His beautifully cut suit, which had looked so natty on his arrival, hung on him now. Grandy took Henry into arms that trembled, arms that had once been the strongest in the world and he knew, with a terrible certainty, that this thing would come to pass: that he would die, and soon.
My father is so frail, Henry thought, full of sorrow. I’m leaving him so old and frail.
It should be me, Grandy told himself. He has years ahead of him. It should be me.
“Dad, I’m sorry. I should never have said those things.”
“No,” Grandy replied. “It is I who should apologize to you, Henry. For many things. I ask your forgiveness.”
They embraced and parted. They did not say good-bye.
“You’ll fight it, Henry.” Ed’s voice boomed out at him over the miles as he called, finally, to tell him the news. “I know you’ll fight it. Don’t give in, Henry. Our thoughts are with you. We’d come, right this minute, but there’s an absolutely crucial meeting in Detroit that I can’t miss.” Ed’s voice faded, then blossomed once more. “Marge says she’ll come. If you want her.”
For what? The thought of Marge lending them aid and comfort was so ludicrous that he laughed into the phone. Ed must think he was losing his mind.
“That’s all right, Ed. Right now it’s best if we’re alone. I don’t really want to see anyone just now. Just wanted to let you know.”
The time had come to end the charade he’d been acting out. He told Burrell and it was much less difficult than telling someone he loved. “We’ll do everything we can to make things easy for you, Henry. Full salary, all that. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, Henry. They work miracles every day.” Burrell’s voice was hearty. “We’ll hold your place open, Henry. As long as necessary.” As Burrell spoke, reassuringly, his face became suffused with color. At the finish, he was scarlet. Looked as if he might be on the verge of another minor stroke like the one he’d had several years back.
The word had gotten out. People reacted differently. Some avoided looking at him, meeting his eye on the train, on the street. News of imminent death always gets around, he reflected, not without irony. Those who hear of another fallen comrade stop smoking for a day or two, bring their wives flowers for the first time in years, are kind to the elderly. Tip the blind man on Fifth Avenue.
“If I can do anything, Henry,” they murmured with the best of intentions. “Let me know if I can help.” If he were to say, “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, you can …” they just wouldn’t be there. He was sure of that. On the other hand, how would he act if any one of them had been tapped on the shoulder instead of him?
His last day at the office, he told Jane about his cancer. She knew something was up—he could tell from her face—but he suspected that she thought he had another job offer, or problems at home, or a disagreement with Burrell. He had known it would be bad, telling Jane. And it was. She was shattered by the news, put her face in her hands and refused to bring them down, even when he said, “I’ve got to say good-bye now, Jane. I’ve got to leave.” She stood there crying into her hands. “You’ve been a good secretary and a good friend, Jane. I thank you.” She didn’t give any indication she’d heard. He closed the door behind him gently, thinking that he would write her a letter from home.
When he got back to the house that evening, he found that some well-meaning fool in the drafting department, whom he hardly knew, had sent him a get-well card with a woebegone lion on its front. Inside, the lion beamed, rejuvenated. Keep Roaring! the card said. He tossed the card to John, who had brought him the mail. “Look at this,” he said.
“Sheesh!” said John, succinctly, bending over ostensibly to tie his shoelace.
<
br /> His father leaned back and crossed his legs. “You just never believe it’s happening to you. Sometimes I forget, for as long as five, even ten minutes. When I sleep, I forget. Unless I dream. I never used to dream. Now I do.” The room was silent. John could hear his father breathing. “The first minute of waking, I think, ‘It’s almost spring,’ and I leap out of bed and sometimes get all the way to the kitchen without remembering.”
A couple of days ago, this exchange between them would have been unthinkable. Now it only seemed easy, without strain.
“I know a kid whose mother tried to commit suicide,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with her except she drinks too much and takes pills. My friend says he and his mother might try a suicide pact. I think he’s joking, but I’m not sure. He talks a lot about committing suicide.”
Asshole. Why’d you go and tell him that?
“What I wouldn’t give for another year,” his father said, as if what had just been said was perfectly relevant. “Another six months, even.”
John had the feeling that a barrier had been crossed.
“I’ve been drawing plans here, John, a diagram, really, for my garden. I wonder if you’d look it over and tell me if there’s anything I’ve forgotten.”
He looked over his father’s shoulder at the intricate plan he’d drawn up, what would be planted and where. “You left out the beans, didn’t you?” he said. “I don’t see beans anywhere.”
“I knew there was something. Your mother would never forgive me if I forgot beans.” The door opened and his mother stuck her head in. “Oh, it’s you, John. I thought Dad had a visitor. What are you talking about?”
She sat down, frowning, her lips tucked up into a travesty of a smile.
“Death,” his father said, “dying. Gardens, Ceil. I forgot the beans. John was telling me about a friend of his whose mother attempted suicide and the friend too talks about trying suicide. I said I would be glad of another six months.”
Her hands, which had been fidgeting with a button, fell heavily into her lap.
His father got up, went over to her, and put his arm around her. “Just think. I might’ve fallen out of an airplane or been killed in a crash on the thruway. This way, I have a chance to say the things I might not have had a chance to say. This way I have a chance to mend my fences. It’s hard, Ceil. I won’t pretend it’s not going to be hard. On you, on John, on all of us. I wish there was some way to make it easy.”
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