by Harry Mazer
Ah, the women! Jeff had always had girlfriends, even a few intense relationships, but the diner at night was something else. Women kept coming in out of the dark, in pairs mostly or in groups, looking dazed and blinking their eyes like moths that couldn’t get used to the light. They’d been to the movies or bars and they’d order coffee and …
Jeff would recommend Sadie’s famous homemade strawberry shortcake. ‘It’s the best in the city.’ And then he’d ask what movie they’d seen. ‘How did you like it? Isn’t Streep great? What’d you think of the directing?’
‘He knows movies,’ Danny would say. ‘Everything, way back to the beginning. You can ask him anything.’
One time a couple of women came in and struck up a conversation. The four of them hit it off. Michelle, the one Jeff liked, had gone to North High. And her girlfriend, who was wearing three pairs of earrings, loved VWs. Jeff said he had to work till six in the morning, but if Ellen drove around to the parking lot in back, the four of them could have a party.
For days afterward, Jeff kept looking for them to come back, but they never did.
Mornings when Sadie came in from the farmer’s market, Jeff would unload the truck. It was the last thing he did before he went home. ‘You want me to do anything else?’ Sadie was at a table out front looking over accounts and talking to Mrs. Belco.
‘Who’s the good-looking kid, Sadie?’ Mrs. Belco gave him a wink. She always teased him when she was with Sadie. ‘You ought to come over to my house sometime, Sadie. It’s full of cute boys.’
‘What I need, Marie, is not a boy.’ Sadie glanced up from the bills she was checking. ‘You unload the truck yet?’ Those narrow eyes doubted everything.
‘Everything’s in the cooler.’
‘Not the fruit. I told you. Bring the fruit out front, where the customers can see it.’
‘That’s where it is.’
In the cab, Mrs. Belco wanted to know why he hadn’t come to the house all week. ‘Mrs. Brown said you were supposed to bring her the TV magazine.’
‘I’ve been busy.’ The truth was that since finding out that Mary was living at the Belcos’, he was staying away. ‘I’m painting our house for my father. Tell her I’ll bring it over later today.’
‘Later today means today, Jeff, not next week. She’s an old lady. She doesn’t have forever.’
He went over to the Belcos’ late that afternoon. ‘Hello?’ The door was unlocked and he went in and upstairs, half expecting, half afraid, to see Mary. He hammered on Mrs. Brown’s door. ‘It’s me, Jeff. I brought you your magazine.’
Mrs. Century – his private name for her – opened the door a crack. He caught a whiff of sewing machine oil and the dusty smell of cloth. Even in this summer heat she kept her windows closed.
‘Your TV Guide,’ he shouted.
‘Jeffrey.’ Mrs. Century gripped his arm and pulled him into the room. He was company and he had to sit in the best chair and take some hard candies from a glass jar. The sewing machine was open, and next to it the bed was piled high with cloth. She made aprons for a volunteer group, patched all the Belcos’ clothes, and was proud of the way she could still bend and read a tape.
She pushed a chair up next to his, locking him in with her cane. ‘How do you like our new boarder? She has a baby with her. Two little babies. That’s what they are. Isn’t it awful what people do these days? How many candies did you take? That’s not enough, a big boy like you. Take more, Jeffrey. I know how you boys love sweets. I haven’t forgotten. I had a little boyfriend who used to bring me candy all the time. I loved lemon drops especially, and he’d bring me little root beer barrels and redhots.’ She puckered up her mouth. ‘Cinnamony and hot. Do you still have them?’
‘I think so, Mrs. Brown.’
She shook her head. ‘They’re gone, I know it. Everything’s gone. I’m the only old relic left. My doctor says I can’t eat anything sweet any more because of my diabetes.’
‘Mrs. Brown,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’
‘What’s on TV? Nothing but crook shows. Crooks and cops. I only like to watch in the afternoon. Such nice stories, such lovely people. At night it’s so much violence. I can’t sleep afterward. I never used to be that way. The minute my head touched the pillow I was asleep, and I could eat anything I wanted and I used to go everyplace. Now I never leave this room. I feel I’m getting stale, my mind, I can’t read any more, and the news on television …’ She laughed. ‘Listen to the old lady complain. Don’t get old. You won’t like it. It’s very unpopular.’
Jeff felt sorry for her because she was old and alone and didn’t have anybody to talk to. So he sat and listened to the same things he’d heard before.
‘Yes, Mrs. Cen – Mrs. Brown …’ He’d been nodding off, it was so warm in her room. A noise in the hall made him shiver. It was just a whisper of a sound. Was it Mary? Was she going to come bursting into the room? That’s the way he thought of her, the star making her entrance. My beloved fans … He smelled something, a warm, powdery smell. The baby? Then he heard footsteps on the stairs …
‘I’m going to be ninety-one this October,’ Mrs. Century said. She put her hand on his arm. ‘I know, I don’t look a day over a hundred.’ She paused to see if he got the joke.
Later he heard Mary – was it Mary? – going back upstairs. He sat and listened till he heard a door close, and then he left.
4
His father stood in the hall outside Jeff’s room, clearing his throat …‘Chhrrrup! Chhrrrup!’ He had been doing this every day since Jeff graduated high school.
‘Jeff, the Russians are coming.’
‘Uhhhr.’
‘The Russians are coming.’
‘Uhrrr.’
‘You are awake?’
‘Uhrr.’
‘Jeff.’
‘I’m up!’ Jeff thrashed around, knowing this wasn’t enough, knowing his father wouldn’t be satisfied till he got out of bed, opened the door, and showed himself in person, on his feet, in the flesh. When he was little, his father would sit at the edge of his bed every night and tell him stories while Jeff’s mother straightened the room. His parents had three children, but he was the only one at home. They’d had the first two fast and then waited twelve years before they had Jeff. He’d grown up like an only child with four parents.
At fourteen Jeff had declared his independence. Out went the wagon-wheel bed frame, curtains, the brown and tan rug with the cowboy and lasso motif. Down went the mattress to the floor, up went the movie posters – Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon over his mattress, the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera between the windows, King Kong on the ceiling. Outside his door a triangular sign warned: RADIOACTIVE AREA. ALL UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT.
His mother tried to save the curtains. He stuck to the old army blankets he’d tacked up. Lying close to the floor, the stereo next to his ear, he felt the whole room vibrate, imagined that the house was vibrating, too, shaking the foundation loose, shaking him loose from this old world, jetting him out of the chimney to another life, his true world where he would be reshaped, reformed, reconstituted like Tang or Carnation Instant Dry Milk, a new product, a new order, a new being.
No longer did his father step inside Jeff’s room. He said just a sniff of it raised his blood pressure to dangerous levels.
This is their morning scene. The father waits in the hall. The son emerges for inspection in his underwear, after carefully checking for stains and dubious marks. The father polite, careful, but unable to keep the disappointment from his furrowed brow.
Today he said, ‘You’re up. Good. It’s good to be up in the morning. I want to talk about today’s business. You’re painting today, is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’ His father appreciated a crisp military response.
‘Good, I want you to concentrate on the back of the house today. But be careful. Ladders can slip. Stake the bottom before you go up.’
Does his fathe
r have to wake him up to tell him this? His father starts Jeff’s acid juices flowing, the frothy red, the scratchy crabs of dissatisfaction and impatience. He is angry at his father for treating him like a moron. He is angry at himself for listening. His father lacks confidence in him, doesn’t respect him. But instead of telling his father to back off (he wishes he could), he stiffens to attention, hiding his disrespect with excessive politeness.
‘Yes, sir,’ he says. Yes, my commanding officer. His father has a love affair with the military, having been in the United States Army Air Force, an officer and a bombardier during World War II. The Big One. His father enjoys playing Army. Every morning his father shaves, then waxes the ends of his moustache to a fine point. He has thick wavy hair and a square face. When he’s dressed for work he looks like a dashing British colonel – Alec Guinness in an English movie – lacking only a swagger stick. Except that his father’s swagger stick is a yellow clipboard. He’s an expeditor in a factory, chasing orders and parts and doing payrolls. His father’s father – Jeff’s grandpa – had worked in that same factory, but on the production floor. Being in the office, his father is part of management, but barely. His father’s office is still on the factory floor, and Big Management is upstairs.
His father isn’t what he appears to be. He looks convivial, like a mixer, like a man with a lot of friends, but in fact he keeps to himself, puttering around the house or yard till it’s dark and then reading till bedtime. He doesn’t have any friends that Jeff is aware of. It’s all family.
How has his father stayed with that one job all these years without getting bored out of his mind? Has he ever wanted to do anything else? Does he feel his life has been wasted? Does it make him sad? Isn’t that why he twirls and curls his moustache and cultivates a daring look? Is Jeff going to end up like his father?
‘Are you listening?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What does that mean? Are you being sarcastic?’
‘No, it means I’m going to cooperate to the best of my ability. To the utmost. I’ll start at the top of the peak today. I’m going to work my ass off,’ Jeff says, then, wanting to give his father something, he adds generously, ‘I’ll probably finish the whole side today. If it doesn’t rain.’
His father lays a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. ‘I want you to be careful on that ladder, Jeff. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
Jeff’s playfulness runs right out of him. His father’s concern, the warmth of his hand gets him right in the bones. His father loves him, cares about him, worries about him. Why is he such an ingrate? His father is doing the best he can. What does his father have to look forward to? What opportunities remain? Retirement, and then he’ll sit around for the rest of his life. Which could be a long time. The Orloffs were a healthy lot of barnyard animals.
After his father left, he went back to bed, lay on his stomach, then on his side, tangled his legs in the sheet, but couldn’t get back to sleep. He thought about the Late Show he’d watched last night, Hitchcock’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. A classic. He’d seen it seven times already. The scenes when Robert Donat is on the run were his favourites. The way he got away from the police on the train by stepping into Madeleine Carroll’s compartment – so smooth. ‘Darling …’ Everything with a smile, embracing and kissing her as the police peer in.
Darling … It was him and Mary Silver, his charm overcoming her distrust and suspicion.
He hardly knew her. It had been years since he’d seen her. He’d never even talked to her. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? He couldn’t. It was an obsession. That was interesting. He was obsessed with Mary Silver. He wanted to see her. He had to see her. He was desperate to see her.
He got up finally and put on his white work pants. He loved to be in his pants. He should never stand in front of his father in his underwear. It put him at such a disadvantage. There was something so snug and secure, so at home, when he was zippered up. There was a pleasure in taking off his pants – something erotic and a little exciting, but also a little unnerving. He felt exposed, slightly vulnerable. Oddly, it was in locker rooms that he felt the most vulnerable. Around other males there was always a judgment going on. Am I adequate? Barely adequate? Outstanding? Enviable?
When he put on his pants, when he was in them, zipped up and buttoned, it was like being in his room. At home in his pants. No anxiety, no worried thoughts. He was in the privacy of his own pants and, as everyone knew, a man’s pants were, so to speak, his castle.
His mother was in the dining room looking over her lesson plans. She was still in her jogging suit. She was a history teacher at one of the suburban high schools. She was teaching summer school. She always had to have something to do. She was a runner, a spare, energetic woman, not an extra ounce on her.
‘Do you want me to make your breakfast?’ she said.
‘No, I’ll take care of myself.’
‘I put everything out for you.’
‘Watch this. Time me.’ Jeff waited till his mother checked her watch, then cracked a couple of eggs in a pan, adjusted the flame, broke open an English muffin, popped it in the toaster, poured juice and a glass of milk.
She tapped her watch. ‘Two minutes and forty-five seconds. No, make that forty-four. I think it’s an all-time record, Jeff.’
‘I’ve got to do better. You ought to see Chris, the morning chef at Sadie’s. I’m studying him. Once I learn the hot griddle, I’ll always be able to get a job. Pays pretty good, too.’
A long, pregnant pause. Papers rustled, pages were turned. She didn’t like to hear him talk about diner jobs. ‘What’s on the agenda today?’ she said.
‘I’m painting.’
His mother started clearing the table. ‘Anything else?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ He sopped up the remains of the egg with the muffin and took his milk down in one swallow. ‘If you must know, I am going to the movies when I’m done.’
‘In the middle of the day?’
‘Why not? I like movies. Besides, they’re related to my work.’
‘Dishwashing? Or are you going to watch a cooking movie?’
‘Yes. A classic. Gone with the Soup.’
That got a little smile.
‘Why don’t you go down to the library this afternoon and check out that little college I told you about? They’ve got a filmmaking programme. That’s why I thought it would be interesting to you.’
‘I appreciate that, Ma, but I’m not going to the library. Movies are my school, Mom. I can’t be a director if I don’t see a lot of movies. For me, movies are like what taking a lab course in chemistry would be for someone else.’
‘You think going to college will give you a communicable disease?’ She put out her hand. ‘Jeff, I know you. You’re not going to be satisfied working in a diner for the rest of your life.’
‘Who’s talking about the rest of my life? I’m ambitious, Mom.’ He touched her wrist lightly.
‘Your ideas, yours and Dad’s, they’re fine, but they’re yours. They worked for you. They worked for Jules and Natalie. Go to school, find a profession, get a good job. Fine. You’ve got one lawyer. One psychologist. Two professionals. You’re proud. I’m glad. Your third child is ordinary.’
‘Stop it, Jeff. You don’t believe that, and neither do I. Your mind is every bit as good as your brother’s and sister’s. Give yourself a chance. Why not go to college for a year, see what it’s like?’
‘What’s the rush? I just graduated high school. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in school.’
‘Okay, fine. Then stop lying around the house and get a real job. A full-time job.’
‘Okay, I will. Right now, I’m going out to paint, as requested by my father,’ he said, underlining each word. ‘I am going up on the ladder and I will paint the house. If I don’t fall off the ladder today, tomorrow I will paint the driveway side of the house, and if I survive that, the next day the garden side and the day after the front, and then I will be done.
And after that I will never ask you or Dad for anything. I will earn all my own money. I will buy my own clothes. I will buy my own food and pay rent. I will not lay around the house.’
‘Lie.’
‘Liar!’ His cheeks burned.
‘Lie around, not lay around.’
‘Oh … what the –’ His grammar was being corrected. ‘Whatever. I will not ever lay or lie around the house.’ He ran water in the sink. ‘Nor will I ask anyone to clean up after me. I will clean up my room, I will hang curtains and sleep on a bed. I will work. I will be a model son.’ He pressed his lips to his mother’s hair, that soft, sweaty earthiness. There was grey in his mother’s hair. He loved her tenderly. He also wanted to rap her on the head. ‘Forgive me, Mother, I know not what I do.’
She grabbed him by the neck. ‘I’d like to strangle you sometimes, my darling son.’ She kissed him. ‘Go paint.’
Outside, he stripped off his shirt. Paint can in one hand, brush between his teeth, he went up the ladder. He worked the brush down and back and under the clapboard and then smoothly across the face, then down to the next clapboard. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm … not thinking … getting into the swing of work, using his body, sweating. Forget trying to figure everything out.
5
Spring Street was quiet. It was still early. The only sounds were the chatter of birds and the hollow regular thump of the newspapers as the news kid came down the street. He tossed Jeff the Belco paper. The house was still asleep. Upstairs the shades were drawn, but there was a light on in an attic room. Mary? Danny had said she was living up there. Fade in: Mary looks out her window, sees Jeff. Puzzled, but intrigued. Cut to Jeff: A look of recognition. Quick cuts: Mary at window. Jeff on sidewalk. Lines flowing between them, a whole net of lines, the two of them caught and tangled in an understanding truer than any words. Music up.
Jeff sat on the porch, flipping through the morning paper. Robert, Danny’s little brother, came out in his pyjamas. ‘Give me the funnies, Jeff.’ He was eating a banana. Jeff folded up the paper.