Looking for Przybylski

by K. C. Frederick

  “Linda’s a very complicated person,” Ted says. “As I said, she needs her space.”

  “Well,” Ziggy says, “you seem to be giving her that.”

  “She’s worth it,” Ted says, his voice catching, and Ziggy wonders if all the business between Linda and her ex-lover has been resolved.

  “I can see that,” he says.

  “Well, good luck,” the ex-priest says as they shake hands in front of Charlie’s house in Burbank.

  “You too,” Ziggy says. And then he adds, “You know, to be honest, I never really liked you much when you were a priest, but I think you’ve turned into one hell of a guy. Give yourself credit: you’ve improved.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself,” Ted says. “Sometimes it’s hard, though.”

  “It’s going to work out,” Ziggy tells him. He hopes he’s right.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So finally you’re at Charlie’s?” Maggie says. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s big,” Ziggy answers guardedly. “Nice.” He’s in a room by himself but he still speaks quietly, not convinced he can’t be heard. “They have three bathrooms,” he adds.

  “And how are Charlie and Gloria? The kids?”

  “Oh, fine,” Ziggy says.

  “Well, good,” Maggie says. “I’m glad you finally got there.”

  After a silence, Ziggy asks, “What’s the weather like back there?”

  “Warm,” she says. “It’s getting to be spring at last. The buds are out. Maybe we’ll have a nice Easter.” She sounds tired.

  “Easter?” That surprises him. “When is Easter this year?”

  “Next Sunday,” she says.

  “That’s early, isn’t it?”

  “Not all that early,” she answers. “Look, Ziggy, do you think you’ll be able to be back by Sunday?”

  Seven days to find Przybylski and travel back across the country. That would give him four more days at best out here, since he’d need three for the bus trip. His first response is to feel pressured. But there’s no need for that: if he actually gets to see Przybylski tomorrow, then stays an extra day here in Burbank just to be sociable, he can leave on Wednesday and be in Detroit by the weekend. But he has to act fast. “Sure,” he promises her. “I’ll be back by Easter.” Once he says it aloud he feels committed to it. Hell, if it comes to that, he can fly back, even if it means swallowing the cost of the return bus ticket. He wonders how much the plane will cost. “I’ll be there,” he says again, acknowledging all he owes this woman who’s seen him at his worst and stuck by him through it all. He was just a young punk when they started dating, he had no way of knowing what was in store for him. He had no future beyond working at the Chrysler factory, if he was lucky, but he wanted more, he told her on one of their first dates. It was spring and there was a smell of lilacs in the night air that came from the priests’ yard. “Maggie, I don’t want to be like my old man,” he confessed to her as they stood beside the brick wall that surrounded the yard, “I don’t want to be just another Polack.” He wasn’t, she assured him, not to her he wasn’t. And now, that’s exactly what he is, and Maggie is still there.

  “Look,” he says, “I have so much to tell you about this place. Some of it you’re not going to believe. But I’m going to take you out here someday, show you for yourself.” There he goes again, talking big like the old Ziggy.

  “You just find Przybylski,” she tells him, “say what you have to say to him, and come back.” There’s no missing the urgency behind her words.

  “I will,” he assures her. “And in time for Easter.” At the moment he wishes he were already back in Detroit—could the lilacs be out already? He’s going to fly back, he decides on the spot, but he’ll keep it as a surprise from Maggie until the day he leaves.

  Meanwhile, he has to get this Przybylski business over with. He’ll go to see Eddie tomorrow and find out what happened to the old man. It’s possible he might even get a chance to see the old guy at the same time. Wouldn’t that be convenient? Will he actually ask his former nemesis if he ratted on him? Right now, he isn’t even sure of that. But after all the effort of getting here, seeing Przybylski has become a kind of solemn obligation, like one of those religious acts you had to perform, like going to communion on the nine First Fridays in order to get an indulgence. He can’t not do it.

  “I miss you, Ziggy,” Maggie says.

  “Me, too,” he answers in almost a whisper.

  Charlie has decided to welcome his father to Burbank with a family barbeque in his big backyard. Decked out in an apron that says “Griller-in-Chief,” he’s already pointed out the snowcapped peaks on the horizon a couple of times as if they’re part of his property. “The San Gabriel Mountains,” he says again. “Imagine: here we are in our shirtsleeves and we can see all that snow up there. There’s no place like southern California.” Like the house with three bathrooms, the spacious yard with the view of the mountains, even southern California itself is being offered up to the old man as proof of his son’s success.

  Ziggy and his oldest child have never been close and he isn’t really sure why. Some of it no doubt has to do with his being caught up in the numbers, which didn’t leave him much time to be a family man. Charlie certainly wasn’t inclined to follow in his old man’s footsteps, and the more schooling he got the less of a Polack he seemed to be. For sure, marrying Gloria, who has her own ideas about how the world should be run, didn’t help. But Ziggy can’t deny that the kid’s made the most of his chances, especially since his father lost the numbers in the middle of Charlie’s lengthy education, which cut off the flow of easy money—so his son can claim to be at least partially a self-made man. Here in his backyard, he’s clearly proud of not only his accomplishments but those of his children, Alyssa and Paul. “Allie just loves horses,” Charlie’s told him, showing off her riding trophies; and Paul is apparently some kind of scientific genius.

  The kids don’t seem especially thrilled to have to spend time with their grandfather, and Ziggy can understand that. They’re teenagers, for one thing, and they’ve lived out here now for a few years and have lives of their own.

  “How come you still live in Detroit?” Paul asked him, looking genuinely puzzled. “It’s really dangerous, isn’t it, and pretty dirty.”

  It was a hard question to answer. “It used to be quite a place,” he told the kid. “America couldn’t have won the Second World War without Detroit,” to which his grandson nodded politely, though obviously not particularly impressed. That was the war against Hitler, he wanted to tell the kid, but would he even know who Hitler was? No, maybe you had to have lived through those days, you had to actually have been there like he was, stopped at a railroad crossing near the Packard plant during the war.

  He was at the head of the line, and as red lights flashed and a bell rang he watched flatbed cars rumble past carrying Sherman tanks, two to a car. It was summer and the heat rose, intensifying the smell of the tall, bee- and cricket-filled grass beside the tracks that mixed with the tang of oil from the tracks themselves and the exhaust from the cars behind him as the armored vehicles moved by, their drab silhouettes and long guns repeated endlessly. The bell clanged, lights flashed red and the tanks continued to slide by, a line of lumbering blind mastodons, their sheer number dizzying, the gleaming tracks bending under their weight. Behind him were other drivers, their cars, like his, with ration stickers on their windshields, the drivers’ hands resting loosely on the steering wheels as this solemn procession of weapons moved past. The radios in the cars would have been playing, the different songs blending—paper dolls, moonlight and stardust, the same old story—until the music became inaudible beneath the rumble of the passing tanks that were bound for distant, dangerous places. Ziggy looked at his watch from time to time: five minutes passed, then ten, fifteen; and still the tanks continued to move by, their powerful treads still, their guns silent. The smell of all that metal seemed to envelop him in an invisible cloud. It wouldn’
t have been hard to convince himself that the train was literally endless. Then, just when it seemed that the monotonous procession of weaponry would go on forever, the caboose came into view at last. All at once the track was clear and he was facing the long line of oncoming traffic, horns from behind urged him on his way. But, Christ, what power! And how sad that memory makes him feel today.

  You couldn’t explain any of that, though. And the kid was right: Detroit is dangerous and dirty, and that Packard plant that used to run three shifts a day closed long ago.

  Ziggy has to admit that the hamburger is damned good, and he tells that to Charlie, who smiles to himself at the compliment. He obviously enjoys cooking and just as obviously enjoys eating, having put on a few pounds since coming out here. Ziggy has a sudden flash of Roger W., no toothpick but looking firm rather than soft, and the momentary tranquility he’s been feeling deserts him. Here in this sunny backyard where a family that’s to all appearances happy and comfortable is celebrating their well-being with an American ritual, Ziggy feels the chilling presence of a looming cloud.

  “Do you need anything?” Gloria is beside him. Wearing white pants and a black sleeveless blouse, she looks smooth and self-possessed, with none of her husband’s obvious need to please. And it’s clear she hasn’t gained an ounce since coming out here.

  “I’m doing fine, thanks,” he says.

  Gloria smiles coolly, her thin gold necklace flashing in the sun. “Well, anything you want, you know . . .”

  Ziggy is wary around her, as if he’s convinced she knows that he knows about her meeting with Roger W. And the fact is, underneath her outward calm, she does seem to be studying him intently, as if she’s waiting for him to slip and blow his cover. Could she really guess I’ve got something on her, he wonders. “How’s the real estate business?” he asks, trying to find a safe topic.

  Gloria’s smile widens. “Fabulous, actually.” Then she pulls down her mouth with obvious irony. “It keeps me running, though. Sometimes I think I need more vitamins.”

  Vitamins, Ziggy feels, are the last thing she needs. Even in the green backyard, where she’s supposedly relaxing, he can feel her restless energy. He supposes that selling real estate around here might in fact keep her pretty busy, given the vast spaces of LA. It’s even possible, he thinks, that Roger W. might be a legitimate client, but that thought lasts only a second: not the way they were acting. Ziggy shakes his head. “I’ll bet you love it,” he says.

  She extends her index finger and touches him gently on the upper arm. “You’re pretty shrewd,” she says playfully, but once she starts talking about her work there’s no doubting her seriousness. “It’s great to be able to do something,” she says, “and know that I’m good at it.” She folds her arms and smiles as if suddenly remembering something that pleases her. “You know,” she continues, “when I decided to give it a try a couple of years ago I almost chickened out at the last minute, but Charlie knew I’d just be kicking myself for not trying, and he pushed me. I owe him a lot. I eventually learned the business and I made myself good at it, but I needed Charlie to back me, and he did.”

  And now you’re going behind his back and fooling around, Ziggy wants to say. But he sticks to neutral territory. “So you must know the area pretty well by now.”

  Gloria nods, a quiet confidence on her face. “There are people who’ve been out here twenty years who don’t know what I know. You want to find something out about a neighborhood, about who lives where and who used to live someplace, I know where to find out.” Then, as if she’s just realized that she’s let her father-in-law see too deeply into what drives her, she pulls up short and continues in a voice more appropriate to the conscientious hostess, “Well, that’s why it’s disappointing that you’re not staying longer, that you said you don’t want to see Disneyland or some of the other tourist attractions.”

  “No,” Ziggy says, impressed by her ability to convey the illusion of sincerity, “I don’t really have much time. I promised Maggie I’d get home by Easter and I still have this business I have to get done.”

  “Well,” she says, the dutiful daughter-in-law who already knows the old guy will be leaving in a couple of days, “if you need any help, you know you can count on me.”

  “So,” Charlie says a few minutes later, “what is this mysterious business you have with Mr. Przybylski?” The appetizing smell of cooking meat and frying onions is all around them.

  Ziggy takes a swallow of beer. “Oh, it’s just a couple of old-timers getting together and reminiscing.” What else can he tell him? At this point that explanation comes pretty close to what he’d tell himself. The fact is, though, he set out on this trip because he wanted to see Przybylski and he’s determined to do it. “But you say you didn’t know that Prince was Eddie Przybylski.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “Everybody around here’s seen those Prince ads but I still can’t believe it’s Eddie.” He smiles. “Eddie wasn’t exactly one of my buddies back in Detroit, you know.”

  Just then Gloria returns. “Is your dad telling you all about his wild times in Venice?” she says, putting her hand against her husband’s lower back.

  “He’s not talking,” Charlie says. “He’s afraid I’ll tell Mom what he’s been up to.”

  “Venice is a pretty artsy place.” Gloria says, “if you know what I mean.”

  Charlie turns to the grill to look at his burgers and for a moment he has to search for the spatula, but Gloria is already there to hand it to him before he has a chance to ask for it. For a couple who might be having trouble, Ziggy thinks, they put on a pretty good show of cooperating. But then, relationships, as he learned at Ted’s, can be pretty complicated.

  When he’s flipped his burgers, Charlie says, “I don’t know what kind of wild times you can have with a priest, though.”

  Ziggy wants to tell him that some of the priests at Connie’s were quite capable of handling wild times, but contents himself with saying, “Ted’s not a priest anymore. Anyway,” he goes on, “I wasn’t in Venice the whole time. Ted gave me his car and I drove around a bit in Santa Monica, then I got lost for a while in one of the canyons, but I managed to find my way out and get a look at Hollywood.” He glances toward Gloria for some kind of reaction but she simply nods.

  “Well,” she says, “I feel better about not being able to show you around the area knowing you’ve done a bit of tourism on your own. Remember, though, if you should change your mind.” She turns toward the house.

  “So,” Charlie says, “you’re going to see Przybylski tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” Ziggy tells him, “there’s this guy I met on the bus who’s going to give me a ride to the main Prince funeral home in Pasadena. I ought to be able to talk to Eddie and find out from him where his father is. With luck, he’ll be somewhere close-by.”

  “Are you sure he’s even alive?” Charlie asks.

  Ziggy shakes his head. “I don’t know that.”

  “And if he’s dead?”

  Ziggy’s become more aware of that possibility lately. It certainly might turn out that way. That would be a huge disappointment, though. “Well,” he says, “in that case I guess I’d just have to start getting ready for the return trip.”

  “But, Pa,” Charlie says, “you know you don’t have to take the bus. We can pay for the plane ticket. It’s the least we can do.”

  Ziggy takes another swallow of beer. “Yeah,” he says, “I’ve already decided I’m going to fly back. But I was going to pay for it myself.”

  “No way,” says Charlie. “Like I said, it’s the least we can do.”

  Ziggy can see how much this means to his son. “Well,” he says, “If you keep pushing me I might just take you up on that.” He raises the bottle in Charlie’s direction before taking another swallow of beer. “Nice place you have here,” he says, and sees his son smile. “You’re right about those mountains. I’m going to tell your mother about that.” It doesn’t take much, Ziggy observes, to make Charlie hap
py. Then he remembers Roger W. and his mood sinks.

  He drifts off by himself to a corner of the yard and glances up again at the mountains topped with snow. How close and yet how far away those white peaks seem. So this is where his family has come to, that line of Polish peasants who, almost a hundred years ago, left what was then part of Prussia, where they weren’t even allowed to learn Polish in the schools, and came to Pennsylvania because they’d heard there was plenty of work in the coal mines. Fortunately, they didn’t stay underground and eventually found their way to Michigan. Now Charlie, the most successful of his kids, has brought this branch of the Czarneckis all the way to the western edge of the continent.

  In spite of Ziggy’s ups and downs, his children have done all right, for the most part. Steve, unlike Charlie, never liked school and joined the army as soon as he could. But once he got out he married Ellie, started selling cars and pretty soon they moved to Warren, where they seem OK. Steve’s sister Alice got married right out of high school to Wally, a boring but dependable guy who sells insurance. He’s a Polack too but they live out near Pontiac, which Maggie thinks is too far away. It’s only Jack who’s never really found himself. The baby of the family who’s almost thirty-five now, he’s always been his mother’s favorite. Everybody likes Jack, which is his problem: he’s never had to work for anything. Women love him, men like to shoot the shit with him, he’s a great buddy on fishing trips, he knows a million stories. He just can’t keep a steady job. He’s always available to tend bar, he can usually find himself a situation where he’s leeching off someone. “Give him time,” Maggie keeps saying. Ziggy’s knows that when Jack’s had a bit to drink he isn’t shy about blaming all his troubles on his father and what happened to the numbers. You can’t win ’em all.

  “Were you really a big man in the underworld in Detroit?” He looks up to see his granddaughter looking at him ironically. “My father says you were.”

  Ziggy shakes his head. “He gives me too much credit. It was just the numbers. It wasn’t like the movies.” He can see her disappointment. “But you can kind of stretch things when you tell your friends about it.”