A Night at the Y

by A Night at the Y- Stories (retail) (epub)

“If I can beat that St. Louis dishwasher, we’ll have plenty of dough.”

  Her laughter wakes my landlady, who thunders her stern fists upon my door.

  Of late, I use an old, traditional style of washing dishes. The technique was developed in England around 1815, in that fitful time just after the great and terrible War of 1812. Those were hard and lean years, but lovers would join together in hopeful ceremonies, trudging through the snow, carrying their dirty dishes to a peaceful country home. Mingling their dishes in an outdoor sink, they would plunge their hands in and together they would draw forth a plate. Working side by side, they would scrub and polish and hold it aloft, until the plate sparkled in the sun, looking bright and shiny and as precious as a pearl in winter.

  IMPROVISING

  For years I’ve played a creep on the show. I tell the director and writers that I want to become a good guy. Oh come on, they say, you play a convincing creep. Who would believe you’ve been transformed? Who would like you anyway, if you were transformed? People like a creep. Trying to change your character can only hurt you.

  In the show, I’ve been a pornographer, an adulterer, a backbiter, a blackmailer, a con artist, and an all-around troublesome fellow. I’ve even done a stint in prison. But I am serious now about reforming.

  Well, what do you want? the director asks. Do you want to become a born-again Christian? We could work that in perhaps. No, nothing like that. I want to be good, admirable, loved. But troubled. Questing. The born-again’s have all the answers, and I don’t want the answers, just the questions. People don’t like people with too many answers.

  I’ve been hinting around to Elaine, a former girlfriend, that I may reveal to her husband, Barry, that the child he thinks is his and Elaine’s is actually mine and Elaine’s. Elaine finally demands, “What do you plan to do?”

  “I wish I knew,” I say.

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  I’m supposed to say, “Well, I think we might be able to negotiate something,” and give a wicked leer. But instead I say sadly, “What good could come of it?”

  Elaine is supposed to say, “You loathsome creature.” Instead she only opens her mouth, and her gray, puzzled eyes search my face.

  “Fade out,” the director shouts. He storms toward us furiously, looks about to explode, and then says, “Hey, that was interesting.”

  In the show I live alone in a dumpy apartment on the side of town which is supposed to represent corruption and sin. Whenever I tell anyone where I live, they are supposed to arch their eyebrows and say, “Oh. There.” When I am introduced to new people, they are supposed to say, “I’ve heard a lot about you,” as if they’re wondering if I’m really as rotten as people say.

  But now, when people call with shady deals, I turn them down. The writers and the director have cooked up all sorts of schemes for the show, but I’ve been putting the cork on all of them, which is driving everyone to distraction. Someone will call with a crooked deal, and I’ll say, “No. Forget it. Not interested.” Then the guy on the other end who has all these other lines to say, will be caught at a loss and mumble something like, “Well, uh, okay, I guess it’s off,” and hang up.

  But the director doesn’t know what to do. Since I’ve had my change of heart our ratings have gone up. People wonder if I’m seriously changing. Some people write in to say they like the change. I was getting boring as a bad guy. Is that it? Am I merely bored with being bad?

  What to do, though, about the baby, my son? For a while I didn’t really care. I just wanted to cause trouble for Barry and Elaine. Barry is pretty naive and seems to lack some basic knowledge of biology. He doesn’t get much respect. But he’s a nice guy. Sometimes he complains to the director that he wants to be smarter. “Sorry, Barry,” the director says. “You were meant to be stupid. You will always be stupid. We need stupid people in this show. Nothing personal.”

  More and more, I hole up in my room and brood. In the past, in all matters, my motivation was clear, but not my course of action. I wanted to do whatever would cause the greatest amount of trouble, but I did not always know how to achieve that goal. I had to plot and plan and still things might not turn out as I wanted. Now again, my motivation is clear, at least to me. I want to do whatever will cause the greatest good, but I still don’t know what course of action to take. So, either way, I’m still in the same fix.

  Hm. Trixie, a loose woman, shows up at my shabby little apartment. Trixie only appears when somebody needs to be seduced, but the director doesn’t want a longterm relationship to ensue. At one time or another, Trixie has seduced every man on the show. We’re a weak lot.

  She forces me to lie down on the bed with her, opens my shirt, tickles my navel. “Tell me your deep dark secret about you and Barry and Elaine,” she coos.

  “What possible good could come of it if you knew?”

  “Oh, you’re no fun any more,” she says, licking at my ear. “Be a bad boy won’t you? Cause trouble for everyone? For the good old days?”

  She slides off me, straightens her dress, shakes a finger at me. “You know the problem with you, boy?”

  “No.” I listen, interested.

  “You make everybody feel guilty. You’re a louse. Selfrighteous. You don’t make anyone happy.”

  “But I just want to be a nice person.”

  “Well, that’s really mean of you.” She starts out the door.

  “Hey, I still wouldn’t mind being seduced. I mean, as long as you’re here.”

  “And selfish.” She slams the door behind her. What is one to do?

  A distinguished-looking elderly gentleman with a white moustache joins the show. There is some mystery about him. He’s always there, watching, appearing in doorways.

  He meets me in a café one rainy day.

  “Who are you, really?” I ask.

  “I am your father,” he says.

  “Well, this is certainly a surprise,” I say.

  In the past I would have told the old bird to shove off. I’d probably hit him up for a few bucks and put him back on a bus within the hour. Sayonara, Dad, see you in another ten years maybe. I wasn’t an emotional sort of guy.

  “How come you never came before? Why do you come back now? Where have you been anyway?”

  “Those are all certainly questions that deserve answers,” he says, standing, picking up his hat. “I’ll be back in touch.”

  Fade out on my puzzled face. The director says, “That was interesting.”

  “What kind of a stunt are you pulling? My father? That old song and dance?”

  “Well, you never had a father,” he says. “He had to appear sometime.”

  “After all these years? Who is he? What does he want from me?”

  “We’ll see,” the director says. “We’ll soon see.”

  Elaine and Barry have gone out for the evening and left me to babysit. This is Elaine’s way of letting me see my son. It’s the most she ever wants me to have of him. Should I tell the truth to Barry? What good could come of it? Probably none. Perhaps great harm. I don’t know. I grow more and more confused the kinder I become.

  I haven’t reformed completely. Whenever I have a scene with Barry I always borrow five dollars from him. It’s my way of getting back at him a little because I can’t have my son. “Oh yeah, Barry,” I’ll say as he’s getting ready to leave, “do you think you could spot me five dollars?” Barry’s a nice guy and doesn’t want to look cheap so he has to shuck over the money, though he’s started to wince now when he digs for his wallet. One day he tried to get away with handing me a one. I shrieked like a banshee, held the one up to the camera and cried, “A one! I asked him for a five and he gives me a lousy one!” So the camera zoomed in on the one, and then on to Barry’s stricken face. He started whining that it was an honest mistake, and he got so flustered he started shoveling bills at me, until I’d managed t
o tuck away about twenty bucks. Then he ducked out the door, looking like he’d been caught exposing himself. Then I said, deadpan, to the camera, “There’s something about him that I don’t like.”

  Barry doesn’t cross me any more.

  The baby cries. I pick him up, rock him. Sleep, child. Our sins are not your sins.

  The scene fades as I waltz around the room with my son asleep in my arms.

  ***

  “Why weren’t you there when I needed you?” I ask my father. “There are things I might have told you, confidences we might have shared. I might have turned out differently.”

  We are in the cafe again, and it is raining. The director likes to have my father come out of the rain, brush water from his hat and overcoat before sitting. Offstage, just before my father’s entrances, someone always zaps him in the face with a squirt gun. I am always struck by the fact that my father is wet.

  My father’s lips move. He frowns thoughtfully. “Did it ever occur to you that my life has been so out of control that it is amazing, even now, to find myself here, speaking to you?”

  “Well, that explains everything.”

  “No one gets to choose his father. You happened to get me.” The old man picks up his hat, looks at me. “I am here now. That is what matters perhaps. Yes? I am your father. We have a chance now. To be together. To make a life for ourselves.”

  “I don’t need a father now,” I snap. “Not after all this time.”

  He puts on his hat and goes off into the rain, a sad, wet-looking, distinguished elderly gentleman. I run to the door and shout, “Father!” The scene fades with me standing at the doorway, doubled over with pain.

  “Perfecto,” the director cries.

  Elaine and Barry have gone out again, and I am alone with my son. He sleeps in his cradle, and I speak to him. “I wish that you could tell me what to do. Is the best thing for me to disappear from your life? I don’t know what happened. We are sons without fathers, fathers without sons. What if I showed up thirty years from now and asked to be taken in? Would you believe me if I said that I’d had no control? I’m afraid the truth can only hurt you. You will never know me as your father.”

  “Cut,” the director shouts. “You were supposed to say, ‘One day you’ll be mine no matter what I have to do.’”

  “I can’t say that line.”

  “Well, you’re going to be in big trouble now. Big trouble. Wait and see.”

  But the ratings are still going up. He can’t fire me. I am the show.

  It’s raining. We are in the cafe. My father’s face is dripping wet again. I have an urge to wipe it off with my handkerchief.

  “I’m glad you’ve come back,” I say. “That’s all. Whatever has happened before doesn’t matter now. I want you as my father. I want you to move in with me.”

  “Yes, well.” He looks at his coffee. “There is only one small problem.”

  “What, Father? Don’t tell me that you’re going away. Please don’t tell me that.”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “What is it then?”

  “It’s the small matter of my hotel bill. I’m a little, shall we say, short?”

  “I see, uh, how much do you need?”

  “I think about a hundred and fifty dollars would cover it nicely.”

  “I see. Well, anything for you, Pops.” I take out my checkbook.

  “Of course, it would be nice to have just a little something left over.”

  “Mmhm.”

  After my father leaves, I notice that his coffee cup and spoon are missing. The camera pans to my face. “Jesus Christ,” I say, “my old man’s a kleptomaniac.”

  Besides being a kleptomaniac, it turns out my father has a bad habit of getting lost. The police are always bringing him home. The thing is, my father doesn’t much care where he is. He’ll wander around a shopping mall all day, or stand in the parking lot at St. Edward’s Boys’ School.

  He’s eating me out of house and home. For a thin old man, he can sure pack it away. The sight of him devouring five sunny side eggs every morning, as he carefully pats his moustache after every bite, somehow unnerves me.

  Now and then I throw a tantrum. I rave at him for not being around all these years. He’ll only look at the ceiling and say something like, “It’s amazing really, to think one is even here at all, to discover one is anything more than an atom, a minute floating particle.” Well, what can one say to that?

  He sleeps on the couch in his clothes. When you have been a vagrant for sixty years, he explains, you are always ready to leave.

  I know the director is trying to drive me crazy, but it’s not working. I’m getting closer to the old man, getting used to his ways.

  About my own son, I have done nothing. Sometimes I think it would be best to tell the truth, sometimes I think the truth would ruin everyone. What to do? I lose weight. I begin to bite my nails. I forget to bum money from Barry.

  The only solace in my life, curiously enough, is my father, eating his eggs, getting yolk in the corner of his moustache, sleeping in his clothes, stealing coffee cups and spoons.

  One day my father arranges to meet me in the café. It is raining. I hand my father a handkerchief to wipe off his face.

  “Bad news,” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “I would like to tell you that I am proud to have you as my son, that I will never go away, that you and I will grow closer and closer.”

  “That sounds swell, Pops.”

  “Yes, I would like to tell you those things. But you see, it turns out that I’m not your father after all. I am an imposter.” He puts on his hat and gets up from the table. He pauses in the doorway. “I am sorry. It would have been nice. Don’t call me Pops any more.” He goes off into the rain, another coffee cup, a spoon, and my handkerchief in his coat pocket.

  I turn to the director. “No. Oh no. Don’t do this.”

  “Fade,” the director shouts. “Perfect. He’s destroyed. No father, no son. Nada. You asked for it, sonny boy.”

  SOFT SONG OF THE SOMETIMES SANE

  Mr. Normality am I. Play a pretty fair game of golf. My drives are long and straight, my putting sound. I can’t hit a nine iron worth a crap though. From about a hundred yards in, my game stinks.

  The real problem is that I lack a clear sense of purpose. Along about the eighth hole, I wonder what on earth I am doing out here on this long, hilly, windswept, sand trap-strewn course. On these cool, dying autumn evenings, as the light pales and fades to a heartbreak whitish-gray, I am filled with despair. Who are these other golfers I am partnered with? I am never paired with wise, grizzled old-timers who reveal great secrets of life and love. I am partnered with farters, manic-depressives, and unemployed tax accountants. By the time I sink my last putt on the ninth hole, I loathe them and they loathe me.

  Family Background

  For years I’ve been trying to prove that I can safely drink again. Even after they sent me to the hospital ten years ago, I still wasn’t convinced. I come from a drinking family. We had beer for breakfast. My father was a lawyer, but he’s retired now. He whistles when he drinks. He gets red in the face and increasingly friendly. People find my mother charming, and justifiably so. When my parents visited me at rehab, the social worker was disgusted with me. “Such nice parents,” he said. “What the hell happened to you?” It was just my luck to get a cranky social worker. Social workers are not all the nice guys they’re made out to be.

  Up to Old Tricks

  Lately when I speak to strangers, I fake a British accent. I don’t know why. Maybe I think it will protect me somehow. When I was a teenager I would go to parties, and after several beers I would speak with a British accent. I thought it would make me appear unique, but after a while some of the bigger guys would hold me under the beer keg and put the spigot in my mouth until I b
loated. I was known as a character. I’d memorized a few lines of Shakespeare, and most of my friends, who couldn’t read or write very well, thought I was a mad genius. But this still did not prevent them from holding me under the keg and forcing beer down my throat. But they could not really harm me because I was not one of them. I was British. I was a British spy. I had cyanide in my shoes.

  Evasive Tactics

  Walking through downtown Berkeley, I’m afraid that I may be mugged. There’s a lot of lunatics on the street, and they all want my money. Lunatics aren’t all the nice guys they’re sometimes made out to be. So I go down the street, whirling, changing direction, crossing to the other side, dodging cars, praising the Lord. Keeping the lunatics confused, you see. Listen. Downtown Berkeley is full of lunatics. Go to Boise.

  Teeth

  My teeth are going bad. Even after I’ve brushed them, they’ve got a sticky, gummy feeling. I was in New Orleans once, sitting on a bus. Across the aisle sat a lunatic. They come at me like flies. He was a great conversationalist. Told me this: “I put four holes in Jesus. Downtown Waco. I shot Jesus. Put four holes in him. He got back up. He was the real Jesus.”

  And you, sir, are a real, true, certified loon.

  My friend, the lunatic, sneered out the bus window at some loitering vagrant types. “Trash,” he said. “Just trash. I, for one, have never neglected to brush my teeth.”

  Not only was he a lunatic, but like many lunatics, he was an intolerant son-of-a-bitch.

  I, too, have never neglected to brush my teeth. But will that save them? Will it save me?

  Professional Life

  I am the Director of Humanities at a small college. It is a good title and the pay is not bad. I don’t actually do much of anything. We are a bottom-of-the-barrel school. We are on probation. Our students are almost all foreigners, and those who aren’t are Americans who couldn’t get into a decent school. I’m a crappy teacher and an even crappier administrator. I tell jokes to my English class for half an hour every day and let them out early. I give them all A’s. They love me.