by Peter Gault
Elizabeth turned her head. “Lovers are up and down like an elevator,” my father once told me. Elizabeth was defensive when I expressed a lack of reverence towards her father. She didn’t mind me being irreverent towards her mother. She even laughed occasionally at the nickname, Mrs. Ajax, but she wouldn’t tolerate a similar comment applied to her father.
“What’ve you got against my parents?” asked Elizabeth.
“You want what they’ve got, don’t you?” I accused.
“What’s wrong with what they’ve got?” blurted Elizabeth, almost crying.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, absolutely nothing, but for some reason it makes me nauseous.”
“They’re happy,” continued Elizabeth dejectedly. “They love each other. They’ve a nice home and a nice daughter. They’ve got everything they want. You know what’s wrong with you? You’re all screwed up because you’re from a divorced family. You don’t believe that two people can live together twenty-five years and still be madly in love.”
“You’re screwed up because your parents aren’t divorced,” I said feebly, not able to think of anything else to say.
“I don’t feel like talking anymore. I’m sleeping.” Elizabeth slid down, put her head on my lap and immediately fell asleep. I was a hopeless insomniac; the swiftness with which Elizabeth fell asleep astounded me. She slept like a baby. She never snored. Her body twitched periodically, as if pinched by a ghost.
Maybe Elizabeth was right! Maybe I was a psychological mess and didn’t even know it. But I felt all right. Is it possible to feel good and be screwed up? Elizabeth wasn’t screwed up, born and bred in an ideal home, but she wasn’t happy either. She couldn’t help turning her head. I was screwed up and happy! Elizabeth was normal and unhappy. Who was better off? The logistics were mind-boggling.
“Never forget one thing, Ken,” I said to myself. “The whole world is wrong and you’re right.”
The basement door opened and music poured out. The door was shut and the music receded again. Two women were talking, coming up the stairs. The voices grew. It was Mrs. Baldwin talking to one of her guests. I knew the woman she was talking to, but couldn’t remember her name. Elizabeth had explained to me that this woman was her mother’s “divorced friend.” She dressed well, I remembered. They were standing by the front door, a whisper away from me.
“I can’t get away from him,” Mrs. Baldwin complained. “He’s driving me crazy. He’s getting too old. Every night he comes home from work, drinks a beer, and falls asleep in front of the TV set. If my daughter wasn’t here, I’d have gone crazy long ago. He’s aging by the day. Men age so fast! I’m seriously considering leaving him. I can start working full-time, and I’ll have enough money to support myself. I can’t stand watching him get old.”
“Be careful,” warned the divorcee. “You go through bad times and you go through good times in a marriage. This might just be a bad time. It’s not easy to change your life after twenty-five years. Besides, things may improve yet.”
“If things don’t change, I’m leaving him,” said Mrs. Baldwin. “In the meantime, I’ll keep trying. I appreciate you listening to me. I’m sorry, but I had to talk to someone.”
Elizabeth twitched twice in her sleep. She looked incredibly beautiful, with incredibly tiny facial features and an incredibly alluring little body. I wanted to pick her up and squeeze her and say “I love you” a thousand times. I felt a surge of affection. I was tempted to wake her, just so that she’d know I was there and that I loved her. I reached down and kissed her softly on the temple. I wanted to free her of worry. I felt the scar on my forehead and decided to let her sleep. From the basement I heard another faint chorus of “Happy Anniversary.”
4. The Barren Room
The St. Charles Darlings, led by captain Steve Lawson, comfortably defeated the Dixie Queens four to zero. A picture of Lawson drinking champagne out of the big Golden Cup appeared in the paper the next day. Phil was right about Winfield hating me. Midway through summer I saw Winfield for the last time. I was picking up groceries at Kroger’s for my mother. While I was at the counter paying the cashier, something whizzed past my forehead and splattered against the cash register. It was an egg. I looked up and saw what was Winfield’s fat head rapidly disappearing into the crowded mall.
When Mother discovered my stitches, and the reasoning behind not allowing balls in the parking lot, she went on a rampage. She kicked open the doors of the principal’s office, heaved a brick onto his desk and said, “My son got fourteen stitches on the head. If you don’t allow soccer balls in the parking lot so kids don’t have to use a brick, I’m going to nail your testicles to a tree.” The principal was no match for Mother. He acquiesced.
Excluding these minor occurrences, it was a quiet, uneventful summer. For my birthday, Elizabeth gave me a blow-drier because she didn’t think it was healthy for me to leave the dressing room at hockey games with wet hair. I loved the maternal side of her character. She got a good price for the hair-drier from Phil who had taken a well-paying job selling kitchen and bathroom appliances. He planned on sticking at the job, at least for the time being. He worked hard and I didn’t get to see him much.
I worked for the county as a surveyor’s assistant, trying to save money for college in the fall. Paul and Ross, the backseat occupants of Phil’s travelling music machine, were on the same crew as me. We worked with a friendly old man, a surveyor since the ice age, which made us a rather happy-go-lucky family of four.
The job was as futile as one of Winfield’s hockey practices. There was nothing to do except listen to the old man tell stories of the past and to concentrate on our suntans. Suntanning became an all-consuming obsession. I didn’t care about having a dark back, but I tanned my front with unflagging determination. If we had to walk away from the sun, I walked backwards. If I had to stop traffic, I held the sign in the appropriate direction and always faced the sun. Paul and Ross shook their heads in disgust, railed against my vanity, but after a month they were worse than I was. Paul refused to urinate indoors. He would run to the side of a building and do it facing the sun.
“You’re just like women,” squealed the old man with laughter.
My picture was taken by the Chicago Sun Times newspaper and I was christened, “Sunshine Boy.” The caption read, “The sun always shines on today’s sunshine boy, Ken Harrison. When Ken’s not the surveyor, he’s the surveyee. Nice contours!” I was in cut-off jeans, no shirt, and holding surveying equipment. It wasn’t a flattering photograph, distorting the proportions of my body and elongating my head. Phil agreed that it didn’t do me justice, but said he was proud I was his friend anyway.
Mother also had a photograph of me. It was a large action shot of me playing hockey and was hung respectfully above the fireplace in the living room at home, like a revered idol, like a picture of the beloved Mao Tsetung on skates. A family council was in progress. The room was a crowded configuration of women, composed of my sisters, my mother, and Elizabeth. I sat on the couch, blissfully drowning in a sea of femininity. Tonight I would leave for the University of Stockton. They were discussing my future.
“I think the first thing Ken should do in Stockton is find himself a part-time job,” suggested Ruth, my most vocal sister and closest to me in age. Ruth recently graduated from a university, majoring in English literature. Her marks were gigantic, which was no wonder to me. Ruth’s nose never stopped sniffing the inner reaches of some great literary achievement. Ruth grew up with a book in her hand. I grew up holding my penis.
“No,” said Mother. “He worked hard this summer and should spend his time studying. Hockey takes up enough time.”
“I had two jobs when I went to school and paid for the whole thing myself,” said June, sister number six.
“I worked full-time as a waitress,” said Wendy, sister number four, “and still managed to stay in college.”
“It will do him good to struggle for a change,” said Mary, sister number three. Ma
ry majored in philosophy and married a minister, to the profound disappointment of my mother.
“Why marry him?” Mother had asked. “Why not just move in with him and try him out for a while?”
“A minister can’t do that type of thing,” said Mary.
Mother believed that religion was the opiate of the masses. “Keep away from those religious people,” warned Mother repeatedly as I was growing up. “They’re a bad influence.”
I awaited my fate with passive resignation. I totally trusted the decision of the family council. Mother was the leader, directing the discussion and maintaining veto power. Mother was relied upon for her instincts. Her instincts never lied. She dazzled us with her instincts.
“We can’t afford to support Ken’s education,” said May, the oldest and most conservative sister. May seemed older than mother.
“Bullshit!” exclaimed Mother, swinging into action. When Mother had something to say, she seemed to become energized. “You have to understand something about Ken. He’s never been anything but perfect. When Ken was born, the doctor lifted him out of my stomach and he was perfect, not a wrinkle or an indentation or a birth mark. Nothing! A perfect baby without any struggle, and that’s how he has gone through life. May came out arm first. They had to push her back inside me, and do a caesarean. Jane was just as bad. June and Ruth took a century to come out.
“Ken was the wonder of the hospital. No one had ever seen a more perfect child. The point is this; Ken’s not like the rest of you. He’s not a struggler, not a sufferer. He wasn’t built for suffering. He doesn’t know how to suffer. He’s never been teased for having a big nose or big ears or for being fat. He’s had nothing but adoration. A perfect child, a golden boy, has a longer way to fall than most people. Ken is not to work!”
“I don’t know how you do it,” said Ruth, looking at me with awe.
“When you’re that perfect,” repeated my mother, emphasizing her point, “you have a longer way to fall than most people. Don’t worry about money, Ken.”
“I love everyone,” I said joyfully. “I love all womankind.”
Elizabeth was silent. She was as silent around my family as I was around hers. “They’re so aggressive,” she would whisper to me occasionally. “They’re the most aggressive women I’ve ever seen.”
“Let’s make love in the back yard,” I suggested in her ear.
“I don’t like the bugs,” said Elizabeth.
Two of my sisters were missing, Jane the second oldest, and Candy, number five. They were co-partners in a home for battered women and worked downtown. Jane had worked as a prison guard for seven years, one of the first women to be hired at that position, before teaming up with her younger sister. She had the protective temperament of a lioness. When an irate husband went seeking his convalescing wife, he was confronted by Jane. Jane had trained herself not to take her eyes off a man’s crotch. She wore construction boots and her kick was famous for its unerring accuracy—a cute feminine trick passed down from mother to daughter. Once I startled Jane in the dark. She flew around like a dueling cowboy drawing his gun and landed her foot exactly on the bullseye. Even in total darkness she never missed. I fell to the floor, struggling to regain my breath. She apologized profusely.
Ruth was closest to me in age and height. She was tall for a woman, a shade over five feet ten inches, and had a strange affinity for short men. The heels of her shoes kept getting higher and her boyfriends kept getting lower. Her latest man was five foot three. Mother unconsciously tended to patronize short people. When he was invited to dinner, Mother referred to him as “Angel Pie” and insisted he eat his vegetables before he got dessert. Angel Pie was thirty-two years old.
“I hope you stick with this one,” said Mother. “Soon you’ll be bringing home midgets.”
“I don’t see what she sees in them,” said Mary self-righteously.
“She likes little dinks,” added Mother.
“Not true,” I said. “Little people often have the biggest ones.”
“Their dinks just look big,” said May, the oldest, “because their bodies are so small.” May seemed older than Mother.
“I’ve seen it,” I said authoritatively. “And for a little guy, he has a big penis.”
“When did you see it?” asked Ruth excitedly.
“A few weeks ago I was looking for you and called at his house,” I said. “I must’ve gotten him out of bed because he answered the door in a black housecoat and his big red knob was poking through the front. Angel Pie is not so small.”
“It just looked big,” repeated May, “because his body is small.”
“A big penis isn’t everything,” said Wendy sensibly, sister number four.
“I don’t see what she sees in him,” repeated Mary.
“I don’t like a man to have power over me, intellectually, emotionally, or physically,” said Ruth, defending herself. “I like an equal relationship.”
“That’s not equal. You like to tower over a man,” said Wendy. “You’re a glutton for power.”
“You have to be able to give a man a good shot in the balls every once in a while,” said Mother. “They love you afterwards.”
“They’re the most aggressive women I’ve ever met,” whispered Elizabeth in my ear.
“How about the basement?” I whispered, still trying to find a hiding place to make love.
“It smells down there,” said Elizabeth. The dogs defecated in the basement. I sympathized with that because I was sensitive to smells myself.
“Have you got everything you need, Ken?” asked Mother.
“Yes.”
“Have you called Greyhound and found out what time the bus leaves?” asked Ruth.
“I don’t need to. I’ll just go to the station and a bus will be leaving,” I said confidently. “I’m lucky that way.”
I rode Elizabeth home on my banana seat and intended to go on to my father’s apartment. I had yet to say goodbye to him. Elizabeth was in an insecure mood, which was another reason for her silence. She was afraid that she was losing me, that I was going off to a world of bigger and better things, that she was being left behind. I secretly thought the same thing, that perhaps I was leaving her behind, but I was wrong. It was already too late for me. I would never quite leave Elizabeth behind.
“Now that we’re not having sex you’re in a rush to get rid of me,” said Elizabeth, turning her head and hiding her tears. Elizabeth was beautiful when she cried.
I exercised the patience of a martyr. I put my arms around her and hugged and kissed her all over her wet face. I told her that I loved her, that Stockton wasn’t far, and that we could phone each other whenever we were lonely. I even went so far as to say that she didn’t need to worry about me being unfaithful, that sex meant nothing to me, that it didn’t even enter my mind unless it was with her. This made her cry again because she didn’t believe me. She was reasonably calm by the time I left for Father’s apartment.
The back door of his building was unlocked. I was ten paces inside when the elevator doors opened and Father’s beaming face peeked into the lobby. He was joyriding again and greeted me with bubbling cheerfulness.
“Hop aboard, Ken,” said Father, as I stepped onto the elevator. “What’s the difference between pussy and parsley?”
“You don’t eat parsley,” I answered, as the doors closed. The joke was another of my father’s repeats. “I haven’t much time, Dad. I’ve got to catch a bus to Stockton.”
“In that case, we can stay on the elevator. We can talk privately here. There’s something I have to ask you, Ken, and it’s appropriate that I ask you on an elevator. Besides, I don’t get that much chance to be on an elevator these days because Sara doesn’t like it. Women don’t understand this type of thing, a man’s love for an elevator. They get jealous.”
“What do you want to ask me?” I said.
The elevator stopped and three elderly men joined us. Dad, who was never shy in a crowded elevator, acted like
the host at a garden party. He smiled and shook their hands and pressed the button for the floor they wanted. Dad loved the social side of elevator riding, the short, friendly conversations. It was an ideal situation for his longstanding repertoire of funny lines.
“What do you give the man who has everything?” asked Dad.
The old men shrugged.
“Penicillin,” I interrupted, proving that I had heard the joke before. Father looked disappointed.
Dad helped the bewildered old men into the lobby while I held the doors. They couldn’t figure out why this strange person was so hospitable. Father gave them an elaborate good-bye, full of compliments and hand shakes. In a brief moment of senile confusion, one of the retired old gentlemen said loudly, “Thank you for the wonderful time. And your son is charming.” Even in his disoriented state of mind, the old man intuitively deduced that he was dealing with father and son.
“Nice guys,” concluded Dad, as he got back in the elevator and pressed another button. “What I want to ask you is simply this. I have an offer to get back into the elevator business, but I’d have to move to Florida. I was thinking about buying a condominium there. Sara wants to come and bring her daughters, but I was worried about leaving you alone with the women, you being my youngest child. If you want me to stay in Chicago, speak up, and I’ll turn the job down with no questions asked.”
The elevator stopped. No one got on and I pressed another button. It was obvious that Dad was thrilled by this new job opportunity, and I intended to give him unbridled support. I didn’t believe in clinging to loved ones. I wanted love to be an unselfish emotion.
“I’d have to sell everything,” he said, “my car and the hairdressing salon.”
“Think of it as an adventure, Dad. I’m for it one hundred percent.”
“I’ll pay your way to come visit me after exams,” said Father excitedly. “You’ll need a place to unwind. You can get a suntan. There are lots of beautiful women in Florida.”
He was appealing to my two great vices: women and suntanning. He pressed the button for his floor, number twelve, and let the tantalizing offer sink in.