Mom had been a tad manic since Dad got home, but was otherwise cogent. Dad didn’t want to hear a catalogue of Mom’s antics. Let’s just live in the present, why don’t we. Nothing we can do about what’s been done, is there? She has her good days and her bad days. We all do. Remember the day I shot the television?
Audrey and I sat at a Formica table with our exotic breakfasts and watched wrestling on TV. George the Animal Steele was chewing the stuffing out of a rope buckle. Everest Sweeney was pounding on George’s noggin with a metal chair. Audrey loved George for the fur on his back, and she was worried that Everest would flatten him with a Big Avalanche. I didn’t tell Audrey this, but a couple of months earlier when Everest was in town for the matches at Mechanics Hall, Jay Laprade’s older brother Dave ran into Everest at the Waldorf Cafeteria and they started chatting. Everest asked Dave if he’d like to give him a hand job, and when Dave said not really, Everest said he was sorry and cried. He didn’t mean anything, he said. He was just lonely.
Audrey also loved the fast-talking Saladmaster guy who did the commercials. “Shush, Johnny Boy. Chris Saladmaster is on.” Chris held up a battered pan and asked us if we had a bathtub this pitted, black, and discolored, would we take a bath in it? Audrey said, “We do, Chris, we do.” Chris said, “Shucks, no. So why cook with utensils like this?” The Saladmaster seven-ply surgical stainless steel cookware cleaned like a water glass, featured pistol grips and inverted lids for easy storage, and on each lid, a little policeman whistled when the water boiled—guaranteed for as long as you lived. And then what Audrey really liked: Chris said, “Look at this for abuse,” and then battered the pitted aluminum Brand X pan with his own stainless steel beauty until the side of the Brand X pan caved in. All of this in two minutes.
I walked to the bar and asked Dad if he was ready. He told Rags to get us more chips and tonic. “The apples’ll wait,” he said. One Bloody Mary led to another. A half dozen old Lithuanian men stopped in for their after-Mass shots and beers. Bruno Sammartino pinned the Masked Marvel after a devastating belly-to-back Suplex. Chris came back with his Saladmaster all-purpose kitchen appliance and proceeded to slice, dice, cut, peel, shred, puree, grate, chop, sliver, string, waffle, trim, snip, and ridge any number of fruits and veg-e-tables, as he pronounced it.
By the time the football game started, the bar had filled with Teamsters all wanting to buy Rainy a drink and talking about their French-Canadian girlfriends and reliving their summer vacations in Camp Ellis, Maine. Mom was laughing, and that was nice to hear, but I simply couldn’t watch TV anymore. I could feel my brain cells crinkling, drying up, and flaking off the wetware. Maybe if they turned on the cartoons, the Stooges, anything but the drone and misery of sports. Audrey asked me for my “Swiss shiny knife” so she could carve Audrey loves George the Animal into the bench. I told her Rags would pitch a conniption fit. I said, “We could go home if you want. Slip out the door. Wouldn’t anyone miss us.”
One time when I was ten, Dad took me ice fishing out to Three Mile Pond in Old Furnace. At least that was the plan. We bought our shiners at Pete & Shorty’s Bait and made it as far as the St. Charles Hotel. I played bumper pool while Dad talked to a guy named Rub whom he hadn’t seen since high school. He lied to Rub about his three seasons in Triple-A ball with the Rochester Red Wings and his cup of coffee in the Bigs with the Braves. Eventually, Rub helped Dad out to the car and into the passenger seat up front. He told me to keep the windows cracked. The cold air would sober Dad up in no time. He’s a good man, don’t you forget that, buster. Dad explained to me how to shift. It makes an H, he said. First, second, third, reverse. My feet didn’t reach the pedals, so I had to stand and lean against the seat. I drove the Hudson home at ten miles an hour because I couldn’t get the car out of first. Dad said, What’s so hard about an H, Johnny? A three-dimensional H, I said. I’m not used to depth in my letters. When we finally got home, the shiners were frozen in their cylinder of ice in the bucket. They were trapped there in mid-swim, it looked like, bowed like parentheses and canted to their sides. Looked like time had stopped for them.
Audrey fell asleep at the table. Dad, I said. He looked at his watch and slapped his forehead. Where does the time go? He and Mom had a doch-an-dorris, and then we walked up the hill to home. Audrey said, “Look at this for abuse.” She told me that last night she had dreamed that we all went out to the orchard, only all our apples had worms in them, and when you tried to pick up a pumpkin, the top came off in your hand and the whole orange deal collapsed like a flannel balloon. I heard Mom giggle and Dad do his Pepe Le Peu imitation. Zee cabbage does not run away from zee corn beef. Audrey asked me if I knew what was worse than finding a worm in my apple. I didn’t. Half a worm, she said, and broke out laughing. I heard Dad say, Don’t start with me, Frances.
DAD TOOK me along to the Mass 10 Truck Stop in Shuttleville where he was getting his ’66 Freightliner serviced. I asked him if this meant he’d be leaving again soon. He said he couldn’t very well earn a living sitting on his can all day, now, could he? We passed the Jesuit college up on the hill, and Dad asked me if I ever wondered what went on up there. I told him he should get a job where he could stay at home like normal fathers. Something fishy about all those priests, he said. You never see them walking our streets. You could be a janitor, I said.
“I’m a trucker, Johnny. That’s what I am.”
“Be a milkman. Drive a little truck.”
“I got 10/40 oil coursing through my veins.”
I told him how badly the meeting with Sister and the nurse had gone, how the school wanted to send Audrey to therapy, how if Mom kept acting nutty and if he stayed gone, there was a good chance that Audrey and I would end up in foster homes.
“This ain’t Russia. They can’t do that.”
“If you were home, you—”
“I can’t be in two places at the same time.”
“I’m only asking you to be in one.”
“How about on the way home we stop at school and talk to the nuns?”
“You will?”
“Straighten them out.”
“They think Mom’s bananas, you know. And I think they’re right.”
“She’s running on a tough stretch of road right now. Dangerous curves. Frost heaves.”
“And they’re not sure you even exist.”
I sat in the cab while Dad walked to the service bay. I flipped the sun visor and saw a family photo tucked into a pocket, a picture we’d taken at Olan Mills in happier days. In this one Audrey’s a smiling baby in a pink smock on Mom’s knee. Mom’s wearing a crooked but engaging smile and a pearl necklace. Dad’s standing behind all of us, and he’s kind of leaning in over Mom’s shoulder. I’m standing beside Mom, Audrey’s squeezing my finger. My hair’s so blond it’s white. And I’m winking. When I was that age, like four or five, I loved winking for some reason.
I looked under the driver’s seat and pulled out the purple cloth Crown Royal sack. I knew the bottle had been replaced with the pistol. I checked to see that Dad was not on his way back already, and I opened the sack. The gun was black, almost blue, and looked like it had been greased with Vaseline or something. I was afraid to touch it. I closed the sack and slid the gun under the seat.
DAD AND I went to the café while the truck was being worked on. Dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
“An adult.”
“You might regret it.”
“I know—these are the best years of my life.”
“Get yourself a trade. Electrician, drywaller.”
“I thought I might be a teacher.”
“That’s good, too. Nothing wrong with teaching. Nothing at all. No, sir. Keeping the barbarians at the gates. Noble profession. Not just for women anymore.”
Our young waitress wore a black sleeveless jersey and a black skirt. She was quite heavy, and her name tag was askew. Dad cocked his head to read it. “That’s funny,” he said to her. “Your name’s Dot, and you work at a tru
ck stop.”
She said, “How’s that funny?”
“D-O-T. Department of Transportation.”
“It’s short for Dorothy.”
Dot was sweating, and there were toast crumbs on her breasts and belly, and I was sorry she had to work in a restaurant and be tempted by food all day long. She took our order without writing it down even though she had a stubby pencil jabbed into her hair and an order pad in her apron pocket. I was sure she’d get it wrong. My poached eggs would be hard and my toast white.
Dad blew on his coffee, looked out the window at Route 12, and took a sip. He spoke to the passing traffic. “I should never have been a father. I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like you said, I’m a miserable dad—”
“I never said—”
“I’m missing in action.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You know there’s people who’ve traded their babies for travel trailers and television sets. Other folks abandon their children in all manner of squalid places.” He slurped his coffee. “Sick sons of bitches.”
Dad told Dot he didn’t order the home fries. She said, I think you did. He said he’d eat them anyway. Not a problem, Dot. She asked me did I want a refill of—what was I drinking? Orangeade, and yes, I would. My eggs were sunnyside. Dad always said you can judge a person’s worth by how he treats a waitress. That’s when your true character shows through. I’d remember that a few years later when I saw Five Easy Pieces and Jack Nicholson humiliated the waitress, and everyone in the theater thought it was so funny, and I thought he was an arrogant bastard, and the movie was ruined for me. I just didn’t care about him anymore. I wanted to see what the waitress’s apartment looked like, what letters she’d gotten in the mail, what books she was reading. Did she have a pet for company, a parakeet, maybe. I said, “So why aren’t you cut out to be a father, do you think?”
He shrugged.
“And by the way, it’s too late to decide that now.”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
Maybe I rolled my eyes.
He said, “Well, excuse me for earning a living, for putting food in your mouth, clothes on your backs. You’re ungrateful sometimes, I swear. Just like your mother.”
“Were you cut out to be a husband?”
“She doesn’t make it easy.”
And then he stared out the window. He said, “Every woman thinks she can change the man she marries. Every man eventually says, You knew what I was like when you married me. Women like projects. Men like the illusion that they are free.”
“Aren’t we?”
“I’m stretched thin, Johnny. You don’t know how thin.” He pushed his plate aside, lit up a Lucky Strike.
“If you were here, you could make her get help.”
“I can’t make her do anything.”
“What if something happens while you’re away?”
He took out his wallet, fished out a business card, and handed it to me.
I said, “Who’s Roscoe Deschenes?” Roscoe lived in Monroe, Louisiana.
“He’s a good friend. You call this number. A woman will answer. She’ll know how to reach me.”
“Roscoe’s wife?”
“She is.”
“Where’s Roscoe?”
“On the road.”
“How’s she going to know where you are?”
“She’ll find me. Track me down. CB radio.” Dad took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and left it on the table. “So who do we have to talk to at school?”
“Sister Superior.”
“Is she with the Justice League of America?”
“The who?”
“Sounds like a superhero. Wonder Woman and Sister Superior.”
“Misbehaving students don’t stand a chance.”
“What are her superpowers?”
“Sarcasm and derision.”
“Big words, little boy.”
“I’ve been reading the dictionary. Did you know there’s a word for the annual outing of the employees of a printing firm?”
“You’re making this up.”
“Wayzgoose. I’m not.”
“You’re a funny kid.”
SISTER SUPERIOR, despite her erstwhile heroic station, was squabby of stature, built like a teapot. She greeted us at her office door and waddled behind her desk and sat. Her rosary beads clacked against her chair. Dad sat across from her, his back straight, his feet on the floor. I was to stand. I folded my hands behind my back and rocked up on my toes and back on my heels. I hated the smell in there—lilac air freshener. He complimented Sister on the healthy glow to her skin and mentioned that every single item in the room had been transported by truck. Sister said she didn’t recall seeing Dad at Mass recently. Or ever. On the road, Sister, he explained. Sister said she had taken the liberty of checking into the family’s weekly donation envelope, but couldn’t find the record of one. She hadn’t noticed any of us at October Devotions.
“To be frank, Sister, I’ve lapsed a bit. Pray for me.”
“I’ll make a novena.” Sister fingered the crucifix below her guimpe. “I have to tell you that the school has notified the Welfare people with regards to our concerns over the well-being of the children.”
“You had no right.”
I stared at the Infant of Prague up there in his corner pedestal, a porcelain doll with a gold embroidered robe and a red crepe de chine cape. And he stared at me.
Dad said, “The children are fine, I promise you.”
The Infant winked. He tossed up the globe he held in his left hand and caught it. I shut my eyes and shook the image from my head. The Infant rolled his eyes, whistled like nothing miraculous had just happened. With his right hand he made a pistol with his thumb and index finger. Pointed it at Sister.
Sister said, “Then there should be no problem, should there?”
“Audrey’s a bit high-strung; I’ll admit that.”
Sister said, “Your wife Frances was a student of mine. Eleventh-grade history.”
The Infant waved me over, but I was glued to my spot.
Sister said, “I understand that Frances has had a history of nervous breakdowns.”
I looked at the Infant and shrugged, tried to lift a foot. Sister asked me if I needed to go to the basement, which was the school’s euphemism for toilet. I said I didn’t.
“Don’t?”
“Don’t, Sister.”
“Then quit your little dance routine.”
The Infant stared straight ahead. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Sister put her left hand on a tortoiseshell box that I knew contained the knucklebone of St. Stephen, the first martyr, a bone which leaked blood every year on the anniversary of his execution—stoned to death by a Jewish mob.
No, Sister told Dad, your son is not a good student, in fact. He’s a daydreamer, a Mr. Fidget, who refuses to work up to his potential. I was harmless enough, she said, but doomed to a life of mediocrity and aimlessness. Our Lord, she said, hates the malingerer.
Dad stood, said he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to take action, legal or otherwise, against the school. And by otherwise I mean incendiary. Sister said something about the only law being God’s law. Dad stormed out. I apologized to Sister for my father’s anger and for his inflammatory metaphor—I backed out of the room and closed the door.
I caught up with Dad on the front steps. I said, “Well, that went swimmingly.”
“Bitch! The family, Johnny, that’s the bedrock of America.”
AT SUPPER Dad announced he was leaving Monday morning. Had a load of office equipment to deliver to Dallas. In Dallas he’d pick up a shipment of Dixie Cups and haul them to Seattle, and from Seattle, who knew. Figured he’d be back in two, two and a half weeks. Three, max.
I said, “We need you here to keep us on the straight and narrow. You heard what Sister said. I’m a malingerer.”
“He’s a thief,” Mom said.
&nb
sp; “I am,” I said. “I steal and I don’t know why.”
“Well, stop stealing,” Dad said.
“I lie. I cheat. I covet. I bear false witness. I worship false gods. I’ll go to hell and it’ll be your fault.”
“No, it’ll be your fault,” he said.
Mom extinguished her Pall Mall in the mashed potatoes. Audrey slid off her chair like she had melted into a pile on the floor. Deluxe climbed on her belly, licked her face, kneaded her chest, and purred. Mom said, “Who are you people?”
Dad said, “We don’t need to listen to your loopy shit right now, Frances.”
Mom picked up her dish and heaved it at Dad, covering him in potatoes, gravy, and string beans. Dad looked at me. “And you expect me to stay in this fucking nuthouse.”
Geography
LAST NIGHT LONG after Annick and Spot had retired to their beds, Annick with her Joyce Carol Oates novel and Spot with his sock monkey, Hamlet, I sat up in the living room watching sitcoms on TV with the sound muted, listening to Brahms sonatas on the stereo. I had been experiencing intermittent shivers in the heel of my right foot for hours, like the heel was a cell phone set on vibrate and I kept getting calls. I was sure this was an early sign of MS or something and my body had been putting through a 911 to my brain. Once again hypochondria had murdered sleep.
I had the Rand McNally road atlas opened on my lap, and I was staring at North Dakota, a river shy of rectangular perfection, trying to lose myself, distract myself, trying to imagine what the main street in Livia looked like, and then having imagined a row of empty storefronts, a Rexall drug, a Lutheran church, a line of diagonally parked pickup trucks, a feed store, a boarded-up Rialto movie theater, a gas station/bait shop, and several poplar-lined blocks of Craftsman bungalows, I watched the house catty-corner to Dell’s Diner, the blue house with white shutters and a light on in the kitchen, waiting to see if someone would step out onto the front porch and walk to the steps, stare up into the starry spring sky, and inhale the cool air rushing down from Saskatchewan. And when she did, when a barefoot woman in jeans and a sleeveless white blouse sat on the steps and buried her face in her hands, I wondered what on earth she could have been thinking about that hurt so much. And then I heard the whistle of an approaching train. She raised her head, wiped her eyes. A squeal of tires from down the street. The howling of her neighbor’s bird dog. It occurred to me that I could now write this Livia woman’s story, the story of a mother whose boy has fragile X, whose husband is a memory and a monthly child-support pay ment. I could do what I like to do—make things up—and I could leave my memories and my mother where they belong.
Requiem, Mass. Page 8