“Just leave that to me,” Jake says, flipping open his cell phone and hitting a speed-dial button. “I appreciate this, Dad, I really do. Hey, one other thing. Give me my essay, would you? I may need it.”
CHAPTER SIX
We ride the crosstown bus through the park to the East Side, our teeth freshly brushed, our breaths minty from the Life Savers we’ve been sucking on. The bus we’re on is a double bus, and we sit right at the axis, which creaks and shifts beneath our feet with every turn. We’ve always sat at the axis on crosstown buses, ever since Jake was a little kid. When the bus made sharp turns in those days I’d say, “Look, Jakey, the bus is breaking in half!” and he’d squeal with delight.
I turn to him. “Hey, Jake, do you remember—”
“You’d tell me the bus was breaking in half. Yeah, Dad, I remember.”
“Oh.”
He’s a little too preoccupied for tender memories.
We’re meeting Sarah at a Starbucks on Lexington Avenue. He’s told her he has something important to talk about, but he hasn’t told her about me coming along. He’s remarkably calm, considering what may soon be happening.
I’m the one who’s nervous. I’m actually jumpier now than I was a few hours ago, when I was losing my livelihood.
“You okay, Dad? You don’t look so good.”
“What are you going to say to this girl?”
“I’m just going to tell her about what happened today.”
“And I’m coming with you because…”
“Because I asked you to. I don’t think I’ve asked you to do too many things. If you don’t want to do it, you can bail.”
I’m a little stunned by this attack. “Hey. Nobody’s bailing.”
“All right, then, thank you.”
“Know why you haven’t asked me for things? Because I always took care of things before you had a chance to ask.”
He nods. “There may be some truth to that.”
“You’re goddamn right there’s some truth to that. Private school, summer vacations, cello lessons—”
“Dad, be fair. I didn’t ask for any of it, and I didn’t create the structure. I was born into it.”
“At least you had a structure!”
Everybody on the bus is looking at me. I’m shouting without even realizing it. Jake is shocked, but not embarrassed.
“Dad. Chill.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you saying, that you didn’t have a structure when you were a kid?”
“Oh, I had a structure all right. A fucking crazy structure.”
His eyes widen. “Tell me about it.”
“Not here, not now.”
We ride in silence for a few moments. “Look, Dad, I need you to be calm for me. If you can’t be calm, let me go by myself.”
“I’ll be calm. I promise. Whatever happens, I’ll be calm.”
We get off the bus and walk to the Starbucks. Jake sees her through the window and says, “She’s early. That’s funny, she’s never early.”
He waves to a girl in a pink blouse, seated alone at a window table for two. She’s got blond hair braided into a pigtail that reaches to the center of her back. Her posture is perfect—spine straight and shoulders squared, as if she’s ready to attempt a back dive off the high board. And when she sees Jake, her face lights up in what appears to be genuine delight. She blows him a kiss.
“Want me to wait out here?” I ask. Jake looks at me as if I’m an idiot partner in a robbery who’s bungling the well-rehearsed caper before it even begins.
“We’re going in together, Dad. Please, just play along.”
I follow him inside. He plants a kiss on her cheek.
She’s so beautiful it’s almost painful to look at her. Her eyes are big and blue, and she’s got a button nose and cheekbones that could cut diamonds. She rubs her face and says, “Ooh, Jake, that beard really scratches!”
“Sarah, I’d like you to meet my father.”
She extends a hand. As we shake she says, “It’s so good to meet you, sir.”
“Call me Sammy.”
I’m trying to appear both hip and fatherly, thinking hard of something to say, and the best I can do is, “What can I get for you guys?”
They both want lattes. For once I’m actually glad to be at Starbucks, glad to be someplace where the help moves as if they’ve been hit with tranquilizer darts. It’ll give Jake and his girl a little private time. I don’t get back to the table for a good five minutes, with lattes for them and a coffee for myself.
With surprising consideration, they’ve dragged a third chair over to this table meant for two. I sit down and see that they both seem relaxed. Obviously, the news of the day has not yet been reported. Sarah thanks me profusely, sips the latte, and lets out a small moan of pleasure.
“Ohhh, that just hits the spot,” she says in a voice both girly and gravelly.
A funny thing is going on in the midst of everything else—I realize that I am jealous of my son. Never in my life have I ever been involved with anyone even remotely as beautiful as Sarah. This is model beauty, but it’s beyond that—she’s also smart, and she seems to be crazy about my son.
No woman was ever crazy about me. All my life I’ve been involved with women I’ve known were wrong for me, women who looked wrong or moved wrong or even smelled wrong, in terms of their very scent—and all because I didn’t have the patience or the whatever it is a person needs to persevere in that search for someone who’ll knock your socks off simply by existing. You stop believing she’s out there, and the cynicism that seeps into your soul after a lifetime in the tabloid newspaper game doesn’t help, and half the time you’ve got a load on, so you learn to shut your eyes and just fuck what’s in front of you, and be grateful for that.
And then one day your seventeen-year-old son shows you exactly how it’s done, his very first time out of the gate. I can imagine them getting married one day, in a simple sunset ceremony at the edge of a lake, close friends and family only, and a barefoot girl playing the flute as Jake and Sarah read the vows they’ve written themselves…
Then Jake snaps me out of my totally ridiculous daydream by going ahead and pulling the trigger.
“Sarah,” he casually begins, “I got kicked out of school today.”
Sarah sits up even straighter than she’d already been sitting, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. “Jake. Is this a joke?”
“It’s no joke. I’m out.”
“Drugs?”
He laughs. “Come on. You know I don’t do drugs.”
This is a relief for me to hear. I figure it has to be the truth, if he’s telling his girlfriend. But she certainly doesn’t look relieved.
“Jake. Why?”
“I wrote an essay they didn’t like.”
“An essay? About what?”
He passes her the pages. “You might as well read it.”
Sarah takes the pages and begins reading. She puts a hand to the nape of her neck, and those impossibly big eyes seem to grow even larger with each passing paragraph. She finishes with a gasp, an actual gasp. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I hope not.”
“Jake! My God!”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Why didn’t you just tell them you planned to blow up the school?”
“I don’t want to blow up the school. It’s valuable real estate.”
She stares at him in wonder and exasperation, then turns to me. “What do you think of this, Mr. Sullivan?”
I swallow hard, look to Jake for guidance. His face is as blank as I’ve ever seen it. I don’t know how he wants me to play it, so I decide to go with the truth.
I clear my throat. “Actually, I thought it was a hell of a good essay.”
“You did?!”
“He made some excellent points, and it’s a smooth read.”
Sarah looks from me to Jake and back to me, trying to figure whether we’ve both gone insane, or if it�
��s all a big gag of some kind. We’re all going to share a big laugh, and then Jake’s dad is going to spring for a nice meal at a tablecloth restaurant of her choice on the Upper East Side. Oh, you guys! You had me going, there!…
“It wasn’t just the essay,” Jake adds. “They actually threw me out because I wouldn’t apologize.”
“Why wouldn’t you apologize?”
“I wasn’t sorry.”
Sarah hands the essay back to Jake, who folds it and sticks it in his hip pocket.
“Jacob Perez-Sullivan. You are such a child.”
“I think it would have been childish to apologize.”
“You realize, of course, that you’ve just squandered your entire future.”
“You think?”
She lets out a shrieky noise, like a cat that’s just had its tail stepped on, a noise that makes a few coffee drinkers turn around for a look.
“Come on,” she says. “Get real. Do you know what this means? The Ivy League schools are out. And the whole second tier is probably out, too. Where are you going to go now, to a state university!”
“I can’t even think about that stuff, unless I finish high school.”
“Unless!”
“Well, yeah. I mean, technically, I’m a dropout.”
“Oh my God, oh my God.”
“Sarah.” Jake reaches for her hand, but she pulls it away. “I didn’t kill anyone. All I did was write something they didn’t like. Can’t you see? If I apologize for something 1 believe in, I’m a dead man.”
She sits back, puts her hands to her temples. “Everything’s ruined,” she says, and the tears in her eyes appear to be real.
“Calm down,” Jake says. “Nobody died.”
“Your future just died!”
“Sarah—”
“Nantucket’s out, I’m sure you realize.”
“What?”
“I was going to invite you to our place in Nantucket next summer. Mom and Dad will never allow it now.”
“Because I’m not in private school anymore?”
“Because you’re not serious.”
“Sarah. I am dead serious about what I wrote.”
“You just had to do it, didn’t you? Not that I’m surprised. Not with your…” She hesitates, thinks about it, and finally finds the right word…
“…background.”
The coffee in my mouth turns to acid. I’m Jake’s background, and as Sarah says it she doesn’t even bother looking at me.
Jake stares at her with a blend of amusement and disappointment. There’s a sad grin on his face, the grin of a scientist whose lab rat has just confirmed his theory about how strenuous circumstances induce dreadful behavior.
But the experiment is not yet over. Calmly as a priest Jake says, “My background? You mean my dad, here?”
“Well, yes.” And still she’s not looking at me! “Working for that horrible rag. That’s where your self-destructive attitude comes from, in case you wondered.”
“I don’t work for that horrible rag anymore,” I say softly, trying to be helpful. At last she turns to look at me. Her face is now all but crimson with rage, and it highlights a slight bump on her nose I hadn’t noticed before. She’s not so perfect after all.
“I’m sorry I said that,” she says, not sorry at all. “But I’m glad you don’t work there anymore. It’s a dreadful, fascist publication that caters to the lowest impulses in human beings.”
Clearly, she’s quoting one of her parents from a Park Avenue dinner table rant. “Anyway,” she adds, “I think it’s good that you quit.”
“I didn’t quit. They fired me today. Jake’s out of school, and I’m out of work.”
This is more than Sarah can take. Her family’s idea of drama is when somebody parks the car on the street instead of tucking it into a nice safe garage. She’s just found out that her boyfriend and his father are a pair of bums. She jumps to her feet as if a fire alarm has just sounded.
“I’m sorry, Jake.” She shuts her eyes, holds up her hands. “I just…it’s more than I can deal with. I’m sorry, but we’re through.”
Jake nods, but remains seated. “We are through, Sarah. You’re right. But not because of this. We’re through because last weekend you fucked Pete Hogan.”
My stomach is in free fall. Sarah’s mouth literally drops open. She covers it with her hands as Jake continues speaking, calmly and slowly.
“Pete bragged about it. Didn’t you think he would? Don’t you know what he is? I go away one weekend, and look what happens.”
“Jake. Please listen. Somebody put something in my drink. I never—”
“If you wanted to fuck Pete Hogan, all you had to do was tell me you wanted to fuck Pete Hogan. I’d have understood. Hell, his parents have a house on Martha’s Vineyard. That’s just a ferry ride from Nantucket, isn’t it?”
“Jake, please let me—”
“Don’t bother, Sarah. No point in trying to explain something so complicated to someone with my background. I’d never understand it.”
He makes a shooing motion with his hand, as if to chase away a lazy fly. “Just go, Sarah. Leave.”
Sarah knocks over what’s left of her latte as she hurries away. Jake waits until she’s nearly at the door, then yells her name. She stops where she is and turns to face him.
“Your father spends his life finding loopholes in the environmental laws so the companies that pay him can keep dumping their toxins in the rivers!” he shouts, loudly enough for every coffee drinker to hear. “That’s your background, baby! Live with it! I’ll take my background over yours any day!”
Sarah all but sprints out of Starbucks. I grab a wad of paper napkins and start soaking up what Sarah has spilled, amazed that it’s still warm, that everything that’s just happened took place in less time than it takes for a three-dollar latte to lose its heat.
Jake sits back and sips his latte, like a weary assassin after a successful but dull hit. “I’m glad that’s out of the way,” he says. “That’s been bothering me all week.”
“Who’s Pete Hogan?”
“Nobody you need to know. Just some asshole. Thanks for being here, Dad.”
“Jake, I’m sorry you’ve been hurt.”
“I was hurt. Then I got over it. Then I got mad.”
“I noticed. But you don’t have to be over it. What I mean is, it’s okay if you’re still hurting.”
Jake thinks it over for a second. “The hell with her,” he says, but his eyes glisten with tears and his voice quakes as he says, “There’s no loyalty, Dad. Why isn’t anybody loyal?”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. I reach over to squeeze his shoulder, and he doesn’t pull away. In fact, he startles me by turning to bury his face in my chest and hug me, hard and long. His sobs are silent, but he’s sobbing, all right.
I shouldn’t let the beard fool me. He’s still just a boy, my boy, I say to myself as I hold him close and stroke his hair. It’s been a long time since he’s allowed me to do that, and I don’t mind doing it. What I do mind is the way all those highly caffeinated people are staring at us.
“What the hell are you people looking at?” I all but bellow. “Go back to your overpriced beverages!”
They do just that, turning their faces away from Jake and me. I’m waiting for the manager to come over and ask us to leave, but it never happens. I can sit there at Starbucks and stroke my boy’s hair for as long as I fucking well please.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I guess you could say that Jake was an accident, but you’d have to take it further than that and go all the way back to a series of circumstances that toppled like a row of dominoes toward the life we all now struggle through.
I met Jake’s mother at a press event with a little bit of an intellectual crossover. It was the screening of a high-brow, low-budget film about some Puerto Rican poet whose name does not escape me, because I never had it trapped in the first place. Anyway, the Star’s movie reviewer had no inte
ntion of covering the screening, so he offered me his free pass to the film. I went because nothing better was happening that night. I was tired of chasing waitresses and copygirls, and figured this might be a way to fish in unexplored waters.
I was an awful person, glib and shallow, interested only in drunken good times and uncomplicated sex, if there is any such thing. I’m amazed that any woman had anything to do with me. I’d never really had a relationship before, nor was I interested in one. All I cared about was the next thrill, if only because it led to the thrill after that one. And it wasn’t as if I was some kid—by this time, I was well past thirty. If a fortune-teller had told me that I was going to meet my future wife at this event, I’d have laughed in his face and demanded a refund. I wasn’t in the market for a wife, then or ever.
The minute I got to the screening, I knew I’d made a mistake. It had drawn an intellectual-looking crowd, a lot of beards and bifocals—but what the hell, I was there already, and decided to give the movie a shot.
I fell asleep minutes after the lights went down—subtitles do that to me, I just can’t help it—and when the lights came up I figured the night was a bust. I was going to go home but they’d set up a wine and cheese table in the lobby so that everybody could stand around and discuss what we’d just seen, and that’s where I first set eyes on Doris Perez.
She had long dark hair that tumbled down her back like a basket of hastily dumped snakes, and she looked both bored and superior, an irresistible combination for a tabloid reporter eager for sex without courtship.
I struck up a conversation with her at the wine table, or maybe she struck it up with me. She was a professor in the Romance Languages Department at Columbia University, and she didn’t think much of the film they’d just shown. Then she asked for my opinion of it.
“It was a little slow,” I offered.
“That’s amazing,” Doris replied.
“What’s amazing?”
“That you were able to watch it through your eyelids.”
Okay, so now I knew she’d had her eye on me before I ever had mine on her.
“I don’t know a lot about Puerto Rican poets,” I admitted. “That’s more like your specialty.”
Raising Jake Page 6