The Melting Pot

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  “Hughie, do you know how unhealthy it is for you to smoke?” Van asked.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you didn’t like it.” He stubbed out the cigarette.

  They didn’t linger over dinner because Vanessa wanted to see Zelig, which she had missed the first time around. Joe and Hughie laughed all the way through, but she found it disappointing. A one-gag film, she said in the cab going home. Diluted philosophy. “So people assume the characteristics of those around them. So identity is more fluid than we realize. Well, and what else is new?”

  Hughie stared, then closed his mouth with deliberation. Years ago, Joe knew, he would have asked guileless questions. Life had done this to him, made him circumspect, and Joe felt a pang for whatever humiliations had taught his brother discretion. But life does that to everyone, he could imagine Van saying dispassionately, the clever along with the simple.

  He was still an early riser. From bed, Joe heard him greet Vanessa the next morning and ask where the instant coffee was.

  “We don’t have instant coffee. Look, I’ve got to run. Literally,” and she gave a short laugh. “But I’ll stop for some on the way back, all right?”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. If you’re desperate here’s the espresso machine.” Scrupulously, she explained how to work it. “Or else plug this one in. Here’s a fresh filter.”

  Hughie sounded as he had when Joe first explained about stealing bases and double plays. But eventually he had learned.

  “Vanessa,” he said. “That’s a nice name. It sounds like that word, what’s the word, when you pat someone?”

  “Caress?”

  “Right, caress. Vanessa. Caressa.”

  “Most people call me Van.”

  “That sounds like a man’s name. Van Johnson. Van Halen. He’s a rock star.”

  “Hughie, I’ve got to go or I’ll be late for an auction.”

  The door closed sharply and Joe got up to make a pot of coffee.

  “I think she was mad at me.”

  “No, she’s always in a hurry in the morning. Her work is very pressured.”

  She was meeting with a client that evening. Joe was glad—after a day of seeing the sights of New York he wanted to watch the Mets game uninterrupted. Whenever he had a rare free evening to watch baseball she hovered around making coy remarks about the way the players’ uniforms fit or asked mock-ignorant questions. To satisfy her, he would pretend to be amused. Now he fetched two beers and a bowl of macadamia nuts and stretched out alongside Hughie. As if the Guatemalan hemp rug were a magic carpet, Joe was transported to a simpler age. If he looked only at the screen, the green of the ball field aglow like the grass of Eden, and ignored the sleek furnishings and Picasso prints and circles of soft light set in the ceiling, it could be a June of twenty-odd years ago; he would be interpreting the plays, but in black and white, for an eager Hughie, while their mother did something feminine and provident in the kitchen and their father read his newspaper, from time to time—when the boys whooped—raising his eyes to the game.

  On Friday Vanessa canceled a dinner date and got into bed early with a magazine. “Just a little tired,” she told Joe. She was rarely tired. Tiredness was his preserve. “Doing it,” as she had promised, doing Hughie, must be wearing her out. He realized they had not been out with friends or clients all week. Nor had they talked very much or made love—he had been staying up late, sitting with Hughie or staring alone into the night, then tiptoeing to bed in the dark. If she stirred or put her arms around him he pretended to have fallen asleep. He felt almost an aversion to her body alongside his, as though Hughie’s in the next room, was tugging him away. How could he give himself to both?

  She looked up from her magazine and asked whether Hughie was having any luck finding an apartment.

  “I’ve taken him around to a few brokers. But you know how it is. Everything’s sky-high. He’ll probably have to look in Brooklyn or Queens, but I don’t want to rush him. He’s enjoying the sights.”

  “Queens is a good idea.” She yawned. “You’re getting to sound a little like him, do you know? Sort of slow. Short sentences. Repeating.”

  “Maybe I’m meant to be slow. Maybe I’m not meant for this kind of life.”

  “What kind of life?”

  “This.” He gestured vaguely around the bedroom, everything in it carefully chosen, in irreproachable taste. The brilliant silk kite on the wall seemed an emblem of cheer, but failed to cheer him. Again he felt a numbness in his legs, maybe the onset of arthritis. She had said he was getting soft, but he was actually stiffening, like clothes left out on a line in freezing weather. “What kind of life are you meant for, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Not a shipping clerk, I’m sure.”

  “It’s more useful than what I do. He wraps magazines. People read them.” He waved at the one she was holding. “What do I do besides make money?”

  “Money means you can have the kind of life you want.”

  “You make it sound so simple. Maybe I don’t want ...” He stopped because it was a useless conversation. He didn’t know what he wanted. “It’s odd, you know, seeing him after so long. I don’t know why I didn’t stay more in touch these last few years.”

  “People go off on different paths. It’s not as if you have a lot in common.”

  “But we do! We have everything in common. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be retarded. I mean, what it feels like inside his head.”

  She looked at him curiously. “How come he still calls you Hooch?”

  “They tell me it was what I called him as a baby, and he started saying it back.”

  “I know, you once told me. I mean, why does he still call you it now?”

  “Well, why not? I guess to him that’s my name.”

  She gazed at him for a moment, then suddenly smiled and stretched her arms wide. “Come here then, Hooch. I’ve been missing you.”

  The name on her lips was like trespassing. But he obeyed, went over and took her in his arms. When she started to unbuckle his belt he drew back. “I can’t now, Van. I promised to take him out for ice cream.”

  In truth, they were spending far more time sightseeing than in brokers’ offices. They had ridden on the Staten Island Ferry, where Joe pointed out Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, caged for refurbishing like so much of the city; had gazed out from the top of the Empire State Building, no longer the tallest in the world, Hughie remarked; bought trinkets in Chinatown—for Hughie, facsimiles of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chrysler Building, and for Vanessa, embroidered blue velvet slippers; and even rented roller skates in Central Park: when they stood upright they began stumbling and guffawing like boys. But like school vacations, such fun could not last forever. After two weeks it was time for Hughie to start his job. The day before, Joe took him shopping for shoes and the Polaroid camera he had been longing for, then stopped to get a supply of subway tokens and a map. In the evening he wrote down Hughie’s route in a series of steps. “Now don’t lose this paper.”

  “I’ll put it in my wallet.”

  “And keep an eye on your wallet in the subways. There are pickpockets.” He advised him to get to bed early, to be fresh in the morning.

  Hughie laughed. “I’ve been working for a long time, Hooch. I know what to do.”

  “He’s quite able to be independent,” Van said when they were alone. “He’s managed without you for years.”

  “I know, but I feel responsible. It’s a new place.”

  “You want him to be our baby, Joe. But he isn’t. At least not mine.”

  That was not quite it, he thought. What he needed of Hughie was larger and more complex. In Hughie’s bulk rested his own past, his other selves, lives he might have led if only he had had the chance. She managed to reduce every subtlety, and he looked at her with something like loathing. Then, frightened at his feelings, he went to sit in the dark kitchen with his head in his h
ands.

  Mornings, now, each set off in a separate direction. Joe brought home a backlog of work piled up during his absence and Vanessa began going to dinner parties alone. Late in the evening he and Hughie would take walks, stopping for ice cream cones. They had become the couple, their roots twined too deep to be understood by an outsider. Vanessa said nothing. Clearly her strategy was to wait it out. Joe almost wished for jealous scenes, tears of exclusion and neglect—something specifically nasty to charge her with. But she was consummately civilized. And she was stronger, he knew; she would never break first. Meanwhile, strolling down the humid streets, he and Hughie talked about old times and how all had changed, about their father, who had died of a stroke four years ago, and their mother, who had moved to a retirement community in San Diego, where she sounded content and, to their common dismay, somewhat remote when they telephoned.

  “It’s usually the opposite,” said Joe. “Parents get older and you worry about them and take care of them. She doesn’t want to be taken care of or to take care either. I guess she had enough in her time.”

  “Mm,” said Hughie.

  Sometimes they didn’t talk at all. Hughie would gaze enthralled at the crowded summer avenue pulsing like a carnival, while Joe walked alongside wondering what it was like inside his mind. Was it a poorly lit landscape, drab and ill-defined, with some familiar shapes looming more clearly than others out of the haze? Or a schematic map, like the subway map Hughie had learned to read, major stops color-coded and living undulations forced into straight lines and angles? Perhaps an old-fashioned file from before the days of computer storage: folders labeled in block letters, heaps of unscrutinized, misplaced data devoid of the shadings of attitude or opinion. No. Hughie thought. Joe knew that. But in pictures? In a voice speaking words? Could memories spring to the surface as needed, or were they dredged up by ponderous machinery? How were the connections made, what were the contours of the path between observation and judgment? Did he refer to fixed and reliable standards? Then what happened when spontaneity was in order? How did he judge when to use the standards and when to proceed on instinct? Or maybe such distinctions were meaningless—Joe himself didn’t know for sure anymore. If only he might be retarded—just for a little while, of course, to see what it was like. Life would be so much easier, so many expectations could be ignored. Gauntlets tossed down on every side and you wouldn’t have to pick up a single one.

  On one of their walks Hughie said shyly that he had made a friend at work. “A girl.”

  “Hey, you didn’t waste much time. What’s her name?”

  “Carol. She’s younger than Marie, but she doesn’t live with her parents. She lives in a big house with six other people and a couple who help them. I’m going to take her out one of these days, maybe to an Italian restaurant.” He stopped walking as if he needed all his resources to speak. “Hooch, I have to find a place. I mean it. It’s nice at your house, but I need somewhere of my own.”

  Joe had been dreading this moment. He explained about the lower rents in Brooklyn and Queens.

  “Would it be far? Could I get to work from there?”

  “Sure. In Queens you’d be even closer to your job.”

  They found a furnished two-bedroom apartment in Queens, the ground floor of a three-family house. The furnishings were decent but barren of governing design: the colors and shapes did not complement each other, the things were not placed in conscious relation to the path of light. He was looking through Vanessa’s eyes, Joe realized. He must uproot them and replace them with Hughie’s. And gradually the rooms relaxed into a nonchalant welcome, imposing nothing and indifferent to the choice of life lived within them. While the landlord showed Hughie the tiny garden in back, Joe went into the smaller bedroom and lay down. The bed was covered by a white chenille spread like the bed of his boyhood. There was an elm tree out the window. How tired he was, suddenly, and numb. The thought of returning home to the nineteenth floor to be encircled by fine objects was more than he could bear. How nice it would be to lie here like this, on the familiar, nubby spread, for a long time. He let himself drift to the fragile stage before true sleep, when dreams are drifting bubbles of sight and sound and smell, and visions come as beckoned. Soon he was smelling his mother’s Sunday dinners, leg of lamb and roast potatoes, and the heavy aroma of peach pie in the oven. It lasted no more than a few seconds. He heard Hughie’s footsteps and jumped up.

  “It’s good, but what about the lease and the money and everything? I mean, I can’t figure all that stuff out that he said.” Hughie was cranky and shook his head from side to side. To get the machinery going, Joe thought.

  “You can definitely swing it. Don’t worry, I’ll work it all out for you. The point is whether you like it, if you’d be happy living here.”

  “I want to be able to take Carol out sometimes.”

  “You’ll have plenty left to take Carol out. If you like it, I think it’s a terrific deal. Do you think you’ll be too lonesome, though, all by yourself?”

  “Well, I have to, don’t I? You just have to get used to things.”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “Maybe ... Lately I’ve been thinking ... But we can talk about it later, I guess.”

  “Furnished?” Vanessa frowned. “I said I’d help you pick things out.”

  “Thanks, but it’s okay.” Hughie didn’t look at her. “Not as nice as you could make it, but okay.” He said he needed to take a walk to think things over, and Joe stepped forward.

  “No! I want to go myself for once!”

  They had never heard him shout before. A moment later, they heard him fumbling outside with his keys, which always annoyed Van.

  “I’ve told him to get those colored rings to tell them apart. What’s wrong? Do you think he’s having second thoughts?”

  Joe shouted at her for the first time since the baby died. “Why don’t you shut up for once? What does it matter how long it takes him to lock a door?”

  She paled, then got very red.

  “I’m going to go with him,” said Joe.

  “He said he wanted to take a walk by himself.”

  “I’m not talking about any walk.” He hadn’t planned to tell her till the lease was signed, he hadn’t even been absolutely sure, but the words erupted. “I’m going with him.”

  She stared, as she would at a stranger who had done something unforgivably gauche. “Your idea of humor must have regressed lately. I don’t find that funny.”

  He dashed into the bedroom, grabbed a suitcase down from the top of the closet, and began tossing socks and underwear into it.

  “Have you lost your wits or something, Joe? I feel like I’m watching a nineteen forties movie.”

  “Keep talking, go on. It won’t change anything.”

  “I don’t understand! I thought when he left, everything would be the same as before. We’d have the house at the beach next month, we’d ... Joe, I’ve tried to be patient, really, I haven’t said—”

  “You don’t understand anything, that’s right. You don’t understand how to live.”

  “How to live? Watching baseball games and going to the zoo on weekends—is that how to live? Do you mean to tell me you’re leaving me—me!—for a retard?”

  “I’m going to live with my brother. I hate ... I hate ... Again he couldn’t say what, except that nothing in his line of vision seemed to belong to him, especially not the kite, which shouldn’t be pinned on a wall anyway, but aloft. “All of this!”

  “All of what?” she wailed.

  “This! Us! Everything!”

  She knocked the suitcase to the floor and the clothes spilled out. “Ill tell you what’s going on. You’re tired of doing your share and living with a woman who’s your equal. And you’re jealous of my work. You’d like to come home and find me in an apron, baking you a pie.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong. I’d like to come home and not find you at all. I’d like to have someone to bake a pie for.” He bent to pick up his things,
but she grabbed them and hurled them around the room. She threw a shoe at him. She snatched a painted hand mirror from her dresser, resplendent, elaborately carved, something she had found in Acapulco last winter, and threw it at his head. Joe ducked. A sharp edge grazed his temple and he felt an ooze of blood. He went to the bathroom to wash it, and when he returned she was on the floor sobbing, holding the pieces of broken glass and the empty frame.

  “I can’t believe this is happening! Over Hughie! It’s ridiculous. What am I supposed to do? I need you!”

  Joe knelt to take the glass from her hands. They were cut in several places, not deeply. Thin streams of blood showed in the lines of her palms. “You’ll do fine,” he said gently. Now that it was done, his anger evaporated and he was sorry for her, bleeding on the floor. “You’ll get further. We’ll work everything out fairly.”

  “Oh, please,” she wept. “Please! You’re mixed up. This is not really what you want. You’re just confused. ...”

  The word pitched him back into rage. “I’m not confused! I’m not! What do you care, anyway? You don’t need me, you don’t even know who I am. You just need someone to fit into your scheme. You can replace me in a week.”

  Her face was quiet and stunned. “Is that what you think? Is that really what you think? God!”

  “Well, isn’t it true?”

  Her body gave a furious shudder and she punched him hard in the leg. “You’ll be back! You won’t last a week with him. I can just hear your dinner-table conversation. ‘Guess what I saw today, Hooch!’” Her voice slowed and thickened like a record at the wrong speed. She had it perfectly.

  “Don’t do that!” He held a shard of glass at her cheek. “Do you hear? Don’t ever do that.”

  Later, when he and Hughie left, she had only one parting word: “Queens,” drawn out in a long tittering laugh. Her head was tossed back and the dazzling white throat arched like a bow, the word its arrow.

  Hughie still couldn’t face her. He hung his head and mumbled his thanks. “It’s all because of me,” he said in the elevator.