by Linda Gartz
I tried to keep my voice calm and even, but a pleading tone had crept in. “Mom, I’ve promised Katy. I’ll be able to help you when you need it.”
I didn’t mention that I had no intention of tolerating the curfews Mom would surely impose on me, or her furious harangues if I ever stayed overnight at Bill’s new apartment. “You young people are all mixed up,” Mom ranted. “It’s the Communists—I know it! Undermining America by morally corrupting our youth! Khrushchev said he’d bury us—well, this is how he’s doing it!”
The heady days of buying our “little mansion” (as Mom proudly called the house on North Keeler); the sense of camaraderie effervescing from our family’s teamwork, which had turned the fixer-upper into a beautiful home; the vitality and energy of riotous youth that had infused the house—that era had passed, and along with it, the extra helping hands had disappeared.
Smitten with his office crowd, Dad wanted an escape from Mom’s relentless criticism. Gone were the days when he had written her love poems, told her how much he appreciated her holding down the fort, and encouraged her “not to do anything unnecessary.” He had withdrawn emotionally and now seemed not to understand (or care about) Mom’s roles as homemaker and business manager. “What do you do all day?” he queried resentfully when she wanted to purchase a dishwasher (“a three-hundred-dollar storage cabinet,” he groused).
Mom was nursing long-held grudges and new realities. She stewed about Dad’s lack of appreciation. “He saddled me with that rooming house when he was gone six months of the year,” she sputtered in exasperation. She also claimed he’d never been “openly friendly enough” to Grandma K, choosing to ignore Dad’s patient tolerance and management of Grandma’s psychotic and threatening outbursts in their home for fifteen years.
Now Paul was gone (and the “ingrate” didn’t write or call), and I was moving out. She began demanding recognition. “I’m an executive,” she shouted at us, “doing dirty work! No one knows what the housewife does. It’s all taken for granted.” A housewife, okay, but to call herself an “executive?” We all found this statement ridiculous hyperbole. Yet that’s exactly what she was—managing the finances and logistics of the three West Side buildings and our twelve-room house with a barn, an attic, and a basement, all of which Dad was filling with his junk at an alarming rate.
It’s not surprising to me now that Mom began drinking.
Having a couple highballs at the occasional gathering of her friends and at her monthly club meetings—or waking with a hangover on New Year’s Day—had been the worst of her indulgences. When ironing, she sipped from a can of Budweiser set on the end of her ironing board as she watched TV. I never saw her drunk.
Now she was downing mixed drinks or sipping Four Roses whiskey for a couple of hours nightly while she sat at the kitchen table, puffing cigarettes, stewing about the injustices that had been foisted upon her. It was bad enough that she had to put up with her manipulative, judgmental motherin-law and an insensitive husband, who didn’t treat her with “kindness and consideration,” but now, her lousy, selfish daughter was moving into her own place instead of paying Mom rent!
While still living with my parents, I came home from my weekly Saturday night date with Bill. Walking from the front door through the darkened foyer, I saw a puddle of light leaking into the dining room from the kitchen. My heart pounded. I dreaded seeing Mom inebriated but went into the kitchen anyway to say hello.
She sat at the Formica kitchen table in her usual late-night mode, chair positioned slightly askew so she could extend and cross her legs at the ankles on another chair. In her left hand, she held a tumbler of amber liquid; a filtered menthol Salem, smoke twisting toward the ceiling, drooped between her right middle and index fingers. Next to the half-empty Four Roses whiskey bottle, a butt-brimming ashtray overflowed onto the table. I entered into a miasma of stale smoke. “Hi, Mom,” I said, trying to sound pleasant, but inwardly shrinking—as if I made myself small enough, I could disappear.
“Oh, hello,” she replied in a bitter tone, her eyes droopy and unfocused. Dragging deeply on the Salem, then blowing the smoke over her shoulder, she set her mouth into a grim, tight-lipped, ironic smile. On the floor lay her girdle, removed so she could drink and brood in comfort. Night after night, her thoughts looped, forever circling to the same playlist: how much she’d suffered; how her despicable motherin-law had duped her with a purported “gift” of a six-flat in a now-riot-riven ghetto; her horrible children, who’d abandoned her.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She waved the cigarette hand as if dismissing me. I knew a conversation was out of the question. “Well, I think I’m going right to sleep,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”
I turned to go upstairs.
“That’s right. Just go to bed. I know you’re far too busy and important to talk to me.”
“Mom, that’s not fair. I’m just tired.”
I headed up the back steps to the second floor, washed my face, fell into bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. As I nodded into a half sleep, I heard Mom’s heavy footfalls on the back stairs, her unsteady tread entering my room, where a desk lamp cast a soft, low light. Opening my eyes in tiny slits, I saw her in the shadowy glow, hovering over my bed, swaying a little; her face sagged, her nose crinkled, and her mouth turned down as if she were looking at an object of disgust.
Ptew. Ptew. She’d spit on me!
I lay silent, stunned—more embarrassed for my mother than furious at her vulgarity. One part of me wanted to leap up, grab the front of her blouse in my two fists, shake her, and scream, “How dare you!” But another part cringed at the humiliation she’d feel if I confronted her—if she had to face how low she’d sunk in her desperation to blame someone else for the emotional wasteland of her life.
I pretended to sleep. She spit on me again, muttering, “Whore. After all I’ve sacrificed for you.”
Heart thumping in my throat and chest, eyes still shut, my breath came shallow and fast until she wobbled out of the room. Sleep was elusive; anger, sadness, and helplessness all washed over me. What was wrong with her?
Perhaps the years of living with Grandma K’s madness, her mental illness encased in a chrysalis of silence, had inured me to not thinking of a solution. Avoidance of the subject had left me bereft of an emotional larder from which I could draw nourishing words and empathy to help my mother. The only way I could respond to Mom’s emotions was to steer clear of her.
The next day, Mom said nothing about the incident. Had she been too drunk to remember, or was she too embarrassed to own up to her horrid behavior? Whatever the case, I chose not to bring it up. She was already such a mess, so angry with Dad (for exactly what I didn’t understand at the time), and now my drive for independence was sending her into even deeper crisis. She repeatedly circled back to her role in supporting her parents. It was the creed and faith of her personal religion: you sacrifice your own happiness, and your family’s, to do the very best for your parents. I was an apostate.
I recognize now the damage Mom’s single-minded devotion to Grandma K had wreaked on her marriage; that Mom had been flailing her whole life in a river of guilt. She was trying to tug me into the same current that engulfed her. I had to resist the pull, or drown. But there was no point in forcing her head deeper into the torrent, so I just let the spitting incident pass—and planned my escape.
CHAPTER 38: Disgraced
Dad easily accepted my apartment decision. Even Mom calmed down a bit after she got used to the idea of my own apartment, especially when she realized the tangible benefit to her: an opportunity to unload scads of Dad’s compulsive saving. He felt vindicated that his prediction had come true: “Someday, we’ll need this stuff!”
He and I walked down into the basement, where a dim yellowish glow was cast by fluorescent strips Dad had hung from the ceiling with thick chains. Off a tall shelf, he hoisted plastic blue and red milk crates, packed with an assortment of wooden spoons, pots, pans, bowls, dishes, and othe
r table-ware. Holding his treasures, he grinned. “Here’s all you’ll need for your kitchen.” It was.
After poking around to find mops, brooms, dustpans, and an upright vacuum cleaner, he drew out one wooden drawer after another from his self-constructed tool bench and found picture-hanging supplies, flashlights, and baby-food jars of screws and nails.
Mom had her own stash of extras. She gathered towels, pillows, and several sets of weary but perfectly usable bed sheets she’d saved from the rented bedrooms of the former second-floor rooming house. In the basement of the six-flat, Dad and I picked up a couple of bedframes and mattresses, a medley of lamps, chairs, a Formica table for the kitchen—even pictures for our walls.
After loading up our station wagon with all my apartment goods that could fit, Dad smiled proudly at his handiwork: the legs of a dresser, a floor lamp, and an oak desk stuck out the rear of the station wagon, with red cloths, for safety, flying off the ends of each. He closed the rear-hatch door as far as possible, then secured it with rope tied to the bumper. Pillows and bedding scrunched into large garbage bags blocked the side windows. Later, Dad would bring us a cast-off couch he’d found who knows where.
Katy and I had settled into our apartment on Paulina Street in a Chicago neighborhood on the border of Evanston, affectionately known as “The Jungle.” Because Evanston was dry (home of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union), Paulina was lined with bars and liquor stores. Within two blocks were ill-kept multistory apartment buildings, Laundromats, and a popular Mexican restaurant, La Choza, that served delicious and inexpensive food. The Jungle came by its name because of alcohol-driven visitors, crime, and prostitution, but I knew how to watch my back.
The lower-end neighborhood meant Katy and I each paid only eighty dollars a month for a two-bedroom, third-floor flat with a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. Unlike my parents, who gave tenants one freshly painted room every year, Heil and Heil Realty said they’d provide paint, but the labor was up to us. I painted my room Dresden blue.
I started my secretary job seated right behind the secretarial-pool supervisor, Libby, a woman of about sixty, who rolled her chair up to mine, invading my body space. I drew back a little, trying not to be obvious. Her upper lip twitched, and she repeatedly touched her graying curls as she talked, her eyes squinting behind narrow, out-of-date glasses. “Arrive well before nine o’clock, when the office opens. Never be late. Your duty is to be fresh and ready for work every day. Address all your managers by ‘Mr.’ and their last names. Every letter that goes out must be error-free. No erasures. Start over, but of course, you’ll make few mistakes.” Uh-oh. Trouble. I always made some error.
“Do you have any questions?” She raised a penciled-in, narrow eyebrow.
“Um, no. I understand.”
“Good. Well, welcome to Arthur Andersen!” Visibly pleased, she gave me a tight-lipped smile, and turned to her desk.
That first afternoon on the job, my shorthand five years rusty, one of the five managers I worked for called me on the phone. “This is Mr. Robinson. Is this the new girl?”
“Hi. Yes, my name is Linda.”
“Okay. Take a letter.” Robinson rattled off sentence after sentence as I scrambled to keep up, panic freezing my brain and fingers. After his curt introduction, I was afraid to ask him to repeat anything. The other four managers were pleasant. They at least said “Good morning” after buzzing me into their offices, usually to take dictation or to bring them coffee. Robinson never even looked up when I brought the morning mail to his desk.
By early spring, I was ready for my next move. I’d always loved little kids, so I applied to Northwestern’s Master of Arts in Teaching program and was accepted. In May of 1971, I gave Libby notice. Her rheumy blue eyes bored into mine, her red lips twitching as if writhing insects crawled inside them. “Think of what you’re giving up! There’s a glut of teachers out there. You won’t find a job.”
“I’m pretty sure I will.” Two weeks later, I bade her goodbye.
With student loans and government programs that supported teacher training, I could pay for the master’s program myself. I knew my parents couldn’t help out. Despite their nonstop work, and the incessant repairs to keep their West Side buildings in perfect condition, they were barely making ends meet. The previous November, they had spent $4,000 on a new six-flat heating plant and rewiring one of the apartments.
In the spring of 1971, as I was planning my move to NU, their checking account was overdrawn, and Mom had to borrow eighty dollars from our next-door neighbor. In March, she wrote in her diary, “Quite broke this month.” It was as if they were paying for the privilege of running themselves into the ground in the increasingly dangerous neighborhood.
Accustomed to their kids finding their own way, Dad and Mom seemed only mildly interested that I was pursuing a master’s degree. Dad was enjoying his second youth at his Fireman’s Fund job. Mom’s biggest concern was my marital status. After all, at twenty-two, I was done with college (and Bill, at twenty-six, with law school). We had been dating six years, so, in her mind, marriage was next.
Bill and I had been together for more than five years, yet neither of us was ready for marriage. In the 1960s–’70s zeitgeist, my generation was scrutinizing every institution, including marriage, for meaning. Marriage was “just a piece of paper” and didn’t confer love or commitment. In 1970, one-third of all marriages ended in divorce,53 so what kind of “commitment” was that? And did we want to be tied down so young? According to some feminists, marriage was just another means for men to control women. Instead of making marriage my ultimate goal, I focused on building a career.
I knew Bill was my guy. He had proven his devotion to me over and over. Dad had always encouraged his kids to think independently. So we did.
One day that summer, I was working on lesson plans for my student-teaching job when Mom called me.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Linda. I’ve called to tell you something that’s been bugging me for a long time now. You and Bill have an immoral relationship. You’ve disgraced me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” My throat contracted, raising the pitch of my voice.
“If you each have your own apartment, something immoral is going on!” she yelled. “Why aren’t you getting married?”
“Mom, this is outrageous! What the hell? You’re calling me to tell me this nonsense? We’re not ready to get married. Someday we probably will, but we’re not ready yet.”
“And I’ll tell you another thing. I’ll be damned if I’ll spend three thousand dollars on a wedding and then never be invited over afterward!”
“Mom, you need to calm down. I’m just trying to prepare for my classes.”
“Well, you’ve chosen your path. Now we’ll see where it leads!”
She slammed down the phone. Mom had always liked Bill. She often commented on how polite, witty, or smart he was. They frequently engaged in philosophical arguments—about politics, Communism, religion, and morality. It was the fact that we weren’t getting married that set her off on rants like the phone call.
Mom used the same approach to control Dad’s behavior. She screamed, “You son of a bitch!” when he brought stuff home. She threw it out the back door, or into his study (Paul’s former bedroom), then wrote everything she had said and done in her diary. It became her ersatz psychologist—but with no feedback to encourage reflection, she remained stuck in the same loop of recriminations.
Not privy to their personal world, I often broke down in tears over their rows. “I just want you both to be happy,” I sobbed to whichever one I was with. Dad embraced me, saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Mom insisted, “How can we get along if he won’t discuss anything?”
When I asked Dad why he wouldn’t talk things over with Mom, he said, “There’s no point. If I express an opinion, I’m one hundred percent certain the discussion won’t go my way. If I keep quiet, there’s a fifty
-fifty chance I’ll get what I want.”
On occasion, Mom acknowledged Dad’s relentless toil in a diary entry. After a broken pipe in the backyard required digging up a deep trench, Mom noted: “Fred works hard! He moved all the dirt after the plumbers dug a trench. He has unlimited energy.”
But the bulk of her journaling from this era reveals a bitter, unhappy woman. When I first read her entries, three to five decades after she wrote them, I was plunged right back into the heart-thumping whirlwind of her tortured psyche and unfettered fury. Some sentences are followed by multiple bold exclamation points. Her handwriting is dark and agitated, the words embossed onto two or three of the following pages.
Unlike Grandma K, my mom didn’t suffer from psychosis, but like her mother, she became a screeching maniac, ranting accusations against Dad, me, and to a lesser extent, my two brothers. As men, the rules of sexuality didn’t apply to them. Paul was living with a woman in New Jersey, but Mom said, “That’s her mother’s problem.”
Older now than Mom was when she wrote her angry entries, I’m torn in my reaction to her diary rants. In one moment, I’m in tears over her frustration and plight; in the next, dumbstruck by her repetitive focus on her own certitudes and suffering, her lack of perspective toward young adults: “This is the most selfish generation. I can’t believe Linda walked out on me.” Reading Mom’s diary entry, I instantly thought of that judgmental letter Grandma Gartz had written to Dad’s younger brother, Ebner, in 1943, in which she’d declared, “Lil is only for herself.”
In the early seventies, I was too young to comprehend the complex torments and quotidian pressures that could gnaw away at a couple’s happiness during thirty years of marriage. Add in Ebner’s untimely death; thirteen years of Dad’s travel while Mom coped with the rooming house alone; fifteen years of dealing with Grandma K’s madness; Dad’s parents’ callous treatment of our family; the riots that undermined my parents’ greatest financial investment; and their continued devotion to buildings in a neighborhood tumbling into an abyss of poverty and crime—it’s no wonder their happiness unraveled, leaving behind a ragged trail of torn hopes and frayed dreams.