Ask Bob: A Novel

by Peter Gethers

  That conversation took place in a quiet little French bistro near the clinic. He’d been visiting our mother (and, we found out sometime later, siphoning money out of her bank account) and came into the city for one night—at least that’s what he said—and called me up to invite me and Anna to dinner. No advance warning. It was just “Hey, it’s me. I’m in the city. Just got in. Wanna have dinner tonight?” When I said, “Sure,” he said, “Great. I already made a reservation for three at the Whistlestop,” a restaurant in Chelsea that Ted had frequented and loved when he’d lived in the city and been married to Karen. Anna didn’t want to go—she had decided there was no longer any need for her to pretend that Ted was important to her—so I went by myself. Ted had Hilts with him, a detail he hadn’t mentioned over the phone, and since he hadn’t made a reservation for four, it meant he knew Anna wasn’t going to come.

  At dinner, Hilts was fine. He behaved just like any other six-year-old. But I found something off about the boy. He wasn’t genuine or relaxed; even when he was having fun his smiles and his giggles seemed forced, as if he had to let everyone know he was happy so they’d be pleased. He also seemed distant, as if there was a protective cocoon enveloping him, preventing him from ever hearing or seeing things exactly as they were. I know it’s not fair to say—he was only six, after all—but I didn’t like him. He wasn’t a kid with whom I wanted to be friends.

  Even so, I felt sorry for the boy There were reasons for his behavior, and I saw them quite clearly during our dinner.

  Teddy was disturbingly abusive to Hilts. Not physically abusive, but somehow menacing. Ted expected him to act like an adult; when he didn’t, it was some kind of violation of whatever game Ted was playing. When Hilts filled his straw with Coke and then deliberately released some of it on the table, Ted yelled at him. It was a strange kind of yelling; his voice didn’t get all that much louder, but he spoke through clenched teeth—his entire body was clenched—as if he were going to explode. The yelling was sudden and violent and it frightened Hilts. It frightened me. I halfheartedly defended the kid—I didn’t really think of him as my nephew; there wasn’t that kind of connection between us—and said, “Teddy, relax, it’s not a big deal.” Ted turned to stare at me, as if he were surprised that I had noticed what was happening on the other side of the table.

  Then Ted turned back to Hilts and changed the tone of his voice, cooing at him, using much the same tone and facial expressions he did when playing his guitar or showing his girlfriends that he cared about nothing but them. He’d seen Hilts shrink away from him, and he instantly switched from stern father to seductively loving protector. This happened three or four times during dinner: The kid would do something slightly wrong—he’d complain or squirm or whine or knock some string beans onto the floor—and Teddy would scare him half to death with his sudden temper. Within seconds, Ted would follow that up by stroking his son and speaking to him as if he were a little kitten, telling him how much he loved him. In front of Hilts, Teddy told me, “You know, I love him more than anything else in life. He’s the most important thing in the world to me.” Staring at me as earnestly as a person could stare. Then Hilts would take too big a gulp of soda and make some loud slurping sound and Ted would swat the boy’s hand, furious, and tell him to act like a fucking grown-up.

  Toward the end of dinner, Ted asked me to loan him some money. I was doing well, no question, but Anna and I were trying to save as much as possible, hoping to have a baby soon, hoping to take ownership of the brownstone as quickly as we could, dreaming of buying a small weekend house in the country. And I knew that money and Ted was a combustible combination. Over the years, he’d conned me plenty of times: ten bucks here, twenty dollars there, even a few hundred dollars when I was in graduate school. I’d never seen a penny of it once it left my hands, and I’d always felt too guilty to ask him to pay it back. Ted had a remarkable knack for making people feel that since they’d worked hard and earned something for themselves, they were somehow obligated to share their success with him—the guy who tried so hard but couldn’t ever earn something of his own. Only recently had I come to realize that he didn’t really try hard to earn his own reward. He worked hard at making people want to give him things so he would never have to compete in the real world.

  All that is by way of saying that instead of just telling him, “Sure,” I asked how much he wanted.

  “How much will you give me?”

  It was awkward. I didn’t ask what the money was for. It didn’t really matter: It was for Ted. It was for Ted to live like Ted. All sorts of things flashed through my mind. I remembered going to the movies with him when I was ten years old; I could feel his sixteen-year-old hand holding mine. Now I looked for some sign of that sixteen-year-old. I couldn’t tell if it was there or not.

  I knew Anna would kill me, but after a moment I said, “I can let you have five thousand dollars. But it’s a loan, right? I mean, it’s not a gift. We should probably work out some kind of timetable for paying me back.” I thought my response sounded fairly adult and reasonable.

  Ted didn’t say anything.

  “I mean, let’s face it, Ted. I’ve given you money before but I never got anything back. I can’t afford to just give you five thousand dollars. I want some kind of assurance that I’ll get paid back.”

  This time the silence continued so long that it was unnerving. When Hilts broke the standoff by starting to say something innocuous, Ted practically spit the words “Shut the fuck up” at him. Hilts sniffled a little bit—it wasn’t a real cry, just the beginning of one—and Ted said, venomously, “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  Hilts bounced up from his chair as if he were sitting on a spring and sprinted away from the table, toward the front door of the restaurant. Ted went after him in a flash, almost knocking over our table, and caught his son before he got too far. Hilts let out a wail, a loud one, and I was certain that Ted was going to hit him. I was ready to jump up and stop him, though I didn’t know exactly how. What I did know was that I couldn’t just sit there and let him wallop the kid, not with the fury that was roiling inside him. But instead of hitting the boy, Ted grabbed him and hugged him and told him how much he loved him. He said all this in a soft, gentle voice, rocking his son slowly back and forth.

  When he was calm, Hilts said, sniffling, “You shouldn’t talk to me like that.” And Ted went, “Like what?” Hilts said, “You said bad words to me,” and Ted said, “No, I didn’t. I’d never say anything bad to you.” Hilts said, “But I heard you.” Whispering, incredulous, as if he had no idea where Hilts could get such an idea, Ted said, “No, you didn’t. I never said anything bad. I’d never say bad things to you. I love you. I love you more than I love anything on the planet Earth.”

  I wanted to say to Hilts, “Yes, he did! He said bad things to you! You’re going to go crazy if you believe what your father says instead of what he does.” But I didn’t. He was six years old. If I’d said those things, he would have thought it worse than his father telling him to shut the fuck up.

  Within several minutes, Ted had the boy back at the table, giggling and happy—genuine giggling this time, no worries about what anyone was thinking. Ted was telling him silly jokes and laughing along with him. At one point he looked up and saw me watching. I was half-smiling at the fact that they were liking each other so much—and half-looking as if the world was melting right in front of me.

  Ted announced that it was time to go. Hilts stood up, took a step away from the table. Ted leaned over to me and in a calm, rational voice said, “Good night. And fuck you. I don’t want your money. I fucking hate you. You’re a selfish prick, and I hope someday you have to go crawling for something you need so someone can tell you to go fuck yourself.”

  I was so stunned at the contempt dripping from his words that I could barely speak. “I didn’t tell you to go fuck yourself,” I said. My voice was high and whiny. I’d become ten years old again. “I said I’d give you money.”

&n
bsp; “I hate you,” he said a second time. This time it came out as a hiss. The pain radiated through his voice so powerfully that I couldn’t focus on the fact that I was the target of his hatred. “I hope you understand that. I hate your fucking guts.”

  “What?”

  He repeated himself, this time very slowly and deliberately: “I … hate … your … fucking … guts.”

  “Those are bad words,” I said. “Or are you going to lie to me, too, and pretend you didn’t say them?”

  The demons that lived inside Ted came very close to erupting. For a second or two—it seemed like an hour or two—I thought he was going to pick up a knife and stab me in the neck. His face turned red and a blue vein in his forehead throbbed. I did nothing. Just stared at him. I don’t even know whether I would have protected myself if he had really come at me violently. But he didn’t. He was a tormented soul, and one of his torments was that although he lacked the self-awareness to understand his distorted desires, he had just enough restraint (and lack of courage) to be unable to act on them.

  That was the end of it. After some serious chest heaving and facial contortions, he and Hilts simply left. I sat there for a few moments, not knowing whether I was angry or guilty or horrified or depressed or overwhelmingly sad. I sat there until the waiter came over and handed me the check.

  When I got home, I crawled into bed next to Anna. I told her what had happened.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You don’t deserve that.” Then she looked into my eyes, saw what she saw, saw what was inside me, and said, “Don’t let him make you think you deserve it. That’s what he does. Don’t let him do that.”

  “I don’t know. I think I do deserve some of it. You didn’t see him. He was in so much pain. I’m so good at taking pain away from cocker spaniels and Maine coons. I just don’t know what the hell I can do for him.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Or what I could have done. Should have done. I don’t mean tonight—I don’t know, even tonight. But mostly in the past. Over the last few years. I had so many opportunities to be kind, and I wasn’t. Tonight, I could have just given him the money.”

  “No. You’re not rich. And you work all the time. You work hard for your money. You don’t owe him.”

  “It’s not a question of owing. I give money to strangers on the street, to homeless people. Teddy needed help, and I just let him slip away.”

  She shook her head, almost angry. And she just kept saying, “You don’t deserve that. You’re not responsible.”

  I kept saying, “Maybe, but I feel responsible. You didn’t see how unhappy he was.”

  “That’s the thing about people,” Anna said. “Sometimes they’re just unhappy. And sometimes they hate other people just for not being unhappy.”

  She was right, of course. Intellectually, I understood. But sometimes the brain just can’t impose itself on the heart. I’ve watched people talk to their pets when those animals were in physical agony—bones shattered after being hit by a car, limbs swollen by cancerous tumors, flesh torn and hanging loose after being bitten and clawed. They tell their pets that everything will be all right, that the doctor is going to help, that they will soon feel better. They talk soothingly, as if the animals will understand. But animals only understand that there is pain or no pain. If they feel no pain, they don’t fear that it might surface or reappear. If they do feel pain, it overwhelms them because they don’t know that someone is capable of easing their misery. That’s what Ted was like that night. He saw nothing but his own pain. All he wanted was for it to stop, but I don’t think he saw any way of stopping it. All he saw was a chance to spread the pain to someone else—to me. Maybe he thought that spreading it around would diminish it, would banish whatever was chewing him up inside. Or maybe he just wanted someone else to feel what he felt. That deliberate spreading of one’s pain: That’s purely a human trait.

  Anna and I talked about Ted and Hilts and families and happiness until two in the morning. When I finally felt calmer, she touched my arm and told me that she hoped we would have a baby more than she’d ever hoped for anything. She said she knew that what I’d seen tonight between parent and child could never happen to us. When I asked how she could be sure, she said, “Because of you.”

  It was the only thing in the whole world she could have said that could have made me feel better. And I said, “No. Because of us.”

  When we made love under the blankets, I felt whole again.

  * * *

  Over the next few years, we didn’t have a child, although we sure tried.

  Toward the end of those peak years of mine, Anna did finally get pregnant. But we lost the baby.

  And there was more.

  Between the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-two, I found out that love, no matter how strong and how sincere, is never easy. Sometimes it makes sense; other times it makes no sense at all. Sometimes people do good things for people they don’t know and to whom they have no personal connection. Sometimes people do bad things to people they love. Sometimes it takes years to create an experience that lasts only a glorious few seconds. Sometimes it takes seconds to destroy something that was created over many years.

  Let’s see. Am I leaving anything out?

  Oh yeah.

  During those five years, my life got turned upside down, ripped wide open, and torn apart.

  Signing that long-term contract doesn’t guarantee success. It just means that sometimes someone’s paying you to fail until the contract ends.

  * * *

  From the New York Daily Examiner:

  ASK DR. BOB

  Dr. Robert Heller is one of New York’s leading veterinarians. He is the author of two books about taking care of pets, They Have Nothing but Their Kindness and More Than Human, and is a regular on the Today show with his weekly segment, “The Vetting Zoo.” Dr. Bob takes care of cats, dogs, horses, birds, snakes, turtles, frogs, small pigs, snails, fish, and many varieties of rodents. You can e-mail him at AskDrBob@NYDE.com and ask him any question about the animal you love. His column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays in NYC’s most popular newspaper.

  Dear Bob:

  Recently, my cat, Ralph, died. (Yes, I read your columns; I’m not afraid of using “died” or “death” or “dead.”) I’m not ready to get a new cat. I understand all the arguments for getting one, but damn it all, I’m not ready. Though I am not enjoying my grief, I do need to carry it around with me for a while before I release it. But I’m not writing to you for advice on a replacement cat. I’m writing to you because I’m going through a very weird psychological adjustment and I’m not sure how to deal with it. Or even if I can deal with it. I mostly want to see if I’m alone in feeling this way or if it’s a common experience. Ralph used to sleep on top of me, either on my chest or on my knees. Sometimes, especially in the summer, he’d decide to sleep right next to me instead of on top of me. But he was always touching me. I could feel his weight on me when I went to sleep, and I could feel his weight on me when I woke up. If it wasn’t direct weight, he’d be leaning against me and I could feel this very definable pressure on my side. I grew to love that feeling—and now that Ralph is no longer around, I miss it beyond description. It’s almost painful, like an ache, although I suppose it’s the exact opposite of that—it’s a void. I haven’t slept through the night in weeks; I feel too light. I feel something missing that’s preventing me from having peace. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Any comments? Thoughts? Recommendations for a good psychiatrist?

  —Weightless in Seattle

  Dear Weightless:

  I do indeed know what you’re talking about and feeling. Pet weight—the simple name I’ve given to what you’re describing—is one of the most delicious feelings in the whole world. The weight of your animal on top of you or against you is like an extraordinary security blanket. When Ralph slept on top of you, it was as if he was protecting you, and yet, at the same time, you felt as if you were there to shi
eld Ralph from any harm. You could touch him and feel his heart pumping, feel the breath going in and out of him. You could stroke him and pet him and feel his warmth. And you knew how good your touch felt to him. It conveyed your love. And your touch received his love, carrying it back to you. Yes, pet weight is an extraordinary feeling, and its absence can be overwhelming. It can feel as if you haven’t just lost your pet but your sense of safety. In some ways you feel as if you’ve lost your entire world.

  I guess I don’t write the typical advice column. I don’t feel that I’m capable of giving advice about this kind of loss. What you’re describing is not just losing a pet or a loved one. It’s losing a crucial piece of yourself. Is that normal? I don’t know. I also don’t know how many people share the kind of love you and Ralph had. For those who do, yes, I suppose that feeling of tremendous loss is normal. Is it better not to feel it? Only you can answer that. At times you will almost certainly feel that the answer is yes. You’ll wish you’d never experienced pet weight because then you wouldn’t be aware of its absence. On the other hand, you’ve lived through something very special. The real question you’re asking, if you’re asking a question at all, is, Will I experience that again?

  I like to think so, Weightless. I hope so. I don’t know if pet weight is really replaceable. You will just have to see when you get your next pet. Good luck in the night.

  —Dr. Bob

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6

  ANTOINE LEFEBVRE

  Antoine has two poodles, two white mice, and a snail. I swear. Sometimes he brings the snail, named Speedo, in for a checkup. He makes an appointment, tells Lucy on the phone that he thinks Speedo seems a bit lackluster—again, I swear this is true—and Lucy will book him, making sure we fit him in almost instantly because she knows that my examination of Speedo will take, tops, three minutes. My exam is almost always exactly the same: I pick Speedo up, put him in my palm, observe him closely for a moment, and then tell Antoine that everything is fine. One time Antoine said to me, a bit peevishly in his thick French accent, “Doctaire ’eller, you do zees every time. You look at Speedo for perhaps two seconds and tell me he eez okay. Don’t you think you should really examine heem? Poke or probe or geev heem a shot or somezing?”