Say Nice Things About Detroit

by Scott Lasser

  “What happened to my papers?” he yelled.

  Cory sat up. “There was an accident.”

  “They’re ruined!”

  “We put them back,” Cory said.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been working on that project?” He moved closer. That’s when he noticed the puzzle on the coffee table; from the box he could see it was of the famous Escher sketch of hands drawing each other. The puzzles were Julie’s idea, something she and Cory could do together. Cory loved piecing together the picture, often begging his mother to join him. David moved forward and pushed the puzzle slightly, so that a small portion of the exterior—they’d fitted all the straight-edge pieces together—spilled onto the carpet.

  “Dad!” Cory yelled.

  “You like that? You’ve been working on that and then someone just wrecks it?”

  Cory moved to the puzzle, but David pushed him back on the couch, surprised after it happened at just how easily the boy had been propelled backward.

  “Dad, don’t.” Cory charged again and David reared back and hit him with a roundhouse right.

  He’d used an open hand, thank God, but the blow still sent the boy flying back to the couch and brought Julie running from the kitchen. Cory was crying. Through the tears he managed to yell, “What are you doing?” Julie jumped in with the same question. David let loose a tirade. He stopped talking midsentence. He watched his wife comforting his son, and then he heard a noise. He’d forgotten about Adam, who was cowering in the reading chair. When David saw the frightened boy, he also saw himself: an angry and bitter man incapable of enjoying the gifts before him.

  This was the last week of his son’s life, and David realized later that he would spend all the rest of his days wishing that he could change what had happened. That night David apologized to Cory, said that he wished he could take it back, and the boy just shrugged, as he did the rest of the week, avoiding his father whenever possible, not speaking to him. In fact, the last thing David remembered Cory saying was what he’d said that night on the couch:

  “God, Dad, you’re a jerk.”

  II

  CAROLYN SAT IN her office and studied the pamphlet. “Risk Factors for Older Mothers.” A man must have picked that title. Having a baby at any age was risk enough. She was probably fourteen weeks pregnant.

  Carpenter stuck his head in the office. “We gotta make a move,” he said. There was a meeting downtown. He was a beefy guy in his thirties, newly married, first kid on the way. She pitied him.

  “Ready in a sec,” she said. “Meet me in the lobby.”

  She knew she’d keep the baby: the thought of ending the pregnancy was worse than the thought of ending her marriage. Marty wasn’t going to raise another man’s child; he barely raised his own. In any case, she didn’t want him involved. They’d already agreed to two weeks of keeping up appearances for Kevin and then deciding on a course of action. She was interested to know how Marty would decide, but deep down she knew she was already gone. She’d find a way to make it up to Kevin, and maybe one day he’d understand.

  She pictured Carpenter pacing downstairs in the lobby, hands locked behind his back. She picked up the phone and called David.

  “I’m in agony without you,” he said when he picked up. Just like that, off the cuff. He was good. It was easy to see what her sister had liked about him. “Come back,” he said.

  “I’ve got a meeting,” she told him.

  “Carolyn, you won’t take my calls, won’t talk to me, then you call up to say you’ve got a meeting?”

  “I’ll call back,” she promised. “But I can’t really talk now.”

  • • •

  SHE FELT THAT if she had to stop her car on the freeway she’d spontaneously combust. The 405 looked paralyzed, so she drove north on Sepulveda. Sepulveda wasn’t much better, but at least it gave the illusion of progress. Marty had a dinner, so she would spend the night with her son. Once she was sure Kevin was asleep, she’d call David from her cell phone.

  Her gas gauge was tipping far left by the time she got to Sunset, so she kept going up to the Chevron at Moraga. The station was filled with cars, and except for an Escalade, not one of them was American. It was as if American wasn’t cool. She waited for an open spot at the pump with her windows down, the late afternoon sky bright, the air warm. It was November. She said this to herself aloud. “November.”

  Finally a spot opened up. She was sticking the accordion nozzle into her car when somebody called her name. It was Jonathan, Marty’s best friend, a tall guy who was fastidious to the point of crazy—hair always just so, shoes always shined, nothing but belts and tucked-in shirts. He drove a black Mercedes.

  “I’m sorry to hear that you and Marty are having trouble,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “If there’s anything I can do,” he said.

  “What, Jonathan? What could you possibly do?”

  He looked as if his feelings were hurt. He was forty-seven years old and had never married. He dated. He was apparently straight. He ran a real estate company. Women desperate for male company went on dates with him and refused to see him again. Those who gave him a second chance always retreated. He was the most boring man Carolyn had ever met, this guy, her husband’s best friend. Sometimes, in retrospect, it shocked her how little attention she had paid to the major decisions of her life.

  “I’m just saying,” Jonathan said.

  “Believe me, Jonathan. There is nothing you can do.”

  His face hardened. “What did Marty ever do to you?”

  “Exactly,” she said, and turned away.

  Soon she was fighting her way east on Sunset. It was a good question. What had Marty ever done to her? Nothing. She’d done it to him. It was all her fault. She saw it clearly, not that it mattered. It was like a car wreck: everyone paid.

  • • •

  “HAVE YOU EVER thought,” she asked Kevin when she got home, “about what it would be like to live somewhere else?”

  “Like where?”

  It had been a quiet evening—pizza for dinner, an hour and a half of TV—and now it was late and she was sitting on the side of his bed. “Move over,” she told him. “Let me lie down.”

  She lay next to him, on top of the covers, which was how it was now. “Like somewhere other than Los Angeles,” she said.

  “Why would we do that?”

  “I grew up somewhere else.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. You might like growing up back there, where Grandma lives.”

  “It’s all right, but I live here. My friends are here.”

  “You wouldn’t even consider it?” she asked.

  “Mom, what is going on? Have you and Dad decided we’re moving?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” he said. “ ’Cause I like it here.”

  She wanted it to be easy, and it wasn’t going to be easy. She felt exhausted just thinking about it.

  “Mind if I lie here a minute?” she asked. When he was little, she would lie with him and they would fall asleep together.

  “I guess, Mom, but I have a hard time falling asleep with you in the bed.”

  “You do?”

  “You take up too much room,” he said.

  • • •

  SHE MADE A glass of tonic water, something to soothe her stomach. She should never have asked Kevin. You didn’t ask your children where they wanted to live, you told them. When had parenting become a game of deference? Kevin would adjust. Kids always did.

  She finished most of her drink, topped off the glass, and called David from her cell phone. She was leaning on the kitchen counter, its granite the color of slate. He answered on the first ring.

  “I don’t like it that you’re living with your husband,” he told her.

  “That’s a ridiculous thing to say.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s the truth.”

  “You’re jealous?”

  “Of co
urse,” he said. She felt a jolt, a flush in her cheeks. Jealousy was supposed to be an ugly emotion, and maybe it was, but she thought it an honest one.

  “How come you’ve never had children?” she asked.

  “I have,” he answered.

  A son, who’d died in a car crash. As he told the story she heard the agony in his voice. It embarrassed her, how easy her life was. How could she feel sorry for herself for being pregnant when this man had lost a child? And here she was, carrying his child.

  “I’m very sorry,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Really, Carolyn? I don’t like to talk about it.”

  She hung up and decided she would go back home. She couldn’t stay in L.A., keeping up appearances, walking around divorced and pregnant with another man’s child. She could be close to David. Tell him the news in person. However he reacted, she’d get through it. She’d be home, and when you had to start over, that was a good place to start.

  III

  MONDAY MORNING HE was watching the snow flurries dance outside his office window when he got a call from Shelly Burton. “Listen,” she said. “You bought a house yet?”

  “I’m renting.”

  “How’d you like to buy mine?” she said. She named a price. It made him consider the house. Even in Denver it would be four times what she was asking.

  “That’s all you want?” he asked.

  “You’re a hell of a negotiator.”

  He didn’t know what to say.

  “Welcome to Detroit, Mr. Halpert.”

  “I guess I should come out and look at it.”

  “Come by four,” she said, “before it gets dark.”

  The wood and copper alone had to be worth what she was asking. More important, he liked the home, the feel of it, the stained wood that gave off an air of permanence. Still, the house was inside the city limits of Detroit, and thus in a black neighborhood. This would put off most white people; it was one of the reasons the house was so cheap, which for him made it all the better. He liked the idea of doing what others wouldn’t.

  • • •

  HE WAS DRIVING up Livernois when his dashboard started ringing. It was Julie calling. They hadn’t spoken in a couple years.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi, David. How are you?”

  “I’m well. You?” They’d been married fourteen years. It always struck him as odd, because he couldn’t say that he missed her, just that he missed being married. For a long time he felt it was the one thing he’d gotten right, but then, after Cory’s death, it fell apart. He didn’t blame her. They’d made a good run at it, but, after Cory died it didn’t work anymore. Hearing her voice was still difficult.

  “I’m in Denver,” she said. “I know it’s been a while, but I’m going to visit Cory and thought maybe you’d want to come with me.”

  Cory was buried in a cemetery on the west side of Denver. David had chosen the spot because it was close to the mountains. For a while he’d gone there once a week, then once a month, and then less often. He learned there was no comfort in it.

  “I’m in Detroit,” he said.

  “Oh, too bad. You visiting your folks?”

  “Actually, I moved here.”

  “You what? No way.”

  “Way,” he said.

  “Wow. You going to get a job back there?”

  “Already got one.”

  “Well, I bet your parents like having you back.”

  “They seem to,” he said.

  “Wow, David. I wouldn’t have guessed Detroit.”

  There was a long silence on the line.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she told him. “I know you think it was, but you’re wrong.”

  “I’ll try to believe you.”

  “I’m sorry I missed you. Maybe next time.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed.

  • • •

  HE HAD TO admit it was a beautiful home. He’d loved the bookcase-lined living room that he remembered from his one visit. There was also a separate dining room, a large kitchen with a walk-in pantry. A wide front staircase grew right out of the large foyer. Upstairs were three bedrooms and an office. There was a guest bedroom downstairs on the main level. The master bathroom was bigger than David’s office at work, with a new glass-enclosed shower but also a free-standing claw-footed tub, something out of an earlier, more prosperous era.

  Cory, he thought, would have loved this place. He would have sprinted across the vast wooden floors downstairs. He would have slid down the wooden banister, then jumped two-footed into the entryway.

  “It’s beautiful,” he told Shelly.

  “You’d be the only white person on the block,” she said. “Besides Mr. Belinski.”

  “Who’s Mr. Belinski?”

  “Some old white guy about two hundred years old. Fifteen years ago he killed someone breaking into his home. The shots woke Dirk up. He went there, helped him.”

  “Some neighborhood.”

  “Been no trouble since, even on Devil’s Night,” Shelly said.

  Devil’s Night was the night before Halloween. For years people had been setting houses on fire, just to watch them burn. Things were calmer now, but the whole thing shook your idea of how the world worked. It wasn’t the Vandals or the Goths sacking Rome, it was as if the Romans were doing it.

  His cell phone rang again. He excused himself and walked down the hallway. It was Carolyn. He knew because he’d programmed a special ring for her. “Hey there.” He tried to sound happy that she was calling, which he was.

  “I thought you should know I’m coming to Detroit for Thanksgiving,” she said. “And I’m spending the week after.”

  “Great,” he said. He wanted to ask whether he could see her, but he didn’t.

  “I’m bringing Kevin, my son. Going to my high school reunion.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “You sound weird,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in your brother’s house.”

  “Why?”

  “I might buy it.”

  “You must be out of your mind.”

  He admitted that she might be right.

  IV

  SOL GOT THE call a little after four in the afternoon. He was in bed, reading. It was one of the joys of retirement, never being needed at four in the afternoon.

  “Mr. Halpert, this is Jerome Stith from Orchard Grove. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”

  Sol immediately knew it was serious. Usually he got calls from one of the Jamaican women. He loved the song in their voices as they gave him updates on Trudy. If it was a financial matter, he heard from a woman with the hard consonants and short vowels of his native city. Hearing from a man was a first.

  “Mrs. Halpert has been taken to the hospital. She had a fall. It’s quite serious.”

  He called David, but the kid was down in Detroit, it was rush hour, and Sol didn’t want to wait at home for forty-five minutes to get picked up. And so he drove himself, once he’d brushed his hair and put on a pressed shirt and clean socks. At the hospital, he found Stith waiting outside Trudy’s room, wearing a dark suit, like an undertaker. Sol’s wife was unconscious, with a bruise on the left side of her face. She had a hairline fracture in her hip. The galumph had fallen on Trudy. None of the staff had actually seen it happen, and neither Trudy nor the galumph could remember the details. One of the other inmates said the galumph had tackled her.

  “Tackled?” Sol asked. “What do you mean, tackled?”

  “No one really knows what happened,” Stith said. “All the witnesses are advanced Alzheimer cases.”

  Sol fumed, looked to Trudy, back to Stith, then back to Trudy again.

  “Can I have some privacy?”

  Sol heard Stith’s retreating footfalls as he moved to the bed. He stood looking at her until David arrived. He studied his mother and then leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. Sol realized it had never oc
curred to him to do that. He thanked God David was home.

  “Should we sue the home?” he asked David. They were sitting by Trudy’s bed, watching her sleep. A curtain separated her from the other patient. Sol spoke softly, not wanting anyone but David to hear him.

  “You’ve got a case, perhaps, but I don’t know what you’d get.”

  “Satisfaction?”

  “I doubt that, Dad.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “I think he tackled her.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I Googled him. He played defensive end for the Lions in the fifties. My guess is that he tackled Mom to show off for her, or just to get her approval.”

  “That’s insane,” Sol said.

  “It’s what men do,” David said.

  V

  CAROLYN SAT AT one of the outside tables at the Starbucks on Beverly while around her the citizens of Beverly Hills went about their Saturday morning routines in Mercedes, BMWs, and Lexuses. It was a little after ten, and already seventy degrees.

  She had just dropped Kevin at soccer practice, after which he was going to Bobby Keane’s house for the day and a sleepover. Marty was playing golf. It was wonderful to be alone, surrounded by strangers, to sit in the sun and sip a mocha and not have to be anywhere.

  Still, she noticed that her pants were tight. Just that week she’d had amnio; she expected the main results by Tuesday. She’d also requested a paternity test.

  “You’re not sure who the father is?” the nurse asked. The woman seemed scandalized. Probably they didn’t get many of these in Beverly Hills.

  Carolyn was standing at the check-in counter. Now she leaned forward and spoke softly, so as not to be heard in the waiting room. “I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  The nurse raised her eyebrows.

  “But I need to be sure,” Carolyn said. She handed over Marty’s toothbrush. There was an outside company that did the paternity test for seven hundred bucks. They promised results Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Then she’d know for sure, though she really knew already.

  • • •