Dad

by William Wharton

  It’s weird seeing this counterfeit world inundated with thick, caking, beige mud, cracking in the sun like a Christmas tree in a trash can, tinsel still sparkling.

  We park close as possible and hurry in from under the heat. It’s well past noon. Lead-heavy sun is forcing itself hard into the tops of our heads. It must be a hundred or more in the shade.

  We walk into a sudden shock of cold. We tromp mud onto pus-yellow and blood-red carpets, on into the dimness. There’s the whir and tinkle of slot machines. There’s a refrigerated-air smell mixed with the heavy smell of perfume, money and fear. We’re wrapped in the cloying atmosphere of this warped, hopeful, hopeless world.

  We’re going to spend a buck in nickels each. Billy loses his in five minutes. He says the percentages against throwing in twenty nickels without a single payoff are astronomic, but that’s what he does. I only want to get through mine but I’m having the opposite problem. I’m soon to where I have over twenty bucks in nickels; my hands are full, my pockets bulging. I keep giving handfuls to Billy so he can lose them. I want to get the hell out. Something in me doesn’t want to win; I don’t want to take any of those nickels with me.

  But it takes an hour of hard work before we finally do it. We’d be down to ten nickels and I’d hit another jackpot. Bells would ring and girls dressed like twirlers would come over to help me! Thank God, Billy’s having such awful luck or we’d still be there, pumping machines with bloody hands while slots spat nickels.

  We go out in the heat and drive on, looking for something to eat. We both want a Mexican restaurant for our last Western tacos, but settle on a place called Pizza Hut. We go in; more air conditioning; checkered tablecloths. We split a pitcher of beer and have a pizza each. I’m beginning to feel I just might, at last, be getting away; going home.

  It’s past three in the afternoon when we roll again. We’re pushing to make Zion. I know a good motel there, right at the opening to the park. But I make a mistake between Zion and Bryce. We drive through my place and it’s eleven o’clock before we get to Bryce. There are no restaurants open and we can’t find a motel. I’ve really screwed us up royally but Billy isn’t complaining; not out loud, anyway.

  Finally, we find a small bar, just closing up. The counterman makes us pork sandwiches with mayonnaise. He serves us a beer each. This guy also phones some cabins in Bryce and there’s room. One of the great things about traveling is you find out how many good, kind people there are.

  We drive up into a wooded area, right in the park; the cabins cost fourteen dollars a night. I take a shower, hoping it will calm me. I’m jittery, nervous. I have some Seconal but I won’t use it if I don’t need to. I have Valium, too. I’ve gotten to be quite the pill freak from this whole experience. I’d never taken a tranquilizer or sleeping pill in my life before.

  I lie back and decide to give myself an hour. If I’m not asleep by then, I’ll do something. That’s the last thought I have.

  2

  It was just after New Year’s Day and we were down at the moulin for Christmas vacation.

  The moulin is an old water mill we bought ten years ago and fixed up. It’s in an area of France called the Morvan. We spend most summers and other school holidays there.

  We were having unusually warm weather for winter in that part of the country, so I’m out painting. I’m wearing three pairs of socks and gloves but it’s good painting light. There’s something special about painting landscape in the cold when it isn’t snowing. The colors are toned down, muted, and the forms are much more visible.

  I’m on the road out to the woods where Billy built his cabin. There are beautiful views from there toward our village, with rolling hills behind. There’s a pair of tall poplars closing the left side and a spreading linden leaning over a road twisting under on the right. I’m doing a horizontal composition on a size 25 Figure, about two feet by three feet.

  The weather’s warm enough so the paint doesn’t thicken but I’ve turned cold, so I’m packing my way in for some vin chaud. I have the box on my back with the canvas strapped to it. I’m lazing along, pretending I’m walking into my own painting, when I see Jacky, our youngest, running up the road toward me. He has a blue paper in his hand.

  I recognize it, even at a distance, as a French telegram. They write them in longhand so they’re almost impossible to understand. I’m old-fashioned enough so a telegram starts my adrenaline going, especially in this deep country. I’m feeling open, vulnerable, there’s nothing to prepare me.

  I put down my box. Jacky’s wearing boots and a jacket with a hood. He ran out without buttoning his jacket.

  “Daddy! Mommy said, ‘Give this to Daddy.’ “

  He hands me the telegram. I hug him and button his jacket. I really don’t want to open the damned thing.

  Jacky doesn’t ask to look at the painting. None of our kids are interested in my work. It’s as if I work for IBM. It’s what Daddy does. He puts a wooden box on his back, goes out and paints pictures for money.

  I pick up my box and we begin moving toward home. The ground’s hard but there’s no ice. I open up the telegram; it’s from my sister.

  Mother had a serious heart attack

  stop can you come stop love Joan

  Well, that shakes me. In her special way, my mother has always seemed so indestructible.

  When we get back to the mill, I show the telegram to Vron. I sit down but I’m not hungry. It’s obvious I must go back. Joan is not a panic type. If she says it’s serious, it is.

  With Vron’s help, I start packing. She’s so calm, so reassuring; definitely the cool head in our ménage. I’m still not believing what I’m doing. I’m going to be leaving all this quiet beauty. Within a day I’ll be in Los Angeles, in Palms, on the dead-end street where my parents live. I try to be calm, try not to frighten Jacky. I tell him his grandmother’s sick and I must go see her. It’s hard for an eight-year-old to comprehend what it means. He has no idea how long I’ll be gone; neither do I, for that matter.

  Vron drives me to the train for Paris and I catch an Air France flight direct to L.A. Eight hundred and fifty dollars for a twenty-one-to-forty-five-day excursion ticket. Excursion, hell! But it’s significantly cheaper than a regular ticket.

  I’ve telegraphed from Paris, giving my flight number, so when I step out of the plane, Joan and her husband, Mario, are there.

  We pile my things into their VW camper. Joan and Mario always drive either a camper or a station wagon; they have five kids. We’re pulling up onto Sepulveda when Joan starts telling me what’s happened.

  She came over to see Dad and Mom but they weren’t home. She took the opportunity to vacuum and wash some windows. Then she began to worry. They’re probably shopping, they don’t go much of anywhere these days; but it shouldn’t be taking so long.

  She drives over and finds them in the shopping mall. Mother is sitting on a bench next to the Lucky Market, white-faced. Dad, not knowing what to do, not believing what’s happening, is packing and unpacking groceries in the trunk of the car.

  Joan’s frightened by the way Mom looks. She drives them home in their car, leaving hers in the parking lot. At the house, she tells Dad to put the groceries away and rushes Mom off to the Perpetual Hospital. Mother doesn’t want to go. She’s a hypochondriac who likes doctors but doesn’t like hospitals.

  At the hospital they spot immediately she’s having a coronary crisis. They rush her into an intensive care unit and plug her onto monitoring systems, IV, oxygen; give her tranquilizers, blood thinners.

  On that first night in the hospital, she’d had the big coronary. If you must have a coronary, an intensive care unit is a good place for it. They tell Joan it was massive and if she’d had it outside the hospital, she’d never have survived. The final tests aren’t all in, but they’re sure she’s lost a significant part of her lower left ventricle.

  Well, she isn’t dead, but it doesn’t sound good.

  We go directly to my parents’ house. One reason J
oan wants me here is to look after Dad. She seems more worried about him than Mom. I’m the same. I don’t know why we both have this feeling Mom can always take care of herself, but we do; it doesn’t make sense. It’s probably only a defense.

  Dad’s standing at the screen door waiting. I’m sure he’s been getting up and looking, every time a car’s come near. We shake hands; men don’t hug in our family. He isn’t crying but his eyes are filled with tears and his face is yellow. He’s nervous and his hands are shaking.

  He sits down in his platform rocker just inside the door while I carry my bag into the middle room down the hall. He seems much frailer than the last time I saw him. It’s been almost two years. He doesn’t look particularly older, or even thinner, only less vital.

  On the way, Joan said I should make as little of Mom’s attack as possible because Dad’s scared out of his wits. So we have a glass of that crummy muscatel my folks drink for wine. They buy it in gallon jugs, then pour it into a fake crystal bottle. It’s part of Mother’s effort toward elegance. It’s not bad if you’re munching on a toasted cheese sandwich, but God, it’s sweet as candy. If you don’t like wine it’s fine, somewhere between cream soda and a Manhattan.

  We sit there. Dad still hasn’t been to the hospital; Joan told him there were no visitors allowed. So when I leave, I sneak out the side door and ease my parents’ car out of the patio. It’s a 1966 Rambler, and has all of twenty-five thousand miles on it. Here’s an eleven-year-old automobile in showroom condition. They keep it covered with plastic; even the seat covers are plasticized. It has air conditioning, a radio, power brakes, power steering, the works. It’s like stepping into the past when you drive this car. It drives smooth as hell with automatic drive and is heavily horsepowered for a small car. Dad bought it, when he was still interested in cars, as his final, retirement automobile. He made a gamble on this one, and it’s been a real winner, simple classic lines, square back.

  At the hospital, in the lobby, a nice woman tells me how to find intensive care.

  Most likely, nobody ever gets used to hospitals, or is comfortable in them, except perhaps doctors or nurses. The vibes are all trouble: pain and death.

  But this hospital is somehow different, modern. There’s carpeting, and Muzak playing everywhere. There’s no hospital-white-tile-and-shiny-waxed-floor feeling. It doesn’t even smell like a hospital; more like a Holiday Inn. Even the elevator: little ding when you get in, self-operated; Muzak. Muzak on every floor, same soothing music playing all the time everywhere.

  Following signs, I work my way to the intensive care unit. At the desk I identify myself, ask if I can see my mother. They tell me she’s very sick and can’t take excitement. I tell them I’ve come all the way from Paris. There’s a brief conference; it’s decided I can go in but must be very quiet.

  I move softly past rows of cubicles. Everybody’s plugged in and taped up, most of them unconscious. This is truly the final stop before the grave, the modern version of an Indian dying house.

  I don’t know what to expect; even without heart attacks people change tremendously in two years. It’s always a shock to see somebody this age after some time has past. I know we’re all changing, the kids, Vron, me; but we see each other so often we don’t notice.

  I look in and there she is. Probably, since I was a kid, I haven’t seen Mom in bed. I left home for the army at eighteen, and before that I don’t think I ever went into their bedroom, at least not after I was ten. Now I see her there, bed tilted, oxygen tube up her nose, all the monitors, IV, catheters. There’s a computer readout screen over her head showing an ongoing cardiograph, there’s also a little red dot indicating her pulse with a digital readout. She looks like a failed astronaut.

  She’s a greenish-white color and her eyes are closed. Her face is a mask.

  It’s a strange thing about Mom’s face. It has all the lines and marks of her past expressions, most of these negative. There are hard traces of suspicion, strong lines of dissatisfaction and complaint. They’re deeply incised, even in repose. At the same time, there’s something young about her. She keeps her hair tinted toward black and her hair is husky, hard, thick. So different from Dad. His face is smooth, satin smooth, his hair only white tufts over his ears.

  Mother uses a medium amount of makeup, not exaggerated for a woman seventy. She’s never looked her age. I look at her, even here sick, maybe dying, and she doesn’t look much over fifty-five.

  I sit down in a chair beside the bed and watch the machines trying to tell me what’s happening. I know they have monitors out there in the central nursing station. I wonder what would bring them rushing in.

  I watch the pulse rate and it’s up to 87 down to 83, up to 92. I never knew the pulse varied so much. Could it be because of her heart?

  I’m staring at the screen and more or less inside myself, when I hear her voice.

  “You did come, after all. I must really be sick.”

  This’s classic Mom. First, recrimination, doubt I’d come; second, self-pity. I lean down and kiss her on the turned cheek.

  “Oh, you’re not so sick, Mom. I came for something else anyway.”

  What a stupid thing to say! She might be half dead, but nobody could fool my mother that easily. A person who’s suspicious even about truth is hard to fool.

  “Don’t kid me, Jacky.”

  She closes her eyes, then slowly begins her dramatized version of the heart attack. She ought to write soap operas. She can make almost anything interesting and gives herself terrific starring roles.

  “Daddy didn’t know what to do…. I’m staying alive by willpower, telling Daddy it’s only indigestion. I’m praying to Saint Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases, when Joan comes in the nick of time and saves my life.”

  She grudgingly gives this to Joan, then takes it back by saving the McCarthys, her side of the family, are always good in emergencies, while the Tremonts crack up. Thank God, Joan has good McCarthy blood.

  Now there’s the scenario about what the doctors have told her. If they talked to Mother as much as she says, she couldn’t find time to sleep and nothing else in the hospital would get done.

  And they’re all so impressed with her strength; she has the willpower of somebody half her age. Mother probably considers this an insult; nobody half her age has her willpower.

  But she does admit she’s scared.

  Next we start the planning, stage-managing.

  “Don’t say anything to Daddy about a heart attack! Just tell him it’s something with my ‘insides.’

  “He’ll understand that, Jacky, because I had the hysterectomy. You tell him it’s only something went wrong with my ‘insides.’”

  She likes that idea.

  “And whatever you do, Jacky, don’t mention cancer, you know he’s scared to death of cancer.”

  I don’t know what cancer has to do with the whole thing but I nod. I’ll talk to Joan and we’ll figure how we can handle Dad. There’s no way to keep it from him that Mother’s had a heart attack. Having a heart attack is not like having a hysterectomy. When you’ve had a heart attack, even if you survive you’re a coronary patient for life.

  But there’s no sense saying these things to Mom now. I stay on for a while and watch. She drifts in and out, sometimes thrashing in her sleep. Once, she pulls off the monitor and three nurses come dashing in. Boy, are they ready for action!

  Mother is an extremely active person, even in her sleep; she’s nervous and moves quickly. The nurse tells me it’s the fourth time she’s torn off the monitor. This time they do everything but nail it to her arm; gluing and taping from elbow to wrist. The IV tube is another whole problem.

  When I leave, I’m surprised I don’t feel any tendency to cry. Mostly, I feel discouraged and peculiarly restless. Seeing her down that way is like looking at an old, familiar tree that’s been struck by lightning and is stretched across the path.

  I go back determined to put on the brightest face possible. In our family my ro
le is the joker, the comedian, the clown.

  I know what’s expected; you get a feeling for a role like this. I park Dad’s car up the street, then walk to the house. Usually we park this car on the driveway or in the patio. Dad meets me at the door.

  “Where’s the car, Johnny?”

  “Well, Dad, I visited the hospital. When I got there, Mother was all packed, ready to go. The doctor said she ought to take a vacation and rest up, so she’s on her way to Palm Springs. I gave her the car and took a bus back.”

  Now, this is cruel. Dad’s believing me. He’s glad Mother’s well, but he’s crushed she’s going to Palm Springs without him. Joan pushes past me and looks down the street.

  “Jack, you’re impossible! The car’s right down there, Dad. You have a real screwball for a son.”

  It gets us past the hard point anyway. I have some time to pull myself together.

  The TV’s on and I settle onto the gold chair, Mom’s chair. They’re watching a game between the Angels and Oakland. Oakland’s winning, of course. Dad realizes I’ve been to the hospital and he’s trying not to make a big thing of it.

  “How’s she look to you, Johnny? Does she seem all right?”

  Then, with hardly a pause.

  “When’s she coming home?”

  “She’s fine, Dad, but she’ll be in the hospital for a while. She said to say hello and sends you a big kiss.”

  He doesn’t ask what’s the matter with her. I don’t think he wants to know. I look over at Joan on the couch and she puts her finger to her lips.

  We watch silently. Oakland’s ahead by five.

  Joan stands quietly, points to the first back bedroom and leaves. I think it’s called a back bedroom because it’s behind the living room, kitchen and bath; she means the side bedroom.

  There’s another bedroom further back; the real back bedroom. This house is built in an L, the bottom part facing the street. This is the living-and-dining room. The long part of the L extends on the left toward the rear, with a patio on the right. Along this are the kitchen and bathroom, back to back; the middle, or first “back” bedroom, then the real back bedroom at the end of the hall. Actually, there’s another bedroom in the garden; this is sometimes called the back bedroom, too. My folks’ house has three back bedrooms, no other kind.