I Don't Have a Happy Place

by Kim Korson

  “Moe is a bastard,” he said, whizzing by me when I opened the door for him.

  “Not today, Daddy.” My mother was by the window, outlining her lips with fuchsia pencil, filling in the rest with Pepto-pink lipstick, the same shade she wore fifteen years ago when I was in high school. It was rare to see her apply makeup in public. Mostly it was done behind the closed bathroom door, her version of Superman’s phone booth. In all my years, I had never seen her undecorated or undressed. I have never really seen her.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, if you think I am going to talk to him in this lifetime, you got another thing coming.” Grandpa Solly followed my mother, hands in his pockets. He jangled quarters and those generic stripey mints, the same ones he’d toted around when I was a kid. He didn’t say much but you could always hear him coming, like a janitor. He was also carrying a small duffel bag that appeared to hold a change of clothes.

  “Jesus, Daddy,” my mother said. “Your teeth are going to crack in half.”

  “Well, if they do,” he said, “I’m not going to that dentist of yours. Son of a bitch will soak you for all you’re worth.”

  My mother tsked. “Fine. Just get dressed.”

  “I am dressed. Nothing wrong with these trousers.”

  “Mom would have wanted you to wear your navy suit.”

  “That’s your story,” he said, walking away toward the wall of glass windows. He stared out onto the city, carrying on with the pocket rumpus. I wasn’t used to Grandpa Solly talking back to my mother—or, really, talking much at all—but I’d heard my father say something about how he’d recently wandered in off the street to an assertiveness training course at the Jewish Y, which may have had something to do with his new behavior. Plus his wife was dead.

  There were laugh-track sounds from the den, where Ace and my father were on the couch together, dressed in dark suits, very busy staying out of things. Grandpa Solly walked into the guest bathroom and locked the door. I could swear I smelled cigarette smoke. My mother made phlegmy sounds, then snapped her hairsprayed helmet in my direction. “Why isn’t anyone ready?”

  “You have lipstick on your teeth,” I said.

  • • •

  “I go down to that McDonald’s on St. Catherine. About six in the morning,” said Grandpa Solly, returning from the bathroom. He smiled and I saw that one of his teeth was missing. One near the front. “I walk or take the bus. Sometimes I ask the paperboy to drive me. I have coffee and talk to the guys.”

  I wondered when my grandfather got “guys.” Grandpa Solly wasn’t a guy’s guy, but more of a sit-with-the-ladies type. He could spend hours at the little shopping center near their apartment, sitting on a bench, reading circulars or staring out the window while my grandmother picked up her watch from the jeweler or the latest hardcover from the public library located upstairs. She’d bring him Styrofoam cups of coffee with eight sugars from the PIK-NIK and ask him how he was doing. “Fine and dandy,” he’d say. “Fine and dandy.”

  Imagining him talking to the guys seemed inconceivable, as I could count the words he’d uttered in my lifetime. When calling our house, he’d say, “How do you do? Let me get Pearlie,” as if we’d called him. He was her built-in studio audience, even near the end, when her brain frazzled and I’d sit on their salmon-colored velour couch for an hour as Grandma Pearlie asked me when I was heading back to New York on a continuous loop. In groups his silence was even more pronounced. At holiday gatherings, he was unapparent, remaining mum and seated as the coffee and cookies were served, not leaving the table with the other men to watch the game, even when Zaida Max asked him where his dress and pocketbook were.

  It’s possible there were guys at one time, eons ago. Grandma Pearlie’d often told of being taken to the Yangtze on Saturday nights for egg rolls and chicken chow mein, then back home to a running gin game for the men, while the wives played bridge and drank coffee. There were eight gin players, including my grandfather, but I knew they’d all died, and Grandpa Solly brought the same box of chocolate to all seven shivas, referring to himself as the Last of the Mohicans.

  Perhaps there were work guys. Back when he stood at the far reaches of the old-timey pharmacy, beyond the soda fountain and under the sign that said PRESCRIPTIONS. With a cigarette stuck to his lips, he filled customer orders, calling out their addresses or phone numbers when they walked in instead of their names, every one of which he knew by heart—his parlor trick. He’d bring home boxes of Turtles and an assortment of bars, because Grandma Pearlie preferred chocolate—candy and ice cream and brownies—to food. There was always candy on hand at the apartment, but it was usually squirreled away in cupboards and cabinets, and I’d spend all my time there on a scavenger hunt with no clues.

  Mostly what I knew about my grandfather were the things that concerned me; the other Solly facts were murky and would surface only as time moved on. Although his last name was showcased in giant neon letters over the front window—SEGAL’S REXALL DRUGS—it never surfaced that the store belonged to one of his brothers, one who put him through pharmacist school in exchange for over thirty years of service but refused to give him a piece of the business. If there was hostility, I never saw it or heard it mentioned. Sometimes what went on in my family was cloudy and the list of what wasn’t talked about lapped what was. This aggravated my prying nature, or perhaps ignited it. Here I was thirty years old and couldn’t bring myself to ask my mother why she chose the coffin any more than I could ask my grandfather what was going on with the new personality.

  “How do you do?” Grandpa Solly said.

  “Oh, you know” was all I could manage.

  Grandpa Solly leaned in toward me, smiling like one of those mustachioed cartoon villains. “Did you see Moe the bastard?”

  Grandpa Solly laughed and, jangling his pockets, meandered to the glass entrance doors to stare out the window, full of pleasant beans.

  • • •

  People picked their seats like they were going to a movie. Some knew exactly where they wanted to sit, while others whispered in the aisles, deciding. My parents and brother sat in the first row, next to Grandpa Solly. In a move that will endear Buzz to me for life, he pushed me again, but this time into the row behind my family. I didn’t want to be tucked into the first row, with direct access to my grandfather’s face, even if he wasn’t crying but, rather, humming, as if he were at the circus.

  The rabbi walked onto the small stage toward the Box. Lacing his small pale fingers together, he welcomed us in a girlish voice. When he started comparing my grandmother to Rebecca from the Bible (neither of whom he’d ever met), I tuned out, counting backward from ninety-six slowly, like I do when I can’t sleep. I kept my eyes forward, not looking behind me to see if the rows were filled. I knew I couldn’t handle it if the place wasn’t sold out. What if only a handful of people show up to your funeral? That leather guest book peacocking in the vestibule, a wink reminding me that my own funeral would definitely be one of those Mary Tyler Moore parties—a real clunker, where there is not enough food to feed the small group who bothered to show up. Seriously, people, I thought, stewing in my own juice. Would it kill you to come pay your respects? I died, for Christ’s sake. And it’s not like Buzz would do anything about it, except to say I didn’t even like parties, so what did I care? Screw all of you, I thought. Screw everyone. Except you, Grandma Pearlie. Please forgive me. Amen.

  The rabbi continued on about sunsets and lives lived.

  “Can’t hear!” shouted a voice. “In the back! Louder! We can’t hear a thing back here!”

  I could feel all heads turning to see where the voice was coming from but I knew exactly who was responsible for stopping the service. Zaida Max, my father’s father. He sounded pissed, too, like he’d paid for the good seats to see Fiddler on the Roof and got this.

  “Shit,” my father said.

  Zaida Max could be a prick, but he w
as also an orphan, so we let it slide. He was matinee-idol dashing and very alpha. At home, he had a personal lounger and no one could touch his television. Nana Esther would run to and from the kitchen for him, bringing plates of honey cake or dishes of ice cream. A Jewish Edith and Archie Bunker.

  The rabbi cleared his throat and raised the volume, back to our program already in progress. I continued counting but then felt bad for not focusing on my grandmother, so I moved on to my own reflections about Pearlie. How she had a certain smell—a mix of fresh lipstick and Kleenex. How tiny she was. Sitting together at Murray’s in a small booth as she ordered her egg salad on toasted rye with a cup of black coffee, followed by a single scoop of chocolate ice cream, preferably one that came in that little silver dish. That buzzy sound that happened in the back of her jaw, one that would drive me mental if anyone else made it. These were the things I’d have said if my mother had asked me to speak at the microphone instead of Ace, who became the official family eulogizer that day. I was fine with keeping my thoughts in my head, convinced that if I’d mentioned any one of those sentiments out loud someone would cluck a tongue because I was doing it wrong.

  Grandpa Solly leaned over to my mother. “You see Moe, over there? The bastard.”

  Even with her back to me, I could hear her say, “Enough, Daddy,” in a wait-until-your-father-gets-home tone. He laughed when she got mad. He sounded like Barney Rubble. He didn’t care what she said to him but I did. Why wasn’t she cutting him a break? He was staring at a shipping crate and she was scolding him. Let him act the way he wants! His wife is in a box!

  I might as well have been sitting on my water bed wearing an oversized Benetton sweater, the one with the giant B on the front, as I stared at my Richard Gere poster, plotting all the ways I could ruin my mother (this might have been the revenge portion of funerals I’d seen on the soaps). So what if I was thirty-one and sitting in a pew? I couldn’t help myself—it was bubbling out of me like apple pie guts stuck in an oven too long. I seethed at the back of her head, hating the architecture of her hairdo. I was mad that a monsoon could rush into the funeral home and her sculpted helmet wouldn’t know the difference. The outdated pink lipstick she still wore enraged me, the way it stuck to her teeth. I was pissed at her teeth.

  • • •

  “Very nice service,” said Grandpa Solly, as we sat in the limousine on our way to the grave site. “Too bad it wasn’t for Moe the bastard.”

  “Uch, Daddy, can we not talk about bastards right now? Can we just ride to the cemetery in peace?”

  Grandpa Solly laughed, watching the lampposts and cars go by as if he’d never been on a street before. “Would you look at all these cars. . . .” His foot was twitchy, he couldn’t sit still. “Why are we in this limousine? We could have taken my car.”

  “You haven’t driven in ten years,” my mother said.

  “So what?”

  “So, you don’t even have that stupid car anymore. You got rid of it ages ago.”

  “Then we should have taken the bus. Nothing wrong with the bus. What do we need to be fancy for?”

  Ace and my father were sitting in the little leather jump seats, facing the wrong way. We all knew my mother had to face forward in a car or she’d get nauseous. It did seem curious that a car from a Jewish funeral home had backward-facing seats when it was pretty standard that fragile constitutions ran rampant throughout the religion. The driver was a maniac, unable to handle the length of the vehicle. He was no stranger to the brake, and every turn he took caused my mother to squish into my leg.

  “You don’t take a bus to a funeral. Taking a limo is what you are supposed to do.”

  “Well, I sure as hell hope they aren’t soaking you,” Grandpa Solly said. “Never heard of having to ride in a car made for rock and rollers and bastards.”

  My mother closed her eyes, made tight little fists. I could see the belt on her men’s slacks moving up and down in quick spurts.

  “I mean, what are we trying to prove in this crazy car?” he said. “We shoulda gotten a lift from 68 Glenmore.”

  Ever the pharmacist, he called family friends by their address instead of their name. My mother made a whole host of phlegmy noises and Grandpa Solly hummed and smiled, asking Ace when he’d be heading home to Connecticut, and wasn’t it nice that he was able to make it back to Canada. My father rubbed his index finger back and forth over the knee of his crossed leg, Cartier bracelet clinking against the gold bezel of his Breitling watch. The driver was Mario Andretti all of a sudden, trying to make all the lights, shaking us up like cans of soda. Buzz zoned out.

  “Why did we take this dumb car?” I said.

  Buzz sighed. Ace and my father looked out the window.

  • • •

  As they lowered the box into the grave, I didn’t know where to look, so I called up some more obscure Happy Days episodes from the deep recesses of my brain. The one where Fonzie’s dog Spunky gets depressed. Richie Cunningham getting arrested for being the Kissing Bandit. Chachi setting fire to Arnold’s. Joanie leaving Milwaukee to tour with Leather Tuscadero. Inspiration Point. Mr. and Mrs. C. Ralph Malph. Potsie. Al. Rosa Coletti. Shortcake. Aaaaaay.

  And then, Grandma Pearlie was gone. The episode was over. The one where the grandmother dies.

  • • •

  We were stuffed into the elevator: my parents, Ace, Buzz, and I. Solly had strict instructions that he wanted no part of a shiva— “no deli meat or bastards”—and we were, instead, to “come up to the house.” At the twelfth floor, we filed out, and just like on every Jewish holiday I’d ever spent there, Grandpa Solly stood waiting for us at the end of the hall, outside his door, feet planted on the moss-colored nubby carpet, arms waving like we were a rescue plane overhead.

  “How do you do?” he said from his end of the hall, like we hadn’t just seen him. As if everything were normal. I almost expected Grandma Pearlie to be inside holding a just-set bowl of Jell-O with suspended grapes and pineapple cubes or exhaling smoke rings out the balcony window, even though she claimed not to inhale.

  “Okay, what’s he doing now?” my mother said.

  As I got closer, I noticed the telephone in the hallway. The green rotary phone sat by itself outside the door, as if it were being punished. Next to it was a bag from the A&P.

  “Daddy, why is the phone out here?”

  “I don’t wanna talk to that bastard.”

  I had no idea who this bastard was, if he was even real. I’d tried to get it out of my mother earlier but she was already at her limit with discussing Solly.

  “You have no idea what I’ve been dealing with,” she said to me before we left for the funeral home. “He’s on the streets all day. He’s been locking himself in my bathroom and smoking. He keeps denying it but I can smell it! And he looks like a rummy.”

  The rest of the group walked into the apartment, but I was locked on that phone. I loved its avocado color and the sandy noise it made when my grandmother placed her finger in the rotary dial, winding it clockwise, gracefully letting go. “Regent 9,” she’d say, then announce all the other numbers as she dialed. I couldn’t bring myself to step into the apartment. Instead I imagined what it might feel like to kick that phone. Really smash it down the hallway. Watch the spiral cord flail off in slow motion as it soared through the halls of the Belvedere. I would scream “Regent 9” as it crash-landed, making a muffled dying ring against the carpet. Any sound would have been better than the series of ticks and clicks I could hear coming from my mother, even while standing out in the hall. Uch. Tsk. Pfft. These were her noises. Her punctuation.

  I truly could not get myself inside. The spit-polished lemon floors and the freshly dug grave had nothing on walking into the small two-bedroom with the hidden candy and library books and the dull sounds of a baseball game on the transistor. I knew if I stood in the hall much longer my mother would come out and we’d
be alone and I’d have to be nice and have that One to Grow On moment she deserved but I could not give.

  So in I walked. For the second time that day, I was floored by what was in front of me. We all stared around the living room, not saying a word. You could have heard a brownie crumb fall to the carpet.

  “Take whatever you want,” said Grandpa Solly, delighted by his handiwork. “I have no use for any of it.”

  It remains unclear when he did this, but at some point in the past few days Grandpa Solly had managed to get down to basement storage and lug the plastic lawn furniture up to his living room. He’d found card tables and folding chairs and placed them around the room. Their couch was missing. Set on all surfaces were wedding china, glass bowls that used to house spaghetti and meatballs or that stuffed cabbage my mother liked, cookie sheets, brownie tins, Bundt pans. There were collections of straw, leather, and beaded handbags. Slippers, winter boots, and lines of shoes all in a row. Hangers perched on doorknobs displayed pants and raincoats. Decks of cards stacked the windowsills, pictures and ashtrays and necklaces piled on the one upholstered chair he chose to leave in place. Books remained on the shelves and art on the walls but there were pieces of scrap paper taped up all over the place, filled with scribbly handwriting and random phone numbers. We were in the middle of a freak garage sale.

  “What are you all waiting for?” said Grandpa Solly, like we were shy about digging in. “Start taking.”

  No one budged.

  “Daddy, this is ridiculous.”

  My mother had officially hit the limit with her father’s misbehavior, which was the only cue I needed to start shopping. Yes, it was disturbing—both this new shell he’d cracked out of and the death sale before me. But I still wanted something to take home. A piece of her. A souvenir.

  “Who needs grips?” he said, holding up a tattered suitcase. “Here, Kim, take the grips.”

  “Daddy, this is nonsense. She doesn’t need a suitcase. What is she going to do with any of this stuff?”