Trouble

by Jesse Kellerman

  “Of course not.”

  “You’re my client. I’d never disclose anything. But I think they should know.”

  “With all due respect, Chip, that’s the worst idea in the world.”

  “As a father, I can tell you that any initial worry is nothing compared to what you feel when you find out your kid’s been keeping something from you. You start wondering about all the other things they haven’t told you.”

  “I’m twenty-six.”

  “I’m saying, is all.”

  “Help get her off my back and they never have to know about it.” Having unburdened himself, he was starting to relax; and now he wondered if he’d blown the problem out of proportion. He said, “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Don’t tell the police that,” Belzer said. “Not if you want to get any help.”

  “If there’s a way to fix this without getting them—”

  “Kiddo. Where you coming from? First you call me up like a madman, now you tell me it’s not a big deal. Either it is or it isn’t.”

  Jonah was silent.

  “I understand that you don’t want to run yourself into the ground. But you gotta tell me: you want to take steps to stop this or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then fine. I’ll give her a call, make lawyerly noises. That’ll send her packing.”

  Jonah shook his head. “Sure.”

  “If it’s a big deal, we’ll take care of it. If it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal. Either way you’re gonna be fine. I’ll call you in a few days. Have a good Thanksgiving, my love to everyone.”

  “Okay.” Jonah hung up. The ward flooded back into his consciousness: agony, futility, fury. He straightened his tie and went back to work.

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2004.

  INPATIENT PSYCHIATRIC SERVICE, WEEK THREE.

  His mother pretended not to care that he couldn’t come home early.

  “We’re happy to have you at all,” she told him. “Although you did promise.”

  “I said might. I have to work.”

  “What time is your train?”

  “I’m taking the ten twenty-three.”

  “Tonight?”

  “A.M. Ten twenty-three A.M.”

  “Oh.” His mother sighed volubly.

  “Cut that out.”

  “I’m allowed to sigh,” she said. “Someday soon you’ll sigh, when your children would rather work than spend time with you.”

  “Mom—”

  “Sometimes I cry at night, thinking about how empty my nest has grown. I weep and weep…there’s water damage in the master bedroom.”

  “Maybe if you made Peking duck I’d come home more often.”

  “Touché, my lovely son.”

  He smiled nervously. His heart was beating too fast. He glanced at the window near the fire escape, where stood the upended sofa, filmy bottom facing him, the whole shebang buttressed with chairs and his nightstand. As a finishing touch he’d pushed the dining-nook table over and weighed it down with all his books. If nothing else, he’d created a psychological deterrent. “I get in at eleven. Are you going to pick me up?”

  “Someone will,” she said. “I’m not going to promise it’ll be me. I don’t make promises that I can’t keep.”

  • 23 •

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2004.

  THANKSGIVING.

  HE ALMOST MISSED the ten twenty-three. Nightmares kept him up until three, and when he finally sank under, he slept deeply, knowing he did not have to get up for work. He hit the snooze button four and five and six times. When the radio announced it was 1010 WINS News time nine thirty-six, he grabbed his backpack and a bottle of wine and flew down the steps, and hailed a cab trundling sadly up 14th Street.

  “Grand Central, please.”

  “Tucky day,” said the cabbie.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You gwan to eat tucky today.”

  “Uh—sure. You?”

  “Yyyuh.” The cabbie winked at him in the rearview mirror, put in an earpiece, and began a rapid creole patter.

  The train car he picked had a smattering of people spaced two and three rows apart: a ruddy girl in a Barnard sweatshirt; a lady in stretch pants clutching a snakeskin bag as though it had previously attempted to escape; a youngish guy in a trenchcoat and Timberlands, thumbing a portable video-game console. Apparently, most good children had kept their promises to their mothers and gone home yesterday.

  The ticket taker wished everyone a happy holiday. When he came to Jonah, he motioned to the wine and said, “Personally, I prefer Chianti, but you shouldn’t have.”

  Manhattan devolved into the Bronx’s moonscape. Somewhere out there—beyond donut shops, concrete crapstacks, discount-furniture warehouses, incomplete urban renewal, unrestored parks—lived the Iniguez family. Were they celebrating? Did they have a turkey? Did they plaster paper pilgrims to the insides of their windows? Did they say grace and go around the table praising God for another twelve months of His Mercies, all the while cursing Him silently for taking their Ramón? Did they pray that Jonah Stem, medical student, superhero murderer, a grainy newsprint face, would die violently? Did they know he was on a train? Did they chant let it crash let it crash? Did they cry into their stuffing and accept one more beer than usual?

  Overtired from excessive sleep, and generally morose, he got out his headphones and MP3 player, and spun the dial to a Dire Straits album.

  From the adjacent car came a tall, well-groomed man wearing a fitted gray suit, a dark coat slung over his shoulder. A pink necktie poked from his briefcase like an earthworm. It was his brother-in-law. He collapsed into the empty four-seater across the aisle and instantly fell asleep.

  “Hey.”

  Erich opened an eye. “Oh. Hello.” He appeared to be calculating the necessity of cordiality. He scooted over one seat. “I didn’t see you.”

  “You can sleep if you want.”

  “No, I shouldn’t. I will when we get home.” As usual, Erich gave the impression that he considered chitchat a waste of oxygen. He gestured around as though pointing out the majesty of their surroundings. “We’re on the same train.”

  “We sure are.”

  Jonah couldn’t remember the last time they’d been alone together. He guessed it was his sophomore year, shortly after the engagement, when—acting on Kate’s orders—they went out for a drink. He recalled the conversation as one of his Top-Five Most Strained, a real achievement considering that he had almost two years of George Richter’s Awkward-palooza under his belt.

  They had jointly improvised a comparison of American and German soccer culture. Erich asked twice whether Jonah owned a tuxedo or would have to rent. Jonah squelched his need to wipe away a fleck of foam caught in Erich’s goatee.

  As they neared the bottoms of their mugs Erich said in an offhand way There’s an opening in my department. A beginner’s position but with the potential for upward mobility. His pinched mouth became a manhole when he smiled. You could work near me. It would be fun.

  That’s an idea Jonah said.

  Clearly, this was Kate’s doing. Jonah didn’t want a finance job; Erich didn’t want to give him one; and yet, out of respect for her, they sat there taking the idea seriously, giving each other nods of encouragement, two atheists planning Mass.

  Actually he told Erich I’m going to medical school.

  Oh? I didn’t know you had done the preparatory work for that.

  I’m taking the classes.

  Erich said In Europe people commit to their future careers at a much earlier age.

  Then I’m glad I was born here.

  Since siring Gretchen, Erich had made scant effort to get simpatico. He didn’t have to: his place in the family had been fixed. Dropping a kid was dropping anchor.

  HE UNWOUND HIS scarf and waved at the window. “IN Germany, I enjoyed rail travel. The trains there are clean and convenient. When I was a teenager we used to tour the countryside or go to see the castles in Bavaria
. Once I left my radio on the train. Two days later, on our way back to Berlin, I returned to the station. They had my radio waiting at the front desk.”

  “Wow.”

  “American trains, however, are another breed. My commute has erased all the joy. Every morning I go from car to car, looking for one that doesn’t smell like someone pissed on the seats.” He folded the scarf and laid it across his lap. “Your mother told me you were coming home yesterday.”

  Your mother and your father; never Mom and Dad. Erich thought it silly to pretend to be their son when he wasn’t. It drove Kate bonkers. While initially Jonah had taken offense, too, he’d begun to see things Erich’s way. A little distance seemed fitting.

  “I had to work,” Jonah said.

  “Ah.” That appeared to close the subject. Jonah moved to replace his headphones when Erich pointed and said, “May I?”

  Jonah handed him the wine.

  “It says here,” Erich said, “that this vintage has affinities with poultry and fruit.” At some point during the last five years he’d rid himself of the goatee, with the effect of widening his wide smile. “Well chosen.”

  “I try.”

  “I will never get used to the idea of American Thanksgiving. In Germany we have a similar holiday, but it’s not the elaborate production that your mother makes.”

  “Few Thanksgivings are.”

  “My grandparents took me to church on Erntedankfest. I haven’t been for years.”

  “To church?”

  “Kate and I are raising Gretchen to find her own beliefs.”

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that later in life.”

  “How’s school?”

  Jonah was glad to have a conversation this boring; it restored his sense of order. “Fine, thanks.”

  “Have you been in the papers recently?”

  Jonah smiled. “Not recently. Work?”

  Erich shrugged. “Oh, you know. Busy. I slept at the office. I haven’t had a bath in two days. We have showers there but I can’t stand them. It’s a brutal life, be grateful you’re going into something calm.”

  Jonah wondered if his brother-in-law grasped what he did all day. He said, “The night before Thanksgiving? Aren’t most things closed?”

  “Not the European markets. Not the Nikkei. You think too provincially, Jonah. That’s not how business is conducted these days. These days, the whole world is trading, night and day, nonstop. If I wanted to live in the office I could. As it is, I’ve slept there several times in the last few months.”

  “That must be rough.”

  “Quite. You’re listening to music.”

  Jonah handed over his headphones.

  “I like it,” Erich said. “Is this new?”

  “Not so much.”

  Woodlawn the conductor called out. Woodlawn Station next stop.

  “All right, Jonah. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to rest my eyes. Shake me when we get there, please.”

  As he began to snore, it occurred to Jonah that their talk had been unusually jocular. Evidently, the holiday spirit had gotten into him.

  LIKE A BLIMP he thought. Like a blimp, or a watermelon, or a woman pregnant with triplets. Huge; much bigger at six months than she’d been with Gretchen. She met them on the platform with two bouquets of flowers, waving as she shouted their names.

  “I wondered if you’d run into each other,” Kate said, grabbing Jonah. “Poor Erich’s been away forever.” She turned her attention to her husband. “Are you okay? You must be so tired. I missed you. I love you. My back hurts.”

  They climbed into her blue Mercedes. Kate explained that she’d been contemplating getting a more practical car—a tanklike mommy-van—but was reluctant to abandon the sedan, “the last vestige of my independence,” she explained gloomily. Its cream leather interior presented well, though Jonah could detect traces of chemically removed baby food. He sat in back, his arm nestled inside a carseat redolent of animal crackers and apple juice. “You look great, Katie.”

  “Why thank you. I have the glow of motherhood. Isn’t that right, honey?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Erich thinks I should be a maternity model. One of those women who does ads for big clothing. I wouldn’t mind having my picture taken, but I wouldn’t want to have to stay skinny while pregnant. It’s bad for the baby. Movie stars, starving themselves. Have you seen some of these women having babies? Honey?”

  “It’s not healthy.”

  “Celebrities shouldn’t have children, it’s not their job.”

  When Kate made a pronouncement, Jonah tended to believe it. He’d always thought of her as impenetrable, and found it a discomfiting inversion of his worldview that he’d ended up as Superman instead of her.

  “Mom said that you—aharggh.” Kate rooted in her bag for her ringing phone. “Honey, can you please—thank you. Catherine Stem-Hausmann. What’s up. I thought I told them not to p—He said what.”

  With one hand she held the phone; the other hand alternately tended the steering wheel and punished it for the sins of other drivers. From Kate’s remonstrations Jonah gathered that someone had bought something long after the correct time to buy had passed. She demanded to know why Jonathan and Stuart hadn’t asked David F. and David M. about scraping together cash from…His sister appeared to be the sole female involved in these transactions, and Jonah had to admire the way she roared It’s your job, not mine! before hurling the phone down and reaching to stroke Erich’s sandy cheek. “You look so tired.”

  “I could do with a nap.”

  “Did you sleep on the train? Jonah, you have to tell Erich to sleep more.”

  “Sleep more,” Jonah said.

  “There, hear that? The doctor has spoken.” Kate glanced over her shoulder. “People in the office asked me if I was related to you. You’re famous.”

  “Hardly. Thanks for the flowers.”

  “Yes, they’re delightful,” said Erich.

  “Really? Not too girlie? I wanted to get you each a present, but I couldn’t think of anything. Next time I’ll buy you weights or single-malt scotch. For now you’ll have to make do with flowers. You’re sure they’re not too girlie?”

  “Not at all,” Jonah said. “Uh—Kate.”

  “What. Oh.” She swerved to avoid a cat. “That’s okay,” she said. “I’m allergic to them anyway.”

  Jonah’s mother, aproned, met them in the driveway.

  “Did you kill anything?” she asked Kate.

  They exchanged kisses as though they didn’t see each other twice a week. His mother drove to Greenwich to babysit so Kate could get to the office. If he knew his sister, she’d work until her water broke. Jonah wondered if she’d bothered to lie down while giving birth to Gretchen. Like a peasantwoman squatting in the field.

  “How thoughtful,” his mother said, taking the wine. “Thank you. To the manor?” She clasped Kate by the arm and escorted her up the gravel walk.

  Erich looked at Jonah as if to say Women.

  And Jonah thought Women I love.

  Photo collages lined the entry hall: Kate and Jonah sledding, Kate’s high-school graduation, Jonah in lacrosse uniforms. The entire family in Paris, posing by the base of the Arc de Triomphe. Gretchen had a collage to herself, hung near the painted folk-art umbrella stand that stood sentry over a line of galoshes and duckboots.

  The last one in, Jonah lingered to watch their three forms, bejeweled by light percolating through the transom: his mother, waiflike, her pinned hair puffing flour as she shook her head in response to a question; his sister, waddling mightily in defiance of gravity; and Erich, broad, Teutonic, handsome.

  Jonah longed to be part of this wholesome scene, but he felt too sullied: by sex, by sickness, by death. He bore the mark of trampled innocence.

  He closed the door quietly and left his backpack in the hall.

  He wandered into the living room, picking up and discarding myriad magazines before finding one he’d never seen before: Americ
an Photographer. He deduced that his father had gone on an enthusiast’s kick.

  Muffled motherese squeaking through the heating vents; the satisfying slap of a butcher knife crushing garlic; the drone of the den television left viewerless. He put his feet up on the coffee table, clicked on the brass reading lamp, and paged through the camera magazine, enjoying pictures and ignoring captions.

  His father appeared on the second-floor landing. “Welcome home.”

  They met on the stairs and had an off-balance hug before proceeding to the kitchen, where his father took a bottle of Pellegrino from the over-full fridge and dipped his finger in a bowl of cranberry sauce.

  “Steve.”

  “I’m tasting it.”

  “You can taste it during dinner.”

  “Needs sugar.”

  “Thank you, Interfering Man. Leave the kitchen.”

  Jonah followed his father back upstairs, fielding rapid-fire inquiries about life in the clinics. Steve Stem asked questions efficiently and in sequence, as though he’d written them out in advance.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he said as Jonah described vending-machine lunches. “Although we didn’t have a Student Wellness Committee.”

  His father’s cardiology practice belonged to a private doctor-run collective, a no-insurance-taken attempt to cut out the middle man. A hundred physicians and an equal number of nurses worked out of a sleek building forty minutes north of Scarsdale, catering to upper-income families, including that of a former President of the United States. He missed the bustle of the down-and-dirty, though, and since Jonah had started medical school, an element of professional camaraderie had colored their talk.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I was working for this fellow, Brooks.” They followed the well-worn Persian runner that stretched the length of the second-floor hallway. “I was an intern. We were called on a woman whose EKG had started to act up. He takes one look at her and says, ‘Digitalis, immediate delivery.’ Then he gets paged and leaves, and I do as I’m told. Five minutes later another cardiologist, Ragolonsky, a South African—good doctor—shows up. ‘Everything’s under control,’ I tell him, very proud of myself. ‘Digitalis IM.’ Well, he goes ballistic. As it turns out, she’s seriously dij toxic. The shot I gave her is basically going to kill her.”