Something more was going on here than what I was seeing and hearing. I’d never heard Dad talk about his childhood much, and whenever he did, I always tuned him out after a minute or two. Same thing with Mom. After all, I was young—what the hell did their childhood memories have to do with me?
“One day,” Dad continued, “I’d had a real good month and so Mom gave me an extra nickel, I thought I was King Midas or something, even bought myself a couple of comic books—I bought a little penny bag of dog scraps from one of the restaurants after I got out of the movie, decided that I was gonna make that old hound dog’s day. So I walk over to that corner and the three old guys are there and the dog waddles over as usual and boy, did it get lively when it saw what I had for it. So I fed it the scraps and petted it for a little bit, and that’s when I noticed that somebody’d stapled this plastic blue tag to the back of the poor thing’s ear. I figured maybe the dog catcher had caught it or something and maybe they did this down at the pound before the old guys came to claim it—but I couldn’t imagine anyone doing something like that to an animal. So I was extra nice to the dog that day and decided to walk it back across the street and say hello to the guys.
“We stood there talking for a few minutes and I finally got around to asking them whose dog it was, and you know what? It didn’t belong to any of them. They said that it had just always been there, and that it had waddled up to each one of them at some point and that’s how the three of them had met. After that, they sort of saw that dog as their good-luck charm, so they didn’t think they should send it away. None of ’em had any idea how that tag got there, either. I thought that was odd but I didn’t want to push the subject and maybe get them mad at me, so I asked ’em how long they’d been coming downtown on Sundays. And you know what one of them said to me then? He looked at me and shook his head and said: ‘Christ, boy! We come down here every day. We’re in our eighties—everybody else we know’s dead. What the hell else have we got to do?’
“I went home that day and cried myself to sleep. It was just terrible. Here I’d spent all this time thinking they were having a grand time, and all the while they were miserable. I didn’t go by that corner much after that. It must’ve been five, six months later before I passed by there, and this time they were all gone. There was only that old hound dog, just as friendly as ever. I think it even looked better in some ways; more energetic, and its eyes weren’t as bloodshot and droopy anymore. But it was just sitting there, scratching at that tag on its ear and waiting for the old guys to show up. It was still sitting there waiting when I left to go home and—”
And then Dad did something I’d never seen him do before; he dropped his head down and started crying. Even from where I was standing, I could see the way his body jerked and shuddered with the sobs.
Mom made a move to go to him but then thought better of it at the last moment. I wanted to call out “Give him a hug!” but I didn’t. I was as stunned and confused as she must have been.
“Oh, God,” said Dad, wiping at his eyes, but still the sobs kept coming. “I hate to get up in the mornings. You know? Some days I wish I didn’t have to get up at all, that I’d never have to get up again, ever. Just lay there and stare at the ceiling until … I don’t know what.”
“Honey, what’s going on?” Mom moved closer to him, but still would not touch him, as if she were afraid he might shatter into a thousand pieces.
“I wish I’d been a better soldier in the war, come home a hero like Sergeant York or something. But, no, I gotta go and get all shot up and now I’ve got a bad hip and two legs that get all swoll-up on me until I can’t hardly stand it hurts so much. I wish I’d been able to afford college, get me a degree in agriculture or something. We’d be on our own farm right now, one we own, and we’d be raising chickens, all of us. Instead we got this damn house that ain’t even paid for yet and ain’t gonna be anytime soon, and all I can do is drink until my hip or my legs don’t hurt so much ’cause I can’t afford the doctor bills anymore … then I yell at you and him and make everyone scared.” He pulled in a deep breath full of snot and regret and wiped at his face again.
“I see the way he looks at me sometimes. He looks at me just like people used to look at those old guys on the corner when I was a kid. Like I’m some kinda joke. I don’t want to be a joke to him, some worn-out old man who don’t know nothing but factory work, and I don’t want to be a bad husband to you. But every time I get up in the morning, every time I haul my fat ass out of bed, I think about them old guys. I can’t help it. Because they might not be down on that corner anymore, but I know—as sure as I know that a man’s hands weren’t meant to be as scarred and calloused as mine are—I know that them old guys and that dog are still out there somewhere, and they’re still sad and lonely and miserable and people still make fun of them and one day that’s gonna be me, if it ain’t already. An old, drunk joke of a factory worker that’ll be forgot about an hour after he’s dead. I know this. And when I die, that old hound dog’s gonna show up on that corner again and sit there waiting for me. I’ll sit there on them steps with it and wait for it to drag over the ghosts of other guys who bungled everything and—what the hell am I going on about? Listen to me, will you?
“Oh, Christ, honey, I’m so sorry. It’s just I think about them guys and they way they were and I get so … scared.”
Mom went to him now, kneeling beside him and taking him in her arms. “It’s all right, honey, shhhh. There, there. It’s all right.”
“I love you. I don’t much act like it most of the time, but I do.”
“I know, shhh, c’mon.”
Still, he wept, pressing his face into her shoulder. “I wish I’d given both of you a better life, that’s all.”
“You’ve given us a good life, and that’s enough.”
I couldn’t watch any longer; I was an intruder, a spy, a voyeur, so I turned and left them there, a silhouette against a closed window, two people I now knew I’d never really known at all, a tableau frozen in the shadows: husband and wife.
God, how I wished that Beth and I would someday love each other like that.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself crying as I got back into bed. I’d found out more about my parents in those few minutes than I would have ever found out if it’d been left up to me. What did their memories mean, anyway? Who cared about their hopes? I was young and had better things to busy myself with.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of myself right then. I had never stopped to think that maybe it was important to them to share things like this with me, so that I might keep some small part of them alive after they were gone. Here is one of my best moments, would you keep it safe for me? Here is the dumbest thing I ever did, remember it for me, please? This was your great-grandmother, try to keep her in your thoughts.
It suddenly occurred to me that Mom hadn’t told Dad that I loved him, too. Had she been too caught up in comforting him to remember? Did it just slip her mind or—
—or was she as uncertain about it as Dad seemed to be?
There was such stillness in that room, and it found its way into the center of my chest, whispering of a man’s anger at seeing himself as being less than he really was; of a woman’s need to give comfort even if it meant making herself vulnerable to that anger; of a young man’s (really still a child in many ways) need to understand why he’d never seen them as being anything other than keepers and providers; and, most of all, in the stillness of the center, there in that house with its chronic angers, in that room, a final whisper from some dimly remembered poem about love’s austere and lonely offices.
I told myself that I would find a way, a right time, a good moment to let him know that, yeah, I thought he acted like a son-of-a-bitch sometimes, but that I understood why a little better now, and that I loved him. Loved them both.
I drifted off to sleep to find myself on a downtown corner, and here was an old hound dog waddling up to meet me. I looked around to see if I could spot the little boy
who would grow up to be my dad. I wanted to say hi, and to thank him.
Shortly after my nineteenth birthday, the Cedar Hill Healthcare Center fell into some financial difficulties—I never understood the specifics—and had to make some cutbacks in personnel. Luckily, Mabel wasn’t among those who were laid off, but the woman with whom she often carpooled was among those let go. As a result, I began taking her to and from work, which was no burden; for one thing, I liked Mabel very much; for another, on those nights when she worked both the units and cafeteria, it was easier to just stay over at the house with Beth (the CHHC was only a fifteen minute drive from Beth’s house, thirty from mine). Any excuse Beth and I could find to be alone (excepting for the Its, who soon learned that once that bedroom door was closed, it wasn’t opening again anytime soon) was welcomed.
No, we weren’t a couple—not publicly, anyway. Beth still went through relationships like most people went through tissues during allergy season, but during the frequent “breaks” in her love life, whenever we were alone, there was no such thing as “hands off.” Even then I suspected that it was all going to break my heart in a major way sometime in the future, but when you’re a teenager it’s a lot easier to convince yourself that you’re made of sterner stuff than you really are.
So I willingly became Beth’s “fuck-buddy.”
It wasn’t just the sex—though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that was a factor—it was the companionship. I don’t know if that’s something a lot of people under thirty ever really grasp—it doesn’t have to be the naked, sweating, rolling, groaning, shrieking do-me-do-me-do-me christ I’m-gonna-come routine all the time. Sometimes just sitting next to the person you love and watching a movie on television while their fingers brush lightly over the back of your hand is infinitely more satisfying, simply because they get you; they know that this twitch means one thing and that little shiver something else; they can tell by the way you clear your throat that you’re about to laugh, or that when you stretch your neck to the left and no bones crack it means you’re anxious about something: companionship.
Beth was splendid company. Even after she disappeared, the memory of those nights of doing nothing—watching television, listening to records, sorting through grocery store coupons, clipping one of the Its’ toenails—made me smile.
And to a large extent, I have Mabel to thank for that—if I hadn’t been the one driving her to and from work, I never would have truly understood that sometimes tenderness marks you far deeper than passion can ever dream.
Usually I’d get to the nursing home a few minutes before Mabel’s shift ended and would wait in the cafeteria area, or chat with whomever was working the station while Mabel made her last rounds on the unit. The people there began to recognize me after a while, and by the time I turned twenty my presence there at the end of Mabel’s shift was something of an evening staple; if I were even five minutes late, both eyebrows and questions would be raised: You don’t suppose he forgot, do you? It’s just not like him to be late, is it? Doesn’t seem right, not having him around at this hour, huh?
Because I always used the same entrance and took the same route to Mabel’s unit, I always passed the same doors. Most nights these stood open (a closed door, I came to find out, meant only one of two things: fast asleep, or dead and waiting for the funeral home to pick up the body) and I came to have “on-sight” relationships with some of the residents. You know the kind: pass the same person at roughly the same time often enough over the course of a day or a week or month and you both become something of a fixture in the other’s life, even if you never speak or learn his name. Nine-fifteen, time for Mr. Pickup to saunter by my door. I wonder if he’s going to wear the leather jacket tonight or that gray windbreaker. Let’s see, where is he? Ah, here he comes. Hmm. The windbreaker tonight. Good choice. Seems like he’s in a good mood—maybe he got some earlier. Looks like a nice young man, though. Time to wave to him.
The flip side to this was Mr. Pickup unintentionally made himself an expected part of the Door People’s routine; the woman in 106 who blared Later with Tom Snyder from her television set just couldn’t enjoy the second half of her program unless I stopped to hear her comment on how awful it was that they had to have so many gosh-darned commercials on these days; the two sisters in room 112 just had to know how the weather was tonight, and had I heard anything about tomorrow’s forecast?; the silver-haired guy whose wheelchair was always parked near the vending machines would not—repeat, not—pop open his evening soda until I passed by so he could lift the can in my direction and say “Salute, my boy!”; and the two old farts in 120—who for some reason called me “Captain Spaulding”—could have their evening ruined unless we ran through the same shtick:
Old Fart #1: Here comes Captain Spaulding!
Old Fart #2: The African explorer?
Me: Did someone call me “Shnorer?”
Them: We weren’t talking to you!
Followed by uproarious laughter from them.
(Hey, I never said it was a clever shtick.)
One night I had the mother of all sinus headaches and passed by their room without so much as a glance. I heard one of them start the shtick—“Here comes Captain Spaulding!”—but was well past the room before his buddy could do his part. I stopped for a moment when a dribble of pain moved from between my eyes to the back of my throat, then turned back toward the water fountain that was only a few feet away from their room. I downed a couple of decongestants then figured, What the hell, I’m here, and poked my head around into their room.
They weren’t looking at the door, nor were they looking at each other—in fact, they didn’t seem to be looking at anything at all. They just stared. At an empty space where their laughter should have been ringing. At a place where a visiting child should have been sitting. At a lifetime of Maybe-Next-Year places they’d always meant to take the wife, but the old girl had gotten cancer too young and left this world before they could ever get away together.
There is a very thin scrim that keeps the ruined things behind the curtain of everyday life, and one of the weights that held that curtain in place had just been removed. Now, with no Captain Spaulding shtick, the edge of that curtain was fluttering, and something of infinite sadness and disappointment could be seen shifting: Here we are, pal, two old sons-of-bitches at the end of our lives and no one else but each other to give a shit. It would’ve been nice to have our nightly laugh but that’s gone now, too; just like our families, our good women, our strong young-man notions. It was nice while it lasted, though. Maybe they’ll serve buttermilk pancakes tomorrow, huh?
“Excuse me,” I said.
They both started, blinked, then turned in my direction. The look on their faces suggested that something with three heads and a dick growing from its left nostril had just entered the room.
“I, uh … I was passing by and could have sworn someone in this room called me ‘Shnorer.’ Was that one of you gentlemen?”
It took them a moment.
It is him, right?
I believe so, yes.
Hey, the curtain fell back into place.
Damn good thing, too; I think tomorrow’s poached eggs.
“‘Shnorer,’ did you say?” asked Old Fart #1.
“Yes, I believe that’s what I heard.”
They looked at each other, then: “We weren’t talking to you!”
Uproarious laughter. This time I actually joined in.
“Sounds like you got yerself a mighty nasty cold there, Captain.”
“I do. I’m kinda dizzy and my ears are clogged.”
“Have trouble sleeping?”
I nodded.
“Neither one of us can sleep worth a tinker’s left nut, either.”
They both smiled and told me I should take some tea with a little whiskey in it, and while I was at it could I sneak a little in for them? Maybe they could get one of them young nursing assistants a little tipsy and she’d give them an extra-long sponge bath.
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br /> I grinned and mimed tapping the edge of a cigar. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever hoid.”
That got a big laugh out of them, though I’m damned if I know why. I waved at them, sang a quick “Hooray-hooray-hooray!” and headed back down the hall. I made it a point after that to stop by their room every night and do the shtick until the night that door was closed and the names which I had never bothered to read were removed from the outside slots. I knew neither one of them slept worth a tinker’s left nut, so that limited the options.
But, for that night, I felt better about myself and the world and my place in it. My sinuses, however, were having none of this fun and frolic and warm squishy happiness. I’d decided to give Mabel the keys and let her drive the car that night; the decongestants weren’t helping, my chest felt like it had been filled with rubber cement, and I couldn’t see clearly past five feet or so.
Which is why it took me a moment to locate the voice coming from another of the opened doors.
“You did the wrong routine,” it said.
Here I go, stumbling around, looking for the speaker, banging my knee against one of the wall rails used by the patients who didn’t get around so well on their own anymore.
“Hello?” I said.
“To your right, Baryshnikov.”
I blinked, wiped my eyes, and found him.
Seventy, seventy-five, but he wore it so very well. Think of Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City. Class and style; shopworn and a bit craggy around the edges, but still commanding. If it hadn’t been for the wheelchair and the gnarled branches that had once been his legs, I would’ve expected him to grab my collar and warn: “Don’t. Touch. The suit!”
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