The Poison Tree

by Henry I. Schvey

  “An old picture.”

  “Of course it’s an old picture, but what is it a picture of?”

  “A boy and a squirrel.”

  “Correct, Mr. Einstein. But who’s the boy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s your father. It’s your father when he was just your age.”

  As if I cared. I creamed a Pedro Gomez fastball out beyond the Yankee Stadium Monuments in deep center field, 456 feet away. Jimmy Piersall went way back, but Mel Allen, the Yankee announcer, shouted, “That ball is going, going … it is gone!” The crowd went absolutely nuts. I watched the flight of the ball, and, realizing it was a home run, began my slow trot around Grandma’s room, almost knocking over a lamp.

  “Stop that!” she snapped. “The child can’t stand still. And he’s still biting his nails—disgusting!” She sounded exhausted. As I trotted past third base, she reached out a hand and grabbed my arm, arresting my stride. “Now look at me. When your father was a little boy, just your age, he found a baby squirrel under a tree in Central Park—pay attention; have I told you this before? We knew it wouldn’t live, your grandfather and me. But your father, he brought that squirrel home and begged us to let him keep it. Now your grandfather was very strict in those days (he still is, in some ways), and he said the squirrel was an unsanitary thing, a rodent. But your father begged and cried and pleaded, until in the end, he was allowed to keep it for a few weeks. And you know what?” Her voice dropped: fierce, intense. “Your father nursed that helpless squirrel back to health. He fed it milk every day with a little eyedropper. See his expression there in the picture, smiling?” I nodded. “Good. That’s your father. And one month to the day after he found it, that squirrel was healthy enough to take back to Central Park and be released. Now, what about that?”

  “That’s a good story,” I said. She let my arm go, and I lashed a single to left. I was now batting right handed, where Mickey had less power, but hit for a higher average.

  “It’s not a story. It’s the truth, the truth about your father. So don’t ever say anything bad about him, because he isn’t bad.”

  “But he hits me.” I didn’t look at her as I said this, but I knew exactly how she looked, and that she’d shaken her head once, firmly.

  “I won’t hear that. If he does things that seem bad, it’s because she doesn’t make him feel like a man. You’re too young to understand such things. He comes home to that filthy apartment, awful food. Don’t think I don’t know what it’s like up there; I do. No man would put up with that. A man needs to have a warm meal on the table when he comes home from a hard day at the office. Your father works hard, you know that. Did you hear me? I said, do you know that?”

  “I know that.”

  “Good. I know you do. You’re a good boy. But a child should never say anything bad about his father. Remember the Ten Commandments? Honor thy—”

  “I know the Commandments by heart. I memorized them on Saturday at Rodeph Sholem.” There was something thick and heavy in my throat, but I forced myself to prattle on around it.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. They made us learn five of them, but then Mr. Brilliant got sick and had a nervous breakdown, so we got a new teacher who forgot to make us learn the rest. But I memorized all ten anyway.”

  “Well, that’s good. Now give me a kiss.”

  Reluctantly, I kissed Grandma, but as I pulled away, the pressure in my chest broke, and I started crying.

  “But he is bad. He is! I hate him!”

  For a second she hesitated. Then she said, “Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that! What did I just tell you?”

  “A stupid story about a stupid squirrel.”

  “No! Not about a squirrel, about your father. How he rescued that squirrel and fed it milk every day with an eyedropper. Didn’t you hear a thing I said, or were you too busy swinging that stupid imaginary blue baseball bat?”

  “How do you know it’s blue, Grandma?” I tried to get her to stop talking about my father.

  “Uh, I don’t know. You must have told me, or something. Anyway, don’t change the subject. I asked if you heard what I was saying.”

  “I heard.”

  “Well, if you really heard, you wouldn’t say things like you hated your father, would you? Bad men don’t rescue defenseless little squirrels, do they? Well, do they?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You guess not?”

  “They don’t.”

  “So, it’s all settled now, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?”

  When she wasn’t looking, I gouged a thin piece of wood out of the cedar closet door and jammed the splinter into my thumb.

  3.

  It is late afternoon before I turn and go back to his apartment. Whenever I touch something that belongs to my father, however insignificant, I make certain to return it to its proper place. I feel like a detective. I imagine I’ve come to “case the joint,” solve a crime. Then it occurs to me—that’s not who I am at all. I’m not Hercule Poirot; I’m the thief. At least that would explain why I’m sweating, snooping, trying things on, tracing my finger along the black lacquer finish of his thick Mont Blanc fountain pen, compulsively unscrewing and screwing on the cap, resting a sterling silver ashtray in my palm, feeling its impressive heft. What is it I am looking for? It’s like I’m trying to crack a code of some kind, trying to answer a question. It feels too late in the day for that. At my age, you’re supposed to know these things.

  Despite my knowledge that I’m alone, I keep looking up, expecting him to burst in at any moment and tell me to put his goddamn things down. I feel I should wipe my fingerprints off everything I’ve touched. I feel that this is absolutely forbidden, a violation of some unwritten, unspoken law. I remember suddenly what it was I came to find: an address book. Then I see something interesting, a single 8x10 photograph, and I am again distracted from my quest.

  In the picture, my parents, dressed in their wedding finery, are walking down the aisle on their way out of the ceremony. Young and innocent, they are perfectly framed by candles, decorative candelabra, and gorgeous bouquets. My mother’s hand rests gently on top of my father’s, but his hand seems barely to tolerate hers. His dark brown eyes (so different from my own blue ones) bore straight ahead at the photographer, looking right through him. My father is remarkably young and handsome with surprisingly delicate features, graceful hands, and arched eyebrows. But there is something disturbing, possibly cruel, in the eyes, the tight, unsmiling mouth, and the sleek, black hair combed straight back. My mother, on the other hand, is rapturous. Her face is round; she has not yet had her nose fixed, or begun to bleach her dark hair platinum blonde. The shape of her face still looks just a bit like Gramps’ and Uncle Lee’s; it won’t when those cosmetic alterations are made. Radiant in her white satin wedding dress with its enormous train, and elaborate, turned-back veil, my mother carries a huge wedding bouquet. She is not looking at my father. She is smiling vacantly at someone in a pew just off the edge of the photo to her left. This couple looks lovely, but I can’t help thinking that despite appearances, they have already begun moving—literally, as well as figuratively—past one another. Or rather, it is clear that my father’s forward motion does not include his young bride.

  Although she might seem flighty, my mother is highly educated; she began her undergraduate degree at Cornell, and finished at the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her M.A.T. at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College while pregnant with me. There she studied with some of Columbia’s great luminaries, in particular Lionel Trilling and Joseph Wood Krutch, with whom she studied Shakespeare and the classics. Shakespeare was quoted regularly in our house, and references to his work were sprinkled throughout her conversation, particularly in later years as she became filled with remorse for the blows that she had been given by life.

  Two nights before my tenth birthday, a noise wakes me from a sound sleep. I hear the front door being unlocked, and a few moments a
fterwards I hear screams and a thump. Moments after that, a tiny sliver of light slithers across my face like a worm. The light tickles and I almost sneeze, but manage to keep my eyes closed and pretend to sleep—I instinctively know this is not a good time to be awake. I am pretty used to my parents’ fighting, and usually just block things out. I have my own peculiar ritual of getting myself to sleep when I am frightened: I recite every member of the New York Yankees’ twenty-five-man opening day roster, by number and position. If that doesn’t work, I remind myself of the players’ heights and weights, which I have memorized from the back of their baseball cards:

  Mickey Charles Mantle, No. 7, Center Field; Born October 20, 1931, Spavinaw, Oklahoma—5’11”—198 lbs.

  Lawrence Peter (“Yogi”) Berra, No. 8, Catcher: Born May 12, 1925, St. Louis, Missouri—5’8”—194 lbs.

  William Joseph (“Moose”) Skowron, Jr., No. 14, First Base: Born December 18, 1930, Chicago, Illinois—5’11”—200 lbs.

  And so on.

  The players’ numbers bore a special significance, just as their individual batting stances did. Number 8 was more than a numeral draped across Yogi’s stooped, broad back, making him look like Quasimodo carrying his beloved Esmeralda across the rooftops of Paris in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. No, those uniform numbers were the simple bedrocks of existence for me. They represented the curtain that I pulled down to block out the strange, terrifying reality around me.

  If my mumbled recitation of the Yankees failed, I listened to “Cousin” Bruce Morrow on the transistor radio hidden under my pillow. These were the tricks I used to dampen the animal sounds and screams that, at odd intervals, invaded my sleep from my parents’ bedroom down the long, thin hallway. But on this night nothing worked; I was excited about my birthday, and worried about the screams. So when my other tricks failed, I threw the covers off. I heard something like sobbing down the hall, and got up and followed the sobs like the breadcrumbs in “Hansel and Gretel.” My brother, Bobby, slept through everything; he cradled a toy Cadillac in his arms like a baby. As I stole down the hallway, I saw my father in his familiar green bathrobe with a towel draped over one of his shoulders like a prizefighter, holding our silver ice bucket in his arms. I recognized the ice bucket right away, since it was something I was warned not to play with. It was a silver wedding gift to my parents from Tiffany’s. It was also just the right size to catch a pair of balled-up white sweat socks lobbed from the dining room. I taught Bobby how to lob socks with just the right amount of arc, like I did, or to bank them off the wall. But his efforts were feeble, even allowing for his age. He was a spazz. I knew it was inevitable that he would get picked for right field if I didn’t straighten him out fast. My theory was that boys who couldn’t throw properly were destined to fail. My ambition was to get to the point where we could play catch without him utterly humiliating himself. It never happened. He was oblivious to his glaring inadequacy; he apparently thought baseball was just a game. I knew better—it was life itself.

  Beside my father, there was another man who was short and stocky with black, shiny shoes and squeaky soles. He was wearing a policeman’s uniform. Both men disappeared into my parents’ bedroom, and then I heard more whimpering. It sounded like a child, or a dog, but I knew it wasn’t either one. Then it stopped and sounded exactly like a baby who’s been crying so long he can’t catch his breath.

  The sight of the uniform terrified me, and I wanted to yell, “What’s going on around here?” But I couldn’t make a sound. So I crept back to my bedroom. My brother was still asleep, still caressing the Cadillac, but it was a long time before my ears stopped straining to hear each pitiful noise from beyond my parents’ door.

  The next morning was my birthday, and I woke up to the smell of Joy, Mom’s perfume. I still smell it today, though now, it makes me sick. I loved it then, and loved how that morning she entered the room brushing right by Bobby’s bed, carrying a birthday tray just for me. She balanced the tray carefully, resting it on his bed, before hugging and kissing me. Usually, I pretended to ignore such shows of affection; not today. The tray had scrambled eggs, hot buttered toast, and a cup of cocoa with seven miniature marshmallows floating on top. My mother winked at me as if to say, “Get it?” and I started laughing. Seven was Mickey Mantle’s number, of course, and she had arranged the marshmallows in the shape of a seven, just for me. The number was still recognizable despite her walk from the kitchen to my room.

  “Happy Birthday, sweetheart! Time to get ready. Doc has the alley all reserved for you.” Doc’s was the name of the bowling alley.

  “Why does Henry get all those marshmallows, and why do they look like that?” Neither of us paid any attention to his question. How could anyone not know what the number seven signified in New York in the 1950s?

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “Hey, where is he?”

  “Tennis.” That one word said it all.

  “Oh.”

  I was so happy about the seven marshmallows and the bowling that I barely noticed a blue swelling above her eye, or that she was wearing the same dress she had on the night before. Or maybe I noticed it and ignored it. That’s possible. After all, it was my birthday, and little else matters when you’re ten.

  At Doc’s, there was a pinsetter named Jimmy, who Doc said averaged 185 per game, and almost made it as a professional bowler. Now he stood behind the pins as a pinspotter, perched up on a tiny shelf with only his shoes visible, waiting for the explosion of balls and the pins. Then he would slide down from his perch and set the pins up again after each ball. Jimmy could bowl as many free games as he wanted after hours. He only made an appearance if something broke or if a ball got stuck. Otherwise, he was invisible; no one knew he was even there. It seemed like a great way to earn a living.

  I returned home, anxious to tell my father about my accomplishments. The nightmare of waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a policeman inside our house was just that—a nightmare that had vanished. I had bowled a 168, and wanted to report it to Dad. Mom saw the whole thing, but as a girl she was unable to ascertain the importance of the event. She smiled when I threw a strike, but she’d also smile if I threw a gutter ball. She didn’t even know you got two extra balls after you got a strike in the tenth, or that three strikes in a row was called a “turkey;” Dad knew these things.

  He woke up with a sleep-creased face. He always looked that way after his nap. I had the feeling that he didn’t want me to actually see him asleep, as though it made him seem weak. He wiped his mouth and yawned, filled a tall glass full of ice, added J&B, and filled the rest of the glass with Canada Dry Club Soda, stirring it with a red swizzle stick, the exact color of my new water pistol. Then he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, which made him look like a sleepy child, and which was almost comical. He walked over to the TV and snapped it off without a word. Bobby was watching Mickey Mouse Club, and when it was suddenly turned off, he whimpered, “That’s no fair!” Dad simply raised his hand above his head, and the threat was enough to send him scurrying.

  Mom came in from the kitchen, smiling. She hadn’t seen my father raise his hand to Bobby.

  “Guess what we’re having for dinner, Mister Birthday Boy?”

  “TV dinner?” I said. I liked TV dinners much better than my mother’s cooking, and the tiny individualized compartments with dried mashed potatoes, shriveled peas, and Apple Brown Betty provided a sense of security and order, which our dinners never did. Mom shook her head.

  “Hamburgers?”

  “Of course not, it’s my First Born’s special day; my Number One son; my Hen-yee!”

  “Then I don’t know.” I was disappointed; I wanted that TV dinner. But I couldn’t let on.

  “Keep guessing!”

  “I don’t know, Mom.”

  She then produced a huge stainless steel platter of steak from behind her back. The steaks were thick and bloody, and marbled with fat, and I felt immediately nauseous. But I smiled anyway.

  “Voila! Porterhous
e steak with baked potatoes and sour cream. Corn on the cob! How’s that sound? Good?”

  “Great, Mom!” I lied.

  She left and went back to the kitchen, humming “You Could Be Swinging on a Star,” leaving my father and me sitting there in front of the blank TV screen. It was August, and our Christmas game with the Good Guys and Bad Guys was so far in the future it might as well have been a hundred years away.

  We sat there in silence. Finally, I said, “The Yankees won today, Dad.”

  “Umm.”

  “Yeah, Mantle hit one.” Silence. Then I said what I longed to say. “Guess what, Dad? I bowled a 168 in my last game at Doc’s.”

  “Oh.”

  Another long pause followed. My bowling exploits weren’t getting me anywhere, either.

  “How was tennis?”

  “Umm.”

  “You played with Sy?”

  “Yup.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, did you win?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know if you won or not?” I couldn’t imagine playing any sport or game without keeping score or knowing who won, and by exactly how much.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can I turn on the TV?”

  “I just turned it off.”

  “Oh.”

  From the kitchen Mom’s song wafted in along with the aroma of broiling meat. “A pig is an animal, with dirt on his face…” She had a nice singing voice in those days, but here she was singing about dirty pigs with terrible manners. Loud enough so that my father could hear. As she cooked, she went on breathlessly humming bits from “You Could be Swinging on a Star.”

  “What the hell is that she’s singing?”

  “Just some song by Bing Crosby.”

  “Oh.”

  She must have noticed how quiet it was, because she said from the kitchen, “Let him turn on the television, Norman. It’s his birthday.” Dad said nothing, but he took a swallow of scotch and soda, and grunted something that I figured out meant it was okay to watch. The Honeymooners was on, and Mom set the table. Setting the table meant she took a bunch of silverware and flung it on the table in a pile. For some reason, that was how she always set the table, throwing the silver down like that; she never realized how this made my father’s blood boil. I noticed his moustache twitch, as it always did when he was simmering and about to explode, but Mom never saw it. Neither could she hear another telltale sign; a faint whirr like a hum which he emitted when he was about to storm. Mom cheerfully called Bobby in. He said, “Hey—I thought we couldn’t watch TV!”