WILLIAM WHARTON
Dad

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Also by William Wharton

Copyright

About the Publisher

To the women in my life:

Mother, sister, daughters, wife

That man’s father

is my father’s son

— Second half of a riddle

1

AAA CON is the first name in the phone book of most large American cities. This outfit arranges drive-aways; searches out people to drive cars for delivery from one place to another.

My son Billy and I are waiting in the L.A. AAA CON office. I’ve had my medical exam, deposited a fifty-dollar bond, filled out forms and given references. Billy’s too young to take a drive-away; the minimum age is twenty-one. A car’s already been assigned to us and we’re waiting now for them to drive it up.

Billy’s excited because it’s a Lincoln Continental. I dread telling him he isn’t going to drive. I’m not a super-responsible person, but I’m that responsible, especially with someone else’s fifteen-thousand-dollar automobile.

So I’ll be driving all the way across this huge country and I’m not looking forward to it.

The office here is grim. These places are only processing centers; nothing’s spent on carpets or fancy furnishings. I figure they make a hundred bucks or so on each car they move cross-country.

Finally, the beefy fellow at the desk calls us over. He asks what route we want and agrees to 15–70–76. It’s the least trafficked by trucks because of the high, unfinished pass at Loveland. After that, it’s double-four most of the way.

We’ll be delivering this car to Philadelphia, my old hometown, then we’ll take a plane to Paris. Paris is our real home now, has been for fifteen years.

Half an hour later we get the car. It isn’t new, maybe two years old, deep maroon with a black vinyl top; flashy-looking affair; looks like a gangster’s car. We’re delivering to somebody named Scarlietti, so who knows, maybe we’re driving a bump-off car.

This must be the twentieth time I’ve driven cross-country; more than half those trips Drive-Away.

One time we moved a pale yellow Chevy Impala convertible. That was in the days of convertibles, before air conditioning and stereo. We tied our kids in that car with jump ropes so they couldn’t fall out, then zoomed west to east mostly on 66, top down, wind, sun in our faces. The kids could fight, scream, play, holler, make all the noise they wanted; we couldn’t hear a thing. It was almost like a honeymoon for Vron and me.

We got good mileage on that Chevy, too. But this Lincoln’s going to put me down an extra thirty bucks in gas. At least we’ll be comfortable; it’s no joke beating a car three thousand miles across the whole damned country in eight days, and I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.

The part I’ve been dreading comes after we pull out with the Lincoln. We need to pick up our bags and say goodbye to Mom. Billy’s jumpy too. We know it won’t be easy; nothing’s easy with Mom; but considering all that’s happened this is going to be especially hard.

We ease our giant floating dark red boat up Colby Lane. A car like this isn’t designed to move around narrow, old-fashioned residential streets. Dad bought the lot here for twenty-six hundred dollars about twenty-five years ago. He built the house himself at a total cost under six thousand bucks; it must be worth over eighty thousand today.

We park on the driveway and go inside. Mom’s dressed to kill, looking damned good for someone who’s had two heart attacks in the past five months. Still, she’s weepy around the eyes, pale; walking with her new peculiar shuffle. It’s as if she has a load in her pants and is balancing a book on her head.

She starts straight off crying, asking what she’s going to do when I leave; insisting she’ll be all alone, because, according to her, Joan, my sister, doesn’t care if she lives or dies.

I’ve been listening to Mom complaining all my life, especially during the last months. I keep thinking I’ll get immune to it; I should be thoroughly inoculated after fifty years, but sometimes it still hurts. Sometimes I really listen and sometimes I can’t take it anymore. This time I’m only numb.

I wait until she slows down. I tell her again how some things must be. I need to go home. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Vron and Jacky. I can’t spend the rest of my life taking care of her and Dad. She knows all this, we’ve been over it enough.

Billy stands in the background listening. He starts turning television channels, looking for something, anything. I can’t blame him. Mom keeps at it. I’m nodding my head as I work our bags to the car. She’s also pushing a child’s lunch box filled with pills on us. It’s her way of showing love, taking care, making us feel dependent.

But we do finally get away.

The next part’s even tougher. We cruise up Colby to the convalescent home where Dad is. The home is only a block from my parents’ house. We chose it so Mom could be near. We experimented with another place but settled on this one. It has its limitations but Mom can walk here when she wants. It probably isn’t good for Dad but nobody can deny her this.

We park around the corner and go in. The smell is something I’ll never get used to. It’s a combination of the smells in a men’s room and an animal shelter. When I was sixteen, I worked for a small-animal vet. I’d come in mornings and hose down the cages, wash out all the dog and cat crap from the night before. This is a combination of those smells, plus the smell of general decrepitude.

I never knew what the word decrepitude or corruption really meant. As kids, we used to say piss, shit and corruption. Now I know. Corruption is when something is being corrupted; rotted by bacteria. These poor, old people here are being corrupted, rotted, decayed. The result is decrepitude, being wasted, worn out, used up.

Smells like this are hard to cover. All the carbolic acid, strong soap and aerosol in the world won’t do it. This is the smell of death, the going back to earth none of us can avoid.

A German-born brother and sister run the home. People couldn’t be kinder. Of course, they’re doing it for money, lots of money. The cheapest you can have a shared double is twenty-five bucks a day. But I wouldn’t do it, night and day, day in and day out. I couldn’t.

They tell me Dad’s still in the same room but they don’t think he’ll know us; he’s under sedation. I’ve accepted this; sedation is the best thing for him now, anything to make it easy. There don’t seem to be any real, practical, permanent answers. There’s no room for him in this world anymore. I know something about old age now. You’re old when most people would rather have you dead.

We walk along the hallway looking into rooms. We peek in at thin, worn shells of human beings; people with oxygen tubes on their noses and catheters coming out from under bathrobes. They’re propped up in bed or sitting in wheelchairs. It’s only afternoon, but they’re all dressed in bed clothes. Some are hunched over, listening to radios or staring at television sets; mouths open, mostly toothless. As we go by, some look out, latch on to us with their eyes, like prisoners peering from cells. I feel guiltily healthy, young, with an unending future. How must Billy, beside me, feel at nineteen?

Dad’s on the men’s side; so stupid to carry that farce to this point in life. He’s in a gigantesque kind of crib. He’s lying in the darkened room with the drapes drawn. His eyes are open, fixed on the ceiling.

There’s a roommate. The man is deaf and smiles at us. They chose him on purpose because sometimes Dad screams out in the night.

All together, Dad’s been in this place two weeks. He came out of the hospital again a week ago. He’d begun dehydrating.

I look down. He’s somehow dead already; yellowish skin but not a wrinkle. He’d lost so much weight, then gained some of it back; now he’s skeleton thin again.

We lean close over him. I say hello. He hears and turns his eyes but there’s no recognition. He stares at our eyes just as a baby or a dog does, not expecting anything, only seeming fascinated in a passive sense by the eye itself. He’s gripping and ungripping, twisting the blankets and sheets the way he does most times now. It’s a constant tight turning; nervous movements. Sometimes he’ll grit his teeth and bear down, pushing one side against the other, trying to make it all hold together. But right now he isn’t too active, only twittering with his fingers, maybe proving to himself there are still things; that he’s still here and alive. He looks past me and speaks through quivering lips.

‘I have to take a piss.’

This is so unlike Dad. He never used those words. It’s hard seeing Dad in this condition, saying ‘piss’ in front of Billy. If he knew what he was doing, it’d never happen; he wouldn’t even say that to me.

We pull a catch lowering the side rail to the bed, help Dad swing his legs out. I slip his robe over his shoulders; his slippers onto his feet. He’s wearing socks. He has no catheter yet. I’m hoping he can stay off one long as possible. He’s so privacy-conscious, a catheter makes him go downhill fast. Having nurses check and change it is degrading to him. When they do use one, it won’t be indwelling, only a condom you slip over the penis with a tube into a bag; at least it won’t hurt.

Billy and I lift Dad up and he grabs hold of us. His fingers, hands and arms, though shaking violently, are still strong. We help him slide across the gray asphalt-tile floor to the small bathroom. He’s moving one foot in front of the other, but only with enormous concentration. In the bathroom, he leans over the toilet with his hands against the wall. He’s not looking at us, only into the toilet. He spits into the bowl; but he can’t piss.

We stand there and nothing comes. Billy looks across at me. I flush the toilet thinking it might help but Dad only spits again. He never spit, I know of, or maybe he’s always spit in the toilet, a closet spitter. Actually, I never saw him even go to the toilet till these last months.

I figure we’d better maneuver him back to bed. But, when we try taking him away, he has a tight hold on the pipes over the toilet. He has such a tight grip his knuckles are white. I try unlocking them.

‘Come on, Dad. Let go of the pipe.’

He won’t. He won’t look at me either; he only bears down and grits his teeth. I try undoing his hand, opening one finger at a time, the way you do with a baby when it grabs your beard. Then, suddenly, he lets go and latches on to another pipe. This pipe’s the hot-water line; his hand must be burning but he holds on tight with manic fury. Billy’s pulling at his other hand.

‘Come on, Gramps; let go! Come on, let go now.’

I’m almost ready to give up, call for help, when we finally pry him loose. We turn him around. As soon as he’s turned away he seems to forget the pipes. We try working him through the doorway but he goes into his usual hang-up, checking molding, running his hand up and down as if it’s some new thing he’s never seen before. This is a man who built his own house from the ground up and has done carpentry work since childhood. These days, it’s almost impossible to move him past any doorjamb; but we manage.

We slide him to the bed, sit him down, take off his robe and slippers, then help him lie back. As usual, he’s afraid to put his head down. I cradle his head in my hand and lower him slowly onto the pillow. He’s deeply tense. He stares at the ceiling and his mouth starts moving, chattering, his lips opening and closing over his teeth, up and down with a quivering, uncontrolled movement.

Strangely, Dad still has all his teeth. Here he is, a seventy-three-year-old man and he has all his perfectly beautiful teeth, somewhat yellowed, long in the gum but not a filling. I’m already missing six, and Billy beside me has several teeth missing, three root canals, filled with gold and porcelain-covered. If anyone ever X-rayed Dad’s head and Billy’s, not seeing anything else, they’d think Dad was the young man.

He continues staring at the ceiling. I stroke his head, try to calm him. He holds my hand and squeezes it hard. He gives me a good squeeze as if he knows, and then squeezes again. I like to think of those squeezes as the last real message Dad gave me.

We go outside. I’m barely making it. For some stupid reason, I don’t want Billy to see me crying.

When we come out the door, who’s standing there leaning against a tree but Mom. She’s pale and breathing hard. We run over to her. She’s got that damned lunch box in her hand. We’d forgotten it.

She puts one of her digoxin pills under her tongue. She’s in a bad state, gray-white. She gasps out her story of how she’s worked her way up the street, stopping and popping pills so she can fight her way to us.

I can’t hold myself back.

‘Mother, it couldn’t be that important. It’s insane for you to run up here with a box of pills. You’ll kill yourself for nothing.’

But she had to come. She knew we were only up the street, here with Dad, and she wasn’t. She couldn’t stay away.

We help her into the car and drive home. I put her to bed, make her take a ten-milligram Valium. We go through the entire goodbye scene again.

I signal Billy to get in the car. I tell Mother, firmly as I can, I must go. I say goodbye, kiss her, turn around and leave. Joan has finally found somebody to come twice a week, and she herself will come twice more; still, I feel guilty into my very soul.

Our plan is to head straight toward Vegas, packing as much desert as possible behind us during the night. Summers, it’s damned hot out there even in an air-conditioned car.

We begin having trouble before we get near the desert. We’re twenty miles from San Bernardino when the voltage indicator starts flashing. The only thing is to turn back; we might make it to L.A. but that’s about all.

We pull into a garage I know on Pico Boulevard. The voltage regulator is shot, has to be replaced, a minimum hundred bucks, parts and labor. Damn!

I call AAA CON and tell them what’s happened. They tell me to call the owner, collect. I do that. After considerable shuffling around I get an OK. This means money out of pocket but we’ll get it back when we deliver. The garage says the car will be ready by morning. I get a few extra days’ travel time from Scarlietti, too.

We can’t go back to Mother’s. I don’t think I could sleep again in that back room, too many bad memories, bad nights. Marty, my daughter, lives near the garage so Billy and I hoof it over there.

Marty gives me two aspirins and puts me down in their bedroom. I can hear them, Marty, her husband Gary and Billy in the front room watching TV, a rerun of Mission Impossible.

I have a tremendous yen to cry. Twice I go into the bathroom, sit on the toilet, but the way Dad couldn’t piss, I can’t cry. I spread-eagle on the bed and it catches up with me; I’m gone.

Marty and Gary sleep on the floor and Billy sleeps on the couch. I have the only bed in the house all to myself. We sure have nice kids.

We’re all up at seven for breakfast. Both Gary and Marty need to be at work by eight.

When I call, the car’s ready; but the bill’s twenty-five dollars over estimate. We walk down and pick it up.

We cruise out Wilshire Boulevard. I bid a silent farewell to L.A.: all its artificiality, the sugar-coated hardness. I can’t say I’m sorry to go; it’s been a rough stay. I know I’ll miss Joan but I’ve learned to live with that.

We drive into the sun, due east. Then out through San Bernardino and up over the pass.

Coming down the other side, heading toward Vegas, maybe a hundred twenty miles outside L.A., an enormous dog dashes in front of our car. I jam the brakes but they don’t grab straight and we almost flip. Lucky there isn’t much traffic because we rear-spin and I hit the dog anyway. He thumps front left and bounces off right. I pull up on the shoulder and we run back.

The dog’s spinning around; his hindquarters are smashed. He should be dead but he’s twisting and howling. It’s hard to look or listen; he’s snapping and we can’t get near. It takes almost five awful minutes for him to slow down and die. There’s no collar or identification so we drag him off to the side of the road, into the bushes. It’s some kind of German shepherd, big as a wolf. We take out the tire iron and use it as a shovel to dig a shallow grave in the sand. We cover it with dry grasses and pieces of brushwood.

There’s not a mark on the front of our car. It’s incredible the difference between machines and animals. We must’ve hit him with either the tire or the bumper. Back in the car, we don’t talk much for the next hundred miles.

Then, about forty miles this side of Vegas, there’s some kind of motor-cross race up on the hills beside the road. Billy’s excited by this so we stop. I stay in the car. To me, it looks baked, barren, violent, but this is terrific for Billy. Everything that’s attractive to him – the unfinished, random quality, the rough-and-ready atmosphere, the noise, the smells – only reminds me of things I don’t want to remember. At Billy’s age I had too much of it, enough to last more than a lifetime. Comfort gets bigger as I grow older, comfort and the illusion of predictability.

After ten minutes, Bill’s back, eyes flashing in vicarious thrill; he’s seen some new four-stroke he’s never seen before.

An hour later, we roll into Vegas. The town’s just had a flash flood. Caesar’s Palace is thick packed clay up to the terraces. The parking lots are caking mudflats. It makes even more obvious how Vegas, plumb smack in the middle of a desert, is an insult to nature.

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 menage. 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 Joan 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 saying 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 role 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.

Joan’s waiting for me. With men on first and third, one out for the Angels, I leave as if I’m going to the bathroom; Dad and Mario don’t look up. I go in and close the bedroom door quietly. Joan’s stretched out on the bed, I sit on the floor.

As children, Joan and I developed our own world, fighting what I now call the poverty mind. This poverty mind constantly suspects anything out of the ordinary, anything not known or accepted; also if it isn’t practical, it isn’t good.

Now Joan has five children. She’s a natural mother, one of the incredible women who truly play with their children. And I don’t mean only when they’re babies; she plays with them all the time. She has a twenty-four-year-old son, Yale graduate cum laude, and she still plays with him. You might find them out in the yard playing marbles or shooting a BB gun.

Mother calls Joan the ‘simp’ when she does this. ‘Look at the simp playing on the floor with her grown kids.’

‘Simp’ in Mom’s lexicon is short for simpleton, I think. I’ve never asked her. Whenever anyone does anything she doesn’t agree with, they’re automatically classified as ‘simp’. She snorts through her nose when she says it. Joan is a ‘simp’ (snort) because she plays with her children; ‘They’ll never have any respect for her. Honest to God, they think she’s only another kid.’

Joan and I still play together. Here I’m fifty-two and she’s in her late forties, but when we get together, it’s playtime. Our play is based on deep confidence. What’s hide-and-seek if you peek? Can you relax and have fun on a seesaw with someone you don’t trust?

‘How’d Mom look to you, Jack?’

She laughs when I tell her Mother’s first line. I admit she didn’t look so hot.

‘The doctor says we just have to wait and see what damage was done.’

She pauses.

‘I’m worried about Dad. I could move him out to our place but he’s better off here where he can putter around his garden and greenhouse.’

I nod.

‘How long can you stay?’

‘The ticket’s for twenty-one to forty-five days.’

‘That should be enough, I hope.’

She rolls onto her side, slips off her shoes.

‘Don’t worry, Joan. I’ll stay with Dad. It’ll work out. At home, I’m a newfangled house husband.’

She shoots me one of her ‘straight on’ looks.

‘Are you sure? You know he’s practically a baby.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s my father too, you know.’

‘That’d be great.’

Joan gives me a rundown on a typical day here. She says the main thing is keeping everything on an even keel. She explains how Mother has a schedule and their whole life is essentially one long routine.

‘First, Mom gets up early and does her exercises. For her, it’s the best time of day; she has the whole house to herself. At about ten she takes a cup of coffee in to Dad, gives him his blood-pressure pills, vitamin pills and any other pills she’s into. The morning coffee is real coffee, not decaffeinated.

‘You know, Jack, Dad has somehow managed over the past eight years to keep alive the feeling he’s on an extended vacation; that sooner or later he must go back to work. He lives each day as if it might be his last.’

She tells me the pills Dad takes. I recognize some and he’s heavily medicated. I think maybe I’ll try getting him into meditation or even yoga. I hold my own pressure down that way. I’ve brought my cuff with me, so I’ll check him when I do myself. That reserpine he’s on is deadly stuff; it’s basically poison.

Joan reels off the rest of this daily routine, including mandatory soap operas. I tell her I’ll try sticking it out; but my mind is spinning, figuring ways to sharpen life up. I can’t leave other people’s lives alone. I especially want to wean him from those three hours of ‘soaps’ in the middle of the day. What a waste, to be living in California with all the sunshine out there, sitting inside staring at moving colored lines. My God, the ocean’s less than ten minutes away.

‘Another thing, Jack, Dad works a bit in his shop but he doesn’t have his old coordination; this drives him crazy. You know how he could fix almost anything? Now he has trouble keeping his own electric razor running.’

Her eyes fill and she looks down.

‘He’s beginning to think I’m a mechanical genius because I can fix his razor; clean it, replace the blade, things like that.’

‘But you are a mechanical genius!’

When we were kids, she was roller-skating at four when I was seven and I couldn’t even stand up on the damned things. She rode a two-wheeler before I did. I got the Erector set for Christmas and she played with it. That’s the way it was.

‘Try going along with him, Jack; help without making him feel inept. He’s fine as long as he doesn’t get flustered.’

She gets up from the bed, slips on her shoes.

‘We’d better get out there before they think we’ve flown the coop.’

The game’s still on. Oakland’s running away with it. We come in just after Rollie Fingers hits a bases-loaded homer. We watch the replay.

Joan and Mario leave after the home run. I’m alone with Dad. I can’t remember when I was last alone with him. As we watch the end of the game, I go over in my mind the things Joan told me. I’m a fair-to-middling cook and housekeeper but it scares me trying to fill in for Mother.

Before she left, Joan fixed dinner, so, at about six-thirty, I go in the kitchen and heat it up. I set the table for two. Dad’s in his regular place at the end of the table and I take my usual place to his left. I don’t take Mom’s place on the kitchen side, even though it’d be more convenient.

Dad’s watching me. I bring out the butter, salt, pepper, dishes, knives, forks, spoons. I carry the meal hot from the stove and put it on a plate in the middle of the table.

‘Where did you learn to cook, Johnny?’

Dad usually calls me Johnny; once in a rare while, John. I don’t know how he decides which. Mom always calls me Jacky. I changed my name from Johnny or Jacky to Jack when I went to high school. But at home it never took. I don’t know why Mom and Dad call me by different names but that’s the way it is. It’s almost as if I’m a different person to each of them.

‘I didn’t cook this, Dad; Joan did. I’m only putting it out. Come on, let’s eat.’

I know he doesn’t believe me. I’m bringing food out of the kitchen so I must be cooking it. People cook food in kitchens. He designed this kitchen, put in the stove, sink, refrigerator; built the cabinets; maintains it when anything goes wrong. But using it is an absolute mystery to him. He can no more use a kitchen than he can use one of those jet airplanes he helped build at Douglas for twenty years.

It’s a fine meal and afterward we watch more TV. During the station breaks and ads, I scoot in the kitchen and clean up. Then I begin hauling my things to the back bedroom out in the garden. I carry some blankets along with my bags. Dad’s watching me.

‘I wouldn’t sleep out there, Johnny, it’s awfully cold and damp; you’d be better off sleeping in here. I leave the heat on low at night so it’s warm.’

Frankly, I like sleeping in the cold. My parents keep their house too hot for me and besides, they’re electric-blanket people. I’m not. I don’t feel comfortable, even in California, unless I have weight on top of me; a light electric blanket with only a sheet leaves me feeling vulnerable. I know I’m warm but I don’t feel I should be. But I can’t tell Dad these things; he’d take it as an insult.

Still, I’m getting the message. He’s scared. He’d probably like me to climb in bed with him back there but he could never ask; even if I volunteered he couldn’t. He probably hasn’t slept alone since the last time Mother was hospitalized, over thirty-five years ago. He’s dreading it. So what do I do? I can’t take him by the hand, lead him to the bedroom and dress him in his pajamas.

‘Well, Dad, we’d better hit the sack.’

Reluctantly he gets up and turns off the television. Then he sets the thermostat down a fraction. He checks all the doors and windows to see if they’re locked. These are his routines I know about. He puts out the lights except for a night-light on the baseboard in the hall. He goes back to his bedroom.

I decide I’ll sleep in the side bedroom; I can’t leave him alone feeling the way he does. I’ll shut the vanes on the heater vent. I’ll close the door and open the window.

I’ve just climbed into bed when he knocks on the door and opens it.

‘Johnny, I can’t find my pajamas; I don’t know where she keeps them.’

I paddle barefoot into his bedroom with him. There’s a closet and a chest with three drawers. I look through the drawers and find them right away. Mother’s organized herself into the top drawer; the middle drawer is for Dad and the bottom drawer is filled with sweaters. I hand him the pajamas. He looks at me as if I’m a wonder man.

We say good night again and he asks me to leave on his baseboard night-light in the hall. He’s holding on; he doesn’t want to be left in that bedroom alone. If I were a really sensitive, loving, thoughtful son, I’d’ve offered to have him sleep in the side room and I could’ve slept back there. That big, empty bed without Mother is scaring him. It’s hard to know the right thing.

3

‘Hey, Dad; wake up! Come on, Dad!’

Christ, maybe he’s dead. He’s breathing; man, is he ever breathing; sounds like the death rattle.

‘Come on, Dad, let’s go. It’s eight o’clock already.’

That’s real time, Pacific time. We still haven’t crossed into Mountain time. He moans and rolls over. Maybe he isn’t dead. With all the crap he’s been through, he could easily have a heart attack or stroke. I look at him close; he seems OK.

I take a shower, bumping around and rattling things, making’s much noise as I can. This isn’t like him at all; he’s usually up hassling the whole family every morning. I come out drying myself.

‘Hey, Dad; let’s go. Time to get up.’

It’s like he’s stoned. Now I’m beginning to really get worried. What would I do if he dies out here in the middle of nowhere? I sit down on the edge of the bed and shake him.

‘Hey, Dad. You OK?’

He moans, and opens his eyes. They don’t focus and he rolls away from me.

‘Come on, Dad! Let’s go, huh? It’s almost eight-thirty!’

Finally, he swings his legs and sits on the side of the bed. He hangs there completely drag-assed. But he’s awake, he’s alive.

After a shower he’s fine. We’ll take right off and have breakfast on the road. That way, we get in some cool morning driving time. God, I wish he’d let me drive; we’re wasting this bomb crawling at fifty-five. He drives as if he’s being punished. He sits hunched over the wheel, sulking, surrounded by open roads, trees and high empty skies; not even looking; just tensed up, expecting the worst.

With a power tool like this, you can lean back and let the damned thing drive itself. The great drivers all say you should relax, get a feel for the road. It’s criminal running a supercharged motor at these speeds.

Before we get in again, I ask once more.

‘I’m sorry, Bill.’

‘Why not? I’ve got my license.’

‘Don’t, Bill. We can’t afford to take those kinds of risks; it’s not worth it.’

So we start rolling. I look out the side window at the scenery going by. If I watch his driving, I’ll go crazy. He has fast reactions, and they’re not too fast, but there’s something about it makes me nervous. He’s so dead serious; if you get involved with his driving, you tense up yourself. It’s no fun.

My dad’s good at the small things. People usually think artists are easygoing, loose people. Well, that’s not him. He’s tight as a witch’s cunt. Like getting Bryce and Zion confused. He was so convinced. We went past a great spot I knew was the place he wanted all the time, but he had his mind set and there’s nothing to do; he has some kind of tunnel vision.

Maybe he’s getting senile. That seems to be what getting old is; you aim yourself more.

Both Mom and Dad act old lately.

Mom’s so quiet and doesn’t want anything exciting or new. Even if I fart or burp at the table she makes a whole scene. They don’t roll with the punch, adapt to the new life.

And, Christ, it was grim saying goodbye to Gramps. Dad was his usual self then, too; bearing down, eating it. And Grandma’s such a pain. I don’t think she’s ever done anything for anybody without expecting something back. Life’s one king-size Monopoly game to her.

Dad’s got the radio on again. All we get is cowboy music and static. There’s nothing good between towns and we’re mostly in the middle of nowhere. We should stop and buy a cassette of real music, the Stones or Dylan or the Doors, something reasonable.

I’ve still got a hundred and fifty bucks on the money belt, but I’d hate spending any on a stupid cassette. I’ll need every cent and I don’t want to beg for money. He still hasn’t said anything. He knows I’m not going back to school but he hasn’t mentioned it, yet.

Oh, God! Now we’re going to pass a truck. This is the wildest, watching him pass a truck. He won’t budge till the view’s clear to the horizon. Hell, there’s nothing behind us for at least a mile.

He’s checking the side mirror for the tenth time. Here we go! We’re out there, cruising slowly along the side of a big semi. This guy’s totally freaked, looking down at us as we go past two miles an hour faster than he’s going. He must think we only have three cylinders firing. If Dad’d floor this thing, we’d be around clear in three seconds. No, we’re taking the leisure trip, maybe saving on gas. I’ve got to relax.

4

Next morning I wake at eight-thirty, feeling more with it. That nine-hour time difference knocks me for a loop.

I make breakfast. At home we’re not coffee drinkers but my folks are. Thank God they’re not serious coffee drinkers; they don’t grind or perk or filter, just instant.

It’s an electric stove, flat coils; I’m not sure if the hottest is 1 or 6. I try 6. I look in the cabinet drawer near the dining room and there’s the card with Dad’s medication written out, just as Joan said. I sort pills and work from lists, how much in the morning, at lunch and before bed. I’ll go along for now but Dad’s got to take over this part himself.

I’m prepared, after breakfast, to talk about Mother’s condition. Joan and I agree he’ll take it best from me.

Now, this is weird, but Dad’s convinced I’m working for the government in some kind of secret intelligence. He’s had this idea for more than ten years. He won’t refer to it directly. He’ll look at me slyly, bashfully, and say, ‘How’s the job going, John?’

He apparently could never accept that a grown man would paint pictures for a living; it isn’t within his parameter of sensible behavior.

Mother has no trouble; she has me pegged for an old hippy. I have a beard, I live in Paris and I’m mostly likely a drug addict. She dismisses my life as a total waste. But Dad needs some excuse and he’s come up with this one.

Joan thinks it’s the world’s greatest joke. One Christmas she mailed me a man-sized Zorro costume she’d sewed up herself. With it was a toy detective kit for taking fingerprints and a magnifying glass.

At first, I tried disclaiming my spook status but then decide to go along. What the hell; he’s doing it for me. Now I only say, ‘Things are fine, Dad.’ That’s usually enough; we never go further.

I gather the pills, pour coffee in his cup and knock on the bedroom door. I’m determined not to give him coffee in bed. I call through the door.

‘Time to get up, Dad; coffee’s ready.’

‘OK, Johnny, OK, I’ll be right out.’

I realize, as I’m standing there, we’re playing another game.

Dad was born in 1904. For men born in that year, World War I ended when they were fourteen and World War II started, at least for the U.S., when they were thirty-seven. Dad missed war.

This is lodged somehow in the back of his mind. I’m sure he knows he’s lucky to have escaped, but he never lived that phony ‘man’s man’ life in the field. It bothers him.

Dad stayed at home until he was married, and then Mom took over. He’s always lived in a woman-dominated environment; never lived as a single man or with other men.

All his brothers have had brief bachelorhoods; one was in W.W.I. They’re also much involved with hunting. For years, Dad wanted to take me hunting with his father and brothers, but Mom wouldn’t have it.

‘Oh, no! If you two go, you wash all your own clothes and stinking underwear. And I won’t have any of those smelly deerskin gloves or wild-Indian moccasins around this house either. I’ll tell you that!’

Each fall, the whole bunch, including all my male cousins on the Tremont side, would go up to Maine. They’d usually get deer and sometimes bear. They’d butcher and tan the hides at Grandpa’s. My cousins would tell me stories of waiting in deep, cold woods, playing cards and drinking beer. I felt it separated me from them; I’d never grow up to be a real man.

And now, my coming down the hall, knocking on the door is playing army. My saying ‘Time to get up, let’s go’ does it. I don’t say ‘Drop your cocks and grab your socks’, but it’s the domestic equivalent. Dad comes plowing out in his pajamas with his slippers on, dragging his feet down the hall on his way to the bathroom.

This foot-dragging is a new thing with him and I’m not sure if it mightn’t be related to minor stroking.

On the other hand, it’s more likely he feels he’s getting old and old people drag their feet, so he’s dragging his. There’s something about sliding slippers along a rug in the morning which appeals to his sense of ‘rightness’.

He comes out of the bathroom and starts toward the dining room.

‘Dad, why don’t you get dressed first? It’ll be a while yet before the eggs are ready.’

He looks at me bare-eyed.

‘Where are your glasses, Dad?’

‘I couldn’t find them, Johnny.’

I go back to the bedroom with him and they’re where he’d put them, on the bedside table, before he went to sleep. I should be glad he took them off, I guess. There’s a creamy haze on them, rim to rim. I take them to the bathroom and wash the lenses in warm water. I’m careless with glasses myself, but when things start to blur, I usually wipe the damned things off anyway.

He stands beside the bed and fits them carefully several times over his ears. He’s always claimed glasses hurt his nose and ears, so he’s continually changing frames, from rimless to metal to plastic and back. He didn’t start wearing glasses until he was over fifty and has never adapted.

The coffee’s getting cold. I know he’s waiting for me to find his clothes. I see yesterday’s clothes on the floor beside the bed where he dropped them. I pick these up and spread them on the bed.

‘Here, Dad. You can wear the clothes you wore yesterday. They’re not dirty.’

He looks at me closely, tilts his head.

‘I never wear the same clothes two days in a row, Johnny. Your mother would kill me.’

He’s not complaining, only stating a fact. To be honest, I’m not a clean-underwear-every-day man myself.

I search around and find some underwear. Dad wears Dacron boxer shorts and the kind of undershirts they had before T-shirts were invented. These look like tops of old-fashioned bathing suits or jogger shirts; shoulder straps and big holes you stick your arms through. Pinned to the inside of his old undershirt is a scapular of The Sacred Heart. Dad slips on the new undershirt and feels around with his hand.

‘Where’s my scapular, John?’

It’s as if he thinks he has a scapular built in on each undershirt. I unpin the old one and give it to him. He has one hell of a time pinning it on; you can tell he’s never done it before. He’s pinning it with concentration, bunching the underwear shirt into a ball, pinning, then smoothing out wrinkles. He pats the scapular three or four times and smiles. He’s proud he didn’t pin it to his skin, I guess. I give him a shirt and a pair of trousers from the closet; I put out clean socks.

‘Look, Dad, you have to learn where all these things are. Mother’s sick and can’t do this anymore.’

He smiles a wide, eager smile.

‘You’re right there, Johnny. I’m going to learn all these things. You’ll see.’

I go back to the kitchen and warm up the coffee. I cook some eggs. The pills are beside his plate. I wait and it takes forever for him to come out of the bedroom. What can be taking him so long?

I lean close against Milly and wash her teats clean with warm water. The udder is heavy, the milk vein swollen. The fresh water streams from the turgid pink teats into the dim, new dawn light. I push the bucket in place, squat on the stool and start the singing rhythm of milk on metal. My fingers warm with every rolling squeeze.

When Dad comes out, I serve the eggs with hash browns. Dad sits and looks at them as if they’re strange outer-space food.

‘Isn’t there any bearclaw?’

‘Sure, but let’s have some eggs first, then you can finish off the bearclaw.’

‘Johnny, I never eat so much in the morning.’

‘Try it this one time, Dad. It’ll give you a good start. Coffee and a roll isn’t enough, even with all the vitamin pills.’

Hell, he ought to have some breakfast; at least orange juice, and an egg.

He eats nimbly, not breaking the yolk till the white is eaten, then finishes by wiping his mouth with the napkin. He wipes as if he’s going to wear off his lips. And this must be a cloth napkin; cloth with every meal and clean. Joan reminded me but it’s something I remember.

Dad sits back and drinks his cup of cooled-off coffee.

‘Right now, Johnny, Mother usually turns on the record player and we listen to music.’

The player is there beside the table. It’s an old-fashioned, wood-cabinet Magnavox. There’s a sliding lid on top over the turntable. I find the right dials and turn it on. There’s a record already in place. I close the lid. Covered, it looks like a dish cabinet; the front is a woven, metallized cloth with jig-sawed wooden curlicues.

Bing Crosby comes on singing ‘I Wonder What’s Become of Sally’. It’s a deep, wooden tone, blurry but nice. All the new stereo and high-fidelity sets are very clear, very precise, but I hear that gray, smoked, transparent plastic in the music. It’s so incredibly accurate, transistor-perfect. This murky, dark, wood sound of old Bing is comforting. I’m sure any serious stereo addict would curl up and die but it sounds OK to me. I sit and sip coffee with Dad.

When the record’s finished, I clear the dishes. I start running hot water into the sink. Dad’s followed me into the kitchen. He leans over my shoulder as I squeeze soap into the hot water. I scrape plates and slip them into the suds.

‘You know, John, I think I could do that.’

‘Sure, Dad, nothing to it. You put hot water with soap on one side and rinse water on the other. You scrub the dishes on the hot, sudsy side, run them through the rinse and stack them in the dish rack.’

He’s watching and following through with me. He insists I leave the kitchen and he’ll finish; his first housework, breakfast dishes for two.

I start sweeping. There’s a vacuum cleaner but I prefer sweeping. I find a broom in the heater closet, and begin on the back bedroom. Mother’s an every-day-vacuum person. The rugs are going to have a slight change in treatment.

I sweep everything into piles. When I have enough to make a pile, I concentrate it, then move on. This is a four-pile house. Our apartment in Paris in a three-pile place, the boat a two-piler. The mill’s a one-piler, or I can make it two, depending on how dirty things are. Everything gets dirtier down there but it’s earth dirt, not soot or grime the way it is in Paris. The dirt here is between the two, but definitely four piles.

I look for Dad, expecting to find him out in the garden or greenhouse. But he’s still in the kitchen washing dishes, with intense, inner concentration. I wonder where his mind is.

Down by the well, a small bird flits its tail and takes off with a dropping upturn as I lean, lowering my pail into the water.

I sneak up and watch, he’s taking each dish and examining it minutely for dirt, then washing off a spot at a time. If he had a micrometer, a centrifuge and a sterilizer he’d be happier. He’s scraping away as if he’s trying to rub off the flower pattern. When he’s satisfied they’re clean, he dips them in and out of the rinse water at least ten times.

The thing is, he’s getting a kick out of it, water play. He’s enjoying washing dishes, playing with hot and cold water.

Dad can get super perfectionist over almost anything. I know I’ll go crazy if I watch too long. This has always been one of Mom’s laments. There’s a lot of her in me, and I don’t want to believe it.

Her claim is she needs to do everything herself because Dad drives her crazy making mountains out of molehills. It could be he still knows something about joy, while Mom and I are only getting through things. I back out of the kitchen.

Sometimes Mother calls Dad ‘Kid Kilowatt’. That’s one of her favorite titles. Another is ‘Mr Fixit’. He’s also ‘Jack-of-all-trades’.

Finally, Dad thinks the dishes are done. They’re clean enough for a TV ad but it hasn’t occurred to him that other things are usually classified under wash the dishes. These are the small, important jobs marking the difference between someone who’s been around a kitchen and someone who hasn’t. I’ve watched this with our children growing up and with various friends who’ve passed through our lives.

They say they’ll ‘do’ the dishes and that’s it. They ‘do’ the dishes. Everything else is left. They might not even wash the pots. They definitely will not wipe off the stove or clean the sink, wipe off the surfaces of tables, cabinets. They won’t put things away; butter, salt, pepper, spices, cutting boards. One young woman left the dirty water in our sink. She was twenty-five years old and wanted desperately to get married. After this scene I had trouble working up much sympathy; my own old-maidness got in the way.

So I explain things to Dad. He follows everything I do, shaking his head in amazement.

‘Where did you learn all this, Johnny? In the army?’

Anything I know Dad can’t account for, I learned in the army.

‘Yeah, maybe, Dad.’

Sometimes now, I think of those poor officers and noncoms trying to keep things running with a mob of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old males. I go crazy with just one or two around the house. All the sweeping, bed-making, the KP we complained about, was only normal housekeeping.

Now, don’t get me wrong, cleanliness may be next to godliness but it doesn’t mean much to me, and Vron is as casual about dirt as I am.

But my mother is something else again. She’s the cleaning maniac. Dirt is the devil! She used to take a toothbrush, reserved for this, and clean out the cracks in our hardwood floors. According to her, they harbored (that’s the word) dirt and germs. In Philadelphia, we had a house with hardwood floors in every room except the kitchen and cellar. Once a month, Mother would scrape out the germ-harboring dirt. She’d keep it in a pile for us to admire when we came home, to see what we’d ‘tracked in’.

Mom’s also a window nut. The windows are washed once a week, whether they need it or not. When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to come within a foot of any window. If there were some danger I might breathe on a window or touch it, she’d panic. The slightest smudge and she’d be at it with Windex, a piece of newspaper and a soft rag.

One of my great pleasures now is leaning against a window, pushing my nose close and making lip marks. I love to write on damp windows and draw pictures. All our kids are window smudgers and finger painters. Sometimes it gets hard to see out our windows.

Still, even now, when I go close to a window, there’s a mother-barrier I need to crash. These little things clutter the soul.

With the kitchen done, Dad and I sit down in the living room. He gets up to turn on the television but I ask him not to. In this house, if you sit in the living room, you turn on the TV the way you lock the door when you go to the bathroom.

I’m not sure how to approach this; we’ve been carefully avoiding the subject all morning.

‘Look, Dad, you should know that Mother’s really sick.’

He tenses. I watch his eyes. He’s looking at me and it’s pitiful; he’s preparing himself for the worst.

‘Is she still alive, Johnny?’

‘Sure she’s alive, Dad, but she’s had a heart attack, not a really serious one, but bad enough. Her heart’s never going to be the same. For instance, she can never work as hard as she used to.’

He’s nodding his head. I can tell he’s not getting the message.

‘I always tell her she works too hard, Johnny. She works too hard.’

‘You’re right, Dad, and you’ll need to take on a lot of the work around here. I’ll teach you to do most of the light housework. Joan will come and do the heavy cleaning, washing, shopping, things like that, but the everyday stuff, cooking, picking up, simple housecleaning, you’ll have to take over.’

He’s listening now, listening but still not comprehending.

‘Then, Dad, you’ll need to take care of Mother. You know how she is, she’ll kill herself if we’re not careful. You’ve got to watch over her.’

He’s still nodding, not looking at me, looking down at the floor.

‘Yes, I can do that. You tell me what to do and how to do it, then I’ll do it, all right.’

‘First we’ll go see Mother this morning. Remember she’s sick, she doesn’t look so hot. The main thing is not to make her excited or worried. We need to convince her we’re getting along OK ourselves.’

I look at him carefully. He’s hanging on to every word. I’m the captain giving orders.

‘You know, Dad, Mother’s convinced nobody can take care of you except her. We have to prove you can do it yourself.’

Now he’s shaking his head back and forth, a slow no, holding in one of his fake laughs with his hand over his mouth.

‘That’s right, Johnny; that’s right; we’ll fool her.’

Oh boy!

Then I realize Dad’s dressed but he hasn’t washed. His pattern is broken or something, because normally he’s a very fastidious person. I imagine Mom would say, ‘Now you go wash up, Jack,’ and he’d wash himself. Then probably she’d say, ‘Now get yourself dressed.’ I haven’t been giving the right signals.

So I tell him to get undressed again, go in and wash. After that, we’ll put on some good clothes and go to the hospital.

‘We’ll try to look nice because Mother likes to see you dressed up, Dad.’

This means Mother’s idea of dressed up, a cross between George Raft and John Boles. He wears a hat with a wide brim, a wide-lapel suit. This is all coming back in style now, so Mom’ll need to work out a new outfit; maybe thin ties, button-down collars, narrow lapels. Or maybe that’ll be my old-man costume.

But I know the drill. He’ll wear a striped tie, with tie clasp; a gold wristwatch; clean fingernails; flat-surfaced, shined leather-soled shoes.

I find everything and lay it out on the bed. What a crappy job I’m doing. Here I’ve gotten him dressed, and now, less than two hours later, I have him undressed again. It’s like playing paper dolls.

Dad asks if he should take a bath.

‘Usually, Johnny, I only take a bath once a week; an old man like me doesn’t get very dirty.’

‘You just wash your face and hands, Dad; clean your fingernails and brush your teeth; that’ll be enough.’

I’m not going to wash and dress him. I’m not going to hold up each arm and rub soap in his armpits. Ha! Little do I know what I’ll be doing.

I’m having a hard time adapting. Dad has always been a very capable person. I don’t think it’s senility, either. He’s become lethargic, inertial, inept. It’s fairly good survival technique; if someone else will do for you, let them. But he’s lost the knack of doing for himself. He’s debilitated.

Painfully, slowly, he washes and gets dressed. When he comes out, his necktie is crooked but I restrain myself. I roll out the car. He insists I warm it for five minutes before we take off. I have a strong respect for Dad’s feelings here.

It’s a whole story about Dad and driving. He’d driven from the time he was sixteen till he was seventy. He’s never had an accident or an insurance claim. Most years he averaged over fifteen thousand miles a year, right up till he retired.

Then, when he went to get his driver’s license renewed on his seventieth birthday, he panicked. He’d passed the written without any trouble, but, because of his age, they wanted him to do a road test. When he heard that, he turned in his driving license to the D M V examiner and quit.

Now, this didn’t make sense because he’d driven over for the test. He was driving almost every day. He’d lost his nerve, that’s all. He was overwhelmingly nervous and frightened.

In any competitive-comparative society there are hundreds of losers for every winner. Somewhere in Dad’s life, deep back, he developed a dichotomy between bosses and workers. He considers himself a worker.

One of the things Dad feels about me is I’m a boss. I can’t convince him how ridiculous this is. I don’t have anybody working for me and abhor the idea.

‘No, Johnny, bosses are bosses, workers are workers, and you’re a boss. You have all the ways of a boss.’

Anyway, Dad sees this guy working for the D M V, just doing his job, as a boss. He freezes, turns in his driver’s license and hasn’t driven since.

Also, he’s convinced he couldn’t’ve passed the test; he’s sure he’s not good enough anymore; there are too many things he doesn’t notice, things that could cause accidents.

‘John, when you’re a good driver, you know when you aren’t a good driver anymore.’

Mother’s another whole story. She didn’t drive till she was in her late thirties, although Dad tried to teach her from the time they were married. He’d built his own car from discarded parts when he was seventeen. That was some automobile; it didn’t even have a windshield. I’ve heard stories and seen one photograph of it. My Aunt Trude said her father, my grandfather, absolutely forbade any of Dad’s sisters to ride in it with him.

When we were kids, the standard thing on a Sunday afternoon was taking Mom out for a driving lesson. At that time we had a 1929 Ford. Dad’d bought a wreck for fifteen dollars and fixed it up. Fifteen dollars then was a week’s wages working for the WPA. As a child, I got the idea driving a car had to be one of the hardest things for a human to learn.

Dad would keep saying, ‘Now take it easy, Bess, relax, it’ll be all right.’ Joan and I would be in the back seat scared, cringing, peeking, giggling. Mom’s best trick was jamming the car into reverse while going forward. There would be a grinding, growling sound from the transmission and we’d be slammed against the front seat. Mother’s tough on any automobile; people, too.

Mom’s so hypernervous she can’t put her mind and body together. She’d have wild crying fits and call Dad cruel. Several times she jumped out of the car. Dad would drive beside her, coaxing her back in, and she’d walk along ignoring him, crying.

In California, Mom finally passed her test. The guy who passed her made a big mistake. She’s a menace on the roads. Is it possible to have too fast reactions? She’s too imaginative, at least to be driving a car. She’s constantly twisting this way and that on the steering wheel so the car weaves down the road. Under her hands, a car takes on a mind of its own, a mind totally in opposition to hers. Mom also talks to cars and conducts a running commentary on any driver within crashing distance.

Despite all this, or maybe because of it, she can’t maintain concentration on the road. She’s had a series of minor accidents and totaled one car. It’s a working miracle she’s never killed anyone or seriously hurt herself.

When Dad stopped driving, Mom became the family driver. This is nuts. Dad, at his worst, is ten times better than Mom ever was at her best. But, in a sense, it’s the story of their relationship. Mother, in her determination to dominate, took over. She’s become the leader. Dad, in his timidity, awareness, sensitivity, his superdeveloped sense of responsibility, gradually handed over the reins. Probably this isn’t too uncommon with life in general. If you’re good at something, you don’t fight so hard; you don’t have to.

Still, even now, Dad’s the one who keeps their car in running condition. He makes sure there’s water in it, has the oil changed regularly. He keeps the tire pressure right and has a full tune-up every six months.

We drive off toward the hospital. I want to see if Dad can show me the way. He had a gall-bladder operation there ten years ago and did a lot of driving back and forth.

But he can’t direct me at all; he’s like a child. He’s stopped thinking of streets and directions; he’s only watching things go by the car window. I ask what’s the best route, and he shrugs.

‘I don’t know, Mother usually drives us.’

This is such a role reversal. It’s always been a joke in our family how Mom never knows where she’s been. She actually got lost once four blocks from home because she’d taken a wrong turn. She went into a police station to ask her way. I have something of this myself; I get lost easily.

But I’m beginning to feel Dad is operating at less than a quarter of his capacity. I sense how this happens, how easily it could happen to me. It’s frightening how a combination of resignation and lack of confidence can debilitate far beyond any physiological loss.

I determine to press Dad into naming the streets. I want to force his mind out from the back corner of his hand-built house on a dead-end-street nestled quietly between the arms of giant freeways. I’m pointing out streets as we go along, encouraging him to respond.

Then, in the middle of my spiel, I realize he has something else on his mind. He gives off vibrations like dead air before a storm.

‘You know, John, this is a good hospital; the union recommends it.’

I nod my head and turn left on De Soto.

‘But there’s an awful lot of niggers there; not just niggers, Japs.’

He pauses, looks over at me.

‘Even so, Johnny, it’s a good hospital.’

I try not to respond. I don’t want to get into it, especially right now.

When we go in the hospital, the receptionist is a good-looking black woman and remembers me from the day before.

‘Hello, Mr Tremont, your mother seems fine today.’

I’m impressed she remembers not only me but the situation. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t noticed she was black when I came by myself. I’d registered her prettiness, kindness, efficiency, but not her color. It’s only because of the car conversation it hits me; that’s the way it goes.

Dad’s standing there smiling, but it’s peculiar, as if he’s looking at someone in a cage at the zoo. She is in a kind of cage, a glass cage; maybe that’s part of it, or maybe it’s all in my mind.

We start toward the elevator wading through Muzak.

‘Do you know her, Johnny?’

‘I talked with her when I came to see Mom last time.’

‘She certainly was nice.’

‘Yup, she seems like a fine person.’

He shakes his head and speaks to the floor.

‘The world’s changed, Johnny; you wouldn’t believe how the world’s changed.’

We enter the elevator. Dad’s becoming more nervous; his face is blanched, his hands are shaking. I put my arm over his shoulder.

‘Come on, Dad, it’s OK. They’re taking the best possible care of Mother. She’s getting exactly what she needs, a good rest.’

We walk down the carpeted blue corridors; wild fantasy decorative paintings are on the walls. We arrive at the intensive care unit. It’s another black woman. I ask if we can see Mother. She checks her clipboard. It’ll be all right but we’re not to stay long. We walk around the nurse’s station over to Mom’s cubicle. She’s awake and sees us come in.

Dad kisses her, and she cries. Dad starts crying, too. I’m feeling embarrassed. Mom and Dad have never been much for public demonstration of affection or emotion. I can’t think of any time I’ve seen them really kiss except for a peck goodbye or hello. Joan and I talked once about this. We were also trying to remember when Mother ever held or kissed us as children. Neither of us could remember this happening.

Mother had a terrible experience as a young girl. She was one of ten children living in a three-bedroom row house in South Philadelphia. She had two sisters whose names were Rose and Anne; they slept three in a bed, Mom, the youngest, in the middle. Anne and Rose, in the course of one year, died of tuberculosis, called, in those days, galloping consumption.

Mother, all her life, has been convinced she has tuberculosis. The horror of the whole experience was that Rose, the second to die, died in Mom’s arms. Mother was trying to hold her out the window on a hot summer day so she could breathe. Rose hemorrhaged suddenly and died within minutes. Mother was fourteen at the time and had what was called a ‘nervous breakdown’. She never went back to school.

All her life, Mom’s had a bizarre fear of germs. She’d never kiss us on the mouth, neither my sister nor me. If she ever did kiss anybody, she’d wipe the kiss off right away as if she were wiping off lipstick; she was wiping off germs.

Mom puts her arms out and wants me to come kiss her. She kisses me on the lips and doesn’t wipe. Maybe now she’s dying, germs don’t count. Dad stands looking at her, tears coming down his face. Mother gives him a fast once-over.

‘He looks marvelous, Jacky; you’re such a wonderful son. What would we do without you?’

She pulls herself up in the bed.

‘Are you all right, Jack; are you taking your blood-pressure pills?’

‘Oh, yeah, Bette, I’m fine. You know, Johnny can cook and clean house, all those things; he’s like a regular wife.’

Mother gives me a quick look, a short almost-snort.

‘You two just try keeping things going. I’ll be out of here soon. Eat at McDonald’s and there’s food in the freezer compartment.’

Now she begins a detailed description of different menus Dad likes and can digest. This involves no onions, no garlic, no seasoning except salt. It gets down to various kinds of hamburger with either noodles or those fake mashed potatoes made from powder.

I nod along. I figure I’ll use up what she has in the freezer but I have no intention of eating that way. Mom might be the world’s worst cook. I don’t want to perpetuate the tradition. I like cooking and prefer variety in my food; if I have to, I’ll cook twice, once for Dad, once for myself, but I’m sure Dad’ll enjoy what I cook. The poor bastard’s been living on poverty-hospital-type food for over fifty years.

Dad’s staring at Mother as if he’s surprised to see her in bed, staying there, not getting up and taking over. It must be worse for him than it is for me. When we’re about to leave, he kisses her again; he can’t keep himself from saying it.

‘When are you coming home, Bette? How long do you think it will be?’

Mom turns and gives me one of her looks. Now, these looks are special. In one way, it’s as if she’s trying to hide an expression, usually negative, from another person, but she does it so obviously everybody must notice; a Sarah Bernhardt dramatic gesture aimed for the last row in the balcony. This time she looks at me, raises her eyebrows and turns her eyes to the ceiling. She’s saying, ‘See, he’s helpless, he has no idea.’

In a sense, this is true, but he’s standing right there; he sees it. It’s either incredible cruelty or insensitivity. She does this kind of thing about my sister, about our children and about me; it’s something I’ve never been able to take.

‘You know, Mom, Dad really would like to have you home. It’s perfectly natural; we all would. We’d like to get you out of here soon as possible.’

I’m trying to ride over those crazy signals.

‘But you just have to take your time and relax. Do what the doctor says. You’ll be fine but you’ve got to change your way of living, Mom. You’ve had a heart attack and can’t go back to your old wild and woolly ways.’

Her eyes fill up.

‘I don’t know if I want to live like that, Jacky. If I can’t do what I want, what’s the sense?’

I hold back; it won’t help getting her upset.

‘OK, Mom. But do what the doctor says. He knows best and he’ll let you out when he thinks you’re ready.’

Then she comes on with the kicker.

‘You know, I’m not sure I had a heart attack, anyway. How do these doctors know for sure? It felt like gas pains to me.’

This had to come but I keep my big mouth shut. What else.

I kiss her goodbye and we leave.

As soon as we get in the car, Dad begins.

‘Johnny, when do you really think she’ll come home?’

‘She should stay in the hospital just’s long as possible. The longer she stays, the better off she is.’

‘I guess you’re right there, Johnny; I guess you’re right.’

But he isn’t believing it.

That evening, we don’t do much. We watch some TV, then I roll my old Honda 175 motorcycle out of the garden shack and into the patio. It needs some heavy cleaning and tuning; it’s been sitting there almost two years. Dad comes out and works in his greenhouse. He can putter around in there by the hour, his private world.

The sun leans quietly up over Ira’s barn.

Each day a mite sooner, a bit to the right.

The start for the day, an end to the night.

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