I shrugged. I didn't blame her.
"Maybe it was a contraction of heat and cold. Maybe it had something to do with the room being dry—you know, no humidity."
I was still getting that look.
"Just bill me for it."
"I don't even know how much it will be."
"I'm sure you can find out. You've got my credit card imprint. I accept responsibility. It can't be that much."
While I was talking to her, I put my hand in my pocket. My fingers galvanized at the touch of a small, smooth stone there. Slowly, catching my breath, I closed my hand around it, squeezed it.
II
My father's tackle box.
He loved to fish. Mom told me once that he took it up back in the 1930s, because my brother Ron, only a little kid then, had an operation on his mastoid—the bone behind the ear—and couldn't go swimming, couldn't get water in his ear as a result. Mastoiditis, I think it was called. Ron loved to swim, and was good at it.
Dad wanted to find something he could do with him, something they could do together, that might help a kid forget that he was drydocked for the summer.
Tommy Nolan, in his thirties, worked for The Globe & Mail back then, and the newspaper owned The Globe Park in Port Dover, on Lake Erie, about eighty miles southwest of Toronto. The park consisted of a dozen or so small cottages that the paper made available to employees and their families as part of their annual two-week summer vacation, if they wished to avail themselves of them. It was a part of my childhood too for a while: the clay in the cliffs, corn roasts on the beach at night, the sandbars, perch fishing. The outhouses with two holes, side by side, fascinated me. It all ended in 1952, when Dad left The Globe and went to work for the Star.
For the first time in more than twenty years, he had to find someplace new to go for his annual two weeks vacation, so we headed for Bancroft, Ontario, 160 miles northeast of the city. Bancroft was a small town in the Kawartha Lakes district, on the Canadian Shield, famous for its annual Gemboree, which attracted rock hounds from all over to savor its mineral deposits. It was also surrounded by beautiful, clear lakes, wonderful fishing.
Dad's sister, Eleanor, my aunt, had moved there when her husband, Tommy Weatherell, a car mechanic, had wanted to open his own service station. They also built the Homestead Restaurant beside their gas station and their bungalow on Highway 28, and Eleanor ran it. Several lodges or cottage group owners in the area that didn't serve meals would refer their guests there. Eleanor was Mom's friend from her schoolgirl days. In fact, she had met Dad through Eleanor.
For several years in the fifties, every summer, we rented a two-room cabin with a rowboat, on Bow Lake. It was one of five cabins that were operated under the name Ida-Ho Lodge by the middle-aged couple that lived at the end of the road—Jack and Ida Horsepool. Ours had double bunks in the bedroom: Mom and Dad on the bottom, Dennis and I on the top. The other room was mostly a kitchen. There was an outhouse—no indoor plumbing. Mom washed the dishes by carrying water up from the lake. There was no refrigerator, just an icebox. We drove down the highway daily to Paudash Lake, watched a man with giant tongs climb into the sawdust-filled icehouse and pull up a chunk that had been cut from the lake and stored since the winter, then loaded it onto newspaper in the trunk of our car.
Every evening, right after dinner, my father would take us out in the rowboat and we'd fish for smallmouth bass until it got dark. Hula popper, crazy crawler, jitterbug. The memory of the splash of a smallmouth hitting a surface lure on those calm July evenings—the rod bending, the water like glass, our collars turned up against the fall of night—can still make my heart race.
Mom stayed behind in the cabin and read a book. It was her time alone. But she waited for us. We could see it in her eyes when we came through the door, closing it quickly to keep the mosquitoes out.
Eleanor died of cancer in 1966, age fifty-five. Her husband, Tommy Weatherell, eventually remarried and moved away. He outlived her by twenty-one years, dying in 1987.
My father's tackle box. Behind the furnace in my basement.
That same day last summer that Jeanne and I detoured down the Bird's Creek turnoff in search of the vanished Bancroft Drive-In, I also stopped on the highway at Bow Lake and turned onto the private dirt road that had once led to those cabins. There is no wooden sign for Ida-Ho Lodge anymore. The cabins have been torn down. I stared at the ground where they had been. You'd never know they had ever existed. Like the drive-in: disappeared—not a trace. Jack and Ida Horsepool's names are no longer on their mailbox. New people live in that house at the foot of the road.
Driving from Bow Lake into Bancroft, I saw that the Sunoco service station was now Wayne's World, a business that sold snowmobiles. Someone had converted The Homestead Restaurant into a private home.
Las Vegas, the Poconos, drive-in theaters in New York State. The next summer, in July, it was time to try something different. Jeanne and I rented a cottage on Paudash Lake for one week, the site of the long-gone sawdust-filled icehouse, a few miles down the highway from my boyhood.
I keep going back to my childhood. I know it wasn't perfect, but it doesn't matter. I hear the irrational siren songs that are my past, balance them against the longing for a better future.
Two bedrooms, a living-dining-kitchen area with a cathedral ceiling, an all-glass front with sliding doors leading onto a cedar deck that hovered over the water's edge. Stone fireplace, TV, VCR, microwave, telephone, gas barbecue, a sixteen-foot aluminum boat with a 30 hp Yamaha, all nestled in pines, tall hemlocks, and birches, with three hundred feet of lake frontage for complete privacy. Like nothing I'd ever seen before. Certainly not on Bow Lake.
It even had indoor plumbing. A shower no less.
Cold beer, smoked salmon with onions and capers, bread, cheese, sipping Caesars on the deck, the sun on Jeanne's skin. Skinny-dipping at night, the moon on the water, the shower of northern Ontario stars across the sky. Mist rising off the lake at dawn, the loon's call, an otherworldly echo. Lovemaking, indoors and out.
On the second morning there, I rose at 5 a.m., took my fishing rod and tackle box, went out alone. Anchored in a secluded bay, the world heart-stoppingly peaceful, I thought of my father, how he would have loved it, and I missed him. It's funny—I don't usually miss him. I remember him, but missing him is for some reason rare. This was one of those rare times. I pictured him with his hat on, the hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his mouth.
The water was so clear and still, I could see the bottom, a dozen feet down: rocks, logs, a sudden drop-off. Beneath the surface. I had only to see beneath the surface.
Memories, like sawdust-covered ice, slow to melt.
It was the outdoor lovemaking that flourished, though. The beauty, the privacy, the freedom. Jeanne and I did it as often as we felt like it. It was wonderful. Sun, moon, water, and the earth itself—they were all sexual. I understood the primal drive of the ancient farmer and wife who copulated in the fields on a spring night to nudge the gods toward a full harvest.
Jeanne and I had three glorious days alone together. On the fourth morning, Adam took the bus up from Toronto and we met him in Bancroft. He had two days off that week from his summer job at Mr. Lube.
His visit added a new dimension to our holiday. He completed it. We had been happy when we were alone. We were happy when he was with us. We were happy driving him back to meet the bus two days later, anticipating our last two days together alone.
We were a family. We grilled chicken breasts on the barbecue, ate hot dogs, read magazines, floated on rubber rafts, hands and feet trailing in the water, lay on the dock at night and watched shooting stars, roasted marshmallows in the rock-ringed fire pit outside.
After dinner, both nights, Adam and I went fishing. We took the boat down the lake, among the stumps and lily pads, where the water was still and not too deep, cut the engine and drifted. Hula popper, crazy crawler, jitterbug.
Jeanne stayed behind in the cottage and read. She waited for u
s. We could see it in her eyes when we came through the door.
On the Sunday, our final evening alone, we drove down the Lower Faraday Road to Coe Hill and dined out at Winnifred's. We had a bottle of wine with dinner. The waitress lit the candle on our table.
On the way back to the cottage, we saw a deer, watched it saunter off into the woods as we drove by.
Like that ancient farmer and his wife, we hoped for a harvest. Hoped and waited.
In August, when nothing happened, again, we began to wonder.
III
That afternoon in Dayton, I stopped at the Root Beer Stand on Woodman Drive, not far from Delco. With my root beer, I had a foot-long coney, and knew that I was going back to the Legacy Lounge, one more time.
FOURTEEN
I
Do I have regrets? Many. Every day, I regret that my mother died alone in a hospital and that I was not there. I regret that my father's mind went before his body did, that he died alone in a hospital and that I was not there.
I regret a thousand harsh words, misunderstandings, bad decisions, impatiences.
Regret is not what I feel when I remember that my son, at birth, did not live. There are no words for what I feel. None.
I remember sitting on the floor in the room we had set aside for a nursery, disassembling the crib we had purchased, sealing the screws, nuts, bolts in an envelope.
Dad told me he used to bicycle up to Leaside from Cabbagetown, five miles maybe, to the airfield there, during World War One, to see an airplane up close. He told me he used to swim in the Don River, now called the Dirty Don. He told me he cut his foot in Riverdale Park on a broken bottle when he was a kid, and the infection was so serious that he almost lost his foot.
I remember him taking me to a movie once, just him and me. He held my hand on the street. It was 1954. We went to see Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea at the Imperial Theater onYonge Street. He told me that he had read the book as a kid, and wanted to see the movie.
I remember in the 1950s when Mom used to iron clothes in the kitchen, she always hummed a distinctive tune. I asked her what it was.
"When It's Springtime in the Rockies," she said.
Why do you hum it? I asked.
Because it's my favorite.
Why is it your favorite?
The silence preceding a truth. Then: When I was a little girl I saw a picture of Lake Louise and thought it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. I thought I'd like to go there someday.
These are some of the things they told me.
These were my parents: before I was born, holding my hand on Yonge Street, ironing clothes in the kitchen, humming.
II
"You want chicken noodle soup?" she asked.
"I think I do." I sat on the stool, rested my elbows on the mahogany counter, left one seat empty between Bobby Swiss and myself.
She ladled it out, set a steaming bowl in front of me.
"It's good." He smiled at me through a haze of blue smoke, Marlboro dangling from his fingers.
"And a Bud," I added.
She set the can in front of me, drifted up the bar.
"I'd have some," he said, "but it might spoil my dinner. Wife'd be mad. This"—he tapped his beer glass with the fingers holding the cigarette—"don't spoil nothin'." The ash fell off his cigarette. He brushed it down the counter.
I sipped the soup. He was right. It was good.
"You get any of your writin' done?"
I thought about it. "A bit."
He shook his head. "Goddamn," he said.
I smiled.
"I guess you use a computer."
"It's the only way."
"Goddamn." He sat back. "I can't imagine writin' nothin'." He was looking at me with one eyebrow up, the other down. "Matter of fact, I can't even imagine readin' nothin'." He laughed.
I thought of Adam, his son, a student of English literature.
"Wife used to read too much. Whenever I caught her, I told her she was wastin' her time. She liked them pocket books, them romances. Found out that she was readin' in the bathroom, just so's I wouldn't complain. After that, I left her alone about it."
I nodded as though I understood. But I didn't. Not at all. "You have to pick your battles," I said. "They have to be ones worth fighting."
"Exactly." He sipped his beer.
I finished my soup, pushed the bowl aside.
"What you seen of Dayton?"
"Not as much as I'd like. It looks like a pretty city."
"It's a city," he said. "Like most others."
"Carillon Park."
He nodded.
"Lots of Wright brothers stuff."
"Lots of Wright brothers," he agreed. "Wright-Patterson Air Force Base."
"John Glenn. His name pops up too."
He smiled. "John Glenn Parkway. Like Chuck Woolery Boulevard. Not much difference, as I see it."
"One was an astronaut. A senator. The other hosted The Dating Game"
"Like I said. Not much difference." He drained his glass, refilled it from his jug.
The news came on the TV. More about Oklahoma City. I waited to see if he'd react.
Instead: "Shoot some pool?" He took the cigarette from his mouth after he'd asked the question.
"I'm not much good at it."
"Don't matter. It's a buck a game. Loser pays. One of the few things I can afford."
The Federal Building, photos before and after, commentary too low to hear. He looked away. Not interested in the past, I thought.
I turned and stared at the two tables, the green velvet, the low-hanging lights. It'd been a long time. I thought of Uncle Jim and me, shooting pool that time in the Legion Hall. "Why not?"
"Is that your license plate out front?"
He chalked his cue. "JESUSROX?"
"Yeah."
"What made you think it was mine?"
"You seemed to know your music, when we were talking yesterday."
He angled the cue against the table, set the cigarette in an ashtray, freed both hands, ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times, pulled it from the back of his collar. "It's mine all right. One of them vanity plates. Wife give it to me as a birthday present two years ago. She knows about me and rock music. The Jesus part, though, that was her idea."
"You not religious?"
"Nah." He picked up his cue, leaned down, sighted along it and the white ball. "Kind of has a nice ring to it, though. Jesus wasn't a bad guy. Didn't hurt nobody. He helped them prostitutes, didn't he? Mary Magdalene? My kind of guy."
That clack sound, after the stroke, so clean and sharp and pure.
"What's your wife do?" I asked.
He straightened, picked up his cigarette. "Watches TV." He smiled, looked at me. "Lots of things. Used to, anyway. Now she stays home." He picked up his beer from the cardboard coaster on the table's edge, held it without drinking. "My son," he said. "He's a full-time job." His brow furrowed.
"Sixteen. Isn't that what you told me yesterday?"
"Yup."
"Teenager. Sixteen-year-old can be a full-time job."
"It's more'n that."
He stepped aside so that I could take my shot. I bent toward it.
"He's schizophrenic."
I didn't take the shot. I straightened.
He shrugged. The tip of his cigarette glowed fiercely as he pulled the smoke deep, held it, expelled it at the ceiling.
"I don't know much about that," I said.
"You learn fast."
"I'm sure you do."
"Lot of that Jesus stuff started to show up in our house after Donny was diagnosed. The wife, you know."
I didn't say anything.
"He was always a strange kid. Marks were all over the place in school, up, down. You'd never know. Then he hit puberty. Became a teenager. Acted crazier than ever. Started talkin' crazy, ramblin' all over the place. Teachers didn't know what to make of him. Told me a story once about how he was hallucinatin' about a Black & D
ecker drill. I didn't know what the hell he was talkin' about."
I took my shot, stood back, watched the balls roll, settle.
"If you were to phone my house right now, and he answered, he'd say 'Stand by one,' or somethin' nuts like that. He repeats stuff he hears on TV. Sometimes he sounds like a paid advertisement." He put the Marlboro to his lips, inhaled, set it again in the ashtray on the table's rim. He chalked his cue. "Every now and then, he's fine, like he knows somethin's wrong with him."
My father, in his last days.
"He's not a bad kid. Wouldn't hurt a fly. You can't leave him alone though. Might burn the house down."
"He's on medication?"
"Lots. Three of these, two of those. Blues, reds. Pammy—that's the missus—she takes care of all that. Me, I go to work, to Delco, package up the fuckin' shocks and struts, make sure we can pay for the blues, the reds, whatever other color of pill he's takin'. It's a livin'."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. He's a good kid. Ain't his fault. Doctors explained it to me. His wiring's all fucked up. Needs his chemistry balanced."
"We all need our chemistry balanced."
He looked at me. "Ain't it the truth." He took his shot. That clack, so pure and sweet. Balls jumped across the velvet, silent.
I recognized the glass pyramid. Another ad for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame appeared on the TV. Opening September 2,1995.
He looked up at it.
"Why Cleveland?" I asked.
"Lobbyin'. More'n six hundred thousand people signed a petition." He squinted, thinking. "Cleveland can make a claim," he said. "Know who Alan Freed was?"
"Deejay? Is that the guy?"
"That's him." He smiled, impressed. "Pioneered rock and roll. Probably named it. He's Cleveland."
I nodded.
He leaned to sight his shot. "Chuck Berry made his first public appearance there. Elvis played his first concert north of the Mason-Dixon line in Cleveland." He settled the cue softly between thumb and forefinger. "Joe Walsh, Phil Ochs, the Raspberries, Wild Cherry, Bobby Wo- mack—all Cleveland." Hair fell across his forehead.
St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3) Page 10
