by Robert Riche
“I want to get educated,” he volunteers further. “But this school—I mean, Lacy may not be an idiot—but he and I—we don’t see things the same way.”
“It’s the wrong school?” I feel a sense of panic rising.
“I dunno. He wants everyone to be a certain way.”
I glance over at him, at the black rock-and-roll T-shirt. “Is that so terrible?”
“Terrible? I dunno. We’re different, is all.”
I find myself rushing in. “You gotta finish the year, kid. Eleven thousand bucks. It’s already plunked down.”
“I’ll finish.”
We don’t say anything for a few miles as I dog the tail of some contractor poking along at twenty-five miles an hour in his pickup truck with a bumper sticker, “If you don’t like it here, get your a—out over there.”
“You know what I think,” I say, at last. “You want to do something important with your life, I think you’re an idealist. Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“The world is better because of people like you.” It is an opportunity to put a bright face on the disturbing events of the last couple of days. “This country was founded on idealism. People wanted to make a better world. They did it, too.”
“Not for the Indians, they didn’t.”
“I’m not talking about Indians!” He always has this annoying way of interrupting a train of thought, even when you’re trying to give him a compliment. Youth never understands. But I don’t care, for the moment. Certainly I do not need to win an argument with my son. We are talking. This has never happened before. “Do other kids feel the same way?” I ask him.
“About what?”
“About what we’re talking about—doing something—important.”
“Some do.”
“You mean, kids you’ve met already at school?”
“No, not them. Not at school.”
“Who, then?”
“Some of the kids in the park.”
“You mean, near the Grand Union?!”
“Yeah, some of them.”
“They don’t think about anything!”
“Yeah, they do. You don’t know them.”
“They’re losers! Dropouts! Criminals.”
“They’re not criminals. They just don’t see much place anywhere for them.”
“I’ll say they don’t.”
“But they have some good ideas.”
“No, they don’t. What kind of ideas?”
“I don’t know. A lot of things that are crazy they see pretty clear.”
“Not those guys. They don’t see anything. They don’t believe in anything—except maybe complete destruction.”
“Maybe that’s all there is.”
“Wonderful! Have you thought about becoming a terrorist?”
He turns to look at me for the first time. “What are you getting so hyper about?”
“I can’t stand this negativism! One minute you want to do something important. The next minute you’re ready to tear everything down.”
“Maybe it’s the same thing.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Give me a break, will you? What are you talking about? The bomb? That’s not going to happen. That’s a cop-out, and you know it. What are you saying, we’re all doomed?”
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be the bomb.”
“Well, what, then? What, aliens?”
Because he does not reply immediately, but instead lets escape what sounds like a small snort, I am obliged at last to glance over at him out of the corner of my eye. He is smiling to himself, but it is a smile that, in fact, I do not like at all, one that has not a touch of mirth in it, an expression that is totally unfamiliar to me, one that I have never seen before in this face that I have spent so many hours observing in so many various attitudes at so many various times, and until this moment have always felt I knew so well.
“Maybe just ourselves,” he says at last.
It is strangely disturbing. Disturbing. “I don’t know what that means,” I say. “How?”
He scrunches down in his seat so that the seat belt crosses between his neck and chin. “I don’t know,” he says.
CHAPTER IX
This is no vacation my son is on. His being home is a punishment, and I expect him to do penance. I also expect him to keep up with his studies, to behave respectfully in the presence of his mother, sister and myself, and to give careful attention to his manner and appearance.
All of this I outline to him in the presence of his mother in our country kitchen/family area upon arrival home just before lunch. He had thought that he would go over to the high school in the early afternoon and meet some of his less objectionable pals, not the dropout gang that hangs out at the Grand Union, he assures us, but some of the blander louts who appear from time to time, usually about the time we are sitting down to dinner, scratching at the pane of the kitchen slider. His idea being, I suppose, to inspire a bit of awe swaggering about and regaling the admiring crowd with a recounting of his suspension, not neglecting to elaborate, of course, on the hilarious spectacle of his old man who went ape for awhile, but everything’s cool now, so come on over to the room tonight, and we’ll listen to some tunes, yeah!
Yeah, well, you can forget that.
“You’re home for a week on suspension, kid. Don’t make plans.”
“Oh!”
And there’s more.
“Every morning—at eight sharp—I want you at the dining room table, studying. Until 12:30. You can have a glass of milk at ten.”
“Dad!”
“Lunch is over at 1:30 at which time you start painting the house. The outside.”
“What?!”
“Which means, you start by scraping off the old peeled paint.”
“Oh, my God!”
“And I want it done right. You can stop at 5:30. A glass of milk at three. I’ll check your work when I get home.”
“Yeah, great.”
“And please keep your mouth shut until I’m finished.” And I give him a hard look, catching and holding his eye. Does he want to challenge me? He looks away.
Deciding upon all of this has not come easy to me, but it’s been forming in little bits and pieces—all during the previous sleepless night, and on the way up to school, and during the long silent periods between our discussion on the way back. I’m on a roll, as they were saying just a day or two ago in Las Vegas, and it feels good.
“That gives you an hour and a half to relax, then freshen up, and get ready for dinner. Shirt and tie. Jacket.”
“Oh!”
“If you have anybody you want to see, they can come to the house. Between 5:30 and seven. You do not go out. After dinner, you study until 10:30. You can have—”
“—A glass of milk. Gee, thanks a lot.”
“Do you want not to see anybody?”
Sheepishly. “No.”
“Then, keep quiet. Those are the rules while you are home. Any deviation, and—” It occurs to me that I really haven’t carried my thinking to the point of knowing how in the world I will enforce any of this should he look me in the eye, and say, “Fuck off, Dad.” I can’t spank him. There aren’t many privileges left to take away from him. “—There’ll be—consequences. You’ll be sorry.” A little bit of family brinksmanship there.
I look over at Annie. She has remained silent during all of this. It matters not that I wish she would jump in and take a more aggressive position in support of me. She merely looks away, and I am not sure, in fact, that she even agrees with me. At least, she hasn’t contradicted me in front of Peter. I wonder if he is weighing her reaction, as I am. Which, if he is, he may be thinking my words have no teeth. In which case, I am up the creek without a paddle, and not even with a prayer book.
“That’s all,” I say, carrying off the rather uncertain threat with a gruff dismissal. “You know what you have to do. It’s 12:30 now. Grab a sandwich, and get busy scraping.”
�
��Can I put my bag in my room first?”
“Yes.”
Without another word, he pushes his chair back and rises, making his unhappiness clear by a certain amount of noisiness about it (like his mother, I’m afraid), at the same time taking care not to allow his rebellious feelings too much free reign, and slouches out of the room.
I am rather pleased. I keep forgetting that for fifteen years he has been accustomed to viewing me as absolute authority in this domain, and though he is certainly chomping at the bit now to challenge my position, there is a residue of power that remains with me and still commands respect, simply out of habit. How many corrupt duchies and island dictatorships have been maintained in times of rebelliousness by just such habitual ways on the part of the subject populations?
It would be nice now, I am thinking, if my wife would smile, wink knowingly at me, give me a little pat on the shoulder (“Good job, Bill”), rise from her chair, and slither gracefully over to the fridge and bring out a nice light lunch for us of iced shrimp, fresh oysters, a country paté, and sliced garden ripe tomatoes, the last of the season, with a sprinkling of fresh basil leaves on top. But I have an unerring sense in advance that it won’t happen that way. Instead, she remains seated, and that means she wants to initiate a conversation. Or rather, it means that she is waiting for me to initiate a conversation. She will sit there all afternoon and say nothing until I ask her what the trouble is. I have told her that she does this, but she denies it. Nevertheless, there she is, waiting. And, of course, somehow I knew she would just sit there. Because the whole time I was talking, she was giving off these negative vibrations that both Peter and I were picking up on. Which, as a matter of fact, from my point of view, we could have done very well without. I don’t know whether I’m on solid ground or not with my son. Well, I guess she’s going to tell me, isn’t she.
“Well?” I begin. But I know as soon as I say it that that is too indefinite to get her started. “What do you think?” I add.
“About what?” Now she rises, and goes to the fridge, not slithering, however. Rather, slouching. The body English is painfully obvous. In another moment she plunks down on the table a platter of cold left-over lamb immured in an island of congealed gray fat.
“About what I said to Peter.”
“Well, you said what you had to say.”
“But do you agree?”
“I think he should be on a schedule, yes.”
“And if he deviates from it?”
“You shouldn’t make threats.”
There it is. I knew it. “How else am I going to get him to stay in line?”
“You wouldn’t want to have to do something you’d be sorry for later.”
As usual, she has put her finger directly on the problem. I don’t know what I would do if I were to find that there’s no controlling him. “We can’t just let him run all over us, you know. I’m trying—forgive me—I’m trying to maintain a little bit—just a little tiny bit—of dignity—if you’ll pardon the expression.” My voice is going British again.
“Can the shit, will you?” she says.
“Don’t say that.”
“Well, talk sense.”
“I am talking sense!” Though I am not absolutely certain whether I am or not. In any case, there’s no winning with her. “I’m going out and rake leaves,” I say.
“Have a piece of lamb,” she says.
“I’ll have an apple,” I say. Which I take, polishing it on the front of my jacket, as I leave the room.
Raking leaves, I am thinking, is a lot like trying to be a father. There’s this enormous mess spread all about on the ground, and it is up to you, singlehandedly to attack it and set the yard right again. And even as you pile the leaves onto the tarpaulin to drag them into the nearby woods (which is not even my property, as a matter of fact, but nobody has ever complained yet), more leaves are swirling down, threatening to bury you. That means a week later going through the whole exercise all over again, and then one final time again. And, still, you never get them all, anyway.
No one helps me rake, of course. My wife is pushing a vacuum cleaner around the living room, most likely feeling at the moment that she is being taken advantage of. My daugher suddenly appears bounding down the front steps, rushing off somewhere.
“Want to help me rake leaves?” I say at her, trying to conceal the irony in my voice, knowing full well what the answer will be. I remember when she was little she used to help. Well, at least, she kept me company, she and her brother disturbing the neat piles I had made by burying each other and then bursting forth like Proteus rising from the sea.
“Gotta meet Missy!” she calls, waving cheerfully, and passing by. “Doing a good job, Dad.”
“Oh, yeah.” And she is gone.
The alternative to doing this would be to go to the office, but since it is already two o’clock, and it would be close to three before I could get in, it makes no sense.
Chet Dowd is home today, on R & R between flights. He, too, has decided to attack the leaves in his yard, and our two heads bob up and surface on opposite sides of the hedge between our properties.
“How ya doin’, Chet?!”
“How ya doin’, Bill?!”
I could tell him that I flew home with him on the same plane last night. Instead, I say, “When you’re finished doing your yard, you can start on mine, Chet.” Ha, ha.
“What?” he says. A car has just gone by the front of the house, drowning out my words.
“I say, it’s a hell of a job, eh?”
“Raking leaves.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Awful.” He interrupts his work for a moment, standing the rake on end beside him, bringing to mind for an instant the Grant Wood painting. “Did I see Peter come home with you a little while ago?”
He doesn’t miss much. “Yes. Home for a little R & R.”
“No kiddin’?” He cocks his head and sucks the meat of his cheek between his teeth. “When did you take him up there to that school? Sunday?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he’s home for a couple of days.” Let him wonder about it.
“How’s he like it there?”
“Crazy about it. Yeah. Really likes it a lot.”
“Gee, that’s great.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty pleased.” I look down at where I’ve been raking and note that I have broken through the turf, and am scratching up dirt. “See ya later,” I say, and make a point of bending down to clean the end of the rake, lowering my body from the waist, submerging below the top of the hedge.
He’ll find out. Wait’ll his kid becomes a teen-ager.
Back to the raking. I ought to sleep well tonight. I’m still on jet lag. I probably slept two to three hours last night, and on top of that, I’m emotionally drained. Feeling so alone. Boy, let’s face it, being 50 is no fun. Physically I feel okay. This raking, for example, doesn’t tire me out. I still get that gleam in the eye when the old lady comes out of the shower and slips on a pair of panties and sidles by me to get to the dresser for a bra, boobies jiggling, almost as if they were put there for the sole purpose of bringing on that first twitch in the joint over which I have no control, and which never fails to amaze me. I love to grab her then. When she’s nice and warm and smells of hair rinse and fresh towelled skin. As often as not, she’ll say, it’s not a good time. And just as often, I ask, Why not? Well, she just got out of the shower. That’s the best time. We’ll be late. So what? Not now. So I pull on my Jockey shorts, bending the head of my dick and tucking it down under, taming it into place, and a few minutes later we’re dressed and ready to go to wherever it is we don’t want to be late for, me vowing to myself, however, to get her later that night, though knowing full well that we’ll both be too tired then. (So being 50 does make a difference!) It usually works out that I catch her in the morning, most often on a Sunday morning, putting out that first tentative hand on the hip, and waiting for whatever reaction I’m going to get. I leave it there for minute or two
, and if there isn’t a big heave and production of rolling away, I know I’m in. A little slow movement of the hand here and there, and up to the boobies, and on her part just the slightest bit of settling into me, and then the kissing. And she reaches out to me. Pretty predictable stuff, but it still works, and I like it, and usually I can make her holler.
Still, after two children, and twenty years of living together, it is not as easy to arouse my wife sexually as it once was.
Though there are those who would disagree, I believe that romance is more important to women in lovemaking than it is to men. And I sometimes wonder, how romantic can a woman feel living with that same old breadwinner, that lout who day after day slouches home from the office, and plops himself down in the country kitchen/family area and watches TV while she makes supper. She doesn’t really believe in romance any more, and maybe he doesn’t either, but since it’s more important to her nature to have it, it is his job to construct a facsimile of it now and then, and to fool her, as she wants to be fooled, into believing, one more time, that romance is alive, just for a little while, anyway. That’s why it’s so tentative at first on a Sunday morning in bed.
Time flies with the leaves as these thoughts fill my mind. The yard is almost finished. Where is that no-account son of mine? I have not heard the aluminum ladder banging, as I think I should have if he were to have put it up already against the house. I don’t want to be obvious about looking around the side of the house to check it out; that would tend to undo the authority that I have established. So it’s a feeling somewhat like being a housebreaker when I maneuver myself around to the side next to the driveway, scratching at some of the new leaves that have fallen since I was over this way five minutes ago. And, by golly! There he is! Up on the ladder, two and a half stories up, peeling paint with a scraper, hanging out to the side, one leg free in the air.
