“What movie are you going to?” asked Mr. Sheridan.
“Uh, we haven’t picked one yet,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Willie, get the paper and we’ll see what’s playing.”
Willie jumped off his chair with alacrity. Mr. Sheridan continued to stare at Mrs. Sheridan. She refused to look at him and busied herself with her plate, which wasn’t easy, as there was nothing on it.
Probably, thought Emma, no one would show up but Ketchum. If my father gets one look at Ketchum, he will bust his sides laughing.
“There’s an old Fred Astaire movie on the West Side!” said Willie, coming back with the paper folded to the movie section.
“Typical,” said Emma, in spite of herself.
“Isn’t there anything else?” asked Mr. Sheridan. “Perhaps,” he said with false cheeriness, “you could make it another night.”
He hopes that night never comes, thought Emma. He hopes he’s never stuck here in the house with me. Well, he’ll never see me. I’ll go to my room and he’ll never know I’m here.
“Look at the ones on Eighty-sixth, dear.” Mrs. Sheridan took the paper from Willie. “I don’t want to go all the way to the West Side.”
“I’m not sure about this, anyway. It’ll be awfully late when you come home. Eighty-sixth is no place to be late at night without a man.” Mr. Sheridan heaved his shoulders forward.
Even with a man. Emma thought of all the murders on Eighty-sixth they’d read about. What good would a man do? Unless he had a gun. Did her father have a gun?
“Do you have a gun?” she asked.
“Of course not.” Mr. Sheridan seemed furious. “I don’t believe in guns. That’s one reason this country is in the terrible shape it’s in, too damned many guns.” He seemed about to explode with anger.
“Just asking,” said Emma. What a terrific family, she thought. Here’s the mother, all gaga to take one kid to the movies, not even asking the other kid if she might like to go. Here’s the father, furious that he has to stay at home and might have to talk to his daughter five seconds. Just great. We could go on television. Instead of the Loud Family, we could be the Quiet Family, with nobody talking to anybody from one year to the next. How many families are like this?
She got up from the table, folded her napkin, and said, “So much for the American Family.” She clumped out of the room.
“What’s the matter, Piggy?” Willie called after her.
“Don’t call your sister that.” Emma, stopped in the hall, her hands balled into fists, heard Mrs. Sheridan’s mild comment. Just wait, Emma said to herself. Just you wait until I get my hands on you, you little bugger. You’ll never dance again as long as you live, because you won’t have anything to dance with!
When Mrs. Sheridan and Willie were in the elevator going down, Mrs. Sheridan said, “We’re going to see Dipsey.”
“Oh, no, Mama, we can’t. He’s working tonight. I heard the director tell him. He has to be back at the theater tonight. He has to rehearse from eight to ten!”
“Perfect. We’ll see him before that.” Mrs. Sheridan pulled on her gloves. “You must understand, Willie, I cannot go around lying to your father like this. It’ll be just one lie piled on top of another, and I can’t do that. I am not a liar.”
The door opened. Willie danced along next to her as she walked out of the lobby. The doorman hailed a cab and they got into it.
Mrs. Sheridan gave Dipsey’s address, then turned to Willie to explain. “I called Dipsey before dinner. He said he had a rehearsal but that he’d wait for us at the apartment. This won’t take long, what I have to tell him.”
“What do you have to tell him?” Willie was frantic. “Are you going to tell him that I can’t do it?”
“Not necessarily. I’m going to tell him that he is going to have to speak to your father.” Mrs. Sheridan was beating her hand against the seat in a mindless, agitated way as she looked out the window.
“But, Mom! Why don’t you talk to Dad? Dad will do anything you want, and he won’t listen to Dipsey. He’ll just yell a lot.”
“Your father will not ‘yell.’ Now I don’t want to hear any more about this.”
Willie sat in silence. His heart hurt. He felt as though his body were made of lead. He slumped down in the seat and stared at the seat ahead of him. There was an advertisement for a musical. His chest felt as though something hateful were sitting on it.
They pulled up in front of the apartment house. Mrs. Sheridan said nothing as they went in, rode in the elevator, and went toward Dipsey’s door. At the door she said, “Willie, I want you to let me do the talking. We all know how you feel about this.” She rang the bell.
“Hi, Ginny.” Dipsey gave his sister a nervous smile. “Ho, Willie. Come in. What’s up?”
“As if you didn’t know,” said Mrs. Sheridan.
Dipsey closed the door behind them. “Wait a minute, Sis. Did Willie tell you that I didn’t take him to that audition? It wasn’t me that led him by the hand and up on that stage!”
Mrs. Sheridan sat down and kept looking at Dipsey as if she could chop his head off.
“Tell her, Willie!”
“I went myself, Mom. I went myself up on the stage and started doing it.”
“He just started right in. I didn’t even know he was in the theater. You can’t blame me for what he does, now can you?”
“I’m not blaming anybody. Dipsey, don’t you understand? This is a child. His father doesn’t want him to dance, and now he’s got a job in a show. What is his father going to think?”
“Did you tell him?”
“No. I haven’t told him, but somebody’s got to tell him, and frankly, since you’re in this with Willie—I know, I know, you didn’t take him there—you’re still in it, because you’ve encouraged him and he followed you to the theater and he did an audition with you. Not me, Dipsey, you. For all those reasons, I think you should tell him.”
“Boy, people don’t change, do they?” Dipsey sat down in an armchair, looking flat, as though everything had suddenly gone out of him. “I don’t change and you don’t change. You’re exactly the way you were as a kid. No matter whose responsibility something was, it was never yours. Listen, Ginny, this is your kid, understand? And that bear over there on East End is your husband, understand? And this is between you and your husband and your kid. Now, why should I tell anybody anything?”
Willie lay back on the couch, wide-eyed, saying nothing, turning his head as each spoke.
“I don’t see it that way at all,” said Mrs. Sheridan.
“I know you don’t, Ginny, and the reason you don’t see it that way is that if you saw it that way you’d see that you have to tell him.”
“Dipsey, I have not encouraged Willie to dance. I have not gotten us all into this predicament.”
“Neither, Sis, have I. And you were wrong not to encourage him. Talent like his should be encouraged. And you’re wrong not to help him now. He needs you behind him when his father starts yelling at him.”
“I am behind him.” Mrs. Sheridan looked indignant. “Yeah, and behind me and behind anybody else you can stand behind, just so you not standing out there in front, getting the punches. I’d like to see you stand out in front for a change. I’d like to see you walk in there to that old walrus and say, ‘Here’s our boy, Willie, and he wants to dance and he’s good, and furthermore he’s gone and gotten himself a job in a musical, and I want us to back him up and I want you to stop being a jackass.’”
“Dipsey!”
“Aw, come off it, Ginny. You act like you never heard of show business. You act like our family wasn’t traveling all their lives from one broken-down old hotel to another. You act like you didn’t have a father that was one of the best hoofers this country ever saw, never mind his drinking and never mind he didn’t always show up. He was good, he was really good. And Willie’s good, and what is all this crap, anyway?”
“Dipsey, stop talking like that. All I’m asking you to do is to take the re
sponsibility for having encouraged Willie.”
“Woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about. That husband of yours hates my guts. One word out of me, he’d have me slapped in jail for leading Willie astray. The last person he’s going to listen to is me. He’s never listened to anything I said yet. He acts like I’m not even in the room. And you expect him to hear me out on this? You got a banana in your ear, lady!”
Willie laughed. His mother frowned at him, and he stopped.
“Am I to understand that you won’t help me in this?” Mrs. Sheridan tilted her head back and looked down her nose at Dipsey.
“Hey! This is me, Dipsey. What’s got into you?” He imitated her perfectly: “Am I to understand—what kind of talk is that, Sis? You even beginning to talk like that idiot.”
“Dipsey!” Mrs. Sheridan nodded her head toward Willie. “Calm down, now. This is the problem. I don’t want to lie to him.”
“Then tell him! Just walk right in the room and tell him.”
“Are you going to help me with this?” Mrs. Sheridan sounded angry now.
“Oh, here it comes. Like I never helped you with anything. Look, Sissy, this is one thing I can’t help you with. You got to make up your own mind. You got to decide if you’re going to lie or if you’re going to go in there and tell him. And this don’t have nothing to do with me. Not one thing.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Willie.
Dipsey burst out laughing. “You know, Sis, this little guy has more guts than you’ve ever heard of. If you had half the guts he’s got in his little finger—”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Willie. I think your father would simply say no.”
“Look, Sissy. He’s going to say no, any way you look at it. Did you ever think of that? If the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court came in and told him, he’d say no.” Mrs. Sheridan looked down at her purse.
“And you know why he’d say no? Because he ain’t going to have anybody run his family but him. That’s why. And let me tell you something about yourself that you don’t want to look at. You’re scared of him. You’re scared, Sissy, just plain scared.”
Willie turned to his mother in astonishment. “I’m not scared of him, Mama,” he said, thinking to himself that he was more scared of Emma than he was of his father.
“Doesn’t that embarrass you, Dipsey?” asked Mrs. Sheridan.
“Hell, no, why should I be embarrassed?”
“Willie’s seven years old and you’re a grown man. You’re scared and he’s not.”
“Honey, I said you the one scared, not me. But so what? You want to act like that, all right. What if I am scared? What’s so terrible about that? You think I’m going to have to go prove I’m a man now, by telling him? Sugar, I fell for that jazz a long time ago, but I ain’t buying any today. I’m a man and I know it, and a man can be a man and still be scared. I got a damn good reason to be scared of old William. He goes half off his nut when he gets mad. You should have heard him yelling at me over the phone—‘Leave my boy alone,’ and all this kinda nonsense. I got no time for that crap. Willie got himself a job. Willie wants to keep that job. I hope his parents back him up. But if they don’t and Willie loses that job, then you know what I’m going to do? I tell you what I’m going to do. Nothing. That’s what. I’ll just wait until Willie’s older and then Willie will get himself another job or I will help him get a job and then he won’t need anybody backing him up, because he’ll be old enough to not need you.”
“Willie needs you now,” said Mrs. Sheridan.
“Ginny, you going to make me mad in a minute. You keep trying, don’t you, trying and trying to put this whole thing off on me. Well, it ain’t my bag. I didn’t have kids because I didn’t want to get into just this kind of hassle. You had the kid, not me. Now stick by him.”
Dipsey stood up. “I got to go to rehearsal. I think we’re just going around in circles now.” He leaned over and looked Willie in the eyes. “Willie. I wish I could help you, but believe me, your old man has always hated me, and if I open my mouth, then you can bet your boots you’ll never dance in that show. I hope you’re going to be dancing next to me. I really do.” He touched Willie’s head.
“I think the best thing to do, Sis, is for you and Willie to go home now and tell William that Willie wants to be in this show, that it won’t interfere with school. We rehearse for six weeks, we don’t even go out of town. By the time we open, Willie will be out of school, so there isn’t anything for William to complain about.” He got into his jacket. “In fact, I don’t know why you tell him anything.”
“I can’t lie.”
“Aw, listen to that. It’s not because you can’t lie. I don’t mean to say that you’re a liar, because you’re not, but it’s not because you can’t lie that you’re not keeping it secret. It’s because you think it will be worse when William finds out, because he’s going to be madder than a snake if he thinks you lied to him.”
Mrs. Sheridan stood up. “Absolutely not. That’s entirely wrong. I feel nothing of the kind. Come on, Willie.”
“Don’t go away mad,” said Dipsey gently.
“Isn’t that typical of you. You infuriate somebody, then you turn on that little-boy charm.”
Laughing, Dipsey held up his hand to silence her. “Don’t start. I’m a rat. You told me for years now how I’m a rat and how every whichaway I’m a rat, and you know what? I think I’m kinda nice. I think maybe you the rat!”
Dipsey ducked as though he were going to be hit, then opened the door for them. “Good to see you, Sis. Bye, Willie Boy. Don’t worry. I think maybe everything will come out all right.”
How, thought Willie, when nobody will help me?
Mrs. Sheridan didn’t even say goodbye. Dipsey came out, closed and locked his door. He followed behind them to the elevator, pushed the button, then held the door while they got in.
“I have to know soon, you know. I’ve got to get him to my agent, get him an Equity card. He’s been measured already. They think he’s going to be in the show.”
“Why don’t you pick him up after school tomorrow,” said Mrs. Sheridan.
“There you go.” Dipsey looked excited. “I knew you couldn’t come from my family without having a little bit of gypsy.”
Mrs. Sheridan didn’t smile back. They got off the elevator. Mrs. Sheridan hailed a cab before Dipsey could. He held the door for her. “Aw, Ginny,” he said softly.
She went right past him into the cab. Willie followed. Willie looked out the window at Dipsey. Dipsey winked at him. The cab drove on toward home.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“If you said for him to pick me up after school, then you mean I can do it?”
“We’ll see,” said Mrs. Sheridan.
There it is again, thought Willie, that we’ll see. I feel like I’m seeing too much, he thought bitterly. I feel like I’m seeing that Dipsey won’t do nothing for me, my mama won’t do nothing. I think I’m seeing I got to do it all myself.
He thought fleetingly of Nick the garbage man. He wondered what Nick would do in this situation. Would Nick walk right in and tell Willie’s father what was happening? Maybe, if he got mad enough, he would dump garbage all over the living room! The idea sent Willie into fits of giggles.
His mother seemed alarmed. “You’re overtired and over-stimulated. This has been a big day. You’ll go right to bed when we get home.”
By the time Martha had cleaned the kitchen and left, Emma had finished her homework. She devoted her time thereafter to the refrigerator, dividing her attention between pastrami, corned beef, bagels, hard rolls, cream cheese, olives, pickles, and a recent book on children’s rights.
She was trying to write a paper for presentation to the Legal Committee of the Children’s Army. She had already finished her Children’s Bill of Rights, which she planned to present as well. If no other Bill of Rights had been introduced, she planned to push for adoption of hers. The paper she was working on
now concerned an idea that had come to her somewhere in the back of her mind when she was having the discussion in the park with Saunders, Goldin, and Ketchum. It had come to her when she realized that she and Saunders were suffering more from a wrong attitude on the part of their respective parents than from anything their parents actually did to them.
She was trying to devise a psychological test to determine parental attitude. She had no idea how the Army would induce parents to take the test, but she reasoned that once they took it, they could be called to account for their attitudes if they were not up to par—in short, if they flunked the test.
She found the book on children’s rights, which she had discovered in the library on Saturday, difficult to read. It seemed to go on and on about how there weren’t any. Of course, if children didn’t have any rights, then naturally it would be hard to write a book about those rights. All you could write about was the absence of them.
She figured that if her test was successful, she would trap her father. He would be exposed as having a rotten attitude. She ate and wrote, ate and wrote, until she had written fifteen pages and eaten three sandwiches, drunk six glasses of chocolate milk, and had four pickles, big ones.
When the door opened, admitting Mrs. Sheridan and Willie, they were talking. She realized that they didn’t know she was in the kitchen.
She knew she should call to them, but for some reason, caught as she was with her mouth full and the fridge empty, she chose to say nothing. She didn’t move, for fear of making a noise.
“Willie, sit down here a minute.” Mrs. Sheridan was almost whispering.
“I know you want to tell your father tonight, but I honestly don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“I don’t want to tell him. I just said I wasn’t scared to tell him. You and Dipsey seemed so scared. I don’t know why he has to be told, and I don’t know why you can’t tell him, or you and me tell him together.”
Nobody's Family is Going to Change Page 11
