by Rick Goeld
“You sound like an article from The Post.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anger flashed across her face.
“Lois, take it easy. I didn’t mean anything; poor choice of words. But think about what you’re saying. Do you think I’m really like that?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know. How would I know?”
“Do you want to meet my brother?”
“That’s not the point. Look how we met, Eddie; on the streets of New York, you demonstrating like … I don’t know what.”
“I explained all that to you.”
“And then you got arrested.”
“And they dropped the charges.” He could feel anger creeping into his voice.
“Still,” she said.
“So, you don’t trust me.”
“I have my doubts.”
“But we’ve spent a lot of time together … since I got arrested.” That sounded sarcastic, even to him. He needed to get the conversation going in a different direction. “Look, Lois, I’m an ordinary guy. You said so yourself in your newspaper article … articles.”
“An ordinary guy with an obsession … who won’t let go of it.”
Who, like a jerk, asked her to go back to Iridium. He sat back and looked around the restaurant. The line at the pastry counter was gone. It was just the two of them, and a young couple eating breakfast. The waitresses had taken over one of the tables in the back. On the other hand, why can’t I pursue a couple of lousy autographs? What’s so terrible? Why does it bug everyone so much?
“What’s wrong with having a hobby?”
“A hobby? Is that what you’re calling it now?”
“Yes. A hobby. What’s the harm?”
Lois finished her coffee. “It’s not harmful, exactly. It just … tells me things about you.”
“Things you don’t like.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that … things I don’t like.”
He felt that familiar narrow blade starting to work its way into him. “Lois. I’m an ordinary guy. I’m normal.”
“I don’t know about normal. A normal person doesn’t go to the lengths you do to get a couple of autographs.”
“You know me better than that. I’m normal.”
She thought for a few seconds. “Okay, let’s take it on faith that you’re normal. Then why are you doing this?”
“I told you, it’s just a hobby.”
“Why is this ‘hobby’ so important to you? I mean, I can understand why you love Steely Dan—at least on some level I can understand it—but why is meeting Fagen and Becker so damned important?”
He felt like he was inches from losing it. “Why does it bug you so much?” I’ll be what I want to be …
They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Finally she said, “Look, I’ve got to go.”
“Then go.” He waved her away with his hand.
She stood, picked up her handbag, and walked out the door. He watched as she walked along the sidewalk, looking for a taxi.
45
Thursday, April 14, 2000
Having finished his lunch—a soggy tuna-on-rye and a bag of Ruffles—Eddie Zittner sat in the far corner of the storeroom, trying to decide whether to flip through another magazine or just go back to work. His cell phone rang. He recognized the number immediately.
“Hi, Ma.”
“Eddie . . .” He could hear his mother’s voice cracking. “You father’s had another heart attack.”
Time became a trickle of sand falling through an hourglass. His stomach felt like it was full of stones. He stood, took a deep breath, and, unsteady, had to brace himself against the wall. “Mom, is he okay? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. They’re taking him to the hospital.”
“Which one?”
“Holy Name. It’s near his office.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Find my coat, find the manager, find a taxi. He walked toward the coat rack.
“Eddie, will you call your brother for me?”
He tried to remember what his brother had said that morning: Something about a meeting in Hartford. Was he taking the train, or sharing a limousine? It didn’t matter; he was probably there already. “I will, Mom. Are you okay?”
He heard her sobbing and trying to catch her breath. “So far,” she managed.
“Look, I’m gonna take a cab. I’ll call Mark from the cab.”
“Do you have enough money?”
Enough money? He tried to remember how much he had on him. A hundred dollars? “I think so, Ma. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He heard her disconnect. He grabbed his coat, pushed through double doors that led into the store, and quickly spotted the manager. Minutes later, he was in a taxi heading west on 34th Street.
The trip uptown was a blur. The taxi sped along the West Side Highway. To his left, sailboats floated on the Hudson, first coming toward him, then spinning, and then tacking away. Across the river, puffy clouds cast uncertain shadows across the cliffs of Edgewater and Fort Lee.
Every five minutes or so, he tried to reach his brother, with no success. Finally, as the taxi crossed the George Washington Bridge, Mark picked up. Eddie quickly told him what had happened. Mark thought it would take him at least two hours to get to the hospital, assuming he could contact the limo driver right away. He said he would leave as soon as possible.
Just after two, Eddie walked into the Cardiac Emergency Center at Holy Name. He spotted his mother sitting, staring out a window overlooking Teaneck Road. He rushed to her side, and she stood, and they embraced. Her eye make-up was pretty much gone, he saw, but otherwise, she seemed to be all right.
“I spoke to Mark,” he said. “He was in Hartford. He said he’d leave as soon as he could find his limo.”
“I know,” his mother replied. “He called me after he spoke to you.”
“What did the doctors say?”
“They don’t know yet. They shot him full of blood thinners. Eddie … he may need a bypass.”
He thought of all the times his mother had nagged his father: about working too hard, about watching his weight, about a hundred other “little things” that didn’t seem like “little things” any more. He thought about his father grilling steaks in the back yard. Well-marbled rib eyes . . .
“A bypass? How many?”
“They won’t know until they go in.”
“When? Tonight?”
“No, they want to stabilize him first. If they operate, it’ll be tomorrow.”
*****
An hour later, Eddie and his mother walked into the Intensive Care Unit. His father was lying in bed, propped up on a stack of pillows. His eyes were closed. Plastic tubes were taped to both of his arms. He was surrounded by machines.
Elaine Zittner touched her husband’s arm. His eyes opened. “How’d the market do?” he asked.
“Lovey, forget the market for a few minutes.” She smiled.
“The Dow was down six percent at lunchtime. The Nasdaq was even worse. The nurses won’t tell me anything.”
“How do you feel, Dad?” Eddie asked.
“Like a pin cushion.” His father’s eyes danced.
The smile on his face … All Eddie could manage was a weak: “I’ll bet.”
“So where’s your brother?”
“He’s on his way. He was in Hartford.”
“Oh.” He turned to his wife. “Ellie?”
“What, Lovey?”
“This is like the last time.”
“How so?”
“I didn’t make it to April fifteenth. Again. Remember?”
Elaine Zittner started to cry. Eddie remembered his father’s first heart attack, in early April of 1983, or 1984. “Yeah, Dad,” he said, “but you got closer this time.”
His father grinned. “Yeah, Easy … closer.”
His mother, drying her eyes, said that she was going to sit outside for a while. Eddie stayed by his father’s b
edside. He tried to make light conversation, tried to be a diversion, tried to keep positive thoughts, but he listened, mostly, as his father said things to him that he hadn’t heard before.
Mark Zittner arrived at four. Then they sat together as a family; a father drifting in and out of consciousness, and a mother and her sons wondering what the next few hours would bring.
At seven, Eddie decided to go to the cafeteria. Fifteen minutes later, carrying a box of sandwiches and coffee, he stepped out of the elevator and started down the bleak hallway. The only sound was that of his own shoes, scuffling along the tiled floor. And, as he turned a corner, he saw his mother and brother, embracing, crying quietly, and he knew that his father was gone.
46
Working title: I was a Fisherman
An unpublished short story
by Eddie Zittner
I was a fisherman. Sunday mornings, I was ready to fish. I would gather up our fishing gear and put it in the kitchen, near the back door. We had two fishing poles, both taller than me. They were fitted with old-style casting reels, the ones that would free-spool and tangle unless you kept your thumb on the fishing line. I also put out an old detergent bucket my mother had given me. We used it to carry packages of extra hooks and sinkers, and a couple of rags I had lifted from her stash in the laundry room. If we caught any fish that day, we would carry them home in the bucket.
On weekend mornings, my father would lounge around the house dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, in sharp contrast to the suits and ties he wore on weekdays. He was a CPA, he told me; a Certified Public Accountant. He said he worked with people on their finances, and, in the spring, helped them do their tax returns. I was probably five or six at the time and had no concept of financial planning.
But I could relate to the suit and tie: that was something special, different than what other men wore to work. At breakfast, my father would be swathed in an old bed sheet so that errant scraps of food wouldn’t stain his clothes. I would spoon cornflakes into my mouth and stare at him, transfixed, as if Batman or even Superman was sitting across the table, albeit in an off-white cape. Finished, he would stand, whisper something to my mother, and brush his lips against her cheek. Then he would put on his raincoat, pulling the belt tight across his waist. As he left the house, I would rush to the window and watch as he marched resolutely down the street, briefcase in hand, to the train station a few blocks away. He was off to face the world; to engage in battles I could not yet understand.
But this was Sunday, and he was in his sweatshirt and jeans this morning, and we were going fishing. I found him in the living room, sitting with my mother, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Be patient, he said. I’m not quite ready to leave, he said. No, not just yet, he said. But what child would be patient when he’s ready to fish? I would stand beside the sofa and tug at his sleeve, urging him to drink his coffee, to finish his reading. The fish are waiting for us, I would say. After numerous tugs and a couple of sideways glances from my mother, he would consent, tossing the paper onto the coffee table. “Come on, Eddie,” he would say as he lifted himself from the sofa, and I would follow him, silently, into the kitchen.
I would load the poles and bucket into the back seat of whatever car he was driving that year. I remember a slope-top Ford sedan, long and low and black, with navy blue seats made of sticky plastic. After a few tries, the car would start, and my father would drive through Brooklyn, down to Sheepshead Bay, as I grinned out the window, a Mets baseball cap planted firmly on my head.
My father would always park near the bait and tackle shop, a flat wooden building decorated with ropes and rusty anchors. I would unload the fishing gear while he bought a package of frozen shrimp. Then we would walk across the parking lot, opposite the docks where the big fishing boats were berthed. We could see men and boys on the boats; men and boys who were going out into the Atlantic, into deep water, in pursuit of fierce bluefish and speedy mackerel. But we couldn’t fish from those boats, my father said: I was too small. So we would walk out onto the seawall and fish, standing on hard concrete with other men and their sons.
A couple of years later, after more badgering from me and occasional support from my mother, my father consented to take me on one of the big boats. I was up early that Sunday morning. Five minutes after breakfast our gear was ready to go. But as always, I needed to be patient. So I sat on the sofa and waited, fidgeting with my cap as my little brother tugged at my shoelaces. Finally my father folded the paper and gulped the last of his coffee. “Let’s go, sport,” I remember him saying that day as I jumped off the sofa.
We drove down to the harbor, parking in the usual place near the bait and tackle shop. We began walking toward the boats, carrying our poles like rifles on our shoulders. But I hesitated and then stopped. What about the shrimp, I asked. We don’t need shrimp today, my father told me; they have live sardines on the boat.
I remember many things from that day. I remember catching a rockfish, hauling it out of the ocean with my own fishing pole. I remember men catching silvery fish and putting them into burlap sacks that bled beside them. I remember the smell of the diesel engines. I remember holding my father’s hand, and his uncertain steps as we climbed up the rickety gangplank. Most of all, I remember him standing alone, wearing his big straw hat, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, watching me from his spot on the railing.
*****
My father was a mountain man. His idea of heaven was driving along a winding mountain road as soft music played on the radio.
My parents would plan our family vacations in rambling discussions over dinner. I remember hearing words like Poconos, and Catskills, words that had no meaning to me. After the dishes were cleared, they would sit back down at the dinner table and work out the details, surrounded by maps and brochures. My father always planned the driving, using a yellow felt-tipped marker to trace out a route on maps that had been folded and refolded perhaps a thousand times. My mother would calculate the mileage for each day of driving, and pick out the motels where we would stay.
On the road, my father did most of the driving, while my mother navigated and tried to keep my brother and me under control. My father loved to nosh, and always kept some kind of snack on the seat next to him, usually a tin of peanuts. Every so often I would reach over from the back seat and sneak a few; he didn’t seem to mind. When it was warm enough he would hang his arm out the window. It didn’t matter that his wife would nag him about putting on some tanning oil (“at least on your elbow, dear”), or that his children whined about being too hot, or too cold, or too windswept, or too bored. He was oblivious to it all.
I remember one summer drive through the Appalachians, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, down into exotic places like Tennessee and North Carolina. We had a Buick station wagon that year; it was white over tan with wood paneling along the sides. My father had rented one of those roof racks for the luggage; that way my brother and I could stretch out in the back among a bunch of worn out pillows and blankets.
My father insisted on stopping at every lookout point along the way. He would park the car, careful of the sloping pavement, setting the parking brake just in case. My brother and I would complain about yet another delay, and about being hungry, thirsty, and tired, but to no avail, our mother shushing us from the front seat.
He would get out of the car and walk to the guardrail, taking deep breaths as he went, his belly rising, savoring the aroma of maple and pine. He would gaze out over mountains blanketed with green, immersing himself in the view as if easing himself into a cool stream. The wind would blow through his hair as a gentle waterfall might wash over his face. After a few minutes he would come back to the car to get his camera, a 35 millimeter Petri that he’d had since he’d been a teenager. Then he would walk back to the guardrail and snap a few pictures, trying to capture on film whatever he was searching for out above the mountains.
My brother and I would watch from the car. We would sometimes see crows or buzzards circli
ng, and imagine them to be eagles, or great hawks. We might hear riders on the trails below, horses snorting, the drumming of their hooves muffled by pine needles.
When it became too dark to see, my father would give up his search, a sense of incompleteness about him. Then we would drive on, looking for a place to eat, something “not too fancy” as my mother would say. Usually that meant a truck stop or a diner. When we stopped, my brother and I would tumble out of the car and run barefoot in the dirt, racing to catch up to our parents.
*****
In my early teens, our family moved to Saddle River, a small town in northern New Jersey. Both of my parents were doing well: my father had hired two people to help him with his CPA business, and had moved to bigger offices in Manhattan. My mother had become a successful real estate agent, and was eager to move to the “well-to-do” suburbs.
When I was fourteen, my father purchased a boat. It was for me and my brother, he said, but my brother, a bookworm, didn’t have much interest in boating and fishing. The boat was a beat up Boston Whaler; a fourteen footer with a ten horse Evinrude outboard motor. I remember putting it up on blocks that first spring. I spent the best part of a month scraping it down and then painting it, a pale yellow with mahogany brown trim.
There was a fair-sized lake about a mile from our house—bike-riding distance, my father said. He had rented a slip from the old man who ran the marina, and we kept the boat there. That summer, and for the next few summers, I would putter around that lake in solitary pursuit of “game fish”: the wily perch, the slithery fresh-water eel, and the occasional small-mouth bass.
My father rarely went fishing with me. On the few occasions when he did, he’d always wear his big straw hat and dark sunglasses. He’d clamber onto the boat, bending low so he wouldn’t lose his balance. He’d settle himself on the middle bench, facing forward, and hang on to both gunwales as I guided the boat out to one of my secret fishing holes. Once anchored, he seemed to relax a little bit. It was as if he was determined to be with me, to spend time with me, to have some fun with me, and, by sheer force of will, overcome whatever demons he was feeling inside. We would fish for an hour, maybe two, before he declared that it was time to head home. He always looked relieved when he set foot back on dry land.
