When it was time to go, I put on my slicker and stood by the door. I had signed on to find Mary black cotton tights, a bolt of black wool cloth and a gray blanket.
“Thank you, Gerry,” Mary said. “Thank you for not making this hard. Almost every nice thing I have was a present from you. You’re the only person who remembers all those small things, like what a person likes to eat and how a person likes to smell. The hardest thing about going into a monastery is how much I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll talk to you this week,” I said, and closed the door. I could not bring myself to say goodbye, but as I left, I truly felt as one of Ruby’s songs had said, that I had cut my heart in half and left one part behind.
42
It took a few days before it really struck that I was going to spend the rest of my life without Mary in it. Then I felt as if I had been flattened by a tornado. I could hardly bear to speak to her, although I found her the black cotton tights she needed and went looking for black lisle socks of exactly the length specified by the monastery. In an antiques store in my neighborhood I bought a plain tin box and filled it with the required shoe polish, brushes and polishing cloth. All the while, Mary was struggling to finish her dissertation and get her life in order, while my life appeared to be unraveling before me.
“You’re behaving as if she were about to die,” Johnny said.
“It’s worse,” I said. “If she was dead I’d simply never see her again, but she’s not going to be dead. She’s going to be alive in some other reality, and she’ll never be my friend again.”
At this my husband gave me a baleful look.
“I don’t get you two,” he said. “Never mind, I’m just a guy. I couldn’t possibly understand this sacred bond.”
“It’s just that your idea of a best friend is someone you play squash with year after year,” I said.
“That’s a perfectly sound basis for friendship,” Johnny said. “Ben and I have known each other all our lives and I feel we understand each other perfectly, except that you ladies talk all the time and we play squash.”
I felt as if I were about to grind my teeth.
“Now take Winnie Potts,” he continued. “You accuse me, as a member of the male race, of never making friends with other fathers. Remember you said, and these are your exact words: ‘It’s the difference between men and women.’ Well, Winnie and I have put in quite a lot of time together. While you and Ann have your days off discussing the higher things of life, Winnie and I are crawling around in various parks together with our kids.”
“And you have never had a personal conversation,” I said.
“Who needs it?” Johnny said. “We’re task-oriented.”
I sighed. My life was a cloud of gnats. One of the most important and ongoing conversations of my life would soon end. For Johnny, as opposed to me and Mary, the great issues of life were easily resolvable. For instance, I found myself obsessed with the fact that I had almost no Jewish upbringing, and neither had Johnny. I felt some nascent spiritual longings as well as some desire for a historical context. This was the sort of thing Mary and I Could easily have spent a couple of years on.
On this issue Johnny was clear as a bell. “Go find a synagogue and stop agitating,” he said. “They have classes. You could go and talk to someone. Just go find it.”
There it was, easy as pie.
Meanwhile, the days meandered by and I meandered with them. Time was running out for me. The days of Little Franklin’s babyhood seemed haloed in fuzzy golden light. Never again would I carry him next to me in a sling, or Chinese style on my back. He was becoming a completely separate entity, a little boy who swung his arms when he walked and would hold my hand only to cross the street.
It seemed to me that I was spending my life sitting around the C&P Café with my son and his best friend and his best friend’s mother.
“We are whiling away our golden youth,” Ann said.
“Maybe you are,” I said. “My golden youth burned out a long time ago.” I looked across the table at her. The green streak in her hair had almost grown out, leaving a shiny, iridescent stripe. I felt as if I had known her all my life. In some way I had. Just as Mary would begin her life in religion when she entered her monastery, so I had started my life as a mother when Little Franklin was born—millions and millions of hours ago, many of which I had spent with Ann.
“What’s your little book?” Ann said. “You’ve been carrying it around for weeks. Oh! The Rule of St. Benedict! How cute.”
“My friend Mary is about to become a nun.”
“Oh, right!” said Ann. “I forgot. How retro.”
“There’s a lot of retro going on,” I said. “That little worm Alice Crain said to me, ‘Oh, that funny old music you used to sing.’ She’d probably die if she heard the funny music they sing in monasteries.”
“I wonder what it’s like,” Ann said, stirring her coffee.
“It sounds very orderly,” I said. “They have a farm and a pottery and a weaving room, and they study and they never have to wonder what to wear or what they ought to make for dinner, and their day is planned, and they don’t have to worry about their careers.”
“How restful,” Ann said. “But, of course, they wouldn’t want lots of little cars and blocks lying around, so they won’t take us.”
“Mary says they have a very nice guest house.”
“Yes, but do they let you come encumbered?”
“Ladies only,” I said.
“Heaven,” said Ann. “But hardly possible. My, wouldn’t it creep Winnie out if I told him I was going to visit a monastery. I do find the idea of a habit very relaxing.”
“Yes, and the laundry gets done for you,” I said. “I find that a most compelling feature.”
We finished our coffee and ambled over to the supermarket.
“Hey,” said our regular checker, a sort of dumb boy. “You guys are in here every day, almost. Don’t you have anything to do?”
“No,” said Ann. “We have nothing to do. We are totally useless and have no sense of occupation. We are mothers, you stupid little shit-head.”
“Hey, geez,” said the checker. “I just mean I see you in here all the time.”
“In fact,” Ann said, “we’re looking for work. Perhaps we’ll take your job.”
Out on the street Ann patted my shoulder. “Don’t despair,” she said. “My oldest friend lives in Hawaii on a tiny little island and we’re still close.”
“It’s not the same thing,” I said. “Or, maybe it is.”
“We both need work,” Ann said. “Just remember our pact. When they hit three, off we go.”
It sounded so possible but also very far away.
43
Franklin turned three. He changed from a round little baby into a tall little boy. I could never watch him and his pal Amos walking down the street together without a pang of amazement. What had happened to those babies who had taken naps in the same crib, who had spent hours creeping around on the floor? Now they spent their afternoons pretending to be Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.
I felt the rug being pulled from under my feet from any number of directions. Ann Potts revealed to me that she was going back to work part-time at the Poetry Society, and that three days a week a girl engineering student from China would pick Amos up from school. Wiped away in an instant were those days of sitting at C&P’s, of strolling around together with the boys. Everyone seemed to be doing something. In desperation I called the Reverend Arthur Willhall, who said I should come and see him.
I had not been up to Harlem since before Little Franklin was born and I brought photos of my boy along on the remote chance anyone should want to see him. Although some things looked a lot worse—the subway station exit, for one—a lot of things looked better. The Race Music Foundation looked positively rich.
A beautifully dressed receptionist, I had never seen before, sat in front of a complicated Japanese telephone system and showed me into what had once
been an office and was now a freshly painted reception room. Along the back window was a sleek new conference table.
No one was left. The Bopper had quit to work for a record company, and Desdemona was now a full-time fund-raiser who traveled constantly. According to the glossy brochure I found waiting on a table next to my chair, the foundation had branched out. It now incorporated several smaller foundations: the Fund for Black Studies, the Afro-American Textbook Alliance and the Afro-History Foundation. On the last page was a picture of the Gospel and Blues College in Natchez and, underneath, a long list of sponsors of the foundation, including Ruby and Vernon Shakely. I wondered if the Reverend Willhall still had his I DO NOT PLAY NO ROCK AND ROLL poster.
He did not, although his office was unchanged in any other way, and the Reverend himself looked as somber as ever.
“Gee, it looks a lot different up here,” I said.
“We have expanded the focus of our work,” said the Reverend.
I said, “Reverend Willhall, my baby has turned into a three-year-old boy and I need a part-time job.”
“We no longer research,” the Reverend Willhall said. The thing about the Reverend Willhall was that talking to him was like talking to a foundation. “The Race Music Foundation archive has been taken on by the Archive for American Music, I am happy to say. This has left us free in many ways.”
“Do you know anyone who might need a researcher?” I said.
The Reverend Willhall pressed his two long hands together, and closed his eyes as if in prayer. He uttered a humming sound. This I knew meant that he was thinking.
“I have considered,” he said finally, and taking one of his pens, the kind you see in old-fashioned banks, he scribbled something on a sheet of paper and handed it to me. It read “The Hansonia Society.”
“What is it?” I said. “Does it have anything to do with Hansophie Records?”
“They are one and the same,” said the Reverend Willhall. He explained that they were run by the Regenstein family, the late Hans and Sonia Regenstein, who had come here in the 1920s. These pious Europeans of Jewish heritage fell in love with race music, and it is because of their efforts that much of it was preserved on Hansophie Records. I believe Sophie was the name of both their mothers.”
The Hansonia Society was run these days by Bernard Regenstein (the nephew of Hans’s much older brother) and his wife, who were the executors of Hansophie Records, and also the executors of many small estates. They also handled the works of Hans and Sonia Regenstein, whose Delta Blues Singers of the 1930’s was an essential text. They were family-run and they often needed someone to work in their office. He said I could use his name.
“Thank you, Dr. Willhall,” I said. “And please tell Mrs. Willhall and Desdemona that I send them my best wishes.”
“Mrs. Willhall has gone to her eternal reward,” said the Reverend Willhall.
I assumed this meant dead.
“In heaven,” said the Reverend Willhall. “She passed on to her eternal glory last year.”
If a person has passed on to her eternal glory, was it right to say “I’m sorry,” or were you supposed to say “How nice”?
I said, “That must be quite a loss for you.”
“The Lord is my shepherd,” said the Reverend Willhall. “I shall not want.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, as seemed appropriate.
“I’ll never forget that wonderful vegetable soup,” I said.
“I will call my friend, Bernard Regenstein, and tell him you will contact him.”
His intercom, something he had not possessed in the old days, buzzed. The Reverend Willhall put the receiver down and shook my hand.
“Thank you,” I said.
“The Lord be with you,” he said. With that, I was dismissed.
By the time twelve thirty rolled around—at the Malcolm Sprague School, three-year-olds stayed for lunch—I had had enough solitude and was ravenous to see my boy. I was used to having him with me for lunch. Now he was gone into the bosom of his little companions and I was under the Tyranny of the Lunchbox: every day Little Franklin set out with a proper, interesting and varied lunch dreamed up and prepared by me. He told me that there were two tables at school: a round one and a square one. The round one was the silly table and the square one was the serious table.
“And which do you sit at?” I said.
“The silly,” he said. And there it was. Little Franklin now had a private life, a day at school about which I knew nothing since I wasn’t there. He was off without me, building structures out of wooden blocks and practicing his social skills. I supposed I was happy to have the telephone number of the Hansonia Society in my pocket.
That night my mother had at me. To keep our parents in line, Johnny suggested monthly dinners and it was my parents’ turn. I mentioned that I had a job possibility as I served the second course.
“It’s about time,” my mother said. “It isn’t healthy just being at home.”
“I see,” I said.
“It’s good for young women to get out,” she said. “Besides, I’ve always thought that part of the reason you were so stuck on staying at home was that you couldn’t seem to find a career for yourself.”
“Oh,” I said. “You mean you feel my decision to be Franklin’s primary care-giver during his first two years was simply a dodge. In other words, my being with him is essentially neurotic and selfish, is that right?”
“I didn’t mean that,” my mother said.
“You did!” I shrieked. “I’m sorry I have no art gene so I can’t be a painter. I’m sorry I didn’t get a doctorate in some worthy subject. I apologize for being my unidentified self.”
“Geraldine, calm down,” said my mother.
“I have a better idea,” I said. “You guys have dinner together and talk about your careers. So long!”
I flung on my coat and slammed the door behind me. Johnny flew out in pursuit.
“I hate her,” I said. “I hate everyone.”
“Here’s twenty bucks. There’s a great double bill at the Showbox. The second feature starts in fifteen minutes. They’ll be gone by the time you come home. Call Ann and see if she wants to go.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m going to tell them that you are an award-winning mother, and then I’m going to terrify Gertrude into good behavior.”
“She’s not wrong,” I said. “Don’t say I went to the movies, okay?”
“I’ll tell them you vanished into the night mist.”
“I don’t hate you,” I said.
“Gertrude adores and fears you. She worries about you,” Johnny said. “Give her a break.”
“She can go to hell,” I said. I threw the twenty on the floor. “So long, sucker.”
44
I had absolutely nowhere to go, a humiliating thought. Here I was, the mother of a child, and I had nothing. What would I do with myself? I did not want to go and see Mary. I was not fit company for anyone. Perhaps I would do what I generally did when depressed: buy an expensive fashion magazine and drink a cappuccino.
I ambled over to the magazine store. It had begun to drizzle a fine, late-spring rain. I had stormed out of the house with only a light coat and I was cold.
There, browsing over a glossy Italian magazine was none other than Ann Potts, wearing a man’s hat and a trench coat.
“Oh, hi there!” she said. “What are you doing here? I thought your parents were coming for dinner.”
“I’m running away from home,” I said.
“What a great idea!” said Ann. “It’s too bad we have nowhere to go, because I am too. Winnie and Amos have formed this primitive tribe that finds women useless. I thought little boys were supposed to be in love with their mothers in this stage.”
“Franklin finds me moderately amusing, but fun dad is where the action is,” I said. “Let’s go get drunk.”
Ann yawned. “I told Winnie I was going out for cigarettes but he’ll never miss m
e. If I came home at six in the morning he would say, ‘Oh, I bet you ran into Geraldine and had a little chat.’”
We meandered into a glossy bar. Our neighborhood was slowly being upgraded. The seedy saloon that seemed to have only one customer, and smelled of cat pee, had been replaced by a sleek bistro with a long marble and brass bar in the front and a restaurant in the back.
“Are we dressed?” I said. I was wearing blue jeans and a turtleneck, and I realized I had no wallet. Ann and I rifled through our pockets and created a pile of rumpled dollar bills and quarters in the middle of the little round table.
An extremely handsome waiter appeared. His hair shone in the soft light, and he appeared to be quite put out to have to wait on us.
“Can I get you ladies something?” he said, looking at us as if we were a mess on the floor.
“I’ll have a beer,” Ann said.
“We have Palm Ale, Fisher from India, Watney’s Red Barrel on tap, Silas Mountain Beer from Idaho, Cliff Davies Natural Lager from England, Anchor Steam, Meridia Ale, Palace, Guinness, Brown Ale, Foster’s and Cabinet Home Brew.”
Ann considered this. “Don’t you have any of that tasteless American beer?”
“I’m so sorry, we don’t,” he said.
Ann narrowed her eyes. “Well, can you repeat what you just said?”
The waiter clamped his jaw. “I suggest Foster’s. And you?” he said, turning to me.
“Do you have more than one kind of coffee?” I said.
“We have ten kinds of coffee,” he said.
“Do you have more than one kind of decaffeinated coffee?”
“Brown roast, French roast and Swiss process Vienna roast,” said the waiter.
“I’ll have that,” I said. “Do you have more than one kind of hot milk?”
“Plain or steamed.”
“Steamed,” I said. “No, plain.”
“Steamed,” said the waiter. “Thank you.”
The beer came in a frosted glass, the coffee in an oversized cup. “Gee, I hope we don’t have to call the boys to send a runner over with some money,” Ann said. “Let’s see. We have nine dollars and fifty-seven cents.”
Goodbye Without Leaving Page 14
