The Question of the Absentee Father

by E. J. Copperman

  “Did you date for a long time before you were married?” she asked.

  Mother, whose line of sight seemed to be directed at the molding over the kitchen door, shook her head. “Three months,” she answered. “Reuben wanted to be married soon and I was head over heels for him. My parents objected until they met him and then they were thrilled.”

  I had met my mother’s parents only once, when I was twelve years old and not yet “diagnosed” with Asperger’s Syndrome. They had flown in from their home in Hollywood, Florida, and visited with Mother and me for three days on their way to Colorado to see my mother’s sister, Aunt Jane. I was going through what Mother would have described as a “difficult phase,” and from what I could recall of them, it was hard to imagine her parents being thrilled about anything. Mostly what I could recall was looks of disapproval for me and Mother. Years later when Mother informed me that her mother, then her father had died, I had not felt anything out of the ordinary; I had barely known them.

  “Reuben just had a way of charming you, making you believe in him,” Mother went on. “He’s a kind soul; he really wants to help everyone he knows. But sometimes he’s less than careful about the way he goes about doing it, and that can lead to trouble.”

  That seemed to be a signal. “What kind of trouble, Mother?” I asked.

  My mother continued to look at the top of the doorway with a look she would no doubt have described as “out into space.” She was thinking about my father and their early life together, it seemed obvious, and she was smiling. It would seem natural for a woman whose husband had left her with a small “special needs” child to resent that man and harbor unpleasant feelings for him. Mother appeared instead to have clung tightly to her regard for my father and was apparently trying to convince Ms. Washburn, if not both of us, that he was actually a man driven to what he’d done by his strong desire to help his family, which seemed unlikely.

  “He never got into anything with the police, Samuel,” she said with a slight hint of rebuke in her voice. “I told you that.”

  “You told me he hadn’t gone to jail,” I corrected. “That didn’t mean he’d never been arrested or charged with a crime. I wanted to make the point clear.”

  “You made it clear,” she replied with a tone I could not identify. Then Mother said to Ms. Washburn, “Reuben was so anxious to be successful, so much in a hurry to show me I was right to believe in him, that he rushed into things without thinking sometimes. Once he was going to start a company with a friend of his to film people’s weddings just at the time video was starting but was expensive. Reuben just didn’t want to wait for the price to come down. He thought he could convince people film was better.”

  It occurred to me that my father had impulse control issues but I decided saying that would be counterproductive in this conversation. Mother was trying strenuously to paint a positive portrait of my father. If I were to illuminate his faults, she would spend more time contradicting me than giving Ms. Washburn information that might eventually become useful. I resolved not to ask another question nor to make another comment and to give Ms. Washburn the lead. She does well under such circumstances.

  “Does he have any relatives, Vivian?” Ms. Washburn asked. “Someone he might have been in contact with all these years?”

  Mother shook her head. “When he left and I didn’t hear from him for such a long time, I tried calling his brother, who was the only one left. Arthur lived in Chicago in those days, and he said he hadn’t heard from Reuben either. He promised to get in touch if Reuben called or wrote, but he never did.”

  I had never known I had an uncle named Arthur in Chicago, but my plan remained the same. I listened.

  “Was he close to his brother?” Ms. Washburn asked.

  “No. Arthur was a lot older; he’d be close to eighty now. But they sort of grew up in two different families. Arthur is really Reuben’s half brother. Their father divorced Arthur’s mother and married Reuben’s three years before Reuben was born. I never met either of his parents or his stepmother.”

  Ms. Washburn’s tone became gentler, indicating she knew she was approaching a sensitive subject and wanted to be sure she said nothing to upset Mother. I felt my hands, under the table now that I had finished my turkey sandwich, ball into fists at the thought that this could be difficult. I do not respond well to emotional scenes.

  “Vivian, Samuel told me some of what he read in Reuben’s letter to you. A couple of times he says this might be the last time you hear from him. Do you know why that would be?”

  Mother looked at me quickly, then at Ms. Washburn. Her face showed some stress at the corners of her eyes and mouth. “Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “Clearly, Reuben is dying.”

  five

  Despite Ms. Washburn and me proposing any number of possible scenarios under which my father might write that he would not be communicating with my mother again—a change in lifestyle, perhaps a new marriage, a lack of interest after decades of separation—she would not be moved off her belief that my father was somehow about to lose his life.

  This seemed somewhat irrational to me. No matter what his motives or the circumstances under which he had left, the fact was that Reuben Hoenig had not lived under the same roof as my mother for twenty-seven years. His personality, from what I could glean through Mother’s remembrances, which were certain to be biased, was a flighty and impulsive one. The idea that he had contacted Mother at all after this much time was an indicator that the man would simply indulge any thought that occurred to him and felt like the right thing to do at that moment.

  But the matter at hand was his location. That was the question Mother had asked me. My father’s motivations or intentions were not relevant. The key was discerning if Reuben Hoenig had any people on the planet he might contact other than Mother.

  His brother Arthur, she had said, had been living in Chicago, Illinois, when she had last communicated with him. That was a place to start, if Arthur was still alive.

  I asked Mother for any contact information on other people who had known my father so the process of searching online could be streamlined or bypassed completely based on the currency of her data. She had written out a list after consulting a paper address book she keeps stuffed with envelopes, return addresses, index cards, Post-It notes, and other effluvia she has managed to accumulate over the years. It is a highly inefficient style of record keeping.

  Ms. Washburn and I said our goodbyes and she drove me back to the Questions Answered office without any conversation during the ride. I am a nervous passenger and Ms. Washburn is a very good driver. I let her concentrate on the road during the short drive.

  Once inside the offices, though, Ms. Washburn began as if we had not had a break in conversation at all. “Do you think your uncle Arthur would have contacted your mother if something really serious was going on?”

  I sat down behind my desk and revitalized my desktop computer. “Until forty minutes ago I had no idea I had an uncle named Arthur,” I reminded her. “I have no way of analyzing the man’s personality or predicting his actions.”

  “It was an academic question, Samuel. Would a man do something like that?”

  The answer appeared to be obvious. “It would depend upon the man. Perhaps we should call Arthur Hoenig and find out.”

  Ms. Washburn fixed me in her gaze. “Perhaps you should call Arthur Hoenig. You are his nephew.”

  I did not see how a blood relationship would make a difference in extracting information from an elderly man I had never met, but it has become evident over time that trying to successfully persuade Ms. Washburn with logic when she is arguing with emotion is usually a lost cause. I am not fond of calling strangers on the phone, or talking to strangers at all for that matter, but I did need the information if Arthur Hoenig had it and calling was more time efficient than having a prolonged conversation with Ms. Washburn that would eventually lea
d to my calling him anyway.

  From Mother’s handwritten notes I dialed the phone number in Chicago and listened to five rings before the phone was engaged. A man’s voice said, “Hello?” It was a question spoken as if it was a wonderment or a source of some disgruntlement that another person had chosen to dial his number. I understood the sentiment but went on.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” I said.

  The man disconnected the call.

  I looked at Ms. Washburn. “I believe the phrase is, he hung up on me,” I said.

  Her face registered surprise. “Really!”

  “Perhaps you should call,” I suggested. “Maybe I said something wrong.” I couldn’t think of what that might be, but that is often the case in my conversations with the supposedly neurotypical.

  “I didn’t hear you say anything wrong,” Ms. Washburn insisted. “Try again, but just say, ‘Hello, this is Samuel Hoenig.’”

  “That is not the way I introduce myself,” I reminded her.

  “I know. Maybe in this case your name will make a difference to him. Even though you had never heard of him before today, I’ll bet your mother has mentioned you to him more than once.” Ms. Washburn looked at her computer screen. “I’ll listen to your end of the call and let you know if you’re going in the wrong direction, okay?”

  If anyone other than Ms. Washburn had suggested listening to me make a phone call to verify my ability to do so, I would have been insulted. But because I trust her judgment I nodded and touched the redial button on my phone.

  This time the man answered after only three rings, but his greeting was more gruff and his voice more harsh. “Yeah?”

  “Hello, this is Samuel Hoenig,” I said. Then I realized I did not know what I should say next because the conversation was not falling within my established parameters.

  “Samuel Hoenig?” the man said. “Are you Reuben’s boy?”

  That was a confusing question. If Arthur Hoenig was indeed the man on the other end of the conversation, was he asking whether I would take my father’s side in an argument? Was he suggesting that I was not an adult male? Did he mean to be in some way denigrating or insulting? His tone was indeed raspy and direct, but his intentions were mysterious.

  “I am the son of Reuben Hoenig, if that is the question you are asking,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I believe the answer to your question is, yes,” I answered.

  “You’re Reuben’s son.”

  It seemed difficult for the man to believe. I felt I already knew his name but was obligated to prove my thesis. “Are you Arthur Hoenig?” I asked, having already adequately established my own identity.

  “Yeah. Reuben is my brother.” Again, that was a piece of information that I had inferred but not confirmed. “What do you want?”

  I appreciated my uncle’s directness. “I am trying to locate my father,” I said. “Do you have a current address for him in California?” Ms. Washburn, whom I knew had been listening carefully, looked up at that. She knew I had not actually established beyond question that my father was in California, but as an interrogatory technique it is sometimes helpful to assume knowledge and have it confirmed or denied rather than ask and have the subject be untruthful.

  “Why are you looking for him?” Arthur asked. It was not an answer to my question, which was irritating. My left hand, not clutching the telephone receiver, tightened on the desk.

  “I am his son,” I said. That was true, although it was not the reason I was seeking Reuben Hoenig’s address. This gave Arthur just as little information as he had given me by answering with a question. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Arthur answered. I waited for more and there was silence on the line. I silently berated myself for wording my question badly. I felt my head vibrate on my neck in an involuntary expression of my frustration.

  “Would you please tell me where?” I asked, getting the words out through clenched teeth. Ms. Washburn’s expression, seen peripherally, appeared to be concerned.

  There was a pause on Arthur’s end of the conversation and I hoped he had not had a heart attack and died from the stress of the situation. I understood he was not a young man and such things can happen. If he died I would lose a potential source of information that could lead to the answering of Mother’s question.

  “No, I don’t think I’m going to tell you,” he answered finally.

  It was my turn to delay speaking while my thoughts flooded with contradictory impulses. Why would a man refuse to answer such a question? If Arthur did not provide my father’s address, how would I find it? Was there any way to convince him that he should provide the information even if he did not wish to do so?

  “What is your favorite song by the Beatles?” I asked him. My first guess would have been “Mean Mr. Mustard.”

  “What?” That was the second time my uncle had demanded I repeat myself in this conversation. If Arthur had a hearing problem, he certainly could have obtained for his phone a device that increases the volume of the incoming audio. If he did not, he was either stalling for time or legitimately confused.

  I did not repeat the question, assuming Arthur was simply attempting to get more time to think. There are 309 songs listed as having been released on recordings by the Beatles. No doubt there are many more on unreleased tapes, alternate takes, bootleg recordings, and song segments that could be included in the question. It is not an easy one to answer, so I understood his need for additional thought.

  “I don’t listen to the Beatles,” he said.

  That hardly seemed likely. Arthur, if now in his late seventies, would have been a youth in his twenties when the original recordings were released in the United Kingdom and in America. Even if they were not his favorite band—an opinion I am aware is held by some people although I do not understand it—surely he would have heard the recordings and formed an opinion in the ensuing decades.

  “Nonetheless,” I persisted as Ms. Washburn looked on. “If you had to choose one song by the Beatles, what would it be?”

  “I listened to Elvis,” Arthur said. “I liked ‘Jailhouse Rock.’”

  “The Beatles,” I insisted. “One song by the Beatles. Please.”

  “Why?” Arthur sounded genuinely mystified by the question. I find that odd, but it is not atypical. I have posed the question to a great deal of people I meet. It is a device I employ to better understand a person’s psyche. Since I know the recordings of the Beatles very well, I can reference the song a subject chooses and divine some insight into his or her character. It is not a completely scientific method, but it is surprisingly effective much of the time.

  “It will be of great use to me,” I answered. The idea that I would use it to analyze his personality seemed a detail better left unspoken. I have found that to be the case in the past.

  “I heard you were weird,” Arthur told me. Again, that was not the first time I’d heard such a statement, although I did wonder who might have told him about me. Certainly my mother had not expressed the opinion that I am “weird.”

  “Can you name a song, please?” There was no point in responding to his comment.

  “Oh, fine. Write down ‘Nowhere Man.’”

  That made sense. A person who believes himself to be alone and isolated, not connecting to society. That helped me understand my uncle better and led to a tactic I could employ.

  “My father sent a letter to my mother and it has upset her,” I said. “She doesn’t hear from him very often and worries about his welfare. If I could contact him it would be helpful for me, for her, and for your brother, I believe. It might even help you.”

  “Me? How?” Now Arthur sounded interested.

  “I assume he has been in touch with you somewhat regularly,” I said. “If you tell me where he is he can communicate with my mother and me and come to you
for help less often.”

  Arthur thought that over. “I don’t think I’m going to do that,” he said slowly.

  I had not expected that response so I had no answer ready. I sat and was silent.

  “I’ll tell you what I will do,” Arthur continued after a moment. That gave me the feeling he was going to be helpful in some way, and I felt my forearms relax on the arms of my chair. “I’ll get in touch with Reuben and tell him you’re looking for him. I’ll give him your phone number because I have it now on my phone. And if he wants to talk to you, he’ll call you. How’s that?”

  Ms. Washburn had not been able to hear Arthur’s side of the conversation. I felt the need for some guidance, so I said, despite already having the information, “You want to contact my father and give him my phone number so he can call me if he decides to do so?” I made it sound like a question so my uncle would not be able to discern that I was repeating it for Ms. Washburn’s benefit.

  “You got someone there listening?” he asked.

  Perhaps I was not as cagey as I had thought. But Ms. Washburn was not listening, at least not to Arthur, so I said, “No.” I did look at her, and she nodded her approval. “But if that is the plan, I will agree. Please get in touch with my father and tell him it is urgent I speak to him. In fact, if he would like to text me his address, that would be even better.”

  “Why?” Arthur asked. “Do you want to go there?”

  “I definitely do not,” I said truthfully.

  “Then you don’t need his address unless you’re sending him flowers. You’re not sending him flowers, are you?”

  “No, I am not.”

  “I’ll give him your phone number, boy. What he does with it is his business.” Arthur let out a long breath, almost a sigh. “So how’s your mom?” he asked. “She still a looker?”