Jake released my hand. “Can I open my eyes, Daddy?”
“Yeah. It’s all over, Jake.”
He opened his eyes as if he didn’t believe it. Then he looked at me and said, “Why are you crying, Daddy? You didn’t get stitches!”
I wiped my eyes as the doctor and I both laughed out loud. The doctor pulled Jake up to a sitting position and held a mirror up to his face. “Okay, tough guy, take a look at yourself.”
Jake smiled at his image. “Cool!”
“Yes, it is pretty cool, isn’t it? Now listen to me. Don’t touch the bandage, and don’t get it wet. In about a week we’ll take the stitches out, and it will…not…hurt. All right?”
He put his hand out like a lawyer to shake with Jake. “I’m sorry I mistook you for a monkey. You are clearly not a monkey. But you are not a bird, either, young man. You cannot fly, so please be careful up on those monkey bars.”
He gave Jake a red lollipop, just like an old-time doctor. Then he turned to me and said, “You’ve got a brave kid there.”
He shook hands with us and was gone.
We walked home slowly, very slowly, Jake savoring his lollipop without chewing it. Doris didn’t yet know about what had happened. I was not looking forward to her reaction to this disaster, and neither was Jake.
But it was nice to hold hands as we walked. Jake had recently hit the age where he wouldn’t hold my hand unless we were crossing a street, but in the wake of what had happened he needed my touch.
“Dad.”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Why can’t I fly?”
He’d been wondering about it ever since the doctor told him he wasn’t a bird.
“People can’t fly. That’s just the way it is.”
“Why?”
“We’re too heavy.”
“Aren’t birds heavy?”
“They have very light bones. We have heavy bones. Also, we have arms, not wings.”
“Birds have wings!”
“That’s right. Birds flap their wings, and that lifts them off the ground.”
“Do birds get tired?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I had wings, could I fly?”
“I guess you could.”
“I’m gonna get some wings.”
By this time I was punchy, barely listening to what he was saying, preoccupied with the imminent conflict with Doris. She couldn’t blame me any more than I was already blaming myself. I should have seen it coming. I should have caught him. I should have been there.
These were the very points she made as she embraced our son and lectured me over his shoulder.
A few weeks later I was startled to hear a loud thump from Jake’s room. I went in and saw him crouched on the floor, having just jumped from his bed, an activity he’d been told not to do anymore for the sake of our poor downstairs neighbor, Mr. Mayhew. I was going to scold him for it, and then I noticed that his arms were sheathed inside matching blue spaghetti cartons, and his eyes were brimming with angry tears.
“They don’t work, Dad!”
“What are you talking about?”
“My wings.”
He held his arms out toward me. Jake had taken two empty Ronzoni spaghetti boxes and fashioned them into a pair of wings, which is to say he’d Scotch-taped a series of feathers along their edges—pigeon feathers mostly, but there was a lavender feather that may have come from a blue jay and a reddish feather that might have fallen from a cardinal. A cardinal on the Upper West Side?
“Jake. Where’d you get these feathers?”
“I found them in the park.”
“You’ve been collecting them?”
“Yeah, but they don’t work.” He pulled the boxes from his arms, threw them to the floor, and dove into my arms for a hug. I sat on his bed, pulled him onto my lap.
“Buddy, buddy, I’m sorry.” I stroked his hair, knowing that the stinging in the soles of his feet was one of life’s bitterest lessons, and he was learning it early: what you want to do and what you can do are often two very different things.
“Why can’t I fly?” Jake demanded, and from the tone of his voice it was clear he wasn’t really asking me, he was asking God, which is odd, because between Doris and me Jake’s religious training amounted to a big goose egg.
“Easy, buddy.”
“It isn’t fair! I have wings! I want to fly!”
“Jake, your wings are beautiful, but that doesn’t mean you can fly! Lots of birds have wings, but they can’t fly, either.”
He was looking me right in the eye. “Really?”
“Sure! Chickens can’t fly. Ostriches can’t fly, either, and how about penguins? Remember those fat little penguins we saw in the zoo? They sure can’t fly!”
“Yeah,” Jake said, “but it’s different.”
“How’s it different?”
“They don’t want to fly, Dad.”
He had me there. He got off my lap and stomped the spaghetti boxes flat. I let him get it all out of his system, but instead of fading, his rage seemed to be rising. He was jumping on the flattened cartons with both feet. It was only a matter of time before Mr. Mayhew phoned to complain.
“Jake! Whoa!”
I scooped him up, set him on the bed, and sat beside him. He was through crying, through feeling sorry for himself. Now he was just plain pissed off. I dared to put my arm across his shoulders, and he didn’t shrug it away. I studied the scar on his forehead, which was already fading—the doctor had done a good job. You had to look hard to see the stitches, like six tiny whitecaps on an otherwise smooth sea. My son was a good healer, strong and healthy, and unhappier than I’d ever seen him.
“Listen to me, buddy, I know how you feel.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. You’re disappointed. Everybody gets disappointed.”
“I don’t care.”
“Jake. Someday you will fly.”
He narrowed his eyes, sat up straight. “I will?”
“Not the way you wanted to fly today. That’s not going to happen. But someday something will happen that’ll make you feel very, very happy. And when you’re very, very happy, you’ll feel as if your feet aren’t touching the ground. You’ll feel like you’re flying.”
He rubbed his nose. “Is that the truth?”
“I swear on my life.”
“Did you ever feel like you were flying, Dad?”
It was a good question. Had I ever felt like I was flying? I’d felt as if my life was in free fall, but that’s hardly the same thing. And if I hadn’t felt like I was flying, how the hell did I know so much about it?
And then suddenly I realized I wasn’t a liar after all. I knew what it was like to fly, as well as any man alive.
“Yeah, Jake, I did feel like I was flying, once. The day you were born, I flew like an eagle.”
He smiled—Jesus, how good it was to see that smile, the smile I feared I might never see again on my boy’s face! It was that rarest of moments for me as a parent, a moment I felt I’d handled in absolutely the right way, without a trace of a fuckup. I knew there wouldn’t be many moments like this one, and that it called for a celebration. “Should we get an ice cream cone?”
“Yeah!”
“Okay, let’s do that.”
On the way out, Jake stuffed his spaghetti box wings into the trash.
“These wings are stupid,” he announced.
“Oh no, they’re not, buddy boy. They were a part of your beautiful dream, and dreams are never stupid.”
Jake falls asleep while I’m stroking his hair. I return to my bed and stare out at the moon, thinking about the road not taken, the countless roads not taken.
I think about my own wings, my spiritual wings, and wonder whatever happened to them. One day you happen to look back at your shoulders and realize they’ve been clipped, before you ever even had a chance to flap them. There’s a lot I haven’t done and never will do, but maybe it’ll be different for Jake.
That’s all I can hope for.
CHAPTER NINE
It’s a little after eight in the morning when I open my eyes on my first full day as an unemployed man. It hits me all over again, like a crack across the face with a paddle, and it boils down to one thing—the paychecks have come to an end, while the bills have not.
I’ve had the same job for so long that I don’t even know how to begin to look for work. The idea of going to another newspaper to crank out the same old shit is far from appealing, and the idea of becoming a flack for some public relations firm is even worse. That’s as far as my imagination takes me this morning—a hack, or a flack. I’m qualified for nothing else. I’ll probably have to buy a new suit for job interviews, and in some ways this seems like the worst thing of all. I hate suits. I hate shopping for clothes. I hate my life.
And what about my son’s future? Just like that, the certainty and serenity of the next five years have been yanked out from under him. An easy senior year, followed by four years at a tranquil, leafy campus. Doris had been looking forward to visiting costly colleges with Jake all over the Northeast, taking their time selecting just the right one.
Now what?
It’s as if Jake has just been jolted by the same thought. His eyes suddenly open, and for a moment he seems confused, the eternal confusion of a child of divorce, even after all these years. Where am I, Mom’s place or Dad’s? But it only lasts for a moment. He realizes where he is. He yawns, clears his throat, and kicks off the quilt. “We fell asleep with our clothes on.”
“Yeah. At least we got our shoes off. You hungry, kid?”
“Starving. We didn’t eat last night, did we?”
“We’ll make up for it now.”
I have all the stuff we need for breakfast—bacon, eggs, bread, butter. I’m always ready for Saturday morning, because Jake almost always has breakfast with me, and I insist upon making it. I want him to think of my house as a home, and I don’t want him to think of his father as some pathetic loser who goes around with his thumb up his ass just because he hasn’t got a woman looking after him. I figure it’s the kind of thing I can’t prove with words, so maybe the smell of frying bacon will do it for me.
While I’m cooking he goes to the bathroom and takes a leak, and it sounds like the force of a fire hose, strong enough to scratch the porcelain. Seventeen. Not a bad age. Prostate gland like an unripe grape.
He comes out and takes his usual seat at the table. I set a glass of orange juice in front of him. “Here. Start filling up your bladder again.”
“You are obsessed with my pissing powers.”
“Just a little jealous. You could rent yourself out, blasting barnacles off boats.”
“I’ll give it some thought, Dad. Wouldn’t even need a high school diploma for that career, would I?”
I turn the bacon strips in the broiler pan. “That girlfriend of yours—”
“Ex-girlfriend.”
“Right, ex-girlfriend. She was talking about the Ivy League schools, and the second tier. What the hell is the second tier?”
“One notch below Ivy. Duke. University of Michigan. William and Mary. Places like that.”
“Good schools?”
“Good, but not good enough. Not when your parents lay out a hundred grand for a high school education.”
“Where does Sarah want to go?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t really give a shit, Dad. I’m out of that game.”
I scramble the eggs, pour them into a hot buttered pan. The smoke alarm goes off. It always does when I cook. Jake pulls it off the wall and pops out one of the batteries, killing the shrieking sound. “Was your mother’s death a sudden thing?”
I knew we’d be getting back to this. Jake has been patient, letting the topic marinate overnight before coming back to it. I don’t really have any more excuses. We’ve agreed to talk about all things. All I can do is stall it a little.
“Jake. Let me tell you something I’ve learned. Everybody’s death is a sudden thing. Did you know that when Elvis died, not one newspaper in the country was ready with a standing obituary? Not one.”
“I don’t want to talk about Elvis, Dad. Please don’t veer off the topic.”
“What exactly is the topic?”
“My grandmother. I’m asking you something about my grandmother.”
It’s odd to hear my mother referred to by a word for something she never lived long enough to become.
“Was her death a shock? Or had she been sick for a long time?”
I have to answer him. “It was a shock. She hadn’t been sick. She just…died.”
Jake shakes his head. “Well, I guess that made it easy for her, but kind of rough on you and your father.”
“That’s exactly right. It was rough.”
I’m scrambling eggs, keeping them moving around so they don’t stick to the pan. It’s good to have something to do with my trembling hands while discussing this particular matter. I’m hoping it’s over, but it isn’t.
“Was she home?”
“What?”
“Was she home when she died, or not?”
“What the hell are you asking that for?”
“What are you getting so upset about?”
“This doesn’t happen to be one of my happiest memories.”
“Whoa, whoa, Dad. We’re supposed to be able to ask each other stuff, aren’t we? Wasn’t that the deal?”
“Yeah, that was the deal. So let me ask you something. Why did you stop playing the cello?”
It’s as if I’ve just soaked him with a pail of ice water. Jake’s shoulders harden, and his eyes narrow. “We weren’t discussing the cello.”
“We weren’t discussing my mother, either.”
“I’ll tell you about the cello later.”
“Swear?”
“Absolutely.”
The cello mystery has been bugging me for three years. Jake began playing the instrument when he was seven and immediately displayed a genius for it, according to his cello instructor, who, it should be noted, charged a hundred and fifty dollars per lesson. (I once asked the instructor if that was his “genius” rate, and he responded with an ambivalent chuckle.) Jake actually played in a concert at Avery Fisher Music Hall when he was eleven years old, but then one day when he was fourteen he refused to play the cello anymore, and his mother wouldn’t tell me why. I didn’t save any money on the deal because the shrink Doris insisted on sending Jake to after he quit the cello also cost a hundred and fifty dollars per hour. Jump ball.
The bacon and eggs are done. I kill the flames and load the plates with food. Just as I set the plates down, the toast pops up. I have always been proud of my timing.
“So. Dad. Was she at home when she died, or not?”
For the first time in years, I feel the urge to give my son a smack. Instead, I answer his question. “No, goddamnit, she wasn’t home.”
“Where was she?”
“Out somewhere. I don’t remember.”
“How could you not remember a thing like that?”
“It was a long time ago, Jake. I don’t remember where she dropped dead, all right?”
It’s not all right, but he doesn’t press it. We begin to eat. The food is good and hearty. Jake is silent. I am silent. We cannot go on like this.
“She loved bacon and eggs,” I hear myself say.
Jake looks up from his food. “Your mother did?”
“Yeah. She loved good food. A true Italian girl. Great cook.”
Jake sets his fork down. “Your mother was Italian?”
“You didn’t know that?”
“I’m seventeen years old and now I’m finding out I’m part Italian!”
“I thought you knew.”
“I assumed I was Irish from your side!”
“You are. But you’re Italian, too, plus Spanish from your mother’s side, as I’m sure you figured from the name ‘Perez.’”
Jake looks pale. “I’m part Italian,” he say
s, in a voice of wonder. “Jesus Christ, Dad, this would have been a nice thing to know about ten or fifteen years ago!”
“Why? You want to join the Mafia?”
“Don’t kid around about it, Dad! This is my history!” he shouts, slamming the table with his fist. “It’d be nice to know where I came from! All my grandparents are dead, and I never even met them! You and Mom act as if you’re Adam and Eve! The whole fucking world began when you two had me, and it ended when you split up!”
He’s breathing hard, almost in tears. I reach for him, but he pulls away from me, covers his face with his hands. I never saw this problem coming, but now that it’s out on the table, it seems obvious. Doris and I have fucked up royally.
Jake takes his hands away from his face. “I feel…”
“Jake?”
“…like I came out of nowhere. My history is a mystery. How can I know who I am if I don’t even know who you are?”
My heart is breaking. My boy is falling apart before my eyes. I get up and go around to the back of his chair to embrace him from behind, as if to keep him from exploding into a million pieces.
“What can I do?” I ask. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”
“Tell me things I don’t know, Dad. Just tell me.”
And then it comes to me, the thing to do, the only thing to do, a thing I should have done years ago. I never wanted to do it. I still don’t want to do it. But suddenly, undeniably, the time to do it has come.
“I can do better than tell you about it, Jake. I can show you.”
“Show me?”
“How’d you like to take a little ride today?”
I give him a final squeeze before breaking my embrace and returning to my chair. He’s looking at me in wide-eyed anticipation, the way he did when he was little and I’d ask him if he wanted to go on the swings.
“Where are we going?”
“My old neighborhood. I’ll show you where I grew up, where I went to school…everything. The fifty-cent tour, lunch included.”
He wipes his eyes, forces a smile. “You’d really do that for me?”
“What do you think? Want to do it?”
“I’d love to. More than anything in the world.”
“Well, wash the dishes and we’ll go.”
Raising Jake Page 10
