by Avery Corman
Sleep, a half-serious entry, was next. Without Billy he could say farewell to the twenty-four-hour day, get up at nine on a Sunday morning, possibly even nine-thirty.
Money. Undoubtedly Joanna would sue for child support. But she would probably be working, and he would fight her on paying for the expense of her housekeeper. He guessed that any settlement would end up costing him less than being the sole bankroller of this enterprise.
Social Life. His social life had been awkward and he could not, in conscience, make Billy the villain of the piece. Ted knew he was having difficulty in his relationships. It was just so much more difficult with Billy and the constancy of his presence.
Emotional Dependence. He and Thelma had discussed this—how parents alone with children might use the children as an excuse not to socialize and to hold back. They decided some dependence was inevitable, simply from living in close quarters with another person. But he wondered if the dependence had been spilling into Social Life, which could not withstand many spills.
Acceptance for Billy. He would be with his mother, as children of divorced parents usually are. He would not be burdened with explaining his parents as he grew older. He could be more like other children. The child needs a mother, Harriet had said, and Billy’s mother was available for a phone call.
When he began to write down the reasons for keeping him, the ideas did not flow as easily.
Professional Benefits, he wrote just to get started. Ted believed the fact that he had to take care of Billy had made him more responsible and more successful in his work.
He tried to think of something else and he could not. He was blocked. He could not come up with any other reasons for keeping Billy. No reasons. Nothing rational. Only feelings. The hours together, the long, tiring, intimate hours of the two of them. How he tried to reconstruct a life for them after Joanna left. How they tried to come through it together. The funny stuff. The difficult times. The injury. The pizza. The part of his life that the boy inhabited in his own special way.
He is part of my life now. And I love him.
Ted took the list and he crumpled it up in his hand. And then he began to cry. It had been so long since he cried, it felt strange to him. He could barely remember what crying was. And he could not stop.
I won’t give you up … I won’t give you up … I won’t give you up …
SIXTEEN
THE LAWYER ADVISED TED to begin compiling the names of people who could vouch in a courtroom for his integrity and his fitness as a parent. He was to inform Joanna of his decision and then wait to see if she actually filed for custody. Escape was tempting. To avoid a conflict and leave her searching for them, as he and Billy went off somewhere to a simpler life, back to nature. But he had no nature to go back to, except for St. James Park in the Bronx. And he was rooted in the urban condition. They could not live on berries.
He called her at the Grand Central Racquet Club.
“Joanna, can you talk?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve made my decision, Joanna. I have no intention now, in the future, in this life, or in any other life of letting you have Billy. There is nothing you can say or do that will convince me otherwise. I am not giving him up to you.”
“Ted—”
“We have not always spoken the same language. I hope I’m making myself clear to you.”
“Ted, I was not a bad mother. I just couldn’t handle it. I know I can now.”
“And we just indulge you until you get it right? You are something. You flit in and out—”
“I’m in New York. I’m staying here.”
“Because it would look good in a custody hearing? Joanna, you want to be a mother? Go be a mother. Get married, have kids. Don’t get married and have kids. Do whatever you want. Just leave me out of it. And leave my kid out of it.”
“I gave birth to him. He’s my child.”
“You chose to ignore that, as I recall.”
“I even named him! Billy was my name for him. You wanted to name him Peter or something.”
“It was a hundred years ago.”
“You’ll still see him.”
“Yes. Every night. You tell your lawyer what I said.”
“What are you leaving me to say? I’ll see you in court?”
“That’s up to you. I’ll tell you this. If you go into court, you will not win. I’ll defeat you, Joanna.”
He hoped she would give up when she saw how resolute he was. He was bewildered once because she had gone away. Now he hoped she would just go away again.
If Ted Kramer had wanted a reward for this commitment he was making to his son in the form of a dutiful, compliant child, all he received was a “Daddy, you stink!” in an argument over bedtime. Then just as suddenly, Billy would emerge from his bedroom, and not for manipulative effect, merely as a piece of unfinished business of the day, he would kiss his father on the cheek, saying, “I forgot to kiss you good night. I mean, you kissed me, but I didn’t kiss you,” and then pad back into his room, with Ted amused, wondering what it could be like living through this into the teenage years, wanting to be there, hoping he had scared her off or that she had changed her mind, having realized how a child could cut into her court time.
“I’M OUT OF A goddamn job? Goddamn dumbbells!”
“I’m sorry, Ted,” O’Connor said. “I’m the one who got you into this.”
People in the company had gone into huddles on why it went wrong. Ted did not participate—he knew why. The magazine had been underfinanced by company directors without the knowledge to see the venture through.
“I’m really thinking of retiring now, Ted. But I promise you—I’ll work on getting you a job before I think about myself.”
“Thanks, Jim. But I intend to have a job within forty-eight hours.”
“How the hell are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know.”
SEVERAL VINDICTIVE EMPLOYEES, FURIOUS about the company’s being dissolved just before Christmas—with no bonuses and two weeks severance pay—stole everything they could carry from the office: staplers, carbon paper, typewriters. Ted left his desk exactly as it was, not even straightening his papers. When he finished talking to O’Connor, he said goodbye to a few people and walked right out of the office.
“Merry Christmas!” an underweight Santa Claus with a bell and a chimney said to him outside the building.
“Humbug!” Ted replied. “I always wanted to say that.”
The boy at the résumé service might have thought he was deranged, this man scribbling away at a resume on a folding chair next to the mimeograph machine.
“I want this in one hour!”
“Sir, it has to go to the typist and then—”
“One hour! I’ll pay triple.”
While waiting for the resumes, he started phoning for appointments at employment agencies.
“You tell him he has to see me at three today or I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
“You must be a real hot shot.”
“I am, I am.”
THIS WAS THE WORST time of year to be out of work—businesses were distracted by the holidays, people were not changing jobs. He picked up the résumés, ran from employment agency to employment agency the rest of the afternoon, took a cab to the business office of The New York Times to check all the want ads for the past week. The next morning he was out of the house by eight-thirty, tapping his foot nervously when the subway slowed between stations, running up the subway steps to be the first at one employment agency so that he could be among the first at the next employment agency. He ran, he phoned, he dropped off résumés. He would get a job. He would get a job fast. He did not stop long enough in his running to realize he was terrified.
In the first twenty-four of the forty-eight hours he had manically prescribed for himself, he discovered the space sales job market consisted of two jobs: Packaging World—the oily publisher had never filled the job, or else he had fired someone already—and McCall’
s magazine, where the position had been open for two months. The job was suspect, the employment agent confided. Perhaps they were not serious about hiring. He was in a public phone booth, tapping his foot, a nervous tic he had just acquired at age forty.
“JOHN, I HAVEN’T HEARD from her yet.”
“Maybe you toughed her out,” Shaunessy said.
“I guess I should mention—my situation has changed. I lost my job. The place went under.”
A long pause, too long for Ted.
“That’s okay. We can handle it. If we go to a hearing, you’re good for the money. I’ll bet on you. And you can always pay it out, Ted.”
“Just how much can this run me?”
“It’s costly, Ted. And it depends how long a hearing goes, assuming we go to a hearing. Say, in ball-park figures, five thousand.”
Joanna, will you get out of my life!
“It could cost you for her fees, too, if you were to lose, but let’s not think about that.”
“Jesus, John!”
“What can I say? That’s what it costs.”
“Well, what do you think about my being out of work? That can’t be in my favor. Here I want to hold on to custody and I’m not even working.”
Another long pause.
“We’re better off with you working. Have you got any prospects?”
“Even as we speak. Thanks, John,” as his foot tapped away.
He ran out of the phone booth toward the next employment agency and then stopped. He had been to that agency earlier. He was on the corner of Madison Avenue and 45th Street, breathing heavily, his foot tapping.
HE HAD PUSHED THE employment agent to set up an appointment at McCall’s magazine for that day at 4 P.M. The advertising manager was a man in his late forties, his mind apparently on the clock and on the holidays. He looked like all he wanted to do was run through the paces on this interview. Ted sold. He sold the man on his background at the other magazines, with facts and figures on markets, demographics, print advertising compared with other media, which he remembered from a sales presentation, and then when he had succeeded in making the man a prospect, he caught him off balance by asking if there was anyone else he was required to see and could they do it right away?
“Our ad director. But he’s going out of town.”
“Could you bring him in here, please? Or could we go in to see him?”
“That’s a bit forward of you, Mr. Kramer.”
“Well, I want this position.”
The man looked Ted over for a moment, then left the room with the résumé. Ten minutes later he returned with another man, who was in his fifties. They shook hands and the advertising director leaned back in a chair.
“So you’re the go-getter?”
“Could you run through your pitch again?” the advertising manager said.
Ted went down the line with his self-sell, this time starting to close in on the sale.
“I understand you’re paying twenty-five to twenty-six. That’s twenty-six, I presume, for someone with my experience.”
“Twenty-five,” the advertising director said, tactically.
“Okay. Tell you what I’m gonna do, to coin a phrase. I’ll take the job for twenty-four, five. That’s five hundred less than you’re willing to pay. Only, you have to say yes, right now. Not tomorrow or next week or after the holidays. It’s worth it to me for a yes right now, and I’ll take five hundred less. I plan to make it up in commissions.”
“You’re a tough salesman, Mr. Kramer,” the advertising director said.
“Today only. A one-time offer. Twenty-four, five.”
“Would you excuse us?” the advertising director said, and he motioned for Ted to wait outside the office.
Holy shit! I’m out of my mind. What am I trying to get away with? I must be desperate. I am desperate.
They asked Ted to come back in, the advertising manager took a last look at Ted’s résumé.
“We’ll check out a couple of your references,” he said.
“Go right ahead. Please.”
“But I’m sure they’ll hold up.”
“Mr. Kramer,” the advertising director said, “Welcome, at twenty-four, five.”
I pulled it off! Good God!
“Well, gentlemen, I’m very pleased to be with you.”
He rushed along the street back to the building where the Men’s Fashion offices were located. The skinny Santa Claus was at his post, ringing a bell in front of his little chimney. Ted dropped in change, a five-dollar bill, and in excitement shook his hand so hard Santa Claus moaned.
OPERATIONS WERE LOW-KEYED AT McCall’s over the holidays, and he had an easy adjustment to being in a new office. His foot had stopped tapping. He was in the flow of an established organization, and by the first working day after New Year’s, he was making a full round of sales calls. He had gotten the new job so quickly the severance pay was untouched, funds earmarked for any possible custody hearing. He still had not heard from Joanna.
The phone rang one night after ten o’clock.
“Mr. Kramer, this is Ron Willis. I’m a friend of Joanna’s.”
“And?”
“I thought I might help in this impasse.”
“I was not aware of an impasse.”
“I thought if you and I got together, I might be able to clarify some points.”
“Are you Joanna’s lawyer?”
“It happens I am an attorney. I’m not Joanna’s attorney.”
“Then who are you?”
“Just a friend of hers. I think I can spare you and Joanna some discomfort if we met.”
“Somebody calls to spare me discomfort. I suppose this is the next move she’s making.”
“It’s not like that, believe me.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Joanna didn’t even ask me to call.”
“And she doesn’t even know about this, right?”
“She does. But it was my idea.”
He was nearly as curious to meet Joanna’s “friend” as he was to learn what the other side was planning.
“All right, Mr. Willis. Meet me outside Martell’s, 83rd and Third, Friday at eight. We’ll have a beer and we’ll have a chat.”
“Very good, Mr. Kramer.”
“Yes, it’s all very wonderful, isn’t it?”
John Shaunessy did not object to a meeting with a third party, since it could bring them information, but he cautioned against having a drink in a bar. A cup of coffee in a well-populated coffee shop would be preferable, or a pleasant little conversation in front of Ted’s building. The point was not to get entrapped—into an argument, a fistfight, a homosexual advance, and not to get arrested. He apologized for the seaminess of his outlook, but he wanted to stress that such tactics were not unknown, and that a judge might not look kindly on any of these offenses.
THE NEXT MORNING, TED could not believe what Billy said to him. Were children psychic? He had been careful to discuss the situation only when Billy was asleep. From nowhere, while waiting for a light to change on the way to school, he said:
“When will I see my mommy again?”
“I can’t tell you that for certain.”
“I’d like to see my mommy.”
“It’s hard, Billy, I realize it.”
They walked along in silence. When they reached the school, the boy looked up at his father, having just worked something out for himself.
“Mrs. Willewska is sort of like a mommy. She’s not really a mommy, but she’s sort of like a mommy. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. You’re a super kid, William Kramer.”
Presuming he had properly reassured his father, the boy went up the steps to school.
In the evening, Billy requested a story, The Runaway Bunny, a picture book about a little bunny who wants to run away, and his mommy bunny, against all odds, always finds him. After Joanna left, Ted discarded the book. Reading it to Billy would have been unbearable for Ted. He said they did n
ot have it any more and read old Babar instead. Before falling asleep Billy was talking to himself, a fantasy conversation between a mommy and a boy. Ted could no longer keep the boy, whom he loved, from seeing his mother, whom the boy wanted to see. He called Joanna at work the next day, a cold, brief conversation between strangers. She could get together with Billy as soon as she liked, take him out to dinner on any of the upcoming evenings. Ted would arrange it with the housekeeper. They set up a five o’clock dinner date for Billy with his mother on the following night. Ted also said her friend should meet him in front of the building and not at the bar for that appointment of theirs. “It wasn’t my idea,” Joanna said. “So I’ve been told.” And they had nothing further to say to each other.
Ted was standing in front of the building waiting for Joanna’s spokesman. He arrived by taxi, a tall, blond, muscular young man—Ted did not think he could have been more than thirty years old—with a tan, wearing a suit and tie and carrying a light raincoat over his arm, which was either rugged or stupid, since it was 20 wet New York degrees.
“Mr. Kramer, I’m Ron Willis. Where can we talk?”
“Right here.”
“If that’s how you’d like to do it. To begin with, Joanna and I are good friends.”
“Congratulations.”
“I think I know her well. In some ways, better than you, if you can accept that. I believe Joanna is a changed person since you knew her.”
“Congratulations to her.”
Ted hated him. He hated him for his looks, his way of maintaining eye contact as though to overpower the other person with his unsurpassed self-confidence, and he hated him for sleeping with his ex-wife.
“We got it together after she’d been through her California period, so to speak. She worked at Hertz, she did part-time clericals, odd jobs. She was into some self-help therapies, some men. Nothing permanent.”
So Joanna was having trouble sustaining relationships also. Ted took some small solace from that.
