A Long Island Story

by Rick Gekoski

  Published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2018

  by Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

  Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada

  canongate.co.uk

  This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books

  Copyright © Rick Gekoski, 2018

  This book is a work of fiction. While it draws inspiration from real people, places and events, the author’s interpretation of character and story have been fictionalised. Some details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 78689 342 0

  eISBN 978 1 78689 340 6

  Typeset in Bembo by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

  For my sister Ruthie, with love.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Also by Rick Gekoski

  Acknowledgements

  ‘The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores . . . but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation . . . the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been most traitorous. . . .

  ‘I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.’

  – Senator Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, 9 February 1950

  1

  Even when her morning started at a reasonable hour her first waking utterance was a groan, followed by a shuddering series of stretches and a string of torporous obscenities. The onset of day surprised her; she resented the imperative to consciousness, as if she had a right to sleep forever, like the dead. Addie turned off the alarm – it was five in the goddamn morning, for Christ’s sake – rolled over and covered her eyes with a pillow.

  Ben had been up in the night, again. It was impossible to get a full night’s sleep, too much to think about, unwelcome plans to be made, worries that could not be resolved. Rather than counting beasts jumping over fences, he preferred to mix himself a double martini. No, not a martini, why bother? In company he would carefully combine one part of vermouth with five of Gordon’s gin, agitate in a cocktail shaker, pour over crushed ice. But on his own he dispensed with the vermouth.

  He’d been trying to write, sitting at the kitchen table. Not on the typewriter, which made an awful clacking sound, curiously exacerbated in the night-time silence, but longhand on his yellow legal pads, appropriated by the half-dozen from his office at the Department of Justice. To each according to his needs? Another Communist lurking at the heart of government! One of 205 reds! Or was it now 57? The number didn’t matter, it was as unimportant as the number of metastasising cells in a tumour that threatened to annihilate the lives of so many, of his friends, of himself and his family.

  And about this prospect he had nothing to say, nothing to write. It was unimaginable, beyond any language other than brute obscenity. Writing was in his past. It was absurd to try. He was a father of young children, had a constantly demanding job, would have been exhausted even without the additional stress, for these last few years, of constantly looking over his shoulder, being distrusted and investigated. His best friend from law school lost his job in the State Department last year, while other friends and acquaintances, presumed guilty by association, had resigned their positions in university life, in publishing and the film industry.

  He had survived, just. Was still employed, could feed his wife and children. But he was exhausted, demoralised and morally compromised. He’d had enough, and twenty-five bucks for an occasional short story was hardly likely to sustain them all.

  He’d wanted to be a writer, had always wanted to be one. Had written an 800-page roman-à-clef entitled Nature’s Priest in his late twenties, which prospective publishers praised in one paragraph and rejected firmly in the next. Rightly. The experience taught him a lot: what to leave out, how to separate, to refine, to focus. To make less into more, like Hemingway. He’d honed concentration by composing short stories and had one accepted – what a moment! – by Story magazine in 1946. He sent a copy to his parents with a proud inscription, but neither gave the slightest sign of having read it. It was just as well; the portrait of the marriage at the heart of it was depressing and familiar. Addie read it and handed it back with a single sentence. ‘Fair enough,’ as if she didn’t hold it against him. Or perhaps she did.

  He finished his gin with a final gulp, put the glass in the sink and went back to the bedroom to fall briefly asleep before the other alarm rang. Addie was snoring unobjectionably, a tremolo that he found oddly attractive, like some sort of wind instrument, reedy and wistful.

  ‘Rise,’ he whispered. ‘Make no attempt to shine. I’ll make the coffee, get things going.’

  He got up with the weary steadfastness that was apparently yet another of his irritating characteristics and pulled on his bathrobe. She hunched under the covers, as potent an invisible presence as could be imagined. Her hair bunched on the pillow in a tangled ribbon.

  He looked at her form, still and steamy, her early morning smell whispering from the bedclothes to his nostrils. He could have picked her out, blindfolded, in the midst of a hundred sleeping women. On the mornings after they’d made love – not so many mornings now, he’d rather lost interest – the smell was overlain by something sweet and acrid that bore scant resemblance to somatic functioning. Something primal, post-pheromonal, that caught in your throat. He’d once thought it exciting, heady as an exotic perfume left too long in the sun, but now? It didn’t exactly disgust him, but he’d smelled better, fresher, and more exciting.

  He crossed the hall, had a quick and not entirely satisfying pee, squeezed out the final reluctant drops, washed his hands and took the few steps from the hallway into the kitchen. Get the coffee going, make something for the kids to eat in the car – Becca would only eat peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches, while Jake had been addicted for some months to bologna sandwiches with mustard. At least it was easy. And for the grown-ups? Perhaps some sliced hard-boiled egg sandwiches, with mayonnaise and tomatoes. A few pickles in Saran wrap. And the Thermos of coffee, of course.

  No breakfast for the kids, best to lift them from their beds, floppy and warm morning-smelly in their jammies, carry them down to the car however it made his shoulder ache, settle them in the back seat with pillows and blankets. With a bit of luck they might sleep for a couple of hours, kill almost half the journey. A third perhaps. Addie wouldn’t have much to say.

  Best be on the road by six, miss the worst of the morning traffic, though they would be going against the flow, away from DC rather than into it, north into Maryland, skirt Philly in a few hours, miss the New York rush hour, get to the bungalow for a late lunch. Maurice would soon be at Wolfie’s buying half a pound of Nova, herring in cream sauce, egg salad, poppy seed bagels and scallion cream cheese, knishes, dark oily maslines and plenty of half-sour pickles. The p
antry and freezer would already be loaded in anticipation of their visit. It was a prospect worth hurrying up for, and the weekend at the bungalow would pass quickly enough, until he could return on Sunday evening to the empty apartment, leaving Addie and the kids. He would visit them later, taking the train, but otherwise he was looking forward to the peace, the quiet, no needy noisy children, no needy silent wife – time to spend working and listening to music, more than that certainly, a lot more – with an intensity that rather alarmed him.

  She hadn’t been asleep, of course. He rarely noticed whether she was or wasn’t, unless he wanted something, which he was beginning not to want. She rolled onto her right side, pushed the bedclothes off with a hasty gesture and stepped onto the floor. Turned on her bedside lamp, though Ben had opened the curtains and a dispiriting half-light was making its way gingerly into the room.

  She wore her nudity with ease, if not grace. When they’d first become lovers she’d tilted her shoulders slightly backwards when she was naked, throwing her breasts into sharper relief. In later years she had none of the hunched self- consciousness of other women he’d known, breasts retracted. Now her walk was simple, upright, all traces of erotic display long gone.

  Young lovers are curious children giggling, peering and peeping, naughty, anxious both to show off yet not to be caught, as if behind a bush with the grown-ups only just out of sight. She and her first boyfriend Ira had laughed when they made love, sometimes stopped to still themselves, perfectly aware that the impulse would abide, carried on, laughed and fucked and cried in mutual release. It hadn’t been like that with Ben, not even at first, not so innocent, so pure, so full of wonder. But it had been more powerful, more grown up, and she’d wanted him with an intensity that surprised her. It was gone now, he knew it and seemed hardly to mind.

  She pulled the shower curtain carefully, lest the stays on the rail popped again, and shrugged her way into the tub, turning the tap on carefully so as to avoid the downpour onto her hair, not bothering with the ugly rubber shower cap. Not that anything could make it look worse; let it frizz, the hell with it. Poppa Mo had given her a hand hairdryer for her birthday, proud to be up to date on the latest gadgets, but she’d never figured out how to make it work, was certain she’d be electrocuted.

  She hated going to the hairdresser’s, head stuck in an ugly helmet blowing hot air, half-listening to more hot air on either side of her, the inconsequential gossip, the babble. It made her hate women, having her hair done. They all loved it, basked and wallowed in the heat like animals. Ugh.

  They’d packed the suitcases the night before and put them in the trunk, enough simple clothing and beachwear for the visit, assembled a bag full of puzzles, colouring books and packets of (dangerous) jellybeans, likely to cause discord over who got the oranges, or drew a black. Dr Seuss and Peanuts, as well as Nancy and Sluggo cartoons – but reading in the back seat had to be rationed for the highways, when there wasn’t too much sway and things were as stable as you could get with two fidgety kids – Jake was constantly widening his territory, but the little one always had a reliable response up her sleeve. If he offended her sufficiently, she’d say, ‘You’re Sluggo! That’s what you are!’

  The comparison to the ugly, dunderheaded orphan infuriated him.

  ‘Keep it up,’ he’d warn, ‘and I’ll sluggo you!’

  The prospect of the car trip – indeed, the prospect of the coming months – filled Addie with an anxiety bordering on dread, though anything was better, even this, than a summer – their last! – in the heat and humidity of DC.

  They deposited the children, still fast asleep, dribbling in the corners of their mouths, in the back seat, propped them against the doors, placed pillows behind their heads. Addie brought Becca’s Teddo, a slight orange bear with eyes beginning to protrude, the strings showing, and placed it gently beside her. She’d be upset without it, had only just been weaned from sucking her thumb. She was an anxious little girl, vigilantly doe-eyed, focusing first on one then another of the family, though quite what she was watching and waiting for was unclear. Some sort of unexpected disaster, like a jug sliding off a table, which if she could only spot it coming might be averted.

  Neither child stirred. Addie placed the back-stick between them, dividing the territory exactly in half. They usually woke within a few minutes of each other. Most mornings, Becca would rise abruptly, rubbing her eyes, looking round the room to orient herself, for she had occasional moments when she awoke from a dream feeling displaced and would begin to cry. On normal mornings, though, comfortable in their small shared bedroom, she awoke alert and cheerful.

  ‘I’m a morning person!’ she’d proclaimed. ‘Like Bugs Bunny!’ She would reach across to Jake’s bed and grab him by the shoulder, fingers digging in.

  ‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ she’d say, shaking him until he grudgingly opened his eyes. She loved that moment, it was why she woke first, when she was in charge and he had to do her bidding. In a few minutes things would revert, Jake would rise, enfold his territory, and she would return to her natural place in the scheme of things: on the edges, looking in, vigilant, a solemn freckled owl, unseen, seeing. Darwin would have been proud of her. It was a highly intelligent bit of adaptation.

  Her father adored her, held her hand when they were out together, teased her by squeezing her dear little knuckles, gave her little pats and tickles when they were on the couch watching TV, rumpled her hair, could barely suppress a smile when she entered the room, called her freckle-face. It made Addie furious with disapprobation, not jealousy, she wasn’t worried that the little one would supplant her, take the position as number one girl. Why worry about that? It had happened already. No, what she disliked was the fawning. It made her uncomfortable to the point of nausea.

  She’d been her father’s favourite, she too, but Maurice had never debased himself like this at the altar of fatherly love. What could one say, it was all over the place: Jewish fathers and their daughters. She’d been given such priority, and been aware of it, but nothing like this. She’d tried to compensate by bonding more intensely with the boy, nothing yucky or overstated, mind you, simply tried to treat him with heightened respect, and interest, and admiration when it was deserved. He seemed not to notice, looked under his eyelids at his father’s love affair with his sister, turned away, retracted.

  In the back seat the wake-up ritual was unfolding, though they’d been pretty good really, it was almost eight-fifteen. The Thermos of coffee had been shared in the front of the car, half of the egg sandwiches eaten, though it was too early for pickles. They could be a treat later. The kids didn’t like them, thank God. Bad for their stomachs, and teeth.

  First cigarettes of the day were tapped out of the pack, lit with the Zippo, inhaled greedily, tapped into the ashtray. The first, the best. None of the thirty-odd that would follow had the same freshness, or an equal kick.

  Jake had pushed his blanket to the floor, leaned over and moved the stick.

  ‘It’s not fair!’ he said. ‘I’m bigger than she is, I need more room. She’s just a squirt.’

  ‘I am not a squirt! Addie! Addie! Make him put it back! I have a right!’

  Becca had only recently learned about rights. Negroes had a right to sit in restaurants with the white people! DC was having a major court case about segregation, it was on the TV news, a debate which she had followed as best she could. It was simple really, just a question of what was right and what was wrong. A matter of brown and white, Addie called it. Becca liked that.

  Jake didn’t care. It was just fine with him, people eating what they liked where they liked, same as he did. But he wasn’t interested. He already had rights. He was bigger, and older. And a boy! He deserved more territory than Becca. He shifted his hip and pushed the stick slightly further towards her side.

  In his very occasional spare time, Ben had helped the ACLU pursue the test case against Thompson’s Restaurant, a modest segregated establishment close to the White House. One Saturda
y he and Addie had taken the kids on a moral education trip to see the Negro student protesters, with their signs and angry faces, knowing themselves in the vanguard of a great and just cause. It was a bit frightening for the children, all that chanting and sitting down in front of the door. It wasn’t the sort of place they would eat themselves, though that didn’t matter. Becca was delighted by it all, everybody should be able to eat together, whenever they wanted. She was pleased when she found that the Supreme Court agreed with her. Negroes have rights! The idea made her feel morally replete. She was promiscuously keen on rights, especially as they applied to her.

  In the car, Addie wouldn’t even turn round. Took a deep drag of her cigarette, her window only partially open, exhaled with a weary, prolonged sigh, the fug deepening.

  ‘What’d I tell you two! Button it!’

  It was a script as predictably fraught as a play by Eugene O’Neill. She kept drifting off, shaking herself as her head slumped, kept awake by the purity of her spirit of opposition. This wasn’t what she’d wanted, what she’d planned for, there was nothing sustaining in it. Next to her Ben studied the unravelling road intently. She felt obscurely jealous as he did so, his eyes unwavering as if to avoid looking at her. He rarely did, these days, hardly noticed her at all.

  When they’d met at Penn in the thirties, she doing her MA in Social Work, Ben at law school, they had bonded over what looked like common causes. They had passionate sympathy for the poor and the dispossessed, went on marches, picketed here and demonstrated there, made public avowal that things could change for the better, as they were palpably changing for the better in Russia. But it didn’t take her long to discover that their similarities were actually a form of differentness.

  Ben had read widely on leftist subjects, could quote Marx and refer to Engels, was fascinated by the unwieldy super-structures that supported his new beliefs. But Addie, though mildly conversant with the terminology, eventually found she didn’t give a damn about all that verbiage, those fatuous, meaningless categories, all those beardy pontificating men. To generalise is to be an idiot, she’d maintain.