“I think he’s got that beard mixed up in his mind with getting well. I’m sure he sees himself coming out of this whole thing a new man.”
“That could be a big part of it. That show of color when he let it grow maybe reminded him of his real life locked in there.”
Just then it hits me.
“Holy God, Joan! What’ll we do about the dates on that tombstone?”
She sits up.
“Oh, my goodness! I forgot. We’ll have to call and ask them to leave off the final date.”
“Do you mean the last seven or both sevens?”
“Jack, at the rate he’s going, maybe we should think twice about the nineteen!”
When I finally decide Dad should come home, he weighs a hundred ten and his beard’s well grown in; thick, dark, grizzled brown.
Chad goes along with everything I ask. This includes a deluxe pneumatic mattress to help with healing Dad’s bedsores, a wheelchair, one of those walkers and a cane. We also have a special chemical toilet and an oxygen tank with the nose attachment. I figure Mother can use the oxygen while napping, even if Dad doesn’t. Perpetual is footing the bill for all this and a nurse will come once a day to check on Dad. I get Dr. Coe to sign a procurement slip allowing the nurse to check Mother, too.
I must admit I’m laying it on, but it’s a small revenge.
I’m half tempted to walk the senile corpse in on Ethridge but I’m not sure this would be good for Dad. Ethridge wouldn’t care anyway; just so long as his stocks keep going up and his golf game doesn’t deteriorate too fast.
Dad comes home and Joan joins us to help with the settling in. There was never anybody more pleased to be home; but then he’s happy about everything. He sits in his platform rocker with his leg cocked under him and comments immediately on the African violets blooming in the window box. I’ve added his new ones from the hospital. Alicia’s given him five different varieties. I’m praying Mother won’t ask about them but I’m ready to lie.
He wants to check his garden and the greenhouse. Billy and I’ve been keeping things in the greenhouse tended, also the grass cut and trimmed. It isn’t up to his standards, we know, but it isn’t a jungle either.
Mom watches Dad as if there’s a stranger in the house. Already, he can get along with a cane if somebody holds his other arm, so we take him out to the patio, help him into a chair. It’s another good day but a bit warmer and there’s a touch of smog. Still, out there, with the greenery and the recently watered grass, it’s beautiful.
Dad stares up.
“Boy, it’s easy to forget how wonderful the sky is. I haven’t been out where I could look up and see blue in a long time. I must say, though, I do miss clouds here in California. We had beautiful clouds in Philadelphia and Wisconsin.”
Mother’s in the redwood chair. I know she’s stewing. It’s the beard, all the attention Dad’s getting, his talking so much. It’s a lot of change, too much.
“Don’t forget, Jack, those clouds used to be full of rain. You remember in Philadelphia it would rain sometimes for two weeks straight, even in summer. Don’t forget the rain.”
“That’s right, Bess; but rain’s good for growing things.”
Dad’s been calling Mother “Bess” since his recovery. I don’t know whether he’s doing it on purpose or it’s automatic, or he’s forgotten she wants to be called Bette. She’s been Bette for almost thirty years, since they moved out to California, and now he’s back to Bess. Mother’s real name is Elizabeth but she’s never been called that. Mother hasn’t said anything about the “Bess” business yet, but I know it’s bugging her.
“Jack, I remember once we took your two weeks’ vacation in Wildwood and it rained the entire time. We were locked up in one room with two beds and two kids for two weeks. I’ll never forget it.”
Dad’s still staring at the sky, eyes wide open; blue as the sky, but clearer. A smile works its way across his face.
“Well, well, rubber ears!”
He says this, then looks around. Mother looks at Joan, then at me; there’s raw fear in her eyes. I get up, go over to Joan and pull her ear.
“Well, well, rubber ears!”
Joan yanks away, then laughs. She leans over toward Dad and pulls on his ear.
“Well, well, rubber ears.”
She leans close and kisses him on the cheek.
“Dad, I’d forgotten; was that the time it rained so much? It’s the time at Wildwood I remember most.”
Mother gives a vintage snort.
“You’re all crazy. You and your ‘rubber ears.”
Then she laughs.
“If anybody ever saw you three pulling ears like that, they’d be sure you were insane.
“And it all came from the funnies, you know. He’d read the comics to you two with different crazy voices even after Jacky could already read himself.
“Popeye pulled Sweetpea’s ear once and said that; then you all got started. I couldn’t relax without one of you sneaking up and pulling my ear.”
She’s laughing so hard now, she’s holding her hand on her chest.
“It’s a wonder I didn’t have a heart attack or go completely crazy a long time ago living with such a bunch of nitwits.”
Within another week, Dad can get around with only a cane. He starts getting cocky, using the cane to investigate growing plants without stooping. He’s smiling all the time and singing or humming to himself. He drives Mother nuts hanging around the kitchen. And he’s asking questions, just like a kid. I’m caught between fires. Dad doesn’t want Mother working in the kitchen and she doesn’t want me to cook. I tell Dad I’ll watch Mom to see she doesn’t do too much. Dad’s all over Mother; he hardly lets her go to the john alone.
The other thing is: he, who all his life has been so reserved in physical signs of affection, is continually coming over to rub Mother’s neck or her back, or leaning down to give her a quick kiss. Mom doesn’t know how to take it. A couple times, when he gets up from his chair, unannounced, to plant one of his kisses on her, she gives me her “here comes the simp” look; also there’s fear.
One day Dad asks if I’ll take him to the Salvation Army thrift store, just the two of us. He shows me his wallet; he has three twenties and a ten. I never remember Dad carrying more than five dollars in his life.
Mother’s in a tizzy wondering what we’re going to do. Dad says it’s a secret and he’ll tell her when we come back. I suggest she take a nap while we’re gone. She’s been complaining she doesn’t have a minute to herself with Dad hanging over her. So, quietly, while Dad’s getting out the street version of his aircraft-carrier hat and a sweater, I whisper to her.
“Look, Mom, here’s your chance to have some time for yourself. Relax and enjoy.”
“How can I relax when he’s acting like this, Jacky? Where are you going, what’s he doing now?”
“I don’t know, Mom, and he doesn’t want to say. Don’t worry, it’s all right; I’ll be with him all the time. We’ll be back before five; try to get a good rest.”
We drive over to the Salvation Army on Eleventh Street in Santa Monica. When we get there, Dad goes sniffing around like a bird dog. He and I are back in the old days routing around in the dump for something to salvage and fix up. Dad’s convinced, has been all his life, that people throw perfectly good things away because they’re only tired of them or because there’s some little thing wrong he can fix.
We spend half an hour on the thrift-shop side. This is stuff that’s so far gone even the Salvation Army won’t try to fix it. Dad finds himself an old pair of Adidas running shoes. The laces are gone and the toe is coming out the left shoe but they’re his size and he gets them for twenty-five cents. They’re light blue with three dark blue racing stripes and Dad’s pleased as punch. Those shoes should’ve tipped me off.
In the main store, I talk him past an enormous burnt-gold colored couch. It costs seventy-five dollars. Holy cow, if we come home with something like that strapped on top of the ca
r, we can bury Mother the next day.
After I work him away from the couch, he noses around for a while in women’s purses, then blouses. Next, he looks up and sees the stock of Salvation Army furs. They look like a backwoods hunter’s private cache of last year’s killings. Dad heads directly for them, his eyes glowing.
“Your mother’s always loved furs, Johnny.”
During the next ten minutes, he’s taking fur coats off hangers, holding them up, turning them around. He puts two on himself, strokes the fur, looks in the mirror. Thank God none of them strike his fancy.
I steer him over to the sweater section. A sweater shouldn’t cost much and Mother can hide it or give it away. Nobody can buy clothes for Mother. She even takes back half the clothes she buys for herself.
I tell Dad I’m looking for a pair of pants, and I head for the pants racks. I’m looking for anything reasonable in 33- or 34-30 under a buck and a half. If you don’t care much about being in style, you can get great buys. Dad follows along behind me. He pulls out a pair of violet velvet pants and holds them against himself. They’re size 38-34.
“Are these too big, John?”
I try to keep a straight face; I won’t fall into Mother’s role here.
“Yeah, probably. What size do you wear, Dad?”
He looks down at his waist. He’s lost so much weight his pants are folded under his belt and the trousers hang slack around his legs. He’s already gained back fifteen pounds but doesn’t weigh one twenty yet. He opens his belt and holds up the pants. I look inside the waist seam; 32-29.
“But you’re more like twenty-eight-twenty-nine right now, Dad. The thing is, who knows how much you’ll weigh three months from now; the way you’re eating you could be the new Tony Galento.”
Dad tightens his belt, checks his shirttail and smiles.
“Do you remember that fight, John?”
“I sure do. I even remember where we were when we listened to it. It was the furthest I’d ever been from home. We were in Upstate New York with Ira Taylor and his wife, Kay,”
“You’re right, Johnny; I almost forgot. Gee, that was a fun trip. I remember I promised you you’d see a mountain. Every time we’d go over a hill you’d ask if this was it. We had the ’29 Ford then.”
Dad pulls out a pair of red, blue and purple striped Picasso pants. They’re 28-29 and only a dollar. He holds them against himself. My God, with the beard, he looks like Cézanne in his last years. All he needs is a field easel on his back.
“They look great to me, Dad, but do you think they’ll fit next week?”
“I don’t care; if they don’t, I’ll give them away. I think I’d feel fine in a pair of pants like this. I’d feel like somebody special, as if people could see me. All the rich people I’ve seen on television wear crazy clothes. They don’t have to please anybody except themselves and they don’t care what people think of them; they’re already rich. Now I don’t need anything from anybody either. I’ll buy them. I feel like I’m buying Baltic in Monopoly; it’s purple, cheap and how can I lose?”
“OK, Dad; I think they look great. What do you suppose Mother’ll say?”
“Well, she’ll laugh and call me crazy, but she’ll laugh. We haven’t had enough laughing around our place the last ten years.”
During the next hour, Dad buys the most outlandish combinations of pants and shirts. I jump into the spirit of things and help him color-match. He’s laughing and having great fun making up wild costumes; nothing is too much.
Against my advice, he buys a shot silk shirt for two dollars. I know how impossible it is to get a shirt like that clean without killing the shimmer effect. Dad says when it gets dirty he’ll throw it away. He’s fascinated by the feel of the cloth and the way it changes color at different angles to the light.
All together, we spend under twenty dollars. I don’t remember ever enjoying shopping so much. I even buy myself two rather insane outfits. I hate to think of Mother’s reaction when we show up with these clothes.
On the way home we talk about which costumes we’ll wear first. Dad decides on a pair of ochre-golden ski pants with the shot silk. The silk is a golden thread interwoven with a deep blue. We also buy shoelaces for the Adidas running shoes.
When we get home, Joan’s there. I don’t know whether Mother panicked and called her or Joan just stopped in. We smuggle our bags of clothes through the side door into the back bedroom. I go into the living room to tell Joan and Mother we’re giving them a fashion show. Mother’s punch-drunk and doesn’t know how to react anymore.
We come out, me first in my almost pistachio-ice-cream shirt, Jack Nicklaus golf pants, Stan Smith green-and-white tennis shoes. Joan whistles between her fingers, a skill she mastered before she was five years old, one I’ve always envied.
Dad comes out behind me, no cane. He walks to the center of the living room slowly, carefully, and turns around with his arms waggling loosely in the air. Joan and Mother crack up totally. I begin walking and turning around Dad. Joan breaks out with “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody” and Mother joins in. They start clapping to the song. We all get giggling and Dad turns back to the bedroom. I bow.
“Keep your seats, ladies. The show has just begun. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
I disappear down the hall before they can say anything.
Dad’s laughing and giggling. His hands are shaking so I help him with the buttons. This time, he puts on the Picasso pants and a dark blue, almost navy, flared blouse with three-quarter sleeves. All he needs is a beret to go out and paint in Montmartre. He looks at himself in the mirror, turns his head each way.
“This is my retired-artist’s costume.”
He takes the brush off the dresser and brushes his beard into a point, turns up the ends of his mustache. He looks more like an artist than I ever will.
I slip on a pair of striped Italian no-belt pants with a brown, long-sleeved, three-button-at-the-cuff shirt. It even has a lion as a monogram on the pocket. I look somewhat like the Prince after the Princess got drunk and ran off with the butler. Dad stares at me.
“Boy, if you ain’t the cat’s meow.”
He whistles between his teeth, another skill I’ve never managed.
“Johnny, you should dress that way all the time. You look like a man who’s never done a day’s work in his life.”
We take a last peek at ourselves in the mirror. This combo just might be too much. I go out and peer around the doorjamb.
“Ladies, our next showing is what they were wearing in Paris fifteen years ago. Time and tide wait for no one.”
I step forward and Dad follows; Mother bursts out.
“Oh, no! Joan! Oh, no!! They’re both simple. Oh Lord!”
She’s between crying and laughing. I stand in the center this time with my hands over my head and Dad walks around me lifting his thin arms up and down so the sleeves slide past his elbows each time. Joan starts clapping and Mother picks it up. They’re belting out “A Pretty Girl” again as we troop back to the bedroom.
I’m out of costumes, but Dad has two more. I don’t fit into either his shirts or pants. I help him get undressed and dressed again. This time he has flared denim striped pants in a rather subtle range of tans and browns; he wears a sailor shirt with brown-and-white horizontal stripes and a small white collar. He looks slim and trim like a faggy old cabin boy. I quickly slip into Mr. Lazio’s black burial suit, a white shirt and tie. I go out very serious; Joan and Mother roar. I wait till they stop laughing. While I’m waiting, I bow slowly, smiling falsely at each of them in turn. Dad’s pushing behind me.
“What is it, John? What’s going on?”
With one hand I signal Dad to stay back and I step out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the house now presents the star of the show, the late sick man and almost corpus delicti, just back from a successful tour of the Caribbean, Gorgeous Jack.”
I hold out my arm and Dad comes shuffling past me, all smiles, no hand over his mouth. This
time Mother screams when she laughs. She can’t control herself.
“Stop them, Joan. I’m dying. They’re trying to kill me! Stop them; I’ll pee my pants!”
Joan’s rocking back and forth, laughing, on the couch.
“I never heard of anybody dying laughing, Mother, but wouldn’t it be nice?”
Dad walks over, leans down and kisses Mother. Her cheeks are wet from crying and laughing.
“Are you all right, Bess? We’re just having a little fun.”
“You two are crazy and where in heaven’s name did you get those clothes? They must’ve cost a fortune, Jacky. And who in their right mind would sell them to two old kooks in beards anyhow?”
She leans back, still laughing, to look at us again.
“With those costumes and those beards, people would cross the street just to escape! Somebody’s going to lock you two up for sure.”
Then she starts laughing again. Dad straightens, puts his hand on his chest.
“This is my costume for bicycling in Venice along the beach or maybe roller-skating.”
He says this biting the smile off his lips; at the same time, trying out the idea. Mother turns to Joan.
“I wouldn’t put it past him; neither one of them. The way he’s been acting since he came out of that hospital, he’s liable to do anything.”
Dad insists on dressing by himself for his last costume. I’m to join the audience. I can’t remember just what’s left. We looked at so many crazy combinations I’ve lost track. In about five minutes, he sticks his head around the doorjamb.
“This here’s my baseball-watching outfit. Mostly I’ll only wear it around the house, watching Dodger or Angel games, but I’m also going to actually go see a few games, but not in my costume.”
He comes out, and somehow—maybe it’s because he’s by himself and having such a good time—we get laughing so hard none of us can breathe. I’m on the floor with my knees bent up, rolling on my back, trying to get air. Joan’s prostrate on the couch and Mother’s rocking uncontrolled in her chair. Sometimes she leans forward with her head almost on her knees.
He has on a pair of white flannel trousers with a pale blue pinstripe. The shirt is short-sleeved with the colors in reverse, blue with white pinstripes. He’s wearing the aircraft-carrier hat I gave him for his birthday with the bill slightly cocked to the left. He looks like a sixty-year-old Dennis the Menace. The point is he doesn’t look seventy-three. The boyish figure and grace have somehow come through the illness, the years, the awkwardness of self-consciousness. Mother gets her breath first.
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