by Neil Hetzner
Before leaving the staff restroom, Peter looked down at his shoes. They were as mindlessly speckled with drips and drabs as a Pollock canvas. Except for the slight noise of Raoul shuffling dollars and counting coins for the afternoon deposit and the croupy whir of the walk-in refrigerator, the Retreat was quiet. He thought that the peace at the end of a shift from the clanging of spoons and spatulas against sauce pans, the incensed sputtering of the espresso machine, the cooks screaming “Pick up” or “Eight-six the amandine”, the unending rings and chimes as busboys sorted silver hot from the dishwasher was as satisfying as the noises themselves had once been.
Since his first days of restaurant work, Peter had believed that the only people who could survive in the business were those who had the business in their blood. A love of money, even if the love were as deep as Silas Marner’s, was not enough to keep one going. There had to be a love for the craziness, the crises, the constant hysteria, the chance to create, the opportunity to serve. Restaurant work was a calling, like for the priesthood. Noble work for true believers. For nearly twenty years Peter had had no doubt that the business was in his blood. Lately, he had begun to have some doubts.
Partly, it was his feet. Partly, it was Gaby leaving him. Partly, it was the moribund Massachusetts’ economy. Partly, it was seeing or hearing of customers and former employees sickening and dying from AIDS. Partly it was never having enough time with his sons. Partly it was the loneliness. Partly it was the isolation of Provincetown from the rest of the world, an isolation which had made it a magnet for gay men for decades, but not for much else.
Working seventy hour weeks in a resort town filled with gay men and women, on the very tip of a narrow spit of land extending miles from the edge of a continent, was not a recipe likely to remove his loneliness, an overwhelming loneliness.
“Honey, the count’s in. Another Black Monday. Who’s going to the bank? You, or the ever-faithful moi?”
“I’ll do it. You can take off.”
“Don’t tempt me, Petey Sweetie. Do you think we’ll have a waitron left by the weekend? Thank God, I guess, that we’ve been so slow. Tom and that horrendous Marcie are down the road. That busboy, the one with Jean Tierney’s eyes, the dog, I’ll bet my virginity he won’t be back. I saw him hand in hand with his latest summer fling and it looked like love was going to win out over a fifteen percent split of the tips. My God, what will we do if we get good weather this weekend?”
“I guess we’ll muddle through. It happens every year. We’ve always lost staff right before Labor Day. The kids want a little time to play before the semester starts.”
“How stoic. You hide in the kitchen under that enchanting toque while I’m left out here, lying like Nixon, that all will be well with their cioppino. One night, I know some right wing Catholic homophobic dad, some Mafia or Massachusetts merchant prince, is going to flip. A bad clam, a forgotten veal marsala, a late dessert, and Raoul, he who loves all men a little and too many too well, is going to be eviscerated by one of those appallingly ugly steak knives that you insisted on buying. Who will mourn le pauvre Raoul’s passing? Maman, of course. You, peut-etre. Jean Tierney, non. So sad. Cut down in the prime of my somewhat extended youth. Ooo-laa.”
“We’ll get through it. We always do. I’m thinking about offering a bonus for everyone who stays through Monday. But, if I do and the weather is bad, that could cost us.”
“You’re going to be here?”
“Yes.”
“What about Rhode Island? What about tradition? What about family? What about taking the boys to grandmere and pere?”
“Actually, I was hoping you might do that.”
“Mon Dieu, petit, are you crazy? Why?”
“I asked Gaby. She can’t.”
“Bitch.”
“Bob, don’t do that. If I want the boys at my family’s reunion, it’s my responsibility.”
“Yes, but…”
Before Raoul could finish his thought, Peter cut him off. He didn’t want to hear someone else say the things he had to fight himself not to say. His theory, which he had practiced since Gaby had left, was that if he were quiet and polite and charitable long enough, the thoughts that often careened around his head like balls in a Bingo cage and the hungering feelings that ever wormed through his belly, would finally leave.
“She’s busy.”
“Lover, we’re all busy.”
“I know. She said she could pick them up on Monday. Do you think you could take them down?”
“What might some statesman, Cabot Lodge, Foster Dulles, have said? I can and I will. But, aren’t you worried to have your two blessed nubbins in a car alone with a dancing Nancy?”
“Bob, don’t.”
“See. This is it. Another example. You poor hets want the world to change toward you, but you won’t change. You bring it upon yourselves. You ask for it. You hets are always being accused of being irresponsible. This is why. Putting those delicious boys in a car with a pouf. How will I ever keep my hands on the wheel?
“What’s the itinerary?”
“Could you leave by nine?”
“I could. But at what price? No, no. It’s fine. It’s only my frail and fading beauty that will suffer. Just a soupcon of sacrifice for my master.”
“Thanks.”
“So lavish in his praise. No wonder I can’t say “non.” How can I resist? Anything for Sweet-eyes.”
Peter stood clutching tight the blue canvas deposit bag while staring at the rose-walled emptiness of the dining room. He hadn’t wanted to ask Raoul for the favor. He should go himself, but if he did, he was sure that his family would talk about Iraq and the stream of soldiers moving to save Kuwait. That parade of men and materiel was dislodging something in him that had been carefully stowed away a long time before.
He was tired. He should go home. But, his house hadn’t been home for almost three years. There was nothing to be found under the covers except sheets that had been on the bed too long. He was very tired. So tired that a fine tremor pulsed through his hands and flashes of light, like soundless small arms fire, flared at the edge of his vision. But, even more, he was tired of muddling through, of slogging through a day, of pushing through time’s syrup, just to get to more of the same. Another week, another month, and soon, another winter.
Peter wondered why he worked so hard to keep something that he wasn’t even certain that he wanted. And how he had lost something that he craved.
Chapter 6
“Mother, Mother, has Dad been feeling okay? He looks so terrible.”
Bett took her time looking up from the bowl of pistachios she was shelling since she knew that her eyes were going to meet the fierce, focused, probing light of Dilly’s stare. Her oldest daughter had always had such a great intensity. While the other three children had Neil’s blue eyes, Dilly had the small brown eyes of Bett herself, but with a difference. Rather than Bett’s easy warmth, Dilly’s eyes often were fixed with a dark stare. Dilly did not ask questions; she interrogated. Even as a small child the intensity of Dilly’s stare was such that neither Bett nor Neil could conjure up a child’s answer to such questions as those concerning the existence of Santa, the source of babies, and the tendency of dogs to lick certain parts of themselves. If a four year old Dilly asked why Buster was sniffing Daisy’s hiney, she wanted, and invariably received, a forthright answer. Yet, even though given an honest answer, Dilly would continue to stare as if she thought that some additional information had been denied her.
As her head came up high enough to meet Dilly’s eyes, Bett gave an imperceptible nod to her daughter’s persistence. Dilly added an extra measure to everything she did. If a soup recipe called for a cup of barley, she added a cup and a half. When others smiled, she snorted. When others patted, Dilly bear-hugged. In the aftermath of a fifth young man eluding Dilly’s clasp, Bett had told her daughter that she didn’t fall in love, she took hostages. With that advice, Dilly had changed her ways just long enough to marry Bill.
>
Bett steeled herself for the hot white light of Dilly’s attention.
“Does he?” she said. “I hadn’t noticed. He hasn’t said anything.”
“Does he ever?”
“Now, Dilly.”
“Mother, Mother, he’s sixty-six. He should retire. You don’t need the money. He should slow down. He looks all wan underneath that tan, which, by the way, is sure to kill him. Does he have any idea how fast a skin melanoma can erupt?
Held rapt, cobra and victim, by her daughter’s relentless stare, Bett tried to arrange her thoughts while her unguided fingers fumbled with the sharp-edged shells of the nuts.
“Dilly, your father likes what he’s doing. If he were to retire he’d be around here all the time. Could there be a worse fate? Think of how tired he’d be if he were under my sway all day.”
“Mother, Mother.”
Dilly’s tone held the same exasperation that she used on her children when they were slow in exiting a fantasy to come to dinner or to go to bed.
“He’s getting old. He is old. He should take it easy. He needs to take better care of his health.”
Should. Should. Dilly was so liberal with her shoulds. There were times when Bett wondered how Dilly could be her daughter. Should was not a bad word. She herself had always used it a lot. The difference was that she had directed most of her shoulds to herself while Dilly aimed hers toward all of those around her. She and Neil had been motivated to teach their children by example rather than by command. In Dilly’s case, the lessons had been missed. Dilly always knew what was right for everyone but herself. Dilly’s bossy energy poorly concealed a being so lost and so confused that its sadness wrenched Bett’s heart.
Parenting was such a random process. There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason as to what stuck and what did not.
“We shouldn’t be making ice cream. Do you know how bad these pistachios are for us? We’re making frozen death. Sugar, cream, egg yolk and salted nuts. We should all write our goodbyes.”
“We’ve always made ice cream on summer holidays.”
“Mother, Mother, it’s collective suicide. It’s the Koster family version of Jonestown Kool-Aid. Some cardiologist will find us all strewn around the yard in pools of congealed cream. Infarcted.”
Neil came around the corner of the house and climbed the steps to the porch. The too small tee shirt he was wearing, one Lise had given him that supported African famine relief, had ridden up slightly on his small belly. There was a sliver of tan skin between his shirt and his madras shorts. His deck shoes were worn without the rawhide shoestrings. Neil stopped behind Dilly’s chair and stared down at the bowls in her lap. One bowl held whole nuts, one was nearly filled with empty shells, and the third had a few shelled pistachios in the bottom. He reached over Dilly’s shoulder to take a handful of nuts. She made a quick slap at his hand.
“Am I missing a lecture?”
“Dilly doesn’t think that we should be making ice cream.”
“We always make ice cream.”
“She’s worried about your health.”
“So am I. That’s why I insist upon getting my dairy products. Ice cream. And exercise. Tracking those kids down to turn the crank. Did anyone get more ice?”
Dilly tried to turn her stare onto her father, but as she twisted around in her ancient Adirondack chair he moved sideways out of range.
“Yes, I did,” Bett said as she dropped a shell with no crack onto the white wicker table beside her. The tradition was that Neil got to crack the culls with his teeth later.
“My always thoughtful wife.”
“Not according to your daughter.”
Neil patted Dilly’s round shoulders that reminded him so much of Bett’s.
“It’s nice to have help.”
In the elongated note of a foghorn Dilly said, “Daaaaad.”
“Deellliiiaaaa.”
Dilly shrugged off her father’s mockery as well as his hands from her shoulders as a horse would a fly.
“When do the rest of the troops arrive?”
“Pete said that he’d have the boys here early. They’re bringing a tent. The boys want to camp. Where do you want it?”
“Let the young soldiers decide.”
“Pete said Indians. They had a lot of Indian-craft at the camp Gaby sent them to.”
“Really? I wonder what kind? Narragansett? Wampanoag? Pequot? Niantick?”
“Daaadd. They’re probably generic. Beads and bows. Arrows. Hatchets and horses.”
Bett tried to catch Dilly’s eyes to stop her before she caused her father to begin.
“And violence. Killing, scalping, pumpkin thieving? Savagery?” asked Neil.
“Mother, Mother, you know Gaby lets those boys get away with anything. And Peter, too. It’s a classic divorce. The kids work both sides of the street. The parents buy love with too many toys and way too much freedom. By the way, has he been seeing anyone?”
“He hasn’t said anything.”
“Of course Secret Pete wouldn’t say anything. You have to ask. Wait ‘til he gets here. I’ll find out.”
Bett studied the shells in her lap. Finally she said, “I don’t think Pete’s making the drive himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“The boys are getting a ride.”
“Gaby’s coming?”
Bett hesitated.
“No. Bob.”
“Who’s Bob? Bob who?”
“The maitre d’.”
“That Bob? Raoul Bob? The fairy godfather? Jesus, Mother, what’s the matter with him? Giving those boys to that…”
Bett’s hard look stopped Dilly from finishing her sentence.
“Do you know he could lose his parental rights? This family. This family. Why can’t he bring them himself?”
“He said it’s been busy.”
“Well, that’s a switch, isn’t it? I thought things had been tough. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Neil nodded quickly in the hope that they could get past this part of the weekend. His nod changed to a shaking of his head as he went inside.
After acknowledging her father’s nod as her rightful due, Dilly continued, “I don’t understand why it takes so many hours a week just to go broke.”
“I don’t think it’s just that.”
“What? What else?”
“I’m not sure, but I think the trouble in Kuwait is bothering him.”
“What? Is his PTSD, isn’t that it, or PSTD, whatever, flaring up again? How long is he going to let this go on? It’s twenty years. My God, the war’s been over fifteen. How long? I’m not even sure I think it’s real. He should get out of Provincetown. That’s probably what’s doing it. Everyone there has some kind of initialed problem or disease.”
Dilly held onto her fingers as a child counting as she spelled out her list of acronyms.
“P.T.S.D. A.I.D.S. H.I.V. A.R.C.”
Bett said in a quiet voice, “SIDS. PMS. We all have our initials, honey. I don’t think being angry helps. Your brother went someplace very far away. Farther than any of us can possibly imagine. It could take him a very long time to get back.”
“He’s missing his life.”
“He’s not missing it. He’s just having one different from what any of us expected.”
Dilly looked to her mother’s face to see what meaning had been intended.
“What about Nita?”
“Late on Saturday.”
“Lise?”
“I’m not sure. She said that something might happen.”
“Is the something the mushroom man? I can’t even imagine how someone could want to get a Ph. D. in fungus. I see fungus I just want to get a sponge and some bleach, not a lab coat. Have you met him?”
“No, no one has. I don’t think the one you’re talking about is the same one. I think this is a new one. Lise said he’s very interesting. Very nice.”
“Mother, Mother, everything Dizzy Lizzy dates is interesting. She’s like those tour
ists on the beach who bend over for every funny colored stone. Just think of the kinds of people she’s dated. That Damien guy, which couldn’t have been his name. He probably read Hesse as a freshman and changed his name. Remember the hair? Purple dreadlocks. He looked like a fuchsia plant. Interesting religions? What was the name of the Druid?”
“That was Sean.”
“All trees were his brother. And interesting colors? Was that Dewitte?”
“Honey, don’t. Don’t do that.”
Without lifting her eyes from the growing mound of shelled nuts, in the kindest flank attack, Bett asked, “When do you expect Bill?”
After deciding that her mother didn’t intend anything more than a simple question, Dilly answered resignedly, “He said that he might have to go in for a couple of hours tomorrow. Already he feels that they’re losing the race on this one. Remember the new gas line project? There’re too many people involved.”
* * *
Lise ran up to her father and gave him a quick hug.
“Dad, this is Brad.”
“Hi, Brad. Glad you could make it.”
Brad took Neil’s hand.
“My pleasure, Mr. Koster.”
“Just Neil.”
Brad nodded his head.
“I’ll try.”
“Brad, are you ready for some chaos?”
“I love chaos.”
“Chaos sera sera.”
“Dad, you look great.”
“Tell your sister. She thinks it’s Guten Morgue for me.”
“No way. You’ll bust one hundred and still be making terrible puns. Brad hopes he can get some time with you to talk about the bank.”
“That’s right. You said something. What are you looking for, Brad? Here, drop those bags. We’ll get them later. Let’s take a look at the water.”
“My area of concentration is the interaction between public policy and business policy. One idea I’ve had for my dissertation is to research depositor protection in the banking system. There’s been so much change in banking public policy in the last ten or twelve years. All the deregulation has led to a lot of new practices. We’ve seen all the problems with the S&Ls and there’ve been systemic failures in Ohio, Maryland and Colorado with private insurance. I’m thinking of focusing on New England. See how this region is the same or different from some of the other problem areas.”
