by Sally Mandel
It went on like that, my dad and me butting heads. The worst were my teenage years. When he thought my clothes were too revealing, he grabbed them from my room and burned them in the barbeque. I retaliated by wearing a tablecloth on my next date. He almost broke my arm over that one. We got into wicked arguments at the dinner table. When I told him I was going to Juilliard, he pounded the table so hard it cracked down the middle. Mumma was always trying to keep us apart. She and Angie were afraid of him, and I was too, but when I get scared I also get angry. I don’t like feeling helpless and when I’m backed into a corner I fight like Mike Tyson, except so far I haven’t chewed up anybody’s ear.
Anyhow, I hadn’t thought about the Cheerios for ages, but once the cab crossed the Queens line, other stuff started surfacing that I would’ve thought you’d need a team of archaeologists to dig up. Once upon a time, back in the paleolithic era when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my father and I had been close. I mean, we had always fought, but there was a tie between us, much more so than between me and my mother. Every Friday before dinner, my dad would walk me down to the beach. He’d served on a ship in the marines, and also his mother had lived by the sea in Europe and taught him to identify different seashells. We used to collect interesting things that washed up in the surf, like polished stones and bottles from foreign vessels and horseshoe crab shells. Once we found a belt buckle that looked like it had come off a pirate ship. We made up stories about all these things. My father had a great imagination and could spin a yarn about anything at all. Hold up a piece of string and he’d have you on the edge of your seat for an hour while he made up some shit about mermaids and sea captains and the ghosts of everybody who’d ever drowned at sea. Some of our beach treasures were beautiful. There was still a piece of driftwood on our front lawn that looked like a sculptor made it. But besides storytelling, we used to talk about a lot of other things on those walks—which bait to use for surf casting, gossip about guys in the fire-house or about my friends at school. I even used to ask him for advice. Sometimes we didn’t talk at all but just enjoyed the ocean and one another’s company. Maybe it was the sound of the waves and the gulls that smoothed the tension between us, or just that we were out of the house. The minute Dutch stepped inside the front door, a frown line the size of the San Andreas Fault would split the space between his eyebrows. I suppose the companionship of those peaceful times by the shore made it that much more of a betrayal when he turned on me. Anyhow, once I started at Juilliard, we never took one of those walks again.
So there I was zooming down the Cross Island Expressway, flipping like a channel-surfer from one year to the next, bad times and good, with the question humming in my ears like the tires on the road: Will he die?
Or maybe he was already gone. I realized I was no longer that angry girl who daydreamed about her father’s burial. In my fantasies, he would have died a hero’s death so there’d be hundreds of firefighters in uniform. I would hold my mother and sister’s hands and weep while wearing a truly great outfit. Those daydreams were safe back when I was sure that Dutch was indestructible. But as we pulled up to the hospital emergency-room entrance I was actually kind of praying: “Don’t. Don’t do it, Daddy.”
Angie was waiting just inside. She was wearing her Mets jacket over her pajamas and as soon as she saw me, she burst into tears. I knew she’d been at it before, too, because her upper lip was swollen like she’d been stung by a bee.
“Okay, baby. It’s okay. Where’s Dutch?”
“They took him for an MRI,” Angie said. “Mumma and Pauline’re with him.”
“How’s Mumma holding up?”
“All right. I guess she’s in shock.”
“You look like shit yourself. Come on, let me get you a Coke or something. There must be a cafeteria.”
We found a room with vending machines and sat down in the pink plastic chairs. I knew I was avoiding the sight of my injured father but it was easy to excuse myself on account of Angie’s obvious distress. The girl was just this side of hysterics. I smoothed her hair while she drank her Coke. “Tell me about the accident,” I said.
“It was a five-alarm at one of those beachfront hotels on the boardwalk in Long Beach. They thought everybody was out safe, but Dad saw a hand against a window on an upper floor. He went up the ladder; broke the window, and grabbed an old lady. She was obese and disabled and couldn’t hang on. They got the net up just in time because she had some kind of spasm and yanked them both off the ladder. Dad didn’t hit right and broke his back. It looks like he might be paralyzed.” Here came the tears again. I reached in my pocket for some Kleenex and mopped her up.
“Okay, baby,” I said, holding her. Jake is always telling me that Angie is much tougher than she seems, but when we’re all in our nineties she’ll still be my little sister and it’ll still kill me when she cries. “I’d better check out what’s going on. You want to stay here and wait for me?”
“No! I’m coming with you!” She had my hand in a death grip. “Bess, what if he can’t walk? What if he dies? What will happen to Mumma?”
“Rule number one is no worrying in advance,” I told her. “It’s a waste of energy, which we’re going to need.”
They had him lying on a gurney to wait for his MRI. His sunburned face had turned a sickening gray and his powerful body had no more life in it than a sack of sand. My mother sat beside him with her hand clutching the rim of the stretcher: Seeing him like that made me feel alone. Alone and scared. What did I think, that he was going to live forever in a state of superhulkness, fighting fires and being a pain in my ass? First I kissed the top of my mother’s head, and then I took my father’s hand, real carefully. It had been a long time since we’d made physical contact with any kindness in it.
“Hi, Pop,” I said. I hadn’t called him that in a lot of years. He turned his face to me. His eyes were swimming. “How’re you doing?”
“Pain,” he whispered.
“Haven’t they given him something?” I asked Mumma.
She shook her head. “One of the doctors said they would.”
“And that was how long ago?” I asked.
“An hour, maybe. We’re waiting for the technician to do the MRI. He’s coming from Lynbrook especially, since Dutch is a fireman. Your father.”
“I know who you mean, Mumma. You want to let go of that stretcher? Your hand is going to fall off soon.” She unpeeled her fingers.
“Where’s Pauline?” I asked.
“She went to get us some clothes,” Angie said. “We didn’t know it would be so cold.”
“Okay, then, Ange, I want you to go down to the nurses’ station and ask what’s happened to Dad’s pain medication. Can you do that?”
Angie nodded. I leaned close to Dutch’s face. “We’ll get you something to take the edge off, Pops.”
“Brew would help,” he whispered. “Pint of Guinness.”
I put my hand against his cheek. “You couldn’t find yourself a skinny old lady to save?”
“How is she?” he asked.
“She’s fine,” my mother answered. “They’re treating her for bruises and heart palpitations.”
I’ll show her palpitations, I was thinking. We waited a few minutes in silence.
“Where the fuck’s Angie?” I muttered finally, just before she walked in.
“They say they can’t authorize pain medication until the specialist gets here,” she said. “He’s at a bar mitzvah or something.”
Dad moaned. It was a sound I hope I never hear again, out of anybody. His skin was changing from gray to green. “Turn me,” he said. I could tell the pain was so bad it was hard to get the words out. Mumma stood to help him.
“No, don’t touch him,” I said. Dad’s head rolled back and forth. Then he looked right at me and mouthed the words since he couldn’t speak any more. Help me. Please. Okay, now I was really scared, and like I said, when I’m scared, I get pissed.
I stuck my head
out the door and yelled “Nurse!” so loud that Angie and my mother jumped. I said to Angie, “Stay right here and don’t let anybody touch him, not even Mumma. I’ll be right back.”
I could have been on my roller skates, I moved that fast down the hall. The first person I saw in hospital greens got an earful. He was leaning against the wall eating a doughnut.
“You! Who are you?” I said, grabbing his name tag. It said Miles Rorch, Resident. “You’ll do. What the fuck is going on here? You’ve got a firefighter in terrible pain and you people are jerking off here. I don’t care who you dig up, a pediatrician or a goddamn gynecologist, just get my father some medication or I swear to God I’m yanking him out of here and admitting him to North Shore Hospital where he’ll get some attention. And they’ll hear about it in the newspapers, Miles, you can bet your doughnut on that.”
The guy stuffed the remains of his Krispy Kreme into his pocket. “Name?” he asked.
“Stallone.”
I could see his eyes open even wider. Sometimes it pays to have the name, but if the guy had gotten the question out of his mouth I might just have decked him. “No, he’s not!” I growled.
“Okeydokey,” Miles muttered, licking the last crumbs off his fingers. I had the feeling he’d been up for forty-eight hours straight and was looking for a sugar hit.
“Where’s he at?”
“Waiting for an MRI.”
“Meet you there in five,” he said, and off he went in a reasonable hurry.
When I got back to my father, he was moaning in a regular rhythm with his eyes closed. I could smell the sooty odor of burning buildings.
Angie explained. “A bunch of the guys from the firehouse were just here. It was nice of them, but it was too hard on Dad, trying to be brave. I asked them to take Mumma for a cup of coffee. She was losing it.”
“Excellent.” Angie had obviously pulled herself together. It was a relief—one less person to worry about.
In fact, within moments, the chief resident in Neurology appeared and things started moving along efficiently enough to calm me down. They pumped a shot of something into Dutch, got the MRI, and set him up in a private room. I stepped outside and ran straight into Pauline, who had her arms full of sweaters and jackets. As soon as I saw her face, I started to cry. She let everything drop on the floor and put her arms around me. We stood holding each other for a few minutes.
“Thanks, Pauls,” I said, and blew my nose. “It means a lot…”
“Oh, shut up. What’s going on with Dutch?”
I filled her in. Then I asked her if she had any psychic news bulletins about him.
She shuddered. “God forbid.”
“Nothing so far? Give me the swear.”
She held up her right hand with the thumb crossed in front of her palm like we used to do when we were kids. “What about your stuff?” she asked. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Oh my God. I’m supposed to rehearse with Montagnier.” I looked at my watch. “In exactly three hours.”
“Jake’s coming. We can cover for you.”
I shook my head and drew her inside the room where Dutch lay hooked to drips and machines. Mumma’s and Angie’s frightened eyes fastened on me like I could make it all better. David Montagnier was already a fairy-tale fantasy from a dream I’d had a long time ago. It didn’t seem possible that I’d ever step back into it again.
Chapter Five
Well, we were the cozy little group at 62 Walnut Avenue, accent on the nut. There was Dutch, the wounded warrior, howling like a dog from his wheelchair. It turned out he probably wasn’t permanently paralyzed but his spine was going to take many months to heal. With physical therapy, he might walk again but his days as a firefighter were finished. For my father, that was like saying his life was over. What he did was sit in front of the television in his pajamas watching soap operas and yelling, as in Bess! Where the fuck is my (a) breakfast; (b) lunch; (c) dinner; (d) snack?! The worst for him and for us was cleaning him up after he’d taken a crap. Until we learned the technique, it took all three of us to shift him so Mumma could wipe him down. The first few times, he cried like a baby. A big man like Dutch, reduced to such a state.
Obviously, there was no way I could leave. I quit all my jobs and phoned David. He told me he had to go to Europe anyway and that he’d be in touch when he got back. After that, I started having nightmares. In dream logic, it seemed the only contact I was allowed to have with music was listening to my Walkman. Desperately, I’d slip in a tape of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, but after the first few measures, all I got was white sound. Or I’d be up in the cheap seats of a concert hall and instead of musicians, there’d be fish flopping around on the stage. A traffic cop came out and announced that the musicians were never coming again, ever. Nobody else in the audience seemed at all perturbed by this, but I was overwhelmed with grief. I’d wake myself up to escape the nightmares and remember that real life wasn’t exactly a comfort.
Three weeks after the accident, my mother told Angie and me to wait up after we got Dutch into bed. We sat at the dining room table while she showed us the pile of bills. “I’m going to have to get a job,” she said.
Well, this was different. Dutch had never let her work. I couldn’t even imagine who would hire her. “What about the disability insurance?” I asked.
“It’s not nearly enough. His medication alone eats up most of it.”
I started to feel a chill creep up my back. I’d been figuring on sticking it out another couple of weeks and then getting back to my life. To music. To David.
“I thought the fire department would take care of him,” Angie said.
“They should.” Mumma’s voice was more exhausted than angry. “Things have changed now with HMOs. Your father had a lot of expensive special tests and procedures and now there’s all the therapy. A lot of it’s not covered.”
“I’m sure the fire department would contribute something if they knew,” Angie said.
“You know how he feels about taking charity,” Mumma said. I could swear that a third of her hair had turned gray overnight, or maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention.
“It’s not charity,” I said. “For putting his life on the line all these years and doing his job …” I looked at Angie for the word.
“Compensation.”
“Yeah, compensation. Payback time.”
Mumma gave me a tired smile. “You want to try to tell Dutch that?”
We sat in silence for a moment. Mumma kept sifting through the bills as if they might somehow disappear.
“Doesn’t it make more sense for us to work and you to stay with him?” Angie asked, watching her college hopes fade into the sunset.
“I’m sorry, girls,” Mumma said, turning her face away.
I knew she was right. Dutch needed two people to shift him, and Mumma wasn’t strong enough to be much help. Angie was looking at me as if I could pull a rabbit out of a hat, but all I saw was the rabbit hole, and what was disappearing down it was her college education and my music. Obviously, there was no way I could go back to David. It was all over.
Mumma got into a training program at Cartmart, our local Wal-Mart ripoff. It wasn’t much but it helped pay the bills. I envied her as every morning she left for someplace that didn’t smell of illness. Dutch hated it when she went. “Call in sick,” he would tell her. “You’re the only one who knows how to handle me.”
“That’s right, make her feel guilty,” I told him.
I know it was hard for her to leave him, but one morning I stood at the window and watched her start off down the sidewalk. I have to say that by the time Mumma reached the corner, she was walking tall. Shoulders square and head high, not at all the person who had been pretty much just one more kitchen appliance.
I kept imagining the headlines: MASSACRE IN ROCKY BEACH. DAUGHTERS GO BERSERK AND SLAY CRIPPLED FATHER. BAFFLED NEIGHBORS STUNNED, “THEY WERE SUCH NICE GI
RLS.”
Pauline dropped in when she could, but she’d been assigned a student-teaching gig way out in Suffolk County and was living with her cousin out there. Jake provided some relief, stopping by every few days even though he was incredibly busy working and going to school at the same time. Everybody else who came to see Dutch talked to him like he’d lost his wits or he was going to die next week, or shouted at him like he was deaf. But Jake was different.
“Feel anything going on in those legs?” Jake would ask him, getting straight to the point.
“Nothing much,” Dutch said.
“Well, that sucks,” Jake said. “Let’s go to work.” After coaching high school basketball for years, he was used to injuries and helped us out with physical therapy sessions. Just having Jake around with his no-bullshit attitude was a welcome change. Once when Jake came in to see him, before the door to his room slammed shut I heard Dutch say, “I lost my balls, Jake. You know what that means to a man like me?”
That brought me up sharp. I didn’t make a habit of thinking about sex in the same ballpark with my parents, and would rather think that Angie and I were products of artificial insemination. It had never occurred to me that Dutch and Mumma were losing out on sex even if so far it had only happened twice over the course of their marriage.
Besides waiting on Dutch and hauling him around, which required the combined strength of Angie and me, the days were an endless cycle of cooking, laundry, and errands. Angie and I would bicker over who got to run around the corner to the drugstore. In fact, we were all so exhausted and frustrated that we started to fight about almost everything. It was my job to fold the laundry and somehow I misplaced one of Angie’s favorite comfort socks that she wore around the house. I mean, the thing looked like somebody’s dead cat, but the loss actually brought her to tears. I can’t claim mental health either because when Angie burned the chicken, I went wacko. “I’ve been looking forward to a chicken wing all day long!” I ranted at her. I’d been imagining how the skin would be crisp and salty and the meat would melt in my mouth. We were all putting on weight and as for me, I was desperate to get laid.
