An Unfinished Season

by Ward Just

  And what did you learn?

  Later, he said with a smile. When you’re older.

  I’m learning a lot downtown, I said.

  I’ll bet you are, my father said.

  I’m learning what they put in and what they keep out.

  My father laughed at that.

  Sometimes they give me a hard time, I said.

  What do you expect? You’re a Quarterday kid. They know how you got the job and they know that when September comes around you’ll be saying bye-bye and going off to college and they’ll still be there, worrying about showgirls and the Mob and City Hall. Trying to make ends meet.

  We sat in silence a moment and then I said, I see you’re still carrying the duffel.

  Yeah, he said. I don’t know why. The strike went away. The threat’s gone. Probably there wasn’t any real threat, except Clyde and his brick. Seemed real enough at the time but I don’t think there was much to it. He rose slowly and peered into the darkness. I watched him steady himself on the arm of his chair, wincing.

  I was trying to imagine my father with a cane but couldn’t. He had always been healthy, never so much as a common cold, and now he was talking about a cane to get around. Then I was thinking about the girl, and the argument that began at the party and continued in the car and ended on her front porch in Winnetka, what she had said to me and what I had said back. We had been talking about privacy and the newspapers and how scandal threatened to undermine the confidence that people had in the established order, democracy itself called into question, successful people held up to ridicule, even their children. The reference was to a gossip column about her older sister, harmless but snide, something to do with an accident in the kitchen that caused her to attend her debutante party with her arm in a sling. The headline read, BOUND BUD BOWS. The argument somehow turned into a litany of complaint about my secretiveness, the worldly life I led downtown, my unwholesome enthusiasm for what she called “the angles,” and my morbid outlook on life generally. If I had been a true friend I would have seen to it that the cruel and offensive item was killed, and when I protested that I had no such power, that my job was to fetch coffee and hustle copy from one desk to another, she said, Don’t kid me. You enjoy seeing people suffer. You’re like the boy in the cartoon who throws a snowball at the banker’s top hat. You think it’s amusing, Wils. We had parted without a kiss or even a civil good-night, and we had been good friends, not romantic friends but friends sure enough, and now suddenly I was Trotsky, expelled from the party and thrust into exile.

  My father said, One of these days I’ll give it back to Tom.

  You’ll miss it, I said with a smile.

  Shit, he said with scorn. And again, more softly, Shit no.

  But I would have used it if I had to, he added, speaking again into the darkness.

  I’ll miss watching your skating, I said.

  But he did not reply to that, taking a sip of his nightcap and staring away into the darkness.

  I saw my father alone only once more that summer. We played a late round of golf, managing only six holes before the sun set. I shouldered my bag and began to walk down the fairway to our house when he called to me and motioned in the direction of the clubhouse. So I made an about-face, followed him to the seventh tee and down the slope to the road, and then to the clubhouse and the men’s locker room that adjoined it. The locker room bar was deserted except for two golfers playing liars’ dice at a table in the corner. They looked up and called a cheerful hello, my father giving them a wave before we settled in at the long bar. The barman, Cecil, brought drinks and we three talked about our forgettable round, bad off the tee, bad on the green, bad all afternoon. When Cecil went away, my father asked me about my social life, how the summer had gone and whether it had been—productive.

  I smiled and said, Productive? I suppose so.

  And you’ve made new friends?

  A few. And a few enemies.

  You must be doing something right, he said.

  It’s hard to find your place, I said suddenly.

  He nodded while he fished an olive from his martini and ate it.

  I opened my mouth to say something more but could not find the words. The bar’s atmosphere was congenial and no one was eavesdropping but the moment was not right. I had met a girl and I wanted to tell him about her, how we met and how close we had become and how much she meant to me.

  You were saying, my father said.

  The trick is, I said. The trick’s to find something you know that no one else knows.

  In reference to what, exactly? my father said.

  Employment, I said. What you do for the rest of your life. The boys I meet at the parties, they’re all going to work for their fathers. Real estate, the stock market, family businesses of one sort or another. They’ve already made their plans, work downtown for their fathers and live happily ever after on the North Shore. Ride the train to work. Join a club. I hope you’re not planning on me working for Carillo & Ravan.

  No, he said. I hadn’t planned on that.

  It just seems so—routine, I said.

  Sounds like it, he said.

  My father’s voice had changed timbre and I knew then that I had offended him.

  I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.

  My father nodded and looked down the length of the bar for Cecil and twirled his fingers, two more drinks. The locker room bar had the rosy glow of an English pub, the bar stools and tables of varnished hardwood, the floor pockmarked from spiked shoes. Watercolors of famous holes at St. Andrews and Troon decorated the walls, and at the far end a plaque with the names of the club champions. As a child I thought it the finest room I had ever seen and could not wait until I was old enough to be admitted with my father; and now, here I was. Cecil arrived with the drinks and set them carefully on cork coasters.

  So your summer wasn’t a success, he said.

  Oh, yes, it was. Quite a success.

  You were a success, he said.

  Yes, I was. I knew what I was doing to get it, too.

  My father seemed uncomfortable, moving his shoulders up and down like a pitcher before delivery. And do you know what it is you know that no one else knows?

  Not yet, I said.

  You have time, he said. And then he added, Remember what you just said. It’s important.

  I won’t forget, I said.

  That was the great thing about Butch Greenslat, my father said with a sly grin. Butch never forgot anything, just so he could repeat himself over and over again without a mistake. But you’re not like Butch. You’ll always be moving on from one place to another. I don’t know where you get that from. Not me, not your mother. Maybe your mother, now that I think about it.

  You, too, I said.

  Not me. I’m a one-barn horse. Barn’s called Quarterday.

  So you don’t have any regrets about not settling in the East?

  He looked at me and laughed. Are you kidding?

  Then I remembered a conversation from a few nights before. I said, Do you know Mr. McManaway?

  They’re friends of your mother’s, he said.

  He admires you. He admires you for standing up to the Reds. He wanted me to tell you but I forgot until now. I saw him at one of the parties. He was tight. He asked all about you, how you were doing.

  Banker, my father said. I went to him for a loan once. Turned me down. But now I suppose I can go back and write my own ticket because I stood up to the Reds, and that enhances my balance sheet. My net worth. And I have a letter from Senator McCarthy, Tailgunner Joe himself, certifying my vigilance, my willingness to go the last mile. I’m a great American.

  My father’s tone was sarcastic but I could tell he was pleased. That was what he had salvaged from the strike, a letter from Joe McCarthy on United States Senate stationery, and he could tell from the weight of the paper that it was inferior stuff.

  I’m going to sell the business, he said.

  I said, What?

  So
you won’t have to worry about selling stationery for the rest of your life. You won’t be programmed, and there’s every possibility that you’ll live happily ever after somewhere else.

  Cecil brought the drinks and I looked into mine without saying anything.

  I have an offer and I think I’ll accept it.

  Good offer?

  Pretty good, considering.

  I said, What will you do?

  My father smiled and then he laughed. Fight the Communists.

  Don’t you think you’ve already done your part? I said sharply, more sharply than I intended. I didn’t like McCarthy, and the word at the newspaper was that he was drunk most of the time and that Cohn was a shit.

  That’s a joke, Wils. It’s what your mother wants. That, and other things.

  Is that what she said?

  It’s what she wants, he said.

  Well, I said, and did not finish the thought, though the “so what” lingered in the air—what right did she have to tell my father where to work?—and he heard it and turned to me and said, You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  I only meant, your work’s your life and you have a right—

  I’ll decide what my rights are, he said, squeezing my arm hard, finishing his drink in a gulp. Not your fault, he added, because you’ve been out of touch and I’m just a little bit grouchy today. But, Jesus, it was a hell of a nice business, Carillo & Ravan. I always liked making stationery for every occasion, notes, letters, invitations, printed cards of condolence, paper that when you wrote something on it the words counted. But it’s time to let go. Time and place for everything. No one wins a strike.

  But you did, I said. You won. But the expression on his face—sardonic, the look of a man counting loose change—told me he saw things differently. Everything came with a cost, and the cost was not always apparent. Win the girl, win the lottery, win the golf match, win the strike; and always there was something left over, a residue you did not count on or even imagine. Winning was never the only thing; often, it wasn’t anything.

  All right, I said. But I could not resist adding, with a smile, You win.

  Let’s go home, my father said, signing the chit and limping to the door. I waited a moment, watching him, listening to the rattle of dice at the table in the corner, and then I followed him out.

  I have not been as close to anyone since. Of course my father and I grew apart, as if the magnetic force that drew him to my mother (and she to him) had its opposite corollary, a counterforce that required we keep our distance. Is it true that there’s room for only one friendship in any household? I know that the spring and summer of that year were a trial for them both, the brick through the window one sort of division and Squire’s death another. I was the third. My father had his worries and my mother had hers, and each had to do with the other but not in any reconcilable way; and they were stubborn people. My mother had changed in ways I could not immediately understand. I believe Squire’s death was her first occasion of profound grief, and this was not grief that my father could share. He admitted as much. When she returned from the East and took charge once again, our great comradeship came to an end, not by any agreement spoken or unspoken; it simply ended, as night falls, and in the gathering darkness we no longer saw each other clearly. Perhaps he had said all he had to say about the way of the world and how a man conducts himself in it, or anyhow all that could be said over a hand of pinochle to a nineteen-year-old. And now I was away from the house every evening, all dressed up in my tuxedo with the shawl collar, retailing scandalous stories gathered in the newsroom, learning the angles, waltzing as my father had taught me, learning to drink with style, discovering what I knew that no one else knew; and at last and finally, meeting a girl I could love.

  Now and again I saw my mother and father at the dances, though only a few words passed between us. They were with their crowd and I was with mine. I was surprised at how comfortable my father seemed in his tuxedo, his expression one of faraway amusement; sardonic would be the word. I would look over someone’s shoulder and see him in the shadows, leaning on his cane, usually in the vicinity of the bar. He would be watching me on the dance floor or talking with someone, his mouth arranged in his half-smile—and I had the thought he wanted to join us and hear for himself what I was saying that could make a girl laugh so. He knew I was performing, and when I raised my hand, motioning him over, saying to whomever I was with, I want you to meet my old man, I saw him turn and take my mother’s arm, putting aside his cane, guiding her to the dance floor, where they began to waltz slowly and then faster, my father pausing only to point east, and they would turn to the moon rising hugely over the unruffled lake.

  So that year we all grew apart, secessionist provinces of an unstable nation. The house was reorganized, the den and the terrace brought up to date, the pond and the sycamores soon to go; it was as if my mother was determined to erase history itself, airbrush the photographs as the commissars regularly did. Later that year, my father sold his business as he promised he would do, and at that moment some essential vitality left him. He gave away his skates and resigned as rules chairman of the club. He no longer arrived home with wildly improbable stories, like the one about the Persian and the basket of trembling silkworms. He lost touch with Sheriff Felsen. He lost interest in the Communists and I am convinced he felt defeated by them. He had loved his business but now the business was gone, sold like a stick of furniture, and now it lived in someone else’s house. He looked to the stock market to occupy his time. My father no longer manufactured a product you could hold in your hand but gathered pieces of paper instead, shares in an automobile company, a bank, a pharmaceutical concern, a clothing business, and oil, blue chips all.

  In August I saw them off on the train for New Orleans, where they were to board the boat for Havana. My father was smart in a white suit and carrying a malacca cane, my mother chic in a shantung suit and a wide-brimmed straw hat drawn down over one eye, sunglasses. They looked like a pair of middle-aged movie stars, the more so since my father had recently grown a mustache, neatly trimmed, Gable-sized. It was hard not to feel envious of them, embarking on such a glamorous journey, promising to buy me a bright red Cuban shirt, promising also to share their winnings in the casinos. My mother had been studying the rules of baccarat. We drank a glass of champagne in their compartment, toasting the success of the trip, hoping for good weather, hoping for agreeable shipboard companions, hoping that I would behave myself back home. The house is in your care. Don’t stay out too late. Eat properly. No parties while we’re gone.

  I listened to their instructions while I looked out the window, passengers streaming by, everyone in a festive mood. A traveler in a dark suit was standing on the platform looking at my father. His expression was unpleasant, and then he turned to the woman he was with and said (I could read his lips), That’s that son of a bitch Tom Dewey, and continued to stare. I looked at my father, scarcely believing that anyone could mistake him for an indoor politician like Dewey, altogether too slight a figure, not broad across the shoulders as my father was, not solid. My father raised his glass of champagne and turned to look at the platform and he and the stranger locked eyes. The other flung his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his heel, gave a final sneer, and stalked off.

  My father said, What was that about?

  I said, He thought you were Tom Dewey.

  Why the hell would he think I was Tom Dewey?

  The mustache, I said.

  My father’s forefinger went to his upper lip and he colored slightly. He said, I’ll shave it off. Jesus, Tom Dewey. That bastard wrecked the Republican Party.

  Don’t be silly, my mother said. I love the mustache.

  The mustache and the glass of champagne, I said. It all adds up.

  Tom Dewey led us down to defeat, my father said.

  The mustache didn’t have anything to do with it, my mother said.

  The hell it didn’t, my father said. He looked like a headwai
ter.

  Well, you don’t look like a headwaiter. You look like my Teddy, only more distinguished. My mother raised her head and kissed him on the cheek.

  It’s the champagne, I said. Wasn’t that his nickname? Champagne Tom Dewey? And that was why he lost to the Kansas City haberdasher, swilling champagne in Wall Street instead of campaigning in Pekin. Haberdashers trump headwaiters.

  My father smiled at that. Even my mother gave a grin of sorts.

  Hell of a way to begin a trip, my father grumbled. Mistaken for Tom Dewey.

  When the conductor’s whistle announced the departure of the train, there was a sudden commotion on the platform, passengers beginning to hurry. I kissed my mother and shook hands with my father, wishing them both a bon voyage and reminding them about the red shirt, maybe a pair of castanets to go with it. They gave me a last warning about the house, always lock the door at night and turn off the lights, no parties, drive safely. Then I rushed from the train, pausing long enough to wave at them from the platform. My mother had taken off her hat and they were toasting each other and were still toasting when the train edged away from the platform in an acrid cloud of steam. I watched the cars recede, then went on my way to the newspaper office downtown, filled with plans for that evening and the next and all the evenings until Labor Day, when college began and I could move into one of the university dormitories on the South Side, temporary quarters until I could find a private apartment with a bed in the living room; but I would be a Chicagoan at last, on my own in a city larger than anyone’s ambition. Meanwhile, I had plans for the empty house, the terrace, and the other special places where my girl and I would not be disturbed.

  The glass of champagne in the crowded compartment of the City of New Orleans was the end of our life as a family, though I did not know it then. I did not notice because I had acquired this new life of my own, the one I liked to call the wider world, in some clear sense the modern world, and one I was disinclined to share, no doubt because its utter secrecy and privacy was part of its appeal. I had an idea that this new life gained in excitement because it was lived in the shadows of the North Shore, far from Quarterday.