Though I did not witness this particular event, I wonder at the potency of its images. For I seem to conjure this vision with the same clarity as the expression on Trudy’s face as she scratches her nose and tells me of her cancer. Or, the flit of Marge’s hands in the nursing home, picking at the lace on her nightgown as she recounts the story of her childhood, calling me Ted, as though she were speaking to my father. Or, the sight of Leo’s emaciated body as he dozes in his hospital bed after the stroke which will take him. I can feel the lotion on my palms as I apply it to Leo’s flaking skin, massaging it the length of his bony arms, around the knobby joints of each of his fingers. I see him wake and pass his tongue over his desiccated lips. I hear the drip of water as I dip the end of a washcloth into the icy pitcher at his bedside, then touch the dampness to his mouth.
Leo sucks awhile, then raises his hand, signals for me to come closer.
“Told Margie you get the Ranchero,” he whispers, repeating the words he has spoken so many times over the past few hours.
I nod.
“Told her not to worry. You’d keep her Galaxy running.”
He smiles.
“You’re a good boy, Teddie,” he says, closing his eyes.
FIFTEEN
The Wigwam Restaurant and Lounge is around the corner and down the alley from my apartment. A short flight of crumbling concrete steps—almost invisible among the jumble of dumpsters and splintered vegetable crates—leads from the alley down to the lounge’s entrance in the basement below. Bolted to the brick above the wrought iron door is an ancient sign which displays a pink neon teepee whose flap stutters open and shut twenty-four hours a day. I duck my head whenever I pass beneath the lintel, for the neon buzzes and crackles menacingly. There is a message painted on the rusted metal edging the sign, written in Chinese. Years ago, when I asked Joe Chen, the owner, the meaning of the disintegrating characters, he frowned and, with one finger, snugged his heavy black spectacles onto his nose.
“Don’t know, Professor. Sign here when I buy restaurant. People say, ‘Joe, what means that sign?’ I say: Good Food—Cheap Booze—Eat at Joe’s. Don’t read Chinese, Professor. Only American. Had dishwasher from Taiwan long time ago, when writing not so bad. He say sign some kind of Buddha blessing.”
Inside, the lounge is small, the ceiling low, and it is so dark that I must always stand for a moment to allow my eyes time to adjust: a single strand of dingy yellow fluorescents glows above the mirror behind the bar, tiny candles in gold-frosted glasses flicker at the tables, a few red-shaded lamps hang above the booths at the far end of the room. Although the place reeks of cigarettes and the musty dampness of a worn indoor-outdoor carpet, it is a warm, comfortable place in which to accommodate the voices and images of a night before. This time of afternoon, most of the lunch customers have gone, and, today, there is only a noisy group of salesmen sitting at a booth in back.
In the days when Lorraine was in better health, I would bring her here for dinner and drinks. Joe would roll out the red carpet, always reserving the prestigious corner booth, sending his waitress and bartender children hovering about our table as though Lorraine were royalty.
“Service ain’t bad,” Lorraine would say, picking her teeth, working on her third or fourth double. “But you better tell your Chinaman time he pulled up his rug. Smells like something crawled in here and died.”
Today, Joe’s youngest daughter, Joey, works behind the bar, so Harry Connick, Jr. is playing overhead instead of Joe’s Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett. I have consumed two heaping bowls of party mix, a basket of fried clams, and half a pitcher of Bloody Marys; I have given Joey a twenty, saying she can keep the change.
Joey smiles, and I watch her small, round bottom work beneath her short red skirt as she walks away. I am only now aware that Beth has entered the lounge and is observing me from the cigarette machine in the hall. She has been watching me watch Joey, and, now, she walks toward my booth, wagging her finger.
Beth is tall, willow thin, and moves among the closely packed tables with a dancer’s athletic grace. Although we have eaten here many times, though she and Joey have become friendly, it is not Beth’s kind of place: Beth has never smoked a single cigarette, nor once drunk herself into stupidity her entire twenty-five years.
This afternoon, Beth has dressed in black gaucho pants that fit her snugly about the hips and fall in tailored perfection down to her black, open-toed shoes. She wears a brown and burgundy silk blouse which flatters the chestnut color of her eyes and the wing of straight, mahogany-colored hair which hangs down her back. Her long, amber earrings sway in rhythmic counterpoint to her strong, confident stride as she makes her way between the empty tables.
Beth’s eyes narrow as she slides next to me in the booth. She thrusts her hip against mine and digs her fingernails into my thigh.
“Virgin Mary?” Joey calls from behind the bar.
“Yes, please!” Beth doesn’t take her eyes from mine. “New skirt, Joey?”
“Yeah. Bargain Barn. Thirteen bucks.”
“I like it!” Beth says.
“Thanks.”
“Teddie likes it, too!” Beth digs her nails deeper.
“I know,” Joey says.
“We like it, too, honey!” a salesman calls from across the room, blowing kisses. One of his cronies jerks his thumb in Joey’s direction, whispers something to the others, and they all laugh loudly.
I kiss Beth on the forehead and remove her grip from my thigh.
Beth is finishing her graduate degree in literature at the private university across the river. Since meeting at a poetry reading a little less than a year ago, we have spent an increasing amount of time together—oddly, without the usual diminishment of passion.
I have spoken of love. Beth, of marriage.
“We should be together,” she said the last time we were in her apartment. I was dressing at the edge of the bed; Beth was lying on her side, naked, one hand beneath her head, the other lifting her hair and letting it fall in a fine spray onto the pillow behind her.
“We’ve been over this ground.” I pulled on my socks.
“You’re not too old for marriage. For another marriage. Four’s your lucky number.”
“I’ve told you. It’s not the years.”
“It’s the mileage.”
“Yes.”
“Young people have mileage, too.”
Beth rolled onto her stomach. She tucked her hands between her legs and snuggled her bony hips into the mattress. She peered out at me from a tangle of hair wound about her head.
I stood up from the bed, tucked in my shirt. I looked over the top of Beth’s head to the Maxwell Parrish picture hanging on her wall: the beautiful young maiden stands at the precipice, face uplifted to the heavens, hair blowing upon the wind. My grey, featureless reflection peered out at me from the glass covering the print: a shadow man every inch my father … except for a glint of wire-rimmed glasses. I experienced an instinctual, overpowering urge to protect the maid.
“Think of me as just a moment’s indiscretion on an otherwise perfect curve of love,” I said. “You’ll see. Some young hunk. Rug rats. Volvo. The works.”
In a single, fluid motion, Beth rose from the bed and laced her fingers about my neck. I could feel the heat of her even through my clothes.
“So many sins committed in the name of love,” I said, “do we want to add your first marriage and my last to the list?”
Beth pulled down my head and kissed me full on the mouth.
“You could stay awhile,” she whispered, letting her hands move lightly down my chest. “Commit some sin.”
Joey arrives at the booth with Beth’s V-8 juice. Mostly ice, with a wedge of lime and a parasol, the way she likes it. I reach for my wallet, but Joey smiles and waves her hand.
“No charge for the lovebirds.” Joey tosses her short black hair out of her eyes. She looks over her shoulder to where her father stands at the bar. The old man waves and smiles to us, then m
akes a bird shape with his hands, fingers fluttering like a beating of wings.
“Daddy-o,” Joey laughs, tapping the side of her head, walking back to the bar.
Beth looks at the half-empty pitcher of Bloody Marys sitting in front of me. She draws a frowning face in the condensation on the side of the pitcher.
“Thought you had a Lit this afternoon.”
“Hair of the dog,” I say.
Beth holds my eyes, but does not speak.
“Just a bracer. I was over at Lorraine’s last night …”
“I know,” Beth says.
I raise my eyebrows.
“You didn’t answer at your place, so I called Junior’s. He said you’d be here. That you usually come here after you and your mom have had one of your bouts.”
“‘Bouts?’”
“His word.” Beth grasps the handle of the pitcher and pushes it to the other side of the table.
“You’re right,” I say. “You’re right.”
Beth covers my hand with her own. “Married men live six years longer than divorced or single.”
“Redbook?”
“Men’s Health. I’ve been thinking, Teddie. I was up most of last night thinking.”
Beth and I never fight, but we have begun to have those conversations which strip people down to their bare wires. From the sound of Beth’s voice, it seems we are about to have another.
I look at my watch.
“This won’t take long,” Beth says, softly.
There is fatigue in her voice. And secret knowledge.
My hands are flat on the table, and I feel the moisture beginning to dampen my palms.
“I’d like to make a deal.”
“A deal.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m wearing us out with my marriage proposals. It’s only a matter of time before you pull back altogether or I get tired of beating my head against a wall.”
My surprise at this expression of her acuity must show on my face, because she smiles half of a smile. “My part of the deal is, I promise never to bring up marriage again. I’ll wait until you ask me, or I get tired of waiting.”
“Tired of waiting means … moving on?”
Beth looks down and, with her fingernail, traces a heart on the back of my hand.
“And, what,” I say, “am I expected to give in return?”
“Take me to meet Lorraine.”
Joe has come quietly across the lounge, and he slides into the booth across the table from us.
“Lovebirds,” Joe says, laughing, patting the backs of our hands.
“Now Beth wants to meet Mamma.” He winks.
I rest an elbow on the table, place my chin in my hand. “Lorraine.”
“Yes,” Beth says.
I nod and nod.
I feel Beth’s eyes on my back as I get up from the table and walk toward the bar.
“Phone, please,” I call to Joey, and she reaches beneath the bar and sets the phone in front of me as I climb up onto a stool.
I dial Lorraine.
“Hello,” Lorraine says above the noise of a soap opera blaring in the background.
“It’s Teddie! Can you turn it down?”
“Minute.”
There is coughing, the sound of the remote banging against the phone, then the quiet of her husky breathing.
“You at work?”
“I’m over at Joe Chen’s.”
“What you doing at the Chinaman’s? Thought you was working today.”
“Stopped off on the way.”
“Everything okay?” She is unused to me calling so soon after a visit. “Sure. Hunky-dunky. Look. I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Shoot,” she says, now wary.
“I just wanted to … I was wondering if I could bring a friend by next week. Told her a lot about you. She’d like to meet you.”
“A woman?”
“Yes. A woman.”
Lorraine laughs. “You marrying another one?”
We are silent for a moment, and I feel how hard she listens through the phone.
“Not exactly,” I finally manage.
“Now, there’s something could of come straight out of your daddy’s mouth.”
“Come on, Mom.”
There is a long pause, longer than the first.
“‘Mom’, he says. Now it’s ‘Mom’. How long since you called your old mom ‘Mom’?”
I have nothing to say, so I wait.
“Well, you hardly ever brought one over you ain’t married. And you sure as hell never called me ‘Mom’ over one. Haul her on over and let’s have a look at her. Sounds like I got another one to get used to … for awhile.”
“I was thinking … I was wondering if you and I … if we might not argue so much when I bring her over. She’s a little on the youngish side. I don’t think she’s used to people like us …”
Lorraine laughs.
“How much on the youngish?”
“Very intelligent. Insightful. Twenty-five going on forty.”
“Ain’t too damn smart if she’s dumb enough to tangle with the Durbins.”
“If you’d just give her half a chance …”
“Hell, Teddie, I’m your mom. I won’t chase her off. But us women got to stick together against the Durbins of the world. Might have to give her a earful when you ain’t lookin’.”
“I know.”
“About time you find one that fits. You ain’t exactly a spring chicken. It ain’t worth a damn gettin’ old and not havin’ nobody.”
“I know.”
“So, you comin’ by next week?”
“If it’s okay with you.”
“Pick me up some ciggies and a case of them little bourbons?”
“Sure.”
“And don’t forget your tool box. Damn manager wouldn’t know a pipe wrench if it jumped up and bit him on the butt.”
“Okay.”
“And, you know, Teddie, it sure wouldn’t break your ass to call me ‘Mom’ once in awhile.”
“You’re right,” I say, finally. “Hundred per cent right.”
“Okay, then. Bring her by some night next week. But, she runs out on you after I give her the low-down, don’t blame your poor ol’ mom.”
The volume comes up on the television, and she gently hangs up the phone.
SIXTEEN
Lorraine phoned a few days later to say that, although she was willing to meet Beth, she had decided she does not want my “latest” to see the inside of her apartment.
“Ain’t got the gumption,” she said, turning from the mouthpiece each time she stopped to cough, “to knock this place into shape. Your Beth don’t need to see … how far your mom’s slid downhill. Supposed to be warming up. Whyn’t you take us over to the park … let the stink blow off.”
Beth usually sits next to me on the wide seat of the Ranchero, fine tuning the heater or the radio, at times laying her hand on mine as I move the stick through the gears. She is somehow pleased by our closeness even within the hulk of this ancient machine.
Today, Beth sits far to the passenger side, staring out the window, becoming more quiet the closer we draw to Lorraine’s: she has rarely driven through this part of the city, and only along the crosstown arterial, never down the ruin of iron-gated storefronts which inscribe the neighborhoods where people live. I have mentioned she would make points with Lorraine if she dressed casually, but the most I had hoped for was slacks and a sweater; she has surprised me by wearing sweat shirt and jeans, loafers and a jean jacket, fresh from the mall. A bit of lipstick. A hint of blush. Her hair pulled back with a simple clasp. I have touched her face, thanked her for her choices.
It is early afternoon toward the end of winter. The sky is clear and windless, the sun pale and distant, almost silvery. It is only a few degrees warmer than it has been, but the park is filled with open-coated children who gladly run and chase amidst even a tease of spring.
Lorraine is bundled in two pairs of pant
s and three inches of sweaters, her grey cloth coat of twenty years buttoned neck to knees. White cotton gloves, knitted hat pulled over her ears; toes pushed into jogging shoes too small for her heavily stockinged feet. Her face appears all the more fragile for peering out from her bulky swathe, oxygen prongs askew, yet her eyes are bright, her breath better than it has been in weeks.
When Beth is not looking, she raises an eyebrow as if to say, “Robbin’ the cradle, ain’t you, buster?”
Except for a bit of open ground left beneath the swings and slides set to one corner, the tiny neighborhood park has been paved with asphalt and fenced with chain-link. Mothers line the sidewalk mornings and early afternoons, visiting while they watch their small children at play; evenings are taken by the shouting, scuffling young basketball players and the dealers who stand beneath the Drug Free Zone signs, looking on.
Since I first wheeled Lorraine from the door of her building, Beth has taken charge of the chair, pushing Lorraine the four blocks to the park, refusing my assistance even at the curbs or patches of treacherous concrete. Lorraine would complain mightily were I to give her such a jostling but, with Beth, suddenly all is great adventure. It seems the two are taken with one another from the moment they meet: half a block from the building they are rapt in conversation, Beth leaning over the back of the chair, hanging on Lorraine’s every word. Occasionally, the two look back at me as I follow in their train, their faces waxing with some womanly bond which transcends even mother and son.
They are laughing by the time we reach the park gate and, as the three of us pass through, the mothers turn their heads: people here are used to the sight of Lorraine and me, but they have not seen Beth. They take her in with a blistering flick of their eyes, hair to shoes, before returning to their business.
The Violent Child Page 21
