30 Pieces of a Novel

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WHERE’S HIS MOTHER? Didn’t expect his father to be here, he’s always too busy for things like this, but did his mother. Other kids are picked up. They run to their parents or just their parent or grandparent or older brother or sister. Lots of shouting of names, hugging, squealing, kissing, just what he expected to do with his mother, though no squealing; that’s for girls. He looks around and around. Half the kids were picked up the second they were brought to stand under the big Kodak sign. Most of the others were picked up in the next few minutes. “Mommy! Daddy! Nana!” and so on. Now he and a kid he didn’t like all summer are the only ones left from their division. Of all people to get stuck with, this one: Arthur. Not Art or Artie but Arthur, he had them all call him. “My mother said that’s the name on my birth certificate and the only name I should be called and not to answer to any other name,” or something. Good thing he also wasn’t in his bunk or on his team in color war. July first, camp started; now it’s August twenty-fifth. In a little more than a week, the day after Labor Day, he’ll be back in school. The thought of it makes him sick. Really, he has this sudden sick feeling in his gut at the thought of going back to school. It won’t be so bad the first day. There shouldn’t be too much to learn, the teacher will try to be nice, and he’ll see which kids he’s with, though they were told on their report cards last June which class they were promoted to, but he forgets who’ll be in his of the ones he likes. His best friend, Willy, won’t be in his class for the first time since second grade. His mother said it was just a fluke they stayed together this long in the same class. That it defied, she said, the law of averages — always big talk like that and with words he has to ask her the meaning of. She’s the reader in the family, the brain, and the one people say he takes after that way. But he gets his sense of humor and gabbiness from his father, they also say, besides his looks. Which, someone said in joking, he got shortchanged on or the worst of the bargain, his mother being thought of by most people as some kind of beauty when she was young and still a little today. Anyway, he forgets what he was thinking. School. In about eight days. No Willy in his class, but he’ll see him every day and walk to and from school with him unless Willy gets another best friend. But they’d still walk together, he’s sure, because he’s the only other boy on the block from their grade who goes to that public school. But his mother: where can she be? Maybe the subway got stuck or she took a taxi and the driver drove her to the other train station by mistake. What would he do if she stayed there waiting for him and all the campers here had gone, and the counselors and Uncle Sol, the camp director, wanted to go and she didn’t know where he was, maybe thought she got the pickup day wrong and went home to check because she’d left the camp schedule there — or didn’t have to go home at first, phoned and his dad wasn’t there; he was working, even though it was Saturday — so then she had to go home and the schedule said today and Grand Central Station and she was already two hours late and Uncle Sol by this time had got tired of waiting for her and left him there alone with his duffel bag — his trunk had already been sent home from camp by truck. But the camp would never do that. They’d stay with him till someone picked him up or they’d deliver him to the person his parents had told them beforehand about if his mother couldn’t come and get him or just didn’t show up. In other words, an emergency name and phone number. His father’s office, even. So, nothing to worry about, really.

“Where do you think your parents are?” Arthur says, and he says, “It’s probably just my mom who’s coming, and I don’t know. She’s usually never late — she’s a stickler about time — so something must have gone wrong with the city: a detour by cab because of a parade or something, or a car crash in front of hers. And your mom?” and Arthur says, “My parents, and they’re always late, so I’m used to it. They’ll be here, though, that I’m sure. They never fail. Look,” and points to the ceiling; it’s as high as any ceiling Gould’s seen. Higher up than the one in the Great Hall at the Natural History Museum, even, which he’s seen hundreds of times, since he lives so close to it. “Yeah, that’s a pretty high ceiling, all right, but near where I live? The Natural History Museum?” and Arthur says, “The what museum?” and he says, “The American Museum of Natural History,” and Arthur says, “Oh, that one; I didn’t know which museum you were talking of,” and he says, “Why, there aren’t two like it in the city,” and Arthur says, “There’s one in Washington, D.C., and another in San Francisco and in Philadelphia, I think, and probably lots of other places in America. That’s why you have to distinguish them or identify them correctly, because there’s only one called the American Museum of Natural History, and that one’s in New York,” and he says, “But I did say ‘near where I live,’ right? and that couldn’t be Philadelphia or San Francisco, right?” and Arthur says, “Sure it could, for Philadelphia. It’s only an hour away by train from Pennsylvania Station. For you never told me what city you specifically live in. Or if you did, this summer or last, I forgot,” and he says, “Oh, what’s the sense in talking to you? You always say this and that instead of talking about what we’re talking about,” and Arthur says, “If you remember, Gould, I was the one who was pointing something out when this conversation started, and it wasn’t the height or breadth of this train station either. I mean, both those we know, correct? I’m saying, both of us left from here two months ago, didn’t we? and we both left and came back from here last year too.” “All right, so what’s your point?” and Arthur says, “My point, sir, is pigeons,” and he says, “‘Sir’?” and Arthur says, “I was only joshing with that. But look up. Did you ever see so many pigeons inside a building like this, if at any time any bird flying in one? It’s so mysterious and eerie,” and Gould sees way up, right at the top — it must be a thousand feet away — with big long sunbeams slanting through the whole station from the big windows, making the place look like it has prison bars: anyway, a whole flock of pigeons flying around up there, or just birds. Because they are so far away, who can tell for sure what kind of birds they are? “Why do you say they’re pigeons?” and Arthur says, “What else can they be, in a city so filled with them? Besides, they flap and flutter like pigeons, and I think I heard one before, even from way down here, go coo, coo, coo. And they also have to be them because look at those two there,” and points, and about a hundred feet away, walking between some people and their luggage on the floor, are two pigeons, a mother and father it was pointed out to him once, the father with a green shiny neck and much bigger and more beautiful — or handsomer, you can say — than the mother, who had no colors like that on her neck and not as many feathers there and no puffy chest either or not as much so and her head sort of shaped like a woman’s. More graceful, a softer look; something like that. “Well, I guess that clinches it in a way,” Gould says, “though if all those by the ceiling are also pigeons, how come these two aren’t up there?” and Arthur says, “Boy, you’re a hard one to convince. Because they’re resting from flying, what do you think?”

“Arthur,” a woman says, and they look and it’s his mother. Gould recognizes her from a visit during Parents Day, even if she’s wearing city clothes now while this summer she had on shorts and a camp T-shirt. She must have not come with the right country clothes then, so borrowed the shirt from Arthur or bought it at the camp store and maybe the shorts from someone else. He forgets what she had on her feet; here it’s high heels. But what he remembers most about her is her ugliness. She’s maybe the ugliest woman her age he’s ever seen in real life—“Ugly as sin,” as his dad’s said about some people, men and women and even a couple of kids, though he isn’t completely sure what that expression means — with big everything on her face: nose, eyes, chin, even her lips, plus holes in her cheeks and yellow pimples and bushy hair, but a normal unfat body and legs. Arthur runs to her and Gould stays there and they hug and she stares at Arthur’s face and for a moment almost looks as if she’s going to cry but then grins, kisses the top of his head and one of his hands, and starts talking, and Arthur covers his eyes in embarrassment, it seems, so it must be how tall he’s grown the last month and how older he looks and more mature and so healthy with his tan and things like that and how his hair’s grown so long and it’s going to have to get cut for school. Though who knows? They might be weirdos, as his dad also likes to say about some people, so they’ll let him go to school with hair halfway down his neck and over his eyes. “Where’s Father?” and she says, “We couldn’t find a parking spot so he’s sitting in the car. He can’t wait to see you. Think you’re strong enough to carry your duffel bag alone? You look it,” and he says, “I don’t know, I’ll try,” and with some struggle gets it onto his shoulder; then he begins to sag under it, says, “Help,” and she grabs a handle at one end and he the other and he says, “Give me another year,” and they laugh. As they’re starting out she looks at Gould and says something, and Arthur shrugs and they come over, put down the bag, and Arthur says, “Mother, this is a friend from camp, Gould Bookbinder,” and he thinks, Friend? I talked more to him here than I did all summer, but he wants to lie that he has lots of friends, that’s okay. She says, “How do you do, Gould, did you have a good summer?” and he says, “Yes, thanks. I just hate the end of it because it means going back to school,” and she says, “I don’t think Arthur will have that problem. You’re looking forward to school, aren’t you, dear?” and Arthur says, “Sort of. It can be stimulating and fun,” and she says to Gould, “Did I meet you this summer when I came up?” and he says, “I don’t think so; Arthur and I were in different cabins.” “You’re waiting for your parents, though, yes?” and Arthur says, “Just for his mother; she’s unusually late,” and she says, “I’m sure she’ll come, and if not, Mr. Birmbaum will look after him, so don’t worry.” Mr. Birmbaum — Uncle Sol to the campers — has just run over and says, “Glad I caught you whisking Arthur away before you got past me. But I guess Gould would have let me know who swiped him, right, there, kid? So, so long, Arthur, my boy, and hope to see you at the camp reunion. It’ll be at the President Hotel, February, same as last year,” and Arthur says, “Will we be notified of the exact date a little longer beforehand than last time?” and Uncle Sol says, “I’ll see to it personally that you have plenty of time to get it into your engagement calendar. Goodbye, Mrs. Singer,” and she nudges Arthur, and he says, “Goodbye, sir, and have a good winter, Gould,” and he says, “You too, see ya,” and they go.

Now, out of the whole camp it’s just him and this very young boy who’s left, and then the boy’s picked up and he says to Uncle Sol, “Where do you think my mother is? She’s always on time, even a little before. Should we call her?” and Uncle Sol says, “Good idea, kid,” and gives him a dime and points to a booth nearby and he goes to it, puts the dime in and thinks, What’s my number again? It’s been so long, I forgot, and knows he can dial Information for it but then he might lose the dime and he’s not sure he’d know what to say to the phone company to get it back and also what to say to the Information lady to get his number and then to Uncle Sol if he really lost the dime, so he goes back to him and says, “You don’t have my phone number on your clipboard there, do you?” and Uncle Sol says, “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” and he says yes, thinking Uncle Sol either means long time away from New York or since he’s used his phone number or called home or maybe since he’s asked anyone for it. Anyway, he gets the number, says, “That’s it; now I won’t probably forget it till the end of next summer,” and calls and nobody answers. He offers to give back the dime but Uncle Sol says, “Nah, hold it; better than asking me for it again,” and he says, “What’ll happen if no one comes?” and Uncle Sol says, “Then I take you to my house and throw you into the basement pit with all the other campers from previous years whose parents didn’t pick them up and work you twelve hours a day only on bread and water and at less than slave wages, digging a tunnel to China so I can open up a fast new lucrative rice route. Only kidding; don’t look so scared,” and he says, “I wasn’t; I could tell you were fooling,” though he did think while Uncle Sol was saying all that that he might do something mean to him — raise his voice, pull him by the arm to the phone to call again or something — not by the story, which was silly, but by his sharp voice and face, which seem a bit angry. “And listen, don’t even say your mother might not come. It’s never happened in ten years where a camper’s been stranded, knock wood,” and looks around, then taps Gould’s head. “It’d be the worst thing in the world for me, hunting down a parent. After two months of camp without a day off and another six weeks straight preparing to open it, not to mention going to everyone and his uncle’s home for three months to show them pictures of the camp and stuff to come there and in between that hiring a staff and setting up the camp reunion, you don’t think I need a few hours to myself with no campers around before I go back tomorrow to help close the place? You’ve any idea what that closing entails?” and he says no, though he didn’t understand all of what that last part meant since he doesn’t know what “entails” means, and Uncle Sol says, “You don’t want to know, believe me, but if you’re smart never become head counselor of a camp you’re also part owner of. I thought it’d be easier than school-teaching, but like every time I plan my life for something better, I was wrong. But if your folks aren’t here in half an hour — and God help me I hope it doesn’t take that long, my feet won’t stand it — then I contact one of your relatives or someone like that close. I have a sheet with the names of three people to reach in case of emergency for all my campers,” and Gould says, “What kind of emergency could it be?” and Uncle Sol says, “I said, in case of, in case of. You gotta listen better, Gould, it’ll help you later in life and possibly even a little today. But there won’t be an emergency, so relax and enjoy the station and don’t make me even more nervous than I am.” Now I’m worried, Gould thinks. Did his mother take a cab and it crashed? Maybe she forgot about today and was at home when he called and for some reason didn’t pick up the phone, but then why wouldn’t his dad have reminded her he was coming back from camp today? Something really bad happen to her at home? He should have called his father at work after nobody answered at home, but Uncle Sol only gave him the dime to call home and he didn’t think of it then besides, and if he got Dad at work he might get mad Gould took him away from important business or customers. Maybe there was some catastrophe at home: a fire, something in the electricity or with the stove. It could be happening right now and the phone when he called kept ringing through all of it. That could be why the camp wasn’t told why his folks couldn’t pick him up. He’s sure something bad’s happened, though maybe not as bad as he just imagined. He’s going to ask Uncle Sol if he can use the dime to call his father at work, and if he gets him he thinks his father won’t be too upset with him when he learns how worried he is about his mother and that he’s the last camper here and Uncle Sol’s ready to bust a gut over it.

Just then a woman says, “Excuse me, but Gould?” She’s holding a photo and looks back and forth at him and it. “Gould Bookbinder, this is you”—showing him a photo of him last summer—“Bea’s son, right?” and he says, “Yeah, who are you?” “Can I help you, miss? I’m the head counselor at Gould’s camp,” and she says, “Mr. Birmbaum. I was supposed to look for you too. I’m a friend of Gould’s mother and I’ve a letter from her giving me permission to collect her son and deliver him home,” and Uncle Sol says, “May I see it?” and takes the letter and reads it. “Gould, this your mom’s writing?” and he looks at it, and it starts off with, after the To Sol Birmbaum or Whomever Else It May Concern: I hereby give permission to Lynn Jacobo, a trusted co-worker of mine at Lord & Taylor’s and a friend … “and he says, “I think so; it looks it, the way she makes circles over the i’s and the nice handwriting,” and Uncle Sol says, “But you didn’t seem to recognize the lady,” and she says, “He couldn’t have. We knew there’d be this problem, because you should be extra cautious with your charges, so that’s why this letter. I only met his mother this summer at the store we work at,” and Gould says, “That’s another thing that sounds a bit fishy to me, Uncle Sol. My mother never worked at a store,” and she says, “Excuse me, he’s right, though she works at one now forty-four hours a week. And two days ago she gave me this note, in case she couldn’t pick him up, much as she wanted to, and then called late last night for me to do her this favor and fetch him. She said she’d call you before your buses left for the train station, but she didn’t?” and Uncle Sol says no and she says, “Well, what can I say? But I still got the arrival time wrong by an hour, it seems, if all the kids are gone, because if you can believe it I thought I was getting here ten minutes early, just to have a doughnut and coffee and a quick peep around. I really apologize for coming late, Gould; you must’ve been worried,” and Uncle Sol says, “I’m sorry, Miss Jacobi—” and she says, “Jacobo, and missus, and we didn’t properly say hello, did we?” and shakes his hand and then shakes Gould’s and says, “It’s so nice meeting you after hearing such wonderful things about you from your mother. My, does she talk of you!” and he says, “Thanks.” “Still, Mrs. Jacobo, you’re not one of the names on the list of people allowed to get him. I have Louise and Max Rand down here, her sister and brother-in-law it says, and a Florence Hoff,” and she says, “The last is her neighbor — I’ve met her, and Gould certainly knows her — and she’s at a psychotherapists’ convention. That’s what she does, psychotherapy, out of her apartment,” and Uncle Sol says, “That so, Gould?” and he says, “I know Flo; I don’t know what that psychosomething is, but she does work in a big room that she has.” “As for the Rands,” she says, “all I know is what I heard from Bea, and that’s that they’re at a resort in New Hampshire till Labor Day, so that left little me,” and Uncle Sol says, “You do know a lot about the family. But you’ll still have to give more proof, because I can’t release a child to just some family knowledge and a letter. And when we called his home before, no one answered, so is Mrs. Bookbinder at work?” and she says, “She’s home — didn’t I say? — waiting for me to bring him. I’m on my lunch hour, which is really just forty-five minutes to the dot, so I have to be quick. Even if I cab back and forth I won’t make it; so what are they going to do, dock me for fifteen minutes? And she’s okay, Gould, nothing to worry about; your mom must’ve simply not heard the phone ring, because otherwise I’m sure she would’ve answered. But may I speak to you, Sol, out of earshot, if we can?” and Uncle Sol looks at her peculiarly. She gives an expression, the way her forehead’s folded and eyes are half closed, that seems to mean what she has to say is very important and will explain what she can’t explain here, and Uncle Sol says, “Sure. Don’t go away, Gould, we’ll be back in a flash,” and they go off about twenty feet and talk. Uncle Sol nods that he understands. She takes some papers out of her pocketbook and shows him them. He nods some more, then looks over to Gould and back to her with the expression Think-he-knows-what-we’re-talking-about? and she shakes her head no. They come back. “Gould, this Mrs. Jacobo’s legit. She’ll take you home to your mother,” and he says, “How come she’s taking me and not my mom?” and she says, “I’ll tell you everything in the cab,” and she and Uncle Sol look at each other and she nods, and Gould says, “How come you can’t tell me now?” and she says, “Because in the cab we’ll be on our way and I gotta get back to work soon. These your bags?” and he says, “Just two,” and she says, “Gosh, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. They look heavy. You’ll help me with them?” and he says, “I grew four inches this summer; I can carry them both,” and puts the big bag on his shoulder and the smaller one under his arm. “We can stop at a stand here for a hot dog and you can eat it on the way,” and he says, “No, I want to get home, and my mom always has something good waiting for me.” “See you at the camp reunion,” Uncle Sol says, “and I hope everything at home turns out okay,” and he says, “Why wouldn’t it? She tell you something?” and Uncle Sol says, “Nothing; what’d I say? Just an expression, kid, like ‘good luck’ and ‘stay well’ and all that. So, you had a great summer, Gould, hope to see you as a camper next year, and now I’ll also be on my way,” and salutes them and goes.

In the cab she stares out the window at the city and he says, “You said you’d tell me why my mother didn’t pick me up,” and she says, “Did I? I forget. Well, on second thought, better she tell you when you see her,” and he says, “Is she all right? My father? Either one sick with something? That what happened? Because that’s what I’m starting to think,” and she says, “She’s fine, in the pink, and as far as I know about your father, he’s healthy too, or at least she didn’t say anything that he wasn’t,” and he says, “You’re holding back something; I can tell by your voice,” and she says, “Okay. She told me if you were really smart and persistent and getting more worried by not knowing than knowing, and I was an absolute moron in being cagey and sly, that I could tell you this, so don’t think I’m overstepping my boundaries,” and he says, “What’s that you mean?” and she says, “What I mean is I’m not saying anything here your mother told me I couldn’t.” “And my father?” and she says, “He I never once spoke to. Maybe because he’s not been around lately, which is my point, so do you get what I’m saying or do I gotta spell it out further?” and he thinks, Oh, no, they’ve split up, his worst fear, maybe even got divorced, because they wouldn’t need him there with them for that — had a fight, lots of fights, they used to yell a lot at each other, but this time they used their fists and hit one another hard, so hard his mother got knocked out cold and had to call the doctors and cops, or someone had to for her, and when she woke up in the hospital she told him to leave, because by then he was sorry for what he did and wanted to apologize and take care of her, but she screamed at him to go and he left, and with another wife he might already somewhere be starting another child by this time with no thought in the world for him and his mother, even if by now she could be willing to take him back. “You don’t look good, Gould, did what I say disturb you? I told you I didn’t want to say anything,” and he says, “No, you can tell me; I always knew something was wrong,” and she says, “Good, you’re mature, just like this Sol guy was intimating, and you’re a good little fella too, because you’re making it easier for me than I thought. Okay: your father’s moved out and your mom’s terribly distressed over it. I don’t see why she should be, if you’ll take my two cents. From what I know, they’ve been fighting like cats for years, so this could be a good thing,” and he says, “No, they didn’t. They just argued sometimes, but I’ve seen them in plenty of happy moods together. Did he get married again?” and she says, “It’s too soon, how could he? It’s only been a month, and it’s not some other woman with her claws in him who’s making him do it, so don’t think that,” and he says, “Then I want him to move back. The place is better with him in it — funnier — no matter how much they fight. They can make up and only argue now and then and not so loudly,” and she says, “Maybe you’re right. You’re a smart kid, as I said, so maybe you know what you’re talking about. Anyway, that’s all I’m permitted to tell you — what I just did. To prepare you, if I thought I had to, for having no daddy at home right now but that he’ll probably call you tonight or in a day or so. And that your mother’s depressed over it, not so much because of him but that it finally came to this and the family’s broken up, so mostly depressed by the effect it’ll have on you. It could be, between you and me, she’s thinking she held on to your father this long just for your sake — I don’t know, I’m only speculating.” “What’s that?” and she says, “Raising the possibility of, I think. But my authority stops where I said, as I don’t have the go-ahead from your mom to go any further than I did, and as it is I think I went too far.” She looks out her window. “Catch the traffic,” and he says, “Why? There hardly is any,” and she says, “That’s what I mean. New York, in this area, is like a — well, maybe almost all over except in front of Bloomingdale’s and down on Times Square and the square where Macy’s and Gimbel’s are: Herald. I’m talking of summer weekends, but like a little town, quiet and empty like one, when all the people are in church.” “We don’t go to church; not even to a synagogue except maybe the very holy days in September,” and she says, “I didn’t mean literally. I meant it’s as if New York’s just a small town today, it’s so deserted around here, though where everybody is I don’t know. Vacationing, probably, the last big week before Labor Day, and the ones working on Saturday, instead of walking around on their lunch hours, are inside their buildings because of the sun and heat. You all right, Gould, not too upset from what I said? If you want I can still stop a block from your building and buy you a hot dog or ice cream. I don’t mind getting back to work late, if it’ll help you. So they dock me. So sue me too,” and he says, “No, I just want to get home. I’m kind of tired.”

She unlocks the front door with the keys his mother must have loaned her, leaves them on top of the breakfront by the door, and says, “Cool in here; you’re lucky. That’s because your mother keeps the blinds down. Anyway, gotta get going, so I’ll see ya. Say hi to her from me and that I had to dash,” and she goes. He yells, “Mom, I’m back, I’m back, you around?” and she says from the bedroom, “I’ll be out shortly, darling; welcome home. Take something in the refrigerator. I bought lots of things you like,” and he says, “I’m not hungry but I’ll look,” and goes into the kitchen, opens the deli wax paper of several packages, takes a slice of liverwurst from one and a slice of Swiss cheese from another and stuffs them together into his mouth. Drinks a glass of milk, nice and cold. The apartment looks different. So clean and everything neat and put away and counters and floors shining as if washed and mopped and waxed. That’s how he always remembers it when he comes home from camp, and the coolness of the place compared to the outside, but then forgets it till the next year. Also no lights on, to keep the heat of the rooms down too, his mother said. So it looks strange, a cross between day and night, when it’s just the middle of the afternoon and the outside’s maybe its brightest and hottest. The place also seems smaller, but not as much smaller as it did last year, and he wonders if his room’s the same way and goes into it and it is. So what does that mean, that next year everything will seem the same here as when he left, or close to it? He looks for things he missed: a board game, a sponge ball, a book, feels his bed to see if it’s still as comfortable — he got used to the hard cot at camp but what he never got used to was how narrow it was, and when he was sleeping he fell off it at least three times and once, even, during the rest period they make you take after lunch. Opens his middle dresser drawer for no reason but to look at the folded stacks of clothes. In a week it’ll be messy and in a few weeks his mother will ask him to fold his clothes in his dresser if he wants to find anything in it, and if he says he doesn’t want to she’ll say then he won’t be allowed to play outside after dinner. Smell of mothballs comes out of the drawer. That’s what he always remembers, and he fingers around and finds a couple of the balls she missed, for his mother must have taken the rest out when she cleaned his room for his coming home. He gets out the mothballs she missed in the other drawers — they’re all in the back corners. He doesn’t mind the smell much, but it can get embarrassing when people start sniffing hard in front of him and then point out the smell on his clothes. Sits on the radiator cover, holds open some middle blind slats, and looks out his second-story window at two rows of backyards going all the way to the end of the block, a lot of the close ones overgrown with bushes and vines and trees whose branches hang down to the ground. In one yard a woman’s sunbathing in a skimpy swimsuit. He doesn’t know how she can just lie there in the sun, her arms turned up so the forearms show and her legs spread wide, and get burned and hot and sweat so much. He stares at the tall apartment building at the end of his block, at a small propeller plane passing over it till it flies out of sight, then looks at the woman — she’s drinking right from a glass pitcher — and goes to the bathroom because he has to pee and after it taps on his mother’s door. “What is it, Gould?” and he says, “I thought you’d be out by now, anything wrong?” “No, it’s okay, don’t worry,” and he says, “I also forgot to tell you: Mrs. Jacobo, your friend, said to say goodbye to you, that she had to get back to work,” and she says, “Did you like her?” and he says, “She was all right, but she talked too much,” and she says, “She’s nice; helped me out a lot by picking you up, and she had to come from work to do it,” and he says, “I know. She also told me you work there together and all about you and Dad,” and she says, “That’s why I’m in here, Gould. The shock of it keeps coming back and back, and today it really got to me, probably because you were coming home, know what I mean? Okay, okay,” and opens the door; she’s in her bathrobe, hair a mess, face looking as if she just got up, hugs him, kisses the top of his head, and says, “Good, I’ve made my grand appearance, so you won’t think me entirely strange. But I’m going back in to rest some more, if you don’t mind and can understand. Play with Willy, if he’s home,” and he says, “Good idea. Can I take the keys Mrs. Jacobo left or should I leave the door unlocked?” and she says, “The keys,” and goes into her room and shuts the door and he calls Willy down the block and gets the keys, though he doesn’t know which one fits which lock. If you don’t fix the button, door locks automatically, but he’ll be able to get back in and if he can’t he’ll ring till his mother comes to the door. It might even be a good excuse to get her out of her room again. But when he gets back he’s going to ask for his own keys and he bets she gives him a set now that there’s only the two of them.

Plays, and when he lets himself in a couple of hours later the table’s set for one, with a note on the plate: Gould, dear. It was so wonderful seeing you again. You look great (I neglected to say then), grown a few inches, even filled out some, but in a husky way: you’re getting so tall and strong. I’ve made what used to be your favorite sandwich. If you want something else, leave it and make a sandwich of your own choosing from the assorted deli I also have in the refrigerator. In the bread bin are a fresh loaf of rye bread and a package loaf of white and several fresh Vienna rolls (without seeds). For a special treat, but only today, take the bottle of White Rock ginger ale in the refrigerator too. The sandwich is liverwurst and Swiss and lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on white bread, which he still likes but it’s not his favorite anymore: ham and Swiss on white with mustard but no lettuce and tomato is — but he doesn’t feel hungry for anything now. He wonders when his dad will call. He should have asked her. Should he ask through the door for his dad’s new phone number? It’s almost too late to call him at work, if he went there today, and asking for his home phone number might make her mad and maybe even sad too, and he drinks the soda and reads a book and listens to a radio show and answers the phone and writes down the message from a woman whose name he never heard before, and at eight raps on her door and says, “Mom? Mom?” and tries the knob, but the door’s locked and she says from what sounds like across the room, maybe from her bed, “I’m so sorry for acting like this, Gould. Did you have your supper?” and he says, “I’m not hungry,” and she says, “You have to be hungry; maybe you noshed a lot, then,” and he says, “Only a piece of liverwurst and cheese before,” and she says, “I’m sorry, I know it’s all my fault you’re not eating, but I can’t seem to be able to make even another grand appearance. I feel repulsive and look a wreck, but it won’t go on past tonight, I promise. Maybe things will improve with your father where he’ll come home, and maybe they’ll even get worse, where we have to set up two permanent separate households, but the worst thing about it is the effect on you,” and he says, “I’ll be all right, and now that we talked about it, I’ll be fine. Can I come in now?” and she says, “This will sound terrible, but it’s probably better if we next see each other at breakfast. Then I’ll be all rested and feeling and looking better and we can do something together, like go to the park if it’s not too hot. Now I’m still so tired I only want to go back to sleep. I’ve taken my phone cord out of the wall, so if it rings, answer it, but I’m not able to come to the phone for the rest of the night.” “A Mrs. Corn called and said for you to call her. She didn’t say about what but that you’d know and you have her number, so I didn’t take it; was that all right?” and she says, “Of course, and I’ll do it tomorrow. She’s my boss and very sweet and probably wants to know if I’m coming in Monday. You know I had to go back to work because we needed the money,” and he says, “I guessed so, but doesn’t Dad give you any?” and she says, “Not enough because his business hasn’t been doing too well and now he has his own rent and expenses. Somebody will be looking after you on Monday, so don’t worry,” and he says, “Who?” and she says, “A very nice woman. To take you to the movies and things. And later next week you’ll go to your aunt’s in Coney Island for two days, and I’ll have a day off to be with you, and your father will be around, and we’ll all work something out for when you go back to school,” and he says, “Can I have his number so I can call him?” and she says, “I don’t have it, or don’t know where it is right this minute,” and he says, “Can you get it for me?” and she says, “I wouldn’t know where to look,” and he says, “Do you know where he lives so I can dial four-one-one for it?” and she says, “It’s such a new number they won’t have it,” and he says, “They give you new numbers; I’ve heard you and Dad on the phone with them. You say the number’s new and give the name and address and they find it,” and she says, “I don’t even know where he lives. I’m afraid that’s where your father and I stand now, Gould,” and he says, “Come on, Mom, you have to have it,” and she says, “Are you saying I’m lying?” and he says, “No. Could you tell me what you do at work?” and tries the door and it’s still locked, which he figured it’d be. “That Mrs. Jacobo and the woman on the phone before didn’t say anything about it,” and she says, “Sales. Mrs. Corn is the head saleslady in our department: Girls’ Clothes. Lynn — Mrs. Jacobo — has a much better position as a buyer, and if I stay at it long enough and get good reports I can eventually move up to that. They can do very well. But I’ll tell you it all tomorrow morning. Now get a good night’s sleep, which means not staying up too late reading. Your bed’s freshly made, and also don’t open your window too high. There’s a floor fan in your room if you want — I bought it just last week but haven’t plugged it in yet,” and he says, “I saw but didn’t know it was mine. Thanks. And good night,” and she says good night and he thinks usually he likes to get a kiss but he’s not going to ask for it.

He takes the sandwich out of the refrigerator, scrapes off as much of the mayonnaise as he can from it, smears on mustard, and eats it, has some milk, cookies, a plum, washes up and gets in his short-sleeves-and-shorts pajamas, and lies on the bed with a book and opens it and thinks, The fan! and plugs it in and turns it on to SLOW and gets back on the bed and thinks, When I grow older I’m never getting married. It’ll end like this if I do — things are passed down from father to son more than they are from the mother, not just looks but I bet the kind of woman you choose for a wife — with my son’s mother locked in her room and me some other place cheap and dirty because I have so little money or have given most of it to her for my son and not calling him also because I’m too upset and am afraid of getting my wife on the phone who I now hate more than anything but both of us believing the worst thing possible has happened to our son when it hasn’t, he’s actually glad they’ve split up because now he doesn’t have to hear them arguing back and forth almost every dinner and Sunday mornings and sometimes from the second his father comes home from work and from time to time telling each other they’re going to kill the other — not so much that but that they’d be better off dead than living with the other — and the only way to stop that from happening is never to marry and have a child, never, because you don’t ever want to put him through that and make your own life horrible and crazy and mean besides; and he grabs the pillow from under his head and throws it across the room and then jumps out of bed and knocks all the treasures off his desk and picks up some and throws them against the wall and yells, “Shut up!”—to the fan—“just shut the hell up!” and pulls its plug out by the cord and pushes the fan over and would kick it if it wasn’t that he had bare feet, and pounds the closet door with his fists and screams, “You bitches, you louses, you rotten bastards, I hate you, I hate your guts!” His mother comes in and says, “What is it with you; why are you acting like this?” and he says, “Nothing, go away,” and runs to the night table and turns the light off and gets back in bed and under the covers and faces away from her and wishes he had his pillow to lie on but isn’t going to get it till she’s out of the room, and she says, “That wasn’t a nice thing to say,” and the room’s still a little lit from the hallway light and he closes his eyes tight and she says, “And especially not after all you know I’ve recently gone through with your father, besides the things I’ve tried to do to make your homecoming as nice as it can possibly be for you,” and he says, “Leave me alone; I can’t stand either of you,” and she says, “Gould,” and he doesn’t say anything, and she says, “Gould, that was awful, apologize,” and he holds his breath till he can’t hold it any longer and lets it out slowly so she won’t hear. She turns the ceiling light on, picks up the stuff he threw around, puts some of it in his wastebasket and the rest on his desk, brushes off his pillow and drops it at the foot of his bed, then turns the light off and leaves the room, and he thinks, I wish I could fall asleep right now, but so what, because even if I do I’ll have to wake up in the morning.