Aberration of Starlight

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You’ll do as you damn well please. That’s what you’re telling me, Skip?

I’ve got a right to some life, Poppa.

Life? This is the life you’re talking about?

Oh, Poppa.

Walking around here like the fifth wheel, I’m no more goddamn use than a fart in a gale of wind.

You have your friends. It’s not as if you …

My friends. That’s fine for you to say, making a spectacle of yourself. You’re so busy you can’t see out of one eye and you’re blind in the other. Friends. Baggy-drawers Sapurty. Ach der Kaiser Louis. Can’t get the smell of manure off him. My friends? This article Copan? My God, it’s a miracle the man doesn’t eat the plates and all.

But, Poppa, what good does it do if I don’t go to Budd Lake or go, or don’t go, I mean, anywhere? You at least have your croquet, and things. What about Helga Schmidt?

Leave Helga Schmidt out of the picture. What is all this sudden interest in her? Am I supposed to trot after a woman to hold my hand and tell me it’s all right for my daughter to fall all over herself over a nigger-rich Romeo? In a pig’s ass!

I don’t mean you should go running after anybody. I’m saying there’s a lot of people you can talk to, you don’t need a nursemaid.

And you don’t remember a goddamn thing you don’t want to remember. Doctor Drescher? All right, he’s a horse doctor but give the man credit where credit is due. You conveniently forget he says I’m not supposed to get aggravated after your mother passed away?

How do I aggravate you, taking your grandson bathing? Is he supposed to sit here and stare at the four walls like these other relics? He’s not even eleven years old.

Bathing. Bathing. What a sweet innocent you can be, God in heaven. I see right through all your playacting, don’t make me laugh. I haven’t been alive all these years and not learned something. You, with that Thebus article, like some chippy. You think you’re pulling the wool over my eyes with the boy tagging along? And Eleanor and that damn mutt Dave Warren? I wasn’t born yesterday, thank God.

I am not going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs every day and wait for the dinner bell and then twiddle my thumbs some more and wait for the supper bell. The other day when you had a face down to your shoes dragging along like a lost soul I stayed here. I felt sorry for you. If that’s what you wanted you got your wish. Do you know what Billy did that day? Do you? He spent the whole day down at the barn killing flies. Killing flies! Why the boy is mad with boredom. And you can come along anytime you want. When Momma was alive, o-ho, you were the life of the party, not a place you wouldn’t go. Lake Hopatcong, Delaware Water Gap, High Point… Many’s the day and night when you could have let Tony and I go somewhere if you minded the baby, but did you? Oh no. Do you want me to beg you to come bathing? Get down on my hands and knees? Oh, how things have changed so much since Momma died. Changed? Don’t make me laugh. The same old thing, the same old rigmarole. Nothing ever changes with us. I can talk myself blue in the face, you yes me to death. But the next day you forget all about it.

You want a change? Fine by me, just fine. You’ve got a roof over your head and food on the table, all the clothes you want. Here you are in the country on a vacation any girl would give her right arm for. Change? That’s jake with me. Just tell me when and we’ll see how you like it.

Oh, that’s it. The roof over my head. And Billy’s head. Don’t you ever get sick of throwing that in my face? My God, I thought you’d be sick of that one by now. I had to listen to it day in and day out from Momma, how grateful I should be, how thankful, even when I was working like a slave, waiting on her hand and foot before she went in the hospital. When Billy was six years old she even told him how grateful he should be to her that he wasn’t in the streets or in a home or an orphanage. What a thing to say to a little boy! Talking about an orphanage! And when we lived on 68th Street before Momma ordered you — yes, yes, don’t shake your head, ordered, I remember it like yesterday — ordered, ordered, as God is my judge, ordered you to stop paying the rent on that little apartment and took us in like two charity cases. When we lived on 68th Street do you think I’ll ever forget that breakfast we got from her on Sunday morning after mass? Two eggs and two pieces of bacon in a paper bag? We weren’t to be trusted to eat with you, Billy might ask her for another piece of bacon. Is it ever going to end, the roof? When I think of my life. If I’d known ten years ago I’d have to thank my own father for the roof over my head! God help us.

I’m not going to talk about your mother. I had my cross too. I’m talking about one thing and it’s not two things, this Thebus article. He’s a sneaky-looking gazabo to me and what is it he wants with you? A woman with a ten-year-old son. Oh, I’m just an old fart and I can’t see what’s right in front of my eyes.

I’m entitled to some life, Poppa.

Well, you have your life, but I won’t be all smiles at this moustached article of a divorced man. The blind leading the blind, I say. I saw the whole thing from the start when the man jumped up from the porch dressed up like Astor’s pet horse and a book under his oxter to say hello to you. The minute we got here. We didn’t get out of the road when he was there all smiles and his pipe stuck in his mouth.

He said hello to you, too, Poppa. You’ve forgotten that.

To me! Ah, and I wonder why he’d do that? Something else the old geezer can’t see through.

But you didn’t see through anything when you let him carry, oh yes, let him carry all the valises upstairs. Oh no, I don’t remember a word out of you except Mister Thebus this and Mister Thebus that. Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

That’s before he showed his true colors. If I knew, I wouldn’t have given him the sweat off an ice pitcher. I don’t like the man one iota, just like I didn’t like that greaseball you married.

You? You were against my marrying Tony? You?

You know goddamn well!

Oh Poppa. My God, what short memories we have. My God.

I never liked that damn dago and your mother told you what she thought too, but you wouldn’t listen to anybody, you knew better.

Momma? Momma thought Tony was the most wonderful thing that ever came down the pike! At first. At first until she saw how happy we were and we moved away from Senator Street to that little house in Flatbush. That stuck in her craw, she was green with jealousy, God forgive me. Please, Poppa. Don’t tell me about Momma and Tony.

You should show some respect for your mother, she not in her grave a year.

Oh Poppa. I’ve thrown away my whole life on my mother.

And on me too?

Oh Poppa.

I’m telling you one thing, Skip. This Thebus pup is two-faced and up to no good. You mark my words.

Poppa, I’m not doing anything wrong. He’s full of fun. And he’s got his own cross to bear. Believe it or not.

Did it himself or I’m no judge.

Oh Poppa, can’t you have some feeling for somebody else, somebody outside of — God almighty.

Outside of what? Me? Oh yes, sure, certainly, it’s your selfish father again, your egotistical father who puts the roof over your head, pays for everything, drops for the boy’s eyes, glasses, everything.

I’m going in, Poppa. I want to take a nap.

Mm-hm, sure. Take your beauty rest to make sure you look like a girl. Go ahead. Go, go. Worked my fingers to the bone for all of you and this is the thanks I get. For all of you.