The Portable Veblen

26 WE CAN BE TOGETHER

According to Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, the Swiss analyst and author of Marriage: Dead or Alive, a wedding is more than a party or a legality. It’s no less than a boxing ring, two people facing off, acknowledging their separate identities rather than their union, in the company of all the people who lay claim to them. A wedding is the time and place to recognize the full clutch of the past in the negotiation of a shared future.

Try devoting a few pages to that, Brides magazine!

Three days before the wedding, Linus called to say Melanie wasn’t feeling well, that her blood pressure was sky-high, that her ankles were as big as hams, and that her heartbeat was as irregular as everything else about her physical being. But he assured her they’d be there. (As if they wouldn’t? Veblen wondered.)

On Friday, Bebe Kaufman called to report difficulties getting Rudgear into the van assigned to deliver him, and Veblen had to implore him over the phone.

“Did I say I was coming?” he asked, vaguely.

“Yes, Dad, you did.”

“I mess up everything, don’t I?”

“No. Dad, it’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive and you can watch the History channel when you get here, how about that?”

“I get a little tired of the History channel.”

“Fine, you can watch whatever you want. Get in the car and I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Veblen was meanwhile stitching her dress and pressing open the seams. The dress was a simple white A-line made of rayon that had cost her all of thirty-two dollars in materials, and seemed to fit nicely, though she hemmed one sleeve higher than the other and had to rip it out with the expensive Swiss seam ripper and do it again. She wasn’t very good at sewing, but did her best.

Then Albertine, with her long legs and horn-rimmed glasses, arrived and set up in Veblen’s kitchen to begin food preparations, which she had offered to do as soon as she’d heard about the date and plan.

“Two girls from Cobb, doing the job,” Albertine drawled, tying up her hair.

Veblen said, “Just promise that whatever you witness today and tomorrow, that you won’t hold it against me more than anything else in your arsenal.”

“I’ll try my best,” vowed Albertine.

By midafternoon the Vreelands came to Tasso Street, and Bill stayed with Justin a long time in the car before bringing him in. Marion began to help in the kitchen without a moment’s pause.

“Oh, my, you girls have done such a good job organizing everything,” she said.

Paul would be back soon. He was out doing errands with his best man, Hans Borg.

The Sunny Hill van arrived at two-thirty, and a muscular man with a shaved head helped Rudgear out of the back. Rudgear wore one of the new plaid shirts Veblen had brought him, blue jeans, flip-flops, and a Panama hat. “Hey, Dad, you’re looking good! Come in.” She took his arm, which was covered with Band-Aids to hide bleeding spots in his thin skin.

Bill came forward and shook Rudgear’s hand and told him what a great daughter he had, though Rudgear did not comment, perhaps because he’d never registered Veblen as his daughter, which made sense given how little time they’d spent together, but also, because of how much work she’d put into being a daughter, was kind of sad. He straightened up at the sight of Marion, and even more so at the sight of Albertine, but when he was introduced to Justin he stepped back and said, “What are you staring at?”

Marion said, “Rudge, Justin is a special person and when he stares it just means he’s interested, right, Justy?”

Rudgear said, “Don’t get too interested, buddy.”

Veblen said, “Dad, how about some pretzels?”

“I’d like that, ma’am,” he said, taking a spot at her table.

She pulled a heavy bowl from the cupboard and the bag of pretzels from another, pulled the plastic apart, and sent pretzels cascading across the counter and floor. She rubbed her eyes, felt a pain in her collarbone. She poured the remaining pretzels in the bowl and for a moment envied them for being senseless scraps of gluten. She noticed how uneven her fingernails were on the eve of her wedding. What a clod she was! It had never occurred to her to do anything about them.

Music came from her living room, Jefferson Airplane’s “We Can Be Together,” which was Justin’s favorite song.

“Here you go,” Veblen said, bringing Rudgear the pretzels and a cool glass of water.

“Thanks much. Nice bowl,” said Rudgear.

“Thanks.”

“Used to know a kid who had a voice,” he said.

“Oh, really? You mean, in Waukegan?”

“Yep,” said Rudgear.

“‘Tear down the walls! Tear down the walls!’” Justin sang.

Rudgear winced. “Are we prisoners here?”

“No, Dad. Would you like to take a walk?”

“Yeah. I better use the facilities.”

“Back there,” Veblen said, fearing he would crawl out the window and run away. Well, the window didn’t really open so he was trapped.

“Veblen!” called Marion. “Do you have any oven mitts?”

“Somewhere. I usually use dish towels.”

“Veb? Do you have salt?” said Albertine. “The shaker’s out.”

“Try the cupboard over the stove. We might have to get some.”

“Veblen, do you mind if we move the furniture around in the living room? If Justy can dance he’ll get rid of some energy and that will be good for everybody,” Bill said.

“Sure, go ahead,” said Veblen, and the song started up again, twice as loud. The cottage shook under Justin’s feet.

Rudge returned to the room, shrinking from the noise. “Lord, have mercy,” he cried out, as if in pain.

“Rudge, don’t you like music?” called Bill.

“No. Is that what you call it?”

“Bill, maybe turn it down a little?” Marion asked.

“I need some air,” said Rudge, moving for the door.

“We’ll turn it down, Rudge, no problem,” Bill said, and Justin reached out and touched his arm.

“Get your paws off me!” Rudge shouted, even more desperately.

Justin latched on to Rudge’s sleeve, whereupon Rudge took hold of Justin’s arm and twisted it like a peg. Justin screamed.

“Hey, none of this!” Bill said.

“Dad, stop it!” Veblen cried.

“To hell with all of you!” Rudge yelled, and charged out the door.

“Dad!” cried Veblen. “Come back!”

Justin jumped up and down like a jackhammer. “He hurt me! He hurt me! He hurt me! He hurt me!”

She cleared the cottage in time to see Rudgear running to the end of Tasso Street, where he disappeared down the bank of the San Francisquito Creek.

Okay, no big deal! Probably lots of people had to chase their parents to get them to their weddings, at least metaphorically. She smiled for a second, and then she started to laugh.

A cramp seemed to be forming around her heart. Did the cramp go round the heart — or not? She wondered if she could get a bunch of intellectuals excited about it.

At the arroyo’s edge, she could not see her father or tell which direction he’d taken, so she ran along the edge, surveying the historic gully next to which Gaspar de Portola and his men camped during their 1769 exploration of California. An acorn woodpecker worked on a tree. “Dad, I’m worried about your blood sugar levels. Where are you?” she called out.

“Dad?” she cried out. “I need you!” Maybe this was the wrong thing to say, he didn’t like being needed. “Dad?” Maybe that was wrong as well. “Rudgear!” she tried, and then slid down the bank.

“Well, this is swell. Why are you doing this?” she cried. Didn’t anyone care how she felt, didn’t anyone care if her wedding was fun for her? She had an actual hair appointment coming up, Albertine had insisted on it, though her hair never held a style, was always lank and floppy. Now she’d probably miss it, but who cared. No one cared, that’s who!

“Stop,” she told herself, trying to tap her resources. “Stop.” She sat on an uprooted log, typing on her thighs to mend.

When you’re weary, feeling small

Even on a phantom keyboard, typing did so much to alleviate stress!

When tears are in your eyes…

Faster!

… I will dry them all

Through her wet lashes she saw lilies embedded in the mud shale bank, just like the ones around her cottage, and wondered how they got here. Possibly transplanted by squirrels. Creeping snowberry and a few saplings of dogwood grew along the bank too. Gazing through the fluttering leaves, she saw geese overhead in a V, at such an altitude they made no sound or ripple. Then came a rustling in an oak, a shredding of bark, and a wiry cry, much like a tin noisemaker spinning at a New Year’s party. Next thing she knew the squirrel was perched on a small tuft of dry grass protruding from the sandstone embankment, staring right at her!

“Ah, it’s you! Boy, am I glad to see you!”

She didn’t even have to squint to make it real.

Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!

“What are you trying to say?” She coughed, and noted the round outline of something the size of a grapefruit, flat, rusted, jutting up through the alluvium; she dug her fingers in around it and kept wiggling it until it came loose. It was a large can, mostly rusted, with some print still visible — Hawaiian Punch. The top of the can had been punctured by a church key, in two triangles on either side.

“Oh my gosh, this is from such a long time ago. I remember gagging this stuff down at school parties. I remember someone using the church key thing and asking my mother why you had to do it on both sides, and how I felt proud that she thought it was a good question and how she explained it released the pressure to flow better.” She drifted into thoughts about that time in her life, when her mother’s knowledge seemed so potent, there was no need to go anywhere else for the truth. Then she detected something else, the size of a ring, caked in dirt, and she dug it out and brushed it off. It was a ring, all right, possibly made of silver, with suns and moons pressed into it, and even with the dirt caked on, it fit her ring finger perfectly. “Hey, I can’t believe it. I’ll have to wash it and see, but I think I like this ring!” She smiled and said, “You wanted me to find this, didn’t you!”

In May the pool-riffle channel was nearly dry. But it was clear that in times of high water this was a conduit for a great volume of organic debris. She felt fortunate to live near such an active riparian corridor.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

Why had this squirrel attached to her, taken such an interest? What did he want? What did he see?

All at once she could hear Bill’s voice calling to Rudgear, just around the bend. And the squirrel leaped from the outcropping and ran past her, unearthing clumps of sediment and mulch.

“Rudge, you gave us a scare! My kid’s got a condition, he’s mentally disabled! He didn’t mean anything. He’s a five-year-old in the body of a man!”

She jumped to her feet and sprang over the rocks.

“He’s not all there?” Rudgear was saying.

“No. He’s not all there,” said Bill.

“I didn’t think so. You can tell a kid like that a mile away.”

They came into view, and Veblen saw Bill attempting to help Rudgear up the rocky embankment, holding him by his bandaged arm.

“He has a hard time keeping his hands to himself, it’s beyond his control. We need your help getting through this wedding. I want my wife to feel the joy of having her other son married. I don’t want stress, and if you could help us with Justin we’d be grateful.”

She came up behind, to lend a hand. “Well done,” she said.

Rudgear said, “I’m no good at anything!”

“Come on, Dad, you’re doing great.”

“Veblen, maybe you could get behind him and give him a boost.”

She braced herself against Rudgear’s backside, as Bill pulled on his hands from above.

“I didn’t go to Nam, but my brother died there,” Bill said, grunting.

“Your brother,” repeated Rudge.

“Died at Phu Ninh,” said Bill.

“You home when they came?”

“Yep,” said Bill.

“Betcha your folks were never the same,” said Rudge.

“That is correct,” said Bill.

“It’s hard on a family when you have a handicapped,” Rudgear said, as Veblen pushed.

“Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

“My brother was handicapped,” her father said, as they struggled upward, almost to the top.

“I never knew you had a brother!” Veblen said.

“He died when I was eight. My mother wouldn’t let me say his name.”

“That’s hard,” said Bill.

“She never got over it.”

“Sorry, man,” said Bill.

“She was never the same.”

Rudgear wheezed as he crested the bank.

Bill put his arm around Rudgear to lead him back.

“I could see making a raft and riding it down to the salt flats, couldn’t you, Rudge?” said Bill.

“Give the frog a loan,” Rudgear said.

“Whatever you say,” said Bill.

“Knick knack paddy whack, give the frog a loan.”

“Rudge, you’d better get your ass in gear for your daughter’s wedding,” Bill said.

“I can’t remember the joke.”

“Did you hear me?” Bill said.

Rudge grunted.

“Dad?” Veblen said. “I never knew you had a brother before, that’s sad. What was his name?”

Rudgear was breathing heavily, and he didn’t reply.

“I just want to know, since he would’ve been my uncle,” Veblen pushed him.

“His name was Hugh! Stop talking about it. What’s the point?”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for telling me.”

Rudgear said, “My daughter wrote me a letter when she was five years old. It said, There are no monkeys in the world. That was the whole letter.”

“I did?” Her voice cracked.

“Veblen is profound, we know that much,” said Bill, giving her a nod.

• • •

RUDGEAR FRESHENED UP and got hydrated, and was in better form by the time Melanie and Linus arrived in the late afternoon. He strutted from the cottage on Tasso Street to greet them at the curb, and Veblen took out her camera because it was the first time in her life she’d seen her biological parents together, which she’d always told herself didn’t mean anything to her, but now somehow it did, if only for the record. Rudgear tapped into a dormant reserve of suave, and to her amazement took Melanie’s hand as she rose from the car and kissed it. Then her mother didn’t wipe off her hand or call him a pompous ass, but rather smiled and embraced him, and Linus had to come around and intrude on the reunion to introduce himself, which also went well. Rudgear and Linus shook hands like men who had shared a hardship.

Both men had shiny pates. “I see we have the same barber,” said Rudge, and Linus let out a convivial hoot.

Bill turned chicken brochettes on the barbecue in the back that evening, under the shaggy, sap-oozing pine. The evening was lovely. The warm light of late afternoon blued after the sun dipped behind the coastal ranges. Around them the sycamores, liquid amber, and magnolias darkened. Leaves rustled, and Veblen went in for a wrap.

As she conveyed items in and out her back door, she sampled the conversations around her:

“I want to make sure we have enough put away when we move forward with a child,” said Uma Borg.

“We rarely dine out,” said Melanie.

“Mostly spy novels,” Donald Chester was saying.

“How much does a polar bear weigh?” Rudgear was saying to Caddie Fladeboe, who wore a voluminous grand boubou with gold embroidery, and had her hair in a stylish turban.

“How much?”

“I hope enough to break the ice.”

“My dad worked for 3M, we had enough Scotch tape around the house to mummify everybody in Minneapolis,” said Marion.

“The guy turned into a monster and I split. He’s confused about women in general,” said Caddie Fladeboe.

“Marching band,” said Linus. “I had an all-star silver bugle with a leaky spit valve.”

“Our name comes from Friesland, in the Netherlands,” Paul was saying. “It’s famous for the Friesian horse.”

Hans Borg said, “You’d have to say Frank Gehry. Really, you would.”

“Dear, would you bring me some water?” asked Melanie. “Room temperature?”

“I got to the point where I’d cut an apple in half, then couldn’t decide which half to eat first,” Rudgear was telling Albertine.

“I’m going to marry Veblen,” Justin was saying quietly to a downspout.

“Everyone, I’d like to make a toast,” said Bill, raising his glass. “In the words of the late great Frank Zappa: ‘If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your crapola, then you deserve it.’ Paul and Veblen, I think you’ll understand me when I say that we’ll always be here for you, but that your own crapola is where it’s at. Right, everyone?”

“Yes! Here’s to Veblen and Paul! Hooray!”

During the evening Veblen got stomach cramps and ran back and forth to the bathroom, because she was sure that hours of forced merriment would backfire, and that someone would soon give vent to pent-up grief or rage. Paul hobbled in on his crutches at one point, and embraced her.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Intense, isn’t it?”

“It’s unreal.”

He hugged her warmly, and she could hear his steady heart.

Maybe she depended upon a disturbance — it was her role to assert calm. But her services weren’t required at this festivity, and Veblen had the distinct impression that everyone else was having a better time than she was. Why couldn’t she relax, inhabit her authentic self? It felt very strange indeed. Thoughts such as What is it to inhabit a rich, twenty-first-century democratic society? and How can an inhabitant of such a society be more than the enactor of a role in a previously written script? came to mind, but not quite. She was not the philosopher Richard Rorty. She was Veblen Amundsen-Hovda, and she didn’t process her thoughts that incisively. What she envisioned, how she saw progress, was hard to put into words. If she had to point to an ideal time in history, she might call it a time when a shoebox mattered. But how could you have solidarity with others when you thought in terms like that?