They May Not Mean To, But They Do

5

Daniel emerged from the subway and smelled the overripe fruit from the fruit stand. It would be just a quick visit to his parents, he had to go to a school assembly, he could not remember what sort, a concert, a play, a reading of the “books” the children had written. That was the most surprising thing about the school Cora and Ruby went to, the number of artistic events held there despite the absence of a budget for the arts. All those underemployed artistic mothers and fathers filling in the gaps. He bought some strawberries from the vendor for his parents and a banana for himself, which he ate as he walked to their building.

“For me?” his mother said at the door, taking the banana peel. “You shouldn’t have.”

He waited for the story of the time he had absentmindedly put a banana peel in the medicine cabinet. He’d been daydreaming about girls, probably. Sex. One did in those days. One still did.

“Oh, it was so funny, Danny,” his mother was saying. “Do you remember that, Aaron? He was twelve or thirteen, just a little older than Ruby.”

He wondered if Ruby daydreamed about sex. Terrible stray thought.

“I brought you strawberries,” he said.

His father looked gaunt. He’d always been thin, a lanky cowboy sort of thin, and tall, too tall to reach sometimes. But he had never looked eaten away like this.

“You get a haircut?” Daniel asked him. “Tony still cutting your hair?”

When they moved to the East Side, his father had searched the neighborhood for a barber who could cut his beard the way he liked it. Daniel used to tag along when he was very small, and Tony would put a hot towel on his face.

“Tony?” his mother said. “Tony died years ago.”

Joy began talking about all the people in the neighborhood who had died. If they hadn’t died, they had gone out of business. She held the green plastic basket of strawberries and Daniel noticed her fingers were already stained pink with the juice.

“But we’re still here,” she concluded.

Daniel’s father took his hand and held it. “You making a good living these days?” he asked.

“Pay no attention to him,” said Joy. “I’d better wash the berries. Where’d you get them? On the street?” She licked a pink finger. “Now I’ll get mad cow disease and Ebola.” She went into the kitchen.

“I’m making a living,” Daniel said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

“I don’t know why you work for that organization.” He said the word “organization” with distaste. “Go where the action is.”

“Where’s that, Dad?”

“Just ignore him, Danny,” his mother called from the kitchen.

“Wall Street.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.

“Well, you can lead a horse to water,” said Aaron.

Daniel left them sitting in the dining room eating the strawberries. As he closed the front door, he heard his father say, “Nice boy. Good work, Joyful.”

“Wall Street?” she answered. “You want your son to be a crook?”