Time to Go

Will’s Book

There’s a young woman in my building’s vestibule. She’s smiling at me as I walk down the outside steps and open the door. I’ve my keys out and am holding a box of books. Do I know her? Someone I’ve only been corresponding with and never seen and who was suddenly in town or around the neighborhood and decided to drop in? There are those. Happened before at least twice. She says “Hi, I’m Denise,” and unfolds what looks like a power of attorney of several pages and with a back and front cover and bound at top.

“Hello. Anything I can do for you?” I say.

“Yes you can, a lot. Which one are you?”

“Which one what?”

“I bet you’re Taub. You have to be, for yours is the only mailbox with no matchbook in the slit, which is why I’ve been ringing your bell the most. I thought the rest were out.”

“I’ve been out all day too.”

“Well I thought you picked up your matchbook on your way in before, went out again for a brief errand we’ll say and were only now coming back.”

“No.” I look at the mailbox. All of them have matchbooks in the slits but mine. I take one of the matchbooks out of another tenant’s slit and see it’s an ad for a new hair clinic on Broadway. Afros, facials, pedicures, hair straightening, hairpieces and unisex permanents and haircuts.

“Want this? That tenant’s away and I don’t smoke.”

“Very nice of you, thanks. I can always use an extra pack.” “And the reason nobody answered your rings before is none of the bells work.”

“So that’s why. But you sure you didn’t take your matchbook from your mailbox and then go out? Usually I’m right on things like that.”

“I haven’t even taken my mail yet.” I open my mailbox. Three return manila envelopes and a circular and the telephone bill from the day before.

“That’s a lot more mail than I get in a day. You must do all right or have loads of friends. But now let me tell you what I was doing all my bell ringing and hanging around here for and how you can vote for me today.”

She points to a photograph on the folder’s first page. “That’s me and these are my credentials, so you know nothing’s funny and I’m not here to clean out your home.”

“If this has anything to do with a magazine subscription, you’ve the wrong guy. I’m dead broke.”

“No, what I got for you is even worse than that. You see, that’s my name, Denise Waters. My photo, like a passport photo, though it’s not a good likeness, as passport photos never are. And my age, height and eye color, just so nobody exchanges photos on me and goes around with my binder doing my business what I’m about to describe to you. Do you recognize me?”

“Yes, the photo’s you.”

“I’m supposed to ask you that, which is why it might sound stupid to you. And the height, five-three, and blue eyes, or are, under these shades. Okay. I’m from N-A-B.”

“For the National Association of Booklovers or something I think I recall.”

“So you know us. Then you know all us students and the organization we’re doing this for are honest and straight.”

“One of your members was around about a year ago. Same thing.

The subscriber votes a certain amount of votes for you through the number of subscriptions he buys, and in the end the student who sells the most subscriptions gets the most votes and wins thousands of dollars.”

“One thousand, and not for the most subscriptions. Some are worth seven and eight times as many votes as others, like one to Vogue over a slim comic book. Though if you take a comic book subscription for ten years we’ll say, fat or slim, that’s good too and maybe better than two years to Playboy or Vogue. But that’s not even the worst part of what I’m here to do to you.”

“What else?”

“You see, I want that thousand dollars. I need it. And I’m going to get it, so I’m sure you can afford to put down at least a few hundred votes for me.”

“I can’t. Nothing.”

“Let me explain. I have nineteen thousand so far. That’s a lot of votes but not even enough to make the semifinals. I need a thousand more and only then I’m in the running for the grand prize. Twenty thousand votes gets me the chance to sell subscriptions for another week against what could be the other thousand semifinalists. And if I get more votes than the rest of them, which I will, the thousand dollars is mine. So you’ll help me, won’t you? I worked this hard, you don’t want to see me suddenly fail. Take any magazine here for a year — the cheapest is worth at least fifty votes for me.” She opens the folder and shows me two pages filled with the names of magazines and how many votes a subscription to each of them is worth for one, two, five and ten years.

“I wish I could, Denise. Honestly, I wish I could.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Will.”

“That’s a nice name — Will. What do you do?”

“A waiter.”

“You don’t look like one. You’re too nice. But I bet you make lots of tips being that way.”

“I only started Monday. I owe two months rent and will probably have to borrow to pay it and some other bills. Lights, gas. This phone bill here.”

“Please, something says you’re fooling me, Will. You’re no waiter. You’re not the type to let yourself get that far behind. What do you really work as?”

“I’m a waiter. Other times I’m a writer. Waiter, writer. When I save enough, just a writer. And sometimes when I’m waiting and not too tired, I do both, but not as much writing as waiting. Now I can’t do any writing I’m so bushed. The first week or two of going back to waiting does that.”

“I believe you now. What’s in the box, books? They look like them.”

“Five hardcovers, five soft, of an anthology I’m in. My. first book. Arrived yesterday but the box was too big to stick in my mailbox so I had to pick it up at the post office,”

“Well if you’re someone famous who makes piles of money from writing in books and all, then I know you can help me with a hundred votes.”

“I didn’t get any money for this. Just the books.”

“They got to be worth money if you sell them.”

“I’ll probably just give them away to friends and my library and keep two.”

“Can I see?” She sticks her hand in the box, pulls out a hardcover. “Let me try and find you.” She reads my name off the mailbox nameplate, turns the book over a few times and says “The cover’s black except for a sprinkling of white dots running through the middle of it on both sides. What is it, a photograph of a string of pearls like on a necklace strung out but shot in the dark or so?”

“Night lights from a bridge I think. I’m not absolutely sure.”

“This is a book about bridges? I love bridges. The symbol of them, connecting. Going over things, making traveling easier.”

“It’s fiction. An anthology of. Like a story collection of one person though in here of different writers, but not all the stories about bridges of course. Maybe none of them. I haven’t read any of the stories yet but mine.”

“Don’t play with me, Will. If it’s an anthology of stories, I know they can’t all be about bridges. I read. I like reading. But I like famous people more. To me anybody who has something in any book is famous. Even if he didn’t write the book but just has his name in it for something he did, no matter how bad. But let me see if I can find you.”

“My name’s inside with the others.”

“If it isn’t and you’re also not in the index, then you’re not in the book, right? But I’m sure you weren’t lying.” She opens the book to the first two blank pages and stares at them.

“Go further.”

“No, I was only looking. Still all black but now no lights. Bridge in the night with no stars or cars or lights on it it could be. Just guessing.” She turns the page. “The Black Book. That’s the title. And black page with red lettering this time. Very devilish. I think I’m getting the gist of your book now. Edited by Ralph and Ernestine von Blake. That’s not you.”

“The couple who put it together.”

“You mean got it together like really got it going, or the other thing?”

“Edited and published the book. They solicited the stories, selected those they wanted, rejected those they didn’t, put the book together by choosing which print and paper and who went where and in what order if the author had more than one story in it — I’ve got four. And designed the cover and frontispiece and so on — this is the frontispiece — and wrote the contributors’ notes and promotional copy and got the money for the project and distributors and things like that.”

“Eight fifty it says here.”

“It’s a little high but nothing I can do.”

“What I think is you just give two of them away. Then sell the rest for six dollars and make a big profit. Eight times six is almost fifty.”

“Five are soft covers and I have to keep one of each for myself.”

“Then just give away one. What do the softcovers sell for, four dollars, five? You’ll still net around fifty. That’s some money at least. But your name.” She looks at my mailbox nameplate.

“Keep turning.”

She turns to the contents page, runs her finger down the names of the authors.

“Mine’s at the end.”

“There it is. Last one. That’s good or bad though I’m sure being first is best, but I could have found it. Looks nice. You’re really him. You’re famous, Will. Can I have this?” She sticks the book in to her shoulder bag.

“No can do,” I put my hand into her bag.

“Say,” edging away, “what are you doing? Help, police. A thief in our midst, I mean mine. I can’t keep it? As a keepsake from a short and lasting acquaintanceship if I do get to keep it? I want to read you. And then carry it around and tell all my friends and the people I talk to about subscriptions that I met you and you were one of their fellow subscribers who gave me this book and lots and lots of votes. Please?”

“Give back the book?”

“You have seven of them. Ten. This is one of ten. What’s that?”

“I told you. I’ve friends and a library to give them to.”

“So I’m not a friend of yours, right?”

“The truth is I just met you. Years ago I might have been that superficially generous with a book I’m in or something I own, but now I can’t. I just don’t. I don’t want to. The book?”

“The Black Book. Goodbye Black Book.” She kisses it. “It’s very smooth, the cover. Black is the smoothest color of all in looks and touch. I like it against my face.” She runs the front of the book against her cheek and chin. “You look worried. I’m not sweaty or have makeup, so don’t be.” She gives me the book.

“Thanks,” I drop it into the box. “I really have to go upstairs now.”

“Before you do let me tell you in detail what you don’t know about our vote system. I can skip the introduction monologue because you know us, correct? We’re all college students, working our way, which you know too. Some need money for tuition, some to have fun. I want to have fun with it. I’ve never had a thousand dollars just to spend on myself. And now I’ve been real honest with you so the least you can do is take one subscription from me to help me out. We have magazines for everyone. The Writer we have. It’s right at the end here, alphabetically. You’re a writer, so if you don’t already subscribe to it it’s an absolute must. Indispensable I’m supposed to say. See? I’m being completely honest, telling you what they say should be my pitch.”

“I already told you.”

“Told me what?”

“Debts, rent.”

“So I can’t sell any to you? Well that’s cool, am I right?”

“I guess.”

“I like you. You’re more than nice. You’re patient and speak well and write things. You wouldn’t let me read anything you wrote but I’ll buy your book even if you won’t take a subscription from me and give you royalties and read you through.”

“No royalties. And no place to buy it except through a distributing company in Berkeley and maybe one of the better literary bookstores downtown.”

“Then I’ll go downtown and buy it. So now you can take a subscription, royalties or not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Who’s he? Somebody else who’s famous in this house?”

Ed Turner from the first floor just passed. He might have said “Hi will” as he usually does in a very low voice without ever looking at me, but I didn’t hear him. He’s already sitting against a parked car.

“That’s Ed Turner. He’s a tenant here.”

“Writer too?”

“He’s a reader. A fantastic reader actually. Retired. Worked as a printer.”

“Printer and a writer. Eggs and butter, I mean toast,”

“Ed was a linotypist.”

“I know. For newspapers and such. Retired. He’s old though, but you think I ought to go after him? Not just trying to get rid of me, not that you shouldn’t? I’ve been a pest.”

“No you haven’t. I liked talking to you. And Ed does get strapped for cash, but he might buy.”

“No, you’re not trying to get rid of me. You’re still much too nice.” She opens the door to the street. “You know, I’m really beginning to love this little building. Everybody who’s in it is great. Printers. Writers. I’m going to make it my project to stick around here and meet everybody who lives here, even if I can’t get Ed to give me a hundred votes. This building’s loaded with good people, to me the best on the block.”

Ed takes his keys out of his pocket and looks at them. It’s around dinnertime for him. Mostly he eats in luncheonettes like the type I worked in today. Denise says goodbye, shakes my hand and goes outside.

“Mr. Turner?” she says. “Ed?” His hearing’s bad so that might be the reason he doesn’t look up.

I go upstairs, exercise, shower, finish reading my section of the book. About fifty pages. I’m satisfied with the way it reads and looks. Only a few minor typos and one major one where it reads “Pocked the sand in his hand” instead of “Packed,” which could make me look stupid because of all the intentional transpositions of letters and words in my stories to make double meanings and puns, and I correct it in my ten copies. I read the newspaper, shave, snack and go downstairs with one of the hardcovers to drop into my neighborhood library’s drop chute with a note taped on it for the librarian. I promised her a copy when she said she had no funds to order one. Denise is sitting on the building’s outside steps.

“Hiya, Will. I told you I loved this building. So far I’ve talked to two of your neighbors and three of their guests and a television repairman. Outside of him and a man who wouldn’t identify himself who went out to walk his monkey he said, which he wouldn’t show me under his coat, they’ve all been more than nice to me and in brains practically brilliant. Mrs. Balin from 4B gave me a hundredten votes. So you can see I’m too good at this not to win the thousand dollars. Hey, there it is again, The Black Book. You’ve decided to give me one after all.”

“I’m donating it to the library.”

“They’re open this hour? Intellectual New Yorkers. But what have you been doing till now, reading your own anthology pages?”

“You must be psychic.”

“I’m more than that, Will. And you’re feeling much happier now, aren’t you, so you’re going to give me a hundredten votes too.”

“Here, take the book instead.” I take off the note. “And now that you’ve cut short my destination in a way, what do you say to accompanying me for a coffee or a beer?”

“Go with you? Oh no, I don’t do that. But thanks for the book.”

“It’s innocent. It’s getting late and I thought you might like something to drink and maybe to talk. I would.”

“You’ve got other things on your mind, I can tell. And I’m busy. I still have to meet all the people in your building and now I’ve something great to read and rub against my face while I wait. I already met one printer and writer and a restaurant manager who’s also a film producer and Mrs. Balin who was a dancer and actress. Did you know that?”

“She once showed me her programs.”

“Danced in the Scandals she said. When was that? When you were a boy?”

“Way before.”

“Well she says there’s nothing but real cool tenants in this building. Some younger dancers also, women, and a handsome young man who looks like a leading film star of today with a big white dog. I love dogs. She said ‘hound,’ And I can tell from the ferns hanging in the third floor windows that young people live there too. The wall colors on the second floor also. One long one a bright orange, the rest an electric blue. No older person would do that.”

“Last chance to accompany me.”

“And last to give me a hundredten votes. You can afford two beers, why not a magazine? Soul over the mind, Will.”

“I’m sorry, Denise.” I touch her head with my hand.

“I’m from Ohio, you know. Think I should light up a joint?”

“Not for me.”

“I meant for myself. Is it safe here like this from the law?”

“If they come it’ll be by patrol car, so I don’t think they’ll see you. But that’s your business.”

“I think I will. It’s been a long day without one and the aroma will knock a lot of the good people out of their rooms to see what’s cooking. I’m only kidding. But I want to meet all your neighbors if they went in before when I was phoning down the street, or if they never left the building since I started to stay here tonight.”

“Then I’ll see you.”

“Last last chance.”

I wave, take a short walk, have a quick beer, walk at a good clip back to my building, hoping Denise is still there. It’s fairly late. She might have no place to stay tonight or be too far away from it to want to take the bus or train. I don’t care about the consequences. I’ll tell her I spent the few dollars I had on me drinking and the money for the subscription I’ll take is upstairs. She’ll come. I’ll get her to stay. She’ll probably even want to and be thinking about it when she walks with me upstairs. She’s not there.

“Say Will, hold it a second,” Ed says, getting off the same parked car. “Who was that young lady you sent over to sell me books before and vote for her for president or something?”

“Magazines. I thought you might be interested. She was pretty weird, huh?”

“Magazines were they? I thought books. And I don’t know if she was that weird. Times are tough. People are doing anything and working all hours for extra change. In fact, she was kind of a cute kid, physically, with a nice shape and personality. Sparkling. She would have happily bounced down the street to buy me a newspaper if I didn’t insist no. I like kids that way and helpful when most seem so out of it and depressed. Though she had a line all right. Glib. She could have sold me anything if I’d had the dough. And when I came back here and sat on that car, what do you think but she was still on the steps but with a young man now and then went across the street with him to his building while I did my best not to look. I’d say they sold themselves on each other, wouldn’t you?”

“Actually, she was kind of nice in many of the ways you said. But how you doing tonight?”

“Me? Great. Had a fantastic sandwich before at Philly Mignon. Boy, you should have seen all the sliced steak they put on it for two bucks — a meal and a half for me.”

“Glad you can still chew it. See you, Ed.”

“Chew it? Funny guy. That’s not nice. You’ll be losing all your teeth yet yourself.”

Will as a Boy

My father walks down the hall. My father stands by the door. He looks at me from the door. He’s standing with one foot on the threshhold, other just a little inside the room. I’m in bed, sick, not that sick, not sick to death, not sick with an illness that’ll take a couple of months to recuperate from, that’ll even take a month. That’s what they tell me. I’ll be up in a week, at the most two. Altogether that’ll make three. Can I believe them? I want to. I do. In a week, most two. I’m sick though, sick enough not to go to school. To be excused from school. To have my lessons brought home from school. Sick enough not to do them too.

My father’s holding the doorjamb with one hand. With the other he waves. Smiles. I’m sitting up against two pillows, knees raised about level with my neck. I’ve a metal car half the size of my hand. I’ve played with it so much for two years that it could use a new paint job. It’s parked beside me on the bed. I parked it after driving it around on the bed, up and down my covered legs, around my knees, made it jump from one knee to the other, do a few aerial stunts and then land on my chest. Sometimes I let it tide all the way down my thighs by itself. A few times when I did that its ride down was smooth. Most times it rolled over and over as if in a bad crash. Sometimes when I steered it down I rolled it over in a crash. I made noises for the car. R-r-rrr. Crash, bang, boom-m-m. So what am I saying, trying to say? Will as a boy. Father by the door. Hand on the jamb. Smiles, waves, keeps smiling, no longer waves. “So how’s my little Juney-boy today?” he says.

“Fine.”

“Sure you’re fine. You’re always fine. You should change your name to Fine. Will Fine. I bet Will Fine says he’s fine next time I ask.” I laugh. “That a boy. Will really must be fine even if he isn’t a Fine if he can laugh like that. Hey, I can’t come in the room because the doctor says not to. He told your mother you still might be contagious, know what that means?”

“Yes.”

“Though something you’ll be getting over pretty soon.”

“I know.”

“You know everything. So why am I telling you? Your mother’s allowed to come in because she’s nursing you. Oh heck, I won’t get sick — I’m coming in.”

He comes in. He gets about two feet from me when he stops. “I don’t feel faint yet, so how contagious can you be?” Lamp on the night table’s on. Only light on. My father has a tie on, stain in the middle a little below the tie clasp. Has a suit on. He’s just come from his office. He usually gets home around this time. Sometimes when he’s about to close up someone will come in to get a tooth fixed fast. Sometimes on his way home he drops off work at the dental lab so he can have it first thing the next day. I heard my mother say this morning “How can you go out of the house with a tie stained like that?” and he said “I’m only going back and forth on the subway. The jacket and coat cover it. In the office I wear my smock.” “At least wear the clasp over it,” and he said “I don’t fasten the clasp that low.” “Well this time maybe you should try to,” and he said “Don’t worry. I haven’t brought shame to the family yet and I doubt I will with a single gravy stain.”

It’s dark outside. It’s nearly winter and around six o’clock. I’m in the boys’ room. It has a double decker bed and a single bed. My oldest brother, Robert, sleeps in the single bed. He’s five years older than I. My other brother Peter is three years older than I and sleeps on the top bunk of the doubledecker. He doesn’t have to. He could sleep in the lower bunk, where I sleep, but he wants to sleep on top. He could have his choice because he’s older. He can’t sleep in the single bed so long as Robert wants to. That’s the way it works in this family. But both my brothers for the last three days have been sleeping in the living room on mattresses pulled off their beds. Because I might be contagious, which today the doctor who saw me here said I still might be but he’s a little less sure. I think I got that clear. So my father’s in the room. Clear about who sleeps where, why my brothers aren’t sleeping in the boys’ room. Just two feet away from me, taking chances with his health. He says “I wish I could give you a big kiss hello, but I was told not to. Your mother said Doctor Aronoff told her to tell me not to. Oh heck, if I didn’t faint when I came in here, I won’t when I kiss you, and besides, I’m as healthy as a horse,” and he gets down on one knee, puts out his arms. I look at him. “Well come on,” and he shakes his arms.

“Oh, I forgot,” and I put out my arms. His are now still and I go into them. His arms go around my body and now he’s hugging me. I feel good in his arms. I close my eyes. He’s patting my back with both hands as he hugs me. I feel so small in his arms. My face against his cheek. Cheek to cheek, that’s what we are. I’ve seen him dance with my mother that way. Once when Robert turned the radio on to music and my father said “Here, I’ll show you kids how to cut a rug,” and he grabbed my mother’s hands. She said No but they danced. If spinning around a lot and dipping as he called it till her head almost hit the floor sometimes is dancing. Cheek to cheek. She didn’t close her eyes but he did. “You’ll get well,” he says. “You’re not so contagious and you’ll get well.”

“I know.”

He releases me, then holds me by my shoulders far as his arms can reach and says “You’re a good boy. Some of my patients wouldn’t be as brave as you in the same situation.”

“I’m scared of dentists though.”

“No you’re not.” He stands. “What you do today?”

“Played by myself. This car.” I hold it up. “Slept a lot. Drank lots of fluids because I’m supposed to.”

“That’s smart. You’re taking good care of yourself. Want to know what I did today? Something special.”

“What?”

“Pulled out a tooth as big as — let me see your car again.” I show him it. “Half as big as that. Even bigger than half when you include the roots. It’s all in the wrist. I love pulling teeth and hope one day you will too. But you got to stay healthy so you can strengthen your wrists. And I’ll look in on you after supper. Maybe read you a story.”

“I’d like that.”

“Find yourself a good book. Don’t get out of bed finding it. Just think of all the books you have and when I come back tell me which one you want and I’ll read as much of it as I can before I get tired. I’m not a good reader.”

“I can already think of one.”

“Keep it in your head. Don’t lose it.” He kisses two fingers and presses them to my cheek. “What am I doing?” Bends over, kisses my cheek, steps back. “Don’t rub it off. You do, it’ll mean the kiss never took place.”

“I won’t.”

He leaves. I rub it off. I don’t want to. It was wet. Now I’m sorry I did. But it felt uncomfortable wet. The wet’s on the back of my hand now. Maybe I should put it back on my cheek. But I don’t want my cheek wet again. I know it’ll dry in a little while on my hand but I don’t want it there either. I wipe my hand on the covers. Now my hand’s dry but I bet it smells from spit. I smell it. Spit. That smell. I’d like to wash my hand now but I’m not supposed to get out of bed. I look for the wet stain on the covers where I rubbed my hand. None there. Maybe I should rub the covers where I rubbed my hand on it against my cheek. That’s silly. Why would I want to do that? No reason. Just thought of it. I pick up the car and hold it a ways in front of my face. I slowly bring it closer to my face till its front is right up against my nose. Now it looks very real. I can see through the car’s windows to the other side of the room. No people in the car but so what? They’re lying on the floor and I can’t see them. Then how’d the car drive up to my nose? It stopped. Then they ducked down. No, nobody’s inside. If the car doors opened I’d make little people out of clay and put them in all the seats. If the trunk opened I’d make little square suitcases or try to and put them in too.

Later I hear my father say “He must be asleep. I better take the car out of his hand or he’ll hurt himself when he rolls over.”

“Put it on the night table,” my mother says. “He might look for it when he awakes.”

I must have been asleep and now pretend to be asleep. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m tired. And I like to hear what people say about me when they don’t know I’m listening. My mother puts her hand on my forehead. She’s feeling for temperature. I know it’s my mother’s hand because it’s so smooth. I’ve seen her at nights creaming her hands. I hate the sound of the cream squishing in her hands. My father feels my cheek. His hand is rougher but still smooth. Almost as smooth as my mother’s. All that washing up in his office before and after each patient. He has a special pink liquid soap. He lets me use it whenever I’m there even when my hands aren’t dirty. My hands can just reach under the faucet but I can’t, as he does, step on the water pedal and keep my hands under the faucet at the same time. His hand smells different than my mother’s too. From soap. Hers from that cream. “He feels warm,” my father says.

“A little temperature. I should take it now but I don’t want to wake him.”

He puts his hand up my pajama top and feels my back. “He’s warm. Maybe we should take it, just to see what it is.”

“I’m sure he’s no more than a hundred.”

“Still, let’s take it. A hundred’s bad enough, and if it is that, shouldn’t we give him an aspirin?”

“What are you talking? A hundred at night is just about normal for a child his age, and giving him an aspirin will definitely wake him.”

“Still, if it’s more than a hundred, which it feels like, I’d chance waking him. I’ll give it if you don’t want to.”

“Turn him over, but gently, gently.”

I’m turned over on my stomach. I hate having my temperature taken this way. Maybe if they knew I was awake they’d take it orally, but my mother thinks the rectal thermometer is more accurate by a degree. I’d like to say I’m awake now but I don’t know how. They’ll think I’ve been lying. They’ll think I was lying all the other times I pretended to be asleep when they spoke to me or pretended not to be listening when they talked about personal things. I can pretend to be asleep or concentrating but just can’t pretend to come out of sleep. It’d mean rubbing my eyes, yawning, maybe shaking my head and mumbling something, but which of those comes first and what’s the order of the rest? The covers are pulled down to my feet.

“What are you doing?” Robert says.

“Shh,” my mother says. “Taking Will’s temperature. Get out of the room, Robert.”

“Can’t I watch?”

“Do what your mother says,” my father says.

“How my ever going to be a doctor if I can’t watch?”

“Okay, watch,” my father says, “—but from the door.”

My pants bottoms are pulled down. The thermometer’s put in.

It’s warm when I was ready for it to be cold. I’m always afraid it will break inside me. But it’ll only take two minutes or so, faster than it would in my mouth, which is at least one good thing.

“I can’t see,” Robert says.

“By the way,” my father says, “I forgot to tell you — Lucille called today.” Lucille’s my aunt. “She’s having her problems with Arnie again. I didn’t know what to advise her.”

“Leaving him, what else?” my mother says.

“Where will she go? He makes a good living. She has everything she wants. Without him — well he says he won’t provide her with a nickel, and then she and Eugene will have to—”

“Should we really be talking about it with who’s-it’s around?”

“I know about it already,” Robert says. “You’ve said it plenty in front of me.”

“Just don’t talk about it to the others — that’s all I ask. As for Arnie’s big providing,” she must be saying to my father, “tell me if it’s worth it. But she’ll get something. She has to with a child every week. I think we can take it out now. Want to do the honors?”

“Why don’t you?”

“You can drill teeth all day with all the mess in people’s mouths, but you can’t pull out a thermometer?”

“Believe me, it’s not that I’m worried they’ll be dreck on it. Only not my own son, and I wouldn’t know how to read it.”

“Some doctor you are.”

“I don’t have patients where I take temperature.”

The thermometer’s taken out. “A hundred — little above. No need to wake him.”

“I don’t know how much we like sleeping on the floor again.” Robert says.

“Just a couple more nights,” my mother says. “If it’s more, we’ll find someone to put you up.”

“Not with Uncle Arnie.”

My pajama bottoms are pulled up. The covers are brought up to my chin and I’m tucked in on both sides. My mother leans over, kisses the back of my head, whispers “Get well now, just get well.” My father puts his hand on my cheek for a few seconds.

The light’s turned off. They all leave the room. Door’s closed.

“Let’s leave it open a little,” my mother says. It’s squeaked open just a little. They go down the hall. “How bad is he?” Robert says.

I turn over. “Dear God,” I say, “don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. I won’t miss my prayers to you at night again, never. Though you never asked me for them — though no one ever said I had to every night — I do. So say what you want me to do and I’ll do it. I love you more than I love anyone, any person. Any thing. Whatever you are, God, I love you the most. Then my mother and father. Then my brothers. Then my friends. Or maybe my aunts and uncles and cousins and then my friends. And please let me be well by the weekend. Please. But please most of all let my mother and father stay well while I’m alive and then let me grow as old as my father. Then you can let me die. Though don’t let my father and mother die ever. Don’t let either die. And my brothers. If anyone dies out of any of us, let me die first. As for my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, I don’t think it’s important which of us dies first. Though I don’t want them to. I don’t want anyone I know to die. Thank you. Goodnight, God. I love you, I love you, I love you. Goodnight.”

Self Portrait

I wish I could draw myself. I’m sitting in my Morris chair, in the morning, newspaper on my lap, front page glanced at but none of it read beyond that, hands in front of my face and shaped like what? Right now I can’t think of what. A church. A cathedral. A something. I wish I could draw myself. Legs are crossed. Blue jeans I washed while I showered two days ago, hung up to dry on the shower towel rack and then on the bathroom radiator and which are now, about ten minutes after I put them on, still stiff. Actually I’m sitting at my typewriter, not in the Morris chair, but on a black bentwood chair with a thin white cushion on the seat. Now back in the Morris chair, morning, my back to the room’s one window, sunny light in this part of the room, newspaper on my lap, coffee mug, don’t forget the coffee-colored coffee mug on the right arm of the chair, up to my lips, a moving drawing, steaming black coffee at my lips if I could catch it, a sip, coffee’s hot, mug back on the chair’s arm, and now on the table I’m typing on, long white parson’s table I think it’s called and which with the bedroom dresser, night table and bed in this so-called furnished apartment, the only furniture here before I came. Mug on my right side, coffee still steaming, on top of a discarded manuscript page turned over and which I use to doodle on and to jot down notes. Bottle of ink beside that, left there after I filled up my fountain pen just before I went for a walk last night. Ink bottle usually on the table’s far right end beside the bottle of typewriter cleaner. Eraser pencil next to the ink bottle, pencil sharpener with its transparent plastic attachment to collect the pencil and eraser shavings, next to that. Eyeglasses, not my bifocals but the ones just to read with, beside that. Bifocals nor their case are in this room I see, so in one of the other three. On the other side of the typewriter my huge opened dictionary, thesaurus, reference manual, ream box of erasable paper now only a quarter-filled, sectioned dental utility tray with paperclips, postage stamps, rubber bands and coins. Architect’s lamp pulled over the typewriter from its holder attached viselike to the edge of the tabletop against the wall. Lamp on because the table faces a wall at the opposite side of the room from the window and sunlight. Table there because it can’t fit against the window which is between two closets or against the other walls in the room because one has a couch against it that can’t fit anywhere else and the other has one of the closets at one end and at the other the door leading to the bedroom. I adjust the lampshade to get more light on the paper in the typewriter and less on the keys as I type because too much light on them hurts my eyes. I wish I could draw myself. In the Morris chair, legs crossed at the knees, light on my back, newspaper on my lap, chair fitted into the three by three foot window space the closets make, sunlight on the chair arms and trouser legs and floor, hands placed on my face just as they were when the thought first came to me that I wish I could draw myself this way. Get in the Morris chair. Take the mug. I do. I sit and sip. Coffee’s only lukewarm. I cross my legs the way they were before. Light, chair, knees, mug, another quick sip and the coffee’s finished. Mug set down in the exact place as before because the gray heat impression it made in the dark wood is still there. But the architect’s lamp wasn’t on when I sat here before. I get up, cross the room, turn the light off and return to the Morris chair and sit the same way. Eyes are shut. Hands in front of my face, not against it, only the forefingers touching the middle of my forehead. Hands shaped like what? That’s what I need to complete this picture of myself deep in thought. And the newspaper, which I take out from underneath me and put on my lap. Morning, around what time? Have to get the light right. Woman in the second floor apartment directly below mine is just now locking her front door to teach at the same school I teach at. She always leaves at the same time on Mondays and Tuesdays: 8:40 to get to her nine o’clock class. So 8:40 I’ll say, though my watch and clock are in the bedroom — Tuesday, and I now hear her walking downstairs in her clogs. Maybe the location and grade of the sunlight in the room has changed somewhat, but everything else approximately the same as it was fifteen minutes ago when I first had the drawing thought. My face still feeling and probably appearing as puffy from all the wine I drank last night while I read in bed for two hours before falling asleep. Chair springs gone, but is that important for this drawing? Could be, since I usually sit in the chair a little lopsided to the left because of the boards and magazines I put under the cushion to replace the springs and which seem to slide to the right. Maybe the floor’s warped to the right or the house has settled or was always tilted that way. I think I know what I’m saying. Looking at the room now the floor looks straight. Seat cushion yellow, back cushion red. In other words: one’s light, other’s dark. Time around the time I said. Day the day I said. One of the first Tuesdays in March, though I know the exact date. And early 80s. Very early 80s. Chair, mug, eyes closed, knees crossed, newspaper on my lap, missing springs causing me to sit in a lopsided way, sunlight the way I said or thereabouts, hands in front of my face touching my forehead to complete the drawing. Hair to complete it also: brushed back about twenty minutes ago, though it’s probably a little tousled now, and thin on top and thick and curly on the sides with bushy gray sideburns ending right below the lobes. Last shaved last night more than twelve hours ago, fourteen hours ago, so somewhat in need of a shave. Navy blue cotton chamois shirt bought from a mail order house and washed a couple-dozen times since, so a bit faded. Both breast pocket flaps unbuttoned. Only one shirt button buttoned, third one down from the top. Shirt not tucked into the pants. Black garrison belt which can’t be seen except for the silver-colored buckle, and fastened at the first hole. Not because I’m overweight. I’m actually three to five pounds lighter than some health charts recommend for someone my height and age, but because the belt’s been two sizes too small for me for about ten years. I think, thinking I was thinner than I was, I bought it that way. Blue jeans I’ve said. Old blue jogging sneakers or shoes with orange stripes along both sides, laces doubleknotted because they’re so long, and gray. With my right knee crossed over the left, a small part of the dark sock can probably be seen. So that’s how I’m dressed. Shirt collar up above my neck, I don’t know why. Maybe from last night when it was cold in the apartment and I took it off like that when I went to bed, hung it on the back of a chair and put it on today the same way. Window behind me, venetian blinds raised, cords hanging to the floor, the bottom half of one behind the radiator to my right and the other one behind the chair. Three-story rowhouses across the street, sloping green shingle roofs, red brick facades, perhaps only the top floor of each building visible, plus several leafless trees in front of the buildings and one much taller one behind. Blue sky, no clouds, or a few clouds, since it’s been that kind of day. My skin’s light. A pink white I’d say. Hands though. Hair on the backs of them and below the knuckles, nails clipped, clean and even, most of the cuticles frayed. Hands over my face. Not covering it, and shaped like what? Shaped like a steeple I’d say. Steeple-shaped, that’s what, thumbs almost touching my lips and fingertips touching my forehead and fingers covering my nose. So forget the nose for the drawing. Hands also cover my lips, so forget them too. And my chin and most of my neck, which my wrists cover, wrists covered by my buttoned shirt sleeves, shirt covering all but a small part of the green T-shirt underneath near my belt. My eyes, can they be seen? Eyes and eyebrows both, just barely. My eyes are closed, now they’re open. In the drawing they’ll be closed of course and I’ll be thinking. Scars? None that can be seen except for the one that cuts through the middle of my left eyebrow and several chicken pox scars on my cheeks that I don’t think are large and deep enough for the drawing. Anything else? Nothing I can think of, so that’s basically my drawing. Right now that’s what I look like, so to speak, and this is where I am, thinking I’d like nothing better right now than to be able to draw myself, though not with a mirror. To be an artist or just a drawer sitting across from me and drawing me as just another man. I get up and turn on the architect’s lamp and arrange some papers on my table to get ready for work and then think give yourself a few minutes yet and I get up and sit in the Morris chair and read the front page of the newspaper and get up and heat up the coffee in the coffee pot in the kitchen and drink another mug of coffee in the Morris chair while I finish the newspaper and when I’ve finished the coffee and it’s around 9:40, though I say this without looking at my watch or clock, I get up and sit at the table and get to work.

End of Magna

She might think. Well, she might think. Yes? She might think I’m not good enough for her, though not so much in those words. Those were the words my father used. “You’re not good enough for her,” he once said, though all the other times he said “She’s not good enough for you.” When I’d introduce them, my folks, to a new girl I’d been seeing, or would ask her over for dinner, ask them first after they’d asked me several times who’ve I been seeing lately? or “What’ve you been doing with your time lately?” or “Where do you rush off to at nights so quickly after dinner? How come you don’t hang around the house more?” I’d say I’ve been seeing a girl lately and they’d say “If she’s so special why don’t you bring her around for dinner one night?” or I’d say “I’ve been seeing someone lately, someone I really like, would you like to meet her?” and then I’d suggest bringing her over for dinner and if they said yes and they invariably did, I’d ask what night was best, or they’d say “Bring her Friday,” and I’d say to her “My folks invited you for dinner this Friday, I hope you can come,” and she invariably did, would ring the doorbell, I’d answer it even if I wasn’t the closest one to the door at the time, though most of the times I’d pick her up at her home or meet her someplace on the outside and bring her to our home, and sometime the next day, though a couple of times much later that night after I’d taken her back home and my folks or just my father was still up, he’d say “You want my opinion of that girl?” and I’d say “Sure if you want, what?” and he’d say “I don’t think she’s good enough for you,” and I’d say “I knew you’d say that,” But sometimes I’d say “Why do you say that?” because maybe I had some suspicion myself about how good enough she was for me, and he’d say “She isn’t bright enough.” Or “pretty enough.” Or “nice enough…lively enough,” or something enough and sometimes many things not good enough. Though once after I’d brought someone home for dinner and then taken her back to her place, my father said “You’re not good enough for her,” or rather “You know what I think about you and that girl?” and I said “What?” because I knew she’d made a good impression on them, more so perhaps than anyone I’d ever had over for dinner, and he said “I think you’re heading for big trouble with her,” and I said “How?” and he said “Because you’re just not good enough for her and she’s going to know that soon and drop you and you’re going to get very depressed over it, more so than you have with any young lady you’ve been attached to.” I said “No chance of that. She likes me, I like her, I’m good enough for her and she knows it, just as both she and I know she’s good enough for me,” and he said “You want to know why I don’t think you’re good enough for her, as good as you might be for just about every other young woman her age?” and I said “Why?” and he said “Because she’s too rich, too pretty, too smart, too refined, too educated, too imaginative, comes from too good a family, too everything, and no matter how much she might think she likes you now, and it’s clear to your mother and I she likes you a lot, people like her family and friends are going to convince her you’re not good enough for her and that she’s wasting her time when she could have any available guy she wants, and eventually she’s going to think less of you from what people say and drop you though do it with some sadness and sensitivity, and you’re going to get very upset and if you don’t watch it, make the biggest damn fool of yourself you’ve ever been.” I said “Number one I don’t believe it, and two, even if I did a little, which I don’t, I’d chance it because seeing her now is so worth it,” and he said “Don’t come around crying I didn’t warn you,” and a month later she dropped me as he’d said, sadly, sensitively, saying she knew how much this would hurt me but what way was a good way to say what she had to say? and I said “What’s wrong, aren’t I good enough for you?” and she said “It’s not that, it’s just that I don’t want to get so serious with a boy yet,” and I said “Oh bull, you just don’t think I’m good enough for you,” and she said “Okay, maybe in some ways that’s true, but there are also some other things,” but no matter what I said, some of it for me, some against, she’d had it with me and I felt sadder than I had with any girl who’d dropped me before and maybe with any girl or woman since. It took me a month or more, more, a couple of months or more of deep depression, wandering around lost, trying to expose myself to colds, that sort of thing, before I got over her enough to function as a normal human being again. Magna’s like that girl too. She’s too good for me. She’s too beautiful, too intelligent, too perceptive, too creative, too everything. She doesn’t come from wealth or earn much of a salary now, but that isn’t important to her as long as she works at what she enjoys, nor that I don’t earn much either. She’s going to find out soon enough that I’m a little more boring and cynical than she can take. That I’m really not as broadminded and kindhearted as she thought. She’s going to have enough of my silly jokes and ribbing after a while too. She’s going to see lots of things in me she won’t like pretty soon. She’s going to think “I’m seeing this guy too much and that’s not too wise a thing to do because he’s going to want to get married or tie me down some way and though I might like that very much with someone else in the near future, I don’t want that with him.” She’s going to think she can do better. She no doubt has done a lot better. I know she has. She’s talked about some of the men she’s known. Known seriously. Been lovers with. Was in love with when they were in love with her. I have to admit I don’t stack up much in comparison to several of these men. To some I do, to some I don’t, but to a few I really don’t. The latter were all extremely bright, well-liked, handsome, sociable, had jobs or professions where they were already very successful or were soon sure to be, and other good qualities but with none of the negative ones I have, or so it seemed to me by what she said about them. I’ve asked what went wrong with the best of these relationships. Was it sex? Was it family or money? What was it? She said that a couple of these men got scared of a continuing deep relationship and a couple she got scared of. One man was already married and she didn’t want to bust up anybody’s home. Another man wanted her to change her religious faith to his. Another wanted her to change her citizenship to his and move to his country, but she felt that would be a spiritual and creative death. One man died of a heart attack and another in a rock-climbing accident. One wanted to get married but didn’t want to have children. One couldn’t have children but wanted to adopt one or two, while she wanted to give birth to at least one and then maybe she’d adopt a second. I’d love to marry her and have a child, but she’s eventually going to see how wrong I am for her. On some intellectual topics we talk about, for instance, it’s obvious I don’t go far enough for her. She likes to socialize a lot more than I, and her friends are often much smarter than I too. No, it won’t work. I know it. Maybe she knows it by now also but doesn’t want to speak about it yet for any number of reasons. She might be trying to find the best way of telling me without hurting me so much. She’s like that. And I don’t want to get hurt again as I did with that girl twenty years ago and several women since. I can still get hurt that way. Being in love with someone so much, and that person leaves you — there’s no way I can’t get hurt. I’ll miss just about everything about her. Miss talking to her, walking with her, looking at her, making love with her, just being silent and doing nothing with her or nothing but reading beside her. Holding her hand or knee when we’re at a movie or stage show. Her head on my shoulder or chest or my thighs pressed against the back of her thighs when we’re dozing off at night. Going into a store. Sharing some food at a restaurant. Watching her dress. Coming up with the same opinion about someone or something. Differing with her too. Fighting it out and making up. Everything. Miss missing her too, when I was away for a day or so and knew when I got back I’d see her. But for some reason, a very good reason, the reason being it’s inevitable she’s going to leave me pretty soon so better now when I can take it better than later when I’ll be even more used to her and it’ll hurt much worse. So I’ll phone her, right now, and if she’s in, tell her what I’ve been thinking and that we should call it off now.

I phone her and we meet and I tell her what I’ve been thinking lately and she says I’m crazy and she loves me and was thinking the same thing about herself to me, that she’s not good enough for me, not intelligent and insightful and pretty enough and other things, and if I want—”Well is this what you want, because it’s what I want, let’s get married, let’s have a baby, let’s live together, do everything forever together, or as much as we can do together, okay?” I said yes and that’s where we stand today.

I phone her and we meet and I tell her what I’ve been thinking and she says she’s afraid she’s been thinking the same thing lately, the relationship should probably end now before it gets even more serious for me and where she’d have to end it on her own rather than do it mutually as we can do now, and I put my hand out to shake hers, she said “Oh don’t be silly,” and kissed me on the lips and I turned around and walked home and cried inside just about all the way and that’s where it stands today.

I phone her and she’s not in but I get her later and we meet and talk and she says it’s not that she’s too good for me or the other way around or even that we might just be perfectly suited for one another or anything like that but that there’s another man in her life, one of the ones she might have mentioned before, she hasn’t seen him since a few months before we started seeing each other a half year ago, but he called last week and said he’s thought and thought about why their relationship ended and all the things she said would improve it then but at the time he didn’t believe in, well anyway, he now goes along with everything she said and knows she was definitely right for him just as she is now and just as he still thinks and hopes and even prays he’s still right for her and he wants to give their relationship another chance if it isn’t too late and also if it isn’t too late to move back in with her. She’s afraid she still loves him, she said to me, and that her feelings for him the last six months are probably what always kept her a little held back and unrelaxed and withdrawn from me at times. I said I never noticed her being any of these ways with me particularly but if there is this other man and she’s in love with him and wants to resume things and so on, well there’s nothing I can say, can I? especially after I already said I’ve been feeling for weeks she’s just too good for me in so many ways. That’s just not true, she said.

She’s not like that at all. If it wasn’t for this other man she knows we could have worked out in time and had a wonderful relationship. There’s just no saying how far we could have gone. That I have everything she ever wanted in a partner, everything, but just that this man is someone who has, not more than me, it’s not that he’s better or brighter or handsomer or anything like that, and actually on many of those things I do even better than he, but just something mysterious she can’t quite explain or communicate and maybe it’s ridiculous trying to explain it because it is so mysterious, but just something, and for all she knows it could be just his being there before me and suddenly leaving while she was still very much in love with him and didn’t want him to go and also because of everything they went through, and what those things were she doesn’t want to go into. But that’s it, she’s sorry, in some ways she wishes he never came back so we could have continued our relationship and she could have seen how it developed and in time perhaps lived with me and maybe even got married and had a child or two if that’s what it would have come to, but in some ways she’s very glad of course, and she has to be honest about it, very very glad he came back, though also of course what she regrets most is how it will affect me. “But don’t be silly,” she said. “I was certainly good enough for you and you were more than good enough for me.” We shook hands and kissed and I left her at a street corner and crossed the street and turned around when I got to the other side and saw her walking the opposite way from me and she didn’t do what she usually did when we left one another on a street — turn around and look back and wave — she kept going, till I couldn’t see her anymore, till she was part of the big midafternoon crowd walking both ways on the sidewalk. I went home and was surprised I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would.

The Beginning of Something

The wind is wet. That sounds nice but doesn’t make much sense. Any sense. I wrote it because it sounded nice. In my head. Wrote it as I usually write something to start off a story, or rather, as I often do. I don’t know where it came from. The wind is wet. Wet wind. The windy wet. Any of those could have come and I suppose a wet wind and Wind is wet could make some sense. It doesn’t make for good reading though. They don’t and The wind is wet doesn’t. At least I don’t think it does. And make for good writing, I mean, since it hasn’t really led to a second and then a third, and so on, sentence. Maybe in rewriting it or just writing it over, rather, I could make it better. I’ve done that before several times and it sometimes worked.

The wind is wet. That sounds nice but doesn’t make much sense. Any sense, or very little. I wrote it because it sounded like a sentence that might be the, or rather, a suitable beginning of a story. I don’t like Suitable but I don’t want to lose my line of thought. Because I sat down to write a story. When I sit down to write a story and nothing’s in my head when I sit down, I usually write the first thing that comes to mind when I start typing. The first thing I think of. The wind is wet was the first thing I thought of. It sounded right. As though it might lead to other things — sentences, phrases, etcetera — that would connect one after the other to be the first draft of a story. It’s happened before. I’ve written opening sentences in a similar way. Meaning I wrote the first thing that came to mind when I started to type and which had no connection to anything around me, since not only wasn’t there a wind out when I started to type but it was and still is a dry sunny day, and they’ve often led to follow-up sentences or dialogue, which became paragraphs and then pages or just one long paragraph, and once one nine to ten pages, which became in the end first drafts of stories. This one I don’t think will. It doesn’t have what? I don’t quite know, or rather, I can’t quite put it into words, but something — a force, some action, some staying or holding power, something. I knew I couldn’t quite put it into words. Not Quite.

I couldn’t put it into words at all or just about. But what I meant to say was that it doesn’t have what my instincts tell me a story must have to be a good story. Good meaning, well, Good. Meaning what? Now I’ve lost the line or thread or whatever it is that also keeps a story from continuing. Not From but just Keeps it continuing. Maybe if I write that first line from the first paragraph again or just start to write that whole first paragraph or even this paragraph from the beginning I’ll eventually come to a good beginning and can start the story from there. Is that what I’m aiming for or am I aiming to just write a story with a whole bunch of beginnings and rewriting of beginnings and rewriting or pretended rewriting of paragraphs, etcetera? For this is the first story I’ve started in more than a month. Actually, the first thing I’ve written, except for a letter to my mother and about three dozen postcards, several to my mother, in more than a month. I’ve been away. Explored prehistoric caves. Not so much Explored as Visited these caves. Paid the full admission fee if the ticket sellers wouldn’t, when I showed them my faculty card, charge me a reduced fee or let me in free, and went in with groups of ten to twenty people and once with about forty French schoolchildren and their chaperons and teachers and was guided through various caves with prehistoric paintings and engravings on the walls and one cave with both those and another with the painter’s hand stenciled on several of the walls, in the Dordogne region of France. The Department of France. Or maybe the Dordogne region in the Perigord Department of France. I left my map of that region or department in the Paris hotel we stayed in our last day in France and there isn’t an atlas in this summer cottage we rent in Maine. Anyway, all that has little or nothing to do with what I’m writing now except to say I haven’t written a stitch of fiction in a month because I’ve been away and wanted to start writing today, the day after we got back from France, and this is what I’ve written so far. I should have started today’s writing with a letter or postcard to someone, but I usually do that first thing after I’ve been away from writing for a week or more and I thought I’d try something different this time to see what would come out. This is what did. Not much for sure. I’ll probably put it away uncompleted or just throw it away, and if I don’t throw it away now, pick it up in half a year or so and see its worthlessness and then throw it away. But first see if something can come out of it now. Start, as an exercise, from the beginning of the last paragraph and see what happens. Or just start, since you already started from the beginning of the last paragraph, which was the beginning of the first paragraph you started, and as an Experiment, not an Exercise, from any place of the three written pages you blindly put your finger on. You’ve never done that before. So do it. I’m going to. Not because I never did it but because it seems like a good idea. I’m going to do it right now.

To other things. That’s what my finger landed on. I closed my eyes, shuffled the three pages and spread them out on top of the dictionary on my right side and put my finger down on page one’s second to last line. It actually landed on To other, so maybe I should have been true or something to what I said I’d do and just put down To other. Nothing much has come of the experiment so far, so maybe that’s what I’ll do right now.

To other. To other what? Two other what? Not either of those Whats but just To other. But To other what? That wasn’t a good idea. Or maybe it was but I just happened to land on the wrong words or one of the grouping of words least conducive or adaptable or malleable or whatever to start something going on the page. Maybe no grouping of words from those three pages would have started something going just then, but how could I ever know? I couldn’t. So it’s ridiculous thinking about. All I can conclude is that something might have started some other time with that grouping or any grouping of words from those three pages or even a single word my finger might have landed on, but didn’t when I tried it before. So try it again. Not blindly putting your finger on one of the pages, though I could also do that, but with To other, as now might be that Other time.

To other. Tother. Tuther. Tether. The wind is wet. I like that best. Or rather, I like it better than the rest. Wind is wet. I am wet. I am not. Not wet. I’m. Writing The wind is wet. I’m sitting here writing The wind is wet and Wind is wet. Magna’s downstairs writing whatever she’s writing. She’s writing something. Her typewriter’s going. She’s angry at me, or rather, she still might be if she’s still thinking about the spat we had about half an hour ago and which was most if not all my fault. Seems difficult for something to be All my fault. Anyway, I lied. The wind is wet wasn’t the first thing I wrote since I came back from France — I wrote — where is it? — I wrote — I’m going to look for it now — I wrote — just before I started this piece — This time I’m going to make it work. I’ve ruined all my other relationships. I know what I did. I knew it while I was doing it I didn’t even put in a period. I just stopped writing it and threw it away. I didn’t throw it away though would have if I had a waste basket or large paper bag or something like that here to throw it in. I put it at the right end of this table thinking that later I’ll go downstairs and get a paper bag, as the one waste basket in this cottage we’ve rented the last three summers has been beside Magna’s desk, and put in all of today’s trash: eraser pencil shavings — first thing I did when I sat at this table was sharpen two eraser pencils — and discarded manuscript pages and the like. Used tissues and pieces of toilet paper, since I’ve the start of a head cold and know I’ll be blowing my nose. In fact I’m going to blow my nose now with a tissue, not because what I just wrote gave me the idea to but because I suddenly have to.

I just blew my nose and put the wet tissue at the right end of this table and will put it in the paper bag along with the page that starts with This time I’m going to make it work, and probably along with these six awful pages I’ve written so far and whatever I might add to them. The tissue is wet. The wind is wet. This awful piece or whatever it is is wet. The ground outside’s wet. Coffee I’m drinking or just was is cold and wet. I just dried my nose and eyes, which were wet, with a dry tissue I made wet. I’ll also put that tissue in the paper bag when I get it. Oh, put on your glasses, tie the laces of your wet sneakers so you won’t trip going downstairs and the two cats when you come downstairs won’t think the flicking lace tips on the stair boards are the nails of a dog as they’ve thought several times before. Or just take off the sneakers, since they are wet, and put on your loafers and go downstairs and say something nice to Magna. Say you apologize. Say you’re sorry, very sorry. Say you’ll try to see that it won’t happen again. Say you’ll do your very best. Say you had a dream last night you want to tell her, Is it all right? If she says yes, say in the dream she said An FBI man told me they’ve done a thorough report on you and that you are fou, and I said A fool? and she said You know what I mean: that vous êtes fou, crazy! and I said So what does that mean to you: that you don’t want to continue living with a fouy man, a crazy man? and she said Yes, you being fou is just one of the many things that make me not want to live with you anymore, and I said Ah, the hell with it and walked out of the hotel and along one of those narrow barge roads by the Dordogne feeling very depressed and thinking what will I do, commit suicide here in France? Because I can’t live without her. I need someone like her to tell my dreams to and many other reasons and she’s the last one left, and the dream ended then. I woke up. The room was black. I didn’t think it was a room but a cave. I felt for Magna. She was on her side, her back to me. We had what I thought was an animal hide over us and were lying on soft ground. I looked at the ground. There was a little light on it now and it looked like water or mud. I reached out to feel it. It felt like water. I felt the small rug on the floor though didn’t think yet that the floor was a floor and rug a rug and the rug felt like grass. I don’t remember falling asleep here, I thought, but maybe everything I remember before waking up was a dream. Then how’d I get here? How do I get my food? Who’s Magna? I turned to her. The hide became the top sheet covered by blankets, the soft ground a bed. I could see windows now. We were in our rented summer cottage, not a cave. All this while I was awake. I pressed into her from behind. Got or had an erection. I wanted to talk to her about my dream and maybe to make love, but she seemed to be sleeping. I pressed the erection against her thighs from behind and put my arm over her under the blanket till my hand covered her breast. She didn’t move. I pressed into her a little harder, put my lips against her neck and blew softly on it, thinking that might awake her. Few seconds later she said I can’t right now, what are you doing? What do you mean what am I doing? I said. I didn’t get closer to you to make love, just to be warm and safe. I want to go back to sleep too. You have no consideration, she said. I didn’t know you were up, I said, So I didn’t think you’d feel me. Not feel what, she said, Your blowing on me? How could I not feel it? Who blew on you where? I said. I didn’t blow. If you felt my breath on your neck it was probably because I was breathing through my mouth while falling asleep, that’s all. No consideration, she said. Oh, none at all? Then little, she said. I’m sorry, I said, I’ll move away and stop breathing, and I moved to the other side of the bed. All you want to do or just about always when you’re in bed, no matter how I feel or what state I might be in, is make love. Because you knew I was sleeping. I’m exhausted. I’ve jet lag. We’re six hours behind. It’s really six or eight in the morning, not midnight or two or whatever time the clock says. I know and I’m sorry, I said. Christ, she said. Oh the hell, I can’t sleep with you constantly complaining when I didn’t mean what you think I did and making me feel even worse than I should, and I got out of bed, said We’ll work it out in the morning, went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch with my raincoat and one of the cats on top of me. About an hour ago she said I think we better speak about last night. We were having breakfast, hadn’t talked much. Polite talk. Pass the this, etcetera, while she read and I looked out the window. Oh, skip all that. Talk, argument, anger, tears from Magna, I walked out of the room, up here, she left the cottage and came back twenty minutes later and went to her desk and started typing, is, I’m typing, and that’s where I am now. The wind is wet. It sounded so nice. I thought it would be a good beginning. I wanted to write, when I sat down, something about why I’m always fighting and lying on and off with women and making myself so hard to live with. I wanted to explore that particularly and why I want those characteristics in me to stop. But I wrote slop: This time I’m going to make it work. Then nonsense: The wind is wet. Then what followed right up till this. Forget the writing: I should go downstairs now to try to work things out. Not because I can’t work well up here so long as I know Magna’s sad and getting if she’s not already fed up with me, though if my work did improve because of it I’d certainly be glad, but because I want more than anything and as much if not more than I’ve wanted with anyone to stay with her and be loved by her and because I eventually want to find out why I do some of the wrong things I do and what I can do to change them. Something like that. But I’m going to do it. Meaning, I’m going to go downstairs now.

I went downstairs. Magna was still upset. I said I hate for her to be so upset. I said lots of things. I’ll skip most of it. I said I know I must change. She said she thinks so too. I said if I changed somewhat does she think she’d still want to live with me? She said maybe only if I changed more than somewhat. How much more? I said and she said A little more than a little more. One very important thing though, she said, No, two: you have to think more of me than you do. Not to dote on me, but just to be more considerate of my feelings than you’ve been and, this is the second thing, more aware or just more truthful of your own. All right, I said, And I’m not saying this just because it sounds good: I’ll do everything I can to be that way and do what you say. I will, I said, I promise, okay? Okay, she said. I then wanted to kiss. She said Not quite yet. She asked what I’ve been typing upstairs and I said The beginning of something. It’s not working out. I started it several times. I think I was feeling too miserable because of what happened between us and what I knew you were feeling. It includes something of what we recently went through, I’m afraid: last night, my dreams, our breakfast, that I want our relationship to work out so much. She asked if she could see it. That she knows I don’t like anyone but editors and agents to see my work till it’s published, but could she? It’d give her the assurance, she said, that I trust her more than I seem to and value her opinion of my work more too and even if I might not agree with what she says about it each time, that I’m at least able to listen to it. And also that she can perhaps be of some use to me in my work more than just as a fictional character, just as she likes it when I give good advice in the work she does. I said You know I don’t like to show my work — but you already said that. Okay, but you have to realize it’s junk. That it’s something I’m almost sure I won’t be able to or just won’t want to end. That I started it, and probably in the wrong mood for such a piece — a dejected mood or just about — to be something, started it to, but nothing much materialized. That I’ll probably dump it into a trash bag in a few minutes to an hour if I don’t save it for half a year and then look at it and dump it then. She realizes all that, she said. She knows most of my work habits by now and also that I’ve occasionally searched frantically through garbage bags and cans for the beginnings of stories I threw in and then worked on them and finished a few and one even got published and became if she’s not mistaken my only major anthologized piece. Which reminds me, I said. While I’m down here I should get a paper bag for my trash, because I’ve a cold coming on — You do? she said. I’m sorry, you must’ve gotten it that last rainy night in Paris when I insisted we see St. Chapelle and Notre Dame — And I already have two wet tissues upstairs that should not only be in a trash bag but for your sake probably burned. She laughed. I smiled. I took her hand. I said Please let’s just have one small kiss? It’ll mean a lot to me. How much is a lot to you? she said. A lot more than a lot, I said — I don’t know, but a whole lot, which should be enough. Sure, she said, Fine by me. We kissed. Kissed several times. I love you, I said, You know that. Sometimes I don’t, she said, But I love you too. Oh Christ, she said, Let’s be good to one another and helpful and truthful as two people can be to one another, though I know you must think this is all garbage psychotherapy talk, or at least work towards what I’m asking for and not so often hurt one another and all the other good things? All right, I said. You are right and as my dad used to say, though that’s not to say he practiced it. In fact — well anyway, When you’re right you’re right, he used to say, and you are right. That’ll be the program from now on: truth, help, not hurt, all the good things together, etcetera. Good, she said. Will you now let me see your upstairs’ work and even let me comment on it if I feel my comments might help it? Yes, I said. And your comments couldn’t do anything but help this work, not that it’ll end up to be anything — the work, that is — and I think your comments could probably help all my work. So get it, she said. The bag first, I said. I got a large paper bag from the kitchen, went upstairs, got the ten pages, brought them downstairs, she read them, said I don’t mind The wind is wet. It’s in a way, well, poetic. And the wind can be wet, so why are you fretting so much over it? Sure the wind can be wet, she said. A foggy wind. A rainy wind. The kind of wind with rain in it we get so much of around here. Wind with rain in it, I said — I like that. I don’t know why, but I really like that line. Wind with rain in it. Wind with rain in it. And the truth is, she said, If you rewrite this as it is, or without, if you’ll permit me, adding much more to it except maybe a quick curious finish, it might to a lot of readers be an original story; if that was your original intention. If it wasn’t, well, accidents happen, so think about making it your intention. Not of course that a work has to be original to be good, though I think this one would have to. Wind with rain in it, I said. The wind is wet. This wind with rain in it is. I don’t know about all that, she said. Nor, if you want my advice, about including all those, if that’s what you have in mind, for the purpose of originality or not. But if this turned out not to be a story or not quite one or not quite much of anything publishable, let’s say, original or not, or whatever happens to a story once you think you’ve finished it, it had some purpose. It helped you think about us, if I got it right. It brought you downstairs to talk things out with me. So it served a very useful purpose, or just a useful one, and that’s as a reconciliatory story for us. So maybe it only deserves two readers, you and me, and for our purpose the story’s finished, and for the story’s purpose — well, it might not have one except for the reconciliatory reason I gave. And so actually, and without much regret for the work you put in and the time I did right now, it could be thrown out, depending on how important you think that reconciliation is. Very important, I said. Wind with wind with wet with rain in it this is. That makes a lot of sense, she said. Oh, it doesn’t? I said. And if you are planning to keep this piece and maybe even add to it, she said, I suppose you or both of us should try to recall if others might not have done something of the same order as this. Maybe you know but you’re not saying. No I don’t, I said, though I don’t read as much as a lot of others do. Wind with with with wet with rain within it is this. Whatever, she said, But I have to get back to my work. Want to go for a run in an hour or so? If I’m not too busy with my wet wind writing, I said. See you then, she said and handed me my ten pages and I went upstairs and recorded or tried to record as close as I could what went on since the end of the last paragraph, or rather, since I went downstairs to try to work things out with Magna. Things seem to have worked out. I feel good about that. Now to finish and later read it over — say in a few hours or tomorrow morning or after my run with Magna, if she still wants to run and if I want to — to see if I have anything here. I did bring up the bag — I mentioned that — and will now put in it those tissues and eraser pencil shavings and a third tissue, because I have to blow my nose again, and that page which begins with This time I’m going to make it work.

Magna Takes the Calls

Magna says “It’s Ruth. She sounds a little upset,” and hands me the receiver, collects her students’ exam papers and goes into the bedroom.

I say “Hello, mom, how are you?” and she says “I’ve some bad news for you, Will. Aunt Rae called a few hours ago and said Uncle Saul died last night.”

“Oh God, that’s terrible, awful. I’m very sorry.”

“His heart. I just spoke to him last week. We all knew he didn’t have that long to live — the doctor told Rae that a few months ago. That he was just waiting around to die. But when you hear that it’s happened, it always comes as a shock. I’m just glad he never knew how bad off he was.”

“I’ll say. It’s awful, awful.”

“He in fact called me — when was it? — two months ago and said he’d be in for Christmas for a week. I told him he could stay with me, there was plenty of room here, but he said he’d be staying at his sister-in-law’s — Rae’s sister Dolly. I don’t think you ever met her. When I spoke to him last week I asked what about his Christmas plans and he said they’d have to be pushed back a ways but he’d see me in no later than three months.”

“I’m really sorry, mom. I loved Saul. He always took an interest in us — in you, your kids. He was like a second father. In some ways, what I wish dad had been more: interested.”

“Your father was interested. Maybe in a different way than Saul.

Silently. He didn’t express himself much, except maybe to his cronies, but he certainly felt things. Saul was actively interested in all of you — that’s true. You want to hear how it happened?”

“If you want to say.”

“Rae said he was watching television last night. That that’s where she last saw him — in front of the TV — when she left him to take a shower. He was watching the eleven o’clock news, or the ten. I forget exactly what time she said.”

“I think the news comes on at ten in L.A.”

“That’s right, you lived there. But maybe it’s changed since then, or like us some of their stations have an hour of local news and then national. When she came out she said ‘Anything important happen in the news today, Saul?’ and he didn’t answer. She saw him slumped over — just a little to the side — his head. So he died peacefully.”

“That’s good at least.”

“He had no means to prevent it. It was the heart muscles — there was no way to repair them with a new valve and he was in no condition for a heart transplant. He knew he was going to die, though nobody told him. I could tell by his voice in that last phone call we had that he knew he’d never see us again.”

“It’s terrible, mom — I can’t tell you. For you, for Rae, for myself. I hate to think of him gone.”

“I know he knew you appreciated him. He felt the same to you. He always respected you. And since they moved out there, when we talked he asked after you every time.”

“How are you holding up?”

“You mean by knowing it?”

“Yes, is anybody with you? Maybe you should go to Leslie’s tonight or have her and Ben or just Leslie stay with you there.”

“I’m all right. He’s not my first brother to go, just my youngest. I miss him already. I wish I had called him yesterday when I thought of it. I always get the time zones mixed up. I think eight here is eleven there and he might be in bed. I forget it’s the other way around. But I don’t need anyone with me. It’s good talking to you about it. That’s what happens when you come from such a large family. So many brothers and sisters to lose. Sometimes I wish I’d gone first. Before my parents even. I’m sad, though, that’s true. I’ve had two drinks and feel tired already, so I’ll sleep okay. But tell me what you think. Rae wants me to hold some kind of ceremony for Saul in New York. He’ll be cremated out there, but she wants me to put an announcement in the Times about his death and a brief service at my place for his family here and friends. It’ll be a lot for me to do, I don’t think I’m up to it, but I’ll do it if Leslie and Ben help out.”

“I’ll come in for it and help.”

“I was hoping you could. I’ll make it on a Friiday — you don’t teach that day I remember — and you can get back to school by Monday. You think Magna will want to come? She met Saul, didn’t she?”

“A couple of years ago. I’ll ask her. It’ll also give her a chance to see her folks and you.”

“I look forward to seeing her. Probably next Friday or the one after. Before sundown, because it has to be. All right, I don’t want to keep you any longer. Give my love to Magna.”

“Goodnight, mom. Thanks for calling.”

I hang up and go into the bedroom. “What was it?” Magna says.

“Something wrong as I thought?”

“My Uncle Saul died last night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Will, I’m sorr.” She puts her pen down and comes over to me. I start crying. She holds my hand, touches my cheek. I break down and she puts her arms around me and pats my back and I sob for a while. I try to speak. I say “I loved…I loved…” I wanted to say “I loved the old guy very much,” She says “I know how you feel about him, you don’t have to say. He was a very nice man. He was like a second father to you.” I nod. “Did he have it rough?”

“At the end?”

“It wasn’t bad for him, was it? I remember he had a very bad heart. The walls. I hope not.”

“He died peacefully while watching the news. He must have just went — quick. Nothing painful. Maybe just a second — I don’t know. He didn’t suffer if he only felt pain for a second or two. That’s not suffering.”

“No. You poor dear. And his poor wife. They didn’t have children, so she must feel very alone. Want me to get you a drink?”

“No, I’ll be all right. And it’ll only make me sadder.”

“It also might relax you. No? Water then? Some apple juice?” I shake my head. “Maybe I better rest.”

“Maybe you should. Want me to work in the other room?”

“No no, I like having you here.”

I lie on the bed. Magna goes back to grading papers, turning around to me every other minute. I close my eyes. Images and thoughts of Saul go past. Shaking hands. Wagging a finger at me. Talking to me through his car window. Smiling. Smiling Saul his family called him because of his cheerful disposition. His very bald skull. Wearing a hairpiece for a year before he gave it to Goodwill. “Too vain,” he said, “and what am I hiding? I happen to have a very nice-shaped head.” Teaming up or playing one on one basketball with him in Central Park. He’d been first-string forward for NYU and he was only five-seven. “In those days, “he said, “if you were five-ten you automatically played center.” He wrote me encouraging letters when I was out of work and included a ten or twenty dollar check in the envelope. “Go out to a fancy lunch with it. You’ll feel better after, which will make you more appealing to your interviewers.” He’d get miffed if I didn’t tell him the more important personal and professional news of my life. “Remember, I’m the official Bederman Family Circle chronicler.” He once took a composition class with Thomas Wolfe. “We called him The Giant, but only because of his size. We didn’t know who he was then. We were all sons of European immigrants, so his southern accent had to be translated.”

“Will, your mother on the phone again,” Magna says. I’ve been asleep for more than an hour. “She sounds even worse than before.”

“Something about Saul?”

“I’m not sure. When I told her you were sleeping she said not to wake you, but she’s so distraught I knew she had to speak to you.”

I go to the phone. “Mom?”

“I’m sorry to wake you. I told Magna don’t. I have some more bad news to tell you. I didn’t want to so soon after Saul, but I promised Mr. Koven I would.”

“Larry’s father? Something happened to Larry?”

“Not to. Larry. Mr. Koven said he didn’t have the heart to tell you himself, but as Larry’s best friend you had to know.”

“We haven’t been best friends for twenty years. I mean, I like him and I’ve seen him when he came to Chicago on one of his business trips and lance visited him in Phoenix—”

“That’s just it. His trips. He was away — for over two days — I don’t know to where — and the previous week their dog had died.”

“Their dog died?”

“I know it sounds strange, but it’s important to what happened.

Larry’s very rich according to Mr. Koven. Lives in a mansion with a big swimming pool.”

“It’s not a mansion, but what is it I’m supposed to know? Their children?”

“No, they were safely away at college. I don’t like telling this, but he insisted. I said I just told you your uncle died, and he said he was sorry and gave us both his condolences but that this was more important. That uncles die of old age — heart, blocked arteries — but that this is today, somebody young wiped out by tragedy. He wouldn’t sleep unless he knew I told you tonight, because right after it you were supposed to call Larry. He said Larry had asked him for you to call.”

“His wife?”

“‘Murdered!’ he screamed into the phone. ‘Murdered, murdered!’ The dog died naturally a week ago, and when Larry got back from his trip he found the house ransacked and his wife strangled. “

“Oh God no.”

“They have windows that come right down to the ground, he said. Maybe that’s how they got in. And with no dog barking — maybe they saw Larry leave with his bags and knew about the dog and that the children were away and so came in. They took a few dollars and the stereo and that’s all.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I wasn’t being petty. Believe me, it’s horrible for me speaking about it. I knew Larry as a boy for twenty years too and Mr. Koven and his wife are always polite to me on the street and several times he’s helped me with legal papers and tax forms. I was talking about the absolute senselessness of it all.”

“I know. I’m sorry, mom, sorry.”

“So you’ll call him?”

“I’ll call. But you sure he wants me to?”

“Mr. Koven said Larry had definitely asked you to tonight.”

“Then I will. But what a day, huh? Unbelievable.”

We say goodnight, I hang up and look at Magna.

“I heard,” she says. “Are you going to?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I think you have to, don’t you?”

“But tonight? After Saul?”

“If you can’t, you can’t, and I can certainly understand why you couldn’t, but he might be expecting your call.”

“What do I say to him?”

“You say how you feel. Or that you’re too numb to feel anything now. Though I think you’re just supposed to ask what you can do for him. If you can also tell him how I feel about it, please do.”

“Okay. But I’m not going to wait.”

I get a glass of vodka and ice and call Larry. He answers and I say “Larry, it’s Will.”

“Yeah, my dad just phoned and said he spoke to your mother and you were calling. I didn’t ask him to ask you. He got it in his head to speak to you. That maybe only you, because we were so close for so long, could help get me through this, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. But he hasn’t been the same since the funeral Sunday. He’s actually been a bit crazy — wants to sell everything and pack up and go back to Germany, but I told him ‘Nobody’s there now, dad.’ He’ll be okay though.”

“I can well understand him. And I’m sorry, but I didn’t know around when it happened. Maybe my mother told me, but if she did it went past.”

“Sure. And my dad told me about Saul. That’s when I almost blew up at him for getting you to call me, but kept it in. I liked Saul. Great guy. Powerful too — oh boy. He was like your oldest brother almost, so to me like my best friend’s oldest brother. Or let’s just say your favorite uncle, right? I loved it that he used to play ball with us. I told June about that a lot. How he came around a few Saturdays a year and got us out to the park with a bat and gloves, or even into the street for stickball, and played till we got tired, not him. A fantastic athlete. So my condolences to you.”

“And I can’t tell you how I feel about June.”

“I can’t tell you how I feel either. Maybe they’ll get the crazies who did it, but you never know. Even if they do, where’s it leave me? Oh, questions — forget it. If I say another word about it I’ll crack up right over the phone to you. The girls are with me. They’re fine, they look good. They’re staying another week, so we’re all okay for the time being. I’ll write you maybe. And visit you next time I get to Chicago. I’m a mess, Will, no doubt about it, that’s the biggest truth I’ve said to you so far about me, but a mess is the only way I should really be now, right? And I’m awfully sorry about Saul.”

“Thanks. Magna wants me to tell you how she feels about June too.”

“I’ll speak to you.”

I hang up. “How my going to get to sleep tonight, Mag? How my going to?”

“Why not just finish your drink, have another if you want, and then call it a night. I still have a dozen papers to grade by morning, but if you want me to I’ll come to bed with you now.”

“No, I’ll be all right.” I finish the drink, kiss her goodnight, take off my clothes, get into bed and shut off the light.

Time to Go

My father follows me on the street. He says “Don’t go into that store and don’t go into the next one you might want to go into either. Go into none, that’s what I’m saying.” But I stand in front of the door of the jewelry store I heard was the best in the city and am buzzed in. My father’s right behind me, and I nod to the guard and say to the saleswoman after she says “Can I help you?” “Yes, I’m looking for a necklace — amber — I mean jade. I always get the two mixed up. But jade’s what I want: long-lasting, forever, is the symbol, right? This might sound funny, but I want to present the necklace to my wife-to-be as a prenuptial gift.”

“Doesn’t sound funny to me and you’ve come to the right store.” She takes out a tray of jade necklaces. All have gold around or in them, and when I ask the price of two of them, are too expensive.

“I don’t want any gold in them, except maybe for the clasp, and these are way too expensive for me.”

“Much too expensive,” my father says.

“I’ll show you some a little lower in price.”

“Much lower in price,” my father says.

“Maybe a little lower than even that,” I say.

She puts away the tray she was about to show me and takes out a third tray.

“These seem darker than I want — to go with her blue eyes and kind of pale skin I mean — but how much is this one?”

“You can pick it up,” she says. “Jade doesn’t bite.”

“Just the price,” my father says. “But go on, pick it up. You’ll see how jade’s as cold to feel as it is to look at.”

I pick it up. “It feels nice, just the right weight, and seems”—holding it out—”the right size for her neck.”

“Is she around my height?”

“Five-five.”

“Then exactly my height and this is the size I’d wear.”

“I’m sure it’s still too expensive for me.”

She looks at the tag on it, which seems to be in code: 412xT+. “It goes for three-fifty but I’ll make it two-seventy-five for you.”

“Way out of my range.”

“What is your range?”

“You’re going to wind up with crap,” my father says, “pure crap. If you have to buy a necklace, go somewhere else. I bet you can get this one for a hundred any other place.”

“Around a hundred, hundred-twenty-five,” I tell her.

“Let me show you these then.”

“Here we go again,” my father says.

“I have to get her something, don’t I?” I tell him. “And I want to, because she wants something she can always wear, treasure — that’ll remind her of me. That’s what she said.”

“Fine, but what’s she getting you?”

“How do I know? I hope nothing. I don’t want anything. That’s what I told her.”

“Oh, you don’t want anything to remind you of her?”

“She’ll remind me of her. I have her, that’s enough, and besides I don’t like jewelry.”

“You thinkers: all so romantic and impractical. I wouldn’t get her anything if she isn’t getting you anything. Listen, I like her, don’t misunderstand me: she’s a fine attractive girl and you couldn’t get better if you tried for ten more years. But tit for tat I say. He who gives, receives, and one should be a receiver and giver both.”

“You’re not getting my point. She wants something and I don’t. I accept that and I wish you would.”

“Sucker,” he says. “All my boys are suckers. None of them took after me.”

“Some people might say that was an improvement.”

“Stupid people might, just as stupid people might make jokes like you just did. If you took after me you would’ve been married sooner, had almost grown-up children, a much better job, three times as much income and been much much happier because your happiness would’ve been going on longer.”

“Look at this batch,” the saleswoman says, putting another tray of jade necklaces on the counter. I see one I like. A light green, smaller beads, nicely strung with string, no gold on it except the clasp. I hold it up. “I like this one.”

“Hedge, hedge,” my father says. “Then ask the price and offer her half.”

“How much is it?” I ask her.

“A hundred-ten.”

“Fifty-five or sixty — quick,” my father says.

“Sounds fair, and this is the first one I really feel good about.”

“That’s the only way to buy. Janine,” she says to a younger saleswoman, “would you try this on for this gentleman?”

Janine comes over, smiles and says hello to me, undoes the top two buttons of her blouse and starts on the third.

“It’s not necessary,” I say.

“Don’t worry,” the older woman says. “That’s as far as I’ll let her go for that price.”

Janine holds the necklace to her neck and the older woman clasps it behind her. “Feels wonderful,” Janine says, rolling the beads between her fingers. “This is the one I’d choose of this box — maybe even out of all the boxes despite the more expensive ones.”

“Who are you working for, him or me?”

“No, it really feels great.”

“Don’t fall for their patter,” my father says. “Sixty-five — go no higher. She says seventy-five, say ‘Look, I’m a little short what with all my wedding expensives and all, can’t you take the sixty-five — the most seventy?’ But you got to give them an excuse for accepting your offer, and no crying.”

“How much is this one again?” I ask her.

“One-ten,” the older woman says, “but I’ll make it a hundred.”

“That’s just fine. I didn’t mean to bargain down, but if you say it’s a hundred, fine, I’ll take it.”

“Idiot,” my father says. “You could’ve had it for seventy easy.”

“Terrific. Janine, wrap it up special as a prewedding gift. Cash or charge, sir?”

“You’ll take a check?”

“Janine, I don’t know this guy, so check his references. If they’re okay, let him pay by check. Thank you, sir. What about calling Michaels now?” she says to a man at the end of the counter and they go in back. I take out my wallet.

My father sits in a chair next to the guard. “My son,” he says to him. “Nothing like me. Never learned anything I ever taught him and I tried hard as I could. He could’ve been much more successful if he’d listened. But he was stubborn. All my children were stubborn. Neither of my girls had the beauty of their mother and none of my sons the brains of their dad. Health you’d think they’d have had at least, but they didn’t even have that. Oh, this one, he’s healthy enough — strong as an ox. But two I lost to diseases, boy and a girl, and both in their twenties, which was hard for my wife and I to take, before I went myself. So, there you have it. And I hope his bride likes his present. He’s paying enough. Though why he doesn’t insist on getting something in return — hint on it at least if he doesn’t want to insist — or at least insist her family pay for the wedding, is a mystery as much to you as to me. To everyone including his bride, who I admire — don’t think I was just buttering him up there — he says he’s too old to have anyone but him pay for the wedding, and she makes it worse by praising him for what she calls his integrity. Make sense to you? Doesn’t to me. Since to me integrity is great in its place but is best when it pays. All of which is why I hound him the way I do — for his benefit and his only. So. Think it’ll stay as nice out as it is? Ah, what’s the difference?”

I get off the train from Baltimore, get on the subway for upper Broadway, suddenly my father’s in the car standing beside me. “Welcome home,” he says. “You still going through with giving her that present and making the wedding all by yourselves? Anything you say. I won’t interfere. I can only tell you once, maybe three times, then you have to finish digging your own grave.”

“If that’s really the last time, fine by me,” and I go back to reading my book.

“Just like when you were a boy. You didn’t like what I said, you pretended I wasn’t there. But I’m here all right. And the truth is, in spite of all the mistakes you made with your life and are still making, I’m wishing you all the luck in the world. You were okay to me at the end — I won’t deny it. I can’t — who could I to? — the way you took care of me when I was sick — so I suppose I should be a little better to you now. Am I right? So do you want to be not only family now but good friends? If so, let’s shake like friends. We kissed a lot when you were young — in fact, right to when I went and then you to me a few seconds after that, which I don’t think if the tables were turned you would’ve got from me — but for a first time let’s just shake.”

The car’s crowded. Late afternoon Christmas shoppers returning home but not the rush hour riders yet. I’m squeezed right up to him. “Look,” I say, “we can talk but don’t remind me of how sick you were. I don’t want to think of it now. I will say I respected you for a lot of things in your life, especially the way you took the discomfort and pain then, something I told you a number of times but I think you were too out of it to understand me. But you also have to realize, and which I maybe didn’t tell you, how much you screwed me up, and I allowed you to screw me up — whatever the causes or combination of them. I’ve worked out a lot of it, I’ll try to work out the rest, but no real complaints from me for anything now for I’m going through absolutely the best time in my life.”

“Good, we’re friends,” and he shakes my hand.

I get off at Magna’s stop. Today began my school’s winter break.

I head for the revolving exit gate at the end of the platform. A boy of about sixteen’s between me and the woman exiting in front of him. But he’s hesitating, looking around and behind him, at me, the downtown platform across the tracks, the woman who’s now through the gate and walking upstairs, back at me sullenly. I don’t know whether to walk around him or go to the other end of the platform and the main exit. Maybe I’m wrong. He might just be an angry kid who’s hesitating now because he doesn’t know which exit to take, this or the main one. I walk past him but keep my eyes on him. As I’m stepping backwards into the gate he turns to me, sticks his left hand into his side jacket pocket and thrusts it at me, clamps his other hand on my shoulder and says “Give me all your money.” I say “What? What?” and push backwards and revolve around the gate to the other side and he has to pull his hand away or get it caught between the bars.

“Hey, wait,” and he revolves around the gate after me, rips the satchel off my shoulder and runs upstairs. It has the necklace, my writings, student papers, a framed drawing I bought for Magna, some clothing. The boy’s already gone. I yell upstairs “Police, police, catch that kid with my satchel — a canvas one,” as I chase after him. On the sidewalk I say to that woman “Did you see a boy running past?” and she says “Who?” but he’s nowhere around. A police car’s across the street and I run to it. The policemen are in a luncheonette waiting for their takeout order. I go in, say “I’m not going to sound sensible to you, believe me, but I was just robbed, he might’ve had a gun or knife in his pocket, a kid, boy, around sixteen with a gray ski cap on his head with the word ‘ski’ on it, down in the subway exit there, he took my satchel with some valuable things in it and then ran upstairs. I’m sure if we—” “Come with us,” one of them says and we rush outside and are getting in their car when the counterman raps on the luncheonette window and holds up their bag of food. “Later,” the policeman shouts out his window as we drive off.

We drive around and don’t find the boy. The policeman says “There are so many young thieves wearing the outfit you described. Parka jacket, fancy running sneakers, hat sort of extra tall and squeezed on top, sometimes with a pompom, sometimes not. Tough luck about your necklace and painting though.”

“I could’ve told you,” my father says, seated beside me. “Fact is, I told you — a thousand times about how to be wise in New York, but you always got your own ideas. You think I’d ever exit through a revolving gate when there’s no token booth there, even in what they call the better days? That’s where they leap on you, trap you against the gate on either side or on the stairs leaving it, but you never want to play it safe. Now you’ve lost everything. Well, you still got your life and it’s not that I have no sympathy for you over what happened, but it seems you were almost asking for it it could’ve been so easily avoided.”

“Layoff me, will you? I already feel bad enough.” I get out of the car in front of Magna’s building. “Thanks, officers.”

“As I say,” my father says, going in with me, “I can understand how you feel. But this one time, since your life depends on it, I wish you’d learn from your mistake.”

I go upstairs and tell Magna about the robbery. My father sits on the daybed she uses as a couch. “Every week closer to the wedding she gets more radiant,” he says. “You got yourself one hell of a catch. She’s smart, she’s good, she has wonderful parents and she’s also beautiful. I don’t know how you rate it but I’m glad you did.”

“It had your special present in it,” I tell her, “plus some drawing for you I know he’s going to just throwaway. I won’t tell you what the special gift is. I’ll try to get something like it or close to it. God, I could have killed that kid.”

“That wouldn’t have helped,” she says.

“It certainly wouldn’t’ve,” my father says. “Because in the process you could’ve got killed in his place, and those kids always got ones working with them or friends for revenge. This is what I tell you and hope you’ll remember for all time: stay out of other people’s business, and if something like a robbery happens to you, shut your mouth and give everything you have. Twice I got held up by gunmen in my dental office and both times my advice worked. They not only didn’t harm me but gave me back my empty wallet.”

Magna and I go to the Marriage License Bureau. The line for applications extends into the hallway. “I hate lines,” my father says. “I’ve always avoided them by calling before to see what time the place opens and then trying to be the first one there.”

“It looks like the line for food stamps,” the woman in front of us says to her mate.

“To me like the one for Welfare,” another woman says. “Unemployment insurance,” Magna says to me. “I’ve been on them. Didn’t want to but had no choice. Have you?”

“Him?” my father says. “Oh, he was too pure to take unemployment. He deserved it too but you know what he did? Refused to even go down to sign up for it. He was living home then and I told him he was crazy. I said ‘I always want you to have a job, but if you’re fired from one or laid off, well, you paid for that insurance, so take it.’ But him? Always too damn pure. That can work against you as much as it can for. Must’ve got that trait from his mother, because he certainly didn’t get that way from me.”

“I could have got unemployment a few times,” I say to her, “but I always had some money saved and so thought I’d live off it and write at the same time. To sort of use the time break to produce some writing that might earn me some money but not intentionally to make me money—”

“There he goes again with his purity bent. Look, I never encouraged my children to take anything that wasn’t theirs. Oh, maybe by my actions I occasionally did, but I never encouraged them personally to take like that. But he wouldn’t listen about that insurance. We had terrible fights over it. Of course he never would’ve had to reject or accept any unemployment insurance if he’d’ve become the dentist I wanted him to. I pleaded with all my sons to and each one in turn broke my heart. But he out of all of them had the brains and personality for it and he could’ve worked alongside me for a few years and then bought me out of my practice. I would’ve even given him the practice for nothing if that’s what it took to get him to become a dentist, though with maybe him contributing to my support a little each month, mine and his mother’s.”

“I wasn’t good in the sciences,” I say to him. “I told you that and offered my grades as proof over and over again. I used to almost regurgitate every time I went into the chemistry building and biology labs. I tried. I was predent for more than two years.”

“Regurgitate. See the words he uses? No, you didn’t want to become a dentist because I was one. You wanted to go into the arts. To be an artiste. The intelligentsia you wanted to belong to. Well, now you’re able to make a decent living off it teaching, but for how many years you practically starved? You almost broke my heart then, seeing you struggle like that for so long, though you still have time to become one. Dentists average even more money than doctors today.”

“Next,” the clerk says.

Magna gives her our blood tests results. She gives us the application to fill out.

“Can we come right up to the front of the line after we fill it out?” I say.

“You have to go to the back,” she says.

“Why aren’t there two lines as there are supposed to be? Why’s the other window closed?”

“We’re a little shorthanded today. You think I like it? It’s double my usual load.”

“There are three people typing over there and two putting away things in files. Why not get one of them to man the other window till this line’s a little relieved?”

“Shh, don’t make trouble,” my father says. “You can’t avoid the situation, accept it. It’s the city.”

“I’m not the supervisor,” she says, “and the supervisor can’t just tell someone to do something when it’s not that person’s job. Next,” she says to the couple behind us.

Magna pulls me away. “Wherever we are,” she says, “I can always count on you to try to improve things.”

“Am I wrong?”

“You’d think at the Marriage Bureau you’d tone it down a little, but no real harm. It’d be too laughable for us to break up down here.”

“He was always like that,” my father says. “Always a protester, a rebel. Nothing was ever good enough in life for him. He’d see a Broadway play that maybe the whole world thought was great and which’d win all the prizes, he’d say it could’ve been much better. Books, politics, his schools, the banks — whatever, always the same. I told him plenty of times to run for mayor of this city, then governor, then president. He never took me seriously. I suppose all that does mean he’s thinking or his heart’s mostly in the right place, but sometimes he can get rude with people with all those changes of his he wants. He doesn’t have the knack to let things roll off him as I did. Maybe that’s good. I couldn’t live with it if that was me. You’ll have troubles with him, young lady.”

We go to the Diamond Center for wedding bands. “How’d you find us?” the man behind the counter says.

“We saw all the stores and didn’t know which one to choose,” I say. “So I asked this man who looked as if he worked in the area ‘Anyone place carry only gold wedding bands?’ He said ‘Nat Sisler’s,’ who I suppose, from the photo there, is you, ‘4 West, down the middle aisle on the right. There are forty other booths there but you won’t miss his. He’s got the biggest sign.’”

“Just like me on both my office windows,” my father says.

“Biggest the city allowed for a dentist. If they’d allowed me to have signs to cover my entire window, I would’ve.”

“Too bad you don’t know this man’s name,” Nat says. “We always like to thank the people who refer customers to us. But he was right. We’ve nineteen-hundred different rings, so I promise you won’t walk away from here without finding one you like. Anything particular you looking for?”

“Something very simple,” I say.

He holds up his ring finger. “Nothing more simple and comfortable than this one. I’ve been wearing it without taking it off once for forty-five years.”

“That’s amazing,” Magna says. “Not once?”

“I can’t. I’ve gained sixty pounds since I got married and my finger’s grown around it. Maybe he’ll have better luck with his weight. He’s so slim now, he probably will.”

“More patter,” my father says. “Then when you’re off-guard they knock you over the head with the price. But remember: this is the Diamond Center. The bargaining’s built into the price. Here they think it’s almost a crime not to, so this time whatever price he quotes, cut him in half.”

“Single or double-ring ceremony?” Nat says.

“Double,” Magna says, “and identical rings.”

“Better yet,” my father says. “For two rings you have even greater bargaining power. Cut him more than half.”

Nat brings out a tray of rings. “What do you do?” he asks me.

“You look like a doctor.”

“I teach at a university.”

“So you are a doctor, but of philosophy.”

“I barely got my B.A. I write, so I teach writing. She’s the doctor of philosophy.”

“Oh yeah?” he says while Magna’s looking at the rings.

“Turn your ears off,” my father says. “Next he’s going to tell you you’re a handsome couple, how great marriage can be, wish you all the luck and success there is, which you’ll need, he’ll say all that stuff. Though they love bargaining down here, they love making money more, so act business-like. Ask him right off what the price of this is and then that. Tell him it seems high even if you don’t think it is. Tell him you’re a teacher at the lowest level. Tell him you make almost zero from your writing and that she won’t be teaching next year, so you’ll have to support you both. Tell him any other time but this you might have the money to pay what he’s asking, but now, even if it is something as sacred as marriage, you’re going to have to ask him to cut the price more than half. And being there are two rings you’re buying—”

“What do you think of this one?” Magna asks me. It looks nice. It fits her finger.

“You have one like this in my size?” I say.

“That’s an awfully big finger you have there,” Nat says, holding my ring finger up. He puts several ring sizers on my finger before one fits. “Ten and a half. We’d have to make it on order. When’s the wedding date?”

“Ask him how much first,” my father says, “ask him how much.”

“The fourteenth,” Magna says. “But I’m sure these will be much higher than we planned to pay.”

“That a girl,” my father says.

“Hey,” I say. “You’ll be wearing it every day of your life, you say, so get what you want. I happen to like it.”

“How much are they?” she asks Nat.

He puts the ring she wants on a scale. “Seventy-two dollars.

Let’s say seventy. The professor’s, being a much larger size — and they’re both seamless, I want you to know. That means they won’t break apart unexpectedly and is the best kind of craftsmanship you can get — is eighty-five.”

“Sounds okay to me,” I say.

“Oh my God,” my father says. “I won’t even say what I think.”

We go to the apartment of a rabbi someone told us about. His wife says “What would you like to drink? We’ve scotch, vodka, white wine, ginger ale—”

“Scotch on the rocks for me,” I say.

“Same for me, thanks,” Magna says.

“So,” the rabbi says when we all get our drinks, “to your health, a long life, and especially to your marriage,” and we click glasses and drink. He shows us the certificate we’ll get at the end of the ceremony. “On the cover — I don’t know if you can read it — but it says ‘marriage’ in Hebrew.”

“It’s a little bit gaudy for me,” I say. “You don’t have one with fewer frills? Oh, I guess it’s not important.”

“It is so important,” my father says. “That certificate will end up meaning more to you than your license. And it’s beautifully designed — good enough to frame and hang — but of course not good enough for you.”

“You’ll have to provide two glasses for the ceremony,” the rabbi says. “One with the red wine in it you’ll both be drinking from.”

“Dry or sweet?” Magna says.

“What a question,” my father says. “Sweet, sweet.”

“Whichever you choose,” the rabbi says. “You’ll be the ones drinking it.”

“A modern rabbi,” my father says. “Well, better than a modern judge. Ask him what synagogue he represents.”

“By the way,” I say, “do you have a congregation? George said he thought you’d given that up.”

“Right now,” he says, “I’m marketing a wonderful little device that could save the country about five hundred thousand barrels of oil a month, if the public would just accept it. I got tired of preaching, but I’ll get back to it one day.”

“What he’s not saying,” his wife says, “is that this gadget will only cost three and a half dollars retail, plus a slight installation fee, and will save every apartment and home owner about fifty dollars a month during the winter. The oil companies hate him for it.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, “but I will say I haven’t made any friends in the oil industry. But the effectiveness of the device has been proven, it’ll last without repairs for up to fifteen years, and someone has to market it, so it’s almost been like a crusade with me to get it into every oil user’s home. Wait, I’ll show it to you.”

“Wait’ll he comes around to telling you the cost of his ceremony,” my father says.

“The other glass,” I say, after we’ve passed the device around.

“Is that the one I’m supposed to break with my foot?”

“Scott has the most brilliant interpretation of it during the ceremony you’ll ever want to hear,” his wife says. “I’ve heard it a dozen times and each time I’m completely absorbed. Actually, except for the exchange of vows, I’d call it the highlight of the ceremony.”

“Would you mind if we don’t have the breaking of the glass? We’ve already decided on this. To us it represents the breaking of the hymen—”

“That’s just one interpretation,” he says, “and not the one I give. Mine’s about the destruction of the temples and other things. I use biblical quotes.”

“Wait wait wait,” my father says. “Did I hear you don’t want to break the glass?”

“It’s also just a bit too theatrical for me,” I say to the rabbi. “Just isn’t my style.”

“Isn’t your style?” my father says. “It goes back two thousand years — maybe even three. You have to break the glass. I did with your mother and her father and mine with our mothers and their fathers with our grandmothers and so on. A marriage isn’t a marriage without it. It’s the one thing you have to do for me of anything I ask.”

“I can wrap a lightbulb in newspaper if it’s only that you’re concerned a regular glass might cut your foot,” the rabbi says. “But if you don’t want it.”

“If they don’t, they don’t,” his wife says.

“We don’t,” Magna says, “but thank you.”

“Then no second glass,” he says. “It’s your day.”

“That’s it, my father says. “Now you’ve really made me mad. That she’s on your side in this — well, you must’ve forced it on her. Or maybe not. Anyway, I’m tired of complaining. From the man’s point you’ll be missing the best part of the ceremony, not the second best. I won’t even begin to advise you about anything about the rabbi’s fee.”

“I know what your advice will be,” I say, “and I don’t want to bargain with him, is that so bad? Because what’s he going to charge — a hundred-fifty? two hundred? So how much can I cut off it — fifty, seventy-five? What’s fifty anyway? What’s a hundred? And he’s a professional. A professional should not only do his work well but know what to charge. You always let your patients cut your dental fees in half?”

“If I thought they’d go somewhere else, sure. Because if I wasn’t working on them I’d be sitting around earning nothing in that time. But if your rabbi asks four hundred?”

“He won’t. You can see he’s a fair guy. And I’m not a complete jerk. If I think his fee’s way out of line, I’ll tell him.”

“That’s not the way to do it, but do what you want. I’ve said it a hundred times to you and now I’ll say it a last time. Do what you want because you will anyway. But I’ll tell you something else. Your mother didn’t give you three thousand dollars of my insurance policy benefit to just piss away.”

“That money was nine years ago. I didn’t ask for a cent of it but she thought I deserved it because of the four years I helped her with you. And I used it to good purpose. I lived off it and worked hard on what I wanted to work on for one entire year.”

“Oh, just pay anything he asks no matter how high. In fact, when he says his fee, say ‘No, it’s too little,’ and double him. That’s the kind of schmo I sometimes think you can be.”

We’re being married in Magna’s apartment. The rabbi’s talking about what the sharing of the wine means. My mother’s there. My brother and sister and their spouses. My nieces and an uncle and aunt. Magna’s parents and cousins and her uncle and aunts. A few of our friends and their children. My father. He looks tired and ill. He’s dressed for the wedding, has on his best suit, though it needs to be pressed. He sits down on the piano bench he’s so tired. The rabbi pronounces us married. I’m trying. Magna smiles and starts to cry. My mother says “What is this? You’re not supposed to be crying, but go ahead. Tears of happiness.”

“Kiss the bride,” my sister says. I kiss Magna. Then I kiss my mother and Magna’s mother and shake Magna’s father’s hand while I kiss his cheek. I kiss Magna again and then my sister and brother and brother’s wife and my nieces and aunt and uncle and Magna’s aunts and uncle. Then our friends and Magna’s female cousin and I shake the hand of her male cousin and say “Oh what the hell,” and kiss his cheek and the cheek of my sister’s husband and the rabbi’s cheek too. I look over to the bench. My father’s crying. His head’s bent way over and he dabs his eyes with old tissues. He starts making loud sobbing noises. “Excuse me,” I say and I go over to him, get on my knees, put my arms around his lower legs and my head on his thighs. He’s sitting up straight now and pats my head. “My boy,” he says. “You’re a good sweet kid. I’m actually having a great time. And there was no real harm meant between us and never was, am I right? Sure, we got angry as hell at one another lots of times, but I’ve always had a special feeling for you deep down. It’s true, you don’t have to believe me, but it’s true. And I’m so happy for you. I’m crying because I’m that happy. I’m also crying because I think it’s wonderful you’re all together today and so happy, and I’m glad I’m here. Your other sister and brother, it’d be grand if they were here too.” I look around for them. “Maybe they couldn’t find the right clothes,” I say. I get on one knee and hug him with my cheek pressed against his and then he disappears.

Eating the Placenta

Class is over, I go to my office and call Magna.

“Will, listen, you must come home. I think it’s started.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve had contractions since five o’clock and bleeding. There — there goes another one. I’m not in pain, just a little uncomfortable, but please hurry.”

I look for a book to bring to the hospital. The doctor said the whole process might take fifteen hours, might take thirty. Two books, just in case. I slip into my jacket pockets two books I’ve been wanting to read for a long time.

“Mr. Taub, may I speak to you a minute?”

“I’m sorry, Gene, I’m in a rush — my wife. She just called. I mean I called her. We were supposed to go swimming at the gym, but she said her labor contractions have started. Today might be the day we have the baby.”

“Oh, that’s really something. Really, congratulations. They’re premature congratulations, but I know everything will turn out all right for you both. But this will take only a few seconds. It’s about what you said on the story you handed back to me today.”

“Honestly, Gene, whatever I said doesn’t mean anything right now. It means a lot to you — that’s not what I’m saying — just that I have to go.”

“I understand, but I just wanted to know—”

“What? Please, I said I have to go. My wife’s gone into labor.”

“Of course. I shouldn’t have stopped you. I didn’t know, and now I shouldn’t still be stopping you. And regular office hours would be better. Could I see you here Friday at your regular two o’clock appointment time?”

“If I’m here, Gene, if I’m here. Excuse me, I have to lock up.” I look for my keys.

“Your keys. Over there on the desk.”

“I’m a little nervous, you can see that. So forget anything I say or do from now on.”

“Sure, the baby — who wouldn’t be? Mind if I walk part of the way with you? We live in the same direction. You are heading home, am I right?”

“Home. I’m going to have to walk fast.”

“No problem, I’m a fast walker.”

I lock the door, we leave the building. “Maybe along the way,” he says, “you can explain to me what you meant on the second page here, third paragraph”—he holds out his manuscript—”that my narrative ‘shows no movement forward,’ I thought the point of my story — the point I wanted to make, at least, and whether I did it successfully isn’t for me to judge, I think you once said. That the judges are the readers, not the writers. That the writer’s job is just to—”

“Did I say all that? If I did, I don’t know what I meant, at least not now.”

“Still, my point wasn’t to show plot but style, not to move forward in the story but to remain stagnant, not to—”

“Look, I can’t talk about it. You’re holding me up, and I have to hustle. I’m in fact going to run.”

“Because your wife’s in labor?”

“What do you think?”

“Was this the first time she called to say she was having contractions?”

“Yes.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry. I know something about it and the first time or two is usually a false alarm. It was with my mother when she had me and my older brother and my younger sisters, but the last two she didn’t overreact on. False alarms all four times. I think they call them false contractions.”

“She’s had those false contractions for months.”

“I didn’t mean false contractions. I know what those are too. But false alarms. Or false labor. When the contractions can actually be timed. With the false contractions they can’t be timed — the stomach just stiffens up. So I wouldn’t run if I were you because sooner you get home, sooner you’ll probably want to go to the hospital. And I bet after the doctors examine her they’ll send her home. That’s what they did with my mother the first two times till she learned. And my older brother’s wife too. But only once with her. A week after she went to the hospital with that false alarm or false labor, she got real labor pains and that’s when the hospital admitted her. She lost the baby though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It practically devastated her. My brother took it badly but okay. Anyway, I hope I got my point across before about this thing,” waving his manuscript. “That my story wasn’t supposed to move forward at all. It was supposed to—”

“I know. It’s clear to me now. And if you don’t mind I’m going to go.”

“Not at all. I hope I haven’t detained you too long.”

“To tell you the truth, Gene — yes, why not? To tell you the truth I’m kind of surprised that — well, just that I think you have kind of a nerve detaining me as long as you have and I’ve been kind of stupid or remiss or something in letting you.”

“I don’t think that’s fair. What did I do? Actually, if you take what I’ve said about labor pains seriously, I’m probably stopping you both from rushing to the hospital and then being sent right home.”

“Stopping us? Hey babe, maybe my wife is in pain right now, did you ever think of that?”

“I’m sure she isn’t, if these are her first contractions, but I’m sorry — you should go. And I just hope this isn’t going to affect your attitude to me in class and my grade.”

“You know what I think about grades in my class.”

“Then just your attitude to me.”

“I don’t see how it can’t, but I’ll try not to let it.”

“Thank you, because I didn’t mean any harm. And I certainly don’t have anything but the greatest respect for you as a teacher and also as a—”

“Forget your respect and telling me how much you have. You know what I think about that too.”

“Right. ‘Don’t you praise me, let me just praise you.’ A bit onesided perhaps, but I’m sure your line of reasoning in that area is valid and very fair. But could I — as long as we’re thrashing it out — mention one more thing about my story and then let you go?”

“What are you—”

“It’s a minor point. You said at the end of your critique — and I appreciate every one of them, especially for their thoroughness, despite what I’ve said about anything else here — that my story has no ending. I think I discussed with you in our last conference that one of my principles, if you like, about my writing is not to write stories with endings. That life — though we as creatures die — has no ending, and that stories, when I finish them — ah, let’s scrap that ‘life’ business for the time being, since it’s weighing it down too much and I think complicating my argument unnecessarily. Just that my stories or longer fictions have no endings, period. I just don’t like the contrivance of endings and I doubt I’ll ever write—”

I take his story from him. He points to the second page of my critique and says “Right here you said it.”

“Do you have a copy of this original?”

“This is the copy of the original. You told us to make at least one — that you wouldn’t be responsible for losing a manuscript turned in, though you’ve never lost one in four years of teaching.”

“You know where the original is?”

“Sure, in my writing desk, why? What are you going to do, tear this copy up?”

“That’s right, I am.” I tear it in half and throw it in the air. “Did I make my point or do I have to go after your pen and pad?”

“Sloppy,” he says, looking at the pieces on the ground. “Who do you think picks them up, God? An angel? Hardworking workmen pick them up. Or concerned passerbys, if we’re lucky, who don’t like seeing messes like this blowing all over the campus. It’s unaesthetic.” He picks up the half still stapled and some of the other pieces. I grab the stapled half from him and tear it into smaller pieces and stick half of them into my jacket pocket and try stuffing the other half into his shirt pocket.

“What are you doing?” he says, pushing my hand away. “You’re crazy, did you know that? I’m dropping out of your class.”

“Good,” and I walk away.

“Besides all that, I hope your wife has a very safe delivery.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say without turning around, and start running the five blocks to my apartment building. I’m three blocks from it when a bicycle pulls up beside me and continues moving at my speed.

“I had to steal this bike to catch up with you,” he says. “I’ll get it back before the owner finds out. Stupid guy, just had a chain wrapped around it with no lock.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?” I say, still running.

“It’s a man’s bike. But you’re probably right. A writer should be an acute observer of the most seemingly trivial things in life, you once said, but also shouldn’t make summary judgments or general statements in his fiction without providing the reader with the correct facts.”

“‘Correct facts’? ‘Summary judgments’? No, no. Again, you either misquoted me to some incredible degree or are mixing me up with another teacher. Anyway, I’m going to stop saying things that sound anything like a quote or maxim or whatever if students are going to start repeating me.”

“That’s what I like about you and the way you teach — that you don’t pretend to know all the time why things in writing work. That’s what everyone likes about you in class.”

“Good. Look, you stole a bicycle, so it must be important what you have to say.”

“I wanted to apologize to you. I can understand why you tore up my story, and I don’t want to drop out of your class.”

“Tearing it up was dumb of me — overwrought, sensational; and you want to stay, fine, stay.”

“Do you know if it’s a girl or boy yet?”

“No.”

“I thought because of your age and your wife’s you would have had an amniocentesis done.”

“We did but didn’t want to know the sex.”

“While your doctor knows? That’s interesting. But I can also understand why you wouldn’t, though I’d want to know.”

“Hey. It’s difficult to talk and run at the same time. And even if I’m going at a good speed, I think I could run faster if you weren’t right next to me and scaring me that at any moment you’ll lose control of a bike you’re unfamiliar with and swerve into me.”

“How about if I pace you then? I’ll stay a few feet in front and in that way provide a service to your getting home sooner.”

“I’d feel safer if I did it alone.”

“Okay. Just wanted to be helpful. And if I haven’t said it a million times, I think you’re a terrific writer, Mr. Taub, whatever I think of your teaching — which is good but not as good as your writing. And much luck to you and your wife — if not today, if you don’t have the baby, then whenever when.”

“Thank you.” I wave. He turns around.

I reach the building, run up the three flights and unlock the front door. “Magna?”

“In here.” She’s in the kitchen making a pesto sauce in the blender. Big pot of water’s coming to a boil on the stove. “Salad’s already prepared, though you might want to do a dressing.”

“What’s this? Contractions stopped?”

“No. Here.” She points to her lips and I kiss them. “Since we probably won’t have to leave for hours, I thought you should have dinner. I can’t. Then we might even read or you read to me, and if the contractions still aren’t regular, we’ll go to sleep and see what happens.”

“Great, fine, but I thought we had to go to the hospital now.

And I’m sorry, I would’ve been here much sooner, but this student — Gene Kyplie? — I’ve mentioned him before.”

“‘Big mouth Gene’?”

“I can’t believe this kid. Today he—”

Phone rings. “If it’s one of our parents,” she says, “say nothing. That I’m okay, everything’s the same — resting now — but let’s not tell them things have started or they’ll never stop worrying.”

“Got you.” I run to my workroom. “Hello?”

“It’s Gene. How is Mrs. Taub?”

“She’s fine.”

“I was thinking. If you need a ride to the hospital — and I’m not saying on a stolen bicycle — or feel too nervous to do the driving yourself, I could—”

“We’re not leaving yet.”

“False labor?”

“No, seems real enough. Just that we’re going to spend the first hours of it at home.”

“That’s smart. That’s what my mother did with my two sisters. Why go unless the contractions are coming regularly? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll just get bored to death there and then have to come home, just as I said. It’s going to be a long haul. The first one always is. But let me give you my phone number in case you do need a driver. I can drive you in your car or mine. I’m only a five-minute walk to your place, and by car, less than two.”

“Gene, we’ll be all right. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.”

“No problem. You’ve been more than thoughtful to me in class. And your long written critiques and some of the office discussions we’ve had—”

“Good, I’m glad, but I have to go.”

“Before you do may I ask one more thing? I mean, since there’s no emergency now.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about my story. Is it okay to speak of it now?”

“Go ahead. One thing. What?”

“You once said that every first line of a story should get the reader right into the story. Should sort of pull him right in. That’s the same thing, I realize. But you said the first line should usually be brisk, brief, with almost no adjectives if we can help it, and be something like the first line of a news story. To get the how, why, what—”

“I didn’t say like a news story. I said—”

“Anyway, it’s been one of the greater points of our disagreement. Since you also said that there are no rules to writing except one which really isn’t a rule and that’s to write as well and as honestly and uncompromisingly as one can. Terif. I go along with that. What’s not to? So why the rules that a story must have an ending and that the first line should get the reader right into the story? Because don’t believe and never have and maybe I never will, though I admit I’ll change some of my attitudes about writing in the future and maybe this will be one of them, that a story should grab the reader from the start. I believe the first line should show the style of the writing rather than the content of the story. Should stamp the writer’s mark on the page rather than the narrator’s. Should say to the reader ‘Okay, pal — or enemy, or whatever you are to me — I the writer—’”

“I got to go, Gene. Seriously, something’s changed. My wife, she just came into the room and — oh my God, she’s having the baby right now. Hold it, honey, wait — there, my arms are out, let it come — push, push — holy God, I can see the head.”

“If your arms are out — since one of your other big points about writing is plausibility, something else I can argue against strongly — how are you able to hold the receiver?”

“Lots of ways. It could be one of those receiverless phones you can talk to from any place in the room. But it’s between my shoulder and neck — how could you have missed that? — and now — hold it, Gene. — Okay, honey, here comes another contraction. Push, push — one more should do it — got it. What do you know, a boy. What do you want to name it? Gene? Nah, I don’t like that name. Here, let’s get the mucous out of its nose and mouth before we do anything. There — great — and sponge its top and then in a blanket and under the light bulb to keep it warm. Want me to bite through the cord now?”

“I’d wash its eyes first. That’s almost the first thing they do after the birth — to prevent infection, I think.”

“Right. Eyes. Clean. And boy he’s a big beaut. I’d say around nine pounds. And why don’t I like the name Gene? You relaxed now? Yeah, baby’s just fine. Well, you know, you just about always associate the name you’re going to give your kid with the people in the past who had it, and I once had a Gene in my class — that right, the—”

“I’m still in your class. I haven’t dropped out but I am thinking of it again, though it wouldn’t be the courageous—”

“Well, this kid Gene — all right, not a kid — a student — was kind of a pest. Not just extrapolating too much in class and hogging a lot of the talk. But lauding me one minute, damning me the next. And on the students’ evaluation reports of their teachers last year — for the course guide they publish for themselves? I got one comment that was so nasty and cheap — that I was only in teaching for the money? Remember that one? ‘Mr. Taub says he can’t teach writing, that we can only teach ourselves. So why is he at this university then? I’ll tell you.’ That my chairman wanted to speak to me about it, because he said one of the deans had called him — not that I gave a goddamn — and you know who I think wrote that report?”

“I hope you’re not saying it was me. I know who wrote it — or at least have two good possibilities, since I think it was a combined effort — but I of course can’t give their names.”

“Not only that, this kid Gene likes to take his shoes off in class, and he doesn’t wear socks. And he occasionally picks his toes or plays with them during most of the class, which wouldn’t be so bad if he sat at the other end of the table — bad for me I mean — but he always sits a seat or two away from me. I’ve hated this habit of his but never said anything. Okay, I’ve given plenty of reasons why it can’t be that name, so enough complaining. And baby’s nice and comfy now. Cord’s neatly tied, face and body thoroughly sponged. He’s as clean and healthy as can be. What a kid. Want to feed him now?”

“I don’t think your wife will have much luck feeding him so soon, with a bottle or by more natural means. And what about the placenta? Has it come out yet? If it hasn’t at the next contraction you should get her to push.”

“The placenta, honey. Has it come out yet?”

“You’d know if it had. It looks like the raw horsemeat they feed the lions in the zoo. I was there when my mother had my youngest sister. I watched the entire delivery — special permission for siblings sixteen years and over — she was a change of life baby, in case you’re wondering — and my parents also told the doctor I was pre-premed. And she couldn’t feed Ramona for two days, till the milk came. Even after that it was rough for weeks.”

Magna’s standing by the door. “What are you yelling about a placenta for? Who’s that?”

“Gene you-know-who. Here, take the baby and see if it will feed, honey,” and lodging the receiver between my shoulder and neck, I pretend to give her a baby.

“Are you really talking to a student that way? You don’t want him to think you’re insane. You shouldn’t get so close to your students. Dinner will be ready in three minutes. Spaghetti’s already in and you like it al dente.”

“Make it softer tonight.”

She leaves. “But you were saying about me, Mr. Taub?” Gene says.

“Whatever it was, I got to go. Nice talking to you.”

“But if you had the baby and she’s feeding it or is trying to, you have time to talk a few more moments, right?’”

“About your work?”

“More about the principles involved in writing and technique overall. Because, quite truthfully, not once have I ever fully agreed with a thing you’ve said about technique, as much as I admire—”

“Oh stop that nonsense and leave me alone. I’m busy and I wish you’d see that and I shouldn’t have joked around with you on the phone in the first place and I’m hanging up now, Gene.”

“Oh say, a real conclusion. A hanging-up. My teacher is going to hang up on me. What finality.”

“Not on you. I’m simply putting the receiver down. My dinner’s ready. I’m very hungry.”

“You’re right and I guess I have taken enough of your time. Too much, probably. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Sure.”

“And my offer still stands, despite all the things that went between us. You need a driver of your car or someone to drive you in his car—”

“You return the bicycle?”

“Yes, why?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t want you to get in trouble or the bicycle owner to think his or her bike was stolen.”

“Very kind of you. You were always a very kind guy. You always have something nice to say about everyone’s work in class. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but there it is. And come to think of it, since we do disagree so strongly about the principles of writing and because I did take you already for one term, maybe I should drop out of the class while I still have time.”

“Maybe that’s a good idea. Do what you think best.”

“You do want me to drop, though, don’t you?”

“No, you’re okay. You cause a little excitement in class that I kind of like. And also having you there as an adversary sort of my countering your ideas as much as you countering mine. Something like that. You can understand if I’m not too articulate tonight.”

“I don’t know if I like being used in class like that.”

“You aren’t, entirely. Listen—”

“And if you really didn’t like my playing with my toes, as you called it, why didn’t you just say so? I’m not addicted to the practice.”

“I was hoping someone else would before me. But the class is too damn tolerant.”

“Except for me.”

“Dinner’s on the table,” Magna says at the door.

“That was my wife. She says the placenta’s ready to come out but she wants to do it in the bathroom where it’ll make less of a mess than in this room. So, must go, Gene. Goodbye.”

“I’ll wear socks from now on and won’t take my shoes off once. I’m staying in your class, in other words. I also like the exchange of ideas we have and—”

“Anything you want.” I hang up.

“You okay?” I say to Magna.

“No, there’s another one,” holding her stomach. She looks at her watch. “The last three have come more regularly. I think we should go soon. First eat up. You’ll need the food. I’ll be resting in the bedroom.”

I walk her to the bedroom, then go to the dining room and start eating. Phone rings. “I’m not going to answer it, Magna,” I yell out. “Don’t answer it either.” Phone keeps ringing.

“I’m all right enough to get it,” she yells back and she goes down the hallway, picks up the receiver, says “No, Professor Taub can’t be disturbed, Gene. He’s eating the placenta and it’s bad luck to stop the father in the middle of that rite…I’m feeling fine, Gene, thank you, and you’re wrong — I’m telling the absolute truth.”

Wheels

A man wheels his child. Wheels or pushes? he thinks. She’s in the stroller and he wheels her to the shopping mall about a half mile from his apartment house. At the supermarket in the mall he’ll get a quart of skim milk for his wife and the green can of Similac and food for tonight and deli for lunch and fruit and cellophane tape she said she needed and bran muffins and low-fat cottage cheese and the pint or quart container of yogurt, depending on how heavy he thinks the total load will be, and also something to cook for the cats for the next few nights she said, turkey legs if they have, turkey wings she knows they always have. He’s also to pick up the prints at the camera shop at the mall. His wife said they’re mostly of his daughter alone or with his wife’s mother when she was here last weekend. If the weather holds he’ll then wheel her to the little park near the mall for a half hour to an hour. He’ll carry the food and photos in the canvas bag he has her diapers and things and a complete clothes change in, while he pushes the stroller with one hand. Every block or so he’ll switch hands. He’ll sit on the bench in the shade if it’s available. If it’s not, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, since it’s been available since he’s gone to that park to sit on it, and it’s the only bench in the shade there and he doesn’t like to sit in the sun. If the baby sleeps while he sits, he’ll read. If the baby isn’t asleep by the time they get to the park and doesn’t fall asleep soon after, he’ll play with her: stand her on his knees and on the bench seat, keep her, balanced as she stands and holds on to the top of the bench or tries to climb up the back slats, let her pull his handkerchief — which he’ll put there for that purpose — out of his shirt pocket or jingle his keys but not put them in her mouth, cradle her, make funny faces for her, show her the photos of herself — if they’re ready — to see how she’ll react to them, give her the teething ring to play with or chew, hold her high under her arms and fly her down to his lips or to where their foreheads can touch, hold her not upside down but at a downward angle where the blood doesn’t suddenly rush to her head, so she can rip grass from the ground.

He looks down at her as he wheels her. She turns around, smiles at him, turns back around. She has on three layers of clothing. It’s sunny but a little cool, so he doesn’t think she’s overdressed. Her undershirt, stretchie, jogging outfit he supposes it could be called — looks just like the adult ones — and a sweater, but because only one button will stay buttoned, it could be too tight. So, four layers on top, three on the bottom. No, four there too if he counts the rubber pants, and he should since they can make her genital area very warm. Because two of these clothings don’t cover her from the top of her legs down, he doesn’t think the bottom part’s overdressed. But her shoulders are bunched up with clothing. Undershirt and probably the jogging jacket under the sweater must have inched up and she looks humpbacked from behind. She also has a baseball cap on. He bought it yesterday in the variety store in the mall, sewed it smaller in back and cut off the “Little Slugger” patch over the peak. “They had no pink baseball caps,” he told his wife and then a couple of people in their apartment building who commented on a blue cap for a girl, “and the red ones they had,” he only told his wife, “didn’t come in size small or they were all out of them.” He didn’t ask. He should have perhaps — red would have been better — but he doesn’t like to ask sales people for things he can’t see or find. Then they go through drawers and display cases or into the stockroom and usually come up with nothing and he always apologizes for their efforts. His wife liked the cap but said “People will say this proves you wanted a boy,” which would be untrue; he just wanted a safe delivery and a healthy child. So he bought the last size — small blue cap because neither his wife nor he liked the typical sunbonnet or baby’s white hat.

But her clothes bunched up in back. It reminds him of his father when he wheeled him through Central Park. He lived with his folks then and wheeled his father almost every mild Saturday and Sunday through various parts of the park. Sometimes across it — they lived in the West Seventies — to the Metropolitan Museum and once to the Whitney. His father didn’t like the paintings there but did the elevator—”Nice and big,” his hands and expression said, “—never saw such a big elevator in my life.” “It’s for the paintings,” he told him. “Oh,” his father’s expression said, impressed. And the Jewish Museum, but it was closed because it was Saturday. “Should’ve known,” he probably told him because he really should have known, and if he did say something like that, his father probably raised his shoulders signifying “No big deal.” And the Guggenheim — maybe on that same day because the two museums are so close — but his father got scared at the top of the ramp where the elevator let them off, gestured that Will might look too intently at one of the paintings and forget the chair he was holding and it could roll out of control, so they took the next elevator down, looked at some prints on the ground floor and left. “You want to try to get our admission price back?” his father gestured, and Will either shook his head or said no.

But his daughter’s cap from behind. His father wore what he called a fishing cap, though he never fished in his life. “I eat fish, I don’t fish,” he used to say when he could still speak. Beige, perforated, a long peak, when the cap wore out he always bought the same exact kind. There was a store near his office that had been selling that cap for forty years. When his father had to give up his office because of his illness, Will went downtown to buy him that cap. So both sports caps for nonparticipants in those sports and both to keep out the sun. Their hair’s similar also. Very fine and thin and light. His father had little hair — he was bald on top — but the sparse side hair was almost white by this time. His daughter is blonde and doesn’t have much hair either. She’s not bald — just that it’s thin and fine and only grown two to three inches. It’s also the way she’s slumped. She’s in the sitting rather than the reclining position of the stroller — a Maclaren Buggy, English, very sturdy and safe. Except when he hung the canvas bag filled with groceries on the handles, which the Maclaren instructions advised not to — the stroller isn’t built to support such a weight on the handles; it falls backwards. It fell over twice with her in it. Once she hit the back of her head on the sidewalk. There was no bump or bruise but he was scared that day that she might have been hurt worse than she seemed. She cried for several minutes, didn’t smile for an hour. He observed her carefully the whole day for signs of a concussion. At night he got up several times to make sure she was all right. He does that occasionally — every second to third night — but that night did it every couple of hours. Touched her temples, felt her forehead and hands for warmth, held his hand an inch over the back of her head to feel the body heat, listened for breathing and movement. He told his wife about the accident. Not the first one, since their daughter wasn’t hurt. But he did the second time so she wouldn’t put anything heavy on the handles. He should have figured that out after the first fall, but he didn’t. Also told her so she’d observe their daughter for any signs of illness. His wife said she’d never hang anything heavy on the handles. “The instructions said specifically not to. It can’t support too much extra weight there. I asked you to read the instructions when we bought it.” He didn’t and still hasn’t, not that he knows where they are now, though she might. She puts lots of things like that away, also the cartons that things like strollers come in, in case they have to be sent or brought back. When they lived in her apartment in New York they didn’t have the room to. But he knows how to open and close the stroller in seconds, and what else could go wrong with it?

But she’s in the sitting position. Canvas bag with her things and his book hanging on one of the handles. Seated like his father in the wheelchair, which only had one position. So both vehicles have handles he holds. And because she is in that position — less comfortable, it seems, and not as easy for her to be in as the reclining position — she has to use her backbone more to sit up — she slumps over a little to the side. As his father slipped to the side in his wheelchair. But he was always to one side or the other in the chair, never straight up for more than a few seconds. He didn’t have the strength to sit up. And both strapped in at the waist, she with a seatbelt that’s part of the stroller, his father with a thick terrycloth bathrobe belt that Will tied around him and the back of the chair. He’d press his father’s hand and say “Squeeze hard as you can,” just to see what his father’s strength was that day, and his father would usually give a little squeeze to almost none, then a look which said “Well, what can I do? Not the grip I had when I was pulling teeth all day.” Never a look though of “Boy, life is hell. Don’t ever grow old. Kill yourself or have someone do it for you if you ever get as sick as I. Plan for it ahead of time, in fact. Even put away over the years a lethal dose of sleeping pills for that day.”

His father liked the park better than the museums. Museums he tolerated because Will wanted some variety in these outings. But his father liked most of all to face the sun and just sit in his chair overlooking a big field or meadow, with Will on a bench beside him, and read the Times, which will put on his lap and turned the pages for him, or watch people playing and going by. If he made in his pants Will wanted to get him home fast as he could. That happened just about every time they went to the park. Sometimes when they passed a park restroom will said “Do you think you have to make one or two?” and his father usually nodded. “Which one?” and his father usually put his hand over his crotch. Will then wheeled him into the restroom and helped him urinate into the plastic urinal he brought along in a shopping bag with other things, which he then emptied into the toilet. Or stood him up, walked him into the stall and sat him on the toilet if it was clean. If it wasn’t he held him in a squatting position just above the seat. Then he wiped him, pulled up his pants and opened the stall door if there was one and sat him back into the chair. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes his father had already made by the time he got his zipper open or pants down. He never went out of his way to be near a park restroom. He knew where they all were in the park area they went to, so he could have easily directed them past one every time. Sometimes he thought men coming into the restroom would think they were perverts and he’d have to explain. He got angry at his father sometimes — usually late at night when his father was in bed — and shouted things like “I can’t clean up your crap again — it’s just not in me — can’t you hold it in till I get you on the toilet?” and then felt very bad over it and apologized. After the apology, his father usually nodded but never smiled. “Never again will I yell at him for anything,” he always told himself after, but a month or so later he shouted at or scolded his father for the same thing. But he thinks he did all right by his father then. He exercised him, fed and dressed him, was mostly soft-spoken and patient to him, helped give him showers and baths, injected him, massaged his feet and hands, shaved him and cut his hair, installed an intercom system between their bedrooms and any time at night his father seemed to need him — heavy breathing, groans — he was there in seconds. He did this for four years but his mother did three-quarters of the work.

That was his father those last years, now he’s with his daughter.

With both of them he always carried a book to read in the park. And the shopping bag and now the canvas bag. She’s so much easier to take care of than he was. Maybe cleaning up his father prepared him for cleaning up his daughter. Some men flinch at their child’s feces, not so much the piss, but he went right at it from the start. And just taking care of him — feeding, washing, wheeling — might have been a preparation too. His brother said that when he had to change his daughters when they shit, he tied a handkerchief around his nose, dabbed it with after-shave lotion, put on disposable plastic gloves and held his breath throughout most of it, but he still gagged every time Will gagged the first few times with his father and a few times after when his bowel movements were especially messy or large, but his reaction to his daughter’s excrement isn’t much different if she pisses or shits. He checks her diapers every half an hour if she’s awake and he’s alone with her. If she’s wet or has shit he tends to it methodically, even if he has to change her on a changing pad on top of a park bench; though her shit is more difficult to take care of, as he has to shake and rub it off the diaper in a flushing toilet bowl and then squeeze the diaper with the same hand so it doesn’t drip.

He kneels in front of her and checks her diaper. “You dry, honey, you dry,” in the black dialect he often affects when he tells her this. She’s looking at his hand inside her diaper and then turns her head back to the workers and machines doing street repairs. “Ah my little chee-choo,” and kisses the top of her head and smooths back her hair. Her eyes look up at him, blink from sun. She twists around as if she’s going to suddenly get cranky, which she does sometimes when the sun’s in her eyes or he’s wheeling her and stops awhile.

He gets behind the stroller and wheels her. He feels sad again because of the way she looks from behind. Humpbacked, strapped in — he should have pulled down the bunched-up clothing underneath. He still could but she’ll get cranky again if he stops and maybe cry. Get so cranky he might have to hold her the rest of the way to the mall and then inside. Maybe he didn’t pull the clothing down because something in him is enjoying the sadness. And the baseball cap. He should have bought a sun bonnet instead. For one thing, it can be tied under her chin so she can’t take it off. So far today she hasn’t, but she likes to drop it on the ground and a few times he had to go a block back to find it. The cap looks like the kind a child wears who’s recovering from a brain operation — that could also be the cause of sadness. They’re almost at the mall. Skim milk, Similac, cottage cheese, yogurt, other things — some of them not food — he should have made a list as his wife said. But what he forgets today he’ll get tomorrow when he wheels her there. He doesn’t mind going to it. It’s a cheerful enough place and designed with some expense involved and with a little style. Small, as malls go, with several services they use, since it’s the closest shopping center or really shopping anything to their street. Dry cleaners-tailor where one can also get keys made. Stationer, classical record store, drugstore, twin movie theaters they’ve never gone to because they don’t trust anyone to babysit yet and a restaurant they’ll never go to because it’s an all-you-can-eat place for $4.79. And an optician he did use when his daughter twisted is glasses’ temples out of shape. She loves to grab glasses off of faces and has a grip that’s not easy to break. But he’s sad. The similarities, etcetera. Her back and his. His father was round-shouldered, probably from bending over patients for fifty years. And while he’s thinking about which mall entrance to use, he starts to cry. He did all he possibly could for him but it wasn’t enough. His penitent look whenever Will rushed out of the apartment shouting “I’ve got to take a walk around the block.” He takes out a handkerchief and wipes his eyes. And as long as it’s out, leans over the stroller to see if he can do anything for his daughter with it and wipes the little drool at the side of her mouth. He couldn’t have done more for him. It just wasn’t possible at the time. Still, he did a lot. His daughter he does more for than he maybe should. Maybe it’d be better to let her be more independent — try things out more — than he does. But he loves holding her, doing all these things for her, feels awful and sometimes unreasonably irresponsible when she falls or pulls something down on herself and is hurt. He liked doing many things for his father also, and by doing them helping out his mother with him, but it was so much tougher.

He’s all right now, not crying, eyes dried, and wheels her inside the mall to the photo shop. He says to the salesperson “Excuse me, but I think my prints are ready,” and holds out his stub. She looks at it, doesn’t take it, says “Last name?” he says “Taub,” and she goes through a box of envelopes and pulls one out. She rings up $8.28 on the cash register, he gives her a ten and she gives him the envelope and change. The shop seems hot and he looks down. His daughter’s sleeping. He wheels her into the public corridor where it’s cooler, parks the stroller along a wall so nobody will run over it and takes the prints out of the envelope. His wife took them all. It’s still too warm for his daughter and he very carefully, since she can use the nap, unzips her jogging jacket and takes off the cap. Two are of him holding her. He doesn’t look good in photos anymore. He used to be considered good-looking, but he’s got too jowly, put on too much weight, lost too much hair, even the neck flesh has loosened. He’s going to tell his wife “No more photos of me in any pose.” She’ll say something like “Not even with your daughter? She’ll want them when she’s older and your mother likes to get them now.” “I just don’t want to be photographed. Pictures of people should be taken of the very interesting, pretty or young.” He doesn’t necessarily believe that but if he has to he’s going to say it. He doesn’t like to look this old or bad. If he has to he’s going to say that too.

The rest of the thirty or so photos are of his daughter alone, in the baseball cap with the peak snapped up, with the peak down but in back, reaching for the tail of one of the cats, three of her sleeping outside in the stroller with the baby blanket up to her neck, about ten of them with her grandmother — his wife’s mother: grabbing for her glasses, snagging them, waving them in the air, hugging them to her chest, two of her sucking on one of the temples’ ends, several with her grandmother trying to get the glasses back, one of her holding his daughter with one arm while lowering herself to pick the glasses off the ground, another of her putting them back on and his daughter reaching for them. There aren’t any of his wife because her mother says she doesn’t know how to take pictures and Will didn’t go with them on that walk. He’s not going to tell his wife that while he was wheeling his daughter to the mall he thought about his father — that it started when he looked down at her from behind. He doesn’t think she’ll like him comparing their daughter to his father. From everything she’s heard about him, and most of these things were told by Will and his brother and mother and others in a flattering or at least nondisparaging way—”He had a good sense of humor though maybe he told the same joke or made the same sardonic riposte too many times”; “He didn’t take guff from anyone unless there was some money to be made”; “He was a happy-go-lucky guy so long as things were going his way”; “People confided in him and came to him for advice, though a lot of it was on how to get away with something they didn’t earn or deserve”; “He liked to pair off his unmarried patients, but got a little miffed if in the end there wasn’t something like a new suit in it for him”; “He was a devoted son and brother”; “He was a diamond in the rough”; “His friends usually came before his family”; “He truly believed that it mostly wasn’t what you know but who you know”; “He loved to beat the system, often just for the fun of it, and to pull the wool over what he thought were pompous people’s eyes”; “Maybe because of the poor home and tough environment and times he came out of, but he was what you’d consider cheap, when it wasn’t throwing around money for show, and also felt he had to keep working till he dropped, ten hours a day, six days a week, fifty weeks a year”—she doesn’t think he was a very tender, sensitive, scrupulous, well-meaning, fatherly man. But it’ll be more the morbidness of the comparisons that’ll annoy her. Healthy young child, sick old man. That he has to think morbidly. That these rather than healthier ideas come to him when he’s wheeling their daughter. He still might tell her. At the dinner table tonight or after they shut the bedroom light and are about to fall asleep. During these times he often doesn’t know what he’s going to say to her. The dinner talk sometimes comes because he can’t stand the silence there too long so he’ll reflect on the interesting events that happened or sights he saw or thoughts that occurred to him that day. And in bed late at night because he’s just too sleepy to restrain himself, so things he never thinks he’ll tell her will suddenly pop out.

Reversal

She cries, he listens. She cries, he puts down the newspaper, takes a quick sip of coffee, goes to her room and listens. She cries, he goes inside and says “Hey-y-y; Kitzie, Kitzie, it’s okay, I’ll take care of you in a second.” He raises the shade. It’s starting to get light. She cries, he turns around and says “Oh-h-h, what’s wrong, my little sweetheart?” She’s on her back, crying, looking at him, one hand rubbing an eye, covers are off, she’s worked her way to one of the far corners of the crib, other hand clutches a railing bar. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” and he grabs her under the waist, she arches her back, he lifts her up slowly till she lets go of the bar, holds her to his chest, her chin rests on her shoulder, he kisses her neck and back of her head and says “Good morning, my little baby, but why you up so early?”

She’s quiet. He goes into the bathroom with her, grabs one of her little wash rags off the shower curtain rod, runs the hot water tap till it’s warm, puts the rag under it, takes it out and squeezes it, carries her into her room and puts her on the changing board on his wife’s work table. She starts crying. “It’s all right, I’m going to make you comfy now, honey.” He wipes the tears off her face, unsnaps her stretchie. She cries louder, whines. “What is it, what is it?” He makes clicking sounds with his mouth, she stops crying, stares at him. “Click-click,” he says. “Click-click. Let me see you go click-click too.” She’s been imitating his clicking sounds lately and he thinks it’s the sweetest thing she’s done so far. She doesn’t now. “For daddy?” Click-click, his mouth makes. Click-click. Click-click. She stares at him, stretches, yawns. “Da-da,” he says, “da-da — no?” He pulls her legs out of the stretchie, takes off her rubber pants and the safety pins. She starts crying and he says “Why, what’s wrong, baby? It’s okay,” and she stops crying and smiles. He raises her bottom by holding her feet up in one hand, slips the double diapers out from under her, sets her down, keeps one hand on her chest so she won’t roll off the changing board to the floor, drops the wet diapers into the diaper pail and closes it. He cleans her with one hand and moves his face nearer to hers and holds her head. “Hi, Kitzie, remember me? Now it’s better, isn’t it? Sticky old smelly diapers off and your little butt clean?” She smiles. He rubs her nose with his, kisses her neck, cheek, forehead, keeps their faces cheek to cheek. “Ah, my little Chickie. Daddy loves you so much. I’ll get you all fixed up and then mama will feed you.” She squeals, blubbers, tries to flip over, smiles, laughs. “Ga-ga if not da-da,” he says. “Da,” she says. “Da-da, da-da.” he says. “Da,” she says. “Close.”

He gets a clean diaper off the pile on a chair, dries her off with it. In twenty years or so — folding the clean diaper on the table to put under her — she’ll be looking at my dead body I bet. As I look down at her, she’ll be looking down at me. Twenty to thirty years, but the way I drink and have drank and run myself down for so many years, I wouldn’t say more. Fifty-eight, sixty-eight, seventy-eight — sure. She’ll be a young pretty woman then. I hope so. I hope no disfiguring sickness for her. No sickness or very little, unusually little. Or just normal and very little pain throughout her life: physical, emotional. I’ll be in a coffin. I’ll have said — weeks, months — before I died, that I want to be cremated, but something got screwed up. Or I am cremated, nothing got screwed up. But I’m on a hospital bed and have just died. She’ll be beside the bed with her mother. Another daughter or son? Perhaps. One two or three years younger than she, but that’s all the children, and he or she will be in some other state or country, couldn’t get back in time or just couldn’t be reached. So just she and her mother. They were there, I died, they were asked to leave the room for a few minutes, were called back in, I’ve been cleaned and the tubes have been taken out of me, bed’s been made, sheet up to my neck, eyes closed when perhaps when I died they weren’t, they look down at me, one’s holding the other around the waist, a nurse or aide or both stand behind them in case one or both of them fall, she and her mother are crying, she bends down and kisses my forehead and cheek, maybe even my lips, takes my hand, bends down again and kisses my fingertips, says “I think I’ve said my goodbye — do you want to be alone with dad for a little while?” her mother says “Maybe longer,” she asks the nurse or aide or both if they would leave her mother alone in the room, she and the hospital people start to leave, at the door she turns and looks back at me, studies my face, closes her eyes, stays still for about a minute, says something to herself, leaves without opening her eyes on me again, quietly shuts the door.

He pins the other side of the diaper and tries to get her rubber pants on. She squirms, turns over on her stomach and grabs the vaseline jar with both hands. He says “No, now please, honey, let me finish changing you,” and grabs the jar out of her grip and puts it at the end of the table. He turns her over on her back. She cries. “But sweetheart, all I want to do is to get your suit on — then fool around all you want. I’ll give you back your jar.” He kisses her feet. She doesn’t smile. Usually she does when he kisses or nibbles at her feet. He pulls up the rubber pants, makes sure to get them over the diaper at the waist and legs, sticks her legs into the stretchie, starts snapping her up. She’s stopped crying, reaches for his nose. He bends down so she can reach it. She pulls it, gets a finger inside his nostril and scratches it. “Ouch,” and he takes her finger out of his nose, holds that hand and looks at it. He’ll have to get his wife to cut these nails. No, he’ll do it. Watching her cut them so many times, he should know how by now. He kisses her hand. She smiles, big wide grin. “Ah, I love when you smile like that, little Kitzie.” He kisses her cheek. “That’s just the twentieth of your minimal thousand kisses from me today.” He picks her up, she rests her head on his shoulder, suddenly lifts her head and looks behind her at the window when the pane rattles, rests her head on his shoulder again. He kisses her ear, pats her bottom, looks outside. It’s much lighter. He wants to get back to his coffee and newspaper.

He brings her in to his wife. “Hi,” she says. She’s in bed, covers off, unsnapping a flap of her nursing bra, pushes both cats off the bed to make room for the baby. He sets the baby down beside her, rests her head on the pillow, says “How’d you sleep?” “Well,” she says, “and you?” “Not so hot. Had some bad dreams. No problem though.” “Maybe you should drink a little less wine at night or not so close to when you go to sleep.” “Maybe that’s it. I squeezed some orange juice for you. I’ll bring it in.” “Thanks, love,” she says. “Hiya, darling,” she says, bringing her breast to the baby’s face.