He’s definitely coming back to France with me. I agree to pay his way. We’ll take a drive-away cross-country and try for a charter cancellation or standby in New York. I don’t really want to take up Joan’s offer to pay the fare. They don’t have any more money than we do.
I call AAA CON. The guy there says they have four cars going out the next day and we can have our pick. I’ve driven cars for them before so they have me on their records.
I drive Mom’s car to Marty’s and say goodbye. I ask Marty to phone Mom once or twice a week and not to visit Dad. It’s just too depressing and she’s so vulnerable.
That night, Billy sleeps in the garden bedroom and I sleep in the crib. I have a tough time getting Mom down. She keeps sniffling and shuffling around the house.
She still feels I’m wrong to leave her and she’s scared to be alone. On the other hand, when she’s rational, she knows I can’t stay. I don’t know if she wanders around anymore after two o’clock because I’m asleep.
23
When we turn up the Hills’ walk, Rita’s standing at the door. She has a telegram in her hand. I think of Jacky racing out to me in the cold of the Morvan. I’m as vulnerable this time as I was then. My temptation is to run; run up and take the telegram or turn and run away.
I stop. Billy, who’s close behind, almost bumps into me. I continue slowly, walking.
“This arrived just after you left; it’s from California.”
I don’t know why I open it there on the steps. Rita moves back inside the door; Billy stands beside me. It’s easy to read: yellow, not blue; A.T.&T. printout, not handwriting.
JULY 7
DAD DIED TODAY STOP FUNERAL FRIDAY STOP WIRE FLIGHT STOP
LOVE JOAN
I hand the telegram to Billy.
“Your grandfather died, Bill. We have to go back.”
It’s as much as I can get out.
I walk past Rita, through the Hills’ house, out the back door and into their yard. I cry. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard in my life. Men don’t usually cry well and I’m as bad or worse than most. I’m crying without thinking. I stand in the back of their yard against the wall and cry till I vomit.
I’m crying for many reasons, mostly various forms of self-pity. I’m crying the way the boy in that Hemingway story “Bimini” cried. His big fish got away after he came so close. My Dad got away. I didn’t have the guts, the courage, the persistence, the generosity to make those last few hard tugs and pull him in.
I’m crying, too, because I’m going to miss him personally, not be able to hear his voice, see his distinctive moves, smell him, touch him again. He’s gone.
I’m crying because I’m scared. I’m scared of death. I’m afraid to be alone; in the logical sequence of time and events, I’m the next one to die.
These are some of the things I know I’m crying about; there are others; they’re not all so selfish. I’m crying for Mom, Joan, for Jacky, who will never know him, will remember him only as a name, not as a person. I’m crying for Vron, who loved Dad deeply. But more than anything else, I’m crying because a big part of me, my identity, will be gone.
I hear a sound and Rita’s behind me. I turn and we go into each other’s arms. She’s so tiny, smaller than Joan, smaller than Mom, but strong, so strong she holds me harder than I hold her. I’m going catatonic. I don’t want to leave this haven, this vaguely sexual source of strength and comfort. It’s a reverse union, her vital forces flowing into me, a dying tree gaining sustenance from mistletoe.
At last, I cry myself out. Rita leads me to the house, into the kitchen. We sit, embarrassed, exhausted. Pat’s still at school. Billy’s upstairs. But I can’t talk to her. When I try, I cry. She asks if she should make reservations for Los Angeles. I nod. It makes our car trip seem so futile.
The plane leaves at seven. Rita says she’ll drive us to the airport. She also wires Joan our flight number. Billy and I pack; we’re not talking much. He knows I’m not up to it and he seems withdrawn. He’s my nearest male relative now and I can’t touch him.
Rita gets us to the TWA terminal with half an hour to spare. The parking’s impossible, so she leaves us there. Billy and I hurriedly unload, wave and turn in to the airport; I’m feeling detached, unhooked, moving without thinking much.
We’re in line at the ticket counter before I realize Billy is distinctly dragging, is very upset about something. I pull myself together enough to ask what’s the trouble. He shakes his head, says it’s nothing. But as the line moves forward, he gets more restless. Finally he blurts it out.
“What do you think, Dad? Debby’s expecting me to meet her in Paris three days from now. Should I wait till we’re in California and send a telegram to American Express or call her parents from here; they might have an address. I was supposed to meet her on the point of the Ile de la Cité, where the weeping willow tree is. I hate to think of her waiting and me not coming.”
There are three people in front of us now.
“Do you really want to go to this funeral, Bill?”
He looks me in the eye, the first time since the telegram.
“Gosh, Dad! He’s your father; of course I’m coming! Nobody’d ever understand if I didn’t go to the funeral of my own grandfather.”
“I’d understand, Bill; so would your mother. My dad’s funeral is not your problem. I can cover for you in California.”
We’re down to two people.
“I’d hate letting you down like that, Dad.”
“That’s not the point. I wouldn’t want to go if I were in your place; I’d want to meet my girl under that tree. We’re next in line; make up your mind.”
“You’re sure about this?”
I nod. He smiles and puts out his hand. We shake. It’s the first time we’ve ever shaken hands. His hands are so much like mine, it’s like shaking hands with myself. I turn to the woman behind the desk and buy one ticket. There’s no trouble canceling Bill’s reservation. The plane is boarding in fifteen minutes; we go over to check in my baggage.
“Look, Bill, here’s four hundred bucks. It would cost that much flying you to California and back. See if you can find a charter cancellation or standby; I’ll bet you’ll land something for under a hundred bucks if you look around, especially as a student; that way you’ll have some money.”
I give him the four one-hundred-dollar bills we got from the lady at the whorehouse. Bill sees me to the flight gate and we shake again. We’re both hurrying things, trying to get apart before it hits too hard.
I walk through miles of red-carpeted narrow halls with low ceilings. I feel better inside. For once, I’ve let go in time.
Bill’s childhood is finished. Maybe, as a privileged spectator, I can project forward into the life he’ll lead. My time with Dad is over; our relationship is made, inside, wrapped up for good.
I go through the whole astronaut-like, artificial, controlled movements of getting into an airplane: stowing hand luggage, squeezing into a seat beside the window, hooking up the seat belt. They pass out earphones and I adjust myself into them. I want to destroy the next five or six hours, let them happen. I want to become an object, human freight, being carried at high cost over a large distance. I’m in the non-smoking section at a window in front of the wing. It’s my favorite place and the plane is only half full. There’s nobody sitting near me.
We take off. It’s a good feeling just to separate from the earth. After the original acceleration, I feel detached, gravity-less, dying in slow motion. There’s something special, releasing, about leaving the earth.
I look down. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is twisting through mountains. So recently, Billy and I fought each mile, crawling along, putting our lives in danger every minute, absorbed by the constant concentration, insecurity, responsibility. Now flying, gliding, thrusting, soaring over it is like death compared to life. I’m feeling removed, drifting effortlessly, without control.
I put my head against the plastic double window. My earp
hones are playing Mahler’s First Symphony. I’m hearing it now, but he wrote that music before Dad was born.
When they give me drinks, I drink; when they put down the food tray, I eat; but I’m out there in the clouds, part of Gustav Mahler’s convoluted elaborations on a French nursery song. When the film comes on, I succumb to the wishes of the flight attendant and close my shade, but leave a tiny crack I can still peek through. I watch the patterns of land as we fly across, long shadows pointing back, back to from where we’ve come, back to where, in the end, I hope to return.
The East Coast alluvial tidelands turn into the Appalachians; the Appalachians slide off into the Middle West, the flatness, the endless rows, the patterns of irrigation, the rectangular planted fields. Little of this was visible as we were furiously rushing through, surrounded on all sides by eye-level corn, wheat or grazing animals.
We come to the immense lifting of the Rocky Mountains: high, pink rock pushing up at us out of the earth. On the other side, we go through turbulence and thick clouds. It’s raining below.
I try putting some of it together, try to make some plan. I’m not ready to cope with what’s on the other side of the Los Angeles International Airport; LAX, in air terminology. It’s always seemed somehow descriptive of the Los Angeles style.
Here I am now, fifty-two years old and in good health. I have an intelligent, sane, loving wife, three fine children. I work at something I like and I’m good at it. Why is it I’m not running around smiling and laughing all the time?
I’m lucky, my reality closely resembles my dream in the probabilities available to me. Dad built his dream privately, split his life. Perhaps the probability Mom chose isn’t even possible. That could be her tragedy.
I’m still agonizing over Dad, the path of his life. I’m thankful for that brief, bright period, something none of us could have expected. I’m glad I was there; I hope I profited from it.
Maybe it’s time for me to start learning how to be old. If I’m lucky, I have about twenty years to do it.
Somehow, I’ve got to get myself ready to accept being weak, in pain, mentally debilitated, forgetful, less sensitive, less aware, inflexible, intolerant—a whole lot of things I definitely don’t want to be.
I need to prepare myself for the inevitable muffling walls slowly rising between myself and others; accept the decline in love by my children until, at best, there’s only tolerance. I need to absorb, without resentment, the hurt when my grown grandchildren feel violated by my most cherished values, while their ideas, in turn, will violate me.
I must get ready for the deaths of lifelong friends, relatives, the frequency increasing with time. I must also live with those who survive who will be boring, uninteresting. I shall watch Vron, Joan, Mario—my generation—degenerate.
And it will all be happening to me. I’ll become a bore to others, a drag in conversation, repeat myself, be slow at comprehension, quick at misunderstanding, have lapses in conceptual sequence. All this will probably be invisible to me. I won’t even be aware of my own decline. Like a snake’s belly, it will insinuate without any distinct, discernible steps.
Each morning, I’ll wake older. My measuring systems will be caught in the quantum squeeze. I’ll think the world has changed, is changing faster, that it’s becoming less enjoyable, less stimulating, less reasonable, and altogether less acceptable. Easy things will get hard and hard things impossible.
On the other hand, I must learn to take advantage of being old. Dad was a good example. I probably won’t have to work, do much of anything I don’t want to do. I can drop out of the chase for dominance, women, work, power, status. Practically no one will be dependent on me. For the first time since childhood, I can know something of freedom, freedom to be myself. I’ll probably sleep less, have more time for passive pleasures, daydreaming, thinking and, if my eyes and mind hold out, reading.
I’ll have time to meander over my life, relive good moments, restructure and try to integrate bad ones. And I hope I can consider something of death, have some insights into its seeming abruptness, irrevocability, see it as the source, the reason for life as we know it.
Knowing me, though, I’ll be doing my damnedest to put off all this. I don’t let go, give up, easily. This could make my getting old, dying, difficult. My desperation, “finger in the dike” mentality will get in the way. I’m already involved with meditation and Yoga. When I get back to France, I’m going to start jogging and running. I definitely should watch my diet.
I know the alternative to getting old is dying young, and I’m not ready for that either. Still, somehow I’ve got to learn to grow old before I’m too old to learn.
The deserts are pink and violet, long shadows making blue holes in the blankness. I have an image of Egypt, the land of the pharaohs, the tombs of kings. Thoughts I’ve never had about death come easily, looking down at this quiet desolation and passive landscape.
Now the massive Sierra Nevada Mountains reach up and we start falling, are pulled down; the motors change pitch and we enter the long gliding descent. I see housing developments laid out in simple patterns with turnabouts. There are azure and turquoise glimmers of swimming pools set in necklaces of houses.
Off in the distance is the ocean. A numbing calm envelops me. Somehow, I feel ready for it all.
Well, maybe some of it anyway.
About the Author
WILLIAM WHARTON is the pseudonym for the author of eight novels: Birdy, Dad, A Midnight Clear, Scumbler, Pride, Tidings, Franky Furbo, and Last Lovers. He has also written two memoirs, Ever After: A Father’s True Story and Houseboat on the Seine. Birdy won the American Book Award for best first novel when it was published in 1978, became a national bestseller, and was made into an award-winning film starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine. Dad was a National Book Award nominee and was made into a feature film with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson; the movie version of A Midnight Clear starred Ethan Hawke, Kevin Dillon, and Gary Sinise. A native of Philadelphia, Wharton fought in World War II, where he was part of the Army Specialized Training Program. In 1960, he received a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA and moved to France. There Wharton made his living as a painter while raising his two daughters and two sons; the tragic death of his daughter Kate, her husband, and two infant daughters was the subject of Ever After. He now lives with his wife, Rosemary, outside of Paris on a houseboat on the Seine. Wharton’s works have been acclaimed worldwide and have been translated into over fifteen languages.
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Also by William Wharton
BIRDY
DAD*
A MIDNIGHT CLEAR*
SCUMBLER*
PRIDE*
TIDINGS
FRANKY FURBO
LAST LOVERS
SHRAPNEL
EVER AFTER*
HOUSEBOAT ON THE SEINE*
Praise for William Wharton’s Books
DAD
(A National Book Award nominee)
“This is a great American novel. Wharton’s eye is sharp as an eagle’s; his pitch, perfect; his understanding of the emotions deeply moving. He reaches us, crucially, naturally, where we live.”
—Rebecca Sinkler, Philadelphia Inquirer
“Splendid…extraordinary…I don’t know of another novel that treats the relations among several generations in a family during times of crisis with such absolute and convincing authenticity, with such genuine feeling unsullied by the slightest hint of sentimentality.”
—Allen Lacy, San Francisco Chronicle
“A luminous book…with each little turn, we see a new facet of forbearance and ineffable love.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“For three-quarters of its intensely readable length, [Dad] is bolted firmly to the ground—and then it takes off into charming, heartbreaking dreams and wish fulfillment without once breaking the slender filament attached to familiar reality. It is a stunningly good book.?
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—Clancy Sigal, New York Magazine
“John Tremont loves his old parents, especially his Dad; he loves them with a part of himself not many of us are in touch with.”
—The New York Times Book Review
BIRDY
(Winner of the American Book Award for First Fiction in 1978)
“A writer’s triumph and a reader’s delight.”
—Toni Morrison
“It soars!…Part psychological thriller, part mystery…a portrait of a friendship as firm as it is unlikely, and an utterly plausible account of an unbelievable obsession.”
—Time
“One of the strangest and most memorable stories to come out of America in many years. William Wharton is quite exceptionally gifted.”
—John Fowles
A MIDNIGHT CLEAR
“There are surprisingly few ‘classic’ novels of World War II…A Midnight Clear joins the best. Read it.”
—Eliot Fremont-Smith, The Village Voice
“It is a fine book, sad and witty, even profound…Wharton’s books could not be about sadder, crazier people and circumstances, and out of the insanity, out of the pain, he lifts…spirits, teaching…tenderness.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“In its power to surprise and to haunt us, it ranks among the best of our celebrated war stories. I’d put it on the same shelf with Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, it has mythic quality.”
—Chicago Tribune
EVER AFTER: A Father’s True Story (Memoir)
“Wharton writes with the skills of a born storyteller…Ever After reads like a grippingly dramatic novel, and its blend of sorrow and a healing anger has a bracingly cathartic effect.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A piercing cry from the heart, a resounding call for reform and that rare thing: a unique book.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A powerful story of devastating loss and spiritual healing…highly recommended.”