“Is that the only way I can hold on?”
“It’s the best way, Dad. I want you to lean when I lean, as if we’re one person.”
He grabs hold; I kick the starter, put her in first gear gently. We ease out the driveway and cruise very slowly up and down some of these short dead-end streets. I never get out of second gear. We roll back to the house and stop.
“Well, Dad, how was that?”
“It’s no worse than riding a bicycle. I haven’t been on anything with two wheels since I was a kid.”
“You ready to take a chance going down to Venice? I’ll take back streets and we won’t hit any traffic.”
“It’s OK with me, Johnny, but, boy, I hate to think what your mother would say if we have an accident.”
He giggles and straightens his helmet.
“There she’d be in the hospital and we’d both be dead.”
“Don’t worry, Dad, we’re not going to get killed. I’ve been driving motorcycles for twenty years. We’re safer than in a car.”
He starts climbing back onto the bike. I hook my helmet strap.
“The trouble is, Dad, most people who drive motorcycles are maniacs. If those same people drive cars, they’ll have car accidents.”
I kick but it doesn’t turn over. I give her a little choke.
“What kills you in a car is the steering wheel, the windshield and a face full of dashboard; the car stops and people keep going. On a motorcycle, there’s nothing to run into; you go flying through the air and slow down some before you hit.”
I hear what I’m saying and decide to shut up. It’s not exactly encouraging. Dad grabs hold and giggles again.
“John, you could sell holy cards to the devil.”
He tilts his head back and laughs; he doesn’t put his hand over his mouth; he can’t, he’s holding on for dear life.
We start slowly along Palms. It’s a beautiful afternoon and the sun is low in front of us. There are gentle hills along here, almost like a children’s roller coaster. We lift up one side and lower on the other. We go along the Palms golf course and across Lincoln. I roll down Rose Avenue and park on the boardwalk.
We walk out toward the ocean; there are some good-sized breakers; spray is flying up, refracting the sun. There’s a bicycle path built along the edge of the sand; it’s well designed in easy, twisting curves.
We tuck our helmets under our arms like a couple of beached knights. There are people coming in from the water; kids are sitting in the sand playing bongos and a drunk is trying to dance with the music. It’s mellow and I hope Dad’s relaxing and not fighting it all too much.
We stop and listen to the music. There are a few guitars with the bongos. It’s like the tropics; hard to believe Lincoln Boulevard is only eight short blocks inland, crowded with cars, light industry and thousands of signs screaming for attention. Dad turns toward me.
“You know, Johnny, I’ve missed my calling. I think I could be a hippy.”
We stroll along the boardwalk. It’s peculiar they call it a boardwalk, because it’s cement and isn’t up on piers. It’s only a street without cars next to the sand. It might’ve been boards once or it could be a cross-country carry-over from the boardwalks on the Atlantic shore. Or maybe I’m the only one who calls it a boardwalk.
We come on a place called The Fruits and Nuts. A young couple, Tony and Shelly, run it. They take all the time in the world with us. They’re interested in Mom and suggest herbs to strengthen her heart. They offer big glasses of carrot juice squeezed from fresh carrots. They make it with a blender and it’s sweet, not like Mother’s pot liquors. Dad’s peeking at me from the corner of his eye, drinking carrot juice and smiling away. Tony has a beard with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. This is a surefire hippy, the enemy.
He tells Dad how he has herbs to help with blood pressure. I want to buy these for myself; I’ll try anything! But Tony gives them to me. I’m feeling so guilty I buy some apples and bananas; Tony assures us they’re fresh and tasty. He quarters an apple with a penknife so the four of us can share around.
It’s hard to get away. We walk along munching our apple. Dad can make more noise crunching into an apple than anybody in the world; he makes an apple sound like the most delicious food ever invented.
“Goodness, John, those people are nice; do you know them?”
“Nope. I don’t know how they stay in business either; they give everything away.”
Dad takes a bite into another apple from the bag.
“Maybe they’re rich. Maybe they only have this store for fun.”
“Yeah, that could be it.”
“But they don’t look rich.”
We put on our helmets, climb on the bike and roll slowly back to the house. The sunset is still redding the sky behind us. It’s one of those balmy evenings you get sometimes in California, when the coastal fog holds off till dark.
We’re just inside the house, and the phone rings. It’s Marty. She and Gary want to phone Vron and tell her the news. They want me with them. I say they should come over here, we’ve got an extension phone.
They arrive as we finish eating. Marty’s eyes are bright with excitement. We direct-dial and get straight through. Marty starts crying soon as she gets the words out of her mouth. I’m on the extension in the bedroom. It’s so good hearing Vron’s voice. She could be crying, too; I am. We spend ten dollars crying at each other over six thousand miles by satellite. When we hang up and I come back in the living room, Dad’s pulled off his glasses and is wiping his eyes. He looks up at me.
“What’re we crying about, Johnny?”
That cracks us up and we’re practically dancing with excitement. We drink some wine together before they go home.
Dad turns on the TV. I’d asked Marty to bring me a book. I try reading it, but every time I start, Dad interrupts me. Reading’s a vice in this house. Mother’s a great one for burning all newspapers and magazines the day after they arrive. Paper, for her, is like falling leaves, a natural, continual nuisance you have to fight. A book is only paper; after you read it, burn it. Keeping books is like not making the bed. Also, reading softens the brain, ruins the eyes and gives Protestant or Communist ideas.
Dad has something of the same reaction to reading but for different reasons. His father, my grandfather, insisted bookwork was only for girls. He educated his girls, sent them through high school, but the boys were pulled out soon as they were old enough to learn farming, carpentry and metalwork. He believed men do things; women remember and pass it on. This idea is deep in my father’s family.
At about ten-thirty I sneak back into the bedroom. I don’t know how long Dad stays up watching Johnny Carson.
Three days later Mother’s out of intensive care. Dr. Coe tells me she’ll be in the hospital two more weeks. All the tests show she’s had a severe heart attack and it’s going to be a long uphill recuperation.
In the meanwhile, Dad’s been coming along fine. He’s practically self-sufficient. One Sunday we even go sailing with a friend of mine and neither of us gets sick. We only sail inside the marina an hour or two and it’s an exceptionally calm day.
It’s while we’re sailing I notice Dad needs a shave. I can’t ever remember my father having more than half a day’s whiskers. On the way home I ask if he has a skin rash; I think maybe he’s missed an item on his morning bathroom list. He looks at me as I’m turning onto Jefferson Boulevard.
“No, Johnny, my skin’s fine.”
He runs his hands over his stubble. I wait a minute, not knowing how to approach it.
“Well, Dad, I only asked because I think you missed shaving this morning.”
He smiles and runs his hand over his face, covering his smile.
“You know, John, I’ve never seen my beard. I started shaving when I was fifteen, and I’ve been shaving every morning all my life. Even before I was married, when I went hunting with Dad and the rest, I shaved with cold water. Just once, I’d like to see what it looks like.
I think that’d be all right, don’t you? Mother’s in the hospital and I’ll shave it off when she comes home.”
I’m surprised at my own reactions. I’m worrying what the neighbors will say. Maybe they’ll think I’m letting Dad go to seed.
Then it hits me. I start laughing. Dad’s laughing too; we’re still laughing when we pull into the driveway. Sure as hell the neighbors aren’t going to think we’re completely broken up over Mom’s heart attack.
We watch a Dodger ball game on TV. Afterwards, Dad starts up a conversation. He begins with how he’s always been an Angel fan because there are too many niggers on the Dodgers. My first impulse is to back off; I don’t want to ruin the good feelings we’re having. But he wants to talk; there’s something bothering him.
“You know, John, when I was a kid and we first came from Wisconsin to the East Coast, we lived down there in southwest Philadelphia near a lot of Negroes. It wasn’t safe for us to walk through some parts of town and we’d kill any nigger who came west of Sixtieth Street or north of Woodlawn Avenue. It was like a war going on all the time.
“It’s the main reason we moved to Upper Darby. I hated moving five miles from my family but we were afraid of those niggers. Saint Barnabas Church had the only school with no niggers in it and we were proud of that; even the priests used to talk about it in those days.”
He stops. I wonder what he wants me to say.
“Now, Johnny, they tell us in church we have to forget all that. Our priest says it’s a mortal sin having those kinds of feelings. Honest, I don’t have anything personal against niggers, Johnny; it’s just a feeling I get down my spine, like a dog’s hair standing stiff when he’s mad or scared. And I’ll bet them niggers have the same feelings about me, too.
“When Bette and I go to church at Saint Augustine’s, we always look around for some place away from any niggers or Mexicans. With this ‘kiss of peace’ business, you’re supposed to smile and shake hands with the people near you, and we can’t get ourselves to do this with some Mexican or a nigger.
“John, you can’t change people so fast. I tell the priest in confession and he tells me to pray for love and charity.
“I pray, Johnny, but nothing comes. I’d sure as the devil hate going to hell just because I can’t work up love for a nigger. It’s not fair. You do what you’re supposed to do when you’re young, then they change the rules.”
He stops. I still don’t know what he wants from me. I’m glad it isn’t my problem, not just the race part but the whole business of somebody else saying whether I’m a good person or not. People give up control of their lives too easily.
I fix us a snack: beer, potato chips and pretzels. Dad goes to turn on the TV, checks himself and settles into his platform rocker; I sit in Mom’s gold chair.
“You know, Dad, one trouble with your growing a beard is Mother’ll have a fit when we visit her. You can’t go to the hospital looking like this.”
He gives me one of his sly smiles, gets up and goes into the bathroom. He comes out a few minutes later with a surgical mask over his face, eyes twinkling.
“Mother wears this when she dyes her hair. We’ll tell her I have a cold and we don’t want her to catch it.”
I choke on my beer and run to the kitchen sink. He follows me, worried. I peek at him again; he looks like a distinguished surgeon. Considering Mother’s fear of germs, it’s so diabolically clever.
We work out the mask routine in the hospital just fine. Dad even develops a creditable sniff and cough. His beard grows in a hurry. Within a week, it’s past the itchy stage and beginning to curl over. It’s curly and compact, a pubic-hair-type beard, wiry. The most amazing thing is it’s a grizzled, dark chestnut. Dad doesn’t have much hair left on his head, and it’s white. There are still a few dark hairs in his eyebrows, all that’s left of his original hair color.
But this beard is something else. It’s more dark brown than white. He looks at least ten years younger, incredibly vital.
I keep catching him staring in the bathroom mirror. Those split teeth of his are perfectly framed by a beard. I have a hard time adapting myself. It’s as if Dad’s stepped back a generation and we’re contemporaries.
Joan flips. She strokes his beard while he smiles and she gives him a big kiss. She almost laughs herself to death when we show her the trick with the surgical mask. But she’s worried Mother will find us out anyhow.
During that last week, Dad and I go regularly down to the Oar House, evenings. We have our pitcher of beer and it’s fun watching; one hell of a lot better than TV. We even have almost-conversations. We talk about Mother, her health and all the things we’ll arrange to make the house comfortable for her. He’s begun having ideas of his own. He rigs an intercom system between the side bedroom, where she’ll be, and the back bedroom; even into the garden bedroom. It’s a regular Amos ’n’ Andy “Miss Blue, buzz me” affair, but it works.
Once, he scares the bejesus out of me by ringing in the middle of the night. He says he wants to check if it’s loud enough to wake somebody who’s asleep. This is at three o’clock in the morning when he gets up for his nighttime pee. There’s a strong strain of joker in Dad.
Several times, I take Dad over to visit Gary and Marty. He doesn’t say much but obviously enjoys the conversation. Mostly we talk about the new baby or how Mom’s doing. We don’t watch TV.
The day comes to bring Mother home. We have everything ready. Dad comes out of the bathroom that morning clean-shaven; nothing said. We drive Mom home in the car and she’s babbling away ten miles to a minute. She’ll have another heart attack before we even get her in the house.
I put her to bed, pull all the blinds and insist she take a nap. I hadn’t realized before what a tremendous responsibility it’s going to be having her home. If anything happens, it’s more than fifteen minutes to the hospital.
I’m having more panic feelings than Dad. He and I share beer and sandwiches on the patio. He asks when I think he can sleep with Mother again. That one I hadn’t even considered.
Immediately after her nap, I find Mom sitting on the side of her bed working her arms into a bathrobe. She wants to use the toilet, insists she can’t get herself to “go” sitting in bed on a bedpan. Nothing I say will stop her. We move down the hall, slowly. She’s holding a wall with one hand and me with the other. I maneuver her into the bathroom, she shoos me out and locks the door.
Dad and I hover outside, hearing her pee hit the side of the bowl, then the flush. We wait but she doesn’t come out. Finally, Dad can’t take it any longer.
“Are you all right in there, Bette?”
Bette, by the way, is said as in “pet.”
“I’m fine. Don’t hang over me so, it makes me nervous.”
Then she unlocks the door. She’s made up, and her hair’s in curlers. Guts my mother’s got; good sense I’m not so sure.
Things go a bit better every day. Mother’s color is coming back or maybe it’s only rouge. Our trouble is keeping her down. She’s wanting to take over again. At the same time, she’s complaining about how hard it is to breathe.
On the third day, we take her out on the patio. It’s a warm day with no wind and she’s been cooped up for a long time. It seems to help; she lies in the sun and tries to relax.
Dad’s doing most of the cooking. He’s justifiably proud of himself. Every morning he’s out of bed by eight and we take turns sweeping or making breakfast. It turns out he’s the mad sweeper, too. This drives poor Mother crazy; she wants us to vacuum; says we’re only pushing the dirt around, making everything dusty.
By the end of that week, there’s a full load of wash; Dad volunteers to do it at the Laundromat. He wants me to drive him there and show how. Joan’s willing to do our laundry but Dad wants to do this himself.
So, while Mom’s napping, I drive Dad to the shopping center and demonstrate the machines. He’d gone with Mother before, but hadn’t paid much attention.
This turns out to be just the k
ind of thing he likes. The efficiency and predictability of it all give him enormous satisfaction. I say if he gets bored to look around the Lucky Market or go across to the bowling alley. I leave him there. He’ll be off on his own in the big world for a whole hour.
When I get home, Mom’s awake. She asks where Dad is.
“He’s at the Laundromat doing the wash.”
“Oh, Mother of God, Jacky, he can never do that! I take him along, but he’s more in the way than anything. He keeps folding sheets so there won’t be any wrinkles till I almost go nuts!”
“Oh, he’ll be all right, Mom.”
She snorts, instantly classifying me in the great, growing category of “simps.”
“You’ll see. He’ll put bleach in with the colored things or some goofy trick. Joan said she’d do the wash; don’t you two worry about it. She isn’t doing much of anything else.”
“It’s all right, Mom, and it’s something for him to do. Joan has enough on her mind.”
But Mother’s lack of trust gets to me. I refuse to go back but I’m checking my watch. It’s like the first time you send a young child to the store alone; the temptation is to follow.
When I leave, I tell Mother I’ll fix lunch soon as we come back. I can see she’s feeling itchy; things are getting out of her control. It won’t be long before she’ll do something dumb.
At the Laundromat, Dad’s sitting with all the clothes dried and piled in the basket. He’s even broken down the clothes into Mother’s things, my things and his. I can’t believe it. And he’s so proud of himself; he’s sitting there sucking on a raspberry Popsicle.
“Gee, John, I had a fine time. I went over and watched the bowling. I haven’t bowled since I used to bowl with Ira Taylor up on Sixty-ninth Street; that has to be over thirty years ago. I’d forgotten what fun it is. Here we are living only two blocks away and I’ve never even been to this place. You get in the habit of working and then forget how to have fun. It’s only fifty cents a line. We can afford it and I have all the time in the world. I’m not too old.”