“Hell with that!” Victor pops a tab and starts guzzling.
It’s obvious that I can’t dissuade him from drinking, so I take a beer myself. We make ham sandwiches, smothered with horseradish, and eat them with potato chips. We give Chief a hefty slice of ham and dispatch him to the backyard. We talk over old times, and my new times overseas.
Things are great for a while, but by the third beer the meanness and anger starts coming out. Victor’s conversation strays from the good old days to the troubled present.
He speaks of “my fucking job,” and “my fucking boss,” and worst of all, “my damn wife.” As in:
“My damn wife is always on my case about something!”
or:
“My damn wife takes Jason to church with her. Doesn’t she realize there isn’t any God?”
An almost unbearable sadness bears down on me. I wipe a hand across my eyes to remove the tears, pretending that it is just the powerful horseradish making my eyes water. I force myself to swill the last two beers so as to exhaust the supply before Victor gets worse. I’m getting quite a buzz, but take no pleasure in it.
Then Sharon, the “damn wife,” arrives with little Jason.
“Uncle Ty Ty!” Jason yells.
He jumps into my arms with five-year-old enthusiasm.
“Hey, Big Guy!” I say. “How’s it going?”
And he is quite a bit bigger than when I left, a real armful. I set him down. Sharon embraces me and kisses my cheek. When she pulls away, I see the haggard look underneath her smile.
“Welcome back, Tyler,” she says.
She glances at the empty beer cans. Victor remains seated, coldly silent. The dog barks in the yard.
“Chief!” Jason cries.
He charges out the back door and I follow. Chief practically knocks Jason over with ecstatic joy, his tail wagging so fast I think it will spin him around. He runs off for a stick and drops it by Jason who throws it as far as possible with his tiny arm. I kneel down beside the little boy.
“Now, don’t tell anybody, because it’s a secret,” I say.
“Yeah?” Jason’s eyes light up with devilish glee, the precise expression his father once used.
“Grandma is having a surprise party for me Saturday, and you’re invited,” I say.
Jason claps his hands.
“Yes!”
“And,” I lower my voice, “there just might be some presents for you – all the way from Korea, or maybe even China.”
“What are they?” Jason jumps up and down. “Tell me!”
“That’s a secret, too. You’ll have to come and find out.”
I hear Victor and Sharon arguing inside the house and instantly determine that it’s time to leave.
Sharon drives us home, me up front, Jason in the back with Chief. Her tense expression and continuously burning cigarettes speak volumes about their family situation. The car stinks from old smoke. She looks much older than I remembered.
I can say nothing to her aside from a little idle chit chat. There is nothing I or anybody else can do for Victor. He is beyond our love.
We arrive at the house; Chief and I disgorge from the car.
“See you at the party Saturday?” I say by way of farewell.
“We’ll be there,” Sharon says.
“Hey,” Jason protests, “that’s supposed to be a secret!”
33: Grandfather Alois
For him, the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat. – Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
I exchange Chief for Mom’s car and drive out to see Grandfather Alois. It is only about six miles, but the change in ambiance is noteworthy as I transition to a grittier, less prosperous inner suburb. This is the old French Canadian working class neighborhood.
In previous generations, Canadian immigrants came here to work in the local heavy industries. They were not pleased when the Hungarians subsequently arrived to compete for the jobs. To make matters worse, everybody was Catholic, so they had to share the same church. Dad told me about his youthful battles with the French kids – the ‘Frogs’ versus the ‘Hunkies.’
We are all homogenized white Americans now, and the French people are gone from the neighborhood. The Hungarians have pretty much transitioned out, too, except for Grandpa.
I pass the housekeeper on the walk and exchange friendly nods with her. Grandfather stands in the doorway with an astonished, almost frightened expression creasing his kindly old face.
“Hello, Grandpa!” I call.
“Tyler!”
I enter the house and grasp a gnarled hand.
“For a moment I thought it was your father out there,” Grandpa says. “I thought my time on this earth was over and he was coming for me.”
“Oh, Grandpa, what a thing to say!”
“You look just like him, Tyler.” He brushes my cheek with his crooked fingers. “You’re all grown up.”
I am embarrassed by these words coming in Grandpa’s thick Hungarian accent. I cast about for a change of subject.
“Wow, you’ve really fixed things up!” I say.
The change in the house is remarkable – new carpeting, light-colored paint. The bulky, oppressive furniture has all been replaced by modern pieces.
“The housekeeper made coffee,” Grandpa says, “you want some? Or maybe you like something stronger?”
By “something stronger” I figure he means kümmel, the horrific caraway seed liqueur he likes to drink. It is almost as bad as Chinese rocket fuel.
“Coffee’s fine,” I say quickly.
I head for the kitchen and mix cups for both of us. The kitchen, too, is nicely refurbished and modern.
“So, you like my haz?” Grandpa says when I return with our coffee.
Haz? What the hell’s that, I wonder.
“Oh, yes, the house.” I say. “It’s beautiful, Grandpa.”
He takes a long swig of coffee.
“I vorrked hard all my life, Tyler, and Margit was a frugal woman. She always feared we’d starve like her people did in the old country.”
He gestures to her portrait on the side table. Grandma looks severe, her hair drawn up in a bun. You can tell that she’d once been very attractive. Hell, she wouldn’t have looked bad in the picture if she’d smiled and had a better hair style.
“Why keep that old stuff around to remind me?” Grandpa says. “She’s all I think about anyway, her and Istvan.”
Meaning my dad – ‘Stephen’ in the Anglicized version.
“Such a wicked fate,” Grandpa sighs, “to outlive my only son.”
Silence while we share our mutually painful memory. Then Grandpa starts counting on his fingers.
“I got my annuities, pension with medical insurance, Social Security,” he says. “Why save it, so’s I can buy myself a fancier coffin?”
Elderly people sure get fixated on depressing topics. I’ve only been here a few minutes and already I need a break.
“Excuse me, Grandpa,” I say. “Think I’ll check on my car.”
“It’s out there waiting for you,” Grandpa says.
I go outside to the little garage and pull up the door. Inside reposes my Chevy Nova – my freedom chariot. I run my fingers reverently over the coppery gold paint and peer in at the black vinyl interior. Memories come flooding back, especially those involving college, girlfriends, and the back seat – those groping sessions with Julie that never quite made it to the grand finale.
To think I’d considered buying a cramped VW instead!
I pat the hood. “Hello, Old Paint. How’s it hanging?”
Once, when I was very young, I’d watched Dad working on our Mercury. I asked him if he had ever thought of driving around the world.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll bring along Tarzan and Jungle Jim. They can each drive half way while I sleep on the back seat.”
A deep sense of loss surges up with this recollection. Why had I quit the Peace Corps? What am I doing he
re?
Idiot!
I would give anything to be back in the Korean mountains right now. Can I drive back there somehow – jump in the Nova and motor up through the Bering Straits? Or maybe roar back to LA and plunge into the ocean, submarine-like, all the way to the Philippines and Gloria. I wonder what kind of car Jon Glass drives, or does he prefer a virile motorcycle?
I return to the haz in a melancholy mood. Grandfather has lightened up considerably, though.
“Tell me what’s it like in all dem countries,” he says.
I begin a quick review of my overseas experience. I speak of the long, exhausting charter flight to Seoul. I tell him about training in Choon Chun, my middle school classes, my travels around Oori Nara. Grandpa closes his eyes, head resting on the sofa back. I think he’s nodded off, so I stop talking.
He opens his eyes.
“Keeping going,” he says.
When I was a kid, Grandpa had reminded me of Field Marshal von Hindenburg with his iron gray hair and handlebar mustache. He’d seemed gigantic, now he is shrunken down with hair and mustache turned white. I resume my narrative.
Grandpa listens quietly, a little smile on his face. Sometimes his fingers tap the sofa arm, other times his feet move slightly, as if he is treading the Asian byways with me. He only interrupts once.
“How are the Korean girls, Tyler?”
“Lovely.”
“I thought you might bring one home,” Grandpa says.
“No ... things didn’t work out that way.”
I continue talking. When I get to the part when the money arrived, a lightning bolt of truth flashes in my mind.
“That money was really yours, Grandpa!” I say.
“What’s that?” He turns an ear my direction.
“Don’t try the ‘hard of hearing dodge,’” I say. “The money was from you. Ed was just the messenger.”
Grandpa shrugs. “All right, you figured it out. I thought you might not spend the money if you knew it was from ‘poor old Grandpa.’ But didn’t I just tell you how rich I am?”
I put my arms around him and kiss him on the cheek, just like when I was Jason’s age. Another lightning flash goes off.
“And my camera, too, right?” I say.
“Yes, yes, so I paid for your camera,” Grandpa says. “Must I go to the firing squad for that?”
I think of the matching fund that miraculously appeared when I bought the Nova, and of another one for Victor’s first car. I don’t mention this, as Grandpa seems to treasure his secret generosities. He turns nostalgic.
“When I came to America, I was about your age,” he says. “I wanted to see the world! Then I met Margit. Her parents were gone, but her older brother watched her like a hawk. He had as much authority as her father would.”
Ah yes, the older brother Authority.
“He favored me because I was meister ember ... a skilled craftsman,” Grandpa says. “Still, I had to act fast. A girl as beautiful as your grandmother wouldn’t stay unmarried long.”
He glances at her portrait. “She’ll be coming for me soon enough, I think.”
I try to sidetrack further depressing comments. “So, did you ever get to travel like you wanted?”
Grandpa shakes his head. “Maybe I wasn’t meant for adventures. I’m too old now, anyway. But when I hear you speak, I feel young again.”
I get up to leave.
“Thanks for the coffee, Grandpa. I’ll be back in a couple days for my car.”
“Good.”
“We can go for a drive,” I say. “Maybe pick up some babes?”
“Ach!” Grandpa waves his hand.
34: The Frustration Waltz
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone ... through a singularly dreary tract of country. – The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allen Poe
Weeks pass, and my frustration rises. Several days of heavy rain add to the gloom.
I sign up at an employment agency. Betty, my agent, isn’t ecstatic about my prospects. Corporations are not beating down the doors to hire English literature majors, she says, although a “smart young man” like me might be salvageable.
She sends me on interviews for insurance investigator jobs. There is apparently a great need for such persons. I do poorly, however much I try to rally some enthusiasm.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” one interviewer asks.
“As King of the Universe,” I feel like saying, but utter something pre-packaged instead. Unremarkably, I don’t get the job.
On the positive side, my Philippine insect bites finally heal, leaving dime-sized scars.
My childhood home closes in on me like a vise. It’s a place I should have moved on from long ago, but I am stuck here for the indefinite future.
At least Ed works long hours at the hardware store, and when he is around, I arrange to be someplace else as much as possible. Mom is always complaining about Ed. He is cold and uncommunicative, she says, he always seems to be mad about something. Won’t I speak to him and see what the problem is?
Hello, Mom! Everybody, including you, knew what Ed was like. You picked him anyway, for some unfathomable reason, so he’s your headache. And, no, I don’t care what his problem is. All I know is the solution – the open front door and a boot in the ass. I don’t use these exact words, but Mom catches my drift.
I start practicing at a judo club. Judo is the one sport I seem to have talent for. I started in early high school and enjoyed the combative aspect. I thought I might be good at wrestling, too, but decided against trying out for the school team. It would have brought a lot of pressures because Victor had been on the team. Always I’d be ‘Little Victor’ and constantly compared to him.
I’d never been good at team sports. For a while that bothered me, but then I came to realize that I fundamentally didn’t care. I could have been an acceptably mediocre player if I’d worked at it, but I preferred to be independent, without a lot of other people’s expectations weighing me down. You could say that I’m not much of a ‘team player.’
Victor’s wrestling prowess had brought our school to the verge of the State championship when a knee injury forced him to quit. He’d gotten the injury while playing football – a game at which he was not outstanding. So, he’d lost something of high value pursuing something of much lesser value.
This was part of the reason for his cavalier attitude about college. He dropped out, losing his draft deferment, confident that he’d fail any military physical. But they passed him anyway and sent him to the Vietnam meat grinder.
The Judo club runs along informal lines with students practicing under various Japanese instructors. I am drawn to Mr. Itami, a.k.a. Señor Strangle, who teaches combat jujitsu techniques. I am much more interested in rough and ready self-defense methods than in formal competition.
Mr. Itami is a small, unimposing guy, but he’ll take you down hard and wrap around you like an octopus. Soon he’ll have you in a choke hold or an excruciating joint lock.
“Position and leverage, more important than strength,” he says in his poor English.
Mr. Itami is always at the club. I begin to wonder if – when the last person switches off the lights – he goes inanimate, sitting in the darkness wearing his crisp white gi and black belt, waiting for the lights to come back on. He says that I remind him of his best student whom he trained at another school.
The workouts take my mind off my problems. I also purchase a heavy punching bag which I hang in the basement. I practice on it hard – moving in, striking, stepping back, performing my frustration waltz. Sometimes I imagine Ed’s face on the bag, sometimes my own.
I give myself a pounding for being such a fool, for coming back here when I should still be overseas. What’s Jon Glass up to now, I ask myself as I pummel the bag. Has the Mindanao forest swallowed him up for good? Whatever his situation, it
can’t resemble my spirit-crushing predicament.
I take to wandering desolate areas of the town – railroad tracks, polluted creek beds, abandoned factories. These grim surroundings match the dreariness inside me, and they offer a sense of adventure, however bogus. If I can’t trek the Mindanao byways, at least I can travel here.
Sometimes I find evidences of vagrants – cardboard huts, old mattresses, extinguished camp fires. I christen these locales the “Bum Nation.”
One day I head out to “Dead River” along the edge of town. A heavy, ominous atmosphere prevails, like something from the Dark Shadows TV show. The last of my ready cash jingles in my pocket. I plan to buy a quart of beer later to help numb the pain.
The whole atmosphere speaks of ruin – a willful destruction of nature. As part of a flood control project, the river has been wrenched from its natural course and forced into a concrete channel. The banks are paved over, with only a hardy patch of scrub poking through here and there. I draw my collar more tightly around my neck and grip my umbrella against the drizzle. Thunder rumbles in the distance. A camper, discarded from some pickup truck bed, lies tumbled on its side.
Running along the top the slope, a fence with No Trespassing signs barricades scruffy woods, creating a sense of entrapment. I feel as channelized as the river. I keep to a fast pace along the angled bank. A slide down the damp concrete and into the river is a distinct possibility for the unwary. The river is high, though scarcely moving.
A freeway overpass thrusts across this lifeless void. I make my way down to it.
All is silent beneath the overpass except for dripping water and the occasional rumble of a passing vehicle. A dank odor permeates everything. Rubbish litters the ground, and anti-social graffiti covers every concrete pillar – layered masses of words and pictures, most of them obscene.
Somebody has painted a flaming devil head. Two skeletons stand beside it, one with a red, dripping heart. Various words of wisdom accompany these images, including: Get Bent, Fuck the Police, and Fuck the World!
Who has drawn all this disturbed, angry stuff? I can imagine a West Side Story type brawl going on here, people shooting drugs, all sorts of dreadfulness. I study the tangled graffiti, trying to discern anything familiar – some Korean letters, perhaps?
There they are!
Barely discernible in the visual mayhem – the angular letters of the Korean alphabet, too small to decipher from this distance. I step in for a closer look, and the ground becomes more slippery. I pause to steady myself.