An Absent Mind (2 page)

Joey

The Visit

I
went by to see Dad this morning. Frankly, after listening to Mom’s stories, I was a bit concerned. But she’s been known to be a little emotional. Well, that’s kind of an understatement. In fact, sometimes she goes off the deep end for the most ridiculous reasons. I remember coming home from school in the eighth grade with a split lip. She was on the phone to the principal, the police, and the doctor before I even finished telling her what had happened. So I always have to take her “fragility,” shall we say, into account before jumping to conclusions.

According to her, Dad is really losing it. She said he’s forgetful, introverted, and submissive. I don’t know about the forgetful part. I have noticed a few things, but nothing that seemed really worrisome. After all, he is in his seventies. But my dad has never been, and wouldn’t know how to be, introverted or submissive. Those are traits I would save for Mom. In fact, Dad has always been the rock of the family—the disciplinarian, the provider, the powerhouse.

I haven’t been over to the house for a while, what with getting this distributorship thing going. I’ve got the rights for Canada for this rejuvenating cream. It’s got a special herb that they grow in the highlands of Panama, as well as a patented blend of ingredients which, unfortunately, I can’t share with you, as I signed a confidentiality agreement.

In today’s world, everyone is so vain, and they all want to look younger. So this will be a slam dunk. Dad thinks it’s a pyramid scheme and said he doesn’t even want to hear about it. He said I’ll get busted one day, and that will ruin my reputation. My bet is it’s his reputation he’s worried about. But he’d never admit that, and I learned a long time ago that it’s not worth arguing with him, because I can never win.

When I arrived, he was sitting in front of the television set, patting his beloved collie. Ever since he bought that dog a few years ago, it’s like he has three kids, and let me assure you, Dugin is the favorite. Anyway, I yelled out, “Yo Pops,” like I always do, but the only one who acknowledged my presence was Dugin, and that was only with a lazy wag of his tail.

Mom heard the door slam and came in from the kitchen. She gave me one of her pained looks and pointed to Dad, motioning with her hand for me to move over to the couch.

I sat down opposite him and said again, “Yo Pops.” He looked away from the television and gave me a smile. “Hi, Son, what’s happening?” he asked. I told him how my ceiling had almost collapsed from a water leak in the upstairs apartment. He responded, “Great, just great!” Then he was back, staring at the television again. I looked over at Mom. She just shrugged her shoulders and headed back into the kitchen with her
I told you so
look.

So there we were: the tough, son of a bitch father and the ne’er-do-well son, sitting alone in the living room, a restless silence filling the air. Not very different from when I lived at home, before I moved out to go to university.

I tried to pull his attention away from the television, but with no success. So I finally got up and turned it off. He asked me why I had done that. I told him I’d come over to talk to him. Again he said, “That’s great, just great!” I tried again to engage him in conversation, but he just sat there stroking Dugin. And then two minutes later, he got up and walked out of the room, like I didn’t even exist.

Now I’m worried about him. This is not normal behavior. When Mom told me about the incident with his pants last month, my first reaction was that he probably had a few too many. He’s certainly been known to do that. But seeing him today, I don’t think that’s the case. I’m going to give Florence a jingle tonight.

Florence

The Telephone Call

J
oey called me earlier. I have never heard him so upset. He started to lash out at me, asking why I hadn’t told him how serious things were with Father. That was all I needed to hear. “How dare you talk to me like that?” I exploded. “I have been telling you that I’ve noticed there was something wrong with him for some time. And you didn’t even bother going over to see for yourself, or just to spend time with him. And why is it always my responsibility, not only to do everything but to do it to your specifications, and on your timing? I’m not on your payroll, damn it!”

I was actually quite proud of myself for blowing off steam with Joey. That’s not my typical modus operandi. I am usually the one who sits there like a good little girl and takes whatever is shoveled my way, whether it be from my mother, my father, my husband, or Joey. But lately, it has been too much for me. I’m like a soup pot that starts frothing and then floods over onto the stovetop.

I’m at the house more often than usual now. It’s bad enough that Father’s got, at least in my opinion, the beginnings of some kind of dementia. But I can never get Mother to discuss it. And, of course, I could never steal any of Joey’s precious time for him to check it out himself. I feel I am totally alone.

Father and I still go for a walk on most weekends. It’s always been our time together. We ramble down the hill toward the park and just hang around or go over to the dog run. Some days he is just like the father I remember; other days aren’t so good. I’m not implying that his life is over or anything like that. It’s just that there are those occasions, clearly not all the time, when he gets a bit strange, or quiet, or disoriented. But just when I begin to question his behavior, he’s back to his same old self.

After I finished telling Joey off, he quieted down rather quickly. I think he was as taken aback as I was by my harangue. In fact, he promised he would do whatever it took from now on to help all of us deal with this. My mouth was agape. I can’t remember him ever doing anything where there wasn’t an angle, and frankly, I’m not sure it will be any different this time.

Saul

Lost Freedom

T
he Gestapo showed up today in their winter coats and boots—Joey, Bernie, and Florence. Monique and I were pretty astute naming her, or is it that she has spent a lot of her young life trying to live up to the moniker we bestowed on her? Florence, as in Florence Nightingale, but by now I’m sure you figured out what I meant, has been at more bedsides than a paid executioner at hangings. And she does it for free and generally brings some goodies to boot. If you ever have to be sick, try to have a daughter like mine!

I asked her once why she didn’t become a nurse; that was before a question like that became sexist. Now we’d have to ask why she didn’t become a doctor. Regardless, the answer would have been the same. She gets sick at the sight of blood.

I used to wonder whether she inquired as to the type of illness before committing to visit a relative, friend, acquaintance, or fellow employee—she’s an accountant by trade, like my father was, but she’s a damn good one. If the truth be told, I tried to talk her out of it, not because she lacked the skills, but I just had trouble thinking of her in the same profession as my father. He seems to haunt me even from six feet under.

But I’m getting sidetracked again. So I’m sitting in the living room of our bungalow on Oakland Avenue. It’s nothing great, considering the other houses in the neighborhood. Westmount is the fancy borough of Montreal. It used to be a fancy city, but they did something to make it a borough, some kind of vote or something, although I’m not exactly sure I understood what it was. But now I’ve heard it may be a city again. Whatever. It really is of no importance. At least not to me.

Our house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, a dead end in most other cities, but Montreal is almost all French, so they like these French expressions. I’m an Anglo. That’s what they say to let others know I’m English-speaking. They use that word a lot and then break it down into Jews and Gentiles. And then there’s what they call allophones—that means everyone else, like the Italians, Greeks, and the rest of them. And then there are the Gentiles, like Monique, who convert to Judaism. It’s all really quite confusing.

I was describing our house. It sits on a
Father Knows Best
kind of street and is quite comfortable. We’ve been here since just before Monique gave birth to Joey.

That brings me back to the Nazis who showed up this afternoon. They were on a mission—to destroy my life! They huddled around me, all of them. It felt like when the Indians surrounded the wagons in the movies I went to see as a kid in Ontario. No, I didn’t ever live in Ontario, but, you see, they had a big fire in a movie theater in Montreal back then, and the provincial government, in its infinite wisdom, banned kids under sixteen from going to the movies. So my mother, oh yeah, sorry about that—her name was Hannah, right out of the Bible. Anyway, Mother would pack us up, and we would visit my aunt Riva and uncle Sydney in Cornwall, just over the Quebec border. I would spend all day, from when the movie house opened in the morning until I had to be back for dinner, watching Gene Autry and other actors and actresses fighting, kissing, arguing, and riding through the brush.

Sometimes the same movie would play four times before I had to leave. My buddies and I would hide in the bathroom when the usher came in between shows, and then sneak back in. If there were teenagers necking, we would sit behind them and make funny sounds; at least I thought they were funny, until one of them gave me a walloping shiner. Father grounded me for a week. They didn’t call it grounding then; it was called room time.

Back to Hitler’s finest. They squeezed onto the sofa by the fireplace, all except Joey, who can’t sit for more than the time it takes him to gulp down a milk shake. I often wonder what happens when he’s in the bathroom. With his attention span, he probably can’t sit still until it’s time to reach for the toilet paper.

Florence was the first to speak. No doubt prodded by the others, because they know I think hers is the voice of reason. But not today. She said that they had all discussed it. She said it with hooded eyes and a pained expression. She just kept beating around the bush, never saying what the “it” was. Then Joey butted in, blabbering something about me maybe killing someone. Now, I know Dr. Horowitz said my memory is not what it was, but I can’t for the life of me remember coming close to murdering anyone. I mean, yes, there were times when someone in the room may have been the recipient of one of my Reimer stares. They call it the Reimer stare because, as Monique once said, “That stare of yours can make mere mortals quiver in their boots.” And because my name is Saul Reimer.

Florence moved over beside me and started to massage my shoulders as Joey continued his rant. He said I was getting old and my driving was becoming defensive. I was driving too slowly, and that was dangerous. Christ! All I ever heard for the last umpteen years was how I was a speed demon, and how dangerous
that
was. Now the troops had advanced into my own living room and were telling me I drive like a tortoise. Worse, the punishment was to take my car away from me.

Take my car? How was I going to get around? They said—well, actually it was Joey who said he would give me taxi vouchers—with my own money, of course. All I had to do was sign them. I could go anywhere. I asked if I could go to New York. Joey smiled. Joey doesn’t smile very often. Too bad he wasted it on such an idiotic statement. I knew he wasn’t going to let me go to New York. I would be lucky if he let me take a cab downtown.

I folded my arms across my chest and said I was not going to give him the keys and that I would continue driving. Joey told me about the eighty-year-old man in California who killed ten people, including two children. I told him I am not eighty and I am a good driver. He said it wouldn’t be fair to kill a child. I told him I wasn’t planning on it, although I must admit I was starting to think about how to get rid of one of my own—and it wasn’t Florence I had in mind.

I know this all started after the incident when I forgot my pants. And I told Joey that I wouldn’t forget to put my trousers on again—never, ever. But Joey said the matter was closed. The others in his division mumbled under their breath, nodded their heads, and offered up sad but resolute expressions. Then Joey said it was best this way. Best for whom?