Creatures of Habit (11 page)

As a matter of fact, I may read a few of my thoughts aloud to Marissa when she comes over, once again all heartbroken by some jerk who gave her a prescription for tetracycline at the end of a stormy night of sex and then never called her again. I will tell her that I understand how important chairs and sofas and tables are in her life and how I respect this; I will not leave dog hair on the velvet upholstery of her new Chippendale dining-room chairs and I will not let Richie teethe on their legs. And I will tell her that loyalty is more important than any house-decorating item, the kind of loyalty—though she might not want to hear it—that you usually only get from a good dog. The kind that you need from a good friend. I will say,
We want the same things, honey. You know we do.
I will tell her everybody—bitch and dog alike—has those days when all they can think about is a piece of tail, anal glands, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of the throat.

Marissa will raise her hand in disgust and say
I do not!
and I will once again have to explain that I am using a metaphor
before I move forward to say how what we really want, each and every day, is for someone to be willing to throw some love our way so that we can retrieve it and return the favor. All we really want, I tell her, is for someone we really care about to say
Speak to me, girl, speak. Now stay.

A
MONG THE THINGS
my mother left me when she died much too young of cancer were the engagement ring my father gave her at a college football game when they were both nineteen, her mother's prized mink cape sealed for decades in a plastic zipper bag with mothballs, a framed daisy made of her grandmother's hair, and my stepfather, James T. Allen, who came complete with my mother's handwritten instructions as if he were some kind of fragile orchid who needed this much light, this much water, and this much vodka at the end of the day.

James T. Allen had no children of his own and has certainly never considered me one, either. I didn't even know what the T in his name stood for and—I'm embarrassed to
say—my husband and kids and I have had many hours of fun coming up with possibilities. Tanless (contribution of my husband, Ron, avid golfer and sun worshiper); Tasteless and Toneless (I am the one who washes his beige polyester-blend belongings and listens to his rare monotonous utterings); Testosteroneless (from my oldest son, Sam, who at seventeen has enough to supply the whole state); and last but not least Turdo and Toadman (these from my ten year old, Matt, who spends much of his time flipping over rocks in search of the drab amphibians). It seems that most of our monikers, with the exception of Turdo and Toadman, have to do with what he isn't rather than what he is. Because what, after all, is he? If he were a piece of furniture in a showroom he would be the beige Naugahyde thing in the corner, not a chair, or a sofa, more like an ottoman. If he were a car he would be the beige Impala. If he were shoes he would be beige Hush Puppies. If you were to go out and flip over a rock, he is what you would find burrowed there. Actually, all of these are understatements.

Basically he sits in the corner staring first at the newspaper, which he sheds section by section onto the floor around him, and then at the television, always on the Headline News channel or the weather station. He talks to my husband about investments, which he finds mildly exciting
since he'd been an investment broker, though he says he himself never invested in anything. He talks to Matt about the virtues of being a boy who picks up after his elders, nodding toward the sections of newspaper on the floor as an example of elder litter. Who knows what he would talk to Sam about; he never gets the chance. Sam has it all figured out— the escape—he simply stops in front of James T. Allen's chair, lifts one ear of his Walkman, cocks his head and says “check ya later,” and he's off and running, laughter coursing through his veins. In private he whispers to me that James is the Zombie Dude; he is the Man Most Likely to Slip into a Coma—Man Who Most Resembles a Brussels Sprout—the Crash Dummy—Keeper of the Black Hole. These jokes have become our mother-and-son bondings of late, and though I sometimes feel guilty, I've done nothing to stop the game; we show our love for one another through our disdain for James.

J
AMES WAS ONLY
sixty-five when my mother died— a very old sixty-five—and I'm still not sure why it is that he lives with us. She died here and he couldn't think of anywhere else to go? Maybe. He needs help remembering when to take his different medicines? Maybe that was what my mother thought, but he has yet to even let me read the
labels. His one and only outing of the month is going to the drugstore to fill all those prescriptions himself. Once a year he checks in with the doctor who writes the prescriptions. He keeps his pills locked in a little box by his bed.

I don't know what exactly is wrong with James. I asked my mother several times, more frequently as she was reaching the end and telling me how he needed lots of care. Her answer was
“Many many things
are a burden to James.” “Such as?” I asked and she would conveniently doze off with a whispered murmur of “poor thing.” Arthritis? Schizophrenia? Cancer? Could he have had a lobotomy in his youth?

If Poor Thing had any family they had apparently given up on him. He didn't get phone calls or mail. My mother had explained that James had focused for so long on his job that by age fifty he found himself with nothing else in his world. That my mother could be the spark plug in someone else's life was a shocker. I didn't push much beyond learning that James was an only child and that he was friendless because, according to my mother, a man in a powerful position (was he?) can't have friends. Nobody likes the boss.

To my knowledge the only friend he ever had was his former lawyer, an older gentleman who had been his neighbor for many years. James used to take the man a basket of fruit at Christmas but stopped when the old guy had a stroke that
affected his memory and he moved into Turtle Bay Nursing Home. Sam said, “But you could still, like, take him something, right?” and James T. looked up, shook his head, and asked a bewildered “What for?”

“Oh I don't know,” I offered. “Because you're such a kind and generous man?” He thanked me for the compliment apparently missing my sarcasm and making me feel really small.

M
Y MOTHER, WHO
I believe willed herself to die (if such a thing is really possible), also told me that James had “terrible digestive flow.” Exactly what that meant, I don't know. What I do know is that he makes noises inside his mouth and chest cavity that sound like a host of demons trying to burst free. Burps and sucks and smacks, the kinds of sounds that leave a listener who's trying to tend to her own business jerking and snapping with mini-Tourette's. I sometimes find myself thinking that if he dared to open wide that cavernous mouth he would emit, like Pandora's box, all the uglies of the world—a swarm of flies, locusts, the river Styx pouring forth in projectile vomit. But no. He opens only a crack, he smacks, he sucks his gums. He says, “You're low on milk.” He says, “The TV reception is not good when you run the hair dryer.” He says, “I'm in need of Metamucil.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Are you through watching Headline News now?” Wouldn't you like to take a walk? Call a friend? Ride a bike? Find a pulse?

He is stationary.

He doesn't want to do anything at all.

He is
so
stationary, Ron says we could start using him as a clothes rack. We could rent him out to the circle of widows in our neighborhood as the Fake Man, like the thing we saw an ad for in a magazine not long ago. You can put the Fake Man by a window, or let him ride in your passenger seat. You would never ever feel alone with Fake Man by your side. For a more realistic effect, put a beige hat on him.

I
HAVE TO
find myself some ways to handle the anger I feel toward my mother for leaving me this boring ottoman of a man. I am, I realize, as angry as I was when my parents separated. My dad left and I couldn't get as mad at him as I wanted to because, even at fifteen, there was a part of me that understood why he left. To outsiders (even to my older brother) he was the bad guy and she was the helpless defenseless martyr. I suspected this was what she had wanted all along. She wanted a good reason why she was so miserable, which she hadn't had when she had a handsome, successful husband—a prince—and pretty good kids and a
great house and a big circle of friends. She couldn't do the happy thing. Or the healthy thing. She would much rather have been the victim and to die that way than to be a survivor who must hop to and get up off of her ass and
do something.

When I say this sort of thing, I get looks of horror from friends and from my brother in California, who I might add did
not
inherit James T. Allen and has nothing to worry about but himself and his partner and the little Jack Russell they all but keep in a bassinet. Even Ron says I am sexist and unfair not to side with my mother. He says, “Sure your dad's a great guy but he's not perfect. He is human. Why do you believe that's what she wanted? Give me one good reason?”

And I can give him two. First of all, the woman my mother claims my father left us for—he gave her the woman's name and address and phone number—did not exist. My mother was perfectly willing to accept this name and address and number and sigh, shake her head, cry into the telephone to friends who promised to bring her casseroles and do her errands for her. I was only fifteen, but I knew better. I called the number—help line. I rode my bike across town to the address—psychiatric practice. I scoured the phone book and later the courthouse records for the name we'd been given. And lo and behold, it turned out that Theda R. Dunster had
never existed, at least not in this part of the world. I told my mother that none of it was true. I said, “Don't you see? This is a test.” But evidently she didn't see or did not want to see and she failed the test. No retakes.

When I told my dad that I knew the truth, he made no admission, just smiled and hugged me up to his big chest. He whispered as we stood that way that he had tried everything he knew to do. That my mother was the person he had always wanted to live with. I waited then, holding my breath, knowing the answer was coming. “
Live
is the key word, honey,” he said. “I'm too young to simply stop living.” And I knew what he meant. He wasn't talking
fast
living. He was talking just ordinary living. Watch and comment on the sun either coming up or going down. Acknowledge the seasons as they pass. Laugh. Tell stories. Refuse to hunker down in a dark depression.

M
Y MOTHER MET
Mr. Allen (as she referred to him for the first two months of their courtship) at a gas station out on the service road while they both waited in its smelly little glassed-in room while their cars got fixed up. I have tried to imagine them there, to imagine what they might have said to one another beyond
flat tire
and
oil change.
Maybe they recognized in each other the distaste for anything
that could be flashy or fun about a car. Maybe finding another utilitarian, boring creature got them excited: My car is white—good visibility and cool enough not to install air-conditioning.
Mine, too!
I do not have a stereo, nor do I want such frivolity.
Neither do I.
I removed the cigarette lighter so that no one would ever smoke and risk burning the seat.
What a great idea!
Are you as opposed to bumper stickers as I am?
Oh, yes, yes, yes!

I acted out my little skit for Ron and the boys when we were in the car driving to the beach for the weekend. We spent the whole wonderful day imagining what James T. Allen did in our house when he was there by himself. We pictured him ripping off his glasses the way the old mousysecretary routine used to go and morphing into a wild and groovy swinging-singles type. But then we got more realistic and we imagined him peeking into everyone's drawers or, if he got really daring, watching a television sitcom.

I
TOLD
R
ON
that my second and even better reason to believe my father's story is that he only started dating after my mother began spending all of her time with James Allen and because my dad always dated women his own age. He could easily have survived and excelled in a much younger world but he chose to (after my mother took the
step first) marry Margaret, a livelier, Technicolor version of what he had left behind. As hard as it has been for even me—their daughter—to believe, it is clear that my mother was his first choice. And her choice of James Allen over my father is a choice equal to choosing a hysterectomy/toenail removal/root canal over a trip to Bermuda.

M
Y DAD HAS
aged nicely. He's handsome. He's charming. Tan face and arms. Keeps his golf gear in the trunk of his car. He has all kinds of projects. Birdhouses and bonsai. He loves the Marx brothers and Abbott and Costello. He loves to cook, especially Tex-Mex. He likes to camp out, even now, and will take the grandchildren (he has mine plus three little girls compliments of Margaret's daughter), who adore him, to the vacant lot in his neighborhood, pitch a tent, build a fire, sing songs, tell the same old stories he used to tell us—stories all set right there in the neighborhood and designed to scare you silly. He is definitely alive. I see Margaret's daughter (a woman exactly my age) cling to him with awe, this father she always dreamed was out there. No, he's not perfect. He is sloppy and sometimes so engrossed in a subject that he can't talk or think about anything else. Margaret stands behind him and rolls her eyes, flaps her hands in imitation of his endless hyper
chatter. But at least he's there; he's real. Which is what I am forever saying to my mother in my head.

“I'
VE BEEN THINKING
,” James says one day, which in and of itself is quite exceptional, “you need to alphabetize your books.”