Kramer vs. Kramer (13 page)

I
N THE LATE FALL
in New York, the city was lovely—cool, clear weather, people promenading, the trees in the parks were doing their best to be autumnal. On Saturdays and Sundays Ted took long bicycle rides with Billy behind him in the seat through Central Park, stopping off at the zoo and at playgrounds. Billy was four and a half and had grown out of a baby-clothes look and was now wearing authentic little big-boy pants, jerseys with football numbers, a ski jacket and ski hat. With his dark saucer eyes and small nose, and now in his big-boy clothes, Ted thought him to be the most beautiful child he had ever seen. Ted had his successes at work during the week, and on the weekends he was with Billy for their autumn days outdoors, the city becoming the setting for this love affair of a father with his little boy.

T
HE NEW ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
was working. At a time when two of the other salesmen were told to look for pink slips for Christmas, Ted was promised a $1500 bonus. On one of his sales calls to a new agency on his list, he met a secretary, a gamin wearing dungarees and a sweat shirt. She was twenty years old and he had not gone out with anyone that young virtually since he was twenty years old. She lived in a studio apartment in a walk-up in Greenwich Village and he was faintly surprised to discover anyone still did that. Angelica Coleman. She walked through his life with sandals and insouciance. Going out with an older man who had a child was “experiential.” The experience was “spacey.” She was going to “get my act together” in New York and “do the business thing,” and why didn’t he want to smoke dope?

“I can’t. I mean, I used to, now and then. But I can’t now.”

“Why not?”

“Well, what if I have a bad experience? I’ve got to stay intact. I’ve got a kid at home.”

“Profound.”

On a rainy Sunday, she stopped at Ted’s apartment without calling, wheeling in her ten-speed bicycle, and got down on the floor with Billy and played with him for an hour. He had never seen anyone relate to Billy so openly. With her wet hair, and wearing one of Ted’s sweat shirts, she looked even younger than usual. He was in a time machine. He was dating a camp counselor from the girls’ side of Camp Tamarac who had come over for rainy-day-play in his bunk.

After a few weeks, he decided they did not have enough in common “experientially.” It was a long way from the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein to David Bowie.

He phoned to tell her.

“Angie, I’m just too old for you.”

“You’re not
that
old.”

“I’ll be forty.”

“Forty. Wow!”

T
ED RECEIVED HIS BONUS
at work and to celebrate he made a reservation at Jorgés, a new, expensive restaurant. He walked in with Billy of the combined crayons.

“Are
you
the two for Kramer?” the maître d’ said disdainfully.

“We are.”

“We don’t have a high chair.”

“I don’t sit in a high chair,” Billy protested in behalf of himself.

The maître d’ led them to a not very desirable table near the kitchen, turning them over to an equally disdainful waiter. Ted ordered a vodka martini and a ginger ale for Billy. Another waiter passed by en route to a table with a giant broiled lobster.

“What’s that?” Billy asked, apprehensively.

“Lobster.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You don’t have to have it.”

“Lobster from the water?”

“Yes.”

“People eat it?”

This was a difficult issue, the origin of food. That lamb chops came from little lambs, and hamburgers from animals that looked like Bessie the Cow, and if a child got on that track, who could predict when he might eat again? Ted recited suitable items on the menu—steak, lamb chops—and on the beat, Billy wanted to know where they came from and immediately lost his appetite.

“I’ll have a sirloin, rare. And a grilled-cheese sandwich.”

“No grilled cheese, sir,” the waiter said in a typical I’m-an-actor-I-don’t-have-to-do-this-for-a-living New York waiter voice.

“Tell the chef. I don’t care what it costs. Make one.”

The maître d’ appeared.

“Sir, this is not a diner.”

“The child is a vegetarian.”

“Then let him eat vegetables.”

“He doesn’t eat vegetables.”

“Then how can he be a vegetarian?”

“He doesn’t have to be. He’s four and a half.”

To quiet the lunatic and keep order in his restaurant, the maître d’ saw that the order was forthcoming. At the table, they chatted about nursery school events, Billy enjoyed watching grownups eat, and they savored the celebration dinner, Billy in a special-for-the-occasion shirt and tie, sitting on his knees, the only person of his height on the premises.

As they were leaving, Ted, delighted with the meal, turned to the maître d,’ who had nearly fainted at the sight of the chocolate ice cream Billy had for dessert making its way off Billy’s chin onto the white tablecloth.

“You shouldn’t be so rude to royalty,” Ted said, his arm around Billy, proudly leading his boy out.

“Really?” the maître d’ said, momentarily uncertain.

“He’s the Infant King of Spain.”

“M
ERRY CHRISTMAS, TED. IT’S JOANNA.”

“Joanna?”

“I’m coming to New York. I’m on my way through to visit my parents. I want to see Billy.”

She spoke quickly in a flat tone.

“How are you?” he said, completely off-stride.

“I’m fine,” brushing his question aside. “I want to see him. I’ll be in New York Saturday. I’d rather not come to the apartment if it’s all the same to you.”

In her tone of voice and choice of words, she was making it clear. This was not a phone call of reconciliation.

“You want to see Billy?”

“I’ll be at the Americana. Can you bring him there at ten
A.M.,
Saturday? I’ll spend the day with him, take him around, sightsee. I’ll have him back by his bedtime.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why? Are you going to be away?”

“No. I just don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“It could be disruptive.”

“Come on, Ted. I’m not the Wicked Witch of the West. I’m the boy’s mother. I want to see him.”

“I really have to think about it.”

“Ted, don’t be a shmuck.”

“Oh, that’s persuasive.”

“I didn’t mean that. Please, Ted. Let me see him.”

“I’ll have to sleep on it.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

He had a consultation with Thelma, who confirmed what did not require much confirmation for Ted—that Joanna obviously was not seeking to return to his arms. As to the wisdom of her seeing Billy, Thelma was thinking more of Joanna. “The price of independence,” she said. “It must be rough.”

Ted attempted to clarify his thoughts by placing his exact position. He called the lawyer.

“Do you think she’ll kidnap him?” Shaunessy asked.

“I wasn’t thinking of that.”

“It’s been done.”

“I don’t know what’s on her mind. I doubt kidnaping.”

“Well, you’re within your legal rights to oppose her on seeing the kid. And she’s within her rights to get a court order to see him. A judge would grant it. Mother, Christmas. You’d never win. On a practical basis, I’d say if you don’t think there’s a risk of a kidnap, you’d save yourself a lot of hassle to just give her the day with him.”

Was it better for Billy to see his mother or better for him not to? Should he force her to go to court and make her work for it? If he did, he would be harassing her at the expense of stirring up his insides. Would she possibly kidnap him? When Joanna called, he put the question directly to her.

“You wouldn’t be thinking of kidnapping him, would you?”

“What? Ted, you can stay twenty paces behind all day, if you want to. You can sneak around corners and tail me. I’m coming into New York for a few lousy hours, I’m going on to Boston, and then I’m going back to California. And that’s the whole deal. I just want to go to F.A.O. Schwarz at Christmas with my son and buy him a goddamn toy! What do I have to do, beg?”

“Okay, Joanna. Saturday, the Americana at ten.”

Ted informed Billy that his mommy was coming to New York and was going to spend Saturday with him.

“My mommy?”

“Yes, Billy.”

The child grew pensive.

“Maybe she’ll buy me something,” he said.

Ted took extra care with Billy that morning, brushed his hair, dressed him in his best shirt and pants, and made certain he, too, was wearing his best—no frayed edges here. They arrived at the Americana, and promptly at ten, Joanna emerged from the elevator. Ted felt weak. She looked stunning. She was wearing a white coat, a bright scarf on her head and had an attractive midwinter tan. The girls at parties, the gamins in sweat shirts, all his carrousel riders were also-rans against her.

Joanna did not look at Ted. She went straight for Billy, kneeling in front of him. “Oh, Billy.” She hugged him to her, cradling his head beneath her chin, and she started to cry. Then she stood up to appraise him.

“Hello, Billy boy.”

“Hello, Mommy.”

For the first time, she turned to Ted.

“Thank you. I’ll see you here at six.”

Ted just nodded.

“Come,” she said. “We’ll have a nice day,” and she took Billy by the hand and led him out of the hotel lobby.

Ted was anxious all day. If she kept her word and after seeing the boy left immediately for points elsewhere, would this be jarring to Billy—would he feel lifted up and then dropped again? What right had she to make such an invasion? Every legal right, he conceded. On edge, he went to a double feature, window shopped, and was back in the hotel lobby forty minutes early, waiting.

Joanna returned with Billy a few minutes before six. The boy looked tired from a long day, but was smiling.

“Look, Daddy,” he said, holding up a box of plastic figures. “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.”

“Weebles.”

“My mommy bought them for me.”

Joanna took a last look at Billy and then closed her eyes, as if the sight of him were too dazzling for her.

“See you, Billy,” she said, hugging him. “Be a good boy now.”

“See you, Mommy. Thank you for the weebles.”

She turned and, without looking back, went into the elevator.

So Joanna Kramer had not come East to kidnap her child, or reconcile with Ted, or stay. She was passing through. She was there to see her parents and spend a day with Billy. Ted learned later from her parents that Joanna visited with them for a day in Boston and then, just as she said she was going to do, she went back to California. Apparently, Joanna could not imagine coming all that distance without seeing the boy, but the distance she would have had to travel to do anything more than that was too far.

The boy survived the day without a sign of disturbance, relying on a child’s facility to accept the world as it appears to him. Mommy was here. Mommy was gone. The sky is blue. People eat lobsters. Mommy was gone. Daddy was here. He got weebles. Weebles wobble and they don’t fall down.

“Did you have a nice time?” Ted asked, probing.

“Yes, it was nice.”

Do you miss Mommy, too? But this Ted did not ask.

T
ED KRAMER RESENTED HIS
former wife’s intrusion into his organizational structure, and his emotions. Seeing her again was unnerving. Once, he was married to the prettiest girl at the party and somehow she got away, and now the party was dull. “Serial relationships” was Thelma’s term for the style of their social lives, one person after another, nothing, no one sustained. Ted’s two months with Phyllis, the lawyer, had exceeded any of his friends’ totals. Thelma said they were all bruised people, Charlie insisted it was the time of his life now, and Larry was still compacting entire relationships into a weekend.

Ted might find himself in the playground on a Saturday rocking Billy in a swing alongside Thelma rocking Kim, and on the following day alongside Charlie rocking Kim. Charlie and Thelma’s divorce was final, Ted having attended successive, joyless divorce celebration dinners at each of their apartments.

“Think you’ll ever get married again?” Charlie asked, as the two men shivered in a patch of sun in the playground, watching their children playing in the snow.

“Beats me. With a child already, I’m what they call in advertising, a hard sell.”

“I was thinking … what if I get married again and what if I have another kid, and get divorced again and have to pay child support twice?”

“Charlie, all those what-ifs. I don’t think you can set that up as a reason not to.”

“I know. But the money! That’s a lot of cavities.”

Thelma had her own perspective on remarriage. She aired it in a guerrilla conversation, a few adult remarks stolen from the children’s hour as, from the phonograph in Billy’s bedroom, Oscar the Grouch shouted how he loved trash, and the children played hide-and-seek through the house.

“The first time you marry for love, but of course, you get divorced. The second time, you know that love was invented by Hallmark. So you marry for other things.”

“Hold it,” he said. “Billy and Kim! Turn down Oscar or turn down yourselves!”

“So … the second marriage is really to confirm your own life style or your own views. You know, the first time, you marry your mother.”

“I didn’t know that, Thelma. I don’t think you should let that get around.”

“But the second time, you marry yourself.”

“You just saved me a lot of trouble. Then I’m already married.”

It was Larry who broke away from the pack after years of running. He was marrying Ellen Fried, a twenty-nine-year-old teacher in the city public schools system. Larry had met her on Fire Island and had been seeing her while dating other women, as was his style. Now he had decided to retire his girlmobile. Ted had met Ellen several times and noticed she was a calming influence on Larry. She was soft-spoken, thoughtful, plainer and more dignified than Larry’s usual women.

The wedding was held in a small suite at the Plaza Hotel, a few friends and the immediate families, which in this case included Larry’s children from his first marriage, a girl of fourteen and a boy of sixteen. Ted remembered them when they were babies. It all goes so fast, he thought.