Kramer vs. Kramer (16 page)

H
E MET HIS BROTHER,
Ralph, at a Blarney Stone bar on Third Avenue. They were going to have an old-fashioned evening: beer and pastrami sandwiches at a bar, then out to Shea Stadium for the Mets against the Dodgers. Ralph was tall and muscular, handsome in a tough-guy way. He wore a silk suit, a thin striped tie and loafers. He could have passed for a television actor trying to pass for a mobster.

“You look skinny, Teddy.”

“I’ve been working on my weight.”

“Hey, bring this guy a Tab.”

“It’s okay. I’ll have a beer.”

“It sure has been a while.”

“I know.”

Ralph watched the legs of a passing girl through the window and then looked down at his food. Intimacy had never been a staple of this family and it did not appear to be on the table this night. Ted had the sinking sensation that one bite into the pastrami, they already had nothing to say to each other.

“Hey, Teddy, remember the old days—the Giants and the Dodgers for a three-game series? Friday night at the Polo Grounds or out at Ebbets Field?” Ralph offered, apparently feeling the same tension.

“Great times.”

Mercifully, they had old-time baseball to carry them along, Ernie Lombardi hitting 400-foot singles, ball games they went to when they were younger. This got them to the ball park, and then the ball game itself carried them along, as they talked about the hitters and the game in progress. During the seventh-inning stretch, Ralph said:

“Look at this place. All these shmuck-ass banners. What do they know about baseball?”

“And that organ music.”

“Come out to Chicago, Teddy. I can set you up in a liquor store.”

“Thanks, Ralph, but it’s not what I do.”

“I don’t mean
in
Chicago. In a suburb.”

“I appreciate it, Ralph, but no thanks.”

They returned to watching the game, and afterward, jammed into a crowded subway train, they were spared the burden of further conversation on the way back to Times Square. They switched to old-time basketball on the walk back to the Hilton, where Ralph was staying.

“How about a drink?”

“It’s too late. Billy gets up so early.”

“Is he okay?”

“He seems to be.”

“You got prospects?”

“A couple.”

“Teddy, you got to need some bread.”

He had his bread flown in from Paris.

“I’m fine, really.”

“How can you be?”

“I am.”

“Just say the word.”

“No, it’s okay, Ralph.”

Money was time. He needed the time, he needed the money desperately and yet he could not bring himself to ask. In his mind, it would cost him too much to admit the need.

“It was a nice night, Ralph. Let’s do it again when you come in.”

They shook hands, and suddenly Ralph squeezed his hand and would not let go.

“We’re all so fucking distant in our family. Teddy—”

“You’re here, Ralph. We had a good night.”

The veins began to swell in Ralph’s forehead.

“Teddy! You got to need something!”

“I’m telling you, Ralph—”

Ralph reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his checkbook, his other hand squeezing Ted’s arm.

“Don’t say anything, Teddy. Don’t move.”

“Ralph, I won’t take it.”

“Teddy, let me do this thing.”

“No, Ralph.”

“I need to do this. Let me do this for you.” And he rushed to write a check before Ted could turn away from him, hurrying, folding it and shoving it into Ted’s pocket.

“You can pay me back when you’re rich.”

Ralph squeezed his brother in a half hug, said, “It’s only money,” and walked on.

Ted did not look at the check. He could not bring himself to do it. He went home, sat at the dining room table and finally unfolded the check on the table. He looked at it and then buried his head in his arms. The check was for $3000. His brother had bought him time. In the morning, he could call
Packaging World
and tell them to take their lousy job and shove it.

T
IME MAGAZINE CONTACTED HIM,
and he spent several days seeing executives of the company, and everybody appeared to be impressed. There was one problem. A salesman in their West Coast office who originally said he did not wish to come to New York was now reconsidering. The man had priority.

It was maddening. He had a child to take care of. He felt he was not succeeding in what he considered a basic function, the business of being a provider.

He began walking downtown, thirty blocks to the library, and walking back uptown to keep from getting logy, and to save the carfare. Charlie pressed a phone number on him. “She’s beautiful. Fantastic teeth. I’m doing her crown.” He said he had no money, no interest, no strength to start from the beginning with somebody and go through all the what-do-you-like?s and the what-don’t-you-like?s.

Jim O’Connor called with a long explanation of how he spoke to the company president and they did not want a new salesman who would work on commission, since they wanted to reduce open-end costs—and Ted began to hold the phone away from his ear. I’ll even take a quick no. Somebody, a quick anything. I can’t stand all this waiting!

“And anyway, Ted, I had to agree. So it would be selling space, plus the details you’re so good at—working with research, talking to the copy guys, like that.”

“Right.”

“It’s just no commissions. I don’t know what you’d call it. Sales and administration. Assistant to the advertising manager, I guess. Twenty-four thousand to start.”

“So when can you set it up?”

“It’s set up.”

“So who do I see?”

“Nobody.”

“Come on, Jim!”

“It’s my choice.”

“Jim—”

“You’re my main man, Ted. Do you want it?”

“Yes, I want it!”

“Then you got it. You’re hired. Ted, I’ll see you Monday at nine-thirty.”

He hung up the phone and leaped through the air—“Yahhah!” shouting and jumping like a football cheerleader. Billy came running out of his room, where he was making a factory with his Tinker Toys.

“What is it, Daddy?”

“I got a job, little man! Your old man is out of the cold!”

“That’s nice,” he said placidly. “I told you, you would.”

“You sure did.” And he picked him up and spun him around and around in the air. “Your daddy takes care! Yes, he does. We’re going to be a-l-l r-i-g-h-t!”

But never again, my son. I don’t want to ever live through anything like this again.

M
EN’S FASHION MAGAZINE WAS
on the stands, a stylish-­looking publication with a large number of color pages. The company was part of a conglomerate from South America with holdings in the apparel industry, and the directors of the company wanted a magazine that could help promote men’s fashion. Ted was working with sales presentations he helped create, and he was off to a fast start with several contracts. He was pleased to remember he was good at what he did.

He returned the $3000 to his brother, along with a gift he found in a second-hand bookstore,
Who’s Who in Baseball? 1944.
“What ever happened to the St. Louis Browns?” he wrote in his note. When he came to the salutation, he recalled the various detached ways he had chosen to sign off notes to his brother in the past—“Best,” “Regards,” “See you.” This time he was able to write “Love, Ted.”

He registered Billy in a day camp for the summer, on Thelma’s recommendation. Kim had attended the previous summer, the last summer of Thelma and Charlie’s marriage.

“Charlie’s not too happy about the money this year,” she said. “I think what he’d like for us to do is sit in the apartment all summer with the air conditioner off.”

Ted attended a parents’ meeting for the “5’s” one afternoon during his lunch hour. It turned out to be a mommys’ meeting—he was the only man in the room. He sat with the women and met Billy’s counselors, a boy and a girl who were in college and who looked to Ted as if they were fourteen. Ted took notes—Billy had to have name tapes, extra sneakers and a change of clothes. He sensed the others staring at him. What do you think, folks, a widower? Unemployed while my wife works? I bet you’d never guess. As the head counselor described a typical day at camp, Ted became nervous. A swimming pool, was that safe? An entire day, would Billy be lonely? His Billy was going to be leaving the city in a bus, taken by strangers to a place outside somewhere, more than a cab ride away. And in the fall, Billy would start school, real school, with Board of Education door knobs and Assembly days and the Pledge of Allegiance.
They
would be taking over. His precious primitive was going to be institutionalized, his edges rounded out, another little face on the milk line. Billy was going off to camp and then to school, and Ted was having separation anxieties.

Ted would wait with Etta in the mornings for the camp bus, but Billy was already embarrassed about kissing his father goodbye in front of the other children. Shaking hands seemed too grown up—Ted wasn’t ready for that. He settled for patting Billy on the back.

The outside world was making its presence felt, children were raising questions, and so was Billy.

“Daddy, where is Mommy?”

“Your mommy is in California.”

“Is she remarried?”

“Remarried? She’s not remarried, as far as I know. Who used that word?”

“Carla in my camp. Her parents are divorced and her mommy is remarried.”

“Yes, that happens. Somebody gets married again to somebody new.”

“Are you going to remarried?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to remarried Phyllis?”

Phyllis? The lawyer. He had nearly forgotten her.

“No, Billy.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Billy?”

“Will you and Mommy remarried?”

“No, Billy. Daddy and Mommy will never remarry.”

J
IM O’CONNOR TOLD TED
to take two weeks vacation time and he expected him to get away.

“Maybe.”

“Ted, you’ve been working your ass off. Don’t you have anybody in your life to tell you you’re run down?”

He ruled out Fire Island, not wishing to be in the audience for any more nervous breakdowns. He looked through the travel ads, special packages based on double occupancy. That was Ted, double occupancy, he and his shadow. On a trip, Billy would never be out of his sight, unless Ted attempted to hire a chambermaid to baby-sit so he could look for pickups at the bar. Not exactly a class vacation. He was tired. The jobless period had exhausted him, he had been working hard, and he knew that an intensified time alone with Billy making typical children’s demands was not rest and rehabilitation. He eventually decided to take two weeks in August, spend the first week with Ralph and the family in Florida, a reunion was long overdue, and then he would return to New York for a week. With Billy in day camp full days, he could be alone to rest, nap, go to movies, stay home, eat chocolate-chip ice cream in bed and watch daytime movies on television, and just relax.

On the way to the airport, he revealed the big news, which he had confirmed with his sister-in-law.

“Billy, when we get to Florida, we’re also going to Disneyworld.”

The boy’s eyes enlarged. He had seen the Disneyworld commercials on television.

“Yes, William Kramer. You are going to meet Mickey Mouse.”

They were met at the airport by Ralph and Sandy, and Dora and Harold, who greeted Billy with kisses authentic and chocolate, a bag of candy which would have made the child’s other grandparents apoplectic. His mouth full of sweets, he loved Fort Lauderdale. The plan was to sleep in a nearby motel and for everyone to spend the days at the pool in Dora and Harold’s complex. After checking in, they linked up with Ted’s niece and nephew. Sandy had been a showgirl in Chicago, a tall long-legged redhead who kept most of the old men poolside in a coronary danger zone whenever she came down for a visit. Their eldest, Holly, was also tall with attractive features, and at sixteen had already refined adolescence into a smoky sulk. The young lifeguard was in love—drownings could have occurred at his feet. Their other child, Gerald, fifteen, was a strong, gangling boy, who was cannonballing into the pool. They acknowledged Ted with teenage “Oh, hi’s.”

“Billy is a fabulous-looking kid,” Sandy said. “But you look terrible.”

“Give me a chance. I haven’t had my mother’s cooking yet. I’ll look worse.”

“Cooking? I’m not doing any cooking,” Dora said over her shoulder without missing a beat, while talking to friends at the pool. “I wouldn’t cook for all you people.”

“We’re all going out for dinner on Ralph,” Harold announced.

“Ralph, I don’t want you bankrolling my stay here,” Ted said.

“Forget it. I’m writing a lot of it off.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Easy.”

Ralph approached one of Dora and Harold’s friends, a bony octogenarian sunning himself on a chaise lounge.

“Mr. Schlosser, I meant to ask you. Would you be interested in a liquor delivery route in Chicago?”

“You kidding? I wouldn’t be interested in a walk to the grocery.”

“Thank you. There, Ted—it goes in a diary. ‘Discussed liquor route with S. Schlosser in Florida.’ I just made this a business trip.”

“There is a certain sense of humor in our family.” He indicated his parents. “Not always intentional, but it’s there.”

“That’s my Ralph, a big liquor executive,” Dora was saying a while later. “And that’s my Ted, he sells men’s clothes.”

B
ILLY PLAYED IN THE
overflow of the pool with a toy boat, but when several children jumped into the pool, splashing water, he scurried back to Ted’s chair.

“We’re inseparable,” he said to Sandy, with a mixture of pride and annoyance.

Ted had asked for a conference with Billy’s teacher before the nursery school term ended, and she said she felt he had adjusted well. “He seems to be a perfectly normal child.” He focused on the “seems to be.” “Does he have any problems that you can see?” “No,” she said. “What about being too timid?” “Every child is different. Some parents feel their children are too aggressive.” And now Billy was on his lap, hardly too aggressive. He realized he might, in fact, be watching him too closely, but this was unavoidable with the boy sitting on him.