Only Children (42 page)

But again, ask yourself: do you deserve the credit for the success of Tom’s portfolio?

Sammy had returned to the office a week after the fight with Joe in which Sammy had implied that Joe kept Eric employed only because of Tom’s money. Hoping for a retraction, Eric pressed Sammy about the argument, although Sammy seemed not to want to discuss it. Eric prevailed and got an apology. Sammy explained that he had been upset for weeks, convinced his father had little faith in him, and so he’d taken that out on Eric. Eric believed that was the truth.

But Eric didn’t think Sammy believed his own apology. It was the obvious excuse and so Sammy said it. The retraction, once extracted, made Eric feel worse.

So what do I care what Sammy thinks?

What do I care what
I
think if I’m making money?

But it wasn’t enough. This market might be a unique opportunity. Wall Street was awash with geniuses, dozens of people in their twenties and thirties casting huge nets into a harbor fluttering and shimmering with millions in salaries and bonuses. By comparison, Eric wasn’t doing that well. Eric was still on the street corner, the hustling end of the business, leafleting the suckers to get them inside the casino. The Harvard M.B.A.’s and lawyers, with their merger and acquisition magic, their junk bunk financing, their respectable pimping—they were making the real money. Wall Street was on a bender, and it would come to an end, it always had before, and Eric might come away with little more than a hangover. He had to steal some of the valuables, stuff his pockets, make enough of an impression on the host to be invited back for the quiet gatherings that hard times would bring.

Eric became obsessed with catching the wave just before all those flopping, gleaming fish were sucked back to the ocean depths. Eric went to the Strand, a secondhand bookstore, and bought a load of books on the 1929 crash. What everyone forgets, Eric told an attentive but bewildered Nina, is that you can make even bigger money when everything falls apart. Actually, the biggest fortunes were made in the year following the ’29 crash.

Eric tried to talk to Joe about his desire to be prepared to short the market, to ride the wave out to sea, and smile gaily back at those fishermen, their nets suddenly empty.

“Are you crazy?” Joe answered. “This bull market is a runaway train. I can understand considering getting off. But stepping in front of it?”

“If you think it’s a runaway train, then why are we still in the first car?”

“We have our stops to protect us.”

“That’s just avoiding losing money, Joe. We make money when the market goes up, we’re aggressive, why can’t we be aggressive when it goes down?”

“We will be! I made plenty of money in ’seventy-four. I did all right in ’eighty-one. But you have to wait until the trend develops. We’re not in the business of picking tops and bottoms.”

Joe was content with the money they made. To Joe, his income of half a million a year was extraordinary, way beyond the expectations of his youth. Joe, naturally, thought a young man Eric’s age should be happy with two hundred thousand per annum. Certainly, if a seer had come to Eric five years before and shown him his present circumstances, Eric would have assumed his future self would be happy.

But he felt diminished by his surroundings, a town house shadowed by skyscrapers, a doorman hustling tips while inside the luxury apartments twenty-nine-year-old Ivy Leaguers made millions.

So quit. Contact the brokerage houses and try to land a job as an equity fund manager. Call Tom and ask him to arrange a luncheon of his rich friends for me to pitch to.

Or—more to the point—take off the leash. Buy the S&P futures, take a big position in the biotechnology stocks, double up sometimes instead of getting stopped out, be bolder, be bolder, be bolder!

But this was Nina’s family’s money. Her future presumably. Eventually, his son’s. He had to take care, go slow, listen to Joe—

Fridays faced Eric with an uninterrupted weekend of these arguments. And then, after only a month at FIT, Nina’s work impressed one of her teachers, one of the many on the faculty who also ran businesses, and he asked Nina to apprentice three afternoons and occasional evenings a week, in order to work on the spring line. That meant Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Friday nights Eric had almost all of Luke’s care to himself. Nina urged Eric to ask Pearl to stay late, but Eric felt it was wrong to sit in the house and let some black woman be with his son while he was right there, perfectly able. Besides, wasn’t that one of the benefits of his work? The market closed at four. He could be home by five, five-thirty at the latest; he could read his material after Luke was in bed. On the nights Nina had to stay late, Eric could be alone to dream, to yell at himself, to question his ideas, to get tough, to get ready for the day that was coming soon when he would catch the wave and ride away laughing on a sea of money.

The third Friday he was alone with Luke, Eric had, over Joe’s objections, bought a small position in one of the new genetic-engineering stocks, DNA Technology. DNA had dipped on an overall down day for the market, and Eric wanted to jump on at the low price. Joe argued, and whined, and teased. But Eric bought anyway, and then Joe said his worst: “All right, have it your way. But you’re on your own. Just your father-in-law, nobody else.”

Joe’s words were like a curse, a poisonous cloud hovering about Eric’s shoulders. Eric went home in this gloomy atmosphere. Pearl greeted him nervously.

What? She’s worried I don’t have her money?

Eric immediately produced her salary, two hundred and fifty dollars, to forestall any concern, counting out the bills and placing them on the kitchen counter.

We should pay her more, he thought. It’s too much already, he also thought.

“We went to the park to play with Byron. You know, he’s a rough boy, not like Luke. So sweet. Well, Byron was teasing this other boy—”

Eric looked into the living room for Luke. Usually, at the sound of Eric’s key in the lock, Luke was at the door, little man, way down below, his head tilted up to see Daddy, his bright blue eyes open with excitement and wonder. No one had ever waited for Eric with such longing or hugged Eric with so tight an embrace of joy.

“—and he threw some sand. It got into Luke’s eye.”

Eric saw Luke. He was huddled, collapsed really, into a corner of the couch. Luke’s blanket covered half of his face. The television was on, but Luke had only one eye on it.

“I put some water in it. My, he didn’t like that. But, you know, to clean it out—”

“Hi, Daddy,” Luke said in a sad, small, tired voice.

“Let me see your eye,” Eric said, in a calm voice, but he was terrified to look. Luke lowered the blanket reluctantly.

It was wet. The surrounding skin was red. Eric reached to lift the lids, but Luke pulled his head away.

“I just want to look,” Eric said.

“I put some salt in the water and boiled it first to make sure it was purified,” Pearl said.

“Salt?” Eric thought: that’s got to be wrong.

“He says it feels better now. I think it’s all washed out,” Pearl went on in a hasty tone of apology. “This big boy threw sand in his eyes. I yelled at the woman taking care of him. I’ve seen her. She’s no good. She don’t pay no mind to what he does.”

“I’m sure it’s okay,” Eric said. He prayed it was. He had no idea what to do. Call a doctor? And say what? He’d sound like a fool. Take him to a doctor? On Friday night? They’re all heading to the suburbs. He kissed Luke on the forehead. The skin felt soft and weak and moist—newborn again.

Pearl kept talking. Eric repeated over and over, “I’m sure it’s fine, I’m sure it’s fine,” made nervous by the account of her nursing. Pearl only made things worse when Eric finally got her to the door. “He didn’t poop today,” she whispered. “That’d be the fourth day now.”

Eric didn’t know that. Why hadn’t Nina told him Luke’s constipation had returned?

Eric returned to the living room and sat next to Luke. Luke rested against Eric’s body, the blanket once again covering the wounded eye.

He’s not right. He’s not moving; he’s not asking me to toss him in the air, play catch, pretend to be a horse; he’s not standing in the middle of the living room and telling about what happened in the park. Nothing about Luke was normal. He didn’t yell with pain, he didn’t moan—but the whole personality was different from usual on a Friday afternoon. This was the quiet, mournful Luke awaiting a separation, the frail Luke-flower closing his petals in the twilight just before Eric’s parents arrived to baby-sit.

Luke laughed at something on
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
. Eric turned and saw Luke’s face open up and relax … and then Luke brought a hand quickly to his eye, his face contorted, and he moaned.

“Let me take another—”

“No.” Luke groaned and hid his head in the blanket.

“—just to see if there’s any more sand.” Luke didn’t stir. Eric put a hand on Luke’s back and patted. It was a miniature of a man’s, swelling with Luke’s life, so small and so strong. “Let me see. I won’t put anything in it.”

“Okay,” Luke said in a dying voice. He let Eric look, wincing when Eric pulled back the lids.

Eric couldn’t tell. How could he? How would he know if there was a microscopic grain? It wouldn’t survive Pearl’s eye bath, could it? If she was thorough. What about that salt? Well, she said she boiled the water with the salt. Maybe it had boiled away.

Maybe constipation was Luke’s real complaint. That was getting worse with each month. Their pediatrician had prescribed a mild laxative, some kind of chocolate stuff, the consistency of pudding, to give Luke before bed. That helped for a while, but it seemed to be getting worse again.

After Eric gave up looking for the invisible grain of sand, he saw Luke squirm, rub his behind back and forth.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

“No!” Luke shouted. That was so rare it startled Eric. The vehemence convinced Eric that the constipation was the real villain.

It’s because he’s sitting still, Eric decided. He got up and turned off the television. It was obscene, a child watching that much. Luke looked alarmed. “Wanna play He-Man?” Eric said, on his knees on the rug. “I’ll be Skeleton”

Luke was so pale. He smiled a little. “Okay.”

Eric put his heart into the pretend. “I will destroy you, He-Man!”

“No, you won’t,” the tiny, bowlegged, soft-faced two-year-old answered. “I have the power!” Luke raised his plump arm to the ceiling and thrust his ballooned belly forward.

Eric jumped to his feet and ran. He made Luke chase him from one room to another. After a few minutes, Luke stopped, his head lowered slightly, his legs coming together. Eric charged him, made Luke keep moving, keep the system going. His eye’s fine. He just needs to take a shit.

Luke’s face suddenly went red and he stopped again.

“Daddy, I have the Feeling.”

“That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“It hurts.”

“Come on, He-Man. I’ll get to Castle Grayskull before you do and tear it to pieces.”

“No, you won’t!” Luke forgot his bowels and ran again, his miniature body rocking from side to side as he tried to imitate strength. Luke got ahead of Eric and put his arm out. “Stop, Skeletor! I won’t let you pass!” Luke beamed with pride at his successful defense. He smiled into Eric’s face, full of his triumph.

Then Luke closed his mouth. His knees buckled slightly; he lowered his chin. He scrunched his neck down. He began to strain, his skin reddening.

What a life, Eric thought as he remembered his dream of managing hundreds of millions of dollars. What a pathetic life, he thought, while he watched his son try to empty his bowels. What a fool I am to dream of millions, he thought, as he cheered Luke on with the intensity of a fan rooting for the home team to score.

T
HAT PETER
might not do what Diane wanted when it came to major decisions, such as having a second child, was an unexpected discovery.

“You’re really surprised?” Betty Winters said over lunch, a few days after Peter had spoken so cruelly on the subject. “He didn’t want to have Byron.”

“I thought he loved Byron. I thought he’d gotten to like being a father.”

“I’m sure he loves Byron.”

“I think he hates us,” Diane said. She felt so beat. The landscape had been utterly changed. She had worked so hard to make a home, and she’d found too late that the foundation stood on muddy ground. “I’ve been kidding myself about Peter. I’ve been telling myself that all his negative talk was just talk, that deep down he wanted me to push him forward, push him to grow up and be a man. He doesn’t. He wants to spend his life going to the theater, to museums, talking pretentious nonsense with his artist friends. I thought all that was just being young, you know, something you do when you have the time to do it—”

“But it’s Peter’s work to go to the theater,” Betty said, her sympathetic expression gone. She sounded impatient.

Of course. Betty’s husband’s a playwright; she thinks it’s a worthwhile life too. Diane didn’t. Although it was fun meeting the behind-the-scenes people, going to opening night, not merely following the cultural lemmings of New York, but helping to lead them to a nice cliff, nevertheless, it wasn’t the real business of life. Although Tony Winters’s plays were amusing, they were quite silly. His movie scripts were pleasant, reminiscent of the great old romantic comedies; however, those classics were inconsequential and Tony’s modern versions were adolescent. There wasn’t a single play that Diane had seen during the ten years she had accompanied Peter to the theater which she could, even for an instant, consider in the same class of seriousness with Shakespeare or Chekhov. And if such a genius was out there, Diane doubted that Peter would be of any use to him. Deep down, did they really think what they did was important, was real in any way, that it was somehow worth a life of childlessness, worth discarding the very tangible result of child rearing? Was Tony Winters ever going to write a play as extraordinary as his handsome, intelligent six-year-old son, or as brave and beautiful as his one-year-old daughter? No matter how many theaters Peter funded, no matter how many lunatic gays or depressed straights he helped with the foundation’s money, nothing could equal the glory of creating Byron.