Other Plans (7 page)

Later, on his way home, he thought about what Keith had said. Maybe it was easier dealing with a father who didn't live under the same roof, who you saw once or twice a year. Or when you were best man at his wedding. Maybe it was easier getting along with your father if he was divorced from your mother and lived far away and your mother and father fought over you and tried to get in good with you. He smiled to himself, imagining his father trying to get in good with him. That'd be the day.

He admired his father, wanted to be like him in many ways. But if he ever had a kid of his own, an unlikely possibility, he'd pat the kid once in a while. Not too often. He wouldn't be a pal to his kid, but he'd give him the time of day once in a while. Toss a ball around, kiss him on his birthday, stuff like that. His father almost never touched him. Except in anger, that is. Last year, he'd given his father a book on gardening for Christmas. Exactly the right book, it turned out, and his father's face lit up when he saw it and he'd reached out and for a split second he'd thought his old man was going to hug him. But his father just said, “Terrific, John, just what I wanted.” Even so, he'd felt like a star.

Spare the rod and spoil the child, the adage went. No danger in his house. Both he and Les had had their share of spankings, Les not as many as he. But one of the good things about his sister was she never told on him. And there were plenty of opportunities. He'd taken his father's last pack of cigarettes and he and Jimmy Howard had smoked their little brains out behind the garage and she didn't tell. He'd driven the new car up and down the driveway and broken the taillight. She didn't tell. Lots of things she kept to herself. Les was definitely not a squealer. He loved her for that.

The last time he'd been spanked, he'd prepared for trouble by sticking his arithmetic workbook inside his pants. When his father's hand had landed, whammo, in just the right place, the old man had been cured of spanking him forever.

When he was ten, he'd fallen off his bike and broken his arm. It was a Saturday and his mother was out rolling bandages or something. His father had taken him to the hospital to have the bone set. After, they'd gone home and his father had squeezed him a glass of fresh orange juice and asked him how he felt. He said okay; then his father's arm had, as if by accident, rested on his shoulder. He could still smell his father's sweater. It smelled of burning leaves. Nothing else smelled like burning leaves except burning leaves, which you couldn't do anymore due to pollution.…

He had an idea for a TV commercial. Skinny guy, hollow chest, glasses, wispy hair, resembling Woody quite a bit, is raking leaves. All of a sudden girls are coming out of the woodwork, from behind trees, coming up out of manholes, they're everywhere, attacking the guy like Indians going after Custer at Little Big Horn. All on account of the way the guy smells. He rakes a big pile, strikes a match to it, then varoom! the product shot. This would have to be a commercial for an after-shave called, you guessed it, Burning Leaves. If he could just get it past the environmentalists.

If he didn't make it as a gag writer for Woody, he might be able to cut the mustard as a hotshot TV-commercial writer. The world was loaded with opportunities, he figured.

6

“For God's sake, John, sit up straight and stop dropping food all over the tablecloth. Anyone looking at you would think you'd been raised in a cave.”

“Henry,” Ceil said.

He drew himself up ostentatiously and sat erect. John Hollander, West Point cadet. He carried each mouthful of dinner to his mouth with slow deliberation, chewed every bite twelve times, and washed it all down with precise sips of milk. In the heavy silence of the dining room, he could hear himself swallow.

“Hey, you two.” His mother's face was white, her lips pressed into a thin, tense line. “Something interesting must've happened to you today, out there in the world. I crave conversation.”

Doggedly, his father ate his mashed potatoes. It was his habit to eat all of one thing before he tackled another.

“Ma,” he said brightly, “did you know that Woody's real name is Allen Stewart Konigsburg? And I just read that he shelled out three mil for a house in the Hamptons because he wants to escape the madding crowd. How about that?”

His father looked up and said, “Woody who?”

He considered saying “You don't know who Woody is?” imitating his father's attitude when he, John, didn't know some fact his father found essential to an understanding of world affairs. Instead, he said, “Woody Allen, Father. The greatest comic of the twentieth century. He drives a yellow Rolls and eats oatmeal with butter on it and hangs out at Elaine's.”

His father laid down his fork and wiped his mouth. “If you paid as much attention to your schoolwork as you do to some fly-by-night comedian, you might be president some day,” he said. “If you'll excuse me, Ceil, I have a telephone call to make. I'll be waiting for you, John. Give me ten minutes.”

After his father had gone, he said, “Can you just please let me in on something, Ma? How come he gets away with leaving the table before we're all finished? If I tried that, he'd shoot out both of my knees. What is this, a double-standard-type operation? And what makes him think I want to be president? The guy's cracking up.”

His mother rested her head in one hand. “You know something, John? I'm sick of acting as go-between. It's exhausting. I'm running out of steam. Why do you have to fight all the time?”

“Ask him. What's bugging him. He's always on my back. Tell him to lay off. What does he want? I'm not on drugs, I stay out of jail. What does he want? If I knew, maybe I could deliver.” His throat felt scratchy, pressure built up behind his nose, a sign of imminent emotion that he knew neither he nor his mother could handle right now. Hastily, he got up and took the plates out to the kitchen.

“Darling,” his mother said. He knew she felt bad about the fact that he and his father were always at each other's throats. Give praise where praise is due, he'd heard her say once, but even with his ear laid against the door's crack, that's all he'd been able to hear. They had been talking about him, that much he knew. There was a special tone in both their voices when they talked about him. Then, voice raised, his father had said, “If there's a reason to praise him, I will. I've had no reason.”

Bullshit, he muttered. Double bullshit.

“He's young, Henry,” his mother had said. “Lay off for a while. Can't you remember what it was to be young, Henry?” His father hadn't answered that one. That had been the end of it.…

“He's an ace at handing out flak, Ma, and you know it.” He rinsed the plates and put them in the dishwasher. “He doesn't give Les flak, but he sure shovels plenty my way.”

“It's because you're his son,” she said. “He expects a lot from you, John. He expects the best.”

“Hey,” he said, “he might not know it, but that's what he's getting. Every day in every way I'm dishing out my best.”

“No, John. That's not so. You just coast. He wants you to buckle down. You're a coaster. That's what bugs your father.”

He contemplated his sneakers and didn't answer. Twenty-six dollars those mothers had cost six months ago, and already they looked as if they'd been soaked in acid. He could hear his father keening when he announced he needed a new pair. “Twenty-six dollars for sneakers!” he'd wail, clutching his heart. The old man suffered from a serious time warp. Rip Van Winkle in a three-piece suit.

“Grace Lerner's niece is visiting her from Seattle,” his mother said casually, changing the subject with a quiet clashing of gears. A warning gong sounded. Industriously, he scraped a bit of butter left on his plate onto the butter dish. Waste not, want not was the family motto.

“Any dessert?” He decided to ignore his mother's ploy.

“There's half a grapefruit,” she said vaguely.

“Grapefruit's for breakfast, I thought.”

“She's a lovely girl. Very bright. Captain of her lacrosse team, and Grace says she has a stunning figure.”

“Who?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“Grace Lerner's niece,” she continued inexorably. When his mother waxed inexorable, stand back.

“Ma, buzz off. Last time somebody's niece was in town, I got royally shafted. That girl was the biggest turkey in this neck of the woods since the Pilgrims landed. Hey,” his face lit up, “I might be able to use that one,” and he scribbled furiously on the back of a used envelope.

“That wasn't a niece,” his mother said, full of reason. “That was Ann Arnold's goddaughter. And I understand she's blossomed, turned into a beauty.”

“Ma, you're not pulling that stuff on me twice,” he said. “Anyway, I'm scared of girls who are captains of their lacrosse teams. They tend to have big muscles and lots of libido.” He wasn't entirely sure what libido meant, but he knew he was on the right track.

“You're too much, John.” One thing was, he could always make her smile.

Behind her back, he practiced a few karate chops, slicing his hand through the air close to her ear, missing her by a hair's breadth. Sometimes he had thoughts of decking his mother and father, tying them up, using nothing but Boy Scout knots, and locking them in a closet until they promised to mend their ways, knuckle under to his demands. He planned, if this fantasy ever came to pass, to release his mother first and hang on to his father until the old man called out in a voice weak from lack of nourishment, “Mercy, mercy, son.”

She felt the air stir near her head and half turned, tucked her hair behind her ears nervously, wondering where the draft had come from. Once, when he'd been practicing his karate, he'd connected and knocked her to the kitchen floor. Lucky his father wasn't around for that one.

“Grace asked me if I thought you'd be interested in taking her niece to the movies. I said I'd ask you. Grace said you were the only boy she knew about the right age. She's always liked you, John.”

It struck him there were far too many occasions recently when “bullshit” seemed to be the only thing he could think of saying.

“She doesn't even know me, Ma,” he said stiffly. Grace Lerner was, in his eye, a slick-haired, fast-talking, know-it-all lady who never gave him the time of day if she could help it.

His mother banged a few pots and pans around. “Of course, I'd pay,” she said, steaming full speed ahead. “I'd even spring for a bag of popcorn.”

“There ain't that much popcorn in the world, Ma.”

“Okay for you. If you don't want to, you don't.” She brushed back a strand of hair. She was giving up too easily. Watch it. “I only hope,” she continued, looking at her watch, “that you never ask a favor of me. That's all I hope.” She tossed a sponge in the sink. “Better see if Dad's through talking to Grandy. Ten minutes are up.”

“What is this? What the heck. Are we running some kind of a space shot here? All right, men, synchronize your watches. Ten, nine, eight, lift-off. What the heck.”

Dragging his feet, he went through the hall and stood outside his father's study, heard him say, “Yes, John's fine. Leslie too.… Well, you know she always does. We expect her home next week on vacation. Ceil sent her love. How's Helen?… Hope to see the whole gang again soon. Yes, well, give them all my love. Maybe next time I'll bring Ceil out. Nice to talk to you, Dad. Take care of yourself.… All right. You too.”

Who writes his dialogue? he wondered. The old man really knew how to toss the old bon mots around. He would've liked to speak to Grandy, but his father had hung up. He cleared his throat to let him know he was there. But his father stood looking down at the telephone, his shoulders slumped and narrow in his neat gray suit, and didn't seem to hear.

He cleared his throat a second time, and his father shook himself, like a dog coming out of water, and looked around.

“Oh, John,” he said, as if not quite sure who John was, what he was doing here. “Sit down, will you?”

He sat. “How's Grandy?” he said. “Is he coming to see us?” What he wanted to do was to hitchhike across country, visit his grandfather, maybe go on up to Washington State, Oregon, see something of the country. But they'd never let him. No sense in bringing it up.

“He didn't say anything about a visit. He's fine. His arthritis is acting up, but otherwise he's in fine fettle. Sends his love to you all.” His father sat down, took out a cigarette, rolled it between his fingers, looked at it, then put it on the table.

“There's nothing I can say that I haven't said many times, John. Same old stuff. I imagine you're getting tired of hearing it. I know I am.” His father smiled, a slight upturning of his lips that, if he hadn't been watching him so closely, he might've missed. The old fight wasn't there.

“Your time could be better spent studying than listening to me. I have to call Ed, find out how he is. You might as well go. Just try to remember I'm not talking because I enjoy the sound of my own voice. If you don't get serious about your school-work, you'll regret it. That's all I had to say. Good night.”

His father turned again to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and began to dial. He was dismissed. Without a hassle.

Hardly believing his luck, he stumbled over his feet in his haste to leave—before the old man changed his mind.

“Hey, Ma,” he said, a feeling of goodwill toward men flooding him. “How's it going?”

The reading lamp cast long shadows on her, making her seem smaller and older than she was. She raised her head and gave him a blank look, her eyes glazed and far away.

Then, because she looked so sad, so tired, he said, though he hadn't planned to, “How old is this chick, anyway?”

“Chick?” she frowned. Then a smile broke and laugh lines fanned out from her eyes, her mouth. “You'll take her? Oh, John, you are a love! About your age, I should think. Grace will be so pleased.”