The Full Cleveland (2 page)

Luke reached across Cabot and patted me sympathetically. He knew I wasn't
remarkable.
That was an old person's word. You'd have to be almost dead to come up with it.

I slid closer to my window and looked out, getting ready for my other best friend's house, Mickey Joslyn's. I'd always thought Mickey's was the best Tudor ever made, because it wasn't one of those tall, phony-looking Tudors, it was sort of low Tudor, old Tudor, hacked-up Tudor, as if a couple of Tudor warriors carved out a house there say five hundred years ago. About eight of the bedrooms had fireplaces big enough to cook a moose in, but my favorite room was Mickey's mother's. It was blue and yellow, which may not sound too good, but it was that certain blue, the color not really of the sea, but what the sea should be, and there were a couple of yellow things tossed around, say a pillow on the bed to break up the blue, or when you stepped into the room you'd probably start thinking you were walking on water. There was also a Monet painting on one of the walls, and it had a sea in it, exactly the color the sea should be.

I already said, I liked looking at everyone's houses.

•   •   •

Then it was extremely quiet in the car, because of Grandfather's house. Once you passed the second Mickey's, the next corner was Grandfather's, or at least Grandfather's house before he died. Everybody said,
There's Grandfather's.
It was definitely our favorite one.

It was just an old brick house with wings on either side, but we could remember being in there, and sinking back carefully into big, upholstered chairs with cake balanced on china plates, and being no taller than the dining room table itself, and it made you sit still in the car to think it all ended because Grandfather died. I didn't say it out loud because of not mentioning money, but when I saw his house, I remembered how he gave us ours for a dollar.

I was two, and we came to Grandmother's funeral from New York City, where Mother and Dad and Matt and Cabot and I lived then. After, there was a ride in a long line of cars with lights on at noon, then another ride, through these very streets, in Grandfather's old Mercury, a car he christened that day for our benefit, naming it the Dream Machine. And then our house, surrounded by flowers, filled up with furniture by Grandfather and long kept a secret from Grandmother (who could never really know because she could never really approve Dad's marrying a Catholic), and then Matt, Cabot, and me running all through and around, and then Dad and Grandfather shaking hands, and Dad opening his brown wallet and handing over one single green dollar. Looking at Grandfather's, I remembered now how I never forgot that.

“Hallelujah,” Matt said, but not with his hands up. “It's over, you guys.”

Mother said, “Matt.”

We circled back to South Park and then to our house. Ours was nice and everything, but it didn't look like the Magic Kingdom like some of the others. It was just big and brick with a lot of windows. In the sunlight, they were shiny and dark, and the panes in the French doors almost looked like so many mirrors, and in them you could see reflections so intricate you could practically watch the wind blowing in the trees. That was all there was to it.

Though of course the inside also, with Grandfather's touch on it. The tall front windows had been treated in pale silk curtains finished with a slash of valance at the top, the ornate moldings had been stripped of paint, the walls papered in the faintest eggshell. In the dining room, the original old murals depicting faint green hills and glowing stacks of hay and a shepherd boy in a gold straw hat tending round gray sheep had been restored as well as reasonable, then left to delicately crack and peel. The wood floors downstairs were covered with old rugs Grandfather probably rolled up and carted off from his own house when Grandmother wasn't looking. Then Grandfather had retiled the bathrooms, filled up the linen closets, and stuffed the library with books. In the basement, he fitted out a toolroom, a playroom, and a sort of a gym. You'd have to say, it had almost everything.

I looked up at Mother. She was already leaning forward a little, peering through the windshield as we rounded the curve in the driveway, looking, like all of us, to make sure Egg Man was there. When he strolled out of the shadows of the garage into the sunlight, we knew we were finally home.

The Buick stopped right up beside Dad. Mother rolled down her window and stuck her face out, her green eyes blinking up, her long dark hair falling back, looking pretty but also impertinent, like a belle, from the South, which she wasn't. She was born in New York City.

We all watched them kiss, though today's wasn't one of their best ones. Dad's weekend wardrobe was probably why, especially on Easter Sunday. His same old paint-splattered khaki pants, canvas shoes, and white oxford shirt with the rips up the sleeves. Today he had Grandfather's old gray felt hat also, pushed back a little which made him look like a boy, though a tall one. Mother liked him when he looked like an adman, in a proper suit and tie. That's what he wore to work, but the minute he came home, he changed into something sloppy. She tried to upgrade him, she bought him cashmere smoking jackets with satin collars and such, but he'd just say “ah” when he opened the box, and that was the last you'd see of it. Anyway, you could tell by the kiss, she sure wasn't backing down on the wardrobe thing, especially on Easter Sunday.

Dad put his hand on the top of the Buick, leaned down and looked in at us.

“Hi, Egg Man!” we all cried, making sure to call him that and not Dad today.

“Fair enough,” he said. “My turn. Into the car.” He swung around and went for the garage, and after Cabot and I nearly knocked off our hats grinning at each other, we climbed out of her blue Buick convertible and into his blue Buick hardtop. They really liked Buicks, is all I can tell you.

“Georgie boy,” Mother said while Dad snapped Lucy into the car seat. That's what she called him when she wanted an answer, which was sometimes hard as anything to get out of him. “Just give me a hint. Just one little rhymed clue where you're all going.”

Luke rolled down his window. “You're supposed to call him Egg Man.”

Mother reached in and put her hand on Luke's head, so she could shut him up without having to come right out and say so. She smirked at Dad and said, “Egg Man? What's the itinerary?”

Dad got in the driver's seat and stroked his chin, taking his time, so we'd all know how tough it was to come up with this stuff. “Hmmm. I'm not winking …”

We already started to look around at one another.

“… I'm
thinking.”

This was a hard one.

“I'm smart, and I'm art.”

Mother frowned. “Not that statue at the Museum, George. Not
The Thinker.”

I said, “Art?” Are you kidding. I'd been planning all day to see a river that burns. “Hey,
Dad?”

He turned and winked at me. “Hey, Zu,” he said, which is an extra name he called me because of some movie.

“George, that statue was bombed. With dynamite.”

It was? I didn't know that part.

Dad said, “Then how about some nice ducks in the pond?”

Only Luke looked anywhere close to bowled over.

“But the ducks are at the Museum, George. In the lagoon.” You could tell, she didn't want us to run into
The Thinker.
Which only made us want to, to tell you the truth.

“Roses are red, boxes are blue,” Dad said, rolling up his window and reminding Mother she had some finding to do. If she didn't find her blue box, she just didn't get it. She might get more rhymed clues, but not the blue box and the thing she always liked that was in it. I already said, he'd let her look for a year.

As we went down the driveway, we turned in our seats to see Mother and Clarine, waving. They were like those two faces on the velvet curtains when you went for children's plays at the Cleveland Playhouse. One laughing, one frowning. Clarine was laughing. But poor Mother, she hated losing us. To a Protestant, probably, and on a Holy Day of Obligation.

On the way to the ducks, we asked Dad more than once if he didn't have something slightly more spectacular in mind for after, something more like a river that burns. But he didn't answer. We just had to pray we'd see something worse.

We expected the ducks would be corny, but I guess we were wrong. Besides, Dad said it was a fine old tradition, for the people of Cleveland to see ducks on Easter.

We walked around the circular road for the Museum, and came out on top of the lagoon, looking down. Below us were hundreds of black girls with bright coats and purple corsages and patent leather shoes. Some had hats like we did, but the coolest had lots of bows, or braids with beads in their hair. Some carried minuscule pocketbooks over their arms. The boys looked good too, in their Sunday suits and ties. We glanced up at Dad. Even though we were dressed up, it didn't seem that we really belonged. But he just started us down the stairs.

When we got down there, Dad pushed Matt and me into the crowd. Cabot caught right up, Luke grabbed her hand. Egg Man walked on the outside, carrying Lucy.

And once you got started, you could see right away why people had done it for years. It was just nice, is all. The way we were all going in the same direction, with parents and children and grandparents all holding hands. And even when somebody was slower in front, nobody passed. But the second time we came full around, Dad had us step out of line.

Then the way he turned to look, we all did, up to the front of the big museum, and looming there, massive and monstrous but not in a bad way—there was
The Thinker.

We looked at Dad because of Mother to see what we'd do. He told us to climb.

When we got to the top, Matt whispered, Awesome. Because Mother was right.
The Thinker
was bombed. He was missing half his face, much leg, and some arm. Yet he was still thinking. The bomb hadn't ruined him, it had improved him. You're a better thinker once you can think through a bomb.

Luke said, “Hey, Dad? What happened to him?”

Matt answered, “Dynamite.”

Luke said, “Hey, Dad? What's he thinking?”

Matt answered, “He's thinking that someone blew him up with a bomb.”

I said, “Why doesn't Mother like him? Because of the bomb?”

Dad didn't answer. But at least Matt didn't either.

Cabot said, “Don't worry about the bomb, everybody. It's still art.”

Fact is, nobody was that worried about that part. But Cabot came here a lot, so she probably knew. She had lessons in drawing two times a week at the Cleveland Museum school. In the evenings. Dad took her. Mother didn't like the art lessons. They were downtown.

Dad said, “So tell us the artist, Cab.”

“Rodin is.”

We all stood in a half circle like a museum group and nodded.

Cabot said, “He's a sculptor.”

We nodded.

Cabot said, “He's French, and he's dead.”

We nodded.

“He had his first drawing lesson when he was ten years old. At age fourteen, he entered the Petite Ecole, as distinguished from the more prestigious Ecole des Beaux Arts, which wouldn't let him in there.
However …”

Enough already. This was all about her. We broke ranks and started circling around.

Until now, I hadn't been thrilled with men statues before. They were usually on a horse, going to war. You had to worry so much for the horse. But I really did like
The Thinker.
I told Cabot another bomb could go off, and nothing would stop him. He'd think until he was just a heap of stone on the ground.

Cabot said, “But he's bronze.”

“That doesn't bother me.”

Then we stopped circling and stood there, regrouped around Egg Man. Matt asked him who put the bomb there and Luke asked him why.

After a long silence, during which he appeared to think about it almost as hard as
The Thinker
himself, Dad shifted Lucy to the other arm. And didn't answer. He just looked us all over, and then looked up the road, toward the car.

And that was it. It made you wonder why he'd brought us here if he didn't have anything to teach us. Even Cabot knew more.

We all stood there, holding our hats if we had them, and then, it was funny, but we all turned together to look back down at the pond. But below us, the paraders no longer looked festive. The sun was gone. It made the whole march look as if it had slowed right down.

“Okay,” Egg Man said. “Back to the car.”

We all looked around at one another, and all trudged off.

This time I sat up front, between Matt and Dad. Then we drove farther downtown, but only just cruising, and we had to keep asking, Seriously, Dad, in addition to a statue that was bombed, would we now see a river that burned.

But Dad wasn't talking. Though sometimes, like a man on a tour bus, he'd stop in front of big, fancy, gray buildings and announce their names out loud. “Athletic Club.” “Union Club.” “Terminal Tower.” We already knew the buildings, from other Easters, or from children's Christmas parties in these very places, if that's where they were. But we still liked when Dad stopped and announced things, very deep and slow and unnecessary, because it all told you he was joking around.