What Is All This? (52 page)

“So how are you today, people?” she said.

“Sleeping soundly,” Jacobs said.

“And I'm not quite ready to sit up,” Zysman said, “so could you please slip my tray through the hole I made in the covers?”

“No chance. Today, good friend, you're seeing the light.”

“Lay off the guy,” Spevack said. “It's his business if he doesn't want to come out.”

“But God's own handiwork is out there for the viewing,” she said, pointing to the treeless parking lot and the home's other wing.

“Not only that, the doctor ordered it.”

“What doctor? Name me names.”

“Doctor Gerontology, that's who. He said: ‘Mrs. Slomski, I think it'd be beneficial today to have people see Mr. Zysman, and Mr. Zysman to face up to people seeing him,' though naturally I can't tell you the doctor's real name. Professional courtesy and all that.” She placed a tray of food in front of Spevack and then tapped Zysman through the sheets. “You coming out, sweetie?”

“If you insist on seeing me,” Zysman said, “put a screen around the bed.”

“Enough dillydallying, Mr. Zysman. First of all, all the screens are in the new wing. Secondly, I raised six kids and saw to my own dear parents till they were in their nineties, so it's not as if I don't know how to handle people.”

“I said to lay off the guy,” Spevack said. “He's got a bum heart and everything that goes with it. You continue and I'll report your drinking habits to Kramer's office. You're probably tanked up even now.”

“You think they don't know? They encourage it, in fact. Drinking and drug-taking are the two professional hazards that all nursing homes accept from their personnel, because how else could we bear looking at so many crotchety old men? Two.”

“Have some pity, Mrs. Slomski,” Ray said. “If Mr. Zysman doesn't want to come out, respect that wish.”

“You, Mr. Barrett, should think to mind your own business. Talking about disgraces, you're the worst. Occupying a bed that rightfully belongs to a senescent is one of the most despicable crimes against hunan nature a person could do. To me, you don't even exist.”

“I'll be occupying it for one more week. Then my father gets it.”

“Listen to that lie. You're running away from the world, that's what you're doing. Or maybe writing an exposé for a scandal magazine. We're wise to you—the whole staff. We all think you're a misfit,” and she swiveled around to Zysman, said Three,” and flung the sheets off him. When they first saw his scarred body—his gloved hands covering his eyes and a scream so tight in his throat no sound came out—everyone but Mrs. Slomski had to turn away.

“Get a doctor,” Jacobs said, “My heart. My heart can't take such a sight.”

Mrs. Slomski daintily put the sheets back over Zysman. “Now that wasn't so terrible,” she said. The truth is, you don't look half so bad as you think. It's all in your head. Because nobody here hardly winced except for Mr. Jacobs, and you know what an old fuddy-duddy he is, besides being a great one for a practical joke. Take it from me: what I did was therapy. And now that everyone's seen you, how about coming out on your own accord and eating these nice goodies?”

Zysman didn't move. After about a minute Mrs. Slomski said how her curiosity just seemed to get the better of her at times and lifted the sheets off him though held them up in front of her so nobody else could see him. She let the sheets fall back on him and said “Know what? I think the poor man's dropped dead on us.”

Ray phoned his father a week later and said the two weeks were up.

“Yeah? So what do you want me to do?”

“Have Mrs. Longo pack your bags and drive you here so you can take over the bed.”

“Look, I don't know if I'm ready to go there yet. Why don't you fly back to California and let me work things out on my own.”

“If I leave now, I not only lose the deposit, which is a lot of money to me, but they'll take the bed away from us also, and then where will we be? No place. It'll take a month or two to find you another home or another place in this one. Believe me, if I had the strength, I'd come and get you and, if need be, carry you here myself.”

“You feeling sick?” his father said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Your voice. It's weak. And this business about your strength.”

That was just a figure of speech. All I have is a little cold.”

“Give me another week. The extra time will do your cold good, and then I'll be there to take over your bed.”

Ray didn't tell him about Zysman and that he felt his death had in some way started the decline of his own health. He'd never seen a dead man before, not even in the army. He lost ten pounds in a week and, for unknown reasons to the staff and himself, wasn't able to hold down any solids. And Mr. Lehman, the patient who now had Zysman's bed, was screaming again, something he did half of every day and night, till Ray told himself he'd had it here for good. He threw off his covers, said “Let my dad find his own home if he wants, but I'm getting out,” and jumped off the bed, but crumpled to the floor. Nothing was going to stop him from leaving, though, and he stood up but his legs collapsed again, Spevack rang for an aide, who put Ray back to bed. At first Ray thought it was the flu. There was a bug going around the home, though he'd never heard of a flu that made his hands tremor and his up-till-then 20/20 vision so bad that he had to be fitted for thick corrective lenses. When the doctor made his rounds the next day, Ray asked if anything more serious than the flu could be making him feel so sick and weak.

“If you were forty years older,” the doctor said, “I'd tell you your illness was simply another common geriatric problem that someone your advanced age had to accept. But you're 33, if your chart is correct. So all I can say is that your condition is caused by some minor, though unique fluke in your metabolism, and that it won't be long before you're feeling as healthy and vigorous as a man your age should.”

Few days later, the barber came around for the patients' monthly haircuts. As he snipped Ray's hair, he asked if he wanted any of the gray touched up.

“What gray hair? I've got as many as you've got fingers. Just finish the trim.”

“You patients here,” the barber said. “You're all as vain as the high school Casanovas I cut,” and he held a mirror up to Ray's hair. Not only was it partially gray on the sides and top, but it was thinning in spots and there were lines on his face that a fifty-year-old man didn't have and his neck was beginning to sag. What the hell's going on? he thought. Just a couple of months ago he was so youthful-looking that other teachers on the campus often mistook him for one of their students.

Every day after that, he studied the increasing changes in his face, hair and neck. And every day he phoned his father, who was less inclined than ever to go to the home.

“I've been getting these disappointing reports on you,” his father said, his voice more resonant than Ray had heard it in years. “From your Mr. Kramer, who says you're an unruly patient and giving everyone there a hard time. That isn't like you. Place getting you down?”

“I'll say it is. Believe me, I'd be on the next plane to San Diego if it wasn't for this damn flu.”

“Flu? Before it was just a cold. You got to take better care of yourself.”

“Flu, eye trouble, maybe the early signs of ulcers and a urological disorder—I'm not kidding you, Pop. But once I'm better, I'm getting the hell out of here, with or without my deposit, and then you'll have to find your own nursing home.”

“Fine with me, because I'm feeling so good I think I might not need a home after all. Fact is, I'm feeling as good as I ever have in my life. Would you like me to visit you?”

“How? If you use up all your strength getting here, then make sure it's when you're coming to stay.”

His father came the next morning, looking better than Ray had seen him in ten years. He'd lost weight, his face was rugged and tan, he had an energetic gait, even his spirits seemed up, and with him was a very pretty young woman in her late twenties or so, whom he introduced to Ray as Ms. Amby Wonder.”

“Amby, meet Raymond.”

“How do you do?” she said, extending her hand. “Any friend of Barry's is a friend of mine.”

“Friend? This is my son. Raymond Barrett—don't you recall my saying?”

“Oh, yeah. Barry did mention you. So, pleased to meet you too, Raymond.”

“Who's Barry?”

“Why, your Daddy, most certain. Barry for Barrett. Isn't that what everyone calls him?”

“Who is this woman, Pop—your nurse?”

“You won't believe this, Ray,” and he moved closer to the bed so Amby wouldn't hear, “but she's my girl.”

“You mean your daughter? Someone not from Momma?”

“Girl like in woman. You don't understand?”

“I'll tell you what I don't understand? I'm looking at you and I almost don't recognize you. You seem several inches taller than when I used to walk you to bed and tuck you in. You got a glow on your face you never had. And your clothes—right out of a stylish men's shop. What've you been doing, taking rejuvenative pills?”

“Sure, why not? Great stuff, those—you want my doc to prescribe you some? Take two after rising and four before bedtime, and whoopee!” and he twirled around twice and squeezed Amby into his body.

“Pop, you're embarrassing me,” Ray said, glancing at his roommates.

That's one of your problems: too self-conscious. But listen, it's not just the pills. It's my new disposition. Mrs. Longo suggested I see a psychiatrist. I said ‘What, me, a shrink?—never.' But she harped on it and to get her off my back I went, and in just five sessions he got me, straightened out fine. He said ‘Throw away your sadness and walker and get yourself a piece of ass,' and that's what I did. But you?”

“What about me?”

“Your scalp, for one thing.” He ran his hand through Ray's hair.

“Even I got more than you.”

“It's from the flu. But it'll all grow back.”

“And that nice red color your hair used to have? That'll grow back too?”

“I've been worrying a lot lately, and a little gray won't kill me.”

“I still don't like it. Ailments, balding, your face kind of sickly-looking. I think you should be in a real hospital. Want me to admit you into one?”

“I'll be okay, I said. In a few days I'll be up and out, and then it's goodbye to New York forever.”

“I'm glad, because you can really use that warm California sun. As for Amby and me, we'll be getting some sun also. In Antigua. If you're really not feeling that sick, then we'll be flying there tomorrow.”

“You crazy? Pills, psychiatrists or whatever therapies you're on-they can't keep you going forever. You're committing suicide. You should take it easy—rest, like me.”

“Let him go to Antigua if he wants,” Amby said. “His doctors say he's as healthy as a horse, and you should be happy to see him having fun.”

“Don't give me that claptrap, young lady,” Ray said. “I don't know how much dough you think he has and how much of it you're planning to finagle out of him, but I think you should know first that he has a very serious heart condition.”

“Heart condition?” and she laughed.

“And diabetes, liver trouble, glaucoma, plus a half dozen other equally enfeebling afflictions. He's an old man, if you must know the truth,” and Amby kept on laughing, his father joining in with her. “His doctors said long ago that a person in his condition can barely stand the strain of walking, less any great globe-trotting with an adventurous young woman—a tramp.”

“Now hold off, Ray. Amby's a fine young lady.”

“She's an insidious conniving tramp who's going to ruin your life. So get her out of here—I don't want to look at her anymore.”

His father took Ray's hand and shooed Amby out of the room. “Calm yourself, Ray. You're upset and tired, besides not feeling too well. We're only going for a week. When we get back, we'll come see you again, okay?”

“You won't find me here.”

Then in San Diego we'll come visit—but just take care.”

“Don't bother visiting with her. I won't have you both out there, and not because I don't have room.”

“Anything you say. But relax, son.” He put his fingers on Ray's temples, as he used to do when Ray was a boy and had a headache, and rubbed them so gently that Ray soon felt himself falling asleep. His father whispered goodbye to the other patients and left the room.

“Dad?” Ray said a minute later, jolted out of sleep by a pain in his side. He dragged himself out of bed to the window, and opened it.

“Dad?” he shouted to his father hustling through the parking lot with Amby. “You're being used, fleeced, swindled by a pro. You've got to get out of her scheme fast before she takes you for every dime you have. Now you're coming to San Diego with me when I'm feeling better, you hear? We'll take long ocean walks, sit out in the sun, talk over good times, go out for nourishing dinners, and see all the better TV shows together. We'll take good care of each other is what I'm saying, and I'm going to have to insist on your coming, you hear? I said, do you hear? Goddamnit, Dad, you get so headstrong where you can't even listen to me anymore?”

Max Silverman figured he had about the softest job in the Bronx: assistant manager of a large five-and-dime on Jerome Avenue, under the El tracks. Most of the administrative duties were handled by Mr. Winston, the manager for fifteen years, so all Max had to do was roam the aisles to prevent kids from pocketing merchandise, relay Mr. Winston's orders to other workers and fill in for him when he wasn't there, and do a little bookkeeping and stock-control work at his mostly empty desk in his windowless office in the back of the store.

Then another recession came, this one, as the newspapers put it, the worst economic downturn since the end of the Korean War. In a month, four salesgirls were fired on the spot. A few days later, after the President had said on TV that all reports of a serious recession were grossly exaggerated, Mr. Winston gave Max a check for his salary and three weeks' severance pay, told him how much the company appreciated his efforts to raise the store's sales volume during this unfortunate reversal, and regretfully said goodbye.

The two times Max had been laid off in the past, he blamed it on the ineptitude of government and the greediness of big business moguls and stockbrokers and the like, whom he pictured smoking fat cigars and playing cards beside the pool at some swanky West Indian hotel, while he and other victims of their bungling and schemes were being tossed into the streets. But this time he didn't feel so had. The way he looked at it, he hadn't been fired as a common laborer, which is all he was in the past, but that part of management which had to be sacrificed for the economy to survive. And then his mother, who was planning an early semi-retirement for his butcher-father on Max's future earnings, took it lightly—even lifted his spirits a bit by saying she'd heard he had an A-1 reputation as assistant manager and would be sure to get a similar position sooner than he thought. But after a month of job-hunting and Wednesday morning visits to the State Unemployment Office, where the lines each week seemed to get longer with men much better dressed and groomed than he and who looked much shrewder and so were more likely to find work, he became depressed, lost what confidence he had, and once more was blaming his being unemployed on the President, Congress, the New York Stock Exchange and top executives of huge corporations and businesses.

A week later, after having no luck at three employment agencies before it was even ten o'clock, he became so disgusted with everything that he decided to call it a day. He took the subway back to Burnside Avenue, waved to his mother as he hurried through the apartment, and shut his bedroom door behind him. Putting on his pajamas and yelling to her that nothing was wrong, when she asked through the door, he got into bed and soon fell asleep, a cigarette, which he'd taken only a few drags from, still lit in the ashtray on his night table.

That afternoon, his mother braved a look into his room. Seeing him sleeping soundly, she pushed his door till it banged against the wall. Max rustled around, opened one eye and peered at his mother, who was mumbling to herself and fidgeting with a dish towel.

“Max?” she said, bending over him.

“What?” he said drowsily.

“Max!”

“What, for Christ's sake?”

“You sick or something, lying there? Before, you said you wasn't, but your cheeks have lost all their rosiness.”

“I'm fine, Ma, thanks.”

“If you're fine, why you lying in bed like you're sick?”

“I don't know. I'm tired. And frustration, not finding work. I thought maybe my luck will change with a good night's sleep.”

“Night? Three in the afternoon is night?”

“What's it, three?” he said, shutting his eyes and trying to doze off.

“What then, midnight?” She pulled a wristwatch out of her housecoat pocket and dandled it above his eyes. “You see what time it is?” nudging him till he opened his eyes and looked at the watch.

“Yeah, three.”

“Three it is. That's my point. So what are you doing still lying in bed?”

“Don't worry about it, please,” he said, getting up. “It's just a day's rest. Now if you don't mind?” He grabbed her elbow and escorted her out of the room.

“You'll end up a no-good loafer if you make sleeping in the day a habit,” she said from behind the door. “Get a job, why don't you. Only then can you sleep; then you'll have the right to. Max? You taking in what I'm saying?”

That evening Mr. Silverman was unmoved by his wife's story of their son's behavior. Things are tough all over,” he said, opening a beer. “A lot of good intelligent workers are unemployed now—good young butchers in the market, even—so don't be concerned if he's discouraged for a day or so. It's only natural.”

“But why should he get discouraged? I mean, five or six jobs he could've got today if he looked hard enough. But no, he's in his room all day doing what? Sleeping off all his chances, that's what.”

He lifted his shoulders and murmured that he supposed she was right. “Your worrying, though's, not going to hold up dinner, I hope. At the table we'll have a little talk with him.”

She summoned Max to dinner a half hour later, but he said through the door he was too tired. She immediately got worried, because for Max to miss or pass up one of her Thursday meatloaf dinners meant he was either working late or drastically ill. She went into his room, turned on the ceiling light, and felt his head.

“Ma, I told you already, I'm just sleepy.”

“Sleepy? You got how many hours sleep today and you're still sleepy? No, something's wrong with you; I know.”

He moved his head away from her hand and shut his eyes.

“Please, Max, I got meatloaf on the table, so come eat it while it's hot.”

“I'll eat it cold tomorrow. I always liked it better in a sandwich with ketchup on it.”

“You'll eat nothing cold tomorrow. I'll throw it out the window before I give it to you that way. Now I'm not kidding, Max. Supper's ready and you're holding up your father.”

He propped himself up on his elbows and stared at her. She'd seen this pose of his before and nervously grabbed his flannel pants off the chair and tried ironing the cuffs between her thumb and forefinger.

“Here,” she said, holding out his pants.

“Here, nothing,” and he slapped at the swaying pants in front of him. “I'm warning you, Ma. If you don't leave the room I'm going to a hotel for the night and tomorrow find my own apartment.”

She left the room, saying, as she closed the door, that she'd make two meatloaf sandwiches for him tomorrow when he looked for a job—“just as you like then, with lettuce and ketchup and a little sprinkle of salt.”

Next morning Mr. Silverman tiptoed into Max's room, his old underpants hanging loosely at the crotch. He carried the first section of the
Times
, which he'd just finished reading during his usual half-hour stint on the john. He said “Jesus, how do you stand it; it's so cold in here,” and shut the window. He shook Max's shoulder, and when he heard his awakening grunts, asked if he wanted to ride downtown in the subway with him.

“No thanks, Pop,” Max said, his voice muffled in the pillow.

“You still feeling sick?”

“I was never sick.”

Then maybe you should get up. It's quarter of eight.”

“Quarter to eight?”

“Sure, quarter of eight. Be smart and get to the agencies first. That's what I used to do when I looked for work.”

“Friday's the worst day for looking…you know that. Besides, it'd be silly going downtown now when I got an interview in Brooklyn at noon.”

“In Brooklyn?” his father said, chattering from the cold. “You'd travel all the way out there for a job?”

“At this stage of the game I'd take one in Newark. You should get dressed. You're freezing your ears off.”

“But in Brooklyn it'll mean a good hour and a half ride from here. That's before seven you'll be getting up if the job starts at nine.”

“So I'll get my own apartment there—I don't know. I'll tell you about it later tonight.”

“But why should you pay rent when you got your own room and plenty of food here? Look, don't get desperate, all right? A good job you'll get Monday, so just sleep your worries away today.”

When he returned to his room, his wife asked if Max was getting up.

“He still looks a little sick,” he said. “Why don't we let him sleep?”

She jumped out of bed and went to Max's room.

“Max!” she said, throwing open the door.

“Yeah, Ma?” he said, his head under the covers.

“I'm not fooling around now. Max. Get up this instant. You got to get a job.”

“Like I told Dad, Ma, I'll go later—in an hour or so.”

“You'll go now!”

“I said later. Now, please?”

She threw the covers off him. He was curled up on the far side of the bed, one hand under his head.

“Max, you was never a loafer. I'm surprised, really surprised,” and stormed out of the room, leaving the door wide open. He got up, shut the door, opened the window a few inches, picked the covers off the floor and went back to bed.

The only movement he made from his room that day, besides going to the john a few times, was a quick trip to the kitchen for a few slices of seeded rye and a knife and an unopened Velveeta cheese, and another trip into the living room two hours later for a book of
Reader's Digest
novel condensations, which he'd purchased for ten cents and a coupon through the mail. His mother, who always cleaned the apartment thoroughly on Mondays and gave it a good going-over on Wednesdays and Saturdays, twice opened his door by bumping it with her vacuum cleaner as she turned the doorknob. Both times, after saying “Excuse me, that was an accident,” and peeping into his dark cigarette-smelling room, she slammed the door shut and continued vacuuming the hall outside his room another ten minutes.

Max admitted to himself he was never that reflective a person, but began thinking a lot as to why he refused to leave his room other than for the toilet and snacks. First, thinking about the psych course he took in his second and last year at college, he blamed it on his mother's strong pushy nature and his father being kind of meek and browbeaten and such. But that was a lot of nonsense, he thought, No matter what he felt about them, he still couldn't tie staying in bed to all that Freudian crap he'd read in his textbook and heard long discussions of in the City College cafeteria. So next was that he did it because he did it and that was that. He liked this one better because it fitted his concept or image or something about himself in the way he made decisions; quickly and forcefully, without time-wasting thought or going back on it. Anyway, that was good enough for now, and he opened the
Readers Digest
book, lit a cigarette, and knocked off a condensation of Uris's
Exodus
.

That evening his Uncle Barney, the sage and Ann Landers of the family, knocked on Max's door. He walked in when he didn't get a response, and sat on the bed.

“Is it all right if we talk nicely—with the light, too?” Barney said, turning on the night table light and squeezing Max's foot through the covers.

The folks call you in?”

“Stopped by on my own. Just wanted to see how my favorite nephew's doing.”

“What time is it?”

“Time for supper, kid, so what do you say? Though we were only dropping by, your Aunt Dee and me are thinking of gracing this happy household by eating over tonight.”

Max turned to the wall-side of the bed. “See you at the table then, okay?”

“Come on, kid, what's happened to you? You used to be such a go-getter—a real driver for the almighty buck. Believe me, I know what I mean when I say if you don't get up now you'll be chained to this bed like an addict.”

“I can't right now, Uncle Barney—just try and understand.”

“What do you mean ‘can't'?”

“Just that something around me—a voice, even—is telling me to stay here another night. Then when I leave, the whole world will open up for me. Not exactly that, but something like it.”

“Huh? What's with this voice stuff? Listen, the only things you'll get staying here so long are bed sores and a free ticket to the loonybin. I've always done right by you in the past, haven't I? So I'm telling you now, kid: get up.”

Max rolled over to face him and said “Will you just get out of here already and let me sleep? And shut the light before you go, because you turned it on when I didn't ask you to.”

“Okay, okay, you're going off your rocker and I won't waste my breath on you anymore; okay,” and he shut off the light, left the room and shut the door. Max then heard from the hallway his mother carrying on the way she did over the newly dead: “Oh my God; what am I going to do? Oh my God.”

He wasn't bothered much after that. Twice his father tried to make contact through the door, with a couple of taps and then some mumbling about Max's health and appetite and did he need anything? Max answered the first time with a grunt that he was doing fine, don't worry. But the second time, feeling sorry for his father, he said that he'd see him the next morning when they'd go to the Bronx Botanical Gardens, something Max had been promising to do with him the past ten years. The Gardens were only a twenty-minute ride across the Bronx, but neither of them had ever been there.

Saturday morning his parents closed their eyes or turned away each time Max went to the bathroom or sneaked into the kitchen for a snack or cup of coffee. On Sunday Max dry-shaved himself in bed, leaving the start of his first mustache. Later that day, while lying in bed, cigarette smoke rising from the ashtray balanced on his chest, he concluded that he was no longer staying in bed for any just-plain-old-Max reasons, as he'd believed, but as a one-man protest against the lousy economic conditions in this country. He saw himself staying here for weeks—a sort of fast-unto-death that Gandhi threatened the British with in India—the word getting out to neighbors and friends and through them to the newspapers, who'd write him up as someone protesting against heavy unemployment and the so-called reputable captains of industry who caused it. In time, others would join his protest—thousand upon thousands of blue-and white-collar workers staying in bed, eventually causing many big businesses and corporations and factories to close down. Supermarkets, department stores, movie theaters would suffer.
Time
and
Newsweek
would devote cover stories to the news, TV would run half-hour documentaries on it. It would an end up with a meeting of the frightened big guns of the financial and industrial world, who'd end the recession and after that work together with the federal and state governments to building a new and sounder economy. Sometime after, before the eyes and ears of the nation, they'd credit him with having alerted them to how serious the situation was and for having driven some sense into their heads. Because of the notoriety he'd get, he'd soon have a top executive job, with a huge private office and plenty of pretty secretaries within reach, and become a known force in the business world. All these things were up for grabs for guys like himself: The Takeover Generation” that
Look
devoted an entire issue to; the young entrepreneurs who were on the way up by the use of their wits and initiative and because of their courageous, dynamic actions.