Chapter 27

MY FATHER LOVES ANIMALS. There is even a time he wants a chimpanzee. I don’t know how serious he actually is but do recall discussions on the practicality of the adoption of a chimp. I remember my mother saying they smell, are a lot of work, and they both had many questions revolving around ethics—is it really fair to the animal?

Although our menagerie grows—caged birds on a bathroom counter, two rat cages on the floor, two dogs scratching at the door, and two cats asleep on beds and couches—our home never includes a monkey.

My dad particularly loves the dogs. Sometimes, when we have guests and it is getting late, he gets down on all fours, like their littermate. We know he is playing but this could also be an indicator that he is tired and hoping the company will go home.

Perhaps because he’s frequently there on the floor, children are naturally drawn to him. Or maybe it is the way he speaks to them; there is a gentle respect, a kindness in his tone.

My father’s voice has many different intonations and pitches. There is the tight, clipped Twilight Zone or Night Gallery host voice introducing that week’s episode. There is his regular Dad-speaking voice. There’s the voice he uses for his PBS narrations or commercial spots, all of his different and funny dialects and accents, and, finally, his playful voice. It is the latter that pulls even the shyest child to his side.

The daughter of a producer we know once said she remembers my father at parties and how he seemed to prefer to be in the room with the children rather than with the adults. I am certain that on more than one occasion my dad did find the children more interesting and often more genuine, preferring their conversations over the ones wafting out in strident tones from the adult room.

I don’t know how many of the child actors who were in The Twilight Zones my dad actually got to know, but I clearly remember how thrilled he was with the performance of N’Gai Dixon, the young boy who plays Herman Washington in my dad’s script for the 1970 Hallmark Hall of Fame production of A Storm in Summer. It is about the friendship between an African American fresh-air kid and a cantankerous delicatessen owner in upstate New York.

Initially, I remember, there is great concern with the casting of the very British Peter Ustinov. My dad is worried about his credibility as a Jewish delicatessen owner, but he needn’t be. What results is a tremendously moving and poignant story and one of my dad’s eventual favorites. And at Emmy time, Ustinov won the award for Best Lead Actor in a Dramatic Presentation.

 

 

A few months after A Storm in Summer airs, my father hurts his back during a game of paddle tennis. It is more serious than originally thought; he has torn all of the ligaments on one side. Although in a great deal of pain, he is determined not to delay our trip back east to our cottage for summer vacation.

June. Warm. Sunny. We pull up to the loading area at LAX; waiting forever for a break in the stream of traffic, hearing over and over, “The white line is for loading and unloading passengers only . . . The white line is for loading and unloading passengers only.” We finally get my dad into a wheelchair. I push him through the airport, following my mother’s quick steps to the gate as we maneuver our way through crowds of baggage-burdened people. My father is wearing dark sunglasses, and I pretend I am pushing a movie star. I am a little nervous, though; he is on pain medication and is clearly a little loopy. He acts funny, saying silly things, and suddenly he tells me, “Pops. I have to have a chocolate malt right now!” We have an hour until our plane leaves, and realizing he is serious, I am determined to find this for him. My mother is pretty certain I won’t. “Okay, go look, Anne, but listen for our flight announcement and get back quickly.”

I look in every restaurant, every coffee stand, and every gift shop.

Breathless, I run back to the gate. I can see my mother looking at her watch and waving frantically for me to hurry. I am about to deliver the bad news to my dad, having to tell him that nowhere in the airport can one buy a chocolate malt. But before I have a chance to explain, he looks up at me and asks, “Where were you?” Thanks to the medication, he had completely forgotten his request for a malt.

I can only respond with a phrase he often used and might have said had he not been so out of it: “Oy vey.”