Roy hated Sundays. Sunday was the day his mother usually chose to pick a fight with her husband or boyfriend of the moment, to express in no unquiet way her dissatisfaction and disappointment with her current situation, making certain that the man in question was left in no doubt as to his responsibility for her distress.
Sunday was also the day his mother insisted on the family, such as it was, going out to dinner. Nothing ever pleased her on these occasions: the route her husband or boyfriend chose to drive to their destination; the service and food at the restaurant; everyone else’s bad manners, etc. Roy dreaded these outings. Many times he purposely stayed away from his house, even when he had nobody to play with, there were no games going on at the park, or the weather was particularly foul. He’d walk the streets until he was certain his mother, her husband and his sister had left the house before returning, guaranteeing him two or three hours of solitude. Of course when his mother got home, Roy knew, she would yell at him for missing the family affair, but he had time to prepare an excuse: the game he was playing in went into overtime, or somebody got hurt and Roy had to help him get home.
Holidays were also potential trouble, time bombs set to Roy’s mother’s internal clock. The bigger the occasion, the louder the ticking. Once, Christmas fell on a Sunday. Christmas also happened to be the anniversary of his mother’s marriage to her third husband, the father of Roy’s little sister. This triple-barreled day of disaster resulted in his sister’s father’s belongings being thrown by Roy’s mother down the front steps and scattered over the lawn in front of their house. As Roy’s soon-no-longer-to-be stepfather picked up his soggy undershorts and other personal items from the snow, Roy, who bore the man no particular affection, felt something close to compassion for him. That day, Roy swore to himself that he would never get married.
For a period of time when his mother was between marriages, when Roy was nine years old, she kept company with a Hungarian named Tibor. Tibor worked as a concierge or receptionist at an elegant little hotel on the near north side of Chicago. He was a short, skinny, hawk-nosed man in his mid-thirties with a mane of unruly brown hair. Where and under what circumstances his mother had made Tibor’s acquaintance, Roy never knew. Tibor had fled Budapest at the beginning of the Hungarian revolution. In his home country, apparently, he had been a musician of some kind, although Roy had never heard him play an instrument. Tibor never approached Roy’s mother’s piano.
One rainy Sunday afternoon in late autumn, Roy returned to his house from playing in a particularly bruising tackle football game. He was looking forward to collapsing on his bed, which was really a fold-out couch, but when he arrived, Tibor was stretched out on it with his shoes and socks off, asleep. Roy’s little Admiral portable television set was on. His mother was making something in the kitchen.
“Hey, Ma, Tibor’s on my bed.”
“He had a long night at the hotel,” she said, “it was very busy. He’s tired.”
“So am I. I wanted to lie down. Why can’t Tibor sleep in your room, or on the couch in the living room?”
“He was watching television, Roy. And your room is closer to the kitchen. I’m making him a goulash.”
“What’s a goulash?”
“A ragout of beef with vegetables cooked with lots of paprika. It’s the national dish of Hungary.”
“Why don’t you wake him up now so he can come in here and eat it?”
“The goulash isn’t ready yet. I’ll call him when it’s done. Tibor had a hard time in Hungary, Roy. He had to escape.”
Roy’s mother turned and looked at him for the first time since he’d entered the kitchen.
“Your face is filthy,” she said. “So are your clothes.”
“I was playing football. The field was muddy.”
“Roy’s mother returned her attention to the goulash. Roy walked out the back door and sat down on the porch stairs.
“Close the door when you go out!” said his mother. “It’s cold!”
She closed it.
On another Sunday, Roy was walking behind his mother and Tibor next to Lake Michigan. Tibor was wearing a long, gray overcoat that was too big for him. Roy recognized it as one having belonged to his mother’s second husband, Lucious O’Toole, a handsome drunkard she had divorced after six months. Lucious had a metal plate in his head from being wounded in the war and he couldn’t hold a job. Years later, when Roy was in high school, he saw Lucious staggering along a downtown street, unshaven, wearing a torn and dirty trenchcoat. It was snowing but Lucious was hatless and, Roy noticed, now mostly bald.
Following his mother and Tibor, Roy thought about pushing Tibor into the lake. Roy didn’t hate him, but he wanted Tibor to just disappear and for his mother never to mention Hungary or goulash again.
After Roy saw Lucious O’Toole downtown that day, he told his mother, who showed no emotion.
“He looked like a bum,” said Roy.
“You never know what’s going to happen to a person,” she said. “Sometimes it’s better that way.”