ON THE DAY before Thanksgiving, Interstate 86 through Connecticut is jammed. Veronica, three years old, is crying in the back seat. “Daddy, I have to pee! I have to pee!”
Robert, seven, is whining. “When are we gonna be there?”
We’ve been on the road for nearly six hours and we’re barely halfway there. There’s no sense in turning back; the traffic’s just as heavy in the other direction.
“Jeez! Why does Poppop have to live so far away?” asks Robert.
“I peed in my pants! I’m all wet! Daddy, I peed in my pants!”
AFTER THE TIME I’d spent with him in Allentown, I didn’t hear from my father for six weeks. I thought the weekend had brought us closer together, but as his silence dragged on, I kept going over those three days. Just as he had taught me to review whole ball games for the missed bunt, the almost double play, or the poor judgment of an outfielder, which had determined the final score, I was looking for things that had gone wrong. The trouble was that I didn’t know whether the game had been won or lost.
I had known my father as two irreconcilable men for so long that I returned to thinking of him that way. I told myself that I had spoken to one of my two fathers while the other wept. It was as if, cleft in his image, the ferocious son had held the cruel and sneering father to account while the gentle son looked on in pity for the kindly father who, in failing him, had also failed himself.
Mostly I filled the silence with shame. I was an overgrown adolescent whose rebellion had been avoided for as long as possible. I had been a coward, waiting for time to weaken him. I kept seeing my father’s tear-streaked face and clenched teeth. I had turned the tables on him and grabbed him by the back of the neck and marched him back to a mess he needed to clean up. I had invaded his peace. I had taken out my fury at Tom on him because he was a safer and easier target. I had been unfair, and I had wronged him.
Then one night he called.
“Dick? Your dad.”
“How are you?”
“Not bad. Not bad. How about you? How are the kids?”
“We’re all okay.” I felt the old impulse to comb my memory for some news about the kids, a comical incident, a milestone, a recent adventure, and I resisted.
Silence.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here.”
“That was a hard time we had together back in June.”
More silence, then a long, whistling sigh.
“Yes. It was. Are we all right now? The two of us. You and me.”
“Yeah, I think so. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you.”
“Same here.”
“I just don’t want to be the one to call all the time. We get into this ‘Sonny boy never calls home anymore stuff.’ Let’s just call each other when we want to talk, okay? You call me too.”
“I did. But yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. I will. I’ll call.”
“Me too.”
“Well, listen. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I want to give you something. And your brother Joe. You both get the same. I want to be fair. I’ve been putting away a little money from time to time so I’d have something to leave you when my time comes. But hell, I plan to be around a while and you’re better off with it now while your kids are little. But you gotta realize that this is it. There’s no other money. So when I’m gone I don’t want you cursing the old bastard for not leaving you anything, ’cause I’m giving it to you now, okay?”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“How the hell do you know what I need to do?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well just don’t tell me what I need to do or don’t need to do. You take care of those two kids. You worry about telling them what to do and what not to do, not me, okay?”
“Okay. I just don’t want your money, that’s all.” I could see his face, his exasperation with me.
“Will you just let me do this, damn it! This is what I want to do. Christ, you’d think a father never helped his kids out before. Or are you too proud to let me have the satisfaction?”
“Whoa. Hold it. It’s got nothing to do with that.” I was lying, or at least not being entirely truthful, even with myself. Because I wasn’t sure yet where we stood with each other, I wasn’t sure what the money meant. To either of us.
“Well then?”
“‘Well then’ what?”
“Well then what’s your problem? You’re gonna tell me you don’t need the money? You got two kids. You’re paying rent every month. Whatever comes in goes out. You don’t own nothing. You live in somebody else’s house. As far as I can tell, you don’t have a pot to piss in. So what’s your problem? Tell me. I thought you wanted us to be straight with each other.”
“I am being straight with you. I just need to think. Since when are you so loaded?”
“Me? Hell. Since I retired I sit here on my ass and watch TV and every month the mailman brings me three more checks: my back pay, my pension, and my social security. And I put some money away, in the bank, not much, but it adds up. Listen. If I don’t give it to you now and I run into problems later on, with my health or something, it’ll all go down the toilet. They take your last red cent before the Medicaid or Medicare, or whatever the hell it is, kicks in. You read about it all the time. Poor people work their asses off a whole life long and then get sick and, boom, it’s gone. They take your home and every last red cent you got. I want you and your brother to have whatever money there is, or else what did I bust my ass for all those years?”
“Dad?”
“What?”
“What if we talk about this at Thanksgiving? I was thinking maybe we’d come and see you.”
“The four of you?”
“Yeah. Just let me check with Kathi. As far as I know we haven’t made any plans.”
“That would be great. Really. That would be great. I think that Kitty’s having one of her shindigs again this year, with all the daughters and husbands and grandkids. And Uncle Eddie and Althea and your cousin Eddie will probably be there. Oh, hell, you got second cousins you never even met. That would be great. I don’t think any of your cousins ever met your little girl. And Robert was too little to remember any of them, probably. That would be great. Really. You let me know so I can tell Kitty to expect you.”
“I’ll give you a call in a couple of days.”
“All right. You let me know.”
“Okay, I will. Take care.”
“You too.”
“Good bye.”
“Okay. Good night.”
As it turned out, Kathi decided not to come. She said she had too much work to do. “But if you absolutely need me to, I will,” she added.
“No. Not if you don’t want to.”
“You go. Have a good time. Say hello for me.”
WE CROSS THE Hudson River into New Jersey and onto the Garden State Parkway. At the rest area, there are lines for the bathrooms, lines for the telephones, lines for food. We need all three. Standing in the men’s room line, I ask a custodian pushing a cart full of cleaning supplies if I can have one of his brown plastic bags to put Veronica’s wet clothes in. He refuses me. Robert wants to play video games, and he sulks and pouts when I won’t give him any quarters. Veronica is overwhelmed. She reaches up. “Daddy, carry me!” She’s soaked in urine, and I don’t want her against my coat.
“Just hold my hand.”
But she shrieks and starts punching my leg. In a moment she’ll be on the floor, out of control, and I won’t be able to manage her at all. I scoop her up. I’m angry. Robert renews his petitioning. The line is hardly moving.
“But Dad, why not?” he whines.
“Because I said so, damn it!”
Heads turn. Eyes look down. I put my hand on Robert’s shoulder and he slaps it away.
“Leave me alone, you…you red-faced anger-man!”
After a few minutes of calming myself, my jacket hopelessly damp and sour, when we’ve shuffled a little closer to the men’s room, I apologize to Robert for losing my patience.
“It’s okay, Dad,” he says. Veronica is asleep on my shoulder.
“You’re a good kid, Robert.”
“So can I?”
“No, I said.”
Soon all three of us are crowded into a toilet stall. I’m kneeling on the floor. Veronica is asleep on her feet and leaning against me while I peel off her wet clothes. I ask Robert to go and bring us some wet paper towels. I’m in his way and he can’t get the door open, so he crawls underneath. In a few moments, when he crawls back under the door with the wet towels, I thank him matter-of-factly, and he shrugs, proud of himself.
Outside the men’s room is a wall of telephones, and I’m reminded I want to call my father, who no doubt expected us by now. I’m feeling burdened and impatient. Veronica is asleep and heavy, and I’m holding her wet and sour-smelling clothes in my other hand. Robert is standing in front of a vending machine that sells combs, aspirin, and magnetic black and white scotch-terriers.
“Robert,” I say, “come on. I just want to get rid of these smelly clothes. Then we’ll come back here and call home.”
“Okay,” he says, catching up to me. “Can I talk to Mom?”
“Huh? No. I’m sorry. I meant call Poppop to tell him why we’re so late.”
He looks confused and disappointed.
“But we can call Mom too. That’s a good idea.”
“Can I dial the number?”
“Sure.”
At the crowded souvenir shop, I hold the clothes high, pinching together the ends to make a dangling sack. “Do you think I could have a plastic bag for my daughter’s clothes? She, uh, soiled them.” From under the counter, with its gum and candy and key chains and coffee mugs, comes a plastic bag. “I LOVE NEW JERSEY,” it proclaims, a red heart for the verb.
ON THE PHONE my father says he’s disappointed Kathi isn’t coming. Actually, I’d told him earlier that she didn’t think she could come. “She’s swamped with work,” I had told him. “She’s got a ton of papers to grade, and this is about her only chance to catch up.”
“She knows the whole story, don’t she?”
“What do you mean?”
“Kathi. She knows all about you.”
“Yeah, sure. I guess. I don’t know what you mean.”
“And she stayed with you through all of it, the booze and everything.”
“Yes.”
“And she knows about Tom and everything.”
“Yes.”
“And about your dad.”
“Dad, it’s all right.”
“Your Aunt Kitty will be disappointed. Well, drive safe. See you soon.”
“Dad?”
“Come on! Come on! Get on the road. You’ll never get here.”
“HEY, DAD!” ROBERT says. “Let’s play that I’m-Me-and-you’re-You game.” It was our nonsense game, a kind of “Who’s on first?” dialogue we often played in the car. I turn my head to check on Veronica; she has fallen asleep again, and I’m worried that she won’t sleep tonight.
“Okay. You start.”
“Okay. I’m Me and you’re You.”
“No. I’m Me. And you’re You,” I answer, playing the patient sage, pointing to each of us in turn.
“No! I’m Me. You’re You!”
“No! How can I be You? You’re You.”
“You are! You’re You!”
“Now wait a minute. We can’t both be You.”
“No! I am Me, Dad, and you are You.”
“Okay. Okay. Now let me get this straight. According to you, I’m You, and according to me, you’re You. We can’t both be You!”
“I know that! I’m not You. I’m Me!”
“Impossible! I’m Me. We can’t both be Me either!”
“We’re not! You’re You.”
“See? There you go again!”
And so on, both of us laughing and pretending exasperation with the other’s make-believe stupidity.
WE ARRIVE WELL after dark. Robert reaches up and rings the doorbell. I’m carrying Veronica because she’s afraid of strange dogs; besides, she’s just now waking, rubbing her eyes. I hear the back door open and close, and I know that my father has put the dog out into the backyard.
After a few moments the door opens, and my brother Joe is there, laughing his great booming laugh. “Come in! Come in!”
I shake his hand.
“I was just about ready to give up on you and go to bed,” my father says, approaching from the kitchen. He has lost weight, and I feel happy to see him looking so good. Soon we’re scratchy cheek to cheek, Veronica between us, Robert hugging him around the waist. When my father bends so Robert can kiss his cheek, I notice that his hair, cut short, has turned whiter and silkier, and that he has a strawberry birthmark on the back of his head that I never noticed before.