”I miss my wife already and it hasn`t even been a week,” he said, his voice cracking. ”When I had a fever she always made me marrow broth and apricot candy. Who`ll pick me out a decent tie to wear? Coming into her kitchen was like getting a hug.”
He was constipated for weeks at a time, his grief settling in his colon. He relieved himself with stewed rhubarb and soap water enemas. Finally he moved into my parents` house, and spent his days listening to his Edith Piaf and Mario Lanza albums, his nose buried in the Wall Street Journal and Barron`s, or he languished in front of the Zenith, eating TV dinners and watching crime shows and Sixty Minutes.
My father returned and cursed the airline. ”We made the trip for nothing,” he said.
He told me the plane wouldn`t be leaving Pittsburgh for at least another hour. I managed to convince him to head back home, and at the boarding gate he engulfed Zolly and me in his arms. I was distracted by a commotion over someone`s backpack that had set off the metal detector. I exhaled forcefully and turned to look out the tall arched window. All I could see was the blur of snow blowing across the sulfur beams of the runway.
With my face slightly averted, both of them pressed against me, straining to kiss my cheeks. A plane taxied into view, letting in a blast of light. In the shadows of the smoked-glass I was wearing what my ex called my haunted look. If someone had taken our picture, we`d have been caught – our smiles vaguely ethereal – in a pose of abject rigidity. I heard Zolly make a noise like a purr and felt my father`s big warm hand around my waist squeezing my hips.
I phoned Northwestern and told the chairman of my department I was going home for my grandfather`s funeral. While I packed, Martha picked up some dress shirts for me at the dry cleaners. At noon she drove me to O`Hare, where I waited almost three hours for my connecting flight out of Seattle in a noisy snack bar with a spectacular view of the runways. It snowed all during my trip. From the airport limo, my parents` L-shaped house, nestled in a web of barren hawthorns and willows, appeared tranquil. A yortzeit candle burned in a glass on the screened-in porch. I paid the fare and tipped the scowling chauffeur-he`d ranted at other drivers and wore a plaid tablecloth on his head like Arafat.
Delilah`s rusty VW beetle was parked in front of the fire hydrant across the street. Two kids in hiking boots and high school varsity jackets were shovelling snow out of the driveway. ”Right-on!” one of them shouted. I nodded and he gave me a thumb`s-up gesture as I walked up the flagstone footpath. My stomach was queasy from all the coffee I`d had on the plane.
I took a few deep breaths and knocked. Bruce Zellner, my older sister Sylvia`s husband, opened the door and peered at me as if he couldn`t place my face. ”Remember me, Zell?” I said.
As soon as I stepped in the doorway my glasses fogged up. I fingered the silver wire of the frames as I wiped the lenses on a handkerchief. After I resettled them, I offered Zell my hand. He arched his back and made a clucking sound. Bruce was a head-and-neck surgeon with a thriving Westchester practice. He was one of those humorless fitness fanatics who always gave the impression that you were fortunate to be in their presence. Beneath a camel`s hair blazer, his oxford shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, and a mezuzah, coiled in a patch of graying hair, dangled from a gold chain. His brass belt buckle looked like something that would go over the head of a horse.
”Hey, buddy,” he said, pumping my hand. ”Condolences.”
”Thanks.” Before letting go of his hand I glanced at his knuckles-the horny joints looked as rutted as screws.
”If you don`t mind me saying so, Len, you look pretty heavy. I know, you have no time for exercise and eat too much junk food. Am I right or am I right?”
I left him standing there waiting for an answer. In the kitchen my mother was humming ”A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” as she shelled Brazil nuts over the sink. A lazy Susan filled with sour cream and chives, horseradish, and nubs of gefilte fish on colored toothpicks was on the butcher block table along with some half-filled bottles of Manischewitz. She stepped on the pedal of the garbage pail and groaned, seeing my damp pants and shoes. ”Lenny, darling,” she said, waving. I tried to kiss her. ”Don`t,” she yelled, covering her mouth. ”You`ll catch my strep throat. We have an epidemic in Mamaroneck. How do you like this crazy weather? Trust me, we`ll have snow for Pesach.”
I was startled at how pale she was, her skin looked as colorless as fluorescent light. She had freckled bags under her eyes and her mink-like hair was brushed into a crooked part down the center of her scalp. It seemed to me that her washed-out gray eyes had moved closer together. Her nails were longer than a stripper`s.
”Delilah said you found him. That must`ve been awful.”
”I can`t get over it. It was like not having any air to breathe.” She reached up and smoothed my collar. ”I called the paramedics but it didn`t matter. Zolly was already among the dead. It was a difficult few months; you cannot imagine how he had changed. Now, maybe your father and I can get some sleep. Come then, let`s find him. You know what a worrier he is. He`s probably convinced some terrorist`s hijacked your plane.”
Everyone was downstairs in the finished rec room. Delilah in designer paratrooper clothes and turquoise aviator glasses crouched by the Betamax flipping through tapes. She blew me a kiss. I worked my way through the family and neighbors, accepting their sympathies, dodging questions about my job and social life. My father was sitting on the black Naugahyde love seat with Sylvia, a magazine rolled in his hand. She was opening a pack of Salems. A hoop of blow-dried hair fell into her eyes when she reached for a lighter on the petrified-wood coffee table. She held the cigarette as if it were a joint. ”What can I tell you Lenny?” my father said, his voice rising, ”when Zolly stopped eating smelts and herring two years ago I could read the handwriting on the wall perfectly.”
”You could?” I said.
”Of course he could,” Sylvia insisted.
He nodded at us, remembering the past two years. Steam from the kitchen had descended the stairs and spread like a soggy blanket over the crowded room. Heat rose from the ducts on the carpeted floor. A trio of men in winter coats came down the stairs. Each of them carried a pot of poinsettias on a plastic tray. My mother was making shame-shame with her fingers to a woman in a frosted hairdo with faint blue streaks flowing from the center of it. My father went to greet the men bringing in the plants.
I motioned for Sylvia to stand up. ”Where`re the twins?” I asked putting my arms around her. She had always been a knock-out, the most popular girl in her class from grammar school on. She`d lost weight since I`d last seen her, and small wrinkles, almost like embossed coins, had erupted at the corners of her mouth and eyes.
”They`re spending a long spring break in Delray Beach-at Bruce`s parents` condo,” she said, lighting another cigarette. ”They don`t need this at ten years old.”
I glanced sideways at the bay window; the snow had stopped and the bottom of the sky was dimpled by the rising moon. People plodded across the front yard. ”I miss him already,” I said.
She muffled a cough. ”I`ve forgotten him. I mean, how often did we have anything to say to each other? He paid no attention to Delilah or me; you were the only one who was special to him. I don`t think he said more than hello and good-bye to me since I went away to college. He acted like he was on downers.”
”Don`t sound so bummed-out, Syl,” I said derisively. ”I`m the only one who had any time for him. I shared things with him. You and Delilah were always off somewhere.”
Her eyebrows lifted. ”Just be thankful he wasn`t leashed to some machine for another year,” she said. ”Or being fed through a gastric tube. That would have freaked you and Daddy out for good. I know you`d love for me to go through the motions of grief, but I deal with this kind of family crap all the time.”
”My, my,” I said. ”Haven`t we gotten terribly cynical in middle age?” She laughed, her eyes glinting, and kissed my lips. ”Can you blame me?
Oh, don`t be so serious, Lenny. By the way, speaking of family crap, have you heard from what`s-her-name?”
”I bump into her at the library occasionally. She`s engaged to an orthodontist from Skokie.”
”I never warmed up to her,” Sylvia said, her shoulders slumping. She ran her fingers through her curls. ”Zolly said she was some hot dish; he called her your tootsy. Jesus-I can remember when he used to call me a floozy. He said her knockers could drive a man crazy. All your babes turned him on.” An old woman came over and seized my hand. ”Aunt Frieda?”
She gave me the once over and turned to Sylvia. ”How do you like that?
He doesn`t even recognize me.” She pinched my cheek and asked her, ”Did you ever see such a handsome face?” Sylvia shook her head no, and Frieda waddled off.
When Sylvia went to get a drink, I maneuvered myself through the milling relatives, making my way to Aunt Goldie, my father`s sister, who was sprawled on the corduroy chesterfield with the scroll-like arms and the lavender doilies fastened to its back. Her pink-fringed slip showed over her bruised knees, and her feet were wrapped in Ace bandages. She was holding a magnifying glass and fanning herself with Zolly`s obituary. My parents stepped behind me like a team of mountain climbers.
”How`re you feeling, Goldie?” Her neck looked swollen.
”Don`t ask, boychik,” she shouted in a tinny voice.
”Goldie takes what, Ben,” my mother asked, ”ten medicines a day?”
”At least ten,” he said, counting with his blunt fingers.
I followed my father`s back as it disappeared into a crowd of relatives. Cousin Helen, Goldie`s daughter, waved at me from the wet bar. A once shapely woman, Helen`s now had legs as thick as logs and clusters of veins ran in her shins like Roman numerals. Jed, Helen`s husband, blocked my father`s path. They squared off for a moment as if they were going to spar, then embraced. Jed had a flowing beard like Moses and could`ve passed for a biker.
My mother and Goldie started talking about me as if I weren`t there.
”Zolly used to take Lenny to the history museum and Hayden Planetarium,”
Goldie said. ”They loved going on the rides.”
”The museum`s not the same as Coney Island,” I said.
”How Lenny used to love his pot roast and kasha,” she said, ignoring me. ”Just like my father. He was such a bashful man.”
”Are you starting to cry?” my mother asked, searching Goldie`s puffy face.
”Yes,” Goldie said. ”I mean no. I cried plenty already.”
”Please, Goldie. Don`t start up again. And for your information, my Lenny was a picky eater. Helen was the decent eater.”
”But Zolly,” Goldie said proudly, her hair wild with grief, ”may he rest in peace, was a wonderful eater. What a loss.”
At my back I heard ice cubes rattling and fierce breathing. ”Guess who?” my father thundered. He handed me a glass of cream soda.
Sitting in a wheelchair was my Uncle Mickey, Zolly`s youngest brother. His legs were bundled in a woolen afghan and his hands were twisted in his lap like frozen mittens. On his swollen feet were penny loafers cut open near the front for his gout. He was wearing tiny earphones plugged into a Sony Walkman. ”Say hello,” my father said, jingling change in his pocket.
”I don`t need coaching,” I snapped.
”Mickey,” my father yelled, ”it`s your nephew.” He squatted down and pulled Mickey`s torso around in the wheelchair. Then he yanked the earphones out of his ears and I heard Johnny Mathis singing ”Chances Are.” Mickey looked baffled. I kneeled down and kissed his cheek; his breath reeked of smoked fish.
He touched my wrist with trembling fingers and grinned; his molars were black. ”My brother wasn`t active in the shul, but he was a regular person, a good mixer. He never missed Gunsmoke.”
”Mickey,” Goldie shouted, waving her cane in his face. ”My rheumatism is killing me today.”
My father whispered in my ear, ”You look bushed. Go take a shower and unwind.”
”I`d just like to talk,” I said wearily. ”In private.”
He blinked and poked my chest with his index finger. ”After twenty years you`re in a hurry to talk? After supper we`ll go see Zolly and then we`ll talk, just you and me. Okay?”
After showering and shaving and staring at the cracked fossil posters still tacked to the wall above my old desk and built-in bookcase, I lay on the hooked rug and meditated in the dark. After only a few minutes my metrical breathing grew shallow as my ex`s naked behind impinged upon my centering exercises. I recalled my yogi`s guidance on how to focus a wandering consciousness and tried to project myself onto a deserted Alaskan glacier. I wanted to masturbate but was terrified one of my aunts would blunder into my room in search of a toilet.
When I`d told Zolly I was going to major in paleontology-I was a sophomore at Washington University-he started calling me the Dinosaur Boy. He left phone messages for me in my dorm requesting that the Dinosaur Boy call back at his convenience. When he and Manya went on vacations-to Las Vegas, to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Miami Beach every February, to Israel in 1973 (I was doing graduate work in Ann Arbor by then), a few weeks after the Yom Kippur War-he addressed letters and postcards from Yad Vashem and Masada and the Fontainebleau Hotel to the Dinosaur Boy, care of my department. When I lamented a working life spent thinking about extinction, he had no easy advice to give me, and said that loss was what life was all about.
It had pained him when my ex and I split up. He told me he thought she was a girl who seemed fairly crazy about herself, and that he liked immodesty in a woman. She was built like Cher, with glowing copper hair and large calico eyes primed to soar out of her face. She taught Russian and mail-ordered her clothes from an L.A. boutique. It blew me away when I found out that he`d been sending her perfume and flowers and plants – My Sin and black-eyed Susans and droopy philodendrons – every few weeks after we`d started dating. Around her he was vain, like a boy flexing his muscles. He taught her pinochle and casino and warned her about the diseases carried in non-kosher foods, in shellfish and pork. She was charmed by what she called his Old World manners. He flattered her, and she flirted with him, feeding on his admiration.
My ex moved out of our lakefront townhouse two springs ago. I was on my way to a conference at the Smithsonian, and she was helping me pack. We were in the laundry room, folding underwear and rolling socks, when she suddenly announced that she felt trapped by my needs, sealed in amber like one of my prized dinosaur eggs. She sounded furious when she told me how intense I was, and how bullied that made her feel. She said I needed to be more laid-back, that I wasn`t a fair listener. When I reminded her of how she`d come home from departmental meetings so wired and bloated that only a belt of Maalox and a Xanax could calm her down, she broke down in sobs and had a migraine that lasted for the next two days. Finally, I was able to persuade her to see a marriage counselor, but the one she chose, a cigarillo-smoking, fish-eyed social worker whose campus office was filled with punk-art magazines and fluffy Amish pillows, engaged in smirky, insider-feminist talk with her. When my ex told her there was something wanting in me – that I spent more time thinking about the pathological conditions in fossil organisms than I spent thinking about her – the therapist concluded that I was defective because I was more interested in dead things than living ones. It was her contention that couples who split up could remain caring friends. When I told Martha that, she couldn`t stop laughing. The day I got tenure my ex and I went out to dinner at her favorite Greek restaurant and when I awoke the next morning she was gone.
Zolly had appeared at my door one evening about a week later – less than twelve hours after I`d told him over the phone that my ex and I had separated. He`d flown to Chicago without telling anyone, in order to find out firsthand what had happened to my marriage. ”Just like that,” he said, his gloomy eyes bulging in confusion when I told him she`d left without even leaving me a note. ”On the spur of the moment? What`s wrong with her?”
”Why the hell not? She`s a modern woman.”
”What did your parents say?” he asked gravely.
I lowered my voice. ”I haven`t told them yet.”
”Be calm, these things work out. Go talk to a rabbi.”
”A rabbi? Please-don`t make me laugh.”
He hesitated. ”What do you want from life, Lenny?”
”Nothing,” I said, miserable.
”Then I`m not surprised this happened.”
To save face, I suddenly invented another man.
He grabbed my shoulder. ”Were you rough with her? I pray you don`t have any problems pulling your weight in the bedroom?”
I shook my head. ”Christ-she said she needed space, she wanted to meet new people. She said we were getting boring.”
He looked glum. ”This is eppes some explanation! So she makes like a tomboy and monkeys around with a different fella? You weren`t two-timing her, were you?”
”That goes without saying,” I said.
”Lenny-I wish you would have had children.”
”Knock it off, okay? Are you trying to make me feel worse?”
”Your father would know what I`m driving at. We want to pass things down to another generation-I don`t know, wisdom, tricks, even money if we`re lucky enough to have saved some.”
”There are certain things you just have to accept Zolly. She didn`t want any children now.”
”Well, it makes me feel lousy that you don`t have your own family. I don`t get it. I wish she would explain it to me.”
”More than likely she would, but please don`t ask her to.”
Zolly stayed in Chicago for a week. He paced around the house for a couple of days, drinking tea and reading the draft of a paper on the eohippus- a fossil horse from the early Eocene epoch-I was planning to deliver at the Field Museum. I used some free passes I had won in a departmental Super Bowl pool and took him to a Bulls game. The night before he left, we went out for steaks and then saw ”Death of a Salesman” with the tickets I`d bought to surprise my ex on her thirty-seventh birthday. Zolly kept whispering to me in the theatre that guys like Willy Loman were shnooks who got exactly what was coming to them.
