Jernigan, page 10
“Martha dear,” I said, and put a finger to my lips. “We’ve made our point?”
She tapped her forehead and nodded, then crossed her hands over her chest mummy-style and lay rigid, staring at the ceiling.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” I said.
“Shhh,” she went.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Listen, I’m going out for a walk.” Knowing I was just being a huffy asshole. Since she was acting out of love, apparently.
4
Against that cobalt-blue sky, the leaves looked morbidly colorful: the hectic yellow, orange and red stages of a wasting disease. You were supposed to think they were beautiful. I hadn’t even noticed them this morning while walking to the car, or driving under the arching trees all the way out to Hamilton Avenue. Oh, completely my own fault: simply having a job needn’t numb you. Obvious example: Wallace Stevens. Any deadass drudge can feel even worse about himself by thinking about Wallace Stevens.
At least this much was clear: to move into Martha’s house with no job and no other place to go was to lose power, imaginary hundred thousand dollars or no imaginary hundred thousand dollars.
If even that much was clear. I mean, if at some point you wanted a job, then fine, go get a job, right?
Though like what? And how would you explain when they asked you what you’d been doing for the last year or whatever?
Which in turn was a whole other question: what would you do with yourself all day long?
Though on the other hand, just getting some job merely to avoid having to figure out what to do with yourself all day long—Christ. This hand, that hand, the other fucking hand.
I walked left on Maple, went a block and took Nottingham over to Oakdale. This part of town beat the hell out of Heritage Circle. Big old one-and two-family houses, mostly wood-shingled still, though more and more with new aluminum siding or brickface. Big old trees in the strip of earth between street and sidewalk; their roots, swelling and swelling through the years, now tilted up every third or fourth square of concrete.
On the sidewalk up ahead, a woman was pushing a baby carriage toward me; stroller, I should say. Thing where the kid has to sit there with the world coming at him. Young woman, green colleen sweater for a fall day. A little plump, as a mother ought to be, now what kind of a thing is that to say? Pale, pretty face, straight reddish bangs. Map of Ireland, if Jernigan’s any judge. Still a bit of a flirt, it seemed to me, but now only occasionally wheedled into sex, as is proper for a mother. I can’t believe it’s Peter Jernigan coming out with this stuff.
It bothered me that I really knew nothing about the neighborhood except that it looked like it was still 1953. Which seemed pretty irresponsible, to change your life (to say nothing of your son’s life) without even looking into stuff like that. Well, here comes your chance: a totally disinterested party.
“Hi, excuse me,” I said, and then didn’t know how to go on. Having trouble deciding what tone to try to strike. I’d been going to ask if she lived around here, but that was patently a rapist’s question. I also thought about asking her if she was Irish and noting that I was Irish too. That might sound deranged, but not rapisty.
She stopped, glanced down at her baby, then gave me a quick smile, off-on-off, apparently a sign of attention.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m sort of new to the neighborhood here, and in fact I’m actually thinking of …”It seemed weird to say moving in permanently, because what would that mean to somebody who didn’t know the situation? Absolutely nothing. “Thinking of buying here,” I said.
Boy, never lie: do you see what a mistake this was? New to the neighborhood implies you’re already in the neighborhood; thinking of buying implies you’re not. What was she supposed to assume, that I was renting? Oh, probably it all just sounded to her like friendly gabble.
“But what I was wondering,” I said, “I assume you live around here”—sneaking the rapist’s question by her—“and I was just wondering if this is, you know, a good place to be.”
Her eyes were narrowing and narrowing. “You’re talking about safetywise?”
“Well, sort of,” I said. “I mean, not just that.”
She looked over her shoulder, then said, more quietly, “You mean is it going black? I would say not at all.”
It had taken, what, ten seconds to find the ugly place in her? Probably she was nice on the whole and this was just something that was being discussed around here a lot. So now I would have to manage some way of not embarrassing her for having said a racist thing without being complicitous myself.
“I guess not so much that,” I said, “as just, you know, is it okay in general?”
“I wouldn’t really know what you’re talking about,” she said, reaching down and adjusting the baby. “Christopher sit up. Excuse me?” And she pushed past.
I would have called “Sorry” after her, but what for? To acknowledge openly that I’d given her the rebuke she already knew she’d been given?
Well, so much for checking out the neighborhood. Not that a bunch of thoughtful pros and cons wouldn’t have been even less helpful. I mean, at least I’d found out that this was a neighborhood where blacks weren’t moving in, however you were supposed to feel about that. Uh-oh, no cultural diversity. Though in fact all I’d really found out was that this was a neighborhood where people didn’t want blacks moving in. However you were supposed to feel about that. Uh-oh, be coming after me next.
I kept going on Oakdale in the direction of Hamilton Avenue (east, I guess it was, though I’d never entirely gotten my bearings anywhere in New Jersey), thinking I really ought to check out how long it took to walk to the nearest shopping. In case I lived to see gasoline go up to ten dollars a gallon, I suppose. After walking for fucking ever I finally got to the E-Z Mart, just around the corner from Hamilton Quik Dry Clean. It was quarter to four, which told me absolutely nothing since I hadn’t looked at my watch when I left. I went in and bought a Diet Coke I didn’t want.
I was obviously going to do this crazy thing. Why Martha, rather than some other woman? Because she was there in front of me. Although I was probably refusing to acknowledge some dark psychoschmycho thing, probably having to do with my mother. What else did anything have to do with? I’d probably just decided to think it could be made to work, since basically anything could be made to work if you took it a day at a time, so why not this.
Probably not the most caring decision I ever made in my life. If you could call it a decision.
Back at the house, I found Martha down in the cellar feeding her rabbits.
“Listen,” I said. “Before I really say I’m going to do this I’ve got to talk things over with Danny. He’s in this too, you know?”
“Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t expect you not to. Here, babe,” she said to a piebald rabbit. “C’mere, hon.” She picked him up and he burrowed his head into her armpit. “This guy feels about ready,” she said, stroking him. “Easy, buster. You know, it’s funny, but I’d sort of come to think of Danny as part of the household already. Easy, babe.” She put the rabbit back in its cage.
“So when is his rendezvous with destiny?” I said, turning a thumb toward the rabbit.
“Next couple days, I think. The cupboard’s pretty bare, and he’s ready to roll. Much bigger than him and I don’t think they’re quite as tasty.”
“Then look,” I said. “Why don’t we celebrate tonight and make him guest of honor?”
“Sounds reasonable,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs, I’ll get us both a drink, then I’ll come back down and do this and we’ll just—do it. Okay?”
“Listen,” I said, “would you like me to? I really wouldn’t mind doing it, and it seems to me the guilt ought to be spread around a little here. I’ve been eating enough of these guys.”
“My, you are going the whole hog,” she said.
“Hey. Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
“It’s nice of you,” she said. “But really. I’ve sort of got it down now, and I’m used to doing it.”
“You hate it,” I said. “Why don’t you let me for a change?”
“Are you sure about this, Peter?”
“Stand aside, wumman,” I said. “And fetch me mah hogleg.”
This got a smile. Which made me realize how inane it had been.
“Seriously,” I said. “It’s a godawful job to have to do, and I’m tired of watching myself slink off while you’re doing it. And then showing up at the table smacking my lips, you know? Now, should this get done right away, or should it wait a little closer to dinner?”
“For your sake,” she said, “I wouldn’t do it much closer to dinner than this. Take it from one who knows.”
“Then go on up and do your preparations, and the deceased and I will join you presently.”
“And you’re sure you know how?”
I pointed to the stairs. “Out.”
“Thank you,” she said.
I went into the death chamber and got the pistol out of the toolchest. Loaded? I popped the little catch at the bottom of the handle and took the clip out. Sure enough. I pushed the clip back in, felt it click home, and stuck the gun in my pocket. I had worn these same trousers to Kelsey and Chittenden this morning, and now there was a gun in them. Went back into the other room and took the piebald rabbit out of his cage. He burrowed his head into my armpit; I stroked his fur and told him Good boy, good boy. Not looking at him much.
He was warm, this rabbit. A mammal like me. I searched for the right word and came up with lapsarian. Marsupial is what I was trying to think of. Although rabbits, according to the dictionary here, are not marsupials. I probably got lapsarian from lapin. I carried him into the death chamber, sat us both down on a haybale and, holding him with my left hand, sneaked the pistol out of my pocket with my right and put it next to my right hip. With both hands I lifted the rabbit, sat him down on the other side and pressed him firmly against my right thigh, my left hand gripping his shoulders, cruelly now, as I took the right hand away. He tried to squirm out of my grasp but I had him too tight, and I picked up the pistol with my right hand, jammed the muzzle between his ears and jerked the trigger, hoping to God a haybale was really dense enough to do the trick. The gun went snap and the rabbit gave a shiver and just turned to meat.
5
By the time Danny and Clarissa rolled in, maybe a quarter past ten, Martha and I had had our dinner and done the dishes together. (She washed, I dried, though she said not to bother.) Now I was pretty well into the bottle of Gordon’s gin I’d gone out to get special. Store-bought liquor tonight, boy. I was looking forward to Star Trek later, which I’d come to think looked less cheesy in black and white. Not that I minded its looking cheesy, that was part of the appeal. Oh what a sense of fun.
“Hey guys?” said Martha. “You do something about dinner? You’re hungry there’s some pretty dynamite bunny à l’orange left over.”
“Dynamite,” I said.
“We ate already,” said Clarissa.
“Hey Dan?” I said. “I know it’s late and you do have school tomorrow, but you and I need to have a talk, okay?”
“What about?” he said.
“Relax,” I said. “I’m not after you about anything. What it is, I actually need your advice on something.”
“Like what?”
“Ladies?” I said. “You’ll excuse us? We’re going to have a man-to-man here. The old mono a mano, whaddya say?” He probably didn’t even know it didn’t mean man to man, that’s what kind of a quote unquote education he was getting at that God damn school of his. He looked at Clarissa and she looked at him. Like a scene out of fucking West Side Story. “Dan,” I said. “Dan my man. What do you say we go out for a ride, bud?”
He shrugged. “You okay to drive?”
“Nice mouth,” I said. “What is this, the Contract for Life or something? Trust the old man.” Not remembering, of course, that he might be just a leet-tle sensitized to parents’ getting behind the wheel drunk.
Chilly outside. This reminded me. “You over at the house all this time?” I said. “You remember to turn the heat back down to forty?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“How’d you get home, anyway?”
“Dustin gave us a lift.”
“Dustin,” I said.
He didn’t seem to understand I was asking him a question.
“Is Dustin the one who plays the drums?” I said. I opened the car door for him.
“Bass,” he said.
“Bass is what I meant,” I said.
We got in and I started up the car. He just sat there. I felt like taking him by his uninformative little throat. “So how did your practice go, Dan?” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “So what did you want to talk about?”
I backed the car out and started up the hill.
“Lights,” he said.
“Okay, tiger,” I said, turning on the headlights. “Just testing to make sure your head was in the game there.” He tugged to tighten his shoulder belt.
“So,” I said, “are you and Clarissa getting along okay?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“You guess so.”
“Look, Dad. If this is about AIDS or something—”
“Oh Christ,” I said, “I’m fucking this whole thing up here. Listen, all this is about, Clarissa’s mother and I have been talking about all of us sort of moving in together. And we’re concerned that, I don’t know, that it might turn out to be weird for the two of you. You know, say you two broke up or something and your parents were still, you know, everybody in the same house sharing the bathroom and everything. Or, I don’t know, even if you didn’t break up it could be weird. And I just thought it was something we ought to talk about.”
“Is Mrs. Peretsky talking to Clarissa about it now?”
“I assume so. Though I don’t frankly know.”
“Do we have to move away someplace?” he said.
“No. No, our plan—I mean, to the extent that it’s a plan at all, you know? I would imagine that we’d just keep living in their house and that we’d put our place up for sale, and that was one of the things that I thought we needed to talk about. See, I found out today that they’re letting me go at work, and—”
“You got fired?” he said. “Dad. Why did they fire you?”
“Apparently thing was in the works quite some time,” I said, as if it had been an answer.
“What are you gonna do?” he said.
“Listen,” I said, “you want to go sit somewhere have a Coke?”
“If you do.”
I took Nottingham over to Oakdale and made a left, heading for Hamilton. Same way I’d walked this afternoon. The headlights picked up leafpile after leafpile, spreading out into the street. I could’ve sworn they hadn’t been there earlier. (But a whole neighborhood just happening to rake their leaves the same evening? Not likely. More plausible explanation: Jernigan on a disconnect.) The tires crackled through the leafpiles’ outermost reaches. Huh: they’d called it Oakdale and it actually had oak trees, assuming these were oak trees. Those were the days, boy.
“Getting pretty nippy nights,” I said, rolling my window the rest of the way up. Danny had no comment. “That pizza place down on Hamilton probably open this hour,” I said. “Suit you okay?”
He considered. Probably judging the chances of being seen by friends when he was out with a father. “I guess that’s okay,” he said.
“Anyplace you rather?” I said. Push push push.
“It’s all right, Dad.”
The pizza place was a low cinderblock building with PIZZA in the window in angry red neon. Fluorescent light inside, stained-plywood booths with coat posts. We took possession of the one farthest back, then I went up to the counter and brought back a can of Diet Pepsi for Danny and a coffee for me.
“How about a slice while we’re at it?” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
I went back to the counter. “Couple slices,” I said. “Just regular.”
“Two?” said the kid. He looked like the kids who scared me when I was Danny’s age, their faces all stubble and pustules. A cigarette smoked away in a round aluminum ashtray next to the ivory-colored plastic bucket of shredded cheese.
“You got it,” I said. This was how you had to talk to get by in places like this. The kid lifted out two triangles from the pie sitting on the counter—not the two biggest, I noted—flopped them onto a pizza pan and thrust it into the oven.
I went back to Danny. “Anyhow,” I said.
“So you’re going to sell the house?”
“Well,” I said, “that’s something we have to talk about. You know, it’s not just my house. I’d always thought of it as something that someday, you know, would probably come your way when I was out of the picture.”
“That place?” he said.
“So you should’ve picked a Rockefeller for a father,” I said. As if he even knew what a Rockefeller was.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. He didn’t elaborate on how he had meant it.
The kid called, “Slices ready.” I went up and fetched them.
“I guess you can sell it if you want to,” said Danny. “We could practice just as easy over Dustin’s.” He picked up his slice and blew at the molten cheese creeping over the point.
“We don’t have to decide this in any big hurry,” I said. “You know, it’s where you grew up and everything.” And everything.
“I guess it’s okay,” he said. “So are you going to marry Mrs. Peretsky?”
“We’ve talked about it,” I said. Christ, had we? I certainly didn’t remember it. “See part of the thing is, if we went ahead and sold our place, we could probably find all sorts of interesting stuff to do with the money.”
“Like what?”
“Well, travel for one,” I said. Right, I could see the four of us in the fucking Piazza San Marco. I was really winging it now. “Could even buy some place up the country go there summers, you know? I realize it’s been—and this is completely my fault—you’ve had a very, very, very complicated life so far. I mean, to lose a parent.” Which was about as close as I was willing to come to talking about it. “The thing is, you know, I guess my life was pretty complicated, too, by the time I was your age, I mean actually even before. Third grade or something. And, you know, here I am.” And if that didn’t buck a kid up, I ask you: what would?
