And Sons (27 page)

Jamie decided to toss in a few words, testing the current. “What is this, Dad,” he said, arms expressing the shambolic state of the room, “the office of Dorian Gray?”

Andrew turned from the window. “Always with the clever comment.”

“I try.”

“You try, huh?” He smiled like a man watching a captured animal go free, all because of his benevolence. “You ever wonder why Oscar Wilde used
picture
instead of
portrait
? Because
portrait
seems more appropriate, sounds better too, at least to my ears.
The Portrait of Dorian Gray
. Those matching
-or
sounds. Maybe the painting is a portrait but the story is a picture. Or maybe he wanted us to do the correction in
our heads, to misremember the title and get it wrong and in getting it wrong actually get it right. That crafty subtextualist.” Another glance toward the window, giving the boys his nose-strong profile. “I’ve been thinking about my last words lately. Of course old Oscar had a bunch of them, all excellent, but who knows what kind of condition I’ll be in? Quite unhappy, I assume, in pain, delirious. I don’t trust myself to come up with something that’s both extemporaneous and memorable, so let me tell you now, in case I forget. Okay.
Be kind, rewind
. Laugh if you want but I’m serious. I think it has a nice touch of the
levitas
. Nonsensical and yet still sensical. Vaguely Hindu. I always loved those signs in video store windows. Funny how a phrase can outlive its technology, a Christian sentiment, I suppose.
Be kind, rewind
. Now imagine what follows is my last breath.” Andrew limped over to his desk and shook two Vicodin into his palm.

“What kind of pills are those?” Richard asked.

“Sorry, but I’m dead.”

“Dad—”

“The truth is, boys, I’m dying and I’m dying soon, to the point where I feel already dead.” Andrew paused, unsatisfied. “Whatever I say lately sounds like it’s been said before by somebody else, like my, my—what do you call this area of the mouth again?” He touched the labial commissure, though neither of his sons knew the term. “Whatever it is, it feels like quotation marks.” Andrew opened and closed his mouth.

“Have you been to a doctor?” Richard again with the asking.

“I should have written this out.”

“We could go to a doctor,” Richard repeated, “maybe tomorrow.”

“My brain is like a game of chance.”

“Is Dr. Harkness still around?”

“Stop with the doctor talk, plus he’s long dead. I need to tell you things, boys. I need promises from you. I need—a lot of needs, I realize, but I need to know that you can still care for me regardless of who I am or who I was. And I don’t mean forgiveness. I don’t need forgiveness. Forgiveness, once spoken, turns into something else, something no longer trustworthy. I was what I was. I am what I am. And now I’m
quoting Popeye.” With unsettled effort Andrew lowered himself into his desk chair. In front of him two stacks of paper, one blank, one typed, bookended his Selectric. “I should have written this out for clarity’s sake, but God help my writing nowadays. You should know my goal as a father—and I swear this is true—my goal was positively Hippocratic, to do no harm, and look where that got me. You could sue for malpractice. I am a reckless scalpel. But I honestly tried, or have tried better with Andy, I’ve tried to say the things I should have said to the two of you. But guess what, I think that’s made things worse. I do. I think I did you a tremendous favor by being so absent. I was so different as a boy. Or I think I was different. I must’ve been different, before the writing took hold. I used to climb trees. I could climb the bejesus out of a tree. I loved the heights, the vistas spied through branches, the hiding. That, and I could spend all day in the ocean, the rougher the better, just bodysurfing. There’s a word to hang your hat on.
Bodysurfing
. But then everything changed. Talk about a hackneyed phrase. Your dad, the writer. But everything did change. And I don’t mean my father dying, though that obviously had its effect, the suddenness of it, and my mother on her own, but I honestly don’t remember being sad. I must have been. But you forget so quickly when you’re young—you forget so quickly when you’re old too, the former because of the latter, the latter because of the former. The push and the pull and the ever-shrinking middle ground. Occasionally there’s a convergence, a moment of balance all too brief where your idea of the future seems to vector with your sense of the past. But I’m off subject. Or ahead of subject. I’ve mugged the goddamn verb.

“The irony I would like to communicate to you boys is the fact that I never enjoyed writing very much. Oh, maybe I enjoyed the moments before writing, the thinking about writing, when the story starts to form around its cagey heart, a word, an image, like with bodysurfing: in a flash I know everything, the themes, the metaphors, five of the characters, the setting, the time frame, the beginning, the middle, the end. It’s a strange kind of fission, where a single atom of imagination radiates all this energy, splitting and splitting and splitting, endlessly splitting until you get
Bodysurfing
, or
The Bodysurfer
, which is probably
better if perhaps bumping elbows with Cheever. But then you have to write the goddamn thing and it’s Chernobyl. Two-headed cows. Terrible birth defects. And I’m not being glib here. I’m not playing a role, despite resemblances to actual persons living or dead. I will grant you moments of satisfaction in the process, that this mess might make sense after all, that a random piece of filler, say the detail of an airplane flying overhead, might beget a man parachuting down to earth. Yes, there are moments. But it’s not joy, just relief that the disappointment is manageable. Whatever satisfaction is the satisfaction of keeping up the charade. Yep, the old imposter syndrome. But it beats the coal mines, as they say. But the coal mines seem a more honest labor to me, where your life, your real life, is focused aboveground, and your job is simply powering the lights for home. Daddy’s work. But your Daddy chose to be a writer and the two of you were frankly fucked. All because I liked how it sounded in my head—no office, no boss, no bureaucracy, no nine-to-five, no desk, he says, having sat behind this desk for the last fifty years. I’d travel the world. I’d meet interesting people. I would be bohemian. Me, bohemian? But that’s what I pictured, boys. I wanted to be a writer and I jumped into the first cliché. How’s that? Did I ever do it for the right reasons? Mostly I just wanted to steer clear of lawyering and banking and politicking, the normal trades of my people. I needed to be unique. An unpredictable line rather than another circle. But it wasn’t in my soul. Maybe a little bit in my soul. Mostly it just seemed like fun to focus on imagined things. Of course it helped that I didn’t need money, thanks to my father. By the age of sixteen I started on my path. It’s all I did, with superficial stabs in the real world. The work never left me alone yet it always seemed just out of reach. I became insular. Isolated. Always dragging this malformed thing behind me. Even a great day of writing was somehow bad. I shook only the trees in my head. And I was stubborn, my God was I stubborn. I staked my claim on A. N. Dyer and chained myself to that person. Sorry if I sound like Prometheus and Sisyphus rolled into one. Poor, poor me. The only thing worse than a writer is a self-pitying writer. And guess what, we’re all self-pitying.”

Jamie interrupted. “If your writing is a charade, it’s a world-class charade.”

“I mean charade as a parody of living.”

“Oh, is that what you mean?”

“It made me a miserable person, Jamie, is what I mean.”

“And you blame that on writing?”

“It didn’t help.”

“So if you had been a banker, you would have been a great dad, like all those great banker dads out there?”

“Take it easy,” from Richard.

“I’m just confused,” Jamie said.

“Advertising,” Andrew pronounced.

“What?” from the both of them.

“That would’ve been my sweet spot. Spitballing. Pitching ideas.”

“Advertising?” Jamie was unsure if this was a comedy or a tragedy.

“But Dad, people love your books,” Richard said, “like truly love them.”

“And I hate them for that.”

“Oh please,” said Jamie. “Don’t be such an ingrate.”

“You’re right, I’m an ingrate too, but that’s not what I want to talk about.” Andrew knocked on the desk as if calling for order. “The point of this conversation, of getting you two back here, is not me, but Andy. That’s the X among all this noise. Because right now I’m his only family, and I want you two to get to know him, to be there for him. I can’t stomach the idea of him being alone. But first I need to explain a few things, need to put you in my shoes, almost twenty years ago, feeling like a failure while being reminded of what a success I was. That can wear you down.” Andrew’s mouth went slack, and he appeared wan and hollow, lost to some indistinct memory of indeterminate youth. Then he snapped back. “I know you know the story of the Swedish au pair. Not very original, I realize. I forget the exact circumstances of her death, but I remember arguing against her dying in childbirth since that would have introduced an unnecessary psychological element. Of course, after she died, however she died, this baby, our Andy, he was thrust into my arms and everyone discovered the truth. Or lie. In hindsight I would have done that part differently. I think I was too focused on the classic narrative. The surprise was a terrible mistake. Your mother’s a proud woman, properly so, and she was already dealing
with the difficulties of living with me. I should have confessed right away. A moment of weakness, I’m sorry, forgive me, please. That might have worked. But the extended secret and the big dramatic reveal? Me and a Swedish au pair? That was flawed from the start. Minimum she should’ve been older, some older intellectual type from Toronto, and that’s why she died, a freakish pregnancy in her late forties and she never could recover from the strain of childbirth. That might have been better. But the two of you have to know I never wanted to split this family apart. And I never—never!—wanted to be with anyone but your mom. That’s the absolute truth. I was, I am, hopeless without her. I stand before you as demonstrable proof. But Andy, he appeared and our life together slid backward and sideways, your mother devastated, you two last-strawed. Maybe it was a relief that I finally proved myself such an obvious shit. No more doubts. No more blaming yourself for my seeming indifference. You were free of my scrutiny. And all of this is true except for the story itself. So many stories spinning. Like the one about an icy road instead of my father driving straight into a tree.”

“What are you talking about?” Jamie asked.

Andrew raised his hand. “Bear with me, I have to just get through this. Forget the au pair story, the real story begins twenty years ago when I was quietly losing my mind and everything I did seemed a form of denial, of avoidance, dangerous anatomizing nostalgia. Pretending took on a different shape in my head. I wasn’t living. Had I ever lived? What the hell was I doing? I was sick of being this person but I was trapped and I was too old to change, which is ironic because I felt the same way at fifty and at forty and at thirty I swear, too old to change anything. It’s the worst kind of passive-aggressive self-destruction, too timid for anything florid. Cowardice really. I blamed your mother for letting me get away with so much and I began to believe she was ignorant and clueless of what I wanted and who I was all because she couldn’t read my mind. By now you were in California, Richard, and Jamie you were God knows where. Thinking of the two of you just reminded me of my further failures. It was about this time that I was contacted by a group of Swedes, or one Swede in particular, a man by the name of Norde Bellaf, who wanted to meet me. I agreed since there were murmurs
of Nobel attached to his name and, well, a Nobel would be nice before I finally stumbled into suicide like a good Dyer. Ha, a pun. Anyway, notice the hubris, boys. Like so many stories this is a story that involves hubris. I met Mr. Bellaf for lunch at the Four Seasons. It was late winter but that doesn’t matter. I remember he ordered an elaborate meal but didn’t eat a bite, like the food was some test of will. Over this meal, or nonmeal in his case, this Bellaf character told me that he represented an organization called the Palingeneticists. P-A-L-I-N-G-E-N-E-T-I-C-I-S-T-S in case you’re taking notes. According to him this group was founded in 1890 and bankrolled by Alfred Nobel himself, hence the whispers of Nobel. This is six years before the man’s death and subsequent will, which as you likely know established the prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology, literature, and peace. Notice, boys, science and art and history as defined by the great-man theory. Bellaf explained to me that the Palingeneticists were essentially the shadow to the Nobel’s light, one very public, the other very private. Alfred never married, never had children. He was famously misanthropic. But toward the end of his life he started to regret leaving this world without a proper heir. Now he certainly understood the dangers of mixing unknown chemicals. After all every newborn is a chemical invention unleashed upon the world. He grasped the long odds of success, of true success, of genius, and he started the Palingeneticists with the sole purpose of perpetuating great men—and later women—and keeping their particular talents alive for the benefit of future generations. A forward-thinking man, you might say. At this time great discoveries were being made in the field of embryology, with the two Hanses—Driesch with his sea urchins, and Spemann with his untying of the Primitive Knot—doing their groundbreaking work. Nobel put his friend and confidant Ragnar Sohlman in charge and it was Sohlman who came up with the prizes in order not only to identify these important figures but also to enlist them so that Nobel’s dream might one day be realized. Hans Spemann himself won the prize in 1935, though he had been a member of the Palingeneticists since 1892. It took eighty years before Nobel’s seed finally bore fruit, the first attempts not perfect, particularly in matters of gastroenterology, but
soon the process became near foolproof. This is decades before other institutions began touting their sheep and their dogs and their bulls. That’s when Mr. Bellaf informed me that I had been nominated for their particular award, an award not made of silver or gold or glass but of flesh. I can see your faces, boys, and trust me my face looked the same. Pure science fiction. How could anyone believe this gothic nonsense? But Norde Bellaf did not seem the delusional type. And his eyes, it’s hard to explain the awful conviction behind those eyes. It was as if he saw an abyss stretching before him yet he was obligated to try to build a bridge. He offered me no proof, no evidence, no references, none of the names of previous winners, not even their approximate number. These were all secrets closely guarded by the Palingeneticists. They kept no records, had no paper trail. All they had were six men with well-trained memories. My initial response was a fast
No thank you, check please
, but Bellaf told me he would contact me in five days. I could officially refuse him then. That’s how the devil works, boys. He gives you time. Bellaf said that everyone had the same initial response, but by the end most accepted. Being naturally competitive, I started to wonder who else they had asked. Was there a teenage Salinger somewhere in this world? A toddler Bellow? God forbid another Roth? It seemed something concocted by Pynchon doing his best impersonation of Barthelme. But over those five days I grew curious and engaged with the idea. It didn’t seem like a terrible concept, in the broader sense. Who would complain about having another Einstein in this world, another Salk, another Edison? I thought about myself, about starting over and doing things differently, about, well, bodysurfing in a way. Maybe I could draft a happier version of myself, a better person. I became excited again by the possibility of life. My only stipulation—and here I thought I was being terribly original—was that I had to raise the boy myself. I never even thought about the repercussions with you and your mother. My head was in too deep. I just assumed that she would stay with me, that she might even enjoy having another child, no less another me. Wonderful, the elasticity of my narcissism. Maybe I also didn’t truly believe this Bellaf character, so where was the harm in saying yes? I’d take possible being over definite nothing. Bellaf smiled at my request, or attempted to smile but he didn’t have the right lip
strength for a proper smile. He told me everyone insisted on the same thing. Nice to know all of us are equally sick. Three vials of blood later and Norde Bellaf was on his way back to Stockholm and I had no idea what just happened and slowly returned to my silent funk.”