Hollywood Animal (73 page)

“I was just trying to have a discussion with you about Communism,” I said, “and you turn it into an argument about love. How can we discuss anything intelligently if you turn it into something so emotional?”

“
Emotional?
” he yelled. “Don’t you understand? My whole life has been ruined by Communism!
Ruined!
I am not back in Budapest living in a big house writing my novels! I am here in this dump of an apartment working two jobs to have enough money to send you to school!
You
are the one thing that I have to live for! And if I keep hearing Komchi propaganda coming from your lips, I will have nothing to live for!”

I got home from seeing Peggy one Friday night and saw my father sitting at his desk with the English-Hungarian dictionary in front of him and another thin volume.

“What are you doing up so late, Pop?” I asked.

He showed me the book. It was my copy of Allen Ginsberg’s
Howl
. My eyes almost popped out. Here was my father, the Catholic anti-Communist editor of the
Catholic Hungarians’ Sunday
reading Ginsberg, the radical Communist homosexual poet!

“Who is this man?” my father asked.

“He is an American poet,” I said.

“A
bitnik
,” he said. “I read about the bitniks in the
Plan Diler
.” He laughed. “Avant garde. When I was a young man in Hungary, it was the Dadaists. Tristan Tzara, a crazier Romanian than other Romanians, put a bunch of words into a hat, pulled them out individually, and wrote them down one after the other. He called it a poem. Now it’s the bitniks.”

“So,” I said, “Pop—tell me. How do you like Allen Ginsberg?” I was trying to hide my smile.

“He is crazy,” my father said, “but that is good. All poets and pharmacists are crazy. This ‘angel-head’ business he writes about, is
insane
. He thinks it’s metaphysics. I think it must be delirium tremens from drunkenness. An ‘angel-head’ pink elephant maybe, but exciting, I grant you! The kind of stuff that races your pulse, but the kind of stuff that I am not sure, in the end, says very much, at least to me. Who is this Ginsberg? What kind of person is he? He writes like he expects to die tomorrow morning. Or is that just the poet’s usual professional hysterics? Novelists, you see, can’t afford to be hysterical. Novels take too long to write.”

“Who is he?” I said. “A Jew, a Communist, a homosexual. A brilliant poet.”

“Really?” he said, looking a little stunned. “All three?”

“Really,” I said casually. “All four. A brilliant poet, too.”

“It figures,” he said, almost applaudingly. “Jews, Communists, homosexuals, they are usually educated people. They read. You see? You must read, as I always say to you.”

· · ·

The speech and debate city-wide finals were coming up and I wrote an essay for the original oratory finals called “Jesus Was a Bum.” Obviously influenced by Allen Ginsberg, it was the story of a hobo reviled by society until society realizes he is Christ come back. I was proud of my essay and thought I had a chance of winning.

The finals were in three rounds. There were twenty contestants and the score was tallied at the end of each round. I got two first places my first two rounds.

Peggy was with me, as excited as I was. The whole tournament was buzzing about the piece of original oratory called “Jesus Was a Bum.”

My third-round judge was a Jesuit priest from St. Ignatius, the high school which was just down the street from the apartment where I’d grown up on Lorain Avenue. The priest heard my recitation without any expression on his face and then posted his score: Number twenty, last place.

That would make sure that I didn’t have a chance to win any awards, let alone first place.

When I saw the score he’d given me, I confronted him.

“How can you give me a last place when the two other judges gave me first places?” I said.

“What you write is blasphemy,” the priest said. “It shouldn’t have been allowed into the tournament. I’m sorry the other kids here were exposed to it. I’m notifying your principal at Cathedral Latin Monday morning.”

I felt tears coming to my eyes.

“Well fuck you,” I told the priest, “and the dumb fucking
ass
you rode in on.”

The priest blanched. “You’re going to regret this, Mr.”—he glanced at my entry card—“Esterhaze.”

My father and I were sitting in the principal’s office at Cathedral Latin. The principal was a priest in his sixties. He was reading my essay “Jesus Was a Bum.”

“This is garbage,” the priest said. “You represent Cathedral Latin at a speech tournament with this garbage?”

“You
critic?
” my father asked in his thick Hungarian accent.

The priest seemed taken aback by his question.

“You priest,” my father said. “You pray.
Critic
write.”

“He swore at a priest!” the principal said to my father. “That’s a sin and a sacrilege!”

“Yes!” my father said, his voice rising now, too. “He swore at priest because priest stupid … not fair priest! Joe lose temper! Now Joe
calma
, no more temper … but priest he
still stupid priest!
”

“You are suspended from Cathedral Latin!” the principal yelled, pointing his finger at me.

“You stupid priest like other!” my father said calmly to him. “You suspend from school—I sue! This free country! America no
cenzura!
Stupid priest no censor! Boy write true! Jézus come back like bum, everybody piss him. Stupid priest like you piss him! What boy write strong, original. This
my
opinion.
I
writer, not
you
, stupid priest!
My
opinion educate.
You
opinion stupid priest opinion!
Ohkay, fein
, you want sue, I sue! City Klevland know what stupid priest you! What boy write …
Plan Diler
write, too … cos I sue.
Ohkay, fein
. Whole City Klevland read what boy write. That you want?
Ohkay, fein
.”

I wasn’t suspended after all from Cathedral Latin.

I was allowed to graduate.

My father and mother came to graduation night, where I got my diploma.

Afterward, my father said, “I was embarrassed. All those other students went up to that stage for this and that honor. You went up only for your diploma. No honors for speech and debate. No honors for the newspaper.”

I said, “Well, none of those other kids were picked for the WHK High School Hall of Fame. What’s better, Pop? To get another piece of paper on graduation night or do something that the whole city can hear about on the radio?”

My father thought about it.

“You have a point,” he said.

When the Cathedral Latin school yearbook came out, I noticed that my senior picture wasn’t in it. I was there in the group pictures of speech and debate and
Latineer
members, but my individual yearbook photograph wasn’t included. Pictures of the other graduates were there, but not mine.

I went to the brother who was the yearbook adviser and asked him why my picture wasn’t there.

“It’s not there?” the brother said, and paged through the book.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It must have been lost somehow—at the printer maybe. But look—I saw your picture in the
Latineer
so often this year that I’m sure it more than makes up for this mistake, Mr. Esterhose.”

My mother didn’t say much to me anymore. She didn’t ask me why I didn’t go to church anymore. She didn’t ask what I was reading. She didn’t ask me about school. She cooked. She complained of her headaches. She smoked. And she went to the office every day with my father.

Once, as we were eating Hungarian bacon together, I asked her, “Nana, remember the times we’d stay up till midnight on Friday and you’d make bacon soldiers on bread?”

“Yes,” she said.

She didn’t smile. She didn’t look at me.

CHAPTER 25

Love Hurts

MILANO

He’s gonna remember, huh?

DOYLE

He don’t forget. He’s a hundred percent.

MILANO

Nobody’s a hundred percent.

F.I.S.T
.

GERRI WAS HAPPY
we were going to Maui, especially so because Naomi was coming with us along with Steve and Suzi and two of their friends.

“I don’t want to argue anymore,” my wife said. “Let’s just have fun. I want to sit and watch a lot of sunsets.”

From Naomi’s journal, April 6, 1993:

We left for Hawaii this morning. There’s so much energy in the house when Joe is there. It’s a whole different dynamic. As we were getting ready to leave, Steve said, “My dad wants to see you in his office.”

I love Joe’s office. It’s full of books and leather furniture. It smells heavenly. I go down when he’s not there sometimes just to read.

I headed down and Joe was holding an armload of books, scanning the shelves for more. “Here,” he said, “this should keep you busy.” He gave me Larry McMurtry and Joyce Carol Oates and Anne Tyler and Updike—a treasure trove. It’s so strange. No one else in the house reads. It’s like speaking
a
language with him no one else understands. I thanked him and headed upstairs.

As we all prepared to pile into the limo, it was cold. I have so few clothes—only the ones I brought when I first came here.

Joe said, “Are you cold?”

I said, “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine in the car.”

He said, “Grab my jean jacket behind you.”

I argued but he insisted. So I took it. As I put it on, I felt Gerri, Steve, and Suzi all watching me. I was self-conscious.

It was just a moment, but it felt a little strained. Maybe I’m imagining it, I don’t know. But I loved wearing his coat.

As the kids partied, Gerri, Naomi, and I spent most of our time together on the beach in the blazing sun, sipping Seabreezes and Mai-Tais.

Gerri slept much of the time and Naomi and I talked about the roads that led us here. My life in the refugee camps … her gawky high school years … my years at
Rolling Stone
magazine … her years working on Wall Street, at Warner Communications and American Express. I felt such an electric undercurrent between us that I almost jolted when my arm brushed against her as we played backgammon. Except for those few moments in my kitchen when she had held my hand, we’d never touched each other.

While we were out there on the beach, we kept playing the Beatles’s “Don’t Let Me Down” over and over again.

From Naomi’s journal:

Each day, Joe and Gerri and I sit down on the beach and watch the sunset. It’s my favorite part of the day. The weird thing is almost invariably Gerri falls asleep.

Suzi and I were in the pool this afternoon. She is so excited about a rave that’s going on this weekend on Maui. I guess Steve and his friend Tommy are going, but Suzi’s afraid her dad won’t let her and Dana go.

She said, “Naomi, can you talk to my dad and ask him if we can go?”

I said, “Why don’t you ask your mom?”

She said, “She’ll just tell me to ask him. It’s always his decision.”

I said I’d see what I could do.

Then she said, “I want to thank you for being such a good friend to my mom. You’ve really helped her.” Suzi is very protective of her mom. It’s almost like their roles are reversed. She worries about Gerri like a little mother.

That night at dinner I chose my moment and leaned over to Joe and said, “You know, there’s this rave tonight and Steve and Tommy are going.”

He said, “I know.”

I said, “Well, maybe, if Suzi and Dana stick with them and come home with them, they could go, too? They go to raves at home all the time …”

He thought a minute and then said, “Hey Steve, take your sister and Dana to the rave tonight, okay?”

Steve about died. Suddenly he was going to have his sister tagging along. But he just said, “Okay, Dad.” Suzi and Dana were overjoyed.

After a few minutes Joe leaned over and said quietly, “My daughter thinks you have influence over me …”

I said, “Well, she’s going … isn’t she?”

Gerri was in the pool when two little children flitted by us on the beach. They were almost silhouettes in the setting sun.

Suddenly Joe said, “Do you want to have children?”

And I said, “I’ve always wanted children.”

It was quiet for a moment.

Then Joe said, “Me too. I’d love to have more children someday.” He was looking out at the sunset, so I couldn’t see his eyes.

I thought—Is he talking to me? Because certainly Gerri can’t have more children. Or is he just wishing something he knows won’t be? Or is he telling me something?

Last night I tried to excuse myself from drinks on the terrace, but both Joe and Gerri said, “Why?” and seemed disappointed. Almost a little hurt. It was after dinner and I said it was late, and they said, “Just one drink.” Truthfully I wasn’t tired, I just thought they might like to have a little time by themselves.