Other Plans (28 page)

He stood at the top of the stairs holding his breath. He didn't want them to know he was here.

He held himself still, wondering if he should play it cool and sort of saunter down, into their midst, or if he should come in rubbing his eyes, pretending he was still half asleep.

Maybe it would be better if he minded his own business and made a fast retreat to bed.

He heard his father's voice, then Grandy's. He heard Grandy say “gin.” Were they drinking, then, in the middle of the night?

By the time he'd decided to tough it out and was standing in the hall barefoot and shivering, they'd moved to the study. He looked in. They were playing cards at the desk. Grandy wore his old gray bathrobe, and his silvery hair was neatly combed. He wouldn't have been surprised to see his grandfather dressed in his pin-striped suit and wearing his Homburg, even at three-thirty in the morning. His father was uncharacteristically untidy, dressed in his red and blue plaid shirt and khakis that he usually saved for his gardening days.

They both looked up as he came in.

“I heard you talking,” he said lamely. “I saw a light in the kitchen and I thought it was time to get up, that I'd overslept.”

“Well, now that you're here,” his father said, “sit down and you can referee the game. Grandy's beating the pants off me. He's already schneidered me once.”

“Helen and I play gin nearly every night,” Grandy said apologetically. “I've had lots of practice lately. Henry, do you remember the time we flew to the coast and had to circle the airport for hours and we played gin the entire time?”

“Do I remember!” Henry dealt the hands. “Dad, I thought about that trip last time I was in a plane. I hadn't thought of it in years, but we went through some turbulence and it got pretty bad and I was scared silly. I was scared silly the time you're talking about, too, which is why I remembered. But you were so calm, so fearless, I had to pretend I was, too.”

Grandy laughed. “I'm glad I pulled that off, Henry. I was frightened out of my wits. I thought we'd had it for sure. Here.” He gave back one card. “You dealt me an extra one.”

“Is that true, Dad? Were you really afraid?”

“Of course.” Grandy arranged his cards with professional speed. “I'm not very brave when it comes to airplanes, Henry. I thought you knew that. Your mother was fearless, so I had to pretend a lot.” Grandy smiled at his cards fondly. He must have a good hand. “I put on a good act.”

“That's the secret, I guess,” Henry said. “Putting on a good act.”

“You want me to make some coffee?” John said. It was cozy in the study. There they were, three male Hollanders, playing cards and carousing in the wee hours. He liked to think they were carousing, he and his father and his grandfather. It was probably as close as they'd ever get. To carousing.

“That would be fine, John.” His father sounded quite cheerful and seemed more relaxed than he had in some time. John whistled his way out to the kitchen, stopping at the hall closet to borrow a pair of Leslie's fleece-lined boots. His feet were blocks of ice by now and the boots didn't help much, but he didn't feel like going up for his slippers. Besides, if his mother heard him she'd make him go back to bed.

With John out of earshot, Grandy smiled and said, “It's amazing how his hands and feet get in his way, just as yours did at that age, Henry. Have you noticed?”

Henry shuffled the cards without answering. Then, in a voice that trembled slightly, he said, “Do you remember how you used to compare my coordination with Ed's, Dad? Ed had superb coordination, you used to say. You'd never seen such hand-to-eye coordination as Ed had. You told me that quite a few times, Dad. I used to go out to the field in back and practice my hand-to-eye coordination but it never seemed to get any better. Never close to Ed's.”

Grandy cleared his throat. “I don't remember saying that, Henry. If I did, I'm sorry. That was exceedingly tactless of me.”

Henry continued to shuffle the cards.

“What ever happened to Mona Abrams, Dad?” he asked.

Grandy pulled at his cheek. “Why, I don't know, Henry. I haven't heard of her in years.”

“I don't know if I ever told you, Dad.” Henry's hands were still, his eyes on his father. “Shortly before Mother died, the time I visited you out at the lake, she and I took a long walk and she told me that you and Mona Abrams had been lovers. For some time, she said. I was stunned. But, as we both know, Mother didn't lie. Or imagine things. I knew she was telling me the truth. I just couldn't figure out why she'd told me, after all that time.”

Grandy's skin looked taut and grainy, his eyes almost black. He shook his head once or twice, but said nothing.

“What a strange choice for you to make, Dad. Mona Abrams. She wasn't even good-looking.”

A heavy silence, like old draperies thick with dust, settled over them, held them in a stifling embrace.

The clatter of china, the sound of John's feet as he whistled his way down the hall, made them sit very straight in their chairs and rearrange their faces into a semblance of cheer, like two store-window dummies.

John set down the tray with a thump. “I let it perk ten minutes, the way Ma said.” He backed off, squinting at his handiwork. “I didn't forget anything. I even remembered spoons.”

“Good for you,” his father said.

Grandy took a clean handkerchief out of his bathrobe pocket and wiped his face. “Perfect,” he said faintly. “Just the thing.”

“You okay, Grandy?” John said, dismayed at Grandy's pallor.

“Fine. It's getting a bit late for me but I want to try your coffee, John. I had no idea you could do such a good job in the kitchen.”

“You should taste my french fries,” John said proudly. He poured out the coffee and passed the cups. Watched as they tasted.

“That's first-rate, John,” Grandy said. “Absolutely first-rate.”

“Very good, John,” his father said.

John looked from one to the other, trying to figure out what was different. They both looked wiped out. He probably shouldn't have made coffee, after all.

“Well, I better pack it in,” he said. “Big day tomorrow. See you,” and he went, taking the stairs three at a time. He almost fell over his mother on the top step. Her head was against the wall and her hands were dangling between her knees. She was asleep.

“You better hit the sack, Ma,” he said, touching her lightly on the shoulder to wake her. She opened her eyes and sat up.

“I heard them talking,” she said, “and I wanted to make sure he was all right. I'm glad I didn't go down. It would've spoiled it.” She kneaded her cheeks with her fingers, trying to wake up. “Did you have a nice time, just the three of you?” She sounded wistful.

“It was okay. They played gin and I watched. I made us some coffee.”

“I smelled it.”

“I hear them coming,” he whispered. “Better take off, Ma. You don't want 'em to catch you here.” He watched her hurry into her room and close the door soundlessly. It wasn't often he called the shots with his mother.

He had overslept. Lucky for him he still wore his underwear. That was a real time-saver. When he stumbled down, his father was reading the paper, drinking coffee. Duded up in his city clothes. Otherwise he might've thought his father hadn't slept at all.

“Grandy and Ma still in the sack, huh?”

His father nodded, continuing to read the paper.

“You going to work today?”

“Of course. You better get going, John. You'll miss your bus.”

“I already have. I can hitch.”

Cars whizzed by, sending road crap onto his pristine clothes. He walked backwards, thumb out, trying to look like a harmless teenaged vagrant worthy of a ride in a well-heated BMW that also had some good tapes going.

Finally, an old codger, about forty, driving a '76 Chevy with a scabrous ruff of rust around its body panels, pulled up.

“Thanks.” He hopped in. The codger was suited up in a Harris tweed balmacaan and smelled like a musk ox in beat.

“Where you bound for?” the driver asked, accelerating until the Chevy wheezed in protest.

“Oh, you can let me off a mile or two up the road,” he said, leaning on his door. “I'm headed for school.”

The man kept turning to smile at him. “Smoke?” He fished a silver case out of his voluminous tweed pocket. “It's good stuff. No weeds, no stems, no nothing. Pure gold. The best.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the joint. “I'll save it for later. Last time I smoked when I was in a car, I tossed my best buddy out and he was doing eighty at the time.” He managed an ingenuous look and the man's smile disappeared. The Chevy leaped forward, laying a strip of rubber on the road.

“Thanks,” he said again as the codger let him out, presumably without regret. “See you around.”

The man's glance said, not if I see you first. Probably the guy would've liked to ask for the joint back but didn't quite dare.

“You are some smartass,” he told himself, starting to walk. “Some terrible smartass.” But it came in handy at times.

25

Halfway through one of Simons's oft-repeated monologues on the glories of Appomattox, he allowed his mind to wander. Recently, he'd read about a well-known writer who'd gotten his start at age fifteen, writing a sports column for his hometown paper. This happened during World War II, of course, when manpower was scarce. But why couldn't he try writing a humorous column and sell it to the local weekly, which, as far as he was concerned, could use some humor. It would give him experience, which was what he sorely needed, if he was going to write for the likes of Woody. And the writer who'd gotten the early start was now so famous his name was a household word.

He smiled at the idea of his name becoming anyone's household word. And bent over his notebook, jotting down a few random thoughts.

“Mr. Hollander.” It was Simons, breathing down his neck. “I hate to interrupt your train of thought. May we see what causes you so much amusement?” And Simons snatched up the notebook and read aloud in his high, penetrating voice, “Pulitzer for Humorist Hollander. Hollander Inks Six-Figure Contract.”

The class, appreciating any diversion, guffawed.

“Get off his back.” Keith's voice came, low and furious. “Let him alone.”

A hush fell. Simons's angry face ripened into rage.

“This is a history class, Mr. Madigan, not one in creative writing. I will ask you please to butt out of what is not your concern. Mr. Hollander, your marks indicate your lack of attention has caught up with you at last. I will be forced to take up this matter with your father.”

His throat tightened. He felt Keith looking at him but he was too weary, too depressed to return the look. After the bell sounded, Keith said, “Why don't you tell him what's bugging you? He'd feel like a heel.”

“Yeah, I tell the guy and he starts oozing guilt and gives me an A-plus for effort. To hell with it. But thanks, anyway, for standing up for me.”

“You want to throw the Frisbee around?” Keith suggested. “Or we could try some lacrosse. I know a guy who has a couple of sticks he'd let us use.”

“No, thanks. I think I'll head for home. I'm a real drag these days.”

“You have a right.”

“Thanks again, Keith. I'll see you.” He began walking. The bus passed and slowed and Gus sounded the horn, but he raised his arm and waggled his hand to show he wanted to walk. He jammed his hands into his pockets and discovered the joint. No stems, no seeds, no nothing, the man had said. He found a moth-eaten pack of matches in another pocket and lit up.

The few times he'd smoked pot, it had loosened his tongue and words had spouted effortlessly from him. His own eloquence had astonished him. His friend at Duke, on the other hand, had told him he'd cut out smoking marijuana entirely because he thought it was destroying his brain cells. But that guy had started getting stoned when he was in the seventh grade. What did he expect.

This joint tasted okay. Not pure gold, but okay. He'd make it last—put it out halfway down so he'd have the other half to look forward to.

A car pulled alongside him and stopped.

“Hello, John,” his father said.

Talk about being caught with a smoking gun. He considered tossing the half-smoked joint into the bushes and decided he'd tough it out.

“Hi, Dad. What're you doing here?”

“I took an early train.” His father leaned over and opened the door. “Hop in. I assume you're headed for home.”

He wasn't stoned, just light-headed and loose-tongued. His father seemed not to notice the joint, made no mention of it. He didn't think his father even recognized the smell of marijuana.

They drove in silence. If his father asked him what he was smoking, he'd tell him. What the hell. But his father didn't ask, and in an odd way, he was disappointed.

He leaned back in the seat, suddenly tired.

“Are you afraid, Dad?” The words slipped out. He was appalled at himself. But it was a question he'd wanted to ask for some time.

His father slowed for a red light.

“It's not so much fear,” he said slowly, “as it is sorrow at leaving you all. I had so many plans. I worry about what will happen to you.” They sat waiting for the light to change and his father looked directly at him.

“When I was a kid, a man lived on our street who was dying of some debilitating disease. He would walk up and down very slowly, waiting for someone to speak to him. I can see him now. No one spoke to him, they avoided him the way people avoid the dying. I'd hide behind the curtains and peer out at him and every time he'd turn in my direction, I'd duck down so he couldn't see me. I think of that man now, years later, and know how lonely he must have been and how he wished for someone to care, someone to talk to him, maybe even ask the question you've just asked me.”