Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See (6 page)

“Hmmmm. I don’t know. What if we roll over in our sleep?”

“Do we have any tape?” Willa asked.

“Tape? I don’t know. For what?”

“Well,” Willa said, “we could tape ourselves to the roof and that way we couldn’t roll off.”

“That, Willa Todd, is the most brilliant idea anyone has ever had …”

“Really?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“Really,” I said. “Unfortunately, we have no tape.” I made a very sad face and then a very happy one. “But, I have an idea!”

“What?”

“How about we have hot chocolate up here now, sleep inside, and in the morning while we’re still in our pajamas we come up here and eat breakfast?”

“That’s a great idea!”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” she said.

Willa stood on her tiptoes watching as I stirred packets of powdered cocoa with dehydrated minimarshmallows into boiling water.

“Mommy makes it with milk,” she said.

“Really? The directions say to use water.” I showed her the box to prove I knew what I was doing.

“Well, Mommy says it’s better for you with milk.”

Apparently, I still had a few things to learn.

But even though it was a little thin and the marshmallows weren’t fully hydrated and crunched under my teeth, that particular cup of hot chocolate was the best I’ve ever had, before or since.

The feeling is over too soon—sinks back beneath the surface before I can hit rewind. I would be grief-stricken and full of self-pity except that what shows up next is like tripping over a bald eagle or a polar bear or a platypus in your backyard: an endangered species—or at least nothing you’d ever expect to experience face-to-face in your lifetime. And yet, here he is, that long-gone version of my father—the one seen from the eyes of a boy who still believes in Santa Claus
.

Beverly Hills, 1953
. Seventy-five degrees. High in the sky, sleigh dusted with sparkling snowflakes, Santa and his reindeer had been flying over the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica since just after Thanksgiving.

The little white lights that covered the outside of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and Saks allowed shoppers on Rodeo Drive to pretend they were in New York City, and when the temperature dipped below sixty-five and the matrons of Beverly Hills broke out their minks, you could almost believe it was true.

My father surprised me, showing up out of the blue when the bell rang at 3:10
P.M
. There he was, chatting with the pickup mothers as if this was something he did every day. At first I thought something must be terribly wrong. But Pop wiggled his eyebrows and told me we were going on a secret mission. When you’re eight, there’s nothing better than a secret mission.

Pop wouldn’t tell me where we were going, just stopped to buy us both ice cream cones at Thrifty Drug Store, where they had a scooper that made the ice cream come out square. Pop let me get a double—cherry vanilla and rocky road. We walked up Beverly Drive, past the hardware store and the smelly cheese shop and Harry Harris Fine Children’s Shoes and Phil’s Fish and Seafood, which was also pretty smelly. At the top of the block, outside the Beverly Hills Post Office, was a Christmas tree lot. That’s where Pop stopped. And told me to pick one. I was so shocked I dropped what was left of my cherry vanilla, rocky road cone.

We’d never had a Christmas tree. We weren’t allowed. In Beverly Hills, where most Jews saw a Christmas tree as nothing more than temporary interior design, my grandfather felt it was “a Christian invasion of his home.” We weren’t allowed to sing “Jingle Bells” or drink eggnog or even read
A Christmas Carol
. Not that my grandfather was a very religious Jew—despite his Passover zealotry, he didn’t keep kosher and he worked every Saturday. He was just irrationally opposed to anything
not
Jewish.

My father picked up a circle of wood that had been sawed off the bottom of a Douglas fir and handed it to me. It was sticky with sap.

“Smell,” he said.

I couldn’t pull enough of it into my lungs. I pushed it against my nose, closed my eyes, and breathed in again and again.

“Careful. You’re going to hurt yourself.” My father laughed.

“Can I keep it?” I asked

The Christmas tree guy heard me and looked up.

“Sure. Take as many as you like. I’m just gonna dump ’em.”

But I only kept the first piece. I didn’t think the others could possibly smell as good. And then we picked out a tree. I looked at every single Christmas tree on the lot before I made up my mind. It was a pine—full and dark green, taller than me by an inch or two. And it smelled better than all the others. We carried it home along Wilshire Boulevard, past the white lights on the Beverly Wilshire and Saks, and under Santa and his reindeer. Every block or so, someone would honk at us and wave, and Pop would yell “Merry Christmas!” at them.

When we got home, Pop picked a spot in the far corner of the backyard, dug a hole, and planted it. Sort of. Grandpa never noticed. He kept the liquor store open on Christmas. It was a big day for him, so he left the house early. As soon as he was out the door, Pop and I dug up the tree, brought it in, and decorated it with strings of popcorn and cranberries, candy canes, and tinsel. Then we put all the presents we’d bought for everyone under the tree—mostly just little stuff from Woolworth’s, like a Matchbox car for Ben, bubble bath for Mom, a stuffed rabbit for Hannah.

When everyone woke up, we had Christmas at our house—just like all the other Jews in Beverly Hills. We even drank eggnog. And when the living room floor was covered in wrapping paper and my brother and sister were playing with their new toys and my mother was dabbing her new rose water on her wrists, my father put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head.

“Mission accomplished,” he said.

I remember that Christmas as part of the time when my father’s behavior was what people referred to as eccentric, unconventional. Or less generously, unreliable. But also lovable. I remember he had time to coach Little League. He wasn’t the robot in the suit and tie my friends’ fathers were. I didn’t know then why he had so much spare time. Or why my mother was always so tired. When I figured that out, his eccentric behavior became a lot less endearing. But until then, it made him seem special to me. Different from the other fathers. It was almost like he knew something important that they didn’t.

Like the day we caught the fish. I’ve never known what to do with that memory. Mostly I’ve spent my life wishing it would go away. But it doesn’t. That day will always keep me from hating him as completely as I want to.

I was seven, Hannah was five, Ben had barely been born—to us he was inconsequential. We hadn’t yet realized the world had just changed radically. But we knew Mom was exhausted. Pop was in a good mood, so he took Hannah and me to the Santa Monica pier for a whole afternoon to get us out of her hair. We rode the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel and ate hot dogs and cotton candy, and then Pop rented a fishing rod and Hannah and I took turns holding it and being bored and complaining. Until one of us got a bite. Which one of us that was, depends on who you ask and who’s telling the fish story.

I don’t think either of us actually expected to catch anything. And neither of us knew what to do. It was our first fishing expedition. Our family wasn’t big on nature activities. No fishing, no camping, no hiking. Sometimes we barbecued. And then ate outside. Hannah and I were in way over our heads.

We gripped the rod with twenty white knuckles—like we were fighting a marlin or a whale.

“Gently, gently. You have to use a light touch,” Pop said like he knew what he was doing. He took the cheap little rod from us and started turning the reel, letting out more line before he realized he was turning it the wrong way. Any fish with half a brain should’ve been able to free itself by then, but something was still thrashing around under the blue-black surface.

A group of easily impressed city folk was beginning to gather, oohing and ahhing and cheering my father on as he performed what was apparently a Herculean task. Hannah and I stood by his side beaming. For once it was our father who mattered, who was important and admired. It was a feeling of elation I will never forget. And it was extremely short-lived. None of my Cub Scout badges had prepared me for the bleeding, bug-eyed, flailing trophy my father held up for the cheering crowd.

“Neat-o,” Hannah said, sticking her finger through the gaping hole the hook had torn in the fish’s lip.

“Stop!” I screamed. “You’re hurting him!” I pushed her and she stumbled backward.

“Put him down!” I yelled at my father.

“Calm down, Greyson,” my father said, laying the fish down on the pier where it flopped around frantically. “Fish don’t feel pain.”

Hannah wiggled her bloody fish finger in my face. “Yeah, stupid, everybody knows that.”

My father raised one eyebrow at her. “That’s enough, Hannah.”

I squatted down next to the fish. I was starting to cry and my tears were dripping on him. “Look at him. He can’t breathe.”

My father sighed heavily, then started looking around. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t move.”

Hannah squatted next to me. “He’s not going to be breathing when we eat him either,” she said and poked it.

“I said stop it! And we’re not eating him.”

“He’s my fish too,” she whined. “I caught him just as much as you did.”

“Well, I wish we hadn’t caught him,” I said, feeling a mixture of nausea, panic, and anger.

“Fine, I’ll cook my half and you throw your half back.”

“Go ahead and try.” I shoved her hard and she fell back onto her butt.

She just sat there for a minute. Then her eyes teared up and her chin started to tremble. “You got my shorts all wet … my bottom’s all wet.”

And then a shadow blocked the sun and I looked up and saw my father standing over me with a janitor’s bucket.

“Go get some water. I’ll take the hook out.”

“Water?” I asked lamely.

“Salt water,” he said, pointing to the seafood restaurant at the end of the pier that kept live lobsters in a tank.

“Hurry,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “I don’t think our friend here has much time.”

I sprinted down the pier and asked a man who was wearing black rubber boots and an apron that looked like my yellow rain slicker to fill my bucket. I could hardly lift it, but I made it back and Pop scooped up my wounded fish and dropped him in. I felt like I could breathe again too.

But when a feathery cloud of blood began to trail through the water from the hole in the fish’s lip, I started to cry. “Oh God, Pop, look what we did to him. He wasn’t doing anything except swimming around in the ocean and we … we tore a hole in him.” I was sobbing and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t ever remember being so sad or feeling such regret over something I had done.

My father pulled me to him and hugged me hard.

“It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart.”

“No, he’s gonna die and it’s going to be my fault.” I could hardly breathe, I was crying so hard.

“Greyson’s a sissy,” Hannah teased. “A boy crying about a stupid fish. I’m going to tell everybody you cried about a stupid fish. Right after I cook it.”

Pop turned to her. “That is enough, young lady. Not one more word out of you. Do you understand me?”

I’d never heard him yell at Hannah, not like that. Her chin quivered and she started to cry.

“Well, do you?” my father asked.

“You said not one more word,” my sister said in a tiny whisper.

“Alright,” my father said, stepping between my sister and me. “Whaddya say we put our friend back where he belongs?”

Hannah and I nodded silently and followed my father to the edge of the pier where he handed me the bucket.

“I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “I hope you feel better.” I dumped the fish and water over the side and watched until the splash disappeared and there was only the slosh of the blue-green water on the mossy leg of the pier. Then Pop reached into his pocket and pulled out two nickels and told Hannah to buy us a couple of snow cones from the cart nearby.

When she was out of earshot, he held my arms tight so I was looking right at him—so tight it almost hurt. “I don’t know if you’re going to understand this, Greyson, but I’m going to tell you anyway. You should never be afraid to cry.”

“But boys—” I started to say.

“No, not just because it’s okay for boys to cry too. But because, Greyson, you are very lucky. Not everyone can feel things as deeply as you. Most people, their feelings are … bland, tasteless. They’ll never understand what it’s like to read a poem and feel almost like they’re flying, or to see a bleeding fish and feel grief that shatters their heart. It’s not a weakness, Grey. It’s what I love about you most.” Then he hugged me. Hard. And I’m not sure, but he might have been crying.

That short, unsullied time when I simply thought he was special has a sense of place and a smell all its own. It is a tiny shred of my father that, like a child’s blanket, I am both attached to and embarrassed by. And that I would be devastated to lose.

I suppose that irretrievable time is as much a piece of me as it is of him.

New York, 1994
. “Mind if I sit and talk with you for a few minutes?”

The voice, with its heavy outer-borough accent, is at once cheerful and timid. I look up from my tray of uneaten, inedible food—colorless, tasteless, but unfortunately not odorless. I did not realize I was staring down at it; do not know for how long I’ve been sitting here alone at this lunch table.

The young woman stands next to the orange plastic chair beside me waiting for permission. She is dressed neatly in cheap clothing—the kind secretaries and receptionists who earn next to nothing buy at Kmart and J. C. Penney in order to achieve the look of an acceptable professional. The poor woman’s facsimile of her boss. This woman’s slacks and matching blazer are gray polyester and her blouse is made of some kind of shiny, no doubt highly flammable acetate. She is clutching a clipboard to her chest. She takes a step toward me and I can hear her polyester-covered thighs rub together. I wait for her to finally get up the nerve to “axe” me a question.