The Complete Collection. William Wharton
What can I say? I know he’s serious; he wants me to understand. I’m wishing Delibro could hear this. Mother’s sitting there, still crying. She’s sniffing and peering at me, eye-talk, ‘See what I mean, Jacky, see what I mean?’ And Dad’s making such sense. I feel awful, like a child. He’s been seeing through it all these years and saying nothing, letting it happen because he respected us.
‘John, I know sometimes you must worry about Billy and little Jacky.
‘It’s hard for fathers to wait, but you have to give boys time, they’re slow. Sons are what worry a man because most men are scared, so they’re scared for their sons.
‘Johnny, I’m not worrying about you anymore and I don’t want you worrying about me or Mother. Let’s enjoy our own lives. We’re all fine.
‘I’ll keep going to that psychiatrist doctor till I get myself straightened out. Johnny, you go home to Veronica and Jacky. Mother and I will be OK; we all just have to stop worrying so much.’
After this long speech, he leans back, rocking, smiling from one to the other of us, smiling as if all the rules of the family haven’t been broken into a thousand pieces. The odd thing is Dad doesn’t act as if all this talking is out of the ordinary. Here he’s talked more in fifteen minutes, said more, than he has in the past fifteen years; and he’s just rocking and smiling.
I begin to sympathize with Mother. It’s not so much physical violence she’s afraid of, it’s mental. He’s capable of saying anything, rolling through all the sacrosanct temples of thought and emotion built during more than fifty years of mutual hypocrisy. He’s scuttled all the rules of their relationship.
Dad pushes out of his chair again and this time takes his cane. He moves off down the hall smiling back at us over his shoulder. He glances at the clock over the TV.
‘Well, I’m going to put on my baseball-watching costume. It’s almost time for the Dodger game.’
He shuffles off down the hall to the back bedroom. Mom looks at me.
‘Jacky, that’s not normal the way he’s talking. He never talked like that in his life. Something’s happened; he’s a different person.’
She’s stopped crying. This is my mother actually out there in front of me. She’s scared enough so she’s not putting it on or trying to pull anything over. It’s the first time I have the feeling we can truly talk.
‘Mom, I think this is the true John Tremont. He’s been hiding for over fifty years. I think that’s the way he really is inside; he’s a smart man who didn’t even know it himself. How was he ever going to find out he was smart? Everbody’s been profiting by making him think he wasn’t. I’ll bet Douglas and G.E. has made ten million dollars off his ideas. They wanted to keep him down, get the most out of him for virtually nothing. Everybody’s been leaning on him all his life, including us.
‘The psychiatrist says Dad is one of the most intelligent, imaginative men he’s ever had as a patient. He wants to give Dad some intelligence tests which don’t depend on how much schooling he’s had. Dad’s probably a genius of some kind.’
Mother leans back in her ‘don’t kid me’ lean and stares.
‘Oh, come on, Jacky. He’s smart maybe, but he’s no genius. I’ve lived with him all my life. He’s a perfectionist but he’s never been able to think up anything except toys for you kids or different crazy gadgets. He’s the original ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ and he’s never earned more than six thousand dollars a year in his life. If that psychiatrist thinks he’s a genius, he must be half crazy himself.’
‘Mom, you ought to go see Dr Delibro. Maybe you can give him a new viewpoint on Dad. As you say, you know him better than anybody. Dr Delibro is trying to help Dad get things together and you could help more than anybody.’
I can actually feel her paranoia surfacing. Mother doesn’t want any experts of any kind working on her. During the war, she didn’t take a job in a defense plant because she was afraid they’d X-ray her chest and find out she had tuberculosis. Mom was a closet tubercular for over thirty-five years. When Perpetual gave her a chest X-ray as part of the entrance examination, she was shocked to find out she actually had lungs. I’m waiting to see how it will go.
‘He’ll probably decide I’m crazy, Jacky. If he thinks your father’s a genius, he could easily think I’m insane. If he finds out about my two nervous breakdowns, he’s liable to lock me up and throw away the key.’
‘You’re not crazy, Mom; but it could certainly help him to understand Dad if you’d talk to him. He needs all the information he can get.’
I’m starting to hope now. I have to be careful not to make any false moves. Just then, Dad comes up the hall. He’s wearing his hat, his striped shirt and has a scorecard in his hand. He’s begun keeping a line-score for the games he watches. He stops on the way up the hall and goes into the bathroom. Mother leans toward me and stage-whispers.
‘All right, I’ll go; anything if it’ll help him come to his senses.’
When the game gets under way, I sneak into the back room and call Delibro. I tell him Mother will keep the Friday appointment. Boy, we’re deep into psychiatrists now; I can’t help wondering how it will all turn out. I go into the living room and tell Mother it’s set. There’s no use trying to keep it from Dad, so I tell him Mom is going to visit his psychiatrist, too. He turns away from the game and gives me a quick look. But the ball game’s on and we settle in to watch the Dodgers slip past the Phillies.
Later, out in the greenhouse, I tell Dad he doesn’t have to worry about the psychiatrist telling Mother anything they talked about in private; I tell him a psychiatrist is something like a priest in confession. Dad’s spraying liquid fertilizer on some plants. He looks up and smiles.
‘Oh, I’m not worried about that, John, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea having her visit a psychiatrist.’
I don’t have time to answer because just then Billy arrives. He’s almost as dirty as when he arrived the first time. He’s been down in Ensenada camping on the beach.
After we get him showered, I ask if he’ll stay around the house next day so I can visit Marty. I feel I’m not getting enough time with her. Billy can’t really say no to that, and I think Mom’s glad to have him there; she’s that scared of Dad.
I call Marty and we agree to meet tomorrow down at the French sidewalk café on the beach and have breakfast together.
Billy will sleep out in the garden bedroom. I’m in the side bedroom, while Mom and Dad sleep in their own back bedroom. That evening, as she walks past in her nightgown, Mother gives off looks like a vestal virgin being sacrificed to the Minoan bull. I shut the door to my little side bedroom and pretend I don’t notice.
Dad’s awake and over to Marty’s before I’m up. The bed in that back bedroom is like sleeping in a bowl of oatmeal.
I’m lying there awake, knowing I have to take a piss. I creep out quietly, bare-ass, sneak around back and pee against the wall. It’s then I notice the car’s already gone. I don’t feel like going in the house so I streak back, jump into bed and start the slow, soft descent into feathers.
I’m not even asleep again when Grandma comes pushing her way in. I pretend I’m asleep. I want to watch what she’s up to this time.
One thing, at least she’s not being spooky. She stomps straight over and shakes my shoulder. I open my eyes slowly. She’s white and shaking. I slide up so I’m sitting against the pillow.
‘What’s the matter, Grandma? Sit down here; you look awful!’
She collapses on the bed beside me