St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3) (7 page)

"What about them?"

"Aren't they exceptions? They seem pretty happy."

More thought. Then: "Nah. She's a little bit nuts."

"Why?"

"She actually does have a dog. She thinks he needs braces."

I laughed.

"Says he has an overbite. God knows what she thinks about Ted."

"Scratch behind my ears?"

A smile.

"Straighten my tail?"

She crooked her finger, twice, beckoning. "You come over here and I'll rub your belly."

It was my turn to smile.

"Women are high maintenance. Men are low maintenance."

It was true. It was profound. She was a genius.

Her finger called me twice more, like underwater sea grass, undulating.

I think I salivated and panted. In fact, I'm sure I did.

Then there was the time—earlier that summer—that she told me that she was a logistical genius—as well as a sexual one, of course.

"I didn't know you knew the word 'logistical,' " I said.

"I know a lot of words, smart guy."

I nodded. "If I turn off the lights, will you whisper some of them in my ear?"

"That's part of my sexual genius. This is different."

I waited. "You have my full attention."

"Adam's car ran out of gas this morning on his way to work."

Adam had a 1990 Toyota Tercel. It functioned for him much the way my 1960 Chev Impala had for me at his age.

"He had to leave it on Logan, near Gerrard. He phoned and told me about it after he finally got to work— late—said he couldn't get away from the store. Asked me if I'd do him a favor—take my car and get some gas, put it in his car, because he didn't have a gas can and it was too far to carry it even if he did have one."

I was trying hard to follow.

"So I did. Got his spare keys from his room, got a can of gas from the corner. They made me leave a twenty-dollar deposit on the damn thing. Poured the gas into his car, then got to thinking."

I frowned.

She smiled slyly.

"This is where the genius part comes in." I folded my hands.

"Pure genius," she said.

"I'm hanging on your every word."

"So I started thinking," she said, "about how pleased and surprised he'd be if I could get his car to him so that he'd have it right after work. Have it sitting there in the parking lot behind the store."

"The perfect mother."

"And wife."

"And wife. Of course."

"But I had my own car with me."

I listened. Smiled. Patient. No idea where this was going.

"I couldn't drive two cars at the same time."

"Can't see how," I said.

"And I didn't want to leave my own car there."

I sat back then, bemused, crossed my arms.

"So I drove my car for two blocks, got out, locked it, went back to Adam's, drove it two blocks ahead of mine, got out, locked it, walked back to my car, drove it two blocks ahead of Adam's . . ."

"You didn't."

"I did."

I laughed.

She beamed. "Took me half an hour."

"All the way to The Book Cellar."

"That's right. Put it in the lot behind the store. Went in and told Adam. He told everyone in the store that his mother was a logistical genius."

"That's where you heard it."

"From my very own son. One genius begets another."

"I'm the luckiest guy in town. Surrounded by geniuses." I raised my arms expansively.

"I know another big word too." She leaned over me, whispered it in my ear.

She had my full attention again. I was indeed low maintenance. She was incredible.

The leapfrogging car story was a good example of how she'd do anything for her son.

He was my son too.

The Bobby Swiss thing was something we were having trouble with, though. Lots of trouble. Jeanne was like I had been originally—hoping it would all go away by itself, afraid to mention it.

And although we didn't talk about it much, we thought about it a lot. I could see it in her eyes—something new, mixed with something old. There were moments of silence when I'd glance at her. We both knew.

The more I thought about it—doing dishes in the evening, in the shower in the morning—a strange plan was beginning to form in my head. And unlike Jeanne, I was no genius, so maybe my idea was crazy.

Images and people collided: my father. Jeanne. Adam. Bobby Swiss.

Dayton, Ohio.

II

TV families can confuse us. They show kids talking with their parents candidly, discussing problems, relationships, everyone learning valuable life lessons.

It wasn't like that with my parents. My brother and I told them only what they wanted to hear. It took a monumental incident to break down those barriers, to open up with honesty, seek true advice, to pay attention.

In reverse, Mom was better at it than Dad. She liked to talk, to tell us stories of the past. I learned things from her that he would never even allude to. She'd tell us about her mother, her father, her brother, Jack, who disappeared down into the States back in the thirties, the places they lived, family secrets. Details. It was wonderful. Always stories. I couldn't get enough.

"You're special," she'd tell me.

I wanted to be special. I wanted her to tell me why. Often, in the kitchen at Maxwell Avenue, barely old enough to tie my own shoes, I'd coax the same story out of her.

"You've got the Radey blood flowing in your veins. My father told me how the Radeys see things others don't, how they're special."

"Are you special?" I'd ask.

"I must be," she'd say. "I'm a Radey."

"Is Dennis special?"

"Yes."

"Is everyone in the family special?"

"Absolutely."

"Why are we special?"

The pause. The dreamy look. "My father told me that Great-Grampa Radey, who came over from Ireland, had the gift. He said that he could see the past and the future together sometimes."

I loved the dreamy look. It made me feel warm, safe. "Did he see me then?"

She'd meet my eye. "Yes," she'd say. "He saw you. It made him happy."

"Do you see the past and the future together?"

"Not yet," she'd say. "But I will, someday."

I'd wait. I could feel her trying to see it.

"We all will. Someday."

It was in ways like this that her life became an open book, and as I got older, when I became an adult, I saw many of her tales differently, saw how much more she deserved out of life than she ever got.

Dad was a different case. He was tougher. The armor slipped occasionally—like that day his mother was buried. I remember another rare glimpse. I'd seen a name and dates on one of the two family tombstones in Mount Hope—one of many carved there. But this one I didn't recognize.

ANNIE BERTHA NOLAN

BORN JULY 11,1909—DIED NOVEMBER 29,1909

I had taken him to the cemetery for a visit. He had asked me to drive him—the kind of day that I usually put off until I ran out of excuses. Standing beside him, I read the inscription. "Who is that?"

"My baby sister."

I knew nothing of this.

"She died when she was four months old." A beat. Another. "It was three days before my fifth birthday."

I turned, watched him stare at the marble monument, his gaze fixed.

"I remember going into my mother's bedroom, seeing her sitting in a chair with the baby in a blanket on her lap. 'She's dead, Tommy,' she said to me."

He stopped suddenly. Neither of us said anything. A few seconds later, we shuffled our feet in the grass, dug our hands deeper into our pockets.

The moment passed. It was like our brief talk about Bampi. He never spoke of it again. And I never asked. I never heard the story from anyone else in the family.

My cousin, Jacquie, though, did tell me a similar story. It came from her mother, Berna—my father's sister. Jacquie said that her mother told her about a stillborn baby in 1917—eight years after Annie Bertha—whom they kept in a shoebox on the mantle until it was time for burial. This was in the old family house at 222 Berkeley Street, before everyone moved to Maxwell Avenue.

Both these stories came to me after Dad's mother— my grandmother—Nanny, had died. They were details that made me revise how I saw her. Everything we learn helps us revise how we see people.

Fathers and sons.

Like my father and me, Adam and I were mostly quiet around each other too.

When I drove him to the Bloor subway line in the morning during school term, we'd talk. A bit. Pretty superficial stuff. Morning's tough to get conversation rolling at the best of times.

He was twenty-one. Just as I had been with my father, there wasn't much he was going to tell me. But it was more complicated than that.

I wasn't his father. Bobby Swiss was.

III

Adam showed me how to get onto the Internet. The door to his room was open when I passed by and I stopped, stared in. He was at his desk, the computer screen glowing in front of him.

He turned, smiled.

"What's up, sport?"

"Browsing."

I leaned against the doorjamb. "Surfing?" I was showing off. I knew the term.

"C'mere. I'll show you. I'm downloading an article off the Web."

The Web. Magic words to me. Information out of nowhere.

"It's on Madagascar," he said. "Amazing place. Fourth largest island in the world. A micro-continent. It broke off from Africa 125 million years ago and drifted into the Indian Ocean. The people of Madagascar are called the Malagasy."

"This is what you're doing?" My smile mocked him good-naturedly. "When you could be watching TV?"
 

"Right."

"Where did this all come from?"

"We studied it in anthropology last year."

I'd lost track. "I didn't even know you took anthropology."

"It was one of my options. They make you take options. Try to broaden you."

"Must be awful."

"Terrible." He smiled. "But every now and then some stuff sticks." He looked at me. "Don't tell any of my friends I was doing this on my summer vacation. It wouldn't look good."

"Course not." I frowned. "What would people think?"

"Exactly." He sat back. "What would you like me to find for you, Leo? I'll show you how to use it."

I didn't know. I had to think.

We played around for quite a while before I got rolling, and then I typed in "1960 Chevrolet Impala," my first car, just to see.

"1960 Chev," Adam said. "Jeez. Talk about anthropology. This is a dig. This is archaeology."

The search engine produced a list of them. We visited several sites. Some had them for sale, others listed specs, etc. Fascinating. I saw myself behind the wheel. I saw myself a kid again.

The past: 125 million years or thirty-five years. Bits of it could be retrieved, examined. Once again, I envied Adam his chance at an education—something I had missed.

I saw myself driving that Chev, through Detroit, through Toledo, through Ohio, to Dayton.

Dad's old room needed painting. When Jeanne and I rolled up the rug in there, I saw her pick something up, turn it over, examine it. "What's this?"

It was a tiny wire brush, about three inches long, white bristles at each end. It was bent, twisted. I knew what it was.

"It's used to clean an electric razor."

Jeanne didn't say anything. She handed it to me.

I was kneeling on the floor. I sat back on my heels, held it.

The next morning, the red garnet ring had moved from the ashtray to the dresser. The razor brush was gone.

He was in the room. He was under the rug. In the tackle box behind the furnace.

I didn't know where he was.

But I knew what I had to do. I couldn't escape it. I knew what I had to do.

IV

That year I started my four weeks vacation the last week of July. Jeanne's three weeks wouldn't begin until the first of August. When I told her that I was going to Dayton by myself, she looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "What are you talking about?"

"Three days," I said. "I'll drive. I think I can do it in three days—there and back."