Dad

MOTHER HAD A SERIOUS HEART ATTACK

STOP CAN YOU COME STOP LOVE JOAN

Well, that shakes me. In her special way, my mother has always seemed so indestructible.

When we get back to the mill, I show the telegram to Vron. I sit down but I’m not hungry. It’s obvious I must go back. Joan is not a panic type. If she says it’s serious, it is.

With Vron’s help, I start packing. She’s so calm, so reassuring; definitely the cool head in our menage. I’m still not believing what I’m doing. I’m going to be leaving all this quiet beauty. Within a day I’ll be in Los Angeles, in Palms, on the dead-end street where my parents live. I try to be calm, try not to frighten Jacky. I tell him his grandmother’s sick and I must go see her. It’s hard for an eight-year-old to comprehend what it means. He has no idea how long I’ll be gone; neither do I, for that matter.

Vron drives me to the train for Paris and I catch an Air France flight direct to L.A. Eight hundred and fifty dollars for a twenty-one-to-forty-five-day excursion ticket. Excursion, hell! But it’s significantly cheaper than a regular ticket.

I’ve telegraphed from Paris, giving my flight number, so when I step out of the plane, Joan and her husband, Mario, are there.

We pile my things into their VW camper. Joan and Mario always drive either a camper or a station wagon; they have five kids. We’re pulling up onto Sepulveda when Joan starts telling me what’s happened.

She came over to see Dad and Mom but they weren’t home. She took the opportunity to vacuum and wash some windows. Then she began to worry. They’re probably shopping, they don’t go much of anywhere these days; but it shouldn’t be taking so long.

She drives over and finds them in the shopping mall. Mother is sitting on a bench next to the Lucky Market, white-faced. Dad, not knowing what to do, not believing what’s happening, is packing and unpacking groceries in the trunk of the car.

Joan’s frightened by the way Mom looks. She drives them home in their car, leaving hers in the parking lot. At the house, she tells Dad to put the groceries away and rushes Mom off to the Perpetual Hospital. Mother doesn’t want to go. She’s a hypochondriac who likes doctors but doesn’t like hospitals.

At the hospital they spot immediately she’s having a coronary crisis. They rush her into an intensive care unit and plug her onto monitoring systems, IV, oxygen; give her tranquilizers, blood thinners.

On that first night in the hospital, she’d had the big coronary. If you must have a coronary, an intensive care unit is a good place for it. They tell Joan it was massive and if she’d had it outside the hospital, she’d never have survived. The final tests aren’t all in, but they’re sure she’s lost a significant part of her lower left ventricle.

Well, she isn’t dead, but it doesn’t sound good.

We go directly to my parents’ house. One reason Joan wants me here is to look after Dad. She seems more worried about him than Mom. I’m the same. I don’t know why we both have this feeling Mom can always take care of herself, but we do; it doesn’t make sense. It’s probably only a defense.

Dad’s standing at the screen door waiting. I’m sure he’s been getting up and looking, every time a car’s come near. We shake hands; men don’t hug in our family. He isn’t crying but his eyes are filled with tears and his face is yellow. He’s nervous and his hands are shaking.

He sits down in his platform rocker just inside the door while I carry my bag into the middle room down the hall. He seems much frailer than the last time I saw him. It’s been almost two years. He doesn’t look particularly older, or even thinner, only less vital.

On the way, Joan said I should make as little of Mom’s attack as possible because Dad’s scared out of his wits. So we have a glass of that crummy muscatel my folks drink for wine. They buy it in gallon jugs, then pour it into a fake crystal bottle. It’s part of Mother’s effort toward elegance. It’s not bad if you’re munching on a toasted cheese sandwich, but God, it’s sweet as candy. If you don’t like wine it’s fine, somewhere between cream soda and a Manhattan.

We sit there. Dad still hasn’t been to the hospital; Joan told him there were no visitors allowed. So when I leave, I sneak out the side door and ease my parents’ car out of the patio. It’s a 1966 Rambler, and has all of twenty-five thousand miles on it. Here’s an eleven-year-old automobile in showroom condition. They keep it covered with plastic; even the seat covers are plasticized. It has air conditioning, a radio, power brakes, power steering, the works. It’s like stepping into the past when you drive this car. It drives smooth as hell with automatic drive and is heavily horsepowered for a small car. Dad bought it, when he was still interested in cars, as his final, retirement automobile. He made a gamble on this one, and it’s been a real winner, simple classic lines, square back.

At the hospital, in the lobby, a nice woman tells me how to find intensive care.

Most likely, nobody ever gets used to hospitals, or is comfortable in them, except perhaps doctors or nurses. The vibes are all trouble: pain and death.

But this hospital is somehow different, modern. There’s carpeting, and Muzak playing everywhere. There’s no hospital-white-tile-and-shiny-waxed-floor feeling. It doesn’t even smell like a hospital; more like a Holiday Inn. Even the elevator: little ding when you get in, self-operated; Muzak. Muzak on every floor, same soothing music playing all the time everywhere.

Following signs, I work my way to the intensive care unit. At the desk I identify myself, ask if I can see my mother. They tell me she’s very sick and can’t take excitement. I tell them I’ve come all the way from Paris. There’s a brief conference; it’s decided I can go in but must be very quiet.

I move softly past rows of cubicles. Everybody’s plugged in and taped up, most of them unconscious. This is truly the final stop before the grave, the modern version of an Indian dying house.

I don’t know what to expect; even without heart attacks people change tremendously in two years. It’s always a shock to see somebody this age after some time has past. I know we’re all changing, the kids, Vron, me; but we see each other so often we don’t notice.

I look in and there she is. Probably, since I was a kid, I haven’t seen Mom in bed. I left home for the army at eighteen, and before that I don’t think I ever went into their bedroom, at least not after I was ten. Now I see her there, bed tilted, oxygen tube up her nose, all the monitors, IV, catheters. There’s a computer readout screen over her head showing an ongoing cardiograph, there’s also a little red dot indicating her pulse with a digital readout. She looks like a failed astronaut.

She’s a greenish-white color and her eyes are closed. Her face is a mask.

It’s a strange thing about Mom’s face. It has all the lines and marks of her past expressions, most of these negative. There are hard traces of suspicion, strong lines of dissatisfaction and complaint. They’re deeply incised, even in repose. At the same time, there’s something young about her. She keeps her hair tinted toward black and her hair is husky, hard, thick. So different from Dad. His face is smooth, satin smooth, his hair only white tufts over his ears.

Mother uses a medium amount of makeup, not exaggerated for a woman seventy. She’s never looked her age. I look at her, even here sick, maybe dying, and she doesn’t look much over fifty-five.

I sit down in a chair beside the bed and watch the machines trying to tell me what’s happening. I know they have monitors out there in the central nursing station. I wonder what would bring them rushing in.

I watch the pulse rate and it’s up to 87 down to 83, up to 92. I never knew the pulse varied so much. Could it be because of her heart?

I’m staring at the screen and more or less inside myself, when I hear her voice.

‘You did come, after all. I must really be sick.’

This’s classic Mom. First, recrimination, doubt I’d come; second, self-pity. I lean down and kiss her on the turned cheek.

‘Oh, you’re not so sick, Mom. I came for something else anyway.’

What a stupid thing to say! She might be half dead, but nobody could fool my mother that easily. A person who’s suspicious even about truth is hard to fool.

‘Don’t kid me, Jacky.’

She closes her eyes, then slowly begins her dramatized version of the heart attack. She ought to write soap operas. She can make almost anything interesting and gives herself terrific starring roles.

‘Daddy didn’t know what to do … I’m staying alive by willpower, telling Daddy it’s only indigestion. I’m praying to Saint Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases, when Joan comes in the nick of time and saves my life.’

She grudgingly gives this to Joan, then takes it back by saying the McCarthys, her side of the family, are always good in emergencies, while the Tremonts crack up. Thank God, Joan has good McCarthy blood.

Now there’s the scenario about what the doctors have told her. If they talked to Mother as much as she says, she couldn’t find time to sleep and nothing else in the hospital would get done.

And they’re all so impressed with her strength; she has the willpower of somebody half her age. Mother probably considers this an insult; nobody half her age has her willpower.

But she does admit she’s scared.

Next we start the planning, stage-managing.

‘Don’t say anything to Daddy about a heart attack! Just tell him it’s something with my “insides”.

‘He’ll understand that, Jacky, because I had the hysterectomy. You tell him it’s only something went wrong with my “insides”.’

She likes that idea.

‘And whatever you do, Jacky, don’t mention cancer, you know he’s scared to death of cancer.’

I don’t know what cancer has to do with the whole thing but I nod. I’ll talk to Joan and we’ll figure how we can handle Dad. There’s no way to keep it from him that Mother’s had a heart attack. Having a heart attack is not like having a hysterectomy. When you’ve had a heart attack, even if you survive you’re a coronary patient for life.

But there’s no sense saying these things to Mom now. I stay on for a while and watch. She drifts in and out, sometimes thrashing in her sleep. Once, she pulls off the monitor and three nurses come dashing in. Boy, are they ready for action!

Mother is an extremely active person, even in her sleep; she’s nervous and moves quickly. The nurse tells me it’s the fourth time she’s torn off the monitor. This time they do everything but nail it to her arm; gluing and taping from elbow to wrist. The IV tube is another whole problem.

When I leave, I’m surprised I don’t feel any tendency to cry. Mostly, I feel discouraged and peculiarly restless. Seeing her down that way is like looking at an old, familiar tree that’s been struck by lightning and is stretched across the path.

I go back determined to put on the brightest face possible. In our family my role is the joker, the comedian, the clown.

I know what’s expected; you get a feeling for a role like this. I park Dad’s car up the street, then walk to the house. Usually we park this car on the driveway or in the patio. Dad meets me at the door.

‘Where’s the car, Johnny?’

‘Well, Dad, I visited the hospital. When I got there, Mother was all packed, ready to go. The doctor said she ought to take a vacation and rest up, so she’s on her way to Palm Springs. I gave her the car and took a bus back.’

Now, this is cruel. Dad’s believing me. He’s glad Mother’s well, but he’s crushed she’s going to Palm Springs without him. Joan pushes past me and looks down the street.

‘Jack, you’re impossible! The car’s right down there, Dad. You have a real screwball for a son.’

It gets us past the hard point anyway. I have some time to pull myself together.

The TV’s on and I settle onto the gold chair, Mom’s chair. They’re watching a game between the Angels and Oakland. Oakland’s winning, of course. Dad realizes I’ve been to the hospital and he’s trying not to make a big thing of it.

‘How’s she look to you, Johnny? Does she seem all right?’

Then, with hardly a pause.

‘When’s she coming home?’

‘She’s fine, Dad, but she’ll be in the hospital for a while. She said to say hello and sends you a big kiss.’

He doesn’t ask what’s the matter with her. I don’t think he wants to know. I look over at Joan on the couch and she puts her finger to her lips.

We watch silently. Oakland’s ahead by five.

Joan stands quietly, points to the first back bedroom and leaves. I think it’s called a back bedroom because it’s behind the living room, kitchen and bath; she means the side bedroom.

There’s another bedroom further back; the real back bedroom. This house is built in an L, the bottom part facing the street. This is the living-and-dining room. The long part of the L extends on the left toward the rear, with a patio on the right. Along this are the kitchen and bathroom, back to back; the middle, or first ‘back’ bedroom, then the real back bedroom at the end of the hall. Actually, there’s another bedroom in the garden; this is sometimes called the back bedroom, too. My folks’ house has three back bedrooms, no other kind.

Joan’s waiting for me. With men on first and third, one out for the Angels, I leave as if I’m going to the bathroom; Dad and Mario don’t look up. I go in and close the bedroom door quietly. Joan’s stretched out on the bed, I sit on the floor.

As children, Joan and I developed our own world, fighting what I now call the poverty mind. This poverty mind constantly suspects anything out of the ordinary, anything not known or accepted; also if it isn’t practical, it isn’t good.

Now Joan has five children. She’s a natural mother, one of the incredible women who truly play with their children. And I don’t mean only when they’re babies; she plays with them all the time. She has a twenty-four-year-old son, Yale graduate cum laude, and she still plays with him. You might find them out in the yard playing marbles or shooting a BB gun.

Mother calls Joan the ‘simp’ when she does this. ‘Look at the simp playing on the floor with her grown kids.’

‘Simp’ in Mom’s lexicon is short for simpleton, I think. I’ve never asked her. Whenever anyone does anything she doesn’t agree with, they’re automatically classified as ‘simp’. She snorts through her nose when she says it. Joan is a ‘simp’ (snort) because she plays with her children; ‘They’ll never have any respect for her. Honest to God, they think she’s only another kid.’

Joan and I still play together. Here I’m fifty-two and she’s in her late forties, but when we get together, it’s playtime. Our play is based on deep confidence. What’s hide-and-seek if you peek? Can you relax and have fun on a seesaw with someone you don’t trust?

‘How’d Mom look to you, Jack?’

She laughs when I tell her Mother’s first line. I admit she didn’t look so hot.

‘The doctor says we just have to wait and see what damage was done.’

She pauses.

‘I’m worried about Dad. I could move him out to our place but he’s better off here where he can putter around his garden and greenhouse.’

I nod.

‘How long can you stay?’

‘The ticket’s for twenty-one to forty-five days.’

‘That should be enough, I hope.’

She rolls onto her side, slips off her shoes.

‘Don’t worry, Joan. I’ll stay with Dad. It’ll work out. At home, I’m a newfangled house husband.’

She shoots me one of her ‘straight on’ looks.

‘Are you sure? You know he’s practically a baby.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s my father too, you know.’

‘That’d be great.’

Joan gives me a rundown on a typical day here. She says the main thing is keeping everything on an even keel. She explains how Mother has a schedule and their whole life is essentially one long routine.

‘First, Mom gets up early and does her exercises. For her, it’s the best time of day; she has the whole house to herself. At about ten she takes a cup of coffee in to Dad, gives him his blood-pressure pills, vitamin pills and any other pills she’s into. The morning coffee is real coffee, not decaffeinated.

‘You know, Jack, Dad has somehow managed over the past eight years to keep alive the feeling he’s on an extended vacation; that sooner or later he must go back to work. He lives each day as if it might be his last.’

She tells me the pills Dad takes. I recognize some and he’s heavily medicated. I think maybe I’ll try getting him into meditation or even yoga. I hold my own pressure down that way. I’ve brought my cuff with me, so I’ll check him when I do myself. That reserpine he’s on is deadly stuff; it’s basically poison.

Joan reels off the rest of this daily routine, including mandatory soap operas. I tell her I’ll try sticking it out; but my mind is spinning, figuring ways to sharpen life up. I can’t leave other people’s lives alone. I especially want to wean him from those three hours of ‘soaps’ in the middle of the day. What a waste, to be living in California with all the sunshine out there, sitting inside staring at moving colored lines. My God, the ocean’s less than ten minutes away.

‘Another thing, Jack, Dad works a bit in his shop but he doesn’t have his old coordination; this drives him crazy. You know how he could fix almost anything? Now he has trouble keeping his own electric razor running.’

Her eyes fill and she looks down.

‘He’s beginning to think I’m a mechanical genius because I can fix his razor; clean it, replace the blade, things like that.’

‘But you are a mechanical genius!’

When we were kids, she was roller-skating at four when I was seven and I couldn’t even stand up on the damned things. She rode a two-wheeler before I did. I got the Erector set for Christmas and she played with it. That’s the way it was.

‘Try going along with him, Jack; help without making him feel inept. He’s fine as long as he doesn’t get flustered.’

She gets up from the bed, slips on her shoes.

‘We’d better get out there before they think we’ve flown the coop.’

The game’s still on. Oakland’s running away with it. We come in just after Rollie Fingers hits a bases-loaded homer. We watch the replay.

Joan and Mario leave after the home run. I’m alone with Dad. I can’t remember when I was last alone with him. As we watch the end of the game, I go over in my mind the things Joan told me. I’m a fair-to-middling cook and housekeeper but it scares me trying to fill in for Mother.

Before she left, Joan fixed dinner, so, at about six-thirty, I go in the kitchen and heat it up. I set the table for two. Dad’s in his regular place at the end of the table and I take my usual place to his left. I don’t take Mom’s place on the kitchen side, even though it’d be more convenient.

Dad’s watching me. I bring out the butter, salt, pepper, dishes, knives, forks, spoons. I carry the meal hot from the stove and put it on a plate in the middle of the table.

‘Where did you learn to cook, Johnny?’

Dad usually calls me Johnny; once in a rare while, John. I don’t know how he decides which. Mom always calls me Jacky. I changed my name from Johnny or Jacky to Jack when I went to high school. But at home it never took. I don’t know why Mom and Dad call me by different names but that’s the way it is. It’s almost as if I’m a different person to each of them.

‘I didn’t cook this, Dad; Joan did. I’m only putting it out. Come on, let’s eat.’

I know he doesn’t believe me. I’m bringing food out of the kitchen so I must be cooking it. People cook food in kitchens. He designed this kitchen, put in the stove, sink, refrigerator; built the cabinets; maintains it when anything goes wrong. But using it is an absolute mystery to him. He can no more use a kitchen than he can use one of those jet airplanes he helped build at Douglas for twenty years.

It’s a fine meal and afterward we watch more TV. During the station breaks and ads, I scoot in the kitchen and clean up. Then I begin hauling my things to the back bedroom out in the garden. I carry some blankets along with my bags. Dad’s watching me.

‘I wouldn’t sleep out there, Johnny, it’s awfully cold and damp; you’d be better off sleeping in here. I leave the heat on low at night so it’s warm.’

Frankly, I like sleeping in the cold. My parents keep their house too hot for me and besides, they’re electric-blanket people. I’m not. I don’t feel comfortable, even in California, unless I have weight on top of me; a light electric blanket with only a sheet leaves me feeling vulnerable. I know I’m warm but I don’t feel I should be. But I can’t tell Dad these things; he’d take it as an insult.

Still, I’m getting the message. He’s scared. He’d probably like me to climb in bed with him back there but he could never ask; even if I volunteered he couldn’t. He probably hasn’t slept alone since the last time Mother was hospitalized, over thirty-five years ago. He’s dreading it. So what do I do? I can’t take him by the hand, lead him to the bedroom and dress him in his pajamas.

‘Well, Dad, we’d better hit the sack.’

Reluctantly he gets up and turns off the television. Then he sets the thermostat down a fraction. He checks all the doors and windows to see if they’re locked. These are his routines I know about. He puts out the lights except for a night-light on the baseboard in the hall. He goes back to his bedroom.

I decide I’ll sleep in the side bedroom; I can’t leave him alone feeling the way he does. I’ll shut the vanes on the heater vent. I’ll close the door and open the window.

I’ve just climbed into bed when he knocks on the door and opens it.

‘Johnny, I can’t find my pajamas; I don’t know where she keeps them.’

I paddle barefoot into his bedroom with him. There’s a closet and a chest with three drawers. I look through the drawers and find them right away. Mother’s organized herself into the top drawer; the middle drawer is for Dad and the bottom drawer is filled with sweaters. I hand him the pajamas. He looks at me as if I’m a wonder man.

We say good night again and he asks me to leave on his baseboard night-light in the hall. He’s holding on; he doesn’t want to be left in that bedroom alone. If I were a really sensitive, loving, thoughtful son, I’d’ve offered to have him sleep in the side room and I could’ve slept back there. That big, empty bed without Mother is scaring him. It’s hard to know the right thing.

3

‘Hey, Dad; wake up! Come on, Dad!’

Christ, maybe he’s dead. He’s breathing; man, is he ever breathing; sounds like the death rattle.

‘Come on, Dad, let’s go. It’s eight o’clock already.’

That’s real time, Pacific time. We still haven’t crossed into Mountain time. He moans and rolls over. Maybe he isn’t dead. With all the crap he’s been through, he could easily have a heart attack or stroke. I look at him close; he seems OK.

I take a shower, bumping around and rattling things, making’s much noise as I can. This isn’t like him at all; he’s usually up hassling the whole family every morning. I come out drying myself.

‘Hey, Dad; let’s go. Time to get up.’

It’s like he’s stoned. Now I’m beginning to really get worried. What would I do if he dies out here in the middle of nowhere? I sit down on the edge of the bed and shake him.

‘Hey, Dad. You OK?’

He moans, and opens his eyes. They don’t focus and he rolls away from me.

‘Come on, Dad! Let’s go, huh? It’s almost eight-thirty!’

Finally, he swings his legs and sits on the side of the bed. He hangs there completely drag-assed. But he’s awake, he’s alive.

After a shower he’s fine. We’ll take right off and have breakfast on the road. That way, we get in some cool morning driving time. God, I wish he’d let me drive; we’re wasting this bomb crawling at fifty-five. He drives as if he’s being punished. He sits hunched over the wheel, sulking, surrounded by open roads, trees and high empty skies; not even looking; just tensed up, expecting the worst.