Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

How flat the whole scene seemed. Even the sunshine felt two-dimensional, flat slabs of light slapped up against white walls, and against the flat chlorine kidney of the Cyclone-fenced pool. We got out, staring at a sign:

POOL RULES

Swim at your own risk. Shower before entering pool. No radios without earphones. Bathing load 15 persons. No food, glass, or alcoholic drinks. No floats. No pets. Toilet-trained infants only. You must shower before entering pool. After using chairs and lounges, please replace in proper position. See other rules on bulletin board in Pool Hut.

"Control is big in Florida," I said. A well-tanned woman and man, dressed in shorts and banded T-shirts like members of Team Senior, rolled up on tricycles. Only as they passed was their age apparent. "It's a Utopia for second childhood."

"It doesn't say you can't go topless."

1 laughed, remembering my father telling me about his recent reaction to the French Riviera: 'They go topless and it doesn't bother you that much."

We turned and walked toward the building. Through the gap between the two buildings we could see the flat green of the golf course, a lone geriatric palm, and, on the horizon, the Gulf of Mexico. A fishing boat was heading across the flat blue, a cloud of gulls pluming up in its wake, an ever more chaotic white wedge against the flat blue sky. The sea was so still that the plume of gulls was reflected in the darker blue. I saw this as a hint of entropy, a break in the square flat concrete of the condo world where the fifties generation had gone for golf and tennis and concerts and restaurants, with clear rules, clear sightlines, and protective netting, like around a playpen. The unruly plume of gulls was like a rip in a Norman Rockwell. I wanted to be on that boat, heaving fish over, feeding the chaos of those gulls.

Hold it. My parents were basically good people. Dad had stayed in the same office on Washington Street for thirty years before retiring the previous year, filling cavities, hauling out molars, going home to my mother's hot lunch, meeting with the Jolly Jews, his investment club, and golfing, always golfing. In his golfing prime he had an admirable tail hook, and got a lot of roll. Once he and I had contested the Hendrik Hudson Club Championship. It escaped me who had won. Mom too had slogged it out-slogged, hell, lived her dream: a ranch house a big car two kids one a doctor even if a psychiatrist one a wealthy banker. I stared up at the green balconies. This was their dream come true. A little generosity was required. I felt a rush of sadness, then tenderness. This would be my only day with them all winter. Make it good. As Malik said, "None of us are here for long."

"Maybe," I said to Jill, "this time will be different. One thing: under no circumstances go into a room alone with my mother."

"Why not?"

"In a room alone with you, she'll destroy anything between us."

"Hey, if there's one thing I know about, it's 'the boyfriend's mother.'"

"Yeah, but not mine."

We were buzzed in through the heavily locked door and up to the third floor and then down the hall to where my parents stood in the spotlight of their open condo door. As I approached, seeing the hope light up in their eyes, the memory of how I had been as a college student, a teenager, a boy, a baby, hope lit up in me too, the hope for the return of the imagined remembered, and tears came to my eyes. When I was almost to them, seeing them so much smaller than recalled, I felt ashamed of my suspicion, and felt a rush of joy, like a young boy's.

"Hi, bud, and welcome," my father said. His voice trembled as he took my hand, as if he would cry. He wore a pink sport coat and polka dot tie clasped high on his belly, the belly itself straining hard against a big brass cowboy buckle on pants pulled up almost to his chest.

"Hello, dear," my mother said, kissing me on the cheek. She was dressed up, as if for a night at the opera, all cantilevered silk, diamonds and pearls. "You've come casual," she said, "as usual." I was wearing clothes I'd bought with Jill in Tampa- Italian shirt with the greens and browns of Tuscany, baggy Italian pants. "Have you gained weight?"

Boom. First hit. Righting myself, I introduced Jill. My father was friendly to her, as if greeting a new patient with the potential for some expensive bridgework. My mother was a little too friendly, as if doing Heiler Opposites. We went in.

The condo was meticulously neat, ordering a constricted space for utility and purpose, the purpose being order. The wall-to-wall facing mirrors gave the image of doubling the space, fooling the eye and then fooling the fooled eye, and the beige shag rug and beige furniture gave a sense of soft welcome.

My brother the banker looked good, tan and fit, his athletic body filling out a suit. His wife, a Realtor, looked healthy too, tanner and fitter. Their cute little girl wore a shimmering dress labeled "Baby Dior." My father offered us drinks. "I myself have never been drunk, and people drink more in Florida." Jill and I took Jack Daniel's.

"Let's have a toast," my father said as we sat down to eat, "and to my two successful boys."

"And to our parents," my brother said.

'To Mom and Dad," I said, raising my glass. We drank, and started to eat.

"The achievements of my boys make me proud," my father said, "and when I'm asked, I always comment that even though my younger boy is more successful in money and the other is successful as a physician, they're both successful."

"He talks about you both so much," my mother said. 'Talks a blue streak to strangers. But as soon as we get in the car to come home, nothing. Why won't he talk to me?"

"Stupid bitch," my father said under his breath.

Jill grabbed my knee. I looked at my brother and saw the alarm in his eyes. My father's words hit me in the gut. I started to sink.

"His mother never talked," my mother went on, not having heard it, for she was deaf in one ear, the ear toward him. "Except to Ga-Ga, her maid. She never cooked a meal herself, ever. Ga-Ga cooked."

"Stupid idiot."

"More stuffing, Roy dear?"

"So how's the golf, Dad?" my brother asked. I appreciated this, his trying to pull us all back onto the shore.

"Not so good, and I always say it doesn't matter how you score as long as you can keep playing. They keep the course in great shape-it's lush and the greens are fast-but they've got a few peasants as members and there's nothing I hate so much as a refugee on a golf course. You should see Mother's short swing and the way she is hitting the ball is just great."

"It hasn't been that easy," my mother said, "to make new friends."

"Moron!"

I felt paralyzed, wanting to confront him on this, but on the other hand not wanting to bring it to my mother's attention. What should we do? Pretend we didn't hear what we heard? Say something? What? We all kept silent, paralyzed and guilty, accomplices in the denial. It was hell.

Luckily my niece soon rescued us, first making a big pile of all of our bamboo napkin rings and then suddenly hurling them one after another at each of us in turn. We tried to duck and weave out of the way, but in the infinity of the facing mirrors and with the wine boosting the high from the bourbon it was hard to figure the angles. Jill and I thought it was funny,

my brother and his wife were less amused, and my mother and father were upset and tried to control her. As we gathered the napkin rings, my niece plopped a golf ball into her melted chocolate ice cream, splashing it on the beige carpet, and was taken to the TV room to chill out with Barney. My brother then did a smart thing, bringing out the latest photos of his daughter. Everyone was enthralled, poring over the images.

Soon it was almost nine at night. Fearing that Berry would call and find out that Jill was there, I excused myself and called her in Maine. We talked about our Thanksgivings. Her friend Chandra was there, something Berry hadn't mentioned before-in my mind, it helped justify Jill. Sixteen people, total-her mother and father were good at making friends. There were artists and musicians, Chinese students, and people who were still working at the liberal causes that had started in the thirties. I loved her family. In comparison, Thanksgiving with my little nuclear group seemed lonely, and sad.