Frederick Busch - The Stories of Frederick Busch

“We never fight,” Rudy said, smiling. “Sometimes we disagree, but then we only argue, and just for fun. The way that old friends do.” He paused, then picked up his glass. “Sweetheart,” he said to my mother, “here’s to old friends.”

My mother raised her glass, but didn’t drink. She looked at Rudy, and kept on looking. Genevieve raised her eyebrows in her otherwise immobile face. My father, returning, said, “Sorry.”

Rudy drank some more and said, “Let’s not be sorry.”

My mother put her glass down and said, “I have to cook. Michael, tell them about school. What happened yesterday. You remember. I have to go cook.” She still looked at Rudy, but he had turned toward me, so she stood and left the room with loud, quick steps.

I had always performed at my parents’ evenings, and with Rudy I never had minded. But it was Genevieve, leg and thigh, breast and throat, arched thin eyebrows, long white hands, at whom I looked as I told how a fellow named Green, several years older and a foot taller and a lifetime more dangerous than the other boys in our junior high school, had been plucked from Industrial Arts by two policemen. “He shot a kid,” I said. “He shot a kid in the eye with a zip gun he made. A pipe thing, lead pipe, with a bullet in it. You use a really heavy rubber band with a nail, that’s the firing pin — it explodes the bullet,” I explained to Genevieve. “You put a wooden handle on it with tape. He shot this kid and they had to take out his eye. The kid didn’t die, though.”

Genevieve asked, “What kind of school do you go to?”

“Public school,” I said, assuming that creatures such as she went only to private schools in major European capitals. “Andries Hudde Junior High School,” I said, hating its provincialism. “It’s on Nostrand Avenue.” I was searching for ways to make myself die, which seemed the only appropriate response to having sat before this exotic person to speak to her of Ralphie Green and his zip gun, and a school named Hudde.

“I never heard of that school,” she said.

“Oh,” I answered, “that’s all right.” And, blushing sweatily, smiling goofily at Genevieve, at whom Rudy goofily smiled, I finally said, “Will you excuse me please? I have to go help? I’ll be right back.” I fled.

And in the kitchen, which was around a corner and down a short corridor from the living room, in a litter of black pans and wet potholders and a smoking leg of lamb, I found my parents in a sad and knotted embrace. My father was saying, “No, no. It’s all right. It’s all right. No.”

“I don’t have any right to be comforted,” my mother said.

“Sure,” my father said. “Everyone does.” But he moved back from her a little.

“By you?”

“By me,” he said. “Why not? Who else?”

“I don’t really hate her. She’s so young, though! I don’t mean that. I don’t know if it has anything to do with her. Does it?”

“I’m a CPA,” my father said. “I know about numbers. Look how long I didn’t know about you. Don’t ask me that kind of a question.”

“What do you know about me now?”

“Not a lot.”

“When?”

He said, “What?”

“You know. When did you know?”

“I’m not talking about it,” my father said, drawing farther away. “Not when or where, not how many times. None of it. I didn’t talk about it before, and I’m not talking about it now. Let him get married to his dream girl and that’s that. No more. And pay attention to tonight. The man is moving on. He doesn’t want the old parts of his life anymore. He wants a divorce.”

“ I don’t. I mean, from you.”

“You should have,” my father said, stepping farther back. “A long time ago. It isn’t shameful. Everyone wants a divorce.”

“You?”

“Everyone,” he said. Then he said, “But what in hell do I know?”

I went upstairs, waving at Rudy and Genevieve as I passed the living room, smiling some sort of smile. I shut my door and walked about my room, touching objects. I heard my name in living room murmurs, and then I heard feet on the stairs. They cracked and creaked, groaning their old-wood noises. It was Rudy. He didn’t knock, as my parents would have. They were enlightened parents who read the columns by psychologists in the old New York Post . Rudy just walked in, because he was welcome, he assumed, and because he loved me. As far as Rudy’s reasoning went, I think, love gave you permission to do anything to anyone. What he did was save my life and keep my health. And make love to my mother. First he had his time with me, and then he had his time with her. I cannot remember him leaving a lot. But I remember him entering — through the front door, up the steps, or into the kitchen or living room, or swinging open the door to my room. He was always on his way in. So no wonder, then, that my mother could not imagine his departure. And his tall, pale Genevieve, so different in size, coloring, ripeness from my mother — she was Rudy’s signal good-bye. Although he did love us all, I think, and even my father; and he surely wanted to share his happy news.

But he was leaving as he entered. I could tell. I started to cry. Rudy, with his sweet breath and giant chest, leaned against me and hugged me with his short, strong arms. He pulled and pulled.

“Did you ever think you were adopted, hon?”

I remember feeling my body grow cold. I couldn’t bear any more news, I thought. I was always very careful about how much stress I accepted. I shook my head.

“Well, you aren’t. But I always thought you were more like me than him. That’s not fair to say, is it? But I thought so. I wished. I totally love ya! Remember that. Remember me. I knew your parents when we were all skinny intellectuals in the Communist Party. Did you know that? We ate lousy food and drank lousy wine and told each other lousy lies about lousy goddamned liars in Moscow. Did you know that?”

I stayed against his chest. I shook my head.

“And we were so goddamned happy! And your father and I loved your mother, and then your father won. He’s — sneaky. Because he’s so tough. So watch your ass with him. He’s tough ! When you see those lousy movies where the movie’s always on the side of the guy who’s taking the pretty girl away from the boring accountant — well, whatever. Don’t believe it! The accountants always win! And I love ya! I’m happy as hell you could meet Genevieve. Don’t you love her? Don’t you love her?”

He pushed me back, but held on to my shoulders. I didn’t look at his round white face, which I knew would be grinning while his dark little eyes studied me intently. I stared at his light brown sharkskin suit, the vest across which he always wore a gold chain that rose and fell according to his progress through dangerous diets. His tie, I remember, was maroon wool with small tan figures on it. I wonder if he was studying me the way I studied his tie. I couldn’t look at his face. I only remember it from other days, because I didn’t see it again.

He said, “You want to forgive them.”

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid. You’re the brightest boy I ever knew. You know who I mean.”

“Why should I forgive them? What for?”

“For not being happy.”

I pulled away, and he let my shoulders go. I was surprised, and nearly fell, but I stood my ground. I looked, still, at his turned-up cuffs, his narrow short shoes, polished to a gloss. I couldn’t look farther up, but I stayed where I was and said, “No.”

“No, you won’t forgive them? Or no, they’re not unhappy?”

“No!”

“Sweetheart,” he said. He sighed. “Who am I to tell you? But I know something. Listen, when you’re naked you are naked. Understand? All you are is — naked.” He grunted as he moved his arms. I had closed my eyes by then. He said, “It’s eight fifteen. Lie down, listen to the radio, get yourself some sleep. By the morning, by half-past seven, you’re gonna feel wonderful about the world. I swear it!” His arms pulled me in toward him, but I resisted. I didn’t know why. I don’t. “You’ll feel great,” he said. He squeezed as much as his little arms allowed, and he went out. It is a law of brain development that you will, when grown, remember every departure by every person to whom you should have called goodbye, and whom you ought to have embraced, and on whose cheeks you could have dispensed a couple of the dammed-up tears you persist in hoarding. I heard him on the steps.