Gilbert Sorrentino - A Strange Commonplace

2 THERE WAS LASAGNA, THAT HE’D MADE FOLLOWING Irene’s recipe, two big baking dishes of it, and a green salad with a savory, tangy vinaigrette, and plenty of crusty bread from Mazzola’s. “Great bread, Grandpa,” Jack said. “Yum, yum,” his mother said back. And, of course, two or three bottles of an excellent California Cabernet. For dessert, fruit and cannoli and sfogliatelle and rum baba and lots of strong coffee. Hennessy V.S.O.P. for those who wanted it. “Aren’t these Mom’s best dishes, Dad?” Claudia said. “About time, I’m glad.” “Wow!” Jack said, looking at the platters crowded with pastries.

3JACK HAS MADE HIM A LITTLE BOOKCASE IN SHOP, EVEN though his real talents lie in math and science. “A whiz at physics,” Claudia said. “ I can hardly add,” Warren said. Everybody laughed, and Jack blushed as Claudia kissed him on the cheek. “Didn’t take after your uncle,” Janet said. It looks as if Jack will have his pick of the good schools, given his grades: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech. “He is so smart I could choke him!” Janet said. She looked fantastic now that she’d stopped drinking the way she’d been drinking. Absolutely fantastic!

4 HIS SON AND CLAUDIA, WHO IS A LITTLE OLDER, IT seems, than Warren, will be married in the spring. She’d been married twice already, to men whom she supported until it became impossible. “They were cheating on her too, Dad.” “What are you two whispering about? Have some dessert.” They’ll be moving to Ohio, Cincinnati, where Claudia’s mother lives. Claudia’s brothers live nearby, but, well, “Brothers!” The old lady needs someone to look in on her from time to time, run some errands, do a little shopping, cleaning, the laundry once in a while. “She’s not as young as she used to be.” There are apparently plenty of cutting-edge jobs out that way too. “Plenty.” Cincinnati, it appears, is really the next big high-tech area. “Oh, sure.”

5 BEFORE THEY LEAVE HE IS DELIGHTED TO LEND THEM some books, what a pleasure, what a real pleasure to see them reading again, after all those years of fun and, well, this and that. Janet borrowed Thomas Hardy’s Collected Poems and The Pictorial Key to the Tarot; Warren, Ficciones; and for Claudia, In Cold Blood. “Oh, great, I’ve heard so much about this book,” she said.

6“SO LONG, SO LONG, BYE, SEE YOU SOON, KEEP IN touch, Give me a call, Give me a call, Enjoy the books, Stay dry, You have an umbrella? Claudia will drop us off, Bye, Bye, Bye, So long,” and etcetera.

7 HE LOOKED OUT ON THE WET, COLD SATURDAY STREETS, growing dark now. Something is missing, what? His children seem to be doing well, he has a grandson to be proud of, look at the bookcase he made me, what a sweet thing to do. It will be perfect for his reference books. And Claudia seems very nice, a pretty woman, too, and lots of women are married more than once nowadays, more than twice even. Warren knows what he’s doing.

8 IT’S STILL RAINING, BUT HE’LL GO OUT AND RENT A video, something light and elegant and brilliant to help him shake off the curious sadness that possessed him.

9 Singin’ in the Rain.

10 “CUTTING EDGE, DAD, OR BETTER. GREAT BREAD, Grandpa, yum, yum. Aren’t these Mom’s best dishes, Dad? About time, wow! I’m glad! A whiz at physics, I can hardly add! Didn’t take after your uncle, he is so smart! I could just choke him. They were cheating on her, too, Dad, cheating on her. What are you two whispering about? She’s not as young as she used to be, and my brothers? Plenty! Fantastic! I’ve heard a lot about this, what a sweet thing to do.”

11ETCETERA, ETCETERA, ETCETERA. “THAT’S WHAT STORMS were made for.” So they say.

HIS BITCH OF A WIFE HAD GONE BACK ON HER PROMISE, as usual, of course. So that when he got to the apartment she told him that she and the boy were going on a picnic with her latest wonderful and understandingboyfriend, some horny bastard at least ten years younger than she looking to get laid regularly. The upright and nobleyoung man had called that morning to say that he was closing his cute little organic greengrocery for the day to drive them all up to White Plains to a lovely little park that had a beautiful picnic grounds. Including a lovely little pond with lovely little ducks that the boy could feed lovely little bread crumbs. What a prince this humble shopkeeper was! For the love of Christ! he yelled, for fucking Christ’s sake! After I come all the way down here from Washington Heights on the subway you pull this shit? This is not our deal, our arrangement, this is my Saturday! She’d tried to call him earlier but he wasn’t home, it wasn’t her fault. Her amazing and stalwartboyfriend never took a day off or even closed early, this was special, couldn’t he understand? Couldn’t he try to understand? He could take the boy the next two Saturdays to make up for it, but now — he was so excited to go on a picnic, he’d never been on a picnic. She gave him a look of saintly patience, one that said I hold no grudges and I will never point out to you your past and present grievous failings and flaws of character. This is my Saturday he yelled again, this! God, how he’d love to slap her fucking silly. Well, where were you on a Saturday morning? I tried to call you a half a dozen times. None of your business where I was. And where’s the kid? Ah, the boy was out with her warm and attentivecompanion buying cold cuts and salads and baguettes and soda and wine and such, he wanted to help, he’s so excited about this, really. Do you want to wait and see him and tell him — Tell him what? he said. That I came all the way down here to let him know that we were gonna go out but now he’s out of luck? That’s O.K., though, he’ll have a wonderful day with the super boyfriend, who, when he’s not fucking his mother in every hole upside down and twice on Sunday, he can give him potato salad tips and how to feed the duckies. What a guy! I should have put the make on him myself. You’re a bastard, she said, sober or not, a real bastard. And you’re a whore bitch. He left, and for no reason, walked over to the Alpine, where he’d planned to take the boy to a Tarzan-revival matinee, then for a snack in Holsten’s, with a chocolate frosted, and then for a walk in the park down to the promenade to watch the ships for a while. The kid would be able to see that he wasn’t the drunken slob of a rotten father she’d certainly told him he was and had always been — born drunk, according to her. And the kid would slowly, after a while, get the idea maybe that he was his father, his real father, not the parade of bums, including this latest clown with the fruits and vegetables, in his mother’s pants every night. How did she get to be such a whore? He sat in the theater, loud with kids, the movie probably half over by now, as if it mattered. There they were, Tarzan and Jane and the weird monkey, everything was perfect, peaches, they never argued, never a cross word, they just laughed and swam and swung through the trees and ate bananas and coconuts and papayas, all the animals loved them, and at night they humped each other blind. Tarzan never looked at another woman, not that there was much to look at, a bunch of crazy jigs running through the jungle yelling ugga bugga bongo dongo while Tarzan and Jane looked down from their tree house, feeling each other up. He left before the movie was over and went into the bar next door for a drink. He hoped the hero storekeeper of a boyfriend choked on his sandwich up in the woods in Yonkers with the ducks in the fucking pond. Her heroic and hardworkingpal was choking on some organically produced pâté! How could he screw her while gasping for breath? Help! He settled himself on a bar stool and lit a cigarette, ordered a Fleischmann’s and a beer chaser. Tarzan was probably up under Jane’s little skirt made of hides or leaves or grass by now, they ought to show you that in the movie. He knocked back the whiskey and signaled the bartender for another as he drank down the beer. This was a nice bar, calm and quiet on a Saturday afternoon before the chumps came in with their whore girlfriends and two-timing wives. He’d sit for a while and have a few more, maybe, what the hell, get swacked. The alcohol had moved softly into his brain and, once again, the world was perfect. Tarzan’s world.