Douglas Kennedy - Five Days

‘Now why would I want to do that?’

‘You sure about that?’

‘I’m sure about that.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For telling me about your son.’

‘Even though it’s a terrible story?’

‘Especially because it’s a terrible story.’

Silence. Then Richard said:

‘There are moments in life when one really needs a second drink.’

To which I could only reply:

‘Good idea.’

WE DRANK THE second round of bloody marys. We ate the omelets that we ordered. We didn’t mention the subject of Richard’s son again during the course of the brunch. I would have continued the conversation about Billy, as there was so much I wanted to ask Richard about — especially when it came to finding a legal way through this nightmare story. Surely there’s a way of exploring other forms of treatment for him. Though he’d had violent episodes, he had not actually broken any laws — which had to mean there was some way for him to be in a form of managed care that was not state-sanctioned incarceration. And (this was the mother in me talking) surely heaven and earth could still be moved to rescue this boy from such an ongoing horror show.

But Richard had spent serious money on a lawyer. Unlike his wife he was not giving up hope. Though Muriel really did sound unable to cope with Billy’s monstrous illness, I knew it was wrong to judge her reportedly distanced reaction to her son’s mental collapse. That’s the thing about other people’s tragedies. You can stand on the sidelines and make all sorts of pronouncements about how they should be handled. But in doing so you forget an essential truth: there is no appropriate way to react to the worst that life can throw at you. To attempt to impose your own so-called ‘game plan’ on a nightmare that you yourself aren’t living is the height of heinous arrogance. That’s why we find other people’s tragedies so compulsive: because they so terrify us; because we all privately live with the knowledge that, at any moment, the entire trajectory of our lives can be upended by the most terrible and unforeseen forces.

But getting us off the subject of his son and onto my own children, he now got me talking about Sally and her considerable adolescent heartaches.

‘Maybe this Brad guy dumping her will make her consider looking beyond status when it comes to choosing the next boyfriend,’ he said. ‘But let me ask you something. Is Brad’s father Ted Bingham, the lawyer fellow?’

‘Sometimes the world is just too small.’

‘Especially when it comes to Maine.’

‘And yes, his dad is indeed Damariscotta’s big-cheese lawyer — though I might have just uttered an oxymoron.’

Richard smiled, then added:

‘Of course, had you said, “Damariscotta’s big-headed lawyer”, you might have stood accused of uttering a tautology.’

‘Well, Ted Bingham has the reputation of being both big-headed and very grand fromage. Don’t tell me you insure him?’

‘Hardly. He works with Phil Malloy, who has basically cornered the Damariscotta insurance market.’

‘Tell me about it. Phil insures our home and cars.’

‘That’s Maine. And the reason I know Ted Bingham is because his wife was at school with Muriel in Lewiston.’

‘That’s Maine again — and, of course, I’ve met the famous Julie Bingham.’

‘Hard to believe she ever grew up—’

‘—somewhere other than Palm Beach,’ I said.

‘Or the Hamptons.’

‘Or Park Avenue.’

‘Still, that big place they have on the coast by Pemaquid Point—’

‘—is my dream location,’ I said. ‘And I now feel so tacky for being so catty about Julie.’

‘But she is one of those people who invites cattiness.’

‘I’m afraid I know all about that. Sally actually once heard Julie on the phone with a friend, telling her: “Now I think Brad’s girlfriend is a cutey. but it’s a shame her parents are struggling.”’

‘And you worry about being catty about her. Sometimes people deserve cattiness. Especially when they look down their long noses at everyone else. And I’m certain that your daughter saw right through Julie’s noblesse oblige act.’

‘If only Sally understood what noblesse oblige was. She’s so bright and so intuitively smart. But she underestimates her own intelligence, and is so bound up in the superficial. even though I’m sure that, privately, she sees that this pursuit of the shallow is an empty one.’

‘Then she’ll hopefully move away from it all once Young Mr Bingham goes off to his Ivy League college.’

‘That is my great hope. But as you well know, when it comes to children, you can never really shield them from danger or themselves.’

‘That still doesn’t lessen the sense of guilt that accompanies being a parent. ’

‘True. But even if I keep telling you that Billy’s bipolar condition has no connection whatsoever to anything you’ve done as a father — and, in fact, from what you’ve reported, you’ve been the parent who has always been there for him. ’

‘Yes, I will still feel guilty about this until the day he’s allowed out of that hell hole. Even then I’ll still remain guilty about the horror he’s been through.’

‘Does parental guilt ever cease?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that question?’

‘Hardly. Because after all that happened with my son Ben. ’

That’s when I told him about my son’s amazing promise as a painter, the subsequent breakdown after that spoiled little rich girl dropped him, and how he’d already been in one major exhibition and.

‘So Ben’s going to be the next Cy Twombly.’

Again I found myself looking at Richard with considerable surprise.

‘You know your modern painters,’ I said.

‘I saw that big 2009 retrospective of his at the Art Institute of Chicago. Actually invented a reason to go to Chicago on business in order to catch the exhibition. Funny thing is — my dad, conservative ex-Marine that he was — still had a thing about art. Only his taste ran towards Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent, which is still pretty good taste. Dad always had a secret hankering to be a painter. Had a little studio in his garage. Tried his hand at seascapes. He wasn’t bad. Gave a few away to some family members. Even had a gallery in Boston take a few of the Maine coastal studies he did. But they never sold. Dad being Dad he decided that this was a sign they were no damn good. Even though my mother — who was some class of a saint — and his brother Roy told him otherwise. One night, after another of his big bouts of drinking — the guy could really put away cheap Scotch — he staggered out to the garage and burned all his paintings. Just like that. Dumped around two dozen canvases outside on the lawn, doused them with kerosene, lit a match. Whoosh. My mother found him sitting by the fire, looking sloshed, tears running down his face, so sad and furious with the world. but especially with himself. Because he knew he was burning all sense of hope and possibility, and a life beyond the one he had created for himself. There I was — a child of fourteen — watching this all from my bedroom window, telling myself I’d never live a life I disliked. ’

‘And your father never painted again?’

Richard shook his head.

‘And yet he then ripped several strips off you when you dared to publish a short story.’

‘Well, the guy was such a total hard case.’

‘Or just jealous. My dad had a father like that. He saw that his son was a brilliant mathematician — and had teachers and college guidance counselors encouraging him to apply to everywhere from Harvard to MIT, just like your Billy. Only my dad’s father was not a good father like you. Instead he was quietly enraged by his son’s brilliance and worked assiduously at subverting his progress. Insisted he turn down a full scholarship at MIT because he needed him to work in the family hardware store every weekend. Dad went along with this — agreeing to U Maine and returning every weekend to Waterville to put in a full Saturday at my grandfather’s shop. Can you imagine forcing a gifted young man to do that. ’