It Won't Always Be This Great Read online

  Panned out. Listen to me. My mother is, knock on wood, healthy. The fact that she’s trapped in a never-ending state of heartbreak . . .

  Jesus, Commie, is it possible to depress the shit out of someone in a persistent vegetative state? Another thing for the researchers to look into. Whatever. I’m sure you’re thrilled I woke you up to hear this. Woke you up. Well, you know what I mean. Maybe I did wake you up. Maybe this is you at peak attentiveness.

  Anyway, just bear with me a second while I wrap up this thought. I remember telling Alyse that my dad and I had a meaningful dialogue before he died because—I don’t know if you felt this way—there’s a ton of pressure to have THE TALK. I wasn’t outright lying to Alyse, but it wasn’t the kind of dialogue I was implying we had. At one point, my dad said, “I’ll tell you, death is a no-win situation.” I looked at him trying to figure out what he meant and he just said, “I thought you’d get a laugh out of that. That’s a funny line! Heck, you should call Bartlett’s.”

  Then I did laugh. I was like, “Sorry Dad, I thought you were saying something profound.”

  And he says, “God, no. Who am I, Nitschke?”

  “I think it’s Nietzsche. Nitschke was a linebacker for Green Bay.”

  “I know, I know. It was another joke.”

  “Wow, you’re on a roll.”

  After that, we were just laughing away. In fact, after I hooked him back up to the machines, I asked him if he’d had anything to eat, and he says, “We have nothing to eat but fear itself.” To the day he died, my father could get teary-eyed over FDR.

  I’d say the only moment my father looked sad before he died was when he looked around his hospital room and quietly said, “You know, I don’t believe in God. But that doesn’t mean I want to constantly be proven right.”

  That line haunted me for a while. Shit, it still haunts me.

  Jesus, I’d love to not be able to hear myself think.

  Okay, enough of that. Let me get back to the story.

  Actually, one more point. My dad mentioned Nietzsche? It really annoys me that the absolute dumbest people I know all quote that one line of his about whatever the hell you survive makes you stronger. I mean, it’s bad enough these morons try so hard to sound smart. But I don’t even think it’s true. Shit. You ask me, whatever you survive makes you doubly terrified of it the next time you see it.

  XX.

  Anyway, sprained ankle, ba-da-ba-da, the cops visit the house, ba-da-ba-da-ba-da, Esme gets home from dinner with the Binder family. Okay:

  Esme got home, told us all about the dinner using the words “random” and “like” at a steady but unalarming pace. So, she seemed okay. She said the Binders talked a lot about Israel over dinner, mostly focusing on the wall they built to keep out “crazy Arab suicide bombers.” I made a mental note: When the kids go to someone else’s home, it would be nice to get an advance look at all potential topics of discussion. Esme, God love her, said, “Mr. Binder asked me what I thought, so I said, ‘I don’t know . . . a wall? It’s so random and like, lame.’” Then she added, “Harley got kind of mad at me for disagreeing with her father.”

  Did I mention that Alyse dated Harley Binder’s father, Gil, in high school? She dropped him before the prom but they stayed friends. I don’t like him—at minimum he’s felt up my wife—but we’ve always been cordial. He does have good taste in women. I like his wife Janis a lot. She wears sixties clothes, believes in reincarnation even though Gil went Orthodox about fifteen years ago. She didn’t go along with him but she accepted it. Except she won’t allow him to wear a yarmulke if they go out on Saturday nights with friends. People make arrangements, Commie.

  Anyway, Charlie told Esme about the detectives like it was the coolest thing that ever happened and she acted interested. Esme relates to Charlie more as a child than a brother. They get along pretty well, though Esme once described herself as “an aspiring only child.” Alyse and Esme are like best friends—with their own codes and inside looks—which probably had a hand in Alyse committing the You-ey mistake. I’m glad they’re close, and hope they stay that way, but what are the odds? Mother-daughter relationships are hardwired, hair-trigger booby traps. I already see moments when Alyse acts like a mother and Esme wants a friend, and vice-versa. Or maybe that’s just serve-by-the-slice psychology. All I know is, when my daughter draws out the word Mom to four syllables, I usually grab Charlie and get lost in assists and rebounds.

  That night, the whole team was together, milling around the father with his frozen ankle. Charlie and I had ice cream, Alyse and Esme pecked at sorbet, and we gabbed and laughed for probably 45 minutes as the TiVo patiently waited for its go-ahead to resume unscheduled programming. In the middle of this Kodak family bliss, I wondered: Did I commit vandalism or merely malicious mischief? I’m a first offender, so even if I get caught, I won’t get any jail time. Then again, I’m not going to get caught. I’m going to get away with it. This will be my little secret, and remain so until—

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Alyse saw the clouds in my eyes and asked the question for the umpteenth time.

  “Just that I should call Arnie about dinner.”

  “That’s what you were so lost in thought about?”

  “Yeah. Why? Not interesting enough?”

  Alyse laughed and said, “No, that’s fascinating, honey. You have such a rich inner life.”

  To which Charlie asked, “What’s an inner life?”

  To which Esme said, “Don’t worry, Chuckster. You don’t have one yet.”

  To which I said, “Ezzie.”

  To which Esme said, “Just kidding, Chuckster. An inner life is just the stuff that rattles around in your brain. You know, random things you, like, think about without saying them out loud.”

  To which Charlie said, “Oh. Then I have an awesome inner life.”

  To which Alyse said, “I’m sure you do. Now pack up all your lives and take them upstairs to bed.”

  To which Esme said, “Nice segue, Mom. I’m going to sleep too. I’m totally wiped.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Detective Benson was stopping Detective Stabler from beating the crap out of some perp who enjoyed dressing like Princess Leia after raping and murdering women. (After? Jesus.) That reminded me of Arnie talking about how there’s a person for every perversion, and so I called him to ask about dinner the next night. Arnie checked with his wife, and said, “Count us in.”

  “Good. The other couple is a yenta interior decorator and her corrugated aluminum executive husband who fights in Civil War re-enactments one weekend a month.”

  “Perfect,” Arnie said. Then he whispered, “By the way, Fumi went to see a psychopharmacologist. Totally on her own last week and again yesterday. She didn’t even tell me. I just saw a prescription bottle and she goes, ‘Oh yeah, I saw a doctor in East Meadow. What of it?’ Can you believe that? After begging her to see someone for months, she ‘what-of-it’s’ me.”

  “Hey, just be happy she went.”

  “Yeah. A wife without thermonuclear mood swings. Suddenly that’s my goal in life.”

  “It’s important to have goals.”

  I told Arnie about my ankle, and you’ll love what he said: “Look, if there was no such thing as professional courtesy, I’d say, ‘Make an appointment and I’ll fix your ankle up like new.’ But since there is, and I wouldn’t make any money off you, I’ll tell you the truth: There’s nothing I can do to help. You have ice in the house?”

  Again, I ask you, Commie: How cool is Arnie?

  Moments after hanging up with Arnie, Alyse came downstairs and said, “Well, Esme is convinced that pretty much everyone she hasn’t met in the entire world is a rabid anti-Semite.”

  I lurched, sending the thawing peas falling off my ankle. “What? Really? She said that?”

  Alyse smiled. “Actually, no. Not really
. She didn’t say that. I just felt the whole You-ey situation hanging over us, so I thought I’d prompt a discussion.”

  “Or you’re hoping that talking about it will alleviate your guilt.”

  “Well, there’s that.”

  “Alyse, don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty or stupid or irresponsible. The fact is, I’m glad the ‘You-ey situation’ happened.”

  “You’re glad?”

  “Yes, I’m glad. I feel like the kids are a little too sheltered. Not that they need to be thrown into the deep end of the pool of life, but knowing there’s a whole world beyond cozy Long Island is good.”

  “It’s sounds like this is something that’s been on your mind.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Sometimes I just think we, and everyone we know, are insanely over-protective. I honestly don’t think the world is as scary as we lead these kids to believe. Maybe that’s a dangerous point of view and I’d probably kill myself if, God forbid, I lived to regret it, but still . . .”

  At this point, I kind of realized that these thoughts were coming out of me on their own. From where, I don’t know. Strange road for me to follow, but I kept going.

  “Shit, Alyse, there are ten times more murders in the fictional New York of Law & Order than there are in the real-life New York. But the kids still get nothing but fear shoved down their throats without the backing of any firsthand experience. They need to touch the stove for themselves to know if it’s hot. Look, I don’t know what I’m saying exactly, but I’d really like to take the kids to the city more. Let them blow off their worthless, bullshit homework one night a month and take them to dinner and a Broadway show on a goddamn school night. I think I’d really like it if, in a year or two, Esme and maybe a few friends could just—”

  I put my hands up to change the direction of my speech. Alyse pitched her head forward and I just kept plowing on:

  “Look, when I was fifteen, I had a really good friend from summer camp, Glenn Shenker. He lived in Port Washington. One Saturday, in the fall or early winter, he calls me to tell me his parents are taking him to the city and do I want to meet up with him? I hop on the E Train, get off at 14th and 8th, and hang out with the Shenkers in the Village. Later, his father piles us in a taxi, gives us tickets to the Knicks game, and drops us off at the Garden. We sit in great seats. I mean, I was used to being up in the blue, and these were way down in the orange, right on the foul line. During the game, Glenn tells me a story about another friend from camp, Howie Mazen, who lives in Oyster Bay. One day, Howie throws up during trig class and is allowed to go home. He goes in his house and walks in on his mother sixty-nining Howie’s piano teacher—”

  Alyse comically put her index finger up and said, “This story will eventually relate to how we raise our children, right?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Okay, just checking. Go on.”

  So Glenn tells me the story and for the rest of the game, you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking: What does sixty-nining mean? I mean, I’d heard of sixty-nine and knew it was something sexual but wondered what the hell it meant. You know, specifically. Now, based on how Glenn told the story, he clearly knew what sixty-nine meant, so I was also thinking: Why does he know these things and not me? I decided it was because he grew up on Long Island, and kids out there are just way farther along in their knowledge of girls than I am as someone growing up in Electchester.

  It really bugged me until—until!—after the game, when we’re leaving the Garden, and Glenn asks me if I can walk him down to Penn Station so he can get his train home. I thought that was a little weird, but I was like, fine, whatever. Then, after getting his ticket, he asks me to wait on the platform for the train with him. That’s when I looked at him holding his ticket and saw that his hand was trembling. I swear, you’d think he was holding a fucking tarantula. I realized he was terrified of being in New York City. Can you imagine? I’m a few minutes from getting on the F train to Jamaica and he’s scared of waiting with two hundred white people for the cushioned seats and air-conditioned comfort of the LIRR.

  So, between Glenn’s grasp of sixty-nining and my total fearlessness in the greatest city on Earth, who was sheltered and who wasn’t? You see my point?”

  The story percolated in her head, then Alyse looked me and said, “You were fifteen and didn’t know what sixty-nining meant?”

  “Not really the point of the story.”

  “I know. I get the point of your story.”

  “So, what do you think?”

  “I think you’re totally right. I agree with you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Not that I’ve thought about it before, but, now that you mention it, yes. We should expose them to more. As you were about to say when you so rudely interrupted yourself, I think Esme and her friends should go to the city by themselves by the time they’re, say, fifteen or sixteen.”

  “Or fourteen.”

  “Or fourteen. Not to go clubbing or anything. Just during the day to a museum or shopping or whatever they do.”

  “Right. When we lived in the city, remember those girls on the crosstown bus, those tiny little ballerinas with their feet pointed out at weird/cute angles, going to Lincoln Center or wherever? They looked so sophisticated and worldly and independent. I think I like that.”

  “I like it too. I’m glad you brought it up. I wish you’d bring up stuff like that more often.”

  “I wish I would too, but I have to wrack my brains just to find it. I mean, this whole overprotective thing. God knows where it came from or what caused it to come out.”

  “Look, I don’t want to take credit, but what caused it to come out was me being a shitty parent.”

  “You’re not a shitty parent.” Smile. “Not all the time.”

  “Uh huh. And you actually figured out what sixty-nining meant when again?”

  I smiled in a way that implied an answer juicier than the truth. That’s what I do. I try to appear fascinating to my wife. It’s my life’s work.

  After that moment of toothless provocativeness, I said, “You know, Alyse, if we got an apartment in the city and spent weekends there, the kids could stay in school here but also experience life in the city.”

  Alyse nodded, “They would live like kids whose parents are divorced.”

  “Right. Imagine having all the benefits of being from a broken home while still having your parents together.”

  “And just think of how smooth the transition would be if we did get divorced.”

  Even before Alyse said that, I saw the smile that always comes before she’s about to give me shit. I can’t handle divorce jokes even when I know they’re just jokes.

  “I hadn’t really thought it through that far, Alyse.”

  “I’m glad.” Then Alyse looked down and said, “Shit, I can’t believe I had my sweats rolled down like this in front of the cops.”

  Instead of mentioning Byron’s glimpse above her sweats, I said, “Stop grooming fleas. Lucky them, I say.”

  An hour or so later, I was in bed reading a book about doctors screwing up operations they’ve done a thousand times, and missing blatant indicators of various diseases. I was drawn to the book after my father died. Not that he would be alive and hitting tennis balls today, but I know his doctors screwed up. He went in for a simple angioplasty that lasted four hours. He wound up never leaving the hospital. When he left home the morning of the angioplasty, the last thing he ever said in his own home was, “I’m thinking maybe we should sell the Acura.” During the last drive of his life, my mother told him she would make him spaghetti and “a nice shrimp cocktail” that night.

  So, clearly, something in that hospital didn’t go according to plan.

  XXI.

  Is it weird that I would want to read about doctors screwing up after their screw-ups shortened my father’s life? I mentioned before
that I’m someone who can look away from a car wreck. But when the wreck happens to me, I’m interested. Not that long ago, I rented this great movie called The Sweet Hereafter. It was about the aftermath of a school bus crash in a small town. A few nights later, at yet another dinner with three couples, everyone was horror-stricken that I’d watch that movie. All these When Harry Met Sally morons said shit like, “How could a parent of young kids watch a movie like that?” Maybe I’m the moron, but I wasn’t ready for that kind of response. Luckily, Alyse was, and said, “He can watch it because the accident that killed several kids was fictional. Having kids should change your life but not your taste in movies. Did you stop flying after Airport 1975?”

  It was beautiful. Alyse really stuck it up the asses of her lifelong friends and their mopey go-along-with-anything husbands.

  As I continued to read in bed, Alyse came out of the bathroom in her sweat pants and nothing else. With her hair bunched up over her head in that way that girls can do faster than we can tie our shoes, she went around the bedroom doing her little preparations for bed. I made it look like I still had my head in my book, but really I was watching her.

  Well, just seeing her blithely, mindlessly doing her activities, putting this here, that there, remembering something needing to be done the next day and jotting it down—she’s a lefty and holds a pen cocked at this arthritic angle—the goddamn cutest thing in the universe.

  All these years of marriage to the same girl and I never get over the mind-blowing sexiness of her absentmindedly walking around topless in front of me. Does she know she’s putting on the greatest show on Earth? I have no idea, and I don’t want to know. Why sully my membership in the only private club I’ve ever belonged to?