Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me(37)

He always had an eye for attractive women. He’d flirt with waitresses, cashiers, even nuns. I used to find this mortifying. On the other hand, I always had an eye for the guys. When I finally told my parents this news thirty years ago, Dad found it shocking, bewildering. I was his only son, for god’s sake. There was a long time there, back when I was in my twenties and living in San Francisco, when we didn’t see each other or speak. We conducted a war of words via letters by mail. Eventually, we found neutral ground.

He doesn’t remember any of that now—one of the blessings of dementia, I suppose. Instead, we talked about paratrooper training at Fort Benning and some of the jumps he’d made during the Korean War. Even after being blinded in one eye from a combat injury, he continued to make jumps—night jumps—into enemy territory. We also talked about swimming, something I’ve taken up with a great passion—Oliver and I swim together two or three times a week. I guess I’m more like my old man than I used to think. “You were on the swim team at West Point, weren’t you?” I asked.

“Captain of the team,” he said dully, then added, “I think.”

As we talked, another resident wheeled up to the table where we were sitting. She sat there for a moment regarding us like weeds in a garden, and then asked, “Who’s this?”

Dad didn’t answer.

“I’m John’s son,” I said.

“You’re my son?” Dad said. “You’re not my son.” Suddenly he looked confused and suspicious.

“Right. Yeah, we were in the infantry together,” I told her, correcting myself.

He nodded and his head dropped and he fell asleep.

I rolled Dad over to the TV area, where one of the aides, Cassandra, was sitting with Sophie and others, desultorily watching “Jeopardy.” Cassandra told me to roll John next to her. I did, but she grabbed the arm of his wheelchair and brought him even closer in. This woke him. She looked deep into his eyes, as if she were reaching some part of his brain deep, deep inside. “John?” she said. “How many children do you have?” She spoke very clearly and calmly and smiled at him.

Dad thought for a moment. “Six? I have six?”

“Yes,” Cassandra said, smiling, holding that gaze. “And how many boys and how many girls?”

“Four girls, two boys.”

“How many, John?” She took his hand and gazed with such benevolence.

“Five girls, one boy.”

Cassandra smiled. Dad smiled. “And what is your son’s name?”

“William,” Dad said, “William.”

I put my arm on his shoulder and leaned over and kissed his head. He gave me a look like, “What the heck are you doing, kissing me?” He offered me his hand, and we shook—soldier to soldier. I said goodbye.

“See ya later,” he said.





End of the Day





NOTES FROM A JOURNAL

3-2-14:

I lay on the couch reading the newspaper, not really aware of the time, not in a rush to do anything, as O practiced the piano. I put down the paper a few times and closed my eyes and just listened. I love hearing him play, hearing him hum along to himself deafly. He came over at one point and leaned over the couch in that way that he does, and touched me, in that way that he does, as if I were an animal in a zoo—his hand reaching through the bars to pet me (or is it the other way around—is he the animal, caged, pushing his snout through the bars, or his trunk or a paw, to feel me?).

“Come here, Beautiful,” I finally said, grabbing O by the hand and pulling him toward me.

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5-2-14:

The sun was setting, it was getting dark, when I popped my head in to Ali’s this evening to say hello.

He held out his hand and we shook: “My friend,” he said.

We stepped outside. We talked about the endless, noisy construction on Eighth Avenue: “Nine times I see it, they tear up this street,” Ali said.

He told me that the owner of the smoke shop had bought the stationery supply store next door. Now he owns three shops on the block.

“The King of Eighth Avenue,” I said, kiddingly.

Ali nodded.

“But you’re still the mayor.”

Ali pointed out shops across the street—three of them had For Lease signs in their windows. The organic bakery had just closed. “It was a good neighbor, they were here many years.” He paused. “Fifteen people lost their jobs, too, when he had to close the shop—fifteen people who will have a hard time getting another job.” He pointed out that most of them were students or undocumented workers. He shook his head. “It’s not right.”

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6-3-14:

Sunday, O nuzzled his nose, dog-like, into the side of my head, brushed it up and down and back and forth against my buzz-cut hair (“It’s like a meadow,” he said) and then he did so with the top of his head.

“Now, why does one do that?” O said, suddenly the scientist in him coming out.

“Because it feels good,” I answered instantly.

He laughed; it was such a simple and seemingly simplistic answer.

“But that’s very interesting,” O said, picking up this thread. “Does feeling good—does feeling—influence all of our choices as animals? Something feels good, so we do it again—this is how we learn about pleasure. Or it doesn’t feel good, so we learn that it carries a risk, a danger …? Are our lives ruled by feeling?”