Читать книгу The Complete Collection - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 49

In the morning, I call the psychiatrist; his name is Delibro. Over the phone I try getting across something of the situation. He asks if I can come in and talk.

We make an appointment at two o’clock for Dad, but I’m to come right away. I don’t know whether he’s picked up on the urgency in my voice or just doesn’t have much business, but I appreciate getting straight in. He asks if I’ll call Perpetual and have Dad’s records forwarded. Perpetual says I can pick them up at noon.

Privately, I tell Dad I’ve made the appointment and I’m going in first to check it out.

I get to Delibro’s office on Santa Monica Boulevard before ten. The office is comfortable, easy-California-life style. The walls are done in what looks like shipping-crate wood with stenciled black signs, ‘FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE ↑ THIS SIDE UP’; somewhat bizarre for a psychiatrist’s waiting room.

Delibro himself is young, perhaps thirty-five, short, with bushy sideburns and a full-lip mustache. He looks like a French cop. He has a nice smile and perfectly neutral handshake.

In his consultation room there’s no couch. It could be an office for selling insurance. He doesn’t sit behind his desk but in a comfortable black leather chair at a forty-five-degree angle to the chair I sit in. We’re semi-facing each other so I’m looking at him off my left shoulder and he’s peering at me over his right. It’s comfortable enough. I get a strong feeling nothing here is accidental.

He leads me on and I go through it all the best I can. He’s asking cautious questions, but it’s clear he’s as interested in my anxiety as he is in Dad. Then he gets caught up in what I’m trying to tell him.

He asks why I’m so particularly concerned. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself. I tell him this might only be ordinary senile experience, not worth wasting his time with; but I’d like an expert opinion. I also tell him Dad asked me to arrange for help.

The rest of the hour goes well. He’s obviously listening, not pretending. He asks pertinent questions. I hope Dad won’t be put off by the vaguely ‘hippy’ atmosphere. I was half afraid Delibro’d be one of those displaced-priest or rabbi types with shiny gold-rimmed glasses and a permanent smile. Delibro seems like somebody Dad can relate to. He also doesn’t give off ‘boss man’ vibrations, doesn’t project any threatening signals. Dad will feel more as if he’s talking to one of his nephews or grandchildren.

I drive home. I tell Mom how Dad and I are going to go see a gerontologist that afternoon in Santa Monica. She thinks I said gynecologist and gets upset. I explain how a gerontologist is a doctor who specializes in problems of old age. I don’t call him a psychiatrist; no sense giving more ammunition for the ‘crazy’ theory.

I tell Dad what I feel about Delibro. He listens and nods his head.

‘Johnny, I’ve been doing some thinking on this. The way I see it, the biggest problem is keeping things apart. Sometimes I have to stop and make myself think about where I really am. I’ll be working out there in the greenhouse, but in my mind I’ll be back in Cape May. Working out there in the greenhouse is one place where I do most of my daytime visiting. It’s another world, cut off, I’m out there alone with my plants and my mind goes. But don’t you worry, John, I’m working on it. I’ll lick this thing yet.’

Just before two, we get to Santa Monica. It’s easy getting Dad to the office because there’s parking in the building and an elevator up from the garage. Inside, I give the secretary Dad’s records I picked up at Perpetual. Dad’s taking the place in.

‘Gosh, this guy must be awful poor for a psychiatrist; he’s paneled his walls with broken shipping crates. Maybe he’ll have an orange crate for a desk.’

Just then, Delibro comes out. He’s wearing a calming smile and concentrates on Dad. Dad’s looking straight back into his eyes and I’m hoping it’ll be all right. Dad’s trying to decide if this fellow is a boss or not. He has an office, and he is a doctor, but he’s wearing a soft, dark blue turtleneck sweater.

We go into his consultation room together. Delibro told me in our meeting I could come in but he’d give a signal when I should leave. He’s arranged the room so there’s one chair relatively near the door; I figure that’s mine and sit there. Dad sits in the chair where I sat before.

Very gently, Delibro speaks with Dad while he goes over the medical records.

He asks Dad about Mother, her heart attacks; Dad’s operation. He’s full of sympathy and brings it off as real. He’s easing into the situation, establishing rapport, but in such a way it isn’t obnoxious. Dad’s nodding, smiling, listening. It’s not the ‘boss man’ nod. This is different; he’s enjoying being the center of attention.

It seems like tremendously casual conversation at a hundred bucks an hour but he couldn’t bulldoze into it; Dad would be put off. Then, finally, Delibro comes on.

‘Mr Tremont, your son’s told me you feel you have another life. Could you tell me something about this?’

He smiles and waits. Dad looks at me.

‘Sure, Dad. Tell Dr Delibro. Tell him about Cape May; tell him what you told me.’

He starts off slowly but as he senses the intense, positive interest of the doctor, he warms up. He intersperses his tale with ‘I know this sounds crazy but …’ or, ‘This might be hard to believe but …’ But he’s bringing it out.

I’m hoping Delibro won’t shoo me. Dad’s telling things he hasn’t mentioned before. More than when he talked to me, Dad’s convinced he’s been in two places at the same time. This bothers his sense of rightness. It violates his perfectionist, logical, engineering instincts.

At first, Delibro starts out using the standard psychiatrist come-ons: ‘Yesss’ … ‘That’s right’ … ‘Go on’ … ‘Hmmm,’ and so forth; but after five minutes it’s coming without help. This is a whole world wanting to be born; no need for forceps. I’m torn between watching, listening to Dad; watching Delibro; and letting my own head spin. Delibro’s so fascinated his mouth is partly open.

It’s the completeness of details, the description of making shoes, the box he designed for fitting the last, the leather sewing; there’s the planting of potatoes, watching for the flowering and the harvesting; the tying of onions in a knot so they’ll develop good bulbs. It keeps coming on. It’s clear Dad wants to reveal all this. The combination of his pleasure in it and his guilt about it has been tearing him apart.

It’s as if a painter spent thirty years painting a masterpiece of a mural in an empty room but hasn’t been able to show it because he painted it with stolen paints on borrowed time in somebody else’s house without their permission.

And Dad can tell it even more fully to Delibro than he could to me. Just then, I catch Delibro give me a blink of his eye; it’s time for me to go. I try to slip out quietly but Dad picks it up.

‘Where’re you going, Johnny? Is it time to leave?’

‘I’m only going for a drink of water, Dad; I’ll be outside in the waiting room. You stay here and talk to the doctor some more.’

He accepts this easily and I leave. I sit and wait. I read all the magazines but they’re in there almost two hours. Thank God, this guy doesn’t have much business. I talk to the secretary; she’s a Japanese girl, studying psychology at UCLA. She has some of the same professors I worked with twenty years ago. A university is a place where time seems to stand still.

I have an enormous temptation to get up and pace back and forth like an expectant father. I can’t help wondering about the lack of patients. Maybe this time of day is slow for ‘crazies’.

This office alone, in this building, must cost a fortune; then a secretary; some overhead. I’d worry myself into a loony bin in a week.

Finally, they come out. They’re chatting and laughing.

‘Well, Mr Tremont, I must say your father’s story is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever heard. I honestly don’t think most people have as much reality in their daily world as he has in his Cape May existence.’

I’m shocked. Here the secretary’s sitting there listening. I’ve been conditioned to the idea of psychiatrists as mysterious super people delving secretly into the inner workings of the subconscious. Delibro’s talking about Dad’s delusion as if they’ve just come out of a good movie. It takes me three thinkarounds to realize he couldn’t take a better approach with Dad. The main thing is getting this all in the open so it can be defused. The way he’s treating Dad as just another case, maybe an interesting, original one, but nothing to wet your pants about, is probably right.

Delibro gently puts his hand across Dad’s shoulder. He does it nicely, nothing patronizing. He’s the same height as Dad.

‘We’ve talked about this, and your Dad understands it’s all a dream; he has no confusion in this area at all. It’s an ongoing, long dream he’s made up for himself.’

He takes his hand off Dad’s shoulder and looks at me carefully.

‘I’d like to see your father again, soon as possible. We need to work on putting together what’s real and what’s the dream; what’s possible and what isn’t. The important thing is to find ways he can bring into his daily life the best parts of his dream.’

Dad leans toward me; he’s watching carefully to see how I’m taking it. He’s proud of himself; it shows in his stance, his smile: the artist revealed. Delibro is grinning at both of us.

‘There’s no reason why Mr Tremont shouldn’t put this all together. Over the years he hasn’t been getting enough pleasure from his daily life and he’s isolated his greatest joys into a dream. Since his recovery, all that’s changed. In the past weeks he’s been a happy person; the walls broke down and he’s bringing into this everyday life the joy in living he’s kept separate for so long.’

Delibro asks Dad to stay in the waiting room for a few minutes while he talks to me. Dad smiles and backs himself into a chair. The secretary is smiling and I know he’ll be talking to her soon as we leave. I ask Dad if he’ll be OK.

‘Oh, I’m fine. Maybe the doctor can explain things better to you than he can to me. It’s all so complicated I still don’t quite understand what’s going on. You listen to what he’s saying, then tell me.’

We sit and Delibro interlaces his fingers across his chest. He asks if I have any experience with the analytic approach, if I’ve ever consulted a psychiatrist or done much reading on the subject. I figure now there’s no backing out. He seems so reasonable I’m sure it won’t matter.

‘I’m a sort of fall-away psychologist, Doctor. I haven’t practiced in over twenty years, but I did my Ph.D. in educational psychology. I’ve done some reading in analysis but I’ve never been analyzed.’

‘Then I can speak in relatively straight terms. I think your father is a successful schizophrenic. Do you know the work of R. D. Laing?’

I nod. It’s someone I’ve read, at least his Politics of Experience.

‘Well, I subscribe to his idea of schizophrenia as a potential alternate coping system. It’s rare to find such an overt example as your father. Either people can’t keep it together, thereby becoming nonfunctional, or they keep their delusion intact till death, inviolate, unknown. The trauma of your father’s hospital experience apparently surfaced his whole schema.

‘Your dad’s typical of the people who do this successfully. There are several examples in literature where it’s been converted into a shared event; Jonathan Swift or William Faulkner or, more recently, Tolkien. It takes an extremely intelligent, strong-willed and imaginative person.

‘Your father’s used all his tremendous capacities on his dream, totally independent of his daily life. Apparently he could find no use for them there. He’s constructed, created, a personal existence more to his liking. His is a private, complete and apparently satisfying world.’

He leans back farther in his chair and runs his fingers along the arms. A sneak-up smile begins to creep across his face.

‘Sometimes already, I’ve had a difficult time keeping distance listening to your father. His fantasy is so compact, so texturally rich and at the same time idyllic. He’s like a medieval spellbinder explaining the nature of paradise. And he’s constructed this fantasy like a novel; one that fulfills his deepest desires. Most people participate in others’ fantasies through films, books or TV, but he has his own and it’s totally personal; more than that, it’s built into his life. I’m not sure he can ever let go, or even should, totally.’

I don’t know whether to ask or not. But this guy’s a psychiatrist, this is what he’s paid for.

‘Dr Delibro, I know this sounds off the wall, but what’s the chance Dad’s on some other time continuum or slipped gears somehow and is really experiencing all this?’

Delibro looks at me carefully. I’m already wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. In one sentence I’ve blown whatever credibility I had.

‘I know; it’s hard to believe he’s made it all up. I’ve had the eerie feeling he’s only drawing back a curtain, letting me see something visible to him, something real.’

He stops, stares at his fingertips.

‘But we can’t work on that hypothesis, Mr Tremont. We must work within what we know if we’re going to help. It doesn’t matter much in terms of his immediate problem whether this is a dream construct or some time-warp phenomenon. Let’s not turn your Dad into another Bridey Murphy, OK?’

He looks up at me and smiles. He’s right.

‘As I see it, the first thing we want to discover is what’s wrong with his daily life so he feels the need to build this other world.’

He’s getting to the core of things fast. I try not to show much.

‘At first, I wasn’t sure if this mightn’t be only a short-duration delusion resulting from the trauma of his hospital experience, his coma and his fear of cancer.’

‘Has he ever told you about his abnormal fear of cancer? He actually has images of this disease, feelings verging on the psychotic. My background is Catholic and I recognize some of his projections as evil, the devil. He personalizes cancer as an enemy intent on removing him, devouring all he loves.’

Wow, Dad didn’t hold back much. This Delibro’s good if he got him to talk about cancer.

‘But I’m convinced now his “dream” has been going on a long time, perhaps thirty years or more. It’s become the mainspring of his inner life. And his inner life has been totally isolated from his outer life. That’s dangerous business, Mr Tremont; it’s amazing he’s been able to function at all. It’s no wonder his wife’s illness, the shock of the operation, being removed from a stable environment, the news of his cancer caused him to retreat into his available “other” world.’

I’m beginning to worry about Dad out there alone. I’m still carrying in my mind all those disappearances.

‘Your father’s a charming man. It’s rare finding anyone over seventy with such a boylike quality, an interest and curiosity in things. I see many old people, and a good part of being old is increased rigidity, loss of vitality and a general decline in curiosity and humor. But with your father this isn’t true. What concerns me most is what forced him to develop his fantasy? What could be so wrong in his life?’

‘Doctor, I wish you’d talk to my mother. I think it will help you understand Dad better.’

‘I was going to ask if that could be possible. In listening to your father, I sensed theirs has been a close union and she might be able to give me some insights.’

Should I tell him? Would he rather find out for himself? I should at least warn him.

‘Dr Delibro, my mother’s a very difficult woman. I’m not sure I can get her to come.’

He leans forward in the chair. Sherlock Holmes hearing the dog that didn’t bark.

‘Please tell me anything about her you think I should know.’

What a great way to put it. That must be a straight textbook phrase. It’s so encouraging and yet so ambiguous. What the hell, anything to help.

‘Dr Delibro, Mom’s already had two severe nervous breakdowns. When she’s threatened she strikes out; and she’s easily threatened.

‘She’s convinced that marrying my father was the biggest mistake of her life; still, emotionally, she’s absolutely dependent on him.

‘I know this sounds like one more middle-aged man complaining about his mother, but it’s what I feel. To put it succinctly, Mother is hard to live with: intelligent, sensitive, demanding, insatiable and ruthless.’

So it’s out. He brings his two thumbnails up and sticks them between his front teeth. Maybe he’s feeling left out because his teeth aren’t separated. I wait. It’s quiet enough so I can hear the clock tick. Jesus, we’ve been consulting for over three hours; we’ll have to sell the house just to pay the psychiatrist bills.

‘Dr Delibro, another thing. My parents aren’t rich, neither am I. I’m not sure how much psychiatric help they can afford. I hate to be mercenary about this, but what are your estimates in time and money to do some good? If we get Mom involved in this, you’ve got your life’s work cut out.’

He leans his chair back, pushes his palms down on the arms, fingers point out, slightly up. He looks at one set of fingers then the other, he reminds me of a pianist before he attacks the keyboard.

‘Both your parents will be covered by Medicare, I’m sure. Perhaps we can get the rest from Perpetual or MediCal. Don’t worry about it. If they can’t come up with the twenty percent, we’ll make it some way. I don’t agree with the Freudian idea you need to make it expensive so the treatment will be appreciated. That’s only a bit of Viennese sadomasochistic nonsense. Don’t worry about the money; I’m not going to sop up their life savings. To be honest, it’s one of the reasons I chose gerontology as a specialty. With Medicare I can choose my patients on a need basis, not just on ability to pay. Eighty percent of my fees keeps me fine.’

We both smile. He couldn’t be franker than that. Dad and Mom are going to get the full upper-middle-class treatment. Coming to see Delibro will be the high point of the week for years; it’ll upstage the ‘soaps’. I’m beginning to think I might actually get home.

He looks at the clock and stands up. Maybe there are other patients. I stand and we walk out to the waiting room. Dad isn’t there! I almost panic; then I see him in the little alcove with the secretary. He’s sitting at the typewriter. She’s leaning over him. He has his hands on the keys. He looks up when we come over and smiles sheepishly.

‘You know, Johnny, I’ve always wanted to learn typing. This girl’s being wasted as a secretary; she should be a teacher. Look, I can already type “he is it” without looking.’

To demonstrate, he stares up at the ceiling and laboriously taps slowly at the keys. He has his fingers awkwardly hovering over the home keys. He looks down.

‘See that, I did it again!’

We both lean forward and look. Spread over a page of f’s, d’s, g’s, j’s, k’s and l’s are three copies of his magic sentence. Dad stands up, holding his hands over the keys till he’s standing. The girl helps and gives him his hat. They shake hands; Dad puts his hand over hers.

‘Thank you so much, Junko; someday I’ll type out a book and put you in it.’

He comes around the counter. Delibro and I make two appointments for next week: one on Wednesday, the other Friday. If I can get Mother to come on any pretext, I will; if not, Dad’ll take both.

So we drive home. I park and go into the house. Dad goes back to his greenhouse; I think he’s staying away from Mom. He doesn’t want to talk about what’s happening. Maybe he goes back there and trips to Cape May.

I try telling Mother what the doctor said. I tell about the dreams of Cape May, about how Dad still calls her Bess there and that’s why he makes mistakes now. I try giving her some picture of it all, how they’re younger, have two other children; how Dad raises tomatoes and corn to sell in Philadelphia. As I go on, I can see it’s not coming off.

Mom has both hands over her mouth again. She shakes her head slowly back and forth in disbelief. There are tears on the bottom rims of her eyes. Maybe it’s too much, but I can’t think of another way. I should have asked Delibro.

‘I knew all the time he was crazy, Jacky. I told you. You can’t tell me somebody who thinks he lives in Cape May when he hasn’t ever even visited the place isn’t crazy! How can I live alone with somebody who thinks things like that?’

Then, after the first shock, she seems to relax. Having a professional work on the case appeals to her idea of the way it should be; she doesn’t feel quite so helpless. The movie and TV stars have psychiatrists; she’s a part of the big world now; her husband’s going to a psychiatrist. I review everything again, emphasizing how it’s all only a dream and will go away. I feel more relaxed, too. I’m glad I told her.

Billy comes back from a visit up the coast to some of his friends at Santa Cruz. He drove all the way up and back on my motorcycle.

I ask Billy if he’ll stay around some so I can get down to Venice and paint. I’m feeling a need to let my own id spread around some, bolster up my sagging ego.

While I’m painting, Gerry, the girl in Marty’s new house, comes by a couple of times. She has her little ones with her.

We sit on the beach and I play with her kids. I roll and play bear with them in the sand. Something in me still isn’t ready to be cut out from the parenting role. Maybe I’m only aching to be a grandfather. I’m caught up, beached, between two tides, the old one of fathering-husbanding and the new one of aging-dying.

My whole being is lifted by having those kids rolling, laughing, jumping on me. It could also be a contrast to the sadness and end-of-the-road feeling with my folks. It could be because of Gerry.

She flirts with me in the nicest way, somewhere between a grown girl teasing her father and a woman treating me as an available male. I enjoy responding. My life has been such that this no-holds-barred, minimum-expectation relationship with a woman is tremendously appealing. I feel I don’t have to bring an orchid, take her to the senior prom; I don’t have to buy her an engagement ring, find a cedar chest for the trousseau, hunt living-room furniture, demonstrate I have a job, a car, money in the bank; don’t need a bunch of professional fools from state and church standing around, testifying to our seriousness. It’s only the two of us, on a beach, casually enjoying each other. It makes the head of an older man spin.

But I’m not psychologically ready. I’m turned on, but I’m scared. Also, there’s no room in my life. Still we have some good conversation. The father thing comes up. Maybe it’s part of all her conversations with males but probably it’s my age.

Gerry has a successful father; in her view, very authoritarian. She feels her relationship with men has always been in his shadow, a strike at him or a searching for him. She’s been part of several therapy groups and knows all the jargon. I listen, play with her children and feel sorry for her father. He’s been cornered into thinking he’s done the right thing. He’s tried to give her the illusion he’s effectively, easily, coped with the world; that he isn’t scared, worried, suffering daily fear and doubt like the rest of us.

It’s an easy mistake, faking this illusion of invulnerability. Some people never penetrate the façade; never see their parents as ordinary people; all other humans seem second class, including themselves. I listen to her and wonder how well Vron and I have handled this part of our lives.

I finish two paintings in Suzanne’s restaurant. One’s from out front through the restaurant and into the kitchen. The other I’m in the kitchen, stove and pots in the foreground, tables in the middle ground and the ocean out the front window.

Suzanne serves only breakfast and dinner, so there’s a four-to-five-hour period in midday when I can work. She lives over the restaurant and invites me up a few times. There’s usually six or seven people smoking.

I take a few drags one afternoon when I’m finished. I don’t know why but grass doesn’t lift me; it makes everything very clear and far away. It’s not an unpleasant sensation, only it gets in the way of whatever it is keeps me painting.

Wednesday I take Dad back to the psychiatrist. At home a storm’s brewing with Mom. It’s partly the way she’s acting but she’s also complaining. She’s complaining about Billy, about Dad; and I’m sure she’s complaining to them about me.

According to her, I don’t know what Dad’s really like; he’s dangerous and twice in the past few days he’s tried to hurt her. She says once he hit her with his cane and another time he bumped into her and almost knocked her down.

Dad still doesn’t have total control of his body. There are certain almost spastic movements. I listen and try to reassure her; she must be mistaken. He’d never hurt her on purpose.

He’s in with Delibro two hours again.

On the way home in the car we talk. I ask Dad if he’s had any more dreams and he says he has; he still goes there nights and it isn’t like a dream at all.

‘John, I remember everything afterwards, better than I can remember yesterday. It isn’t only at night either.

‘I’ll be sitting there in the rocking chair, not thinking, just drifting, and I’ll go. Some big part of me leaves and is in Cape May. I don’t even know how long I’m gone. It happens all the time, whenever I relax, especially out there in the greenhouse.’

He shifts his cane between his legs. He looks down, then at me. I give him a quick glance from my driving. I’m working up onto the freeway entrance at Lincoln Boulevard.

‘Something I told the doctor, John. It’s strange but this world here has come into that one.

‘I told Bess about us, there in my own world, and now she knows all about everything here. She believed me. Dr Delibro says it’s because I want her to believe but I’m not so sure. Bess wants to know everything about our life here. She only wonders where Hank and Lizbet are; she’s convinced I’m seeing into the future somehow. She wants me to describe how she looks as an old lady and she can’t believe you’re bald and have a beard. I didn’t tell her I have a beard, too.’

Wow, I’m feeling transparent again! These days the physicists are saying the subatomic structure of any object, this car I’m driving, anything, can’t be fitted into a framework of space and time. Words like ‘substance’ or ‘matter’ have become devoid of meaning. This seat I’m sitting on is coming out of nothing, traveling through a non-medium in a multi-dimensional non-space. What we’ve been calling reality is up for grabs; time is a mind projection.

It’s even possible the future has as much effect on what we call event, present, as the past. Causality is losing its effectiveness. My decaying bald-topped mind is spinning; maybe I’ll create a few new solar systems without knowing it.

‘What did the doctor say about this, Dad?’

‘He made me go through it about three different times and asked a peck of questions. He’s taken to writing these things down; I think he believes me, John.’

He pauses again.

‘But I’m beginning to feel he suspects I might be crazy. He just could be right about that, too. Your mother’d sure be glad; she’s been saying it for years; she’s better than any psychiatrist; cheaper, too.’

With this, he leans back and laughs in the most uncrazy way imaginable. I start laughing with him. I’m glad there are no cops patrolling this section of the Santa Monica Freeway. If they saw two older men with beards driving along laughing their heads off, they’d stop us for sure.

‘I told the whole family there about you, Mother and Joan; about my operation, and about me seeing a psychiatrist. They all laughed and Hank wanted to know what a psychiatrist is. To be honest, Johnny, they’re pestering the devil out of me. What on earth can I say to little Hank and Lizbet; I can’t tell them their daddy just made ’em up. That’s terrible. What do you think I ought to do?’

God, what a question! If I start advising him on what to do in that world, it’ll grow more real, somehow make this one less true. I want to go home to my family, to Vron and Jacky. I’m realizing how in my own mind Paris, France, is less believable, less real than Dad’s crazy dreamworld. It seems so far away, so long ago. I can’t believe I do actually live in a houseboat on the Seine outside Paris; that I have an old water mill in central France; that I’m an artist. It sounds like one of the biggest pipe dreams anybody ever made up.

‘You’d better ask the doctor, Dad. I don’t know what to say. Did you tell them they’re all a dream and you have a real life here? Did you tell them that?’

‘Oh, no, Johnny, I couldn’t do that. I’m not so sure about things myself. I just told them how this part here is like a dream. I wasn’t lying, that’s the way it is. When I’m here, like now, that part’s a dream but when I’m there, this gets to be the dream and I have a hard time believing it.

‘I’ll be honest with you, John, it’s better there. If I had my choice, I’d make that part the real life for us.’

At home we sit around the living room. There are some times when I’m sure Dad has left us. I’m itching to ask but I’m embarrassed. It’s like asking a woman if she’s having her period because she’s acting differently. There’s no real justification except simple curiosity and it’s an invasion.

Mom’s tough to be with. Luckily, Billy’s gone back up on the forty acres. Mother, wandering around, the Lady Macbeth of Colby Lane, bugs Billy beyond endurance. I can’t blame him. Mom’s impossible when she’s scared; she’s striking out in all directions, trying to give some substance to things. Nobody’s safe near her.

We’re sitting there in the living room and she starts off. Dad’s in his rocking chair, Mom’s on one of the dining chairs turned half around from the table and I’m sitting in an upholstered chair by the door. We’re all within a few feet of each other.

She begins talking to me about how crazy Dad is. She’s pulling out all her memorized litany of Tremont variations from the norm through four generations. She’s tolling them off like a rosary, the five infamous mysteries; I listen and fume. Dad’s between pretending it isn’t happening, and listening. He’s like a very genteel woman who’s forced by circumstances to hear bar-room language.

It goes on and on; nothing’s enough. I know she’s wanting me to argue and I don’t want to. But then I can’t help myself. You only kid yourself into thinking you’ve grown out of it, that you can respond as an adult logically, sensibly, to parents. I turn to Dad.

‘Dad, why do you let her talk like this? Why do you put up with it? It’s not good for either of you to have her spout all this rot. She’s the one who’s acting crazy.’

Mother keeps talking over my first sentence, but then shuts up. If I’d talked to her directly she’d have kept on, only louder. Using a carom shot, talking to Dad, has her buffaloed.

‘We all know she does this because she’s scared, but backbiting at everybody doesn’t help. You’ve got to help her stop.’

I turn toward Mom.

‘And, Mom, you should know better. You don’t really believe this nonsense; you’re only saying it to make yourself feel like a big shot and three-star martyr. Dad’s doing his best. We have an expert working with him. This doctor says Dad’s not crazy. In fact, he’s impressed with how Dad’s survived the past thirty or so years without going crazy.

‘If you’re so convinced Dad’s crazy, tell me in private and we’ll work things out. We can put Dad in a home, or you in a home, or something. But for God’s sake don’t sit there talking in front of him as if he’s a dog who doesn’t understand!’

Dad’s turned white. He leans forward and lurches out of his platform rocker. Instinctively I stand with him. I’ve no idea what he’s going to do. Maybe take a punch at me or maybe Mom. It could be anything.

He leaves his cane and shuffles toward us. Mother’s up, too; looking even more scared than I feel. Dad spreads his thin arms and we go toward him. He pulls us close to his breast and holds us tight. His whole body is shaking. Nobody says anything. It’s as if we’re in a two-hand-touch huddle, except we’re not leaning over, our faces are straight up, pushed next to each other at different heights.

Dad kisses us both several times; it’s the first time I can remember his kissing me since the day I was sent off to first grade. He begins talking and his voice is low, cracked.

‘Don’t do it, Johnny. Please don’t say those things to your mother; you’re too clever, you know too much. We’re family, that’s all that counts. Let’s love each other and forget. Loving, more than anything, means letting people do the things they have to do. Johnny, you live in Paris because that’s what you have to do. Mother here has to do some things too; so do I. It’s the way it is. Please don’t fight; it kills me hearing you talk this way.’

Then he starts crying hard and Mother breaks into sobs. I’m crying, too. Now we’re the Burghers of Calais standing in our own rain. Maybe it’s time to break the huddle, call the signals and snap the ball. These kinds of stupid thoughts are tramping through my mind. Real emotion is tough for me to handle; I’ve got about twenty lines of defense to keep from feeling.

Finally we sit again. Dad sighs and begins talking. I can’t get my mind around it; who the hell is this guy?

‘There are some things maybe you don’t know, Johnny. When I met Bess she was only fifteen. She was just recovering from a bad nervous breakdown. She could never even go back to school again. I was eighteen and working at Hog Island as a carpenter. I wasn’t happy; in fact, I was miserable. I didn’t like living in the city and I was missing the farm. I felt everybody could see I was only a farm boy and was laughing at me.

‘It was a big change, John. You know, winter and summer, none of us kids wore shoes regularly on the farm. We walked to school with shoes tied around our necks and put them on when we went inside. I never owned a pair of shoes till we got to Philadelphia. I’d get Orin’s. Those shoes never wore out; we only put them on for school and church.

‘You can’t know what a change it was coming from Wisconsin where I knew maybe twenty people all together and half of them were my brothers and sisters. There I was in Philadelphia, talking funny with a farm-boy Wisconsin hick accent; I was afraid to open my mouth. I’d be jammed in trolley cars with people who didn’t know anything about me and didn’t care. Everybody seemed to know what to do and where they were going. People would bump into me because I couldn’t even get out of the way. I didn’t know how to flush a toilet, use a telephone or dance.

‘I met Mother on a rainy day in a doorway near John Wanamaker’s. She came into the doorway crying her eyes out. She was crying because she’d borrowed her older sister Maggie’s fancy hat without asking and now it was getting ruined in the rain.

‘I had a big old-time umbrella my mother made me carry and I opened it over her. Gosh, I guess if Mom hadn’t made me carry that umbrella I’d never even’ve gotten to know you, Bess, think of that.

‘Well, Bess was pretty, and scared. She was the scaredest person I’d ever met. It wasn’t just the hat; she was scared about the thunder and lightning, she was scared the trolley wasn’t going to come; she was scared about what time it was, and she was scared of me. Something inside me wanted to help her not be so scared.

‘And, Johnny, Mother’s always been that way. Sometimes she acts strong and likes to be bossy, but inside she’s scared. It’s something you’ve got to remember.

‘That day she finally let me go along with her in the trolley, and when she got out I followed her, keeping my umbrella over the hat. She led me to a big stone house and said this was where she lived, and goodbye. I stood across the street waiting to see her safe inside but two big dogs came barking at the door. She ran away and down the street in the rain; it wasn’t where she lived at all.

‘That’s the kind of thing she does, Johnny, because she’s so scared. I chased her, laughing, but she was mad and I thought she might be crazy but I loved her already.’

I look at Mom. Her eyes are blank, her face a mask; she’s stunned.

‘And you’re not much different, Johnny. You were the scrawniest baby I’ve ever seen in my life. For the first three months you cried without stopping. It’s a wonder that didn’t drive your poor mother absolutely crazy. Then, you grew up to be the scaredy-cattest kid in the neighborhood. I used to think sometimes you caught it from your mother.

‘You were afraid of the dark. You were afraid of loud noises; you used to hold your fingers in your ears at baseball games and you’d stuff cotton in them on the Fourth of July. You were afraid to ride a bike, to roller-skate, even to swim. I don’t think you learned swimming till you were over thirteen years old.

‘And you were afraid of all the other kids on the block. You’d come running home with some little kid half your size chasing you. That’s how you learned to run, running away from everybody.

‘I was sure you’d never learn to take care of yourself; that you’d live with us all your life. I remember being so embarrassed because you were one of the world’s worst baseball players.

‘And you grew so fast, early. For a while, when you were about ten or twelve, you were a head taller than anybody in your class. This made it worse. Little kids would take turns beating up on you so they could say they licked the big sissy down the block. Summers, you spent your time hiding in the cellar, on the porch reading or later fooling around with your birds. Sometimes I look at you now and I can’t believe it’s the same person.

‘What I want to say is, you’re a lot like your mother, John. You’re fighting all the time but in your own way. Maybe that’s why you live in France instead of America. You don’t want to compete, you want to stay apart.

‘But, in another way, you’re different from Bess. You get that part from me. There’s something in me that’s wild, wild like a wild animal. It was in my father, it’s in my brothers and two of my sisters; we aren’t quite human, quite civilized. There’s some animal quality and it can come out anytime. I’m surprised we’ve gotten as far as we have without having a murderer in the family.

‘I don’t know what brings it on; could be all those years living in the woods, or it could be the Indian blood.

‘You know, Johnny, your great-grandfather was a trapper. He never lived in a house from the time he was thirteen; he married a full-blooded Oneida Indian. Your great-grandmother, my father’s mother, was over six feet tall. She was stronger than any man, and could talk only Indian and French.

‘I never heard her speak one word. That grandfather and grandmother of mine lived practically like prehistoric people. They didn’t homestead and settle till my dad was seven years old. They lived with the Indians and had no real religion; so far as I know they never got married – at least, not in a church.

‘Dad used to tell stories about how they’d drift along, tending the traps, buying furs, caching, then packing them all out in canoes. They were animals, Johnny, and it’s still there. It’s in me, it’s in you, too, and we always have to fight it.’

Mother’s nodding her head now; this is something she can live with. Jack the Ripper, North American version of Tarzan the apeman.

‘One reason I married Bess was she liked beautiful things. She’d always lived in cities and all her family’d lived in cities as far back as anybody could remember. She likes nice furniture, she keeps a clean house and we live like decent human beings.

‘You can see I’m not like my brothers or even my father; I’m civilized. I don’t drink much and I don’t run around. My brothers are all dangerous men, except Ed. Ed was lucky like me and married a good woman. Aunt Mary trained him just fine. You could never predict my father or my brothers; never tell what they were thinking or what they were going to do. None of them ever held full-time jobs in their lives. Pete and Orin and Caleb were always drinking or running back into the woods to hunt. Winters they’d curl up and hibernate like bears.

‘Now, my mom did a good job with Dad. At least she got him into church and he took care of us kids. But he didn’t dress like a normal person or do things like other people. You know, Johnny, he never paid a dime to Social Security or paid any income tax in his life? He lived on the outside of everything. He lived down there in southwest Philadelphia as if he was living on a farm or in the woods. All those buildings, cars and everything didn’t mean a thing to him.

‘I didn’t want to live that way. Look, I’m a civilized man; look at these hands, they’re clean, I’ve got all my fingers. Look at this house we’ve got here, with this beautiful furniture, rugs and all. We live like real city people and that’s all your mother’s doing. Don’t forget that.’

What can I say? I know he’s serious; he wants me to understand. I’m wishing Delibro could hear this. Mother’s sitting there, still crying. She’s sniffing and peering at me, eye-talk, ‘See what I mean, Jacky, see what I mean?’ And Dad’s making such sense. I feel awful, like a child. He’s been seeing through it all these years and saying nothing, letting it happen because he respected us.

‘John, I know sometimes you must worry about Billy and little Jacky.

‘It’s hard for fathers to wait, but you have to give boys time, they’re slow. Sons are what worry a man because most men are scared, so they’re scared for their sons.

‘Johnny, I’m not worrying about you anymore and I don’t want you worrying about me or Mother. Let’s enjoy our own lives. We’re all fine.

‘I’ll keep going to that psychiatrist doctor till I get myself straightened out. Johnny, you go home to Veronica and Jacky. Mother and I will be OK; we all just have to stop worrying so much.’

After this long speech, he leans back, rocking, smiling from one to the other of us, smiling as if all the rules of the family haven’t been broken into a thousand pieces. The odd thing is Dad doesn’t act as if all this talking is out of the ordinary. Here he’s talked more in fifteen minutes, said more, than he has in the past fifteen years; and he’s just rocking and smiling.

I begin to sympathize with Mother. It’s not so much physical violence she’s afraid of, it’s mental. He’s capable of saying anything, rolling through all the sacrosanct temples of thought and emotion built during more than fifty years of mutual hypocrisy. He’s scuttled all the rules of their relationship.

Dad pushes out of his chair again and this time takes his cane. He moves off down the hall smiling back at us over his shoulder. He glances at the clock over the TV.

‘Well, I’m going to put on my baseball-watching costume. It’s almost time for the Dodger game.’

He shuffles off down the hall to the back bedroom. Mom looks at me.

‘Jacky, that’s not normal the way he’s talking. He never talked like that in his life. Something’s happened; he’s a different person.’

She’s stopped crying. This is my mother actually out there in front of me. She’s scared enough so she’s not putting it on or trying to pull anything over. It’s the first time I have the feeling we can truly talk.

‘Mom, I think this is the true John Tremont. He’s been hiding for over fifty years. I think that’s the way he really is inside; he’s a smart man who didn’t even know it himself. How was he ever going to find out he was smart? Everbody’s been profiting by making him think he wasn’t. I’ll bet Douglas and G.E. has made ten million dollars off his ideas. They wanted to keep him down, get the most out of him for virtually nothing. Everybody’s been leaning on him all his life, including us.

‘The psychiatrist says Dad is one of the most intelligent, imaginative men he’s ever had as a patient. He wants to give Dad some intelligence tests which don’t depend on how much schooling he’s had. Dad’s probably a genius of some kind.’

Mother leans back in her ‘don’t kid me’ lean and stares.

‘Oh, come on, Jacky. He’s smart maybe, but he’s no genius. I’ve lived with him all my life. He’s a perfectionist but he’s never been able to think up anything except toys for you kids or different crazy gadgets. He’s the original ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ and he’s never earned more than six thousand dollars a year in his life. If that psychiatrist thinks he’s a genius, he must be half crazy himself.’

‘Mom, you ought to go see Dr Delibro. Maybe you can give him a new viewpoint on Dad. As you say, you know him better than anybody. Dr Delibro is trying to help Dad get things together and you could help more than anybody.’

I can actually feel her paranoia surfacing. Mother doesn’t want any experts of any kind working on her. During the war, she didn’t take a job in a defense plant because she was afraid they’d X-ray her chest and find out she had tuberculosis. Mom was a closet tubercular for over thirty-five years. When Perpetual gave her a chest X-ray as part of the entrance examination, she was shocked to find out she actually had lungs. I’m waiting to see how it will go.

‘He’ll probably decide I’m crazy, Jacky. If he thinks your father’s a genius, he could easily think I’m insane. If he finds out about my two nervous breakdowns, he’s liable to lock me up and throw away the key.’

‘You’re not crazy, Mom; but it could certainly help him to understand Dad if you’d talk to him. He needs all the information he can get.’

I’m starting to hope now. I have to be careful not to make any false moves. Just then, Dad comes up the hall. He’s wearing his hat, his striped shirt and has a scorecard in his hand. He’s begun keeping a line-score for the games he watches. He stops on the way up the hall and goes into the bathroom. Mother leans toward me and stage-whispers.

‘All right, I’ll go; anything if it’ll help him come to his senses.’

When the game gets under way, I sneak into the back room and call Delibro. I tell him Mother will keep the Friday appointment. Boy, we’re deep into psychiatrists now; I can’t help wondering how it will all turn out. I go into the living room and tell Mother it’s set. There’s no use trying to keep it from Dad, so I tell him Mom is going to visit his psychiatrist, too. He turns away from the game and gives me a quick look. But the ball game’s on and we settle in to watch the Dodgers slip past the Phillies.

Later, out in the greenhouse, I tell Dad he doesn’t have to worry about the psychiatrist telling Mother anything they talked about in private; I tell him a psychiatrist is something like a priest in confession. Dad’s spraying liquid fertilizer on some plants. He looks up and smiles.

‘Oh, I’m not worried about that, John, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea having her visit a psychiatrist.’

I don’t have time to answer because just then Billy arrives. He’s almost as dirty as when he arrived the first time. He’s been down in Ensenada camping on the beach.

After we get him showered, I ask if he’ll stay around the house next day so I can visit Marty. I feel I’m not getting enough time with her. Billy can’t really say no to that, and I think Mom’s glad to have him there; she’s that scared of Dad.

I call Marty and we agree to meet tomorrow down at the French sidewalk café on the beach and have breakfast together.

Billy will sleep out in the garden bedroom. I’m in the side bedroom, while Mom and Dad sleep in their own back bedroom. That evening, as she walks past in her nightgown, Mother gives off looks like a vestal virgin being sacrificed to the Minoan bull. I shut the door to my little side bedroom and pretend I don’t notice.