700 Sundays (10 page)

So now I’m an orphan. Fifty-seven years old now and an orphan. I know people will say, “Come on, Billy. This is what happens to us. This is what happens to all of us at this point in our lives. This is how life works.”

But do you know something? It has an odor to it. I don’t know why I thought it would be easier this time. I was fifteen the first time. Fifty-three the second. The tears taste the same. The boulder is just as big, just as heavy, the otherness just as enshrouding.

The anger started to well up again. But an omnipotent being once told me it’s the hand I’m dealt. The cards I get to play.

We’re at a table. I’m sitting across from “Him,” and there are five cards spread in front of me.

I pick up the first . . . “Maybe five foot seven?” Oh come on.

I turn over the second . . . “Lose your father when you’re fifteen.” Can I get another card?

My third card . . . “Have your mother her entire life.”

And the fourth . . . “Marry an incredible woman, have two beautiful daughters, and now your first granddaughter.”

The last one . . . “Get to do what you’ve always wanted to do since you first made them laugh in the living room.”

I hold the cards in my hand. He stares me down. I look at them one more time, but I don’t really have to. “I’m going to stick, and I’m going to raise you everything I have. What do you got?” I stare at him with confidence, waiting for God to make his move. He stares back. I smile. He folds . . . He can’t beat me.

About a year before my mom passed away, it was a Saturday night in Los Angeles, very late, around 12:45 on a Saturday night, which actually makes it a Sunday. The phone rings and I panic, because when you’re a Jew and the phone rings late at night, it means somebody’s dead. Or worse, they want money. But no. It’s Mom calling from the house.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine, dear.”

“But Mom, it’s three-thirty in the morning.”

“I know. I just wanted to hear your voice, Bill. That’s all. I woke up your brothers too, but I wanted to hear your voice.”

“But you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I just—I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh, really . . .” I softly said, nodding my head. Her honesty was disarming.

I’m an insomniac myself. I mean, I’ve been up since 1948. I wanted to find out why she couldn’t sleep because somehow it might help me. But, really, I just wanted the conversation to keep going on, because these kinds of conversations with your parents are best when they’re not just your parents, but they feel like they’re your friends.

“Mom, why can’t you sleep?” There was a pause, and then . . .

“Oh, I’m listening for you boys.”

I knew exactly what she meant. The cry in the middle of the night, “Mommy, I have a fever.” The nightmares, “Mommy, there are pirates in the room!” Then as they get older, the sound of their cars pulling up in the driveway, the jingle of their keys in the front door lock, just so that you know that they’re home safe. She was eighty-five years old now, alone in that house, her sons scattered across the country, but she was listening for us.

We sold the house. We had to. Without her in it, it really didn’t make much sense to keep it. Somebody else owns it now, but it doesn’t belong to them . . . because I can close my eyes and go there anytime I want.

EPILOGUE

7
00 Sundays is not a lot of time for a kid to have with his dad, but it was enough time to get gifts. Gifts that I keep unwrapping and sharing with my kids. Gifts of love, laughter, family, good food, Jews and jazz, brisket and bourbon, curveballs in the snow, Mickey Mantle, Bill Cosby, Sid Caesar, Uncle Berns and . . . “Consider the rose. Can you dig that? I knew that you could.”

I’ve had a recurring dream. I’m in a car, a gray-on-gray Plymouth Belvedere, and I’m sitting up front because I still don’t need legroom. And there’s nobody else in the car, and the car is driving itself. I’m not scared because it seems to know exactly where it wants to go. Then suddenly, we’re on 42nd Street between Lexington and Third, and we pass the Commodore Music Shop. And we pass the Commodore Hotel.

We pull up in front of Grand Central Terminal, and the car comes to a stop. The door opens and I get out, and I just follow the crowd, past the Oyster Bar, up the ramp into the Great Hall. Except this time, all the stars are real, and they’re brightening up the heavens, and it’s just so beautiful.

And the terminal is filled with men, and they’re all dressed how I best remember Dad—white shirt, sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, collar open, knit tie hanging. They’re all fathers waiting for their sons.

I can’t find him, in the crowd, but then I see him and he sees me, and he looks great. He doesn’t look worried, he doesn’t look upset, and he doesn’t look mad. And we walk toward each other. There’s no reason to run. There’s plenty of time.

“Hi Pop.”

He smiles that sweet little smile, puts his hand on my shoulder and simply says . . .

“What’s lead?”

“Pb,” I answer with confidence.

He nods his head . . . “Good, Bill, good.” We look at each other; it’s quiet. “Did you eat?”

And I hear the clatter of plates, the laughter of the family, the smell of soup and brisket and noodle pudding. Dad’s eyes motion for me to turn, and there they are, all together again at the table . . . Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Milt, Uncle Barney, Grandma Sophie, and now Mom and Dad, waiting for me to sit down and eat, and then it’ll be time to go into the living room, and do a show.

I’ll see you when I see you.