Dancing in the Light (18 page)

But Dad understood. It was almost as though he had made the remark knowing that the two of them needed a family audience to vent some of their repressed feelings. Yet right now I didn’t feel I wanted to cope with one of these familiar scenes. I put my hand on my mother’s arm to try to calm her. She pulled it away.

“No,” she pressed on. “Your father embarrasses my friends by making bawdry jokes, and I don’t like it one bit, not one bit.”

Dad smiled, chewed on his muffin, and decided to press
his
point.

“Oh, Scotch,” he said, “those old biddies don’t care about anything but money. I interject a little humor just to humanize the situation.”

He smiled maliciously and waited for her reaction. I remembered so many dinner scenes from my childhood as I watched yet another reenactment of the way they “played” each other.

Mother straightened up in her chair.

“Well, thank goodness I am interested in money.
I
have to make out all the checks or the IRS would come and put us in jail.”

She wasn’t making a melodramatic joke. She was serious. I felt that she was touching on much more than money.

Daddy turned to me. “The boss here gives me twelve dollars and fifty cents a week for allowance. I could drink up that much liquor in half a day. I wouldn’t need a week. And any blonde I could keep on that allowance wouldn’t be worth keeping.”

It was going to be a bumpy ride.

Mother’s eyes flashed. I could see her decide not to address the “cheap blonde” remark. She preferred to discuss the money situation. In one minute they had managed to enjoin seven important subjects—adultery, humiliation, friendship, money, liquor, the IRS, and incarceration.

Sachi put down her muffin, listening wide-eyed. This was better than
The Edge of Night.

Mother raised her voice. “Ira, you don’t care enough about us to keep track of the checks you write and what they’re for. You have credit cards, like Visa—why don’t you use them? No, you leave me with the problem. The bank and the IRS will get us. And you know it.”

“I do?” answered Daddy, still smiling.

“Yes, and it drives me wild because I know I’ll have to go and apologize to the girls in the bank.”

“Oh, Scotch,” said Daddy with an intensified emphasis on her name, implying that his nickname for her was more than appropriate. “You know the girls at the bank are your friends too. They
understand
that you don’t know anything about how to handle money.”

“I
do
know how to handle money,” Mother shouted. “I had to learn how because you are so careless.”

I thought I should interject. “Mother,” I began, “why don’t you have an accountant do your checks so you don’t have to worry about it?”

“An accountant?” she said, outraged. “No, I like making out the checks. It keeps me alert. Why shouldn’t I do something I like to do? But I want your father to pay more attention to the checks he makes out. I want him to keep his records.”

“Scotch, if I make out a check a month, it’s unusual. I know I’m only supposed to live on twelve dollars and fifty cents a week. You told me. And I do what the boss says.”

But Mother was furious now and charged into a marvelous non sequitur. “Your room is filthy,” she said. “You sleep all day so I can’t get in there to clean it up and the dust goes flying all over the house.” She turned to me. “And he can never find his keys. I know he spends his twelve dollars and fifty cents on liquor. That’s why I won’t give him any more.”

I looked over at Sachi. She understood they were deadly serious with each other, but the subject
matter and the emotional gymnastics were making it difficult for her to take their quarreling with equal seriousness.

It was Daddy’s turn. “I sleep all day so I won’t have to hear this. Besides,” he went on, “I was born tired, and every morning I have a relapse.”

“You sleep all day because you are lazy and you leave everything to me,” countered Mother.

“That’s right,” said Daddy. “In my old age I’ve thought a lot about ambition and what it can do to your life. It’s right nice not to have any more ambition than how the hell you go about puttin’ on your shoes. If I came out of my room, I would either hear your opinion of me or I’d hear you and the old biddies talking about their CD’s or their investments in the stock market. I’m just lucky I get my twelve dollars and fifty cents a week.”

I wondered if Warren had heard this conversation. Considering the money that both of us had made and given to them, it was unreal beyond words.

I felt myself becoming involved now because somehow their conversation was a reflection on us.

“Mother,” I said quietly, “why are you so worried about money? You know you have more than enough and there’s more where that came from.”

She leaned forward and said in all seriousness, “Shirley, I’m just being careful. Anything could happen to you and Warren. I want to be sure we will be all right when we get old.”

It was such a stunning remark I could barely respond. Her reasoning was unique.

“But Mother,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, “you are eighty-one now. When do you think you’ll be old?”

She shrugged. “I don’t feel old. I don’t want to feel old. Playing with money keeps me young.”

Ohhhh, I thought, now we’re getting to it.

“Your mother likes to tinker with money,” said Daddy. “She likes to play around with the interest that it collects in the bank.”

I turned back to Mother. “So you
are
interested in the money.”

“It’s not the money,” she said. “It’s what I can do with it if I learn how. Besides, when I’m alert I can argue with your father much better.”

Daddy laughed. “So she meets with the old-biddy financial experts and they talk about their checking accounts, and when they leave she argues with me.”

“Yes,” said Mother, “then you come in the room and humiliate me in front of my friends by saying that I don’t know anything about money. He never talks to me unless he’s humiliating me. We sit for hours and say nothing until my friends come and then he embarrasses me.”

I turned to Daddy, knowing that what Mother said was true.

“Well,” said Daddy, “I just try to contribute some information and your mother says I make fun of her.”

I turned back to Mother. “Well, maybe you could learn something more from him.”

“No”—she shook her head defiantly—“they talk about complicated things I don’t understand. Like trusts and things. So I just sit and sit. I’m not interested in that stuff. I don’t want to hear about that. I don’t want to hear about it because I don’t have that much money.”

“But Mother, you
do
have that much money. And you have a good time playing with it.”

She smiled. “Yes, it is fun.”

“So don’t just sit. Participate in the conversation so you can learn more.” Even to myself I sounded too logical to be understood.

“No,” she said, “I don’t want to get mixed up with them. Your father will just turn to me and say I don’t know what I’m talking about and why should I try?”

It was a catch-22 conversation.

Sachi was blinking very fast now.

“So Grandmother,” she said, trying to make sense out of it all, “why don’t you learn?”

“No, I don’t want to learn,” she answered.

“Why not?” asked Sachi.

“Because I have some rights of my own,” asserted my mother.

Sachi hesitated, looking baffled. So I followed up. “You mean, one of your rights is
not
to learn?” I asked.

“You’re darn right,” said Mother. “I like to go down to the bank and learn from the girls there. At least it’s a place to go.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing that perhaps we weren’t talking about money after all. Mother continued.

“I don’t want to learn from your father because the more I know, the more he’ll argue with me and I don’t like to argue.”

Oh, I see, I thought, so this is about competition. Sachi saw no way to contribute anything at this point.

“But Mother,” I said, “you’ve just manufactured a dead-end street for yourself. You’re interested in money, but you only want to pursue your interest your own way at the bank with the girls. You say Daddy doesn’t talk to you, but you won’t participate in the money conversation at home so you have something to talk about.”

I lost myself in a jungle of words that made no sense.

Mother sat back in her chair. She was involved with making points and needed to think over her next move. Daddy smiled. He knew just what he was doing and waited for it.

“Your father doesn’t want to hear about CD’s. But sometimes he goes to the bank to learn about them because he knows that if I die first, he won’t know what to do. So I gave him the keys to the safe-deposit box and all the papers. So what have I done wrong?”

This was mind-boggling. Now she had woven
in the subject of death—and Daddy had known she would. It was a kind of game again. Shades of childhood. Mother went on.

“I want to learn to drive again, too, but your father scares the daylights out of me. And I’m not going to let him do it.”

“Drive?” I said, astonished and appalled. “Oh no! Mother,” I said, trying not to seem alarmist, “don’t you think it might be time to
stop
driving and use the car service I gave you?”

“Oh no,” she answered proudly, “I like to drive my own car to see my own friends so I can get away from your father’s humiliation.”

“Listen, Scotch,” said Daddy, “I sleep all the time anyway. So what is there to get away from?”

She glared at him with renewed fire in her eyes. “You try to scare me about the Cuisinart that Shirley gave us too. You always say I’ll chop up a finger or something. I could save myself so much bother with chopping vegetables but he scares me too much. So I’m just not going to bother with it anymore. I’m not going to bother with any of it anymore. Not your room, or your keys, or your checks. I give up.”

I was getting desperate. I really wanted them to stop.

Sachi piped up. “Grandmother,” she said, “you know, those Cuisinarts are easy to use. I use them all the time.”

Mother ignored her and went on. “You know, we don’t use your microwave oven either. Your father is scared to death of that. And he’s made me scared of it too.”

“But Mother, you
allow
him to scare you, because he’s so frightened. Can’t you see that? Fear is infectious, even if it’s about microwaves and Cuisinarts.”

“That’s right,” said Mother, triumphant. “If his mother didn’t teach him anything at all, she taught him to fear better than anything. So I’m going to
find another man to come out to our house to help me cut up the vegetables and work the oven.”

“Are you going to get the same man to drive you around?” asked Daddy.

Now it was about jealousy.

“You’re darned right,” said Mother.

“You two are really something,” said Sachi.

“Well,” said Mother.

I got up and brought more hot tea and diet sodas. Nothing was said while I was out of the room. There wouldn’t have been much point. I was supposed to be the referee and add up the points. Daddy, however, seemed to have elected to remain serenely silent. That was unusual, but it was because he realized Mother was more emotional than usual tonight, and it would work to his advantage.

When I returned, Sachi sat waiting for the next round to begin. I was beginning to suspect Daddy was going to “throw” the right. I handed him a glass of Diet Pepsi.

“Is this brandied Pepsi?” he asked with a twinkle. I gave him a mock glare. “No, of course it isn’t,” he said. “I’m not old enough to drink.” He took a sip and cleared his throat, heralding an announcement.

“You know why I stopped drinking sometimes?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, playing straight man.

“Because when I consider that Seagrams can make their liquor faster than I can drink it I realize it’s an unfair contest.”

Everybody laughed. Then nobody said anything.

“You know,” he continued, “the first drink of liquor I ever had was on a hayride.” He tossed down some Diet Pepsi and added throatily, “Of course, I did lots of things for the first time on hayrides …”

“Oh, Ira,” grumbled Mother.

“You know,” I began, wanting to say something helpful about how joyous their old age together
could be if they would be more tolerant of each other. “I know you two love to fight, but wouldn’t it be better just to let go of all your objections to one another and have â good time?”

“Let go?” asked Mother.

“Sure,” I said happily. “Just let go and have a good time.”

“Let his filthy, messy room go? Let the checks go?”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t just let it go. Maybe you could just stop bugging him. If he wants to sleep in a filthy room, let him. Part of old age is that you
can
just let go and relax.”

“Well,” she said, “I haven’t gotten to that stage yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised that soon I wouldn’t want to go into an old folks’ home. They say they’re mean to you there. I haven’t heard about one that isn’t. But I might like that.”

Sachi looked at me, alarmed. I was too pissed off to allay her fears.

“Mother”—my voice was good and loud—“don’t you think that’s a little extreme? Your capacity for self-flagellation is unlimited, it seems. I wish you could see how you pull the rug out from under yourself. It’s awful to watch.”

Mother knew what deep water we were in now.

“I don’t agree with you,” she answered commandingly. “I think I’m doing very well taking care of myself and getting over my operations and all my broken bones.”

She was missing the point.

“But
why
are you breaking your bones so much? You’re responsible for that happening. It’s not an accident.”

“Of course it’s not an accident,” she said with a marvelous mixture of pride and self-pity. “My bones are brittle. I asked the doctor if he could remove the excess calcium, but he said he couldn’t. So I keep breaking my bones.”

“Jesus,” I said. “Listen to you. You fall in the bathroom and—”

Dad interrupted. “She fell off the piss pot.”

“I hate your vulgarity,” said Mother. “And so does everyone else.”