Erasure (27 page)

“Get that box,” Father said, pointing.

I picked it up and carried it into the kitchen. Lorraine was already sweeping, Mother was putting away dishes and Bill was wiping dust and leaves from the sills of the breakfast porch.

“How do the leaves get in here?” Bill asked, as he always asked.

Father could be
sudden.
I thought of him as generally a kind man, perhaps because of the way his patients adored him, but living with him was like living on the crater of Vesuvius. Perhaps the comparison would be better made to some dormant or rather sleeping volcano. He wouldn’t exactly erupt, but rumble or hiss, and sometimes you’d miss the event altogether and find yourself detecting a burnt smell, sulfur or just seeing some vapor in the air. To Bill, upon his asking the question, he said, “No house is tight.”

It was not until Father had gone out the front door, to collect the last of the boxes, that we all exchanged fearful glances.

But, in part, that quality of my father’s was one reason I felt so close to him. I admired his intelligence, his sagacity and his convoluted message delivery system. Bill kept his secret that was no secret, Mother kept no secrets at all, Lisa kept secrets that remained with her and Father kept secrets and talked about them all the time. I am convinced of this. I am certain that he told all of us any number of times that he was married to the wrong woman and probably that he had another child someplace.

Later, after a meal of sandwiches, Father and I walked down to the beach. I had to skip every few steps to keep his pace. We waved to Professor Tilman.

“Why doesn’t Professor Tilman go anywhere?” I asked.

“Perhaps because he doesn’t want to,” Father said.

I thought about that and I suppose my silence was a bit loud.

“Is that hard to imagine?” Father asked. “Not wanting to go out?”

I said I guessed so.

We walked out the long pier and looked down at the water. A jellyfish swam by. A small boat motored by well away from us, a crabber checking his traps. I slapped a mosquito and flicked it from my arm.

Father laughed. “They take the blood and leave the itch. It’s a tradeoff. She gets to feed her eggs and you get to remember how good it feels to scratch an itch, how good it felt to not itch.”

“All I know is I hate them,” I said.

“The bluefish will be running in a few weeks,” he said. “That will be fun. Do you think you and your brother can get the boat into the water by yourselves?”

“No.”

He laughed. “I’ll help you in the morning before I go back.”

Rothko: I’m an old man.

Motherwell: You’re not so old.

Rothko: And I’m a sour old man. I’ve taken to this house painter’s brush I found. It makes the edges almost feathery. Funny, eh? A house painter’s brush. I’ll bet that devil Hitler used the very same thing when he was a nasty youth. And here I am with one. I have all these powdered paints and I mix and mix, but are my colors really so different? Are people sick of my panels? I like my early work. This stuff I’m doing now has me depressed.

Motherwell: Work depressed us all.

Rothko: A nice homily from a nice young man.

Motherwell: Not so young myself.

Rothko: And steady. I’ve noticed that about you. I’m planning to take my own life, but you’ve no doubt surmised this. And you fathom that you understand the feeling in some way. Yes, you’re a steady one. Of course, your paintings stink.

In considering my novels, not including the one frightening effort that brought in some money, I find myself sadly a stereotype of the radical, railing against something, calling it tradition perhaps, claiming to seek out new narrative territory, to knock at the boundaries of the very form that calls me and allows my artistic existence. It is the case, however, that not all radicalism is forward looking, and maybe I have misunderstood my experiments all along, propping up, as if propping up is needed, the artistic traditions that I have pretended to challenge. I reread the paper I claimed to dismiss summarily and realized that epiphanies are like spicy foods: coming back, coming back.

Paula Baderman had a smoker’s voice, but she sounded young and spirited enough. She came to the phone quickly when I called.

“Mr. Leigh,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad we could get together, even if it is over the phone. I just wanted to touch bases with you. You know of course that I love the book.”

“So I understand,” I said.

She paused, leaving a blank between us, then said, “How long did it take you to write it?”

“It took me just a little over a week.”

The quality of her next silence was clear to me. She was surprised, if not put off by my diction, being not at all what she expected. I was not going to put on an act for her.

“A week. Imagine that.”

‘Are there any changes you’d like me to make?”

“Not really. In fact, I think it’s about as perfect a book as I’ve seen in a long while. But I just want to get to know you right now. If you don’t mind my asking, what were you in prison for?”

“I mind your asking.”

My abruptness was apparently pleasing to her, if not downright exciting. I detected a change in her breathing. “Certainly, I don’t mean to pry.”

“Did you read a lot in prison?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well,” she said. “We’re hoping for a spring pub date. I think this is just perfect for summer reading.”

“Yes, white people on the beach will get a big kick out of it.”

That sent walking fingers up her spine and if I had been in her office (looking the part), she would have been tearing off her blouse and crawling across her desk toward me, perhaps not literally, but at least literarily.

“Do you think I might take your number in case I have any further questions?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so. You just tell Yul that you’d like to speak with me and I’ll call you. Everything will work better like that.”

“Well, okay. Oh, and Stagg? May I call you Stagg?”

“You may.”

“Stagg, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Baderman.” I hung up before she insisted that I call her by her first name.

The first half of the advance arrived. I found Mother sitting in the living room listening to Mahler. My father had always loved Mahler, but even as a child I found it heavy and overwrought. She was listening to the
Kindertotenlieder
and looking near tears. I was smiling.

“Why are you so happy, Monksie?”

“Just got paid for a new book.”

“A new book? I can’t wait to read it.”

“Yes, you can,” I said. “But anyway. I’m taking you on a trip. Anywhere you’d like to go.” I wanted to take her on a vacation while she could still enjoy it, while she could still remember who I was and who she was and what a fork was for. “Where would you like me to take you?”

“Oh, Monksie, you know how I’ve always been about traveling. You decide. I’ll be happy with wherever you pick.”

“Detroit,” I said.

The expression that crawled over and sat on her face was precious and let me know that she was no vegetable yet.

“Just joking,” I said.

“I should say.”

“Well, it’s summer, so what do you say we head north. How does Martha’s Vineyard sound?”

“Why don’t we go open the beach house,” she said.

It wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but the idea was perfect. The house had sat empty now for three years. Lisa had used it with her ex-husband, but never returned after the divorce. “That sounds good,” I said. “We’ll take Lorraine and we’ll leave tomorrow. How’s tomorrow?” “Fine, Monksie.”

Yul: What did you say to her?

Me: What do you mean?

Yul: She’s more gung-ho than ever.

Me: I don’t know why that would be.

Yul: They’re going to take out a full page ad in the
New York Times
and the Washington Post.

Me: You’re kidding me.

Yul: She wanted me to ask if Stagg will do a couple of talk shows. Morning network stuff.

Me: Laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh.

I called the number Bill gave me and a man answered. He seemed cool until I identified myself as the brother, and then he, Adam, was quite pleasant and told me more about Bill’s problems than I believe Bill would have wanted me to know.