It's. Nice. Outside. (4 page)

“Are you driving with Ethan?”

“Yes.”

“Are you alone with him?”

“No. I'm with Stinky, Red, and Grandpa Bear. We're splitting the gas.”

“I can't believe you still have those three things.”

“Funny, just this morning, Stinky said the same thing about you, Karen, and Ethan.”

Mindy didn't hesitate. “Put Stinky on. I want to talk to that bear.”

“Yeah, baby!” I said in Stinky Bear's voice. “What's up, Mindy?”

“What's up, Stinky Bear? How's Ethan doing?”

“He's doing good, real good.”

“What do today, Stinky Bear?” Mindy asked.

“Well, we got in late to the hotel, and we slept very late, all the way to seven.…”

I paused and held the phone out so Ethan could yell, “O'clock!”

“And then we went to breakfast and Ethan was good and the waitress gave us three…”

“Pickles!” Ethan said.

“Wow,” Mindy said. “Can I have one?”

“Yes! Ma'am!” Ethan said.

“Hey, Mindy,” Stinky Bear said, “me and your father watched a brilliant clip of you last night.”

“Which one? They're all brilliant.”

“The one of you wetting your pants. You should be very, very proud. I'm sure all your fellow Princeton alums are very proud too!”

“My whole purpose in life is to make everyone proud, Stinky Bear. That's the reason I get up in the morning.”

“You don't have to make everyone proud, Mindy, just your dad.”

“Hey, Stinky, how's Red Bear's drinking going?”

“Wonderful, baby! Thanks for asking!”

“And how's my dad's drinking going?”

I sat up high. “What's that supposed to mean?” I asked this in my John Nichols voice.

“Pretty early for Stinky Bear and Princeton jokes.”

“It's not that early. Besides, I do lots of matinees. And I haven't had a drink today.”

“I hope not. It's ten thirty.”

“I only have two drinks a day.”

“I've seen the size of your drinks, Dad. They're like Big Gulps.”

Ethan grabbed the phone. “What. Eat. Today?” he asked.

“I had a bagel, Ethan. What did you eat today?”

“Pickle. Poo. Poo.”

“Sounds like Dad is feeding you right!”

I grabbed the phone back from Ethan. He reached over and tried to pinch me.

“Don't pinch me,” I said firmly. “Don't. Hey, listen,” I said to Mindy. “When are you getting there?”

Mindy didn't say anything.

“Mindy? Hello?”

“I don't think I'm going, Dad.”

“Me. Talk!” Ethan yelled. He lunged for the phone.

I jumped off the bed and quickly walked over to the window. “Please don't start that again, Mindy. Please. We're a family. She's your sister. You only have one. Please. Come on.”

“She doesn't care if I go or not.”

“That is not true. She cares, believe me. She cares. Please let me hear you say you're coming. Let me hear you say it.”

“You're coming,” Mindy said.

“Mindy?”

“I'm coming,” she said quietly.

“Thank you. Because I don't need any more problems.” Right after I said that, I regretted it. This had been a common refrain in our house, a phrase I had seemingly uttered every day of my life since Ethan was born. “Thank you for being cooperative,” I said.

“Cooperative,” Mindy muttered.

“Me. Talk!”

“You said you'd be there tomorrow. They're expecting you tomorrow.”

“God.”

Ethan got out of bed and made another run at the phone. “I gotta go. Say good-bye to him. He's standing right here. Say good-bye. I need to go.”

I held the phone close to Ethan's ear and heard Mindy say, “Bye, Ethan.”

“Bye! Mindy!” He jumped up and down.

“Wait? Dad?”

“What?”

“Why are your driving? You can't spend all day with him alone. No one can.”

“I have him all the time at home.”

“You have him for maybe two, three hours. Not all day. I said I would come out there and drive with you. Or you should have taken someone. One of the cousins. Or Aunty or Uncle Sal.”

“Uncle Sal. Right. I can take less of Uncle Sal than I can of Ethan.”

“Uncle Sal is great.”

“Right. He's perfect. I keep forgetting that.”

Ethan made yet another attempt at the phone, so I moved closer to the window. “Listen, I have to go. He's about to fall apart. We'll talk later.”

“Bye, Daddy-o.”

I closed the phone and when I did, Ethan pinched me on the arm. Hard.

*   *   *

After Grandpa Bear had a massive heart attack training for
Dancing with the Bears
; and after Stinky Bear successfully revived him by frantically pounding on his chest (“Hang on, Grandpa, you hang on now!”); and after Red Bear attended her very first AA meeting (“Hello, my name is Red Bear, and I'm an alcoholic”—other two bears: “Hello, Red Bear!”); and after we went swimming in the completely empty and kind-of-cold hotel pool where I reenacted several famous catches in sports history with an orange Nerf football (Dwight Clark, Willie Mays, Santonio Holmes); and after we went back to the very same Waffle House for lunch where the very same waitress served us but, for reasons known only to her, failed to acknowledge this fact until I casually brought it to her attention; and after we went for a nostalgic drive through campus, during which I pointed out various places of historical and academic interest (“I kissed a girl there once; I threw up there once”); we drove over to the State Farm Center, which used to be called Assembly Hall when I played there.

“Still there,” I said.

The hall is a massive, flying saucer of a building located on the southwest side of the school in what had once been, no doubt, a stark field. Illinois is the Prairie State, and most of it is as flat as a pancake, especially the campus of its flagship university. Consequently, winter winds in Champaign were brutal; they came howling out of the western plains in January and February with malicious intent, and there was nothing to break them, except, maybe Assembly Hall.

“Ethan, see that?” I lowered the windows and turned off the van. The parking lot was empty, and the afternoon was turning hot. “That's where they play basketball. Illini hoops.”

“Hoops! Go Illini!”

“Right, hoops.”

“Me. Play.”

“Not today.”

“Yes. Ma'am.”

“No, ma'am.”

I pointed at the hall. “Daddy used to play there. I played in twenty games in three years. I scored a total of fifty-eight points, got three rebounds, had four assists, and committed one foul on a guy from Michigan. He made both his free throws because they were in the bonus.”

Ethan began to pick at his fingernails.

“In high school I was All-Conference first team, All-State Honorable Mention. I got scholarship offers from the University of Toledo, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Loyola of Chicago. But I decided to walk on here. I wanted to play at Illinois. Big Ten, big stage.”

“Go. Now.”

“I quit my senior year. Coach Hensen persuaded me, said I wasn't going to see the floor anymore. Robby Kleinschmidt was transferring in. He was very nice about it though. He offered me a Coke afterward. ‘Hey, John, would you like a Coke?' he said. He was a nice guy.”

“I. Starving.”

“I should have stayed anyway. Finished what I started.”

“Pee-pee.”

“Or maybe I should have gone to one of those smaller schools. Probably Loyola. I would have played a lot, really learned the game. Who knows what could have happened? Maybe I could have played in Europe afterward. Basketball, that was my passion. I should have stayed in the sport somehow, found a way to stay involved. Down deep I think I really wanted to be a coach, not a teacher.”

“Do. Now?”

“A coach. But they make even less than teachers. I probably could have done both, though. Maybe taught driver's ed. I'm an excellent driver.”

I sat and studied the hall, its metallic, silver roof shimmering in the sun. At one time that building was the center of my universe.

“I've been gone for more than thirty years, you believe that? Thirty years.”

“Pee-pee.”

I sat and continued to stare out the window, my obligation to feel reflective, to experience an epiphany, strong. It had been years since I had seen Assembly Hall; it might be years before I saw it again, if ever.

“It goes quick, dude-man. It goes quick. I think about everything's that's happened since I left. Everything.”

“Eat.”

I turned toward Ethan. “Hey, let me ask you something since, you know, we're just talking here: what do you think of me? Man to man. I can handle it. Tell me the truth. Am I a good guy, or am I full of shit?”

Ethan continued to pick at his nails.

“What's that? Didn't hear you.”

“Poo-poo,” he said softly.

I was a little stunned at the appropriateness of this response. “Wow. Well, you certainly tell it like it is.”

I gave the hall one last long look, then started the van. But as I was pulling out of the lot, still immersed in memories and thought, Ethan did something he almost never did—he reached over and briefly put his hand on top of mine.

 

3

Mary called me at the Marriott Courtyard just outside of Indianapolis, at six the next morning.

“Where are you now?”

Even in the happiest times, the hand-holding in public, sex in the shower, notes-in-lunchbox years, Mary never said, “Good morning, good night, good-bye.” Never called just to ask, “How are you, how was your day, how's it hanging?” Never called me “babe” or “honey.” (Note: she was maybe the only woman on earth who didn't like foreplay before sex. “In me or off me” was her motto.) This heat-seeking missile approach to life, this ability to get right to the heart of things, was honed at a city law school, then perfected during years working in a windowless office as an assistant state's attorney, dealing, I suspect, with other foreplay-hating, I-don't-have-time-for-bullshit non-bullshitters.

“Good morning,” I whispered.

“Where are you?”

“Where are you?” I countered.

“I'm here.”

“Charleston?”

“Got here yesterday. Where are you?”

“Indianapolis, Indiana.” I tried to mumble that.

“Indianapolis? That's it? That's not far!”

“Oh, it's farther than you think.”

“I know where Indianapolis is. This is your daughter's wedding. Her
wedding
,
John
. We have a rehearsal dinner on Friday.
Friday
,
John.
”

“We'll be fine. He's doing well. I don't want to push it.”

“This isn't right.”

“I'm sorry, but what isn't right?”

“My being here while you're out on the road, doing whatever you're doing, joyriding around the country.”

“Joyriding. I'm hardly joyriding, Mary.”

“You're not fooling me,” she said. “I know what you're really doing.”

I swallowed hard, glanced over at Ethan in the bed next to me. “What are you talking about?”

“You're finally taking your big whatever, your book trip, your
Blue Road
thing.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“The one you always talked about. You know, you could have taken that trip anytime, but you decided to take it now, just when everyone needs you. Your daughter is getting married, married, and you're hiding behind Ethan.”

“I think I have the hardest job. Being with him is hard. Everything else is easy. You know that.”

“For your information, I don't have it easy. There are a million things to do here. Plus, I think something's going on with Karen and Roger.”

I paused, sat up. “What's going on? What do you mean? Is there a problem?”

“Just get here.”

“What's wrong?”

“I'm not sure yet. I can't talk now.”

She hung up.

I put the phone down and was about to begin a solid mulling over of things, when it buzzed again. I reached for it. For the second time that morning, I heard Mary's voice. She started in before I could say a word.

“He's impossible. You can't rely on him. He does whatever he wants whenever he wants. He's just so … I need you down here right away. I'm tired of everything.” At first I assumed she was referring to Roger—she was never a fan—or possibly Sal. But when she said, “Mindy, are you there? Mindy? Hello? Are you there?” I realized who the object of her affection was. Ethan was constantly playing with our phones; consequently, our redial numbers were always messed up.

“Good-bye, Mary.” I hit end and again looked over at Ethan, who, thankfully, was still asleep. I propped up my pillows; apparently, I was done sleeping, and I started in on an intense staring of the ceiling.

“Mary, Mary, sweet contrary,” I whispered.

My phone buzzed yet again, interrupting my musing. I scrambled for it, hoping it was my ex. But it wasn't my ex, at least not the ex I was still in love with. It was, shockingly, lovely Rita. I didn't answer.

*   *   *

If asked, I prefer philanderer to adulterer. Adulterer is very you-are-going-to-hell-old-school, very Ten Commandment-ish. Philanderer is more PC. It sounds playful, connotes harmless rolls in the hay. People seem to forgive philanderers, or at least put up with them. Bill Clinton was/is a philanderer, and he's still pretty popular. People idolize JFK. Other than possibly someone on FOX News, no one calls Clinton and Kennedy adulterers. They just fooled around. Hey, some presidents golfed.

(Note: I really wasn't a full-fledged philanderer. In more than thirty years of marriage, I only stepped out with one woman, lovely Rita, and it didn't last long. Then I came to my senses, confessed all, begged forgiveness, had a bar of soap thrown at my head, had a bar of soap hit me in the head, and was told to move out. Nine months later I was a divorced fifty-five-year-old man, living alone, trying to decide whether to have Dominos for lunch, and mac and cheese for dinner, or mac and cheese for lunch, and Dominos for dinner.)