Nobody's Family is Going to Change (5 page)

Emma felt slightly ill. She looked at the medical book and saw that there was a piece of paper marking a place. Turning to that place, she read what her father had evidently been reading, a passage entitled
Obstruction,
and felt even worse.

It became important to see if the man operated on was a black man. He was.

“Typical,” Emma said aloud. “If it had been a black woman, they would have left fourteen scalpels and a coat hanger inside.”

She put everything back into the stack neatly and leaned back into the chair.

Musing, she reviewed things she had heard her father say about doctors. Sifting through various comments, she realized that even though there had been a lot of grumbling, her father seemed to have a grudging respect. Even when the doctor was a woman?

Yes! She remembered now. A friend of her mother's was a doctor. She had come to visit a couple of times. Yes! Her father had seemed afraid of this woman.

Emma felt a surge of greatness. Oh, to make her father afraid. What a feeling that would be. Not only to impress him but to have him actually afraid of her, Emma!

She sat up abruptly and grabbed the medical book. Deciding that there was something bothering her about the small mole on her left ear which had been there since birth, she looked up moles in the index. She found: Nevi (Moles, Birthmarks). Moles vary in color from yellow-brown to black. [Just like us darkies, thought Emma.] They may be small or large, flat or raised, smooth, hairy [hairy!] or verrucous [what?], and have a broad or pedunculated base. [I'm going to tell Willie he has a pedunculated base.]

Emma stopped reading. She went off into a dream. She
was in medical school. The men made fun of her, but she persisted. She was a drudge about her studies, she made all A's. She was then a resident. Finally, she was a doctor. She sat behind her white desk, in her white office, in a white lab coat. She pushed the buzzer for her secretary to send in her first patient, her very first patient. The door opened and in walked her father.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” (Emma, well-known and respected young New York doctor.)

“Doctor, it's this enormous mole—”

“Ah, yes, no doubt verrucous”—nods head wisely—“and probably having a pedunculated base. Take off your clothes.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

Too late, Emma realized that reality was presenting itself to her in the form of her real father standing in his real doorway to his real office after she, in his real swivel chair, had just said to him, “Take off your clothes,” like an ass.

“Hi, Dad.” She jumped up and started for the door like a runaway horse. Only casualness could save her now, casualness and quickness—the quick and the dead.

“Oh, no, you don't! What did that mean?”

She wasn't quick enough, so she wished she were dead.

“Sir?” All innocence now. Try to make him think he's nuts. Last-ditch-stand time.

“What were you doing in here?”

“Sir?”

“What did you mean by saying to me, ‘Take off your clothes'?”

“Sir?”

A certain stillness in her father signified the change in him that she feared the most, the switch from father to prosecuting attorney.

His eyes became darker, flatter, colder. “You stated as I entered the room, stated clearly, ‘Take off your clothes,' did you not?”

“I did.” Hopeless.

“To what purpose did you state this?”

“I was a doctor.” No hope except for truth.

“Make yourself clear.” Was there a hint, the lightest touch of a feather brush of fear in his eyes?

“I was pretending I was a doctor.”

His grip on her arm relaxed. He swung from district attorney back into father quicker than Wolf Man. He smiled.

“Daydreaming?”

“Yes.” What a baby thought, what a baby word, day-dreams; but it worked. It got her off the hook, and today the hook hurt more than most days.

“I'm thinking of becoming a doctor.” She said it flatly because she couldn't help herself. Something inside her said it when she had planned to say nothing.

“Oh?” Touch of the feather again, the white feather? He had been moving toward his desk and now he looked back at her, a large, thickset black man with a weary face. “I forgot some papers,” he said, opening a drawer.

“Yes.” She said it too loudly. Even more loudly she said, “I'm
going
to be a doctor!” She looked him hard in the eyes and went out, slamming the door in his face.

On the way to her room, her knees shaking from delayed fear, she wondered at her own courage and wondered even more why the whole thing had taken courage and wondered even more than that at what in the world she was doing or saying. She didn't want to be a doctor. Blech. Touch people. Ick.

She wanted to change. She opened the door to her room. She relaxed, seeing the familiar mess. She wanted to change, but there must be some other way.

The next night, Emma sat contemplating the infinite boredom of family dinners. Martha was serving Mrs. Sheridan the green beans. Mr. Sheridan was cutting his steak left-handed in that curious roundabout way of his. Willie was pushing his food around, trying to hide it under his knife, separating it to make his plate look empty when, in reality, he had eaten nothing.

For a moment it seemed to Emma they were caught in a time tunnel. She saw them reeling through space, Willie pushing his food, her father cutting, her mother taking green beans, and herself looking sullenly at them, all of it happening endlessly, never going forward, never going back, just hurtling on forever through parting stars.

“No, thank you,” said Willie to Martha.

“Finish the beans on your plate,” said Mrs. Sheridan.

“Some dancer you'll be,” said Martha. “If you don't eat, you'll be too weak to stand up, let alone dance.”

“He's outgrown that, anyway,” said Mr. Sheridan, taking an enormous second helping of beans. “People outgrow things, don't they? Isn't that right, Willie?”

Willie kept pushing, looking down and saying nothing.

“How was it downtown today, dear?” Mrs. Sheridan hurried to cover Willie's silence.

The talk droned on over Emma's head as she thought about Willie. Rotten little weasel—his mother protecting him all the time. Doesn't have the guts God gave a banana peel.

“Dad?” Willie looked at his father.

“Don't interrupt,” said his father. He was getting to the best part of his story, the part where he won the case.

“Dad, I want to go away to summer stock.”

“You want to what?”

“Go away to summer stock.” Willie seemed to be holding his breath.

“What's the kid talking about?” Mr. Sheridan turned helplessly to his wife.

“Summer theater. He wants to try being a dancer for one summer.” Mrs. Sheridan looked as if she'd swallowed a fork. “Dipsey knows a theater that's doing
Oliver
this summer and they need a lot of children for that.”

“Dipsey? What's that no-count got to do with this?”

“Dipsey's a great dancer!” Willie said excitedly. “He's not no-count. He works all the time. He's teaching me and he says I'm good enough right now to work with him!”

“Out of the question.” Mr. Sheridan returned to his food.

“He'd be there with me, Dad. I could make money!”

“Don't even think about it.”

“He says I could make two or three hundred dollars.”

“I don't want to hear any more about it.”

“I'd give you the money, Dad.”

Mr. Sheridan put down his fork. He looked right into Willie's eyes.

“He doesn't mean anything bad, William.”

Mr. Sheridan put his napkin on the table. He leaned back, staring at Willie as though he'd never seen him before. “Just what kind of a guy do you think I am? Look at me, son. What kind of a man you think your father is? You think I'd send you out to work at seven years old and
take the money?
”

“No, sir.” Willie was examining his belt buckle.

“You think I'd send a child out to work so I could live off him? You don't think much of me, do you?”

“William, he's not thinking anything like that.”

“I think it's time we
found out
what he's thinking. He's making plans right and left and—”

Mr. Sheridan was interrupted by Martha's entrance. She passed hot rolls and they all shut up while she was in the room. This always irritated Emma. Martha probably heard
every word in the kitchen, so why couldn't they just keep talking? They sat, instead, in phony silence, each in turn saying “No, thank you,” until it was Emma's turn and she took three. Nobody noticed.

“I think what Willie wants to do in life should be given some consideration,” said Mrs. Sheridan gently. Willie's eyes were wild with hope.

“Wants to do in life? That's absurd. He's seven years old.” Mr. Sheridan turned to Willie. “You want to work? If you want to work, why don't you sell newspapers?”

“Or swimming pools,” said Emma.

Everyone looked at her in astonishment. “There's a lot of money to be made selling pools. I read it in the Sunday paper.”

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” said Mrs. Sheridan absently. They all turned away again. She ate another roll.

“Just what is it you want to do?” asked Mr. Sheridan.

“I want to be a dancer.” Willie was so quiet and scared they could hardly hear him.

“Son.” Mr. Sheridan pushed back his chair, crossed his legs, and lit a cigar. “I want to tell you something and I want you to listen. There are many jobs in this world and some are good, decent jobs for good, decent men to have. Others are jobs that aren't even to be thought about. Now, these people who spend their lives running around a stage are just trash. You don't want to be trash, do you?”

Mrs. Sheridan looked outraged. “William! My father wasn't—

“I'm not talking about your father. Your father came along there in the Depression where a black man couldn't get a decent job. Singing and dancing were all they let him do. Everything's entirely different now. What do you think I work myself to death for? My kid's got every chance in the world. He doesn't have to run around dancing, making a fool of himself, laughing and scratching to make honkies laugh. He's got the whole world ahead of him. He's going to a private school. He's going to college. He doesn't
need
to do the kinds of things your father did.”

“But he wants to. He's like my father. He's just like Dipsey when Dipsey was small. Don't you think that what he wants to do ought to be given some consideration?”

“He's seven years old, woman. He doesn't know his left ear from his right. What does what
he
want got to do with it? Four years ago he wanted to be a rabbit.”

“That's different!” Willie looked angry. “I know now what I want. And I'm going to get it, too!”

“You shut up, Willie. You don't talk like that to your father, not now, not ever, do you talk to me like that. You understand? You've got other people to consider besides yourself. You've got to think of all the people who have bled and died so other people don't look at you and see nothing but a minstrel show. You want to take all that and throw it in their faces and say, ‘Look at me, yassur, boss, you right, I ain't good for nothing but singing and dancing and picking cotton'?”

“William, really!”

“I think that's true,” said Emma. Nobody had asked her and nobody paid any attention to her. She ate another roll.

“I don't care about them!” Willie jumped up. “I only care about one thing.” He started running. “I'm going to do it, too!” His voice came back at them from down the hall.

Mr. Sheridan blew a large puff of smoke. His big face looked more like a walrus than ever.

“He doesn't know anything about all that.” Mrs. Sheridan was looking at her husband with something like pity.

“How much that Dipsey been coming round here?”

“If you're finished, Emma, you may be excused.” Mrs. Sheridan smiled at Emma.

“There's chocolate mousse,” said Emma.

“He coming round here every day?” Mr. Sheridan blew more smoke.

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “He's given Willie a few lessons, that's all. He's just trying to help.”

“Well, tell him to stop coming round.” More smoke.

“I can't do that. It would break Willie's heart.”

“He's giving the child ideas. Can't you see that? We don't need him round here filling the kid full of fancy thoughts.” Mr. Sheridan was puffing so hard there were clouds of smoke all over the dining room.

“Look, William. I can see your point about summer stock. I think he's too young for that too, but I don't see why he has to cut out dancing altogether, and I don't agree with you about people in show business being trash. I should
think you'd think about my father being in show business for forty years before you say anything like that.”