Other Plans (26 page)

No one at school knew about his father. That's the way he wanted it. He knew his secret was safe. He hugged it to him like a lump in his chest. And began to check himself for signs of cancer. Oh, didn't he know them all. Hadn't he read, plenty of times, lists of the telltale signs. Nightly he checked himself for sores or cuts that didn't heal. Moles that changed color or shape. Change in bowel movements. He overlooked nothing.

What will we do without him? Who would chew him out, keep him in line? Crack the whip, tell him to shape up, grow up, take on responsibility? He decided he might have to quit school, go to work to support his mother and Leslie. Forget college. College cost a bundle. There'd be no money for college. He felt a pang, had sort of been looking forward to it. Remembering the music and laughter always behind Leslie when they talked on the telephone, he regretted having to give that up. Football games, house parties. Orgies. He'd heard there were plenty of orgies at house parties. One way or another, it looked as if he might never get to go to an orgy.

He was afraid; afraid for himself, what he would do without his father, what they would all do. Afraid for his father, because death was something to fear, he thought. Was it nothing, or was it grand and gentle, with a benevolent God waiting just over the line, hand out, welcoming smile on His face, ready to lead the newly dead to a paradise that could only be dreamed of. Or was death just the end of everything. Or a beginning. His head swam with the thoughts of death it entertained. Was his father afraid? And, if he was, would he speak of his fear to alleviate it?

Would his father be in pain? Would he take drugs to lessen the pain? Would he, if the pain grew too severe, contemplate suicide? No. That was one thing his father would not do. Follow through what you've started was his father's creed. You've got to follow through, John. That's the important thing. Finish what you start.

Unable to concentrate, he closed his eyes without relinquishing his book, although he'd never found
Moby Dick
so tedious. He thought about dying, what it meant to the person who dies, and the people who were left behind. He wondered how Grandy felt about his own son leaving him, an old man, behind. It was all backwards. Did Grandy feel any small triumph about hanging in there at seventy-three, or did he feel only the sorrow that he was going to have to see his child die soon?

Grandy had called his mother brave. How odd. He'd never thought of her that way. Probably Leslie was brave, too, or would be. The only coward in the bunch was him. He'd turn out to be a son that everyone would be ashamed of, when what he wanted most was for his father to be proud of him. He tried to think of the last time that had happened and drew a blank. Probably his father had never been proud of him. What if his father died without ever once having been proud of his only son?

There were worse things. Yet at the moment he couldn't think of any.

22

“John! John Hollander!” Mrs. Arthur's ratchety voice made the hairs inside his nose tremble. “Come back to us, John. Join the crowd.” Appreciative laughter from one or two sycophants stirred her curls, brought a blush to her cheek. She tilted her head to one side, looking at him like a coquette. If you knew how you looked when you do that, he thought, you wouldn't.

“Sorry,” he said, unsure of what he was sorry for.

“We're reading
Macbeth
and you are to take the part of Lady Macbeth, John.” Inspired casting, that. “Please pull yourself together. One has the feeling your head is not on straight this morning, John.”

Mrs. Arthur made the mistake he'd discovered many middle-aged people made. She believed that by using current idiom, keeping abreast of terms young people used these days, she appeared younger, more au courant. In his eyes it only made her appear silly.

He didn't feel up to being Lady Macbeth today. Or anybody else, for that matter. Not even himself. He wanted to hide, crawl inside some warm and secret place, take a long nap there and wake refreshed. A long, forgetting nap, which would cleanse him, make his father well.

“All right, boys. Places, please.” Mrs. Arthur waved her arms in the manner of an orchestra conductor. “
Macbeth
!” she trilled. “Act one, scene seven, if you will, please.”

Macbeth was Larry Dunne, who was possessed of a strangely nasal voice, even when he didn't have a cold, which he now did. “If we should fail …” Macbeth said through his stopped-up nose.

“Ready, Lady Macbeth, please.” Mrs. Arthur sent him a piercing, yet winsome glance.

He found his place. “We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail!”

At the word “screw” there was an outburst of laughter.

“Boys! Please!” Mrs. Arthur clapped her hands together smartly. “Come to order!”

The more frantic she became, the more chaos reigned. He put down his book, went over to the door, and let himself out into the quiet hall. It would be some time before order prevailed and Mrs. Arthur missed him.

He leaned against the wall, wondering if he should just cut for home and let the demerits fall where they may. Maybe they thought he'd meant to be funny. He had the reputation of playing the clown, and playing it to the last row in the balcony. Maybe they thought that he had doctored Shakespeare's lines.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place,” he said aloud.

“Hey, what's going on?” It was Keith, coming toward him.

John ran his hand across his face, finding that his eyes were moist. “Nothing much. It just got too much in there.” He gestured toward Mrs. Arthur's room. “She made me Lady Macbeth for the day, and I wasn't up for it. That's all.” Hardly a reason for crying, but it was the best he could do on such short notice.

“Well, let's split, then,” Keith said. “Let's get on with the cleanup job. We can start a little early. You know, work-study program. We've got a lot to do.”

So they left. They hitched to Keith's apartment, catching a ride in a Ford pickup on the first try. When the driver saw their ties and jackets, he tried to charge them for the gas. Keith turned out his pockets to prove they were broke, and the man's eyes turned small and hostile. He jammed on his brakes and said, “Out,” having driven them a good part of the way. “Little bastards,” they heard him muttering as he drove off.

Keith's kitchen had a stale smell. Several bulging plastic garbage bags leaned tiredly together, holding one another upright in one corner. Dirty dishes crowded the sink, and an open container of heavy cream stood congealing nicely on the counter.

“Don't look too closely at anything,” Keith warned. “I've been leading a bachelor existence since she did a number on herself and, believe me, bachelorhood ain't what it's cracked up to be. Want something to drink? Water? Orange juice? Maybe even ginger ale, if I've got any.”

“What do I drink it out of, my hands?” he said. They opened the refrigerator and peered in at its dismal contents. “What's this?” Gingerly, he poked at something that resembled a pygmy's head.

“Half a lemon?” Keith guessed. “How about some cottage cheese?” Keith opened the plastic container and sniffed. “Over the hill,” he said, chucking it in the direction of the garbage bags. “I know. I just bought some frozen fish sticks and frozen french fries. They're dinner. You think it's too early for dinner?”

“That's okay,” he said hastily. “Let's do the cleanup first. I came to work, I want to work. And baby, it looks like I came to the right place.” The place looked as if it had been trashed by professionals. There were cigarette burns on the tables, one on the arm of the couch. Empty glasses lolled about, under the chairs, one under the TV set. A pair of dusty shoes with rundown heels sat on the thick-piled carpet, which bore several large stains. A layer of dust covered every surface, even the glass-topped coffee table and the copies of
Architectural Digest
and
Town and Country
, which, oddly enough, were neatly arranged, as if lined up in a doctor's office, titles showing.

“How about if we open some windows?” he suggested. It was far from balmy outside, but a little fresh air seemed indicated. “Then we can start with changing the sheets, maybe clean the bathroom.” It had been his experience that fresh sheets and a clean bathroom perked up a place considerably.

“We have a cleaning lady,” Keith said, looking around, but unable to find any sign of her touch. “I guess she hasn't been here for a while. Probably because my mother ran out of funds. We only have her come in when we're in the chips. I guess we better start by getting out the rags and stuff.” They foraged under the kitchen sink and came up with some soap powder and a scrub bucket. And a large bag of rags. “She collects rags,” Keith said. “The vacuum's in her closet. I'll get it.”

He followed Keith into Mrs. Madigan's room. He had never been in it, and he was curious. If a stranger walked in here, would he get any idea of the person who lived here? The bed was enormous, stretching almost the width of the room. There were masses of little pillows strewn on it, pillows that seemed to serve no purpose. The spread and the headboard were covered in matching fabric. The same fabric covered a small chair that sat in front of the dressing table. Its glass top was laden with bottles of perfume, bottles of moisturizer, bottles of what he called youthifiers. Keith opened his mother's closet and a passel of dresses and coats seemed to leap out.

“It's in here somewhere.” Keith went deep into the mass of clothes. The floor of the closet was covered with the same bright green carpet as the rest of the room. He thought that a nice touch. Luxurious, kind of. Keith backed out, dragging the vacuum.

They filled the bucket with hot water and soap powder. “I'll do the bathroom,” he said. “I'm an expert on bathrooms. How about some rags?”

“Here,” Keith said, handing him the whole bag. “Take your pick.”

“Hey,” he said, rummaging through, trying to find one the right size. A piece of towel was good. “This looks like a perfectly good blouse, shirt, whatever you call it.” He held it up. It was pink, with an alligator on its front. “Nothing wrong with this. Maybe it got in here by mistake.”

“That's hers,” Keith said. “It might have a spot on it, or a cigarette burn, maybe. She puts things away when she's on the sauce, she doesn't know what she's doing. Check it out. If nothing's wrong with it, use another one.”

He could find nothing except a small hole under one arm. “Should I use it?” he asked. Keith shrugged. “Might as well. She's not much on the mending bit.”

They heard a knock at the door. Keith went to answer it.

“Mrs. Madigan home?” asked a small, squint-eyed man in a brown suit.

“No,” Keith said. “Can I help you?”

The man flashed his moist teeth in a joyless smile. “Not unless you got two months' rent stashed away, bud. Payable now.”

“She's in the hospital,” Keith said.

“Yeah?” The man's eyebrows expressed disbelief. “Sorry to hear that. But my problem is, the rent's due. Overdue, I should say. When's she coming home?”

“I'm not sure. How much do we owe?”

The man extended a folded piece of paper. “It's all down there. Two months, plus a third, so's we don't have to go through this again next month. My time's valuable, ya know. It takes a lot of time, collecting rents that shoulda been paid already. I don't enjoy it, believe you me.” The man moved around inside his brown suit, which had been meant for a much larger person. “If she don't pay up in a week's time, then it's out.” He jerked a stubby thumb over his shoulder, indicating where out was.

Keith took the paper, shut the door, and said, “Cripes.”

From the bathroom, John called out, “One thing about this joint is, it's a real challenge. Have no fear. I'll have it looking like the Waldorf in jig time. This tub hasn't been scrubbed out in a month, I bet. The thing I hate about cleaning bathrooms is all the hair,” he said.

Keith didn't answer. “I oughta be cutting down trees,” John hollered. “Or splitting wood. What kind of job is this for a man. Or a woman, for that matter.”

The telephone rang. As John scrubbed, he heard Keith say, “Oh, hi, Dad.” Then silence. “Yeah, well, Mom's in the hospital. Maybe tomorrow. The doc says he's not putting her away again. She won't go, anyway.” Another silence. “No, I don't think so. I can't leave her, thanks anyway. Yeah, okay. Sure. Good-bye.”

He ran water into the tub, watched it drain out, then laid his head on the hard cold edge of the tub.

“You know what he wanted?” Keith stood at the bathroom door.

He looked at Keith's feet and thought, I don't want to know what he wanted. Screw him. Shakespeare, act 1, scene 23. Untitled drama. Just screw him.

“He's house-sitting in the Berkshires for the summer. Some faggy friend pays him to skim the bugs out of the swimming pool and chop up the Beluga for the dogs. He wants me to come spend the summer with him. You know what he said when I told him about my mother?” John stayed where he was, kneeling on Keith's bathroom floor, knowing that Keith was going to tell him without being prompted.

“He said, why didn't she marry a nice Jewish psychiatrist and save herself a bundle.”

John jostled the bucket, sending soapy water over the floor, over his nice clean bathtub. He raised his head to look at Keith, who was about to recite more atrocities he didn't want to hear.

“What's bugging you?” Keith said.

He shook his head, unable to speak.

“That bad, huh?” Keith flipped down the lid of the toilet seat and sat on it.

“Shoot. Maybe I can be of assistance,” Keith said jauntily.

“My father's dying,” he said.

Keith blinked once or twice and said, softly, “Shit.”