Part 23 (1/2)

The three of us sit at the old kitchen table. The wooden chairs have gone rickety with the years, the same chairs we sat on when my mother was alive, and fighting the good fight for my soul.

My father has kept the walls freshly painted and the house is surprisingly clean, but all the furniture and appliances are the same stuff I grew up with. This tiny, boxy house is like a well-kept museum, with an eighty-year-old curator.

He's taken three longneck bottles of Rheingold beer from the refrigerator, and we all drink straight from the bottle. n.o.body proposes a toast. My father wipes foam from his lips with the back of his hand and says to Jake, ”Still got that double last name going?”

”Hey, Dad-”

”I'm just asking! I'm not allowed to ask?”

Jake nods and says, ”My last name is Perez-Sullivan.”

My old man winces, quite theatrically. ”It's a h.e.l.l of a mess.”

”Why do you say that, Danny?”

”Well, Jacob-do they call you Jacob?”

”I prefer Jake.”

”Good! Well, Jake, look at it this way. You've got two last names, right? Now let's say you fall in love with a girl whose feminist mother also refused to surrender her her last name. You marry, you have a kid, and that kid's got last name. You marry, you have a kid, and that kid's got four four last names. I mean, where does it end? A generation later it's last names. I mean, where does it end? A generation later it's eight eight last names, then last names, then sixteen. sixteen. Christ Almighty, what the h.e.l.l's the phone book gonna look like fifty years from now? It'll be two feet thick!” Christ Almighty, what the h.e.l.l's the phone book gonna look like fifty years from now? It'll be two feet thick!”

I duck my face so Jake can't see me smiling, but it doesn't matter. He's actually laughing out loud over his grandfather's perceptions.

”Good point you got there, Danny.”

”Well, it's just common sense, isn't it? At some point you gotta stand in front of the bulls.h.i.+t wagon, put your hands up and say, 'Enough!'”

He delivers this rant to Jake, but of course it's intended for my ears. I never liked the fact that my kid had two last names, but like so many fathers of my time I let it slide, let the bulls.h.i.+t wagon run right over me.

Jake gets to his feet. ”Danny,” he says, ”is it okay if I take a look at my father's old room?”

”You do whatever you like.” My father points toward the staircase. ”Second door on the left. Toilet's the third door, in case you need it.”

Jake leaves. My father and I drink in an excruciating silence I feel compelled to break. ”Charlie's Bar burned down?”

”Few years back. Charlie forgot to turn off a s.p.a.ce heater one winter night after last call.”

”Anybody killed?”

My father laughs. ”Always the reporter, eh, Sammy? No, n.o.body was killed. But the last bar in Queens that refused to serve 'light' beer was gone forever, I'm sorry to say.”

”How's Charlie?”

”Dead. Cancer got him about a year after the bar burned down.”

”Must have been rough on you, losing a friend like that.”

”Yeah, well, you get to be my age, you're gonna attend some funerals.... Did you ever darken Charlie's doorway?”

Was this a trick question? Or did he really not know about the night I went in there looking for him, and wound up getting laid for the first time?

”I was underage,” I finally say.

He nods, shrugs. ”Well, it's too bad we never hoisted one together at Charlie's.”

It feels funny to know that the place I first got laid out of is gone. Why hadn't Fran mentioned it? A little bit of my history is ashes, and I'm tempted to tell my father about it, but what for? Why bother? He hardly knows anything else about me, so why should he know this?

My father gulps more beer, clears his throat, and gestures toward the stairs Jake has just climbed. ”What's with the hair and the beard? Your kid starring in A Pa.s.sion Play?” A Pa.s.sion Play?”

”He likes it. I figure it's better than a tattoo.”

My father shoves his s.h.i.+rtsleeve up toward his shoulder, revealing a blue tattoo of an anchor with chains beneath faded letters that read U.S. NAVY. ”What, may I ask, is wrong with a tattoo?”

”Please don't show him that.”

”Why not?”

”Dad-”

”All right, all right.” He rolls the sleeve back down. ”What's it been, fifteen years?”

”Seventeen, Dad. Almost eighteen. Since the day Jake was born.”

”Christ!” He shakes his head. ”You know, I thought you might've picked up the phone to give me a call on 9/11, just to let me know you were alive.”

”Funny, I was waiting for you to call me on that same day.”

”I guess we were both wrong.”

”I guess.”

”How come Doris didn't come with you for this little reunion?”

”We've been divorced for thirteen years.”

”It didn't last, eh? What a shock.”

”I guess it just wasn't a marriage made in heaven, like you and Mom.”

My father sits back, studies my face, drinks more beer. ”You happy since you split?”

”No.”

”How about Doris?”

”Probably not.”

”So nothing changed, except you've been sh.e.l.ling out for two apartments all these years, and shuttling the kid back and forth.”