Yvonne was a grandmother. She
was only thirty-five, but she had a three-year-old granddaughter.
Julian had been a wild teenager.
Or, rather, his teen years were wild. Julian had to go along with it.
When he was fifteen and a
sophomore at a theatrical high school, Julian discovered one day in passing that
he could play the piano. Rock. Jazz. Classical.
In retrospect, Yvonne wondered
why she hadn't ever had Julian take music and voice lessons. But it hadn't been
necessary to his modeling. He'd done fine without cluttering his agenda with
more things to do than the modeling, acting lessons and school. And, anyway,
Julian didn't need a single music lesson. He taught music a thing or two. But it
all embarrassed Yvonne a bit. She had no ear. She should have had a piano for
Julian all along.
But as usual,
if Yvonne needed a plan, Julian's existence was in itself his plan. By the end
of the school year, he had assembled a band. By the time he was seventeen--and a
father--he was a junior rock superstar. If he was a quiet person, alert but
subdued, on the rock stage he was a radical in a radical field. He romped and
stomped and screamed perfectly modulated songs. And he could croon
breathtakingly. But the ballads were only the stunning stills. The calm
tornado-eye of the concerts.
Julian could play keyboards backwards, sitting on the lids of grand pianos, his
hands down on the keys, arms flying between split legs. Then he could land on
his head on the piano bench and flip over onto his feet, do the splits and come
up playing on beat, hands and piano at his back. He could slide frictionlessly
the length of the widest stage on knees, rump or belly because of luxurious
supplies of rock'n'roll sweat. Then he could stand motionlessly in impacted
power like a Bengal tiger in a photograph, eyes closed, microphone in hand at
center stage, and sing a love song from an old musical with impeccable delivery.
If he was a shockingly cool and
polite kid all his life before, and even now when he wasn't on stage or in a
recording studio, when he was singing anything other than sweet ballads, when he
was delivering the songs he was author of, he was livid. Furious with an
outhouse of a world. If he was smooth and unflappable everywhere else, he had an
electric angst in his act. He was the epitome of the perpetual Western
adolescent dynamic heartbreak. He was compared with Jerry Lee Lewis and
Sinatra--the press didn't quite know what to call him. He was a pinch like both
of those singers. And a dash of Franz Liszt, a little of Beethoven, a smattering
of Harry Belafonte, and so on.
But all together and beyond comparison, he was Julian. Julian Yvette, the
beautiful, brilliant rock star.
It might have frightened another mother, even a show business mother, but Yvonne
was made content and glad with the two Julians. The rock Julian and the
time-proven Julian. She was happy he at last had an outlet, one that the world
would pay for. "And who can make a living taking baths?" she had quipped to
Julian when he announced his first album contract. Besides, she assessed,
concerning the contradictory personalities, the two Julians would never know
each other if they met on the street. His schizophrenia was complete, harmless,
functional and under control, she felt. Happily fated, if not fortunately
created. For now, anyway.
Just
when his second album, "I Don't Want To Rock" was finished, and just after his
seventeenth birthday, he had to come to his mother with a difficult announcement
concerning his girlfriend, Hilary. He found his mother contemplating infinity in
the living room one evening. It was her one night of the week off from Duck,
Duck, Goose, the play she was starring in. He poised himself in the doorway
until she became aware of him. "Hello, dear," she said at last.
He entered the room and sat in a
chair across from hers. "You know that old joke, Eve?" he asked.
"Oh, god," she thought, "he said
'Eve': mom. What's wrong now..." Out loud she said, "Yeah. If it's an old joke,
I know it. But tell me anyway."
"Well, ah, 'I should have danced all night'?"
"Oh, a bad joke. Caption on some
cheap cartoon of a pregnant woman?" Yvonne was hyperventilating.
"Yeah, I saw it on a napkin
tonight in a bar and..."
"Is
Hilary...?" Yvonne couldn't restrain herself.
"Yeah. Pregnant. I should've
rock'n'rolled."
"Oh! Julian!
Don't be so flippant about it. What are you...what is Hilary going to do?" cried
Yvonne.
"I'm not really being
flip! How does one say these things?" Julian's intonations were the song of
sadness.
"Okay. Of course you
don't mean to be flip," Yvonne said soothingly. "Tell me."
"You know she told me she was on
the pill?" Julian asked with incredulity.
"How would I know such a thing?"
replied Yvonne. But then the rightful implications of what Julian was saying
jumped forth. "You mean she wasn't on the pill? She did this on purpose? Why?
And why weren't you...why didn't you...ah..." Rubber sounded awful. Prophylactic
sounded awful.
"Why didn't I use
something? Believe me, I will for now on! Except that this is my first and
last...ah...affair." He spoke the word with due disgust. "Julian the Celibate
henceforth." And Julian sat back despondently in his chair.
"Okay, okay. We've got to be
calm," Yvonne said, perched on the last inch of her chair. "Abortion?"
After Julian stared in surprise
at his mother for a long moment, he said, "Not even an issue."
"Don't look at me like that. It
is an alternative."
"No, no. I
did suggest it. It's Hilary. She... god, Eve. She planned the whole thing. I...I
feel as though I've been raped," Julian said in a tiny voice. And then he cried
for the first time so far as Yvonne knew since they'd seen Romeo and
Juliet years before. Yvonne went to him and sat on the edge of his chair and
held him. Both of them were shaking.
"Not raped, Julian. This is
another kind of trick. Just as old. Just as awful, in a way. What does she
want?"
"She wants me to marry
her," he answered, his voice almost under control. He touched each eye with his
shirt cuff, and then examined the two tear prints on the blue oxford cloth.
"And?"
"I don't want to. I didn't even
want to have sex with her or hang out with her. Or, really, have her hanging
around all the time. She's so goddamned persistent. The way she got backstage on
lies. No one gets backstage who doesn't belong there. But she did. Does. And
once there, well, she's incredible! What a manipulator."
"Well, why did you let her get
into your life? Why did you have sex with her?"
"I suppose I wanted to."
"But I thought you just said...
Oh, never mind. It all gets very confusing, doesn't it? Julian, ah, this is
awful, but I have to ask. Are you sure it's your baby?"
"She said she'd submit to
inutero blood testing if I had any doubt."
"In utero blood
testing, for god's sake! Was that her term?"
"She got it from an attorney, I
think. She's got an attorney."
"Jesus! Have you been set up! She saw an attorney first and you second? Jesus,
Julian..." Yvonne had been on the verge of saying something about the attorney
helping Hilary figure out her menstrual cycle preconception, but decided it was
too cruel to say. "Julian, I'm really very sorry this is happening."
"I don't know how to be a father.
I don't want to be a father. I can't, Yvonne."
"Did you tell her you won't marry
her?"
"She said it doesn't
matter. She's got me anyway because she's got my baby. She said I should marry
her, though, so my kid won't be a bastard like I am."
"Oh! Bastard, schmastard. Rather
archaic notion. Look, Julian, this bitch wants alimony, too. And to use your
name to the fullest. On top of money for the baby. Can you see that? So she
wants you to marry her. So she calls you a bastard. An emotional ploy. Cheap. It
doesn't mean a thing.
"Julian.
Listen to me. Your father was a nice man. Very nice. We had a lovely time
together. If he knew about you, if I could have located him, I'm sure he would
be involved with us." Yvonne stopped, hoping she didn't protest too much.
She went over the fictitious
dossier in her mind that she had compiled on Julian's "father". In case Julian
should ask her something now, she wanted to have the same answers she had given
in the past. She had made up a Black civil rights worker named Samuel Clark. He
had been nineteen, and had come up North from Georgia to write a pamphlet on the
racial situation in the urban industrial North. This imaginary Sam and Yvonne
had met at a rally and had spent a few days together. After her
review-lest-Julian-should-give-a-pop-quiz, something occurred to Yvonne.
"Julian, how did Hilary think to call you a bastard? Why'd you tell her anything
about your father? Our situation?"
"All I can say is bed is a
strange place."
"But now that's
going to be a thing in the press."
"Yeah, well, along with
everything else now, I don't see what difference it makes," said Julian.
"True, true," Yvonne said, but
she was thinking that the press could easily mount a search for this Samuel
Clark. But she shrugged the thought off, and they mused for a bit. "Julian," she
said at last, "you are responsible, kiddo."
"Of course. I know. I know. And I
will be. Financially. But, Eve, I don't have any feelings for it. For Hilary.
Excuse me for saying it, but my feelings were in my pants. And the, ah, the, ah,
kid. Am I supposed to fake feelings for this kid?"
"Could you fake it?"
"No."
"Then that's the answer. You're
lucky, Julian, really." He looked at his mother with shock. "No, really. You can
carry on pretty much as before," Yvonne said, with bitterness peeking out of a
lush jungle of intonations, like hominoids peering out of a Rousseau canvas.
While Julian was left to ponder the origins and family relations of Yvonne's
sudden bitter nuance, she rose from the arm of his chair, got a cigarette which
she lighted, and she smoked it while pacing the room, looking not a little bit
like Bette Davis.
"Well," said
Yvonne, when she got to the point of stubbing out her cigarette which she had
inhaled down to the filter and a drag beyond. "Well, I'll say it. Life is a sad
little soap opera. But enough of that shit. This baby is yours, and you're mine,
so we'll handle this. You go on and go to LA. There's no reason you shouldn't
move even with this going on. I think the papers and everything can be handled
from there. And you've got enough money to cover everything. We'll ignore the
irony that it's money--and fame--that got you into this. I want you to realize
that this basic conversation is going on in hundreds of living rooms all over
the world tonight. And only a few guys are as lucky as you about the whole
thing." Julian nodded. "And I want you to know I'll handle everything if you
like."
Great relief showed in
Julian's voice though his words were cautious. "You'll handle everything? Such
as?"
"Well, lawyers. And Julian,
Hilary'll need her own money. Not that she deserves anything more than a
beating. She certainly doesn't deserve money. Except that everyone deserves
money. Except that she'll need money. The baby will need Hilary to have her own
money. Okay?"
"But..."
"But you should have handled
birth control. Even then this can happen. And you'd still be responsible."
"For Hilary? For the woman...?
Girl...?" he trailed off.
"Yes,
in part. Yes."
"I don't
understand. I'll go along with it. But I don't understand. You're a better judge
than I."
"Thanks," she said
dryly. "Let's just not do this again. Okay? Besides, you fool, a nice thin layer
of latex or whatever would be a good thing with disease what it is these days."
"Julian the Celibate, remember?"
he said.
"Don't be silly. Well,
but on the other hand, a nice little interlude of monastic contemplation
wouldn't do you any harm."
They
laughed. Yvonne told Julian she'd start legal discussions in the morning. They
said goodnight. Yvonne stayed on in the living room while Julian went to his
room. She smoked. Thought of her life. Past, present and future. And after a
while and a few decisions, she went to Julian's room and tapped on the open
door.
"Julian?" she whispered
into the pitch-dark chamber.
"Yes?" he said in a regular volume. He had been lying in the dark, thinking.
"Is it alright with you if I
lavish time and love on the baby? If it's possible, I mean, given this weird
mind of Hilary's? Or if I can arrange it legally despite her?"
"I don't care, Eve. I mean, I do
care if it's what you want. You don't have to for my sake."
"Your sake?" Yvonne was amazed.
She eased through the dark and sat down on the edge of his bed. "See, Julian, I
feel really ripped off. I never got to hold you enough when you were a baby. So
it's hardly for your sake. I can't make you a baby again and start over.
"Julian, in the living room just
now, I was thinking. I've never really told you what I went through when you
were in foster homes. I figured it was insignificant compared with what you went
through. And you never could or would talk about it.
"But when I didn't have you, I
missed you. Every hour, every day. I ached for you. To have you with me." Yvonne
waited but Julian was silent. She could see only the digits on his clock radio.
She could smell his cologne. She could smell the sizing from a stack of new
clothes she had bought him that laid on his dresser somewhere in the dark. She
could smell the new set of leather suitcases he'd bought to take to California.
She felt enormous sadness that he was leaving. And yet she was just now talking
about when he had first come. She struggled to resume.
"It was money. I couldn't sit
around on welfare. I couldn't work in a drugstore. I had to be what I was and
make it pay before I could get you. If I had seen at some point that it wasn't
going to work, if I had thought I wasn't making it in modeling, the plan was to
go on welfare and get you. See? But the way it went, even though it took four
years, was better, far better in the long run." Still Julian was silent.
Unconsciously it registered with Yvonne that Julian hadn't tensed up over this
line of talk. The mattress hadn't communicated any musculature changes such as
that from him. But Yvonne consciously changed directions, knowing from
experience that Julian was typically impervious to emotional matters off stage.
She had thought for a few moments that this Hilary crisis created an avenue for
a discussion of their early time together. Early time apart.
"So the thing is, Julian, Hilary
is going to need money. She certainly doesn't have it together. And she's poor,
right? Didn't you tell me once that her mother was on welfare?"
"Yeah. And there are four other
kids. I was sort of fascinated by that. Have you seen homes like that? I mean
poor? I've seen some poor Black people's places. Kids from school. But it's more
of a shock with whites."
"Yeah,
I've seen it. But mostly with Blacks because of civil rights work. It is a
shock..." Yvonne put a finger now on something that hadn't quite formed into a
thought before. She realized she actually half-admired this little trick of
Hilary's. It was reprehensible. But so is poverty. And so is being a human being
and thinking you have no other talent than procreative powers. "Does Hilary have
any career plans?"
"I guess I'm
her career plan."
"No! She'll
have to develop some goals, as the counselors would say. But the baby's another
matter. She's bringing this kid into the world on a false note. At least I'm
rapidly learning to want the baby."
"You are?"
"Well, yeah. I mean circumstances
aren't all that auspicious, but they're not inauspicious either. There's money.
And I would care about the baby if Hilary'd let me be involved."
"You mean you like babies?"
"If I had the right guy, I'd
consider having another baby myself."
"Yvonne! I'm seventeen!"
"Yeah, and I'm thirty-two. So? My
career's under control. I'm young. I know you think I'm an old woman..."
"No. Come on."
"Okay. Back to reality. When's
Hilary due?"
"God. Due..." Julian
whimpered. "Ah, she's two months pregnant."
"So...February the baby'll come.
Good. My contract is up in January. I'll take six months and help with the
baby."
"I thought you were
staying with it the full run!"
"I'm sick of the play. I wish I'd just directed and hadn't taken the lead
anyway," she said.
"You sound
awful hep on this baby, Yvonne."
"It's a human being. Someone better be awful hep on it."
Yvonne rose to leave and they
said goodnight again. But when she got to the door, Julian said, "You know, this
baby will not only not be me, but it will be half her genes."
"Meaning?" Yvonne asked, the
hairs bristling at her nape.
"Well, is this sort of behavior inherited? I mean Hilary's?"
"No," Yvonne laughed. "This stuff
is learned. It's taught by desperation and confusion. The baby will be fine.
Goodnight, Julian. I love you."
Yvonne was down the hall already when she thought she heard her son return her
sentiment. But when she went back to ask what he had said, he said, "Goodnight,
Yvonne. Thank you."