TAPE TEN 1/23/86

This next part’s really had for me to deal with, Wolly, but I’m gonna try my best. I haven’t let myself think about this stuff for a really long time. I guess whenever I picture my mother's living room, I see it as it looked one morning in late June, 1956. That's the image I have locked in my head, although later she may have had it painted or carpeted or put in new furniture. I've heard about people who are standing someplace when some great disaster happens, like a bomb going off in a store or a terrific earthquake. They say they remember such fantastic little details about the place, like car license numbers or the clothes some mannequins had on. Maybe that's why I remember so many details about that room on that morning.
I'd been bumming around that day pretty much like I'd been bumming around every day since school let out. I said to myself that I needed a vacation, but I knew that I really needed to get out and get a job and some money. The last year had wiped out my savings, and I was thinking about all the good things Marlene and I could do during the summer if Danny could get me a cheap car and I could make a little spending money.
Since the night of the dance I'd only been in touch with her by phone, that is, she'd called me about three times. She talked differently then, different from all the months I'd known her, like someone really close to me, like someone who really loved me. We would talk for a long time when she called, and I would ask when I could come over, but she always said she was in some kind of clinic and she'd let me know as soon as she got out. I just knew whatever was bothering her - that if we could only get out together travel around, go to the beach or the mountains - I could get her through it all and we'd really be together, just us and no one else to mess us up. I really thought about that a lot, maybe too much, because I wasn't getting anything else done.
About ten o'clock the doorbell rang. I was by myself, still in bed. I got on a T shirt and some pants and went to see who it was. Through the window in the door I could see a man on the porch. Something about him was familiar. He was sort of sizing up the house and the yard, and I guessed he was a real estate agent, because my mother was always groaning about taxes and payments and threatening to sell the place.
He was nicely dressed for a real estate agent. He wore a silky black suit, a white-on-white shirt, and a shiny pearl grey tie. He had a lot of wavy black hair, very neatly trimmed and brushed, and his manner, just standing there, was very self-assured and a little impatient. Despite his good looks, something told me not to open, but it was too late: he'd spotted me looking through the little window. I unlatched the door. It wasn't until then that I noticed the big black Cadillac at the curb.
"Is Mr. Thomas at home?"
"You must mean Mrs. Thomas. She's working. There's no Mr. Thomas."
"I'm looking for a Mr. Andrew Thomas. My name is Frank Barzani."
I don't know what my face registered, but my body took a tremendous electric jolt down the spine.
"I'm Andy Thomas," I said, my voice covering about four octaves in three words.
"I'd like to talk to you. May I come in?"
"Well, my mother's not home right now, like I said."
Shit! Shit! Shit! I still cringe when I think about saying that. After what Marlene and I had been - were - to each other. After what he probably knew about us, I could only hide behind my mother's skirts. I dropped my eyes to hide my burning face, got a lock on my voice and said,
"Come in."
As he passed me an aroma of good cologne followed. I'd only smelled it once before. An image of his fantasyland bathroom crossed my mind as I examined his suit for pistol-shaped bulges. Everything draped perfectly, and he wasn't carrying a violin case.
I showed him a chair near the door, then I sat down across the room, which he noted with a sarcastic look. He didn't say anything, though. I just wanted to be out of range in case he produced knives or anything. I guess I'd seen too many Robert Mitchum movies.
"Mr. Thomas," he began, "I believe that you know my daughter, Marlene."
"Oh, Marlene...Marlene...Marlene Barzani...oh, sure. Oh, so you're her father, Mr. Barzani," I gibbered. “Well, yes, Marlene and I do have one class together. Well, not exactly together, you see, we're in the art wing of school at the same hour. Sometimes we talk to each other in the clean-up."
"Mr. Thomas," his voice said, "I believe you know my daughter better than that! His tone and the look he shot me said even more clearly, "Let's you and I stop bullshitting."
I dropped my head and studied the Persian carpet, looking for some guidance in its faded geometry. This was getting miserable, and I really hated his calling me "Mr. Thomas" all the time.
"You can call me Andy, if you like," I said.
"Mr. Thomas, you have taken the role of a man in this, and so I will address you as a man. You know, in the culture in which I was raised the relationship between a man and a woman is taken very seriously. Casual relationships don't occur between men and women of good families. If a man likes a young lady he must take great care to be very formal with her family. Where family honor is offended some very bad things may result. You have heard of vendettas perhaps - family wars. Sometimes there are killings or such things as castrations. It is not a matter to be taken lightly."
I continued to study the carpet. You can imagine I was getting really fond of good old Mr. Barzani as visions of shotguns and castrating knives danced through my head. I was surprised, though, that he didn't say anything more. I looked up to see him studying me, and then he, too, dropped his gaze to the floor. For a while we just sat there like two born-agains at meditation. Finally he broke the silence.
"You'll have to forgive me. That was not the tone I wished to begin with. I have been told that there are many things for which I should be grateful to you, but because my daughter is involved, I am the victim of very mixed emotions. As much as I need to know you, I probably would never have come if my daughter hadn't insisted - made me promise - to do so. Under the circumstances I couldn't refuse her, but it's difficult to know how to start."
Now I was really confused. Why had Marlene been so crazy as to send her father to my house? Under what circumstances had he come? Had something really bad happened? Then he said,
"Mr. Thomas, I believe that you genuinely care for my daughter?"
It was said somewhere between a statement and a question. I put an iron clamp on my voice and said very quietly, my head still down,
"I love her."
Again we sat in silence, but now he seemed more composed, more sure of his direction. After a while he started again.
"Yes, I think you do love her, and I think that she is capable of being loved because of you. And she is once more my beautiful daughter, more beautiful than I ever hoped to see her again."
He seemed shaken as he said that, but his voice was dry. He went on,
"She has explained to me a lot of what happened between you two. I've talked more to her in the last few weeks than in the last several years. You know that she's been in a sort of sanitarium for the last few weeks?"
"Yes, she called me a couple of times. She said she'd be home in a week or two."
"She's been under a doctor's care really since we moved to California, but in the last two months wonderful changes have taken place. It's like finding a daughter I'd thought was dead. There's a program in Philadelphia that she and her doctor feel she should take part in. I don't know much about psychiatry, but everyone thinks that because she's made such progress she should go there. It may take somewhat longer than a few weeks, however."
The look on my face made him hurry on with what he was saying.
"Mr. Thomas, Marlene honestly didn't know how to tell you that, and to avoid upsetting her too much, I promised her I would come to you myself. She agreed on the condition that I would explain everything to you, and if you will be patient, I'll do so, even though it means telling you things that I've never told another person.'
"I don't know why she couldn't have just called me or something."
"Maybe you'll understand better after I'm finished. I said that Marlene is beautiful, and she is, but there's good reason for that. You would understand if you could have seen her mother twenty years ago. I, myself, have not seen her for several years, and even by that time she'd changed greatly. But when I first knew her she was absolutely the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Where Marlene is dark and sultry, her mother was the most dazzling blond you could imagine. Don't ever doubt that love at first sight exists. I loved her madly the first minute I saw her."
I was starting to get that sick feeling you get when you know something rotten is coming even before you hear it. And I really did not give a shit about his wife or why he married her or anything. Still he droned on about how they'd met when he was in college in Chicago and about how his parents didn't like her because they were Sicilian or something, and she was Polish, but he was nuts about her, and when he graduated they got married and lived in Chicago where they didn't have to see his parents much, because they lived in Philadelphia.
Things were OK at first. He got his degree in architecture. (Why hadn't I known that instead of thinking he majored in Mafia. Later I figured out that was why Ronnie Robertson was always invited to their parties. His father had an architect's office downtown.) Mr. Barzani went on that he went to work for a Chicago firm. Marlene was born and things looked good, but his wife began to have some funny changes. At times she would get all irrationally jealous without any cause, according to him. Other times she would hit him or kick furniture or break things. More and more he stayed away from the house. He worried about Marlene, but his work had him all busy, and he said he never saw signs of physical abuse or any indication she was not being treated well.
From his arrival I'd only been hoping he would finish whatever he felt he had to do and get out, but the word abuse was the rotten thing I'd been waiting for. For some reason now that it was out it calmed me. I felt the nausea go down, and I focused all my senses on this very neat,very controlled man trying so hard to do something he obviously hated. He searched for words as though circling something too hot to touch. Yet this very thing he feared seemed slowly to be drawing him into its flame.
Almost imperceptibly his passion began to rise, giving a slight edge to his voice. His face flushed a little, and a light sweat formed at his temples. His story began to take on the sound of self-justification. When the war started his firm got contracts on military projects somewhere, and so he was away from Chicago for long periods. Then he was drafted and sent to Europe where he was wounded after being brave as hell (he intimated) in Italy. After that he spent several months in a hospital in the U.S. where his wife began to visit him pretty regularly. He decided things might be better now that they were older. Marlene was almost eight by then.
Everything seemed pretty good at first. He thought he still loved his wife, and she seemed to love him. Marlene was very shy, though, where before she'd been a real outgoing little girl. She wouldn't talk much to him, which worried him, but he figured that would change in time.
He said he guessed it was his fault that he didn't recognize mental illness in his wife. He'd never been around people with that problem, and it didn't occur to him. After he'd been home about six months, problems began again. His wife would get into fits of jealous rage over some stupid little thing. He'd try to reason with her calmly, and she'd get more insulting til they were both going at it pretty strong. A couple of times he hit her, which he said he really hated. Finally, like before, he'd just leave the house when she got like that, because she knew just what to say to get him going, and he didn't want to take a chance on getting violent.
Sometimes after a session like that, he'd come back to find her all depressed, and for a couple of days maybe she wouldn't even get her clothes on, just staying in the bedroom, calling for Marlene when she needed something. He finally decided that there was no way they could make it, but being a Catholic, divorce was a hard thing for him.
After the war there was a lot of work in the reconstruction of Europe. When the U.S. got into financing it, his company got projects in France and Italy. Because he spoke some Italian they wanted him to go. He thought it would be a great chance to study more architecture and work at the same time - and to get out of a shitty home situation. His wife got really hysterical when he told her. She threatened all sorts of mayhem if he left. He went anyway.
It was supposed to be for a year, but he got involved in this and that and stayed three. Every month, he said, he sent a large check to his wife to pay her and Marlene's expenses. He thought that her family helped her, too, because they had money, and that she'd probably gotten some sort of job. He usually enclosed a letter to Marlene, but they were never answered. He really knew nothing of what was going on with them.
He'd always called and talked to Marlene on her birthday. They never said much, but at least he called. Then, in 1949, when he tried to call, the phone had been disconnected. He called the lady who owned the apartment. She said Marlene and her mother had moved out months before. The landlady also indicated some things were wrong, but wouldn't say much on the telephone. He flew back to the U.S. that same week.
He found that his wife's only forwarding address was general delivery. When he went to the apartment, the landlady's story was bad.
Mr. Barzani was getting more tense. His voice strained like his throat was dry. I offered to get him something to drink partly as an excuse to get out of there; I was getting very bad feelings - but he said no. He was driven now - almost like in a trance - as the story poured out. As much as I hated it, the pictures slowly formed for me.
"I asked the landlady why she hadn't notified me of what had happened, but she felt it was not her business. It was her way of saying why hadn't I been interested enough to find out for myself, and I guess she was right.
"She told me that it was she who finally asked my wife to leave. She'd tried for months to reason with her, but she finally decided my wife was just crazy. The problem was more and more parties and men at all hours. I couldn't believe that because whatever else had been wrong with her, she'd never been forward with men - she didn't have to be.
"I went to my wife's parents' house, but that wasn't much help. From the time I got there her mother was on edge. Her father tried to talk to me. He said he heard my wife was living someplace near Evanston, but they hadn't seen her for almost a year. Then her mother started screaming that the whole thing was my fault, that I'd destroyed her daughter and granddaughter. I asked how she knew they were destroyed if she hadn't seen them for a year, but that only infuriated her more. For my career, she screamed, for my career. I had sacrificed my family for my career and had brought her all this suffering. The longer I stayed the worse she got, so I left.
"As I was getting into my car I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my father-in-law. I'd never respected him much. He seemed weak; he couldn't stand up to his wife. He said he knew what I was going through; his wife was 'difficult,' too. Perhaps it was hereditary.
"Then he said, 'Sometimes, you know, the difficult ones can make it, if there is patience, if they can be protected.' Then he turned and glanced nervously at the house. He looked back perplexedly, as though putting it in words was almost too hard. He waited, like he needed something from me, but I didn't know what to say to that. Then he shook his head slightly and walked back to the house.
"I looked up a Chicago policeman I knew. I'd done him some favors getting security jobs on projects we were doing. I asked him if he could quietly get any information on my wife. Two days later he called me back; he seemed nervous. My wife had been picked up a couple of time in drug busts, he said, but there hadn't been enough evidence to charge her. Then he said there was something else. When I asked what, he didn't answer. Finally I convinced him. He said she'd also been picked up for prostitution. This time I was the one who couldn't say anything. He mumbled an address and hung up.
"The place was an older apartment building on the north side. It was built when they put stone fronts on all the buildings and looked like a brown sandstone fort."
As Mr. Barzani described the place, I could picture it clearly. I'd seen it before, the day I had the vision in Marlene's house. I wanted to ask him about the green-trimmed windows but figured it would just open another can of worms. Anyway, for the last ten minutes he'd been going on like he was on autopilot. It seemed wrong to break in on him. Mainly, I just wanted him to be done and be gone.
"I couldn't find her name on the mailboxes," he went on, "and the door was locked. All afternoon I sat across the street at a bus stop watching people come and go, but I didn't recognize anyone.
"The next day I went there before seven. There was a bitter cold wind off the lake, but I waited. About eight a girl came out. I couldn't make out if it was Marlene, but she seemed the right age. She was poorly dressed for the cold and looked dirty. I followed her. She appeared to walk aimlessly, but ended up at a little grocery where she bought a few things. Then she walked slowly back, like she was on a summer stroll. I almost reached her as she came to the apartment, but she turned into the doorway before I could catch up with her. When I got to the entrance, though, the door had stuck open on some trash.
"The hallway was dark and smelled of decades of cooking and worse. There
was no way to tell which was their apartment, but I went along listening for anything that might give a clue. Then I heard a sound on the stairs. Above me I could see a movement, like the edge of a skirt between the bannister posts. I started up, keeping back and watching her go up. On the fourth floor I couldn't see anything moving above me, but no one was on the hall. When I came out on the fifth, there she was, sitting on the floor by a door, eating a candy bar.
“I walked over to her and stood. She continued eating, paying no attention. Finally, she looked up, and I knew it was Marlene. She recognized me, but only put her head down and said nothing.
“I asked her where her mother was, and all she could do was indicate with her head the door next to her. I went in. It was a two-room apartment with a kitchenette off the small living room. There was almost no furniture - just an old table and a few chairs. The kitchen was a mess. When I went into the bedroom, a man was sitting on the edge of the bed putting his shoe on. His hat and coat lay in a chair by the bed. He asked me why the hell I couldn't wait my turn, and I asked him where the hell my wife was. He was out of there very fast. There were noises from the bathroom, so I sat on the chair and waited.
"When she came out I just stared. Her face was dead, just dead. Her hair looked almost grey, the same color as the skin. Her eyes were opaque.
"'Haven't you got anything else to do today?' she said. 'You show up at seven-thirty, and you're not satisfied yet? C'mon, get movin' I got things to do, too, ya know.'
"I said nothing. Finally she looked at me. A low flare came into the dead eyes. 'Well, look who's here,' she said. 'Back from the continental tour. Back to his mansion and loving family.'
"'I'd ask what the hell's goin' on, but it's pretty clear.'
"'Aw, come on, please. No kisses? I get to hear some more of your holy-holy speeches?'
"'How could you do this? I sent you money. You didn't have to...'
"'You sent me shit. Did you think I could get by on that little bit?'
“On that you could get by a hell of a lot better than this. You could get by without becoming a fuckin' whore. Nothing required that. Nothing.'
"'Don't preach to me.' Then she hesitated. 'Oh, but you haven't met my expensive little friend, have you? He's no cheapie, very top drawer. He's around here somewhere. He moved in right after you left.'
"'If you mean that asshole that was just here, he took off fast enough.'
"'You mean you told him you were my loving husband?'
"She came toward me with an attempt at a sexy walk. She didn't smell clean. She seemed drunk.
"'What's the matter? You don't want you husbandly rights? I don't turn you on any more?'
"I just looked at her with disgust.
"'Well, my little friend likes me. He's around here somewhere, my little friend. My little monkey."
"'Look, I'll take you to a hospital or something. I'll pay for it. You don't look good. You look sick.'
"'I'm not goin' anywhere with you. Comin' in here all holy after three years, tellin' me I'm sick.'
"'You can do what you want. I'm not starting up all that shit again. But I'm taking Marlene with me.'
"I walked back to get Marlene from the hall, but she was already in the living room, sitting on one of the wooden chairs, staring at me.
"'Get your things together. I'm getting you out of here,' I told her.
"I turned back to her mother, but she was sitting on the bed, knotting a rubber tube around her arm. From a box by the bed she produced a hypodermic needle already loaded with some white liquid. She was trying to find a vein. I crossed the room and slapped it out of her hand. It flew across and smashed against the radiator. She jumped from the bed and ran across after it. She kneeled on the floor trying to scrape up the liquid. Then she turned on me.
“You goddamned bastard. What right did you have to do that? You want to kill me now. All this is your fault, and now you want to kill me.'
"I could see Marlene in the living room, still sitting.
"'Get your things, I said, goddamn it. We're getting out of here.'
"'She's not going anywhere with you. You show up and think you can order everyone around. She has to work. She has to work even harder now that you broke that. She has to make it up to me.'
"'What do you mean she has to work? She's only twelve.'
"'If I have to work, she has to work. And it's not really so hard. Just lie on your back a little. Not really hard at all. And the men - some of the men - really prefer her, you know? Young and tight. Remember how it was? Some of them don't really like me so much anymore. But they're crazy about Marlene. She's big and strong. She's gotta work. My little monkey's very expensive."'
He stopped. After that the silence was like a loud noise. I was about paralyzed. My throat was parched. I looked over at him. It was like he was alone in the room. Then his eyes caught mine, grasping, reaching out for some hold so he wouldn't sink farther.
"You know," he said in a very quiet voice, "horror is a color - a dark shade, a filter that drops over everything. I saw it in the war when bombs fell among men and tanks, and dirt and machine parts and human parts flew everywhere, and all you could do was search for some lump of rock to protect you from five hundred pound bombs. I saw it again in that apartment. I saw a world I'd taken for granted, that I didn't even know I needed, blown apart in an instant. I looked back and forth between them. Marlene had an almost stupid expression, like some idiot child. Her mother was smiling.
“’You filthy bitch,' I screamed.
“I lunged at her, had her down on the floor choking her when Marlene fell on my back. I saw what I was doing then and tried to get up, but I had to fight off Marlene, too. I grabbed her and headed for the door, but she tripped over something, and I fell over her. On the floor, Marlene was smiling at something behind me. As I half turned I caught the flash of the knife and pulled aside enough that it cut through my jacket and into my arm.
"'Here's your homecoming present,' my wife screamed, 'I've been saving it for you.'
"What followed was a hell of a mess. When the police got there, blood was everywhere, but, miraculously, no one was dead or even very badly cut.
"What followed that was even more of a mess, but after a few months I'd divorced my wife, she was in a hospital, hopelessly psychotic - may still be there for all I know - and I had custody of Marlene.
"My idea was to leave Chicago and start fresh. I was incredibly stupid in that. I did have plenty of doubts about Marlene - I actually thought she wanted her mother to kill me when we were in the apartment - but I thought that was due to the filth her mother had told her about me. I thought a new place, new school, new friends would bring her back to me. I couldn't even begin to accept what her mother had said about her, but maybe some part of me knew.
"I moved to Philadelphia. That's where I was raised. I didn’t have many ties to Chicago, and I thought that was a way to make a new start. My work in Europe had been well regarded, and I landed a very good job with an excellent firm. For the first time, I bought a house. I bought Marlene lots of new clothes, toys, anything she wanted - especially dolls. She always wanted more dolls, as though she might find her childhood that way. I worried. She seemed so immature emotionally.
"She'd missed a lot of school, but with tutoring they accepted her in junior high. She was really too developed for her age to go back to elementary. My work was taking a lot of time, as usual, but I had a housekeeper, and things seemed to fall into place - for a few months.
"Then I got a call from the vice-principal at Marlene's school. He said he had a serious matter to discuss. When we met, he had trouble getting to the point but finally said that they'd been having problems with a group of boys cutting school. Then, the week before, some pictures had been found circulating in the yard during break. One of the teachers picked them up.
"The vice-principal took them from his desk and slid them over to me. I felt sick, but continued to deny to myself what I knew was coming. They were Polaroid pornography done at someone's home. There were two or three boys and one girl. She had dark hair, but her back was turned. I said that it couldn't be Marlene, but we both knew the truth. I explained to him a little of our situation.
“We left it that he would call me any time Marlene was not in school, and I arranged to have her picked up immediately after class and taken home. Still, I had her transferred to a school closer to my work after the semester. In five years she went through five public schools, two private ones and a succession of shrinks.
"My life at that point was about as miserable as I thought it could be, but I was wrong about that. There was worse. I'd reached a point of no confidence in Marlene or in her ability to change. I felt she was probably as mad as her mother. There were times when we seemed to relate well, and I knew she was very bright, but as soon as I began to see some little hope, she would destroy it. I knew she did it on purpose.
"The worst came one night about a week before Christmas two years ago. I was working on some plans in my study when I heard shouting from the front of the house. It was a two story house, and I was upstairs. I went to one of the front rooms and looked out on the yard. There must have been thirty young men there all screaming for Marlene to come out. Apparently they were from a fraternity at a college that was near us.
"There was a movement near me. It was Marlene in her robe. She'd been asleep. I listened again to the filth those scum were screaming, and something just broke. There was a closet where I kept some guns. I went there and took a bird gun and loaded it. I went back to the window, opened it and aimed. Some of the boys saw me and began to point. Then they saw the gun. I had it aimed in the middle of them and was pulling the trigger when the barrel was pushed up from behind me, and the shot flew over their heads.
“Marlene was trying to get hold of the gun, but I calmly opened the chamber, put in another shell and began to aim again. Everyone in the yard was scattering. There was a police siren far away. Again Marlene wrestled for the gun. I broke away from her and aimed it right at her. She stood waiting, as if it was what she wanted. Then I just broke down."
He seemed close to breaking down again. I swear he was sucking me dry. I should have cried or screamed or something, but I had this feeling that there was not a bit of juice left in me. Why couldn't he just get the hell out? Why did he have to revenge himself on me so badly?
"I all but kicked her out that night. Then the next day I almost had her committed. Then I took one more chance. My company had designed a large building complex here on Wilshire Boulevard, and they needed someone to oversee construction. I asked Marlene if she wanted to give it one more try in California, with the understanding that I wouldn't take any more if it failed. She agreed. We moved in February last year. I didn't want her to enroll in any school. Instead I bought that old house, and the two of us took on the project of remodeling it. She got very interested in it and showed real design talent. For months it absorbed her totally. I let her do whole sections of the house herself."
I knew which ones they were.
"But when September came around I could feel that she wanted more than living with me and her doctor. She wanted to try school again. I took the greatest chance of my life and said OK, and that chance seemed to be working out beyond my wildest hopes. Of course, I didn't know about you."
He said this last a little strangely. You could tell he still wasn't easy with me, but he'd changed his tone some. Now for the first time he sounded like he wasn't just talking to himself. He paused. Finally he said,
"I know this has been hard on you. I know because it's been nearly impossible for me. But I'm beginning to see why Marlene insisted I do it. She almost told me word for word what to say.
"You know, knowing a thing is different from accepting it. You saw that when I came in - acting like some Sicilian don protecting his daughter's virtue, still pretending all of this didn't happen.
"By telling you these things, I've come a little closer to accepting them - something I could never do before. So it was like a test she set up for me. If she could finally accept the truth, I must also."
I guess I should have felt good, or something, that Marlene and her father were having such a good time with their little tests and all, but I didn't.
"I guess I appreciate your telling me all this," I said, "but I would really like to see Marlene. Could I at least talk to her on the phone?"
"Son, I'm afraid she left for Philadelphia two days ago."
What registered on my face then made him get up and come across the room to me. He put his hand on my shoulder.
"I know it seems like she's testing you, too, and I know that's probably unfair after all you've been through with her, but if you can have patience, if you can give her the time she needs to work things through, I think it may just work out for the two of you." He hesitated. "I didn't mention that one of the reasons she wanted to go east was to see her mother."
"Her mother?" I almost laughed.
"That was my reaction, too, but she seems to think it's necessary, and I don't intend to try to stop her."
"But she's coming back to live here?"
“I don't know. My job is really done here, and I have work in Philadelphia. I'm selling the house and will probably go back east in a week or two."
He moved away and I thought he was going to leave, but he sat down instead, this time on the sofa, closer to me.
"Mr....Andy, there is one thing I would appreciate your telling me."
"Yes?"
"I asked Marlene what it was that brought about her breakthrough, that helped her to finally begin seeing things differently. She told me that one day you had a vision, or something of the sort, that you actually saw into her past and what had happened to her, and that when you did, she saw it again, too. For the first time she realized that she was only a child, that what happened was beyond her control, that she didn't cause it; she hadn’t somehow willed it to happen. Imagine, all these years she had been carrying that guilt! She said it was you who let her see the truth and finally accept it."
"Maybe it was just time for it to happen."
"I think it was more. Did you really see? I mean, did you actually have a vision of what happened to her?"
For a minute I weighed what to tell him. Then I said,
"It wasn't anything I saw; it was just a feeling."
"A feeling."
"Yeah, from things she'd said from time to time. Just a lucky guess. I'm glad it worked, though. I guess I'm glad. Well, I'm really glad she's better and all; it's just that..."
"I know...I know."
He didn't seem satisfied with what I'd said, though. For a while he was quiet. Then he said,
“I guess...if a person had the ability to see into the past it would be a wonderful gift.”
He paused. I nodded but said nothing. He went on,
“Wonderful but frightening, depending on how it was used.”
This time when I didn’t respond he finally got up to leave. I followed him to the door. Just as his hand was on the knob he turned and said,
"I know you want to be with her, but if you can just hang on...She'll write to you in a few days. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No. I don't think so."
Then, for the first time, what looked like affection showed on his face. Very fast he said,
"Son, whatever you may think now, remember she gave you a beautiful gift, the most beautiful that a woman can give to a man. I hope it will always mean that to you."
And then - at last - he was gone.
After that, things didn't go very well at all. I don't remember all I did, but a lot of it was very stupid. Marlene did write a letter, very bland, with a lot of stuff she was doing in Philadelphia. She did say she loved me, but the whole thing sounded very friendly instead.
I wrote back a lot of impassioned, disconnected stuff, and I guess between the two letters you'd think I was the crazy one. The thing was, I really needed her. Her next letter was more personal - and more pained. She explained how she needed time and a little quiet to work through things, how she was taking some classes to get her diploma and might get into an architectural program at a college if she was strong enough. She swore we would be together again, but I had to give her this time.
I answered with a letter worse than the first - demanding, insisting, accusing. A week went by with no answer. I wrote again. That letter came back "Return to Sender - Address Unknown.”
I don't remember much else that happened at that time, but it didn't get better. I couldn't get up energy to run anymore. When I went out I walked nowhere. Sometimes I'd get angry as hell, and I almost broke my hand hitting trees and walls and things. Al stopped by once, but left pretty quickly. His father had him working almost day and night. I mean, family loyalty is OK up to a point, but Ol' Al should have spoken up a little more. Maybe I said that to him; maybe that's why he left.
I could tell things had hit bottom when my mother sent Danny over to talk to me again. He managed to take things a little lower yet, and the result was that we almost got into our first fist fight.
Finally, one Saturday morning a few weeks after Mr. Barzani's visit, I woke up to my mother pulling me out of bed by my ear. She almost had me in the kitchen before she let me go back and put some clothes on. She told me to sit down at the table and offered to cook me some breakfast. I didn't want any, so she dropped that pose and got to it.
"I want to know what's wrong," she declared.
"Nothing's wrong."
"Who would have thought you'd turn out like this?" she groaned in her best deceived-parent tone. "You used to be so pleasant, and now you're like some monster in my house. No one can stand you. No one can understand you."
"Maybe if you were around a little more you'd have some idea of what's goin' on."
I thought that would distract her into her 'If You Think It's Easy for a Single Woman to Support a Family" speech, but it didn't work.
"Well, maybe we don't communicate enough, but it happens I do know what's going on here."
"What do you mean?"
"Yesterday I had a call at my office from a Mr. Barzani."
I didn't know what to say to that so I just sat, but my face must have gone white, I was so pissed.
"He said that he was very concerned about you. That he had a conversation with you a few weeks ago about your relationship with his daughter and that apparently you were taking it very badly."
"What else did Mr. Barzani say?"
"It was what he didn't say that concerns me."
"What?"
"It was what his silences intimated about your relationship with this girl."
"She's not 'this girl.' Her name's Marlene."
"Well, maybe you will tell me now about how this all started. About what has gotten you this way."
"What, you want all the lewd details?"
Now the anger showed in her eyes, too.
"I'm not after cheap thrills from you, but I want to know what has happened. Were you intimate with this girl?"
"Intimate? "
"Sexually intimate!"
"Yes, we were sexually intimate, if that's any of your business. We were - are - in love."
"Love! What does that have to do with this? What do you know about that kind of love? Oh, Andy, how could you? A boy your age."
"I'm sixteen."
"Barely. You're just too young to get into this kind of thing."
"The equipment seems to be in working condition."
Her eyes flared at that, then locked down on mine.
"Don't be foul-mouthed with me. Because you have the equipment between your legs doesn't mean you have it between your ears."
I wondered how she would like to hear about my ears between Marlene's legs, but let it go.
"What I am saying, if it has escaped you completely, is that there are morals involved here. You don't do things just because you can. You can steal and kill, too. You were raised in a Christian home, and this is not the way Christians act. What you did is reserved for marriage, an act of love between husband and wife. Your grandfather was a minister. If he weren't already gone, this would have killed him."
"I didn't do anything to hurt Grandpa."
"Of course you did. Like everything else, you did it without thinking. And what about me? How do you think I feel receiving calls like that from a man I don't even know, who knows more about my own son than I do?"
This time I spared her the cheap shot. I just wanted it over. For a while she raved on like that. It was just the typical stuff parents say when they can't say the truth to their children. Then she said,
"Well, I can tell you things are not going to continue like this. You're not going to spend the summer mooning around here. Last night I called Frank Harmon. He has a place for you at the lake, and that's where you're going this afternoon. Maybe some hard work can use up that misplaced energy."
That was just great! First she says we don't communicate, then she raves to herself, then she sends me away for the summer. It was just such such typical shit. The rage in me built until something blew open and from deep in there a voice screamed out through my mouth,
"God damn you! Now I know how you killed my father!"
Where it came from I didn't know. It hung in the air inches from me, sounding and sounding, but unable to be called back. It was almost visible between us, and my mother's hand, appearing also from nowhere to strike down the abomination, caught me hard on the cheek instead. Since I’d been a child she hadn't struck me, and never on the face. I dug my nails almost through the side board of the table, but wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
Her eyes shrank down to steely points, and she hissed back,
"The bus leaves from downtown at four o'clock, and you will be on it."

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