had taken off. It’s nothing at all. Stop worrying.’
At least he’s listening to me.
‘Oh, it’s a cyst, just a cyst.’
I pick it up.
‘Sure, just a cyst, nothing to worry about.’
I’m lying like hell. I don’t know; it could be anything, but there’s no sense having him worry for the next two weeks.
We try to watch the TV. There are people sitting on top of each other in something like a giant three-dimensional tic-tac-toe design. Different boxes light up and they’re trying to beat each other answering questions. Dad’s mumbling half to himself.
‘Just a cyst, that’s nothing. Nothing to worry about, only a cyst.’
Sometimes he turns his head and looks out the window at the car and I think he’s seeing something, then he turns to me and smiles.
‘It’s only a cyst. Nothing to worry about there. Nothing at all.’
I wish I could get asshole Santana to sit here and watch this. I tell Dad the lie again about the cystoscopic examination only looking for cysts. I don’t really know why they call it a cystoscopic examination but I’m glad for the coincidence.
Finally, he begins to relax, to smile naturally sometimes. I go all out for dinner and cook a couple big T-bone steaks. We have beer with them and coffee afterward. We really eat. Dad enjoys this. He’s coming around, gaining back some of his confidence, making up lost ground. We try some man-talk, at least as much man-talk as we can manage. It’s hard with him. It’s not just because we’re father and son, but he hasn’t had much experience.
Not long after dinner, Dad goes to bed; he’s completely pooped. I sit up in the living room and turn on the television. I find an old movie I really like called. It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. This might just be the most romantic film ever made.
I’m needing a woman’s care, love. I’m lonesome, not just horny, lonesome. There’s something about being with a woman, knowing mutual pleasure, sharing the most natural part of being alive. It’s been more than a month now, sleeping alone, no one to share with, just alone in a bed.
I fall asleep in the platform rocker and wake at first light. I haven’t even kicked off my shoes. That’s not like me. I take a shower. I make sure I get all those walls wiped and the tub is spotless. That’s how it is living around Mom. You spend your time making sure of everything. It’s the story of my childhood, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of recrimination.
I work on Dad not to tell Mom about his operation; to let me break it gently, give her as much time as we can. Then we’ll only tell her Dad’s having a cyst removed, but not until just before he goes.
When Mother comes home, I put her in the middle bedroom again. I’ve rented a special mattress attached to a pump; it’s to keep her from getting bedsores. I’ve rented an oxygen setup too, in case she needs it. This time we’re ready for anything. I have my cuff for her blood pressure and I can take her pulse or temperature. It’s not exactly an intensive care unit but it’s a homemade approximation. I quietly read the riot act to Mom about taking it easy. She seems willing to go along this time.
One thing that’s haunting Mother is the notion of having a joint wedding anniversary celebration. I guess she cooked it up lying there in the hospital. My folks’ golden anniversary was three years ago, but Joan and Mario’s twenty-fifth was in January, while Vron and I will have been married twenty-five years in June. Mother is determined to put on some kind of event while I’m here, even though Vron is still in Paris. Joan thinks it might spark her up; it’s just Mom’s kind of thing. Joan made Mom a wedding dress for the fiftieth celebration. There was a mass, renewing of vows, the whole thing. I didn’t come; spending money that way seems stupid; so I’m feeling guilty and go along with it.
Two days before Dad’s to go in for his operation, we get dressed up. Mario, Dad and I wear suits with white shirts, ties. Joan and Mother are in wedding dresses. Joan’s baked a three-layer cake and she still has the bride and groom dolls from the top of her original wedding cake. She also has the decorations from her wedding, silver collapsible bells and white crepe-paper streamers. We decorate the dining room.
Mario and I take turns snapping pictures with a Polaroid camera. We take pictures stuffing cake into each other’s mouths. We keep faking it as if Vron’s there. Both Joan and Vron were married in the same dress. We were married five months after Joan and Mario, so Vron saved on a dress.
Naturally, Joan still has it and that’s the dress she’s wearing. She stays out of the frame and shoves wedding cake in my mouth. Since it’s Polaroid, we see the pictures right away. It always seems like an accident Vron’s not there. One time, Mario takes a picture with my arm out as if I have it around Vron’s shoulders. He says he’ll frame it so nobody will know, but he doesn’t correct for parallax and it looks as if I have my arm around somebody invisible.
We do this Tuesday night and Dad’s to be operated on Thursday. Looking back, it’s weird; maybe Mother has some kind of premonition. You’d never know we were virtually lifting Mom out of bed, snapping pictures, then lowering her, wedding dress and all, back into bed. I hate to think what Dr Coe would say.
Over my objections, Dad and Mom sleep together that night in their own bed. Dad promises to behave himself; I’m almost ready to rig a bundling board. Of course, in the morning, Mom knows about Dad’s operation; he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I imagine after more than fifty years’ confiding it’s impossible to hold back.
She wants to know what it’s all about. I tell her he has a cyst, that some blood showed in his urine and I took him to the hospital. I tell her there’s nothing wrong except a cyst on his bladder they found in the cystoscopic examination.
Mom sucks in her breath when I mention the cystoscopic; this is something she knows. She’s had trouble with her bladder since I was born. It’s something she’s never let me forget; ‘I ruined her insides.’ I remember as a kid feeling guilty, wishing I hadn’t done it. I’ve heard a hundred times about my ‘big head’. I’d look at myself in the mirror and was sure I had a head half again bigger than normal people. I do wear a size 7½ hat but I’m not exactly macrocephalic.
As a result, Mother’s bladder dropped and had to be sewn up. It’s always been small and she’s constantly having it stretched, a painful process.
My birth was such a trauma she came home and told my father she wouldn’t have any more children. One’s enough and she’s had it. He’s to leave her strictly alone. They’re rigid Catholics, so contraceptives are out of the question.
At first Dad goes along; she’s scared the daylights out of him; they stay immaculate for six months or so. They’re sharing a single-row house with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Mary. I was born in early November and all through the winter, Mother’s hanging out diapers and having them freeze on the line, fighting diaper rash, and I have colic for the first three months.
But Dad’s a normal guy with more than normal sex drive. This is something I’ve only recently realized. After six months, he comes home from work and hands something wrapped in a piece of paper to Mother. Inside, there’s a beautifully carved wooden clothespin, not the spring-clip type but the old squeeze kind. Dad’s good with a knife and he’s carved a small man from this clothespin. It has arms, hands, fingers, everything. Written on a slip of paper is ‘This is the kind of man you need. I’m not it.’
Mom got the message. She’s carried that clothespin all her life and the note is in her cedar chest of valuable things, along with baby books, birth certificates, baby bonds, war bonds, defense bonds, savings bonds.
But she’s still scared, so she worms a contraceptive remedy out of a Mrs Hunt down the street. Why this is going to be all right with the church and Dad wearing a rubber isn’t, I don’t know. But she’s only eighteen years old. She’s still nursing me, so she’s probably not going to get pregnant anyway.
The