CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
Jake"s eyes widen and then sparkle as his face breaks into an astonished grin. "My grandfather is alive!" alive!"
"Well, he might be. I haven"t seen or heard from him in a long time."
"So he didn"t didn"t have a heart attack!" have a heart attack!"
"Last I knew he had the heart of a bull, along with the stubbornness of one."
"Dad. You lied to me."
"I"m sorry. I don"t know how many apologies I can make to you, but every time I think I"m done, there"s always one more."
"You lied to Fran, too. You told her he was buried at sea!"
"I can live with lying to Fran."
Jake is too amazed by the news to stay mad at me. "How long since you last saw him?"
"Since...well, the day you were born."
"He came to the hospital!"
"Yes, Jake."
"Whoa! So he saw saw me! He actually me! He actually knows knows about me!" about me!"
"Yes, he...yes."
"So he knows Mom, too!"
"Yes, they"ve met. They weren"t exactly each other"s biggest fans."
"Holy s.h.i.t. This is amazing!" amazing!"
"Listen, he might might be dead. But I never got a phone call from anybody asking me to claim his body, and I"m his only blood relative." be dead. But I never got a phone call from anybody asking me to claim his body, and I"m his only blood relative."
"Besides me."
"Sorry, Jake, sorry. That"s right. Besides you."
"Or maybe he remarried, Dad. If he remarried and died, his wife could have buried him."
"Believe me, he did not not remarry. If Danny Sullivan is alive, he"s by himself. At least I hope so, for the sake of women everywhere." remarry. If Danny Sullivan is alive, he"s by himself. At least I hope so, for the sake of women everywhere."
"Danny Sullivan," Jake says, savoring the name. "Sounds like a tough Irish middleweight!"
"Funny you should say that. He did a little boxing when he was in the navy, plus the Sat.u.r.day night fistfights at Charlie"s Bar."
"Dad-"
"Don"t even dream it, son."
"We have have to." to."
"No, we don"t. We"ve all gotten along for a long time without seeing each other."
Jake spreads his hands. "You wouldn"t have told me about him if you didn"t want to see him. And anyway, you already promised to show me the house. Did you mean it? Or was that just another lie?"
Jake"s got me, and he knows it. He gets up, takes me by my elbow, and literally helps me to my feet. "Come on, Dad, it"s time. Let"s go. Lead the way."
And just like that we are on the way to my father"s house, for the first time since I was a teenager.
Clearly, this is not shaping up to be one of our usual rent-a-movie and Chinese takeout weekends.
I"m walking a lot more slowly than I normally walk, savoring the sights. I"ve walked these streets a million times, but almost everything seems different. The sidewalks are new, and there are clumsy additions to some of the old houses, gobbling up the little bits of lawn that had been left, and there"s lots of chintzy aluminum siding where once there was wooden clapboard.
But there"s also something missing, and I suddenly realize what it is-it"s kids. There are no kids out playing in the streets, like in the old days. They"re all inside with their computer games, or having conversations with one another online, or sending each other text messages on their mobile phones.
The air grows heavier the closer we get, because my old house is only a few blocks from Flushing Bay. My knees are starting to quake. As a young reporter for the Star Star I"d climbed tenement steps and banged on doors in the city"s worst neighborhoods, and never once did I feel so much as a tingle of fear. I felt invincible back then, and besides, I had nothing to lose. I"d climbed tenement steps and banged on doors in the city"s worst neighborhoods, and never once did I feel so much as a tingle of fear. I felt invincible back then, and besides, I had nothing to lose.
Now I have things to lose. A son. My pride. My sanity, or what"s left of it.
Jake senses my fear. "You okay, Dad?"
"I"m just doing the math. If he"s alive, he"s seventy-nine or eighty."
"Maybe he moved to Florida."
"No, Jake. My old man wasn"t the type of person to budge. If he"s alive, he"s here in Flushing."
"Why"d you tell me he was dead?"
"You"ll see when you meet him. If If you you meet him." you you meet him."
"I already met him, in a way."
"Well, yeah. Like I told you, he came to the hospital the day you were born, and that was the last we all saw of each other."
"I"ll bet this has something to do with Mom."
"Since you brought it up..."
"What happened?"
"Well, it"s your name."
"My name?"
"Your last name. Your mother insisted that her name went in there along with mine, so she wouldn"t get "wiped out," as she put it. My old man took one look at the "Perez-Sullivan" last name on the card over your ba.s.sinet, and he went nuts."
"Come on."
"Swear to G.o.d. He actually barged into the nursery with a black Magic Marker and crossed out the "Perez" on the card. The nursery"s supposed to be a sanitary area, and here"s this lunatic with no gown and no mask, scrawling away. Somebody called security, and it took three guards to drag him out of the hospital."
Jake chuckles. "That"s pretty funny."
"Yeah, well, your mother didn"t think so. When I told her what happened she said, and I quote: "The less our son has to do with that man, the better.""
Jake is no longer chuckling. "That sounds like her, all right."
"Oh, she meant it. That was the end of it."
"You never saw him again?"
"Never saw him, never spoke with him." I sigh, long and hard. "It"s less dramatic than it sounds, Jake. It"s not as if we had a strong relationship going before the ba.s.sinet thing. Sometimes people just let go of each other. He didn"t call us, and we didn"t call him. And the years just pa.s.sed."
Jake stops walking and takes my arm. His eyes are bright with tears that have not yet spilled over.
"I hope you don"t let go of me," he says.
I take him in my arms, hugging as if we"re both falling from the sky and sharing one parachute.
"Never happen," I say. "Never." And I hope to Christ I am telling the truth.
And as we hold each other, a funny thing happens, right there on that crooked little street in Queens. I can feel strength flowing from my son right through my arms, across my chest, and straight down my legs, where the quivering of my knees suddenly stops. I pull back from my son, wipe the tears from his eyes with a gentle knuckle.
"All right, then, Jake. Let"s go see if this old b.a.s.t.a.r.d is still breathing."
The clapboard house is still standing, though the yellow paint is peeling and faded. Jake points at it from half a block away. "That"s got to be it. Am I right?"
"You are right."
"Think he"s alive?"
"We"ll know soon enough."
A tall privet hedge blocks our view of the front lawn, but as we approach we can hear digging sounds, the sc.r.a.pe of steel against stone, and as we reach the front walk there he is on his knees, in jeans and a green T-shirt, prying up a chunk of cement with a crowbar.
He"s got his back to us. His thick hair has gone completely white, the radiant white of a healthy old man, and it"s cropped close to the scalp. All around him are pried-up chunks of the short cement path that used to lead from the front door to the sidewalk, and then I see a sledgehammer, which he"s obviously used to smash the cement path to smithereens.
Sledgehammers and crowbars. So much for my premonitions about a feeble old man.
He wiggles the crowbar from side to side, loosens a chunk of cement, pulls it free with a groan of satisfaction, and chucks it aside. Now the entire path has been removed, down to the dirt. My father gets to his feet, and claps his gloved hands together to knock off the dirt. He turns toward the sidewalk and freezes at the sight of us standing there.
Except for the totally white hair, he hasn"t changed very much since the day Jake was born. He"s still as lean as a leopard, his big blue eyes twinkle with mischief, and his bare arms are ropy with sinew and muscle.
"So, Dad," I begin. "How are you, anyway?"
He stands there and stares at me, squints at me, as if maybe his eyes could be playing tricks on him in the wake of the enormous physical effort he"s just expended to demolish the cement path.
But he quickly realizes I"m no mirage. He pulls off his gloves and tosses them to the ground, like a hockey player ready for a fight.
"Holy s.h.i.t," says Danny Sullivan, in a voice many decibels quieter than the voice I remember from my childhood. Still looking straight at me, he points a finger in Jake"s direction. "My grandson?"
"Yeah."
"Come here, kid."
A wide-eyed Jake obeys my father, stepping up to him and stopping before him as if a medal is going to be pinned to his chest. Instead, my father reaches out and gingerly touches his cheek, then his chest, then his arms, as if Jake is an oil painting, a work of art that is not quite dry. A smile that"s half a smirk creases my father"s face. "You"re taller than your old man."
"A little."
"You happy about that?"
"I guess so. I hadn"t really thought about it."
My father turns to me, smiling broadly now, and I see that he still has his teeth. They gleam a golden yellow in the early afternoon light.
"How about that?" he says. "The Spick-Mick is taller than you!"
Political correctness was never one of my old man"s strengths. Jake has grown up in a hothouse of it under Doris"s roof, so I"m somewhat astonished to see that he"s all but doubled over with laughter at what his paternal grandfather has just called him. My father offers a hand to shake with Jake, then pulls the boy into a headlock. "Your father let you drink beer, kid?"
"Yes, sir."
"Call me Danny. Should we go inside and have a cold one?"
"Unless you want to take me to Charlie"s Bar."
"Ho-ho!" My father laughs out loud. "Charlie"s Bar! How do you know about Charlie"s Bar?"
"I"ve heard some things," Jake deadpans.
"Well, kid, I"d love to take you, but Charlie"s Bar burned to the ground about five years ago. So what say we go inside and wet our whistles?"
"Okay by me, Danny."
My father keeps Jake in a headlock on the short walk to the house. Giggling like he did when he was five years old, Jake has to walk hunched over so"s not to break my father"s grasp.
I"m still standing on the sidewalk in a state of shock. When they get to the door, my father turns to me. "You can come in, too, if you"re thirsty."