“Lemmesee the pockets,” Jason shouted, moving to me across the foyer. It was a suppertime Thursday and, while he went through his ritual, Helen emerged from the library and kissed my cheek, going
“what a dashing-looking fell ow I have,” which is also ritual, and, laden with gifts, Jason kind of hugged me and belted off (waddled off) to his room. “Angelica’s just getting dinner on,” Helen said; “you couldn’t have timed it better.”
“Angelica?”
Helen put her finger to her lips and whispered, “It’s her third day on but I think she may be a treasure.” I whispered back, “What was wrong with the treasure we had when I left? She’d only been with us a week then?”
“She proved a disappointment,” Helen said. That was all. (Helen is this brilliant lady—junior Phi Bete in college, every academic honor conceivable, really an intellect of startling breadth and accomplishment—only she can’t keep a maid. First, I guess she feels guilty having anybody, since most of the anybody’s available nowadays are black or Spanish and Helen is ultra-super liberal. Second, she’s so efficient, she scares them. She can do everything better than they can and she knows it and she knows they know it. Third, once she’s got them panicked, she tries to explain, being an analyst, why they shouldn’t be frightened, and after a good solid half-hour ego search with Helen, they’re really frightened. Anyway, we have had an average of four “treasures” a year for the last few years.)
“We’ve been running in bad luck but it’ll change,” I said, just as reassuringly as I knew how. I used to heckle her about the help problem, but I learned that was not necessarily wise.
Dinner was ready a little later, and with an arm around my wife and an arm around my son, I advanced toward the dining room. I felt, at that moment, safe, secure, all the nice things. Supper was on the table: creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, gravy and pot roast; terrific, except I don’t like pot roast, since I’m a rare-meat man, but creamed spinach I have a lech for, so, all in all, a more than edible spread was set across the tablecloth. We sat. Helen served the meat; the rest we passed. My pot-roast slice was not terribly moist but the gravy could compensate. Helen rang. Angelica appeared. Maybe twenty or eighteen, swarthy, slow-moving. “Angelica,” Helen began, “this is Mr. Goldman.”
I smiled and said “Hi” and waved a fork. She nodded back.
“Angelica, this is not meant to be construed as criticism, since what happened is all my fault , but in the future we must both try very hard to remember that Mr. Goldman likes his roast beef rare—”
“This was roast beef?” I said.
Helen shot me a look. “Now, Angelica, there is no problem, and / should have told you more than once about Mr. Goldman’s preferences, but next time we have boned rib roast, let’s all do our best to make the middle pink, shal we?”
Angelica backed into the kitchen. Another “treasure” down the tubes.
Remember now, we all three started this meal happy. Two of us are left in that state, Helen clearly being distraught.
Jason was piling the mashed potatoes on his plate with a practiced and steady motion.
I smiled at my kid. “Hey,” I tried, “let’s go a little easy, huh, fell a?”
He splatted another fat spoonful onto his plate.
“Jason, they’re just loaded,” I said then.
“I’m really hungry, Dad,” he said, not looking at me.
“Fill up on the meat then, why don’t you,” I said. “Eat all the meat you want, I won’t say a word.”
“I’m not eatin’ nothin’!” Jason said, and he shoved his plate away and folded his arms and stared off into space.
“If I were a furniture salesperson,” Helen said to me, “or perhaps a teller in a bank, I could understand; but how can you have spent all these years married to a psychiatrist and talk like that. You’re out of the Dark Ages, Willy.”
“Helen, the boy is overweight. All I suggested was he might leave a few potatoes for the rest of the world and stuff on this lovely prime pot roast your treasure has whipped up for my triumphant return.”
“Willy, I don’t want to shock you, but Jason happens to have not only a very fine mind but also exceptionally keen eyesight. When he looks at himself in the mirror, I assure you he knows he is not slender.
That is because he does not choose , at this stage, to be slender.”
“He’s not that far from dating, Helen; what then?”
“Jason is ten, darling, and not interested, at this stage, in girls. At this stage, he is interested in rocketry. What difference does a slight case of overweight make to a rocket lover? When he chooses to be slender, I assure you, he has both the intelligence and the will power to become slender. Until that time, please, in my presence, do not frustrate the child.” Sandy Sterling in her bikini was dancing behind my eyes.
“I’m not eatin’ and that’s it,” Jason said then.
“Sweet child,” Helen said to the kid, in that tone she reserves on this Earth only for such moments, “be logical. If you do not eat your potatoes, you will be upset, and I will be upset; your father, clearly, is already upset. If you do eat your potatoes, I shal be pleased, you will be pleased, your tummy will be pleased. We can do nothing about your father. You have it in your power to upset all or one, about whom, as I have already said, we can do nothing. Therefore, the conclusion should be clear, but I have faith in your ability to reach it yourself. Do what you will, Jason.” He began to stuff it in.
“You’re making a poof out of that kid,” I said, only not loud enough for anybody but me and Sandy to hear. Then I took a deep, deep breath, because whenever I come home there’s always trouble, which is because, Helen says, I bring tension with me, I always need inhuman proof that I’ve been missed, that I’m still needed, loved, etc. All I know is, I hate being away but coming home is the worst. There’s never really much chance to go into “well, what’s new since I’m gone” chitchat, seeing that Helen and I talk every night anyway.
“I’ll bet you’re a whiz on that bike,” I said then. “Maybe we’ll go for a ride this weekend.”
Jason looked up from his potatoes. “I really loved the book, Dad. It was great.”
I was surprised that he said it, because, naturally, I was just starting to work my way into that subject matter. But then, as Helen’s always saying, Jason ain’t no dummy. “Well I’m glad,” I said. And was I ever.
Jason nodded. “Maybe it’s even the best I read in all my life.”
I nibbled away at my spinach. “What was your favorite part?”
“Chapter One. The Bride,” Jason said.
That really surprised me. Not that Chapter One stinks or anything, but there’s not that much that goes on compared with the incredible stuff later. Buttercup grows up mostly is all. “How about the climb up the Cliffs of Insanity?” I said then. That’s in Chapter Five.
“Oh, great,” Jason said.
“And that description of Prince Humperdinck’s Zoo of Death?” That’s in the second chapter.
“Even greater,” Jason said.