My mother greeted Armand and Jessica at the front door as my father entered the living room, yawning and straightening his tie. Armand’s entrance caught him with his mouth wide open. My father jerked his tie, his mouth closed in surprise and he stood rigidly in the doorway.
The scent of a subtle perfume filled the air as the girl entered. Her eyes were blue, and for the first time I realized that blue was the most beautiful color in the world.
“This is Jessica Stone,” Armand announced, his hand still at her elbow but protectively now. “Jessica, this is my father and mother.” I had to suppress a giggle at his formality. “And my brother Jerry,” he added, pointing to me. “The other kids are out somewhere, playing around.”
Jessica smiled hesitantly and I saw her hand tremble at her side. Armand guided her to the davenport. I wondered whether her cheeks gave her pain: that smile seemed to be hurting her. And no wonder, I thought, as I looked at my father, who stood like a figure of wrath at the doorway.
My mother seemed to be everywhere at once, adjusting the curtain, flicking an invisible speck of dust from the end table, touching Armand’s shoulder and pushing me from the room. I heard the big leather chair squeak menacingly as my father lowered himself into it.
Shamelessly, I stood near the door, straining to catch every sound and nuance of the conversation. My mother and Armand carried on a strange wandering conversation about the weather, talking at length of tumbling leaves and the great amount of rain that had fallen during the week and the way nights were becoming chilly. I was impatient for the foolish conversation to end. Finally, a huge silence settled in the room.
Roger Lussier called to me from the outside steps, and I remembered in dismay that we were supposed to go to the movies. I didn’t answer, hoping he would go away.
After a while, my father cleared his throat. “I was listening to the ball game,” he said. “Do you follow baseball?”
I peeked into the room and saw Jessica sitting stiffly beside Armand. “I play tennis,” she said.
“Tennis,” my father said, as if that were the most ridiculous sport in the world.
“She’s very good,” Armand offered. “She won a trophy last year.”
Silence again except for Roger’s voice, sounding impatient and shrill now.
“Your father. Where does he work?” my father asked.
“In the Savings Bank,” she answered.
“A banker?” my father inquired, giving the word the same contempt that he used for Republican.
“He’s a teller,” she amended.
“But he works in a bank,” my father declared, with a kind of triumph.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice strained.
Roger was setting up such a howl outside that I went to the back door. Actually, I was somewhat relieved to end my eavesdropping because I shared the pain and embarrassment of Jessica Stone. Roger was worried that we would be late for the movie, but my mind was still in the parlor.
“All right,” I told him. “Let’s go. But wait just one minute more …” I reentered the house and stood by the parlor doorway again.
“Franklin D. Roosevelt is the greatest president the country ever had,” my father was saying. “The greatest man in the world.”
“Abraham Lincoln was a great president, too,” Jessica answered, a hint of defiance in her voice.
I couldn’t bear to listen any further and was happy to join Roger on the back steps. I was in a hurry to get to the Globe Theater, or anyplace that was far away from the inquisition going on in the parlor.
When I arrived home at supper time, my father was sitting in the kitchen, exuding an air of victory. His shoes were off and his feet extended luxuriously out on the floor. My mother busied herself at the stove: there was always something cooking there, morning, noon and night, that needed her attention.
“And did you see her sitting there so prim and proper?” my father was asking. “What kind of girl is that? I tell you, it’s like Theophile LeBlanc said. Protestants have no juices. Did you see the girl smile? No. Did she laugh? No. And anyone who thinks that Abraham Lincoln is greater than Franklin D. Roosevelt …” He shook his head in disbelief.
“Louis … Louis,” my mother said. “She’s a nice girl, a fine girl, and she loves your son. Does it matter what she thinks of Roosevelt or Lincoln? Does it matter what church she goes to?” A bit of anger crept into her voice. “And how could you act so rude to a guest in your house?”
“But don’t you see?” he asked. “I wanted to show Armand that the girl is not for him, that she would not fit into his life, into our life. She plays tennis. She doesn’t follow the Red Sox. She sings in a Protestant choir. And it’s plain to see she’s a Republican …”
“But she’s hardly old enough to vote,” my mother said.
“Well, maybe we’ll see a change in Armand now,” my father said, settling back, wriggling his feet, “now that I’ve”—he groped for the word and pinned it down exultantly—“exposed her.”
My father’s exposure of Jessica Stone did not affect Armand’s love for her. In fact, he announced a few nights later that he was planning to give her an engagement ring for Christmas. My father closed his eyes when he heard the news and his lips moved in what I hoped was a silent prayer but feared was an oath too terrible for us to hear. I looked at my father and Armand and my mother and did some praying of my own. I felt allegiance to my father whose oldest son was defying him, who was ready to turn his back on his family and who no longer was interested in such things as baseball for the sake of a girl. Yet, I also sympathized with Armand because I agreed that Jessica Stone was more beautiful than any girl in Frenchtown. And my heart also had room for my mother, torn between her husband and her son. When I saw the sorrow in her face as she looked at one and then the other, I easily forgave her for going behind my father’s back to help Armand. And yet … yet, I was tired of the situation because it seemed to me that there were more important things in the world than love, and everytime I brought up one of these things—for instance, the frustrating December weather that had not turned cold enough for ice skating—someone would tell me to go out and play or Paul would accuse me of having no appreciation of drama. I wanted to tell him that if drama was something that made your chest ache with strangeness, then I wanted no part of it.
We were all involved in a large drama, however, when the voice of the announcer on the radio one Sunday afternoon stunned us with the news that the Japanese had attacked a place called Pearl Harbor.
My father jumped from his chair in alarm and excitement, indignant to learn that someone had dared challenge the nation led by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“Paul,” he bellowed. “Paul …”
My brother came running from the bedroom where he had been reading a book as usual.
“Where is Pearl Harbor?” my father asked him.
“In Hawaii,” Paul answered promptly.
We learned more about Pearl Harbor and the vast world of the Pacific Ocean in the weeks to come, and my father spent many hours at the radio, shaking his head at the news, perpetually angry. He seemed to take it as a personal insult that American boys were being wounded and dying.
One supper time when my father, after the usual prayer of grace, added another prayer for the good American boys who were in battle, Armand said: “A good many of those boys are Protestants …”
My father paused, deep in thought. “And a good many are Catholic, too,” he answered after a while, the belligerency gone from his voice.
“Well, here’s one Catholic you can add to the roll. I’m going to enlist.”
A sharp cry came from my mother, but somehow I had eyes only for my father. For the first time in months, he looked at Armand directly.
“No,” my father protested. “You’re just a boy …”
“I’m an American,” Armand said.
“I thought you were going to get married in the spring,” Paul interjected.
“Jessica and I tal
ked it over,” Armand said. “How can we get married when there’s a war going on? She said she’s willing to wait …” He looked at my father. “Pa, I want your permission to enlist. Me and Jessica, that’s something else. I know you don’t approve of us, but I’ll tell you this much: as soon as I come back, we’re going to be married.”
“But why volunteer?” my father asked. “There are a lot of others who can go.”
His question surprised me because it was obvious that Armand’s enlistment would solve the problem of his romance. I pondered again the mysterious ways of grown-ups. For myself, I had no fear for Armand’s safety. In my eyes, he had been born to become a hero, whether on a baseball field or in battle, and I was sure of his indestructibility.
“Every man has his duty to perform,” Armand said, and his words were quiet and somehow sad and gallant.
Incredibly, tears formed in the corners of my father’s eyes. At first, I thought he must be sick because I had never seen him cry before. He sniffed and blew his nose and cleared his throat.
“Hey, Pa,” Paul said. “You’re crying.”
“Who’s crying?” my father bellowed, his wet eyes finding my mother, who sat stunned and grief-stricken across from him, her face cruelly bleak as if winter had blown across her features. “It’s the onions in the soup,” my father said. “Onions always bring tears to a man’s eyes …”
The clock in the steeple of the Congregational Church in the square stroked the hour of nine and we listened to its echoes in the crisp morning air. The army bus stood at the corner and I was fascinated by its color, the olive drab giving an air of emergency to the gathering of people on the sidewalk. The fellows who were leaving for military service were not yet in uniform, but already there was a hint of the military in their bearing. A soldier in uniform paced the sidewalk impatiently near the bus.
My father and I stood with Armand in front of King’s Shoe Store. My mother had remained at home, having kissed Armand goodbye without allowing tears to fall, and unwilling to take the chance of breaking down as he got on the bus. The other children were in school, but my father had allowed me to see Armand off.
“I hope they send us down South for basic training,” Armand said. “At least, it’ll be warm there.” His voice seemed unnaturally thin and high-pitched, and his eyes searched the square, looking for Jessica. I saw her first, the blond hair vivid in the drabness of the morning. She walked swiftly toward us, opening her arms to Armand as she approached, but she arrested the gesture when she saw my father. They had not met since that terrible Sunday in the parlor.
My father shifted on one foot and then another. Finally, he looked down at me. “Come, Jerry, let’s go find that soldier and ask him when the bus is leaving …”
“Thanks, Pa,” Armand said.
As we approached the soldier, he placed a silver whistle in his mouth and blew it fiercely. He called out: “Okay, you guys, fall in. On the double. On the double …” He would have made a fine cheerleader.
My father and I returned to Armand and Jessica, who were holding hands, huddled together as if the day had suddenly turned too cold to bear.
“It’s time,” my father said, touching Armand’s shoulder.
Armand drew back his shoulders and shook hands with my father. He punched me lightly on the arm. He turned to Jessica and kissed her gently on the cheek and then gathered her in his arms, holding her closely. He pulled away from her abruptly and looked at us all for a long moment, his face pale and his chin trembling a little. And then he walked quickly toward the bus and was lost in the crowd of fellows who were leaving with him.
Jessica turned away from us. She kept her face averted as the bus gradually filled, as the soldier took one final look around the square, as the motor roared into life. Armand waved to us from inside the bus, but there was little comfort in that last glimpse.
The bus turned the corner and was gone. The people began to disperse and my father, Jessica, and I seemed to be alone as if we were standing on a small invisible island there in the square. She still did not look at us, although I could see the reflection of her face in a store window. Clutching her coat at the neck, she left us abruptly, walking away without warning.
My father watched her go, shrugging his shoulders.
“Pa,” I said, “you were wrong.”
“What do you mean, wrong?” he asked gruffly, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket.
“You said Protestants have no heart, that they don’t laugh or cry. Jessica was crying. I saw her face and she was crying just like you cried the other night at supper.”
He looked at her retreating figure. He blew his nose feebly and the sound was not as magnificent as usual, barely audible above the traffic. He lifted his arms and let them drop at his sides.
“There’s no fool like an old fool,” he said, mysteriously. Then: “Come, Jerry, let’s go find her before she’s too far away …”
I had to run to keep pace with him as we threaded our way through the crowd. We finally caught up to her near the drinking fountain on the other side of the square. My father touched her arm, and suddenly she was folded in his embrace and never before had I seen people look so happy while they were crying.
Guess What?
I Almost Kissed My Father Goodnight
INTRODUCTION
I left the newspaper earlier than usual that particular afternoon, for a reason I have now forgotten. Driving through the downtown area, I remembered an errand that had to be run. Which meant I would have to turn around, drive across town, find a parking space, and so forth. I drew the car up at the curb, pausing there, letting the traffic flow by, wondering whether the errand was worth the bother.
“Dad!”
I turned at the voice. My son, Peter, then in high school, was regarding me with surprise.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I explained. “And what are you doing here?”
He told me that school had ended early because of a teachers’ conference. He looked at me curiously as he got into the car. I felt his eyes on me as I drove. Once, glancing at him, I was startled to see something that resembled suspicion in his eyes. Why? Then I realized he had suddenly seen me out of context, in a car downtown in the middle of the day, not at home, not at work. We drove along without further comment.
A small moment in an ordinary day. But that meeting turned out to contain the seeds of “Guess What? I Almost Kissed My Father Goodnight.”
Fathers are mysterious beings to their children. At least, my father was to me. Which is strange because he was an ordinary man. He worked in a factory eight hours a day, five days a week. He loved the Boston Red Sox despite their inability to win a pennant most years. He enjoyed cold beer at the end of the day. He was affectionate with his wife and children, never left the house or returned without a kiss for my mother. As I grew older, we became friends. But there were certain things I couldn’t ask him. What did he think about as he sat at the bench eight hours a day? What dreams and hopes wafted him to sleep as he took a nap after supper? Was he disappointed with his life? Or had he found fulfillment? I knew so much about him—from his shoe size (6 1/2 or 7, depending on the style) to his favorite singer (Bing Crosby), but there was so much that I would never know.
That downtown encounter with Peter caused me to wonder whether he might feel the same way. He had always seen me in the familiar role of father—but did that sudden meeting make him regard me for once as an individual, a person distinct from the father figure I had always been? And what if …
There it was again, that perennial question.
I embarked on a story in which the narrator is a sixteen-year-old boy who “investigates” his father, who learns his shoe and shirt sizes and a lot of other things, although he is searching for something altogether different. The story is told from the boy’s viewpoint because I wanted to preserve the mystery of the father, to show that although some questions are never really answered, there are tantalizing hints
and indications.
Years later, long after the story had been written and appeared in print, I asked Peter if he remembered that midday meeting on Main Street.
He thought a moment. “Vaguely,” he said.
But I don’t think he remembered at all.
Which is, perhaps, another story.
Guess What?
I Almost Kissed My Father Goodnight
I’ve got to get to the bottom of it all somehow and maybe this is the best way. It’s about my father. For instance, I found out recently that my father is actually forty-five years old. I knew that he was forty-something but it never meant anything to me. I mean, trying to imagine someone over forty and what it’s like to be that old is the same as trying to imagine what the world would be like in, say, 1999. Anyway, he’s forty-five, and he has the kind of terrible job that fathers have; in his case, he’s office manager for a computer equipment concern. Nine-to-five stuff. Four weeks vacation every year but two weeks must be taken between January and May so he usually ends up painting the house or building a patio or something like that in April, and then we travel the other two weeks in July. See America First. He reads a couple of newspapers every day and never misses the seven o’clock news on television. Here are some other vital statistics my research turned up: He’s five ten, weighs 160 pounds, has a tendency toward high blood pressure, enjoys a glass of beer or two while he’s watching the Red Sox on television, sips one martini and never two before dinner, likes his steak medium rare and has a habit of saying that “tonight, by God, I’m going to stay up and watch Johnny Carson,” but always gropes his way to bed after the eleven o’clock news, which he watches only to learn the next day’s weather forecast. He has a pretty good sense of humor but a weakness for awful puns that he inflicts on us at the dinner table: “Do you carrot all for me? I’m in a stew over you.” We humor him. By we, I mean my sisters. Annie, who is nineteen and away at college, and Debbie, who is fourteen and spends her life on the telephone. And me: I’m Mike, almost sixteen and a sophomore in high school. My mother’s name is Ellen—Dad calls her Ellie—and she’s a standard mother: “Clean up your room! Is your homework done?”