“Is that a crime? No. Isn’t that what childhood’s for?
“I really think, looking back, that Mom had been mentally ill all her life, with her peculiar distorted outlook on reality. She proved it, later. And what happened to me next was her fault, not mine. My first marriage. You see, Dad had left me half his money, and the other half to Mom. That was a bad mistake, considering her mental illness, and her extreme conservative ideas which she tried to force on me. Though I was still only a kid when Dad died I should have known more about her symptoms. I should have insisted that she undergo therapy; I once mentioned it to her. She actually hit me across the face!
“Then and there I should have consulted with Dad’s lawyers about having her committed and treated by psychiatrists. Menopause and all that, you know? She was out of her mind, frankly. Screaming at me all the time, saying poor old Dad had been a criminal to leave me half his money outright. I couldn’t take it. I’m a patient sort of guy, good-natured. That’s my fault, actually. So, I left home, not long after the funeral. I went around the world again. When I came back I took an apartment in New York and looked up old friends from my college days. Fun! Except some of them had elected to settle down—at their age! Only kids. What a waste.
“I don’t know just how it happened. There were these girls, you know? Models. Debra was the prettiest we knew. I should have known she was a tramp, but I was only a kid, after all. She thought I was a multimillionaire; she played up to me. Then one day she told me she was pregnant. Well, what was I supposed to do about that? She also said that she wasn’t yet eighteen, so that, under the law in New York State I was guilty of statutory rape! Isn’t that a blast? I went to lawyers, and they tried to buy her off. But no, she wanted to marry me. She brought her parents and all the rest of her stupid family from New Jersey. Grocers. Me, marrying the daughter of a grocer! Then I thought, ‘Hell, I can always divorce her, later.’ So, I married her. To give the kid a name, you know? Not that I cared much.”
Again, and with blazing suddenness and vitality, he saw the youthful father in the church, with his child in his thin young arms and the glowing look of melting love and joy on his boy’s face.
A father and his child.
“That’s the poor kid’s fault,” said Johnnie in answer. But the curious sadness, which had in it a sense of unbearable loss, moved like a dark wing over him. “We were married in City Hall. I thought, in all justice, that Mom ought to know, and we came back here on our honeymoon, though by this time I was sick of Debra. Mom had a shock. She’s the old-fashioned, down-on-the-farm type, you know? I could see what she thought of Debra, and in a way I know she was right; she came from behind her clouds of mental illness for a little while, though she had a relapse when she insisted we be married before a priest. Debra refused, and so did I. I couldn’t tell Mom outright that I intended to divorce Debra as soon as I could. She thought it scandalous enough that we weren’t ‘validly married.’ She said I was excommunicated, and she called for the priests and they told me the same thing. It was a drag. Who cared?
“Well, Debra wanted two hundred thousand dollars to give me my freedom. I sent her to Reno after the baby was born. He lived with Mom. Then Mom asked me how much money I had left. I couldn’t believe it! I had only two hundred thousand left—after all that money! Worst of all, there was a provision in Dad’s will that after his death all royalties from his small tool invention was to be put into trusts for his grandchildren. Mom and I couldn’t touch it. He’d thought that what he’d left us outright was enough for us—me. He was wrong. How far does six hundred thousand dollars go these days? Nowhere. My share was six hundred thousand, and so was Mom’s.
“She didn’t realize how fast money can go in this generation. She flipped. How could I have gotten rid of half a million dollars so fast? Easy, I told her. Living it up, like Dad taught me. I didn’t live like a schoolteacher on a Sabbatical in Europe, you can bet! And women cost money, and so do cars and apartments and good clothing, and belonging to decent clubs. What did she want me to do?
“She wanted me to ‘settle down’ and do something! Here I was, only twenty-six years old, only a kid, and she wanted me to be an old man, like my father. I’d given Debra two hundred thousand, I reminded her, and I had two hundred thousand left, and I’d spent the rest of it. Wasn’t it mine? Mom said for the sake of the kid I had to ‘become a man.’ At my age! With all my youth in front of me! She wanted me to go back to a good university and get a ‘real’ degree, and then study law or something. I thought of Dad, and I could see him laughing at her. Poor old guy.”
His father. His father had been about the age of that kid in church when he, Johnnie, had been born. Had he ever stood with his son in his arms, or on his knee, and had he ever beamed with such pride and tenderness at his child?
Yes, thought Johnnie. That was the kind of man—kid—my father was, too. I can remember him looking at me when I was in nursery school—with that same expression. And he was still under thirty then, years younger than me.
The impulsive thought shocked him, struck at him. He had always thought of his father as old. Would his own children, at his age, think he, too, had been old? No. No! They’d remember him as a kid like themselves, full of fun. But, thought Johnnie, I never spend the time with them that my Dad did with me. I’ve never sat with them or talked with them or sung to them, as Dad did to me. Not once. Why? I guess it was their mothers. And I’m always having too much fun to look at them. That was my mother’s department, and now it’s Sally’s. Kids these days—their fathers are too busy.
Are you?
“I’m still young,” said Johnnie, in answer, and he spoke desperately. “I don’t want to be old before my time, damn it! Broken down, like my father. Dying of a heart attack before I’m fifty! What for?” Then he remembered that his grandfather had been a farmer and had married late in life. He had lived to be nearly eighty though to the day he had died he had worked his land from sunrise to sundown, and had died of an accident. He pushed the thought from him almost physically, as if he had hit it.
He began to speak hurriedly. “Mom said she was sick, as if I didn’t know it! Didn’t I pay her to take care of my boy, and didn’t I hire a nurse for him? Yes. It’s true that I went to Europe again; after all, I had been shook up by my early marriage. And in Paris I met Justine with her ‘father.’ He’d been yachting around and having himself a ball. How could I have known he was a con man and no more Justine’s father than I am? Anyway, we all fooled each other, and it was kind of a laugh at that. I married Justine in Paris, and then the whole story blew, but by this time Justine had managed to get pregnant and I was stuck with her, and the con man disappeared with his yacht. I tried to get a divorce in Paris, but they’re sticky about things like that over there, and so we came back home, and Justine was fun for a while. Then she took fifty thousand of what I had left to give me a divorce, after the twins were born, and I took them to Mom. Girls.”
He glowered at the unresponsive curtain. The guy behind it ought to make some noise like sympathy, shouldn’t he? But he said nothing.
“Well,” said Johnnie, angry again, “Mom went out of her mind entirely after that. What did she expect me to do? She was hoarding her money, wasn’t she, and living like an old woman on Social Security, counting every penny, and I was almost broke. Who else did she have in the world? Didn’t she realize that she’d practically driven me into all that hard luck? Did she care? No, she didn’t! All she could do was stare at me and cry, but she did take the kids and I helped out when I could with their support. Not much. Did I drink and make a mess of my life like a lot of kids I know? No, I didn’t. I just wanted to be happy, like Dad had wanted for me, but everybody had set out to deprive me of my youth and my happiness. Damn it, I’m not going to let them!”
He was sweating with fear of the future and with indignation at his predicament. “Hey!” he shouted at the curtain. “Don’t you think I ought to have some happiness in my life and not be forced in
to old age before my time?”
There was no sound from the man behind the curtain but Johnnie felt that he had moved.
“Nobody,” said the young man, “should be expected to ‘face life,’ as my mother called it, at my early age. It isn’t fair. It’s ridiculous! It’s anachronistic in this day and age. I suppose it always was, to tell the truth, only adults refused to acknowledge it. All the trouble in the world is caused by adults not understanding us young people. Don’t you agree? Lots of educationists do. They believe in kids enjoying their childhood, and not being pushed out into life when they’re not mature enough. That’s what happened to me; my mother really was the cause of those two disastrous marriages of mine, when I was only a kid and didn’t know what I was doing, actually. How could marriage mean anything to me at my age? Or now, even? I’m too young!”
So am I.
Hell, he was losing his mind! He had heard, yet he had not heard. He strained forward. “Did you say you were young, too? My age? Then you do understand! I won’t be thirty-three for a whole month yet—” He stopped, and almost cringed. He spoke again with hard defiance, “What’s thirty-three these days? Nothing at all! It never was—at least not for a man. For a woman it may be old—but not for a man. I bet you have a ball, yourself, when you’re not hiding behind that curtain!” He grinned at the lustrous blue hanging so motionless before him, and winked.
Then he was gloomy again. “What’s the use of my going on and on? I was broke, after Justine. I asked Mom for an allowance; I wanted my own apartment. But she refused. Imagine that, she refused, my own mother! I could live at home with her and the kids—a screaming household—or I could go to work. In fact, she tried to get me to go to ‘a real university,’ as she called it. Never once in my life did she want me to enjoy myself and be carefree like Dad intended. Oh, she gave me money for clothes. I told her to let me go and give me some money, and then in a few years I’d settle down. But she was like a stone wall, sunk in her mental illness. I went to her lawyers to talk about committing her, and giving me power of attorney to manage her affairs, but they actually laughed in my face! So, I was stuck. It isn’t fair; life was never fair to me.”
Nor to me.
“Hey, I heard you then, didn’t I?” He was quite excited. “You understand how I’m stuck?”
Yes. The world is “stuck” with you.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” said Johnnie, hurt and indignant. “You don’t even know me!”
But the man was silent. I didn’t hear him, did I? Johnnie asked himself. It’s this damned silent place with nothing to look at and nothing to hear but your own voice and your own thoughts. Shut in with yourself. It’s giving me claustrophobia; it’s making me see and hear things—His heart began to beat loudly, as if he were about to witness a terrible revelation which he could not endure even in anticipation. To delay it—for he had such fear—he hurried on.
“Mom had an old friend; she’d known her all her life. And that friend had a daughter, Sally, older than I. Well, a year older, but thirty-four is old for a woman. When the friend died Sally was invited by Mom to move in with her to help with the children—my children. My God, were we crowded in that little house, the little house Mom had bought after Dad died. She sold our old wonderful house; too expensive, she said. Hah. Mom began to go downhill not long after Sally moved in. She called me into her bedroom one night and told me she was dying. I suggested a mental sanitarium for her; if I could once get her in there I’d have it made. I could get power of attorney and my hands on that money which was really mine. But she gave me the sickest smile; man, she was really sick. And she told me that she was leaving me exactly twenty thousand dollars and all the rest to Sally!”
He waited for the hidden man’s gasp of incredulity. But there was only the cool quiet of marble wall and floor.
“I went to other lawyers then, and told them the whole story, and they said I could fight the will if I wanted to but Sally’s lawyers would, and could, put up a good fight. After all, they said, I had ‘wasted’ the money Dad had left me, and that would be held against me. Oh, hell. They’d also say I didn’t contribute anything to my—the kids’ support. All this was after Mom died, you know? She died a month after she’d told me the outrageous provisions in her will. And the kids had their trust funds, and I had nothing but that lousy little legacy. It didn’t last me a year.”
He tousled his bright hair pathetically, and blinked his eyes.
“Before Mom died she suggested I marry Sally, that old bag. I couldn’t stand her. I guess that isn’t quite true; she was kind of attractive in a sober way, with what I thought was a great sense of humor. She seemed like a warm human being—before I married her. Sweet and kind, too. Warm. Good to the kids. She kept them out of the way, most of the time. But sometimes—before and after we were married—she tried to push them at me, as if at my age I had any paternal affection!”
Again, like a blinding vision, he saw the young father with his child in his arms, and he moved restlessly. “Oh, they’re attractive enough, the boy especially. They all look like me. Sometimes I play with them, when they aren’t screaming or wanting something. But I’ll be damned if I will act like a father to them, at my age. You know how it is? Married too young, too much responsibility before I was an adult. Sally keeps telling me that the boy has made his first Communion, and that I have duties to him. She, like Mom, wants me to take a job or go back to school and ‘learn something.’ Well, she has the money. I don’t. But I’m not going to let her spoil my youth, as my mother tried!”
Now tears of anger and despair rushed into his eyes. He pulled out his fine linen handkerchief and blew his nose. He said in a choked and vindictive voice, “I’ve been giving Sally hell. We’ve been married three years now. I was determined to make her sorry for what she had done to me, using undue influence on my mother and robbing me of my own money. For the last few months I haven’t talked to her very much, and I refuse to do anything for the kids, just to spite her. I stay out of that lousy little house as much as I can, and that isn’t very much. I don’t have any money but the hundred a month Sally gives me for spending cash. Is that fair? My own money!”
He blew his nose again. “Anyway, that’s about all. A few nights ago Sally said to me, ‘You are unhappy because you refuse to grow up, and you’re almost middle-aged.’ Middle-aged, me! Then she said, ‘And you are making me desperately unhappy, too. I married you because I loved you and your children, and not because your mother wanted it that way. I thought I could make you face life before it’s too late for you. I thought I could make you into the right kind of a father to your children, who need you. After all, if I’d wanted to, I could just have quietly inherited your mother’s money and gone away, leaving you with your children to care for any way you could. As their guardian you’d have been given an allowance and money from the trust funds to support them, until they reached the age of twenty-one when they’d come into their own money. Perhaps I should have done that; in a way it hasn’t been fair to you for me to assume the responsibility for your children, and not demand that you be responsible, too. Of course, you wouldn’t have received a penny when your children inherited. I think,’ she said, ‘that it was more of a sense of responsibility to you that I’ve stayed this long.’
“Did you ever hear anything so insane? I said to her, ‘Give me at least half of my own money, and I’ll be satisfied. How about it?’
“She really thought about the whole thing. Then she said, ‘Yes. But only if you’ll go up to that Sanctuary and talk about it all to the man who listens there. I did, once, after my mother died. I thought I couldn’t stand it; we’d been so close. But he made me understand. Well, I’ll do what you want; I’ll even let you divorce me, if you’ll talk to him.’
“And that’s why I’m here,” said Johnnie Martin. “So I’ve talked to you. I can go back to Sally and describe everything, and then I’ll be free again.”
He smiled with the sudden volatile happiness
of a child looking forward to Christmas.
And your children, your little ones?
“I’ll send them to some boarding-school. The boy can go to a military academy. And a convent will take the girls. I know just the place. Then I’ll be free.”
For what?
“To enjoy my youth, as my father wanted.”
He turned his head and though there was no window in the room the marble wall appeared to shine, and in that shining he saw the young father again with his child, the proud and responsible young father with hands scored by hard work. Poor young bastard. What did he do after his day’s labor, and he only a kid? Help that woman of his with the diapers and the dishes, or run the washing machine, or give the kid his baths, and maybe mow the lawn—if he could afford the lawn? What did he and the woman who had married him—for surely he hadn’t been the aggressor!—do in their free time, if they had any free time? Talk about formulas, and the future of their kid? What future?
A man’s future, for the child has a man for a father.
“You think I’m not a man?” exclaimed Johnnie. He got to his feet. “Of course I’m not; I’m only a kid! I’ve got years to grow up, many years. In the meantime I’m going to enjoy my youth!”
Thirty-three years old.
“Only a kid!” protested Johnnie. “Only a youth!”
He stared challengingly at the curtain, but it did not move. He sat down again. His hands came to rest on the arms of the chair. Thirty-three years old soon, and broke. Not even a job. A father who was not really a father. A strange weighty feeling came to him, like the dark premonition of a desolate and lonely future. Where would he be in ten, in fifteen years? Would his money be gone by then? Would it go as all the rest had gone? Women, cars, rich apartments, travel, fine restaurants, wonderful clothing. Money had no real quality in these days; it literally melted away. And what would he have, after it was gone? His children? They would not know him, he who had abandoned them. They would not want him. They would not say “my father,” as that poor young bastard’s kid would probably say of his father. He would be old—old!—and there would be nothing. Only memories—of what?