C HAPTER N INE

It’s a little after eight in the morning when I open my eyes on my first full day as an unemployed man. It hits me all over again, like a crack across the face with a paddle, and it boils down to one thing—the paychecks have come to an end, while the bills have not.

I’ve had the same job for so long that I don’t even know how to begin to look for work. The idea of going to another newspaper to crank out the same old shit is far from appealing, and the idea of becoming a flack for some public relations firm is even worse. That’s as far as my imagination takes me this morning—a hack, or a flack. I’m qualified for nothing else. I’ll probably have to buy a new suit for job interviews, and in some ways this seems like the worst thing of all. I hate suits. I hate shopping for clothes. I hate my life.

And what about my son’s future? Just like that, the certainty and serenity of the next five years have been yanked out from under him. An easy senior year, followed by four years at a tranquil, leafy campus. Doris had been looking forward to visiting costly colleges with Jake all over the Northeast, taking their time selecting just the right one.

Now what?

It’s as if Jake has just been jolted by the same thought. His eyes suddenly open, and for a moment he seems confused, the eternal confusion of a child of divorce, even after all these years. Where am I, Mom’s place or Dad’s? But it only lasts for a moment. He realizes where he is. He yawns, clears his throat, and kicks off the quilt. “We fell asleep with our clothes on.”

“Yeah. At least we got our shoes off. You hungry, kid?”

“Starving. We didn’t eat last night, did we?”

“We’ll make up for it now.”

I have all the stuff we need for breakfast—bacon, eggs, bread, butter. I’m always ready for Saturday morning, because Jake almost always has breakfast with me, and I insist upon making it. I want him to think of my house as a home, and I don’t want him to think of his father as some pathetic loser who goes around with his thumb up his ass just because he hasn’t got a woman looking after him. I figure it’s the kind of thing I can’t prove with words, so maybe the smell of frying bacon will do it for me.

While I’m cooking he goes to the bathroom and takes a leak, and it sounds like the force of a fire hose, strong enough to scratch the porcelain. Seventeen. Not a bad age. Prostate gland like an unripe grape.

He comes out and takes his usual seat at the table. I set a glass of orange juice in front of him. “Here. Start filling up your bladder again.”

“You are obsessed with my pissing powers.”

“Just a little jealous. You could rent yourself out, blasting barnacles off boats.”

“I’ll give it some thought, Dad. Wouldn’t even need a high school diploma for that career, would I?”

I turn the bacon strips in the broiler pan. “That girlfriend of yours—”

“Ex-girlfriend.”

“Right, ex-girlfriend. She was talking about the Ivy League schools, and the second tier. What the hell is the second tier?”

“One notch below Ivy. Duke. University of Michigan. William and Mary. Places like that.”

“Good schools?”

“Good, but not good enough. Not when your parents lay out a hundred grand for a high school education.”

“Where does Sarah want to go?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t really give a shit, Dad. I’m out of that game.”

I scramble the eggs, pour them into a hot buttered pan. The smoke alarm goes off. It always does when I cook. Jake pulls it off the wall and pops out one of the batteries, killing the shrieking sound. “Was your mother’s death a sudden thing?”

I knew we’d be getting back to this. Jake has been patient, letting the topic marinate overnight before coming back to it. I don’t really have any more excuses. We’ve agreed to talk about all things. All I can do is stall it a little.

“Jake. Let me tell you something I’ve learned. Everybody’s death is a sudden thing. Did you know that when Elvis died, not one newspaper in the country was ready with a standing obituary? Not one.”

“I don’t want to talk about Elvis, Dad. Please don’t veer off the topic.”

“What exactly is the topic?”

“My grandmother. I’m asking you something about my grandmother.”

It’s odd to hear my mother referred to by a word for something she never lived long enough to become.

“Was her death a shock? Or had she been sick for a long time?”

I have to answer him. “It was a shock. She hadn’t been sick. She just…died.”

Jake shakes his head. “Well, I guess that made it easy for her, but kind of rough on you and your father.”

“That’s exactly right. It was rough.”

I’m scrambling eggs, keeping them moving around so they don’t stick to the pan. It’s good to have something to do with my trembling hands while discussing this particular matter. I’m hoping it’s over, but it isn’t.

“Was she home?”

“What?”

“Was she home when she died, or not?”

“What the hell are you asking that for?”

“What are you getting so upset about?”

“This doesn’t happen to be one of my happiest memories.”

“Whoa, whoa, Dad. We’re supposed to be able to ask each other stuff, aren’t we? Wasn’t that the deal?”

“Yeah, that was the deal. So let me ask you something. Why did you stop playing the cello?”

It’s as if I’ve just soaked him with a pail of ice water. Jake’s shoulders harden, and his eyes narrow. “We weren’t discussing the cello.”

“We weren’t discussing my mother, either.”

“I’ll tell you about the cello later.”

“Swear?”

“Absolutely.”

The cello mystery has been bugging me for three years. Jake began playing the instrument when he was seven and immediately displayed a genius for it, according to his cello instructor, who, it should be noted, charged a hundred and fifty dollars per lesson. (I once asked the instructor if that was his “genius” rate, and he responded with an ambivalent chuckle.) Jake actually played in a concert at Avery Fisher Music Hall when he was eleven years old, but then one day when he was fourteen he refused to play the cello anymore, and his mother wouldn’t tell me why. I didn’t save any money on the deal because the shrink Doris insisted on sending Jake to after he quit the cello also cost a hundred and fifty dollars per hour. Jump ball.

The bacon and eggs are done. I kill the flames and load the plates with food. Just as I set the plates down, the toast pops up. I have always been proud of my timing.

“So. Dad. Was she at home when she died, or not?”

For the first time in years, I feel the urge to give my son a smack. Instead, I answer his question. “No, goddamnit, she wasn’t home.”

“Where was she?”

“Out somewhere. I don’t remember.”

“How could you not remember a thing like that?”

“It was a long time ago, Jake. I don’t remember where she dropped dead, all right?”

It’s not all right, but he doesn’t press it. We begin to eat. The food is good and hearty. Jake is silent. I am silent. We cannot go on like this.

“She loved bacon and eggs,” I hear myself say.

Jake looks up from his food. “Your mother did?”

“Yeah. She loved good food. A true Italian girl. Great cook.”

Jake sets his fork down. “Your mother was Italian?”

“You didn’t know that?”

“I’m seventeen years old and now I’m finding out I’m part Italian!”

“I thought you knew.”

“I assumed I was Irish from your side!”

“You are. But you’re Italian, too, plus Spanish from your mother’s side, as I’m sure you figured from the name ‘Perez.’”

Jake looks pale. “I’m part Italian,” he says, in a voice of wonder. “Jesus Christ, Dad, this would have been a nice thing to know about ten or fifteen years ago!”

“Why? You want to join the Mafia?”

“Don’t kid around about it, Dad! This is my history!” he shouts, slamming the table with his fist. “It’d be nice to know where I came from! All my grandparents are dead, and I never even met them! You and Mom act as if you’re Adam and Eve! The whole fucking world began when you two had me, and it ended when you split up!”

He’s breathing hard, almost in tears. I reach for him, but he pulls away from me, covers his face with his hands. I never saw this problem coming, but now that it’s out on the table, it seems obvious. Doris and I have fucked up royally.

Jake takes his hands away from his face. “I feel…”

“Jake?”

“…like I came out of nowhere. My history is a mystery. How can I know who I am if I don’t even know who you are?”

My heart is breaking. My boy is falling apart before my eyes. I get up and go around to the back of his chair to embrace him from behind, as if to keep him from exploding into a million pieces.

“What can I do?” I ask. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Tell me things I don’t know, Dad. Just tell me.”

And then it comes to me, the thing to do, the only thing to do, a thing I should have done years ago. I never wanted to do it. I still don’t want to do it. But suddenly, undeniably, the time to do it has come.

“I can do better than tell you about it, Jake. I can show you.”

“Show me?”

“How’d you like to take a little ride today?”

I give him a final squeeze before breaking my embrace and returning to my chair. He’s looking at me in wide-eyed anticipation, the way he did when he was little and I’d ask him if he wanted to go on the swings.

“Where are we going?”

“My old neighborhood. I’ll show you where I grew up, where I went to school…everything. The fifty-cent tour, lunch included.”

He wipes his eyes, forces a smile. “You’d really do that for me?”

“What do you think? Want to do it?”

“I’d love to. More than anything in the world.”

“Well, wash the dishes and we’ll go.”

“Where?”

“Beautiful downtown Flushing, the garden spot of Queens. Hurry up, do those dishes. It’s time for a long-overdue crash course in your ancestry.”

Jake leaps to his feet, gathers the dishes, dumps them in the sink, turns on the water, and starts scrubbing.

“Road trip!” he exclaims.

“Yeah, that’s right. We’re going on a road trip.”

The thought of it already has me trembling, but there’s no backing out now. The road trip is on, and God only knows where it’ll take us.