She’s asking me to be a party to her con. It does a number on my head. She says this latest test has shown he has the cancer we suspected, not only in his prostate, which preliminary tests had mooted as a possibility, but now his bones, though only in the early stages up to here. She says she’s calling me from home, she hasn’t told him yet, nor is she going to, my father, staying behind in their shop at eight o’clock, plugging away, making tchatchkes from beads. Whatever my relationship with him, the shock of this invades my bones, the pit of my stomach. Always headed for disaster, the cancer of his life has done him in at last. Like a sub-theme as we’re talking I’m thinking of my own, my life. Am I enjoying it? While there is time?

I can see myself in his shoes, mystified, as pain from nowhere probes deeper and deeper at his gut. What’s happening, he’ll ask without a clue. Impatient with his body failing him as life has failed. For reasons too obscure to him to understand. They’d have to dope him up. How would he work? It was the only thing he had, his pride in this new work he’d learned to do. Me too, in mine. C’mon, mom, he’ll know soon enough -- no? It’s not like it will hide itself.

But not right now, you hear, not now. Don’t breathe a word, versteh? Too much to do, I don’t need him a nervous wreck, useless enough already. I came home early just to go through all the papers that he keeps in closets, rubber bands, in drawers, the cupboard. Nothing is in order, insurance, leases, bills, new inventory, what? Like a pig sty. Everything piled in together that I’m sure he couldn’t tell you what is what. Doctor Moskowitz says why let him know, it’s what they do now, tell the patient nothing, they get too confused. Anyway, what would I say, the words to tell this man I’ve lived with since I’m twenty-one. He’s got ten months? He’s got a cancer that is eating him?

Could she use any but the bitter words she knew? The choroset of her life lay on her plate. But you don’t have to say it mom. I’ll say it. I just told you that. I’ll be the one to tell him.

You? And you’ll know what to say? My big-shot writer son, published in six little magazines? A maven in the saying department, like always? You say hello and right away you’re in a fight.

Why am I in this argument to set myself up as the bearer of bad news? My life is in a mess too large to manage in the best of circumstances. I plunge on anyway. It’s not right mom, poor guy. To keep it from him? Doesn’t he have a right to know?

Not right? I’ll tell you what’s not right. A son who maybe calls up once a week. Not right? And you’ll know what to say? To tell him bubermeisers, what? It’s story-telling time? You think because you know to write you know the words?

I find myself propelled before I can think twice. The guilt she’s laid on me? Pop’s sentencing to death? This Sunday? You’ll be in the shop? It costs to say that. Sunday time is precious time for me. But now the question’s floated. How can I not? What troubles can I have as grave as this?

Of course the shop. Where would we be? Miami on the beach? It takes a thing like this for you to pay a visit on a Sunday afternoon? It shouldn’t happen to my enemies. The last time what, three weeks ago? You’re sure you’re not too busy with the book you’re writing now for seven years, ten thousand pages you should have? You’re writing in it what it means to be a son? You’ll find the time to visit him, he’s dying now?

I just said I would mom. I don’t loaf, you know. I work hard to cover the rent. I pay dearly for the little writing time I get. I said I’ll find the time to come.

You look, of course you’ll find. I’ll make stuffed cabbage and some latkes. For my son, he shouldn’t forget his mother’s still alive.

*

The neighborhood’s done nothing but go downhill. Their store is on the wrong side of the Boulevard. How does that happen, this side bad, that side good? The choice of a store’s location is always critical, the variables that have to be weighed complex, but perhaps the answer in this case is simple: just another calamitous entry for the rap sheet of his life’s mistakes. The way he’d gone for Norcross over Hallmark for instance. Why? The world is hooked on Hallmark, which was on to something way back when, that people were already forgetting all their words, forgetting how to say Congratulations on your job, your new baby, your engagement, I love you, and needed cards with someone else’s words. Words. And yet something about Hallmark, who knows what, had turned him off. Who ever knew why he made the bad decisions he always made? I walk across the Boulevard to it, a Norcross greeting card shop, maybe 30x100, the window with the necklaces of beads, some of them his, showing themselves off in front, without a passer-by to notice them, on the wrong side of the Boulevard.

Hi, mom. I bend to kiss her cheek. I realize suddenly she’s gained some weight, but not as in good health, more like someone who’s let go, not worth the struggle any more.

So what do you think? Too cluttered if I put this rack of bracelets here, the mirror too? Too much? She pushes the mirror on its stand across the narrow counter, a little closer toward me.

What had I expected? Hugs and kisses? How are you? How’s things? Looks good. He’s in the back?

The shipment from Corot came Friday. Some new designs. Mostly plastic. Glass is too expensive now. He’s working with new merchandise to see what he can do with it. Looking at it. Working.

What are you telling me, mom? You had to nail it down to get it right. She’s a Delphic oracle. One of the witches in Macbeth. I shouldn’t bother him?

To bother him? How can you bother him, a son? If you fight, of course you’ll bother him.

So how’s he feeling?

You’ll ask, he’ll tell.

What can I bring to words? How do I have the balls to write when I learn nothing, do the same thing every time, walk up to the front door, ring the bell, high hopes, my heartbeat strong, some new thing’s going to happen here, there’ll be a smile, the years and history will melt away. We’ll start from scratch. Better, we won’t have to make the same mistakes, the suffering of the past put by. But then the door is opened up a crack and it’s the same old, same old. Did I learn something from the last time? Of course not. But I try again. Who knows? Perhaps there’ll be a change this time. Who said things can’t turn out right? Perhaps they will.

My delusion, like that of all pessimistic optimists, is that we are perfectible, can change, perhaps improve. It doesn’t matter that we’re disappointed much more often than not, everything in stasis, like a fish egg trapped in amber for millennia at the bottom of the Caspian. So where were my words now? Hung up, because of her resistance? Only that? As matters stood the words resisted me just facing my PC. Seven years! She wasn’t wrong. Listen, mom. On the phone you said you’d have a problem putting everything in shape, his records, leases for the store, the apartment. I’m not terribly good at record keeping, but when we go to the house maybe I can help. Where would I find the time?

What are you good at? Writing books nobody wants? Your kind of help I don’t need, I’d have to recheck everything anyway, bad as your father. That you learned from him. To get married, have a family so we could have some grandkids, that you didn’t. I’ll manage. Hah. I always manage. Right?

Even rams get tired butting at the same hard stump. Of course right, mom. You’re always right.

She looks at me quizzically for a second, her thin nose sniffing for a whiff of disapproval, irony, her sharp eyes in some quick glance into mine that will display my heart to her, not certain of my tone of voice. We’ll close this afternoon a little early in honor of your schlepping all the way to Queens, had to be at least a half an hour on the subway, no?

Sometimes it takes more than words, or good intentions. What good were words to chew on, when she’d been eating herself up for more than thirty years? Good idea to close early, mom. I’ll go back and see how he’s doing.

They keep the rear half of the store dark, trying to save on the electric bill, costs so high. Even now, with summer almost on us, this part of the store is always dim. I pull aside a remnant yard of black cloth my father has put up to get some privacy. Not bad construction for an amateur carpenter. An amateur at everything. At life. He’s so concentrated on the beads in hand he doesn’t realize I’m here. I clear my throat. Hi, pop. Terrific display, fronting the street. How are you? How do you feel? He glances up but immediately returns to the necklace he’s on the verge of finishing, as if he’s being paid for a quota and daren’t turn from work. He looks dreadful, tired, worn.

You like the window? I changed it yesterday again. Could have had a career as one of those window dressers, except I’ve always liked women. Get it? Hah. I’m getting good at windows. Can you believe we’re moving everything I make? With my own hands. These hands. He holds his stubby fingers out. They are no longer as plump as they’d been, nor is he. It’s heart-wrenching to see him like this, looking like he’s trying on a skin one size too large. Can’t keep up with the demand, Gabe. Wish I had an extra pair. He lifts his hands up to his eyes, studies them.

I’d offer you mine, pop, but it would take too long to teach me , I’m such a klutz. Besides I’ve got to finish my book.

He nods, not so much sagely as in a way I take as mildly deprecating, and I read in his pursed thin lips that they talk about me often, not about my writing but that I’m a writer, why I don’t visit oftener. His hands have not stopped stringing beads. The book. It’s going well, the book? You told me but I forget what it’s about.

Family, pop. Relationships.

Family. Relationships. He concentrates on the beads. He shoots a quick glance at me. About us?

You asked the same thing last time, pop. Remember? It’s not exactly about us but of course some of it’s the way, the kind of way we are with each other. A writer’s got to try to be particular and universal at the same time.

Particular and universal. Hoo-hah. And the mother in the book? She’s your mother, Rose?

Some. Not much. On the other hand a lot.

And me? You’ve got a father in the book?

Quite different.

Your father’s not a failure in the book?

I tell myself it’s the reason I don’t visit more. Too painful. On the other hand I can’t let myself off that easily. I don’t come because it’s dull here, stagnant, dead, and it’s my work that drives my life. Old grievances rehashed endlessly could never yield a payoff without some new perspective, and who was going to supply it? No one here. But was I living life to purpose, meaningful? Unlike theirs? Just the writing? It was enough? Why a failure, pop? What kind of thing is that to say? You’ve worked your ass off from the time you were a kid. I don’t remember that you loafed, paid no attention to responsibility.

But the truth is, Gabe, as your mother reminds me always, what do I have to show for it, the work? So I can point to my big success, that I’m turning out twenty items a week. The truth is I’m maybe getting piece-work wages if you add it all up. If you look at it that way I could maybe buy them cheaper, you know what I’m saying?

Pop. You’ve had no training at it, nothing. You’re winging it.

Winging it? Hah. I like it. Winging it. The words you know. My hands. These hands. He holds them out again. In the book you make him a success?

Strange that he’s the one I have the fights with. Over what? I get the feeling that we’re arguing about her, not anything between the two of us. Fighting over crumbs of love she might dole out if she had any left. Knowing what I know I feel guilty for all my put-downs, all my anger, my resentment at our living poor, dirt poor, saving two cents on a meal, poor every minute of the day. You haven’t answered me, pop. How do you feel?

What’s with how I feel? His fingers work away. You’re a writer not a doctor. Tired. I feel tired. They give me something for it. Vitamins, your mother says, some medicine. I’ll be OK. As long as I can turn these items out. I take it home with me sometimes, the work. The hours fly away. Better than the stupid cop shows on the television. You still got your girl friend, Ruth? I nod. This one seems to stay. That’s good. Not in and out like the others. She’d like this pair of earrings? Here. I accept them and put them in my pocket although Ruth never wears costume jewelry. I can’t keep up with the demand. Two years ago I learned to string. Customers tell customers. Can you believe? He pinches a clasp on the completed necklace, looks at it under his gooseneck lamp, shakes his head in wonder, raises his thin eyebrows. Like that. I start with beads and string, a clasp. A style in mind. Here’s this! He holds the necklace up to catch the light as if he’s Fabergé, just finished with an egg. You like?

Little different from my work. I start with a lined yellow pad and a pencil. An unformulated idea of beginning, middle, end. A style. Some unfleshed notion around characters I could construct. And then – here’s this! Whatever time it took. One of the reasons why I’d stayed with Ruth so long. She let me be. She understood. Although why she stays with me I couldn’t understand. The hours flew. Would I have earned piece-work wages if I added it all up?

I like it, pop. Good work. You look a little done in. I think you’ve clocked too many hours at it without a break. Mom’s ready to quit early anyway. Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett said.

Scarlett’s a person? The things you know.

*

Each time I visit I cringe with memory of growing up here, as though I’m held and bound, no longer safely moved away, with my own life, such as it is. The walls, empty of art, carry two photographs, one of me, about fourteen years ago, one of the two of them getting married in their Depression clothes. The couch’s cloth I’m sitting on is shredded. The rooms are dark. The bed in their bedroom has a valley. The smell is not even one of rout, a massacre, but the stink of the defeat of attrition, of siege, of a dispirited force fighting in a battle foredoomed. I’m suddenly afraid I haven’t done this feeling justice in my book, the smallness of their desperate struggle just for crumbs, and the heroic stature of totality of loss, the two of them run of the mine as bituminous. In what way are they different from Lear? Because he’s King? I picture my father forced to that bed and dying in it on the lumpy mattress, unless he spent his last days, weeks, months, dying in a hospital. I try to collect myself, go past the vast depression that’s overtaking me.

My father’s at the dining room table, starting a new piece, working against the clock. My mother’s in the kitchen preparing supper. I think to offer her a hand, think better of it, and sit where I am as if to keep him company although he’s not acknowledging it, perhaps is unaware. Poor guy. What’s to say, with all my words?

As if privy to my thoughts my mother calls in Is the maid supposed to cook and set the table too?

I was just about to do that, mom.

I know she doesn’t like to use the good set just for us, though I’m not sure they entertain a lot. She scolds, whichever one I do. I think she scolds on whim. I put out the every day dishes and utensils. I consider breaking open a packet of paper napkins, but try to read her mind -- as if I ever could. I decide she’d want the cloth ones, so I get them from the drawer. I’ve guessed right since there’s no objection when she peers in to check if everything’s to her sense of order and orderliness.

The smells of cabbage and latkes are familiar. And yet I take no pleasure in them. Instead I’m saturated by the permanence of things, the unforgiving anger which she carries everywhere, the steel I have to wear to have another meal with them. I tell myself some day I’ll understand that there is nothing to be done. That we’re the folks we are.

But when we’re seated, napkins tucked, and start to eat, tears come to my eyes. I blot them away with my napkin. It tastes so good, this meal. It does!

I study them. They’ve lived together forty years, when, like the neighborhood, their lives went nowhere else but down. And me? I couldn’t keep a permanent relationship for twenty months until Ruth. What was it that was wrong with me? The price my art exacted? Bull shit.

We make believe that we’re not watching him, although we are, like two detectives looking for some telltale twitch. You’re sending out, she asks?

I haven’t been writing short stories lately mom. Too wrapped up in my book.

Wrapped up? Imagine that. Wrapped up. You live a life?

C’mon mom, of course I live a life. You know I’m still with Ruth.

She’s what? A leper? You don’t take her out in public? Don’t bring her here? Not that you come yourself so much.

You just saw her at our seder, mom.

Look at that. I forgot. I should remember such a rare occasion.

Is this exchange meant to fill in time while we are watching him, the sudden look that has come over him, surprise, discomfort, what? Perhaps it’s distaste. How can that be when this favorite meal of ours tastes so good? We’re silent now, my mother and I, but we’re uneasy, seeming to be studying our plates as if they hold some answers to unspoken questions, words or lack of them. Then suddenly my father stops eating, his fork raised to his lips. I don’t feel too good he says, pushing his plate away, the corners of his mouth turned down.

Already it’s begun. Good Lord.

You’re fine, you’re fine, she responds quickly, too quickly. A little gas. What else?

But he’s not eating, face gone ashen with a look of pain. And we are locked in silence like a vow, the two of us knowing what we know, unable to move the moment forward, break the iron rock of circumstance. I push my plate away as well. Damn! I’m tired of this shit, restraining orders like a judge, words hanging overhead like Sword of Damocles, secrets to protect or use, like weapons in the darkness of our night.

Pop, I say, before I change my mind, muffle myself in fear of her, there’s something that you need to know.

She glares at me as if to strike me dead. Listen she begins, looking at him.

But I go on. Those tests you had, pop.

Yes?

They came back positive.

Positive? That’s good?

No, pop. That’s bad.

So – what? They found what? Something? But he knew. The pain on his face said everything.

You’ve got prostate cancer, pop. It may have spread. His face is stricken. I go on. I’m so sorry, pop. The tears well up into my eyes again. I leave them there.

Cancer? Big C? They’re sure? How can they be sure? He looks at her for recognition, solace or denial, what?

They’re sure, she says. She can’t look at him.

He grapples for a handle on it, lost. He looks at me. That’s it? This is what, the end? It almost sounds as if there’s some relief, as of some runner in a marathon with just a thousand yards to go, behind the pack, but just to cross the finish line in order to collapse seems great.

This isn’t your last supper, pop.

What happens now?

You’ll fight it, pop. I manage to keep the panic from my voice. I’ll fight it with you, if you want me to. I’ve been a shit, to stay so far away, so wrapped up in myself. I’m sorry, pop.

Suddenly he turns. You knew? He looks at her, like Brando looks at Steiger, knowing he’s betrayed.

She returns his look defiantly, perhaps imperiously. Of course I knew. And of course I didn’t tell. This momser comes to visit once in a blue moon, and has to tell you when I asked him not.

Why not, Rose? You knew, Gabe knew, the doctor knew, but me not?

What good to know, Sam? You’ll have more worries now? What does knowing change? It changes nothing, nothing. And you, Gabe. How dare you tell, when I specifically said not.

And now he’s wrapped up in it, this information, this calamity, shaking his bent head, although he isn’t crying out or shreiing Gevalt, just immersed in his misery without words. Would I have taken it so quietly? Life’s latest cruelty for good measure?

You’re wrong this time, mom, I say. It changes everything to say things clear. Pop has every right to know about his life.

What’s with the words, what? You think that let’s you off the hook? They make you what, a hero instead of a pisher? You care I have to live with this, take care of him, your father? You care I have a bigger burden with him now? You’ll fight it with him? How? I live it with him every day.

Is that what I’m doing? Getting myself off the hook? I hope it’s not, but who can tell. We all delude ourselves. Whatever it is I mean to say I’d better say it clear. He’s raised his head. I look into his eyes. I don’t need your forgiveness, pop, for being such a piss-poor son. That would only be for me, not you. But this I promise you -- I’ll be a son to you. I meant it when I said I’d offer you my hands. Who cares how long it takes to teach a klutz like me? My book will have to wait. I’ll be here for you, pop.

Has he heard me, us? What is he thinking with his eyes closed once again, perhaps in pain? That he’s dying? Angry at her for not telling him, at me for telling him? He opens his eyes. You will, he says? His eyes are wet. Of course you’ll be a son. You are a son. It doesn’t matter that we fight. I’ve always loved you, Gabe, and always proud. My son, the writer. Maybe I don’t show it, but I am.

He pauses, closes his eyes. I knew. I knew something was wrong. I knew. So now I know.

He looks me full in the face. His eyes are chocolate brown like mine. What’s there to do? I have a choice? Of course go on. What else? It doesn’t let you sneak away and say forget it, I won’t play that game. There’s something we can do to fight?

Something, pop. Maybe nothing much, but something.

So of course we’ll fight. When did I not fight? I’m glad you offered, Gabe. I take you at your word. So after supper you’ll have time for me to teach you how I make my costume jewelry? Look at me. He held his hands out. I learned.