Authors: Gregory Martin

Stories for Boys: A Memoir (24 page)

BOOK: Stories for Boys: A Memoir

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“Mom read me that book.”

It took me a few seconds to make the connection. “Really? That book? The
WHERE DID I COME FROM?
book?”

“Yes!”

“Mom didn’t tell me she was going to read you that book today. I thought I was going to have to read you that book.”

“She didn’t tell me EITHER!” Oliver shouted. He wasn’t really upset. Just a little shaken up. He was enjoying himself, the two of us acting our parts, saying our lines. “Mommy sat down right next to me. She had the book and just started reading it.” He was shaking his head, in part lingering disbelief, part mock disbelief.

“How did you handle it?”

“I screamed.”

Christine came into the living room from the kitchen. She had a huge grin on her face. “He ran around the house. He hid in the closet. He kept shouting, ‘Are you trying to kill me? Why are you doing this to me?’ He was like a character in a Hilda Raz cartoon.”

Oliver’s cheeks burned red, but his eyes were shining and his smile was so big I could see his missing teeth.

“We laughed a lot,” Christine said. “I told him, ‘Mama Kay read this exact same book to me when I was nine, and I thought I was going to die. Now, I have to read it to you. It’s part of my job.’”

“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” Oliver said.

“Where’s Evan?”

“He’s at Sam’s,” Christine said.

“Mommy planned the whole thing,” I said.

“I know,” Oliver said.

“It was an ambush,” Christine said. “I’d been putting it off and putting it off and I just decided today that I couldn’t wait any longer. You’re not mad at me.”

“Hardly,” I said. “Maybe Oliver is, though. Oliver?”

Oliver growled.

Christine went back into the kitchen.

I sat down next to Oliver. “Wow. Big day. That’s a lot to take in. Have you had a snack? Can I get you a glass of water?”

“I’m okay.”

“It’s a pretty funny book,” I said. “It really spells it all out.”

“You can say that again,” Oliver said.

“The romantic sperm,” I said, quoting the book.

“Dad, stop.”

“Any questions?” I asked.

“No!”

“Okay,” I said. “Anytime. If you want to ask me about it, you can. I’m here for you.”

He nodded.

“Where’s the book?”

“I made Mommy put it away.”

I went into the kitchen. Christine was making spaghetti with Trader Joe’s flame broiled turkey meatballs, which were always a big hit. “That was easy enough,” I said.

Christine slapped my shoulder. “It was a blast. We cracked up. I had to revise the book some as I went along. It’s great, but it’s a little out of date. I told him that sex isn’t just about making babies. That people have sex just to express their love for one another. I told him that the man doesn’t have to get on top of the woman. The woman can get on top of the man. There were all sorts of ways to get the job done. He looked at me with these really big eyes. Then he screamed.”

October 12, 2009

Dear Oliver,

While I was visiting the Hoover Dam a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking it would have been more fun if you could have been there, too. So I bought this license plate for you. Sorry they didn’t have one with “Oliver” on it, but I hope your last name works just as well.

I hope you are doing well in school and having a good time in all your other activities.

Love,

Grandpa
October 12, 2009

Dear Evan,

I was visiting the Hoover Dam a couple of weeks ago and thought about how you might have enjoyed seeing it too. So I got this little license plate with your name on it for you.

I hope you are enjoying school and having a fun time in all your activities.

I love you,

Grandpa

My Mother’s Father-in-Law

MY MOTHER WAS VISITING, AND I TOOK HER OUT TO breakfast after we dropped off the boys at school. We sat down with our coffee and tea. I said, “Did you ever meet Dad’s father?” I’d never asked her this question before. I had never thought to ask. I just assumed that because I hadn’t ever met him, and because she had never told me otherwise, that she hadn’t met him either.

She said, “I did. I met him once.”

“Tell me,” I said.

My mother nodded. She took a sip of tea – a pause for effect, like a veteran author at a packed auditorium reading. My mother is a born storyteller. “It was the day before Thanksgiving, 1969,” she said. “We were visiting your aunt Edna, in Springfield. We’d been married for three years. Chris was six months old. Sometime in the afternoon, Edna left to run an errand.

“ When she came back an hour or so later, she came into the living room where we were sitting and talking with your uncle Dennis. I don’t know where your cousins were, probably running around the neighborhood somewhere. Edna said, ‘Guess who turned up at the bus station.’”

My mother interrupted herself and said, “I’m not going to do their southern accents.”

I thanked her.

She went on. “So there he was. Jake Martin was dressed in work slacks and a long-sleeved button down shirt. He was clean-shaven. He was a small man, several inches shorter than your father. His hair was thin and waxed back slick against his head. I noticed right away that he was sober. He said in a quiet voice, ‘Edna bought me a ticket so I decided to come.’

“Jake said hello to Dennis who met his eye and nodded his head but did not stand up to shake his hand. Then Jake said to your father, ‘Hello, son.’

“Your father would not look up, would not respond. He was scowling and shaking his head.

“The whole room went cold. It was quiet for a long time, the kind of quiet no one wants to fill or break. You know the kind.

“I could see that your father was not going to introduce me, which was very unlike him. He was always the soul of polite - ness.

“Jake took a few steps into the room towards me and said, ‘I’m Jake Martin. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.’

“I shook his hand and said it was good to meet him, too.

“Chris was sleeping in my lap, and Jake bent over a little and looked at him. He said, ‘You have a beautiful boy.’

“I said, ‘Thank you. We finally decided to keep him.’ And that made Jake Martin smile a little, and nod his head, and I felt that was a small, good thing I could do in that moment, though I don’t think your father appreciated it.

“I didn’t know exactly when the last time your father had talked to his father, but it had been at least ten years. He’d told me more than once that he never wanted to see his father again. He wanted him out of his life completely.

“I knew that Jake Martin had been an awful drunk and had beaten your MomMom and Edna and Lilian. But that was all I knew.

“It was the middle of the afternoon. There wasn’t much to talk about. That was the most frustrating thing about spending time with anyone in your father’s family. They didn’t talk politics. They didn’t follow sports. If ever there was a time to talk about football, this was the time. I don’t know what we talked about. Every minute felt like an hour.

“Your father sat looking at his hands. It was like he’d been turned to stone.

“Jake could read the situation. He knew he wasn’t wanted there, except by Edna, who wanted so desperately to hold on to the idea of them all being a family. She always wanted that. She had a family of her own, three kids around the age Oliver and Evan are now, and she was still trying to find some way to reconcile her father with everyone.

“Edna said things like, ‘Isn’t it wonderful we’re all together? Isn’t it wonderful Dad could come?’

“No one answered. Your brother woke up and started screaming, which at least gave us something to talk about. I gave him a bottle. But I didn’t leave and take him into the next room. I didn’t want to leave your father. And eventually Chris quieted down.

“Edna had made reservations at the officers’ club for dinner. She’d hired a babysitter for Chris and your cousins. She had the whole thing planned out.

“Now let me just say this here, before I say anything else. I know plenty of stories about how awful Jake Martin was when your father was growing up. But I don’t care. Jake Martin should not have been put in the situation they all put him in that night.

“When your father was five or six, Jake Martin broke into their house and he took scissors and he pulled every article of clothing MomMom had out of her drawers – underwear, bras, shirts, pants, shorts, socks – and he cut each one of them up into tiny pieces. He did this in the middle of the day, while your father and his sisters were at school and while MomMom was at work. It must have taken him hours. He scattered the pieces on the bed. Your MomMom was hanging on by her fingernails and now the only clothes she had were the clothes she wore on her back.

“And that’s not the saddest thing. Not by half. Here’s the saddest thing: MomMom told me once that she would have let Jake beat her every day of her life – that’s how much she loved him – but she couldn’t let him beat the children. What does that say about how much your MomMom thought she was worth? What does a child learn who witnesses that?

“So we go to the officer’s club. Your father still hasn’t said a word, not to me, not to anyone. I don’t remember much about that night, but I remember I was in awe of your father’s silence.

“Everybody got dressed up, but Jake is in the clothes he came in. That thin long sleeve shirt and polyester slacks. I don’t know that he even brought a suitcase. So we’re sitting there at the table at the club. Dennis orders a round of drinks. Then he orders another round. And it takes awhile for the food to come and so everybody’s getting pretty loose. So then your father decides to talk and he orders a round of drinks. Goddam it. Why? Because he doesn’t want to be shown up by his brother-in-law? I don’t think so. Your father wasn’t like that. He didn’t compete. No. It was because his father was sitting there at the table with us. What I think now, all these years later, is that he wanted to see his father fall apart in front of me. I remember exactly what I was thinking as I watched Jake Martin drink his first drink and then his second and then his third. I thought, ‘I wouldn’t do this to a dog.’ It felt more and more like a set-up. Were these people stupid? Didn’t they know what was going to happen?

“So Jake gets more talkative. There are beads of sweat on his forehead, and he’s mopping at his face with his cloth napkin. He starts slurring his words. His eyes are shining. At some point he says, ‘I was a good father. Let me tell you that. I can say that can’t I?’

“No one answers.

“‘Edna, I can say that, can’t I?’ Jake says, more desperately this time. ‘I was a good father.’

BOOK: Stories for Boys: A Memoir

7.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

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