- - - -
Millard Kaufman's final novel has arrived!
Pick up Misadventure now—or, see what
you've missed out on thus far by picking up
both Bowl of Cherries and Misadventure
for 27% off the retail price.
- - - -
- - - - He was a quiet man and his children ran riot all over him, the whole time they were growing up, and even afterwards. There were two of them. There was one of him. His wife didn't count, she was either on their side or on no side at all, or in no shape to be on anyone's side. He was a quiet man. He didn't ask for much. His children now had children and they all came to visit him and tear his house to shreds. He sat at the head of the table while they talked around him, laughing on special occasions, calling him all sorts of names but none the name he was born with and which was the only name he was comfortable with: Frederick. Fred, for short, with his friends. His wife sat across from him, worn down and wearing him down now in turn. His daughter said, Okay, we're leaving now, no don't get up, and kissed him on his forehead, as if he were her child. He sat in the armchair after they left. His wife moved around the kitchen, moving what she thought she needed to move. He was old. He fell asleep with the reading light on next to him. He folded his hands on his lap quietly and fell asleep, and though he never remembered much when he woke up, he usually knew that he had been screaming. His children phoned him once in a while: Hey Dad, how's it going, his son called up in a cheerful voice, as if from the bottom of a landing and not from across the city, How's it going today. He never knew what to say. His voice was odd when he answered that he was fine, it was not his voice, it was the voice of a close relative, someone who might sound like him on tape. Put Mom on, and he did, and stood by the refrigerator while his wife spoke to their son as if she knew him, which he had to admit she most likely did. She had carried and borne their son and nursed him and weaned him, and bandaged his bruised knees and come drowsy and worried into his room when called out for in the middle of the night. Their daughter had liked to crawl into their bed at five in the morning, silently, crying if they tried to turn her away, sleeping because her nursery school started later than his work. Shaving, with the door open, at thirty, or twenty-five, he had seen in the tilt of the mirror the two of them sleeping, warm and dead to the world, his daughter on her stomach on top of the covers, his wife on her side, dreaming. How will they ever get on, he had asked himself as he shaved. Sometimes he asked his wife this question, when he woke and realized they had been invaded again: How are they supposed to get on in this world? His wife never answered him, and the fact was they had gotten along fine in this world. His daughter was married, and her children, when they came and visited, looked wide awake and tore his house to shreds. His son had done fine also. Where is the moral? he wondered, looking at his children as he stood in his doorway watching them walk up the steps with their children in tow, ready to visit, come to hug their mother and feel sorry for her and feel glad they'd left. He knew that this was what they were thinking; he saw it in his daughter's and son's eyes, as they smiled hello or good-bye to him and thought of their own homes and what they were doing better than he had. Sometimes he tried to tell them: You guys are pretty fortunate, you know, he would begin, at the dinner table or on the phone. You guys are pretty lucky, but when they listened he knew they weren't really listening and so he stopped. He wanted to make an astute comment on the way society and one's roles in society had changed, but they would think he was talking about material things. He was a quiet man and never tried to finish his sentences anymore if he thought it made other people nervous. His wife looked all the time as if she were made nervous by this more than anything. When you are older, he had said to his son once, long ago, I hope to God your children are better to you than you are to me. His wife had buried her face in her hands as she sat at the kitchen table night after night, or so it had seemed at the time, or so it seemed to him now when he tried to think of those years, or so it had been. His voice didn't sound like his own at all, his hair had grown too white too early, he was heavier, it was getting harder to breathe.
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
Swamps of Love By Jack Peasley The Hole Has Certain Rules By Paul Killebrew On the Implausibility of the Death Star's Trash Compactor By Joshua Tyree Sinatron, Out of Control By David K. Gibson Black, Gray, Green, Red, Blue: A Letter From a Famous Painter on the Moon By Ben Greenman |
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.
