Part 36 (1/2)
”You're up?” Sammy said
Tommy nearly jumped out of his skin; he had always been an easy child to startle He yanked the patch up over his dark, tousled head and turned, blushi+ng deeply He was in possession of both his eyes; they were bright blue, with a slight puffiness of the lower lids There was, in fact, nothing at all wrong with his vision His brain was so of a puzzle to Sammy, but there wasn't any problem with his eyes
”I don't knohat happened,” Tommy said ”I just somehooke up”
He stuffed the eye patch into the pocket of his pajama top The pajamas were patterned with red pinstripes and tiny blue escutcheons Sa a pair that had red escutcheons with blue pinstripes That was Rosa's idea of fostering a sense of connection between lather and son As any two people who have ever dressed in ly effective
”That's unusual,” Sae of dynaet you up”
”That's true”
”You're like your mother that way” Rosa was still in bed, buried under an avalanche of pillows She suffered froed to fall asleep before three or four, but once she had gone under, it was nearly iet Tos ”In fact, the only ti a note of prosecutorial insinuation to enter his voice, ”is for so for a trip”
”Or if I have to get a shot,” Tommy said helpfully ”At the doctor”
”Or” Sa from the doorjamb, half in, half out of the room, but noent over to stand behind Tommy He are of an impulse to put his hand on the boy's shoulder, to let it lie there with the adht of a father's, but in the end, he just folded his arms and looked at the reflection of Tome it, but he was no longer comfortable around the boy whohted to call his son Tommy had always been a tractable, moonfaced, watchful little boy, but lately, as his soft chestnut hair turned to black wire loops and his nose struck boldly out on its own, there began to gather around the features of his face soht handsomeness He was already taller than his reater mass and voluave off unfaround, keeping out of Toplanned planned for today?” for today?”
”No, Pop”
He was jocular ”No trips to the 'eye doctor'?”
”Ha,” the boy said, wrinkling his freckled nose in a base simulation of amusement ”Okay, Pop”
”Okay, what?”
”Well, I'd better get dressed I' to be late for school”
”Because if you were”
”I'm not”
”If you were, I would have to chain you to the bed You realize that”
”I was only playing with playing with an an eye patch eye patch Jeez” Jeez”
”All right”
”I wasn't going to do anything bad” His voice put quotation lad to hear it,” Sammy said He didn't believe Tommy, but he tried to conceal his doubts He didn't like to antagonize the boy Saht work ho, the brief hours he spent with Tommy He wished that Rosa were awake, so that he could ask her what to do about the eye patch He grabbed hold of Tommy's hair and, in an unconscious tribute to a favorite parental orously shook Tommy's head from side to side ”A rooel at his bottoate, to h little tub, their house in Bloo of ill-advised invest the fir, and an apartment in Miami Beach for Sam's mother, in which she had died of a brain aneurysm after eleven days of retired discontentment, and which was then sold-six months after purchase-at a considerable loss The last irreducible nut that remained froh for a down pay time, Sammy had loved the house, the way a ible re that had ever come of his money
Bloomtown had been announced in 1948, with ads in Life, Life, the the Saturday Evening Post, Saturday Evening Post, and all the big New York papers A fully functioning three-bedroo bottles of erator, had been erected on the showroom floor of a forling young families of the Northeast-the white ones-were invited to visit the Bloomtown Idea Pavilion, tour the Bloomtown Home, and learn now an entire city of sixty thousand people was to be planted amid the potato fields west of Islip; a city of e An entire generation of young fathers and mothers raised in the narrow stairways and crowded roohs of New York, Saht switches, bounce on the model mattresses, and recline for just a ue on the cellophane lawn, tilting their chins upward to catch the ihed, and felt that one of the deepest longings in their hearts ht one day soon be answered Their fas, loud and disteuy attitude, and since the same was true of New York City itself, it was hard not to believe that a patch of green grass and a rational floor planbundles of raw nerves they felt their fa them, reached for their checkbooks and reserved one of the five hundred lots to be developed in the initial phase of construction and all the big New York papers A fully functioning three-bedroo bottles of erator, had been erected on the showroom floor of a forling young families of the Northeast-the white ones-were invited to visit the Bloomtown Idea Pavilion, tour the Bloomtown Home, and learn now an entire city of sixty thousand people was to be planted amid the potato fields west of Islip; a city of e An entire generation of young fathers and mothers raised in the narrow stairways and crowded roohs of New York, Saht switches, bounce on the model mattresses, and recline for just a ue on the cellophane lawn, tilting their chins upward to catch the ihed, and felt that one of the deepest longings in their hearts ht one day soon be answered Their fas, loud and disteuy attitude, and since the same was true of New York City itself, it was hard not to believe that a patch of green grass and a rational floor planbundles of raw nerves they felt their fa them, reached for their checkbooks and reserved one of the five hundred lots to be developed in the initial phase of construction
For months afterward, Sammy carried around in his wallet a little card that had come with the packet of documents of sale and read simply: THE CLAYS
127 LAVOISIER DRIVE
BLOOMTOWN, NEW YORK, USA
(All the streets in their neighborhood were to be na of pride had long since dissipated Saer paid very much attention at all to his own Cape Cod, a Number Two or Penobscott olf-sized alk He adopted the saard to it that he folloith his wife, his employment, and his love life It was all habit The rhyth schedules, summer vacations, and of his wife's steady calendar of moods had inured him to the charms and torments of his life Only his relationshi+p with Toht frost of irony and distance, reret and pleasure When they did get an hour together, planning a universe on loose-leaf paper, or playing Ethan Allen's All-Star Baseball, it was invariably the happiest hour of Sammy's week
When he walked into the kitchen, he was surprised to find Rosa sitting at the table with a cup of boiled water On the surface of the water floated a canoe of sliced le water into the enameled coffeepot ”Everybody's up”
”Oh, I've been up all night,” Rosa said brightly - ”Not a wink?”
”Not that I recall My brain was going crazy”
”Get anything?”
Rosa had a lead story due for Kiss Comics Kiss Comics in two days She was the second-best illustrator of woive the nod to Bob Powell) but a terrible procrastinator He had long since given up trying to lecture her on her work habits He was her boss in name only-they had settled that question years before, when Rosa first ca series of skire Whoever hired Sa the valuable services of Rose Saxon (her professional name) as well in two days She was the second-best illustrator of woive the nod to Bob Powell) but a terrible procrastinator He had long since given up trying to lecture her on her work habits He was her boss in name only-they had settled that question years before, when Rosa first ca series of skire Whoever hired Sa the valuable services of Rose Saxon (her professional nauarded tone All of Rosa's ideas sounded bad at first; she adapted them from a messy compound of her dreas she picked up in wo theed under the teasing and topiary shapings of her pencil and brush
”So about the A-bomb?”
”How did you know?”
”I happened to be in the bedrooht,” he said ”Foolishly trying to sleep”
”Sorry”
Sas into a bowl, splashed thegshells and tossed it into the coffeepot on the stove Then he poured the eggs into a pan of foas was his only dish, but he was very good at it You had to leave them alone; that turned out to be the secret Most people stood there stirring them, but the way to do it was to them sit for a minute or two over a low flame and bother them no more than half a dozen times Sometimes, for variety, he threw in some chopped fried sala the eye patch again,” Sa not toit on”
”Oh, God”
”He swore to ”
”Did you believe hiuess I chose to Where's the sala to the store today”
”You have to finish that story”
”And so I shall” She took a loud sip of her le”