“dear jack: sorry for not writing sooner, please excuse my now writing a pc but it forces me to be brief, also excuse that i leave just a 10th of an inch margin on both sides and start at the very top and will end at the very bottom, with maybe the bottom half of my last line left on the platen, but this way i can get in as much as i do. of course all i usually manage to get in is this explanation and the preceding excuses, look, your rt about what you said, remember what that was? i doubt ive room to go over it here, it was in your last letter, you say you keep copies of all yours, so you mt want to check it to find out. as for summer rental you want to take, we plan to be in that area also, so if thats whats stopping you — are not being there-excuse me: ‘our’—dont let it. of course — so many of courses; why, when im so concerned about this pc’s limited space? — of course if it ends up where we cant afford the house we want and hv to go to cheaper pastures — browner ones — just hv to go elsewhere — what can i say? also, youre rt about my work (at the end of your letter; other ‘rt’ was in the middle), so what if — oops, out of space, best to m, your pal, h. ps: no time to correct thi”
He should also write his mother. No, quicker to call. Goes into the kitchen and dials. “I knew it was you,” she says. “How? When I heard the ring I thought ‘That has to be Howard; it can’t be anyone else.’ Crazy, right?” “Well, it isn’t Howard. It’s Jerry.” “Don’t tell me. I know my sons’ voices. Jerry talks faster, higher, and he only calls Monday, from work, between one and two, which must be his lunch hour. So I’m always here then, because one time he called later in the day and gave me an argument why I wasn’t here between one and two when I ought to know by now that’s when he calls. He’s never called from his home once. Has he ever called you from there?” “I don’t know.” “Four times he’s called from a hospital, all the other times from work. Once each when his three children were born and once when he was in one after his heart attack, which he still denies he got. Gas, he says, but a paralyzing attack of it. He called that day to say don’t visit because he was getting his clothes on now to go home, but they convinced him to stay two more weeks.” “Good. Listen, I’ve the train schedule for this weekend.” “I don’t know — you don’t think you’ll be too busy and tired from it all?” “We can manage it, believe me. And I want you to see Eva before she’s grown up.” “I know I mentioned this before, but where’d you ever get that name? I mean, some names, even with just the initial, one could say it stands for somebody in the family. But Eva? Nobody in our family had a first name with E in it in anyone’s memory, and your father-in-law says nobody in his or Vela’s either.” “It’s a nice name. Dark, eve, feminine. Or near dark. We also wanted it to be as strong as the name Olivia — but also to contrast with it — which we thought of as airy, light. And she is dark — her skin coloring and hair.” “That’s now. Her skin might not get lighter but her hair could all fall out and come in as blond as Olivia’s. And you chose the name before you had her, didn’t you?” “Even if she turns out to be light in everything — hair, skin and weight — still, we like the sound of the name. But what are you saying, you don’t want to see her because you don’t like her name?” “Don’t be silly.” “Only kidding. But look, I’m really in a hurry, so what about this weekend?” “Why you rushing so? Keep on like that and you’ll get as sick as Jerry. Take it easy; you now have two babies to take care of.” “OK. But how about the nine o’clock on Saturday and I’ll pick you up at the station at 11:47?” “I can take a cab when I get there.” “Please, don’t argue, Ma. I really don’t have the time. And it’s easy — not like New York. Always a parking spot at the station. Or the ten o’clock and I’ll pick you up at 12:35.” “Why is one ten minutes longer than the other?” “Probably an extra stop. Metropark or someplace. So, either of those okay?” “Ten o’clock. That way I won’t have to rush. What do you want me to bring?” “Nothing. No, if I say nothing, you’ll go over an endless list of things, so bring bread and cheese. A good slab of parmesan would be nice, and smoked mozzarella. Anything you want. A corn bread and seeded rye unsliced. But don’t overload yourself. Take a cab to Penn Station. Call for one — Love Taxi, for instance — and they’ll pick you up at the door. And keep your pocketbook closed when you’re there and your hand on the clasp. We’re all looking forward to seeing you.” “Thank you.” “Before I forget. Get a special senior citizen round-trip ticket. The regular round-trip discount fare isn’t good for Sunday, but the senior citizen one is.” “I hate going up to the ticket counter—” “Do it, don’t be ridiculous. You’re fifteen years into your senior citizenship, so take advantage of it when you can really save. If I could get away with it, I’d do it too. No I wouldn’t — I mean, illegally — but do what I say.” “All right.” “Much love from Denise and me.”
He goes into his room, sits back and thinks. I should do one of my projects now. I should start retyping it. I should get it going and finish the first page in the forty minutes or so I’ve left or maybe if I come back to it tonight when the kids are asleep or Olivia’s asleep and Eva’s feeding and work on it every day like that and finish the whole thing in about two weeks. I never feel good unless I’ve a project going. End one, begin one, work on one, end one, and so on.
He takes off the typewriter cover, picks up the first draft of a manuscript, bounces it on the table till it’s stacked and squared, puts it down, reads the title page — OK, nothing much, but he’ll make it better, turn it into something — puts paper into the typewriter and sits back and thinks. Why did I shake the baby like that yesterday? I could hurt its brain. Bleeding in the brain. I could kill it. Some kind of hematoma. Subdural. Read about it in the paper last week. Mother’s lover did it to her four-month-old baby. “She was crying,” she said. “We couldn’t sleep. He didn’t mean to harm it.” Something like what I did. I was trying to work and she wouldn’t sleep even during the time she usually does, even after I walked her a lot and two diaper changes. Why am I such a cruel prick sometimes? She was crying. Babies cry. I also squeezed her too tight. In anger. I could hurt her kidneys. One of her inner organs — she’s so smalclass="underline" several of them at one time — by squeezing her like that. Why did I also drop her on the bed from so high up? Why from any height? I was actually mad at her. For keeping me from my work. She was taking up too much of my time. But I could have hurt her back. Broken it. Maybe done something to her head. I still might have. I said to her but very low so Denise wouldn’t hear: “I’m mad, you little bastard, can’t you see? Why are you crying so much? Stop it.” People will find out. Denise will. That’s not the problem. Problem is why I do it. She cried for about a half-hour straight. Denise was napping in our bedroom at the other end of the hall. I didn’t want her to get up and say something like “She’s not hungry, I just fed her, so maybe she needs her diapers changed or you’re not walking her right. Or she could have developed a diaper rash. You check? But I can’t get up every time. I need some rest.” The baby’s cries are penetrating, but so what? When I held her to my chest and walked her, she screamed in my ear. I said “Damn, must you do that?” and reamed my ear with my finger, though it wasn’t in any way bad as that. I was doing that for her. It’s stupid. She also slobbered on my neck and on my shoulder right through the shirt, but what of it? If it gets to me — any of it — admit it and wake Denise and say “Much as I know you need the rest and I hate doing this, I have to have a ten-minute break. If you can’t get her to sleep, I’ll take over and you go back to bed.” I did the same with Olivia. Denise never found out. One time she said from the next room “What’s happening — why’s she screaming?” and I said “I don’t know, suddenly started, must be gas.” Treated her cruelly sometimes. Sometimes bordering on violence. A few times, violently. The first three months were the worst with her and when I lost control most often. She wouldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time and usually cried when she wasn’t sleeping. When she was around two months old I held her upside down by her legs and said “Stop crying,” and swung her back and forth: “Stop crying I said.” A few times when I was alone with her and not even when she was crying — I was just frustrated at not having time to do what I wanted — I slammed the bed with my fists and screamed as loud as I could and just hoped the neighbors, if any were in, wouldn’t say anything to Denise about it. I scared the hell out of Olivia then with my rage and screams. This happened over about two years. She’d burst out crying, and when she learned to say the word, called for her mommy, and I’d have to hold and comfort her till she stopped. I’m sure I’ve traumatized her. She gets scared when I raise my voice about anything, even when I’m just joking about something or on the phone with someone. Runs out of the room whenever one of the puppets or cartoon characters on that hour-a-day TV program acts threateningly or angrily. Won’t let me read “The Three Bears” to her because Father Bear speaks in a loud gruff voice. Eva sleeps better than Olivia did and doesn’t cry as much. If I hurt her — I didn’t Olivia, at least physically, but could have the way I treated her sometimes — I know I’ll pay for it always or pretty close. They get hungry. Gas. They cry when they’re wet or tired. For a number of reasons when they’re in pain or uncomfortable, and sometimes two or three of them combined. The bubbles hurt. The rash. They may also cry for reasons people can’t be aware of. What’s in their dreams perhaps. But none of that should get to me, or surely not as much.