Raining when they get outside, not much, sprinkles, and he says “Hey, let’s make a dash for the car,” and Margo says “Why, it’s not raining so much,” and he says “Hey, man, whataya talking about, it’s a good excuse to run and we need it after being cooped up in the car and your stuffing yourself here, for I don’t see no popcorn left, is that what I don’t see, man, hey, hey?” and she says “We ate it. And why are you talking like that with all the mans and stuff?” and he says “Just pretending, and I didn’t want any corn anyway, but let’s run,” and runs and looks back after about twenty feet and they’re walking and talking and he yells “Hey, last one to the car’s a rotten you-know-what,” and they run and he stays there till they’re even and then lags behind them so they can beat him. “You cheated,” Margo says and Julie says “Daddy’s a cheater,” and he says “Yeah, man, that’s me,” and Margo says “Stop that, you sound mean,” and he says “Sorry, man, sorry, man — oops, okay, stop.”
They’re on the road a few minutes when it starts pouring, then comes down so hard that most of the cars have slowed down and turned on their lights. He can’t see well even with the wipers on high speed and says “Look, Margo, we can never make the party now — we’re down to half the speed we were going and if it doesn’t let up, this is it the rest of the way,” and she says “I understand,” and he goes into the slow lane, down to thirty-five an hour, at times twenty-five, twenty, sticking his face a few inches from the windshield to see out, rubbing his side window because it’s clouded up. “Wish one of you was up here to wipe the front window for me, though that’s not an invite and we’ll be fine. Oh, by the way, guess who — no, you couldn’t, but you won’t believe who I bumped into at the Roy Rogers when you were getting popcorn,” and they say nothing and he says “Hello, anyone hear me?” and Margo says yes and he says “In fact, one of them told me to particularly tell you girls how sorry he was if he scared you on the road before — now you know who they are?” and Margo says no and he says “I don’t really know if I should believe him. He seemed sincere when he was saying it — he’s my ‘hey, man’ man — but then something doesn’t quite jive with his attitude on the road when he did sort of scare us, or at least me — know who I’m talking about now?” and Julie says “Stop teasing, who?” and he says “Those two guys from maybe an hour and a half ago or two hours, on the Interstate before the big bridge…they almost ran us off — you know, cut into our lane without warning me, not the old dude before but two much younger men from way way before,” and Margo says “I don’t recall,” and Julie says “Did one wave a doll at me?” and he says “I don’t think so,” and she says “That must’ve been someone else, a Raggedy-Ann, or Andy,” and he says “On this trip?” and Margo says “She’s making it up, can’t you tell?” and he says “Anyway, right after—” and Margo says “Daddy, she slapped me,” and he says “Julie, stop it — anyway, right after they scared us they smiled, the passenger in the front seat did, and wiggled his fingers at you both,” and Margo says “No, ma père, I don’t recall,” and Julie says “If it isn’t the doll man — he was nice — I don’t too,” and he says “Okay, recountal closed.”
Few minutes later he thinks if there’s another rest area soon he’ll pull in and stay in the car till the rain abates and if it doesn’t in around fifteen minutes, pull up at the entrance and race inside with the kids, holding some protection over them — sweater, jacket, he doesn’t care if he gets wet — and then park and run in and dry off and take another piss and tell the kids to use the ladies’ room again and he’ll have coffee — or tell the kids to use the ladies’ room while he’s parking — and let them get anything they want this time, sugared artificially flavored and colored soda, Pepsi or Coke, even, lollipop apiece and for each of them one of those Pez, is it? just the refill or with the dispenser, even if they have several empty dispensers at home in the shapes of various cartoon characters, junky cupcakes, any kind of cake, just so they — but no more popcorn, that’ll only give them a tummyache — won’t be bored and sort of as compensation for the long trip and also as a reward for being so patient and cooperative during it, that’s how we’ll word it, “gifts for being such nifty kids on this trip.”
Rain never abates, sees a rest area half hour after he thought he’d stop at the next but even at thirty-five miles an hour they’re at the most forty minutes from home, so passes it. Parks in front of the house; downpour, as they’re preparing to get out of the car, turns into a drizzle. “We’re saved,” he says, “saved,” and Julie asks “What’s that?” and he says “Means miracle; rain’s down to a trickle when I thought it’d be a twenty-year torrent.” Gets everything inside in several trips, empty trash cans on the grass and in the street to the side of the house, mail out of the box, newspapers off porch and walkway. Turns the heat up, oven on, peels carrots and washes and slices celery sticks and puts a plate of them with some cherry tomatoes on the dining room table so the kids can snack, unpacks, puts things away fast as he can, soiled clothes into the washing machine in the basement and pours soap powder in without measuring first and turns it on, straightens up the downstairs, couch pillows plumped up and put in place, that more than anything for the amount of work put in makes a room seem neater, all the old newspapers, magazines, catalogs, drawing and construction paper and children’s books lying around the living room stacked into one pile, something about a room with lots of things open and mislaid disorients him, makes a salad, slices bread brought from New York and butters it, asks the girls when they’re taking from the veggie plate to set the rest of the table, asks them a few times, yells upstairs “Girls, please come down and set the table,” finally says when he sees them reading in the living room and eating the buttered bread “What am I supposed to do, everything? — come on, get with it, set the goddamn table, and that bread was supposed to be for dinner,” and they jump up and run into the kitchen for tableware, “That’s better,” he says and Julie says “You didn’t have to curse,” and he says “You’re right, forget the ‘goddamn,’ but did you get the cloth napkins out of the linen drawer?” and Margo says “Nor shout either — ordering, you’re always ordering,” and he says “I’m not always, and I guess I’m hurrying too fast and being kind of a pain in the ass to get everything done so I can rest a second, excuse me,” tells them to get juice for themselves, please? puts a pot of water on to boil, why didn’t he do it sooner and why’s he have the oven on? and shuts it off — spaghetti, salad, bread, veggie plate (while he’s dribbling olive oil and rice vinegar into the salad bowl), fruit, that should be enough, maybe broccoli if it’s still good, opens a can of apricots and spoons some into two cereal bowls and places them next to the kids’ settings, smells the broccoli in the plastic bag from the refrigerator, mush, stinks, dumps it into the garbage, smells and tastes the tomato sauce from the jar in the refrigerator, still okay and dumps it into a saucepan and puts a very low flame under it, then thinks You know yourself, you’ll forget it and pot will burn and it’s all the sauce you have, and shuts it off, water’s boiling, sticks the spaghetti in, empties the remaining apricots into a container and puts it into the refrigerator, sits for a few minutes with a scotch and water and reads the mail and the part of today’s paper that wasn’t soaked, calls the girls to dinner, same old mail and front-page news, dumps all the catalogs but one so his wife won’t get suspicious that not even one came when she was away, for he doesn’t want her getting her hands on the rest and buying what he thinks are a lot of unnecessary things and increasing the number of catalogs they already get, how do the catalogers or whatever the word for them is get her name? every time she orders, or as much as he can, he tells her to insist the cataloger not sell her name to any other company’s mailing list or she’ll never buy from it again, calls the girls to dinner, catalog he kept is one he’s almost sure she won’t buy anything from: maternity bras and baby clothes from a time she bought them years ago and catalog’s come ever since, calls the girls to dinner, Julie sits and says “I have nothing to drink,” and he says “Did you wash your hands? — I should’ve told you that before you sat,” and both girls wash their hands and he washes his in the kitchen sink and heats the tomato sauce and drains and butters the spaghetti and gets everything on the table along with a glass of wine for him, Parmesan cheese! and runs in and gets it, butter and bread knife and more bread, shakes the pepper mill and refills it and sits and Julie says “I still have nothing to drink,” and he says “Excuse me, but I think I told you before to get something. Not milk, that’s no good with dinner, Mommy says. But one of the flavored seltzers with ice, orange juice in it to make Orangina if it’s plain seltzer, or a flavored seltzer with juice, what’s the difference really? or just straight orange juice with or without ice and which is on the side shelf of the refrigerator,” and Julie gets juice for Margo and her and they eat, he says ‘Food okay, there’s enough?” and Margo says “I’m not that hungry — it could be the popcorn, to be honest; I’m sorry,” and he says “So what did you think about the day today — good day, bad, so-so mediocre day; how does it rate on your average everyday day gauge?” and Margo says “Who?” and he says “Both of you,” and Julie says “I don’t get the question,” and Margo says “An awful boring horrible day, useless and one of the worst. Too much car and stop, car and stop; I wish we could take the train once,” and he says “I promise you — once, we will. But the rest of the day today forgotten — the bad, the so-so mediocre, the good?” and Julie says “Still, what do you mean?” and he says “I don’t know — those cowboys; that’s what my dad liked to call wild and dangerous drivers, and their cars broncos, which is funny, for that’s the name of a fashionable expensive car today, isn’t it?” and Margo says “You think they got the idea from your father?” and he says “If they did I bet right now he’s thinking of suing them from heaven,” and she says “That’s impossible, but do you believe people go there after they die if they’ve been good?” and he says “Death, please, not a subject fit for the dinner table, even over spaghetti and cheap wine,” and she says “Would you be sad if Julie or me died?” and he says “Where’d you get that thought?” and she says “Would you though?” and he says “Very very very very, a thought so sad that I’m now sad just thinking about it, but it ain’t gonna happen so let’s not talk about it,” and Julie says “But everyone dies, right?” and he says “Yes, or maybe, but it’s a hundred years away for you kids at least, so far away and the way science is progressing today that it may never happen to you,” and Margo says “But you’ll die earlier than us unless Julie or me dies before you,” and he says “But I said you won’t, you won’t, and I asked you to drop the subject,” and she says “Why, as long as we’re willing to talk about it and are interested, isn’t that so, Julie?” and Julie says “I sort of am,” and he says “You see, she’s not,” and Julie says “No, I am,” and he says “But I’m not. Neither of my kids will die, not in my lifetime or maybe anybody’s, and I’m going to stay so healthy that I’ll outlive the oldest man who ever lived — Methuselah, even,” and Margo says “I never heard of him,” and he says “Ah, he was probably before your time. But during that long long life of mine I’m going to make sure you kids also acquire the means to live that long and even longer, so from now on you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to living — nothing, forget it,” and Margo says “And Mommy?” and he says “Mommy too, an exceptionally long life — Methuselah’s wife and then some, I’ll see to it,” and Julie says “And Mommy’s parents?” and he says “Now enough, we’ve discussed it way past the point of interest and amusement and information and spaghetti conversation and really, all I was getting at before with those guys on the road and the endless rainstorm and your not ice-skating and so forth was, well, that it’s all been forgotten or put away by you till I just brought it up, and it’s not upsetting you and you both can sleep peacefully and get up tomorrow feeling good, can’t you?” and Margo says “It was not seeing my friends at the party I minded, not the ice-skating, but it’s okay,” and he says “Good, great. Now, continuing my duty as reprehensible single parent — only kidding; responsible father and not morbid-mood bringer and chief family scarer, I have to ask if either of you has homework to do,” and they say they’ve done it, but their teachers went over it in class while they were away, and he asks them to and they clear the table for him, he has another glass of wine and salad while they have dessert, he washes the dishes and puts things away and wants to listen to music while doing this but the classical music station has devoted the hour to marches and waltzes and the other public station which often plays serious music has a call-in on AIDS, yells from the kitchen “Someone want to help Daddy some more and sweep the dining room and kitchen? When I was a kid my folks made me do it every night, even when I was Julie’s age and no matter how badly I did it,” no answer, looks and they’re not around so must be in their rooms upstairs or in one of them with the door closed, he sweeps the floors, puts the washed laundry into the dryer, Julie yells down to the basement “Can we watch TV?” and he says “Is that what you and Margo have been doing since dessert — in my room and you’re only now feeling you’re being deceptive because you know I wouldn’t have permitted it?” and she says “What do you mean?” and he says “The answer’s no; the mind, let’s do something for the mind. Shut the TV off and both of you come downstairs, I’ll meet you