By his recent good husbandry, Ben Flesh had divested himself of many of his investments, adjusting his strange portfolio, his eggs in fewer baskets now than they had been for years. Money in the bank. The Finsbergs protected. A high wall of the respectable around them while his health failed daily, his own energy crisis unresolved, his body still demyelinating a mile a minute. Like a thaw revealing litter, garbages, horror.
He spoke with two or three Finsbergs daily, pressing them with his new goduncle love, the phone a genuine expense. (He subscribed to a WATS line, got special rates, dialing his coded numbers even at the public phones in gas stations and drugstores.)
Not wanting to nuisance them, as aware as any tentative, cautious, unsure-of-his-ground lover of the thinness of his welcome. So coming at them from another side, not deferent, not submissive. No Lear, no Stella Dallas. Not Père Goriot. Not asking for their healths, giving his.
“My testicles are acting up,” he told Gus-Ira. “They feel weighted. A very peculiar sensory symptom. Annoying. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s as if I had loaded dice for balls. Or like those, you know, Mexican jumping beans.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.”
“Oh yeah. It is. I take a few steps and I feel the locks tumbling in my parts. I come and I feel magnets colliding. I piss and the ball bearings get out of line.”
“Terrible. I heard that Moss—”
“But it’s still chiefly sensory, I think. Oh my balance isn’t that terrific. I trip but I don’t always go down. I can touch my finger to my thumb. But what’s the good of kidding? I’ll be on steroids in a year — two at the outside. All I’m really holding out for is the opening of my Travel Inn. I’d like to get that under my belt. If it isn’t one thing it’s another. Now the damned electricians are out on strike. But there’s talk of settlement. It could be open by this summer if they get down to business. Almost everything’s ready, the furniture will be coming in, the TV’s. It’s just the electricians holding us up. It’s going to be terrific, Gus-Ira. My biggest thing yet. I want you and the family as my guests for the opening. Hold July open.”
“That sounds swell, Ben. We’ll certainly try to make it.”
“That’s a promise now.”
“Sure. We’ll try.”
“What’s this about Moss?”
“Moss?”
“You said you heard that Moss something something.”
“Oh. Maxene was telling me that he may have his driver’s license revoked.”
“Yes?”
“The insurance company is talking about canceling his policy. There’ve been some claims against him.”
“ Boy, the nerve of those guys. You pay your premiums — and those are some premiums. Believe me, I know. You pay your premiums, dent a few fenders, and they want to close you down. Sore losers. I can’t get life insurance because of the M.S.”
“Well—”
“The underwriters. Letters from a half dozen of the best neurologists in the country. I’ve seen the letters. Beautiful. Like good references. Like advise and consent on a shoo-in Secretary of State. The companies turn me down.”
“Really?”
“They turn me down. Or want ridiculous premiums. I wanted to take out a million dollars. You know the premium those putz-knuckles are asking?”
“A million bucks? Why would you want to take out a million-dollar insurance policy?”
“My God, Gus, you have to ask something like that? For the kids, for you guys, but it’s out of the question. They want a hundred twenty-five grand a year to cover me. Fucking whore-hearts. My neuros tell them it’s sensory…Hell, their own neuros tell them it’s sensory and they’re still betting I won’t live eight years.”
“A hundred twenty-five thousand. That’s wacky.”
“Goofy.”
“ Incredible.”
“Well, what the hell, I’ll be on steroids in a year, my face out of shape as a whore’s pillow. Lopsided as hobgoblin. Still, I could last years strapped to the wheelchair. But I guess I see their point. The payments. How would I keep up the payments?”
“Gee, Ben, when you talk like that—” Kitty said.
“Don’t you worry, baby, just don’t you worry. You guys are provided for. Have I ever cost you a nickel?”
“I hate to hear—”
“Have I cost you a nickel? Was there ever a time I didn’t pay back? Did I ever once have to come to you and say, ‘Boys, girls, I can’t handle the payments, go to bat for me.’?”
“Come on, Ben.”
“Not once. Not one time. Dad put you under an obligation and I’m obligated.”
“Please.”
“No. I’m obliged. All right,” he told Mary, “it ain’t the Ottoman Empire, but Monaco maybe, San Marino perhaps, whatever they call those postage-stamp republics they have over there. Something like that my tidy enterprises. For you, for Lorenz, for Helen, the others.”
“Speaking of Helen,” she said as if she wanted to change the subject.
“No no. Don’t be embarrassed by my love. Please, Mary. Take it or leave it, but don’t be embarrassed. And how do you like this? My old guy rhetoric, my stage-door style? Call me Pop and give me high marks for loyalty.”
“Loyalty? Loyalty to what, Ben?”
“To what? To you. To you, Irving. To you like a toast. To you. Listen, I’ve taken plenty of loyalty lessons over the years. I’m a Finsberg patriot, hip hip hooray. Maybe loyaler,” he said to Cole, “than you guys have been. Oh, not to me. I don’t complain. All I got to complain are my toes tingling in my shoes like I’m walking barefoot in sandstorms. All I got to complain are my fingernails tickle. That my electricians don’t settle — but I heard the Fed mediators are in on it now. There may be a break soon. I think August at the outside for the opening of my Inn. You can come, right? My guests. There’s never been a Flesh/Finsberg Franchise Gala. What, you think I’d ask you to a Baskin-Robbins opening? You should fly in and look at the flavors before they melt? Though, you know,” he told Gertrude, “it might have been worth it. The colors of those ice creams! Chocolate like new shoes, Cherry like bright fingernail polish. We do a Maple Ripple it looks like fine-grained wood, a Peach like light coming through a lampshade. You should see that stuff — the ice-cream paints bright as posters, fifty Day-Glo colors. You scoop the stuff up you feel like Jackson Pollock. There have been times — listen to me — there have been times it’s busy, I’m tired from a trip, my symptoms are crawling in my ears like ants, and I go back of the counter to help out. I roll up my sleeves and I get cheerful. Cheerful. I whistle while I work. No kidding,” he told Patty, “I take one look at the ice-cream acrylics and I’m happy as Looney Tunes. I almost forget my teeth have goose bumps.”
“Goose bumps?”
“This M.S. is no respecter of feelings. It blitzkriegs the nerves, gives your hair a headache. You think there are splinters in your eyes and the roof of your mouth has sunburn. But what the hell, the electricians are close to settling, the union representatives are seriously considering the latest proposals, they may bring them to the rank and file for a vote. Then — who knows? — five, six weeks’ work and you can call it a Travel Inn. You’ll be there, of course. I’m expecting all the kids. It’ll be like old times.”
“With Jerome the way he is—”
Jerome? Jerome’s fine. Shipshape. I already invited Jerome. I spoke to Jerome last week.”