—
Grandma’s scrambled eggs were firmer and drier than my father’s.
From her pan they took on the color of the link sausage.
To our orange juice she added brewer’s yeast, whose chalkiness we had to drink in its entirety or else not be excused.
I still had room for a bowl of muesli afterward and another slice of pie.
Then Oren and I departed for our cousins’ house.
Anthony got permission to take Oren and me shooting.
We took the three .22 rifles hanging on the rack in the living room, then walked to a dilapidated, two-story house on their property, and blasted bottles till we ran out of ammo.
For lunch, Auntie Maine made us sloppy joes, French fries, and broccoli with Cheez Whiz.
They got their milk from a neighbor’s cow, a skin of cream coated the top of the pitcher.
It tasted like a shake, and for dessert I poured this over a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, because we drank skim at home and Mom never let us buy sweet cereal.
My father’s discontent during this holiday was an enormous, complicated matter.
We often stayed through New Year’s, and since he had no skill at throwing a football or any interest in playing cribbage with my grandmother, and since he read only the Times, which he couldn’t get in suburban Virginia, my father had no way to occupy himself.
Three days in and he was going out of his mind.
So far as I could tell, his discontent was a function of his simply being out of New York.
Robbed of its noise and bustle, he responded with an ever-increasing antsiness.
As if by leaving Manhattan, Manhattan, in his absence, threatened to disappear, and he must get back to it in order to preserve its existence.
Because of this, Dad always seemed to be passing through, especially around midday, lingering long enough to ponder Grandma and me playing gin in the living room, or Grandpa in his study, practicing Spanish on his reel-to-reel while I watched TV, and then stomping away in a huff.
His consternation grew worse with each passing day.
Christmas Eve morning, after breakfast, he stopped in the doorframe of the living room, where we were all gathered.
Mom was on the couch, reading with a throw blanket over her legs.
He waited for her to put down her book.
“Why don’t you go for a walk on the golf course?” she said.
At this, Dad stared through the large bay window, at the number three fairway, its grass as brown and forbidding as tundra.
“Maybe I’ll go to Woody’s and do some last-minute Christmas shopping,” he said.
“In D.C.?” Mom said.
He shrugged, and she looked at her watch.
“Take the boys with you,” Mom suggested.
“I’m helping with the dinner,” Oren said.
He was playing hearts with Grandma and Grandpa.
We couldn’t go see the cousins.
They’d gone off to see Uncle Marco’s side of the familythey were doubling up on presents, and the fact that we weren’t getting any gifts from Dad’s side, not even for Hanukkah, still made him furious.
“Griffin,” Mom said, “why don’t you go with your father.”
I looked up from Grandma’s Encyclopedia of Fish and pointed at myself.
“Come on,” Dad said, and winked.
“I’ll make it worth your while.”
Dad asked for permission to borrow Grandpa’s Peugeot.
The keys hung on a hook above the kitchen’s desk.
“Fantastic car,” Dad said once we were inside.
He pulled the shoulder belt across his chest.
“What model is this?” I asked.
Dad shrugged.
“It’s French.” He pushed the stick left to right and then turned the keys in the ignition.
The engine sounded more like a piece of farm equipment than a sedan.
A thrum came up through the seats and made the gearshift vibrate.
The black fumes transported me back to New York, and I rolled up my slightly cracked window.
We made a left out the driveway and headed toward the country club.
We stopped at the four-way intersection at the top of the hill.
“Do you like driving a stick more than an automatic?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Dad said.
As if to elaborate, he let the car roll backward ever so slightly, giving it gas just as gently so that we advanced the same distance back to the stop line in a pleasant pull-me/push-you alternation.
“More control.”
“Is it hard to learn?”
“Here,” he said.
He crossed the intersection and, after entering the club’s stone gates, swung around back to its large, empty parking lot.
“You try.”
It was not a long lesson.
It might have been one of the only practical lessons my father ever taught me.
I couldn’t sing, after all, and I wasn’t interested in opera or photography; I was already a more successful film and television actor, and Dad was no athlete.
His magnanimity was as surprising as his patience.
Perhaps he was relieved to have something to do.
Perhaps he was also gladdened to be instructive and relished the real authority it conferred.
Most likely it was both.
There was no showmanship in the session.
His method was very effective.
Once I was installed in the driver’s seat, he assured me, “Don’t worry about stopping.
We have plenty of open space, and if need be”he touched the hand brake between us“I’ve got it.” He had me keep my foot on the clutch and then give as little gas as possible but “steady pressure on the pedal,” he said, “the whole time.
There.
Just like that.
Now just ease off the clutch.” We began to inch forward.
“Don’t worry that we’re moving,” he continued as we advanced.
I stalled and we started over.
“I want you to feel the point of engagement.
The moment the car drops into gear.
Gently let the pressure off the clutch… now.
” I was comfortably in first.
We were moving.
“Go around the parking lot at this speed,” Dad said.
We drove the lot’s length and I turned.
“Now comes the tricky part,” he said, as we turned again and onto this straightaway of sorts.
“Give it a little more gas.
You see the RPMs revving high on the dash? Depress the clutch.” I did and it felt like gliding.
“Now drop it into second gear.” Later, we did some downshifting.
Of course I stalled several times.
When I apologized, Dad told me not to worry about it, and we went through all the stages of starting the car before moving again.
Maybe the lesson lasted a half hour.
I don’t recall exactly, but by the end I was comfortably dropping the stick into neutral and braking before coming to a full stop and then, accelerating once more, getting it as high as third gear.
We must’ve made at least twenty laps around the parking lot, because after several revolutions, Dad forgot himself, forgot I was driving.
He seemed terrifically relaxed in the passenger seat, and he stared out the window at the surrounding landscape, as if he could finally appreciate the view, as if Manassas wasn’t so bad after all, and maybe for a while he considered how nice it would be if someone shared the family’s driving with him.
“If it snows tomorrow,” Dad said, “maybe I’ll take you back out here and teach you how to do a three-sixty.”
Even without traffic, it took us almost two hours to get to D.C.
and find parking near Woodward common sense dictated it would have Atari systems set up for demonstration, and, lo and behold, it also had Intellivision.
I played Sea Battle for a while and some NFL Football until my neck was sweating.
I checked the time.
I had plenty to burn before Dad and I reunited, so I decided to wander.
Woodward I waited for him to recognize me; and then he kept walking past as if I were invisible.
I hustled after him and tapped his shoulder.
“There you are,” he said.
His mood had darkened.
He carried no bags.
“Do you have more shopping?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes in disgust.
“I’ve bought plenty,” he said.
“They have a restaurant upstairs.
Could we get a hot chocolate?”
“Enough already.”
And then someone called out his name.
It was Abe Fountain, the great lyricist and librettist, in whose show my father had previously performed.
He looked noticeably older since The Fisher King .
His wiry hair was distinctly grayer.
His dark suit and thin tie made his face look gaunt.
His Swifty Lazar frames had thicker lenses than I recalled, and they magnified his eyesthe left was larger and set slightly lower than the rightwhich gave him a wizardly appearance.
On his arm was a woman so heavily made up she appeared as if she’d just walked offstage.
Curly red hair.
Red lips to match.
She wore a silver fur coat, so thick it gave her a dandelion shape.
Her long legs were sheathed in fishnet tights, and her tall black heels made her almost comically taller than Fountain.
Her namecould it have been more perfect?was Roxy.
After introductions and pleasantries, Fountain said to Dad, “It’s kismet that I ran into you.
You’ve been on my mind.”
“You don’t say.”
It was one of the vertiginous aspects of my father’s character that his bad mood in our presence could be immediately eradicated by the appearance of someone he worked with.
Whether his mood sank again upon their departure was always a possibility.
“Let’s have a drink at the bar around the corner.
What’s the name of that place, hon?”
“The Blind Beggar,” Roxy said.
“We’re celebrating,” Fountain said.
“I’m writing a part for you in my next musical.
A major role.
Griffin can come too.” He turned his attention toward me.
“You like eggnog? They have the real thing.
With some amaretto.
You like amaretto, kid?”
“I’m more of a whiskey guy,” I said.
Fountain chuckled, then mussed my hair.
“What do you say?”
At this, Dad, beaming, thrilled at Fountain’s news, turned to me and, producing from his wallet ten more dollars, gave me the slightest nod of the head, which I knew meant scram.
“Go get yourself that hot chocolate,” Dad said.
“I’ll find you at the restaurant upstairs.”
I did not do as I was told because I knew I’d have some extra time to kill.
Instead, I wandered the store some more.
I even walked outside to check out the display windows.
In my favorite was a city couple sitting on a bench in an arctic snowscape, each holding fishing rods, their lines sunk in a hole in the ice, the woman wearing a mink like Fountain’s girlfriend, the man wearing a Members Only jacket among other fineries.
In the adjacent window, the glacial motif continued with four live penguins.
They swam in and out of a pool you could see into through the glass, just like at the Central Park Zoo.
The best part was when their keeper appeared from the diorama wall and fed them a bucket of squid.
Later, when Dad found me at the restaurant’s counter, he was as full of good spirits as I of hot chocolate and a pair of cheese Danishes.
Were he not carrying several bags in each handthey reminded me of a balloon’s ballasthis happiness was such that I was sure he might float away.
“Your mother,” he said, and I was not sure if he meant the bowed gifts he held up or the news, “is going to be thrilled. ”
On Christmas morning, we woke to snowfall.
It was several inches, it covered everything, and there wafted from the kitchen a smell not only of sausage cooking and the scent of tarragon but also apple and pumpkin pie.
Mom and Grandma had dressed the turkey and were about to put it in the oven.
Dad sat on the couch, facing the fire, which Grandpa tended.
Like Mom, Grandma was still in her nightgown.
She said, “Merry Christmas,” to Oren and me when we greeted her, and the explosiveness of the last two syllableswe could hear this when we hugged hercaused her to bite at her breath, like a landed fish.
By now Oren had visited the tree and climbed into the La-Z-Boy, his presents neatly stacked around him.
The night before there wasn’t a single gift beneath it, but now the trove covered the base.
Oren had methodically begun to open his presents.
With each he gave a low “Yes,” not so much ticking off a box but addressing himself to items on a bill of lading, assurances of an agreement kept, and at this moment more than almost any other, his sense of metaphysical satisfaction seemed profound, as if, for him, our family was finally properly functioning.
“What did you get?” I asked, and he held up his Simon memory game.
“Can I play?”
“If you give me your R2-D2 Pez dispenser,” he said.
He had a shoebox full of unopened Star Wars figurines.
I got clothes.
I was not unexcited about them, but I wasn’t excited either.
In one box: L.L.Bean corduroys.
“We’ll have those fitted,” Dad said.
In another, a pair of L.L.Bean turtlenecks.
A black sweater with a zipper on its V-neck.
“That’s cashmere,” Dad said.
Mom said, “I picked them out for you.
I thought they were very handsome.” In a small box, a pair of black leather gloves.
“This one,” Dad said, and handed me a present, “is special.”
It was too big to be Intellivision.
It was too heavy to be a toy.
Beneath the wrapping paper, the box read Barney’s .
I removed a navy overcoat.
“Put it on,” Mom said.
It was heavier than Peter Proton’s cape.
“Go get a load of yourself,” Dad said.
“I will,” I said, and sat on the couch, flapping the flaps over my legs and torso like a sleeping bat.
By now, Oren was opening his final present.
“Thank you,” he said to Grandma and Grandpa, and held up the giant book for everyone to see: Ferrari: A History in Pictures.
It was now Mom and Dad’s turn to give Grandma and Grandpa presents.
Grandpa was given his by my father.
It was grown-up, it seemed to me, to do as Grandpa did: to demonstrate restraint and take one’s time to consider the wrapped present’s size and shape, which in this case was small, perhaps that of two matchboxes.
Grandpa considered it from every angle.
“Open it, Pa,” Mom said, and Oren said, “I helped pick it out,” and Grandpa opened the small box and gave a gravelly “Ha!” The box read Buck , and at the sight of this word, Dad said, “I’m told it’s the best knife there is,” to which Grandpa, having already folded open the blade, pressed his thumb with a milligram of pressure to test its sharpness.
“Lo-ver-ly,” he said.
He folded the blade, slid it in his pocket, and patted it there as if for later use.
Grandma was also opening her presents.
The first contained slippers.
“Those are real lambskin and lamb’s wool,” Dad said.
“They’re supposed to be the warmest slippers made.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Grandpa said, showing everyone his Black I was playing her younger brother in the scene, and she was so tall, I was practically looking up at her chin.
But in my fantasy I ignored this fact.
I pretended she had relatives in Manassas, she called to me from one of the fairway-facing houses like we sometimes did to Grandma and Grandpa when they were playing golf, she came running out to join me, and then she and I walked the course’s entirety together, her mitten in my leather glove, our understanding of each other’s souls so perfect we need not utter a word.
Surprisingly, I felt a tad winded, perhaps because of all my layers and the heavy boots and the accumulation that made progress a slog.
As I ascended the fifth fairway, it occurred to me that I hadn’t exercised since we’d been here and that perhaps walking for as long as I could was a good idea, if for nothing else than to make room for dinner.
I passed the fifth hole, then the sixth.
I had never been this far on the golf course before.
The snow came down more heavily now.
Although the sun was still visible through the cloud cover, it was a white eye, as on certain overcast days at the beach, and from the seventh green I looked back to note my discrete footprints, the only blemishes on this perfect world.
For all our freedom in New York, our lives, I realized, were unwittingly circumscribed by familiarity, by paths so narrow it would be like turning around right now and walking back to Grandma’s atop my own tracks.
Here, this great white way was like the financial district or the East Village or Alphabet City back homeit was right there, and I had never been, and it was entirely new, and I vowed to explore Greenwich Village as soon as I returned to New York, maybe finally figure out how the street names worked in SoHo.
The ninth hole was the steepest uphill of the front nine, a par five, and I noticed a figure in the distance.
Whether it was a man or woman, grown-up or child, was impossible to tell.
The snow was a blinding ticker tape.
The person walked directly toward me, he or she wearing a white down coat and white hat.
The wind blew into my face.
I lifted my hand to shield my eyes and I saw that it was Bridget.
She walked straight up to me and said, “I thought that was you.”
Now that I wasn’t moving, I noticed how quiet it was.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Looking for my golf ball.”
I laughed.
She laughed too.
Our breaths made a single cloud.
Her curly red hair framing her face from beneath her stocking hat was snow-dusted, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were very blue.
I could now appreciate how large they were.
“Are you still doing that show?” she asked.
“The Saturday one.”
I was surprised she’d watched it.
“Yes,” I said.
“We just finished our fourth season.”
“Did you always want to be an actor?”
“Not really.
I kind of fell into it.”
“It must be so interesting to live in New York and do movies and television.”
“I’ve sort of always done it, but yeah, sure.”
“What’s the best part?”
I considered this for a moment.
“I like seeing the difference between rushes and the final cut.
Of movies.” If Leo were here, I would never have considered talking to Bridget like this.
I was talking to Bridget like this, I thought, because she was Bridget.
“Rushes?” she asked.
“Dailies.
After we wrap, they put together all the day’s shots for the director to see, in case they need to reshoot.
But it’s all broken up, in bits and pieces.
And then you see it straight through months later, after the editor’s put it together, and you realize how good everyone has to be at their job for a movie to get made.”
“Everyone?”
“The cast.
The crew.
Gaffer, key grip.
Best boy…”
She chuckled at my list.
“Dolly grip.
AD.
Prop master.
Production designer”
“Wow,” she said.
“You know a lot.”
Maybe it wasn’t so bad, being an actor.
“It takes a lot of people to make a movie, let me tell you.”
“You are so lucky,” she said.
“I’m gonna live in New York when I grow up.”
That she wanted such a thing made her seem grown up already.
We stood very close to each other, breathing in the falling snow.
“Are you…headed somewhere?” I asked.
“I walk the golf course every Christmas Day.
I’ve been doing it since I was seven.
It’s my tradition.
I try to leave at the same time every year and think about how my life is different.”
“Huh,” I said, fascinated.
“How’d you decide to do that?”
“I don’t remember,” Bridget said.
“That’s really cool.”
“Well, if you leave at ten in the morning next Christmas, I’ll see you at the ninth hole, and we can tell each other what’s different in our lives between now and then.”
“Deal,” I said.
And we parted.
I did not run into Bridget on the back nine.
Stomping my boots in the garage, I wondered if I was simply going faster and had arrived at my grandparents’ well ahead of her pace.
In his study, Grandpa was practicing Spanish.
He had his reel-to-reel going.
The woman’s voice asked, “Donde han ido los ninos?” A tone sounded, and my grandfather repeated the question with almost comically perfect enunciation.
The woman’s voice said, “Los ninos estan jugando en la playa,” and the tone sounded again.
In the kitchen, Oren, Mom, and Grandma were making the Christmas meal; I spied the turkey, golden in the oven, and dreamed of my favorite part: the wings.
In the living room, Dad was asleep in front of the midday news.
In my room, I hung up my overcoat, lay on my bed, and thought about Bridget’s invitation to meet the following year.
How would my life be different then? It was, I quickly concluded, impossible to know.
Or was it? I could become a better wrestler.
I could ignore Coach, do the moves I wanted.
I could go to wrestling camp this summer and learn more new ones if I didn’t do The Nuclear Family.
But whether I did the show was not in my control.
So I was back to square one.
I could hear the television in the living room, the anchor’s drone.
It was day 418 of the hostage crisis.
What if it never ended? I thought.
What if those fifty-two people never came home? What choices did the hostages make, day in and day out? Whether to talk? To eat?
Could those even be considered a course of action? By any metric, they were such tiny decisions, they barely made for a story at all.