Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [47]
“I see. You don’t want to end up middle-aged and red-eyed.”
Eric pretended not to hear. “Lorraine’s staying down here in the city. Her family’s letting me use their place. It’s for myself.”
Eric’s father took his lower lip in his teeth as he smiled. Then he said, “I didn’t think your generation indulged in such hefty idealism. I thought they were all designing computers and snorting the profits gram by gram. But this, a rustication, living in cabins and searching the soul, why, it’s positively Russian. With that beard, you even look slightly Russian. Who’ve you been reading, Thoreausky?”
“I’ve read Thoreau,” Eric said, looking out the window.
“I bet you have,” his father said. “Look, kid, I’m very pleased. No kidding. Just make one promise. While you’re up there, read some Chekhov. If you’re going to be a Russian, that’s the kind of Russian to be. Skip the other claptrap. You promise?”
“Sure. If you want me to.”
“Yup,” his father said. “I do.” He paused. His arms and shoulders ached. Every time he ate, he felt a hard lump in his stomach. He furtively touched his neck, then glanced at Eric, shoveling in the food, and said, “If your mother were still alive, I’d be getting all riled up and telling you to get settled down and finish your studies and all that sort of thing. Mothers don’t like it when their sons go off sulking into the woods. She’d’ve been worried. But you can handle yourself. And frankly I think it’s a great idea.” He leaned back. “ ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,’ ” he said. “Keats. I once used it in an ad for the Wisconsin State Board of Tourism. It’s the wrong season, but the thought’s right. Go north before you get tired.”
“Tired?”
Mr. Bradbury wiped his mouth with his napkin and stared vaguely at the television set next to the sideboard. It, too, was tuned to CNN. He could no longer resist alcoholic gloom. “You’ll get tired someday,” he said. “Like a damaged mainspring. You’ll get home at night and stand in front of the window as the sun sets. You’ll always know what time it is without looking at your watch. You’ll see odd mists you can’t identify coming up from the pond in the park. There’s a pattern in those mists, but you won’t find it. Then the fraud police knock on your door. Those bastards won’t leave a man alone.”
“Pop, you drink too much.”
Mr. Bradbury’s face reddened. “If we weren’t pals,” he said, “I’d sock you in the nose. Listen, kid. When I’m sober I don’t mortify people with the known facts of life. But you’re family.” He rose from the table and walked unsteadily across the thick carpeting of the living room. In five minutes he returned, carrying a check and waving it in the air as if to dry the ink. “A huge sum,” he said. “The damaged fruits of a sedentary life. If you don’t find work right away, you can read and bum around in the woods with the other unemployed animals on the dole. If you do find a job, which I doubt, since it’s a depressed area, you can refund the unused portion. Someday you can pay this back. That’s the convention between fathers and sons.”
“I’ll try to come down at Christmas.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Mr. Bradbury cut a spear of his asparagus into small pieces and worried the tip with his fork. The check was in the middle of the table, and Eric reached out and picked it up, folding it into his trouser pocket.
“Good,” his father said. “You didn’t lunge.” He didn’t look up. “You have a picture of this Lorraine?”
“No. Sorry. Are you seeing anybody yourself?”
His father shrugged. “There’s a woman in Chicago I visit every month or so. Or she comes here. Someone I met through business. A small affair. Morgan, her name is. Her children are grown up, same age as you. She has a pretty laugh. The thought of that laugh has gotten me through many a desperate week. We’re thinking of embarking on a short cruise together in the Caribbean this winter.” He stopped. “But it’s all quite pointless.” He rubbed his forehead. “On the other hand, maybe it isn’t. I’ll be damned if