The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [56]
to visit Georgie, because of her eyesight, we had to take her to the far West Side. George was bigger than I now, and sometimes a little surly and offended with us, though still with the same mind-crippled handsomeness, a giant moving with slow-pants, mature heaviness in the dragfoot gait of his undeveloped legs. He wore my hand-me-downs and Simon's, and it was singular to see the clothes worn so differently. At the school they had taught him broom-making and weaving and showed us the thistle- flower neckties he made with wool on a frame. But he was growing too old for this boys' Home; in a year or so he'd have to move on to Manteno or one of the other downstate institutions. Mama took this very badly. "There maybe once or twice a year we'll be able to visit him," she said. Going to see this soft-faced man of a George wasn't easy on me either. So, afterward, on these trips, as I had money in my pockets these days, I'd take Mama into a fancy Greek place on Crawford Avenue for ice-cream and cakes, to try to raise her out of her rock-depth of heavy trouble, where, I guess, the greater part of human beings have always spent most of their silent time. She let me divert her somewhat, even if rattled by the fancy prices, and protesting in high tones of a person unaware of what a sound she is making. To which I'd say calmingly, "It's okay, Ma. Don't worry." Because Simon and I were still at school we were still on charity, and with both of us working and George in the institution, we had more dough than we'd ever had. Only it was Simon who took care of the surplus, and no longer Grandma, as in the old administration. Sometimes I had glimpses of Grandma in the parlor, at the light end of the dark hallway, in her disconnection from us, waiting by herself beside the Crystal-Palace turret of the stove, in dipping bloomers and starched dress with hem as stiff as a line of Euclid. She had too many wrongs against us now to forgive us, and they couldn't be discussed. From weakness of mind of the very old. She that we always had thought so powerful and shockproof. Simon said, "She's on her last legs," and we accepted her decline and ^yrog. But that was because we were already out in the world, "ereas Mama didn't have any such perspective. Grandma had laid most of her strength on Mama as boss-woman, governing hand, queen mother, empress, and even her banishment of George and near-senile kitchen scandals couldn't shake the respect and liege feeling so long established. Mama wept to Simon and me about Grandma's strange alteration but couldn't answer her according to her new folly. But Simon said, "It's too much for Ma. Why should the Lausches get away with sloughing the old woman off on us? Ma's been her servant long enough. She's getting older herself and her eyes are bad; she can't even see the pooch when it's under her feet." "Well, this is something we ought to leave up to Ma herself." "For Chrissake, Augie," said Simon, blunt--his broken tooth showed to much effect when he was scornful--"don't be a mushhead all your life, will you! Honest to God, you make me think I was the only one of us born with a full set of brains. What good is it to let Mama decide?" I usually didn't find much to offer when it was a question of theory or reality with regard to Mama. We treated her alike but thought about her differently. All I had to say was that Mama wasn't used to being alone and, as a fact, my feelings took a bad drop when I imagined it. She was already nearly blind. What would she do but sit by herself? She had no friends, and had always shambled around on her errands in her man's shoes and her black tarn, thick glasses on her rosy, lean face, as a kind of curiosity in the neighborhood, some queer woman, not all there. "What kind of company is Grandma though?" said Simon. "Oh, maybe she'll come around a little. And they still talk sometimes, I guess." "When did she ever? Bawls her out, you mean, and makes her cry. The only thing you're saying is that we should let things ride. That's only laziness, even though you probably tell yourself you're