I hear a crash in the other room. Then I wonder: Why am I staying here? Just because he said I should? I listen to no one. I make my own rules. I walk down the hallway, into the kitchen, which is twice the size of my kitchen, and everything is new and shining and gleaming, and then I turn to the left and enter a side room where I see my father hunched over a shattered lamp. There’s a television running, sound off, and jazz music playing. It’s Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz.
I recognize the album because my father has schooled me on his favorites. He has the original album from when he was a kid, the one with Jackson Pollock’s The White Light on the inside cover. A few months ago, after my art teacher contacted my parents and told them I had real talent and they should encourage me to apply to a magnet arts school, he made me listen to it. “To some people this album is perfect, and other people hate it. To me, it is perfect,” he told me. Then he took me to MoMA and showed me the same Pollock painting in person. He said, “Our worlds intersect, Andrea.” I love my father madly.
The actor is saying, “You know, this is really, like, ruining my day here, buddy. I just wanted to relax.” On the low coffee table in front of them, there are needles and rubber tubes and a pile of little plastic bags. Just drugs everywhere, basically. I give a little gasp and they both turn.
“Honey,” says my dad. He’s still struggling with the lamp. “Just leave it, the housekeeper is coming tomorrow, it’s fine,” says the actor. “It’s worthless and I hated it anyway.” “What are you doing here?” says my father. “I followed you,” I say. “I was worried about you.” The two men both make an ugh sound.
The actor’s voice turns kind. “We don’t need this to turn into anything bad, not when you’re such a nice kid, Andrea.” He knows my name and this mostly thrills me. “Arthur, maybe it’s best the two of you go now.” “Of course,” says my father. “Sorry to be such a bummer, man.” The actor walks us out. “I have to go to the Coast tomorrow but I’ll be back in a month or so. I’ll check in with you then.” “Yeah, be in touch.” They embrace. The actor pats me on my head, then says, “It’s not nice to spy on people, but I commend you on your sleuthing skills nonetheless.” The door closes. The whole thing takes two minutes.
“All right, you,” says my father unsteadily, slipping on his fluorescent sunglasses. “Let’s get you back to school.” Of course it’s me leading him, though, as he shuffles along. He stops us on the corner, puts both hands on my shoulders as if he’s about to say something, but really he’s just resting. “Would coffee help?” I ask him. “It might,” he says. “It’ll warm us up, anyway.” We buy coffee from a street vendor on West 4th Street, my father digging in his pocket for the exact change. We both take our coffee the same way, light and sweet. “I can’t remember, is coffee bad for someone your age?” he says. His voice is dragging. “Will it stunt your growth?” “One cup won’t kill me,” I say.
And then somehow the coffee works. It doesn’t sober him up entirely, that’s not quite what it does. It speeds him up, though. All of a sudden he has ideas. We’re on the platform, waiting for the train to take us back uptown, and he wants to tell me everything he knows at once. My father has wisdom to share. And I believe everything he says because it seems so urgent and important. He believes it, and he is my father, so it has to be true.
“Here’s what they tell you, Andrea. They tell you that you grow up, you get a job, you fall in love, you get married, you buy a home, you have children, you do all that, you get to be an adult. Like you want in this club? This is how you do it. This is it. This is the path.”
We get on the train. Rush hour is over; we find a seat. We turn and face each other. He has gaps where he’s lost a few teeth. My mother makes us brush and floss every night.
“Now that doesn’t account for a lot of things. Like did you know you can fall in love with more than one person in your life? The boys are gonna be crazy for you, I can tell.” He strokes my hair down to my shoulders. “Or you might not love anyone at all. You could just not love anyone and that would be fine, even though life is lonely and it might be easier if you do. But you can’t be something you’re not. You can’t.”
I’m nodding, but I don’t know anything about love yet. Just Mom and Dad and my brother, that’s love. Friends is love. Love love I don’t know about.
“And did you know that most jobs are pure hell? And did you know that none of the rules work too well if you want to be any kind of artist? And did you know that it’s easier to be an adult—their kind of adult—if you live a life of freedom, as in if you are a man and you live in the Western world or if you are a white person or if you’re rich, all of those things can make your life easier, and all the opportunities are just sitting there, if you want them, you can have them, and then you can be the person you’re supposed to be. But if you’re not white or if you’re a woman or if you’re poor or you live in some terrible place, then you could be fucked. This is why I love your mother, Andrea. Because she fights to level the playing field.”
His mention of my mother bursts the bubble we’re lingering in together. Out there, outside of this speech and this subway, the real world of our family exists.
“And also those things I just told you are completely fallible, like your fucking life—excuse my language—could collapse right before you at any moment. Like your children, your job, your love, all of it, could just go kaboom, and then what do you do when a piece of your personal puzzle disappears? How do you hold it all together?”
The subway stops between stations and the lights flicker and go dark and he holds my hand and tells me it’s fine, we’re fine.
“Not to mention, what about your own special secret desires that thrill you like no other thing. Not to mention pleasure. No one ever mentions pleasure. Why are we supposed to feel bad for wanting to feel good?”
The lights go back on, the subway starts rocking again.
“And worst of all, what if you don’t know what you like at all? What if nothing sticks? Then you spend half your life wondering what it is you’re supposed to be doing next. What happens after that?”
86th Street. He walks me to school, signs me in at the front office, blames himself, makes the secretary laugh. He half-asses everything in his life so brilliantly.
He kisses me goodbye. “There’s no point in telling your mother about this,” he says, and it’s true, and my whole life, I never do. What would be the point?