After we return from church and Betty calms down, I shower and nervously attempt a shave. I realize my face is bleeding from razor cuts, which I attempt to stop with the application of tiny shreds of toilet paper. They cling to my face. Of course, this would be the moment I decide to go out. I don’t think I can bear to sit in the house one more night. After freshening my toilet paper, I clean my glasses—butter sucks on bifocals—then mix pineapple with cottage cheese, bake a piece of salmon, and give Betty an early supper. I hesitate to leave her, but when I say I am going, she nods.
In the Columbia paper, I have read about a program at the synagogue called “Coming to America,” featuring elderly Jews telling the stories of where they are from and how they came to this country. I decide, as I have time, to take the route through the country past a little store run by the Amish where I take Betty to buy pies. By the time I reach the area where the Amish reside, the sun is setting. I watch the men and women in their heavy dark clothes, in which they must be baking, gathered on porches or walking in from the fields. By the side of the road, a group of little girls in aprons marches together toward the store, carrying dishes covered in white cloths. One girl lags behind. Her bonnet is untied and the strings hang down her chest. Her cheeks are dirty and her boots appear to be unlaced. She stomps angrily down the path, oblivious to the rest. She looks angry; I sense rebellion. I can almost hear her screaming: “Enough with the churning!” This one may just be heading off the reservation. I imagine Betty as a girl like this, inclined toward irritable moments and headstrong, determined to go her own way. I like a girl like that.
5
Always open—late nights and early mornings—Rexall Drugs was run by Lennos Bryant, a pharmacist and longtime mayor of Madison known for his annual ascension of the water tower to put up Christmas lights visible for miles. Also in attendance at the store was his wife, Nadine, a registered nurse with an eye for fashion. From her closet came turbans, stoles, aged fur pieces with heads and wandering eyes, sarongs, dresses draped with huge cloth flowers or glittering jewel-like objects. She attracted praise for her attentiveness to the sick for whom she served as doctor, as the town had none. But she specialized as well in unpredictable acts—leaving poison out for dogs that congregated in the business district—that made her less popular. On certain Sundays, her Chevrolet could be seen on the highway, swerving back and forth across the lanes as she supervised the driving instruction of her four-year-old grandson.
The Rexall was adorned with a black cat clock whose swinging tail marked the hours. My father parked us at the counter as Nadine—her wet hair shaded slightly blue—gave herself shampoos in the soda fountain. My father loved her, egged her on to further feats of eccentricity. On this particular day, however, he finished his cherry Coke before I did and looked shocked when Nadine picked up his drained glass and began crunching on the ice.
“Nadine!” exclaimed Lennos.
“He doesn’t have any germs,” replied Nadine. “Look at him.”
My father laughed until he remembered why we were there. Then he looked at me gravely and said, “I gotta tell you. Your mother has a plan.”
. . .
Every few years, when the rains come right, it is impossible not to notice that the place where we live is blessed with picture-book beauty. Maybe it was the pastoral greenery or the glory of nature that led Betty—a woman petrified of the water and not inclined to feast on its products—to wake one morning and imagine her husband and son standing at the edge of a sludgy current, fishing poles in hand, joined in appreciation of each other and the wonder of it all.
It was 1969 or so, and not long after my father sat me down at Rexall, the two of us found ourselves preparing to go. Fishing.
“Good lord,” said Big George, “I guess tomorrow is the day.” We were watching the movie on Channel 7, as we did Friday nights. My father was drinking beer. Betty was gone, and as he was inclined to ignore her preferences when the two of us were on our own we had let our dog, Toto, whom Betty detested, into the house. Both of us were sneezing as I powdered our irascible animal.
“Sonuvabitch,” my father yelled out as Toto scratched himself lewdly. “We gotta do something about that damn dog.” Our breathing became even more difficult.
“Sonuvabitch,” I screamed in imitation. I loved a cussword uttered with abandon.
“Don’t talk like that,” he said.
“I like that word,” I answered.
“I know,” he agreed. “It is a good one.”