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from The Ideal City by Gregory Vitiello Dressed in black,
with his hair in a Mohawk cut, he looked slightly more repulsive than at our
last meeting eight months ago. His voice, nasal and sneering, hadn’t improved
either. He said “Hello Daddy” as he might have greeted a cockroach, a Puerto
Rican, or an intellectual. (To be fair, I’ve never heard him on the subject
of cockroaches. Puerto Ricans are “fuckin’ Spics”; intellectuals are
“assholes” or worse. Gunther prides himself on being anti-intellectual, just
as he prides himself on his name. Christened Phillip, he named himself
Gunther after the lead guitarist of a punk-rock group, Gestapo. My mother, by
nature optimistic, responded to the name change by saying, “Well, he is one-quarter German.” Lisa cared
less for his roots than his adopted lyrics. “Kill, maim, it’s all the
same/Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil” was banned from our apartment. Gunther,
choosing art over family, then boycotted us. Until today, that is.) Having invited
himself upstairs, Gunther put his stormtrooper’s boots on our beige couch,
flipped through the New Yorker, and tossed it on the floor. “Hey, you’ve got
some new stuff,” he said, pointing to a glassed-in cabinet. “I bet that came
pretty high.” “Not really.” “Cut the shit. How much
did it cost?” “That’s none of your
business.” “I’m your son and
it’s none of my business.” “That’s right.” “And I suppose it’s
Lisa’s business.” “It is. Lisa lives
here. She’s my wife.” “Lisa lives here.
She’s your wife.” “Stop that.” “I don’t live here
but I’m your son.” “You live with your
mother by choice.” “And you live in a
big fancy apartment with fucking fountains out front.” “That’s my
prerogative.” “Just, ’cause you’ve
got a big vocabulary and are loaded with money, you think we’re shit.” “I have a reasonable
vocabulary but I’m not loaded with money and I don’t think you’re shit.” “You hate Mommy.” “That too is my
prerogative.” “Well, I love her and
I don’t care what you say.” “What have I said
about your mother?” “That you hate her.” “Only in response to
your statement.” “Did you say you hate
her or not?” For ten years, ever
since I’d left Sandra, my son and I had been having the same conversation.
For ten years I’d avoided mention of her name and Gunther had insisted I
admit my feelings toward her so he could hold them against me. Now he explained to
me, “You and Mommy are so different. I mean, she talks about really positive
things.” “Like what?” “Like sending me to
Italy,” he said with a grin that suggested “positive things”: no more
arguments about hating Mommy, no more flaunting of Mohawk haircuts or Gestapo
lyrics while Gunther grinned and hunched his shoulders and reminded me he was
a little boy after all (rather than a punk in black with a Doberman collar
around his wrist and a hostility that borrowed from other hate-filled
civilizations). It was a moment when I might even have called him Phillip;
but I said only, “So she proposes to send you.” “You’ve got to be
kidding,” he said, arching his eyebrows and looking everywhere except at me.
Then, like an actor, he leapt from one emotion to another and, smiling, said: “Look, it’s really
important to me. It’s like part of my honors work. See, I’m doing this paper
on how graffiti got started and there’s this one painter who’s behind it
all.” “In Italy?” “Where else would a
really famous painter come from? I mean, you ought to know that.” “That’s where you’re
wrong, Gunther.” “I thought you were
cultured and all.” “Maybe if you told me
his name.” “His name?” “Yes.” “It’s something like
Francisco. Or Leonardo. One of those names.” “You don’t know.” “I know.” “And you want me to
subsidize this exploration—this quest for the lost name.” “Sort of.” “Why?” I asked him.
“No, don’t tell me; let me guess. Because I’m your father.” “Right.” “And you’re my son.” “Right.” “The same son who
hasn’t seen me for eight months because I banned his music from my house.” “I was pissed off at
you for giving in to Lisa.” “I wasn’t giving in
to Lisa.” “Bull shit.” “‘Sieg Heil’ is not
bull shit.” “She’s too sensitive.
Those lyrics are a joke—a put-on.” “There’s nothing
funny about having your family annihilated.” “So it was her decision.” “It was mine as
well.” “Your family wasn’t
annihilated.” “So therefore I
shouldn’t care?” “You should care
about your family. The one you left.” “I do, Gunther, I
do.” What could I tell
him, that I cared despite his Mohawk and his truculence and his contempt for
education? That I didn’t approve of someone who dropped out of high school,
then expected to be sent to Rome for a spurious project on graffiti? That I
wanted a son who truly cared about culture and society and, yes, about the
holocaust, rather than this surly popinjay, this dabbler in nihilistic chic? Bored by our impasse,
Gunther cracked his knuckles, threw his head back onto the couch, and rolled
his eyes at the ceiling like someone seeking guidance from the stars. The
gesture made me think of the set of astral decals Sandra pasted to Phillip’s
ceiling when he was four years old. How bucolic it seemed, like a night in
the country. Sandra’s notion was that Phillip would look up from his bunk and
know the solar system: Planets
fixed in his head, he would sleep, and grow in knowledge. Books and
classrooms would become superfluous, learning an adjunct of dreams or
outgrowth of play. Later, when I was gone from the house in Queens, Sandra
made the stars her panacea and rallying point against reason; where my books
had been, ouija boards and crystal balls became ensconced. Gunther, whose
concerns were pragmatic rather than metaphysical, swung his legs onto the
floor with a click of his heels and said, “Look, everybody knows you’re rich.
So what’s the big deal about doing something for me. It’s not like you can’t
afford it.” “Suppose I tell you I
can’t. Will you believe me?” “You mean you live in
this fancy apartment and—” “Answer my question.” “And Lisa has about
three fur coats—” “Leave Lisa out of
this.” “There you go
protecting her.” “You still haven’t
answered my question.” “What question?” “If you believe me.” “It depends.” “What does it depend
on, Gunther, whether or not your mother tells you it’s so?” “You always have to
attack Mommy, don’t you?” “So you don’t believe
me, damn you,” I shouted at him. “Whatever I tell you, however I plead with
you to trust me and understand me, it’s always crap, isn’t it?” “Hey, what are you
getting upset at? This is just a discussion, not some life and death stuff.” Perhaps Gunther was
right. Perhaps money was the only thing we could discuss. I could buy
Gunther’s love by sending him to Italy. Otherwise, he would put his jackboots
on my couch and sing Nazi lyrics. Certainly he wasn’t
always my nemesis. Certainly there was a time when he’d loved his father. I
tried to remember that time, free of innuendo and envy, when I might still
have salvaged his love. All the days I read to him and played ball with him,
the mornings when I carried him on my shoulders to nursery school. Was he
manipulating me even then? Or did it begin later, on the day I left Sandra? I remembered a Sunday
in the Borghese Gardens, a clement December day when Roman fathers and their
children kicked soccer balls back and forth, and balloons bobbed from tiny
wrists, and ponies went round and round. Phillip was one of the children on
the ponies. He was happy, favored at last after days of boredom at the Uffizi
and the Vatican Museum. On this day, Sandra stayed in the pension nursing a
migraine, while Phillip and I went out and chanced upon the ponies. Later I
would get him a gelato and a balloon. But now I waited while he rode, always
in the same circle, watched over by a man in a red kerchief. The man seemed
to like Phillip, for he continued the ride long after other children were
taken down from their ponies. Occasionally the man smiled at me, a gracious,
gold-toothed smile, and I smiled back. Still, it was getting cooler—it was
December, after all—and Phillip looked uncertainly at me. Did he want to get
off? He said nothing, perhaps out of politeness. I tried to remember
the Italian words, civil yet firm, that would signal the end of the ride. I
knew “Basta”—but that would have antagonized the man in the red kerchief. No,
not “Basta.” Something gracious, a word my father might have used in his
ancestral country. I couldn’t think of it, so I merely waved to Phillip as I
did whenever I stood by a carousel and watched for his painted horse to bob
past. Now as the pony went by, I saw Phillip’s growing discomfort. Still I
did nothing. How much longer could the ride possibly last? After all, the man
in the red kerchief had to be cold too. And even if not, there were other
children waiting to ride. But the man patted the pony’s flank and let Phillip
go around once more. Remembering that day
now after so many years, I felt an irrational sadness. If only I’d made the
man stop the pony, perhaps I could have held onto Phillip’s love. Of course I knew it
wouldn’t have changed anything. We would still have had to return to the
pension and suffer Sandra’s migraine. And all the nights at home in Queens
would have been the same. Nights of envy and spite. You get to work all day—you do all these interesting
things—while I’m stuck at home,
she’d say. You can get a job,
I’d say; then you can do interesting
things. The bastards wouldn’t hire me because I don’t have a degree. Then get one. Just like that. Just like that. While you take care of the children. We’ll find someone. You think I’d let just anyone take care of them. Not just anyone. Maybe one of your crazy relatives. Or yours. Fuck you and your superiority.
Big-shit-college-graduate-Fulbright-scholar-asshole. No, there was no way
to keep Phillip from riding ever farther away from me, just as there was no
way to end our conversation amicably. I asked him to come again so we could
talk realistically about his education. “Realistically,” he
said, sneering. Then he was gone. *
* * Vicki hadn’t told me
Gunther would be joining her that Saturday afternoon. She’d only said she had
to see me at my apartment. After a month of silence from her, I’d decided to
take the chance that we wouldn’t run into Wilma or morbid Ralph or the blind
lady with the Lab, not to mention Confab’s goons or anyone else who might
confirm Sandra’s view of me. Vicki said she didn’t
need to be picked up because she was getting a ride into the city. Gunther,
it seemed, also had gotten a ride. He showed up with her at about noon, said
“Hello Daddy” to me, and ignored Lisa. Usually when he visited, he signified
her by asking me: “What’s she
cooking?” But today he didn’t require a menu. He just wanted to see me, he
said. “I’m glad,” I told
him. “Your last letter
didn’t sound glad,” he said, fingering the crease in his black pegged pants.
“It sounded pretty shitty.” “It was meant to be
firm.” “That’s a fascist
word.” “Would another word
please you more?” “You know what would
please me.” “Gunther, you
promised you weren’t going to start,” said Vicki, who had been in the kitchen
with Lisa, and now entered the living room carrying a bologna sandwich. “He’s the one who
bragged about being firm,” Gunther said, sighing as he slumped lower in his
seat. “He wasn’t bragging.
I heard him.” “Then what was he
doing?” “Trying to talk to
you.” In the weeks since
I’d seen him, Gunther’s hair had almost grown out of its Mohawk cut and was
now spiky but irregular. He wore a white shirt and a button that said “Soul
Sucks.” In his hand he held a silver star normally used in karate exercises
(which Gunther, when younger, had thrown against the sides of trees and
threatened other kids with). Looking from the star
to Vicki, he said, “If you think he’s so great, why don’t you go and live
with him?” “I didn’t say he was
so great. It’s just that he’s our father.” “Some father.” “Oh shit, we
shouldn’t have come.” Why did they come? At
another time I might have asked, but now I waited for them to tell me. So I
sat, trying to smile as a father would smile at his children who were back
with him after a long absence. “Actually I came to
ask a favor from you,” Gunther said to me, his sense of the dramatic
affronted by my silence. I remembered the shows he’d given when he was a
child: how he’d hide behind the drapery until all the adults were silent and
only then would he emerge in the costume of, say, a buccaneer or a gypsy. His
performance would be flamboyant but demanding, for if his audience became
inattentive, Sandra would browbeat them and he would storm off the stage. Now his stage was my
living room and his mother wasn’t here to chide us into attention. Though no
longer a buccaneer, he still had a flamboyant costume and a child’s
presumptuous flair. “You know what I
remember about you?” he said to me, smiling like a son enjoying our reunion.
‘Back when I was a kid, that is. You always had these operas on and you
always got Mommy to cook Italian food. And you and Grandpa would talk about
the Old Country. How it had the best art and the best buildings. And even the
old men who sat around drinking coffee for about twenty hours a day weren’t
like old people here. They were better somehow. I mean, I thought it was all
a lot of crap, but I could tell you and Grandpa really believed it. ‘Cause
you really felt like you were Italian. And after you and Mommy took me to
Italy—remember how I said, ‘How come we have to go to all these CHOR-ches?’—I
started feeling it too. You know, the whole ethnic bit.” For a moment I almost
believed Gunther. I thought of the Borghese Gardens and the little boy on the
pony and the father waiting for him; and after all these years, the boy
talking to him in their ancestral language. Even the light in the room—a
pale, diffused, autumnal light—nurtured my romantic vision. But as I looked
closely at Gunther, I couldn’t recognize the boy on the pony. And as I
listened to him, the words I heard were clearly Sandra’s, not his. She, not
Gunther, remembered what he’d said on that trip fourteen years ago; she knew
of my atavistic nostalgia and imagined Gunther could manipulate me with it. His performance,
though well rehearsed, was thin on particulars. Gunther, like his mother,
thought charm could overwhelm substance. Soon the ethnic bit became
repetitious, and Gunther summed up by reminding me of the twelve million plus
lire owed to the Instituto dell’Colture. “You’ve waited a long
time to ask me properly,” I said. He resisted telling
me “properly” was a fascist word, but said: “Well, I’m asking you now.” I thought for a moment,
then said: “It’s too much money, and the educational value is dubious, at
best. But—” “You always criticize
my interests.” “Let me finish.” “Ever since I stopped
playing baseball with you and took up karate.” “Do you want my
answer or not?” “I know your answer.” “Do you?” “It’ll be a fucking
lecture: cut your hair, study hard, do it my way or not at all.” “That’s where you’re
wrong, Gunther.” “I’ll bet.” “If you knew what I
was going to say, why did you come?” To prove what a bastard I am. Isn’t that it, Gunther? Because you
expect me to call you a shiftless punk, and to tell you I won’t send you to
Italy, or anywhere. But Gunther had been
prepared for this visit, and instead of insulting me, he said: “I figured
maybe this one time—” He didn’t finish the
sentence; still, his words echoed. Hadn’t I always asked him to confer with
me and to include me in his life? And now he had made a gesture. Though weak,
it merited a response. So I said, “All right, Gunther, this one time I say to
you: Fine. I’ll give you half the money you need for a year in Italy. No
strings attached. No haircuts, no proof of grades, no lectures from me.” “Half?” he said
distastefully, not even pausing to weigh the offer. “That’s all I can
afford.” “What do you expect
me to do for the other half?” “Get it from your
mother or get a loan or work for it.” “Mommy doesn’t have
it. You know that. As it is, you don’t even give her enough to live on.” So now we were back
to our customary ground, back to being adversaries again. I said, “I refuse
to discuss that with you.” “You just want to put
the blame on her.” “There is no blame,
Gunther. Just a generous offer that you may supplement in any way you wish.” “you call that
generous?” “I do.” “Even though you’re
rich.” “I know what I can
afford. You don’t.” “I don’t know
anything, do I?” “You knew enough to
get six million lire out of me.” “Well, that’s not
enough,” he said, before rushing from the room like the affronted buccaneer
of his childhood days. He was about to slam the door on us when he remembered
Vicki, who was standing in the dining alcove. “What the fuck are
you going to do, stay with them?” he said to her. She looked at
Gunther, then at the floor, before saying: “I guess not.” Only then did she
look at me, and tried to shrug as she said, “I’ve got to go.” |