way to pay them, and Mary Hoobler and all the rest of them left in tears. Father was still in prison, so at least he was spared those wrenching farewells. Nor did he experience that spooky morning after, when Mother and I awoke in our separate rooms, and came out onto the balcony overhanging the main floor, and listened and sniffed.
Nothing was being cooked.
No one was straightening up the room below, and waiting for the time when she could make our beds.
This was new.
I of course got breakfast. It was easy and natural for me to do. And thus did I begin a life as a domestic servant to my mother and then to both my parents. As long as they lived, they never had to prepare a meal or wash a dish or make a bed or do the laundry or dust or vacuum or sweep, or shop for food. I did all that, and maintained a B average in school, as well.
What a good boy was I!
• • •
Eggs à la Rudy Waltz (age thirteen): Chop, cook, and drain two cups of spinach. Blend with two tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of nutmeg. Heat and put into three oven-proof bowls or cups.
Put a poached egg on top of each one, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for five minutes at 375 degrees.
Serves three: the papa bear, the mama bear, and the baby bear who cooked it—and who will clean up afterwards.
• • •
As soon as the suit was settled, George Metzger took off for Florida with his two children. So far as I know, not one of them was ever seen in Midland City again. They had lived there a very short time, after all. Before theycould put down roots, a bullet had come from nowhere for no reason, and drilled Mrs. Metzger between the eyes. And they hadn’t made any friends to whom they would write year after year.
The two children, Eugene and Jane, in fact, found themselves as much outcasts as I was when we all returned to school. And we, in turn, were no worse off, socially, than the few children whose fathers or brothers had been killed in the war. We were all lepers, willy-nilly, for having shaken hands with Death.
We might as well have rung bells wherever we went, as lepers were often required to do in the Dark Ages.
Curious.
• • •
Eugene and Jane were named, I found out only recently, for Eugene V. Debs, the labor hero from Terre Haute, Indiana, and Jane Addams, the Nobel prize-winning social reformer from Cedarville, Illinois. They were much younger than me, so we were in different schools. It was only recently, too, that I learned that they had found themselves as leprous as I was, and what had become of them in Florida, and on and on.
The source of all this information about the Metzgers has been, of course, their lawyer, who is now our lawyer, Bernard Ketchum.
Only at the age of fifty, thirty-eight years after I destroyed Mrs. Metzger’s life, my life, and my parents’ life with a bullet, have I asked anyone how the Metzgers were.It was right here by the swimming pool at two in the morning. All the hotel guests were asleep, not that they are ever all that numerous. Felix and his new wife, his fifth wife, were there. Ketchum and his first and only wife were there. And I was there. Where was my mate? Who knows? I think I am a homosexual, but I can’t be sure. I have never made love to anyone.
Nor have I tasted alcohol, except for homeopathic doses of it in certain recipes—but the others had been drinking champagne. Not since I was twelve, for that matter, have I swallowed coffee or tea, or taken a medicine, not even an aspirin or a laxative or an antacid or an antibiotic of any sort. This is an especially odd record for a person who is, as I am, a registered pharmacist, and who was the solitary employee on the night shift of Midland City’s only all-night drugstore for years and years.
So be it.
I had just served the others and myself, as a surprise,
spuma di cioccolata
, which I had made the day before. There was one serving left over.
And we certainly all had
Nothing was being cooked.
No one was straightening up the room below, and waiting for the time when she could make our beds.
This was new.
I of course got breakfast. It was easy and natural for me to do. And thus did I begin a life as a domestic servant to my mother and then to both my parents. As long as they lived, they never had to prepare a meal or wash a dish or make a bed or do the laundry or dust or vacuum or sweep, or shop for food. I did all that, and maintained a B average in school, as well.
What a good boy was I!
• • •
Eggs à la Rudy Waltz (age thirteen): Chop, cook, and drain two cups of spinach. Blend with two tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of nutmeg. Heat and put into three oven-proof bowls or cups.
Put a poached egg on top of each one, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for five minutes at 375 degrees.
Serves three: the papa bear, the mama bear, and the baby bear who cooked it—and who will clean up afterwards.
• • •
As soon as the suit was settled, George Metzger took off for Florida with his two children. So far as I know, not one of them was ever seen in Midland City again. They had lived there a very short time, after all. Before theycould put down roots, a bullet had come from nowhere for no reason, and drilled Mrs. Metzger between the eyes. And they hadn’t made any friends to whom they would write year after year.
The two children, Eugene and Jane, in fact, found themselves as much outcasts as I was when we all returned to school. And we, in turn, were no worse off, socially, than the few children whose fathers or brothers had been killed in the war. We were all lepers, willy-nilly, for having shaken hands with Death.
We might as well have rung bells wherever we went, as lepers were often required to do in the Dark Ages.
Curious.
• • •
Eugene and Jane were named, I found out only recently, for Eugene V. Debs, the labor hero from Terre Haute, Indiana, and Jane Addams, the Nobel prize-winning social reformer from Cedarville, Illinois. They were much younger than me, so we were in different schools. It was only recently, too, that I learned that they had found themselves as leprous as I was, and what had become of them in Florida, and on and on.
The source of all this information about the Metzgers has been, of course, their lawyer, who is now our lawyer, Bernard Ketchum.
Only at the age of fifty, thirty-eight years after I destroyed Mrs. Metzger’s life, my life, and my parents’ life with a bullet, have I asked anyone how the Metzgers were.It was right here by the swimming pool at two in the morning. All the hotel guests were asleep, not that they are ever all that numerous. Felix and his new wife, his fifth wife, were there. Ketchum and his first and only wife were there. And I was there. Where was my mate? Who knows? I think I am a homosexual, but I can’t be sure. I have never made love to anyone.
Nor have I tasted alcohol, except for homeopathic doses of it in certain recipes—but the others had been drinking champagne. Not since I was twelve, for that matter, have I swallowed coffee or tea, or taken a medicine, not even an aspirin or a laxative or an antacid or an antibiotic of any sort. This is an especially odd record for a person who is, as I am, a registered pharmacist, and who was the solitary employee on the night shift of Midland City’s only all-night drugstore for years and years.
So be it.
I had just served the others and myself, as a surprise,
spuma di cioccolata
, which I had made the day before. There was one serving left over.
And we certainly all had
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