God Alfred Swan decided to do the proper thing. My father paused then and I imagined my mother listening carefully and, this time, keeping her thoughts to herself. At any event she did not reply, and at last my father said, And what about Lee? His school.
This conversation took place on a Saturday afternoon in late October, a crisp autumn masterpiece of color, Cézanne's palette. My mother had made a pot of tea and she and my father were inside trying to bring their discussion to some worthy conclusion. I was outside on the porch, stretched full length on the glider, reading a story in the
Saturday Evening Post.
This was the story about the seaman home from the war who could not bear civilian life. He believed he was two people and neither of them fit in. Wherever he went he was an alien, unable to recognize himself in his civilian situation. I was well into the story but distracted by the brilliant surround and the conversation inside, fully audible through the open windows. Somewhere in the vicinity I heard a radio broadcast of one of the Big Ten games. My mother and father had forgotten I was there and I had the idea I had achieved a kind of invisibility. I heard my mother pour tea and then I heard her answer my father's question.
There are other schools, she said.
He's doing so well here, my father said, always on the honor roll. They think the world of him. Good athlete too.
He'll be on the honor roll wherever he goes, my mother said. His teacher told me he ought to skip a grade. He's way ahead of his class.
Skip a grade?
That's what she said.
He's old for his age, it's true.
My mother said nothing to that.
What about his friends?
He can find new friends too. Probably he needs new friends just like we do.
Have you asked him?
My mother laughed. Your son Lee can adapt to any situation. Don't worry about Lee. He's Mr. Adaptability.
I sat up at that. I had never thought of myself as adaptable. I was as reluctant to leave New Jesper as my father, though I had no bias against Chicago and its suburbs, unknown and therefore alluring. I even liked the Chicago newspapers and their remorseless quest for the novel and the scandalous.
He's growing up, my mother said. He doesn't go down below the hill anymore.
He doesn't?
No. Why would he? What's there for him?
I'll be damned, my father said. I told him not to, but I assumed he and Dougie Henderson would sneak down there anyhow, one more thumb in the old man's eye.
Down below the hill was just a boy thing, she said.
My father was silent and I heard the clink of a china teacup. He said, You're asking a lot of us.
I'm asking what's necessary for our family, my mother said, her voice rising. And in the dead air that followed I could hear the tide subtly turn, my father's presence receding. When he spoke it was with an unfamiliar wistfulness. He said, It's like giving up your own name. Throwing away your name and taking an alias, like a criminal.
My mother named three friends who had already left New Jesper and a fourth who was planning to, all of them moving to the North Shore. Lake Bluff, Highland Park. They had children too, and long family ties to New Jesper. This move is not unique to us, she said. No one wants to live in New Jesper anymore. It's dangerous. There's no future here. New Jesper is washed up.
If everyone leaves, it surely will be.
I don't have your loyalties, my mother said. Sorry.
Goodells have been here for four generations, my father said. That's a long time in this part of the country. It's like coming over on the
Mayflower,
something like that anyway. When my grandfather arrived from Pennsylvania as a teenager, the Sac and the Fox were part of the population. George Goodell was said to have gotten into a gunfight with one of them, shot him dead. That's the story I heard from my father, who didn't believe it but told the story anyway. My father gave a short laugh and said, I don't know. I honestly don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's
This conversation took place on a Saturday afternoon in late October, a crisp autumn masterpiece of color, Cézanne's palette. My mother had made a pot of tea and she and my father were inside trying to bring their discussion to some worthy conclusion. I was outside on the porch, stretched full length on the glider, reading a story in the
Saturday Evening Post.
This was the story about the seaman home from the war who could not bear civilian life. He believed he was two people and neither of them fit in. Wherever he went he was an alien, unable to recognize himself in his civilian situation. I was well into the story but distracted by the brilliant surround and the conversation inside, fully audible through the open windows. Somewhere in the vicinity I heard a radio broadcast of one of the Big Ten games. My mother and father had forgotten I was there and I had the idea I had achieved a kind of invisibility. I heard my mother pour tea and then I heard her answer my father's question.
There are other schools, she said.
He's doing so well here, my father said, always on the honor roll. They think the world of him. Good athlete too.
He'll be on the honor roll wherever he goes, my mother said. His teacher told me he ought to skip a grade. He's way ahead of his class.
Skip a grade?
That's what she said.
He's old for his age, it's true.
My mother said nothing to that.
What about his friends?
He can find new friends too. Probably he needs new friends just like we do.
Have you asked him?
My mother laughed. Your son Lee can adapt to any situation. Don't worry about Lee. He's Mr. Adaptability.
I sat up at that. I had never thought of myself as adaptable. I was as reluctant to leave New Jesper as my father, though I had no bias against Chicago and its suburbs, unknown and therefore alluring. I even liked the Chicago newspapers and their remorseless quest for the novel and the scandalous.
He's growing up, my mother said. He doesn't go down below the hill anymore.
He doesn't?
No. Why would he? What's there for him?
I'll be damned, my father said. I told him not to, but I assumed he and Dougie Henderson would sneak down there anyhow, one more thumb in the old man's eye.
Down below the hill was just a boy thing, she said.
My father was silent and I heard the clink of a china teacup. He said, You're asking a lot of us.
I'm asking what's necessary for our family, my mother said, her voice rising. And in the dead air that followed I could hear the tide subtly turn, my father's presence receding. When he spoke it was with an unfamiliar wistfulness. He said, It's like giving up your own name. Throwing away your name and taking an alias, like a criminal.
My mother named three friends who had already left New Jesper and a fourth who was planning to, all of them moving to the North Shore. Lake Bluff, Highland Park. They had children too, and long family ties to New Jesper. This move is not unique to us, she said. No one wants to live in New Jesper anymore. It's dangerous. There's no future here. New Jesper is washed up.
If everyone leaves, it surely will be.
I don't have your loyalties, my mother said. Sorry.
Goodells have been here for four generations, my father said. That's a long time in this part of the country. It's like coming over on the
Mayflower,
something like that anyway. When my grandfather arrived from Pennsylvania as a teenager, the Sac and the Fox were part of the population. George Goodell was said to have gotten into a gunfight with one of them, shot him dead. That's the story I heard from my father, who didn't believe it but told the story anyway. My father gave a short laugh and said, I don't know. I honestly don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's
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