No, not exactly.
You some kind of friend? John said.
I’m not sure, my father said. We had a standing appointment to meet every Monday.
A drinking buddy.
Not really.
John studied my father’s face. What, getting his affairs in order?
In a sense.
In what sense?
My father drew up inside his enormous sweater, exhaled, examined his palms. In the sense that I was his proctor. I gave him a memory test.
You’re a shrink, too?
No. He just needed someone dependable. Someone with nothing better to do. I just read him questions. A machine could have done it.
A memory test.
He’d written it up himself. He said he’d consulted some neurologists. Some psychologists.
Never mentioned a word about it to me, John said.
You know, he did talk about you from time to time, my father said.
In glowing terms, I’m sure. Strange that he never talks about you.
I doubt I count for much in his universe. I’ve only known him a few years. Now that I think about it, I suppose we did first meet because of the co-op board. I had to get his approval to fix the plumbing in our bathroom.
He gave you a hard time?
A little grief. But rubber-stamped it. I expected more trouble given that we’re right on top of him.
Directly upstairs?
That’s right.
So you bought your place from the Mellins?
Yes, my father said.
You know the KGB designed the vent work in that building, John said. Used to be that I could lie in bed and hear every single thing Cynthia said. What a piece of work she was. Her bedroom was right over mine. She cried herself to sleep every night. This is when we were both teenagers. I mean, it scarred me. You could hear everything.
Hm, my father said.
Do you know what she does now? John said. She lives in Afghanistan and exports rugs.
One way to make scratch, my father said.
She’s a millionaire. She lives in a castle. An actual castle, a medieval stronghold. She’s got connections everywhere. Embassies, Afghan government, she knows everyone. She’s got fixers, she’s in with the banks. What a piece of work. They must have blown a million dollars on therapy for her.
That which does not kill us, I guess.
Yeah. Strange my father never mentioned you. He talks about your kid enough.
Does he? my father said.
Hazel, right?
The one and only, my father said.
She’s got potential, according to him. You know how he is, always scouting for self-reliance. He can tell you who’s going to be a bum, just from looking into the crib. It’s very scientific. Cynthia? Right from the start, there was no hope for her. You want to turn out like Cynthia Mellin? he’d say, and this was when I was, you know, a kid. How the hell had she turned out? She was eight!
And what’s his prediction for Hazel? my father said.
World domination, of course. He says she has a skeptical eye. I don’t even know what that means.
Means she’s from Manhattan, I suppose.
Condolences, John said.
He told me you two hadn’t talked in years, my father said.
Probably not the only fabrication he laid on you, John said.
He told me you lived up the street and that you hadn’t talked in years.
True and false, John said. I go by to see him once a month, John said. Maybe we don’t talk all that much, but I go. It’s like being in a waiting room. Toughing it out until we get the bad news. Maybe we watch a game or something. He was never much of a sports fan and he can’t keep track of who’s who on the field, anyway. We sit there and watch the game and every two minutes it’s, Who’s that? Who’s got the ball now? Who’s that in red? Who’s that in white? If he’s not soused, we have the carousel conversation. He asks me about my wife, and I tell him she’s not my wife anymore, then he tells me Fil and Tracy are saints, which is just teeing up for telling me about what pieces of shit their husbands are, then he goes on about Nixon for a while, then Carter, then he asks me about my wife, so I tell him again, and we’re back to Fil and Tracy being saints and their husbands being pieces of shit. Those boys figured it out years ago. They’re the ones who haven’t laid eyes on him in years.
He’s an uncompromising critic, my father said.
An uncompromising critic? Are you kidding? He’s an asshole.
Arguably, his behavior owes something to his condition.
It’s a sieve, his condition, John said. It’s clarified him. This test you gave him. How’d it work?
My father paused to consider the legal jeopardy he might be putting himself in, then considered the fact that he deserved his fate. Names and dates, he said. I’d ask him—you know, I’d ask him for the date of an event, and he’d tell me.
Clinical as ever. Of course he’d enlist a near stranger. Did he give you his bank account numbers, too?
He wanted an impartial judge. Someone who wouldn’t give him hints.
Jesus, what a stonehearted— He really said he never saw me?
He’s not well.
How many times do I have to say this? He’s no different than he ever was.
That’s a convenient thing to believe, my father said. Keeps the fires burning, but it can’t be strictly true, can it?
John detected the challenge in my father’s voice, and at that moment recognized that my father felt some warmth toward Albert.
I’d wager that by any standard, he’s the same man he’s always been, John said. Eats at the same diner every day. Talks about the same damn things he always talked about. His core hasn’t been affected a bit.
Well, now you’re talking about the soul, my father said. That’s above my pay grade.
How often? John asked.
Sorry? my father said.
To the shrink. You.
Oh, my father said, laughing. Three. Three sessions a week.
That’s the spirit. Don’t let them get you in there every day. It’s not your day job. Five days a
