Something Happened

'Olй,' my boy replies.

'No, it doesn't,' says my daughter in her soft, weary monotone without looking up, attempting (I know) to keep the bickering going. 'Olй doesn't mean okay.'

'If you were in a better frame of mind,' I josh with her, 'I would threaten to wring your neck for that.'

'There's nothing wrong with my frame of mind,' she replies. 'Why don't you threaten to wring my neck anyway?'

'Because you wouldn't realize I was kidding now, and you'd probably think I really wanted to harm you.'

'Ha.'

'Can't we have a peaceful meal?' pleads my wife. 'It shouldn't be so hard to have a peaceful meal together. Should it?'

(I grit my teeth.)

'It would be a lot easier,' I tell her amiably, 'if you didn't keep saying that.'

'Forgive me,' my wife answers. 'Forgive me for breathing.'

'Oh, Jesus.'

'That's right,' says my wife, 'swear.'

'I didn't mean it that way,' I tell her harshly (lying, of course, because that was exactly the way I did mean it). 'Honest, I didn't. Look, we all agreed not to argue tonight, didn't we?'

'I know I did,' says my daughter.

'Then let's not argue. Okay?'

'If you don't shout,' says my daughter.

'Olй,' says my boy, and we all smile.

(At last we have agreed about something.) Now that we have agreed to relax, we are all very tense. (Now I am sorry I'm there — although I do enjoy my boy. I can think of three girls I like a lot and know a long time — Penny, Jill, and Rosemary — I would rather be with, and the new young one in our Art Department, Jane, who, I bet, I could be having dinner and booze with instead if I had taken the trouble to ask.) None of us at our dining room table seems willing now to risk a remark.

'Should we say grace?' I suggest jokingly in an effort to loosen things up.

'Grace,' says my boy, on cue.

It's an old family joke that really pleases only my boy; and my daughter's lips droop deliberately with disdain. She holds that scornful expression long enough to make sure I notice. I make believe I don't. I try not to let it rankle me (I know my daughter often finds me childish, and that does rankle me. I have a bitter urge to reproach her, to shout at her, to reach out and hit her, to kick her very sharply under the table in the bones of her leg. I have an impulse often to strike back at the members of my family, even the children, when I feel they are insulting me or talcing advantage. Sometimes when I see one of them in the process of doing something improper, or making a mistake for which I know I will be justified in blaming them, I do not intercede to help or correct but hold back in joy to watch and wait, as though observing from a distance a wicked scene unfold in some weird dream, actually relishing the opportunity I spy approaching that will enable me to criticize and reprimand them and demand explanations and apologies. It horrifies me; it is something like watching them back fatally toward an open window or the edge of a cliff and offering no warning to save them from injury or death. It is perverse and I try to overcome it. There is this crawling animal flourishing somewhere inside me that I try to keep hidden and that strives to get out, and I don't know what it is or whom it wishes to destroy. I know it is covered with warts. It might be me; it might also be me that it wishes to destroy) and, succeeding in stifling my anger beneath a placid smile, say:

'Pass me the bread, will you, dear?'

My daughter does.

My wife sits opposite me at the head (or foot) of the table, my boy on my left, my daughter on my right. The maid pads back and forth without talking, delivering bowls of food from the kitchen. My wife spoons large portions out into separate plates and passes them. We are silent. We do not feel free any longer to converse without inhibition in front of our colored maids. (I am not even certain of this one's name; they do not stay with us long anymore.)

'The salad is good, Sarah,' my wife says.

'I did what you told me.'

I am not comfortable having our maids serve us our food at our places (neither are the children), and I won't allow it (even though my wife, I suspect, would still prefer to have it done that way, as it was done in her own family when she was a child, as she still sees it done in good middle-class homes on television and in the movies, and as she imagines it is also done at Buckingham Palace and the White House). I am not comfortable being served by maids anywhere, even less so in other people's homes (where I am never certain how much food I am supposed to take, always have difficulty manipulating the serving forks and spoons from a sideways position, and am in continual anxiety that I am going to bump the meat and vegetable platters with my shoulder or elbow and send them spilling to the floor. Of course, that's never happened — yet). I suffer the same discomfort even when they are white (the maids, I mean, not the friends. I don't have any Black friends and probably never will, although I do see more and more pretty Black girls these days that whet my appetite. They're all out of reach for me by now, I guess, unless they're Cuban or Puerto Rican).

'I think it's good,' my wife says. 'I hope it's good.'

'I won't like it,' my boy says.

'That's enough,' I tell him.

'Okay.' He retreats quickly. He cannot stand it when I am displeased with him.

'What is it?' my daughter asks.

'Chicken livers and noodles in that wine sauce you like with beef. I think you'll like it.'

'I won't,' mumbles my boy.

'Will you at least taste it?'

'I don't like liver.'

'It isn't liver. It's chicken.'

'It's chicken liver.'

'Please taste it.'

'I'll taste it,' he answers. 'And then I'll want my hot dogs.'

'Can I have mine?'

My wife and I watch with bated breath as my daughter pokes at the meat solemnly, almost lugubriously, with her fork and touches a small piece to her mouth.

'It's good,' she says without enthusiasm and begins eating.

My wife and I are relieved.

(My daughter is somewhat tall and overweight and should be dieting; but my wife, who reminds her endlessly to diet, makes such things as noodles and serves large portions, and my daughter will probably ask for more.)

'It's delicious,' I say.

'Can I have my hot dogs?'

'Sarah, put up two frankfurters.'

'Can I have the bread back?'

I give my daughter the bread.

'I've got some good news,' I begin, and each of them turns to look at me. I am still brimming with excitement (and conceit) over Arthur Baron's conversation with me; and in a sudden, generous welling of affection for them, for all three of them (they are my family, and I am attached to them), I decide to share my joyful feelings. 'Yes, I think I may have some very important news for all of us.'

The three of them gaze at me now with such intense curiosity that I find myself forced to break off.

'What?' one of them asks.

'On second thought,' I hesitate, 'it may not be that important. In fact, now that I think of it, it isn't important at all. It isn't even interesting.'

'Then why did you say it?' my daughter wants to know.