Other Men's Daughters by Richard Stern

Author:Richard Stern
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497685314
Publisher: Open Road Media

part three

nine

Dr. Merriwether had written home his probable New York-Boston arrival time but didn’t expect anyone to meet him; every Merriwether ran his own circus. He was surprised to spot Albie waiting at the gate. They shook hands, still, after some years of no kissing, an artificial chore for the affectionate father. “How well you look.”

“You too.” Albie took his father’s bag, patted his elbow for reinforced affection and unnecessary guidance. (Merriwether was not unpleased by this filial paternalism.) “The others are buying school clothes.” They walked through the esophagal plaster corridors.

“This gives us time together. I only see you about two days a year.” Merriwether, looking at Albie with his note-taking care, saw, if not a stranger, another metamorphosis. There was an intense finery about Albie. His color was theatrical, a sun tan that made a leather case for his dark eyes and brought out maple-gold stains in his hair. The hair fell thickly toward his man’s neck and over his forehead. A luxuriant, compact human tree. But an athletic one. Albie walked springily, his steps almost hops. It relieved the stockiness which he carried as if it were a public nuisance, sufferable only until it came to use in a football game. But Albie had a look of reserved power, like a president on vacation. Merriwether who enjoyed a chameleon’s unobtrusiveness for himself, also enjoyed his son’s vividness. It was an assertion of independence, a signal to parents they’d done a good job.

Albie also looked expensive: the vents of the red sport shirt showed not flesh but underwefts of red; thin leather thongs criss-crossed the v-neck. Double-knit slacks, soft leather shoes. He cost himself a fortune. Merriwether studied his son’s squareness, his tan, the broad forehead covered with fox-hair, the narrow shoulders, surprising on such a powerful thorax. Hard to think he had held other metamorphoses of this a thousand times, baby, child, boy. (The mystery of development; not just its process but its why.) Five years ago, no, six now, sitting in the stands with Sarah and the other children, he’d watched Albie playing football. Stands, cheerleaders, benches, a PA system, and there was his Albie built-up like a blue bunker in helmet, padded sweater, gold kneepants. The students cheering like lunatics, a band, his Albie, part of a public occasion, kneeling on a line, shoving at a bigger boy, tackling a runner, the public voice announcing “Tackle by 37, Merriwether.” He’d watched with tears—he didn’t know why. What was a father’s stake in a son? His dissociating head flashed a bloody, literal version of this phrase. Odd. (Optical agnosia, momentary ‘fatigue’ in the stellate cells?) His feelings were proper, love, surprise, admiration, but he was thinking as an experienced tourist: “Don’t be taken in.”

“What was summer like, Alb?”

“Ten thousand two-by-fours.” He’d worked with a master carpenter in Williamstown.

“No fun?”

“I met a girl. We put up her father’s garage.”

“Are you good friends?”

“We haven’t slept together.”

Dr. Merriwether didn’t like this. He had never talked to his children about this sort of thing.

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