Rebel Without Applause by Jay Landesman

Author:Jay Landesman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504032650
Publisher: The Permanent Press

10

From the moment they met us at the airport, the going was rough. The picture I had painted of my sophisticated brother and his wild, red-haired wife was not the one Fran saw. Fred was dressed in his normal way, about ten years behind the fashion, with his longish hair glistening with Dixie Peach Pomade, and his fly not quite closed.

Anybody in a matching suit was a business man in Fran’s books, even though the unzipped fly should have been a clue that he wasn’t all that serious. Paula’s high-pitched nasal voice, that I have always considered one that Emma Goldman might have used at rallies, was an additional irritant: Fran’s ears were already ringing from the flight. Paula’s natural red hair that Fred claimed made her look like a Titian hadn’t changed, but I could see that Fran was surprised to see so much of it on such a small body. Paula was only five feet tall, but she took great pride in keeping in perfect condition what God had given her. Fred never acknowledged any greeting as being proper without a limp handshake; it was not his habit to show affection in public. I should have thought that would have gone down well with Fran because never in all the time I spent with her family did I see anyone embrace.

But once we got to their house, little pieces of the puzzle began to fit together. Their houseman, Joseph, a black man of indeterminate age, wearing a pair of knee pads made up of pieces of an old tire, was a nice touch that Fran appreciated. Once relaxed before an open fire with a generous drink and the initial questions that could be answered with a “yes” or a “no” out of the way, Paula’s skill at getting to the heart of the matter began to weave its old magic.

“All right, now let’s get serious,” Paula began. “Do you ever think of coming back to St. Louis, Jay?”

When I told her “I’ll take the fifth amendment on that one,” she understood what I meant. Of course, I thought of going back to St. Louis someday, but to say it in front of Fran would not be marriage-building. Paula’s sensitivity to my predicament was acknowledged with a discreet wink.

She wanted to know all about our life in New York: what kind of friends did we have? What did we do for kicks? Were we missing anything? Did we ever think of living in the country? Did anybody ever get laid at parties? Were there any laughs? An impartial judge sitting in on the answers to those questions would have thought that Fran and I were living in cities separated by an ocean. He would have recommended a trial divorce. I was the optimist and Fran the pessimist.

Freud would have made a note that Fran had a harsh and punitive super ego, and I had a sense of humor that was destructive. Had Freud known more of the facts, he

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