Conferences dragged, producers got inspirations that had to carefully get shot down, directors needed their egos soothed. Anyway, I was longer than anticipated in sunny Cal. Finally, though, I was allowed to return to the care and safety of the family, so I quick buzzed to L.A. airport before anybody’s mind changed. I got there early, which I always do when I come back, because I had to load up my pockets with doodads and such for Jason. Every time I get home from a trip he runs (waddles) to me hollering, “Lemmesee, lemmesee the pockets” and then he goes through all my pockets taking out his graft, and once the loot is totaled, he gives me a nice hug. Isn’t it awful what we’ll do in this world to feel wanted?
“Lemmesee the pockets,” Jason shouted, moving to me across the foyer. It was a suppertime Thursday and, while he went through his ritual, Helen emerged from the library and kissed my cheek, going “what a dashing-looking fellow I have,” which is also ritual, and, laden with gifts, Jason kind of hugged me and belted off (waddled off) to his room. “Angelica’s just getting dinner on,” Helen said; “you couldn’t have timed it better.”
“Angelica?”
Helen put her finger to her lips and whispered, “It’s her third day on but I think she may be a treasure.”
I whispered back, “What was wrong with the treasure we had when I left? She’d only been with us a week then?”
“She proved a disappointment,” Helen said. That was all. (Helen is this brilliant lady—junior Phi Bete in college, every academic honor conceivable, really an intellect of startling breadth and accomplishment—only she can’t keep a maid. First, I guess she feels guilty having anybody, since most of the anybody’s available nowadays are black or Spanish and Helen is ultra-super liberal. Second, she’s so efficient, she scares them. She can do everything better than they can and she knows it and she knows they know it. Third, once she’s got them panicked, she tries to explain, being an analyst, why they shouldn’t be frightened, and after a good solid half-hour ego search with Helen, they’rereally frightened. Anyway, we have had an average of four “treasures” a year for the last few years.)
“We’ve been running in bad luck but it’ll change,” I said, just as reassuringly as I knew how. I used to heckle her about the help problem, but I learned that was not necessarily wise.
Dinner was ready a little later, and with an arm around my wife and an arm around my son, I advanced toward the dining room. I felt, at that moment, safe, secure, all the nice things. Supper was on the table: creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, gravy and pot roast; terrific, except I don’t like pot roast, since I’m a rare-meat man, but creamed spinach I have a lech for, so, all in all, a more than edible spread was set across the tablecloth. We sat. Helen served the meat; the rest we passed. My pot-roast slice was not terribly moist but the gravy could compensate. Helen rang. Angelica appeared. Maybe twenty or eighteen, swarthy, slow-moving. “Angelica,” Helen began, “this is Mr. Goldman.”
I smiled and said “Hi” and waved a fork. She nodded back.
“Angelica, this is not meant to be construed as criticism, since what happened isall my fault , but in the future we must both tryvery hard to remember that Mr. Goldman likes his roast beef rare—”
“This was roast beef?” I said.
Helen shot me a look. “Now, Angelica, there is no problem, and / should have told you more than once about Mr. Goldman’s preferences, but next time we have boned rib roast, let’s all do our best to make the middle pink, shall we?”
Angelica backed into the kitchen. Another “treasure” down the tubes.
Remember now, we all three started this meal happy. Two of us are left in that state, Helen clearly being distraught.
Jason was piling the mashed potatoes on his plate with a practiced and steady motion.
I smiled at my kid. “Hey,” I tried, “let’s go a little easy, huh, fella?”
He splatted another fat spoonful onto his plate.
“Jason, they’re just loaded,” I said then.
“I’m really hungry, Dad,” he said, not looking at me.
“Fill up on the meat then, why don’t you,” I said. “Eat all the meat you want, I won’t say a word.”
“I’m not eatin’ nothin’!” Jason said, and he shoved his plate away and folded his arms and stared off into space.
“If I were a furniture salesperson,” Helen said to me, “or perhaps a teller in a bank, I could understand; but how can you have spent all these years married to a psychiatrist and talk like that. You’re out of the Dark Ages, Willy.”
“Helen, the boy is overweight. All I suggested was he might leave a few potatoes for the rest of the world and stuff on this lovely prime pot roast your treasure has whipped up for my triumphant return.”
“Willy, I don’t want to shock you, but Jason happens to have not only a very fine mind but also exceptionally keen eyesight. When he looks at himself in the mirror, I assure you he knows he is not slender. That is because he does notchoose , at this stage, to be slender.”
“He’s not that far from dating, Helen; what then?”
“Jason is ten, darling, and not interested, at this stage, in girls. At this stage, he is interested in rocketry. What difference does a slight case of overweight make to a rocket lover? When hechooses to be slender, I assure you, he has both the intelligence and the will power to become slender. Until that time, please, in my presence, do not frustrate the child.”
Sandy Sterling in her bikini was dancing behind my eyes.
“I’m not eatin’ and that’s it,” Jason said then.
“Sweet child,” Helen said to the kid, in that tone she reserves on this Earth only for such moments, “be logical. Ifyou do not eat your potatoes,you will be upset, andI will be upset; your father, clearly, is already upset. If youdo eat your potatoes,I shall be pleased,you will be pleased, your tummy will be pleased. We can do nothing about your father. You have it in your power to upset all or one, about whom, as I have already said, we can do nothing. Therefore, the conclusion should be clear, but I have faith in your ability to reach it yourself. Do what you will, Jason.”
He began to stuff it in.
“You’re making a poof out of that kid,” I said, only not loud enough for anybody but me and Sandy to hear. Then I took a deep, deep breath, because whenever I come home there’s always trouble, which is because, Helen says, I bring tension with me, I always need inhuman proof that I’ve been missed, that I’m still needed, loved, etc. All I know is, I hate being away but coming home is the worst. There’s never really much chance to go into “well, what’s new since I’m gone” chitchat, seeing that Helen and I talk every night anyway.
“I’ll bet you’re a whiz on that bike,” I said then. “Maybe we’ll go for a ride this weekend.”
Jason looked up from his potatoes. “I really loved the book, Dad. It was great.”
I was surprised that he said it, because, naturally, I was just starting to work my way into that subject matter. But then, as Helen’s always saying, Jason ain’t no dummy. “Well I’m glad,” I said. And was I ever.
Jason nodded. “Maybe it’s even the best I read in all my life.”
I nibbled away at my spinach. “What was your favorite part?”
“Chapter One. The Bride,” Jason said.
That really surprised me. Not that Chapter One stinks or anything, but there’s not that much that goes on compared with the incredible stuff later. Buttercup grows up mostly is all. “How about the climb up the Cliffs of Insanity?” I said then. That’s in Chapter Five.
“Oh, great,” Jason said.
“And that description of Prince Humperdinck’s Zoo of Death?” That’s in the second chapter.
“Even greater,” Jason said.
“What knocked me out about it,” I said, “was that it’s this very short little passage on the Zoo of Death but yet somehow you just know it’s going to figure in later. Did you get that same feeling?”
“Umm-humm.” Jason nodded. “Great.”
By then I knew he hadn’t read it.
“He tried to read it,” Helen cut in. “He did read the first chapter. Chapter Two was impossible for him, so when he’d made a sufficient and reasonable attempt, I told him to stop. Different people have different tastes. I told him you’d understand, Willy.”
Of course I understood. I felt just so deserted though.
“I didn’t like it, Dad. I wanted to.”
I smiled at him. How could he not like it? Passion. Duels. Miracles. Giants. True love.
“You’re not eating the spinach either?” Helen said.
I got up. “Time change; I’m not hungry.” She didn’t say anything until she heard me open the front door. “Where are you going?” she called then. If I’d known, I would have answered.
I wandered through December. No topcoat. I wasn’t aware of being cold though. All I knew was I was forty years old and I didn’t mean to be here when I was forty, locked with this genius shrink wife and this balloon son. It must have been 9:00 when I was sitting in the middle of Central Park, alone, no one near me, no other bench occupied.
That was when I heard the rustling in the bushes. It stopped. Then again. Verrry soft. Nearer.
I whirled, screaming”Don’t you bug me!” and whatever it was— friend, foe, imagination—fled. I could hear the running and I realized something: right then, at that moment, I was dangerous.
Then it got cold. I went home. Helen was going over some notes in bed. Ordinarily, she would come out with something about me being a bit elderly for acts of juvenile behavior. But there must have been danger clinging to me still. I could see it in her smart eyes. “He did try,” she said finally.
“I never thought he didn’t,” I answered. “Where’s the book?”
“The library, I think.”
I turned, started out.
“Can I get you anything?”
I said no. Then I went to the library, closed myself in, hunted outThe Princess Bride . It was in pretty good shape, I realized as I checked the binding, which is when I saw it was published by my publishing house, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. This was before that; they weren’t even Harcourt, Brace & World yet. Just plain old Harcourt, Brace period. I flicked to the title page, which was funny, since I’d never done that before; it was always my father who’d done the handling. I had to laugh when I saw the real title, because right there it said: