Henry is a robust seventy-one and, like me, has not remarried, though he often makes veiled but conspicuous references to women’s names without explanation. My personal belief — seconded by X — is that he’s as happy as a ram living on his estate by himself and would’ve had it that way from the day X was born if he could’ve negotiated Irma. He is an industrialist of the old school, who worked his way up in the Thirties and has never really understood the concept of an intimate life, which I contend is not his fault, though X thinks otherwise and sometimes claims to dislike him.
“We’re going broke, Franky,” Henry says, in a bad temper. “The whole damn country has its pants around its ankles to the unions. And we elected the S.O.B.s who’re doing it to us. Isn’t that something? Republicans? I wouldn’t give you a goddamned nickel for the first one they ever made. I stand somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, I guess is what that means.”
“I’m not much up on it, Henry. It sounds tricky to me.”
“Tricky! It isn’t tricky. If I wanted to steal and lay off everybody at my plant I could live for a hundred years, exactly the way I live now. Never leave the house. Never leave the chair! I came up a Reuther man, you know that, Frank. Lifelong. It’s these gangsters in Washington. All of them. They’re all goddamn criminals, want to run me in the ground. Retire me out of the gasket business. What’s going on at home, anyway? You still divorced?”
“Things’re great, Henry. Today’s Ralph’s birthday.”
“Is that so?” Henry does not like to talk about this, I know, but for me it is a day of some importance, and I don’t mind mentioning it.
“I think he would’ve made a fine adult, Henry. I’m sure of that.”
For a moment then there is stupefied emptiness in our connection while we think over lost chances.
“Why don’t you come out here and we’ll get drunk,” Henry says abruptly. “I’ll have Lula fix duck en brochette. I killed the sons-of-bitches myself. We can call up some whores. I’ve got their private phone numbers right here. Don’t think I don’t call them, either.”
“That’d be great, Henry. But I’m not alone.”
“Got a shady lady with you yourself?” Henry guffaws.
“No, a nice girl.”
“Where’re you staying?”
“Downtown. I have to go back tomorrow. I’m on business today.”
“Okay, okay. Tell me why you think our golfing friend left you, Frank? Tell the truth. I can’t get it off my mind today, for some damn reason.”
“I think she wanted her life put back in her own hands, Henry. There’s not much else to it.”
“She always thought I ruined her life for men. It’s a hell of a thing to hear. I never ruined anybody’s life. And neither did you.”
“I don’t really think she thinks that now.”
“She told me she did last week! As late as that. I’m glad I’m old. It’s enough life. You’re here, then you’re not.”
“I wasn’t always such a great guy, Henry. I tried hard but sometimes you can just fool yourself about yourself.”
“Forget all that,” Henry says. “God forgave Noah. You can forgive yourself. Who’s your shady lady?”
“You’d like her. Her name’s Vicki.” Vicki swings her smiling head around and holds up a glass of champagne to toast me.
“Bring her out here, I’ll meet her. What a name. Vicki.”
“Another visit, Henry. We’re on a short schedule this time.” Vicki goes back to watching the night fall.
“I don’t blame you,” Henry says brashly. “You know, Frank, sometimes the fact of living with somebody makes living with them impossible. Irma and I were just like that. I sent her to California one January, and that was twenty years ago. She’s a lot happier. So you stay down there with Vicki whatever.”
“It’s hard to know another person. I admit that.”
“You’re better off assuming anybody’ll do anything, anytime, than that they won’t. That way you’re safe. Even my own daughter.”
“I wish I could come out there and get drunk with you, Henry, that’s the truth. I’m glad we’re pals. Irma told me to tell you she’d seen a real good performance of The Fantasticks in Mission Viejo. And it made her think of you.”
“Irma did?” Henry says. “What’s the fantastics?”
“It’s a play.”
“Well, that’s good then, isn’t it?”
“Any messages to go back? I’ll probably write her next week. She sent me a birthday card. I could add something.”
“I never really knew Irma, Frank. Isn’t that something?”
“You were pretty busy making a living, though, Henry.”
“She could’ve had boyfriends and I wouldn’t have even noticed. I hope she did. I certainly did. All I wanted.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. Irma’s happy. She’s seventy years old.”
“In July.”
“What about a message. Anything you want to say?”
“Tell her I have bladder cancer.”
“Is that true?”
“I will have, if I don’t have something else first. Who cares anyway?”
“I care. You have to think of something else, or I’ll think of something for you.”
“How’s Paul and how’s Clarissa?”
“They’re fine. We’re taking a car trip around Lake Erie this summer. And we’ll be stopping to see you. They’re already talking about it.”
“We’ll go up to the U.P.”
“There might not be time for that.” (I hope not.) “They just want to see you. They love you very much.”
“That’s great, though I don’t know how they could. What do you think about the Maize and Blue, Franky?”
“A powerhouse, is my guess, Henry. All the seniors are back, and the big Swede from Pellston’s in there again. I hear pretty awesome stories. It’s an impressive show out there.” This is the only ritual part of our conversations. I always check with the college football boys, particularly our new managing editor, a little neurasthenic, chain-smoking Bostonian named Eddie Frieder, so I can pass along some insider’s information to Henry, who never went to college, but is a fierce Wolverine fan nonetheless. It is the only use he can think to make of my profession, and I’m not at all sure he doesn’t concoct an interest just to please me, though I don’t much like football per se. (People have some big misunderstandings about sportswriters.) “You’re going to see some fancy alignments in the defensive backfield this fall, that’s all I’ll say, Henry.”
“All they need now is to fire that meathead who runs the whole show. He’s a loser, if you ask me. I don’t care how many games he wins.”
“The players all seem to like him, from what I hear.”
“What the hell do they know? Look. The means don’t always justify the end to me, Frank. That’s what’s wrong with this country. You ought to write about that. The abasement of life’s intrinsic qualities. That’s a story.”
“You’re probably right, Henry.”
“I feel hot about this whole issue, Frank. Sports is just a paradigm of life, right? Otherwise who’d care a goddamn thing about it?”