Saul and Patsy Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Think of Howie’s wonderful life, out there in San Francisco. I worry about you, living on that dirt road. I don’t like dirt roads. I don’t like the people who live on them—”
    “—You’ve never known anybody who lived on a dirt road, except those people, the Friedkins, who lived in that sixty-thousand-square-foot house out in that suburb where they—”
    “—Let me finish. I’m not talking about the Friedkins. I’m talking about you. Earning such a lousy salary. Don’t think I don’t admire your wonderful idealism. Everyone in the family admires your wonderful idealism, Saul, you know that. But it’s like you’ve fallen into a . . .
cave.
”
    “Like a bear,” Saul said, thoughtfully. “A bear in a cave. Now, that could be true.”
    “So move out. Find an urban cave this time.”
    “Don’t want to. I’m starting to like it here.”
    “What’s to like? Dirt? Fields? Sheep?”
    “They don’t have sheep here. No, I’ll tell you what there is to like about it, which you would discover if you ever came to visit.”
    “What?”
    “The indifference. Ma, I never lived with indifference before.”
    “Indifference?”
she roared, and jingled her bracelets. He could smell her perfume over the phone. “You value indifference? Have you gone crazy?”
    “You never gave me a moment of it. You never left me alone.” Saul felt himself getting angry. “You were always
kissing
me.” Actually, now that he thought about it, the kissing had occurred
before
his father died. After his father died, she stopped with the kissing. Some psychic economy had gone to work on her. He was careful not to say that his father had always been the recipient of Delia’s genial and friendly indifference. She wasn’t cold, just cool to
him.
Even as a boy, Saul knew that his father was not a passionate man, that his thermostat was set lower than his mother’s—even Saul as a boy could see that his parents’ marriage lacked something. Nevertheless, Saul’s father had managed to thrive on his wife’s indifference, until he died; in death he had finally achieved a greater indifference than hers.
    “Indifference is a terrible thing, kiddo,” Delia was saying. “Awful. Cold. Cold at the heart.”
    “How would you know? You’ve never lived with it,” Saul said, knowing that he was saying the-thing-which-was-not. “Imagine people not caring that much what you do. Imagine people
leaving you alone.
”
    “You’re describing a nightmare.”
    “Now you’re guessing. When did people ever leave you alone? When did they ever leave
me
alone? Never. That’s when.”
    “Saulie, let’s not fight.” She sighed dramatically. “Furthermore, if you’re baiting me to talk about Norman, I won’t. Maybe you should move to another city. If only you were in Detroit. You have relatives in Detroit.”
    “Exactly what Harold says. You been talking to him?”
    “Who’s Harold?”
    “He’s my barber. He says people look like me in Detroit. Or New York, I forget which.”
    “Last time I talked to Patsy,” Saul’s mother said, changing the subject, “a couple of weeks back, she said you’d joined a bowling league.” Delia waited. “You, bowling? Jews don’t bowl.”
    “Another eleventh commandment!” Saul protested. “Besides, what do you know about Jews?”
    “I’m Jewish. That’s all I have to know about it. And I know you’re Jewish, and you’re trying to aggravate me.”
    Saul felt his breathing passages getting clogged. He gasped for air. “Ma,” he said, “you’re giving me asthma. Let’s not discuss this.”
    “Have you been to a doctor?” He replied with silence. “For your breathing, go to a doctor. Honey,” she said, “what am I going to say to my friends about you?”
    “You can say Saul and Patsy are getting comfortable in Michigan.”
    “All right, Saul. I give up. You want me to say that, that’s what I’ll say. Pour your life down the drain, if that’s your ambition. I accept it.”