Skip to main content

Father’s Day


ISSUE:  Autumn 2002

Malcolm Turner, 68, of 1139 Pine Avenue in Oak Grove, owner of Turner’s Trophy World, 18 N. Clark Avenue, Chicago, died yesterday in his home. Mr. Turner was an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Oak Grove. Surviving are his widow, Kathleen, two sons, Matthew and Mark, and a daughter Maureen. Services will be held Sunday at 3 p.m. in the chapel at 124 Central Avenue in Oak Grove.

2.2.61
 Mark—

Have no regrets. No one, least of all Mother, expected you to come from London to see the old fart put under. Maureen came, left her brat and gungho husband at home. Mother, of course, dry-eyed. Seems half the church was at the funeral— Presbyterians united, mule praises, brays, stuffed fox and a stale fern. Is that Dylan Thomas or Bobbie Dylan? No matter.

You’ll be pleased to know I behaved throughout the ordeal. Bit my tongue during the eulogies and did not once kick the coffin. Had a few words to say in parting. Lots of laughs.

So, how’s the Guggenheim going? I forget. Is it Browning you’re torturing, and if so which Browning. No matter. Got to go. My editor wants me to write a feature on the rebirth of SoHo. Hadn’t known it died. But he died, that’s for sure, that hypocritical lying piece of shit, dear old dad.

Go screw a Brit for me, Baby Bro. As always, Matt

Feb 2, ‘61
Dear Matthew—

No. I do not forgive you. Your behavior was unspeakable. How could you do that to Mom? I don’t mean your incomprehensible “few words” (were you drunk, or just your usual insensitive self?). Or even making faces at the Reverend Theobald, as if you were still a kid sitting in the back pew, legs kicking under the seat. But to smirk like that when the coffin was lowered? God, Matt, what were you thinking? Does it still hurt that much?

O. K. Nuff said. Life here the same. I returned in a rain storm, a deluge—clear and dry in Chicago, wet and wild in L.A. Jennifer glad to see me, wanted details on the funeral, had written Mom a letter asking about her grandpa—was he a good man and has he gone to heaven. No one knows, I told her. And what’s “good” anyway?

Well, I thought he looked good in the coffin. Had seen him only twice since I left Chicago, once in ‘53 when he and Mom made that trip to California, his last attempt to lure one of us back to the Trophy World, and then in ‘56 when Mom bolted and I went home to pick up the pieces. Mom said that even last month, coldest January in decades, he was still taking the El downtown twice a week, fussing around the office doing God knows what. Fred has been running things (quietly of course—does he ever speak?) since Dad’s first stroke a few years ago, just Fred and a part-timer for deliveries and packing (but what’s there to deliver? or pack?). When I left in ‘48 the business was shaky but the five of us still managed to keep busy full-time—Fred, Henry doing the packing (remember him? Mom says he died last year), the kid for deliveries, and the new girl who replaced me as secretary-accountant-bookkeeper-receptionist. Was her name Mildred? Something like that.

But seeing Dad in the coffin brought back lots of things I thought I’d forgotten -about how much I admired him and loved him, in spite of it all. You and Mark never understood, or never wanted to understand, that Turner’s Trophy World (TTW as Mark insisted on calling it) was Dad’s whole life—leaving the house early each morning, coming home late, working all day Saturday, Sunday afternoons too. Oh, he accepted my defection—I had recently been married, Jack was stationed at Pendleton with a year to go before his discharge—but Dad never could believe that you and Mark wanted no part of the business. Mark especially. His refusal hurt Dad most of all.

In spite of what we’d told Mom about it not making sense for Mark to come from London, I think she still hoped he would show up at the last moment. Did you notice (but of course you did) that Mom never shed a tear, not in the chapel, not by the grave. What was it between her and Dad? Well, it doesn’t matter now. Dad’s dead. And you, my big brother, are despicable!

No love, Mo.

February something, 1961
Dear Jennifer:

How good of you to ask about your grandpa. Of course you wouldn’t remember him, you were only three when we visited your mommy in California. He had hoped you would all move back to Chicago to help him with the business. But that didn’t happen.

Well yes, Jennifer, your grandpa was a good man and I am sure he will be well received in the next life. He was quite brilliant, you know. When your grandpa and I were young not many of us went to college or even high school. But your grandpa went to high school, and graduated too. And read? Oh my, did he ever read! All kinds of books and not only novels, serious books, and by foreign writers too. When he was in France during the war, before we got married, he wrote me long letters about the things he was reading, philosophers and people like that. I felt so stupid since I was a high school dropout (well, truth be told, dear Jennifer, I had never dropped in, but don’t tell anyone, please).

Anyway, yes, your grandpa was good. He was very religious, and handsome too. He played baseball. Did your mommy ever tell you that? And he was a hard worker and a good provider and, well, Jennifer, no one is perfect and your grandpa did have some faults. Maybe when you’re older we can talk about them.

But enough about your grandpa. The St. Bernard puppy across the street, you remember I told you about him when I phoned last month after Grandpa had his second stroke, well, they finally got that big puppy to climb into the VW without being dragged or pushed. How proud he was sitting in the front seat, head stuck out the window, tail wagging (I couldn’t see his tail but I am sure it wagged). Now isn’t that good news?

Love and lots of kisses from your loving grandma.

Feb 7, ‘61
Dear Mark—

I’ve been home five days and it’s been a week since the funeral, but I haven’t had the heart to write. I hadn’t realized Dad’s death would effect me so deeply (effect? affect? never did get those two guys straight, forgive me, professor). Anyway, let me ramble a bit.

The funeral was much as expected. A number of the old office cronies came (Fred was there, seemed deeply moved by it all), even a few of Dad’s Swedenborgian buddies, and, considering what he called his “differences” with the elders, there was a surprisingly large turnout of the Presbyterian clan. Hypocrites all, according to our eldest sibling, who behaved abominably throughout, including a truly embarrassing attempt at a eulogy. I won’t repeat what he said. Anyway, Mom held up nobly during the service and at the grave site, clear and bitter cold, everything frozen. How did they manage to dig a hole? Sledge hammers, I suppose.

Dad looked splendid in the coffin, all six feet of him. Mom said he’d been in good health until his stroke on New Year’s Eve, but it was a mild one, no cause for concern. Then that last afternoon, even in the fierce cold, he went to the office. It was while he was walking home from the El that he collapsed. Little Bobbie Newman (remember him, not so little now) found him on the sidewalk a few houses down. I guess Dad was mostly dead before they got him in the house.

What was he really like, our father? I’ve seen so little of him in the past dozen years, since moving to California. There was that disastrous visit in ‘53 and then my trip home in ‘56 the time Mom ran away and after two frantic weeks we found her hiding in the downtown YWCA (you were starting to teach in Urbana and missed all the excitement— how come you’re always away when there’s a crisis?) But while Matt moved to New York after his discharge in ‘46 and I left in ‘48, you have been living in the vicinity, must have seen a lot of Dad. Do you feel you have ever really known him? The only part I knew was the salesman part, watching him every day during those three years after high school when I was the Trophy World girl. Selling trophies, that was his life, his love. And he was good at it, oh my goodness yes. He had charm, tall boyish charm even in his 50’s, and warmth, and wit, and he never let a customer get away without some Christian or philosophical thought to live by. And they all loved it, coming from him. And if not the Jesus stuff, he would bring up baseball, holding them with his glittering eye (like that old sailor I hated in high school). Oh Lordy yes, Dad and baseball!

Remember how Matt carried on about Charlie Grimm, singing that little ditty he made up about how “Daddies get their Jollies from Chollies”? Dad was not amused because Charlie Grimm had always been his favorite, going back before we were born, when Jolly Cholly was the Cubs’ star first baseman. But in ‘45 when they won the pennant and Grimm was again the manager, Dad was happier than I’d ever seen him. Except of course for that day in June ‘46—could it have been Father’s Day?, that’s how I always think of it—when he sat in the dugout next to Bill Nicholson and Stan Hack. Was it Mr. Newhouse who arranged that, the crazy old guy who bought all the Softball trophies for little leaguers? I think Dad could have died happy when he came home from the game that afternoon. “The Cubbies Won!” “I talked to Stan Hack!” “This is the hand that shook Charlie Grimm’s?”

Anyway, I feel I never knew Dad, never understood where he was coming from, or going. Had he ever loved Mother? Surely he did in the early years, before she got so very fat. Had he ever loved any of us kids? Maybe you, Mark, a little. Not me. Certainly not Matt. You know who he did love? Thomas, that mangy Springer Spaniel. When Thomas died of old age in ‘48, that was the only time I ever saw Dad cry. You were at school in Madison (another example of avoiding a crisis!) so you missed the fiasco when the next day he brought home the Lab pup and mother went bonkers screaming that either it goes or she goes. I think that was the first time that Mom, as she liked to say, “put her foot down.” I left for California a few weeks after that and was glad to get away. But Dad, well, to me he was always a mystery, and always will be I guess. Have you, Assistant Professor Mark Turner Ph. D., any light to shed? If so, shed it my way.

And stay warm. I hear that London winters can be as bad as Chicago, only without the snow. Much love (and, oh yes, do let me know how your book is coming, if it is in fact to be a book). And (almost forgot), Miss Jennifer, now 11, says hi to Uncle Mark.

Love again, Mo-Mo (remember when you used to call me that?)

5 March 1961
Dear Maureen:

My apologies for the delay in replying to yours of 7 February. I have discovered a virtual truckload of material at the Bodleian and have been staying in Oxford most of the past month reading old diaries and letters (yes, it will, I trust, become a monograph, one in which the university press has expressed interest). And, realizing I would regret what I might say were I to reply in haste, I wanted to give some thought to your questions about our father.

You are correct in noting that from 1948 until Father’s death earlier this year—years when Matt was in New York and you were in California—I was in the “vicinity,” although I was of course not living in Oak Grove during the two years I completed my B.A. in Madison, or the six years I lived near campus while earning my doctorate at U of Chicago, or during the past five years while I have been teaching in Urbana. But I did spend numerous weekends with our parents, Sunday dinners and such, and I too observed his salesmanship in the years I was in high school and worked for him on weekends. And much earlier too, when as children we shared those “dusting Sundays” at TTW.

In any event, I fear I must disagree with you as regards selling trophies being father’s “life, his love,” as you so poignantly put it. In point of fact, I have come to believe that Father had little interest in selling per se. What fascinated him was what trophies represented, their embodiment, if you will. Don’t you recall how father would insist that no one ever buys a trophy (and thus he never really sold them), because a trophy is something one has to win, something one earns for an accomplishment, for becoming a champion in whatever field one chooses to compete. The customers who came to TTW were not buying trophies for themselves. They had been commissioned to spend a certain amount of money to purchase a certain number of trophies to be awarded to the victors. That’s where what you call “the Jesus stuff” came in, Jesus being the all-time champion, the supreme gold medalist. And, moreover, in some fantastic way both the trophies and Father’s curious slant on religion (it seemed to be a weird combination of orthodox Christianity and Swedenborgian mysticism) merged with, of all things, baseball. For Father, the three became inexorably combined—God (whether the Presbyterian old man with white beard or the Swedenborgian supreme spirit overseeing the Church of the New Jerusalem) was the ultimate presenter of trophies to those who have struggled to overcome adversity and have triumphed. This, however, was in the realm of theory. The reality, for Father, became focused in the fortunes of the Chicago Cubs, a team which, in 1945, finally won a championship.

Well, Maureen, I have given these matters a good deal of thought and hope that my comments may help you understand our father’s “mystery.”

Incidentally, I was puzzled by your comments on the dog. Was it really named “Thomas”? I don’t remember that at all. I mean, I remember a dog, but not its name. Could Father have named it after Thomas Aquinas, or perhaps—an intriguing possibility—Doubting Thomas?

Your faithful friend and brother, Mark

P. S. On rereading the above, I have decided to make a photocopy and send it to Matthew. I trust he will be interested in what I have written about his father.

3. 10. 61
Mark (with copy to Maureen)—

What a pile of horseshit! All your life you have been aspiring to become a pompous asshole and—after five years in academe plus a fucking Guggenheim—you have finally succeeded. In the interests of justice, not to say truth and perhaps a modicum of beauty, I will attempt to correct your absurd critique.

The first thing you must realize about our sainted papa is that he was a down-deep died-in-the-wool hypocrite. He did not give a damn about religion or, God knows, trophies. His passion—Cubbies aside—was simply talking. He had diarrhea of the mouth, couldn’t shut up even if he wanted to. Which is what pissed off the so-called elders at First Presbyterian. It didn’t matter if the subject was Saint Andrew or Andrew Carnegie or Andy Gump, he loved to hear himself talk. Murky Malcolm, lay preacher extraordinaire! Was he a good Christian? Why, he even named his only begotten sons—guess what?—Matthew and Mark! How about them potatoes?

But then you Mark, when still little baby poop, and you too Mo-Mo-Mo were spared those godawful Sunday night “sermons” that Mother refused to attend and to which I, ages eight to 12, was obliged to accompany him. We would drive North Side, South Side, West Side, any old side where a group of do-gooder nitwits had gathered for the purpose of being enlightened, free of charge. And those demented little groupies ate it up, every tawdry word of Dada’s apocalyptic inanities. Babble, babble. Worse still, I got it twice, not only while sitting front row center for the grand performance but while playing 20 questions as we were driving there.

“Can you, son Matthew, tell me anything about the Rosicrucians?” “No sir, Daddy sir, I am stupid so you must tell me about the Rosicrucians.” “Well, do you know what happens in the Book of Revelations?” “Oh no, sir Daddy, do reveal to me what happens in Revelations.” “Can you, Master Matthew, tell me who wrote The Voyage of the Beagle?” “Oh sir, I don’t know, sir, could it have been John Henry Newman?” “Have you, my son, any idea who Phil Cavaretta is?” “Oh yes sir, oh yes, he was the Cubs’ first baseman, now retired, and please, sir, go screw yourself, sir.”

All this was, of course, before he discovered the Swedenborgians, who he supposedly stumbled upon during one of his famous late night walks a few blocks from the office, the place that is now, I do believe, called the Swedenborg Spiritual Growth Center. But before the Swedenborgians hit him on his dismal road to Damascus, the crap he was passing off during his five years on the lecture circuit was mostly gloom-doom stuff based on an absurd misreading of his three beloved Thomases—Hardy, Huxley, and Hobbes—after whom, for your information Professor Turner, he named the goddamn dog.

The other thing you should know about dear Daddio was that, in addition to baseball, what he loved most were movies—which was probably the only thing that saved his always precarious marriage. Don’t you remember those Saturday nights in the 30’s and 40’s when old Mrs. Taylor would perform what Mother quaintly called a “house sit” so that Mom and Pop could go to the flicks. That happened every Saturday night, without exception. His favorites were Astaire and Rogers, hers were William Powell and Myrna Loy, in whose stupid series of Thin Man mysteries all was well because all ended well. Oh yes, your father was a fanatic movie nut. Didn’t you ever peek into the bottom drawer of his no-no desk in ye old trophie world? Hidden under some old Cubbie souvenirs were glossy photos of movie stars, featuring—guess who?—Ty Power and pretty boy Alan Ladd.

Which brings me to the ugly fact that Malcolm Turner, elder of the First Presbyterian Church, only begetter and proud owner of Turner’s Trophy World, famous as lover of dogs and Cubs, was gay. Well, he didn’t know he was gay. The word is “latent.” The broad shoulders with the limp wrists. The slight lisp whenever he became excited. The discomfort around—no, the actual loathing of—fat people. The fear of being touched. Even when he gathered us kiddios on Sunday mornings for his reading of the comics, there were no huggy-wuggies. We had to sit at his big bare feet while he read us, with inflections, the latest adventures of Terry and the Pirates, or the Phantom, or Flash Gordon, who, you may recall, was his favorite (and mine too, Dale Arden being responsible for my first truly interesting hard on).

Ah, but there’s more. Daddy was also—or hadn’t you noticed—a bit of a racist. Trophy World was an all white world, and so were its customers. And Daddy was cheap. And Daddy was mean. And Daddy was cruel. And Daddy was. . . . Well, you think about it, you lucky younger siblings. Fill in the blanks yourselves. I’m sick of the very thought of dear dead Dad.

Hey, let’s call the whole thing off. I’ll see you in my dreams. Until for-never, Matthew

March 15, ‘61
Dear Mark—

I trust you have received, or soon will, Matt’s letter. His sick letter. We have never discussed Matt’s problems. Were we being kind? Or were we afraid to talk about it? But of course his problems with Dad go way back to when he was a kid. You were still a baby (well, three or four) and I was only six but old enough to see, and vaguely understand, what was happening.

As you know—or maybe you don’t know because after your accident you never had an interest in sports—Dad’s love for baseball goes beyond his being a Cubs fan. When he was in high school (this according to Mom), he not only played first base but had dreams of becoming a professional. Apparently he never even got a tryout in the bush leagues and probably wasn’t good enough to deserve one, but that didn’t matter because (again according to Mom) when Matt was born Dad felt he had a second chance to “make it” through his son. Well, as you know, Matt was not, never has been, the athletic type—a skinny kid, shy, poorly coordinated, glasses, not exactly a geek but, well, he was the kind of kid who liked to hide in the closet and read a book with his flashlight. And Dad was determined to turn that into a jock. I remember watching them on late summer evenings, Matt pathetically trying to hit the ball, or catch it, or even just throw it. I felt so terrible for him. For a few years I even became something of a tomboy, trying to make it up to Dad.

“Sissy!” Dad would scream at him. “Chase it, Sissy-Girl!” “Run like a boy, not a Sissy-Girl!” I can still hear him! He was not, as Matt claims, doing it to be mean or cruel. He was trying to shame his non-boy boy into becoming something he could never possibly become. I remember the evening Matt finally gave up and broke into tears, hid under the porch until Dad pulled him out by his feet. Then he ran into the house and wet on the carpet. It was horrible. Like the time Dad and Mom took us to the 1933 World’s Fair and for some reason Matt suddenly had a crying fit and with all those people staring Dad had to slap him to make him stop. Oh, Dad never really hit him, never hit any of us as far as I know. But he never understood, or maybe didn’t want to understand, the things we kids liked and didn’t like. Having to go to a Cubs game once a month, for instance, sitting up in the bleachers, you bored to death. Matt with his eyes squeezed tight, feet kicking under the seat, and me trying to save face by cheering for the three of us. Were you ever aware of Dad’s attempts to turn Matt into a jock? In spite of my tomboy efforts, I was a mere girl and, in those years, girls simply did not play baseball. And of course after your accident Dad never thought of you in that way. “One son is a sissy and the other a cripple.” I heard him say that once to Mother. And Mother, clenching her fat little fists, shouting “Mark is lame, he is lame, don’t you ever call my son a cripple!”

What Matt said about Dad dragging him to the Sunday evening sermons, that was all true enough. Dad would spend hours preparing his sermons on Saturday nights, holed up in the corner of the basement he called his “study,” his precious books locked in that little bookcase with the glass door. Remember? But unlike Matt, you and I were spared all of that, except for Dad’s “few words” at the church Christmas parties. Remember when we had to sing that awful Christmas song, you doing the “boys with toys” part, then you’d dip and point at me and I’d squeak “dolls with curls are for the little girls.” And Matt would sing “you can’t fool Mr. Santa Claus” while shaking his skinny finger at father. Oh god, how humiliating that was. Or did we realize it at the time?

In spite of his making us go to church every Sunday and saying grace at each meal—in which he loved to insert those mysterious quotations (how we three kids would giggle behind our napkins!)— do you realize that Dad never imposed Christ on our Christmases. Wasn’t that odd? Maybe that’s why, at least for me, Christmas was always a wonderful time what with the tree and the lights and the singing and oh so many presents. Even in the midst of the Depression Dad somehow managed to have loads of presents for us under the tree. Always something for Mom too. How did he ever do it?

Anyway, Matt grew up hating our father, not just because of the baseball thing but the Trophy World too, dusting the trophies every Sunday afternoon, running errands on Saturdays, Dad still believing (but how could he?) that his oldest boy was the heir apparent. By the time Matt was—what? eight? ten?—he had become cynical, hating everything about everything, doing poorly in grade school and, in spite of being the smartest kid in his class, becoming even more alienated in high school. Did he ever have a girlfriend? I don’t know, can’t recall one. I was a high school sophomore, buggy about boys, when he dropped out and enlisted in the Army. Then when he got out after the four years, he moved to New York, and after that, bye-bye Matt.

Well, I’m sure you understand and won’t be too offended by what he has written. I worry about him, living alone in Greenwich Village, moving from one short-lived writing job to another, smoking umpteen packs a day. Maybe, if we were closer, I might be able to help. But then we never have been close, whether near or far.

Love, Maureen

P. S.—And where did Matt get the idea that the dog was named after those three writers? Mom always told me Thomas was named for Dad’s brother, the one who was killed in the First World War. Would she have made that up?

March 15, ‘61
Dear Matthew—

I have written to our brother urging him to ignore your obscene letter. Didn’t you realize how much it would hurt Mark, who had always loved our father, believed he could do no harm, looked up to him through thick and thin? And calling Dad a hypocrite, a racist, even a homosexual. That was my teenage stash of movie star photos, you stupid sneak!

Well, what’s done is done, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you never heard from Mark again. He does not easily forgive, and he never forgets. Do you think he has had an easy life—in pain all those years from his accident, limping his way through high school, working his way through college? How proud he was when he got the assistant professorship at Illinois. And what did you have to say about that? “What happened to the Ivy League, Buddy? Not good enough for you?” That hurt him. I know it did. But then, you’ve always known how to hurt people.

Yes, Dad was not perfect, but he came a lot closer than you ever did. He was, at heart, in spite of everything, a good man. He was disappointed in lots of things. He’d have liked to have been a baseball player, like Charlie Grimm. Or maybe a minister, with his own church and congregation. Or maybe even a college professor, like Mark. What he was, instead, was a business man, starting out as a lowly salesman in a sporting goods store, then opening his little trophy shop on a shoestring, struggling through and somehow surviving the Depression, ending up with an unhappy wife and three bratty children, none of whom gave a damn about his trophy world, or his beliefs, or his dreams.

Please, Matt, no more of this. Leave Dad alone. He can’t hurt you now.

August something, 1961
Dear Jennifer—

Well thank you, thank you, my dear, for that lovely birthday card. So many sixes. And someday you’ll be 66 too and have a granddaughter who will send you a made-by-hand birthday card. We are both so fortunate. You with a loving daddy and mommy, and me with my new apartment.

Oh Jennifer, you must get your mommy to bring you to Chicago for a visit. I have a guest bedroom and a model kitchen and from the living room I have a view of the blue lake. And I can walk to the shops on Michigan Avenue which are so wonderful. And if you come we can take a bus to the Art Institute or the Shedd Aquarium or the Field Museum. Or maybe all three.

And lucky you, getting a new puppy. What will you name it? Have you considered “Thomas”? Or if it is a girl puppy, might Thomasina do? Oh dear, I don’t think so. But how about “Charlie”? That’s a good name for a dog, whether a girl or a boy.

Much love and lots of kisses from your grandma

15 September 1961
Dear Maureen:

What follows is a brief report on Mother, with whom I spent all day Sunday after arriving Saturday night and sleeping in her guest room. She had apparently arranged things through Harold Weinstein, Father’s old lawyer, a friend they had known for years. He had overseen the liquidation of the business, which had been left to Mother “to do with as she pleased.” Then he sold the house for her. That was a shock. I had imagined that Mother would live out the rest of her life in Oak Grove, in the only home we children had ever known. If she had told me of her intentions, I would have gone to see the old place before it was sold, the backyard, the kitchen, Father’s “study,” the bedroom I shared with my brother. But perhaps she feared I would try to discourage her had I known beforehand.

The biggest surprise of all, however, was her appearance. She must have lost 50 pounds. She is not what one would call slim but she is certainly a far cry from the portly woman we knew as children. Moreover, at age 66, she now has a job! It’s part-time on Oak Street working in, of all places, a book store. Imagine that, our mother who had trouble keeping track of her allowance, who so far as I know never read anything more serious than the Saturday Evening Post or Ladies Home Journal, is actually selling books. As for her apartment—Mother calls it “tres chic”—it is pleasant enough, decently furnished, and she has a modest view of Lake Michigan. But, and this is strange, there is not a thing in that apartment that I remember from the house in Oak Grove. Not a lamp, a picture, not even a dish. Nor is there a photograph anywhere in view, not of Father or of us children. There was not even—may I joke?—a photo of the dog.

I have not heard from, nor do I intend to write to, our brother. You may convey this information to him if you choose. Regards, Mark

11 May 1964
Dear Maureen:

I realize we have lost touch since Mother’s refusal to share with us her “new life”—it seems she had always been the tie that binds—but I think of you often, and of Matthew too. The justification for my writing after all these years is to tell you about a strange encounter I had yesterday with, of all people, Fred—Father’s longtime employee. He is now in his 50’s still frail, still soft-spoken (did you ever hear him raise his voice?). Well, apparently after TTW closed he got a job in a sporting goods store with Weinstein’s help. Mother, it seems, insisted. Fred was driving to Florida to, like Mother, begin a “new life,” but when passing through Urbana he decided to look me up to “say hello for old time’s sake.” He asked about you and Matt, also about Mother, but it was obvious that what he really wanted was to tell me “something I never knew” about our father.

Fred was part of TTW for as long as I can remember. He told me he had begun working there in 1935 when he was 25 (and I was six). It was the height of the Depression, Fred had been without work for months, was penniless, starving, when Father found him sleeping on the steps (you won’t believe this) of the old Swedenborg Center on West Washington. Father bought him coffee and a donut, took him back to the office (Fred recalls being blinded by the trophies, felt he was entering a golden heaven), and after that night he began working for Dad. It seems he slept in the back of the stockroom for the first two years. Did you know that? I didn’t.

Well, Fred claims that finding him that night was when Father first became interested in what our brother called the “Swedenborgian shit,” but saving Fred was also, it turns out, only one of Father’s many “rescues” in those Depression years. Apparently during those late night walks that we children always joked about (and Matthew claimed involved a secret lover), what Father was doing was, well, what could we call it? Helping the homeless? Serving the Lord? Suffering the unfortunates to come unto him? You know what Fred actually called our father? A saint.

No need to answer this, Maureen. You have your life. I have mine.

Mark

April 1, 1967
Dear Mark—

Sorry I have never written, not even to acknowledge your strange story about Fred. Somehow, it seemed better that way. But I have to write now to tell you that Mother died this morning. I had not known, and I assume you had not known, that Mom has been suffering from breast cancer for the past 18 months. Or so the doctor said. She had been adamant about not wanting us to know, although in those last days she weakened. She phoned, said I might want to come for a visit while the flowers on Michigan Avenue were so lovely, perhaps bring little Jennifer too. I found it an odd phone call, disturbing, since “little” Jenny is now in high school busy with rehearsals for the class play. I never gave a thought to Jenny’s coming with me but there was something in Mom’s voice, the call coming like that out of the blue, that made me say what the hell and take the next plane out. Her neighbor in the apartment building directed me to the hospital.

Mom was heavily sedated, not quite in a coma but nearly so. She smiled when she saw me but all she said—a whisper, I could barely make it out—was “don’t tell the boys.” After that I was with her for two days as she lay there, more dead than alive, all those tubes, machines. Then last night she woke up and tried to talk. At first I couldn’t understand what she was saying, sounded like mo-come, mo-come, sing-song—like a chant. Then I realized what she was saying was Malcolm-Malcolm. Finally her eyes opened and she said softly, so softly, “But I put my foot down!” And that was it. She died early this morning.

Mr. Weinstein says her will left everything to “little Jennifer and her dog Charlie.” I will clean out the apartment tomorrow, give her clothes to Goodwill, throw out whatever’s left.

I have not been in touch with Matt since Dad died six years ago and I have no idea where, or if, he is living. If you know, perhaps you can tell him the news.

Your sister Maureen

5. 5. 67
 Mark—

And what makes you think I give a flying fuck whether Mother lived or died? In spite of her hysterical outbursts, she fawned over the shithead like he was the goddamn Pope with all his religious voodoo crap. For that, she cannot be forgiven, not by me. You and little Mo-Mo can bless her, wish her well, godspeed, over the rainbow. Just don’t count me in.

Hey, Baby Bro, I saw your Browning book at the Eighth Street Bookstore last week! There were three copies lying unmolested on the remainder table, along with various other shitpot rejects. Glad to see you’ve made it.

Lots of laughs from your big brother Matthew

17 August 1970
Dear Uncle Mark,

I am sending this care of the University because I have no home address. I am sorry to inform you that your sister Maureen, my mother, was killed last week in a senseless auto accident. She was 43. Dad and I buried her at Forest Lawn. Should you ever come to Los Angeles I could show you where.

If your brother is still living—Mother never spoke of him— perhaps you could tell him what has happened.

Your niece, Jennifer

January 17, 1972
Dear Jennifer:

I doubt if you care—I believe you never even met him—but your Uncle Matthew died a few months ago. I only learned this recently, from one of his Village boyfriends. Whether it was lung cancer or something more ominous, I do not know. He was unhappy as a boy, more so as a man. I somehow thought—strange how these things occur to one—that your mother would have wanted you to know. The fashionable word, or so I have been told, is “closure.”

Your Uncle Mark

0 Comments

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Recommended Reading