Stages Between Phases

Since I enjoy the company of my youngest son, I really don't mind when he shows up unannounced on the doorstep with bags in hand, moving back home during the stages between phases that he so often goes through. My son Raymond, who is 25, has lurched forward on numerous false starts since college, and I've grown used to it. He's tried his hand at many things now, including graduate school, construction work, truck driving and dishwashing. At the moment, he's "seriously considering" the prospect of returning to grad school, but not in biology as before. "Law?" I ask. "Are you sure?" I do not intend the question pejorative. It just comes out that way.

"Yes. I take the LSAT in a month." Raymond becomes defensive and drops a stack of home study material on the living room floor. He goes back to the porch for more belongings. "I've given it lots of thought," he snaps. And to this I nod, as I have nodded in the past, again and again.

Through the years, I've come to believe that it's not necessarily the quantity of thought which guarantees the rightness of a particular choice. In fact I can make a pretty fair argument now that in many cases the less thought, the better. Sometimes it's those rapid-fire choices, unfettered by reason and logic, that turn out to be the best ones. But I also know that such wisdom cannot be effectively imparted to another, rather it must be discovered on one's own, through years of trial and error. It is a difficult, sometimes painful, sometimes very lengthy process. And as I am a patient and supportive man, or so I've been told, and since I see my son as one involved in a process with which I must not interfere, I welcome Raymond home. "You need a hand?" I ask, smiling.

"That'd be great, dad," Raymond responds, burdened by his load. So I put my book on the coffee table, get up from the couch, and give my son a standing ovation.

After Raymond goes shopping, I go back to my book and Phyllis enters the house. I peek over the top of my glasses. I don't want to miss her reaction to the duffel bags and boxes left in the front room. Exasperation suits her, gives her skin a flushed, youthful glow--reminds me of when we dated. It's not that Phyllis doesn't love our youngest as much as I do, she simply wishes he'd "get on with it already." Phyllis is a less patient parent than I.

Heading toward the kitchen, she spots Raymond's gear in a corner. She stands in front of it for a moment, motionless and silent, clutching the grocery bags, one in each arm, closer to her body. She then continues on into the kitchen, the door swinging once, twice, many times behind her on its two-way hinges. In the time it takes Phyllis to place the bags on the counter and the dairy in the refrigerator, the door continues swinging and she pushes through it once more. I sit on the couch with my legs crossed one over the other at the knee.

"What's the story this time," she asks, pointing at the corner with her arm straight out, not looking at Raymond's belongings but instead right at me. She makes me feel as though I am somehow more responsible than her for the return of our son. She probably has a point.

"It's not what you're thinking," I say. "Those aren't Raymond's things, they're Gary's. The business went kaput, Monicha threw him out on his ear, and she wants a divorce. It's Gary who's come back this time, not Raymond."

Referring to Gary, one of Raymond's older, successful brothers, is a mistake. Raymond's lack of accomplishment, manifesting itself in the form of three boxes and two duffel bags--all his worldly wealth--is now cast in the harsh light of his brother's success. It goads my wife.

"And if that was true," she says, "I'd welcome Gary back and be more than happy to help him." She looks to the corner. "But since those things are so obviously Raymond's, I want to know, what's he up to now?"

When I tell her the truth, she grumbles and flushes and I feel a little guilty enjoying the spectacle of her anxiety. She says, "It's not that I don't love him, of course. I just wish he'd get on with it already." She glares at the bags and then at me. She looks so lively when stressed. I want to leap from the couch and grab her by the waist, spin her around the room and kiss her neck. But I don't. I've learned to say nothing on these occasions and give a sideways half grin, hoping that something will save us--a telephone, a doorbell. Sometimes something does, sometimes it doesn't. This time the something is Raymond as he walks in with a bag of his own groceries. Celery stalks and spinach leaves stick up over the top of the bag, blocking his face. He peers through the greenery like a prowler.

"Hey mom," he says, approaching her, kissing her cheek. "It's great to be back again."

Phyllis looks to the corner, then to me. "Again," she repeats. And the kitchen door swings behind our son.

I had a feeling things would be different with Raymond the moment the doctor told me, "It's another boy, Ed. Five pounds, two ounces. Healthy, but tired." A tired baby was something neither Phyllis nor I had experienced with our previous three. Those boys had each been squirming, loud, round things, much heavier than Raymond as well, by about two pounds on the minimum. But Raymond enjoyed his sleep and cried rarely, usually only at the prompting of his three brothers who surrounded him outside his crib and shook its sides and poked the slumbering baby's soft spots in their attempts at stirring life into their youngest, tiniest, most tired sibling. Raymond was to receive similarly harsh treatment from his brothers in forms both verbal and physical, throughout his growing years. "We're just toughening him up a little bit," they'd tell me, when I told them enough was enough. "He needs it," they'd say.

"Well that's plenty for now," I'd say. "Leave him alone before I toughen you three up a little bit." I'd reach for my belt and the "bullies," as Raymond called them, hurried off laughing, waving their plastic baseball bats or boxing gloved fists over their heads like savages. Raymond, his shirt stretched and twisted on his torso, his hair standing on end, would look thankfully in my direction as he rose from the floor where he'd been pinned, squealing for help. It was those moments when I came to his rescue which created the bond between Raymond and myself which exists today. I am his refuge. He calls to me when he needs help, and I am capable. It is a relationship of mutual benefit.

Where Raymond and I have a relationship, Raymond and his mother have an understanding. On the evening of his arrival, Phyllis makes a list of weekly chores to which he must attend. She posts it the next morning to the refrigerator door with a magnet in the likeness of a pig. The list includes the lawn, the garbage, the windows, the usual. It is written in bold red felt pen and there is a space below the final listing where other chores can be added as his mother sees fit. While weekly chores are something she has always required of her sons at home, this list here has a hint of the vindictive. It's so big and red. Raymond examines the list as his mother pours coffee.

"No complaints, Ray. You know the rules."

Raymond turns to look at her. "And a good morning to you as well, mom," he replies, drawing my laughter, more forced than genuine. Then we all sit for a silent family breakfast, eat muffins and read news of the day. This is how we ease into the morning.

Adjusting to a life of leisure, as I am now attempting, is not as easy as one might imagine. Conditioning the body to change of any type, I suppose, is no simple matter. And so it is that during these early months of my retirement--a retirement made possible by the financial gains of my three eldest, a retirement into which I've been coaxed by those same three because I "deserve it for a life of thankless toil"--I sometimes feel out of place in my own home during the afternoons when I should be carrying my mail sack across town on my route as I had done for over 25 years. I sometimes feel underfoot and awkward as I occupy myself with the hobbies my boys have encouraged me to take up, the things they tell me I've always wanted to try but didn't ever have the time for. Last month it was a ham radio I was forced to enjoy which sits now in the basement in a box. This week I'm learning to operate my video cam-corder and wander the house documenting events as they unfold. "It's 10:19 a.m. Wednesday, September 14th, and we're approaching the den where Raymond Baxter will be hunched over his study manuals preparing for the law school entrance exam. He'll be taking it in less than a month. He's come here to 2909 Avery Way, the house of his mom and dad, his boyhood home in the Murdoch Valley, for a little peace and quiet." I speak in a whisper, like a TV golf announcer describing a tournament-winning putt. I am hoping that my tone lends more drama to the event captured on video than it might otherwise have.

"And there he is, just as it should be, Raymond at home, studying. Good boy, Raymond." I raise my voice to a normal level. "Raymond, turn and smile for the camera, say a few words."

Raymond looks over his shoulder, his hair stuck up in front where his hand has been supporting his head. He looks anguished, as he often does. "Not now, dad. Can't you see? I'm busy, please."

"Just a few words, Ray, for the camera. Answer a couple questions then I'll leave. I'll keep it simple, I promise."

Raymond goes back to his books but realizes he must humor me if he ever wants his peace. "OK," he says into his hand. "But keep it brief. I've got work here."

"All right, will do. First question. Does God exist?"

Raymond refuses to answer, to be lured by my chicanery. He turns a page and makes a mark with his pencil. He is clearly trying to ignore me. But I make it difficult.

"How would you resolve the crisis in the Middle East?" The pencil scratches against paper again, filling in an oval. Raymond glances at his wristwatch.

"Who do you like better, your mom or dad?" I zoom up to the back of his head and, as if on cue, he slams his pencil down and turns with curled lips and red face.

"Christ almighty, dad. Please!" I pan back slowly and close the door partway with my foot as I leave. In the living room, I take the tape from the camera and mark the label, "9-14. Interview with Raymond."

A couple days pass with a silent but marked tension festering between Phyllis and Raymond. I stand between the two and act as a sort of buffer, feeling pressed. On Friday morning, Phyllis waits for Raymond in the kitchen and when he arrives she takes the red felt pen and adds another chore to the list of things which Raymond has yet to accomplish. The pen moves across the paper making a shrill, ugly sound. When she finishes writing, she turns and launches a direct attack. "You haven't forgotten about your chores, have you, Ray?" "How the hell could I possibly?" Raymond returns, throwing his hands outward.

Phyllis inhales deeply through her mouth, the usual precursor to one of her harangues, the gale gaining strength. But I speak up before she lets fly. "Hey, how about we have us a picnic? Today in the park. Pie? Potato salad? Fun?"

Phyllis and Raymond, whose stares had locked, look now at me. Last night in the Murdoch Valley, three inches of rain fell, and outside the kitchen window above the sink we see dark storm clouds promising more of the same.

"That's a fine idea, Ed," Phyllis says, directing anger at me. "A picnic in the mire, just perfect." She walks through the swinging door down the hall to our room followed by a rapidly dissolving vapor trail rising from her coffee cup.

Raymond stares out the window and bites his muffin, speaks with his mouth full as he was taught never to do. "Yeah, just perfect," he says. "Just perfect." Crumbs have gathered upon his unshaven chin, giving him a deficient look. I turn away and head for the basement.

Down there, I take the ham radio from its box and head upstairs. I set it up on the porch and give weather reports and news updates from the Murdoch Valley, which go out crackling and hissing and evaporating over the airwaves. Since I don't really know how to operate the machine, I wonder if anyone hears. Then I wonder if operating a ham radio in a lightning storm increases one's chances of being electrocuted. I wonder this into the microphone and a response, clearly audible, comes through my headset. "Murdoch Valley, this is High Desert. You're a damn fool. Turn off your set until that storm passes. Over."

Happy to have made contact and enjoying what scant attention this is, I am reluctant to let go. So I pretend to not understand the voice and continue playing with the knobs and dials to produce a squelching feedback which carries my voice back to High Desert. "This is Murdoch Valley. I can barely read you Desert. Repeat message, over."

High Desert becomes nearly frantic. "I say turn off your set 'til the storm passes. You're in great danger. Great danger!"

I play with the dials some more. "I still can't read you, Desert. You're breakin' up all over. Got a nasty storm in Murdoch. Lighting up the whole damn sky. You'll have to speak up." Then I let go with a high-pitched scream, the kind I imagine one gives when shocked through the skull with a lightning bolt. "AAAHHH!" I kick my chair over and drop my mouthpiece to the porch. This is the way I sometimes feel, as though consumed by fires from heaven. Occasionally, I'd like someone to know.

"Murdoch! Murdoch! This is High Desert, come in, over! Come in!" I continue playing with the dials sending out greater static and hiss to the caring stranger, my unknown friend. His voice, full of concern and worry, is extended toward me. I am absorbed by its soft electric crackle. I feel vaguely loved and warm all over. And as the first few raindrops freckle the brick path leading to our home, I switch off the machine. "Thank you High Desert," I say. But he doesn't hear me.

When I look up from the porch I see Phyllis standing in the doorway behind the screen with her arms folded, shaking her head and no doubt wondering what it is that sometimes possesses me. I turn to her and smile. She looks so good to me when bothered.

The rain comes steadily and pretty soon the gutters on the roof, clogged with leaves and gunk, begin overflowing. I can hear the water dropping heavily where it should not along the side of the house upon Phyllis' gladiolus and in front on the marigolds. I sit on the porch steps and watch it fall before me like strands of pearl. Although I know I should not, I rather enjoy the sight and sit there relaxed, prepared to do nothing about it. To hell with Phyllis' flowers, I think. Let them bend, let them break. But these thoughts flash in and then quickly out as footsteps above my head snap me to attention.

I walk from the porch into the rain taking backward steps toward the street. I see Raymond up there on the roof. He's wearing a sweatshirt which clings to his bent back. He's walking along the edge of the roof and every few feet he scoops into the gutter with his hand and heaves clumps of soggy crud into the air. It arcs against the steel sky and then separates and falls to the ground. This is the chore that Phyllis added to the list this morning. It's quite a sight, Raymond at work, and I run to get my video camera and capture a few minutes of my son on the roof's edge, obeying his mother, risking his life. A look of anguish lights his face.

When Raymond disappears around back, I return to the porch still peeking through my lens, videotaping the street and the unmowed lawn through sheets of falling rain. I sit there capturing the unchanging images for much longer than I should until I hear Phyllis open the screen door. She's going to lunch with friends, and I watch as she walks under the umbrella and twists her five-foot frame into the driver's seat. I wave from the porch as she pulls out into the street, and she waves back. I blow a kiss at the taillights before they disappear around the corner and then I take my camera back into the house where I putter around for a while until I figure a way to become useful.

Despite the continuing rain, I go back outside and take the lawn mower from the garage and pull the cord. In 10 minutes I'm finished with the lawn and back on the porch. Water drips off the tip of my nose as I stand admiring my work which I now see is less than good. Grooved ruts, where the tires pressed down on the wet grass, stripe the front lawn. When it dries our lawn will have several rows of grass with high blades alongside patches of well-tended yard. It might look odd, but, like most things, only if too closely observed.

Every so often, I'm taken by the urge to return to my old route. Among former mail carriers, this is a common impulse, but one that must be resisted. We've all heard stories and sometimes even come across the codger who will not give up his neighborhood. He walks along without his bag, looking incomplete and without purpose, looking lost. He walks past the mailboxes with their red flags lifted, saluting his return, he imagines, and nods and smiles to nobody. This is no way to end up, so I battle these inclinations whenever they arise and instead of heading across town to my old streets, I stroll in the opposite direction and don't dare do so much as glance over my shoulder. Without the weight of my bag on my back, though, I feel inadequately attired and, even worse, adrift. The bag served me as a sort of a rudder, a thing which kept me on the path I belonged. Without it I'm liable to go anywhere and do anything. And that's what happens to me as I wander out of my head for quite a while. By the time I return to 2909 Avery, I can't remember where exactly I've gone, or what precisely I was thinking.

At 2909, the pot finally boiled over. Phyllis is terribly shaken, far beyond the stages of mild anxiety which suit her so well. I cannot enjoy such acute despair. I ask, having a general idea, "What's wrong?"

She looks up from the couch. Her eyes are red and puffy, her mouth turned down. "He's gone," she says. Then she kind of rolls her eyes toward the ceiling and changes her expression into a forced smile in an attempt at lightening the mood. "Again," she says. But then she immediately starts sniffling and the smile goes as tears spill over her eyelids.

"Well, how? Where?" It doesn't matter what I ask, I know she'll tell me something.

"I laid into him about the lawn." She gets up and pulls the curtain back. "Well look at that lawn, damn it! You don't mow in the rain. That's just stupid!" She sits back down, pinching the bridge of her nose, and I sit beside her.

"I really let him have it, too," she says, quieter. "And then he came back at me and I swear Ed, if he hadn't turned to pack up his stuff," her voice is rising, "I would've slapped him." Phyllis cries with her palms cupping her face. I go to the kitchen and make her a rum toddy. On the floor is the yellow list crumpled into a ball which I imagine could've been done by either Phyllis or Raymond. I pick it up and toss it in the garbage.

Phyllis finishes the drink and feels drowsy. Coupled with the wine she had during lunch, the toddy, which I mix strong, should put her out for a couple hours. It's what she deserves. I lead her to bed and cover her with a blanket, kiss her forehead. She breathes through her mouth.

In the den, Raymond stacked his study material in the middle of the room and on top of it he placed an already full wastebasket. My video camera is on his desk and beside it the tape marked "9-14. Interview with Raymond."

I go to the living room, turn on the VCR and put the tape in. I see myself mowing the lawn and listen to the commentary provided by Raymond. "And there's my dad, mowing the lawn in the rain, bailing out his boy Raymond one more time. Will it never end?"

Raymond has a very steady hand with the camera and keeps me in center frame and in focus as I go about laying ruts in the front lawn, shaking water from my head. "And to answer those questions, dad--about God? Sometimes yeah, I think, sometimes probably not. And I'm not really too sure about the Middle East and can't say as how I care very much. And as to who I like better? You or mom? Well, that's a terrible thing to ask." He zooms for a close-up of my rain-soaked head as I spout water from my nose and mouth. "You should be ashamed."

A warm, wise and insightful evocation of a man dealing with retirement dealing with a son dealing with his future. I particularly like the story's gentle, evenhanded quality and the author's refusal to lay blame. Instead, "Stages Between Phases" is a celebration of family, complete with its flaws, its foolishness and its love.

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