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Four Births

By Albert Katz
I get a call from Ellayne which is short and to the point: “You better come soon. Dad won’t be with us long.”  I can’t get a flight so look into trains. With an 8-hour trip until I get to Montreal, I book Via 1, first class. I thought I’d spend the time working on a paper, but find myself looking out the window, mixing stories and memories, watching the autumn landscape, brown and bare.
it was 1940
he just barely the age
joins to fight for Canada
perhaps to leave the tyranny of his father
 
makes sure he marries
she even younger than he
and leaves his wife pregnant
before being shipped overseas
so that if he doesn’t make it
at least he would have left some mark
of his presence
 
he doesn’t see his daughter
until discharged, and she is four years old
The story of my birth differs from Ellayne’s. There he stays with the other men in the waiting room, segregated far from the mess of childbirth, waiting for the news. I have heard that when it was announced he had a son, he lost his head and started running down the hall, with some thinking he was going to jump out a window. In my teens I asked him about this story but he just said it was a foolish myth; that he just went looking for a phone so he could call family members.
 
Being sickly, I spend much of my earliest years in hospitals, though only one memory has survived. A fragment. I am looking out the window from the hospital ward, trying to see Mom and Dad going to the car after visiting me. I look hard but cannot find them. I see myself in that memory, from behind, as if someone else is watching me.
once taking blood
the intern jabs his one-year-old son
repeatedly
 
he  grabs the intern
calls him a butcher
tells him to find a real doctor
 
there are no family stories about  Linda’s, his third child’s, birth
born before his son
finally left the hospital 
I have not one but two operations before I am three years of age, leaving a huge scar of cross-shaped stigmata on my belly. Later in life, the scars are a point of discussion whenever I convince some young lady to join me in bed.
he doesn’t talk much of his war years
the record shows that after years in Britain
he landed on Juno Beach in Normandy
advanced through Northern France and the Netherlands and into Germany
he is a fighter
I once found a cache of letters Dad had written to Mom during his time overseas in the Canadian army. Now, years later, all I remember are the many references to some fellow Canuck calling him a fucking Jew. And how they then got into a punching match. I wish I had those letters now but Mom or Dad must have thought them of no archival interest and thrown them out when moving apartments.
he came from what at the time
would have been considered a well off family
wholesalers
established purveyors of fruit and vegetables
in telling he proudly announces
that they had the first Cadillac in the area
maybe the city
and he took it out when he was 15
lost control
ran it into a pole
For basically conservative people, Mom and Dad were surprisingly spontaneous in some ways. Periodically, they would pack the three of us into our Chevy and take off for some unplanned destination in the Northern states. Once we made it all the way to Kinderhook, N.Y., where we found a motel and stayed a few days. I could hear them talking of whether we should push on to New York City, but in the end we didn’t, just had picnics and walks in the woods and one evening at a drive-in movie. I have other memories of these trips, of the car overheating and the five of us waiting by the side of the road until it is safe to continue. Three or four times we went through that routine.
he starts his own business after the war
with a younger brother
it fails
not surprising given that his vision
always outstrips his execution
his brother rejoins the family business
but he is not welcomed back
 
desperate and three kids to feed
he goes to see his father and asks for a loan
or a job
and is rebuffed with the words
that it would have been better
if he had never made it back from the war
There was a family rift that I didn’t understand as a child. I rarely saw my paternal grandparents and visited only when my grandfather wasn’t present. We never went for large family dinners on the High Holidays, though Mom made sure to cook both chicken and beef brisket for us. I was in my thirties, with my first child by then, when my father told me about his talk with his father and how he did not even have money for the bus, so he started walking the two or three miles home, until one of his brothers found him and drove him the rest of the way. What could ever have made my grandfather say those words?  What genes have I inherited? Passed on?
he works most of his life
in a mixture of low-paying jobs
for long hours
mainly in sales
sometimes driving a cab
always in debt
he leaves it to his wife to handle the creditors
On some nights, when they think the kids are asleep, I hear Mom’s desperation and Dad responding, “what do you want me to do, rob a bank?” 
there had been one scare already with his wife
the mother of his children
but she was lucky
and they caught the cancer  before it broke through
the uterine walls
On one of our outings, we end up in Atlantic City, N.J., at a fancy hotel where my sister Linda and I spend the days in the ocean, doused in salt water. My zits disappear. One evening, Mom and Dad, Ellayne and boyfriend go out to a strip club and I am slipped some money to take Linda to a movie. We go see West Side Story. On returning to the hotel we find the elevator man crying. He asks us if we heard the news, that Marilyn Monroe has died. His crying confuses me because he didn’t even know her.
 
I was a smart-assed teenager. One summer day, a few friends and I play some game that involves throwing a tennis ball at our neighbor’s garage door. He asks us to stop, once from the window and once from the back porch. Finally, he descends the stairs; all my friends run away. Not me. I ignore his requests to stop until he runs out and give me a wallop, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to bruise my pride. So I run home and start crying, “Mr. Roetgen hit me. Mr. Roetgen hit me.” Next thing I know, Dad grabs me by the arm, pulls me next door and pounds on the door until Roetgen opens it.
he being all of 5’5”
grabs his neighbor by the neck
lifts him off the ground with one arm
holds him dangling
and tells him to never, ever
hit one of his kids again
that if they misbehave just tell him
and he and his wife will discipline them
 
on the way back home
he calls his son a prick
because of him
they now have problems with the neighbors
Sales is a perfect niche for Dad. He is a natural storyteller, always the life of the party. To me he is bigger than life. He likes people and people like him. He has a joke for every occasion, sometimes vulgar, sometimes racist. I bask in the light of his shadow but cringe at the same time.
 
One summer during my teen years, Dad pulls some strings and gets me a job with a fruit and vegetable wholesaler. When you meet the floor boss, he tells me, call him Mr. Miller, shake his hand firmly, not wimpy, and don’t overdo it because Mike Miller can break every bone in your hand if he thinks he is in a handshaking contest. I must have done it well, because all Miller says to me is that he hopes I grow up to be half the man my father is.
winter in Quebec
cold as a witch’s teat
at that time
he is selling heating oil for the furnaces
that populate the houses of Montreal
gets a message from one of his clients
a woman crying
recently separated from her husband
who has locked her out of the bank account
won’t pay for heating
she and the kids are freezing
 
he makes the call
the father is indignant
“what type of man do you think I am?”
He has no doubts
“we both know what type of man you are
the real question
is whether you are going to continue letting your friggin kids freeze”
I get a phone call from Mom telling me that Dad is acting strange and says he has to see me. So they drive from Montreal to London, Ontario, and stay with my wife and me. He is acting strange, periodically shaking as if in a fever. When I ask him what’s up, he tells me he’s fine. I take him for a walk along the river, just the two of us, man to man. It is a glorious autumn day. The colors from the trees reflect in the Thames.
 
He has big news. He has fallen in love with a younger French woman from the Îles de la Madeleine. He feels like a man again. He is thinking of leaving Mom. He wants. He hopes. He fears. He wishes. He starts too many sentences with “I.” It hits me. He has driven down to get my blessing. He wants assurances that I will still love him. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him. I am not his father and he is not my son. I am not a bloody priest. I do not hear confession or bestow absolution. I snap at him over dinner when he starts shaking and tell him to stop it. Before driving back to Montreal Dad asks me not to tell Linda. He has spoken to Ellayne but not Linda. He doesn’t want her to know, she looks up to him. Makes me promise.
 
Mom phones later to tell me that my talk with Dad must have been good, because he seems to be better. Neither Ellayne nor I ever tell Linda about it and neither of us ever find out how it ended with the girl from the Îles de la Madeleine. Ellayne confesses to me that whenever she sees a younger person of the right age on the metro that looks like Dad, she wonders if we have a half-sibling somewhere out there. I barely talk to Dad for a few years after that walk along the Thames.
he stays with his wife until her death
she never knowing or imagining it possible
that he could ever be unfaithful
he has always been attentive to her
and they are comfortable with each other’s foibles
one of which
is a fear of doctors
a failure to check on problems
Even after Dad and I are again at peace with one another, I dread seeing them for that first visit  to the house of my youth following my wife's leaving me for a mutual friend. Wounded, I expect Mom and Dad to attack my ex-wife, expect them to point out all her flaws. Though I would not want to, I know that after 16 years together I would feel obligated to defend her. But I underestimate them. They greet me cheerfully, just happy to see me. Dad hugs me, tells me he loves me and pours me a cup of tea.
once lucky, not twice
his wife’s cancer is back
throughout her body
and she is losing functions
 
he cooks does laundry keeps the house
carries her to the bathtub
washes her gently
cleans up after her
when bodily functions fail
for month after month
until in septic shock
his wife is taken to the hospital
where in a new setting
she has a stroke
and ends up on life support
he goes into a depression after her death
Linda’s daughter is waiting at the train station and drives me directly to the hospital. I am told that he is weak and in and out of consciousness, that in his lucid Moments he asks for me. But when I get there Dad is not conscious. He is located in a small room off some urgent care area, barely large enough for two people. My sisters wait in the hallway when I go in. He has lost much weight since I last saw him. Lying there he looks both small and distinguished. Dad is unshaven and his beard is Freudian in style. I kiss his cheek, his forehead and think he smiles. I bend over and whisper ‘I am here Dad, I love you.” I think he smiles again.
he hated Victor
the guy Linda married
a Russian Orthodox schoolmate of hers
with a thin beard
ascetic-looking
a religious painting
 
when accused that his hatred
is based on bigotry
he becomes angry
if he can’t stand Victor
it is because the asshole is a self-centered prick
a mean man who will  treat his little girl
badly
 
which turns out to be the case
Victor dumping his daughter
when she is 8 months pregnant
with a four-year-old son at home
leaving her to find both himself
and another wife
 
when his daughter goes into labor
Dad drives her to the hospital
and when the nurses assume
he is the father
he doesn’t correct them
stays in the delivery room
so she won’t be giving birth
with no one to support her

I sit there looking at Dad. He seems so small. Ellayne and Linda stay in the hallway, giving me a few minutes alone with him. An ill-named Dr. Graves enters. Dad’s breathing gets ragged. Graves tells me it won’t be long now. Dad gasps one last long exhale and he is gone. I look at Ellayne standing in the doorway and shake my head. People start crying. Ellaye cries out “we’re orphans.” The youngest of us well past 50, and she calls us orphans.
 
Travelling again. On the way to the cemetery, I share a limo with Linda and her son. Dad is in a coffin, somewhere in the front. Linda’s other child is coming in another car with her boyfriend, as is Ellayne, her husband and children, and my children. Dad was a second father to Michael and he is crying softly, stopping once to tell me that he only wished they were putting Victor his birth father in the ground, and not grandpa.
once travelling in Vermont
he asks to be directed to a good place to eat
and off we go to the Old Board
not told it is a fancy restaurant
or has a bandshell
men in formal suits and women in evening dresses
and we arrive in shorts and floppies
 
his wife wants to leave
so do the three kids
not him
he directs the family to a table
with a life message
“never forget
our money is as good as theirs”
when we turn to leave
after eating
a spotlight follows us out the door
 
he starts doing a cha-cha


Albert Katz has been a professor of Cognitive Psychology for over 40 years and is now on the cusp of retiring. In his undergraduate days, he had aspirations to be a poet, gave readings in coffeehouses and published some poems in long-defunct small literary journals. He found it increasingly harder to write poetry once he started graduate work, and through most of his academic career published extensively in scientific journals instead. As retirement started to loom, he found that his poetic voice began to reappear, after almost 50 years dormant. Over the last two years he has published  (or had poems accepted for forthcoming publication) in Ariel Chart, Ascent, Pangolin Review, Poetry Quarterly, and Soft Cartel, among others. “Four Births” is his first short story to be published.
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