me clothes better than those the county provided and books when I developed the urge to read. But he was never a strong influence in my life. I grew up alone.
As I grew stronger, he grew weaker. He lingered, semi-invalid, for thirteen years. I became the visitor, stopping by the drab room or park for a few minutes, wishing I felt more. My feeling was more pity than love. While I was in reform school he had another coronary and was placed in a home for the aged to wait for death. The carpenterâs union and social security paid for it, I guess. He was in this home the last time I saw him. It was while I escaped from reform school, prowling the streets with Joe Gambesi. The home was near where I now stood, a gabled Victorian building with large grounds. Tiny bungalows had been built in the back yard. A cleaning woman directed me to one of these. The interior was dark and gloomy, shades drawn to deny the sun and the flowers outdoors. A stench of human decay pervaded the bungalow. Half a dozen old men were in pajamas. Their faces were sagging, wrinkled flesh and stubbled beard. Their eyes all had a vacant glaze.
The visit was an agony. My father did not recognize me, and when I reminded him who I was it registered dimly. He began a whining harangue about the food, the other old men, and the people who ran the place. Someone had stolen the few dollars in change he had for cigarettes and he wanted some. Theyâd taken his watch, too, but he didnât seem to care about that. It was a big, gold pocket watch, the only valuable thing heâd ever owned, and heâd carried it for forty years. I gave him cigarettes and the few dollars I had. He begged me to take him away, reversing the role of half a dozen years before when Iâd begged him. I was helpless as he had been. I was fifteen years old, escaped from reform school, and had five dollars in my pocket. I was crying enraged tears of frustration when I left. My father had become a baby, helpless, mindless, and alone. At fifteen the concept of death was unreal, but I understood loneliness with vivid clarity. And in the brief episode I saw human destiny starkly illuminated. This was the human condition, far from the glory of books and histories. I came away enraged at the universal indifference.
It was the last visit, the last time I saw him. On the way out I met a nurse. Her eyes widened, she blurted that the police had been there looking for me. She started for the telephone and I started running.
Two years later I was back in reform school when the chaplain showed me a telegram. My father had died. The chaplain glanced at his wristwatch, told me that he had to leave in fifteen minutes, but I could sit in his office and cry for that long if I wished.
Occasionally, when I saw an old man in khakis, such as the one coming from the liquor store, these memories were stirred. But nobody will remember my father when I die. He might just as well have never lived for all the meaning it had. I donât even know where heâs buried.
Before returning to the furnished room, I telephoned Leroyâs sister. A babysitter answered. I left no message. Through the glass booth I could see the cityâs lights beginning to go on. To spend the night in my barren room was too much like a prison cell. I tried the pool hall number L&L Red had given me, planning to have him come for me. A Mexican girl answered. Red had left an hour before.
I thought of walking downtown to the hangouts of ex-convicts, but walking was impossible because of my blistered feet. I bought two frayed paperbacks at a secondhand bookstore, picked up a newspaper, a can of beer, and cigar at a liquor store, and went back to the room.
6
M ERELY looking for a job was agonizing, in several ways. The blistered feet made every step a limping torment. The heat wave, unrelenting and ferocious, sucked away strength and held down the polluted air so that my eyes watered constantly. Yet the worst part was