Ark (3 page)

Forty minutes later, Ben and Eliza were sitting at the kitchen counter eating Melba toast and cottage cheese and yesterday's roast chicken. Eliza was talking about the money. She looked well. Her face had color and her dark eyes were vibrant. The subject seemed to be giving her added strength. She said the bills would be stowed in the safe in their closet. Jerome was the only one who knew of the money, and the assistant should be warned not to speak about it with anyone. As far as her husband's access to it, he would have to be put on an allowance. If it sounded unreasonable to him, he should remember that they were on a tight budget and that he was too much of a spendthrift to be given free rein. She would start him off at two hundred dollars a day. It seemed fair. Did he agree or disagree? Why wasn't he answering her?

“Ben, are you listening to me?”

Ben rose from the stool. At first he seemed lost, confused even. Then his forefinger on the left hand came to sit beneath his nose and the other hand fell on his hip and his eyes shut. From the back of his throat came a peculiar bearish noise. His legs were long, his spine arched. It had occurred to him that the chicken carcass he'd thrown in the garbage five minutes before had another use, and he went to retrieve it from the can beneath the sink.

“What are you doing?” his wife asked him.

Ben told her to mind her business.

She said, “I was talking to you.”

“Well, it can wait.”

“Wait for what?”

Ben didn't answer. He filled a pot with water and placed it on the stovetop. Once the water was boiling, he dropped the chicken carcass, as well as the bones that had been on his plate, into the pot. For just over eight minutes, he stared into the pot, thinking. Then he drained the water, cleaned the remaining meat off the bones, and brought them into the studio. He found a shallow wood box one foot wide by one foot long, took some short nails and a hammer from a drawer, put everything on his desk, and began arranging the bones inside the box. The legs went along the edges, the breastbone was placed centrally, the wings stuck out from beneath the breastbone. He hammered the nails through the bones into the wood. After which he went into a back closet and found a bag of sand, and poured it over the bones until they were halfway submerged. Then he had Jerome cut a piece of glass, which the artist glued to the box, closing in the bones and sand.

He handed his assistant the finished piece and said, “We'll take it to the warehouse next week.”

“Okay, Ark.”

Overwhelmed by a powerful need for sleep, Ben went to sit in his office at the back of the loft, and within seconds he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and head dropped between his shoulders, arms hanging at his sides. Every so often the sound of his breath was interrupted by a violent cough, followed by a pitiful whimper, and then a sonorous in- and exhalation. After ten minutes, Ben woke. But what had his wife been saying just moments before? He would be put on an allowance? Ben scratched behind his ear and a scab came off, which he rolled between his fingertips. Two hundred a day, was it? This sum wasn't nearly enough. His art supplies alone were seven to eight thousand a month. His junk buying and dollar-store expenditures were another two thousand. Was she including Jerome in this total? For years Eliza had been trying to get Ben to let go of his assistant. The artist wouldn't discuss it. Besides, whether or not she understood, Jerome did so much more for the Arkins than just help Ben with his art. He was their chauffeur, plumber, house painter, their muscle, their pool guy and maid. If Ben sent Jerome away, who would take on all of those responsibilities? Not Ben. Would Eliza really want her husband doing the driving? He hadn't operated a vehicle in New York City for over five years. He would kill them. Moreover, their home would fall into disrepair. And they'd break their backs carrying their bags from the trunk of the car into the loft. No, they couldn't fire Jerome. Their need for him was too great. If anything, perhaps Violet could be sent away, and Jerome could be both his assistant and Eliza's nurse. Violet was the most costly of their expenses. Why, she worked twenty-four hours a day, every day, and was paid twelve dollars an hour. That added up to more than a hundred thousand a year. As Ben conceived of it, Jerome could be with him during the mornings, pausing on occasion to look in on Eliza, and then spend the afternoons through the evenings attending to his wife. This would equal huge savings.

Ben went to discuss the matter with his wife. In the darkened living room, between wall-to-wall art, he could hear Eliza and Violet talking in the kitchen. His wife was complaining about his shopping. Wasn't she? He listened closely. Yes, she said it was obscene. And had Violet ever met a person who spent so much money on nothing? And was he not trying to put them in the poorhouse? True or false?

“And don't say false, Violet.”

Without hearing her answer, Ben ran his tongue across his front teeth, deciding that the nurse would be dismissed. Not only was she too expensive, she was putting bad ideas in his wife's head. He would tell Eliza about it tonight. If she was so intent on saving money, then she wouldn't argue against it.

The artist brought his hands through his hair, clearing his throat. There was the sound of the ringing telephone. Jerome answered the phone, and was now shouting from the other room:

“Hey, Ark! It's your daughter.”

“What?” Ben screamed.

“Sondra's on the phone,” the assistant replied.

“Sondra?”

“Yes. Sondra!”

“Well, hang up!”

“She says she has to talk to you!”

“So what?”

“She says it's important!”

“And?”

“And just pick up the phone, Ark.”

“Jesus!” Ben snatched the portable off the stand. Meandering toward the studio at the front of the loft, Ben began yelling at his eldest daughter, “I'm working, Sondra! What do you want?”

“Daddy. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm very, very sorry,” she was saying.

“What is it?”

“You have to help me.”

“What? What? Out with it!”

“Daddy, it's Doris.”

“Mm.”

“Daddy, she's ruining the business I built. I spent thirty-five years killing myself at
Shout!
, running that record label, and here she comes along and starts up her
Doris Arkin Shouts!
, stealing away my business, and there's no way I can stand by and let that happen.”

Rain pelted the studio windows. Ben pressed the left side of his face against the cool, wet glass. But what was this about? Did Sondra mean what she was saying? Ben wasn't convinced that Sondra had done anything for the record label. Hard work was beneath her. Besides,
he
had built the company, bankrolling the first twenty of its thirty-five-year run. Giving eighty thousand in 1972 to start the business, a total that had included a salary for his son and two daughters. In 1973,
Shout!
had cost Ben another eighty thousand. In '74, sixty thousand. In '75, after finding some critical success with one of its artists and looking to increase their publicity and marketing operations, a hundred and fifty thousand. And then, for years after, while the children would swear to their father that they had at long last found the one who had not only written a record for the ages but had big earning potential, Ben had continued to hand over more money. He'd put at least two million into
Shout!
Although back in the '70s and early '80s, before
Shout!
had become profitable, Ben had found it well worth the price. Just to keep the kids busy. Employed. On a path. To give shape to their lives. For that he'd been willing to pay dearly. Who knew where they would have been or what they would have been doing otherwise, perhaps jobless, and coming by his home every day to chat. No, the alternative would have been much more costly to him.

Ben said to his daughter, “Let's talk facts. Your sister, Doris, is at work on her new label. She's a tiger, and you should be proud to call her a relation. Your brother, Oliver, is living with his new wife in Los Angeles doing God knows what. And
you
, what are you doing? Bitterly tending to your garden in Scarsdale, bored to tears and looking for a fight, I take it?”

From the kitchen, Eliza had gotten on the phone. She said, “Sondra, you're over sixty-two now. You have to start behaving like an adult.”

“Mommy, you would never say that to Doris, and she acts like a little child.”

“You should go on vacation, travel the world,” Eliza said. She was making an effort to go easy on her daughter. The artist's wife couldn't tolerate complaint. She imagined her own great strength was for knowing a real problem when she saw one, and she expected as much from her children. She decided Oliver and Doris had some talent for it, but that Sondra had always possessed a deficiency. Honestly, how many times did a mother have to say “stop exaggerating” or “just ignore it” before it got through her kid's head? Eliza wondered how much a parent could really do for a child, anyway. It was not her life. Sondra had to learn for herself how to be. Taking a stool beneath her and relieving her legs from the effort put forth in standing, she said, “Darling, you should know you're embarrassing yourself.”

“Mother.”

“And we support Doris in her new label.”

“Well, you've never opposed her.”

“Why should we?
Shout!
has been fading for years. Doris came to us and said that she'd like to move on and did we believe in her and would we lend her money to start a new business.”

“Lend her money?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean!”

“It means we gave her the money to start her company. Two hundred thousand dollars.”

“You gave her two hundred thousand dollars? Are you joking? That isn't right, Mommy.”

“Why not?”

“Because it isn't!”

“Bring it up with your head-doctor, Sondra.”

“Oh, Mother, please!”

Pacing beneath a weeping willow in her front yard, Sondra was telling herself that as life pertained to her mother and father she was ready to complete the journey of disconnection she'd set out on long ago as a child. The memory of her father pulling over on the Long Island Expressway and ordering his three misbehaving children from the car came to mind. Before speeding off and leaving them to suffer beneath a July sun, Ben had said, “It was nice knowing you kids. Now scram!” At the next exit he'd circled back around. But the time it had taken for that to happen had been, unlike for her brother and sister, some of the happiest minutes of Sondra's life. She'd looked at Oliver and Doris, the two of them crying out for their mother and father, and thought,
We're free now. I'll raise you and do it the right way. The three of us can have a great life together. We don't need them
. Though she'd been a mere twelve years old, and the idea of bringing up her siblings had been farfetched, in returning to the memory, as often happened, a part of her always re-experienced the disappointment of her father and mother swinging back to get them.

“Well,” Sondra was saying, “you have to help me stop Doris. You own thirty percent of
Shout!
and I need you to back me. If you say no, well, then…then I'm going to have to view it as an aggressive strike against me. And I'll have to sue you.”

“You'll sue me?” Ben said.

“What are you talking about, Sondra?” her mother demanded.

“I'm sorry. I have to protect myself. Business was once your life, Daddy, and you were very successful. This is business. You understand. I know you do. I mean, what would you do if you were me? I have a right to save my company.”

Ben, offering the last words he'd ever speak to his daughter, told her, in a whisper, “Don't call this number again.”

“Sondra, you should think very hard and long about whatever this nonsense is,” Eliza said.

“I have!”

“Well, maybe you want to keep thinking.”

And then Ben screamed, “Eliza, hang up the fucking phone. Now!”

II. THANKS FOR LUNCH

 

Oliver Arkin was calling his daughter, Rebecca. The sky was so clear that Catalina was visible in the distance. But Oliver's eyes were closed. With his free hand, he reached up to the branches of an avocado tree to pluck the first ingredient for his homemade guacamole. His wife, Sheila, raved about his guacamole. And after her heart attack, he'd made it his job to stay on top of her diet. Good cholesterol, bad cholesterol—Oliver had made extensive lists. Now that he'd retired from the record industry, he had time for this sort of thing. Growing cilantro, too. He'd given that Mexican guy who did yardwork across the road seven bucks, and the lifelong New Yorker had been taught how to plant anything in soil. Turned out, Oliver had a passion for gardening. And it wasn't even that hard. After moving to Los Angeles and leaving his sisters to run the label, it had been important to him to find new interests. His wife owned two boutiques. As much as possible, Oliver resisted that work. Oliver Arkin did not sell retail. He'd started one of the most important record labels of the late '70s.
The Village Voice
had once put him on a list of the one hundred and one most influential New Yorkers. Back then, Oliver had known people and
people
had known him. Oh, discovering new talent. Had there been anything better? When it hit you in the gut? When it could not be denied? What a time he'd had, out every night, going, going, going. Why sleep? He'd had so much energy then.

And now?

Beyond guacamole, he had other new hobbies. There were wonderful seashells down on the beach. He imagined his collection was as good as any. He had discovered a mirror in a dumpster behind a Chevron station the other day, brought it home, and had been gluing seashells to the mirror's wooden frame. He would hang the finished work with twine from the avocado tree and this way, if he were seated at the picnic table and facing east, he would still be able to see the ocean in the mirror's reflection. Sure, Oliver dug the fresh air, the migrating birds, whales, and humans. Go West! Of course, he would never get a driver's license. But California suited him just fine. The thing was, at sixty years old, he had a new respect for slowing down. What had he been in such a rush about all his life anyway, never able to stop for a minute, always thinking about the next? What of now? He had been learning throughout his time in L.A. to focus on the second at hand, to quit running away from the present as if it were some contagious, life-threatening disease. He had been meditating daily. It was difficult, this cross-legged pose with the palms up on knees, the quieting of the mind and remaining still. The letting go. He had come to realize that his best friend had, in fact, been his worst enemy—namely, his neurotic mind—and that it was very hard to say goodbye to it. You had to want it, first and foremost, and not in any casual way. However, Oliver was deeply attracted to mania. It wasn't just glamorous, but delicious, too.