Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Read online

  "Same old song and dance"-that was how Jesse had once referred to marriage. This was one morning when Fiona had left the breakfast table in tears, and Ira had asked Jesse what was wrong. "You know how it is," Jesse had answered. "Same old song and dance as always." Then Ira (who had asked not out of empty curiosity but as a means of implying This matters, son; pay her some heed) had wondered what that "you know" signified. Was Jesse saying that Ira's marriage and his own had anything in common? Because if so, he was way out of line. They were two entirely different institutions. Ira's marriage was as steady as a tree; not even he could tell how wide and deep the roots went.

  Still, Jesse's phrase had stuck in his memory: same old song and dance. Same old arguments, same recriminations. The same jokes and affectionate passwords, yes, and abiding loyalty and gestures of support and consolations no one else knew how to offer; but also the same old resentments dragged up year after year, with nothing ever totally forgotten: the time Ira didn't act happy to hear Maggie was pregnant, the time Maggie failed to defend Ira in front of her mother, the time Ira refused to visit Maggie in the hospital, the time Maggie forgot to invite Ira's family to Christmas dinner.

  And the unvaryingness-ah, Lord; who could blame Jesse for charing against that? Probably the boy had been watching his parents sideways all the years of his childhood, swearing he would never put up with such a life: plugging along day after day, Ira heading to his shop every morning, Maggie to the nursing home. Probably those afternoons that Jesse had spent helping out at the shop had been a kind of object lesson. He must have recoiled from it-Ira sitting endlessly on his high wooden stool, whistling along with his easy-listening radio station as he measured a mat or sawed away at his miter box. Women came in asking him to frame their cross-stitched homilies and their amateur seascapes and their wedding photos (two serious people in profile gazing solely at each other). They brought in illustrations torn from magazines-a litter of puppies or a duckling in a basket. Like a tailor measuring a half-dressed client, Ira remained discreetly sightless, appearing to form no judgment about a picture of a sad-faced kitten tangled in a ball of yarn. "He wants a pastel-colored mat of some kind, wouldn't you say?" the women might ask. (They often used personal pronouns, as if the pictures were animate.) "Yes, ma'am," Ira would answer.

  "Maybe a pale blue that would pick up the blue of his ribbon." "Yes, we could do that." And through Jesse's eyes he would see himself all at once as a generic figure called The Shopkeeper: a drab and obsequious man of indeterminate age.

  Above the shop he could usually hear the creak, pause, creak of his father's rocking chair, and the hesitant footsteps of one of his sisters crossing the living room floor. Their voices, of course, weren't audible, and for this reason Ira had fallen into the habit of imagining that his family never spoke during the day-that they were keeping very still till Ira came. He was the backbone of their lives; he knew that. They depended on him utterly.

  In his childhood he had been extraneous-a kind of afterthought, half a generation younger than his sisters. He had been so much the baby that he'd called every family member "honey," because that was how all those grownups or almost-grownups addressed him and he'd assumed it was a universal term. "I need my shoes tied, honey," he would tell his father. He didn't have the usual baby's privileges, though; he was never the center of attention. If any of them could be said to occupy that po- sition it was his sister Dorrie-mentally handicapped, frail and jerky, bucktoothed, awkward-although even Dorrie had a neglected air and tended to sit by herself on the outskirts of a room. Their mother suffered from a progressive disease that killed her when Ira was fourteen, that left him forever afterward edgy and frightened in the presence of illness; and anyhow she had never shown much of a talent for mothering. She devoted herself instead to religion, to radio evangelists and inspirational pamphlets left by door-to-door missionaries. Her idea of a meal was saltines and tea, for all of them. She never got hungry like ordinary mortals or realized that others could be hungry, but simply took in sustenance when the clock reminded her. If they wanted real food it was up to their father, for Dorrie was not capable of anything complicated and Junie was subject to some kind of phobia that worsened over the years till she refused to leave the house for so much as a quart of milk. Their father had to see to that when he was finished down at the shop. He would trudge upstairs for the grocery list, trudge out again, return with a few tin cans, and putter around the kitchen with the girls. Even after Ira was old enough, his assistance was not required. He was the interloper, the one rude splash of color in a sepia photograph. His family gave him a wide berth while addressing him remotely and kindly. "You finish your homework, honey?" they would ask, and they asked this even in the summer and over the Christmas holidays.

  Then Ira graduated-had already paid his deposit at the University of Maryland, with dreams of going on to medical school-and his father suddenly abdicated. He just . . . imploded, was how Ira saw it. Declared he had a weak heart and could not continue. Sat down in his platform rocker and stayed there. Ira took over the business, which wasn't easy because he'd never played the smallest part in it up till then. All at once he was the one his family turned to. They relied on him for money and errands and advice, for transportation to the doctor and news of the outside world. It was, "Honey, is this dress out of style?" and, "Honey, can we afford a new rug?" In a way, Ira felt gratified, especially at the beginning, when this seemed to be just a temporary, summer-vacation state of affairs. He was no longer on the sidelines; he was central. He rooted through Dorrie's bureau drawers for the mate to her favorite red sock; he barbered Junie's graying hair; he dumped the month's receipts into his father's lap, all in the knowledge that he, Ira, was the only one they could turn to.

  But summer stretched into fall, and first the university granted him a semester's postponement and then a year's postponement, and then after a while the subject no longer came up.

  Well, face it, there were worse careers than cutting forty-five-degree angles in strips of gilded molding. And he did have Maggie, eventually-dropping into his lap like a wonderful gift out of nowhere. He did have two normal, healthy children. Maybe his life wasn't exactly what he had pictured when he was eighteen, but whose was? That was how things worked, most often.

  Although he knew that Jesse didn't see it that way.

  No compromises for Jesse Moran, no, sir. No modifications, no lowering of sights for Jesse. "I refuse to believe that I will die unknown," he had said to Ira once, and Ira, instead of smiling tolerantly as he should have, had felt slapped in the face.

  Unknown.

  Maggie said, "Ira, did you happen to notice a soft-drink machine inside the station?" He looked at her.

  "Ira?" , .

  He pulled himself together and said, "Why, yes, I think so." "With diet soft drinks?" "Urn . . ." "I'll go check," Maggie said. "Those pretzels made me thirsty. Mr. Otis? Want something to drink?" "Oh, no, I'm doing all right," Mr. Otis told her.

  She tripped off toward the building, her skirt swinging. Both men watched her go.

  "A fine, fine lady," Mr. Otis said.

  Ira let his eyes close briefly and rubbed the ache in his forehead.

  "A real angel of mercy," Mr. Otis said.

  In stores sometimes Maggie would bring her selections to a clerk and say, ' 'I suppose you expect me to pay for these," in the fake-tough tone that her brothers used when they were joking. Ira always worried she had overstepped, but the clerk would laugh and say something like: "Well, that thought had occurred to me." So the world was not as Ira had perceived it, evidently. It was more the way Maggie perceived it. She was the one who got along in it better, collecting strays who stuck to her like lint and falling into heart-to-heart talks with total strangers. This Mr. Otis, for instance: his face alight with enthusiasm, his eyes stretched into crepe-edged triangles. "She puts me in mind of the lady with the chimney," he was telling Ira. "I knew it was someone; just couldn't think who." "Chimney?" "White lady I did not know fr
om Adam," Mr. Otis said. "She was leaking round her chimney she say and she call me to come give a estimate. But I misstepped somehow and fell right off her roof while I was walking about. Only knocked the wind out as it happened, but Lordy, for a while there I thought I was a goner, laid there on the ground not able to catch my breath, and this lady she insist on driving me to the hospital. On the way, though, my breath come back to me and so I say, 'Mrs., let's not go after all, they'll only take my life savings to say I got nothing wrong with me,' so she say fine but then has to buy me a cup of coffee and some hash browns at McDonald's, which happen to lie next to a Toys R Us, so she axes would I mind if we run in afterwards and bought a little red wagon for her nephew whose birthday it was tomorrow? And I say no and in fact she buy two, one for my niece's son Elbert also, and next to that is this gardening place-" "Yes, that is Maggie, all right," Ira said.

  "Not a straight-line kind of person." "No indeedy," Ira said.

  That seemed to use up all their topics of conversation. They fell silent and focused on Maggie, who was returning with a soft-drink can held at arm's length. "Darn thing just bubbled up all over me," she called cheerfully. "Ira? Want a sip?" "No, thanks." "Mr. Otis?" "Oh, why, no, I don't believe I do, thanks anyhow." She settled between them and tipped her head back for a long, noisy swig.

  Ira started wishing for a game of solitaire. All this idleness was getting to him. Judging from the way those balloons were bobbing about, though, he guessed his cards might blow away, and so he tucked his hands in his armpits and slouched lower on the wall.

  They sold balloons like that at Harborplace, or next to it. Lone, grim men stood on street corners with trees of Mylar lozenges floating overhead. He remembered how entranced his sister Junie had been when she first saw them. Poor Junie: in a way more seriously handicapped than Dorrie, even-more limited, more imprisoned. Her fears confounded them all, because nothing very dreadful had ever befallen her in the outside world, at least not so far as anyone knew. In the beginning they tried to point that out. They said useless things like: "What's the worst that could happen?" and "/'// be with you." Then gradually they stopped. They gave up on her and let her stay where she was.

  Except for Maggie, that is. Maggie was too obstinate to give up. And after years of failed attempts, one day she conceived the notion that Junie might be persuaded to go out if she could go in costume. She bought Junie a bright-red wig and a skin-tight dress covered with poppies and a pair of spike-heeled patent-leather shoes with ankle straps. She plastered Junie's face with heavy makeup. To everyone's astonishment, it worked. Giggling in a terrified, unhappy way, Junie allowed Maggie and Ira to lead her to the front stoop. The next day, slightly farther. Then finally to the end of the block. Never without Ira, though. She wouldn't do it with just Maggie; Maggie was not a blood relation. (Ira's father, in fact, wouldn't even call Maggie by name but referred to her as "Madam." "Will Madam be coming too, Ira?"-a title that exactly reflected the mocking, skeptical attitude he had assumed toward her from the start.) "You see what's at work here," Maggie said of Junie. "When she's in costume it's not she who's going out; it's someone else. Her real self is safe at home." Evidently she was right. Clinging to Ira's arm with both hands, Junie walked to the pharmacy and requested a copy of Soap Opera Digest. She walked to the grocery store and placed an order for chicken livers in an imperious, brazen manner as if she were another kind of woman entirely-a flamboyant, maybe even trampish woman who didn't care what people thought of her. Then she collapsed into giggles again and asked Ira how she was doing. Well, Ira was pleased at her progress, of course, but after a while the whole thing got to be a nuisance. She wanted to venture this place and that, and always it was such a production-the preparations, the dress and the makeup, the assurances he was forced to offer. And those ridiculous heels hampered her so. She walked like someone navigating a freshly mopped floor. Really it would have been simpler if she'd gone on staying home, he reflected. But he was ashamed of himself for the thought.

  Then she got this urge to visit Harborplace. She had watched on TV when Harborplace first opened and she had somehow come to the conclusion that it was one of the wonders of the world. So naturally, after she'd gained some confidence, nothing would do but that she must see it in person. Only Ira didn't want to take her. To put it mildly, he was not a fan of Harborplace. He felt it was un-Baltimorean-in fact, a glorified shopping mall. And parking would be bound to cost an arm and a leg. Couldn't she settle for somewhere else? No, she couldn't, she said. Couldn't just Maggie take her, then? No, she needed Ira. He knew she needed him; how could he suggest otherwise? And then their father wanted to come too, and then Dome, who was so excited that she already had her "suitcase" (a Hutzler's coat box) packed for the occasion. Ira had to set his teeth and agree to it.

  They scheduled the trip for a Sunday-Ira's only day off. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a misty, lukewarm morning, with showers predicted for afternoon. Ira suggested a postponement but no one would hear of it, not even Maggie, who had become as fired up as the others. So he drove them all downtown, where by some miracle he found a parking spot on the street, and they got out and started walking. It was so foggy that buildings just a Jew yards away were invisible. When they reached the corner of Pratt and Light streets and looked across to Harborplace they couldn't even see the pavilions; they were merely dense patches of gray. The traffic signal, turning green, was the one little pinprick of color. And nobody else was in sight except for a single balloon man, who took shape eerily on the opposite comer as they approached.

  It was the balloons that snagged Junie^s attention. They seemed made of liquid metal; they were silver-toned and crushy, puckered around the edges like sofa cushions. Junie cried, "Oh!" She stepped up onto the curb, gaping all the while. "What are those?" she cried.

  "Balloons, of course," Ira said. But when he tried to lead her past, she craned back to look at them and so did Dorrie, who was hanging on his other arm.

  He could see what the problem was. TV had kept Junie informed of the world's important developments but not the trivial ones, like Mylar; so those were what stopped her in her tracks. It was perfectly understandable. At that moment, though, Ira just didn't feel like catering to her. He didn't want to be there at all, and so he rushed them forward and around the first pavilion. Junie's hand was like a claw on his arm. Dorrie, whose left leg had been partially paralyzed after her latest seizure, leaned on his other arm and hobbled grotesquely, her Hutzler's coat box slamming against her hip at every step. And behind them, Maggie murmured encouragement to his father, whose breathing was growing louder and more effortful.

  "But those are not any balloons have had experience of!" Junie said. "What material is that? What do they call it?" By then they had reached the promenade around the water's edge, and instead of answering, Ira gazed pointedly toward the view. "Isn't this what you were dying to see?" he reminded her.

  But the view was nothing but opaque white sheets and a fuzzy-edged U.S.S. Constellation riding on a cloud, and Harborplace was a hulking, silent concentration of vapors.

  Well, the whole trip ended in disaster, of course. Junie said everything had looked better on TV, and Ira's father said his heart was flapping in his chest, and then Dorrie somehow got her feelings hurt and started crying and had to be taken home before they'd set foot inside a pavilion. Ira couldn't remember now what had hurt her feelings, but what he did remember, so vividly that it darkened even this glaringly sunlit Texaco, was the sensation that had come over him as he stood there between his two sisters. He'd felt suffocated. The fog had made a tiny room surrounding them, an airless, steamy room such as those that house indoor swimming pools. It had muffled every sound but his family's close, oppressively familiar voices. It had wrapped them together, locked them in, while his sisters' hands dragged him down the way drowning victims drag down whoever tries to rescue them. And Ira had thought, Ah, God, I have been trapped with these people all my life and I am never going to be free. And he had known th
en what a failure he'd been, ever since the day he took over his father's business.

  Was it any wonder he was so sensitive to waste? He had given up the only serious dream he'd ever had. You can't get more wasteful than that.

  "Lamont!" Maggie said.

  She was looking toward a revolving yellow light over by the gas pumps-a tow truck, towing nothing. It stopped with a painful screeching sound and the engine died. A black man in a denim jacket swung out of the cab.

  "That's him, all right," Mr. Otis said, rising by inches from his seat.

  Lamont walked to the rear of the truck and examined something. He kicked a tire and then started toward the cab. He was not as young as Ira had expected-no mere boy but a solidly built, glowering man with plum-black skin and a heavy way of walking.

  "Well, hey there!" Mr. Otis called.

  Lamont halted and looked over at him. "Uncle Daniel?" he said.

  "How you been, son?" "What you .doing here?" Lamont asked, approaching.

  When he reached the wall, Maggie and Ira stood up, but Lament didn't glance in their direction. "Ain't you gone back to Aunt Duluth yet?" he asked Mr. Otis.

  "Lamont, I'm going to need that truck of yourn," Mr. Otis said.

  "What for?" "Believe my left front wheel is loose." "What? Where's it at?" "Out on Route One. This here fellow kindly give me a lift." Lamont briefly skimmed Ira with his eyes.