The House on Alexandrine

Chapter 14

GEORGE'S TRIP TO Toledo was a disaster. He hadn't seen his father for nine years, although he talked to him on the phone at Christmas and on his birthday to thank him for the ten dollars his stepmother had sent. For years George's mother had been trying to get money from her exhusband for child support. But despite his salary as an insurance executive, Bill Troshak gave as little as possible. Their divorce had been ugly, full of accusations and private detectives. Even so George continued to have faith in his father. The stories against him had come from his mother. Nothing had been heard from his father himself. As a result, George imagined a kindly man in Toledo who loved him. Louise thought the visit was a bad idea. She knew that George's father was a Mason and an officer in the American Legion. George's Afro, his t-shirts, his old clothes covered with embroidered patches: these, she felt, would not lead George's father to sing songs of welcome. She told George to dress discreetly and made him change his shirt before he left. His first choice had been a skyblue t-shirt with the words, "You bet your sweet bippy." George liked clothes that told a story. When he at last said goodbye, he had on fairly new jeans and a wool shirt with red and black checks. He looked like a lumberjack but in his wardrobe this was his most innocuous disguise. Bill Troshak lived in a split-level house in a suburb west of Toledo. George hitchthiked down. He hadn't called first for fear of being refused. He turned up unannounced and stood on the doorstep ready to be embraced. "He thought I came to ask for money. Christ, he didn't even recognize me at first. I almost had to show him my I.D." That was what George said later when Corbin was giving him free beers at the Turveydrop. 155 1 5 6 T H E H O U S E O N A L E X A N D R I N E "We go into his den. He tells me how busy he is, that he's got to go out soon. He tells me I should have called. There's a big picture of General MacArthur on the wall and lots of golf trophies. I sit down on the couch. He makes himself a drink but he doesn't offer me one. Then he asks me why I'm there. I said I just wanted to see him, get to know him. Then he tells me again that I should have called. He never sat down the whole time. I kept looking at him, trying to see if he was different from when I knew him before. But it's the same guy. He's older and has more gray hairs, but it's the same guy. All this time he's asking questions. 'Are you in school?' he says. I tell him I've dropped out for a while. 'Do you have a job?' he says. I tell him I'm working part time at the Wayne bookstore. He asks what my major is and I say I can't make up my mind. He asks what I want to do, what I want to be, and I tell him I haven't decided, that I was thinking of living on a commune. "Every time I gave an answer, I saw him getting farther away. Man, if I'd gone down there in a threepiece suit and said I wanted to be a lawyer, that might have been all right. What could I tell him? I felt like saying that at least I'd never been arrested. "Then he says he's got to go, but he'll give me a lift somewhere, drop me off, like in a hole. I say that's okay, I like walking. Even that's a wrong answer. Maybe he doesn't want the neighbors to see me. "So he again offers the ride, but I'm not taking any favors. Shit, I wanted that man to put his arms around me. So he splits. He gets into a big Buick and drives away. I walk back to the main road, about ten blocks. He didn't say anything about seeing him again or calling or anything. I walked back through that suburb. It's a...