The Axeman's Jazz

He was a doctor. My father’s a doctor, we’re all doctors. So he said he was going to get well and I was happy again.” He contorted his face, squeezing his eyes shut. A tear or two escaped despite his best efforts. The words seemed squeezed out too: “And that was the day he died.”
    Sonny opened his eyes. “Thank you.”
    Skip felt as if someone had been messing in her chest with a Roto-Rooter. She looked at Missy, sitting across the room from Sonny, not next to him as usual. Her body was shaking; she was holding a tissue to her mouth. Steve, next to her, was almost pale, looked as if he wanted to flee and probably did
. Take that
, she thought.
Nobody asked you to come.
    A couple of people talked whom Skip didn’t know—she noticed Abasolo and O’Rourke perking up—and then Abe did.
    “I hardly knew my father,” he said, looking down at his bare lap—no teddy bear for Abe. “He thought the way to show his … affection was to work sixteen hours a day so we could have a pool and a color TV set before anyone else in town did.”
    Points for sincerity, thought Skip. You almost brought yourself to say the I word.
    “We were reform Jews,” he continued. “Reform Jews worship the TV set.”
    A little on the rehearsed side.
    “It was a bad feeling when I really got that; when I understood that for my parents nothing was important except the things they could get. And I was just one of their things. Another possession to be shown off as part of their success. So I thought I had to do what they wanted to make them look good. Make all A’s, get into Harvard, that kind of stuff.”
    Bet you didn’t get into Harvard, but you’re hoping everyone’ll think you did.
    “I didn’t know what I was doing, but in a way I turned out just like them. I married a woman I don’t think I ever really … uh … had any affection for. I guess I thought of her the way my parents thought of me—as just another possession.”
    This sounds real. Do my ears deceive me?
    “And I guess I got what I deserved. Betrayal breeds betrayal.” He paused for a long time. “She’s a bitch.”
    A quickly stifled gasp went round the room.
    “I guess I’m upset tonight because she called and tried to keep me from coming. She had the kids and she made me take them. You know why? Because she had a date. She went back on our agreement because she had a date. So I had to take the kids and get a baby-sitter just so she could go out on her damn date. And that was after she made me move to this burg in the first place. She uses the kids as a bludgeon.” He paused again, building tension. “Well, I picked her. I suppose it’s no more than I deserve.”
    You’re not kidding.
    “Thanks. I guess I’m a little angry tonight.”
    Backwards, Abe
. Skip had noticed that one of the conventions of these meetings was that often, before people started to share, they’d say how they were feeling. She liked it. It was honest and it prepared you—if they were sad or angry or something else hard to deal with, you were ready. Abe might not have understood how he felt at first, had probably meant to grab group sympathy on the coattails of the others, to use it for whatever advantage he could (possibly getting laid or maybe setting up a murder victim), but he had talked it through, however unwittingly, and at least figured out how he did feel. She gave him credit for that. A lot of people didn’t know.
    I wonder if that’s one of the reasons people do this.
    Nah. Not Abe. He’d never do anything without an ulterior motive.
    Missy was speaking now, distractedly. Her eyes kept darting to Sonny and her voice kept failing her, kept coming out whispery and unwilling, but she seemed bent on getting something out.
    “I’m having the kind of night I’ve had all my life. I came here determined to talk about something I need to talk about and I find myself so wrapped up in someone else’s problems I can hardly remember what it is. And it’s real important to me. I really need to say this, out front, in this group, but really what I want to do is keep my mouth shut so maybe we’ll get out of here early and I can start comforting the person I’m worried about.
    “And it’s me I should be worried about. Me I should have my attention on. But I think if I put my attention on somebody else, then maybe we’ll get closer and closer and I’ll find myself that way. I’ll be reflected in the golden light of his love and that’s how I’ll know I exist