Lieberman's Day Read Free Page B

sandwich—radish, sliced chicken, and cholesterol-free, fat-free Kraft salad dressing on white bread—carefully on the folded paper towel on his knees. This had been his favorite comfort sandwich as a kid on the West Side. Now, at best, it captured only a hint of the satisfaction at that first bite.
    The only light in the living room came from the hall just outside Abe and Bess’s bedroom. Bess, when she caught him, insisted that Abe turn on a light in the living room when he was watching television.
    It did Lieberman little good to point out to his wife that one of the few working parts of his frail sixty-two-year-old anatomy that seemed to be working at a reasonable level, well above rapid deterioration, were his eyes. Granted, Abe wore glasses, but only to read. Besides, there was something comforting about watching television in the dark with a white-bread sandwich on his lap, just as he had done back when he came home from night school and watched Rocky King, Detective, with Roscoe Karnes, who used to make up his own lines, or Jim Moran’s Courtesy Motors variety show in his parents’ living room in the apartment on Troy Street.
    Abe balanced the sandwich in his hand as he rose and padded quietly to the television, turned it on with the volume low, and found the American Movie Channel. His thin, underweight, bloodhound face smiled in the white glow of Mildred Pierce. It was the scene in which Joan Crawford bakes a cake for an ungrateful Ann Blyth.
    Abe’s blue cotton robe billowed against his narrow body as he went barefoot to the armchair and sat back down again. Abe Lieberman standing, or in any position of repose, was not an impressive figure. Slightly shy of 145 pounds and slowly shrinking from five seven, his sad and baggy eyes, little white mustache, and curly gray hair made him look a good five years older than he was.
    Early-early-morning television viewing was one of Abe’s responses to chronic insomnia. New York Times crossword puzzle books done in the bathtub were another, and finally, so were novels. He had already done a crossword, as always in ink, making two or three mistakes and growing impatient before he could finish. He had read a chapter from a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, Bess’s favorite author. Sleep, or the hint of it, had not come, so Abe had made himself the sandwich, poured himself a large glass of decaffeinated iced coffee from the thermos in the refrigerator, and headed for the living room, hoping that a Joan Crawford movie or anything with John Garfield would be on.
    Prayers were sometimes answered.
    Things had gotten better for Abe in the last month since it had become clear that his daughter, Lisa, and his grandchildren, Barry and Melisa, were not extended weekend guests but semipermanent inhabitants of the house on Birchwood Avenue. The realization had resulted in Lisa’s old room upstairs being reshuffled with beds for Barry and Melisa, and the small guest room across from it, which had been used by Bess and Abe for storage, being converted into a bedroom for Lisa.
    This acceptance of long-term occupation had liberated the living room, where Barry and Melisa had camped for more than a month while Lisa and her husband, Todd, did battle over life, love, commitment, responsibility, freedom, and custody of the 1989 Chevy, the house in Evanston, several hundred books that neither of them really cared about, and the crucial question of who would pay the outstanding bills for Barry’s braces.
    Lisa and Todd each lived under the illusion that Abe was on their side. The illusion was fostered by the fact that he was a good listener. No, he was a great listener. He had been a cop for more than thirty-five years and had learned two lessons: First, no one wants advice; second, if you shut up and listen, eventually anyone will confess to something. He had also learned that it was pointless to try to pass these valuable truths on to others.
    Son-in-law Todd