Three Birthdays, by Wallace Caminsky

Excerpted from All Fathers Are Giants by Wallace Caminsky, available directly from the Publisher, or from Amazon, or at a bookstore near you.

Three Birthdays

My father, Walter Petrovsky, was a dark, fierce-eyed Russian who didn’t believe in God.

My mother, Anna Petrovsky, was small and gentle. A Polish-Catholic, she believed in God and prayed to Him often. Every Saturday night, lying next to her fierce husband, she would pray that my father would take her to church the next morning. Sometimes my father would snore loudly and pretend to be asleep. Or, if some anger was burning inside him that night, he would jump to his feet, roaring awful Russian oaths, his arms waving wildly until the rage was spent. Then he would lie down to sleep and let my mother go on with her prayers.

When Sunday morning came, she would put on her black velvet hat with the small rip in the veil, hang her big handbag over her arm and pause at the front door, her gentle eyes hoping that maybe this would be the day.

But Pop would be reading the editorial page of the Sunday newspapers, snorting and sneering at the stupidities he found there. Brusquely, from behind the paper, he would say: “Do not stand there Anna! Go! Your prayers did not work again!”

Sometimes he would put down his paper and look at her when he said it. Then a gentleness would come into his fierce eyes and his angry voice would grow soft. He did, after all, love my mother dearly, and wanted to be tender with her, but there was a principle involved, and when there was a principle, you had to be fierce. (Women never understood this in their men, he later explained to me; they chose to call it stubbornness or pig-headedness or other things that weren’t nearly so nice).

But my mother loved her husband as well, and so whether he was gentle or not, she would sigh sadly, and leave him to his paper and his principles. There was always some sort of principle, it seemed. Oddly, though, his principles would change, or maybe just bend a little, with the birth of each new son. In the end, there were three of us.

Joseph:

My brother Joe was the first. I was ten years old when he left home, but I remember that he looked a lot like Pop. He was quiet and gentle, and he wanted to be a lawyer. He died on a forgotten island in the South Pacific.

When Joe was born, my parents were living with her father in a small town near the Baldwin Locomotive Works in eastern Pennsylvania. The old man owned a small grocery store near the railroad tracks. My father was supposed to be working at the store, but rarely did so because of his political activities. He was an active member of the Socialist Party, and on the night Joe was born, Pop was busy reciting some heroic Russian poetry to a party gathering. It was a matter of principle again. My mother, in the meanwhile, was busy delivering her son with the help of the woman next door—a fat, strong Polish woman who, as an added service, always brought a jar of home-distilled booze for the waiting males. In the days of Prohibition, she was the most popular mid-wife in town.

If not for the police, my grandfather would probably have polished off the jar all by himself. As it was, the town’s constabulary raided the Socialist Party Hall just as my father’s fervent, impassioned reading was bringing tears to everyone’s eyes. This led to a mad scramble for the exits, but since most people were having trouble seeing through their tears, they kept bumping into one another and falling over the wooden chairs, tripping themselves and the police until everything was a confused, cursing tangle on the floor. In all the confusion, my father was actually able to finish reading his poetry—sustaining yet another principle—before making his escape. He ran all the way home, expecting a night stick on the back on his head at any moment.

Stumbling through the store to the living quarters at the back he collapsed, panting, at the kitchen table. His father-in-law, sitting in the chair across the table from him, was glaring red-eyed over the half-filled jar of booze. The old man filled his lungs to speak, forcefully and long, but just as he opened his mouth a freight train came rumbling by. The house shook, the half-filled jar of booze sploshed around, and the old man’s torrent of anger at his son-in-law was buried in all the noise. The son-in-law was about to reply in kind (for he had no doubt about what he would have heard...if he could have heard; and he did, after all, have his principles to defend), when the train was suddenly gone, clattering into the darkness, and in the quiet they heard the baby crying.

Maybe it was then, or maybe it was later when he went into the bedroom and saw his young wife lying in her bed in her father’s house, nursing their first-born son, that Walter Petrovsky stopped being a socialist. He decided that he didn’t want to change the world anymore; he just wanted to find a place in it.

Stanley:

I was the second son. Joe was twelve when I arrived; my mother was thirty-five, and my father was thirty-eight.

The family was now settled in Hamtramck, an enclave surrounded by the big city of Detroit and coming back to life after the bleakest years of the Depression. Factory whistles were blowing again and the men were starting back to work.

It was about this time that my mother began her conversations with God. As a matter of fact, she half-believed that the two of them had come to an agreement about ending the Depression. She was a little puzzled about why He couldn’t do anything about her husband’s church attendance, but at least she didn’t have to go to church alone anymore.

Every Sunday, when the bells sounded from St. Florian’s, Joe would escort his mother to the church a couple of blocks away. And a couple times a week—to show that he wasn’t taking sides—when the thump of the plants had stopped for a shift change and the factory whistles signaled that it was time, he’d walk down the street in the opposite direction to meet Pop striding home from work, and carry his lunch pail home for him.

My father was working steady now and he contemplated the future with high hopes. He decreed that his next-born child would have the advantages of pre-natal doctor’s care and a hospital delivery.

Since I was the next-born child, this was all fine with me. It also added considerably to my status later on, since our neighborhood boasted of very few hospital babies. But for my mother it was a ghastly experience, and one that left her a shaken woman.

She was appalled at how thorough a doctor’s examination could be.

“And they looked like such nice, young boys,” she would say, shaking her head sadly at the thought of what education could do to a person’s morals. Partly because of the doctors, she decided that she would never become pregnant again.

But probably the biggest reason for her new-found interest in family planning was that she just thought it unseemly for a woman over thirty-five to be with child. In her old-country village, people of that age were considered old, and treated with the respect due one of the elders. She concluded that it simply wouldn’t look right for her to be pregnant anymore. Though she knew the church might bless the act that caused it, the fact of pregnancy was growing evidence of funny business afoot, and she didn’t want people to know that something like that was still going on in her house. But she had problems explaining the nuances of the Church’s thinking on the subject to her husband.

“Rhythm!?” he roared. “Rhythm is for the orchestra!” And for a long time after my arrival, my father and his principles were consigned to living a monk-like existence. Maybe that’s why he could always terrify me with his rages. Instinctively, like any good Catholic boy, I suspect I always felt guilty.

Ladislaus:

Laddy was our family’s third son. It was 1939; I was seven years old when he was born. And my mother still hadn’t changed her mind about doctors.

Laddy started making his presence known on the last day of August. It had been a hot day, but also a wistful day, a sad kind of summer’s-almost-over day, one that made little boys complain that Labor Day was coming too early this year, and left their fathers to wonder how many more good years they had left, themselves.

A fresh breeze came with the twilight, promising a cool night. But most of the narrow, crowded houses were still stuffy and warm, so the people—one by one—left their dinner tables to relax on the back steps. The women, shapeless and bulky in their big aprons, stood on the porches, wiping thick hands in their dish towels; the men sat on the steps, a garden hose in hand, religiously wetting down the gently tended green of their tiny backyards. One or two radios were on. There was some trouble about Danzig, it seemed, and people thought there might be news.

Mostly it was quiet. The old country people whispered in their own special language, their round and early Polish sound rising like sad and gentle murmurs. The murmurs all stopped whenever the music on the radio came to an end, but resumed when everyone realized it was just a commercial.

The breeze that evening came from the darker part of the sky. It soothed the trees that crowded into corners between fence and garage, shading the trash cans and sending their roots deep under the alleys.

I was sitting next to my brother Joe on the back steps, listening to the rustling leaves. It made me think of the smoke that hurt when it touched the eyes, and of fires that made the alley bright, flickering along the whole block. And that made me think of our drives out to the country, where Pop bought bushels of green tomatoes and red tomatoes and hot peppers and cucumbers and apples. For nights afterwards, the house would be filled with the smell of cooking and canning.

“Will we go to the farm soon, Joe?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

We hadn’t done much of anything through the summer. There had been one trip to Belle Isle, and we’d had to come back early then because my mother had gotten sick. And we hadn’t gone to see a single Tiger’s ball game. Joe was working at the Dodge Plant through the summer, earning money towards his tuition at college, where he was a sophomore, and for some reason my father didn’t seem interested in baseball anymore.

“Is Ma sick, Joe?”

“No, Why?”

“Pa’s always talking about doctors. Why is he always talking about doctors?”

Joe looked at me for a while and then hugged me around the shoulders.

“Ma’s going to have a baby. Pa wants a doctor to make sure she’s all right.”

“And the hospital?”

“This baby is going to be special like you.”

We sat quietly for a long time, not moving. The whispered talk of the neighbors seemed reverent and hushed, like talk in a hospital, or funeral home, or bank.

“Will it be soon, Joe?”

“Pretty soon, I guess.”

A radio said something about the Prime Minister of England sending a message to Hitler. During the announcement, everything seemed very still. After it was over, it seemed like the whole city was sighing.

“Will there be a war, Joe?”

Joe was about to answer, when we heard loud voices from the house. We stood up and, through the kitchen door, we saw my mother run into the bathroom and slam the door shut. Then Pop started pounding on the door and roaring her name.

“Pa, what’s the matter?” Joe called

Pop burst through the door and stood on the porch, staring wide-eyed and breathing rapidly.

“It’s her time!” he yelled. “It’s her time and she won’t go!”

“What do you mean, Pa?”

For a long moment, he could only manage some half-strangled Russian sounds, and then he blurted out: “By herself, she says! By herself!”

I started blubbering, and then I started to wail. My father slapped his hand against his forehead and rolled his eyes up towards the dark sky.

“We got ourselves enough trouble, little Stanley,” he shouted, “without your singing! Go next door and get Mrs. Sielenski. And Joe, you go get the doctor.”

I ran next door. Mrs. Sielenski had heard and was already tying on her babushka when I knocked. She was very round and her fingers were like little sausages. “Oy-oy-oy,” she whispered as she hurried her hard-to-move body.

The bathroom was next to the kitchen. When I got back with our round and worried neighbor, my father was at the locked door, pleading with his wife.

“Anna,” he said gently, “Please don’t be foolish. Come out so someone can help you.”

He was so gentle and soft in his tone that it frightened me, and I started to wail again. I thought my mother was going to die. Pop glared at me and rolled his eyes up again.

“Anna!” he shouted; and then, remembering, he softened his voice. “Anna, please be a good girl. Mrs. Sielenski is here to help you.”

Mrs. Sielenski’s sausage-shaped fingers fretted along the corner of her apron.

“Oy-oy-oy!” she sing-songed over and over. “Oy-oy-oy!”

My father raised his arms and slapped them to his sides. Then he glowered at the frazzled neighbor lady.

“‘Oy-oy-oy,’ I can do myself,” he roared. “That’s not why I want you.”

“Oy-oy-oy!”

I wailed louder. Pop was disgusted with both of us and turned back to the door.

“Please, Anna.”

My mother’s strained voice came through the door.

“It is too late for that now, Walter. You’ll just have to wait.”

A police siren sounded. It started on the other side of town, came up Joseph Campau and kept coming closer and closer, swelling bigger and bigger, filling the street, and finally slowing down and dying in front of the house. The front door was thrown open, and it sounded like a crowd was stomping through the house, heading towards the kitchen. It was Joe with a doctor and two policemen. My father grabbed the doctor.

“Help, Anna,” he said. “She’s having a baby.”

“Of course,” the doctor said crisply. “That’s what I’m here for. Where is she?” Pop indicated the bathroom door with a nod of his head.

“Well, ask her to come out, please, so we can get on with it.”

Pop’s eyes bugged out, his neck corded up, and two gigantic veins popped out on his forehead. “What the hell you think I’m trying to do!” he bellowed.

“Shall we break down the door, doc?” one of the policemen asked.

“You can’t do that, Basil,” the other one protested. “You’ll scar the kid for life!”

“You are the doctor,” Pop yelled. “You tell us what to do.”

“Oy-oy-oy!” said Mrs. Sielenski.

The doctor thought that there might be too many people in the house and asked everyone but Mrs. Sielenski and Pop to leave. Joe took me out on the front porch and we sat down on the porch swing. The two policemen chased away the small crowd that had gathered around the squad car, and then they sat on the steps and lit cigarettes.

“What time you got?” Basil the policeman asked Joe.

Joe looked at his wrist watch.

“Eleven-thirty.”

“Hope this don’t take too long. We get off at midnight.”

Joe rocked the swing lightly and tried to settle me down. It took a long time, but he finally did. “Ma is going to be fine,” he said. “You’ll see.”

“I was scared.”

“Sure you were. So was Pa. So was I. But the doctor’s here now. He’ll make sure nothing bad happens.”

One by one, the lights in the houses down the block had gone out, but no one was sleeping. All the radios were still on.

“Did you hear the news?” one of the policemen asked Joe.

“No.”

“The Germans have their soldiers all along the border. They could move any time now. Unless somebody chickens out, it looks like there’s going to be a war.”

We waited. The swing squeaked and stopped, squeaked and stopped. Far away, the big Stamping Plant thumped, pumping like a gigantic heart.

I got sleepy. My eyes grew heavy and I felt very tired. I must have dozed because I didn’t hear my father come out on the porch, and only half-heard him when he sat down on the swing.

“It’s all right. Mama’s all right, that crazy woman. You got a brother. Oy, that crazy woman of mine.”

My father picked me up and carried me into the house.

“Look, Stanley—look!”

With great effort, I opened my eyes and looked. There was Mrs.. Sielenski, a fat, round smile straining against the babushka, cradling a bundle in her big arms. The bundle looked like a red monkey and didn’t really interest me.

“You were really wonderful, Mrs. Sielenski,” the doctor said in kinder voice than he’d used before. And Mrs. Sielenski’s head bobbed with pleasure and her smile spread even further. She walked off with the baby into the bedroom and left him there with my mother.

My father was still carrying me as he walked out with the doctor. The two policemen were still there.

“What time is it , doc?” asked Basil.

“Twelve-thirty.”

“That’s not too bad. We’ll be home by one.”

“How’s everything?” the other asked.

“Fine,” the doctor answered.

“The lady okay?”

“Uh-huh. And the boy too.”

The three of them walked to the squad car and climbed in. Basil, who took the seat behind the wheel, stuck his head out the window before driving away.

“By the way,” he called back, “the radio says the Germans have marched across the border.” Waving, he pulled away.

It was very dark and there was a chill in the air. The breeze freshened and moaned, going between the houses. Pop carried me back into the house and held me in his arms. His cheek was sandpaper rough, and he smelled of tobacco.

From a long sleepy distance, I heard my father and Joe talking about the war. And I felt my father’s arm tremble slightly. Even then, half asleep and seven years old, I knew that the little red monkey would be his last son. Summer was over, and soon the world would begin to die.

© 2008 by Wallace Caminsky