THE WEIGHT OF
Indifference
by D.H. Robbins -- excerpt
Backstory:
Daniel Lilienthal has discovered his bond with photography during a baptism by fire during the L.A. Watts rebellion and riots of August, 1965. His photojournalistic prowess has landed him a spot at The Los Angeles Tribune., He knows that as soon as he graduates from U.C. Berkeley in two years, the newspaper will send him to cover the war in Vietnam. But even that isn't as threatening as the response from his father that Daniel has chosen photojournalism over a career as a sociologist, where his father has built his own fame. He's learning to dig deeper into his relationship with photography as a way of seeing....seeing his way clear away from his father's hold on him. Here, Daniel meets his dad at a San Francisco restaurant to make his stand against the future that Roger Lilienthal had been trying to etch in stone for him.
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CHAPTER SIX
Father and Son
As Daniel sat across from his father at Fabrizio’s Fish House, he watched him pour another oyster down his gullet like a bird swallowing a worm. The atmosphere of the place featured wet, old seafood fragrances weighted by drawn butter. Daniel was normally impartial to seafood, but here in of Roger’s presence he hated it. The smell of it. The taste of it. The petty annoyances of the place only amplified his discomfort as father and son sat facing each other like wary strangers. The sounds of silverware against china clinked politely through the air as Daniel dabbled his fork around his salad. He reminded himself he had to remain cool here on the battlefield, and not expose the soft underbelly.
“You haven’t touched your dinner, Dan.”
“Not hungry.”
“Um,” was all Roger said.
Roger was done up well in his three-piece grey suit and red paisley tie, playing the part of businessman-sociologist. He had grayed at the temples since Daniel had seen him last, most likely to look more distinguished than his son knew him to be. He’d even traded his thick, black-framed glasses for wireframes in an attempt to be California hip.
Daniel broke the ice. “How was your conference in Sacramento?”
“Same as last year. Too many egg-heads and not enough objectivity.”
“Okay. Good, I guess. How’s mom doing? She and I haven’t talked in a few months.”
“You really should call her, Dan. She asked about you when I talked to her a few weeks ago.”
“I suppose I‘ve been too busy. It’s nice to know you two are still talking, though.”
“Too busy romping around with your camera taking pictures?”
Daniel felt the chill of his father’s remark as he concentrated on moving a few lettuce leaves around with his fork. “Well, it’s what I do, so… Anyway, how is mom?”
Roger daubed some oyster juice from his lips with his napkin. “Last I heard, she’d moved from Skokie to Racine. She complained that Chicago was becoming overrun by Nazis, and unsafe for Jews.”
“So she moved to Wisconsin?”
“And she’s lactose intolerant, so figure that one out. I guess she reasoned that there’d be no Nazis there, because no one knows Wisconsin exists.”
“So it’s gotten worse. This whole Jewish thing.”
“She’s been bitten hard by the faith. If she were any more Jewish, she’d be shaving her head and donning a shietel and a black headscarf. I could never really figure that out. Women shaving their hair off to wear a wig, and then wearing a scarf to cover the wig.” His voice fell off as he was distracted by the looks of a high-cheeked twenty-something girl-woman sitting alone at a neighboring table. Her face was framed by a soft, long curtain of auburn hair. Daniel knew enough about his father to surmise what he was thinking: Roger liked women with long auburn hair and voluptuous lips. Maybe this one would like some company.
Daniel shrugged his shoulders, making it look more like a shiver. “To each her own, I guess, Roger. I’ll call her.”
“Call who?” Roger said distracted.
“Your ex-wife. My mother. I’ll call her.”
“You really should call your mother more often, Dan.”
“Yeah, I will.”
“Do that,” Roger said into the distance.
Daniel glanced over toward where Roger was looking. “Jesus, Roger. She’s young enough to be one of your freshmen. Speaking of that, how’s your love life going? Are you still dating that teenager? Have you taken her to the prom, yet?”
Roger showed him an accusatory glare. “Bite your tongue, Dan. Robin is three years older than you.” His glare turned thoughtful. “And, unlike you, she’s preparing her dissertation. She’ll have her PhD from NYU in two years.”
Daniel sipped his beer as he let Roger’s snark slide by. “Sounds like she’s dedicated. Is she gonna end up teaching, like you?”
Roger sipped another oyster down—a disgusting act which Daniel was forced to witness. “Umm. No. She wants to go on to do field work.”
And probably to be away from you, Daniel reckoned. “What’s her specialty going to be?”
“Children and the adaptation to their culture. Strictly Piaget stuff. She’s thinking about starting in the Middle East, then wants to go to Africa.”
“So, she’ll be leaving you to dry out all alone back at Columbia?”
Roger held his fork and its oyster halfway to his mouth. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing really. Just that you’ll have more free time on your hands. There’s only so much squash you can play.”
“I’ll get by okay. It’ll give me more time to write my books.”
“Working on any now?”
“Yeah. It’s one about the cultural stigma of Jews and banking. I’m calling it ‘The Plight of the Gilded Jew’.”
“That sounds intriguing.”
“Yeah, I guess. If not a tad bit trite. My editor wants it done by next March.” He looked provocatively over the rim of his cheap wireframes. “I can’t see that happening, if I have to write it alone.” Daniel ignored Roger’s innuendo and forked a lettuce leaf.
Roger concentrated on trying to capture a Brussel sprout playing the role of a pinball on his greasy plate. “So, any little dalliances you want to tell me about? Any pretty surfer girls you’ve hooked up with?”
“Surfers are a little bit south of here. Near L.A. mostly.”
“Okay. Anyone in your life now?” He speared the Brussel sprout. “Ah! Got you, you son of a bitch.” He popped it in his mouth to join the oyster.
“You’ll be the first to know. So, how’s your teaching going?” It was a prickly question that Daniel regretted asking even as it came out. He braced himself for the answer.
“Why don’t you apply to Columbia’s sociology department and find out?”
There it was. Roger’s raison d’etre for meeting with his son. “I don’t want to. I’m happy where I am, thanks, Roger.”
“I could fast track you into the master’s program right away. And then into NYU for your doctorate.”
“So I can help you research your books.”
“Yeah. That, too, Dan. We made a pretty good team, don’t you think?”
Roger spooned out his final oyster and let it slip into his mouth, causing Daniel to cringe. “No thank you, father.”
“No thank you father? We’ve known each other long enough to be on our first name basis.”
“I call you that because you are my father. And I am your son, not your protégée.”
“Look, Dan. I think I know why you changed your major. It was to prove your point to me. Well, point taken.”
“Really? And what was this point?”
“You didn’t think I was giving you enough exposure for the work you helped me with. I get that, and I’m sorry. So here’s what I can do. I’ll put your name under mine on my book covers as co-author. That should give you a lot of clout to get into NYU.”
“That’s big of you, Roger.” He jabbed his fork into a slice of tomato.
Roger sipped on his martini. “Now you’re just being ungrateful. You can’t be happy running around taking snapshots for a living. You belong in sociology and you know it, Dan.”
“No, Roger. I don’t know that.”
“Sure you do.”
Roger had always been an expert at keeping his cool. It was probably what made him such a good professor and leading his students to respect him more than Daniel could. Roger’s patience just aggravated Daniel more. It was as though Roger knew he had the upper hand. Well, not this time.
“Thanks for thinking about me, Roger, but I’m happy doing work for the Los Angeles Tribune. I believe I’ve found my true niche.”
“Taking pictures for that rag? Hell, they backed Goldwater. Look, if you come to Columbia, I can pull strings to keep you out of Vietnam. Plus you’ll be locked solid into a student deferment.”
“I am now. And I have a heart murmur, remember?”
“That’s not going to stop them from nabbing you. The draft will be going for the more wasted majors such as yours. That’s how Johnson’s running things, now.”
“‘Wasted majors?”
“Yeah, yours. The arts and crafts ones. Sociology’s a crucial major, you’d be protected solid from going into that God-damn war. I can pull a lot of strings.”
Daniel tensed his jaw. Arts and Crafts? “For all you know I might be going over there, anyway. There’s a reason the Tribune is pushing me through for a journalism degree. They really like my work and want me to be a photographer on their payroll. And soon. I think they have it in mind to send me to Vietnam as one of their photojournalists.”
Roger put his fork and knife down and took a deep breath as he collected his thoughts. “The fuck they will! I didn’t prepare you all these years to go over and get killed in some rice paddy in the name of that senseless war.” He moved his napkin with thoughtful deliberation from one side of his plate to the other. “I’m not asking you, Dan. I’m telling you. I’m taking you back with me to New York and away from that God-damned conservative rag of yours. I’ll pay them their price to take you back to where you belong and away from that Boschian situation you’re putting yourself in. You are not going to that war. No way in hell.”
“No, Roger. I like it here in San Francisco, four-thousand whatever miles away from y—from New York.”
Roger dismissed this. “Pack your things. You’ll be flying out with me the day after tomorrow.”
Daniel pounded his fist on the table. “You think you’ve got my life all planned out just like before, don’t you, Roger?” His chair scraped loudly against the terra-cotta tiles as he shot up to a stand. “No fucking way you’re doing that to me! Not again. Never again!”
“Sit down, son. You’re making an ass of yourself.”
“Fuck you, man! This is San Francisco, and I can make as much of an ass of myself as I want!”
Some guys at a neighboring table applauded lightly.
Daniel turned to go, and his vision was caught by the auburn-haired girl-woman’s curious gaze at them. “Hey there,” he leaned toward her to confide. “See this old guy here? He wants to take you home to New York with him.” She smiled coyly in response, first at Daniel, then at Roger.
“I love this fucking town!” the guy from the neighboring table gushed.
Daniel realized he did, too. But loneliness can be the curse of independence, and without Roger he felt numb and alone as he strode toward the door.
“Call me when you come to your senses, Dan.” Roger called after him.
“Fat chance,” Daniel muttered as he wended his way through the smoky gloom and fish smells.
He stepped out the door, into an alien world that existed beyond Roger’s sphere of indifference—that soggy place where love had been merely a weak concept to break a man down.
From the safe distance of the sidewalk, Daniel stopped to peer through the restaurant window at Roger sitting alone and staring at the remains on his plate. He eventually summoned a waiter and ordered another drink, as if nothing had happened. Watching him sip what was left of his drink, Daniel now understood how much he’d cheated himself and how, for twenty-three years, he’d allowed it to happen.
He yearned to experience unselfish love at least once in his life. He had to find himself, perhaps to finally love himself. Beyond the confidence he was finding through his photography, he longed for a person to love him.
He looked deeper through the window to take a parting glance at his father, who was now being joined by the girl-woman. Daniel knew that even she wouldn’t be enough to cure his father’s insecurity and loneliness.
He framed him through the camera in his mind: Focus. Saddak-thwip…re-load…re-focus.