These Things Happen (27 page)

   "And you're right," Wesley says.

   " About your dad?"

   "The cold! I'm freezing my ass off up here, too." He steps back, to shake off the weight of George's hand.

   But George won't let go. "No," he says.

   "But I have to go."

   George grips tighter. "Where?"

   
"Somewhere," W
esley says, flushing, panicked as a person might be trying to get the attention of an unheeding crowd after an accident has occurred. "Please, George."

   But George doesn't let go. "You're forgetting something," he says.

   "I am?"

   "You had another question."

   "It doesn't matter," says Wesley. "Whatever it was."

   "You asked me, yesterday, or whenever, if I felt it was a choice.
It.
Do you remember?" Wesley nods. "And I never told you. I never got to say."

   "You asked if you could think about it," Wesley says; a boy who respects thought, who puts it near or at the top of the list of human activity. "So?" He shifts his shoulders, so George's hand can more easily rest there; he does not want to break away. "George?"

   But he sees right away that he doesn't have to say that. George is there, even before the calling of his name, before Wesley can finish saying it. "No," he says; he waits to see if there are words behind that, waiting to join them on the roof. There are, but they are orga nizing themselves, calling up the courage to be heard, and seen, their gazes cast down as Wesley's, sometimes, significantly is. "No," says George.

   Wesley's hand shoots up, on its own, like someone who knows the answer before the question has been fully asked. "You mean like Dad said, when I asked you guys," he says. "Like when he said how could it be, because—"

   "No," George says, to stop him, and Kenny's words, too. "I don't mean that at all." He says this because he knows, suddenly, that it's not like that for him, not as it seems to be for Kenny, who always knows so
easily.
George doesn't, and even when he does he struggles to see it and, even harder, to express it. For no one has ever asked him to express anything; he is not the man for that; you go to George, lovely, impeccable George, for r
ecommendations
, knowing he will steer you to an endless calendar of agreeable evenings. But it's different up here; that has just changed. "I don't even know what I want to say here," he says. But, right away, he sees that he does know, and he can't keep this a secret from Wesley. "But that's wrong. Because I do." He starts to take his hand from Wesley's shoulder, but Wesley steps forward and angles slightly to keep it there:
Not
yet. Stay close.

   "I'm here," says Wesley.

   George starts slowly, like someone who has been in a hospital bed for a long time, has come to know its deliciousness, and also knows this is the day he must leave it, that his return must begin
now.
"When a person says that of course it's not a choice, because who would ever choose it—"

   "A person like Dad, you mean."

   "Oh, no," George says, much in the way he said,
Oh, my, oh,

my.
And, for a moment, that's all he has. As he looks to Wesley and sees him nod, he realizes he's been squinting, as if to blur any hovering visions of Kenny, or anyone; even of a self he thinks he knows. "No," he says, once more. " There are people who w
ould
choose it, you see. I want to be clear about that."

   He never talks like this. Wesley knows that, as he will never forget, at least for a while, anyway, the sight of a man becoming
willing
, in front of him, to be someone other than who he's been. "You're being clear, George."

   "Good. Because there are a lot—" He's lost now, for a moment, and he's never lost. But he's also never ventured out this far. Wesley, sensing this, puts
his
hand now to George's shoulder, to steer him home, to show him how close to home he really is.

   "You were about to say," Wesley says, "something about a lot of—"

   
"Yes,"
says George. " There are a lot of people in the world who would choose it."

   Wesley laughs.

   "What?"

   "You're shouting a little," he says. "Actually, in the interests of clarity, a lot." He is not embarrassed; he is fascinated, and impressed, at how George seems to be
addressing
the street, the theater district, the city itself. And George laughs, too; at his nascent noisiness and, also, because he no longer feels perilously hoisted; the roof, with its outward view, starts to settle, becoming a safe place for him to stand.

   "I'm sorry," George says.

   "Don't be!"

   "Good. Because I'm really not."

   Now George laughs, tickled by how he's quickly killed his lie, before it could sink its teeth into him. He steps back from Wesley's touch, looks around and sees, suddenly, how much room there is up here; he starts to take long, diagonal surveyor's strides, slightly bent in Johnny Appleseed fashion (a role he played in the fourth grade), pondering the soil beneath him. When he comes to the center, he stops, straightens up, fills his lungs with the crisping November air. He looks up, to the stars, the local set that he and Lenny have always believed are unique to the theater district, with bright promises of Laurette Taylor in T
he Glass Menagerie;
the Lunts in T
he Visit
; Gertrude Lawrence in
Lady in the Dark
; the lost great things, all of them returned, with good seats available always.

   George looks down now. "And what I was going to tell you— about choosing— is that
I
would choose it." He looks up. "I would choose my life. All right? Are you listening?" Wesley nods; George sees something he's missed, that Wesley has come closer; he is close enough to touch. And he does touch him; the boy is gravity for him now. He thinks,
I need him, just for a moment more. Just one.
"Because— when you
step
into your life . . ." He laughs at himself; for having put it like that; at his fresh dream of life as a series of houses, entered through doors that have been waiting to open, without keys. "And you're
in
your life," he says, "I mean, truly
in
it . . . I just hope—"

   He stops, perilously, like a wind-up toy at the edge of a coffee table. Wesley worries; he wants and needs more. "George?"

   "Yes," George says, and to stay standing, as the ground beneath him shifts, he places his other hand on Wesley's other shoulder, each arm now a bridge. "I just hope you feel about your life how I feel about mine. Do you understand that?"

   Wesley nods; he does, and he feels understanding, sweet and prickly, flow through him. "I do," he says. "You cherish it."

   "That's right. Whatever happens. I do. So if you still want to be like me?" Wesley nods. "Then be like me in that."

   "I will. I'll try."

   "Do that."

   "So I guess we should go in?" Wesley says.

   "Oh, I guess," says George.

   But they don't go in; they both look up, as if they'd received the same text at the same moment, telling them to watch as a thin, curling cloud completes its glide across the moon, followed by another, and a few more, still, that the sky seems to supply from nowhere.

   "It's awesome, you know," Wesley says, using the word his mother so dislikes.

   "What is? The sky?"

   Wesley laughs. "A
day
. A lot can happen in a day, I mean. If that makes any sense."

   "It does." The thin, curved moon, like the wandering element of an emoticon, is clear again. "That's what days are for."

   They each look down now, although not yet at each other. Cabs, whistles, bullets; buses, screams, small sobs; people singing, sighing, pleading with dogs to shit; from the long streets the
clang
of texters bumping into lampposts; the soft fall onto the ground, like leaves, of seven thousand flyers bearing news of who was out for tonight's performance; the audible thoughts of select citizens, taxpayers, permanent residents: T
oday I worked; I loved; I tried.
All of it, some louder, some softer, but never less than
all of it
; so many sounds to take in that the boy and man, having just agreed on the capacity of a day, don't hear the next one, which blends in, which is the man from just below, having come up the steps to find them, clearing his throat as he steps through the door onto the broad roof. They hear him, finally, as he coughs a second time. As they turn to him, he nods, and then raises his hand to wave, to his son and his love, as if to make sure they see him.

Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick gave me a true gift on the shows I was lucky enough to work on with them (
thirtysomething; My So-Called Life; Once and Again).
They had one note for me, pretty much always:
Be more you
. This note is as uncommon in television as it is in life. Hearing that for several decades helped me see that my own passions, worries, hopes and mistakes—my life, in short—made a worthy subject. They said that what you write should have the intimacy of a letter to a small circle of friends, people to whom you never have to apologize, or explain yourself. So
These Things Happen
is a letter to them; the old fashioned kind, with a stamp. I'd like to send that letter to others from those experiences, as well. Liberty Godshall, Susan Shilliday, Scott Winant, Winnie Holzman, Ken Olin, Peter Horton, Melanie Mayron, Patricia Wettig: check your mailboxes. And thank you.

   My parents, Claire and Allan Kramer, have always encouraged me, enjoyed me, and given me enough room to be always, sometimes perplexingly, myself. Books, reading, words; they loved all these, and saw that I loved them, too. When I am in my 90's, as they are, I hope to have some portion of their openness to experience, their deep sense of responsibility, and their endless and surprising forgiveness.

   My editor, Greg Michalson, hung in there with me while, during my improvements on the book, I nearly destroyed it. He snatched it from the fire I had unwittingly built, and taught me, after years of being a writer, what it means to be an author.

   In 1976, fresh out of college, I had a job as an assistant at G.P. Putnam's. The girl at the desk next to mine talked faster than anyone I'd ever heard and thought faster, too. When I was nearing the end of writing this book I asked a Knowledgeable Someone who he thought was the best literary agent in New York. "Gail Hochman," he said. Could she be the Gail of long ago? Was Hochman her last name? I e-mailed her; she got back to me instantly. Of course she remembered me! I should send the book. She called the next day, ready to take T
hese Things Happen
under her steady and able wing. She never gave up, or gave in; her passion never wavered. "I've never been wrong when I love something," she said. That love found a home for the book, and the right one. I am forever grateful to her.