Cincinnati in 1971 is many things to many people. To Cliff Walker, it is the Music Hall, the Zoo, the University, the UC Bearcats, the Reds, the Carew Tower (where his office is located), P&G, the Union Terminal (the airport is located in Kentucky), Fountain Square, the chili parlors, the diversity of people (although he disagrees with many politically}, and the Hills.
Cincinnati, like Rome, is built on seven hills which rise above the north bank of the Ohio River. Across the river, northern Kentucky is connected to Cincinnati by a suspension bridge, twin sister of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Cliff is now seated on the deck of his townhouse perched atop Mount Adams, Cincinnati’s recent contribution to sophisticated hip. He looks down on the river where it bends and flows toward Louisville and other southern markets. He recalls that a good Cincinnati friend once wrote that the voice of the city is “Kentucky drawl, Hoosier twang, here and there a German guttural, Negro laughter, and the newsboy’s garbled cry.” The newsboy is long gone.
Sally had called from New York to say that her plane should arrive at the Cincinnati Airport about three in the afternoon, then she would take a cab and be home by four. It is now 3:45.
Sally also said that she had met a “nice young man” from northern Kentucky, an historian who plans to write about that part of Virginia where Cliff grew up, the Lower Peninsula that stretched from Chesapeake Bay to Richmond. Hell, thought Cliff, the area reeks of history. It contains Jamestown, Williamsburg, and his home town settled in 1610 on a burned-down Indian village. Sally’s new friend is
welcome to it, but sadly she said that he wanted to pick Cliff’s brain. Cliff tried telling Sally that he was brain-dead, at least as far as his Virginia background was concerned. It died, he said, the day he joined the army in World War II.
It is 4:15 when Sally arrives, drops her luggage in the living room, and calls, “Hey, the weary traveler is home!”
“Great,” says Cliff. “I’m on the deck.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Give me a hug and, if you’re not too tired, tell me about New York.
“I loved it--wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The Algonquin was fun and Uncle Lew and Phil took me to dinner at this fantastic French restaurant.”
“What did you think of Phil?”
“I really liked him. Tall, good-looking, sweet. I could see why Lew fell in love with him. He’s going to do a play on Broadway, a revival of A Thousand Clowns.”
“One of my favorites,” says Cliff.
“Lew has the starring role. You know, the role played by Jason Robards.”
“Incredible. My little brother on Broadway. Mother would be proud.”
“Phil promised to reserve opening night seats for you and me--and mom too if that’s ok with you.”
“I doubt she can tear herself away from San Francisco.”
“She will if you ask her.”
"I don't think so."
"Why?"
"I can't tell you. It hurts too much."
"Please."
"I'm not the man I once thought I was."
"Dad, don't get introspective. You look pretty good to me. You're definitely not a failure."
"In some ways, Sally, I'm afraid so."
"No, Dad. Please ask mom to join us."
Cliff hesitates, wondering how he could disappoint his daughter, and his wife, again.
"Please, Dad."
"Okay, Sally, I'll try."
"Oh, the three of us together," says Sally, "I can hardly wait."
“Tell me about Lew.”
“He sends love. He looks good. We talked about the family.”
“That must have been fun.”
“No, but interesting. He told me that grandma was your father’s second wife, that uncles Art, Frank, and Matt are actually your half brothers.”
“True.”
“Lew said that you’d explain all about it.”
“Ok, Sally, you may as well know the worst.”
“Tell me, please.”
“Can I have a drink first?”
“Yes, while I mix it, get your thoughts together.”
Over the next few minutes, as darkness settles on the river, Cliff tries to relax the tightness in his throat. Sally waits patiently, unaware of the real pain that haunts her father, certain only of the agony that he endures in reviving the family years he had tried so hard to forget.
Cliff explains that the old man probably had some affection for his second wife Martha but rarely showed it. He assumed a guise of indifference toward her and, later, toward the three sons she bore him. Cliff, Lew, and Steve were not the kind of sons he needed on the farm. He put the blame on their mother who turned them into “mama’s boys.” She said she wanted more for her sons than the hard labor required to scratch out a living in tired dirt. Captain Jack resented the emphasis she put on “book learning.”Though the boys tried to please him at first, it was soon obvious to the old man that he had made a mistake in marrying an “educated woman.” He and the older sons came to resent Cliff, Lew, and Steve, and made the life of their half brothers miserable.
The real schism between the first and second group of sons occurred in 1939 when Steve decided to leave home, a decision that nearly broke his mother’s heart. Steve was the oldest of her three sons and she had depended on him to look after the other two. That was not Steve’s style. He said he was going to try his luck out west. By that he meant Las Vegas. Steve made no secret of his belief that life was one big gamble. He told Cliff that he was determined to “strike it rich” at the casino tables. He had a knack for it. And he proved it. In just one year, at age nineteen, Steve was winning enough to send his mother wads of cash to take care of the two boys.
During that year, Cliff and Lew made lame attempts to help Captain Jack make a go of the farm, although most of the planting and harvesting was done by the three older sons, Art, Frank, and Matt. Lew assisted his mother around the musty old house that always needed a lot of “fixing up.” Cliff’s obligation, as he got older, was to work in the fields and then try to get a part-time job to help supplement the farm income. The old man and Jolly (the Negro handyman) made their daily rounds through the county trying to peddle vegetables to families too poor to pay for them. The farm was always on the verge of foreclosure. It was a lousy life, said Cliff, forever struggling through long, dusty days with a plow in one hand and books in the other. His mother insisted on the books, which always enraged Captain Jack.
Under their mother’s persistence, Cliff and Lew managed to do well in school. And Steve continued to send home money which the mother had to hide in order to buy books for Cliff and music lessons for Lew. Captain Jack’s other sons resented their step-mother and complained incessantly to their father about the pampered life of their half brothers. Often their jealousies evolved into fights that bruised and bloodied the younger boys. The old man stood by and “let them go at it.” This led to long bitter quarrels with his wife.
Somehow, Captain Jack’s family survived the worst years of the depression--all but Martha who died of pneumonia in the winter of 1942, when Cliff was sixteen. The enmity that the older boys felt toward their half-brothers worsened in the year immediately after the death of their stepmother. But ironically relief came with the nation’s war against the Germans and the Japanese. The war was Cliff’s opportunity to leave the farm. In 1944 he joined the army. Two years later Lew planned to enlist in the navy, but by then the war was over.
When a shell-shocked Cliff arrived home on a medical discharge in 1946, he was greeted with derision. Said Captain Jack, “I always knew he was a weakling.” The remark made Lew so angry he attacked his father and had to be restrained by his half brother Art. It was about this time that Steve returned to Watertown. He agreed to help Cliff supplement his GI Bill college allowance and to bear the expense of sending Lew to college when he graduated from high school the following year.
Cliff attended the University of Cincinnati on the recommendation of an army buddy, Jerry, brother of the girl who ultimately would become Cliff's wife. Cliff graduated with a Liberal Arts degree in 1951, at age 25, and remained in Cincinnati.
Lew attended New York University where he hoped to meet someone who would help him advance his interest in the theater. Upon graduation in 1953 he got a job in New York television. He was 23.
Three years later, while on a deep-sea fishing trip, Steve drowned when his boat capsized in a storm off the Virginia Capes. He was 35. His two brothers were devastated. The old man and the three older boys shrugged it off.
Cliff turns to Sally and says, “I need another scotch.”
Sally embraces her father and says, “I’m sorry for putting you through this. It was thoughtless of me.”
Cliff takes her hand. "Now that you know," he says, "we can forget it."
"Let's go out to dinner, and I'll tell you about Judd."
In the dark of night, a steamboat blows its whistle and rounds the bend heading down river to Louisville.
End
