Loonglow by Helen Eisenbach

father for my sake, Clay,” she said. Now he could hear the hysterical edge in her voice; she’d begun drinking early. “He loves you, in his way, and he is your father, after all.”
    â€œAnd I love you, Mother.” Clay sighed. “But I have to go now. I’ll call you soon, okay? Give my love to Mona.”
    He hung up, feeling as if he’d just done something illegal, her plaintive goodbye ringing in his ears. Had it really been years since he’d lived with his mother? It seemed like a scant weekend since her presence had enveloped him. He could picture her clearly, her delicate blond beauty set off by a pastel sundress, a tall cocktail at her side as she reclined in the sun, fanning herself. She had no one to amuse her these days, since her daughter and both her men had abandoned her.
    For the first time in two years, Clay rose at nine in the morning to fix himself a stiff drink.

By the time supper had come—and gone—Clay had worked himself into an old-fashioned alcoholic stupor. He leaned up against the headboard of his bed, staring out onto the darkening street across from him. What gave most people the illusion that life was worth living? he wondered. Money did it for some people; they worked all their lives to accumulate it, and perhaps if they succeeded in amassing great wealth they felt they’d lived up to their dreams. “Strike one,” he said; no chance of that for him. There was always love, of course. People did all sorts of things in search of some perfect love, some ideal; for some, its very unattainability was the chief requirement for the true love object. “You should talk,” he told his reflection in the darkened window.
    Clay lurched out of bed, going to put some music on the stereo. What would have happened, he wondered, if he’d simply drifted on with Charlene Watford, even gotten married? “Droves of bland, blond babies,” he thought aloud, shuddering to think how easily such a fate could have befallen him. Bless Charlene’s heart for not accepting him as true husband material; who could say if he’d have had the will to put up a struggle against a future with her should she have elected it for them? “Spineless,” he muttered. This was the chief feature of his personality so far, it seemed to him.
    The sound of Oscar Peterson filled the room and Clay soaked it in, energized by the power of the music. Talent was another ticket to fulfillment some were born with gifts—musical, artistic, physical—and measured their success by how well they fulfilled their creative potential, acquiring recognition, fame. Clay held his hands out, staring at them. Once he’d been naïve enough to think he had some talent, that was why he had been given music, but that was clearly no more than childish folly. It must be something to be born with a real talent What must life be like to have Art Tatum’s hands, the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, the body of Baryshnikov, the mind of Lily Tomlin?
    He didn’t fool himself that what he had done by writing a book was an expression of any such gift, just as he had known there was no point in talking of his future as a pianist. “You have no talent”—he sighed—“whatsoever.” Unlike his mother, he had never deluded himself that physical attractiveness and a modest ability to charm were the equivalent of accomplishment. If he’d enjoyed writing a book, it had been because the completion of a concrete task was a pleasure to which he was unaccustomed; it was satisfying to see how his mind could work, pairing creative leaps with practical research. He wondered what Louey Mercer would think of the pages he’d written, if she’d tell him he had any ability or anything of merit to say.
    On a whim he picked up the phone and dialed her office. It had been three weeks since she’d said she’d look at the manuscript as soon as possible, and