19: Eliza ran into . . .

Little Follies, “My Mother Takes a Tumble” concludes

Jun 07, 2021

     Eliza ran into the street after the tabletop and was nearly struck by a passing Studebaker. At the sound of its squealing tires, Mr. Beaker turned, saw Eliza holding the dented tabletop, cried “Oh, God, no,” and let go of my mother to run to Eliza, leaving my father struggling with my mother on his own. When he got her to her feet and satisfied himself that she had suffered no serious harm, he too dashed out to the street to see if Eliza was all right.
     My mother stood still for a moment, looking into the street, where my father and Mr. Beaker were checking Eliza’s legs for scratches. There were none. Finally my mother made her way toward the house on her own, clucking at herself and brushing at her skirt.
     “I don’t know what came over me,” my mother said aloud. “I knew that I didn’t have a chance of saving the table, but I just had to try—”
     She stopped at the front door and turned toward the street again, where my father and Mr. Beaker were still fussing over Eliza. “I didn’t have a chance,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.” She went inside.
     Mr. Beaker, Eliza, and my father stood together, laughing nervously. Gumma and Guppa were straightening up the mess my mother had made.
     “I think we could all use a drink,” said my father. He began opening bottles. When they each had one, they clinked them together, and my father said to Eliza, “Well, at least you won’t forget this day.”
     “You know, Bert,” said Mr. Beaker, “I think you’re almost right about Peter and the kittens, but not quite.”
     “Oh, yeah?” growled my father.
     “Dudley—” said Eliza.
     Mr. Beaker nodded in my direction. “It’s not a matter of foolish persistence in pursuing an impossible goal, it’s a matter of focusing the attention.” He raised his voice. “‘True genius,’ it has been said, ‘lies in the art of focusing the attention.’” He paused to let that sink in, and Eliza took advantage of the pause at once.
     “I don’t know about that,” she said. “It seems to me that a true genius ought to be able to keep a lot of balls in the air at once.”
     There was a pregnant silence. Gumma, Guppa, and my father stood still, unbreathing. The kittens and I stopped romping. We all looked at Mr. Beaker.
     “No, no,” he said. “You have an example right in front of you.” He pointed his pipestem at me. “Now if little Peter there were to narrow his focus, concentrate on and pursue only one kitten, he could catch it and keep it. You know what we’re seeing here, Bertram?”
     My father looked at Mr. Beaker over his glasses, raising his eyebrows to say, “What? Go on. I’m listening.”
     Mr. Beaker began poking and tamping at his pipe.
     “What, Dudley?” asked Eliza.
     Mr. Beaker tamped and poked until he had put the fire out. He put the pipe tool into his pocket and bent over and began knocking the pipe on the heel of his shoe. When he had finished knocking it, he began refilling it. My father was growing annoyed.
     “Damn it, Beaker, what?” he demanded.
     Mr. Beaker brought out his lighter, pumped it several times, and spun the striker.
     My father clenched his teeth.
     “Get to the point, Beaker!” he cried.
     While Mr. Beaker directed the flame into his pipe, he looked at my father as if he had not heard him, raising an eyebrow as if he were surprised that my father hadn’t figured out what he was talking about. He pointed at me with his pipestem.
     “Remember this scene,” he said. “Here we see Peter’s life, in miniature: this pursuing now one notion (or kitten), now another, this inability to concentrate entirely on one thing (or kitten) for fear that the others will get away, though really he might just as well pursue any one of them as all of them, for the kittens, as you and I can see at a glance, are so like one another as to be indistinguishable, each just a variation on the theme ‘Black Kitten.’” He chuckled and jotted something in a little leather-covered notebook. “Do you follow me?” he asked.
     My father turned toward me again. I dropped a kitten into the wagon, clapped my hands and giggled. The kitten hopped out, and my father frowned.
     I looked at Eliza, and she looked at me. Then she walked across the front walk onto my side of the lawn and began snatching up kittens. She caught five, and I caught one, and we plopped them all into the wagon at once. Then she picked me up and held me on her hip. The sun was still weak, and it was late in the afternoon now and a little chilly, so she may have hugged me so tightly only for warmth.