The Visit

By David Barth

[This story was written in 1963 while I was serving aboard the nuclear submarine USS Lafayette, SSBN 616. It was written for my parents as a tongue-in-cheek description of an off-beat homecoming. It was too far-out for my parents to appreciate, but it was an interesting exercise.]

It was mid afternoon when I rolled into the drive and cut the engine. It died with one last guttural growl. I glanced at the familiar surroundings which had remained unchanged for the most part, since I had last visited. I remembered that the last time I'd arrived by bus which always seemed the low-life way to travel. Now I was a victorious knight returning from the crusades, mounted on a black steel stallion. I leaped from the sports car and felt my muscles strain a little. I wasn't quite the young bull I had been at twenty five.

I pulled my attache case from the trunk and with my overcoat slung over my left shoulder, pranced to the door. I pressed the door bell once and waited.

When a kind, elderly woman answered the door, I said, "Good afternoon, Ma'am. I'm working my way though college and was wondering . . ." Mom's pleasant face broke into a wide smile. "George! You didn't tell us you were coming! Come in! Your father will be working late tonight. If you'd let us know, we would have both been here to greet you!"

"Well, that's OK, Mom. I just got in from New York. Boy, what a drive!"

"Have you been eating enough? You look a little thin."

I slipped my attache case into the hall closet with my overcoat.

"Oh, I've been eating great. I go to Mama Leonie's about twice a week and frequent Club Twenty One and . . ."

"Oh, say, Did you get my letter about Susan? She is expecting again!" Mother put the left over hash and hamburgers into the oven to warm. My sister had married a wealthy real estate developer.

"That's great. I didn't think she had it in her. I mean, this will be the third one in two and a half years, ha, ha. How's Ferd? You wrote and said he made First Lieutenant in the Army." I sat down in a modernistic rocker that Dad liked.

Mom dropped the dish cloth to the counter and came into the living room. "Well, we don't know for sure. He doesn't write much. In fact, we found out about his advancement from Army headquarters at Fort Brundle. Last Christmas, he sent us an automatic Chinese toilet plunger." The toilet plunger actually made sense, at least in my brother's way of thinking. He was fascinated by machines.

"How long can you stay, George?"

I picked up the lonely looking cat Dad had named "Lion." I don't know exactly why he chose that name, for the old sourpuss wasn't capable of catching a cockroach. He scowled and pawed to get down. Well, his color approached that of a lion's, anyway. He was a dirty yellow.

"I'll be around a couple of days."

I got up and walked into the kitchen and sat down to a greasy hamburger and the warmed over hash. I devoured the food in three hungry bites. If I had learned only one thing in the Peace Corp, it was how to eat fast.

"When the bank wants me, I'll have to go."

I had been president of the Case Manhattan Bank for six months, and one of my responsibilities was to insure that the currency exchange between our bank and the other banks in New York was carried out smoothly and efficiently. Some of the vice presidents I had sailed over didn't appreciate the fact that I wasn't a college graduate and were forever attempting to overthrow me by conjuring incriminating stories and spreading them lavishly among the directors. But by shrewd politicking, I had gotten in solid with the directors and they had made me president. Now they backed me to the hilt after the unprecedented coup I had accomplished.

I had run the Kindel Corporation bankrupt. The Kindel Corporation was a holding company whose major assets were stock of Schmitt Electric. I found out that Kindel was going to buy into another company and would have to recapitalize extensively. I got to old man Kindel's office before any other financiers got wind of the plan, and I got him to borrow from Case Manhattan. I extended Kindel a loan that put him up to his neck in debt.

When the directors found out about my deal, they were about to dump me, but I asked for one last reprieve so I could clean up the Kindel case. Little did they know of my plans to clean up. Kindel had agreed to turn over nine tenths of his company's Schmitt stock as collateral. He had it delivered in one batch via a Binks armored van which I made certain was sabotaged on the way to our bank. The truck was blown up and burned, destroying all the Schmitt stock certificates. I immediately called for my collateral to be delivered within six hours after the wreck was found. Kindel couldn't pay up, and the Case Manhattan lawyers kept the case out of court. Kindel's company collapsed around him, and I took what was left by buying him out with counterfeit money I had purchased on the black market at five cents on the dollar.

I was brought back from my reminiscences by the sound of a car driving into the driveway. I peeked through the curtain to see Dad pull up behind my car and step out of his candy apple red Jag coupe. Dad had gone "modern" rather than get senile like most old men. He wore the latest fashions in Continental Ivy League cuts.

I met him at the door. "Howdy, Old Man."

He returned the greeting, "Your mother and I are pleased to welcome you to our humble home, Son. How is the bank?"

"Well, Dad, I thought I'd drop by and say �Hello' for a few days, at least until my welcome wears out."

"You will know when your welcome wears out, Son, when you find you can't open the combination lock on the refrigerator." Dad had recently put a heavy combination lock on the refrigerator, the combination of which could be changed at any time only by him.

"Do you still have a bed for me in the guest room upstairs?"

"No, Son, we moved the bed to the cellar."

No one but Dad had been to the cellar for twenty years except the time I had slipped down to find a large skeleton collection he had been working on. I confronted him at the time with this and he finally admitted the skeleton collection was his, but he never divulged the source of his trophies. I was inclined to connect them with the rash of grave robbings that were occurring around town.

That evening we wheeled the T.V. set into the living room. The news announcer reported the headline that eighteen million dollars had been stolen from the Case Manhattan Bank early that same day.

Dad raised his head slowly and said, "You do commendable work, Son. Now where is the fruit of your theft?"

I stood up, and in a flash, Dad whipped an old forty-four caliber revolver from inside his Botany 500. Mother jumped up and tried to wrench the gun from him, but he held her away and said, "Jane, we have a thief in our midst. Let's turn him in for a generous reward!"

Mother pleaded, "No, Thomas, let him give us a fat cut and let him go!"

But Dad was a stubborn man and had made up his mind. "Not on your tin type! We shall reap a very great reward for his capture!"

I slowly reached into my pocket as Dad and Mom conferred about what they should do with me, and drew out a shiny half dollar. When Dad's eyes roved back toward me, I flipped the coin across the room. It s glitter caught his eye and he half turned to see where it rolled. I dived through the picture window with a crash of splintering glass. I ran to the drive and jumped over the door of my Ferrari into the driver's seat and quickly started the twelve cylinder engine just as the front door was thrown open. Dad's Jag blocked me from backing, so I drove forward in a screeching of tires, past the side steps of the house, turned left at the corner to get around back of the house, nearly running down Lion who had been lazing on the patio walk, clipped the bird feeder, and slid through another left turn at the southeast corner, shifted into second and passed the small maple in front of the demolished picture window.

Dad was waiting for me on the front porch with his revolver cocked and said "goodbye" with a hail of bullets. I whipped across the two lawns directly to the east of ours, throwing turf and flinging divots at the corners, and sped into the street where my Ferrari's mud covered, spinning wheels found traction and boosted my speed from forty to ninety. Dad's fifth bullet pierced my windshield and I passed an old girlfriend's house. The sixth bullet penetrated the trunk and I passed the old school house. Dad wasn't a bad shot for the amount of practicing he did every Fourth of July.

By the time I was ten miles out of town, I remembered the money. It was in my attache case in the closet with my overcoat. My folks were eighteen million bucks richer. Well, at least we were keeping it in the family.

Night came on and the air chilled. I regretted having to leave my good overcoat behind.