Argumentative

Argumentative

When I was young, I thought the practice of law was a nasty, angry
endeavor. My father and my uncle shared a practice, and I would
overhear them speak about arguing things, or constructing and
presenting some sort of argument. They argued between themselves, and
my mother and father argued constantly, generally about things like
laundry, cooking, and vacations. When my uncle finally divorced, my
mother held me close to her side and explained that Dave and Minnie
simply had to split, because they argued too much. No wonder, I
thought, since Dave and my dad spent entire Saturdays putting arguments
together. Minnie never stood a chance. She and Mom mainly played Gin
Rummy when they were together; they never argued about anything.

I overheard Mom and Dad talking about how nasty the divorce was, and
eventually they started to argue, since Dad was representing Dave, and
Mom was worried that Minnie wouldn't want to be her friend afterward.
My friend, Tony, had a father who sold industrial glue, and once I
suggested to my father that he look into the glue business. All that
arguing couldn't possibly be helping his marriage with Mom. Eventually,
however, I got used to it. I even noticed that Archie and Veronica,
characters in my comic book collection, did their own share of arguing,
and in fact Veronica always had the same angry look on her face as she
was about the storm out of the frame. Mom saw Minnie less and less, to
the point that I started playing Gin Rummy with her while we waited for
dinner to cook. Where she would triumphantly slap her cards down and
yell 'Gin!' when she beat Winnie, she just laid them down against me
and murmured.

After a while, Dad and Dave sold their practice, and things changed.
Dad played golf every morning and napped every afternoon, and we went
to Hawaii twice a year. For three years in a row we stayed in the same
hut, right on the beach. Mom made colorful fruit and rum drinks in the
blender, and we played cards all day. Back at home, Dad would sometimes
take a call from another lawyer, and he would give advice on what to
argue, or how to argue it, but that was the extent of it. I didn't hear
him argue with Mom again, and I didn't see her storm out of rooms, like
Veronica. She got postcards from Minnie, who wrote long, fretful notes
in tiny script. Most of her correspondence was concerned with whether
the postman was reading the postcard, but she was determined to send
pictures of Cincinnati, where she had moved. I guess she never heard of
a camera, Dad said. I imagined Minnie having a ball in Cincinnati, away
from her life of arguments, and closer to the Reds.

I started watching a lot of television, particularly after school, and
after my mother found new friends. There were a lot of syndicated
courtroom programs, and I learned that along with legal arguments came
pleadings. Also, lawyers were concerned with pleasing the court,
although the television judges never looked pleased about anything in
particular. The commercials in between the programs offered legal help
for people who had been arrested for drunk driving, or for people who
had been injured by drunk drivers. The soap operas my mother watched
were also filled with people in court, although there were also a lot
of sad and dramatic scenes in hospitals. Even so, my parents didn't
argue very much, and in fact I saw my mother sitting close to my
father, or on his lap, whenever they were together.

One day, when it was too hot to stay outside, the doorbell rang. It was
Dave and Minnie. Mom and Minnie hugged and cried out loud, and they
actually kissed each other on the lips. I ran and grabbed the playing
cards. Dad came running out of his office and hugged Dave, and they all
spoke quietly for a few minutes. Meanwhile the front door hung open,
letting the hot air in while the air conditioner chugged away. Dave had
his hand on Minnie's bottom, and they talked louder as he joked about
how long it takes to drive to and from Cincinnati. Mom made some cold
drinks, and Dave and Minnie stayed to dinner. They started speaking in
low voices again, so I put the cards away and headed to the back of the
house. I shut the guest room door and turned on the television, hoping
to find a program, any program, with lawyers.