Antsy Does Time

“Sir,” said the craps guy, quickly sizing up the situation, “your children can’t be here.”

“I know.” Mr. Ümlaut threw the dice anyway. I don’t know much about craps, but apparently eleven was good. The other gamblers roared.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Ümlaut said to us. “Your mother isn’t here, is she?”

“Just us, Daddy,” said Kjersten gently.

“You should go home.”

The craps guy handed him the dice, but was reluctant about it. Mr. Ümlaut shook the dice in his hand while the others standing around the table waited anxiously. Realizing we weren’t going to simply disappear, Mr. Ümlaut said, “Go wait for me in the lobby.” Then he hurled the dice again. Nine. This time only a few of the gamblers were happy.

“Sir, I’m afraid I must insist,” the craps guy said, and pointed to us.

In turn, Mr. Ümlaut pointed to the lobby. ‛You heard the croupier!” Which sounded a whole lot classier than “craps guy.” It makes you wonder why they haven’t come up with a better name for craps. Croups, maybe.

By now the suit who managed the whole bank of craps tables came over. This guy’s title I knew. He was the pit boss. The croupier’s croupier. “Is there a problem here?” the pit boss asked.

“No,” said Mr. Ümlaut. Then he whispered to Gu

“A scene,” said Gu

“Du gamla, Du fria, Du fjällhöga nord...”

As far as interventions go, this was taking on a whole personality of its own.

“It’s the Swedish national anthem,” Kjersten explained to me.

“Du tysta, Du glädjerika sköna!”

Mr. Ümlaut just stared at him with the kind of shock and embarrassment that can only come from a parent.

“Jag hälsar Dig, vänaste land uppå jord.”

Kjersten joined in, and now it was a duet. Since I didn’t know the Swedish national anthem, I improvised and began to sing the most Swedish thing I knew. I began to sing a song by that Swedish seventies group, Abba.

So now the croupier looks at the pit boss, the pit boss signals the manager, and the manager comes ru

“Din sol, Din himmel, Dina ängder gröna.”

All gambling in the casino grinds to a screeching halt as we perform.

“You can dance! You can jive! Having the time of your life!” I sing at the manager, who’s much less entertained than I believe he should be.

Kjersten and Gu

Mr. Ümlaut did not look happy as we crossed the casino toward the lobby. Gu

“Are you go

Mr. Ümlaut didn’t look at him. He didn’t say a word until we were off the casino floor, and the security guard returned to his duties, satisfied that we were no longer a threat.

“Proud of yourself, Gu

“Are you?” Gu

“There are things you don’t understand.”

“I understand a lot more than you think.”

Rather than letting the two of them bicker, Kjersten cut it off. “Daddy,” she said, “we want you to come home.”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he looked at them, perhaps searching for something in their faces, but you couldn’t read much in those two—in that way, they took after their father.

“Didn’t your mother tell you?” he said.

“What?” said Gu

It surprised me that he hadn’t told them himself. Even if they already knew, he had a responsibility to say it in his own words.

“I will let you know where I am, once I know myself,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“There’s a lot to worry about,” Gu

But rather than taking it in, Mr. Ümlaut seemed to just pull his wall in closer, so Gu

“No,” said Kjersten. “We figured it out for ourselves.”

“I appreciate your concern,” he said, like he was talking to strangers instead of his children. “I’ll be fine.”

“What about them?” I said. Maybe I was out of line speaking at all, but I had to say something.

Suddenly I found all his anger turned against me. “What business is this of yours? What do you know about our family? What do you know about anything?”

“Leave him alone!” shouted Kjersten. “At least he’s around when we need him. At least he’s there.” Which I guess is the best you could say about me. “At least he’s not away day after day, gambling away every pe

’You’re not understanding!” he said, loud enough to snag the attention of another family waiting to check in. They peered at us over their luggage, pretending not to. Mr. Ümlaut forced his voice down again. “The car, the house—we were losing them anyway—if not this month, then next month. A few dollars gambled makes no difference.”

I think he truly believed that—and for the first time, I began to understand what Kjersten and Gu

Then Gu

“Mom’s taking us back to Sweden,” he said. “She’s taking us there for good.”

Although the news shocked me, I have to say I wasn’t surprised. Apparently neither was Mr. Ümlaut. He waved his hand as if shooing away a swarm of gnats. “She’s bluffing,” he said. “She’s been saying that forever. She’ll never do it.”

“This time she means it,” Kjersten said. “She has airplane tickets for all of us,” and then she added, “All of us but you.”

This hit Mr. Ümlaut harder than anything else that had been said today. He looked at them, then looked at me as if I was somehow the mastermind of some conspiracy against him. He went away in his own head for a few moments. I could almost hear the conversation he was having with himself. Finally he spoke with the kind of conviction we had all been hoping to hear.