A Touch of Elegance

As I may have mentioned before, my father had a fondness for how Damon Runyon wrote in the present tense.  A number of dad's stories emulated the approach. This is one.

Colonel Steele, our new commander is somewhat retiring--more aptly, reclusive.  He does not tend towards ceremonial appearances before the troops.  Nor is he as rigid as his name suggests.  He prefers to delegate command appearances and parades to his deputies, all of whom clamor for the exposure.

This is a rare quality. He never gets to see if the men shine their shoes and police their brass buckles.  I do not think he cares about these vital military matters.

He holds a bundle, though he is not very forthcoming with his pesos.  The family car is an old Chevy clunker, which is hardly loaded.  It does not even have a radio or a heater.

Of course, when a guy has as many bob as he, this is considered fashionable.

He lives in one of those low numbers on Fifth Avenue, in lower New York City.  I once have some business with him at this address.  The uniformed doorman scowls at me with disfavor when I enter the lobby.

He has one of those noble countenances that the servile beholden to the elite adopt when the serve. His expression alters when I give him the "password", Roger Steele, IV.  He bows with a touch of the obsequious and escorts me to the elevator.

It is rumored that the Colonel is very restive in his command position. There is the inevitable bucking of the deputies for his position should he retire.  There are hints of domestic tremors in his household.

Colonel Donner, another military man of merit, is a close competitor.  He is an attorney in his civilian morphology, who specializes in divorce matters.  He will accept the command spot if it is empty; but his heart aspires to becoming a General in the National Guard.  I mention him, not out of favoritism, but because he is central to the story.

In the summer of 19??, we are ordered to fourteen days of active duty--a requirement imposed every year for reserve units.  We are sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts for the training period.

Colonel Donner arrives literally seconds after I park my car.  He brings his wife, and another doll I do not recognize, though I guess she may be Mrs. Steele, the wife of our Chief. I apologize for calling her a "doll".  The description fits Mrs. Donner who I meet many times before and who has an impressive vocabulary of curse words.

The fat that they ride in the same car together is a surprise to me.  Colonel Donner makes it in the social stratosphere but his wife, Mildred, never gets past the headwaiter in a posh restaurant, in my opinion.

Victoria, that is the name of the Chief's wife, is an elegantly clothed and coiffed "dame".  I use the appellation in its gentler, older meaning.  She is poised, quiet and polite and she offers me her hand in such a manner that I do not know whether she means for me to shake it or to kiss it.

"Shhh," says Mrs. Donner, in elaborate mimicry.  "It's a surprise for Colonel Steele. The bum never takes her anywhere, so we take her away from her knitting."

I am very shocked at this irreverence.  Moreover, I do not see knitting as an avocation for this lady.

Victoria does not change expression.  She simply extends her hand.  She is cool, in manner, and apparently, physically also.  I do not understand why she wears gloves in the first place, as it is summer, though I do note they are color coordinated.

Since she does not remove the glove wrapping when she extends her hand, I guess she does not expect a kiss in the first place.

I never get to see if Colonel Steele is surprised.  The surprise is mine as I am summoned to his office.

"Major," he says without preamble, "I require your assistance for a mission outside the military, of course there is a military adjunct.  My duties are such that I can ill afford absence from my desk.  My wife comes to camp quite unexpectedly today.  I would consider it a favor if you would see to it that she is shown the true hospitality of the post in my absence, for which I am everlasting grateful.

I take this to mean he owes me one.

"Sir," I reply, "I am a poor host, especially with other men's wives.  May I inquire why you choose me for this exercise?"

"Major, I am informed that you are the officer in charge of unit celebrations.  I hear of the big bash you run in the St. Moritz Hotel on the thirty-third floor overlooking Central Park.  The wives of many of the officers are greatly pleased, as their husbands seldom wine and dine them, where the tab may be a little steep.  I hear the party is in good taste and my wife is very fond of good taste, which I learn from her credit card bills."

So I find myself at dinner with at the Officers Club with Colonel Donner, his wife, Mildred and Victoria, who in her married state is Mrs. Steele.

I order a Martini, actually a Gibson, as I prefer onions to olives.  Victoria does not say anything but I see an expression in her eyes that she tries something similar.  So I say to her, "onions or olives?"

"Olives," she replies sotto voce as if she does not want anyone to hear.  She smiles and inhales the drink with patrician elegance.

Mildred tells one of her dirty jokes and I hold onto my chair lest I fall off.  I am used to Flatbush Avenue or Eastern Parkway jokes, but I hold my breath as Mildred expounds.  I hear this joke before and I shut my eyes before the punch line.

"Take me, " she says, "if I have as many sticking out of me as I have had stuck in, I look like a porcupine."

I look at Victoria, for surely the dissertation is disagreeable to her sensitivities.  She is, however, unperturbed, and casually inspecting the wine list.

"I think a little Merlot will be sufficient unto the cause," she says, and adds, "Mildred, you should tell that joke to my husband."

I think it instructive how disparate personalities become convivial in a short car ride from New York City to the campsite.  Also, I do not think Colonel Steele appreciates this joke at all, if he does hear it.  Nor do I think many things are stuck into Mrs. Donner except under duress or provocation.

We do the bottle of Merlot, which is hardly sufficient nourishment for grown people. A second is provided, then the inevitable brandy, at which point Colonel Steele arrives.  He is distressed at the number of empties he notes on the table.

"Come, Victoria," he says, "I will see you home."

She rises with regal elegance and accompanies him.  I have the feeling she does not want not have a scene in front of the people from Brooklyn.  She leaves a glass of VSOP brandy, which is very old, very pale, very expensive and very wasteful.

I hear very little after this.  I wonder if I get a good grade from Colonel Steele for services rendered.  I know Victoria is very pleased with the chance to imbibe a few.  My guess is that underneath that Bar Harbor veneer, she belts many a glass in the quietude of her sewing room.

It is no surprise to me that Colonel Steele retires.

Colonel Donner resigns also.  I hear the particulars when I run into Mildred and Victoria at the Russian Tea Room, after a concert at Carnegie Hall.  They are seriously involved with imbibing Manhattans.  I share a glass or two and Mildred fills in the gaps in the story.

"My husband hands him the divorce papers," she explains, "though not at camp, as this is impolite.  Victoria collects a bundle as does my husband, the lawyer.  Victoria leaves Colonel Steele a sufficiency and she makes not claim against the Chevy clunker, which he dearly loves.

"Indeed,"  says Mildred, "I find a real companion when I run into Victoria at Colette's Makeover Salon that day when she tells me of her domestic unhappiness.

I do not have opinions on these matters, though as far as Mildred is concerned the makeover does nothing for her morphology.  Now, Victoria? That's a story for another day.

Love on Christmas Eve

I changed the title on this one, as dad had called it Christmas Story, and the one prior is also called Christmas story. This one seems to me to be about ordinary moments of love.

The lines to the cashier were interminable.  Christmas Eve is no time to shop.  Now there were only three customers before me, though patron number one had filled the moving counter to capacity. Worse, she was preparing to write a check.  There would be the frantic searching of her cavernous purse for identification, the clerical notations for security, and the inevitable scanning of the double coupons to cap the liturgy of modern day shopping.

The elderly woman in front of me reached up and smoothed an errant hair over the right ear of her companion, an older gentleman who remained immobile during the process.  He was also occupied with writing a check, the book balanced, precariously, in his palm.

"You like him?" I importuned.

"Very much," she answered, her face brightening from what seemed of questionable humor when she noticed my attention

"Have you always liked him?" I probed, mischievously.

"For forty-five years," came the unexpected response from the gentleman, who did not alter his writing position.

"Yes," I proffered, "but does he like you?"

"I think so," she said reflectively.

I was surprised at the hesitancy, but she recovered quickly. "I'm sure. I'm very sure."

It was a kind of penitential response, though she smiled coquettishly, with the confidence of the loving who are loved.

I looked about me.  Nearby customers were listening to the conversation.  A smiling African-American woman offered:

"I've been married for eleven years."

"No cigar," I responded.  "There are thirty-four more years to go to match these folks."

The loving couple beamed and moved up a notch.  The clerk was completing the double coupon phase of the prior endless transaction.

"How about you?" I asked the girl just behind me.  She was young, perhaps approaching thirty.  She had remained expressionless through our improvisation.  Her hair was combed severely back, and she had an air of privacy. Nevertheless, I took a chance.

"Don't tell me," I began, "You are married perhaps three years."

"Two," she corrected.

"Your husband is a football fan, a couch potato."  There were two six packs of beer in her cart.

"No chance," she said with conviction. "Not if I can help it."

I thought of the elderly lady's gesture brushing an imaginary hair from her husband's face.  There was affection in the gesture.

I looked for softness in the young girl's face.  It was impassive.  I felt that expressions of love did not come easily from her.  She smiled with a difficulty more like reluctance.

I experienced a touch of sadness, inexplicable in this eve of the Nativity, in this season of new birth and hope and promise.  I thought I saw deep sadness in her eyes, or unfulfilled aspiration.

And she still had so many years to travel.

The Last Days of Hollywood

The Hollywood in this case is the first cat I had when I moved to California. Folks who aren't pet aficionados will no doubt find my paean to a cat from 18 years ago silly, but every cat I have had has demonstrated an individuality that makes the species ever more appealing to me. Every one had his or her special ways and I have loved every one of them.


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Hollywood and my apartment were a package deal.  I got "Hollywood" the furry tailed tabby before I had any real furniture after my move to California from New York in 1981.  A work acquaintance asked, "Do you want a cat?" I was new to Los Angeles. A cat was more essential to me than a couch.  I remember nothing of the home or the people whose mother cat had had the litter.  I only remember the big eared creature, hair standing on end, only slightly larger than my open hand, climbing brazenly up my jeans leg. It was love.

He became large, a solid twelve pounds.  In his later years, he was noisy, particularly at night.  He indulged in the older cat's need to yowl, to inform his universe, "Trouble" his tabby sister I adopted in 1989, and me, of his considerable presence when I was trying to sleep.  After the yowling, he thumped onto the bed--by the time he was eighteen, it was the only place he could jump successfully--and walked on my chest until we were wet nose to dry nose.  He purred with command and satisfaction, "No sleeping, please. I need to be petted, and I wouldn't mind a late night snack."  If I did not give him his fill of either, he moved to the top of my head on the pillow and skilfully affixed his teeth just above my scalp and pulled my hair.  I removed him to the bottom of the bed with the appropriate remonstration which I am sure my neighbors always appreciated.  Unphased, and trusting of my ultimate good nature, he slowly padded, paw lightly placed on the covers, squish, paw after paw, replaying the scene.  In the morning he was even less accommodating to his recumbent provider, and revved up the procedure to get me out of bed and opening the can.  Trouble watched, darting into the kitchen, tail erect and triumphant, when she saw that Hollywood had achieved the objective, as always.  Hollywood accepted his due.  He ruled the roost.  He ruled me.  I loved that he ruled me. I thought in that unconcious corner of my mind that it would always be that way.

In 1994 he began to have seizures, intense and terrifying for both of us.  After one, I held him for a very long time in a towel while he hyperventilated and looked for the enemy.  Phenobarbital was the medicinal savior.  He thrived despite the physical setback.  Our new ritual was to get him to eat his food with the chopped up pill, and not Trouble's.  If I wasn't looking, he was in her dish, but moved back with a protesting meow when he heard my low voiced, "Hollywood, eat your own."

He started to lose his sight, cataracts probably, but it distressed him not at all.  Whiskers and scent and old knowledge of the apartment and its obstacles allowed him to adapt.  I began to think he was indestructible.

One day, in June, I came home to find them both as usual at the door clamoring for food  But my stomach fell when I saw that Hollywood was listing hard to the left, head and body, seeming to have difficulty in standing, and circling unsteadily as he walked.  He was otherwise unaware of the change. The emergency vet was reassuring that he would make it through the night, despite the stroke. So was the couple I met there, with their poodle, Charles.  Charles had also had a stroke the previous year which left him completely paralyzed.  Now, he walked, though haltingly.  After treatment by my own vet the next day, Hollywood came home, and not one to be outdone by a poodle, by the end of the week he was virtually back to himself.  His head returned to its normal position with an ever so slight residual tilt only I could notice.  The vet, Dr. Marina, said, "Watch his appetite." He continued to eat with gusto and I thought we had plenty of time. I began to take more pictures and videos of him, just in case.  We both needed more of each other's company. Although he had recovered his ability to jump on my bed after the stroke, his breathless yowling increased to get me to lift him up there.  He had created a new ritual between us.  He slept in the crook of my arm at night, not just at the end of the bed, his formerly favorite place.

On July 12, my alarm clock, Hollywood, wasn't there.  Not on my bed.  Not in the room at all. Holding my breath, I looked for him. He was in the living room sitting unresponsive, eyes closed, nose warm, sensitive tot he touch, uninterested in food, the final diagnostic truth. I rushed to the vet. Probably an infection, maybe a brain tumor, but by the end of the day it was moot.  I had gone to my office for the day, awaiting news, and hearing that he was in a coma, I returned to the vet. Hollywood's little paw was wrapped where an IV had been inserted. I spoke to him, "Hey H.  I am here H."  He heard my voice and tried to respond.  He was a tough soul. My vet and I agreed to give him the night, to see if maybe he would improve, as he had from the stroke.  I knew what would happen, what I would do, if he was like this in the morning, but I wouldn't think about that until tomorrow.  I petted him.  I told him his dish of food awaited him at home.  I kissed him. I cried.  The cockatoo in the next cage, with the big blue cone collar around its neck, looked at me suspiciously.  I went out to the reception area to pay half the bill. Somehow doing that left things comfortably without a conclusion.  Then the Dr. called to me, and waved me into the examination room that led to the special care section. "He died," I said with certainty.  "He was waiting for you," she said with absolute conviction.  Hollywood was still warm as I kissed him goodbye and tried to fix this last image in my mind for all time.  The cockatoo respectfully stood stock still.  As much as I had always loved animals, cats in particular, I don't know that I ever had before believed in a cosmic connection between a human and a pet.  Until then. Until now.  He heard me.  He knew he was loved. And then he died.

I just developed one of the picture I took of him in his final week.  Hollywood, in his last days, contentedly perched at the end of my bed, in half sleep.  When I look at the 8X10 on my wall, I feel his presence.  Trouble is a comfort of course.  But Hollywood and me, and this apartment, we're still a package deal.

Another from Dad--A Story of Christmas Past

The "Myra" character in a few of my dad's stories was the alter ego of my mother. But there are many facts of the character's life history that are changed within the story. And of course, romance was not something I ever saw between them, so I cannot vouch one way or the other for the historicity of the expressions here.  

Myra is not always subtle.  There is a particular aura about her when she is about to make an announcement I know I will not like. Now I do not mean to suggest that she takes on an unpleasant mien on these occasions.  On the contrary, she is usually at her most charming and accommodating self, at which point, my radar signals danger.

There was, on this occasion, the martini glass frosted to perfection that she filled after brushing my cheek with a pre-emptory kiss; a bottle of Chianti wine sat prominently between two very long candles on the dining table; and the air was suspiciously redolent with her scent--a favorite of mine that I had given her last Christmas.

There are many things a man learns after seven years of marriage.  One of these is proper demeanor--restraint, an iron will not to express surprise one way or the other, or body movement that can be stored material for future conjugal discussions.  Men remember nothing in the inevitable jousts of marriage, but women remember everything.  I asked no questions and simply waited for the inevitable.  It came:

"Tempest is coming to spend Christmas with us," she said, casually, after sipping her wine with an unusual display of elegance.

For those of you of adult status, I need not record here the details of our further dialogue on the matter.  Suffice it to say, for purposes of this story, that Myra retained her elegant social demeanor.  I did not, but she won.

The next matter was a discussion of a proper gift for Tempest, and the little time left to shop for one.  Christmas was just one day ahead.

I must say that I never did understand the relationship between Myra and Tempest.  They were roommates at the University.  This was a period of a natural succession of their childhood friendship, and their elementary and high school period of bonding.

Tempest was the maid of honor at our wedding.  We had double dated before the wedding, and it was apparent that there was a kind of Damon and Pythias friendship between them.

The last time I saw Tempest was at my wedding.  She was lovely, assured, and aggressive.

Certainly she demonstrated the last with her comment and subsequent action.

"Everyone wants to kiss the bride," she exclaimed loudly, "but I've decided to kiss the groom."

This she did, and I recall that it was efficiently done and slightly more than friendly.

Myra did not mention the event until perhaps three years later.  I do not recall the words or the reason for the recollection.  It seems, as Myra remembered it, that I had invited the act.

"Well," she said, " you certainly seemed to be enjoying it."

The distaff mind is a labyrinth best left unexplored.

I do not wish to be casual about my wife's relationships.  Myra was adopted at birth. She an find, therefore, rejection in a glance.

Over the past seven years, there had been desultory responses from Tempest to the many letters Myra wrote.  She could not understand the silence, the casual rejection.

"We were so close, like sisters.  I don't understand," she confided to me, many times.

"But Myra," I would say, "She's been ministering to three husbands.  This calls for full attention."

Myra did not care for my levity.  She cried.

There was great joy when she received a call from the East Coast.  She and Tempest were on the phone for several hours.  I do not know the substance of this conversation, but it was a great catharsis.  Myra was happy and reassured.  She did not explain.  I did not ask. Nor did she tell me that it was at this time the invitation for Christmas was engendered.

"Is she coming with one of her husbands," I asked.

"She's coming alone, wise guy, and we have no time to buy her a gift."

"Let's take her out for a fancy, dress-up dinner," I said.

Myra cried. There is no proper male response to tears.

"What about something of yours," I said, "a bottle of that French perfume.  Perhaps that cameo with the silver neck chain I bought and you didn't like?"

"Great!" she exclaimed.  "I have the original box and we can wrap it up for Christmas."  She giggled like a delighted child.

Tempest got her gift and the fancy dinner.  I must remark here that seven years and three husbands had little if any erosive effect on the allure she exuded at my wedding.  The cameo was a perfect adjunct to her evening gown.

Myra said she still did not like it.  "It was your idea," she reminded me quietly. There was no logic in the statement.  At least to me.

I knew, however, that I would hear of the matter again, perhaps in a year or two.

Paul Bynum: Still Thinking of Him Thirty Years Later

I had been at the State Bar of California as an attorney for just under two years when one morning, I heard that an investigator, whom I didn't know very well, but liked very much, had committed suicide, leaving behind a wife and a young child. It's only in recent years that you can look up his name and find some information on him, and what happened to him. Before he was an investigator at the State Bar, he had been a Detective at the Hermosa Beach Police Department. He had worked on high profile cases, and, as I understand it, after he was separated from the Department, he worked with a lawyer on the infamous McMartin cases. He was scheduled to testify before the jury in the case at the time he allegedly committed suicide. There were people who believed it wasn't suicide but murder, related to the high profile case. I have been paring down, slowly but surely of late, and I ran across this journal entry I wrote at the time of his death.

December 10, 1987

If I had known Paul Bynum better, other than as a friendly face whom I passed in the hall or rode up in the elevator with in the mornings or afternoon, I think I would have been emotionally incapacitated when I learned last night he killed himself.

He sort of stood out, because he looked so natural in his usually white shirt, rolled up sleeves and no matter what time of the day it was, early morning or late afternoon, his tie would usually be a little loosened.

He looked like a man hard at work, in the middle of some investigatory revelation. He was a former cop, like half of the investigators in our office.

Something was so horrible in his life, something which none of us yet knew, that he felt he had to shoot himself, leaving behind a wife and an 18 month old child.

I wanted to know if he left a note, something, some indication of what it was so compelling him to his death, or impelling him.

It won't be any less of a waste if I know, but at least maybe knowing why makes it all seem a little less random.

People die all the time, and there was something odd about the sense tonight, as I was driving home, that he had been here yesterday, all day.  Then today it was as as if he never existed.

Fear, sympathy, confusion, questioning, anger, sadness.  You feel all of these.

God, he felt so forsaken and he couldn't hang on. I'm tempted to ask where You were.  You might say to me, "It was his choice. Paul had the choice to keep the gift or throw it away." But, Lord, what if his mind was clouded? I have known a clouded mind. One of the inexplicable things.  We ask "why?". We cannot accept it  And we try to wait patiently for explanation and rescue.

Paul is no different from the rest of us, and that is what is alarming. For now, we are left with, "Why did that man kill himself?" and pray that God will take care of him, that he was not forsaken, whatever the appearance.

He is not here anymore.  All the cases that he handled, all the obsessing that he did over those things, for naught.

"What is truly important," said the Little Prince, "is invisible to the eye."  I hope that Paul had a glimpse of the truly important. I hope that I avoid in my life the drastic choice that Paul made.

Lord, I suspect that Paul went through a great deal of agony.  Look upon that agony as something which rendered him  unable to think clearly. He fell.  The Cross he bore was too heavy. Your Son died for him, for Paul who could not find you in his moment of despair. Protect him now, all things are possible with You.

I pray I do not forget Paul Bynum.

Giulia

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First Kisses

At least one character in this short tale did exist; the other, Dorothy is a composite, a bit of my mother (though the time frame is long before my father met my mother) and who knows who else. The other aspect I like about this story is its reference to the 40s, the Astor Roof and Frankie, who made all the girls swoon.

There was little one could do to control the peregrinations of the spinning bottle. I could only hope that when it stopped, the alignment would not be myself on one and Dorothy on the other.

Fate has a malicious way of calculating the odds against which we are pitted in life. It almost makes one a believer in predestination.  Dorothy beat the percentages beyond reasonable expectations, and I would brush my lips, fleetingly, against her omnipresent pucker, and mutter imprecations against "Lady Luck".

Now, in retrospect, Dorothy was indeed the most attractive of the preteen girls of the "Spin the Bottle" and "Post Office" kissing games.  Early youth seeking a bit of that legendary sinful apple.

She was tall and slim.  Perhaps on the threshold of thirteen, wide spaced very black eyes contrasting wit very white skin; a flashing smile brought points of light to her eyes.

I did not see her that way, then. This is all in retrospect.  Young men have no sense of beauty.  Their nascent drives are guided by a kind of visual anosmia.  Perhaps a good thing given the meager distribution of beauty in our species.

I might have noticed the latent charm were it not that I had an uncompromising mental block; her severe hairdo--tight wavy tresses, parted in the center exposing an over-travailed whiteness of scalp in the very center of her head, and brushed severely back as if to obliterate purposely the minuscule curls in her hair.

In those days, it was Margie who had my attention.

To be fair, I must describe her also in retrospect, which is not the way I saw her in those early days of revelations.

She was short, sandy haired, wide hipped and large breasted for her age.  Yet for all this, I was smitten.  I thrilled when I would hear her voice, announcing from another room that the "Postman had a letter" for me.

Margie was skilled in delivering the mail. This was no hurried peck.  She would come close to me, find some need to correct an errant button on my shirt, all the time leaning tastefully against my chest with her breasts.  When we kissed, her little tongue darted quickly between my unopened lips, sending newly generated waves of pleasure through my awakening body.

Still, all these kisses were of rudimentary meaning in terms of that ubiquitous question asked by teachers of English exposition, or suspicious wives; "What was your first kiss like?"

Our teen years passed quickly.  Some of us had cars--usually the Model A type Ford, some with that appendage in the rear known as the "Rumble seat', parenthetically an ideal place to pursue the study of kissing and related arts.

We were a tight knit social group up to the years of ferry rides to Staten Island, and trips to the dance casinos of upstate New York.  There was no serious pairing.  Margie did not confine her passion to correct wayward buttons to any one male.  Dorothy and I were thrown together often, by unanticipated circumstance.

Several times we spent unproductive proximity in one of the wind-blown rumble seats of the day.

I remember the year of that prom.  I will not give the date, but it was a memorable event.  The Astor Hotel had not been demolished.  Tommy Dorsey was holding forth on the celebrated Astor Roof and an emaciated Frank Sinatra was the vocal headliner.

Margie and Dorothy had no dates for their prom.  Time was passing.  Dorothy was forced to settle for her brother, Paul, as her escort.  Margie exerted her historic proprietary rights and I was allowed the privilege of escorting her.

Paul was an aspiring stage actor, tall, poised, sophisticated, who was scheduled for a screen test in Hollywood.  He drove the car with the open rumble seat.

I was not totally surprised to find that Margie had maneuvered herself into the seat beside the driver.  Fate had interposed her will, again.  Dorothy and I shared the rumble seat.

Somehow I was not displeased.  I had never seen Dorothy as she was on this night.  She was tall, poised, confident.  A simple black gown draped daringly from one shoulder, leaving the other bare.  It revealed the perfection of her figure.

The center parted hairdo was gone.  She had allowed her hair to grow, and the weight of the growth had removed the tight waviness.  Her long black hair was unencumbered and hung with its mass covering the exposed shoulder, to the front.  She had discovered her own beauty.

Margie now devoted her full attention to Paul.  He had no buttons on his shirt for her to manipulate, but she found his formal black tie frequently askew and in need of correction.

Dorothy was radiant.   She was enchanted with the Astor Roof Garden and clearly a fan of Frank Sinatra.  We danced almost every dance together.  She danced well, and abandoned herself to the rhythms, lissome and unrestrained.  For a good portion of the time, we stood with most of the dancers simply swaying to the beat of the Dorsey band in front of the bandstand when Frank was singing.

I had no reluctance in being relegated to the rumble seat for the ride home. It was cold and Dorothy moved close to me.  I searched for a blanket in the dark recesses of the rumble, but there was none.  I placed my arm around her and drew her close.  She rested her head on my shoulder, looked up, and offered her slightly parted lips upward.


We kissed, that is, she kissed me and I responded, long searching kisses such as I had never known before.  I responded though with some puzzlement at her ardor.  I had never shown her the attention that would merit such pleasure.  Her face was white in the moonlight, her eyes closed, her lips alive and apart, through which cool halting breaths accompanied each kiss.

This was truly my first kiss, unexpected, revelatory, remembered and cherished for many years, a brief, early glimpse into that labyrinthine psyche of woman.

There Is Nothing New Under the Sun

This piece is obviously a satire on history in the the late 1990s. I know, it is nearly twenty years ago, so who remembers?  Anyway, I almost didn't transcribe this one, and I am editing it very slightly, to omit the last name of the young lady of Rome who is one of the two main characters. The remainder of the letters I leave to the reader's imagination and they are more than three just in case you think too quickly. I also redact two sentences that were jarring, at least to me. 

Marcus Publius Varicus climbed to the top of the Palatine Hill.  The sun was casting its dying rays on the drowsy city.  Marcus was pensive.

"I could have torched this town.  Nero almost got away with the dodge.  Oh, well, something else will turn up.  It always does."

Still, he could not erase apprehension from his mind.  This new accusation of impiety resounded ominously.  It had a perilous ring about it.

That ungrateful, vengeful Vestal.  She was threatening to hold him up to a devastating accusation before all of Rome.

Aurora F.  He would rue the day he ever heard the name. . . .

He would not wait.  This one required immediate attention.  A comforting thought struck him.  It was relatively easy.  He would send for his favorite town crier, Demetrius Golgotha, the one whose bald skull always reminded him of a tumescent appendage.  Still, the sonofabith was effective.  He could abide his disgust with his minion.  Usually he avoided personal contact with him. . .The matters were always carried out through another flunky.  The voice of this former slave whom he had liberated for State reasons grated on him. He abhorred the high pitch and vulgar dialect of the southern province of Neapolis, where one could not even get a good slave or pizza for that matter. . .

Say what one will.  The irritating menial had done well in a half-dozen of his previous scrapes with his more vociferous playthings.  They had been wished "into the fields" to coin a phrase, and not the Elysian ones.

Aurora would be accused of allowing the sacred Eternal Flame to go out.  He did not consider the fact that there were six other Vestals around in continuous care of the Eternal Flame, perhaps witnesses to her innocence.  Details for dissemination of the act and giving it the ring of verity was a matter for his trusted priests.

He was forced to a personal meeting with Demetrius.  He had to admire, reluctantly, the labyrinthine turns of his sewer like mind.  Demetrius assured him that Aurora would be done in long before the scheduled hearing with the Roman Senate scheduled for the ides of that month introduced into the calendar by his illustrious ancestor, Caesar Augustus.

Marcus Publius Varicus felt a new sense of calm.  He recalled the smiling, loving faces of his audience as he orated at the Forum.  It was know that he declaimed with the skill of a Cicero.  Better, the great Greek Demosthenes.  He did not fail his acolytes.

"I never had sex with that virgin, that Vestal, I mean, that woman," he thundered. It was an acclamation to be envied.

He was after all, in the tradition of his forbears, their god, a creator, a founding father.

So said all the street orators. So reported all his faithful followers.  He himself was in the audience disguised as a peasant when he heard the bombastic Catatonious declaim, "Delenda est Aurora", "Down with Aurora".  The orator continued, "Of what is our great leader guilty?  The gods forbid this accusation against a peer, one who is Divine."

Did not the noted communicator Micah Jacksonius write that verity, that the Great Publius cannot be held to the standards of ordinary men.

"Yes, he is active sexually, but this is a gift of the great god Priapus."

Marcus was not concerned about the censure of the Senators.  He was well provided with complete papyri on each of them.  He had read many a juicy tale one night when he could not sleep and there was no other distraction available.  He chuckled to himself, "Surely not Arrius Duplitius, why he brings new meaning to the Latin word, ambidextrous."

He waxed poetic. In these nocturnal musings, "breathes there a man with soul so dead/who has not in his closet hid/ a fleshy skeleton or two/or three or four."

Talk about Nero paying his lyre, or fiddle, he forgot which.  Anyway, he knew he was better on the lyre than Nero was, hands down, regardless of how one spells the word.

There were irritations.  Take for instance, that former mentor of his from some Asia Minor province, that Greek scribe, Papadopoulous or other, who kept gossiping among the literati of greater Rome about the nine hundred other Papyri, he, Marcus kept hid under his bed for safekeeping.

The Madonna in charge of the vestals was, he knew, more close lipped--literally and figuratively.  He was certain that she had chosen the one profession suitable to her unfortunate physical aspects.  Leonor Cleftus had a price, but it was worth it.  She was heard to declaim, "O Tempore, Oh Mores," which has nothing to do with this narration and is simply a Latin aphorism relating to time, that he, Publius had gone from sixty four percent to sixty eight percent approval in the opinion of Rome's Virgins and that after the denunciation of that pseudo-Virgin.

Still, "judge ye, O gods," he mused. "How I am persecuted.  That damned toga was stolen from my wardrobe.  A toga is a toga, but this one is reputed to have miraculous manifestations.  He cursed the maliciousness of certain Olympian residents, the lesser, peripheral gods.  He was not about to name names, for safety's sake.  They could be bitchy.  It was said that the lost garment had a mysterious imprint, incontrovertibly his image, of erratic conformation.  He made a mental note.  This would be a job for that great interpreter for the goddess of Justice, blindfolded and holding the scales of truth, the revered patronness of Barrius Shekkius, who would explain her truth.

Truly, wasn't Leonora Cliftus a voice from Olympus when she explained, "Verily, our leader has remained reluctantly silent these many years for good and cogent reasons.  He has been a fortress against the calumnies of those decadent right-wing Etruscans.  For whom?  For you, O people of Rome, and his immediate household, and good old fashioned Roman morality."

Marcus Publius Varicus fell soundly asleep and dreamed a kind of deja vu dream.  He saw himself on the dais at the For Romano, his voice ringing sonorously above the silent masses.  He was holding his battered robe before the people, pointing to the tears made by his calumniators, all stains against his divine person hood.  The cheers were thunderous, thunderous, thunderous. . .

Random Thoughts In The Emergency Room

Now that I have put onto this blog, for posterity, the letters my father wrote to my mother during the thirteen weeks he spent in Augusta, George for Army Reserve Training, I am returning to transcribing his short short stories. Not all of them, because some were clearly unfinished experiments, but there will be many.  It will take time, and this part of the project which I have undertaken, the preservation of a family whose line has ended with me, will alternate with my general blogging of thoughts.  

The story that follows makes reference to a woman that my father met about four or five years after my mother died. Actually, it was a blind date set up by one of Dad's colleagues who knew the lady. Their relationship, which I encouraged, for both altruistic and selfish reasons, was beautiful, and lasted about a year. My father said he ended it, and the reasons are reflected in this story, her age, which was much younger than his, and his health. She became my friend both before and after Dad died. She said it was a mutual decision, that the timing wasn't right. I knew a little of her situation; it was possible that it was mutual. I do wonder why my father took the responsibility for the break-up. I so wanted them to stay together. She was an infusion of life for him, and for me. I always told him he made a mistake. Ours was not a family that pursued happiness. In fact, sometimes it seemed to me that we swatted it away when it approached. 

It is hard not to note my father's cynicism toward religion. He was always questioning. Even after he decided to join me in my faith, officially at least, as a Catholic.

I walked towards the Admissions desk.  It was three deep with applicants for service.  Somehow, I caught the eye of a nurse.  In that brief glance, I managed to point my index finger towards the middle of my chest. She was beside me in an instant, her unusually strong hand grasped my arm.  She led me to the glass-enclosed office behind the emergency desk and sat me in a wheel chair, adjacent to another desk and a computer flashing kaleidoscopic colors.

I was reminded of the pin ball machines of my youth, and in my mesmerized state fully expected the clangor of a win--coins dropping noisily into a metallic pan and bells announcing, "JACKPOT".

She was young, pretty, long-haired. Her carefully burnished nails did not impede the speed with which she manipulated the computer.

"Are you a nurse,"  I asked.  No secretary could have such long nails.

"Yes," she replied, never missing a stroke.

She stopped long enough to take my pulse.

"One hundred and twenty," I guessed.

"One hundred and fifteen," she corrected.

The typing was brief.  I have a long history of service from Cedars-Sinai. The necessary vital material was available on the computer memory banks.

"We're short of beds," she noted, "but I'll try to set you up."

Indeed.  It was the day after Thanksgiving.

The nurse smiled.  It was a warming gesture.  She handed me over to a volunteer, who squeezed my arm in the ritual of mercy.

The volunteer wheeled me to the entrance of the emergency room.  It was barred by a large metal door that opened from time to time at the electronic signal of a guard.

It slammed shut with the authority of a prison gate, a kind of prophetic finality.

In the brief moments to allow passage the door remained open to disclose filled emergency rooms.

Before each, gurneys, wheel chairs, conveyances of all kinds guarded the spot that assured possession of the next empty bed.

I was relieved each time the door shut out the symphonies of pain, particularly the two note repeating cry of a very young child.

I was wheeled into room six.  I wondered that the previously placed patient, already at the entrance had not been given the space. "Triage," I thought, apprehension overcoming my being.  He looked and sounded worse than I felt.

I stood, silent, lost, not knowing what was expected of me.  The room had a comfortable bed.  The walls were full of equipment.  My reverie was broken by a very small Japanese nurse, who threw a onto the bed.

"Get into this right away.  I have to hook you up to the monitors.  I did as I was told. I watched as she placed sticky circles about my upper body which had metal teats to which she snapped the leads.  "An EKG," I thought.

She left.  I closed my eyes and waited like old Scrooge for the next visitor.  HE came.  He was young, with a pointed goatee.  He was dressed in a maroon shirt and trousers over which a a black leather devise, crossed against the breast squeezed against his waist and upper hips.  A back support, I guessed. He had the look of an imp from some frightening darkness.

"I'm your nurse," he announced, "There'll be a little sting. . ."

There was.  I could feel it--and a sudden sensation of liquid rolling down my arm. I dared a look, but he had wiped it clean.  He held three vials of blood I had no idea he had taken.  A little receptacle remained in my arm, secured in a fat vein, ready to receive whatever might be offered.

"Just in case," he said, pointing to the device.

I tried to doze but was interrupted by a succession of visitors, all looking at the monitors and taking notes.  I forgot about the automatic blood-pressure machine and was startled by its unrelenting squeeze against my arm.

The curtains parted again with a metallic swoosh.

"I'm your volunteer."  She did not elaborate.  She had extraordinary, large unblinking blue eyes.  They were hypnotic.

"The doctor will be in soon with the results of the tests," she whispered.  I was transfixed by the ocular splendor.

She smelled pretty, though there was no hint of perfume.  Probably regulations did not allow.  Curiously, even with my awareness of that eternal shadow reading the kaleidoscopic monitor about my head, reaction to beauty was not dulled.

They're all wrong, Saints Paul, Peter, Jerome, Origen, the vaunted Church Fathers--those Biblical purveyors of guilt, who accuse of of Original Sin--they're all wrong.  The Maker of all things watched, approvingly when Adam shared that eternal apple with Eve.  It was God's way to insure the immortality of His chosen species.  He opted for life.

An author said it better than I can. "Allah looks darkly on a man who refuses a woman's love, when she calls."  The infinite being so near, I thumbed drowsily through memory for any faults Allah may have with me.  Yes, there was one grievous sin, one for which twenty years later those who knew of us castigated me darkly, but not nearly as bad as my self-imposed penance.

I will not describe her beauty, that warmth of inner love that was transmitted with a touch.  When we danced, it was as if one body was in motion.  For more than a year, we dallied with the world of music, glitter and dance.  Sardi's, El Morocco, The Forum of the Twelve Caesars.  Rita Dmitri, of the famous Candlelight Room, descended the piano from which she sang nightly, to sit with us, and to probe--in the parlance of the milieu--whether we were "anybody."

People in love are a curiosity, and blatantly obvious.

My eyelids became too heavy to ponder this ancient sin, but the memory refused to leave on its own.

I was in a dream as real as life.  We were on our way to greet the New Year.  It was New Year's Eve, 1978, as we sped towards the restaurant where we had our first date, to a reserved corner table in the Chateau Henri IV, with its unique bridge over a moat, and the plus circular table setting that allowed us to sit close together, where we joined hands, and were seldom apart after that.

She sat close as I drove and her heady scent and warmth reinforced my determination.  I would ask her to marry me.  It was not an impediment that there was twenty years between us, that the summer her life was beginning I was well into fall.  I could withstand the cynical, pervasive remark at social gatherings--"Introduce me to your daughter."  It was her decision.  She had assured me it was what she wanted.

I would wait till midnight. . .for sure, this time. . .I was happy.

The phone was insistent in its importunate ringing.  I fought the unwanted persistent hand of the nurse on my shoulder. . .

"The doctor is here with the reports."

Snap Into It

I am guessing that much of this tale is true in that my father did go to Officer Candidate School during the war, when there was a great need for officers to lead platoons which usually were demolished by the various enemies of the time, Germany and Japan and their allies. 

He was an awesome figure.  Tall, lean and grizzled, his uniform was immaculate, tailored to fit his trim musculature.  He stood austere and menacing before his platoon, monitoring the issuance of a rifle to each soldier.  He was impatient with the recording of serial numbers.  Clearly, administration was not his forte.  "Snap into it!" he repeated over and over, as if the remark itself could hasten the inexorable authority of the Company Clerk.

When they were finally formed for the training session, he had his revenge. He called, "Attention!" in his booming voice and kept the men thus transfixed for what seemed an eternity.

Derek tried not to wobble.  He cursed the intrusive insect that trod across his forehead, daring him to twitch and thus invoke the wrath of this new power in his life--the Master Sergeant--three stripes down, three up, and a diamond in the middle.

Now for you of this distorted generation where a one or two star Genera can be deposed by a civilian structure for such minor infractions as adultery, there can be no comprehension of the impact of a single stripe on a teen-age draftee from the Bronx.  Three up and three down--with a diamond in the middle, alas.

"Christ," he muttered. "We hit the friggin' jackpot!"  "At ease," came the booming voice, releasing them from their immobility.

Derek moved gratefully to the at ease position, his feet tingling from the tension of not being able to move.  His relief was momentary.

"You, soldier," the voice was definitely addressing him.  "Yes, YOU. Front and center with the rifle. Snap into it!"

Apprehension and anger merged in his gut. He especially hated the repetitive expression, "Snap into it!".  He hated the Sergeant more.  He hated the Army--he hated the world and that abominable lottery that gave him such a low number.

So, for the rest of that hot and humid afternoon, under a blazing South Carolina sun, he became the robot, performing under the crisp orders of the Sergeant, "Right shoulder arms; left shoulder arms, order arms, present arms", ad nauseam for the edification of the rest of the platoon.  It was the first of many disagreeable experiences, one following the other like ten Biblical plagues--guard duty, P, fifteen mile hikes with full field pack, iron helmet and that damned nine pound Enfield rifle of his first travail, with the Sergeant of multiple stripes--three up, three down and a diamond in the middle.

There was worse.  He was assigned extra duty as bartender at the Officers' Club. Now, all you experts, don't observe that this kind of duty was illegal.  It was.  But that did not make a damn bit of difference in 1942, I don't care how many years you think you had lying on your olive drab cot during your hitch.

He was given bartender duty, and that's that.

The sight of all these shiny first and second lieutenants parading the town Scarlett O'Hara's over the dance floor was painful.

"Bourbon on the rocks and a creme de menthe for the lady, and snap into it!"

That was the proverbial straw.  After his duty, he repaired to the barracks, straight to Sgt. Greenspan's room, for consultation.  Greenspan was his only friend, an anomalous relationship, based on the fact that they came from the Bronx and, consequently, were fellow aliens in the land of mint juleps.  Besides, Greenspan was a master of the intricacies of morning reports, soft duty assignments and was not above a modicum of skulduggery.

"You can apply for Officer Candidate School," he said.

"What do I have to do?" Derek asked.

"Well," said Greenspan, "you need an IQ of 110 or better."

"Well, you SOB," Derek posited, "you have all the files, what is mine?"

"Can't tell you, classified," he said, adopting his official demeanor, and enjoying it.

"Never mind the horseshit, Greenspan," Derek shouted, "Just stamp your hoof, once for yes or two for no."

In reverence to his Bronx friend, whom he never saw again after being ordered to Officer Candidate School, Derek was before the selection board within two weeks.  He starched his uniform, sat in the prescribed fashion before a panel of Colonels and Majors, answered practically every question wrong, and was selected.

"Snap into it," said Greenspan, "the truck for that 90 day wonderland is leaving."  He then whispered a magic-spell word from the Bronx into his ear.  "Mazeltov," said the good Sergeant and all he had was three up, three down and a miserly one up, but Derek remembered the incantation still with great affection.

There is no great climax to this story, perhaps though, a little irony.  The Master Sergeant, whose name was Unger, his earlier nemesis, was the last to mount the truck for the journey.  He had apparently applied for Officer Candidate School and he too was accepted.  His shirt sleeves were curiously bare.  He had been required to remove the formidable three up, three down, with the diamond in the middle.  He didn't mount the truck fast enough for the Sergeant now in charge,

"Snap into it, soldier!"

Former Sergeant Unger sat across from me, folded his arms across his chest and stared past me.

I could still see the residual imprints of the stripes.  How transitory are the symbols of power of one man over another.

For now they were starting as equals.  Derek felt greater kinship now than he had before.  He wished Unger luck mentally, and all the rest of the guys on the truck, for good measure.

"More that goddamn truck," bellowed the ubiquitous voice of the times.  "Snap into it! There's a war going on, you know.  Snap into it!"

Objects of Memory

I am a memory keeper. Cards, old papers, photos. Of late, I have tried to pare down, but there is always something, a letter, a matchbook (where you can get them nowadays), a voice message to keep. I was in New York last May and I went down to the site of 9/11 and the newly built One World Trade Center. I didn't make a prior reservation for the museum, so I couldn't go, but I ran across a DVD or two in the gift shop that reminded me of the power of objects in bringing to mind the lives of those who die. A bent steel beam, a Fireman's hat, a license that floated from the top floor as the two towers fell to dust, those are the objects that we cherish because they assure us that once a building and the people in them stood in ordinary days no longer taken for granted.

I was thinking about the force an object has to evoke memory in relation to Monsignor Murphy, the pastor of St. Victor, who died last Wednesday afternoon.  Objects, (as well as locations) which Monsignor had used to continue to celebrate Mass during his years' long illness, which I had paid little or no attention to just a few days before, became critical for me to document after Monsignor left us, unexpectedly, for he always seemed to bounce back from the critical bouts with his illness. The objects marked not only his struggle in the shadow of the Crucifix under which he celebrated Mass, but the glorious persistence of his ministry, not unlike that of Saint John Paul II.  On Friday, I decided to take a few pictures of these items before they were inevitably removed, no longer needed ritual items within the ritual.

I suppose it began with the mechanical chair. For a while, because the disease which struck Monsignor, began with his arms, he could still go up and down the few steps from the sanctuary proper to the altar. But then his legs began to be affected, and it became dangerous for him to manage stairs and the little chair appeared. As the removable railings which Monsignor Parnassus had used when his illness made walking difficult did, the chair became an integral part of the area, a necessity, but a discreet one.

After a while, the chair was no longer enough, Monsignor became wheel chair bound. He could no longer approach the altar through the back of the church, because of the steps, but a ramp allowed him to come to the side door, the outside entrance to the children's room, and one of his devoted helpers, whether it be Virgil Sr., Virgil Jr., Jayvil or Joseph, or a friend who was visiting for the day, would wheel him past his beloved potted plants and bougainvilleas of red, pink and white, to vest him. He often could be seen, after Mass, in his wheel chair, with a straw hat protecting his face, instructing one of the guys on pruning the plants and re-potting others.

When the weather was warm, when I was waiting to help at the weekday 12:10, I liked to sit outside on one of the tree stumps lined against the outer wall, watching the hummingbirds, or starlings or whatever the creature was hopping on the soft patches of grass.  Monsignor would come up the path and ask if there was one to see, and if so, I'd point it out. Monsignor had us servers trained, to get him vested quickly and out into the sanctuary. "Let's go!" he'd say if one of us was dawdling.

He had a choice of many reading glasses, but he simply favored one wired pair, that seemed to me to ill fit him. More than once I got the frame hooks in his ear instead of over it. And they would inevitably slip. Sometimes we servers would notice; sometimes not, at which time, we'd hear a whisper "push my glasses up" before he read the collect or the Eucharistic prayer.

Sometimes Monsignor was patient; sometimes not so much as servers turned the pages of the Sacramentary for him, often not quite discerning the labyrinthine layout for the Ordinary, or a Memorial, or a Feast, and having the ribbon markers in the proper place. The service began at a little table near the lecturn stage left, piled with the book for readings, the Sacramentary, and the intention for the day, and then moved to the a small altar that was erected out of a long portable table, that would accommodate Monsignor's wheel chair.

When that altar was placed in front of the main marble one, there was a bit of a stir I heard through the parish grapevine.

Some folks were "scandalized" to have this makeshift altar. Others, including many of our visiting priests, liked the way it brought the celebrant closer to the people. As in all the things that have happened during these last years, for me, the adjustments that were made to allow Monsignor to do that which was his life's blood, the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, became second nature. And for many others of us as well, I know.

All these objects made Monsignor Murphy more precious to us in this last more than half a decade. And maybe, for those I call the "St. Victor regulars", those parishioners who attend the variety of services and Holy Hours which provide sorely needed Graces as we tentatively walk the Royal Road of the Cross, the example of this priest and the objects he used to assist him in his ministry made us more precious to each other. We are a family in mourning for ourselves because he is lost to us in this life, but we are a family in joy because Monsignor has been freed from suffering and has entered Eternity.

The memory evoked by these small objects will keep our hearts warm until we join him.

"Shew Me Wherefore Thou Contendest With Me" (Book of Job Chapter 10, Verse 2)

As we all do, my father struggled with faith, and the idea of it. In some ways, for most of his life he simply stood outside and watched the fray, saying that he needed proofs that God be God. We can ask God, even struggle with the circumstances that flow from being fallen humans, but not demand of Him. The reality is that we have to understand that we are not in command, that we serve, but that doesn't come easily to any of us. When my father converted to Catholicism, I knew that at base he did it for me, but that was a great concession for a man who battled so within, and I am grateful he came to it, however circuitously. This story though reflects my father's life long questions, questions that have been extant since man had consciousness.  


It is said that He is aware of that solitary sparrow that glides through the vast forests of eternity. When it falls, wing broken, and thrashing on the ground; when the tree falls in that unkind wilderness, He knows the sounds of despair of his afflicted creations.  Yet nothing happens to alter the fate of either the tree or the sparrow.

So it is with some human "Sparrows" who are broken in spirit, from the beginning of their sojourn, assailed at birth by the confluence of natural forces and the imperfections of the human experience.

She came with that great wave of immigrants at the turn of the century.  The route was Argentina, first, then the lower East Side of Manhattan. Yitzhak, her father was a weaver.  He brought his own loom which he had been guarding with his life since he left that little corner of Galicea, where he was born.  Her role became that of the firstborn whose function was to minister to the brothers and sisters, which arrived with little interim between pregnancies, until there were nine.  Golda, the mother, grew gray and worn, as she tried to stretch the meagre earnings of Yitshak's solitary loom into enough to stave off the constant threat of starvation.

Rachel, we have waited to give her a name, plodded silently, and dutifully, to the cacophony of needs, the cries of the newborn, the wails of the little brother who scraped his knee, and the thousand ills that befall the poverty stricken, enclosed in a railroad flat, five stories up, if one does not count the stone steps that are a preamble to the first floor.

Still, Rachel was blessed.  At seventeen, she was a rare beauty.  Her raven hair was uncut since birth, and when allowed to, it fell, glistening and graceful, to her waist.  Her eyes were coal black, in a very white face of classical beauty.  No lipstick could add anything to lips that were carmine and moist; and precociously impatient.

Such a gem cannot long escape notice.  Irving Feldstein was stricken the day they met as she was coming down the stairs.  Irving made his collections on insurance premiums, usually, one dollar a week on each of the policies he had sold initially.

The courtship went on for several years, perhaps because of the filial concern of Yitzhak and Golda, more likely, their need for Rachel's services.  In time, they met under the canopy.  Irving paid, and they moved to a frame house, on Fulton Avenue, in the Bronx, where they had two or three joyful years, sired two children, a boy and a girl, and then Irving made an unceremonious departure from this life.  He left nothing but the mortgage and the cash that was found in his pockets.

Rachel had no skills.  Her schooling terminated at the third grade.  The children were now, ten and eleven.  Once again, she was rolling that mythical stone up hill, only to see it roll down again in inexorable repetitions.

There was no help possible from Yitzhak, or any other source.  She spent her nights in tearful despair, and prayer.

Hunger was not new to her.  The few dollars left after the mortgage payment were gone.  She already was straining the benevolence of Mr. Cohen, the grocer at the end of the block, who kept an extensive record of generosity, marked in pencil on a brown paper bag.

It was on one of these errands of need that she passed Mr. Leibowitz' candy store.  It was a tiny establishment framed out of an architectural anomaly, and turned into a rental property by an enterprising landlord.

It had the ubiquitous paper stand, a fountain, and a stock of penny candies and cigarettes.

Mr. Leibowitz was very old and tired.  Selling penny candies, and two cent newspapers, long, cold winters while practically immobile in his cell-like establishment, were reducing him to desperation.

It was in this context that Rachel made the deal. No money exchanged hands. She would pay him a percentage of the earnings from the proceeds of the candy store of which she was now the proprietor.

So began the next ten years of her existence.  Up at five o'clock in the morning to cut the wire on the bundled Daily Mirror and Daily News, to be ready for even the earliest customer.  Seven days a week. Days of selling penny cigarettes to the street kids.  Three cent sodas; an occasional malted milk.  She smoked but only half a cigarette at a time, keeping the "dincher" for later use.  And that, she smoked close enough to burn her lips by use of a toothpick inserted to hold the butt between her teeth.

Her hair was shorn, and straggly. She wore the same hat, a kind of inverted cloth pot, perpetually.  She wore men's boots, low cut, in the icy days of winter and used old newspapers to line the oversized footwear against the intrusions of cold.  Her very black eyes hid in the sunken sockets in her haggard white face.  She sat, patiently, in the little cubicle, immobile, in the way that Leibowitz did before her, and she thought well before disposing of a penny without purpose.  Yet she paid her mortgage, and her son was now a college senior, and her daughter a jitterbug in the days of approaching war in Europe.

On the day of Pearl Harbor, she screamed loudly, in pain.  She was alone in the house on Fulton Avenue that had eaten so much of the substance of her life.  Some neighbors came to see.  She lay on the bed her eyes wide and blazing in anger.  From these once carmine lips there spewed the vilest of epithets.  She cursed life, the world and most vehemently the God to whom she had prayed to free her from her life of bondage, and she died.

Does a wounded sparrow have the right to ask for reasons.

"Shall he who contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him?"

Would an answer to Rachel be the one given to Job, in those days of faith?

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Declare if thou has understanding."

April 3, 1956

Dear Rosetta:

I am spending a quiet, sedate, educational afternoon in the BOQ.  This morning was rainy and chill but the day has become fair and warm.

Since I arose late, about 11:30, I was not able to get to the mail room which closes at 12:00 p.m.; therefore I have no way of knowing whether or not there is any mail from you.  I presume there will be an abundance awaiting me on Monday.

It was good for me to talk to you Friday night.  As a result I have been in good humor--a state that promises to continue for the entire week-end.

Since early this afternoon I have been recording my voice for posterity.  It seems the Iranian Officers feel--after much testing--that of all the America Officers, here, my pronunciation and voice are the est.  I am recording for them the English of an Iranian English book.  We also recorded a sort of informal interview, in which I answered spontaneous questions about various subjects.  I do not recognize my voice on playback.  It is a distinct surprise to me, somewhat deeper than I pictured it, much better inflection than I had supposed, and having many fewer defects than I would have believed.  As I was told long ago, I have a radio voice.

I am listening now to Mozart's "The Magic Flute".  I am not too familiar with the opera but it has some beautiful music which am enjoying.  The lyrics are in English and HORRIBLE.

Did my letter worry you?  I hope you did not think you were in any way responsible for the outburst of irrationality.  These moods do not come over me frequently enough to be of any consequence.  It is just that at a time that I was generally angry, having no specific object to vent my ire, I came upon your letter.  Suddenly, inexplicably, this anger turned inward.

It was quite a thrill to hear Djinna say "Hello, Daddy."  She pronounces it "Da--dd-y".  Last night I was invited to the Lt. Millwee's.  Captain Hahn, his wife, and Lt. Marrero, a Puerto Rican Officer were also there.  I had a very interesting evening.

Capt. Hahn and his wife, though married some ten years, are childless.  They are both very devoted to their Boxer, which apparently takes the place in their affections of a child.  They appear to me to despise each other and I gather from observation and scarps of conversation that she possesses an ardor that he rebuffs.  She is a very attractive girl, tall, petulant, nice eyes and full mouth, kittenish, deceptive in that she exudes a kind of naivete which I suspect is put on, and outspoken with regard to "sin", cheapness, etc.  Her husband is short, about 32, though he looks older due to approaching baldness, a heavy drinker--he is a govt inspector for "Old Grandad", outspoken with regard for his preference for other women than his wife (in her presence)--probably due to his failure to produce and offspring, a common source of inferiority feeling in men.  She is jealous.

Lt. Millwee looks like a Presbyterian Minister.  He is about my height, stocky, nearing thirty and his eyes are hidden by very thick tinted spectacles. He is very sensitive about his eyes.  Though very mild-spoken, with a deep Kentucky accent, I learned via the conversation that he has frequent outbursts of abusive meanness to his wife and three children.  He works for a personal loan company (finance).

The children are all blonde--very--blue eyed and extremely pretty.  The oldest, about five, is precocious.  The youngest, who will be two April 6 was going through the "eye, nose, mouth" routine and it made me very homesick.  The middle child is a mere boy and needs no mention.

Mrs. Millwee is very young, having married at twenty, has had her Fallopian tubes severed so as to preclude the possibility of another pregnancy. She speaks very frankly about her relationship with her husband, chides him for his lack of "attention" in a physical sense, speaks semi-jokingly about a divorce, "If ah knowed what to do 'bout the three young'uns."  She asked me if I treat my wife "thata way," and I thought evasion was the best course in view of the circumstances.

Neither one of these men dance though their wives claim to be good dancers.

I would not not be surprised to learn that one day, two men will be shocked out of their complacency.

Luitpolodo-Juan-xxxxxx is the Puerto Rican Officer.  He speaks fair English with a very thick accent.  He is about 30 and quite handsome. . .fine featured, black straight hair, milk white teeth and a small mustache.  He takes to very few of the officers, is sensitive and easily offended.  It is more apparent to me every day that even when the supposedly discriminated against are overtly accepted, their suspicion seldom diminishes.  It will take many more generations.

Among his particular problems is a Patriarchal father (he is an only son of well to do parents) a pregnant mistress and the love for a girl his father does not approve of.*  He has decided to move to Michigan, marry the girl "without parental blessing", and enroll in a college for his MA in Police Science.  I suspect he is too disturbed to ever find adjustment in this or any other country.  *Not the impregnated one.

Once a long time ago, a French girl told me that a man should find a young, naive, child-like girl. . .

Once a long time ago I found.

It seems like only yesterday I fell in love

Buddy.

April 3 was the last letter my father wrote as he came home on that week-end having completed the course that helped with finances at home. I found these letters when I was very young, maybe 10 or 11, and yes, I read them right away. I was blown away by my parents' (as far as I could tell without having her side of the correspondence) apparent affection for each other. When I was old enough to be aware of family dynamics, I had the sense that they didn't much like each other. They seemed like two roommates more than a married couple, except when there was a dispute between them. Then my mother would go deadly silent, while my father, who admits to his tendency toward anger, fumed.
I like these letters--though one friend has called the ones he has read on these pages so far--sterile. It is true my parents did not exude emotion--they were raised at a time when emotion was considered bad taste and they had hardships in their lives concomitant with the turmoil of the mid-twentieth century. What is nice to know is that at one point, whether or not I saw it, they had a little romance. I think my father had to work very hard with my mother and she was not easily pleased. But he obviously cared enough to work at it. 

So, only two things to add to these concluding Letters from Georgia.  First, a calendar from Camp (later named Fort) Gordon, with a handwritten addendum from Dad. And a picture of the whole class, American, Korean, Iranian and Puerto Rican, when they and the world was young.