Avenue Bridge and instead of getting onto the Deegan, I’ll show you where you get the Grand Concourse, no problem.”
The driver glanced at her in the rear-view mirror as if she had just announced plenty of problems.
Shirley settled back in the seat. In her lap, a small present for Pop, wrapped in tinsel with the Abercrombie label. He’d think she was nuts, buying seven-power binoculars for a sixty-eight-year-old Bronx tenement dweller. He’d say, What do you expect me to do, go out to Van Cortlandt Park and watch birds like an idiot, what do I want with a present like this, pawn it?
But Shirley knew of the long hours he spent just looking out of his window at people on the street and others in windows across the way, a voyeur of street life, and thought that with his vision fading, at least now he could indulge his curiosity without complaining, as he did from time to time these days. “It’s not my eyes, it’s just the people keep walking further away.”
She paid the Puerto Rican cabdriver the seven dollars and ten cents on the meter and gave him a two-dollar tip and carefully described for him the way back into Manhattan. He looked disconsolate, certain he would get lost. What could she do, drive back with him?
The four children on the sidewalk stopped playing and watched her. Cabs did not let out passengers in this neighborhood often. She smiled at the children, remembering herself here, at that age. Should she be distributing pennies, lollipops?
Upstairs, she rang the bell above the elegantly printed name, Philip Hartman, clipped from a calling card he had had printed up in the days when he couldn’t afford the carfare to go calling on people. “What kind of individual doesn’t have a calling card?” he said.
Through the door she heard footsteps, then a clearing of a voice and “Who’s there?”
Forcing her voice to contralto, Shirley said, “This is a stickup.”
He opened the door, pulled her into the apartment, and then into his arms. “In the hallway, don’t say things like that, every other person who rings a bell in this house has a switchblade, it’s not a joke, the neighbors are scared, how are you, neshumah? Let me look at you.”
He examined her face as if she might be a soldier-son returned from a war, he searched for visible signs of a change in her soul. While he patted her face with his palms, assuring himself of her reality, his co-sinner, Mrs. Bialek, stood in the background.
“Hello Poppa,” Shirley said, handing him the green foil-wrapped package from Abercrombie’s. “Happy Father’s Day!”
*
To get away from Mrs. Bialek, and to give them both some exercise, they went for a walk to the nearby park. (“Shirley,” he had once said, “if you exercise every day for eighty years you’ll live a long life.”)
He held her hand as if she were a small child, then changed his mind and took her by the elbow across the street to the park. “Sunday,” he said, “is muggers’ day off. You should see on a weekday evening, dozens of them watching you, scratching armpits like monkeys, making rude remarks, and God forbid you’re alone and no policeman is hanging around! Tell me about your work.”
“Nothing to tell, Pop. It’s the same.”
“Are you satisfied, it gives you pleasure?”
“Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
“It gives me money.”
“Neshumah, money is only good till you have enough. You have enough?”
“Yes, Pop.”
“Then don’t talk to me money. You could do something for the good of mankind, like Einstein.”
“What makes you think Einstein did something for the good of mankind?”
“So I picked the wrong name. You know what I mean. You should be an artist, a scientist, a teacher, something useful.”
“Be grateful there’s advertising, Pop.”
“I hate to see Philip Hartman’s only child settling for making something which gets thrown away with each day’s newspaper. Those ads are clever bullshit, how can a grownup person of
The driver glanced at her in the rear-view mirror as if she had just announced plenty of problems.
Shirley settled back in the seat. In her lap, a small present for Pop, wrapped in tinsel with the Abercrombie label. He’d think she was nuts, buying seven-power binoculars for a sixty-eight-year-old Bronx tenement dweller. He’d say, What do you expect me to do, go out to Van Cortlandt Park and watch birds like an idiot, what do I want with a present like this, pawn it?
But Shirley knew of the long hours he spent just looking out of his window at people on the street and others in windows across the way, a voyeur of street life, and thought that with his vision fading, at least now he could indulge his curiosity without complaining, as he did from time to time these days. “It’s not my eyes, it’s just the people keep walking further away.”
She paid the Puerto Rican cabdriver the seven dollars and ten cents on the meter and gave him a two-dollar tip and carefully described for him the way back into Manhattan. He looked disconsolate, certain he would get lost. What could she do, drive back with him?
The four children on the sidewalk stopped playing and watched her. Cabs did not let out passengers in this neighborhood often. She smiled at the children, remembering herself here, at that age. Should she be distributing pennies, lollipops?
Upstairs, she rang the bell above the elegantly printed name, Philip Hartman, clipped from a calling card he had had printed up in the days when he couldn’t afford the carfare to go calling on people. “What kind of individual doesn’t have a calling card?” he said.
Through the door she heard footsteps, then a clearing of a voice and “Who’s there?”
Forcing her voice to contralto, Shirley said, “This is a stickup.”
He opened the door, pulled her into the apartment, and then into his arms. “In the hallway, don’t say things like that, every other person who rings a bell in this house has a switchblade, it’s not a joke, the neighbors are scared, how are you, neshumah? Let me look at you.”
He examined her face as if she might be a soldier-son returned from a war, he searched for visible signs of a change in her soul. While he patted her face with his palms, assuring himself of her reality, his co-sinner, Mrs. Bialek, stood in the background.
“Hello Poppa,” Shirley said, handing him the green foil-wrapped package from Abercrombie’s. “Happy Father’s Day!”
*
To get away from Mrs. Bialek, and to give them both some exercise, they went for a walk to the nearby park. (“Shirley,” he had once said, “if you exercise every day for eighty years you’ll live a long life.”)
He held her hand as if she were a small child, then changed his mind and took her by the elbow across the street to the park. “Sunday,” he said, “is muggers’ day off. You should see on a weekday evening, dozens of them watching you, scratching armpits like monkeys, making rude remarks, and God forbid you’re alone and no policeman is hanging around! Tell me about your work.”
“Nothing to tell, Pop. It’s the same.”
“Are you satisfied, it gives you pleasure?”
“Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
“It gives me money.”
“Neshumah, money is only good till you have enough. You have enough?”
“Yes, Pop.”
“Then don’t talk to me money. You could do something for the good of mankind, like Einstein.”
“What makes you think Einstein did something for the good of mankind?”
“So I picked the wrong name. You know what I mean. You should be an artist, a scientist, a teacher, something useful.”
“Be grateful there’s advertising, Pop.”
“I hate to see Philip Hartman’s only child settling for making something which gets thrown away with each day’s newspaper. Those ads are clever bullshit, how can a grownup person of
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