Old Neighborhood (13 page)

“What if I had said I wanted to be a liberal arts major?”

“Now?”

“Not now. When I was younger. If I said I wanted liberal arts—”

“Liberal arts? What would you do with liberal arts?”

“That’s what I remembered. Thanks a lot, Dad. Speak to you soon.”

“Be my love …” My Mario Lanza was way off. Your eyesight and your Mario Lanzas deteriorate with age. I began reading books in the house that I had always meant to read, but since my concentration was limited, I read for a while and then stopped, going on to the next unread book, leaving it unread. The doorbell rang. I did not know who it might be. The Avon Lady? If it were the Avon Lady, I would buy soap. I needed soap. I had not showered because I was out of soap, also showering would have been such an effort—I would have had to take my pajamas off and then put them on again.

“Robbins? Messenger.”

He was a short, muscular man in motorcycle gear. His motorcycle was parked in the driveway. I opened the door for him.

“If you’re the messenger, I must be Garcia.”

“No, this is for Robbins.”

“Yes, this is Robbins. Come in.”

He gave me a manila envelope and followed me in as I sat down on the living-room couch in my pajamas. The blinds were drawn, the living-room floor was strewn with cups, drink glasses, magazines, books. I opened the envelope, glanced at a layout—it looked all right to me—took a pencil from an end table, initialed the layout, put it back in the envelope and handed it to him.

He was dumbfounded. He had traveled by motorcycle from New York City to an unshaven man in pajamas on Long Island who initialed a paper in seven seconds.

“That’s it?” he said.

“That’s what we do here.”

He put on his helmet and started to leave, looking around, trying to take it all in. It was “Star Wars Meets the Collier Brothers.” At least I gave him something to think about on his ride back.

In the basement I found the trunk with my old possessions. I looked at my Dixie Cup collection, my picture of George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss, my varsity jacket. I began to think about the old days, and the girls I had known, Carol Ershowsky, Fanny Pleshette, Carla Friedman. Would my life have been different if I had married one of them? I doubted it. Carla Friedman was a bookish type. Possibly she would have exerted an intellectual influence over me. All that would have changed was that I would have ended up teaching advertising rather than doing it. I had no excuses. I could not say, “The cat ate my homework.” I got exactly what I thought I wanted.

Fanny Pleshette. Of all the girls it was Fanny Pleshette who stood out, the best one I did not marry. She did not mind that I had little money. She took me to her apartment in a house with a doorman and we made love. Fanny. I decided I would find out how she was doing. I called Barnard College to see if they had a record of a Fanny Pleshette through the alumni office. They did not, nobody was able to help me. I tried the Manhattan telephone book on the chance that she was still in New York and had not married or was using her maiden name. She was not listed, but a “J. Pleshette” was in the book and I recalled it as being her mother’s address. I dialed the number.

“Hello, is this Mrs. Pleshette?”

“Who is this?”

“Excuse me, but my name is Steven Robbins. And many years ago I was a friend of your daughter’s.”

“Yes?”

“I guess you wouldn’t remember me. Stevie Robbins. I went to City College. She was at Barnard at the time.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, I got to thinking about old times and I was thinking about Fanny. Kind thoughts. And I wondered where she was, what she had done, and frankly, if I might be able to reach her.”

“Fanny is dead, young man.”

“Oh, no.”

“She’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“She died in 1970. She was killed in an automobile accident on the New York Thruway. She was with a man. They were planning to be married. A truck crossed into her lane. He was just bruised. She died instantly, I’m told.”

“I am so, so sorry.”

“She worked for the UN. She was a nice girl, wasn’t she, my Fanny?”

“She was a wonderful girl.”

“Well—goodbye now—what was your name?”

“Steven Robbins.”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

I hung up the phone and I began to cry. Fanny. She would have been in her thirties when she died. She had gone on to live a life nearly as long after I had known her as she had lived when I had known her. Yet in my mind, she had never grown older. The person I wept for was a young girl who had died.

T
HE PAST TOOK OVER
the present. I could not remember what I had eaten for dinner the previous day or whether I had eaten at all, but I was remembering dinners of thirty years before. I sat in a chair, reliving my life, isolating the embarrassments, rejoicing in the good parts. It was better before.

I remembered how I could drive down the right side dribbling the ball away from the defender who would think I was too far into the corner, but there was still enough rim if I shot just before I went off the court at the end line, and I would let it go just as I was heading out of bounds, a soft, arching one-handed push shot. I would be off the court behind the basket by the time the ball dropped through, a flashy move, but a solid move. I was good out of that right corner. I was good all around the key. Nobody I knew, not John Cleary, not Ray Tolchin, not the Meltzers down the road, nobody could have outshot me with a running one-hander. John Cleary—I would have locked up John Cleary in ten seconds. All of them—they all would have fouled out trying to guard me.

In my senior year, De Witt Clinton was to play a big game against Taft High School. We were not going into the playoffs, but we could be spoilers and eliminate Taft in the last game of our season. My father arranged his schedule so he could come, the one time he saw me play in a game. The wooden stands were full, people sat along a running track above the court, legs dangling down, heads poking through the railings. I scored 36 points in that game, including the off-the-court push shot, two tip-ins, I stole three balls on defense and went in for layups, at one point I made six straight from the field, and I shut off the opposing forward with seven points. It was a performance noted by Sam the Man, who was in the stands and who gave me a “Great shooting, kid” outside the candy store that night. When the game was over and we had upset Taft 63–60, I ran off the court, sweating, beaming, surrounded by other players and by friends who pushed in to slap me on the back, and fighting through the crowd was my father. He hugged me awkwardly and I looked up and realized that my father who rarely registered feelings had tears in his eyes. “You’re a fine boy, Stevie,” he said. And then the moment was swept away by people, by strangers.

I played the game again. I was hugged by my father again.

I no longer knew the day of the week. I replayed stickball games. I had my fingers inside assorted bras and panties. I was soul-kissing Carla Friedman. I could have had her before I went to California. Memory taunted me. I wanted all of an experience that was good, an entire walk through the neighborhood with Arthur and Jerry, every word said, every nuance, an entire Saturday night date in the Bronx, everything that happened, every part of the physical sensations—the hot fudge sundae at Krum’s Soda Parlor, the warmth of Cynthia Cohen’s crotch as I forced my hand underneath the crinoline beneath her skirt and tried to work my fingers below her moist panties. I could only summon fragments. I worked at it until I was mentally weary. I wanted more than fleeting images, I wanted to hold on to an entire experience, to have all of the good parts from the time when it was better. And in July, for the first time in weeks, I shaved, showered and dressed in clean clothes, and then I set out for the Bronx. My purpose was to buy a hot fudge sundae at Krum’s. I called for a cab to take me to the railroad station. Instinctively, I knew that I should not trust myself to drive.

The train arrived at Penn Station and I went into the subway to go north to the Bronx. A newsstand dealer gave me directions, and I transferred at 59th Street from the A train to the D. As the train rocked back and forth on the stretch to 125th Street, I remembered that rocking. Coming home on a date sometimes it rocked you into an erection, and you had to put your hands in your pockets for camouflage. 145th Street. That was the stop for Lewisohn Stadium and the summer concerts. 155th Street. The old Polo Grounds. I saw Stan Musial play there and Mel Ott. 161st Street, still the Yankee Stadium. In a game against the Red Sox, DiMaggio hit a line drive into the right field corner and the throw from the outfield beat DiMaggio to the bag, but when Doerr put down the tag, Joe D. was not there. With a sweeping slide he slipped his toe into the bag and was safe at second, a great hitter, a wonderful fielder, but you had to remember what a fine base runner he was. I wanted to say that to the man sleeping next to me on the train. 167th Street. Jeannie Drago, the biggest breasts of anyone in my entire dating career, untouched by human hands. 182nd-183rd Streets. The Ascot Theater and Carla Friedman who let me feel her up beneath our coats which we huddled under during
Fanfan the Tulip
with Gérard Philipe. The train arrived at Fordham Road, the site of Krum’s Soda Parlor.

When I stepped out onto the street I became dizzy with the flood of memories. The physical landscape was essentially as it had been twenty years before. The overall look was shabbier, somewhat dirtier, but nothing had been torn down, nor had any new buildings been constructed. Alexander’s Department Store was there on Fordham Road, and the Dollar Savings Bank Building, and the Wagner Building to which my father had reported for civilian defense duty during World War II. Where stores had been located, stores existed. On 188th Street and the Grand Concourse, the place I now stood, Bickford’s Cafeteria, the seltzer stop for the local horseplayers, was out of business. With appropriateness the location had been taken over by an off-track betting parlor.

I saw the sign on the other side of the street for Krum’s but when I entered I found that it was no longer a soda parlor, it was a candy and card shop.

“Where is the ice cream?” I asked a young woman behind the counter.

“We don’t sell ice cream.”

“You don’t sell ice cream? You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I went back across the street to a candy store near the off-track betting parlor. A heavyset man in his fifties was behind the counter.

“A hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream, please.”

“I’m out of hot fudge.”

“How can you be out of hot fudge?”

“Easy. You open the tin and there’s no hot fudge.”

“Then I’ll have a chocolate frappe.”

“A what?”

“A chocolate frappe.”

“I haven’t heard anyone say frappe in years. What’s a frappe?”

“It’s syrup over ice cream.”

“You want a sundae. Why don’t you say a sundae?”

“If I wanted a sundae, I’d say a sundae. A sundae is whipped cream, it’s nuts, it’s a cherry. A frappe is just syrup.”

“By me it’s a sundae.”

“By me it’s a frappe.”

“Listen, Mister, I’ll give you a frappe. I’ll give you a bromo. What the hell do I care?”

“I’ve come home,” I said.

I walked north along the Grand Concourse and crossed Fordham Road, which was busy with shoppers. The people were mostly Hispanics and blacks. Looking east and west along Fordham Road I could see that it was still thriving with retail stores. Just north of Fordham Road, Sutter’s Bakery was in its old location on the Grand Concourse. I had been dispatched there for a coffee ring on many a weekend morning, my parents were lucky if the cake arrived home with the pecans. I bought half of a coffee ring on this day and began to devour it outside the bakery. An old woman observing smiled at me.

“Good?” she said.

“Good. Do you want a piece?”

“No, thank you. Enjoy.”

“I am.”

I continued along the Grand Concourse, walking slowly, trying to absorb the sensations, worried that I was about to come upon a row of condemned buildings, burnt mattresses in the street, cars abandoned and stripped—my childhood neighborhood desecrated. But this section of the Bronx, north of Fordham Road near Kingsbridge Road, was not blighted. I reached Poe Park, it seemed the neighborhood was still predominantly Irish Catholic and Jewish. In the park, young mothers sat on benches as their children played, some of the old people were involved in shuffleboard games or were playing cards and checkers. I searched for a familiar face. I recognized no one. At the end of the park, still standing, was Poe Cottage, a farmhouse where Edgar Allan Poe had lived. I had first visited it with class 1-1 of P.S. 86, nearly forty years before.

I took a deep breath anticipating what I was to do next. I crossed to the west side of the street and walked down the hill of Kingsbridge Road and entered my old neighborhood. On both sides of the street the stores were fully rented. The Fishers were gone from the candy store, and the Rosens were gone, but it was still a functioning neighborhood, drugstore, fish store, kosher butcher, coffee shop, pizza store, shoppers were on the streets, cars and buses were moving along. Kingsbridge Road was virtually as it had been when I left. I looked at the side streets, the red brick buildings had become murky with age, the white brick buildings had yellowed, but these apartment houses were occupied, sheet metal did not cover windows, garbage was not scattered through the streets as in the photos I had seen of the South Bronx. I stopped in front of Beatrice Arms and I shuddered from the impact of seeing the building again. I looked up at the window where my mother had tossed down shopping money wrapped in a handkerchief.

I stood in the vestibule checking the names on the bells. I did not know anyone. The entrance door was locked and I waited for someone to come along. A little boy walked out and I went inside, the flamingo wallpaper was gone, the walls were green, the elevator door with the art deco nymphs was now painted with black enamel. I took the elevator to the third floor and stood outside my childhood apartment. I rang the bell and a peephole opened in the door.