Samson Pettyjohn entered the gift shop bathroom a bomb squad newbie, hounded by an imminent disaster he was only theoretically sure he could avert. He left the still largely antiseptic chamber a freshly commuted death row prisoner, wanting to hug both the governor and his underpaid defense team, but mostly hungry for breakfast. His world-brightening sense of gratitude led him to consider buying something so he paused for moment to peruse the racks of personalized key chains fobs, pocket knives and tiny license plates. None of them had his name stamped on them, much less "Sam," which was just as well since he'd never cared for the nickname.
Instead he made for the door, which had just admitted a voluble group of elderly women in bright patterned smocks, stretch pants and comfy shoes, all a-cackle over the knickknacks and ready for an early lunch at the adjacent cafeteria. Samson wove between them smiling and murmuring polite excuse-me-ma'ams. He eventually found himself face-to-face with a sprightly crone who matched him zig for zag and zag for zig until he finally grabbed her hands and executed a jump-skip to the left and another the right, repeating the process until he was on the door side.
- Hey Wilma! This one knows how to polka!
- Sneek him onto the bus!
A sharp pain in his side woke Himmelfarb and when he opened his eyes he was back on the Upper West Side, the sun behind the buildings now, falling further toward the Hudson. A block or so away, an ambulance shouldered its way through the intersection of 72nd and Broadway, blatting its horn in combination with its siren to clear the cars and pedestrians.
Where was Ronnie? Himmelfarb had sent him back to Gray's for two more dogs and another papaya juice. Not so much kraut this time, he had called to the shambling figure already several paces down the sidewalk. I hate a soggy bun!
That was an hour ago. Probably the kid was hanging around outside one of the clothing stores, mooning over the mannequins. Nothing to worry about. Himmelfarb closed his eyes and tried not to worry. He didn't need the extra hot dog anyway. They should be saving their money. And so on.
It was one of those rare September days, still warm but clear, a breeze off the Atlantic easing the heat and stink from the pavement. It made him feel expansive, hopeful even, to sit there on the bench, nestled in the whir of the great city. But the turn in the weather was also a reminder that fall was upon them, with winter at its heels. Himmelfarb, he told himself, it's past time to start making winter arrangements for you and your half-wit charge.
Their luck was beginning to ebb. Ronnie's seizures were becoming more frequent and his own diabetes was getting worse. They were lucky last year with the house in Rhinebeck but the neighbors were wise to them now, and his sister's children had unloaded her place in Sheepshead Bay within a week of the funeral. The funeral that he wasn't invited to. If they didn't catch a break soon, they would find themselves at the mercy of the religious nuts and the bureaucrats, of whom none were to be trusted.
Casting his nets about the five boroughs and beyond, Himmelfarb heard the approach of two chatty private school girls in plaid skirts and blue blazers. Slipping heavy bookbags from their shoulders, they prepared to bivouac at the next bench down. He smiled and lifted his weather-beaten hat to the girl facing him. She looked through him and kept talking.
Seriously, it's gonna be the old man.
The ambulance siren rose again and the pain shot back, this time in Himmelfarb's ribs.
The other girl said, That's what they want you to think.
Penningfeld wanted it. Wanted it bad. He had Daisy talk the Mayor into letting him bid, something that required a waiver (and something that cost the mayor a week of bad press during the next election). And Penningfeld wanted it so much because Mitch and his German backers were bidding, the bunch of kraut hoodlums.
Before you heard about that you couldn't care less, Daisy said, slipping back into her bra. Hook me.
Penningfeld laid his cigar in the ashtray by the open window and stepped around to the other side of the desk.
You don't know what that old pile of bricks means to me, he said fumbling with the clasp. Bah! Don't they make these things with Velcro yet?
Some of us are old fashioned, Daisy said as she slid the folder labeled Mitchell Enterprises under the copy of Parade Magazine from that morning's paper.
The week before last, a postcard arrived informing me in bureaucratic type that the book of my life was ready and where I could pick it up.
You probably remember the Barlow Community Center as Central Methodist, the big church downtown where Locust merges with Main. We used to have chess club meetings there, before the Methodists sold the building to the city and moved out to Kallendar Heights (south of the mall) to a bigger building with a gym. (You broke Chris Coster's nose during a church league volleyball tournament out there, remember?)
I talked Cathy into driving me down there and the fact that I bought breakfast did nothing for her mood. Get there early, she kept saying, but I wasn't sure I could face it on an empty stomach. She also groused about the fact that we had to park three blocks away. A little walking won't kill us, I said and then added, Or will it? She didn't appreciate the joke.
By the time we got there, the line had already reached the door. Inside, in what used to be the Fellowship Hall, it was like Election Day: a group of older ladies sat behind a line of folding tables. I recognized the one who took my card and put a mark next to my name in a binder. It was Shirley, the little woman who used to drive the bookmobile. She didn't seem to recognize me but her glasses were a lot thicker than they were back then. I said thank you when she handed back my numbered chit and when she looked up to say you're welcome and I saw the milky gleam of cataracts.
So what happens is you take the numbered chit upstairs to the old sanctuary (they use it for lectures and concerts now) and file past a group of wooly-eared old men on "the stage" pulling books out of numbered cardboard boxes.
They look so ordinary. No dust jacket, nothing on the spine, but open it up and there's your name and birth date on the title page. I thumbed through mine most of the way back in the car and I pretty much ignored everything else I had intended to do that weekend. I paid no bills, the laundry went unwashed, and the hinge on the hall closet door still squeaks. Cathy called a couple times, probably about some Israeli movie she wanted to see, but I didn't pick up.
I would have felt guilty about it if this wasn't exactly what happened when her book arrived. She moped around her apartment for days with her brow furrowed, flipping back and forth between the table of contents and the index at the back trying to make sense of something in the middle. And within a week the same thing that happened to her book happened to mine: The binding came apart and the pages started to fall out. Half of them aren't even numbered, and when they are, the numbers don't always match the index. Same thing with the endnotes. And today I noticed that the print on the pages of my book is starting to fade, just like Cathy's did. She's been using her old pages for grocery lists, bookmarks or coasters.
So when your postcard arrives, if they manage to find your new address, you might consider just throwing it out. I hear that the unclaimed books get recycled.
