Chicago, Illinois

Spring, 1940

“Ice!” Cruising the street slowly, leaving a trail of dripping water the width of the open‑bed Diamond T truck, leaning through the window, the iceman called, “Iceman! Ice!”

A second floor window slammed open, “Iceman!” and a head poked through. “Fifty pounds, here!”

“Aye, Ma’am!” Turning into the alley, the iceman parked alongside the building, leaving a portion of the truck bed overhanging the bisecting sidewalk. Going to the rear, he uncovered a canvas-covered block of ice and, stabbing it twice with an ice pick, separating, by his near-perfect reckoning, a square, fifty‑pound chunk. Holding the ice by steel tongs, hefting it up onto his leather-covered shoulder, the iceman began his journey into the building and up the stairs.

A half block away, content with the slow pace and their own thoughts, a little boy and an old lady walked hand in hand. Seeing the iceman enter the building, releasing the old lady’s hand, the boy ran to the truck and, standing on tiptoes, grabbed hold of two shards of ice, then hurrying back to his grandmother, “here, Bubby,” handed her the smaller piece.

“Thank you, mein kind.” [Thank you, my child.]

Quickening their pace so as to avoid the iceman if he should happen to return as they passed, Jennie Barrish leaned forward so the melting ice did not drip on the front of her sweater. The boy, though, had no such worry and, as he licked the sliver of crystal-clear ice, water ran down the underside of his arm onto the front of his polo shirt.

The late afternoon sun was filtered by the large leaves of overhanging catalpa trees, making shadows of lace‑like patterns on the sidewalk below. Above, enticingly just out of reach, long, slender, cigar‑like pods hung in green clusters as translucent, double‑winged seeds spiraled gently down, falling on soil, sidewalk, and street.

The six-foot-wide sidewalk ran parallel to the brick buildings, butting to their very foundations. The far side of the walk ended at an eight-foot-wide strip of black, recently-seeded soil. A green, painted, fourteen-inch-high pipe fence bordered the soil and sidewalk and ran straight, block after block, broken only by alleys and streets. The low fence was the protective barrier between the sidewalk and soil, guarding the barely-seen tendrils of newly-sprouted rye grass.

“Bubby, why do they put these fences here?”

Lost in her own thoughts, shrugging her thin shoulders, saying what she usually said when asked another of her grandson’s incessant questions, “I don’t know, mein kind.”

Releasing her hand, he skipped to the fence, jumped up and, with outstretched arms, took four or five rapid, tottering steps before losing his balance and, with both arms flailing the air, fell off. “Bubby, anyone can step over it and anything can crawl under it, so why’s it here?”

Looking at him, “Mitchella,” she said, “I don’t know.”

Running ahead, stopping at the corner, sitting on the fence he watched his grandmother as she slowly approached.

Holding the fence with his hands to either side of his body, the boy leaned backward until the back of his head rested on the warm, sweet‑smelling soil. Reaching to the side, Mitchell picked up two of the double‑winged seeds. Pulling himself back to a sitting position, he flicked one of the seeds with a twisting motion of his wrist, sending it spiraling onto a thicker, more visible patch of the thin, spring grass.

When she reached the corner, holding the second seed in the palm of his outstretched hand, “Bubby,” he asked, “why’s these things got wings,”

To herself, just under her breath, “oy, vay‑iz‑mir!” [An omnibus phrase for everything from personal pain to emphatic condolences] To the boy, “Mitchell, I don’t know why those things got wings!”

Catching the tone of irritability in his grandmother’s voice, the boy’s smile turned downward.

Seeing his crestfallen look, quickly attempting to make amends, “So, okay. So it’s not so bad to ask questions!”

Lifting his face, his smile returned.

“Nu, Mitchella, if you don’t ask questions, how will you learn?”

Standing, he again took her warm, frail hand into his.

Looking in both directions with exaggerated care for the benefit of the boy, as they started across the street, she tightened her grip on his hand.

“Bubby!”

Sighing, “Yes, Mitchella?”

“Bubby, I want a collie.”

Looking down at him, “Kalleh?” she said, snickering into the linen handkerchief she held in her hand. “You want a kalleh?”

He looked at her quizzically. “Bubby, mommy said…”

“Mitchella, you’re too young for a kalleh! Little boys like you don’t need a kalleh!”

“But, Bubby, mommy says if I’m a real good boy, maybe she’ll get me one.”

“Oy, mein kind, wait! Wait! You’ve many, many years till you’ll need a kalleh!”

The two continued their walk on this peaceful May day: she, walking in her old lady’s shuffle, and the little boy—step on a crack, break your mother’s back—not wanting to break his mother’s back, paced his strides so as not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk.

The boy and his parents lived in an L-shaped, yellow brick building. The large, three-bedroom, corner apartment ran parallel to the alley overlooking Homan Avenue to the west and the backyard and alley to the east and south where the porch had a commanding view of the entire inner block, which proved to be of great advantage to the boy because his porch was the coveted lookout post for cops’n’robbers, cowboys’n’Indians, and soldiers. The four-foot-high banister on the two open sides of the porch had been built up with two‑by‑fours by the boy’s father, adding another foot of height for safety. Although this porch was gated and private, the porch next door was not and the people in the apartments to either side had to cross it whenever the back stairway was used.

Entering his domain, Mitchell and the old lady crossed Christiana Avenue. Reaching the short alley on Nineteenth Street, they turned to the right in order to enter the building from the rear.

Dropping his grandmother’s hand, running ahead, the boy ran through the alley, through the fence and into the cracked, concrete yard. “Hi, Marlene,” he called to the little girl, her of the hot chocolate and whipped-cream dabbed nose, playing in a sandbox under the last angle of stairs—then, revving his engine, “Charrrooom! Rooom! Varrrooom,” he raced up all three flights of stairs and was on his porch watching his grandmother through the wooden slats as she’d entered the yard.

“Mitchell!”

He looked at his mother over his shoulder.

Standing behind the screen door, her face was partially hidden by a wad of cotton that had been sewn into the screen to scare flies away.

“You go back downstairs and help ma,” she scolded. “Don’t let that old lady climb all those stairs by herself.”

Running out the gate and down the stairs, “All right, Mommy.”

Reaching the steps, Jennie put her hand onto the banister, looked up and, “oy, vay,” [oh, pain] muttered to herself in preparation for the long climb to the home of her daughter.

“Bubby!”

The old lady looked up.

“Mommy says I should help you!” He put his arm around his grandmother’s waist and, indeed, she did let him carry some of her weight, but Mitchell didn’t care because he felt he was doing something important by helping an adult and was glad that it was his bubby that he was able to help.

With one arm across her grandson’s shoulder, “Thank you, mein kind,” Jennie gasped, as, “oy‑oy‑oy!” [pain, lots of pain!] she laboriously pulled herself up the banister with her other hand.

Her thin, totally gray hair coming in wisps from under her babushka, [scarf] at age sixty-three, Jennie Barrish looked years older. In summer or winter, Jennie always wore a babushka, and she always carried a small linen handkerchief crumpled tightly in her hand that she dabbed at her nose every few moments. Jennie had the usual ailments for a woman of her age, but she seemed to thrive on illness, and complained of “not feeling so well” so often that her family no longer knew whether she was ill or not.

Jennie’s parents had migrated from Russia while she was a child and, learning English at a young age, had left her with only the slightest accent, and this because her parents had spoken only Russian or Yiddish. As Jennie grew older her English seemed to regress and she spoke more and more Yiddish.

Jennie was the mother of four children. Jerry, the eldest, had graduated from Herzel City College with a degree in accounting. Sheldon still attended Herzel, where he was studying to be an engineer. Beatrice and Myra, her two daughters, were housewives. Bea was the eldest of the girls, being born two years after Sheldon and three years before Myra.

The two made their way up the stairs, stopping often for the old lady to catch her breath. “Come on, Bubby,” the boy coaxed, “we’re almost there. It’s only a few more stairs.”

Making a supreme effort, Jennie pulled herself up the remaining steps, opened the gate to the porch, and finally came to rest on her daughter’s swing. “Oy, vay.” Fanning herself with her handkerchief, “Myra, why can’t you live on the first floor like your sister?”

“Ma, I’m sorry, but you know Walter doesn’t want to hear someone schlepping around over our heads, like, God forbid, we should live under a family with a Mitchell,” thinking of the Kaplins. “Also, who could afford such a big place like this on the first floor? Besides, the stairs are good exercise.”

“Good for you, maybe, but for me they’re not so good.”

“Ma, you live on the second floor.”

“I know, but my stairs aren’t so hard as your stairs.”

“I’m sorry, Ma. So, you want some pop?”

“Sure,” fanning her face again. “You want I should sit here and die of thirst?” She began to rise.

“Ma, sit, stay!” Myra put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a minute and sit with you.”

“Mitchie, you want some pop, too?”

Sitting on the swing, next to his grandmother, “Yeah,” he said.

Returning with two glasses of orange soda, one full and one half full, Myra handed the full glass to her mother and the other to her son.

Taking the glass, “Mommy,” Mitchell asked, “can I go downstairs and play with Marlene?”

“Okay. Drink your pop first, but it’s almost dinner time, so stay in the yard!”

“Okay!” Mitchell gulped the soda down, handed the glass to his mother, bounded off the swing, and ran across the porch. “Hey, Marlene,” he shouted as he tramped down the stairs, “I’ll play with you!”

Sitting on the swing, Myra shook her head. “That Mitchie…” she said in awe of his energy, “Where’s he get it…? So, Ma, how’s by you? You enjoy the walk with your grandson?”

“How’s by me? Nu, by me it’s the same. I’m not feeling so good, but by me that’s nothing new.” Jennie sipped at her soda. “And that little bummer, that Mitchie of yours. With him you don’t walk. With him you run! He never stops running and he never stops talking. He runs and he talks!”

Shaking her head knowingly, “Ma, believe me, I know!”

“So, tell me, my daughter, what’s with a kalleh?”

“A kalleh?” Myra looked at her mother.

“I told him, your Mitchell, that he’s too young to have a kalleh, and that he’ll have to wait till he’s much older.” She giggled. “So, nu, Myra, tell me! When are you and Walter going to get your son a kalleh?”

“Kalleh… Kalleh…? Oh, collie! Ma, he saw a movie: Lassie. He doesn’t want a bride, he wants a dog!”

“A dog! He wants a dog! Oy, vay!”

Myra and Jennie looked at each other, and both began to laugh.