Chapter
36
My few clothes were spread on the bed with the clarity and organization of a schoolgirl. Extra socks to the left. Shorts in the middle, top. Extra T-shirt, middle bottom and denims to the right. I picked up my shaving kit and placed it below the socks. From my pocket, I lifted the money clip containing the remaining few hundred dollars I had brought on the trip and placed it on the chinos. The side zipper in my overnight bag had the return ticket. I put it down next to the chinos.
My book? I glanced around the room. It wasn’t there. A check of the bathroom turned up nothing. I rummaged through the drawers of the dresser...still no book. The bed stand. I pulled it open and there it was. I was relieved, as the “kindergarten” book had been a source of thoughtful entertainment on this trip and entertainment was in short supply for me right now. As I lifted it from the drawer, my eye caught a little sticker affixed to the inside. “You are invited to take the Gideon Bible on your travels. God bless you.” I paused a moment, then picked it up and thumbed through the tissue thin pages. Someone was giving away a Bible that had to cost several dollars to print. Who paid for such a gesture? I wondered how many thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of the small black bounded pages were taken by travelers every day all over the world. I thought back...I hadn’t noticed one in my bungalow.
I put it back in the drawer and placed my book on the bed. Now it was all there. I sat down and paused a moment, looking ‘round the room. Was that everything?
Standing on the floor next to the bed was the Bonwit Teller bag. I got up and folded the top down tight. I felt apprehensive toward the small parcel, but my instincts were pulling at me, telling me to take it back to LA, go over its contents with Mathews. It went next to the chinos. I sat back down.
My eyes drifted to the window. I would be leaving New York in an hour...leaving this room overlooking the 3 stories of cheap beds and expensive pleasures across the way; this room that had given me a tap into the vacuous world of the vibrating bed next door and the room that had provided the cockroach to teach me the value of long journeys and tenacity. What simple lessons, I thought. Lessons of observance and contemplation that couldn’t possibly be learned from books, or taught with lectures, or rewarded from any higher school of learning...certainly not bought with the riches of the world or Charlie’s seemingly endless money tree. I reached up and took from the pocket of my shirt the papers I had signed. In my hands were the means to millions of dollars...the wealth associated with kings and emperors...the riches of Charlie Stevens. I placed them on the bed next to the book. Had I absorbed anything from: All I Need to learn I Learned in Kindergarten. One passage was sticking with me: “Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found.” I smiled. Why was this passage beating me up?
Everything was there now—what I had come with and what I was leaving with...a collage of what was and what could be,
I felt grateful. I closed my eyes and asked the guardian deep inside me to deliver more of the same, to maintain me ever mindful of the boy and the blind man, Max and Julian, especially Julian and his awareness of the light in the darkness; all I had passed on my walks who had unknowingly shared the anger and despair of an empty heart; the priest whose eyes had shown me the kindness deep within; and the woman that had innocently guided me through a garden of chiseled stone and sculpted metal to the mother and child in us all. I was grateful for all of these things. All of these things I gave thanks for. Because of them, I was stronger.
I opened my eyes and again stared at the traveling essentials spread before me. At that moment, for some inexplicable reason, they felt extravagant...a feeling they wouldn’t be needed much longer.
The phone rang. “Yes?”
“Charles...this is Julian.”
“Hey...thanks for returning my call. How’s everything?”
“Can’t complain. How’s with you? Get your business done?”
“All done. Look, I’m leaving for the airport in an hour and I was wondering if you and Max might have the time to come with me. I’ll pay your way back, of course. I wanted to talk to you about something. Can you make it?”
“Well, hour’s kinda short to get a subway uptown and... “
“Julian, take a cab to the hotel. Hold it out front. I’ll be watching for you and we’ll take it out to the airport. Can you make it?”
“Should be able to if we leave right away. What’s this all about?”
“Better get on the road. I’ll be down in front waiting. Bye Julian. Thanks.”
Checking out of the Holiday Inn is a vastly different experience from the Essex house...and I enjoyed it. Even though the guests appeared less well-heeled than those of the fashionable South Central Park landmark, I learned they could be just as scrutinizing of their charges.
“Hope you enjoyed your stay,” said the desk clerk.
I was standing directly behind the woman checking out. She looked like a bit over weight, slightly graying, housewife and mother with a “Tupperware” name tag not only on her healthier than healthy bosom, but on her old and worn luggage, purse, and Saks Fifth Ave. shopping bag as well. She leaned on one elbow and began to scrutinize her bill.
“There was no answer on this call, and you’re charging me?”
“Service charge per call...printed on the telephone in every room, ma’am.”
The woman shook her head, her finger going to the next item. Suddenly she rose up from her elbow. “This isn’t my charge.”
“What, ma’am?”
The woman looked over her shoulder at the waiting line and leaned into the clerk. With a slightly trembling index finger, she pointed to the item and whispered, “I don’t send my bras and panties to the cleaners, puleez!”
The clerk checked her computer again. “Says here you had a taffeta, pink and lime green lace dress, sound like yours?... “
“Absolutely. My bridesmaid dress for my brother’s... “
“And...” continued the clerk, “...that you had the taffeta lace dress cleaned yesterday. “
“That’s right. But I didn’t have... “
The clerk put her hand up like a traffic cop holding back an anxious left turn man on a one-way street “Cleaned yesterday with a strapless bra, a pink lace trimmed bra—says so right here—and matching lime green panty zip-in separate and had them delivered back to your room on a special rush service, right?”
“The dress, yes, the bra and panties, no, the rush service no. That dress has its own bra and panties built in, miss.”
By this point, the line was eight or nine deep with anxious travelers like myself ready to pay for her bra and panty cleaning and get on with it, but the desk clerk saved us the trouble.
“Is it possible,” the seasoned looking clerk continued, “that your bra and panties were perhaps the removable type and therefore would have been charged as separate pieces?”
“Who ever heard of charging extra for zip-in panties, and, my wedding dress does not have a separate bra. Why would you call the zip-in bra to my wedding dress, let alone my panties, separates? That’s my bridesmaid dress, bridesmaid dress for... “
“...Your brother. I know,” said the clerk as she glanced around the woman at the growing line. “Tell you what,” her impatience reaching its limit, “I don’t have any idea how they make their bridesmaid dresses in... “ she looked at the woman’s name tag, “Sandy, Utah, Ms. Clingly, but,... “
“I made it myself, young lady.”
“Well, that explains everything. But in spite of that, tell you what Holiday Inn is going to do. Gratis the pink lace bra, we’ll eat the rush service charge, and forget your home-made zip-in panties as well, making your total three hundred five dollars and sixty six cents.” The clerk flashed a pen into the woman’s hand. “Fair?”
The woman had a puzzled look on her face as she hesitantly took the pen. “‘Free’ the bra?”
“Gratis, Ms. Clingly. That means free.”
“Well...” the woman said as she turned half embarrassed, half proud to her audience of well-wishers who were now giving her “power” fists, “yes” fists and “let’s-get-on- with-it” fists, “...it pays to stand up for your rights.” She turned back to the clerk and signed her charge slip. “We’re from strong stock in Sandy.” Pointing to her nametag, she topped off her closing with, “Didn’t get ‘Saleswoman of the Month’ by backing off from a good challenge.” She passed the pen and charge slip back, smiling proudly.
“I can certainly see that,” said the relieved clerk. You, enjoy your trip home now, and keep sellin’ those Tupperware jars and lids, ya hear? Wanna see you back here next year.”
The woman stepped back, picked up her luggage and Saks bag and strode through the entrance onto the sidewalk where half a dozen previously checked out Tupperware conventioneers waved greetings to her as they waited for their baggage to be loaded on the bus.
The desk clerk took my key and heaved a sigh of relief as she typed in my check–out saying, “Well, at least you won’t be complaining about cleaning any zip-in-bra and panty separates.”
“Not green and pink, certainly,” I grinned.
She glanced up and gave me one of those, No, you don’t look like the type, looks.
I smiled back, shaking my head in agreement. “Actually,” I said, “everything was perfect...just what I needed. Lot different from The Essex.”
She chuckled and went back to finishing the check-out. “Hey, eat it up. Lots of dreamers come here.”
Julian and Max had managed to snag an old Checker cab, which provided two additional jump seats in the roomy back. So, while the driver allowed Max to ride in the front, Julian and I kicked back, our feet up on the jump seats, and got down to the purpose of them coming with me.
As we made the cross-town drive along 57th Street and reached the many expensive and exclusive stores on the East Side, I asked him, “Ever think about getting your eyes fixed, Julian?”
“Heh, heh,” was his only answer.
“No, I’m serious, Julian. Look, you don’t have to tell me what happened, but are they fixable?”
He patted me on the knee and smiled, lifting his glasses with the other hand. “Look fixable to you?” He lifted his dark glasses.
Where eyes had once guided his way, now only a frozen someplace, somewhere in the past looked out at me like ancient gray clay marbles. My impulse was to say, no, but I didn’t want to believe the worst. “I’m not a doctor. Are they?”
He slid the glasses back down. “You impressed me from the beginning as a queer fellow. Why do you ask?”
“Me first.”
“Yeah...maybe,” he hesitantly answered. “They said ‘maybe’ to me years ago. But I didn’t even bother pursuing it. Didn’t have to have my vision to see that a ‘maybe’ answer meant lots of money.”
“That’s not necessarily true, Julian. A maybe could have meant...time...the right doctors...the right place. Did they actually say it would take a lot of money?”
“My turn,” he said.
I looked out the windows as we crossed the 59th Street Bridge. “I just thought if your eyes could be made to see again, Max would have a little easier time, and you... “
“Charles...Max and I are in a pretty good space, you know. We get along okay, and we sure aren’t hurtin’ for making a livin’. Between the tours and playin’ down Washington Square on the weekends, we do just fine. Didn’t tell you that, did I?”
“No.”
“Well, we do just fine.”
I could see that Julian’s pride would never allow him to take a handout. “Washington Square is the park downtown, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Saturdays and Sundays we jam with some of the guys...Max showin’ up the local rappers with some classic metal toe stuff, and me blowin’ a pretty good mouth organ blues when I get with those guys. People love to throw the dollars in my hat...love it.”
“Do you, though? I mean…”
“What, the hat? Sure. Why not. It’s an honest living. I work hard to entertain. That’s what they wander through the park for, anyway. Right?”
“What do you do in the winter?”
He smiled. “Got me there, didn’t ya. Well, we don’t run off to Florida for the winter that’s for sure. Max has his school, and we play the coffee houses and usually grab some good tour money around Thanksgiving...the parade brings in lots of lookers who can’t seem to get enough… even when it’s an early winter.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all we need. We get by just fine and most important, we’re doin’ all the things we believe we should be doin’. That’s how I feel. You understand that, Charles?”
Max leaned back over the front seat. “Hey, what are you guys goin’ on about. Check out the kites.”
He pointed out over the East River where a yacht was cruising with three kites trailing behind.
“What you got out there, Max?” Julian said.
“Blue-green water. Maybe hundred fifty, two hundred -ooter, white, custom job, cruisin’ about eighteen, twenty knots. Headin’ north. Kites are red, yellow and green...look like ‘Acro’s.’ Beautiful, Dad. Really pretty out there.”
“You’re right there, Max,” I said. Know your boats, don’t you?”
Max grinned, “Dad started me a collection at home. Models we take to the lake in Central Park. Know it?”
“The lake? Yeah. I know the lake.” Julian saved me from thinking too long on that subject by pulling my attention back as he took out his harmonica and started quietly playing some blues.
I liked this man with the ability to smile and genuinely enjoy the pictures his son could paint for him, then slide right into a musical reply.
“Know what you mean, Dad,” Max said. “Know what you mean.” The words flowing like a vocal accompaniment to the master instrumentalist.
I sat back and watched the boy leaning over the front seat tapping the sound-poetry of blues he seemed to understand so well while his father let flow the sounds that made Max and I close our eyes and further appreciate the world that was so real and clear to this man of darkness.
As I listened, it felt funny, me wanting to see him get his eyesight back, and him so...okay with it all. I couldn’t help but think again as I had that night on the roof of his building. He was a happy man with what he saw. Who was I wanting to lift him out of a darkness he was so at peace with? I should be so lucky as to have some of that peace.
I had maybe twenty minutes left to express my real reason in asking them to come along. I had to think of a way that wouldn’t alienate me from them forever. I needed them both. I didn’t know why.
As we pulled up to the terminal, I checked my watch and realized I had 45 minutes until flight time. I leaned up to the cabby. “Give me a tour of the airport, will you?”
“A tour of the airport? Yeah, sure. Tour of the airport. Airport is an airport, but... “
“Max? Give the driver some tourist talk for the airport.” I said.
“Well,” Max said, “What do you want to know, Mr.?”
The driver did a curious take, one that Max I’m sure had seen many times before, whenever he was first looked at as a tour guide. “You’re going to tell me about New York? This airport?” He laughed. “Take your best shot, kid.”
Max was enjoying this. He hadn’t grown up on the streets of Manhattan without picking up the art of persuasion and many a similar taxi trip to the airport. Mimicking a microphone in his hand, he launched into, “JFK, Kennedy Airport is located in south-east Queens, at the southern tip of the Van Wyck Expressway, 17 miles or 28 kilometers from Manhattan.” He turned to the driver. “Impressed?”
“What?” said the smiling driver. “With the kilometers stuff...yeah. What else you got?”
I reached up and slid the separating window shut and turned to Julian as Max continued with his statistical onslaught that had the driver charmed and wealthier as well, with the meter still ticking away toward the forty-dollar mark.
“Julian,” I said, “I’ve only got a few minutes, so I want you to listen carefully. That night on your roof, I felt we were doing a lot of sparring. I want you to know how grateful I am that you offered me a glimpse of your private world up there.”
“I know you’re grateful, Charles.”
“But the sparring, the skirting of the edges, I think you were aware that something was bothering me.”
“I was aware, Charles.”
“The problems I had at the Cathedral, the call to the doctor, the pills...all that is because I’m ...I mean, I’ve got some problems that can’t be fully discussed by me yet, you understand?”
“I understand a little, but accept a lot, Charles.”
“In spite of my problems, I want you to know that I consider you and Max very...important. Damn, I know this must sound like a strange conversation, but...”
“Not strange at all,” he said, turning toward me. “I know you’re finding it hard to say what’s on your mind and in your heart. You’re worried I might...” he chuckled to himself, “...think you’re playin’ some buried agenda card or somethin’. Charles, I know enough of who you are. I know where your heart comes from. I know how you think. It’s okay.”
I knew he didn’t realize what his words meant to me, and it was good he couldn’t see, because I must have paled in the echo of his last sentence.
The driver slid the window and turned back to me, “Your terminal coming up again, Mr.”
“Thanks,” I said back. “I’ll just be a minute.” As the driver returned us to privacy, Look, Julian, you don’t know me. You don’t know where I come from, but you do know how I think...a lot better than most. That’s why I want you to do me a favor, okay?”
He laughed. “Hey, I just closed out my Swiss bank account.”
I laughed back. “That’s okay. I haven’t.”
We both laughed.
The cab was pulling up to the curbside at the terminal. “So, what’s the favor?” Julian asked. “I’m okay with you, Charles. Hell, not every day a tourist buys a twelve-dollar tour and tips us a hundred. Name it.”
The cab stopped. “Thirty- nine on the meter, Mr.”
As I reached into my pocket for the cash, I hurried through the part I’d been afraid to speak. “Julian...I want you and Max to consider some traveling.”
I got out of the cab and leaned in the front window first, handing the cabby a hundred. “Here you go, driver. You need to take them back now. Thanks for your patience.”
“Traveling?” asked Julian, as Max got out of the front and climbed into the rear seat.
I stepped out and shut the back door, leaning into the two of them. “Max...Julian...I want you both to think about coming out to Los Angeles. I have some work for you and I’ll pay you enough so you won’t have to worry about next winter. Will you think about it? Here... “ I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Beverly Hills Hotel card and handed it to Max. “Call me at this number, Max. Let me know what you two decide. Think about it. That’s the favor I’m asking you.”
“You got more rooftop work, Charles?” asked Julian in a tone all too familiar to me from our night together.
“Maybe more than you can handle, Julian.”
“Not more than He can handle, though. Right?” Julian said with an upward nod of his chin and a subtle smile toward the clouds.
“It’s awfully smoggy out there, blind man. Hard to find the sky sometimes,” I said.
“Not if you got your own,” said Julian.
Right.” I patted the side of the cab and watched as it pulled away and disappeared into the traffic.
“Be needin’ to check anything today, sir,” came the voice from behind me.
I turned and looked at the Red Cap and then at my small carry on. “No. I’m travelin’ lighter and lighter these days.”
Charles gathers the experience of NY and feels compelled to go further with Julian and Max.
Reminds me when my friend and I were first in line waiting to check our bags at Kennedy when a man was loudly proclaiming that he had to check his bags for Morocco Airlines or he would miss his flight. Since our flight had been delayed, we let him check his bags in front of us in our long line so that he could catch his flight. A week later, in Cairo, we ran into him on the street walking with his mother. He turned out to be a medical doctor from Virginia visiting his parents over the Christmas holiday. The only surprise was that he didn't invite us over to his parents home for our generosity back at the airport. Probably thought of it later.
From my experience with blind people, you have portrayed Julian correctly. They work hard to establish independence and may actually fear becoming sighted again because it might require them to give up what they have earned. Let's hope that they take up Charles's offer to have them come to Los Angeles to see the smog.