A FBOW excerpt in sequence: In The Real World

Although understanding why, Myra had still planned a show of anger because they had slept in Chicago the night before rather than Skokie. Now though, tears of laughter streaming down her face, she listened as Marsha explained to her mother-in-law why her eldest son—‘Curly’, ‘Larry’ or ‘Moe’—was barefoot.

After eating a quick sandwich, Marsha, Mitchell and Lawrence returned to the apartment.

At the apartment, after putting on a pair of dry shoes, Mitchell and Lawrence carted the furniture upstairs.

“Put the sofa there and the chair here!”... Marsha stood back looking. “No, put the chair there!... Now move it to the side a foot or two!... Better center it here! Yeah, that’s good! Now the chair here! No, there!”

Finally. Possibly, the furniture where she wanted it… Maybe.

As her brother-in-law and husband returned the trailer to the U-Haul on Western Avenue, Marsha began to unpack the cartons.

________________________________________________

Chicago, Illinois

October 18, 1956

Standing in the doorway appraising the apartment, “Hey...” though he really thought just the opposite, “...this isn’t too bad,” Walter said attempting a show of enthusiasm even as he remembered his wife’s fit of jealous anger a week earlier when she’d learned that her son and daughter-in-law were going to rent an apartment in the same building as Marsha’s parents.

****

Although, really, Mitchell’s early discharge coming as a surprise to everyone, Myra’s first reaction had been: “Where’ll the kids live?”

****

“This your new furniture, eh? Yeah, the place looks okay!”

“You think so, Dad? You ‘really’ think it looks okay?”

“Yes, Mitchell, it does!” Lying. “It looks just fine.”

****

Walter and Larry on their way to Skokie, Mitchell took a shower, dressed and because it was Thursday and the stores were open till nine, he and Marsha had dinner at Askanaz, then drove to ‘Robert Hall’ on ‘Devon Avenue’ to buy some ‘dress’ work clothes.

Rather than using E-Z Credit for just the chair—“What’s twenty-one bucks a month? We’ll make the payments easy!”—they’d also used E-Z Credit for the coffee table, thus leaving the original $380 dollars they came to Chicago with, and one of the five hundred that Rhea had given Marsha for the possibility of any unexpected medical bills and the cost of clothing for Mitchell.

Having no up to date civilian clothing, and certainly nothing to wear while calling on potential customers—hopefully. Mitchell purchased four long sleeved dress shirts, three ties and three pairs of slacks that were interchangeable with two sport jackets and, a little later, at an ‘A.S. Beck Shoe Store’, a pair of ox-blood colored shoes that went with everything.

Having bought a new overcoat, Walter had promised Mitchell his old coat and… ‘Oh, yeah’, he would ‘definitely’ need an overcoat!

****

On this night— five days after Marsha Goldman Lipensky’s twentieth birthday —Marsha and Mitchell Lipensky slept in their ‘first’ owned bed in their first home as civilians…

On this night they did not make love.

Back in the Real World

Monday, October 22, 1956

He left the apartment at 7:30 and parked in the lot across the alley from the rear entrance of the three story building that housed ‘Walter Lewis Studio’ at 8:24.

Listening to the radio. Nervously drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he waited for his father or ‘Troy’ or ‘ Tats’.

Walter Lewis Studio was located on ‘North Clark Street’ in a decaying commercial neighbourhood four blocks north of the northern bend of the elevated ‘loop’ track that curved through downtown Chicago.

****

At 8:35, a half-ton Ford pickup pulled into the lot.

Coming out of the car, “Hey, Troy, hi!”

Of Greek descent, at age thirty-six, Troy was the oldest and had been employed the longest of the two men that worked at the studio.

Mitchell never know if ‘Troy’ was his first or last name because, for the seven years he’d worked for Walter, to Mitchell he had only been known as ‘Troy’.

“Hi’ya, Mitch!” Holding his hand forward. “So, you ready to set the world on fire?”

Shaking hands, “Don’t know if exactly ‘on fire’, but I’d sure like to make it smoulder a little.”

“Your old man’s been anxious for you to get back here so he can spend a little less time on the street looking for business and more time here, setting up the shots. And now that you’re here we’ll have some fresh sales effort so maybe Tats’n’me can keep ourselves just a ‘little’ busier.”

On a weekly draw of—before taxes—seventy-five dollars against commission…

“Christ, I hope I can help to keep you guys a lot busier!”

Walking up the three concrete steps onto the loading dock, Troy unlocked the steel security door and the heavy inner door, then he and Mitchell stepped into the rear entrance of the building.

The first floor was a retail luggage store. The second floor, the store’s repair and manufacturing factory.

Troy pulled upward on the canvas strap and the upper and lower sections of the steel doors of the freight elevator rattled open in opposite directions. Inside the elevator, pulling down on the strap, the two halves clanged shut again.

Mitchell pushed ‘3’ and with a jerk the freight elevator creakily began its slow journey upward.

On ‘3’ Troy unlocked the heavy padlock that bolted the two halves closed, then pulled the sections upward.

From the outside appearing to be a three-story building, ‘443 North Clark Street’ was actually a four-story structure because the third floor was a cavernous open space with a sixteen-foot high ceiling that was perfect for facades of room set-ups requiring overhead photography.

****

“Some things never change, do they?” Mitchell said as he stepped out of the elevator.

Coming off the elevator was a waiting room with a three-piece grouping of a wood veneer and Naugahyde sofa and two matching chairs.

Dramatically highlighted, a number of product photographs taken by Walter Lewis Studio hung strategically on the dark green walls.

To the left of the waiting room was a wide, three story stairwell leading to ‘Clark Street’.

Directly across from the elevator was Myra’s small office with a sliding glass window that overlooked the waiting room. Adjacent to Myra’s office was a small hallway with doors opening to the work area, her office and another, much larger office with a comfortable leather sofa, two matching leather chairs and Walter’s glass-topped, walnut stained desk and matching swivel chair.

The waiting room, Myra and Walter’s offices, two darkrooms and the washroom were the only rooms with doors and eight foot high ceilings.

The ‘Sales Office’ that, as of that day, became Mitchell’s office, the general work room with its convener-belt, gas drum print dryer and long work tables were little more than drywall partitions with doorless door frames.

The studio itself was a bit less than two thousand square feet of open area with scattered facades of single and corner-wall room setups, cameras on tripods, spotlights, floodlights, reflectors, translucent screening to produce shadowed effects, and what appeared to be a hundred miles of snaking, thick, black electrical cord.

****

Downstairs came the noise of the accordion-steel security and plate glass doors being unlocked from the outside... Then came the sound of approaching footsteps.

Waiting at the head of the stairs, “Hi, Tats!”

“Hey, so you finally got here!” ‘Ralph Tatayma’ extended his hand. “Hi’ya, Mitchie!”

A ‘Nisei’—a first generation Japanese-American—Tats had served in the U.S. Army and even as his family spent the years of the war behind barbed wire in an internment camp in southern California, Ralph Tatayma had seen combat with the ‘442nd Nisei Infantry Division’ throughout Europe.

****

“I hear you’re going to be a daddy.”

“Yeah. ‘Unbelievable’, ain’t it?”

“Knowing you like I know you, ‘yeah’, you can say that again! Anyway, Mitch, congrats on the baby and your discharge.”

“Thanks, Tats.”

There were multi-line telephones in each of the three offices, both darkrooms, the studio and the work area and...

...The seven phones began to ring in ‘stereophonic’ sound.

Going towards the small refrigerator in the work area. “May as well start earning your money, Mitch...” opening the refrigerator, “...get the phone, will you!” Tats put his brown-bag lunch inside.

“Sure.” Reaching through Myra’s small window, grabbing the phone he punched the flashing button. “Walter Lewis Studio.”

“Yeah...” came the voice on the other end, “...who’s this?”

“Mitch Lipensky. Who’s this?”

“Thought I didn’t recognise the voice. Never met you before, Mitch, I’m ‘Ed Winkler’.”

“My dad’s not in now, Mister Winkler, but if you want to leave a number, I’ll have him…”

“No ‘Mister’; the name’s ‘Ed,’ and I’m affiliated with you guys there, I’m your dad’s artist.”

“Oh, yeah...”

His father had told him that the studio now offered ‘full services’, including ‘creative artwork’.

“...hi, Ed! Glad to know you.”

“Me, too, Mitch. Look, tell your dad I’m coming by around lunch time and to wait for me. I’ll meet you then, okay?”

Hearing the ‘click’ of a motor and the overhead rumble of old machinery as the elevator began to lower.

Stretching the telephone cord, going to the window and looking down he saw the white top of Walter’s two-one Buick. “Ed, my dad’s on the way up now, if you want to wait…”

“No, it’s not necessary. Tell him I’ll see him at lunch.”

“Yeah, Ed. Okay, bye.”

****

“Marsha, hi. It’s me, ‘Brenda’.”

“Hi, Brenda! You want to come up? I’m almost ready.”

Marsha’s sister-in-law, Roger’s wife, Brenda, would rather have teeth pulled, without anaesthesia, than spend one moment more than absolutely necessary in the company of her mother-in-law.

Even though she’d pushed the button marked ‘Lipensky’, Rhea could possibly be in Marsha’s apartment. Although, knowing Rhea, normally it was too early for her to be up and around. But even if she wasn’t at her daughter’s at the moment, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t drop in, ‘especially’ if she knew Brenda was there.

“No, Marcie,” glancing at her watch, “our appointment’s at ten. If you’re about ready, I’ll wait in the car.”

Wanting to be seen by an ‘OB/GYN’, and not knowing one, Marsha had spoken to her sister-in-law about the doctor that had seen her throughout her pregnancy and Brenda had volunteered to take Marsha to meet him.

****

... “Marsha, everything appears to be normal and as it should be with you and your baby. And I do concur with your doctor, uh, doctors in New York that…”

At his desk studying the notations he’d read and made on Marsha’s medical data sheet.

“...your delivery date should be somewhere around mid or late March.” Looking up. “We’ll know more, though...,” Doctor Greenblatt said, “...after the lab does the work-up. You ‘could’ stand to gain a few pounds at this time. Are you eating properly? You drink much milk?”

“I’m eating about like always, but I’ve never been much of a milk drinker and have to force myself to drink the stuff.”

Well, do the best you can and I’ll give you a prescription for calcium.” Drawing the prescription pad across the desk, Greenblatt began to write. “Also, you appear to be slightly anaemic.”

“Doctor Greenblatt...” Marsha asked meekly, “...what do you charge for, uh, taking care of me now and the delivery. And do you have any idea what the hospital might cost?”

Brenda had told Marsha what it had cost for her pre and postnatal care, but it had been almost two years since Dennis had been born.

Not answering until he finished writing the prescriptions, then tearing the two sheets off the pad and handing them to Marsha, Greenblatt leaned back in his chair.

He’d met Brenda’s mother-in-law twice, and each time had received— he thought— a discreet ‘signal’. And now, with Rhea’s daughter, well, maybe ‘he’ would give a signal and ‘maybe’… Who knows?

“Pre and postnatal care...” answering Marsha’s question, “...including the delivery, unless something unforeseen occurs and according to this...” tapping Marsha’s data sheet, “...nothing should, will be four hundred dollars. Your hospital bill, for six days, again, if all goes as it should, should be about five hundred dollars.”

Knowing her husband was fresh out of the military and rather sure, so Greenblatt rightfully thought, without insurance; Rhea Goldman or no Rhea Goldman: “How do you and…” looking at the folder on his desk, “...Mitchell intend paying for this, Marsha?” He asked bluntly.

“Oh, here...” opening her purse, “...here’s the paperwork.” Removing two envelopes, she handed them across the desk. “Because I became pregnant while Mitchell was in the Coast Guard, and they were paying for a civilian doctor when he got discharged, the government will pay…” thinking, I hope, “...for you and the hospital. I was told to give these to you.”

Never hearing a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from Commander Frohlick and not wanting to face, in Frohlick’s opinion, the remote possibility that the government might not pay for this post military care, Mitchell hadn’t told Marsha that he wasn’t absolutely certain that they were going to pay. But Marsha, being ‘at least’ as smart as her husband, knew that they had not received a definite ‘yes’…

So now she sat holding her breath as Doctor Gtrrrnblatt studided the documents that Marsha had handed him.

****

“Mitchell...” Myra called from her desk, “...it’s your wife on ‘two’!”

With his father laying out his sample book standing at the work table with a spread of four color processed and black and white 8x10 product photos…

“Yeah, mom, thanks.”

Wanting to speak to Marsha in private. “Hold it a minute, Dad, I want to see what the doctor had to say.” Rather than picking up the phone on the work table, going into—what as of this morning was his office. Sitting on the edge of the desk he punched the flashing button. “Hi, baby!”

“Hi! So how’s it going with my ‘working’ man?”

“Fine. dad’n’me are putting my portfolio together… So what’d the doctor have to say?”

“Everything’s fine with the baby and me, but he wants me to gain some weight and drink milk.”

“Yeah! See, I told you so.”

“Yeah, but when I told him milk makes me wann’a puke, he said it’s not all that unusual and gave me a prescription for calcium and something for anaemia.”

“ ‘Anaemia’?”

“Yeah. Like in the commercial, ‘I got iron poor blood’. But it’s nothing, so don’t worry abut it.”

“Did you give him the papers?”

“Sure. No problem. He looked them over and even took the ones for the hospital and said he’d have his secretary send them over and that she’d take care of the paperwork for us.”

“ ‘Great’! That’s ‘wonderful’! Did you talk to my mother before she called me?”

“Yes. I told her everything’s just fine.”

“Good! You and Brenda staying downtown a while?”

“Yeah. We thought we’d go over to ‘Harding’s’ for lunch.”

“That’s nice. You guys have a good time… I’ll see you later… ‘Love you’!”

“Love you, too!… Bye.”

“Bye.”

****

Cutting a small, boiled potato in half, “So, Mitch, how’s it feel being a civilian again?” Dabbing a half in melted butter, he put it in his mouth.

“I’m not sure yet. I got discharged…” thinking a moment, “...tomorrow’s a week and today’s my first day at work. Tell you what: ask me later, at about five o’clock.”

Cutting into his broiled liver with the edge of his fork, looking at his father, seeing his father look at him. “Yeah, Dad, I know! ‘Don’t ‘worry’ it with your fork! ‘Use your knife’!” Smiling, turning to Ed Winkler again. “He’s been telling me that ever since I was a kid; it’s his pet peeve or something: ‘Don’t worry it with your fork! Use your knife’!”

“I’ve been telling him that since he was five years old and you’d think someday he’d learn!”

Even though it was only chopped steak he was eating, cutting it with both, a knife and fork. “See...” Walter said as though speaking to a child, “...it’s not ‘that’ hard to do!”

“Yes, Walter, you’re just ‘too’ wonderful for words,” Myra said sarcastically as she purposely cut her chopped steak with only her fork.

Blushing at the rebuff, “Jesus...” Walter said, “...now I know how ‘Captain Bligh’ must have felt when ‘Christian’ took over the ‘Bounty’.”

Looking from his father to his mother, thinking, Some things really never change.

Having listened to Walter and Myra’s annoying bickering on a number of occasions, changing the subject “Your dad said you were on a ‘weather ship’.”

“Yeah, we steamed to Newfoundland in the winter and froze our asses off, and then went to Bermuda in the summer when it was hot as hell. You’d think they’d get it right just once in a while!”

****

Spraying it with Windex, Walter carefully wiped both sides of the 17x22 acetate sleeve with a piece of crumpled newspaper, then fit the sleeve into the rings of a large, black leather attaché case.

“Here in the front you’ve got your industrial location shots.” Walter turned the first two sleeves. On either side there were four 8x10 black- and-white pictures of machinery and stainless steel vats taken at various factory locations. “And here are refined pictures of the same shots.” The backgrounds had been opaqued out of the negative so only a single vat or piece of machinery remained on a pure white background and the photographic image had been retouched and air-brushed showing highlighted details.

“These are product shots taken here at the studio.”

Turning sleeve by sleeve, Walter explained the subtle photographic details of each photograph.

Listening intently, ‘wanting’ to remember, wanting to get ‘every’ detail committed to memory.

Mitchell studied the black-and-white and full-color processed pictures of caskets showing their cold, white, satiny interiors, and the caskets closed showing their shiny wood-grain or burnished metal exteriors.

There were full room furniture shots and pictures of a particular table, chair or grouping of furniture. There were photo brochures and commercial art brochures.

“By tying in with Winkler...” taking a 8½x11 multi-paged brochure from one of the pockets in the case, Walter handed it to Mitchell. “...we can offer a full studio service, and by doing that we’re able to hit ‘ad’ agencies for business.”

“How do we work it with Ed? He pay us a commission?”

“No. He gives us a discounted quote and we mark it up. And he does the same with whatever photography we do through him.” Walter looked at his watch. “We’ve been at this for better than two hours. What say we take a break and go on down for some coffee?”

Always a pot of brewed coffee in the work room.

“But we’ve coffee here, Dad.”

“I know, but I want to talk to you about something… alone.”

Rather sure he had an idea what his father wanted to talk about, Oh, shit, he thought, here it comes!

“Myra, we’re going to the ‘Saint Regis’ for a cup of coffee.”

“ ‘Coffee’! Just you and Mitchell? Okay, Walt,” Myra said, doing her best to sound disappointed because they had not asked her to join them.

His mother’s words, though, did not ring true to Mitchell.

The ‘Saint Regis Hotel’ was on the west side of Clark Street, at the north end of the block.

Mid-afternoon: At the same table they’d occupied two hours earlier, Walter and Mitchell were all but alone in the surprisingly fashionable dining room of the old, run-down hotel.

Turning his cup in the saucer, trying to formulate his words, Walter gazed at some far off point beyond his son’s head.

Waiting for his father to speak, Mitchell remained silent.

Finally…

“Mitchell, before, when you and your… when you and Marsha lived in Seagate it, uh, bothered your mother. But now that you’re home again and we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, your mother….”

Thinking, Here it comes! The same old bull-shit! Gazing at the ceiling, he waited for his father to get the words out.

“…and me, too, I guess, are really hurt by your wife’s refusal to address either of us with ‘some’ kind of a title.”

“Dad, you and mom have talked to me about this before!” Thinking, Constantly.

“Yes, I know! But I want to again. As for me, it doesn’t really matter if she calls me dad or skipper or, if she wants, even Walter.”

But it did matter! He’d ‘love’ to have Marsha call him ‘skipper’ as she had before the ‘coffee cup’ incident. “But your mother...” going on, “...is really insistent that your wife show some respect by calling her ‘mom’!”

‘Mom,’ he thought. Oh, yeah. I can just see that happening! “Dad...” he said tiredly, “...you’ve talked to me about this before and I’ve talked to Marsha about this before too… ‘plenty’ of times!”

“Well...” Walter said emphatically, “...maybe ‘plenty of times’ is not enough!”

Well knowing this conversation was not his father’s idea! Knowing this talk was strictly at his mother’s request—or demand.

“Yeah, ‘sure’, Dad...” Mitchell said just as emphatically, “...just like ‘you’ talk to mom and get her to do whatever the hell ‘you’ want!”

Knowing his son was right. Looking away, Walter sipped his coffee.

****

Walter had liked Marsha from the moment he met her.

Marsha’s ‘Hebraic’ classic beauty. Her demeanour. Her personality. The friendly, loving way she’d treated Myra and himself...In the beginning.

Walter had been envious—actually jealous—of his son and when Marsha and Mitchell decided on marriage he was finally able to admit—only in the deepest recess of his mind, though—his love of Marsha… But it was— so he convinced himself—the love of a father for a child. But deep down he knew this love was far different than the love he felt for his three sons. And, as he had only sons, Walter rationalised his feelings for Marsha as the love a father might only have for a daughter, and in return he did recognise and appreciate, ‘very much’, the special love he knew Marsha had for him…

Before it happened.

Walter remembered, only too well, when it happened.

Walter remembered the evening, the very moment that had changed everything between Marsha and himself, and…

Walter Lipensky would give ‘anything’ to turn back time. To do what he ‘knew’ he should have done.

 The next FBOW excerpt in sequence: A Word In Time