A FBOW excerpt in sequence: Becoming Airborne.
October 22,1956
No sooner was the elevator door pulled open, “Walt, come in here, will you?” Myra called from her office. “You’ve some calls I’ve got to talk to you about.”
Troy in the studio setting up a shot. Tats in the darkroom. The dryer running in the work area. Having no one to talk to. Actually not wanting to talk to anyone. Upset over the conversation with his father, taking his portfolio into the sales office—his first day back in the real world—Mitchell moodily looked through his samples. As...
“So? Did you talk to him?”
“Yes...” Walter said wearily, “...I talked to him.”
“So?”
“He said he’d talk to her.”
“He ‘always’ says that!”
“Myra, I talked to him for you! ‘Okay’?” Changing the subject. “Were there any calls?”
“Reynolds called and said he’s replacing the caskets tomorrow. And Rappaport wants at least five each of the new sofa shots today, so I’ve got Tats making the prints.”
Noting the time: 2:45. “I’ve a three-fifteen with ‘Iverson’. Soon as the prints come off the dryer, send your son over with them.”
________________________________________________
“It’s only four blocks to the Merchandise Mart, so, since you’ll never find a place to park there, it’s best to just walk over.” Handing him two flat, brown-paper rapped packages. “Rappaport’s waiting for this.”
Names and addresses marked on both, one had postage attached. “And on your way...”Myra said, “...drop this in the mail box for me, will you.”
****
The late October, mid-afternoon sun obliterated by a thick layer of dark clouds, a slight wind came up turning the day from moderately cool to chilly.
Walter hadn’t given Mitchell his old overcoat as of yet, but up until then the weather had been fairly comfortable and he hadn’t really needed the heavy coat. Now, though, although he wore a T-shirt beneath his dress shirt, with the one button of his wool sport jacket buttoned, the wind, slight as it was, easily cut through the layers of his clothing.
Shit! Shivering, thinking, Who’d they get to run their errands when I wasn’t here?
Kicking a crushed cigarette package on the sidewalk, And god-damn-it, it’s only my first day back and already they had to start on me about Marsha!
Mitchell walked with his hands shoved deeply in his pants pockets. The two thick, 10x13 packages clasped beneath his left armpit.
Why can’t they just be happy we’re back and that Marsh’s going to give them their first grandchild?
Gripping his left arm tighter against his side as a gust of wind caught his jacket. Grasping the lapels he attempted to hold them closed with his other hand.
Why’s Marsha got to be so god-damned stubborn about this?
Growing colder and angrier with each step, Why can’t she just do it? If for nothing more than because I want her to!
His wife’s stubbornness overriding his mother’s obsession. Actually placing more blame on Marsha than his mother because there was nothing he could do about his mother, but there was— so he thought— possibly something he could do about his wife. Besides, he ‘truly’ could not understand: Why can’t she just do it and call her ‘mom’ if it’s so god-damned important to her, ‘especially’ if she knows it’ll make things easier for me.
Approaching a large mailbox…
In deep, highly agitated thought, pulling the rectangular hatch open Mitchell shoved the package through. Then to be sure it dropped inside he irately banged the hatch open and shut twice.
The single package no longer fitting snugly in his armpit, taking it from under his arm, glancing at it…
“Uh, oh!”
****
He smelled the cooking pot roast as soon as the stainless steel elevator door slid open. The scent became stronger as he walked through the carpeted hall, and when Mitchell opened the door he was overcome by the delicious, warm aroma…
Standing in his open doorway looking inside, sighing. Mitchell knew he was home.
****
Once they had arranged their new furniture and hung their pictures and displayed their knickknacks, and made an additional ‘E-Z Credit’ purchase of a 9x12 oval-shaped Early American, beige and brown hooked rug that was centred on the living room floor— and lugged Marsha’s old dresser downstairs and borrowed Rhea’s card table and folding chairs which would be their temporary dining room furniture and, as ugly as it had been when they’d first seen it, a bit of their personalities showing through, the apartment had become theirs and was actually— in their opinion ‘cute’… and had become home.
****
On the sofa, watching the evening news. “Mitchie, you’re so late!”
“Yeah...” trying to cover his sullen mood, “...I got tied up.” Forcing a smile. “Sorry I didn’t call.”
To those who knew him, Mitchell’s face was ‘always’ a dead giveaway to his mood— the reason he was hardly ever able to get away with a lie. “Mitch, did something happen today?” Marsha could always sense when. “What’s wrong?”
“Nah, nothing’s happened.” Well knowing if he said anything about his father’s conversation, Marsha and he would have an argument.
And the other thing? It was so stupid that he wasn’t sure he even wanted to mention it, but Mitchell had learned to accept his wife’s instincts and was sure Marsha knew something had happened today.
“Well...” he said rather reluctantly, “...yeah, I screwed up for a change.”
Thinking it might be the ‘mom’ pressure, relieved that it was just… “You screwed up on your first day, Mitchell?”
“Yeah, I guess the man was right; I ‘’am’ just a…”
Chief Warrant Officer Floyd Richard Ewing, Mitchell’s commanding officer at Rockaway Lifeboat Station, in order to thinly hide his anti-Semitism, or his deeply hidden, homosexual desire for Mitchell, had told him— constantly— that he was a…
“Yeah, guess the man was right, I ‘am’ just a fuck-up.”
“Yeah...” trying to comfort him, putting her arms about his neck, “...but if you are you’re my fuck-up!” Marsha kissed his cheek. “Go on, change your clothes and wash up for dinner.”
****
“Oh, I don’t know...” washing a mouthful of meat and potato down with strawberry pop, “...I guess I was thinking of, uh…”—deciding not to mention the ‘mom’ thing—“...all the stuff I have to learn and when I got to the mailbox I put the wrong package in without thinking.”
“Okay, Mitch, it’s not so terrible! So you mailed the wrong package. It could have happened to anyone.”
“Yeah, Marcie, ‘anyone’! But why do these dumb things ‘always’ happen to me?”
Thinking... Because sometimes you don’t think ...but shrugging her shoulders, “I don’t know why dumb things always happen to you, Mitchie.”
“Anyway, Mister Rappaport, the customer was waiting for it, so I looked at the card on the mailbox and saw that the mail got picked up at three. It was just a couple minutes after, so I took a chance and waited for the mailman.
“Remember, I’m freezing my ass off. But sure enough the guy came in a couple’a minutes. But the bastard wouldn’t give me the package ‘cause he said it was against regulations to give it to me there…”
“Even if you identified it?”
“Yeah! I showed him the other package and he saw it was wrapped the same way and written with the same marker and that this one didn’t have postage. But no matter what, he said he couldn’t do it.”
“He could have, if he wanted!”
“Yeah, I thought so, too! Anyway, he didn’t, but said he was on his way to the post office then and it was just a few minutes away by streetcar, and I should go there and by the time I got there he’d have spoken to his supervisor and maybe he’d give it to me…”
“Want some more meat, Mitchie?”
“Yeah, thanks,” handing her his dish. “So I got on a streetcar, got to the post office, found the guy’s supervisor and guess what?”
Returning to the table, Marsha put the dish in front of him, “What?” and went back to the stove with her dish.
“He said it ‘was’ against regulations too. But if the guy was an okay guy he ‘could have’ given it to me there.”
“See, I told you!”
“Yeah,” he said flatly. “So I got on another streetcar and go to the Merchandise Mart… You ever been there?”
Sitting, “No,” she said.
“Let me tell you, the Merchandise Mart is one ‘big’ place!”
Starting to cut the meat with his knife, but putting it down— blaming his father for the fiasco that afternoon, thinking, Screw you, dad! He ‘worried’ the meat with the edge of his fork.
“And when I got off the elevator on the ‘thousandth’ floor, I turned in the wrong direction and must have walked a ‘million’ miles till I found the right place, and guess what?” Not waiting for an answer, “Rappaport, the schmuck that ‘had’ to have the prints ‘today’ had gone home at three! So, how was your day?”
The unexpected question throwing her for a moment. “Fine. The doctor’s okay and my examination went well… But being with Brenda? She’s so beautiful she makes me feel like a fat boy.”
At 5' 5" Brenda Goldman had a beautiful, round face with big brown eyes framed by light brown hair and a large-busted, narrow-wasted figure that caused men to stare and women to envy.
“Don’t worry about that. No one’ll ever mistake you for a boy.”
“Yeah, sure!” Pushing away from the table, running her hands tightly over her abdomen, she stretched the maternity top over the orb of her stomach. “So long as I’m knocked up they won’t.”
“Well then, for the good of mankind, I guess we’d better start practising.” Standing, going to the other side of the table and kneeling before Marsha he put his face into the hollow between her breasts.
Knowing, asking anyway. “We’d better start practising what,Mitchie?”
“Keeping you knocked up.”
November 6, 1956
‘Grand Canyon’ is indeed grand, both in scope and beauty.
‘The Petrified Forest’ does, no doubt, have petrified trees.
‘The Painted Desert’, yes, sir, at times does appear to be painted.
‘Great Salt Lake’ is unquestionably salty.
The waters at ‘Niagara Falls’ certainly fall, and…
‘The Windy City’ is not called the Windy City for nothing because…
“ ‘Holy shit’!”
Walking south on Michigan Avenue, Mitchell Lipensky’s body was bent so far forward that were the wind to suddenly stop blowing he would surely fall flat on his face. His hair fanned straight back. His coat— buttoned from the highest to the lowest, winnowed to the rear as though a small parachute. And, if not held tightly within his leather gloved hand, his sample case would have realised its apparent aspirations of emancipation.
If the wind is called ‘Mariah’ as in the song from the play ‘Paint Your Wagon’, then the wind of the Windy City might well be called ‘Big Bertha because, short of a hurricane or tornado—which are fortunately uncommon occurrences in Chicago—Big Bertha does come visiting on a majority of winter days in Chicago and ‘woe be onto they’ who must brave the streets of the easterly tip of land that sits on the westerly shore of Lake Michigan.
The term ‘wind chill factor’ must have had its origin on ‘State Street’, ‘Wabash Avenue’ and ‘Michigan Avenue’ and had to have been concocted by those who make their living by scurrying from the entry of one building to the entry of another.
453… 457…
Watching the addresses of the buildings, “Holy shit!” he yelled once again. But his closest neighbor in passing, a middle-aged, gray haired man barely heard him above the baying wind and gave Mitchell but a cursory glance before returning his efforts to remaining on solid ground even as Mitchell’s 36x36 art portfolio suddenly went from vertical to horizontal as…
Jesus...Mitchell thought,...if I had another case in my other hand and a feather in my ass I’d become airborne.
461… 465… Thank God!
Going through the revolving door from the outside world of the bone chilling, face numbing, squalling wind to the warm silence of the heated, wood panel and marble lobby he stood for a full thirty seconds acclimating himself to the physical and mental stillness.
Removing a rubber-banded packet of 3x5 index cards from his coat pocket, he looked at the top card then at the building’s glass enclosed directory…
‘Freeholdt & Hardison, Advertising… Room 1533’. Writing the room number on the card, he returned the cards to his pocket and — using the reflective glass of the directory as a mirror, he unbuttoned his coat, straightened his tie and the lapels of his jacket, combed his windblown hair, went into the nearest elevator and pushed the ‘15’ button.
****
Smiling his best smile, “Hi!” Handing the receptionist a business card, “My name’s Mitch Lipensky and I’d like to speak to whoever purchases photography, please.”
Glancing at the card, then lifting the receiver off the multi- lined phone on the desk the young woman punched a button. “I’ve someone from ‘Walter Lewis Studio’ here to see you, Mister Munchnick.… Yes, sir.” Punching the ‘Hold’ button. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, ma’am.” Thinking, How could I have an appointment if I didn’t even know the guy’s name?
Pushing the flashing button. “No, sir. No appointment.… Yes, sir.” Putting the phone onto the cradle the ‘Munchnick’ button went dark. “Mister Munchnick advises you call for an appointment.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Taking the index cards and a pen from his pocket, “How would you spell, Mister… uh?”
“Munchnick! ‘M-i-c-h-n-i-c-k’.”
“Thank you.”
“You have the telephone number?”
“Yes, Mam.”
****
In the lobby again with the ‘Freeholdt & Hardison’ card on the bottom of the stack, Mitchell looked at the next numerically arranged card on the top: ‘Hillhouse & Hodges, 690 S. Michigan’.
Standing to the right of the revolving door, thinking, One and a half blocks to the next one. He once again buttoned his coat from hem to chin, took a last breath of warm, still air, then pushed through the door to make his seventh, frigid, probably non-productive call of the day.
****
“Hi!” Handing the rather homely receptionist his card. Smiling his ‘I want to impress you’ smile. “My name’s Mitch Lipensky…”
When he came through the door, the receptionist, a young woman of approximately Mitchell’s age had looked up and followed his progress to her desk with her eyes focused sharply on his face, thinking, Could it be? And when he gave his name, Yeah!
Next FBOW Excerpt in sequence: Retrospective: 1949/Gina
