BOW# 25: The Pool, Daddy
Chicago, Illinois
Friday, March 2, 1974
4:12 p.m. Central Standard Time
Pushing through the revolving door to the outside world of bone chilling, face numbing, squalling wind. Breath coming in thick plumes of vapor.
Walking as quickly as possible from the O'Hara Air-Field Arrivals Terminal to the parking lot. Their coats — zipped and buttoned from hem to throat, willowed in the howling wind.
Spotting their tan, 1973 ‘Mercury’ Station Wagon…
“Thank God!” Quickly unlocking and tossing their two suit cases through the rear door, then unlocking the passenger door for Marsha, Mitchell rushed to the driver-side door as she reached across the seat to unlock it.
Out of the wind now. Sitting a moment to acclimate to the comparative quiet. Placing the key into the ignition, starting the motor and letting it run for about thirty seconds, Mitchell turned the heater to ‘Hi’, put the car into ‘D’, and drove from the parking lot.
Grey exhaust smoked from the thousands of cars that inched their way through the snow-induced, extended rush hour.
Slapping from side to side, the wipers of the Mercury leaving wide swaths of clear glass, the heat of the defroster melting the hail like snow.
“Damn-It!”
“Mitchell, take it easy! You knew we’d be running into traffic at this time.”
“Yeah, but…”
Too cold for the falling snow to stick, but the wind’s velocity causing it to blow as stinging, billowing white clouds that effected the Friday evening rush hour traffic causing it crawl at an even slower pace.
Catching the north-west bound US 90 to ‘Higgins Road’ which would take them through Hoffman Estates to Schaumburg.
In normal driving time the trip from O’Hare Air Port to Schaumburg would, on average, take forty-five minutes to an hour. But on this evening, considering the wind, snow and traffic, after nearly an hour and fifteen minutes, at the speed they were traveling, it would take, at least, an additional half hour to get home.
****
Hearing the rattle of the motorized garage door, other than Myra and Walter – Mitchell’s parents – the entire family, including Sabra was in the lower level of the tri-level house to greet their parents.
Hugs and kisses all around — included Sabra, the Great Dane that in a copious amount of affection, standing on her rear legs, throwing her front paws onto Marsha’s shoulders, besides a number of abundantly sloppy Great Dane kisses, Marsha was all but knocked off her feet.
“Mom, hi!...”
The heat of the kitchen and scents of mushroom/barley soup and roast beef assailing their senses.
...Kissing his mother, “God, that smells good!”
Wiping her face as she came into the kitchen. “Hi, Myra.” Kissing her mother-in-law’s cheek. “Thank you!” Marsha said sincerely.
Turning from the stove, returning Marsha’s kiss. “You know it’s my pleasure to watch my grand-children.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hi, Mitch.” Motioning to the evening news on television that was focused on the unmoving traffic on the ‘Kennedy Expressway’. “The ‘Kennedy’s’ a parking lot.”
“Yeah. And the snow’s not helping any. It’s not sticking, but it’s blowing like hell”
“Didn’t expect you to be so late,” Myra called from the kitchen. “Come on, let’s eat!”
****
“What about the pool?” Sammy asked. “Tell us about the pool.”
The four children, the four adults and Sabra, who’s head – much to Myra’s annoyance – was resting on the table between Mitchell and Michael with her expressive eyes shifting from side to side silently begging for a morsel of food, which, much to ‘both’ Myra and Marsha’s annoyance, she occasionally received.
Through with the thick soup — that was almost a meal in itself—a dish of roast beef, asparagus, mashed potatoes and gravy before him.
“The back yard is really beautiful.” Mitchel said “There’s a big peach tree there…”
“With real peaches, Daddy?” Sharon asked.
“No, silly...” Marsha replied “...with plastic peaches… Of course ‘real peaches’!”
“And there’s an orange tree and a lemon tree and, uh, grapefruit, and…”
“An avocado and even persimmon trees.” Marsha added, further adding, “Michael, stop feeding that dog!”
“And in the front...” Mitchell said “...there’s an olive tree...” smiling “...with ‘real’ olives, Sherry.”
“The pool, Daddy?”
“The pool is about, uh...” gesturing about the width of the kitchen “...a couple of feet wider than here and as long as… from here...” pointing to the far kitchen wall “...to there,” pointing to the far family room wall.
“Does it have a diving board?”
“Yeah, it does, Mikey.”
“A high diving board?”
“No, Sammy. It doesn’t have a ‘high diving board’.”
“And...” Ellie asked “...it doesn’t snow there… ever?”
Swallowing what she was chewing. “No, honey, it doesn’t snow in San Diego, ‘ever’!”
“How close is our home to Grandma and Grandpa?”
Looking at Michael,.“About twenty minutes,” Marsha said.
Becoming serious. “Tomorrow...” looking at Michael “...you and me will go to the A&P to see if we can get boxes so we can start packing some stuff.”
“Yes...” Marsha added “...we’ve only a month to move so we’ve lots of work to do.”
“We’re going to have a ‘mover’, Mom?”
“Yes, Ellie. Daddy’s going to talk to Mister Plankow…”
“ ‘Mr. Plankow’, that’s daddy’s boss?” Michael asked.
“No, he’s not Daddy’s boss. Mr. Plankow owns the company that trained your father and sold us the territory in California.”
“And he said that the company would help with what it cost for us to move to San Diego, so I’ll talk to him on Monday to see what mover he wants us to call.”
Schaumberg, Illinois
Saturday, March 3, 1974
7:42 a.m. Central Standard Time
Wanting to get an early start in the procurement of cardboard boxes from the local super markets.
Awake at six-thirty, looking... “Oh, shit!” ...out the window.
Apparently the temperature had lifted overnight because the snow did…
The snow certainly did begin to stick because so far as Mitchell could see, the world was coated in white. Even the five foot high back yard chain link fence was all but buried, and a goodly portion of the rear sixty-five foot length completely hidden beneath a long snow drift.
*****
Bundled in his fur-lined leather coat and calf length galoshes and his old, Coast Guard issued blue knit ‘watch cap’; shovel in hand…
Finding it hard to believe that less than twenty-four hours earlier he and his wife were luxuriating in San Diego’s seventy-four degree temperature.
Shovel in hand. His breath steaming before him. Taking about forty-five minutes of hard shoveling – making a mountain of snow on either side of the fifteen by twenty-five foot driveway – as all the while remembering the forty minute walk he and Marsha had taken along the Pacific Ocean in near eighty degree weather just the evening before.
****
Finished. Finally, though knowing he wouldn’t be going anyplace unless a city snowplow plowed by.
*****
In late November or early December, or whenever there came the season’s first measurable snowfall, his children– not so much Michael now— would be outside, in-mass, doing things kids love to do in the snow.
But come the New Year, snow becomes irksome and tiresome – especially to anyone planning on going anyplace by car – and on this Saturday, the first Saturday in March, one more snow storm was downright boring and this Saturday morning found Sammy, Ellie and Sherry lying on the carpeted floor in the family-room … Actually the three were lying on the floor with their heads pillowed onto Sabra’s stomach and flank, watching the disarray of Saturday morning cartoons.
Thinking… hoping that his eldest son would have gotten dressed and come outside to help shovel. “Where’s Mikey?”
“Don’t know.” Marsha shrugged her shoulders. “Guess he’s still sleeping… What do you feel like for breakfast?”
Pouring a cup of coffee. “Doing all that shoveling, ‘all by myself’ I might add…” knowing he was landlocked until the streets get plowed, figuring he might as well take time to eat. “…made me kind’a hungry, so how’s ‘bout...” thinking a moment “...we got pork sausage?”
“Yes.”
“We got Matzos?”
(The unleavened bread used for the Jewish holyday, ‘Passover’)
Going to the pantry “...Yes...” Marsha said from within the pantry “...two boxes.”
“Good! Let’s have fried Matzos and sausage.”
“ ‘Kosher Matzos and pork sausage?”
They’d gone through this a number of times and it had become kind of a standing joke between Marsha and Mitchell:
“ ‘Kosher Matzos’ and pork sausage? You don’t think a bolt of lightning might get you for that?”
Coming up behind her, wrapping his arms about her waist. “That’s why I always like sitting next to you when we eat that stuff.”
“Well, good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”
Rubbing his eyes as he came into the kitchen. “Yeah, ‘mornin’, Mom’. I, uh, kind’a slept a little.”
“I’ll say...” Mitchell said “...couldn’t be ‘cause the driveway needed shoveling, huh?”
“Nah, I don’t even know that it snowed… It ‘snowed’?” Going to the window and looking out. “Yeah, it sure did! I’ll get dressed and help you shovel, Dad.”
“It’s all done… Go! Go get washed for breakfast!”
The phone rang.
Turning the sausage. “You want to get it, Mitchie.”
Catching it on the thirds ring.
“ ‘Morning, Mitch. It’s Sophie. Hope I’m not calling too early.”
Glancing at the clock over the sink: 8:15 here; 10:15 in California.
“No. We had a bit of snow last night…”
“Yeah...” Sophie said “..so I see on TV.”
“Yeah, so I’ve been out shoveling…” making a silly, pretend smiling face at Michael “...since about six-thirty. How’s the weather there?”
“Cloudy and cool this morning.”
“ ‘Cool’? How cool?”
“Oh…” Sophie said in a sad, moaning tone “...we’re at about sixty-five now.”
“Jezze, Marcie…”
Standing at the stove, stirring the frying motzos, Marsha had been listening to the one way conversation.
“…Sophie says it’s cool there; all of sixty-five degrees…Oh ‘poor lady’ I hope you’re all bundled up.”
“You’ll see what happens after you live here a couple of years and your blood thins…
“The reason I called is because I wanted to let you know that you and Marsha got ‘loan approval’ yesterday afternoon.”
“ ‘Really’!” Turning his attention to Marsha. “We got loan approval yesterday!” he said happily. Bringing his mouth back to the phone, “That’s ‘wonderful’ Sophie! But that was really fast, wasn’t it?”
“Actually, yes. All paperwork between you and the Sawyers was signed by Wednesday evening and we opened escrow and got the loan docs started Thursday morning and ‘Home Savings’ called your boss, uh…” consulting her notes “… Mister Plankow yesterday afternoon and he… ‘Plankow’ gave you a glowing earnings report. So we got loan approval yesterday evening but I was tied up till about nine-thirty, so thought I’d give you the good news to brighten your day today.”
“That’s great, Sophie. That’s just ‘great’!”
“You hear anything on you end? You talk to Alice?”
“No. we were caught in traffic and got home late yesterday evening then we had to tell everyone about the trip and the new house and by the time we were through with dinner and talking it was getting late and we were tired so Marcie and I figured that if there’s anything we should know, or any problems, Alice would let us know. But if we don’t hear from her by Monday, we’ll call anyway.”
Chicago, Illinois
Friday, March 2, 1974
2:35 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
4:35 p.m. Central Standard Time
All office furniture in an anonymous storage shed. Nothing remaining but the three Pacific Bell telephones now sitting on the floor where the desks had been.
Looking about one last time to see if there was any implicating trace.
“Look okay, Gerry?”
“Yeah, Ed.”
“Okay, might as well…”
One of the three phones began to ring.
Shrugging her shoulders. “Might as well get it.”
Reaching to the floor… “ ‘Your Write Hand’.”
“Good evening. Mister Edwin Plankow, please.”
“Speaking.”
“Mister Plankow, good evening. My name’s Marge Hanson and I calling from ‘Home Savings and Loan’ in San Diego, California.
Holding his handover the receiver, whispering “...San Diego.”
“For Lipensky?”
Shrugging his shoulders. “I guess.”
“How can I help you, Ms. Hanson?”
“I’m calling to check on the employment and payment record for Mitchell Lipensky.”
Thinking, What the hell! “One of my best people…” the man presently known as Edwin Plankow said “...pulling in business like crazy.”
“Prospects for here in San Diego?”
He’s our rep for all of Southern California and already has state wide appointments scheduled.”
“Financial prospects?”
“Excellent!”
“Thank you, Mister Plankow.”
“ ‘bye, Ms. Hanson.”
Wiping the telephone receiver with his handkerchief.
His wife, ‘Geraldine’ already outside.
Following her, the man known as Edwin Plankow pulled the door shut.
Next BOW#26: Fried Nazi!
