by Alex Wellen
Saying that it’s not a trick is also part of the trick.
Sid shakes his head begging me not to do it.
“I really wasn’t thinking about them; I was thinking about something else and they happen to be in the space where I was thinking. But if you’re asking me my opinion, then it’s a no, they’re not my favorite.”
I hate them. I was just thinking that I hate them.
Sid flips his head back and starts whispering why to the sky.
“But they’re just workout clothes and they’re so J-Lo!”
No one speaks.
“Fine. How much?” she asks.
“Ten dollars,” I offer quickly.
Sid raises an eyebrow.
“Ten? Are you disturbed? These cost me thirty. Twenty,” she counters.
“Fifteen,” I say, fishing the bills from my pocket.
While Paige deliberates over my offer, I dangle a Hamilton with one hand and a Lincoln with the other.
Once in a while I buy Paige’s clothes. Not to wear them but to burn them. Paige has a standing offer to do the same with mine but, like our points system, has yet to exercise the option. There are rules, of course. Paige has to initiate the ritual and I have to be certain that she’s “in the mood.” Previous purchases have included short shorts, sandals, and last month, a lovely pink mini-T with diamond sequins. I used it as a car rag and scratched my hood. Karma, she insists.
Paige snaps up the two bills.
“Fine,” she says flatly, stuffing the cash into her gym bag.
“Good!” I spit back.
We hate to argue, but for some peculiar reason we love to pretend.
“Fine!”
Sid is completely perplexed.
“Thanks,” I tell her. “You get points.”
“I do?” she says, blushing.
Paige offers to change out of my new clothes here, but I tell her it can wait.
“We’ll destroy them Thursday,” I suggest.
Paige turns to leave and I grab her around the waist with both hands.
“Stay! We need you. It’ll take three minutes. All you have to do is sit here. Promise,” I say, theatrically holding open the driver’s-side door for her.
Paige indulges me, and I squat down beside her.
“What is this contraption?” she asks, rubbing her eyes.
Contraption sounds like harebrained scheme, but I let it slide.
“This is Stage One of Operation Jet Stream,” I tell her. “You’ll need to use your imagination a little. On the roof above you is a rudimentary prototype of our newest brainchild—the bladeless windshield wiper.”
“I don’t get it,” Paige says.
She’s uttered the four most devastating words to an inventor’s ears.
“It’s no longer a vacuum cleaner,” I explain quickly. “We’ve reversed the polar … We’ve altered the direction of the fan. Here’s what will happen: You’ll turn on the car. Then Sid will turn on the hose and spray water onto the windshield, simulating rain.”
Sid gives Paige a shy smile and waves hello. He’s in khaki shorts, a white V-neck T-shirt, his homburg hat, black dress socks, and black leather sandals. Paige waves hello back. Eyeballing the height he’s holding his hose, I tell him to lower the nozzle a couple of inches; that’s all I need, some blind guy shooting water directly into an electrical appliance. Sid complies.
“After the water starts flowing, I’ll turn on the-appliance-formerly-known-as-a-vacuum and tiny jet streams of air will shoot out of this upholstery nozzle, in turn pushing the water off the windshield. What I’m looking for from you is a sense of whether the air jets properly disperse the simulated rain. This sort of trial run is what’s known in my profession as ‘reducing the invention to practice.’”
“Mm-hmm,” she says with an abundance of skepticism.
“Our system could make the conventional windshield wiper obsolete!” I scream, realizing I need to take my enthusiasm down a notch. “All I’m saying is this could be big. We really may be on to something.”
Keep using possessive plural pronouns like “we,” “us,” and “our,” I remind myself. Make sure Paige feels a sense of ownership.
I reach across her, key the ignition, kiss her on the mouth, and then scream to Sid, “Initiate the water!”
Sid loosens the nozzle on the hose and adjusts the spray stream so it hits the windshield just below the vacuum upholstery nozzle.
I shut the car door and steady the black flex hose with my elbow.
“Behold, the first bladeless windshield wipers!” I yell.
Then I flip the switch on the vacuum.
The vacuum motor slowly revs after being inert for so many years and I instantly smell smoke. The machine is clearing its throat. The vacuum coughs three times and out floats black gunk from 1952. My gag reflex kicks in. Do not vomit. As I reach over to turn off the motor, it suddenly finds a comfortable place in the twenty-first century and begins purring.
With things under control, I cautiously lean over to see whether air is blowing out of the vacuum and onto the windshield. Paige catches my attention and begins frantically waving her pointer finger back and forth across her neck. The “kill signal”—a familiar hand gesture to the seasoned television broadcaster. But does her pantomime refer to the vacuum or me?
Two things happen very quickly: I hear the sound of metal crushing metal and then everything goes black.
I’m on the ground. In a blind stupor, I hear the sound of duct tape coming undone; then the sound of what can only be a heavy metal vacuum cleaner tumbling off the roof of a car. The Eureka Attach-O-Matic crashes down and in its wake takes out my passenger-side mirror and my left ankle. Am I wetting myself? No, Sid hasn’t let go of the hose and he’s kneeling over me fumbling to find the off switch on the vacuum cleaner. Finding and flipping it, the contraption slowly winds down.
“What the—?” I say standing up, wiping hairballs and black dust from my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. I’m a human ashtray.
“We should have emptied the vacuum bag before starting,” Sid concludes contemplatively. “It took a few seconds, but I believe the entire contents inside the vacuum bag hit you in the face.”
I spit. I cough. I pick mystery crud from my tongue.
Paige gets out of the car.
“It was terrifying and thrilling all at once,” Paige says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“No, I’m grotesque! Don’t look at me,” I say, dusting myself off.
“Should I call Poison Control?” Paige jokes.
“I wonder if you’ve released some sort of airborne virus,” Sid speculates.
“Yeah, and I’m the host,” I say, rubbing my bruised ankle.
“And … scene,” Paige says with director’s authority. “I’m off to bed.”
Paige goes to kiss me, but unable to find a safe place to plant one, pats me on the butt like a football chum.
“Give us one week!” I yell to her as she crosses the street. “One week!”
Once she reaches her door, she looks back, and throws us both a kiss.
“She’ll be conked out for a good two or three hours,” I whisper out the corner of my mouth.
“Well, we’re running late,” Sid says, tapping his Timex. “You can take a quick shower here but then we have to go. My guy leaves at four.”
CHAPTER 6
The Blind Leading the Blind
SID and I glide over the Al Zampa Memorial Bridge from Crockett toward Vallejo.
“Twenty-five thousand tons of steel,” he marvels.
From the moment I stuck the key in the ignition, Sid’s been issuing moving violations.
“No radio,” he told me as I reached for the knob. “No speeding,” he said as we pulled out of the driveway. “No sudden turns,” “no abrupt stops,” and in general, “no horseplay of any kind.” We’re driving to the nearby ferry because long drives make Sid carsick, unless he drives, which isn’t about to happ
en anytime soon. Cookie took away his license fifteen years ago after he inadvertently sideswiped a gasoline pump at Ollie’s Auto Shop. An ophthalmologist visit later, Sid was diagnosed with glaucoma.
From the passenger seat, Sid bobs back and forth, window to windshield, inspecting every angle of the bridge with the wonderment of a child. Bridges are a big deal in Crockett.
In Carquinez Middle School, one of the first things they teach you is the history behind the Carquinez Strait Bridge. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony in 1927, the Carquinez became the longest suspension bridge in the world, serving as the final link in the Pacific Coast Highway connecting Canada to Mexico.
But that’s where the fairy tale ended. California then erected a second Carquinez bridge in 1958 to alleviate the traffic congestion from the first bridge and the new off-ramps ended up covering huge swaths of Crockett. Then the first Carquinez bridge started falling apart a decade ago, and they began building a third bridge, this one called the Al Zampa Memorial, in honor of the well-known iron worker Alfred Zampa, who miraculously survived a fall off the Golden Gate Bridge after slipping on a wet girder, flipping backward three times, and landing in a safety net, breaking four vertebrae. At the opening of the Al Zampa Memorial, the governor promised us that the “Golden Gate Bridge’s Little Sister” would deliver tourism and prosperity to Crockett, but that never happened. Instead of bringing people here, this sleek third bridge now helps them bypass it.
About then, I, too, took that bridge, right out of Crockett to San Francisco. After enduring too many mind-bending years of traffic jams, jackhammering, and pile driving, I managed to get off the waiting list and into pharmacy school. It only got worse for Crockett after I left. The final version of the Al Zampa ended up covering even more of our tiny town. “Sugar City” unofficially became “Shadow City,” the population leveled off, construction stopped, and the local housing market froze.
I roll down the window to pay that ungodly expensive Al Zampa toll and hear what sounds like a deadly car accident minus the screeching skid. Our peaceful reprieve from decades of construction ended two months ago when demolitionists arrived to begin dismantling the original Carquinez bridge.
Smash! goes another metal girder as it hits the bottom of the metal bin on the flatbed boat.
Sid doesn’t share my resentment. He doesn’t see the shadows or hear the destruction. As the Zampa shrinks in my rearview mirror, he twists up in his seat belt to get a final look.
“The concrete towers, shaft foundations, aerodynamic steel deck.” Sid is talking to himself. “Truly awesome.”
Ten minutes later, Sid and I are boarding the Vallejo Ferry. The fact that I’m paying and he’s getting a senior citizen discount still doesn’t prevent Sid from complaining about the expense. But this is chump change compared to what I’m about to spend.
The ferry shoves off, and Sid and I take to the top deck, where we’re told the ride is much smoother. Standing at the railing, shoulder to shoulder, Sid smells pretty good. Irish clean. Or maybe that’s me. Following Operation Jet Stream, it took three shampoo rinses to get the vacuum soot out of my hair. Sid has lent me one of his pink polo shirts, which is two sizes too small, and I look ridiculous; I spent the entire car ride here playing peekaboo with my navel. This gut was a gift to myself six months ago for my twenty-ninth birthday.
Sid is dressed to impress. A trip to the city is a special occasion. He’s got on yellow polyester pants, brown leather slip-on dress shoes, a black-and-white-checkered short-sleeved button-down, and a blinding white linen newsboy cap.
We need to discuss important, pressing issues, but all Sid wants to talk about is the weather and the view.
“One-tenth of one percent,” he says, reminding me that of the 6.7 billion people on this planet, only one-tenth of one percent get the “privilege” of living in the Bay Area. Bay Area natives are prone to brag about things they have no control over, like its scenery and climate.
I go to speak but he shushes me again.
“Just soak it in,” he pleads.
The San Francisco skyline is spectacular.
“Look where we live”—that’s what Paige would gush if she were here right now. Television has taken her to markets all over the country, but like Sid, to Paige, nothing compares to the beauty of the Bay.
Halfway there, the temperature drops fifteen to twenty degrees, and the ferry itself vanishes as we float on thin air. The warm East Bay temperatures are mixing with the cold Pacific Ocean, creating the city’s trademark midafternoon fog.
“You need a story” Sid instructs me, frustrated by the low-hanging clouds. “My only goddaughter deserves a legitimate engagement story.”
“I know,” I say with a hint of indignation.
A quiet moment passes.
“I’m not an idiot, you know,” I tell him.
“Of course you’re not. You’re a resourceful, creative chap. So what’s your plan?” he asks.
There is nothing casual about Sid’s question. This is the guy who invented the big, showy, romantic engagement story nearly sixty years ago.
Sid’s story is the stuff of legends.
Sidney Brewster and Clarice “Cookie” Schwartz’s first date was blind and chaperoned. The two teens lived three city blocks apart and went to the same high school in Brooklyn, but had their mothers not played canasta together, different blocks may well have been different coasts in Flatbush.
Their second date was the Lincoln High School prom.
Three days later, Sid’s draft number came up. Six weeks in boot camp and he was shipped off to an American air base in North Africa. This is where Sid repaired aircraft, among them, the B-24 bombers used to invade and capture Sicily and force Italy out of World War II. For the next two years, Cookie and Sid were prolific and passionate pen pals.
Following the formal surrender of Japan in 1945, Sid telegraphed Cookie: “How about dinner Thursday? STOP. My treat. STOP.”
The reunion began with an elegant seven-course meal at the Pierre Hotel, followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride through New York’s Central Park. At the end of the evening, the young couple found themselves at the top of the world. “This is our third date in two years,” Sid told a stranger. “Can I trouble you to take our picture?” he asked, handing the man his box camera. It was there on the observation deck of the Empire State Building that Sid pulled out a dark jewelry box from his back pocket, knelt down, and popped the question.
Click!
The sepia-toned photo memorializing, no, immortalizing the two of them hangs over Cookie’s plastic slip-covered lime-green couch. For their fiftieth wedding anniversary, the Brewster grandchildren had the image made into a poster. The curls, the short fur, the flowing silk gown, standing there, one hand touching her face, Cookie is a dead ringer for Rita Hayworth. With her free hand she reaches out to her soon-to-be fiancé. Sid on one knee, in a military peacoat, diamond in hand.
This is how Sid set the standard for future generations of Brewster men. Sid’s son, Oliver, managed to measure up. He rented a catamaran, packed a fancy picnic lunch, and asked his wife, Katherine, to marry him while calmly drifting on Lake Tahoe. Sid’s grandson, Jordan, was much more showy. Four and half hours into the New York City Marathon, nearing the twenty-six-mile marker, Jordan slogged toward his future fiancée, slightly weighed down by a small, virtually colorless stone in his back pocket. Barely catching his breath, he took Abigail’s away when he stopped running, bent down, and proposed. She said yes and the crowd went nuts, pulling out premade signs that said stuff like “Congratulations” and “Now the Race to the Altar.” Jordan’s stunt even got a mention in the Daily News.
To remain in Sid’s good graces, I, too, need to be faster than a marathon runner, more powerful than a catamaran, and able to propose on a tall building in a single bound.
The engagement story is important—all men know this. Women put your engagement story right up there with how you met and your first date. You can’t tell your children
I met your mother in prison. You can’t tell your family your first date was at the dentist. You can’t tell your friends you proposed in the Burger King drive-through. I’ll have a Whopper Jr. and your hand in marriage.
“Our engagement story is still in the planning stage,” I assure Sid.
“Of course it is, but how about a taste? Indulge a poor old man,” he says, smacking his lips. “Just a morsel.”
“Fine,” I say, wishing he’d drop the whole matter. “Hey mamacita. What do you say you and me get hitched, shack up, and squeeze out a few pups?”
“Fan-tabulous!” Sid cheers with two raised fists. “Short, simple, and honest. You’ve got your short-term goals in there and your long-term ones. But that’s the payoff. Where, when, and how do we arrive on such poetic genius?” He sighs and gazes out across the bay. You can tell the warm breeze feels good on his face.
Before I can say anything, Sid butts in: “And seriously, kid, no food,” Sid demands, patting down a flyaway. “None of this malarkey where you drop the ring in a fancy drink or plant it on a cake.”
“Totally,” I agree quickly, mentally purging any and all food-oriented proposals. “What about one of those propeller planes with a banner? I did some research and it only costs, like, three hundred bucks.”
“No! No propeller planes! No electronic billboards, no ticker tapes, and no JumboTrons! No professional sporting events! You need to light up a blimp or shoot off fireworks without lighting up a blimp or shooting off fireworks.” He gathers his thoughts. “The key to a good romantic engagement story is creativity A little creative flare and the romance will pay off in spades,” he insists.
THE MUNI bus takes us from the Ferry Building to downtown San Francisco. From there, Sid and I embark on foot. San Francisco doesn’t have an official diamond district. No sketchy side streets where vultures swoop in on unsuspecting future grooms only to swindle away their life savings. All San Francisco really has is Union Square, where the crooks wear Armani suits and stand behind counters at upscale chains, ready to take pity on you and your paltry credit line.
