Sam's Legacy

by Jay Neugeboren

  Sid sighed. “Nate—try to calm down. You’re not making any sense.”

  “He makes a lot of sense to me,” Max said.

  “But try to think of what you’re saying,” Sid said. “Try to put yourself in the other guy’s place. You don’t make sense, Nate.”

  Nate laughed, and waved a hand at Sid. “You want sense, Sid? I’ll give you sense. Did it make sense for six million Jews to die in the ovens—answer me that!”

  Sid knocked ashes from his pipe. “Look, Nate, first of all, you’re confusing your personal emotions with—”

  Nate sat back, shook his head sideways. “No, Sid. I don’t buy it—you don’t fool me with your fancy talk. Personal? Tell me, if you’re so bighearted—did our mothers and fathers sweat their guts out in Brooklyn so that some day a dumb boogie could knock up your daughter? Does that make sense? Tell me that!”

  “I understand how you feel,” Sid said, leaning across the table, tapping his pipe on an ashtray. “Believe me, I really do. But—if you could try to get a little distance on yourself—if you could try to see how the other guy feels—”

  “The only distance I want is between my family and them,” Nate said. “We suffered enough.” He lifted his left arm and showed it to everybody. “I still put tephillin on every morning—do you understand what that means, with all your high-faluting theories, do you?”

  Herbie put his hand on Nate’s arm. “Relax, relax—Sid’s not attacking you, Nate. We all know about your aunts and uncles—and Sid’s not defending what the shvartzehs do, either—are you, Sid?”

  “Of course not,” Sid said, quickly. “But there are reasons sometimes…”

  Sam remembered sitting in the balcony of the Granada Theater with Ben, just after the war, and seeing a newsreel of skeletonlike bodies that were supposed to be people. Ben said they were Jews. A bulldozer picked up bundles of them. Nate was like that, on the court: a bulldozer. The words separated suddenly, and Sam was confused. Like a bull—that made sense, but why, if it had so much power, like a sleeping bull? Sam wondered if Nate had ever seen pictures of them, near the end. Since high school, Nate had worked with his father; they owned a small plant in Queens—Woodside—that manufactured buttons. “Did you hear about the shvartzeh who went into the drugstore to order some film—and beat up the druggist?” Shimmy asked.

  Sid turned at once toward Shimmy—relieved, Sam could see. Nate didn’t seem interested. “Why’d you all beat up that druggist-man?” Max asked.

  Shimmy turned on the accent: “Why dat man—he had de nerve to ask me what size box mah Brownie had!”

  Everybody laughed. “Terrific,” Sid said to Shimmy. “I don’t know where you get them all. Terrific.” Herbie turned to Nate, who was still scowling, and Sid shifted in his chair, spoke to Sam: “Tell me,” he said. “How’s your father been—still driving his cab?”

  “Where’ve you been hiding?” Sam asked. “He gave that up six-seven years ago.”

  “That’s right—of course.” Sam saw that Sid’s hand was trembling. Well, he supposed he’d have been shaken up also if he’d gotten into that kind of fight with Nate. Not a fight, really—but it made you feel responsible somehow just to have the subject brought up. Not that anybody could have done anything for Nate, and not that you couldn’t understand the way he felt. It was as if somehow you’d invaded his life. Sam understood that. There were things you had that you didn’t want anybody stepping on, that was all. If Nate wanted to put on tephillin every day—if it meant something to him—that was his business and nobody had a right to take it away from him. “He had that school, didn’t he, and then—”

  “He lives on social security now,” Sam said. “He gets by.” He considered, decided: let it out this way, he figured, and be done with it. “But he’ll be moving out soon—to a senior citizen place in California, to live with his brother Andy.”

  “You know,” Shimmy said. “I could have given you a lift tonight—I was in Brooklyn. I didn’t think.”

  Herbie was standing, in the doorway to the kitchen. He held something in his hand. “My parents—they’ve bought into a condominium in Florida,” Sid said. “They won’t go there for another few years—till my dad retires—but I think it’s a wise move. We’ll miss them, of course—the kids are terribly devoted—but with the weather, and the way their neighborhood is changing—”

  “In transition?” Dutch asked.

  “I could have given you a lift,” Shimmy said. “I didn’t think.”

  Sam saw the deck of cards in Herbie’s hand. I’m Lady Luck, Stella had said to him, when she’d telephoned and he’d told her that the game hadn’t come off, the night it snowed. He looked at Dutch, and saw that Dutch had seen the cards also. Sam stood. “We better get going,” he said, looking at his watch. “With the way the trains run, we won’t get back to Brooklyn till early morning.”

  “You don’t want to be walking the streets alone there,” Max said. “When you get to Atlantic Avenue, take a taxi. Don’t wait around on the corner for the bus.”

  “We were just going to start a card game,” Herbie said. “Nickel-dime—”

  “I’m sorry,” Dutch said, standing also, and joining Sam at the doorway to the corridor. “I told you guys about what happened.” Sam felt Dutch’s shoulder touching his own.

  Sam shook his head. “I—we never play for money with friends. You know that.”

  Ruth and Marge cleared the table. Marge, Nate’s wife, was, by far, the best-looking of all the wives, a tall hefty blonde—zaftig— who’d done part-time modeling when she’d been in high school.

  “You forget,” Shimmy said, to himself. “All those games we used to have in Sid’s basement—”

  “That was fifteen years ago,” Sam said.

  “Before he turned pro,” Dutch added, and the guys nodded their heads. Sam saw each of them looking at him. That was something, he supposed: that his old buddies all thought he led a special life. He bet that they bragged about him to guys they worked with, to their neighbors on Long Island. Sure. What they didn’t know didn’t hurt them.

  “Why don’t I take you down, then,” Herbie said. “There’s a train in about fifteen minutes—the next one after that is an hour later.” He put the deck of cards on the table. “You guys can start without me.”

  “I could have given you a lift, coming out,” Shimmy said, taking out his wallet, and putting some bills on the table. “But we head straight over the bridges going back: Throgs Neck and then the George Washington. I could drop you off at the IRT stop near the George Washington if—”

  “It’s quicker this way,” Herbie explained. “I’ll just run them down. I don’t mind.”

  “I’m glad to hear about your father,” Sid said, shaking Sam’s hand. “I think it’s the best move—for him, and for you too, Ace.”

  He chipped Sam on the shoulder with his fist. Sam heard the women in the kitchen, discussing their children. Marge’s older daughter, in the second grade now, still had a urinary problem she would have to have a series of operations for. A girl from the sixth grade—a neighbor’s child—came for her at school, every hour, to take her to the bathroom. Sam heard Ruth ask about the kind of sack Marge’s daughter had to use, about how it was attached, and then he heard the sound of the dishwasher. He heard Nate and Max discussing their baby sitters.

  The guys told Sam and Dutch how great it had been seeing them again. Shimmy stood, took Sam around the shoulder and said they’d be seeing one another, Sam should wait, he shouldn’t be obstinate, he should listen to Shimmy’s offer. Dutch was saying something to Sid about his mother. Nate and Max shook hands with them. To his old buddies, he supposed, he was still Sam the Man. They were still proud of him, of the way his life had turned out. Damn that Sabatini, though: if only he didn’t have to play the teams, if only he could get some decent card games. He walked into the living room, said good-bye to the women. Susie winked at him, Lillian played it cool, Dutch made a wisecrack that had the girls laughing, but Sa
m didn’t catch it. They thanked Susie for the food. Sure. One game a night for just one year and he’d be on easy street forever…he and Dutch could retire, get themselves a fancy bachelor flat down in Florida somewhere, where the baseball teams came for spring training, where there was always a supply of long-legged chicks.

  In the car, Herbie spoke about each of the guys in turn, about how well they were all doing, and about himself, about a trip to Paris he and Ruthie would get to take the following winter at company expense: a buying trip for the store. “I’d go in with Shimmy if I were you,” Herbie said. “It’s a chance in a lifetime. Nobody knows how much he’s raking in, but it’s in six figures easily. Even with a few good tips on the market, none of us is ever gonna see that kind of money.”

  Dutch turned around, faced Sam. “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “Five’ll get you ten,” Sam replied.

  Dutch rolled his eyes. “I see what you mean,” he said.

  “There,” Herbie said, pointing to the right. “That’s the big shopping center—Roosevelt Field—Ruthie gets her stuff there, for decorating. ‘I’m fortunate with Fortunoff’s,’ that’s what she says.”

  “I guess Shimmy’s really what you’d call—well, prospering,” Dutch said.

  Sam flinched at the word. He heard the silk voice: He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. He watched the lights along Old Country Road, the diners and gas stations and motels, and laughed to himself. “What’s up?” Dutch asked.

  “I thought of something good,” Sam said.

  “You know,” Herbie said, “There’s a plaque in the middle of the shopping center, to show you where Lindbergh took off from on his trip to Paris. It used to all be an airfield.”

  “We’ve been here before,” Dutch said. “To come to the track.”

  They arrived at the station in Westbury five minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive. Herbie parked in front of the Westbury Animal Hospital, across from the elevated tracks; he reached behind, took Sam’s hand in both of his. “It’s been great, Ace—we’ll get together again soon.” Sam unlocked the doors of the station wagon. Herbie was shaking Dutch’s hand. “You guys are looking terrific—in top shape. Give my regards to Garfield’s.”

  Sam and Dutch walked across the street. Herbie honked the horn of his car, then drove off. Sam and Dutch walked inside the station and up the steps. In a corner of the waiting room, a girl with long brown hair was necking with a man. Sam couldn’t see what the guy looked like. Most of the people in the waiting room were, to Sam’s surprise, blacks. It figured. They were going to have their problems on Long Island too, before long. No matter how much they paid for their houses.

  “I need some air,” Dutch said, opening the door. They walked a little way down the platform, then leaned back against the railing, waiting for their train to come. They didn’t say anything to each other for a minute or so, and then Dutch asked Sam what it was he’d been laughing about, in the back seat.

  Sam nodded, to himself. He’d been thinking of Sid, just then, when Dutch had asked him the question. “All these guys playing the stock market,” Sam said, and he clicked with his tongue. “I got one question for you, right?” He saw Dutch smiling broadly. In the dim light of the lamp posts on the platform, Dutch looked handsomer than ever. Sam bet that the wives had talked about him, and that, if their husbands had the energy left to give it to them when they got home, it would be Dutch’s face the wives would see, when their eyes were closed and they were moaning. “Tell me this,” Sam said. “What the fuck are pork belly futures anyway?”

  8

  They were lost, Sam knew, and had been lost for some time. Flo’s arm, linked in his, pressed against his side. Several steps in front of them, Ben and Tidewater were walking arm in arm, Ben having to take three steps to Tidewater’s two. They had been walking all morning, in Ben’s and Tidewater’s old neighborhood, but they had yet to find anything familiar—not their houses nor their playing fields nor the schools they’d gone to. It didn’t matter to Sam, though. He believed in nothing now. He spoke when he was spoken to, as he had all morning, but he wasn’t, the way he figured things, obligated to believe in any of it. He watched them, he listened to them, but what they did and what they said, and the reasons they gave—it was all the same to him.

  “I’m cold,” Flo said as they passed the entrance to a live poultry market. “Ben—” she called ahead.

  Ben stopped and waited. Sam saw water tearing from his father’s eyes, behind his glasses. Tidewater stood straight, his pale skin revealing, in the cold air, the lavender veins beneath. A scarlet muffler was wrapped around his throat, and though Sam had to look up at him slightly, to see the guy’s eyes, he realized that the man did, in the street—away from the rummage shop—seem to be what he was: just another old man, not even an especially tall one.

  “I’m cold and hungry,” Flo said.

  “Soon,” Ben said. “We’ll stop and eat. I promise.”

  “Mason will catch cold,” Flo insisted. She shivered. Along sides of the street, store front windows were boarded up. On the sidewalk, behind Tidewater, a rusting fender lay in a pool of oil. Sam saw an old woman sitting at a window, two stories above them, in a building in which all the other windows were gone. Her wrinkled face, watching them, reminded him of the face of the green-stamp woman.

  “Maybe it was a foolish idea, wanting to return,” Mason said. “It’s all so changed, so—”

  “We’ll find it,” Ben insisted. “You’ll see—just a little farther. We’re bound to stumble upon some landmark.”

  “It’s all so changed,” Mason repeated, to himself.

  Ben clung to Mason’s arm, for warmth, and looked around. At the corner, a man was stuffing his garbage into a mailbox. In the alcove of an abandoned store, two men, their legs and hands wrapped in monstrous balls of rags, huddled close to one another, a bottle of Thunderbird at the lips of one. Ben laughed. “This,” he declared, “is what I would call—” and he paused, for effect “—a neighborhood which has already transished.”

  “Come,” Flo said, pulling on Sam’s arm. “We shouldn’t stand in one place. We’ll stay warm if we keep moving.”

  They walked again, following Ben’s lead, and Sam didn’t protest. He could, he thought, have made a list of the things people expected you to believe: Ben’s reasons for leaving, Dutch’s reasons for having stopped gambling, his Bible man’s story, Simon’s lies, Mr. Sabatini’s line about selling apples. He had felt, in fact, ever since the night of the snowstorm, not so much as if he were passing time, but as if he were marking it; it pleased him, the feeling that he was there, walking, speaking when he was spoken to, even feeling sad about Ben’s departure, and that it was the others now who were merely going through the motions. If they couldn’t fool him, they couldn’t touch him.

  “Stella will be there,” Flo said, “when we return.”

  Sam said nothing. There were some stores left on the street they walked along now: a laundromat, a grocery, a used furniture store. A black woman, one leg swollen with elephantiasis, limped to the curb and sat down, to wait for a bus. Since they had gotten off the train two and a half hours before, Sam had not, he realized, seen a single white face. Ben stopped again. “This is familiar,” he declared. “I remember something about this street.”

  Sam looked around. In an empty lot, across from them, a group of old men were huddled around a chimney. The chimney—it had once been, Sam realized, a fireplace in a home, but the home was gone—rose for several stories, a line of smoke trailing from it. “They’re cooking in it,” Flo commented.

  “You might say,” Ben said, his eyes wandering the length of the red brick chimney, “that things are stacked against them.”

  “Ah Ben,” Tidewater said, and color returned to his cheeks.

  “Unlucky in cards, lucky in love,” Flo whispered to Sam. “Isn’t that the way it goes?”

  “Our house sat on a lot like that,” Tidewater said. “With an enor
mous fireplace, on the first floor. My father’s greatest pleasure in life, while we lived there, came at what he referred to as our Sunday soirées, during which we would recite the Latin poems we had memorized during the week—he would not teach us grammar; we learned sounds only, and some meanings. Then we would play the pieces we were learning, and, when this was done, my mother would sit down and ask him what his request was. Severe and classic as he thought himself, his favorite pieces were Schumann’s romantic Scènes d’Enfance.” They stood in a circle, their breath steaming in clouds. “The fire would be blazing, my brothers and Elizabeth would—” He broke off, looked down at Ben. “It was worth the journey, to remember that.”

  At the far corner, where an oil truck was double-parked, a man ran across the street, a pistol raised above his head. Sam pushed Flo and his father away from the curb and toward the building. Two boys—about thirteen years old—ran across the vacant lot, swinging a portable television set between them. The old men at the chimney looked their way, but did nothing.

  “Inventory shrinkage,” Ben said.

  “What?” Sam asked, and he remembered what he had thought in the supermarket, looking at Ben’s nose and ears.