Never Too Late for Love (15 page)

"Whose idea was this?" Solly said.

After hours of cajoling, they managed to get their rooms
changed. But Muriel still was not satisfied.

"If I find that Molly Bernstein got a better room,
don't expect any lovey-dovey. Not from this Jewish lady."

"I hope she has the fanciest suite in the joint."

But the rooms weren't the only problem. There was also the
matter of the women's clothes.

"The fancy lady has to wear a mink stole to
breakfast," Muriel pointed out as they walked back to their room.

"Who?"

"Francie Goldberg."

"So?"

"You know why? She wants to show that Blintzie is a
better provider."

"Maybe she was chilly," Hymie suggested. Of
course, he could never afford to buy his wife a mink stole.

"And did you see those dirty looks that Gussie Lebow
gave us all? She's very hoity-toity now that she's started taking adult courses
at NYU. We're not smart enough for her."

In the afternoon, the men gathered to play poker in the
card room while the women tried to amuse themselves in various ways.

"This wasn't such a hot idea after all," Hymie
said. "My wife is driving me nuts."

"You're not alone," Mortie chimed in. "You'd
think we'd taken them to be tortured."

"I like it here," Itzie said. "I got laid
last night."

"Well, that makes one of us," Hymie said.

"Deal," Benny commanded.

They never again cut the pot to provide special benefits to
the wives. But the game continued.

The world changed. They grew older. They watched their
children marry, celebrated their grandchildren with brisses, bar mitzvahs, and
the like. And they attended the funerals of their parents. Still, the game
endured. It endured Solly Lebow's first heart attack, Benny Bernstein's
kidney-stone operation, Itzie Solowey's late marriage. There was a sense of
pride in the longevity of the game. On its fortieth anniversary, the game was
celebrated in Hymie Cohen's apartment in Flatbush. Muriel baked an anniversary
cake and insisted on putting forty candles on it. They blew out the flames
together.

"I can't believe it," Hymie exclaimed, looking around
the table at the men he had known as boys. "Where did it all go?"

"A hundred thousand pots," Benny answered.

"Always the human calculator" Solly rejoined.

"I figure you won more than $10,000 Benny," Itzie
said.

"A pleasure taking your money."

"Most of it was mine," Blintzie pointed out.

"Yours, especially," Benny said, winking to the
others around the table.

Solly's second heart attack brought home the reality that
the game couldn't last forever. Solly was welcomed back six weeks after his
attack. He was sad and depressed. But they had missed him. When anyone was
absent, the rhythm of the game changed. It was like moving a piece of furniture
from an old, familiar setting.

"The doctor says I have to go to Florida, that I gotta
retire." Solly announced on the night he returned to the game. There were
tears in his eyes.

"That's not the end of the world," Hymie said.

"I'm gonna miss the game." Solly sniffed, as the
tears filled his eyes and slid down his cheeks. Hymie felt a lump grow in his
throat. He knew the others felt the same way.

The Lebows bought a condominium in Sunset Village, and the game was never quite the same.

"Now I'm getting Solly's shitty cards," Itzie
said on the first Tuesday after Solly left. They all knew, of course, that he
was merely offering a humorous cover for the pervading sense of loss.

"I don't see how," Blintzie said. "I'm still
getting the same lousy hands."

"It's just not the same," Hymie told his wife
that night. "Maybe we're getting too old. Maybe we should stop the
game."

"How can you stop the game?" Muriel asked.

"Everything comes to an end," he answered,
feeling depressed.

"Florida isn't such a bad idea," Muriel said. He
had been thinking the same thing. The city was changing. The cold seemed more
intense. Nothing was the same, and the stories of warmer days, cleaner air and
safer streets were having an influence on them and their friends. Every day,
they would hear about more of their acquaintances moving to Florida.

Then Mortie announced that he, too, was headed for Sunset Village.

"Gussie was mugged," he said sadly. "They
took her pocketbook and she got a black eye. The kids want us to get out of
Brooklyn, so they're buying us a condominium at Sunset Village."

"There goes the game," Itzie said.

"I'm sure you could get a fill-in hand."

"It won't be the same."

"It hasn't been the same since Solly left."

They tried bringing in other players, but something was
missing, the ambiance gone. There was bickering.

One of the new players accused Blintzie of cheating.

"I saw him," the man said. "He went light,
and he never put his money in."

"You're crazy," Hymie countered, the other
joining in Blintzie's defense.

"I saw him. Don't tell me what I saw."

"Look," Blintzie said. "Maybe it was an
accident. I could have forgot. I'll pay to keep the peace."

"The hell you will," Hymie said. "Who is he
to accuse any of us?" he said, turning to the man. "You have your
damned nerve." The man cashed in his chips and left quickly.

"We need him like a hole in the head," Itzie said
when he had gone.

Still, the game endured. Perhaps it was simply inertia,
Hymie suspected, because he no longer looked forward to the game, but kept
playing.

"You look terrible," Muriel said to him one
Wednesday morning.

"I'm just a little tired." He had come in later
than usual after driving over the beltway from Flatbush to Forest Hills to play
at Benny Bernstein's house.

"I think the Goldbergs are getting ready to go to Florida," Muriel said.

"Blintzie?"

"Their kids live in Palm Beach now."

"He hadn't mentioned it."

"I know." Muriel said. "I spoke to Francie.
Blintzie is afraid to tell you."

"It'll mean the end of the game."

"That's why he's afraid to tell you. You couldn't
really play three-handed poker." They would have to bring in more
strangers.

"Maybe we should go, too," Muriel sighed.

It was time, but Hymie had been afraid to broach the
subject with the boys. Maybe we're getting old, he thought. Benny's hands shook
now, and Itzie was growing deaf. Blintzie was going to the bathroom more
frequently, sometimes in the middle of a suspenseful game.

"We're a bunch of alta cockers," Hymie told
Muriel, emphasizing that perhaps it was time to head to Florida. Hymie was
eligible for social security. They had saved a few dollars. Others were
managing. Besides, if Blintzie was going, the game was over anyway. What would
life be without it?

The week before the Cohens and the Goldbergs left for Florida, the foursome had a farewell game. None of them could concentrate though, even
Benny, who for forty-two years had quietly kept his mind on every card, every
nuance. He could read them all like an open book. After an hour, they gave up.

"What the hell am I going to do next Tuesday
night?" Itzie said, his voice pitched higher, masking his emotion.

"You'll find some other fish," Hymie said.

"It took me more than forty years to psyche you guys
out. I'm too old to start another con game."

"You think that's it?" Benny asked. His hands
shook as he fingered the passive deck.

"What?"

"That it's because we're too old."

"Everything in life comes to an end, that's all there
is to it. Even the game."

"I never thought the game would end," Itzie said.
"God, I really never thought it would end." His eyes misted.

"I wish to hell I could persuade my wife to go to Florida," Benny said suddenly. "She won't leave the kids."

"And Sunset Village isn't ritzy enough," Hymie
said.

"That, too," Benny admitted.

"I hate Florida," Itzie said. "I can't stand
the sun." He paused, sniffling, his eyes lowered. "Bet Solly and
Mortie will be happy to see you guys. Hell, you'll start another game down
there."

"Ah, they probably have their own game already,"
Blintzie said.

The Cohens and Goldbergs arrived at Sunset Village on Saturday and spent the entire weekend fixing up their condominiums, with the
Krubitches and the Lebows dividing their time in helping the new couples get
settled.

"Some place, eh?" Solly said. "It's like
they moved Brooklyn in a mass migration."

"You didn't miss it?" Hymie asked. They were
sitting on Hymie's back porch sipping soft drinks.

"I missed the game," Mortie said. "I missed
giving my money to Benny every Tuesday."

"You don't have a regular game?" Blintzie asked.

"Not really," Solly said, looking at Mortie.

"What he means is that we play, but its not a regular
game. Not like the Tuesday game."

"Well, the game wasn't the same after you guys
left." Hymie said. "We got fill-ins but it wasn't the same. And last
week we played four handed.... It just wasn't the same."

"Nothing's the same" Mortie said, a shadow
crossing his face. "They have this big card room, bigger than a football
field. But I don't like to play there. Too noisy. Too crowded. Not like our
Tuesday game."

"Today's Tuesday," Solly said.

"Funny, I lost track of time," Hymie said.

"If it wasn't for CNN, I wouldn't know what day it
was," Mortie said.

"So, what are we waiting for?" Hymie asked. Out
came the cards and chips and up went the bridge table.

"Deal," Hymie said, listening to the shuffle of
the cards and enjoying the familiar movements as Solly's fingers worked the
deck.

"There they go," Muriel said to the other wives,
sitting in the living room.

"It must be Tuesday," Francie Goldberg said.

It wasn't until Benny Bernstein had a stroke that they
finally added a fifth player. Somehow he had persuaded his wife to move to Florida and, luckily, the builder added a few medium-rise elevator buildings, fancier than
the barrack-like apartments the others lived in. The stroke affected only his
legs, and he walked slowly, with an odd halting gait. His hands still shook,
but his card sense was remarkably intact.

"Well, there goes extra cash," Hymie said, as
Benny scooped up the first pot.

"The shark has come home."

"God, I missed you guys," Benny said. "It
was hell. And you know what I believe?" He paused and looked at each of
them, in turn. "I would never have had that stroke if we had continued the
game."

"You trying to make us feel guilty, schmuck?"
Solly said.

"I don't care what you say. I believe it."

"Poor Itzie," Blintzie said suddenly.

"He'll be here," Benny said. "Give him
time."

"But he hates Florida."

"He'll be here."

"Look at him," Hymie laughed. "We leave him
alone for a few months and he becomes a fortune teller."

Itzie and his wife arrived in Sunset Village the following
winter. Itzie sported a hearing aid now.

"I still hate Florida," he announced, as he sat
down to play on the first Tuesday after his arrival. "The sun is about the
most disgusting sight I ever saw."

"Who needed you?" Hymie said.

"You needed me," Itzie said. "The game is
always better with six."

"The perfect number," Benny Bernstein said,
arranging his cards and contemplating his hand.

"He's still winning?"

"Why not? We supported him for forty-five years."

"Forty-seven," Mortie corrected.

And so the game continued. They didn't play in the card
room, but instead rotated between apartments. The game seemed to have come full
circle.

"You should have seen Brownsville," Itzie told
the others one evening. "I went back just before I came down here. I just
drove through it with the windows and doors locked. It's all gone. Hoffman's is
boarded up and old-man Silverstein's garage is caved in. It's all gone,
finished."

"I don't ever want to go back," Hymie said.

"I cried like a baby," Itzie continued.

They noticed Blintzie Goldberg's eyes failing when he
mistook the Jack of Clubs for the Queen of Spades insisting, at first, that he
was right.

"You should have your eyes examined," Hymie said.
He hadn't meant it to be sarcastic or sinister, but Blintzie flushed a deep
crimson, protesting that there was nothing wrong with his eyes. The doctors
thought otherwise. Blintzie was going blind. He had always had diabetes, but
his insulin shots were becoming less effective and, as his sight got worse,
they had to help him identify the cards quite often.

"It breaks my heart," Hymie told Muriel one night
after he returned from the game. "Itzie can barely hear. Benny's hands
shake so much he has all he can do to hold his cards, and Mortie keeps popping
little white pills for his heart."

Hymie sighed and tried to go to sleep.

"But the worst is Blintzie," he continued.
"One of us has to drop out of every hand to help him play his cards. We
whisper his hand to him and he whispers back on how to play. He's absolutely
the worst player, even when his eyes worked."

One morning, Blintzie's wife came to Hymie's and Muriel's
apartment. She had been crying, and her gnarled arthritic fingers clutched a
moist handkerchief.

"He can't see anymore," she said.

"That bad?"

"The worse part is that he thinks he's a burden."
She dissolved into tears, her shoulders shaking. "Now he wants to quit the
game."

"Quit the game?"

"He told me," she said. "Somebody has to
tell him what cards he has."

"I'm not sure he knew when he could see," Hymie
said, hoping the humor might soothe her. She smiled thinly, accepting the
warmth of it.