Tiffany Street (42 page)

“Okay, then, Pops,” Jack said. “Would your decision to grant C.O. status to these kids, the same kid but in two different images, would your decision be influenced by what the kids were wearing? Who would be more likely to be looked on favorably by you? The kid with the beard and the blue jeans? Or the kid in the blazer and the Hasty Pudding tie?”

I was grateful for the fact that he had not reminded me sternly to be honest. Maybe it was an oversight. But Benny Kramer had reached the straw-clutching phase of his life. I wanted to believe firmly that Jack had felt it was not necessary, because the reminder would have been superfluous, to remind his father to be honest. So I was.

“I would look more favorably,” I said, “on the kid wearing the blazer and the Hasty Pudding tie.”

Jack laughed again. “I knew you would.”

“How did you know it?” I said.

“You’re a kid from Fourth Street on the Lower East Side and from Tiffany Street in the Bronx,” Jack said. “Blue blazers from Brooks Brothers and Hasty Pudding ties mean a lot to you.”

Why not? I had earned them. With years of hard work at C.C.N.Y., N.Y.U. Law School, and carrying hot pastrami sandwiches for Ira Bern. Something a boy from 83rd and Fifth never had to do.

“More than they mean to you?” I said.

“I’ve got a closet full of them,” Jack said. “You bought them for me. Don’t think I’m ungrateful. I was glad to get them. Just as I’ve been glad to get everything you’ve ever given me. It’s been a pleasure to take things from you, Pops. Because you never even hinted I had to say thanks. That’s how I learned that no matter what pleasure I got from the things you bought for me, my pleasure was nothing compared with the pleasure you got from knowing you’d earned the money yourself with which to buy them for me.”

As my mother used to say: You can say that again, Sonny.

“That’s true,” I said. “But I wonder if it’s important. After all, we’ve both had pleasure.”

Any good lawyer knows how to drop in the concealed jabs that in the end sway the jury.

“It’s very important,” Jack said. “You see, Pops, when you were my age there were no issues. It was all very simple. When you got out of high school, if you were lucky enough to make it through high school, you didn’t lie around in some acid-rock discotheque trying to decide what would be a relevant way to spend your life. There was no time. Thinking about relevance could cause you to die of starvation. What you did was go out and find a job so you could eat. You had to. Nowadays, kids my age, they don’t have to worry about eating. Nice guys like you, Pops, you provide the groceries. So we have time to worry about what we should do with our lives that’s relevant. Most of my friends don’t even worry. They merely discuss it. Endlessly. Most of the time lying around puffing grass.

“Well, Pops, I don’t know how good I am as a son, but you must have made a pretty good score as a father. Because I’m not like most of my friends. I know what’s relevant. It’s a negative thing. It’s in my head. I can hear the words. Don’t join the murderers. And because it’s negative, I’ve got to do it in a positive way. If I avoid the draft by convincing an army doctor I pee in bed, what have I accomplished? I’ve saved one skin. My own. Nobody will know. Except you and Mom and Dr. McCarran and me. You and Mom and Dr. McCarran won’t talk. For obvious reasons. But I’ll talk. To myself. For the rest of my life. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life listening to that kind of talk from Jack Kramer. So I’ve got to avoid joining the murderers in a positive way. Out in the open. Without tricks. Telling them the truth about how Jack Kramer feels. Maybe somebody will listen. If they don’t, to hell with them. They can dish out anything they’ve got. Including prison. I’ll keep on talking. Because I know what’s relevant, Pops. Just as you did at my age when you were saving pennies to go to law school at night.”

When the words would come I said, “Is that why you grew a beard for this meeting tonight? And why you’re going in boots and blue jeans?”

Jack nodded and gave me a friendly smile. Not bad, Benny. Boys from East Fourth Street may be willing to pee their way out of the draft, but they’re not so dumb. I had asked the right question. “That’s right, Pops,” Jack said. “I’m not asking these dignified, respectable, well-to-do stockbrokers and corporation executives to grant me C.O. status because I own a Brooks Brothers blazer and I picked up a Hasty Pudding tie at Harvard. I want them to grant it to me because I believe in what I’m asking for. I want to win this on my own, Pops.”

The doorbell rang.

You see, Benny? There are times when it is not necessary to hold out your hand for a few pennies worth of
koyach.
There are times when fate is kind and just tosses it in your lap. How else but by the clanging of a bell that had to be answered could a boy from East Fourth Street have got out of that room without making a fool of himself in front of a boy from 83rd and Fifth?

“Polish the other boot,” I said. “That’s probably Uncle Seb and Aunt Lillian.”

It was, of course.

“How does he look?” Lillian asked as I stowed coats in the hall closet and Elizabeth Ann came hurrying toward us from her bedroom, calling greetings and fumbling with the fastenings of a bracelet.

“Prepare yourself for a shock,” I said.

Neither Lillian nor Seb, however, seemed even surprised.

“Turn to the right,” Lillian said.

Jack turned to the right. Lillian examined him for a couple of moments in profile.

“I think it looks even better from the side,” she said. “Not that you could exactly call it a slouch from the front.”

She reached up and ran her fingers through the growth on Jack’s face. He giggled and squirmed.

“Hey, Aunt Lillian,” he said. “That tickles.”

“Quite handsome, actually,” Seb said. “Forbes-Robertson wore one exactly like it in his famous
Othello.
That’s why he was known as the bearded Moor. Any difficulties, Jack, of a tactical nature?”

“Well,” Jack said, “it’s safer to lean forward when you’re spooning up soup.”

“I should have thought peas would be the bugger,” Seb said. “They roll about so.”

“Not if you crush them down on your plate with the fork and make a paste before you lift them to the old kisser,” Jack said. “Now that the fuzz has passed muster, Mom, how about some vitamins? I don’t want to rush anybody, but neither do I want to be late for the big clambake.”

“All right,” Elizabeth Ann said. “I’ll go fetch. We’re eating on small tables here in the study because it’s quicker, if nobody minds.”

“I’m leaving at once,” Lillian said. “I hate those damned small tables. They remind me of the days when Benny and I used to work for Maurice Saltzman & Company and I used to eat my lunches from one of those chairs with a wide arm like a tray in Thompson’s cafeteria.”

“Lillian, stop clowning it up,” Elizabeth Ann said. “Jack, fix this for me, will you?”

She held out her wrist. He bent over to fasten the catch on her bracelet, and she kissed him on the forehead.

“Hey, Ma,” he said. “Not in front of the stiff-necked British.”

“Oh, shut up,” Elizabeth Ann said. “Benjamin, make drinks. I won’t be long.”

“Can I help?” Lillian said.

“You can bring in those damned little tables that you adore and the napkins and things. Come on.”

They left the room, and I was suddenly aware of something I had noticed before. Men abruptly left alone together are caught in a moment of shocked awareness, as though they did not really know each other except when women were present to act as intermediaries.

“By the way,” I said. “How did you know Jack was flying in tonight?”

“I was at Will’s late yesterday afternoon, having a drink with I forget who and somebody at the next table mentioned it.”

This, I knew, had to be untrue. Seb may have forgotten who the wife of Dr. McCarran was, because that had obviously happened years ago, but he could not possibly have forgotten with whom he’d had a drink twenty-four hours ago at Will’s. So I knew something was wrong. I went to the bar.

“The usual?” I said to Seb.

His usual was Scotch and soda. Except at Will’s where he admitted to drinking martinis because he did not want to upset or argue with the white-haired old lady in black bombazine. Sometimes, however when he was playing a part in which the author had written in some other drink for his character, Seb would order it offstage for a few weeks. It helped him, he said, to settle into the role. I could not remember what, these days, he was drinking onstage.

“No, thanks,” Seb said. “Nothing for me.”

I looked at him in surprise. He once told me he had long ago adopted Mencken’s rule for the consumption of alcohol: never accept a drink during the day; never refuse one at night.

“Technically speaking, because we’re eating so early,” I said, “it’s night right now, Seb.”

“No, thanks, Benjamin,” he said.

It was only the polite refusal of a drink, but somehow the three words seemed to carry some sort of additional weight that I could not figure out.

“Jack?” I said.

He shook his head. “Not now, Pops,” he said. “I may have one after I come back from the rodeo.”

“In that case,” I said, turning away from the bar.

“Don’t be an ass,” Seb said. “Go ahead and have one.”

“Sure, Pops,” Jack said. “Go ahead.”

“Not unless the girls want one with me.”

The girls did not want one. After Lillian had set out the tables, and Elizabeth Ann had set down the plates, and we were all seated, they did not seem to want the food either.

“I know it’s not as good as The Family Tricino,” Elizabeth Ann said at last, “but it’s not bad spaghetti, really it isn’t, and I assure you it has not been poisoned. Look.”

She lifted a forkful and put it into her mouth. I could see, however, that she was making an effort to chew and, when she swallowed, it was a real push. It was the last forkful eaten in that room that night.

I tried to think of something to say. I couldn’t. Neither could any of the others. I had a feeling that we were all trapped in a boiler that was slowly filling, but, as the encircling waters rose, nobody had the energy to get up and make an effort to save us. Finally, Jack stood up.

“I hate to run,” he said, “but I don’t want to start off with these boys by getting a bad mark for tardiness. Goodbye, Aunt Lillian, Uncle Seb. It was great seeing you. Mom, Pops, don’t wait up for me. I don’t know how long these things last, and there are probably a few guys ahead of me, so I may be late getting back.” He grinned and waved. “Come Donner, come Blitzen,” he said, “and to all a good night.”

He was out in the hall when it happened. Sebastian Roon jumped up.

“Wait, Jack!” he called as he ran out into the hall. “I’m coming with you.”

It was all over, including the slam of the front door, before I began to react.

I had been debating with myself whether or not I should offer to accompany Jack. “Pops,” he had said in the bedroom, “I want to win this on my own.”

I could feel the stirrings of a jealousy that I knew was unreasonable but was nevertheless intensely real. I looked at the girls. They obviously knew what was going through my mind. Lillian broke the tension with a laugh.

“It’s like the day after
Walda Wexler Wait for Willie Wishingrad: Urgent!
” she said.

“What are you talking about?” Elizabeth Ann said.

“That time back in nineteen thirty-one when we all had spaghetti at The Family Tricino and we all decided we were going to get a raise for Benny out of that old skinflint Ira Bern so Benny could go to law school. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that.”

“Of course not,” Elizabeth Ann said. “But what has that got to do with what just happened here?”

“Boy,” Lillian said, “you used to be quicker on the uptake when we were in that sketching class at the Y.W.C.A. It has this to do with it. When we had the whole thing worked out, and it came time for Benny to spring it, don’t you remember how Seb looked at Benny and then shook his head and said to me and to you Benjamin will never make it on his own?”

Elizabeth Ann’s face cleared. “My God, yes, now I remember,” she said. “And Seb turned back to Benjamin and said: ‘I’m coming with you.’”

I, too, remembered.

T
HE DAY AFTER HE
said it, Seb met me in the lobby of 224 West 34th Street a few minutes after twelve, when I came down for lunch. We went across the street to Bickford’s for a sandwich and a final rehearsal.

“Right,” Seb said when we had finished both. “Everything looks tickety-boo. No, remember. Let me do all the talking.”

Even then, when I did not know him as well as I do now, I sensed that this was a pretty silly injunction. Sebastian Roon always did all the talking.

“Don’t worry about any interference from me,” I said. “Today I’m your audience.”

“Let’s go, then,” he said.

We crossed back to 224, and went up to the Maurice Saltzman & Company offices. Miss Bienstock peered out at us with her perplexed little frown as we passed the small window over the switchboard. I was sure she recognized Seb, but he had told me not to pause for anything so I waved to her and led Seb quickly across the reception room, into the corridor, and knocked on Mr. Bern’s door.

“Come in,” he called

He sounded a bit choked, but I knew the reason. When I opened the door Ira Bern, behind his desk, was finishing the last piece of pickle that had come with the hot pastrami sandwich I had brought for him from Lou G. Siegel just before I went down for my own lunch.

“Mr. Bern,” I said. “Look who I just ran into out in the reception room.”

Elizabeth Ann, who had written everything else, had also written this opening line for me. It was also my closing line. Sebastian Roon stepped forward with a smile and an outstretched hand.

“Mr. Bern!” he said. “What a great pleasure it is to see you again.”

“Likewise,” said Mr. Bern. He put out his hand to meet Seb’s, then snatched it back. “No, wait,” Mr. Bern said. “I got pickle juice all over me.” He snatched up a paper napkin, dried his hand, then thrust it out again. “So, Mr. Roon, how is the world treating you?”