“Boy pal, it sure is good to see you. How are you.”
“I’m okay Max. How are you doing.”
“Well ole buddy boy pal, let’s answer that by saying we’re on our way to take in some riding. Can’t really hold your head up socially unless, when the season comes, you aren’t already socked in with a good hunt in New Jersey. Isn’t that where ole Sylvia hunted before you married. And you objected to the chasing of the fox as a cruel sport. Rumor has it that ole Sylvia has a trace of Iroquois Indian blood.”
“Well Max, there are rumors now of so many sorts that all I believe is what I see with my own eyes. The truth is she found her natural mother, and she spat in Sylvia’s face.”
“Hey, pal, old buddy boy. That’s awful. Worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
As we roared off down the street, chill air blowing upon our faces. It was astonishing how Max’s appearance could in a second or two transform one’s life from verging on an unheralded session of manic depression into at least a milder form verging on a feeble spark of hope in the distance. Even the landlord seemed impressed by Max’s car and remained noncomplaining about the milk on his shoes or two months owed rent but I suspected he preferred my not lowering the tone of the building any further if I kept my milk off the windowsill. It was as if moving in such stylish company gave the landlord the notion that affluence the like of Sylvia’s clothing and behavior and Max’s elegantly flamboyant appearance, largesse was not far away and coming up with the rent was only a matter of a short delay, with family lawyers and trustees ladling out funds from an office near Wall Street which, with Sylvia was in fact the case in receiving her monthly emolument, alas no longer being injected into her bank. And I told Max to say nothing about Sylvia’s mother.
“Well old buddy, I won’t and at least we’re taking you up to a better part of town up there around the park.”
It was in itself cheerful to find how in Max’s company one’s mood could change so fast and a sense of purpose prevail. Even though it be for a superficial pursuit. With every part of this city that you passed still reminding you of something which instantly could become inspiring for one’s aspirations. In a metropolis you didn’t always realize you lived in as if it were a dream. For unless you did, its lonely sadness could tear you apart.
“Max, my mother used to say, who before she got married worked as a ladies maid for a rich household on Fifth Avenue, that nobody who was anybody lived north of Fifty-seventh Street.”
“You don’t say. Well pal, things have sure changed. But sorry to hear that about your mother having to do something servile like that. But go back far enough I guess in social lineage in this country we all had to come from the wrong side of the tracks. And rely on the good example of others who made it over to the right side of the tracks. Where one refers to oneself as one.”
“Well my mother, as a matter of fact, didn’t come from the wrong side. She came from a green field in Ireland and didn’t refer to herself as one. But even when she had her own maid and cook in America, she nearly spent all her time in her kitchen anyway, brushing her hands on her apron.”
“Hey, that was a pretty kind of menial existence she chose, wasn’t it.”
“She was domestically dedicated, I suppose. Setting an example for my sisters, who were sometimes helping.”
“That must have been nice for your father.”
“Well my father stayed downtown a lot minding his bars but I saw him more than once in the dining room, his head in his hands, wracked with worry with his large family to feed, clothe, and educate.”
“Hey, tough. Gee, really tough. But I mean, things like bootlegging must have been profitable in the past for him to have built up a nice little equity. But I guess you had to fight against the moral indignity of it.”
There were times when I thought I should give ole Max a severe kick in the ass. There were plenty of families with far more exalted names and reputations than mine who were bootleggers. But there was no question that without ever wanting them to appear any grander than their circumstances, one always attempted to uphold the reputation of one’s family. And do as Max suggested refer to oneself as one. But now I also hoped the conversation would slow Max’s speed as we roared up Broadway toward Fifty-ninth Street. Max waving back to approving pedestrians who were shouting encouragement at the passing leviathan which was only just miraculously avoiding accidents with screeches of brakes, swerves, and quick acceleration which deaccelerated pronto as a policeman’s whistle blew and pulled us over. And Max, with his usual charm, apologized to Patrolman Richard J. Gallagher, ex-Marine Corps, who after a lecture on the exercise of good manners and civil behavior in a big city let us ex-navy types go.
“Gee pal, old bean, how do you like that. Now there’s a man who’ll advance in the force, unlike some persnickety bastards. Nice to meet a gentleman member of New York’s finest. But he couldn’t be doing serious police work if he found time to bother to blow his whistle at us.”
“Well Max, you were doing fifty miles an hour. He should have arrested you. And I’ve still got a little something to live for.”
“This old baby can do a hundred and fourteen miles an hour, pal. Here we go. Watch.”
“Max, please, Don’t. I’ve got to maybe see Sylvia’s mother tomorrow and be in one piece.”
“Hey old buddy boy, why didn’t you say so. You’re going to maybe have a séance with the richest woman in the world. Jesus Christ, that can’t be bad. I’ll slow down for that, pal. We’ll slow down to a crawl. Hey old buddy boy, don’t be coy. You haven’t have you, maybe slipped the old veal to ole Dru. I know mum’s the word. But boy, if that news don’t beat all.”
“Max, I didn’t say I had.”
“You don’t have to say anything, pal.”
In the park, Max mounted on his nag riding away under the trees. In his breeches and leathers, a pink carnation in the buttonhole of his cavalry twill hacking jacket and a white silk cravat secured with a gold pin at his throat. One had somehow to laugh that despite his old warrior-style mahogany topping to his gleaming riding boots he had got made for himself in Paris, one felt he wouldn’t be getting the kind of warm-up equestrian exercise needed for foxhunting while tiptoeing on an ancient swaybacked hack trotting around Central Park. But in the company of a couple of aristocratic Europeans disposed to horse riding, it was obvious he loved the dressing up in the kit. As I agreed to come back and meet him later, he saluted from the peak of his hunting cap, waved and grinned as he rode off and I waved back and headed towards downtown in the park to spend a peaceful time wandering the zoo.