“Gee, Stephen, what a nice car. Is it really yours.”
Explaining my complications as best I could and after taking tea with my mother and sisters, I borrowed some more money and then went up into the attic to get my old navy sailor hat out of a musty steamer trunk. Back downtown I tipped the concierge at the Plaza the way Max did and splurged on a bottle of Krug. Recalling all the better and funnier times we had in the navy. Half-crocked, I parked the precious Bentley back in the garage and then took my time sobering up to walk to Penn Station. Nearly financially broke again after my bottle of Krug at the Plaza, which in my solemnity became easier and easier to drink as I drank it all.
Arriving into this massive cathedral of space, where I had so often come and gone on the train, ditty bag slung over my shoulder and on my way back to Norfolk, Virginia where my ship was moored at the Naval Operating Base. And it became the first time I knew who would win the war. Walking along the docks past the brooding, massive, looming prows of these vessels. One after another. Cruisers, battleships, destroyers, aircraft carriers, as far as the eye could see. And once with Max, as we walked under all the assembled bows to our own gangway, returning from liberty, I heard him chuckle and announce, “Pal, it’s America the almighty and boy, don’t get in her way.”
I got permission to go down on the train station platform. Steel pillars holding up the weight of other steel pillars. The clatter and din. The dimly lit cars. Early passengers arriving to take their seats for the long trip west halfway across America. A girl waiting, standing alone like a statue in the shadows. Her hair blond. And her face, as she turns now hidden by the brim of her cloche hat. Caught sight of her flickering glance. Must be waiting for someone. As I wait. Expecting Max’s arrival. Which still has me half-thinking that it will be on a horse clattering down the platform, his shotguns blazing away. Till suddenly a van comes pulling up to the platform and opens up its black doors alongside the train. Two railroad porters and two men from the van maneuvering out a box. I stood aside as they approached, then as the box passed, placed my old sailor hat on top and saw the name and address of a Chicago funeral firm. And now I had to believe he was within. Saluting as the container was gently pushed onto and parked amidst other goods and baggage on the train.
“Go well now, old salt and good friend.”
I still thought I would see breathing holes and hear laughter. But all was silent within that box. To be taken west. Out to where Max always maintained the real American gentlemen still existed. The word gentleman such an important word in his life. Could see him hesitating to brush back the lock of sandy hair that fell over his left eye in case it presented him as ungentlemanly. But also the slightly mischievous smile on his face he nearly always wore while rifling through his papers. Super efficient yeoman. He could put some son of a bitch’s name on a draft for permanent kitchen duty or a friend to be flown home on compassionate leave to see his recently unfaithful girlfriend. So many plans he made for his own life. Equestrian pursuits. His shoes, ties, and guns. So alive and living only a day or two ago. It is not possible to believe he is here in death. Planned in just the same way he organized and prearranged his existence. Now ten past twenty-two hundred hours. Porter announcing, “All aboard.” The sliding door of the baggage car closing. Train beginning to move. At first adagio. And gathering speed. Presto. Click clack on these steel wheels on the steel tracks. Good-bye old pal, buddy. Old salt. Bon voyage, anchors aweigh. Go home now. Back to the Loop and the Windy City. That great old town on the lake. Which you used to tell me was the most wonderful on earth. And to which one day you said you would return. Where they would build a building that would be the tallest building in the world, at least for a while.
As it pulled away down the platform into the darkness, the sound growing fainter. The train lights disappearing. To go out under the Hudson deeps, that river that was always flowing not that far away from Riverdale in my years growing up. Where we were children running through the streets, away from other kids trying to give us a charley horse. A bang of a fist on a shoulder or thigh that could leave you laughing as well as temporarily paralyzed. And playing games of squeezing breath out of our lungs so that we would slump into unconsciousness and look dead on other people’s lawns. And now I still expected ole Max to come up behind me out of the dark and put a hand on my shoulder. Well pal, ole buddy, I’m out of the alimony jail. Now here’s my plan. There’s the Riviera, Biarritz, London and Paris to go to in the tradition of the great previous Americans who sought an ancient culture to thrive in. And when life is lived to the full over there, shooting, hunting and fishing, resplendent in the sartorial dignity of sporting Europe, just hope old bean, they won’t forget to put a sailor hat on my coffin when my time really comes. And they inter me in one of those artistically embellished sepulchres they’ve got in the old Cimetière Père Lachaise. But so long for now, good pal and friend.
Looking down into the empty track where another train will soon come to take others away. I knew now that this night would for the rest of my life always possess a simple silence, just as it did when growing up when the midnight approached listening to the music of the great composers on the radio as I did alone in my back room in the house in Riverdale. The leaves of the big cherry tree sometimes rustling against the windowpanes as the gusts of wind of a storm approached. And I would, warm and secure between my walls, wait for the announcer to speak as a preamble a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And for him to say, “This is your station, WQXR, ending our broadcasting for the night. And the cares that infest day shall fold their tents like the Arabs and silently steal away.” Just as you go Max, old pal, buddy and friend. Flesh cold upon your bones. Who came out east from the west. Now goes west again back home. Trundling past all the one-horse towns. Crossing the plains covered by those cornfields to the horizon. Where there’s a sound I can forever hear. Of the distant whistle wail of a train across the night. Turning the woes of life into a haunting memory. By which to rest in peace.
“Excuse me. But you’re Max’s friend, aren’t you.”
On the back of his hand, Stephen O’Kelly’O wiping a tear from an eye and turning to this voice behind him. The blond-haired girl in the cloche hat who was standing like a statue. A sallow-faced, beauteous girl. A flash of memory of another voice. Which said, “Excuse me sir.”
“I’m Amy from Knoxville. You don’t know me but I know all about you. You’re Stephen. You were Max’s friend in the navy. I’d been speaking to Max every day in jail. Like you, I came to see him off on the train. I just didn’t feel he should be alone. And you must have felt about him as I did to have put that sailor hat on his coffin.”
Out of courtesy in this dismal dark darkness, I stepped down a step from the siding and she came closer into the light. And that perhaps I was not expected to speak but to wait until spoken to. I could see from her reddened eyes that she’d been weeping. We shook hands. And together climbed back up the stairs into the vast ticket hall and past the giant stone pillars holding up its ceiling which seemed like a massive brooding sky. The few travelers all looked smaller and lonelier. We walked up the wide stone steps which led out onto Seventh Avenue. Back in the busy world of the city again. Just across and up the street we went into the Hotel Pennsylvania where she was staying. The lights of the lobby too bright, we went into the darker bar. She insisted the drinks we had be put on her bill. Cocktail music from the piano. This wan blond-haired, blue-eyed girl whose skin seemed peach-soft like a child’s and whose thin wrists might be too weak to carry her hands. She seemed as if she might freeze or the wind might blow her away. Over her months in New York, she kept in touch with Max. And when we said good-bye, shaking hands, her hand was firm on mine and for a moment I thought she might not let go unless I did.