Slim Novel 17 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage
4. The Carlyle is the best damned hotel in New York, thinks Eddie as they - he and Ryo, Professor Edwardes and Yuko - sign in at front desk in the ornate lobby with its nice artwork on the walls, its marble floor, its elegant guests entering and exiting, its grand marquee over the sidewalk on East 76th Street and more. Eddie is paying for his adopted daughter's graduation. It is part of Eddie's communism, the part that says from each according to her or his ability. Eddie has several million dollars in cash and Edwardes only has a million point six so Eddie feels he has a greater ability to pay for their joint enjoyment. Although normally Eddie believes in avoiding luxury, in this case he chose the Carlyle because this was a once, and, may be a last in the lifetime of his valued Professor Edwardes.
They travel light with only a single rolling luggage between then and one good effect is an absence of lurking bellhops angling for money tips.
Upstairs the room door opens into a vestibule where one can park footwear, hang outer coats and view one's self in a mirror. Then one steps up through a jingly-jangly curtain of baubles, bangles and beads into a large living room with two plushy sofas on opposite north and south walls, and, in between, a deep red Persian rug under a small chandelier, and, on the walls, Marc Chagall prints.
After entering, Edwardes indicates they should sit on the plush sofas - He and Yuko on right and Eddie and Ryo on left so each couple faces the other.
"Allow an old man to take a breath," Edwardes wheezes. It has been an exciting day and his heart races. Now it calms in the air-conditioned, cooled suite. "An old fellow such as I am likes to relax and spout wisdom," he continues. "And one piece is that everyone dies, so who cares about morality as long as you are sure not to get arrested. May I expand on that." He pauses to let his words sink in. "When one gets old, as I have, one realizes all the mistakes one has made; some sinful by our morals, and some criminal by our legal codes; occasionally a mistake may be capital criminal, if you get my cryptic words."
"You mean your error once killed someone, and not by mistake?" Asks Yuko in shocked voice.
"Umh," emits Edwardes in what might be interpreted as a Yes.
He continues: "If one has accumulated the wisdom of old age - Rare, by the way, because most oldsters stay stupid and get worse as mind deteriorates; if one has got successfully psychoanalyzed as I have; in that case, one no longer feels guilt about even one's worst mistake. But by saying that, I do not mean one excuses the mistake, or does not learn from it. One may regret a wrong act but regret, in my book, is not guilt; it is Oh, I made a mistake, it may have harmed someone or damaged something, and in future I shall try not to again ----"
Yuko puts her right hand over his mouth. "That's enough of that, my old, good husband. Have you had too much to drink? Or is your racing heart overcoming your good sense?"
Eddie says, "I have a plan for tomorrow. We do a Bronx tour. with cookout, and then visit our old digs."
Ryo perks up, "Ok, Dana."
The Tour
Eddie rents a car and since Yuko is the only one with driver license she is chauffeur with Eddie seated next giving the course. The rented car is in the Carlyle basement garage with keys in hand of attendant. They eat a breakfast that Eddie knows is not conducive to one-million hours of life. It is Viking style where all the travelers chose sunnyside-up eggs with as much crispy bacon as each could eat, German fried potato with corn beef hash covered by red ketchup, and heaps and heaps of greens and tomato and shaved carrots covered with vinegar salad sauce on each diner's plate; then a papaya to start the eating part but before even that, cups and cups of Carlyle black coffee taken on empty stomach for maximal caffeine effect, and on a return to the Viking food table, white yogurt with sliced apples, oranges, kiwis, and assorted blackberries, strawberries and raspberries.
This breakfast starts at 7 AM and is all eaten by 8 AM and then they rest in the suite till 11 AM and get themselves together to go downstairs.
In the car, Eddie and Yuko are in front and Ryo and Edwardes in back, left and right. It is a deep blue Oldsmobile 4-door. Yuko is a careful driver because she is a rare driver, not owning car, and got her license by paid-for lessons and feels responsibility for her 3 passengers. It is a June day, warm and sunny. Yuko has on a pink dress she knows Edwardes prefers her to wear and Ryo a matronly black dress to mid legs appropriate to her older age and widowhood and second marriage. Professor Edwardes is in his usual brown salt & pepper and everything that goes with that; while Eddie is in a red cotton tie-less shirt, workman's brown pants, and on feet China-made inexpensive blue-cloth shoes.
Yuko drives up the ramp onto E. 76th Street and turns right on the one-way and, from then following Eddie's say, right, on Madison Ave to 79th and then left and connects by making a right onto the West Side Highway and they drive north along the Hudson River with, on their left, a view of the New Jersey Palisades, the steep cliffs on the west side of Hudson River. Soon they pass under the New York City side of the George Washington Bridge and Eddie says "Exit at Dyckman Street" and directs Yuko to the Jewish Memorial Hospital at W. 196th Stree and Broadway. They park at curb on Broadway facing south, get out of car and go around corner left and enter hospital on 196th and go upstairs. in elevator. At 6th floor, Eddie leads them out to an almost immediately facing office with the words Obstetrics & Gynecology. Dr Robert Landesman, Chairman.
An elderly, obviously Jewish secretary looks up from desk and smiles. "Whom shall I say?"
"Dr. Edward Steinowitz."
"Eddie!" comes a shout from inner office and in a moment, Dr Landesman, who had been listening on the intercom, is giving Eddie a manly hug.
Minutes later the four sit on Dr. Landesman's blue sofa, he sits behind desk and conversation ensues.
"Eddie, the stud of the Bronx!" Landesman exclaims. Eddie feels embarrassed. Dr Landesman has obviously aged. He talks too loud and says too much. Eddie explains to all: "I donated for Dr Landesman's artificial inseminations of his patients. It was secret then."
Professor Edwardes says nothing but recalls he once donated for Ms Brenda.
Ryo does not understand Stud of the Bronx but being a good Japanese wife does not ask her husband to explain, just smiles. Eddie keeps the conversation going. "I have to admit it was not altruism to help the women get pregnant."
"You bet it wasn't," Landesman says." I paid you twenty-five bucks a come."
"In those days, I needed the money."
"How do you feel about all those offspring, guy?" Landesman asks. "I've always wondered."
"I feel nothing. I may be the so called DNA father but for me, being a father has nothing to do with that. It has to do with my helping raise a child."
"Eddie, you were lucky you never ended up in jail. Only in USA could a guy with your ideas live free"
So the conversation goes and Eddie is happy to get way after an hour.
Next, the Bronx
Back in the car, Eddie says, "Do a U-turn here on Broadway, go north back to Dyckman Street. Then we stop at a pizza-pasta place and get take-out spaghetti and tomato sauce and pizza slices and next door, paper plates and stuff for the cookout."
After doing those things, they drive west on Dyckman and make a right onto the Henry Hudson Drive going north.
Five minutes later the car is going over Harlem River Bridge, just where the Harlem diverges from the Hudson River. "Riverdale!" Exclaims Eddie, referring to a rich part of Northwest Bronx along the Hudson just before the city ends. As they pass a final city exit sign that says Gun Hill Road, Eddie instructs Yuko to drive onto a roadside and stop. They get out and, following Eddie, walk and slide down a slope in the high grass to the shore of a lake with sword grass swamp at left on its far end. A glance estimates it one half kilometer, or 1500 feet around.
"This is Sawmill Lake," explains Eddie. "I used to come here as a kid playing hooky from school with my pal PeWee."
"Good place for your cookout." suggests Edwardes, adding, "By the way, and to my complete surprise! Why do you not use the more common word, picnic?"
"I used once to do that," says Eddie and smiles. "But I got strongly corrected by Dr Stan, who got it from his negro secretary Xenia, who told him that picnic is perceived by negro people as a slur, meaning Pick a nigger." He stops for a moment then says as if expecting to be corrected "I know! The etymology of that is incorrect but, even so, it is understandable from the sound of the word alone how racists could pick up on that meaning, so I no longer use it, substituting cookout unless no cooking occurs in which case one may use outing."
Edwardes laughs sympathetically and "Ok. From now on, cookout."
Eddie directs Ryo and Edwardes to hunt up old tree twigs, and Yuko to spread the blanket for them to sit on; then he takes out from his deep pocket a green-string fishing hand-line wrapped about a hand-sized square wood frame. He has already fitted it out with two small fishhooks, and also takes out a spoon with which he starts to dig for worms. He knows the worms abound very shallowly under the black soil amidst the roots of grass clumps so he just digs the roots loose and grabs a clump and pulls it sideways. And he is rewarded with a half-a-pinkie-finger-wide, wriggling red-brown worm. Yuko, who stands watching, lets out a small scream at the sight of what she considers slimy little monsters.
As Eddie baits his 2 hooks with pinched off worm and then throws the baited hooks out 4 to 5 feet into the lake, Edwardes and Ryo return with firewood and other kindling, and Yuko assembles it and lights a fire using old newspaper that is lying nearby.
Edwardes joins Eddie on the shore, "Are you sure you can catch fish here?" while Ryo, who has a satchel with picnic stuff, takes out a thermos of hot green tea with cups.
Eddie's line suddenly gets jerked under the water. He has hooked a sunfish and pulls it from the lake;then, gets a firm hold on the hand-sized fish and with a twist takes out the hook. Eddie baits up again and quickly has several more fish.
Five minutes and 13 caught fish later he stops. "Enough for our dinner." He does not explain to Edwardes, who knows Eddie's philosophy of only fishing for food or scientific study and not for "sport." Ryo has got out a big fry pan with cooking oil and Eddie quickly filets the sunnies and soon has 26 small sunfish steaks - each fish makes two steaks by peeling away its sides off the bones. Ryo holds the pan handle over the fire with a gloved hand and using a skillet expertly fries the panfish. The spaghetti is brought out. And also a bottle of deep red Chianti wine with paper cups and a large bottled water. Soon they are happily eating - the already prepared and reheated spaghetti & sauce from plates and the sunfish steaks picked from fry pan - and drinking without conversation, which is the best way to intelligently enjoy eating. Yuko does not drink the wine, substituting bottled water because she is driving.
After they have finished, Ryo pours each person's green tea into cup and Edwardes says, "What shall we talk over?" Each sips tea then Eddie says. "Give us some of your old age wisdom John."
Professor Edwardes tilts his cup of wine and drinks its last then says: Allow me to give the Win-Win technique of ending the fear of death. It is most applicable to an oldster like I, far past age 70, for whom even under the healthiest circumstances, death or, even worse, a helpless dying state like after a bad stroke, increasingly disturbs happiness. What is my Win-Win? You win if you do and you win if you don't. If I do, not die tomorrow, I win for that day because, after all, my life is enjoyable and death is forever extinction of it. On the other hand, if I don't, not die tomorrow, the tax authority is about to start pursuing me because they discovered I have a Swiss Bank Account and that is against the law and the money earned by investment advice from the bank over the last 30 years should have been declared income and wasn't, so I face investigation and explaining and maybe jail which is a great worry that will be solved if I suddenly do not, not die. So I also win by dying. Win-Win. It balances out: on the one hand I feel happy at the prospect of sudden death because it is an escape from worry about a bad fate and on the other, each day I awake alive and healthy I feel happy mostly because of my lovely, sexy young wofe here - he pats her shoulder. So I am happiest with the Win-Win philosophy."
Then after a thought, Edwardes, uncharacteristically, kisses Yuko on the forehead and says "Do not let this evil old man corrupt your honest ways, my Yuko.
we should obey all the laws and pay all our taxes."
The tour continues for the rest of the day. Next day they fly back to Tokyo and the 4 lives resume in their Utopian setting.
End of Chapter. Next: 17.4x
Eddie Gets the News
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