The Christmas Kid

She smiled. “And the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. And the old Madison Square Garden. Remember how you took me to see CCNY play basketball there? And we walked through Times Square and looked at the giant waterfall, the Bond sign, and the big one for Camels, with the man blowing smoke rings, and everybody looked so glamorous, and we went to Lindy’s and waited for a long time, and saw Milton Berle sitting in a booth.”

“Yes,” he said. “I remember that.”

“We bought the News and Mirror, they were two cents each, and we took the subway home to Brooklyn, and you read me Pushkin that night in bed.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And then in the summer, we both had two months off, and the kids went to camp that time, and we went to Penn Station, the old Penn Station, and we took a Pullman to Florida, the two of us sleeping in the train, and it made clackety-clack sounds all through the night, and soon we could smell the oranges. We couldn’t see them, but it was morning, and the train was still moving, and we could smell oranges everywhere, a million of them, a billion, the air full of oranges, and the heat was damp and wet when we walked to the dining car, and we still couldn’t see the orange trees, but we were in Florida. We knew it. The oranges told us.”

“I remember.”

“And one New Year’s Eve we went to the Waldorf,” she said. “You’d saved all year to surprise me, and Guy Lombardo was there, and we saw Mayor O’Dwyer in the lobby, with that beautiful wife of his. You kissed me at midnight. And we stayed that night in the Waldorf, and you made love to me, and we looked out the window in the morning, and New York was the most beautiful place we’d ever seen.”

“Yes.”

“That summer we went to Lewisohn Stadium and heard Beethoven under the stars. We walked all the way downtown that night, through the streets, through Harlem, into the park, and the Tavern on the Green was still open, and we had cake and coffee and the waiter gave us a look and you laughed and left a dime tip, just for old times’ sake.”

“We could walk everywhere.…”

“We walked around the Battery on a Sunday morning, and you bought some flowers from a flower seller and laid them on the steps of the Custom House, because Melville once worked there. And we took three round trips on the Staten Island Ferry….”

“We were very tired, we were very merry….”

“The poem was terrible, but it seemed to fit.”

“Yes. It seemed to fit.…”

She was quiet then. They sat very still. Mitchell picked up the bottle of wine and filled their glasses again. Then he looked into her face.

“We can’t go to any of those places anymore,” he said.

She shook her head, her eyes brimming.

He kissed her on the mouth, and then he reached for the pills.

Changing of the Guard

SANNO SAT FOR A long time in the Eldorado with Ralphie Boy, both staring at the lights of the restaurant across the street. They were parked on a pump, the lights out, the engine running so the wipers could peel back the rain. Sanno rubbed his eyes, wishing he could go home to Brooklyn, get in bed with Marie, watch Johnny Carson. I’m sixty-two years old, he thought; I should be on a bench somewhere in Florida, not sitting here in the rain.

“I don’t like it,” Ralphie Boy said.

“Neither do I,” Sanno said wearily. “But what the hell.”

“Anyway, Junior’s in there,” Ralphie Boy said. “And Sidge. And Tony Dee. The guy tries anything, they destroy him.”

“He won’t try anything,” Sanno said. “He’s too smart.”

“He’s a freaking maniac,” Ralphie Boy said. “All them Cubans are maniacs.”

“He’s Colombian, Ralph,” Sanno said. “That’s a different country from Cuba.”

“Cuba. Colombia. They’re all maniacs. Women, children, girls. They hit anybody. They don’t care. Look at them nuns was killed down in Nicaragua.”

“It was El Salvador, Ralph.”

“You know what I mean. They’re all freakin’ nuts.”

Sanno glanced at his watch. “I better go in.”

“I’ll be right here.”

Sanno got out and hurried through the rain to the restaurant. There was a bar to the right and then an entryway into a large room with booths along the wall to the left, tables filling the room, a trio playing tepidly at the far end. Sanno gave his hat and coat to the hatcheck girl and turned to the maître d’.

“Carlos,” Sanno said, and the maître d’ nodded and led him through the crowded room to the booths. The Colombian was sitting alone. He was tanned, clean-shaven, and as he rose slightly in the booth and extended his hand, Sanno thought: a banker. Sanno shook the man’s hand and sat facing him. A Rolex gleamed on his left wrist.

“Good to meet you,” Carlos said, in slightly accented English. “I hear about you a long time.”

“I heard about you, too.”

Carlos laughed. “Hey, don’t believe everything you hear, okay?” He waved to a waiter. “Drink?”

“Scotch would help. Ice. Soda.”