A New Yorker's Stories Read online

  A NEW YORKER’S STORIES

  Essays by

  Philip Gould

  BOSON BOOKS

  Raleigh

  Published by Boson Books

  An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.

  ISBN (ebook): 978-0-917990-78-6

  © 2010 Philip Gould

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, including mechanical, electric, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  For information contact:

  C & M Online Media, Inc.

  3905 Meadow Field Lane,

  Raleigh, NC 27606-4470

  email: [email protected]

  http://www.bosonbooks.com

  Dedicated to Gregory, Nicholas, Genia, and Elka

  Contents

  CHAPTER I: FRIENDS

  GOOD-BYE TO A FRIEND

  MISERY LOVES COMPANY

  THE MOST FORGETTABLE PERSON

  MULTI-TASKING

  A FRIEND’S FRIEND

  TWO EXTRAORDINARY TELEPHONE CALLS

  I REMEMBER MAY KRAMER PHELOSOF WHEN

  CHAPTER II: REFLECTING ON COLLECTING

  BACK TO THE OLD ROUTINE

  LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, USA

  YOU NEVER KNOW THE SURPRISES IN STORE

  YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL

  SHIFTING GEARS IN ONE LONG DAY

  A MINI-TRAGI-COMIC WEEKEND

  ADVENTURE IN MIDWOOD, BROOKLYN

  CHAPTER III: FAMILY

  GROWING UP

  MEMORY IS SELECTIVE

  PART

  PART 2

  PART 3

  BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

  COURTING: PART 1

  COLLEGE ROMANCE: PART 2

  PARIS: PART 3

  AS GOOD AS IT GETS: PART 4

  A WAR STORY: PART 5

  CLOSURE: PART 6

  CHAPTER IV: FOOD

  WIDOWER’S LAMENT

  ROAST DUCK

  DINNER WITH JAKE

  CHAPTER V: NEW YORK

  BOTH ENDS OF 23rd STREET

  THE CARLYLE

  HOW TO PENETRATE THE CORPORATE INNER OFFICE

  A DAY I WISH I COULD REDO

  MEMORIAL DAY

  AN ALL TOO TYPICAL FULL DAY

  WHAT A DAY!

  A TRIP AROUND THE WORLD IN 12 HOURS

  THE HOUSE I LIVE IN

  ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY DAY

  O, WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!

  SOMETIMES MIRACLES HAPPEN IN NEW YORK

  CHAPTER VI: CRITICISM

  A TRADITIONAL CHINESE PAINTER TODAY

  THE BIRTH OF ART IN BLACK AFRICA

  MOVIE REVIEW: VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

  PYGMY PAINTINGS

  CHAPTER VII: TRAVEL

  A FUNNY THING HAPPENED BACK FROM HOUSTON

  A LITTLE WHITE LIE IN ISTANBUL

  THE USO

  PRESQUE ISLE AIRPORT

  THE EDIFICATION OF DEFECATION

  CHAPTER I: FRIENDS

  GOOD-BYE TO A FRIEND

  I just learned that my old classmate, David Zeibel, had died. I was told that he had been unwell for several years, reduced to getting around with a walker, and then succumbing. The news was disturbing because I always had in mind to call him and to propose a meeting. Knowing that such a call was now useless left me in an awful state.

  I remember David very well from our three years at Music and Art. We were both art students, often working in the same art studio. He was a wiz of a painter, producing very impressive canvases as though effortlessly. In fact whatever he attempted, he did so with ease and grace. After painting I think he loved sports and basketball in particular. He had the build for sports, not gangly like many adolescents, but of medium height David was compact and solid. He exuded health and confidence.

  I trekked a number of times up to his home in the Bronx on Allerton Avenue, near the Bronx Botanical Gardens. I met his mother and his brother, his friends and his girlfriend Leah who he eventually married. David’s mother was a courageous woman for she was working and raising her two sons by herself. She was strong and confident about the future.

  The class of 1940 was proud about being the first full class at the school. We knew full well how lucky we were to be charter members of the experiment in education of specialized schools. We had seen and heard Mayor Fiorello La Guardia address the whole school in the auditorium when he declared his pride in giving birth to his baby: The High School of Music and Art. We were so privileged to have great teachers, mostly not much older than the students. We were never treated with condescension. The place was too small for that. We could talk to our teachers.

  I was thrilled to be in the company of so many talented people. And no one found the long hours of our school day a problem. Like David I lived in the Bronx also so we made the ascent and descent of St. Nicholas Park on 135th Street to and from Convent Avenue every day.

  Those were fateful days. World War II would begin within a year and a half of our graduation. Everyone moved in different directions. I heard that David was involved in coaching, mostly basketball. And later his interests led him to the game of golf. I always thought that he could have made a career as an artist. He certainly demonstrated great promise in that area. But I knew that whatever professional path David took he would excel in it and above all he would always be surrounded by family and friends that loved him. (9/27/06)

  MISERY LOVES COMPANY

  I was on my way down Broadway to my local senior center for lunch when I bumped into a friend from the center: Gertty. She was accompanied by another woman who was promptly introduced to me. Yvonne was a visitor from France. Both ladies were on their way to MoMA. They were looking for a place to have lunch. I suggested the senior center which was only a few blocks away, and after a moment’s hesitation they agreed to join me. So off we went.

  Yvonne was from Alsace-Lorraine not far from Strasbourg. Well, I’ve been to Strasbourg and remembered the early astronomic clock tower in the transept of the Cathedral, the mention of which set Yvonne at ease, as though she had found an old relative. When I said my wife was born in Strasbourg that did it. We were, indeed, lanzmen. As we ate our lunches, Yvonne took the time to show me a picture of her husband and children accessible in her ipod. I almost never show photos of my family members but I felt the need to respond to Yvonne’s initiative. So I pulled out two old photos of my wife from my wallet. I had to tell Yvonne that my wife had died a year and half ago and that I have still not gotten over the loss. Tears started to roll down Yvonne’s face. I was a little startled to have provoked this reaction and at that moment we both sort of hunkered down a little and leaned toward each other. Yvonne then confided that her husband had recently asked her for a divorce and that he had actually gone off to Poland or some other eastern European country to visit his new paramour. Yvonne told me she was married for twenty-eight years and that there were two grown children in the family. I found out both husband and wife were doctors with ongoing successful professional careers. What looked like an ideal family was in tatters. Yvonne was now streaming tears and dubbing her cheeks with a Kleenex paper napkin. I was tearful myself. Here were two people, strangers a few moments ago, and now exchanging intimate and personal experiences. It was something like a confessional. Yvonne then told me her heart was breaking for four months when her husband returned and begged her to forgive him and to accept another try at restoring their marriage.

  All this time we were speaking in French which made our conversation all the more private, a sort of tête-à-tête in the semi-public dining room. We were both exhausted, played out, expiated in a way, and relieved. We had wells of sympathy for each other and felt much comfort i
n the way we could relate to each other.

  Gertty and Yvonne took off for the Museum of Modern Art, a worthy distraction from the heart-wrenching conversation at lunch. (1/5/09)

  THE MOST FORGETTABLE PERSON

  His name was Zak. He was an academic, like me. We met at a university where we were both teaching. We were both at the beginning of a career trajectory. Zak’s field was linguistics. He had earned his standing in a traditional way by recording the language of a West Coast Indian tribe that was reduced to just a few members; the language was facing extinction. But linguistics was a declining academic discipline. Zak lost his teaching post when the university stopped offering linguistics which had been, in any case, an appendage of the anthropology department. Zak thought he smelled a conspiracy: some members of his department betrayed him, so he thought, just to preserve their place. He lost a lot of trust in fellow scholars in the wake of that episode.

  Zak had other unfortunate experiences. For one, his wife left him, divorced him and remarried shortly afterward to another academic which didn’t lessen the blow.

  Zak had two daughters, a source of much pride and pleasure. As the girls grew into young womanhood they became progressively less enamored of their father and gradually saw less and less of him. They had actually grown disdainful and declared that their father would have to earn their respect.

  Zak had a number of girlfriends following his divorce. He boasted about these affairs as though his lady friends thought he was the last ideal man standing, a notion that was difficult to connect with the fact that Zak was portly and partly bald. Of course there is no way to explain taste. The final rejection came when the last female he was living with in New Jersey sent him packing. I had the thankless job of retrieving his mattress, loading it on the top of my station wagon, and transporting it to Zak’s apartment in New York. I discovered sometime later that Zak was sleeping, in fact, in the basement of the house on the other side of the Hudson River. Just what the arrangement was remained a mystery. His summary expulsion, however, was beyond doubt.

  Zak had difficult relations not only with women but with men as well. Zak was an engaging fellow, to be sure. He had a wealth of information at his fingertips and a dogged determination to find just the right word to describe the object or objects of his discourse. He loved to hold the attention of his audience as his stories unfolded. He was, after all, a linguist and a well-educated man.

  He had a long-standing friend on the West Coast. They had mutual interests in gourmet food and gambling by way of poker. I had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman and was honored to partake a specially prepared dish of pasta. I thought he was a reasonable man. The last time Zak and his California gambling friend met they ended the encounter in the street shouting at each other. Their respective ire’s were so intense they ignored the public setting.

  I thought it was my obligation to honor any reasonable request of Zak. I mention this by way of introducing an episode in our relationship. He asked me to buy a certain paperback book, to deliver it to another friend in California the next time I traveled to California. At the time, I visited California summers to give a summer school class at the University of California in Berkeley. I found Zak’s friend and delivered the book in question. After my return to New York Zak seemed to forget his request and when I mentioned the money I laid out to buy the book, he appeared to be put out and in a gesture of derision stuffed a bill in my handkerchief jacket pocket. So much for doing a favor for a friend.

  Some time later, I had the opportunity to invite an Indian diplomat to visit my home. I invited Zak as well to help make the occasion as auspicious as possible. In the midst of this gathering Zak posed a question to me that was entirely out of the spirit of the gathering. He asked me to describe his girlfriend, the one who shooed him out. As an act of politeness, I started to respond to my friend’s query. I described her; to begin with, as an Asian which threw my friend into a rage and in an angry loud voice he began a diatribe on how vile I was to think of people in ethnic terms, and how I spoke without thinking. The reception for my Indian visitor was crumbling under Zak’s assault. I did my best to shut him up but the damage was done. So much for social grace.

  The final skiff came at a dinner Zak prepared for me and my wife. Zak put much store in his cooking and looked for the proper appreciation from the friends who shared his gourmet talents. He ladled out a tiny portion of soup that was to be the first course of a long dinner. The soup did smell wonderful and I asked for more than a little ladle full. His rejoinder was to first taste the soup and if I found it to my liking he would give me more. He was milking the dinner: holding the full portion of soup as hostage until he got the expression of delight he was looking for. I thought that was the way to tempt children to eat but not a methodology for adults. I protested claiming the privileges of the guest but Zak insisted that he enjoyed the privilege of the host to decide how everyone was going to eat.

  I am not sure if my account gives a fair reading of the episode but I made a fast decision that dinner at Zak’s was not worth it if I had to subscribe to his dictates. I got up, picked up my things, and left followed by my wife, who was so looking forward to this dinner but dutifully submitted to her husband’s pout. This was the second time our meetings ended in a shouting match. I thought to myself: enough. This is one relationship I can forget.

  Postscript: Zak died three weeks ago. Only the Medicare male home care attendant was present. (9/20/08)

  MULTI-TASKING

  My dear Nadia,

  I think you’d find the day I had yesterday typical of my New York days. Cyrus, our grandson, was up early for breakfast. I got a surprise call from Laurent, our Parisian friend, who just arrived in New York. I, of course, invited him immediately for lunch. This was Cyrus’ day to be on his own, to explore the City. Laurent was late but arrived just in time for us to go out to the senior citizen center on 107th Street. I forgot about the end of the month celebration there, so we fell into a festive occasion in addition to lunch. We had to escape by the back door so as not to look too conspicuous while the formalities of the center were dragging on. We got out and walked up Broadway to Nussbaum and Wu for coffee and dessert, sitting on the outside while the last rays of sunlight kept us warm enough. Imagine, this was the first time I used the outdoor café. We walked back to the apartment just to leave the lunch milk at home and then we left again to meet Angela at MoMA. I promised to get them tickets for the Seurat drawing show (which is the best show in town). The lobby of MoMA was more crowded than ever, unbelievably so. I suppose it was a lousy day for a museum visit but we didn’t have the luxury of waiting. So I gave them each a ticket, introduced them: one a film producer and director, and the other a film historian. I thought they would hit it off. And off I went in search, of all things, of a Chinese horn cup.* Fred made a desperate call for such a thing, I’m sure as a way to help his dying baby boy. I am so distressed by his situation I would do just about anything to help. I took the Fifth Avenue bus downtown but, it was unbelievable, the crowds of Fifth Avenue were denser than ever in my experience. Holiday masses filling the street with barely a space to move in. I have never seen the City so full of people. Really frightening.

  I made my way to the 25th Street antique center but my friend’s shop was closed. I made my rounds, nevertheless and met Dibassy in the basement who got me interested in a headrest from Ethiopia which I bought…a very elegant one. Now I had just enough time to shoot down town to Greenwich Village to make an appearance at Irving Krisburg’s annual reception in his and his wife’s snazzy apartment on Washington Square West. As usual a splendid affair with excellent hors d’oeuvres and drinks. I stayed just a short while and then made my way back home where Cyrus was planning our supper. And so ended another day full of movement, of contacts and of ever so different initiatives.

  *According to Chinese folklore drinking from a rhinoceros horn cup confers magical curative powers. (12/29/07)

  A FRIEND’S FRIEND

>   Diana called me Friday night just after she arrived in New York. We made a “date” to meet the next day, Saturday, at twelve o’clock at my senior center on 43rd Street for lunch. That was how our day began. Diana was recommended to me by a friend we share. My European friend is a person I much admire and respect and any one she refers to me must be someone I should treat with equal attention. So, after our one-dollar lunch, I proposed that Diana join me in my usual Saturday afternoon peregrinations about town. She agreed. Off we went to the 25th Street flea market district. The three-storied garage on 25th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues gives its lower two floors over to a sea of flea market vendors. You can find African, Chinese, Tibetan, Middle Eastern artifacts as well as clothing, old tools, books, new and old, and much more. It is fun just to walk through the space. On the second level I bought a single lace doily about twelve inches in diameter, and gave it to Diana; she had a memento of a New York flea market.

  We crossed Sixth Avenue to visit the outdoor flea market and there I found and bought three African woven baskets, woven in raffia and rattan. The baskets are light but Diana insisted on helping me carry them. Then we took the 23rd Street crosstown bus to Tenth Avenue for what I thought would be a special surprise: the exhibition of Picasso’s late paintings at the Gagosian Gallery on 21st Street. When we got there we found people had lined up on the sidewalk, two abreast, for fifty feet, waiting for a chance to get in. This show has been well received by the press and people respond. My Danish friend and I walked up to the guard at the door, I showed my UNESCO card, and we were let in. Diana viewed the show while I sat in the little dark room to watch the slide projections of Picasso’s late paintings. When I got up Diana was at the exit door ready to leave; she didn’t linger long over the Picasso paintings. We walked up to 25th Street to visit another gallery where the proprietor is an old friend and where the artist currently on view was sitting in the back room; he was a fellow student in Hans Hofmann’s school back in 1947. We had a round of introductions and congratulatory comments before parting. We ended our afternoon together at a Punjabi restaurant on Tenth Avenue, frequented mostly by South Asian taxi drivers. I ordered two Marsala teas, Indian style. I was quite sure Diana had never tasted the drink before. The restaurant was nearly empty at four-thirty in the afternoon. We took our time over the tea and talked easily in the quiet space before boarding the bus that took us both back to our separate domiciles. (5/18/09)