Getting To Know You

Getting to Know You

The subway car screeched to a stop several hundred yards from the platform. Hiram Lebowitz sitting in the lap of an elderly woman.The abrupt stop had caught him off balance and as he careened forward he grabbed for the vertical rail and to his surprise swirled like an aging ballet dancer in an arc. His momentum and the additional 20 pounds he’d accumulated while recuperating from what turned out to be a benign investigatory surgery, to determine if he would most likely reach or exceed his shelf-life.

The felt hat he wore was dislodged from having come in contact with the face of the woman whose lap he now sat on, and it lay like a confused turtle on the rubber mat of the subway car floor. He attempted to right himself amidst the stream of apologies that escaped him reflexively. She aided his escape by pushing with both hands in the middle of his back. A fellow traveler across the aisle seeing his distress stood up, stretched out his hand, which Hiram realized he was not being assaulted grabbed onto, he was pulled upright leaving the elderly woman wrinkled, but no worse for the incident.

He turned reluctantly not knowing what he could say that he’d not already said, but felt compelled to apologize once more as a way of admitting his clumsiness and lack of coordination. The feeling that life does what it does, and if you can’t get out of the way you have to live with the consequences hung like an albatross around his neck. Her face suffered from the indignity of having been ruffed up by a stranger. Her glasses sat unevenly on her nose, a strand of purplish silver hair hung over one eye, and her puckered lips indicated she’d tolerated all the abuse she cared to for one day.

Hiram picked his hat from the floor, amazed no one had stepped on it, but was reluctant to place it on his head. Bits of floor litter stuck to the brim as though it were a magnet. He brushed them off in an attempt to look preoccupied and avoid having to look at the woman who busily attempting to compose herself before his unintentional invasion of her privacy. “So sorry madam. I hope you can forgive my lack of athletic ability, and please know that I had not planned to meet you in such an unorthodox way. My apologies again.”

She looked at him as he held the vertical rail with both hands, and had planted his feet as though expecting to have to withstand the train crashing into the barricade at the end of the line at 50 miles an hour. She looked at his face, his disheveled gray hair, a tie that didn’t go with his shirt, and his shoes were scuffed, and whose soles were unevenly worn.His eyes, a relaxed brown with twinges of black seemed unusual, but then it was New York, and if you were going looking for unusual it would be the place to come. His cheek bones brought back a memory of the board walk, sand, and a persistent wind that put a bite in the air both summer and winter. But that was 50 years and 30 pounds ago. She’d made light of her disappearing figure by blaming it on Vonnegut’s gravity and blue bearded pirate.

She continued to stare at his profile as he pretended not to notice. He expected some sort of reaction other than a contemptable set of pursed lips and a laser piercing look. He had grown used to the reaction he often got from people as his accident-prone tendencies seemed to follow him no matter where he went. He had come to expect the worse whenever he found himself in an unavoidable situation. He’d begun to feel his life had been planned as a penance for something he’d done in a past life. He couldn’t find any reference in the Old Testament to his having to pay for something he hadn’t remembered doing, but then his memory wasn’t as good as it once was; or so he’d been told repeatedly.

He glanced in her direction on the pretense of discovering where they were on the line, what station was a head, and how much longer he’d have to feel as though a gas chamber would be a blessing. She had averted her eyes to her gloved hands, which allowed him to scrutinize her appearance without seeming to be analyzing his ability to grab her purse and jump from the train at the next stop. His hat had smudged her lipstick and he forced himself from taking his kerchief from his pocket and attempting to erase the red smear from her cheek. Her ears seemed too large for her face, but then he had noticed that as he grew older some things seem to grow while others shrank; mainly his nose, ears, and his stomach that had come to resemble one half of a beach ball buried in the sand.

She looked up to his surprise and smiled. One of those half smiles where you had to decide if it was a smile or a smirk.After what he’d done and his inability to forgive himself, he reasoned it was a smile, too cold for a smirk.She straightened her glasses and as he turned, pretending to be looking for something he’d perhaps lost, she reached out and grabbed his trench coat and gave it a couple of downward tugs which got his attention. Was she looking for another apology, or maybe some sort of compensation for the train drivers overly zealous braking? He responded to the tugs by bringing his eyes back to her face and her lip manipulations that left him no longer believing it was a smile. He was about to speak, when…

“Do I know you? Her question caused him to let one hand lose from the pole in case his past had caught up to him. Even though you can’t remember something doesn’t mean you didn’t do it. “You from Jersy by chance?”

He was often mistaken for someone from Jersey, and he’d never been there. He’d wanted too, but as he grew older he couldn’t remember why?He’d heard all the stories about Atlantic City and how what went on there didn’t stay there, and the funny accents of people who had forgotten they hadn’t just got off the boat from the Magical Myster Tour. But he could no longer think of a reason he’d need or want to go there.

“No? then how about Brooklyn? Everybody’s is supposedly from Brooklyn at one time or another.”

Hiram Lebowitz had never been to Brooklyn. He seen the bridge once from a plane landing at JFK, but other than that, what was there in Brooklyn he didn’t have in Brighton Beach. He had been to Long Island once, but could see no reason to bring that up, as it would probably be her next attempt to make him feel guilty for not having traveled more.

“Long Island then?”

He’d only been responding by moving his head from side to side, or as of yet up and down, but then the afternoon was still young. She continued to study him as if he were an All-Day Sucker that had been left on one of the sea view benches in 100-degree heat. Hiram was beginning to feel the heat himself and was thinking of checkinghis pockets for an All-Day Sucker, when she said more loudly than he felt necessary, Hoboken?”

What was this? He hadn’t fallen on her because he wanted to.He fell because he lost his balance, and although he could have fallen on the floor, he hadn’t. He’d apologized, asked in his own way to be forgiven, admitted he was overweight, and had never been to, let alone from, Brooklyn, Long Island, or Hoboken. What else could the god’s be asking for? He wasn’t even a religious nut…better not think it, let alone say it, you never know who might be listening.

“You’ve got to be from somewhere? Are you even from New York?”

Why would she ask that?Do I look like I’m from Cincinnati or Baltimore? Good God this stereotyping has got to stop. No one is safe any longer. I don’t go around asking people where they are from? What difference could it possibly make to anyone but apparently her?

“If you must know, and I can’ t think of any reason why you should, I’m from Brighton Beach… happy?”

“Don’t give me that.No one is from Britton Beach.That’s where people go to die. If you are going to lie about where you are from, why not pick a place that has some culture to it? Like Hilton Head, or Miami?”

“Cause I’m not from either of those places. I told you I’m from Britton Beach. I can show you my driver’s license if you like, but that would only tell you I live there now. I could go to the courthouse and get a copy of my birth certificate, I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind, she’s dead. Bit I ain’t goin to do that either. You are just going to have to trust me. And while we are at it, where might you be from?”

She began to stare at her hands once again, and Hiram knew he’d stuck a chord. It might be the wrong chord, but then at his age any chord in an argument, if that is what this was, is preferable to a wish. He was surprised by her boldness. He was used to New Yorkers being inquisitive, something to do with DNA he’d imagined. But this was something out of the ordinary, even for New York. She appeared to be thinking about whether she should tell the truth, or make up a place. He’d never know. But then, he’s not from most places I’ve heard of, and only one I have, so he might just know. I’ve heard stories about New Yorkers and their ability to know who you are before you do. I’ve never believed it, but I’m beginning to change my thoughts on the subject. He does look familiar though.

“I’m from Minneapolis.That’s in Minnesota if you were wondering. Don’t suppose you ever been there? Ten thousand lakes, 20-degrees below zero, that kind of Minneapolis.”

“As a matter of fact, no!But I was tempted once, but I got over it. Minneapolis, the coldest place in the world; right behind Frost Bite Falls. You ever meet Rocky or Bullwinkle? I hear they are a couple of cards.”

“Where are you really from?I’ve been coming to this city for 30 years and have yet to meet anyone from Britton Beach until today; that’s assuming you are actually from there. What does one do in Britton Beach to keep you alive for…you must be about 70, maybe 80, hard to pin it down, especially with New Yorkers. Kids look like they are 30 and turns out they are 14.30-year-olds look like they are 50. I met a woman on the Staten Island Ferry that said she was 106 years old. I asked to see her driver’s license. She refused; said if I didn’t believe her, I wasn’t obliged too. Then, I believed her. Who’d lie about being 106?

Say, how does someone live in New York for 70 years, and hasn’t been to all the places you haven’t been to.I don’t see how it’s possible.Something you are afraid of?While I’m thinking about it, what happened to your ear? Bar fight?”

Hiram wore his hair long to cover up the indiscretion he’d managed to acquire in his earlier years.Most people didn’t notice, he’d even forget about it until his hair got wet, shower, rain storm, something that made his usually abundant hair look like a cheap wig at a fondu party. When his hat was bumped off, it must have rearranged his hair so that his ear was visible. He didn’t mind any longer talking about it, it gave him a renewed sense of having been carefree and young once upon a time. “Skiing accident.” That was usually the end of it, but being he had two stops to go he thought he’d might as well tell her the story so she’d not have to drag it out of him.

“I zigged, and the tree didn’t. One of the branches took offense to my aggressiveness, and reached out and took a bite out of my ear.Simple as that.”

“Where’d this happen?”

“Aspen Colorado, 1971.Good thing for me long hair was in, 10 years earlier I would have looked like I just snuck out of a concentration camp.You ski?”

“Not anymore, knees gave out a few… about 30 years ago. You know I knew this guy back then when I skied, and was thinner and I think better looking? His name was Hiram something. You know back then, the free love movement and all. You’d meet people, fall in love, and then never see them again in less than 48 hours. Wish it were like that now. Wait! It is, except you didn’t not meet them, you forgot you met them. What is your name anyway, you do look familiar?

“Bernard, Bernard Haverschmidt; born and raised in Britton New York, only left once when I was 18, and I almost lost my ear to a vengeful tree. And what’s your name while we are applying for passports?”

“Mrs. Bernard Haverschmidt.”

“Did I say Haverschmidt, It may have sounded like Haverschmidt, but it’s Haverschmidt, families from the Austrian side of Poland case you were curious. You got to pronounce the a in Haver, like an o; sounds like how.”

“I thought you looked familiar.”