The Silents

27

CHAPTER 27 THEY CAME by train, first class, as they had done on their honeymoon. She spread her braille on the small table in their drawing room and read to pass the time. He studied the railroad guide, informing her of their progress and the reasons for their delays. They played solitaire, she with her braille cards, he with his own. They had played gin rummy together in the dining room at home, but she suspected he was cheating, so they played alone, together. He guided her through the heavy doors of each car until they reached the first-class diner where they ate offfancy plates and poured coffee from silver pitchers. He was a sport, tipping the waiter and the porter lavishly. After all, he could afford it, he told me. He had ten thousand dollars in the bank, a Social Security check that paid extra because Mama was blind, and a thirty-five-dollar-a-month pension check from the Teamster's Union. Wasn't that wonderful ? my father had asked AI. And AI, after years of muttering to himself about the Teamsters, graciously replied, "Well, that's terrific, Pa." What was the point ofscrimping and saving any more? He was retired; now was the time to spend his rainy day money to come to California to Andy's bar mitzvah and visit his old haunts. But there was nothing left of the Los Angeles of his memories. The gym on Spring Street was gone. The Los Angeles Times had no articles on Dummy Jordan in its archives. Neither did the Herald Examiner. For days he moped on my patio, munching inconsolably on an orange picked from our tree. 231 "Nothing is the same," he complained as we searched for his past. "Los Angeles has changed. Main Street is different. Everything is different! The highways are too dangerous. I could never drive here." "You never could drive, Papa," I reminded him. "That's not so. I drove a '26 Olds once, but it wasn't mine, so I lost my touch. You know, when I was here back in...." He counted the years on his fingers and poked imaginary milestones in the air until there got to be too many years, and he gave up. "Your Uncle Dave and I could have bought a piece ofland out here back in those days for a thousand dollars. Well, Dave didn't want to buy it." "Too bad, Papa. You would have been a millionaire today." "Who needs a million dollars? I've got enough to have a good time, so let's have one, Ruthie," he poked her. "I'll show you the sights." HE SHOWED her the things he remembered as well as the sights he'd never seen before. There were visits to Disneyland, where Mama marveled at all the twinkling lights and held Pluto's arm. And Tijuana, where the broken sidewalks and disintegrating curves told her of its poverty. And Las Vegas, where she perched on a stool, her lifeless hand in the till of the slot machine, the bottom ofher coat dragging on the floor. Like a committed gambler, she pumped the lever with her good hand and counted her loot. "Sha," she whispered, when the till overflowed with quarters, "take the money and buy me a candy bar." "Sure." "But don't tell Papa." "Why?" She smirked. I realized then that she hadn't held change in her hand for years. Now she had the power to buy a candy bar. I took the money, bought two, and gave them to her. Offering me one, 232 she gleefully unwrapped the other and indulged in a five-minute break before going back to the slots. Papa looked up his old friends from Puddie's card room on Roosevelt Road. They wandered through the Stardust Casino, where they had now found a legitimate place to ply their skills. To his dismay, he found that "Red" Cohen, his card-playing buddy, was no longer red. He was as bald as a plucked chicken, and a sober realization spread over my father's face that he, too, was old. Swollen everywhere with arthritis, Papa was still imposing enough from the waist up, waving his arms in talk with enormous strength, but his legs hadn't kept up with the rest of him. He had to rely on a cane, holding it in his right hand...