Yeah, that’s it.
A visitation.
Without switching on the light, she filled the kettle and turned on the burner. From the cabinet she took out a mug and a tea bag and set them on the counter. From the pocket of her robe, she took out a little brown bottle and set it beside the mug. Then she went back to the sink and stood there looking out the window.
You got the sense that she was good at looking out the window—like maybe she’d gotten a lot of practice. She didn’t fidget or tap her feet. In fact, she was so good at it, so good at getting lost in her thoughts, that when the kettle whistled it seemed to catch her by surprise, as if she couldn’t remember having turned it on in the first place. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she left her spot at the window, poured the water, picked up the mug in one hand and the little brown bottle in the other, and turned toward the table.
—Trouble sleeping? I asked.
Caught off guard, she didn’t cry out or drop her tea. She just gave the same little expression of surprise that she had given when the kettle whistled.
—I didn’t see you there, she said, slipping the little brown bottle back in the pocket of her robe.
She hadn’t answered my question about whether she had trouble sleeping, but she didn’t need to. Every aspect of the way she moved in the dark—crossing the room, filling the pot, lighting the stove—suggested this was something of a routine. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to learn that every other night she came down to the kitchen at two in the morning while her husband slept soundly, none the wiser.
Gesturing back toward the stove, she asked if I’d like some tea. I pointed to the glass in front of me.
—I found a little whiskey in the living room. I hope you don’t mind.
She smiled softly.
—Of course not.
After taking the seat opposite mine, she trained her gaze on my left eye.
—How does it feel?
—Much better, thanks.
I had left Harlem in such high spirits that when I got back to Woolly’s sister’s house, I’d completely forgotten the beating I’d taken. When she answered the door and gasped, I practically gasped back.
But once Woolly had made the introductions and I had explained the spill I’d taken in the train station, she got a cute little first aid kit out of her medicine cabinet, sat me here at the kitchen table, cleaned the blood off my lip, and gave me a bag of frozen peas to hold over my eye. I would have preferred using a raw steak like a heavyweight champ, but beggars can’t be choosers.
—Would you like another aspirin? she asked.
—No, I’ll be all right.
We were both quiet for a moment as I took a sip of her husband’s whiskey and she took a sip of her tea.
—You’re Woolly’s bunkmate . . . ?
—That’s right.
—So, was it your father who was on the stage?
—He was under it as often as he was on it, I said with a smile. But yeah, that’s my old man. He started out as a Shakespearean and ended up doing vaudeville.
She smiled at the word vaudeville.
—Woolly has written to me about some of the performers your father worked with. The escape artists and magicians . . . He was quite taken with them.
—Your brother loves a good bedtime story.
—Yes, he does, doesn’t he.
She looked across the table as if she wanted to ask me something, but then shifted her gaze to her tea.
—What? I prompted.
—It was a personal question.
—Those are the best kind.
She studied me for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not I was being sincere. She must have decided I was.
—How did you end up at Salina, Duchess?
—Oh, that’s a long one.
—I’ve barely started my tea. . . .
So, having poured myself another finger of whiskey, I recounted my little comedy, thinking: Maybe everyone in Woolly’s family liked a good bedtime tale.
* * *
? ? ?
It was in the spring of 1952, just a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, and we were living in room 42 at the Sunshine Hotel, with pops on the bedsprings and me on the floor.
At the time, my old man was what he liked to call betwixt and between, which just meant that having gotten fired from one job, he had yet to find the next job to get fired from. He was spending his days with his old pal, Fitzy, who was living across the hall. In the early afternoons, they would shuffle off to scour around the park benches, fruit carts, newsstands, and any other spots where someone was likely to drop a nickel and not bother to pick it back up. Then they would head down into the subways and sing sentimental songs with their hats in their hands. Men who knew their audience, they would perform “Danny Boy” for the Irish on the Third Avenue line and “Ave Maria” for the Italians at Spring Street station, crying their eyes out like they meant every word. They even had a Yiddish number about the days in the shtetl that they’d roll out when they were on the platform of the Canal Street stop. Then in the evenings—after giving me two bits and sending me off to a double feature—they would take their hard-earned pay to a dive on Elizabeth Street and drink every last penny of it.