Last Call (9 page)

Hayden rolls his eyes upward and makes a circle next to his head with his index finger to indicate that Diana is crazy with all her worries and this elicits a host of giggles from Joey. Since moving in with his grandfather Joey no longer takes to heart his mother’s endless warnings about rabid squirrels, carbon monoxide poisoning from sleeping without a window cracked open (but not enough to catch flu from a draft), blindness from playing computer games in the dark, and a long list of other maladies and dangers supposedly lurking around every corner. There was a time when he was afraid to open the front door because she had him so terrified that bronchitis was just waiting to swoop down like a giant pterodactyl and kill him with one breath.

There would be no dampening Hayden’s high spirits on this Friday morning, not even the brief thundershower that rolled overhead while they washed the dishes. Something had definitely changed. After finally letting his heart grieve for his lost wife and adjust to the short time he had left, Hayden was beginning to be able to take stock of, and fully appreciate, what remained. And perhaps Rosie is right in that he should focus more on living than on dying.

“You realize,” he tweaks Joey, “that by taking you and your nun friend to the circus this afternoon, I’m not only missing a terrific autopsy on the telly—pulmonary tuberculosis—but also a lecture on alcoholic hepatitis at John Jay College.”

Joey giggles. “She’s your friend, too.” There’s something about the way Rosamond and his normally outgoing grandfather hesitate around each other that causes Joey to sense they might like each other. Whenever he wanders off to look at something or buy popcorn Hayden and Rosamond appear almost nervous when he returns, as if they’re afraid of being seen together without him. Joey likes Rosamond, but he knows that it’s in a different way. Or if it’s not in a different way, he realizes that he’s too young to ask her to marry him.

When they pick up Rosamond, Joey pleads with her to sit in the backseat with him so that he can show her more baseball cards. Hayden shrugs and says, “So now I’m to look like the chauffeur, is that how it’s going to be?” But he courteously opens the slightly rusted door to the back so she can climb in.

Hayden heads down the gravel driveway and the entrance to the convent slowly disappears from view. Once he’s turned onto the boulevard Hayden announces, “We’re stopping at a funeral.”

“Oh, Grandpa!” moans Joey and buries his head in the space between the backseat and the car door. With Rosamond on his side of the battle Joey’s been more open about objecting to Hayden’s never-ending quest for information on dying. “It’s the same stuff over and over again—rest in peace, blah, blah, blah.”

“It’s Cyrus,” Hayden says softly. “I know he told us not to bother, but I have to show respect to the family.”

“Oh,” says Joey. “Sorry.”

“Is that okay?” Hayden says to Rosamond. “Cyrus was your neighbor in the hospital—the man responsible for introducin’ us.”

“Of course,” says Rosamond.

The synagogue is set back behind a crowd of billboards in a neighborhood that was once predominantly Jewish and is now largely made up of Islanders from Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad. Hayden places a yarmulke on his head and passes one to Joey but decides against handing Rosamond the black headscarf. For one thing, it won’t show up against the black veil atop her wimple, and furthermore, it seems a rather overt clash of faiths.

Hayden settles Rosamond and Joey in the second to last pew and then makes his way to the front and speaks with Cyrus’s widow, Hannah, and her daughter, while the rabbi and a few relatives huddle at the nearby dais. But all that Hayden can think of is how dismal Cyrus would have found the proceedings. His friend had wanted to be cremated and for there to be a big party, culminating with his ashes being launched in a rocket of red, white, and blue fireworks on the Fourth of July. Only Hannah wouldn’t hear of such a “cockamamy scheme.”

Rosamond has never attended a funeral outside of the convent, where they are long solemn affairs in Latin performed by the attending priest. Thus she’s astounded by how social the event is, despite the sad circumstances. People mill around talking, hugging, crying, calling to one another to come over, and even smiling upon exchanging heartfelt condolences or news of babies, engagements, and graduations. The mourners seem to find as much solace in their busy exchanges as the nuns found in their silent contemplation.

Finally a serious-looking man in a dark suit goes around asking people to take their seats and then taps the microphone, apparently more in an effort to get the service under way than to make sure it’s working. What follows are a few philosophical musings about death by the rabbi and a long-winded speech about “how short life is and that God is in the small things” by a cousin whom Cyrus despised. This is certainly not what Cyrus would have wanted, thinks Hayden. He considers stealing the corpse after the funeral and bringing it to his friend who works at the crematorium. It would easily fit into the station wagon. But he no longer possesses the strength for such endeavors. And besides, Diana would definitely have him institutionalized if she caught him grave robbing.

Instead Hayden privately resolves that the next night he and Joey will sneak into the cemetery and light a couple of rockets atop Cyrus’s plot. At least it’s something . . .

“Are they poor?” whispers Rosamond as they wait for people to exit by row. “They certainly didn’t spend much on a casket.”

“No, no. Cyrus left the family in fine shape. It’s a pine box, sort of a FedEx coffin. The Jews have a special next-day delivery deal with God.”

“Oh.” Rosamond is aware that as the mourners slowly leave they all stop in mid-step for a few seconds when they notice her nun’s habit. And for those who are in danger of missing the spectacle, a few well-placed whispers, nudges, and nods bring it to their attention. “I feel like a penguin escaped from the zoo,” she whispers to Hayden.

“Don’t worry,” he tells her. “Think of it as a little quid pro quo. The Orthodox Jews always try to get into convents when nuns take their vows.”

Rosamond looks at him, obviously puzzled.

“You know, to represent the groom’s side.” Hayden laughs out loud at his latest joke and so does Joey. “God, Cyrus will love that one when I tell him.”

“Grandpa!”
says Joey.

“What, you don’t think Cyrus and I agreed on a secret way to communicate so he could give me all the details after he died?”

“Now stop it,” Rosamond chides him. Hayden has taken to regularly teasing her or engaging in some outrageous behavior intended to cause her to laugh, or else scold him, not unlike a schoolboy pulling the pigtails of the girl on whom he has a crush. Only Rosamond feels embarrassed by his attention, and even guilty about condoning some of his more racy remarks by giggling at them. However, as soon as Hayden’s interest is diverted, Rosamond finds herself subconsciously hoping it will soon find its way back to her.

chapter fifteen

A
s they emerge from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in Manhattan, Rosamond opens the window and leans her head out in an effort to touch and taste New York City, and thereby internalize the pulsating atmosphere where dreams can come true and the truth can be elusive. Most of the structures—office buildings, town houses, corner stores, and restaurants—are the same as those she’s seen in Brooklyn. But like most people born in quiet places where the appearance of propriety at any cost is favored, Rosamond has always imagined that New York is a magical city. For almost twenty years she’d gazed at this commanding skyline from within the closed walls of the convent, and now here it is, right at the tips of her fingers. She reaches her arm out the window so that the palm of her hand can absorb the consecrated air as they turn up Broadway.

Rosamond attempts to register every sensation at once—the man hawking newspapers to passing cars, a police cruiser with its red bubble swirling and siren blaring on the left, a school bus on the right with a red stop sign that swings out into the next lane of traffic. A school bus—could there really be children in a place like this? The news and movies of her childhood portrayed New York as the home of sailors, chorus girls, and mafia. It was the place where sultry heiresses posed in fancy nightclubs with long black cigarette holders, tossing off clever quips and come-hither looks to down-on-their-luck private detectives.

Through a series of sharp turns Hayden maneuvers the car into an underground parking garage manned by fleet-footed attendants who dart about shouting and waving flags. As they dive into the headlong rush across the busy streets and crowded sidewalks Hayden automatically takes Joey’s elbow. Rosamond quickly grabs Hayden’s other arm, terrified that she’s going to be swallowed by the masses or fall into one of the gaping, steaming holes in the ground, barely cordoned off by a thin strip of flimsy orange tape.

Hayden feels the small feminine hand around his biceps and a satisfied smile appears on his face, that of a strong, capable man protecting women and children in a dangerous world. For a moment he is reminded of taking his daughters trick-or-treating and how they’d come racing to the corner out of breath and terrified after having encountered a ghost or a witch, and find such relief in his mere presence, sometimes even leaping into his arms. It’s a heady experience to know that another living being is so dependent on you for safety and reassurance. It also makes a person strive to live up to those formidable expectations for as long as possible. Who doesn’t want to be viewed as having such heroic powers?

Rosamond is astounded by Hayden’s self-assuredness in this madhouse of humanity. He effortlessly navigates their route and Joey stays close at his side, more curious and intrigued by his surroundings than fearful or anxious. If it were up to Joey they’d pause to take the flyers from every hawker, gaze into overdecorated store windows, and stop at every umbrella stand to watch the lightning-quick vendor deal hot dogs, ice creams, and sodas as if they’re playing cards. And every time he clanks open the aluminum hotbox the delicious aroma of hot pretzels saturates the air. But the second they turn the corner the wonderful smell is overwhelmed by the foul odor of a dozen cigarettes as a group of smokers stand huddled together outside an office building puffing away while nervously glancing at their watches.

No one so much as looks at her nun’s habit. And it’s no wonder. Within five minutes Rosamond sees two men with shaved heads wearing saffron robes, several women in skimpy halter tops and short-shorts, and a seven-foot yellow and orange chicken passing out menus in front of a take-out restaurant called The Cluck Hut.

Joey almost trips several times from peering up to the tops of tall buildings in search of his idols—Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. Or else one of the bad guys, such as Cyborg II or Brainiac. New York was not only the model city for almost every important superhero’s home, it was also the place that monsters such as Godzilla always wanted to destroy. Joey was constantly pleading with Hayden to take him to the Empire State Building in order to imagine what those last moments were like for poor old King Kong.

After a few more blocks Rosamond begins to adjust to the hustle and bustle of street life, settling into the pedestrian rhythms with the beats tapped out by “walk” and “don’t walk,” and loosens her grip on Hayden’s arm. Still, the city is so much more real with sights and scents and sounds than she had ever imagined. Her jewel box Manhattan always had a lovely soundtrack, usually by George Gershwin or Richard Rodgers, and smelled like the briny seacoast air of the small town in Maine where she was raised. And when the television was turned off the house was still except for the wind nudging a shutter or the cat scratching at the door to go out. Rosamond is simultaneously intrigued and unsettled by the chaos of the city in comparison to the well-ordered universe of the convent. As far as she can tell, there is no way to feel near God in such a hectic and untamed place as this, to find peace of the soul and the cleanliness and order that enables one to master the mind and all of its powers.

The circus is held under a bulky blue tent behind Lincoln Center on the west side of Manhattan. The high-pitched voices of eager children can be heard rising from every bleacher like rows of trilling and chirping birds anticipating a windfall of seed or bread crumbs. Rosamond and Joey, also caught up in the excitement, share a green slush drink the color of a chemical spill and an overflowing tub of caramel-coated popcorn as the band strikes up, indicating that the show is about to start. Hayden relaxes amid the chaos and treats himself to the cold beer he smuggled in under his jacket. Looking around at all the poles and wires holding up the temporary structure he guesses as to how much insurance is involved in such a venture, especially after one factors in the coming and goings of several enormous elephants.

The lights in the audience dim and the ringmaster suddenly appears from out of a cloud of pink smoke. He introduces red-nosed clowns in hobo suits and oversize floppy shoes, amazing acrobats on stilts, breathtaking jugglers of fire, tightrope walkers, and stunt riders atop low athletic-looking horses with long braided manes. A magician makes his swimsuit-clad assistant disappear into a wardrobe only to turn and find her standing behind him dressed in an elaborate ball gown.

Rosamond is exhilarated by the sheer lavishness of the spectacle—the showy costumes, dazzling colors, and eight-person band above the center ring playing high-spirited music. It reminds her of when she was a girl and a traveling carnival would set up shop on the edge of her otherwise quiet coastal fishing village at the end of every August. And for the next five days everyone went around in an altered state—normally quiet and staid fishermen sneaking off to the beer tent, while otherwise kind and neighborly women became fiercely competitive in contests of pie baking and handicrafts. Meanwhile teenage boys were preoccupied with proving their manhood at games involving shooting and strength, and by entering boxing matches. The little children ran around pell-mell, alternately terrified and thrilled by the freak show and the flying swings, safe in the knowledge it was the only time they could get their clothes dirty without reprimand and for dinner eat caramel apples, fried dough, and saltwater taffy.