Mom’s Visit to the Lower East Side (Part Two)

Mom got herself together after a few minutes. We went downstairs, said goodbye to the guys on the stoop, and got into the waiting cab. The ride back to the Plaza Hotel was quiet. At our suite, Mom and Dad retired to their room; I went to mine and was reading a book I had purchased at one of the used bookstores that abounded in the West Village. About an hour later Dad came in and asked if he could buy me a drink at the hotel’s Oak Bar looking out onto Fifty Ninth Street and Central Park.

Dad said that Mom was rather traumatized about the Lower East Side experience. She seldom drank, but after a strong Scotch and Soda, she was taking a long nap. “She thinks the Lower East Side is the worst neighborhood she has ever seen,” Dad said. “Oakland looks like Pacific Heights compared to your neighborhood. Are there worse areas in New York?”

“There are several that are far worse than the Lower East Side: South Bronx, Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, parts of Harlem, and Hell’s Kitchen on the west side of Manhattan — to mention a few.”

“Have you ever been threatened or pushed around?”

“No,” I said. “But I am careful about where I go and how I go. I stay on the outside of the sidewalk and walk with a purposeful gait like I’m in a hurry. I don’t make prolonged eye contact. People in jackets and tie are seen as possibly cops in street clothes, or Welfare Department workers, or employees of Mobilization for Youth. Pushing such people around is taken badly down there.”

Mom had asked Dad to ask me about my plans after VISTA. I told him that I would leave New York in late May and that I would apply for a job as a riding instructor at the Orme School’s summer season that I had attended in high school to make up the algebra that I had failed. I had also applied to the Thunderbird School of International Trade in Glendale, Arizona — have yet to hear from them. I explained that it would be a one-year program, and the employment placement rate for graduates was high.

I was explaining the various programs Thunderbird offered when Dad asked if I was still interested in teaching art history. After VISTA, I did not wish to become a teaching assistant and while living in lousy apartments for six or seven years while writing my required discourses, and leading discussion groups, and grading stacks upon stacks of undergraduates’ blue books. And forty years later, I would be giving the same lecture on the significance’s of men’s gloves in Dutch paintings of the 1600s. Dad seemed to agree.

I was about to ask Dad if he would underwrite another year of my education, when he tapped my shoulder and said, “Steve, that’s a great idea. When I return home, please send me the information on Thunderbird.” A moment later, he said, “Don’t stare at the man in a suit behind the bar and talking to the bartender down at the end. He’s been looking at us, not hostile, but like he’s seen us before. Frankly, he looks somewhat familiar.”

The man in the suit walked toward us and was smiling. Dad and the man pointed at each other. Dad said, “You’re Benny Silverman, aren’t you?”

Silverman said, “And you’re Mr. Jordan.” Pointing to me, “And you’re his son; he always talked about you. If I remember correctly, you’re Stevie?”

Dad laughed, “He goes by Steve or Stephen these days. Do you work here?”

Benny replied, “Yeah, I’m the Beverage Manager. I turned twenty-one exactly one year before Pearl Harbor. I got a job here as a junior barman, in other words a schlepper. When I got out of the Coast Guard, they gave me back my old job.”

They reminisced about their days together on the Alaskan Chain of Islands going from the mainland into the Bering Straits for about a half hour until Dad had to leave for a call from his office in Napa. Mom had asked the switchboard to send the call down to the bar. As Dad was leaving, Benny said, “Mr. Jordan, here’s my card. Call me — let’s get together for supper before you leave.” Dad agreed and went to the phone.

“Steve, your father was a good officer: efficient, protective of his men, clever and funny at times. That’s not to say that he had a temper. He got along well with his men, and we were a cosmopolitan lot: New York and New Jersey Jews, Southern Baptists from Mississippi and Alabama — and your father, the only Catholic and from Boston. Despite the religious differences and the very distinct accents, we managed to get along well enough.” He looked at his watch, “Got to hop. By the way, while you and your father are staying here, you’re drinking on the house. Stevie, you’re a lucky man to have such a father. Take care.”

A couple of days later, Dad was going to have supper with Benny Silverman. Before we were invited to join him, Mom said, “It’s thunder and lightning out there and starting to rain; Steve and I would hinder your walk down memory lane.”

Dad looked somewhat relieved and checked his watch, “I’m meeting Benny at 7:00 and should be back by 10:00. Given the weather, why not stay in the hotel and eat at one of the restaurants or call for room service?” He kissed Mom and left.

Mom didn’t like New Yorkers — they were loud, pushy, rude, and the list was endless. She grew up in Kansas, lived in Greater Boston during the war, and moved to Napa when my father was discharged. Napa was a small town with, for the most part, a quiet and polite population. She was happy; Dad and she were prospering. And she was raising two boys and tending to her English garden. While I was in high school, my parents joined the Silverado Country Club, and Mom took up golf.

We had ordered room service. Mom had avoided talking about my job or living in the Lower East Side. We discussed my plans after VISTA; she was pleased with those. Somehow the conversation got around to golf. She said, “My game is improving; is yours still kind of erratic?”

“I haven’t played in several years; so it’s probably more erratic that ever. When I return home, let’s play as much as we can, early in the morning before the fog lifts.”

“I’m looking forward to that, Steve, perfect, just perfect.”