and my
grandmother kept an austere house.
Things had plastic coverings that crunched when one sat down. A kid was allowed to be a kid. According to grandma though nothing in life
was 100%, least of all the austerity of her apartment. My sister and I shared a fold-out couch that
fronted the wall of my grandparent’s bedroom. Lighting was dim and the small
television would fill the room at night with neon. We would watch Ed Sullivan late into the
night with the sound low. Shadows
bounced off thick wooded walls and I would wander into the kitchen for a
midnight snack.
The
next day my mother walked us down to the subway. The bristles of my freshly crew-cut head felt
the hollow winds as we descended. There
was a smell of gummy, sweet, stale candy precluding the other odors of the
world I would briefly know. I liked it,
and for a moment I paused on the stone steps and surveyed my new environment.
“Michael,
we have to keep moving. We’re in New
York.”
My mother was not one to stop and smell roses, not
that there were any in subterranean NYC.
So I increased my pace, skipping two or three steps until I was waiting
for them at the bottom. I was a
fearless, adroit kid. My sister was 2
years older and a bit more calculating.
She was the kind of kid who was destined to be in the advanced classes
and on honor rolls.
“Hurry,
our subway is coming!”
A slim line of light pierced the graffiti of the
tunnels and there was a thundering sound, rising sharply to a screeching
crescendo as the subway came into sight.
The doors, also festooned with graffiti, quickly slid open and ejected a
diverse mass of people into the dank, urine tinged air. My mother dropped three tokens into a turn
stile and we were scattered among the oncoming crowd. She grabbed my hand and led me through the
masses. She now wore a look of
complacency. It told of her
determination, her pride and her comfort level on her home field. She grew up in the Bronx and was proud to
show her children the sights. Still not
yet a total cliché, the Statue of Liberty was our unanimously decided
destination (although I may have swayed the vote a little). We rode the subway
to Battery Park in lower Manhattan.
“Battery
Park,” sounded muffled over the PA system in our car.
“Get
ready kids. The next stop is ours.”
We flanked our mother as she hung onto the plastic
straps. We clung to the poles on either
side. My sister stood there looking at
the advertisements whether they were legitimate or not. I, however, swung from my pole in curiosity
of the other passengers.
“How
are you enjoying your ride?” or “Where are you going?” I’d ask. Most often New Yorkers would give me a look
that said “Get out of here kid, you annoy me.”
Or they might look at my mother with disgruntled overtones,
quasi-politely conveying that they would like her to harness and perhaps muzzle
her child The doors suddenly opened and
we charged into the sea of New Yorkers.
We exited though the turn stile and ascended to the
street. My eyes felt the warm sunlight
graze them harshly. They adjusted
instantly and I pretended I was a mole
or a vampire coming into the light for the first time.
.
****
“Three
for Liberty Island. One adult, two
children.”
“How
old are the kids ma’am?”
“5
and 7.”
The briny air smelled of seaweed and felt cold and damp. I listened to the seagulls and wished I had
some food to offer them when they settled on things to rest. Small and oddly mannered, they pandered to
the influx of tourists High and mighty
in the clear ocean sky, the gulls circled with the malicious intent of
vultures. Yet, their grace and soft
winged flight patterns made their presence inviting.
I was about to see the symbol of a better life
for thousands that had arrived on these shores and I was amused by menacing
birds. When you are young the bigger
things in life are sometimes shadowed by smaller things of no real importance.
****
Earlier that year my grandparents had taken
the three of us on a Caribbean cruise.
We had visited Grenada, Haiti, Curacao and Martinique. One night after my grandpa thought I was
safely in bed in my stateroom I wandered into his.
They waited alone on the small sink. A faux smile taunted me like a vagrant
clown. Their mechanical pink gums
frothed at the hinges as my grampa’s dentures marinated in a shallow aqua-green dish of liquid. Yellow-white plastic molars amazed me and I
thought the rest of our cruise could now only pale by comparison. They were rife with masticated food of our
recent dinner. He had eaten the beef
Wellington along with a side of broccoli.
The soft crust that surrounded the beef now lined the inlay of the
gums. An ominous greenish-black vegetative
hue had imbedded itself between the teeth.
Morsels of withered meat tried to hide below the gum-line. Whatever they had masticated for him, he had
made them his own and they had the personal smell of my grandpa. This smell segued sublimely into the stale,
meticulously pungent, old- people smell my grandparents had managed to recreate
from their Bronx apartment.
“Wow,
what are those?”
“Michael,
these are my teeth,” he quickly answered unnervingly.
“What
happened to the real teeth in your mouth?”
“See,
if you don’t take care of your real teeth, someday you might need these.”
I decided I’d
call them “toy teeth” and immediately
set about announcing this fascination to the entire ship. When I went back to nursery school we were
all asked to tell about our winter break.
“Michael,
did you see anything exciting on your
break?”
“Yes,
my grandpa’s toy teeth,” I quickly replied.
****
We
boarded the ferry in one communal push and
I ran straight to the coin-operated looking glass. I felt tall and commanding as I clung to my
post and my feet precariously toed the thin metal step. Practice is necessary to view things of great
importance correctly and I peered through the glass blind and imagined what I could
see. I imagined how I would see the
statue and how I should feel seeing it
The other passengers had taken seats where they could.
“Michael,
sit down,” my mother called.
“I
want to look through here though.”
“There’s
nothing to see right now.”
I shrugged and joined them on the crowded bench. In moments
