A London Return

12 Feb

 

“We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.”
― William Hazlitt

Soho is quiet this morning.  Subdued, people on their way to work, starting their day.  William Hazlitt’s house stands here on Frith Street as it has for over 300 years.  A hotel now, and as gently welcoming as ever, I drop off my bag and head out to breakfast.

I turn 60 in a few days, which I find, for the first time, a bit baffling. Other such landmarks have passed easily. But having only recently begun to feel more man than boy, it seems unfair to suddenly be at an age which, if not old, is getting pretty damn close.   

I take a breath and let the morning streets blow it all away. 

So what to do on a jet-lagged morning in London?  A haircut of course.  At The Feel.  It’s better than it sounds. All tattooed, gender-fluid friendliness.  Amy and I have a lovely talk as she trims my little bit of hair back to something approaching whatever level of attractive I’m able to muster these days.  She assures me I do not look like a mechanical engineer with a libertarian bent and we part friends.  

Because I’m sharp about these things, after 38 years I have just sorted out that The Tate Britain is known for it’s collection of paintings by JMW Turner, whose work I love .  And so, freshly shorn, I head off in the direction of Pimlico, only to find that the Turners are being rehung and will be unavailable until March. There are three minor works which I dutifully track down, taking in as I go the vast panoply of British Art from Tudor portraits (Which are hilarious!  All haughty matrons, with bosoms about to   tumble over their bodices, and pale, weaselly men with unfortunate moustaches and a martial stance, staring down history in their vivid silk pant suits) all the way through to the present day.  Enlightened and amused, I head for the St. George Tavern, the nearby local of one Mr. Ian Nairn, the most erudite and opinionated of London guidebook authors. 

Pimlico, which I remember as the grim bit behind Victoria, is, in fact, delightful.  The St. George is not.  Braced for disappointment going in, Ian Nairn being long dead and more than a bit of an alcoholic, I am still surprised.  I doubt Mr. Nairn would have recognized the place.  Bland and listless, it now has all the charm of a highway rest stop.  So with a nod to the man, I catch the first train back to Soho and make a beeline for The Blue Posts in Berwick Street.

Formerly run by the mother of Suggs, the lead singer for Madness, this pub had intimidated me.  I feared I might not be cool enough.  But not a bit of it.  The Jam blasting as I walk through the door, it is a lovely, unpretentious little place.  No TV.  No games, no food. Just a room full of happy people mooching off early on a Friday to talk, drink and laugh.  Eurythmics, Abba, the hum of conversation as people come, go, and return again.  It’s a bit of a dance, and I stay for the length of my beer, letting the bonhomie both warm and settle me.  And then, giving in to the fatigue, I wend my way back to Hazlitt’s for a much needed nap.

***

Vasco & Piero’s is all but empty this early evening.  Tucked away on quiet street, I have it almost to myself.

Stephanie, a kindred spirit from New York, is my waiter;  but tonight she is also my friend, with generous pours of her favorite wine, delicious recommendations and an introduction to the family at the next table, whose son, Jack, is a musical theatre nerd par excellence.  They have just returned from New York, six shows in seven days, and Jack wants to tell me everything.   And, as the food arrives, I want to hear it.  So, as I work my way through the tagliatelle, the lamb chops and both the panettone (which I ordered) and the Tiramisu (a surprise from Stephanie), he unleashes his pent up knowledge of all things theatrical and I have, for a time, a family.  

Saying our goodnights, they head off to a show.  I should go back to the hotel, but it’s early, the pubs are still open, and I’m curious.

***

The Red Lion is only a short walk away. Having read that butlers were known to drink there, I had, on my last trip, left behind the raucous streets of Soho and Picadilly for the soothing environs of St. James, where, of an evening, the tourists fall away and the world grows quiet. Turning into Crown Passage, a narrow alley across from the Palace, I had found the small but pleasantly busy pub where I met Dave, a dapper gentlemen of a certain age who was more than eager to regale an American with stories of his life and country.  Pleased to have been so quickly welcomed, it took me a few minutes to realize that Dave was very drunk.  But, he was indeed in service to the royal family, having worked as a gameskeeper.  And while his stories initially focused on his military career, knowledge of hunting and numerous grandchildren, this soon lead to his concerns about Muslims.  As the room grew quiet he proceeded to rant about Sharia law, get snappish when asked to pay for the beer he’d bought me, and then disappear into the night at a speed surprising for someone about to fall down. 

The next day I saw him on TV, helping Prince Phillip into his car. 

I had met, if not a butler, then a body man to the husband of the Queen.  And as disturbing as the evening had been, it was also fascinating, for although  he engendered little love, everyone seemed to know Dave.  And amongst those who quietly nay-sayed his assertions, I realized I was likely sitting in a group of people who all worked in some capacity for the royal family, but who, mindful of their jobs, and far less drunk, were more discreet.   

These folks are not about tonight.  There is no gossip to be had about Harry and Meghan or the death of the Queen.  Instead I share the room with a posh trio; an attractive young woman and two young men, one of whom is working very hard to appear both brilliant and disinterested.  Astonished by his friend’s continued attraction to Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, he hovers over her, his receding blond hair flopping about as he dismisses both actors with a little mime involving a bent back and a cane.

“But you know who is attractive,” he parries, “Salma Hayek!”

“Salmon eye-hook?”  queries the young lady.

“Salma Hayek!” he corrects her. “I would kill a child to sleep with her.”

And the conversation grinds to a halt.

“Oh, come on!” he brays,  “Not my child!”

And it is time to go.

***

There’s a freshness to the night air, and turning into St. James Square, I am stopped by the beauty.  The proportions of the buildings are strikingly grand; the tall arched windows gently aglow, highlighting the people within.  Evening gowns and tuxedos blur the edges of time to create a painting in motion. 

Continuing up St. James Street it happens again.  Another row of majestic windows framing a champagne toast beneath a portrait of Churchill.  I step over to read the plaque.  The Carlton Club.  Members only for Tory peers, MPs and gentlemen.  Original home to the Conservative Party.  

I step back for another look and a man with a sleeping bag over his shoulder asks if I can spare some change.  He’s trying to get a place to sleep for the night.  I give him some money and we part ways.

I walk these streets a few minutes more, drawn by the beauty.  But there is an emptiness to it.  An ostentation that rankles. 

I head back through Piccadilly and into Soho, up Broadwick Street, past the Blue Posts and through the crowded lanes and alleys to Hazlitt’s, where I pick up my key, climb the four flights of off-kilter steps and make my way to bed, cracking the window just enough to feel the breeze and hear the comforting hum of the people below.

 

 

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Stumbling Past

27 Feb

 

The beginning is always today — Mary Wollstonecraft

 

Early mornings, on my way into work, I’d sometimes venture down the passages off Picaddilly, past the produce barrows and into the narrow lanes of strip joints and sex shops, the half-dressed working girls passing me on their way to breakfast, and then, feeling worldly and dissolute, I would scurry back out, doing both Soho and myself a disservice.

This morning it is all coffee shops and patisseries as I make my way across its square mile.  I’ve learned a little, but not enough to avoid getting lost, for Soho abhors a straight path.  But, being a small place, I eventually find my way to Frith Street and the home of essayist, critic, philosopher and painter William Hazlitt, of whom I know almost nothing.  But, having died in 1830, his home is now mine, at least for the next few days.  Quiet and discreet, I walk past before returning to be buzzed into the hush of this Georgian home.  Mischa, at the desk, greets me warmly, apologizes for not having my room ready hours early, checks me in, takes my bag and sends me on my way to Bar Italia for a cappuccino, and then on into the quiet morning streets.

Reaching the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue I find, to my surprise, Chinatown; the low sun making its way above the buildings and causing the red lanterns to glow above the cobbled lanes crowded with delivery trucks.  Finding my way from Soho to Leicester Square through Chinatown is warming.  A connection made.  For my knowledge of this place is immature, made of fragments gathered in younger years which I’m only now learning to assemble.

*****

The riverside marshes of Lambeth kept it largely undeveloped into the 19th century.  Intervening years have brought changes, but something is said to linger along Lower Marsh Street, the spirit of it’s damp beginnings and the raucous, working class settlement that followed.  And so I head for the Embankment, cross Hungerford Bridge and walk west along the south bank, taking in most of the major tourist attractions on the fly.  The Eye, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, done.  More fascinating are the coffee stands and outdoor bars that have popped up along the way.  I am wooed by the idea of a hot whiskey along the Thames on a brisk winter’s day and, not for the first time, I wish Amy were here.

At Westminster Bridge I hesitate, for the marshes are deeply buried beneath traffic and skyscrapers.  I move back and forth, checking the map until finally, turning down what appears to be little more than a driveway, I pass around an apartment block and through a tunnel beneath the tracks heading toward London Bridge.  There, in the twilight, I find a series of mosaics based on the work of William Blake, who lived out the end of the 18th Century in a nearby home.  Born in Soho, I have unknowingly followed Blake across the river to where I now stand face to face with both his demons and his angels.  Like so much of London, they linger, refusing to be driven out.

Turning onto Lower Marsh, I see neither water nor mud, but I sense a lower elevation, as if the street were a riverbed, along which flows a thriving community.  Shabby but spirited, the businesses seem to feed the lives of the people passing by.

The marshes were replaced, 200 years ago, by pleasure gardens, pubs and theaters.  The Old Vic remains and in the streets behind I stumble across Chaplin Close, named in memory of the little tramp who, the child of music hall performers, lived out his dire, Dickensian childhood here.

Just down the road is the New Vic, where the neighborhood’s historically radical spirit is still proudly worn, and turning into the narrow side streets of small cottages, I pass the home of Mary Wollstonecraft, looking comfortable and unchanged two centuries on.  For a moment we seem to share the same world.  And then I realize we do.

Further on I stumble upon Crossbones, the little patch of land where so many women and children were buried without ceremony.  A community garden, refuge and place of memory, it is open today and I step inside. But for all the greenery, artwork and curious guests, its soul seems to reside along the fence that surrounds it, in the ribbons, notes and remembrances of the struggling and lost.  Looking up I see the Shard in the distance, once again slicing the sky.

Borough Market is crowded, so I move onto Bermondsey.  Like so much of London I remember from thirty years ago, the empty streets and dingy arches have been replaced by bakeries and pop-up bars.  And although I can’t be far from my destination, I still manage to get turned around.  Giving up, I ask for directions and a young woman sends me on my way, traveling further than seems possible to regain the path I had somehow lost.

Jose’ appears on a corner and I work my way in, starting at the window but moving to the bar as things open up.  To my right a couple much older than I share their annual lunch, celebrating their decades of friendship.  To my left three girls young enough to be my daughter drink an astounding amount of red wine.  And before me Stefano, a young man from southern Italy, places jamon, boquerones, patatas bravas and a glass of sherry along with his dreams of New York, where the time is now 8am, which makes this my breakfast.

And as the food disappears, the girls drift away, and a second glass is poured, I think of my own dreams, how life has changed them, and how the magic lies not in their attainment, but in their pursuit.

 

 

 

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Whispers in the Distance

4 Feb

None of this was written in stone… — Kate Tempest

Perhaps it’s the photograph in the hands of my childhood neighbor, Ivy.  She and her sister before the war.  No sky, no grass, just a dark world of cobblestone and brick out of which smiles her little-girl face. “This is London, “she says.  “This is where I’m from.”

Heathrow, this morning, is an efficient surprise.  Passports scanned and I’m out the door in a matter of minutes, humming along on the Piccadilly line with its armrests and padded seats in the early morning darkness, blowing past the suburbs, straining to catch a glimpse of a slowly illuminating England.

It’s hours before I can check-in so, traveling light, I hop off the train a couple stops early.  Coming above ground to walk the streets of St. James I am reminded of the city’s scent, which I love.  As a young man it seemed an elixir of European cigarettes and the perfumes of foreign women.  But there’s more to it now.  The vast number of trees, the long standing buildings with their aged masonry and wood,  and the river.  These aromas I recognize, but of course there are others, still deeper, less familiar.

Passing St. James Piccadilly, I see the doors are open.  A sign says Friday prayers: 8:30 am, which just happens to be the time.  Stepping inside I take a seat toward the back and, lulled by the gentle call and response of a handful of parishioners, take a moment to settle amidst the warmth and simplicity of this, Christopher Wren’s favorite church.  I say a prayer of gratitude for this gentle welcome, then quietly leave through the door opposite the one I entered, left open to allow the neighborhood a shortcut from Jermyn Street to Piccadilly.  Passing through the courtyard and its preparations for the Friday market, I step through the gate and into the world.

The great illuminated signs of Piccadilly Circus stand precariously above the famous intersection, the buildings that have long supported them largely gone, supported by little more than scaffolding and cloth.  The world behind has been hollowed out, leaving London’s famous landmark little more than a facade.

Always a whirlwind of traffic and tourists, this has never been a place to linger.  But it has been a shared space, where friends meet and newcomers find their feet.  This morning it is largely empty, and as the gray skies brood and the lonely neon glows above the wet pavement, I feel a little lost. It all seems so small.

I long to be here, but it’s hard to say why. There’s mystery involved, which makes it hard to talk about, tending to exasperate those who, having made a religion of certainty, pretend to answers that are beyond them.  This would be funny were it not such an efficient way of pushing a pin through the butterfly of life.

I head off in search of Air Street, find it, and turn back for the view through the arches.  Life, framed by structure, to create beauty well over a century before I was born.  And here I stand.

No longer lost, I head into Soho.

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Crossing Waters

22 May

“…it’s a safe wager that half of you never yet have set sail upon that quaint little old uptown ferry, guarded by the venerable ticket seller and his big gray cat, who scans with shrewd and unflinching golden eyes every fare as it is paid.”  — Sarah Comstock, New York Times – June 21, 1914

And it’s a safe wager that over a century later the same could be said of you.

From the 18th Century until the Great Depression, ferries ran from Hallet’s Cove.  The streets of this often bleak and woebegone peninsula, jutting into the East River at the southern edge of Hell Gate, are among the oldest in the city.  Granted to William Hallet by Peter Stuyvesant in 1652, with additional acreage fought over and eventually bought from local Native American tribes, this small nub of land has seen farms, brickworks, British cannons, American forts, 19th century industry, and the fashionable mansions that followed.  And through it all, well into the 20th century, the passengers came, by foot and coach, bicycle and trolley, the rails converging upon Astoria Boulevard before dropping down to the water.  From the Steinway Factory in the north to the busy intersection of Steinway and Broadway to the east, the trolleys rolled down the old thoroughfare to the 92nd Street Ferry Terminal and it’s crossing to Yorkville.

From Long Island City, workers made a similar journey across the river to 34th Street, and then south to Fulton street, convenient to the financial district for those who worked there.  And though, for a price, special boats were run for the more affluent, boss and laborer alike were treated to the morning scent of the Fulton Street fish market.

For decades they thrived, knitting together the disparate peoples of this rapidly growing city.

And then they were gone.  The Long Island Railroad discontinued the 34th Street ferry in 1925, and with the completion of the Triboro Bridge in 1936 the “quaint little old uptown ferry,” despite its continued popularity, had no place in Robert Moses’ vision of the future.  The last of the East River ferries, he personally oversaw the destruction of the 92nd Street Terminal, ripping out the piers so it could never return.

But Robert Moses has failed.  For this morning I walk the ragged streets of Astoria Village down to Hallet’s Cove.  With my NYC Ferries app loaded and ready I step aboard the gleaming white vessel, climb up into the open air and find my seat.  It is not quaint, and I see no cat, but I am on a journey nonetheless, and one well worth taking.  For, surprisingly, the landings of that bygone time have been reborn: Long Island City, 34th St. and Wall Street, with Roosevelt Island thrown in as a bonus.  With connections to other lines, further maritime ports have returned to life: Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Redhook, all the way around to Rockaway.

Plus, they serve beer.

We live among waters.  We travel above and below them without a thought.  The most diverse community in the nation, over half of us crossed untold rivers and oceans to be in this place, where, like the estuary that surrounds us, saltwater meeting fresh, beings from radically different environments thrive.  To travel the surface of the East River as it glistens in the cold  morning light is to the see this world anew.  And  for all the wonder of the trains, buses and bridges that ease our journeys across this city, there is a grace to being on the water, and a humbleness in the recognition that this most basic of elements,  which could so easily divide us, continues to bind us together.

 

An earlier version of this article piece was published in Idlewild Magazine.

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London’s Voice

15 May

 

 

“There are no unsacred places…” — Wendell Berry

Jet-lagged in the morning air, it appears that children have been at play.  St. Giles, once notorious for its desperate poverty, now dances in the morning light, its corporate facades aglow in primary hues.   To my sleep-deprived eyes they look first delightful, then wrong.  A distraction from the past.

We are getting reacquainted, London and I.  It has been awhile and my initial steps are unsure.  Heading east through Shepherds Market as the shops open for business, the streets are lovely.  But no amount of cobblestone can temper the exclusivity, the wealth, the whiff of unwelcome.

Thank god for Soho.  Gaudy and bright, the western streets certainly want to sell me things.  Shoes.  Clothes I will never wear.  All the fantasies of money and youth.  But I am not swayed, and as I make my way to Frith Street, the bling falls away and the old village reveals itself.

Bar Italia is abuzz with people who should be working – deliverymen, construction workers, neighboring shopkeepers, all huddled around the bar chatting with the owner as he hands a bowl of cappuccino to a raven-haired beauty.

“I’ll have one of those,” I say

Eyebrow lifted, he replies,”You mean the coffee or the girl?”

As the laughter fades I settle in.

***

In a way it’s the painters who have brought me here – Walter Steggles, Anthony Eyton, Peri Parkes, the breathtaking Jock McFayden and the brilliant Doreen Fletcher.  London painters, each in their own way capturing time through light.  For time accretes here and then, like paint, it wears away, allowing those with careful eyes to catch a glimpse the layers beneath.

And so, for a few mornings, I set off in search of a glimpse.  With cup of coffee, a warm croissant and only a rough sense of where I’m going, the moments come to me.

Lunch at Pellicis in Bethnal Green where tables are shared, strangers become friends and Nevs, only the third generation to run this cafe in over a hundred years, teases me about my British accent –  “You’re hopeless!” he cries, “Worse than Dick Van Dyke,” before sending me out the door with a free dessert in my pocket.

Kernel Brewery beneath its Bermondsey railway arch.  Beer I’ve been reading about for years but can’t buy in America.  After fervent discussion with the young brewer as well as other fiftyish men, bonding in our way, I make my selection and head back toward civilization.  I try it that night.  It’s OK.

Anna Jordan and Frantic Assembly’s The Unreturning at the Stratford East.  Three men struggling to return home. One of the most amazing theatrical experiences of my life.  Tickets bought on a whim.

The quiet of the Tower Hamlets library on a cold afternoon, the work of some of my favorite painters hung before me without fanfare, as if they were the finalists in a school competition.  Albert Turpin, Noel Gibson, Doreen Fletcher.  I have the room to myself and I take my time.  Getting close.  Taking in the detail.

The long, long walk up the Caledonian Road, the song of the place in my head, and the Sunday Roast at journey’s end.

Stepping onto the roof at dawn to watch the sky turn pink over Christchurch Spitalfields.

And Borough Market, where it all comes together.  The rough welcome under the old stone arches, where trading has gone on for over a thousand years.  The steam coming off the coffee in the morning air.  The sausage rolls, oranges from Spain, cheese that shows me what cheese can be and the bells of Southwark Cathedral, Shakespeare’s parish church, ringing over my shoulder.

A few streets away, unsure of what I’m looking for, I find Cross Bones.

In the 1161 A.D. the Bishop of Winchester ordered that the prostitutes of this parish, from whom he profited, be left to their trade.  They could not be arrested.  Nonetheless, when they died, they were not allowed burial in sanctified ground.  And so their remains, without ceremony, were buried here.

The land continued as a paupers cemetery into the 19th century before being built upon and cleared again and again. Twenty years ago the community reclaimed this small patch as a garden, and then as a memorial to the prostitutes, their babies, and all the outcast dead who have come to rest here.    Finally, in 2015, after more than 800 years, the land was blessed.

I am early and the gates are locked.  But the fence tells its own story, woven with flowers, ribbons, photos and messages.  Remembrances, many of them, of our own outcasts.  Women mostly; abused, struggling, lost.

I am struck by the beauty of the ribbons; faded, fluttering in the wind, their gentle shades warm against the dull winter sky.  And I listen.  Because somehow, in the very silence, this place is speaking.

 

 

An earlier version of this piece appears in the Summer 2019 issue of  Idlewild Magazine.

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Climbing the Alto

9 May

It’s an early, gray sky morning and, the streets are empty.  I know where I’m going because yesterday I made a trial run, wandering up the Viale Guiseppe Verdi, past the the empty movie theater and darkened stores before turning to follow the contours of the Parco delle Terme.  Montecatini Terme is quiet and I soak in the gentleness of this unfamiliar town, the morning mist softening the border between antiquity and myself.

I’ve yet to find my rhythm.  Our hotel on the piazza has a grand, sweeping staircase, graced in its day by Verdi himself, but frequented now by my 9 year old daughter, newly fascinated by this introduction to infinity.  Ascending to our fifth floor room by a slow succession of right angles, we climb together this seemingly endless square, twelve stairs to a landing, thirty six to a floor. Over and over again. The challenge I have set myself to never use the elevator wobbles almost immediately as I chase her up and down, growing ever more aware of my age.

But this morning is mine.  My goal is the Montecatini Alto, the medieval village high above Montecatini Terme.  There is a funiculore, but it’s closed for the season and is now only a small station undergoing renovation at the base of the hill, its long stretch of track disappearing into the distance.  But along side is a road; more of an alley really, pavement giving way to gravel as it climbs past the last few houses to what I had hoped to find.  A trail.

It’s easy at first.  True, it is steep enough to affect my breathing, but there are wide, long steps running alongside a stone wall adorned at intervals by small shrines to the holy mother.  And there, far above, is the ancient fortress of the Alto.

The path turns and continues on its way as the ground slowly disintegrates into a wilderness of reddish stones.  Aspiring to gravel, it remains, at this point in it’s decay, a severe threat to the ankles.  Carefully, step by awkward step, I slowly make my way.  Looking upward, I think of my son.

He would hate this.  It would madden him with it’s pointlessness.  A phantom at my side, he proclaims to the hills:

“This sucks!”

“I know that, but here’s the thing,” I gently reply.  “Look up.  Is that not amazing?  In a matter of minutes we will be in that ancient town.  The views will be breathtaking.  This is how life works,” I say.  “You do something hard, and it makes you feel good.”

He is silent as we continue on.

“This is the secret,” I say, winded now.  “I’m trying to give this to you.”

The wind whispers through the surrounding trees.  I pick an olive from amidst the rubble, and then notice they’re everywhere.  Inedible, though.  Hard, uncured.

Almost as tall as me, I wonder if he will ever be as strong.  As patient.  I wonder if my father thought the same.

Slowly the way begins to ease.  Rocks become pebbles, the path takes a turn, and, surprisingly, I arrive, following the soft dusty path rising to the street that leads into the town.

It is early, few people are about and nothing is open.  Built of stone, the streets are narrow and veer off in precipitous directions.  A lone car passes slowly and after a moment disappears into this sinuous cobblestone world.  I follow, weaving my way, taking every upward turn as I continue to ascend, the fun house streets climbing and dropping all about me.

And then the world levels and opens a bit.  The sky and the surrounding countryside reappear, and I stand atop the remnants of this failed fortress whose alliances shifted with each new battle between the surrounding powers until being finally overrun by Florence and left in ruins by the soldiers of the Medici who, in all likelihood, had marched up the very same trail as I.

How many lifetimes ago?  In how different a world?

The trip down is harder than the ascent, gravity adding a new level of danger to the outsized rubble.  Also, I’m running late and promises have been made.  So I stumble along at speed.

The mist remains as the world levels and I descend into town.  Traffic’s picked up, dogs are being walked, a bus hisses past in the the morning gloom.  Two women in bright yellow windbreakers appear in the distance, out for a run, making their way through the streets I have yet to explore.

But there’s time for that later.  I need to keep moving if I’m going to make it on time.

On time For Heath, his complaints and concerns.

On time for Hallie and her games on the stairs.

On time for the coffee, which, truth be told, is the main reason I’m here.

And on time for Amy, her laughter, and all the joys of this journey shared.

 

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Morning’s At The Corner

20 Dec

I have had the good fortune to be writing for the magazine Idlewild over the past year.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be reprinting some of the pieces originally published there.

When my daughter was very young, and I was sorely lacking in sleep, I would carry her mornings down to Family Corner.  In need of coffee, food and adult voices, I’d drowsily listen as the regulars traded insults with George.  Back and forth, hilariously, they would ride each other.  Warm, raucous and working class, it was the New York of my dreams.

Having just celebrated their 27th anniversary, it’s the kind of place where a young woman brings her own gluten-free pancake mix and they make them for her, and shortly thereafter just add them to the menu.

The kind of place where George, at the end of his day, takes the time to lead a table of out of town visitors to their New York Islanders game.

The kind of place where, on a hot summer’s day, they turn off the ceiling fans to calm a scared little girl.

Along with his father Spyro and brother Phil, George is co-owner and proprietor.  Coming from Greece, after much travail, they settled in Astoria when the brothers were young.  Neighborhood kids, they know a little something about food, home and family.

“That’s my dad, it comes directly from him,” says George.  “He always said ‘get out there, talk to your customers, get to know them.’  In this way your customers become friends.”

As if all this weren’t enough, the food is outstanding, whether you pop in for a cheeseburger, sit down to savor the Pastichio and a bowl of warm Avgolemono, or just treat yourself to two eggs over with a side of hash.  It’s not foodie, pretentious or expensive.  It’s just good.

And if you’re very lucky, there’s Jenni.  Smart, funny and occasionally profane; tough on the outside and all heart within, she is their secret weapon.  Lily and Kristina are wonderful, but Jenni is magic.  She makes bad days good.

My son loves her for the early morning milkshake she made on his 12th birthday, complete with the hand decorated cup we are not allowed to throw away.

My daughter loves how she patiently takes her order, the same thing every time:  pancakes and eggs.

And my wife and I love her for those sleep deprived mornings when we call ahead and she has our favorite booth waiting for us, silverware laid out, coffee poured.

Diners are fading.  In Astoria alone there are whispers that the stately Neptune and gleaming Bel Aire are on their way out.

“Oh yeah, Neptune is gone,” George says, “Gone.”  And he goes on to explain that even a diner doing very well cannot handle the rents a commercial bank will pay, or make nearly as much money as a high-rise apartment building.

But Family Corner remains.  For now.

“What makes us special?” George asks, raising his eyebrows before turning to a young man a couple booths down.

“Hey you.  What do you like about Family Corner?”

“It tastes good.”

“It tastes good.”  George smiles, shrugging his shoulders. “There you go.”

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Waters

20 Jul

The helicopter came out of the sky, pushing water and sand before it.  Three friends had swum out into the waves but only two had come back.  A line was forming.  Pulling off my shirt and kicking off my shoes, I joined, wading out into the water and taking a stranger’s hand.  Others moved past, extending our reach into deeper waters.  And then, on a whistle from the beach, I began to move with the others, shuffling along the sandy bottom, hoping my feet were not the first to touch flesh.

“Over here!” A shout from farther out.  And then rescue workers running from the beach, splashing through the waves, huddling for a moment, then quickly moving back to land.

I cannot remember if we were urged to leave, or if we just instinctively knew we were no longer needed, but as I headed back to our cottage I saw the medics working on the young man, his body gray as the water they’d pulled him from.  Wrapping him in blankets, they ducked their heads as the helicopter reared into the sky.  Then, lifting together, they moved toward the waiting ambulance.

Sixteen years old, father gone and my aunt dying across the road, I turned and headed back to our final days together.

* * *

The water is warm this year, and Heath can’t get enough of it.  At dusk we wade in.  Hidden by clouds, the sunset is not spectacular, but it’s doing its best working with a gentler palette.  Pastels rather than oils.  To the north, stripped of its catwalk and fenced off for renovation, the pier is a line on the water, its lighthouse and pierhead stark against the sky, the excavator, surrounded by supplies, shadowed and sleeping.   To the south, high and bright, the moon lights the sky and dapples the water.

Having started in the shallows, Heath pushes into deeper water, far beyond where he’s gone before.  I’m out here with him, chest deep, and though it’s relatively calm, there is a swell, and when the waves wash up toward my head there is a giddy moment when I lose my feet and have to struggle, gently, to regain control.

“Heath, do you feel that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I can swim, you can’t.  If that was a little bit stronger we’d be in trouble.”

“I know, ” he says.  But he doesn’t.

“Come on,” I say, “let’s head back in a bit.”

“No.”

“No?”

It takes me a moment, thrown by the outright defiance.  But then I see what’s drawing him.  The buoy, a little farther out, marking the end of safe water.

I wait, rising and falling.  Then I say, “I’ve never been out this far.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  I’ve never touched that buoy.”  I pause. “You should go first.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

And he does.  Lunging forward three or four steps, up to his neck now, and grabbing hold.  I come up behind him and touch it as well.

“You did it,” I say.  He’s quiet, so I am too.  The water’s still warm, but a breeze has picked up and the air’s cool.  Dark now, the moon’s light is a path on the water, dancing gold that leads straight to us.

“Come on,” I say.  “Let’s head back in.”

“No,” he says, turning away, moving toward shallower water.

I glance up to the parking lot.  The tractor is out, brightly lit, clearing away the sand.

“I’m not sure what time the park closes.  They’ll be shooing us out soon.”

He hesitates, then continues on, saying, “Look, why don’t you walk along the beach and I’ll stay in the water until I get down to the car.”

Which seems fair, so I do, wading ashore, finding my shirt, and then following his shadow as it moves through the water.

* * *

On our way back to New York, we stop in my hometown for a small reunion.  A sunny afternoon with my mom and her friends, who are, without fail, striking in the grace with which they have aged.

My old friend Terri stops by. It’s been almost thirty years but, surprisingly, this matters not at all.  Talking of our lives simply reminds me what friendship used to be.  It was everything.  And despite all the time that has passed, we are little changed.  Certainly, we are every minute of our ages, but we are also still sixteen.  When we hug, I don’t want to let her go.

Driving away that afternoon, the sun low over the fields, the kids quiet in the back, miles from lake or sea, I think about waters.  Those we come from, those we return to, and all the people, arm in arm, who see us through this life.

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Fireflies

12 Jul

Last night the fireflies appeared, three or four at a time, flashing in the waning light.  I called out and the kids came running.

“Wow! Dad, Dad, look!” Hallie, pointing, charges across the yard, only to lose the light.  Then, turning, pointing and shouting, she runs again.  A shadow in the dusk, Heath searches for a flash, moves toward it, gently scoops the small creature onto his hand and watches until, suddenly, it flies away.

This scrubby lawn and the small garden that surrounds it, shaded by our Magnolia tree and contained by the planks and walls of our neighbors’ yards, has grown, each year, a little more mine.  A patch of the world I try to make better, dreaming life into the thick clay soil.

The first year, planting late, I managed a bit of basil and garlic.  The following year, composting for the first time, everything came up cherry tomatoes.  Confused, but heartened by the fertility, last year I got an early start and planted a bit of everything.  Once again, cherry tomatoes.  So this year I stepped back.  Mowing and planting less, but watching more, I did my best to listen to whatever it is this place is trying to tell me.  By doing so, I’ve managed a small harvest of sugar snap peas, a lot of questionable garlic, 4 small tomato plants, something that may be leeks, and, up in the kitchen window, thyme, sage, and marjoram coming on strong.  My compost, long a dry, lifeless thing, is now dark and moist, writhing with worms.  And of course, in the evening, there are fireflies.

“I think it’s hurt,” Heath says, kneeling down toward the grass where, dimly, a light glows and fades. He lowers his arm and the small creature climbs on.

“What should we do?”  he asks.

I have no idea.

It’s a process.  With manure, compost, soil and leaves I work each year to build a better soil.  I don’t know what I’m doing.  Not really.  But I’m learning.  And in the past few days little purple flowers have blossomed about the yard as never before.  It seems wildflowers do prefer things a little bit wild.

Later, in the hammock, Hallie cuddles close.  “What’s that?” she asks, pointing to the lighted windows above.

“That’s the kitchen,” I say, as Amy’s shadow passes by.  “And that is you and your brother’s room.”

“What?”

“That’s where Heath is.”

She looks up at the window, and for a moment she’s still.  The hammock’s rocking slows.  Then, as the  fireflies dance, she takes my arm and wraps it around her body.

Lying in the darkness, I think about her joy, which is effortless.  I think about her brother’s tenderness, and how hard he works to keep it hidden.  And I think of the world that awaits them.

 

 

 

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Kindred

3 Jun

 

This is what I remember.

Dave’s Robin, I’m Batman.

The candy store with Aunt Barb.  Pop, candy, gliders and parachutes.

Breaking down just shy of Mackinac.  Fan belt on a Sunday.  Sitting under a tree while Dad waits for the mechanic to get home from church.  Dave curled up in Mom’s lap.  The wind in their hair.

Amy coming home for the first time.  Dad holding her in the air. Her giggles.

Crawling all over me as I try read.

The time she stopped breathing.

David falling off his bike on the way to Quik-Pik.  Scratched watch and scraped hands.  So angry, because now Mom will find out.

A thimble-full of soda, Dad’s popcorn and Carol Burnett.  Sitting in our pajamas, laughing on the floor beside him.

Blood through the hands that rush Amy inside.

“Don’t pick her up! Don’t pick her up!”  But he does.

The cast on her leg.

The weight of it.

The scar that wraps all the way around.

Years later, making her up, pale and bloody.  Walking her to the neighbors.  “I think something’s wrong.”

Scouring the beach with Dave for butts.  Kools.  You get them wet and a number appears.  If it’s smaller than 32, you win.

Smoking corn silk on the back porch with our corn cob pipes.  Earlier attempts at rolling our own had not gone well.  We used toilet paper.  Singed eyebrows, burnt bangs.

Yanking a perch out of the water so hard it flies, wrapping round and round the catwalk.

All the toys under his bed.  Unopened and untouched.

Terry (and David).

The endless games of bedroom basketball.

Chewing with their mouths open, smacking away.

Amy disgusted beyond belief.

Which was the point.

All of us holding out the army surplus parachute when Rod takes off, running like hell as the boat guns it, then sitting down hard as the harness takes his legs out from under him and he bounces across the beach and into the lake for a face full of water before finally, finally lifting to the sky.  Swinging wildly from side to side, he almost makes it.

Terry with a golf club.  Just a kid.  But we run for our lives.

Swapping his empty glass for David’s full one.  Repeatedly.  Dave never catching on.

Barb’s funeral and David disappearing.  Karen finding him, walking him through it.

His swim across the lake.  Me rowing beside him.

Our walks through the woods.

Staying with Amy and her roommate when I move to Chicago.  Robbing the same apartment months later when he stiffs her on rent. A camera.  Some cassettes.  Back when cassettes were worth stealing.

Her dating a drummer.  Me pretending it’s OK.

Leaving David at Connolly Station and running back to Moore Street to get the best price on Toblerone, because when you’re in Dublin and you can’t walk, that’s what’s important.

Genoa, lost for a while, then finding the restaurant.  Tasting both pesto and gnocchi for the very first time.

Separating the next day so he can rush back to London to catch his plane home.

Such a long way to go all by himself.

Driving out from Chicago on the weekends.  Breakfast with Dave at the Village Kitchen.  I order the Z:  2 Hot Cakes, 2 eggs, toast, hash browns, and choice of meat.  For a while, those weekends are home.

Canoeing before his wedding.  Salmon racing through shallow water.

The deer I see the morning after.  Standing in the mist.

Moving us to New York.  Getting that couch up the stairs.

Blue blazers, khakis and the walk to Khardomah.

My wife holding up her phone so Amy, too pregnant to fly, can hear the sounds of her little brother getting married.

The closeness.  And the laughter.

Like nothing else.

But the storm’s coming across the lake, and the wind’s whipping the curtains as thunder rolls out of the west.  In the darkness, visible in flashes,  David is asleep in the bed next to me and Amy’s on the cot against the wall.  Terry’s down the hall with Mom and Dad, but the thunder will have to get much louder before I run through the darkness to join them.  Aunt Barb’s by the stairs, Gram’s across the hall and Aunt Pat’s one room farther along.  All of them asleep, but near.  So I cuddle in and close my eyes, and never once imagine it will be any other way.

 

 

 

 

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