The photographs were interesting, old black and white snapshots of various comrades in arms, all of them looking young and thin and some of them staring at the camera with posed grins that could not do much to hide their fear. There were pictures of different girls from back home with catchy notes on the back. “Hi Blackie. Thinking of you.” “This is my friend Janet that I wrote you about. She’s cuter in person.” “For you, doll.” Things like that.
I didn’t recognize anyone in the photos except my father, my uncle Vincent and Benny.
There were also a lot of letters Blackie received when he was overseas, many of them from his sister Anna. I wasn’t interested in reading them just then.
In a large brown envelope I found poetry and a few short stories my father wrote. I knew they were written when Blackie was in the service because he dated everything. I thumbed through them, brittle old pages that were so delicate to the touch I thought they might crumble in my hands. I remembered Blackie telling me that he wanted to be a writer when he was young, but that he’d given up on that and thrown away everything he wrote long ago. Now here it was, a portrait of the failed artist as a young man. It made me feel like crying, so I slipped the pages back inside the big brown envelope. I decided to read those later too.
There were other things, from after the war. More photos, papers from his days as a liquor salesman, old driver’s licenses and so on. And then I saw the white, letter-sized envelope. He had written on it, “For My Son.”
That one stopped me cold.
I turned the envelope over in my hands a few times, as if there was some ceremony I should follow before I tore it open. I was only going to get to do this once in my life, open this and read it for the first time, the last words I would ever hear from my father. I studied the thing carefully for what felt like a long time, wondering what it might contain, then began to carefully pull the flap away.
Some of the envelope tore as if came apart, so I worked around the edge in case I might be ripping whatever was inside. Then I took out the letter. It consisted of two pages, with a date on top of the first, just over a month before Blackie died. His handwriting was as familiar to me as my own.
Dear son,
If you’re reading this, then I’m probably gone, and since I have no intention of passing on for quite a while, this letter may not come into your hands until many years from today. I mention this, because it could mean that some of what I’ve got to say won’t make any sense by then. I’m sorry to sound mysterious, but I need to be careful. You’ll also need to be careful.
Up to now things haven’t worked out for me as well as I wanted. I’ve told you from time to time that I had something really big in the works. The only people who know the truth about it are Benny and an old friend you’ve never met. And now you.
When Benny and I took the Money in France we knew the risks. We knew it was even possible we might never be able to use it. We’ve waited a very long time to make our move and Benny tells me he wants no part of it anymore. You know Benny, he’s always been my anchor, so I’ve got to give careful thought to his advice. I’m not making a move until he and I straighten things out.
In the meantime, if anything should happen to me, I want to be sure you have it. In a way you already do. You’re my son, and what’s mine is yours.
So talk to Benny. If Benny’s not around you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. Even though I never told you much about my time in France, I know you can pull it all apart and piece it together because you’re a smart young man.
Be careful. There could be trouble about this and that’s the one thing I don’t want for you. Your mother has spent your whole life worrying that I would drag you into my world, but I think you know I never would have allowed it. This is something different. I may not have done everything I wanted for you, but please believe that I did the best I could. Maybe I can make things better with this.
I expect you to do the right thing. I know you will. If you have any doubts, just remember that song you loved as a little boy—things are seldom what they seem.
Dad
I stared at the letter, at his handwriting, at what appeared to be water stains at different places on the pages, little drops that made it look like the paper had been left out in the rain for a few seconds. It left a few of the words blurry, but I could still read them, even if my eyes were getting blurry too.
Looking back, I can’t recall every thought that ran through my head that evening, but I know they were all bumping into each other like a bunch of people in a pitch black room, rushing around, looking for a light switch. There were images of my father, of course, impressions of so many moments, good and bad. I tried hard to imagine him writing this to me—when and where and how he looked and felt at the time—but for some reason that made me feel even worse. And then I was hit with the stark truth, the knowledge that this was it. This really was the last thing he would ever say to me.
I had trouble breathing without my chest catching each time it heaved up and down. I read the letter again, slowly. It really did not tell me much, except that I’d have to talk with Benny. Benny, who I hadn’t seen since my father’s funeral, six years before. Benny, who my father was telling me, didn’t want any part of whatever this was about.
I placed the paper down and stared out at nothing at all, my entire focus somewhere inside, stumbling around in that dark room.
Then I thought, If I show this to Benny, maybe he’ll change his mind.
CHAPTER THREE
My father and Benny hung out in the same crowd when they grew up in the Bronx, but they didn’t become really close friends until they went into the service together. As soon as they came of age, which was a couple of years after Pearl Harbor, they enlisted in what used to be called the Army Air Forces, with the hope of becoming fighter pilots.
Blackie told me stories about his fly-boy days over India, but it turns out they were pure invention. When I went through the papers in the box I learned he never earned his wings. Benny filled in some blanks later. Turned out, neither of them even made it through preliminary flight training.
They began in a classification program at a base just outside Nashville, then shipped out to Maxwell Field for air cadet training. When Benny got into a scrape with a couple of infantry grunts at a local tavern, his Commanding Officer politely explained how the Army Air Corps was not looking for some hothead to be jockeying their expensive airplanes over Germany. Then he politely showed him the door. My father had his own problems, finding it a chore to keep up with the tedious classroom work that was far too much like school for his taste. He was more interested in dressing up in his clean, pressed uniform and chasing the local skirts, which led to some miserable scores when exam time rolled around. He received the bad news when the results were posted on the barracks wall. His name was, as Benny explained, below the line.
After washing out of aviation cadet training, they were both assigned to a ground support detail, stationed in India. Shipped off to a place called Chabua, Assam, they reported to a unit known as the India-China Division of the Air Transport Command. Blackie and Benny were not exactly in the thick of the fighting, unless someone can recall Hitler making a big putsch to seize Calcutta.
Blackie never rose above the rank of Private during his tour in India. According to the discharge records I found in the box, the most dangerous assignment he ever pulled was as Radio Operator, a position he applied for when he tired of training as an interpreter. That one really got me, the thought of my father as an interpreter in India. I wondered what he was interpreting and for whom.
Sometime in the summer of 1944, shortly after the D-Day invasion, Benny was sent off to Marseilles. My father was transferred there a few months later, joining his friend in the south of France. According to Blackie’s records, his military career took a substantial turn there. He and Benny were attached to a unit investigating sabotage, su
bversive activities and war crimes. Their specific assignment was to locate and recover valuable artifacts taken by the enemy during the Occupation.
My father never told me much about those last four months, but the one thing he brought back from the war, other than the pocketful of medals and ribbons I found in the box, was an oil painting of the countryside near a town called Gourdes in Provence. It’s nothing special, just a landscape that hung in our living room all through my childhood.
I was surprised the picture had any history at all. “I brought this back from France, from when I was in the service,” he told me when they were moving to their little house in Yonkers. Up to then, the painting was just one of those things that your parents have that you don’t bother to think about, like one of those old lamps I noticed in my mother’s living room.
I said, “You never told me about that.”
“I guess not,” he said. “Anyway, I want you to have it. Just promise you’ll never get rid of it.”
I promised, took it back to my apartment, and it’s been hanging in my bedroom ever since.
As for Benny, I think I mentioned that the last time I saw him was when Blackie died. He came to the wake and sat alone in the back of the funeral parlor, mourning in his private way. Other than my mother and sisters and me, I think he was the saddest person there.
My mother was not as touched about his sorrow as I was, mostly because she believed that Benny and the rest of my father’s cronies represented the worst part of Blackie’s life. She graciously thanked those who attended the services, but after that was done, she told me she never wanted to see any of them again. And we never did. Benny was the only one of Blackie’s friends who came to the church for the Requiem Mass and then to the cemetery, but after that he also disappeared from our lives.
My father had told me more than once that Benny was his best friend. He also said that Benny was a straight shooter, an important distinction according to Blackie. He believed that straight shooters always win in the end, and that they were the only guys you should ever trust. When I read the letter from my father telling me about his last Big Plan, I was glad it was Benny he pointed me to for help.
I remembered hearing that Benny and his wife had moved away a few years back, but Benny was not the kind of guy you were going to find in the phone book. This was before the internet age, where everyone is findable, so my options were limited. I knew my cousin Frank still had contact with Blackie’s old crowd, having entered the “life,” as they called it. He probably would know where Benny had settled, or at least have a way to find out. Since I had no such contacts, the only problem was the thought I might have to give Frank a call.
***
FIRST, I CONTACTED A FRIEND at the phone company. As I feared, she came up empty in her effort to find Benny, as did my second and third attempts to locate him.
It was becoming clear I was going to have to call Frank. I simply did not have another way to get to Benny and, after reading my father’s letter for the twentieth time, Benny was the person I had to speak with.
It was not easy to bring myself to ask Frank for anything, even something as simple as a phone number. Over time, he had become more like Blackie, something my father encouraged. Frank was now making his living in the same world Blackie had occupied, which meant our lives had moved further and further apart, until there was nothing left between us but family history. I suppose a therapist could spend ten years trying to convince me I was jealous of the attention and approval he received from my father for becoming a hoodlum, but what the hell would that get me?
Deciding there was no choice, I phoned Frank’s place in Florida, listened to the infuriatingly cheerful message on his answering machine, and left my number. I spent the rest of the evening reading through my father’s thirty-five-year-old short stories until I finally fell into an uneasy sleep. Very much a creature of habit, I still managed to wake up early and, as I got ready to go to the office, Frank called.
“Hey,” he greeted me, “I’m in New York, why the hell did you call me in Lauderdale?”
The better question was, Why would I have any idea where he was, since we hadn’t spoken in a couple of years? But his tone made it clear I was the moron for wasting a long-distance call down south, so all I could think of to say was, “You’re in the city?”
“Yeah, I’ve been here on business since Friday. Get up here all the time.”
I really didn’t want any more information than that about what he did, even if I was tempted to ask why I never heard from him if he was in town so often. I said, “I was wondering if you know where I could find Benny these days.”
“That’s it?” he asked with a forced laugh. “Don’t you want to know how I’ve been? No catching up on the family?”
“Sorry. How’ve you been?”
He ignored the question. “Benny, huh? Some sort of reunion I haven’t been invited to?”
“Not exactly. My mother’s moving down your way next month.”
“I heard. That’ll be great for her.”
“I hope so,” I said, not bothering to ask how he’d heard about my mother.
“What’s that got to do with Benny?” He laughed into the phone. “Your mother’s leaving town and you’re suddenly lonely for the old crew?”
“Updating my Christmas card list,” I said.
“Come on, cuz. What gives?”
I took a deep breath. “My mother was going through some things. Found a note from my father, said I should keep in touch with Benny. Made me feel bad I hadn’t talked to him for so long.”
Frank uttered a soft whistle. “A note from Blackie? After all these years? No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
He told me he’d find out where Benny had gone and get me the info, then asked me to meet him at Benson’s Steak House for lunch.
I was too busy wondering why I’d been stupid enough to mention anything about the letter to turn down his invitation.
Relationships can be strange.
After we hung up I stood in front of my bedroom closet, deciding what to wear.
I don’t normally get dressed up for work, not in the traditional sense of suits and ties. The advertising game is supposed to be a blend of business and art, so it’s important to keep one foot in each of those worlds so people know you’re into the program. You’ve got to look chic without appearing seedy. Successful but not corporate.
Today was different. I was going to see my cousin for lunch, and I wanted to look good. I realize that might sound odd, but I assumed Frank was making barrels of dough running whatever scam he was running at the time, and I didn’t want him to think I was some broken-down Working Stiff.
I will not get into the bell-bottom pants and colorful shirts we wore in those days, one of those embarrassing memories from the era. Be assured, I chose my best suit, which was a conservative navy blue, a white shirt and a fancy red tie with funny little blue characters on it. I think men look best in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and red tie—not counting tuxedos, of course, but a tuxedo for lunch would have been overkill.
After an uneventful morning in the office—I had no enthusiasm for work that day—I got to Benson’s just after one o’clock. I knew that Frank would be late, because that’s one of the many affectations of any Serious Guy. They’ve got to be late to prove they’re involved in some big action, something more important than arriving on time to meet you. I bet Frank shows up late for his first appointment of the day.
Back in the seventies, Benson’s was a Manhattan rendition of an old-fashioned saloon, with paneled walls and soft lights, the sort of place that’s tough to find anymore. I sat on one of the wooden stools at the large, square oak bar, said hello to the bartender and ordered Gibson on the rocks to keep me company. He served the drink in a heavy tumbler with small, crunchy cocktail onions and, by the time Frank breezed through the do
or, I’d made most of my way through that first cocktail.
On an empty stomach, except for the onions, I was feeling pretty good.
Frank looked all right, although he’d gained a few pounds since I’d last seen him. He and I were always the trim guys in the family, so it surprised me to see him filling out around the middle. He was still handsome, with dark hair and eyes like my father and uncle, but with better features than either of them, including a straight, smallish nose that he won in the gene pool from his mother’s side of the family. He had a deep Florida tan and a big, white-toothed smile that he used quite often, as if he just thought of a punch line to a joke he isn’t telling you.
“Hey cuz,” he said as I stood to greet him. He wrapped me in a bear hug, then took me by the shoulders and held me at arms length, giving me the once over. “Nice suit,” he said “but where’d you get that tie? Looks like you’re going to assembly in grade school.”
I shook my head slightly. “Good to see you too,” I told him as I sat back down on my stool.
He was dressed in a white silk shirt left open at the neck, dark trousers and a pair of expensive loafers that had cost some reptile its life. He had a cotton sweater hanging off his shoulders, just like in GQ. “Let’s have a drink,” he said.
“I’m already working on one.”
“You been here long?”
“Nah,” I said, looking at the large glass that was empty but for the remaining ice. “I was just thirsty.”
Frank smiled again. I don’t think I’ve seen him laugh since he was seventeen or so, but he smiled like crazy.
He ordered a Chivas on the rocks. I sucked the last of the vodka from the ice cubes and asked for another.
“It’s really great to see you,” he said.
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