NEARING CHRISTMAS BREAK in 1964, 13 inches of snow blanketed my street on a Friday evening. The next morning, I mushed over to Central Park towing my sled through the middle of the street. Milking the day to the last of the light, I rode every hill until my feet froze.
Back from the sleigh ride, I plopped down on the hall stairs and began undressing. Working my top layer off, I heard Dad coming up the stairs. “Damn, I forgot the suit.” Noticing me, he said, “Tommy here’s the ticket, hurry to the cleaners.”
“Ooh,” left my mouth as I dramatized the act of rising slowly. “Go!” Dad ordered.
I death-marched down the stairs. Dad behind me. “Faster! They’re going to close.”
When I got there, Joe, the manager, was turning off the lights. “Come in Tommy, be quick, I want to get out of here.”
Deed done, I earned a slow meandering trek through every snow pile between the store and my building. Walking deliberately, I was
Hannibal’s elephant moving over the Alps, going knee deep with every step. I moved the suit to the back of my pea coat, resting the hanger’s hook on the back of my collar. My serpentine trip created desire paths over each snow pile and stretched my five-minute trip home to half an hour.With the satisfaction of a Sherpa’s job well done, I danced a jig and ran up the stairs. Dad greeted me at the door. “Where the hell were you?” I said nothing and turned my back, offering Dad his suit from its resting place on the nape of my neck. I ran into the bathroom and worked off two layers of long johns just in time. Back in the kitchen, Dad met me face to face holding up the suit.
“Nice jacket.Where are my pants?” “Huh,” I mumbled. “My pants.Where are my pants?” A clothes hanger never had as thorough an examination as the one I put that hanger through. The pants were not on it, in it; on top it, under it. The jacket, the jacket was good.Two sleeves, pressed, cleaned, all that. But the pants, the pants made no appearance. I was the baffled volunteer from the audience looking for the rabbit in the hat and finding it unbelievable it was gone.
Dad put his slacks on and said, “Let’s go.” Down we descended, third, second, first floor, front steps, no pants.
Dad asked, “So which way did you walk exactly?” This is where it got tricky. I set a record for a dramatic pause. My mouth agape, he asked again, “Exactly.Where. Did.You.Walk?” Words failed me. I’d experienced too many fruitless experiences responding to similar requests from my father, trying to answer unanswerable questions, to even begin thinking about opening my mouth. Left with nothing to say I showed him my exact path. Every step. At one point, I did the cha-cha one up, two back, one up. I was possessed. I mirrored my entire walk never measuring how pissed off my path of greatest resistance home was making him. When Dad and I had these special moments an eerie stillness set in. No yelling, no accusations. Only the look with sharp orders.
“Stop.” “Go left.” “Here?” Hill after hill we climbed towards the avenue, policing the grounds. Despite the fact Dad’s pants were charcoal and the streets contained nothing but white snow, he insisted we walk very slowly.You couldn’t miss ’em. Walking back to our building, same story. Every hill walked with the look and the short barked orders. After one last look under the car directly in front of the house, we entered the lobby and began our ascent to the apartment. Passing through the door, Dad went directly over to his jacket on the hanger with the plastic still on it. Dad held it up and then draped it over his arm. I think he was saying goodbye. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw him talk to the jacket.
“We have closed many bars together, old friend.” Dad sighed, “I will miss the way the secretary at Pepsi looked at you, on me, when we did our sales calls.”
Dad said no more about the suit. Two weeks later, I was playing in front of my house and Dad came walking up the street. Getting closer, I saw he had on a charcoal jacket.
Oh God, I thought, he bought the same suit again.
“Hi Dad, is that the suit? It looks great.
Did you buy it again?” “Nope, same suit.” Dad said with a smile, “Every suit comes with two pairs of pants.”
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