Steel (23 page)

With that, the charm of it all returned. No point in dark conjectures about the mystery of an eighty-two-year-old man at bay in his own past. Enjoy yourself, I thought.

And so I did. Strolling down the Flatbush Avenue I recalled, newly moved by the sight of each spot I remembered vividly—at least when I saw it again. Loft's Candy. We used to buy a package the size of a pound of butter in which was a thin layer of frozen strawberries, a thicker layer of vanilla ice cream. Enough for three, my sister, mother, and me, or four if my older brother Bob showed up,
five
if his fiancée, Mary, accompanied him. God, I thought. Any of my kids—John, Arthur, Miriam—could have single-handedly devoured the entire package.

Across the way was the high school Barbra Streisand had attended. At first, I couldn't remember its name. Why not? I remembered Mrs. Ottolengui's name. Then it came to me.
Erasmus.
He was what? A mathematician? A philosopher? Greek probably.
So what?
I thought. Too many mixed-up, meaningless recollections.
Concentrate!
I ordered myself.

Which is when it occurred to me that Erasmus extended all the way to Bedford Avenue, a block away. How could that be?
Did
the past effect stretch that far? Had I merely been, for some unknown reason, a traveler back to an entire location? Was I in Brooklyn
completely?
If I took a BMT subway train downtown would it all be there?
For God's sake!
came the stunned notion. I might get so enmeshed in the past that I could never get back to that damned window. Then what? An eighty-two-year-old man from the year 2009 trapped in the year—what year
was
it?

I took a chance, risky or not. I stopped an old lady who looked kind. “Excuse me, ma'am,” I said. “I'm lost. Could you tell me where I am?”

“Brooklyn, of course,” she answered. “Flatbush.”

“Ah,” I said. “And it's nineteen hundred—?”

Her lips pursed. Now I'd irritated her. “
Forty-one
,” she said as though addressing an aggravating child.

“Forty-one,” I said.

“
Yes
,” she said, “and, if you're lost, you'd better tell a policeman.”

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

She gave me a look which seemed to be one of suspicious curiosity. I didn't want to intrude on her any longer so I repeated my thanks and continued on down the sidewalk of 1941 Flatbush Avenue. I was pleased that I had (successfully, it appeared) invaded the past without repercussion. Of course, I had displeased that old lady—at the end of our brief exchange she'd grown cautious.
Why?
I wondered. Was my 2009 outfit so different? Or was it simply that my queries had been peculiar, even suspect?

I had to put that out of my brain. It was getting cluttered there. I stared at Erasmus as I walked, remembering, at that moment, that a few doors down from its Bedford Avenue side was the Jewish temple, (I recalled the sound of their chanting through their open back doorway) and, a few doors down from them, my aunt and uncle's house, next to that the two-story office building where they did cleaning and where they took me one evening with my cousin Frances to look at the mass of axed pinball machines, the result of a local police attack. And on the first floor was the ice-cream parlor where I bought Gob's ice cream cones—

Too much!
My brain was being consumed by unnecessary memories again! I had to control them! I
had
to. I washed them off with deliberate focus. I was on Flatbush Avenue. I'd keep my self—and brain—exclusively there, enjoy the nostalgic sights, not let my brain go haywire with mobbing remembrances.
Good.
I would not dream of ringing the doorbell of my aunt and uncle's house. Assuming, as I now did, that the house was actually there, what impossible complications would arise if they answered the door? A slough of incredible explanations consumed my brain. Yes, I know I'm eighty-two, but I'm really fifteen; I'm your nephew Richard. I'm here from the year 2009. I went out a window in a house on Church Avenue and—lo and behold!—I'm in 1941. Strange, isn't it?

Impossible, isn't it?
I thought. Time traveling into one's past had to impose certain rules, certain limitations. One of which is: Don't try to think too much. Don't try to contact anybody.
Just be an observer.

All right, all right. I got it. So down Flatbush Avenue I strolled, an observer in time.
Only.

I went back to Loft's Candy and smiled at the display of candy boxes in the window. Most of them were for Easter. It must be April, then. A weekday in April judging from the movement of students in and out of Erasmus. The memory (I had to assume it was valid) that Miriam's three boys were also in school.
Sixty-eight years hence!
That thought startled me. I blotted it out and continued my walk of memories. Before I left, I looked at my reflection in Loft's window. Still old, still white bearded.

Next, the pancake restaurant. A visual delight. I smiled as I watched the narrow stream of batter pour down on the revolving griddle. Watched the circles of batter—all perfect in size—bubble as they moved on the turning grill, then were flipped over as a spatula appeared magically to do so. And, at the end of this wondrous spectacle, another spatula, even more miraculously, placed three pancakes on each waiting plate. I watched this for about fifteen minutes, my face, I'm convinced, bathed with a constant smile.

Then it suddenly came to me that close by—nearly
too
close—was the stairway leading up to the second-floor dress suit rental shop and the third-floor apartment where I'd lived during much of my early high school years with my mother, sister, and brother. I say too close because it snatched back the adversity of time travel. If I went up those stairs and knocked on the door, would my mother open it? She might be working at Ebinger's Bakery, my sister at Abraham & Straus. What if
I
answered the door? Such an enigma was beyond calculation. He would stare at me, no doubt blankly. I would be speechless. Or, worse, babble some sort of stupid remark. “Sorry, son, I thought this was the tuxedo rental place.” Utterly stupid. Could he possibly guess that I was an aged version of him? How could he? In any event, the moment would be embarrassingly awkward, or worse, frighteningly revealing. Most likely horrifying to both of us, especially me. No, forget that possibility. Just keep walking. God forbid I should ever confront my younger self during this incredible wandering. No, I'd just walk on.

Next block. Grant's five-and-ten. I crossed the street I used to walk to school on. Was P.S. 119 still there? I didn't mean
still
, I meant
now.
No point in trying to reach it. What for? The long walk to it—at least three quarters of a mile—would surely catapult me back to 2009. Then what? Try climbing out that window again? (Assuming it was even there.) Surely it wouldn't work a second time.

No, stay on Flatbush Avenue. Observe. Don't take any risks of losing this remarkable experience. God forbid trying to buy a souvenir. That would be a terrible mistake.

Grant's again. My aunt and cousin Vivian used to shop there the day after Thanksgiving. Or was it the day after Christmas? I couldn't remember which. Taking advantage of what they called rummage sales. Useless articles. At cut-rate prices.

On the next block down was Woolworth's, another five-and-dime store. And across the avenue was the small grocery store where, I recalled, during some kind of strike, buying a quart of milk for a nickel. And Pechter's rye bread for nine cents. And a pumpernickel for thirteen cents.
Stop that
, I told my crowding brain.
Just look. Don't dwell on memories of food.
Like a trio of cream-filled cupcakes for a dime. Like Dusky Dan stone-hard caramel lollipops for—

Stop!
I ordered my losing-control brain. Just …
stop.

But I couldn't. Past recollections kept infusing my consciousness. Merkel's Meat Market across the avenue. A pound of bacon ends for nineteen cents. How I loved the sandwiches my mother made from toasted wheat bread and fried bacon ends and mayonnaise. I devoured them for lunch in high school. If I ate one now, at eighty-two, the combination would nauseate me. But
then
 …

And the fruit and vegetable store at the corner. I literally visualized my customary purchase, a nickel's worth of “soup greens,” a full-size grocery bag loaded with carrots and onions and turnips and—

Jesus Christ, cut it out!
I begged my brain.
Just look!
But I couldn't control it. On the next block, the Loew's Kings where I saw the Marx Brothers in
A Day at the Races.
Further down, the Rialto theatre where I saw
Gone With the Wind
in its later run. The Chinese restaurant, the bowling alley. Was there no end to this? Was that the peril of time travel? At least, the time travel I was immersed in. I had to stop; simply had to stop this endless discharge of pointless memories, this brainless gushing of trivia. But
how?
I stopped walking and pleaded with myself.
Do something right
, I begged.

Then it occurred to me.

Adeline.

Of course! How had I missed it? If there was any reasonable
point
to all this, it was Adeline, my first and only love. But where was she? Was it possible that she was, as I always remembered her, sitting on the porch of the Bedford Avenue apartment house?

Directly across the avenue from the third-floor apartment I lived in with my mother and sister? The third-floor apartment where I stood at the window of my mother's bedroom, looking across the way? Staring at Adeline.

Why had I never had the courage to cross the avenue and speak to her? Why, when I was totally in love with her? Remember, I was fifteen years old. There would be other females in my life. Jane on Long Island. Lucille in Brooklyn. Mary at college. Agnes in my life. But none compared to Adeline. My angel. I always thought of her that way.

Once, I stood right next to her in the delicatessen around the corner. Did I say hello? Say anything at all? I did not. I stood beside her in mute adoration, paralyzed by love.

I had to speak to her now. I
had
to!

Blindly—it was a marvel that I wasn't flattened on Flatbush Avenue, although I certainly evoked a number of outraged car horns and one clanging trolley car bell—I rushed up Albemarle Road. I had no idea whether Bedford Avenue was waiting for me. I never gave it a moment's consideration. I had to see Adeline. It was all that mattered to me. So I ran as fast as I could—which at eighty-two was of limited velocity. More a hasty shuffle. I didn't think of it, however. Didn't give a moment's thought to the possibility of a heart attack. I ignored my pacemaker pounding. Another stroke perhaps? No thought of that. Only one thing filled my mind. One word. One name.

I reached Bedford Avenue; it
was
there! I turned right and started up the block. My gaze leaped hungrily across the way. There! Two girls sitting on the porch steps of her apartment house!

One of them was Adeline.

I jarred to a halt, aware, for the first time since I'd begun running, that I was panting for breath. I stared across the avenue. It
was
her, wasn't it? Yes, it had to be. Her hair, that golden wreath around her head. It was unmistakable. To me anyway. The vision had been imprinted in my brain for sixty-seven years.

That brought me up short. I wasn't fifteen anymore. I was an old man.

No, that wasn't so! I looked up at the window of my mother's bedroom. I couldn't see from that angle. Without a thought, I crossed the avenue and looked up again.

There I was at the window, gazing intently at Adeline. I drew in a shaking, almost gasping breath. Can you imagine what it would be like to see your own younger self? Your actual younger self? And know what that younger self was thinking?

And yet I
didn't
know. I wasn't
there
—inside his head, his brain. I knew what he was thinking but I wasn't inside his brain. A minor discrepancy perhaps, but, to me, all important.

I had to act as what I was at this moment: eighty-two-year-old Richard Swanson. Determined to not only see the past up close, but to change it. I turned and walked closer to the porch where Adeline was sitting with her friend, the little Italian girl named—I couldn't remember her name, was it Luisa? I thought for a second that younger Richard might be watching me approach the porch. How could he miss it? Wouldn't he wonder who I was? Wouldn't it disturb him? Was I breaking one of the cardinal rules of time travel—making contact with the past?
No
, I told myself determinedly. It was a rule I'd come up with myself. No one had transmitted it to me. So to hell with it. To ruddy, bloody hell with it! I was
here.
With Adeline.
I could change everything.

I stopped in front of the porch and gazed at her, my angel. She was still that. Memory had not deceived. She
was
beautiful. Incredibly beautiful.
I love you
, I thought.
I've always loved you.

They had seen me stop; now saw me staring.

“What d'ya want, old man?” the Italian girl demanded.

That puts me in my place
, I thought.

Then occurred the most horrible event in the entire experience.

The same tongue-tied inability to speak which had assailed me in the delicatessen that afternoon now took place again. I wanted—desperately—to tell her who I was. That my younger self was, at that very second, gazing at her through a window across the way. That he loved her now and that I, the old man standing in front of her, had loved her always. That, somehow, she must speak to my younger self. Get to know him.
Love him as he loves you. Now. This year.
And always.