VIVIAN'S CHOICE
A year and two weeks after graduation from Belmore University, on the fifth night after their arrival in New York City, they stepped out of the Dunsinane Theater on Bleecker Street after a performance of Mother Courage.
Vivian led them to the left.
‘Are you sure we shouldn’t be going the other way?’ Cora asked. ‘This doesn’t seem right.’
‘It’s not,’ Finley said. ‘It’s left.’
‘I don’t want to get lost again,’ Helen said. ‘My feet won’t take it.’
‘The subway entrance is just a couple of blocks from here.’
‘I sure hope so.’
It seemed to Abilene that Helen had spent most of the week complaining about her feet. With good reason, she supposed. Vivian had taken them everywhere.
They’d roamed Macy’s, Saks, Bloomingdale’s, F.A.O. Schwartz, and countless other stores. They’d gone to the Trump Tower and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
They’d explored Grand Central Station, astonished by the underground world of shops and tunnels that seemed to go on forever, but appalled by the squalor, unnerved by the filthy beggars who seemed to lurk everywhere, and finally so overwhelmed by the smell of the place that they had rushed for fresh air.
They’d explored Central Park.
They’d taken the NBC tour at Rockefeller Plaza and later gone to the top of the Empire State Building.
They’d spent a day at Coney Island, not only trying out some of the rides but hiking far along the beach and spending a long time on a pier where they were fascinated by the assortment of people fishing, throwing out crab traps baited with Kentucky Colonel, cooking meat on grills they’d apparently brought from home, and hawking their barbecued specialities along with such things as ice cream, sodas, beer, hard liquor (in tiny ‘airline’ bottles kept out of sight under a table) and firecrackers.
Except for subway rides to such distant places as Coney Island, the Battery and Greenwich Village, they’d walked everywhere they went. Throughout, Finley carried her video camera (at least during daylight hours), Vivian and Cora seemed tireless and Helen complained about her sore feet and Abilene didn’t complain but sat down every chance she got.
Nightfall had provided some relief, but not much.
They often hiked around the Times Square area for blocks in search of a ‘neat place to eat’ before deciding on Nathan’s or Sbarro or a Mama Leone’s or Houlihans.
Then they’d be off, on foot, for the theater district. The plays had been great; you could sit down for a couple of hours.
Then they’d be up again. And wandering 42nd Street to look again at the gawdy display windows and street artists and musicians and break-dancers and tourists and beggars and cripples and cops on horseback and guys peddling wristwatches.
At last, they would head back for the Hilton, stopping along the way at a small grocery market to pick up sodas, beer and snacks. Finally, they would arrive at their suite, get out of their shoes, get into their nightclothes, and gather in one or the other of the connecting rooms to sit around and drink and eat and chat and moan and laugh for a while before calling it a night.
Today had been the worst, Abilene thought as she walked with the others along MacDougal Street.
After sleeping in late, they’d taken a subway to the Battery, gone over to the Statue of Liberty and stood in line for two hours before entering the statue. Abilene supposed that the climb to the top was the most tiring - and scary - part of their Big Apple adventure. After making their way up flight after flight of ‘normal’ stairs, they’d come to a circular staircase so steep and narrow that she had almost chickened out. Though Helen had muttered, ‘Oh my God,’ at the base of the twisting iron stairs, she’d gone ahead and started up, Abilene behind her. The singlefile line moved slowly upward. There were long pauses. The air was hot and stuffy. Abilene felt as if she were suffocating. She gasped for breath and blinked sweat from her eyes and wished she could turn back. There was no way to turn back. What happens to people who pass out trying this? she wondered. Is there a rescue team, or what?
The iron railings, because of their steep angle, were so low at her sides that it seemed quite possible to tumble over one. Again and again, she imagined herself going dizzy, rolling over the left-hand rail, and plummeting straight down the center opening.
If Helen can make it, I can, she kept telling herself. And at last she followed Helen into the crown. It had no openings. It had no fresh air. It was even hotter, stuffier than the stairway. All she wanted was out. Nudged on by those behind her, she filed past the tiny windows. Glanced through glass so dirty or scratched that it made a foggy blur of the harbor and the New York skyline. Kept on moving and started downward.
The very best thing about the Statue of Liberty, she found, was escaping from it.
While they rested in the park, Abilene had looked into Finley’s camera and said, ‘Now I know all about those “tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” They’re the poor slobs climbing to the top.’
After the ferry ride back to the Battery, Vivian had suggested they walk over to the World Trade Center. ‘It’s only a few blocks from here.’
‘Kiss my sweaty butt,’ Helen had told her.
‘Thank you,’ Abilene had said.
Skipping the World Trade Center, they’d taken the subway back into mid-town, gotten off at the wrong stop, and hiked for an hour before reaching the Hilton.
A brief rest, a change of clothes, and they’d soon been off again. This time, to Greenwich Village for dinner and the Brecht play.
They’d gotten off the subway at the Houston Street station.
Then they’d gone exploring, wandering up and down narrow streets, going into clothes stores and bookshops, walking past sidewalk cafes, scanning menus in restaurant windows. Somehow, they’d found themselves across the street from a park. After checking her guidebook, Vivian had identified it as Washington Square.
Joining a crowd at one end of the park, they’d spent a while watching a young man juggle machetes while riding a unicycle.
Then they’d gone back to the maze of streets where they’d seen so many restaurants. Some of the eating places looked too crowded, others too formal, none just right. So they’d kept on walking, discovering streets they’d missed before, always on the lookout for a ‘neat place’ to have dinner.
Helen was the one who found it.
‘My God!’ she’d gasped. ‘We’ve gotta eat here! We’ve gotta!’
It was an Italian restaurant called ‘Grandpa’s.’ In the window near its entrance was taped a newspaper clipping: an article about the restaurant with a photograph of its owner.
Its owner was Al Lewis, ‘Grandpa Munster’ from the old TV show.
So in they’d gone, and Al Lewis had greeted them at the door. He wasn’t in costume. He wore trousers, a plaid shirt and a ball cap instead of his Munster outfit. But Helen had seemed no less excited about meeting him. She’d blushed and searched her purse for paper and shyly asked for his autograph.
All through dinner, she’d stared at him.
On their way out, Vivian stopped and asked him directions to the Dunsinane theater. While he’d explained how to get there, Helen had watched him in awestruck silence.
‘That was so great,’ she’d said when they were outside.
‘The high point of the trip, huh?’
‘Pretty near.’
‘Better than the Statue of Liberty?’
She’d rolled her eyes upward and groaned.
Mother Courage, with actors wandering into the audience and shouting in people’s faces, had seemed nearly as unnerving to Abilene as the winding staircase in the Statue. She was glad when it ended.
‘So where is the subway station?’ Helen asked.
Finley grinned back at her. ‘It must’ve moved.’
