The Deliberate Walker

The old man likes to walk.

The rhythmic footsteps, the sense of progress, the chance to think things through, to pray, to deliberate, to purposefully plod, the series of small decisions that the walking inevitably includes, the brief stop on the corner of 7^th Avenue and 49^th Street or Fort Hamilton and New Utrecht, the quick glances, first left, then right, then straight ahead, always in that order, before the controlled and, at the same time, gut-instinct determination is made on the optimal path to take on that particular day, at that particular intersection, the streets quiet or teeming with people and the sky clear or overcast and the air still or with a breeze from Prospect Park or Upper Bay.

He doesn’t usually know where he is going until he gets there. Sometimes his destination is a bench in Sunset Park, and the old man will sit there and enjoy what he knows without any doubt to be the best view of what he calls “the city," by which he means Manhattan, as opposed to “the neighborhood,” or, if he’s talking to a fellow Yiddish speaker, “the shtetl," by which he means Brooklyn. Other times, he might find himself in Boerum Hill, or Prospect Lefferts, or even Gowanus, if he is feeling adventuresome. Sometimes it is the coffee shop on 8^th Avenue just two blocks from his home, where he orders a black drip coffee “for here” and sits in a booth and drinks it slowly.

But the majority of the time, maybe three-out-of-five or even five-out-of-seven, he finds himself eventually at his synagogue, B’nai Israel, where he enters the sanctuary and sits in the second row. Sometimes he sits there in silence. Other times he is interrupted by the greetings of the rabbi or the cantor's song from his office, which is divided from the main sanctuary by only a thin wooden door.

When, years ago, he was diagnosed with stage two prostate cancer, he’d walked. He’d walked when he’d gotten a promotion at his accounting firm, when he made his final mortgage payment, and when he learned of the sudden death of his brother with whom he'd grown estranged for reasons that had in the intervening years become less clear to him, but that he'd felt very strongly about at the time. He walked when his eldest child and only son announced that he was getting married, straight to the synagogue to tell the news to whomever happened to be there and shake hands and be patted on the back and told mazol tov. And then again when his son told him that he was getting divorced, he’d walked.

So it is natural that he also walks after the phone rings and his wife of forty-three years answers and it is his eldest child and only son calling to invite the old man to break their silence by celebrating Christmas with him and his live-in girlfriend at their house in the city.

Christmas. To him that means a night at the Chinese restaurant - the kosher one on 10th Avenue – in true Jewish Brooklyn tradition. It means a chance to walk suddenly-quiet streets on the eve before and the morning of, when the goyim, the non-Jews, are seated around their suppers and then nursing red wine and eggnog hangovers while their children unwrap gifts.

Back to the phone.

“It’s Marty. He wants to speak with you," says the old man's wife of forty-three years.

He shakes his head and backs away. “I’m not in the mood, Ruth. It's not the right time."

She pursues him and thrusts the cordless phone into his face. “For heaven’s sake, Harold,” she says in a raised voice. Her palm covers the phone's mouth piece. “It is the right time. You have to forgive each other. I can’t take the two of you not talking anymore."

The old man reluctantly takes the phone and puts it to his ear.

“You there, Pop?” His son’s voice through the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, Marty. It’s been a while.”

Silence, followed by an audible exhale.

“Yeah, Pop. It has.”

“Two years?”

“Almost three, actually.”

“You had just started to date Michelle.”

“Yeah, Pop. I remember why you stopped talking to me.”

“…”

“So listen, the reason that I’m calling is..." The son pauses. "I don’t want it to be this way between us. I want to try to find a way to at least be amicable. I want us to be a part of each other’s-”

“How’s Rachel doing? Such a sweet person. Is she working again at that department store?”

“Pop, I don’t want to do this with you. If this is how you’re going to be, I think I’ll probably–”

“Say hello to her if you see her.”

“…”

“To Rachel.”

“What do you want me to say, Pop? Huh? You want me to tell you I fucked things up with Rachel?”

“Marty, you know I don’t like that sort of language.”

“Well, do you? Okay, fine. I fucked things up with Rachel.” Each word spoken as if there were a period in between.

“Marty!"

“I cheated on her! I had an affair! Remember? She was the one who told you! That’s why she left me! That’s why Rachel and I got divorced! I feel terrible about it. I've spent years feeling terrible about it. But I'm finally happy again, Pop. It's taken a long time, but I'm happy again."

“Is that why you’re dating Michelle? Because you cheated on Rachel?"

A long silence. His son’s phone is possibly on mute, although the old man can’t tell for certain. Finally, Marty’s voice comes through the receiver, calm but through gritted teeth.

“Pop, can we try this again? From the top? I think we started down a bad path just now.”

The old man thinks about bad paths he has walked over the years, when his gut-instinct and purposeful and deliberate and impulsive feet took him too far from home on a day when the sky looked threatening and it poured and he had to sit in a bus stop shelter, soaking wet, so much so that when he took a step he could hear the sloshing of his socks being wrung each time his foot touched down on the pavement. He ended up at the synagogue on that walk. So perhaps not such a bad path after all.

Marty's voice comes again through the telephone receiver. 

“I want, we want, to invite you over for dinner. Michelle and I. For Christmas.”

“…”

“Pop? You still there?”

“…”

“It would make Michelle really happy if you came. She wants to meet you. For G-d's sake, our son wants to meet you! Your grandson, Pop.”

“…”

”Ryan.”

”I know his name.”

“Mom thinks you should come.”

“…”

“This is making mom miserable. Us not talking. It's making us all miserable."

The old man thinks about his wife of forty-three years. He thinks about his grandson, whose name is Ryan. He thinks about Christmas.

After another long pause, he speaks into the receiver.

“Marty, let me think about it.”

“Sure, Pop. I’m glad we–”

The son's last few words are cut off by the old man's thumb clicking down on the receiver. His wife is in the next room, watching him through the transomed doorway. She says nothing. He moves quickly past her. In the foyer, he puts on his rubber-soled walking shoes and his black wool winter coat. He opens the door, steps outside, and descends the front steps of his brownstone onto 51^st Street. It is cold. He can see his breath. The street is teeming and the sky is clear and the breeze is from Upper Bay.

There, at the bottom of the steps, the old man faces his first small decision. He looks left, then right, then, out of habit and because it is the proper order of things, straight ahead at the house across the street.

Left, his firmly-in-control and at the same time impulsive and gut-instinct-driven mind and feet determine. Toward Ninth Avenue. Rhythmic footsteps. He is lost in his thoughts. He is deliberating. At 51^st and Ninth he goes straight.

How could Marty have done that to Rachel? How could he have fucked that up? Marty’s words, not mine. She's such a sweet person. She always reminded me of Ruth. And me? Have I had indiscretions these forty-three years? Has my eye wandered? Have I coveted?

At the next intersection, he turns right. The sun is low now, and when he turns he has to hold his right hand to his brow so that he can take a quick look at what’s ahead before lowering his gaze to the sidewalk.

And now Michelle? A shiksa? Christmas dinner? A goy grandson? Even so, I should be part of his life. He should know who I am. None of this is Ryan's fault.

He stays straight. He has lost control. The determination of the optimal path is now being done exclusively by impulse and gut instinct. He takes a left. He passes apartment buildings and delis and dry cleaners and the department store where he knows for a fact - because he is still in regular touch with her father - Rachel works. At the next corner, where his feet usually turn right and then carry him another three blocks straight, where he would, on three-out-of-five or maybe five-out-of-seven walks, find himself at the doors of his synagogue, he instead turns left.

And what happens to my traditions? What does this mean for kosher Chinese and the quiet walks?

He takes the stairs up to the pedestrian walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge. The wind is strong over the East River and the old man holds the collar of his black wool coat tight around his neck as he walks. He does not stop to take in the view. His feet carry him onward. He is in the city now.

They’re right though. Marty's right. I am miserable. The not speaking. The silence. The grudges.

He goes straight at each of the following five intersections. Madison Street, East Broadway, Canal, Hester, Grand. The sun is no longer in his eyes and the streetlights are on. His feet ache. Just before he gets to the sixth intersection, the old man stops suddenly. He looks up, half expecting to see his synagogue, even though he knows that's impossible.

Instead, there is a set of stairs that leads to the front door of Marty’s house.

The lights are on and through the first story window he can see silhouettes in the living room. He ascends and knocks twice. The door opens. His eldest child and only son stands in the doorway. A few steps behind him, Michelle holds Ryan in her arms and sways him back and forth. The old man's grandson is crying. He's hungry, or tired, or colicky.

“Pop?"

“...”

The son steps onto the front porch and stands directly in front of his father. The two are close enough to embrace, but they do not.

“I’m glad you’re here, Pop.”

The old man lifts his eyes slowly to meet his son's, and then he starts to speak.