sweet smell of hay and grass in the air, a touch of salt ocean. On the platform, I leaned to look down the tracks and saw the place, flocked by dark green trees, where the earth curved and merged the two black lines of tracks: infinity . How could anyone who had seen the illustration in grammar-school textbooks fail to think of the word?
A woman joined us on the platform, a tall woman in a thin dress, a bouquet of wildflowers held in the crook of her arm. And then two young men, tanned and sockless and dressed in
expensive shades of pale yellow and pink. Then three girls in tennis whites and gold jewelry, another textbook illustration, but this time the caption would have read Hamptons Debutantes .
I wore cutoffs and sandals and a university T-shirt, my father a well-worn polyester polo shirt and gray gabardine suit pants, a beige baseball cap stained at the bill and around the sweatband, so that I suppose our illustration would be marked Natives of Queens .
“He’ll notice a big difference,” my father was saying about Billy. “After thirty years.” And then: “He sure as hell better be sober.”
“So what if he’s not?” I asked. “Now that he’s made this pledge. He goes straight to hell?”
My father glanced at me, seeing the apostate that I was. (Seeing, too, I suppose, his mother’s one-cornered smile.) “I don’t know,” he said, to spare himself my sarcasm. We had long ago given up arguing about the niceties of our Church.
We felt the change in the air before we heard it confirmed by the far-off whistle of the train. Now all of us on the platform became attentive. Those at the back stepped forward, those at the edge stepped back. There was another blast of the whistle and then the black engine blotting out the light. There was the screeching of the brakes until, in what might have been mistaken for silence, the train came to a full rest before us, panting, it seemed, huge. We heard the conductor’s voice, saw the shape of him moving past the windows. Another swung out of the middle car and looked up and down the platform as if he had arrived in an uncertain and hostile environment. Then he let go of the handrail and stepped out, turning to assist the passengers who had already gathered behind him.
Billy descended sideways, his black satchel coming first,
black shoes and white socks and a Southern gentleman’s pale blue seersucker suit. He smiled and waved and then placed his suitcase on the ground and waited for us to meet him.
He was taller than my father, but slightly stooped. He’d been thin all his life and the heaviness, the bloatedness, that age and alcohol had brought to his frame seemed irrelevant somehow; he still held himself like a thin man. You would still describe him as such. His dark hair was combed straight back from his forehead, still marked by the impression of his wet toothcomb. He wore the rimless glasses that you once saw only on priests and nuns, and his blue eyes were pale gray, nearly pearl. He smiled a little as he waited for us to approach him, touched his red tie, as elegant as a pope, but then, just as my father put out his hand and said, “Hey, Googenheimer,” a wicked humor tumbled into his face. He grinned, they both grinned, shaking hands, laughing even, although neither had said any more than that yet. His cheeks and nose were bright pink with broken capillaries and spider veins, marks of his dissipation, sure, but, on Billy, subtly charming, almost intentionally so—like a touch of rouge and powder on a handsome actor’s face.
“How was the trip?” my father was saying, laughing still as if in anticipation of a punch line.
“Behind me now,” Billy said, grinning.
He took my hand, his was cold, and I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, which was cold, too, and still smelling of Ivory soap and Sensen.
As the train pulled out again, he waved to someone inside—“Barney Callaghan’s son,” he told my father. “Can you imagine? A conductor on the
A woman joined us on the platform, a tall woman in a thin dress, a bouquet of wildflowers held in the crook of her arm. And then two young men, tanned and sockless and dressed in
expensive shades of pale yellow and pink. Then three girls in tennis whites and gold jewelry, another textbook illustration, but this time the caption would have read Hamptons Debutantes .
I wore cutoffs and sandals and a university T-shirt, my father a well-worn polyester polo shirt and gray gabardine suit pants, a beige baseball cap stained at the bill and around the sweatband, so that I suppose our illustration would be marked Natives of Queens .
“He’ll notice a big difference,” my father was saying about Billy. “After thirty years.” And then: “He sure as hell better be sober.”
“So what if he’s not?” I asked. “Now that he’s made this pledge. He goes straight to hell?”
My father glanced at me, seeing the apostate that I was. (Seeing, too, I suppose, his mother’s one-cornered smile.) “I don’t know,” he said, to spare himself my sarcasm. We had long ago given up arguing about the niceties of our Church.
We felt the change in the air before we heard it confirmed by the far-off whistle of the train. Now all of us on the platform became attentive. Those at the back stepped forward, those at the edge stepped back. There was another blast of the whistle and then the black engine blotting out the light. There was the screeching of the brakes until, in what might have been mistaken for silence, the train came to a full rest before us, panting, it seemed, huge. We heard the conductor’s voice, saw the shape of him moving past the windows. Another swung out of the middle car and looked up and down the platform as if he had arrived in an uncertain and hostile environment. Then he let go of the handrail and stepped out, turning to assist the passengers who had already gathered behind him.
Billy descended sideways, his black satchel coming first,
black shoes and white socks and a Southern gentleman’s pale blue seersucker suit. He smiled and waved and then placed his suitcase on the ground and waited for us to meet him.
He was taller than my father, but slightly stooped. He’d been thin all his life and the heaviness, the bloatedness, that age and alcohol had brought to his frame seemed irrelevant somehow; he still held himself like a thin man. You would still describe him as such. His dark hair was combed straight back from his forehead, still marked by the impression of his wet toothcomb. He wore the rimless glasses that you once saw only on priests and nuns, and his blue eyes were pale gray, nearly pearl. He smiled a little as he waited for us to approach him, touched his red tie, as elegant as a pope, but then, just as my father put out his hand and said, “Hey, Googenheimer,” a wicked humor tumbled into his face. He grinned, they both grinned, shaking hands, laughing even, although neither had said any more than that yet. His cheeks and nose were bright pink with broken capillaries and spider veins, marks of his dissipation, sure, but, on Billy, subtly charming, almost intentionally so—like a touch of rouge and powder on a handsome actor’s face.
“How was the trip?” my father was saying, laughing still as if in anticipation of a punch line.
“Behind me now,” Billy said, grinning.
He took my hand, his was cold, and I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, which was cold, too, and still smelling of Ivory soap and Sensen.
As the train pulled out again, he waved to someone inside—“Barney Callaghan’s son,” he told my father. “Can you imagine? A conductor on the
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