21st Century Bogatyr: We Have to Talk, She Said

"The outcome of the city will depend on the race between the automobile and the elevator, and anyone who bets on the elevator is crazy."

Frank Lloyd Wright

"Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty

And meet me tonight in Atlantic City"

Bruce Springsteen

by Zvi Baranoff

The elevator came to a smooth stop and the doors opened. We exited together, arm in arm, stepping into the carpeted hallway. I hesitated for a moment - not knowing which direction to head - but the lovely stranger gave me a friendly push to the left and a bit of a tug so I followed along.

I felt a little uneasy on my feet. I think that the patterns of the antique wallpaper and carpets as well as the odd lighting in that hallway contributed to a sense of sea sickness of sorts. I leaned into my companion for a bit of comfort as well as support. She was sure on her feet with an evident spring in her step.

There was a mirror in that hallway and as we passed it I glanced at our reflection. My companion, in the reflected image, was just as she appeared to me. The fellow with her assuredly was myself, but not any self that I would have readily recognized.

I was wearing an overcoat, a pinstripe suit with a thin tie, a fedora and round tortoiseshell glasses. I was sporting a pencil thin mustache. I looked to be certainly no older than thirty. I looked down at my hands and they were the hands of a young man. We continued past the mirror and down that hallway.

By the time we had reached her door I had begun to think of her as Miss Mutoscope, although I certainly couldn't call her that. She let go of my arm and fumbled about in her purse until she found a brass key and she fiddled with the lock until the door opened.

As far as names were concerned, she had no such problems. She called me Sammy, which certainly is not my name but I chose to let that slide while I tried to make some sense of all this.

The room was not spacious but it was a comfortable and cozy suite. It was dominated by a plush bed. There was a sitting alcove with a small table, a couple of chairs and a loveseat. On one side of the bed was a privacy screen and a full length mirror. On the other there was a chest of drawers and a wardrobe cabinet. There was one window with a view of the street. There was a private bathroom as well. I looked about with a vague hope of seeing some mail or a receipt with Miss Mutoscope's real name on it, but no such luck.

She casually dumped her hat and coat on the loveseat. She told me that she was going to change and suggested that I have a cigarette and open the bottle of champagne that was sitting in an ice bucket by the table. I hung my overcoat on the back of a chair and sat at the table. She went behind the screen.

As I worked the cork free of the bottle, I looked up and saw her reflection in the full length mirror. She slowly removed her clothes and I watched.

I felt a tad guilty until I saw her smile in the mirror as she caressed first her left breast and then the right one. She knew that I was watching. She expected nothing less.

She brushed her hair and sprayed perfume and found other ways to stretch out her time in front of that mirror while she pretended that I wasn't watching and assuring herself that I was. Then, she wrapped herself in a kimono-type robe and came out from behind the screen, carrying two champagne flutes.

We drank champagne and made mindless social chatter for a while. We emptied that bottle and the bubbles were going to my head.

"Now," she said, "you are going to shave and get dressed. You are taking me out for dinner and dancing."

I stood up and glanced towards the bathroom. Miss Mutoscope put her arms around me and I felt her breasts pushing against me through my shirt. Then, with one hand she softly ran her fingers just below my belt, while looking up towards my face.

"Your shaving kit is in the bathroom, right where you left it and your clothes are in your drawers. Be a good boy," she told me with her hand resting on my privates and looking at me with bedroom eyes. She knew I was befuddled. I would certainly try to be good.

So, I disentangled and went into the bathroom. I took a whore's bath in the sink and managed to do a half decent job at shaving.

Then, I looked through the wardrobe cabinet and drawers and tried to figure out what I was supposed to be wearing for a night on the town and how all the hooks and cufflinks and tie pins and suspenders and such were meant to work.

Miss Mutoscope was watching for a while and I sensed that she was laughing behind my back although perhaps she wasn't or perhaps she was just being polite by not laughing out loud. Then she went back behind her privacy screen and readied herself for going out.

In a drawer with handkerchiefs I found a money clip with a sizable amount of banknotes, a holster and a Colt pistol. Under the handkerchiefs I found an envelope stuffed with more currency. I checked the gun to see if it was loaded - it was - and hooked up the holster under my jacket, the gun out of sight but within easy reach. I put the money clip in my pocket. I left that envelope in the drawer.

We both were just about ready around the same time. She helped me with the cufflinks. Then, once again, she

pressed her breasts against me and kissed me on the cheek. We were both seriously dressed for the nightlife.

We headed down the hallway to the elevator. I pushed the button and we stood there waiting. Miss Mutoscope straightened my tie and collar and handkerchief and found other ways and reasons to groom me until the doors of the elevator opened. James was at his post and he guided the elevator car comfortably to the lobby.

Before exiting the elevator, Miss Mutoscope handed the old man another nickel. He smiled broadly and seemed grateful. We headed out through the lobby and into the nighttime streets.

The night was a blur. We started out walking. We were in and out of speakeasies where we were recognized and welcomed. We drank heavily.

I thought there might be a fair chance that somewhere along the way someone that we interacted with would call Miss Mutoscope by her given name. However, everywhere we went, service workers called her "Miss" or "Mam" and all of her friends and acquaintances would call her "Honey" or "Dear" or "Sweetie" or "Darling" or "Sweetheart" or some other form of endearment.

As the night got later we grabbed a cab and rode it across town. We went to a pretty snazzy joint with a jazz band and tables with white linens where we would eat dinner.

Miss Mutoscope was a bit out of sorts when we arrived at the joint. She handed me her hat and coat and asked me to check them while she went to the "Little Girls Room".

The attendant at the cloak room winked and smiled at me. She placed her hand on mine when I handed her my hat and she held her hand over mine for just a bit longer than what would seem appropriate. I handed her Miss Mutoscope's hat and coat and my coat as well.

When my companion got back from the restroom, she seemed to be once again in a good mood. The maître d' had us seated and the food and drinks flowed. People came and went. There were a lot of air kisses and fake hugging and pseudo-friendly interactions. The room was smoky.

It seems that all the food and drinks were either being comped or put on a tab. No one billed me or expected me to pay for these. I tipped everyone exuberantly. I bought flowers and cigarettes. The band played. The night grew long. We eventually found our way outside, into a cab and back to the hotel on the Boardwalk.

I was definitely wobbly as I weaved my way through the lobby. I was feeling somewhat moody, a bit overwhelmed and seriously self absorbed. Miss Mutoscope, on the other hand, was vibrant and chatty.

We boarded the elevator and James guided it upwards. All the way, Miss Mutoscope twittered like a bird. She talked to James because I had mostly stopped listening.

When we got to our floor, she hugged James and told him that he was her only real friend and that all her other acquaintances were fakes and phonies. She fished about in her purse and found a dime which she pressed into the old man's hand.

She hooked her arm around me, looked me in the eye, and said, "Let's go home." We exited the elevator and headed down the hotel hallway.

Back in the room, I really felt like sleeping but Miss Mutoscope turned all the lights on, so I guessed that sleep was not on the immediate agenda. She pulled a deck of cards from a drawer and suggested that we play Strip Poker.

I was never much of a poker player and my game was way off that night. Somehow, Miss Mutoscope played far worse than I and she was soon quite naked. Then we made love, first on the loveseat, then on the floor and eventually in the bed.

I was beginning to doze off in the bed when she bolted straight up Into a sitting position, crossed her arms over her breasts and said, quite firmly, "We have to talk." These are words that never bode well and are a terrible way to start a conversation.

Fortunately for me, I suppose, there wasn't much of a "we" actually in this "have to talk" thing. Miss Mutoscope spoke in a series of disjointed run-on sentences and I couldn't have gotten in a word edgewise even if I had wanted to. I wondered if she had been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.

"Why can't you settle down?" she began. She breathed deeply.

"Why are you always running around and gone all the time and why do you have to be a Shtarker for those Ganifs? I worry about you all the time. The children need a father. Let's get married. It would make Momma so happy. It doesn't have to be a big deal. You know, Momma would love it if we have a chuppah and a rabbi but we could just go down to the City Hall and it's quick and easy and the children can start calling you Daddy instead of Uncle Sammy and Momma would be so happy and we can get a little house."

She took another breath and began once again. "I can learn to cook and take care of a house and I will be a good mother, I know I can. I will stop drinking and I will be good to you, so good to you and I will give up all that running around and I will be with you every night and I won't do cocaine ever again it just ruins my nose."

She took another breath. She uncrossed her arms, spread them out and said, "There must be more to life than this." She looked around the room, crossed her arms back over her breasts and took another deep breath.

Then, she began again. "You could get a real job. You could. Maybe you could manage a speakeasy or a club. You could do that. You would be good at it. Or maybe run the Numbers. That's just math and you are good at math. Maybe you could manage a Cat House, not one of those dumps but a top shelf place on Atlantic Avenue or the Boulevard with clean sheets and some classy girls and I could help you manage the place and we could have a place that important people come to and all you would have to do is watch the place and maybe smack some of the girls once in a while just to remind them who the boss is and to keep them motivated but I don't think you would need to do that often but you could handle all that and then some and you could sleep at home every night and the children will have a father and you won't have to be a Shtarker for Ganifs and Momma would be so happy."

Then she laid back down on her pillow, turned her back to me and said, "I need to get some sleep. We are going to spend the whole day tomorrow with the children. Why do you want to keep me up talking all night." She took a deep breath.

"All you do is yak, yak, yak. Don't you ever shut up?" she said. And, with that, she fell asleep and was snoring lightly or perhaps something closer to purring than snoring. I stared at the ceiling for a while and then I slept as well.

I am not sure how long I slept but Miss Mutoscope was awake and dressed before I was out of bed. She was wearing a conservatively long skirt, a blouse buttoned to her neck and "sensible" shoes. She was anxious to see her children. I was hungover, but I pulled myself together.

Room service had delivered breakfast while I had been sleeping, including a pot of coffee. I drank coffee and ate some. She flitted about.

Before long, we headed down the hall and rode the elevator to the lobby. We walked out to the street and to a nearby lot where a very new Studebaker was parked. Miss Mutoscope handed me the car key. "You drive. I am much too excited."

I opened the passenger door to let her in and walked around to the driver's side and got myself behind the wheel. I looked around at the steering wheel and the dash and the gear shift and the pedals on the floor and tried to remember what I could about how these sorts of things work.

I got the engine started and then looked at the dash some more. I was stalling. "What are you looking for? Let's go!" she said to me.

"I'm looking for the radio," I told her.

"Radio?" she asked. "Momma has the radio in her house. You gave it to her."

Of course there is no radio in a 1925 Studebaker. I lit a cigarette and took a shot at putting the car in gear. It jumped a bit and I ground the gears some and the beauty in the passenger seat kept looking at me sideways but I did get the vehicle into forward motion. I smiled. "Which way?" I asked.

"Oh," she said. "Let's go for a drive in the country before we go see Momma and the children. Make a left here. It takes us to the causeway." I drove us out of town.

Miss Mutoscope pointed out a place by a lake to stop and I parked the car. She took a neatly folded heavy wool blanket from the back seat and handed it to me to carry. We walked about a bit and then we sat for a while on that blanket by the water.

Miss Mutoscope told me how she loves coming to this place in the summer and skinny dipping in the lake. Then she laid into me about being gone all summer and that she had to go skinny dipping with other men because I wasn't around and how that wasn't nearly as much fun as it would have been with me and now it was too cold for skinny dipping and it was all my fault. Something like that.

I was feeling sorry for the woman I was with. I almost felt guilty for her loneliness. I would have changed it all if I could. I really would have. That's how I was feeling when she shoved me off the blanket into the damp grass and started gathering the blanket up into a mangled ball as she walked rapidly towards the car.

I brushed myself off and caught up with her. "Give me the keys," she said. "You drive too slow. Let me drive. We need to go see the children. You dragged me out here to the middle of nowhere to try and sweet-talk me into fucking you instead of going to see our children. You are an evil man." I gave her the keys and climbed into the passenger seat.

The young woman positioned herself in the driver's seat, sitting close to the steering wheel. She hiked her skirt up way past her knees freeing her lower body from the encumbrance of clothes. She saw me looking at her legs and smiled as she started the car and kicked it into gear.

She drove fast. Very fast. She didn't show much concern as to which side of the road to drive on. She wasn't bothered at all by the squealing of the tires or anything else for that matter. I was thinking about safety glass and seatbelts and airbags and antilock brakes. I was wishing that the car had these things and knowing damn well that it didn't.

We were parked in front of Momma's house in no time flat. The house was neatly framed and well built with a bit of a porch and a small yard situated in a working class neighborhood.

Two children, a blonde-haired girl around six and a darker and somewhat younger brother, came bolting out the front door, shouting "Mommy! Mommy! Uncle Sammy! Uncle Sammy!" squealing loudly and in unison at a high pitch. Behind them, wearing a scarf on her head, an apron around her midriff and holding a stirring spoon waddled their Grandmother.

The children were thrilled to see their mother. Miss Mutoscope's mother was less than thrilled to see either of us.

We walked to the porch while the children ran circles around us and jumped up and down, screaming at the tops of their young lungs. My companion kissed her mother on the cheek, a kiss that her mother grudgingly accepted. The older woman very formally shook my hand while saying that she was pleased to see me without showing the least amount of pleasure in the encounter. Then she grudgingly invited us into the house for tea.

The Grandmother put water on the stove to boil. We sat in the living room. The children bounced about.

Before the water had boiled the Grandmother was back in the living room and speaking to her daughter sharply, in a rapid Yiddish. Miss Mutoscope told her "Not in front of the children, Momma and not in front of my man." The Grandmother stopped mid sentence and returned to the kitchen and Miss Mutoscope followed her.

In the kitchen, they began arguing in earnest. They started out with hushed tones but were soon each yelling. They spoke quickly and the Yiddish was mixed liberally with Russian so I really couldn't follow the conversation but I got the gist of it all and I was able to pick out keywords.

They talked about the children and money. The Grandmother whined about the shande which had to do with how Miss Mutoscope lived and that shtarker which was about me and was none too flattering of a description, yahrzeit for her husband of Blessed Memory and more about sin and scandal and then some more about the children and how expensive it was to feed them.

After a while, they stopped yelling at each other. Through the open kitchen door, I saw Miss Mutoscope unclasping her purse and she handed her mother some greenbacks. They came out of the kitchen together with tea.

The tea was served in glasses with sugar cubes. The Grandmother held a sugar cube between her teeth. Miss Mutoscope went to the other side of the room, covered her head with a silk scarf and muttered a prayer while lighting a small candle. She placed the burning candle next to one already burning on the mantle by a photograph of her father. Then she joined us for tea.

That family visit did nothing to clarify the name question. The house had no signage and there was no name on the mailbox so I still didn't know a family name. The Grandmother had called Miss Mutoscope both Nafka and Kurveh several times, but certainly neither of those were her name and neither was a term of endearment.

The little girl's name was Rebbeca. Her Mother called her Becky and her Grandmother called her Rivkah. The little boy's name was Morris. His Mother called him Morrie and his Grandmother called him Moshe and Moshela.

When we finished our tea and left the house I was no closer to solving that riddle of my companion's name than I was before we got there.

We loaded the children into the Studebaker and took them out for adventures. They had pony rides and went on the Merry-Go-Round. We fed them popcorn and peanuts and hotdogs. We topped it off with cotton candy. We bought them stuffed animals and tops and put new ribbons in Becky's hair and Morrie got a new cap gun.

We walked on the Boardwalk and appeared to be a very happy family. The children were sure that their Mother and their Uncle Sammy were the smartest, cleverest, richest and kindest people in the Universe.

By the time we got those children back to their home, they were satiated and exhausted. Both of the children had fallen asleep in the back of the car. I carried Morrie into the house and put him in his bed. Then I got Becky and carried her as well. Miss Mutoscope tucked them each in and kissed them on their heads and sniffed at their hair and tears fell on their cheeks.

I drove the Studebaker back to the hotel while Miss Mutoscope sat in silence in the passenger seat except for an occasional whimper.

We got ourselves across town, up the elevator and back to the hotel room with hardly a word spoken. I sat at the table and smoked. Miss Mutoscope went to the bathroom to "fix her makeup".

I could hear her muffled crying through the half closed door. After a while, when the crying had subsided but she hadn't reemerged I looked through the opening in the door.

Her skirt and blouse were crumpled in a pile on the floor. She was sitting on the edge of the claw-foot tub in her underwear. She was inserting a hypodermic needle into her arm.

She looked up at me. "Oh, Sammy," she said. "My life is so hard. So hard." I helped her clean up and I put her to bed. Her pulse and her breathing were steady. She slept peacefully with an occasional whimper.

I tried laying down for a while but I didn't sleep at all. The first light of day was beginning to come through the window and I hadn't slept a wink.

I was thinking about those children. Their Grandmother loved them and cared for them well. They certainly didn't have much of a mother. I didn't think that the little blonde-haired girl looked anything like me and I didn't think that little boy looked much like me either. I could not see myself playing the father figure to those children.

While Miss Mutoscope continued to sleep I retrieved the envelope with the banknotes from under the handkerchiefs. I wrote on the outside of the envelope "For the Children" and I put the envelope on top of the dresser where she would find it when she woke. I kissed the top of her head and walked out of the room.

I boarded the elevator and James was at the controls as usual. "It is very early in the morning for you, Sir," he said to me.

I realized that it would be proper to give the man a tip and that I didn't have any coinage. I took out the money clip and pulled off a $2 bill and handed it to the man at the elevator controls.

"Thank you, Sir. Thank you so much," he said. After a pause, he looked at me and I could see a sadness emitting from his eyes. He knew I was leaving. "Is there anything you want me to tell the Miss when I see her?"

"Yes. Tell her that I went out for cigarettes." Then I handed him the next two bills from the clip, a fiver and a ten spot. "Do something nice for your children," I told him. The elevator came to a stop, the doors opened and I stepped out.

I was overwhelmed with sadness as I began walking. It took a moment to realize that the elevator had opened to the Piney Complex and not the hotel lobby.

I suppose I had a change of heart. Maybe I could help her get clean. Maybe I could be a father to those children, even if they weren't really mine.

I turned around and went looking for the elevator doors. They were nowhere to be found. I looked for the arcade with the Mutoscope machines and I didn't find that either. There was no going back