My father, who would have been 104 on July 3, 2011, was a great guy- little impatient and a bit on the frugal side-but a terrific guy. He liked to keep words economical. In an anglophile fever pitch his immigrant Jewish parents named him Norman. He changed that to Norm, then to Nor, shortened that to No and finally decided to be called Nnnnn.
His impatience was not completely unprovoked. My mother (Louise) dawdled whenever they went walking. She paused to examine the sequins on the store window dress. She paused to read the notices to the public on telephone poles. In the country she examined the veins of leaves. “Jeez LouEEz.” Nnnnn said each time.
Nnnnn didn’t speak much to me. He had, however, outstanding eyes and a magnificent and expressive frown.
My mother spoke. She said, “I gave up my stage career in order to give you a home. I asked her what that meant. She said, “If I had married the man I loved you would’ve been a much more normal child.” She could get confusing.
“Jeezus Crice” Nnnnn said when I routinely left the bureau drawer open. Appearing in my own defense I said, “But I may need something in that drawer soon - what’s the point of closing it?” I love Logic. Often I think what I could have become. I could’ve been the latter day Aristotle. I could have written The Logic of Defiance. But I read Charlotte’s Web and decided on farming
Nunn and Louise were smokers. I love that refrain, Smoke, smoke. smoke that cigarette… because Nnnnn and Louise had a thing going about cigarettes. He smoked Old Golds (for the coupons) and the smoked Parliaments (for the style). Frequently they ran low on inventory and begged one another for short term loans. “Just one and I’ll pay you back just as soon as I go to the store.” Neither was above thievery. They would ferret out one another’s hiding spots. They would filch, cover up with lies, then confess and make vows for rehabilitation that were always undone. It wasn’t better than sex. It was sex.
Cigarette coupons were redeemable at the gas station. My father drove 1.1 miles to work at The Prudential Life Insurance Co. and 1.1 miles back. He kept the same car for up to twenty years.
At 104 he would still be heard muttering Jeez LouEEz - plaintively - as he searched for her on the street where the dress store once stood. He would find I still leave drawers open and shake his head with disgust. “Some people never change,” he would say.
Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette… I would reply.
I Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette
Puff, puff, puff and if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette
(Mark Travis and Tex Williams, 1947)