Don Winslow: While Drowning in the Desert

“I saw that happen one afternoon to a magician. The Great Bandolini. Magicians always had to give themselves Italian names, I don’t know why. You never saw a magician named ‘The Great Lefkowitz.’ Anyway, Bandolini had an act where he would pull doves from his coat. You’ve seen the act. First he opens his coat, no doves. He says some words in Italian, opens the coat again, and bingo-doves. Except, this one afternoon he is coming in from Philadelphia on the train and the porters lose the case that has Bandolini’s doves in it. What’s Bandolini going to do? He goes to talk to Myra DeLovely who had a striptease act called Myra DeLovely and her Doves of Love, in which Myra stripped and the doves landed in strategic spots to prevent the Decency League from shutting her down. Bandolini asks can he borrow the doves to make them appear out of his coat. Myra is reluctant, but a good sport, and she says okay.

“What nobody thinks about is that these doves are not trained to sit quietly hiding in the secret pockets of the coat. Bandolini gets onstage, opens the coat, and says, ‘No doves’-except that there are doves. There are doves rustling around, cooing, flapping their wings. The audience boos, the doves get spooked and fly into the house. The doves are flying around the ceiling, very upset, and you know what a nervous dove does. So now you’ve got Bandolini yelling, the audience booing, and the doves are shitting all over them. Myra comes out screaming at Bandolini, hitting him. Audience starts throwing garbage. Tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, even liverwurst they threw. Bonbons they threw.

“Myra slips on a bonbon, throws her hip out of joint. A very bad injury for a burlesque girl. Nowadays she’d sue, of course, but people didn’t sue in those days. Myra goes to a doctor in Gramercy Park, Dr. LaFramboise, a Frenchman. This LaFramboise puts her hip back into joint and his own joint… You get the idea. Myra gets in a family way and the doctor acts like a mensch and marries her. They have a daughter who grows up to be a singer, except this girl cannot carry a tune in a bucket. The girl cannot sing! Myra and LaFramboise don’t know what to do! What to do with a daughter who is a singer who can’t sing?! Fortunately she marries the son of LaFramboise’s accountant, a kid named Koppelman. Koppelman and this girl who can’t sing produce a son who can’t get a laugh except when they hold up a card that says Laugh and that turns out to be the for-shit comic, my good friend Murray Koppelman. ‘Murray, Murray, Murray.’

“So Murray says, ‘Nate, you have a string of fat stuck between your teeth.’ I think it’s one of Murray’s stupid jokes, because without his writers, let’s face it, Murray Koppelman is not funny. So I say, ‘Murray, what? This is funny? Food-in-your-teeth jokes?’ He says he’s serious, so I turn to this lady at the next table and ask, ‘Do I have a string of fat stuck between my teeth?’ and she says, ‘Yes, you do. You do have a string of fat stuck between your teeth, right here,’ and she shows me on her teeth!

“The woman had a beautiful mouth. I said, ‘Do you go to Dr. Kaufman?’ She says, ‘No, I go to Dr. Millman.’

“‘Millman?’ I say. ‘Millman is a crook!’ She says, ‘Millman is my nephew!’ I say, ‘Sol Millman?’ She says, ‘No, Sam Millman.’ And I say, ‘That’s good. I was thinking of Sol Millman who is the crook’-so I covered myself there. But that Sam Millman is a crook who will take the gold right out of your mouth. Now Kaufman, there’s a dentist.

“Kaufman is the dentist who fixes my teeth after I crack one with a fork trying to get the string of fat out which is what comes from cheap pastrami. Now at Wolff’s they would never give you stringy, fatty pastrami. Wolff knew delicatessen. He knew good delicatessen from drech. Arthur Minsky always sent out to Wolff’s. Nothing else would do for Arthur Minsky who was a man of refinement. A gentleman, Arthur Minsky.

“So the Irish kid comes back with the sandwich and puts the bag on Arthur’s desk. Arthur is in the middle of telling Eileen the Irish Dream that never again will she remove her g-string on the runway of Minsky’s no matter what any critic writes and Benny the Blade starts yelling that Eileen has to redeem her honor because she has been slandered and Arthur says that any man who wears spats should perhaps not open his mouth on matters concerning taste.

“They are having this discussion when the Irish kid who was stupid like you sets the sandwich down on Arthur’s desk, and Arthur is arguing with Benny as he bites into the sandwich and he’s saying, ‘Benny, excuse me, I don’t tell you how to run numbers, please do not tell me how to run-This is salami!!’

“Arthur can’t believe it, Eileen can’t believe it, Benny can’t believe it, even I can’t believe it because I am sitting there waiting to talk to Arthur about what we’re going to do with Phil Gold, who is out again on a bender, and who am I supposed to do ‘Who’s on First’ with?

“Arthur starts to laugh, Eileen starts to laugh, Benny the Blade starts to laugh and then I start to laugh and this Irish kid says, ‘What?’ and Arthur says, ‘This is the last time I send a goy to get deli.’ He tousles the kid’s hair and tells him, ‘I said pastrami, not salami.’ This kid didn’t know the difference between-”

“DON’T YOU EVER SHUT UP?!”

Okay. I’m not proud of it. But that’s what I yelled. No excuses. I just lost it.

I know, I know. How could I be so mean to a sweet old man like Nathan Silverstein who was merely indulging in some old memories to kill a little time on a long car trip? All I can say in my own defense is that you weren’t in the car with him.

Well, he shut up, all right. After I screamed, he turned those watery little eyes to me, looked very hurt, then slowly turned face forward and maintained a total, dignified silence.

Which was worse than the monologue.

Not at first. At first it was wonderful, sweet silence. Blessed solitude with a slight underlay of guilt, but I was willing to live with that.

At first. Then it grew heavier. And heavier. As the miles between Nevada and California peeled away the weight of the guilt pressed down on my shoulders like two anvils. How could I be so mean to a sweet old man like Nathan Silverstein who was merely indulging in some old memories to kill a little time on a long car trip?

So after half an hour of total silence I asked, “Who’s on first?”

Silence.

“Who’s on first?” I repeated.

He just stared straight ahead.

“Please,” I wheedled. “Please,” I whined.

But after almost twenty-four hours of almost unceasing irritation I finally got my wish: Nathan Silverstein wouldn’t talk to me.

After about one hour of silence torture later I pulled over into one of those gas station-cum-junk food places.

“Do you have to use the bathroom?” I asked.

No answer.

“Do you?” I repeated.

Same response.

“Well, I do,” I said. “So I tell you what: I’ll go in and use the bathroom, then I’ll come back out and if you want to go in, you can. How’s that?”

Nathan just stared ahead. For a second I thought he was dead except that I could see his frail little chest breathing.

“Okay, here I go,” I said.

I went in and stood at the urinal wondering if and when Nathan was ever going to forgive me. I really did feel awful. I felt like hell.

Until I came back out and saw Nathan driving away.

The rotten old bastard had taken the car.

The state trooper was not amused.

“Was the vehicle locked?” asked Trooper Darius.

We were standing in the gas-station parking lot where the temperature was only about 109.