Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [65]
If you need so bad a suit clothing or other necessary things, I always do my best to see to it you should have it, even though there are delays due to finances but don’t be misled or ill-advised that a T-U-X is the only thing you must have. Don’t forget that the tux alone is not the end of it but the beginning. With a tux you will be asking for more money to go with girls to those places where a tux is required.
I beg of you, sonny! Do not be misguided. Think straight and listen sometimes to my advice. You are young and you can make the best foundation for your future life if you will listen to me and not go wrong. Take my advice and you will be thankful to me some day. After all, I have no other children to give advice and love to.
Your job now is school so you should not be all your life, a manual worker like me. Incidentally, didn’t you tell me you were cleaning the locker room at the school? Isn’t that enough for you to pay for your T-U-X?
I know I was supposed to see you in Baltimore next week but I can’t come. I have a cold and I don’t think it will be better in time. Besides I am financially strapped for a train ticket and the doctor said I shouldn’t travel. I am thinking of you, mainly, so I shouldn’t give to you my cold.
So tell your girlfriend that I am not old-fashioned.
I will not forgive you for not writing, so you had better write twice every week.
So long. Remember, I love you.
Your loving father,
Nathan
P.S. In addition to the regular $3.50 a week I am now paying support to your mother, I enclose an extra fifty cents for you. Sorry I can’t see you. Write!
“HEY, Gideon, wake up!”
“What ...wha ...wha ...”
“Get yourself together, Gideon. You’re crying like a baby in your sleep.”
I leaned against Shlomo and wept. ... “Sorry ...”
“Hey, forget it. It’s the morphine.”
“We’re in the middle of the Sinai, right?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, I’m really wacko.”
“How’s your leg?”
“Don’t feel any pain.”
A piercing chill cut through me, sending me into sudden and rather violent shakes. It was bitter cold. Shlomo wrapped me in a pair of blankets and beat on me until I warmed.
“Desert really gets cold this time of the year,” Shlomo said.
“I’m freezing ...I’m freezing,” I said, praying for that blissful stuff to take me over. The painkiller surged through me and the floating sensations began again, only the coldness wouldn’t go away. Damned I’m cold ... “Daddy ...Daddy ...I’m freezing, Daddy ...”
Philadelphia 1926
Little Gideon’s mittens were soaked through. The numbness of his fingers matched the numbness of his nose and his toes.
“We’d better go home and get you warm,” Molly said.
“No,” he answered, “I want to finish the snowman.”
“Come on,” she said, picking her brother up. His weight forced her to tilt for balance as she puffed through the snow, out of Fairmount Park to the sidewalk. She looked right and left for streetcars and automobiles and seeing an opening, ran across Parkside Avenue.
She set Gideon down, took his hand and half dragged him up the four flights of stairs to their flat. Pain was setting in in the little boy’s extremities, and by the time they reached the door he was crying.
The odor of frying liver and onions reached their nostrils as Molly opened the door. That meant two things. A payment had been made to the gas company and the stove and hot-water heater had been turned on. It also meant that Momma had given the butcher enough on account for her to make a purchase. When they fell too far in arrears, Momma would send Molly and Gideon to the grocer or butcher to play on their sympathies. Sometimes the butcher was feeding his own family on scraps but couldn’t stand the stares of children who were obviously hungry.
“That child is not a well child,” Momma said. “You shouldn’t have had him out in the park for so long. You should get a spanking.”
“He’s fine, Momma, just a little cold,” Molly said, unbuttoning Gideon’s dripping jacket and laying it on the radiator. Momma went to the hot-water heater and lit a match. The fire flared on with a