Mr. Hawxhurst (Part 2)

The decade had turned. I had been in school for five of the six fall/winter/springs since that car ride and the adventure in the bar. The world was a slightly less exotic place, as I had grown up a bit and the wonderment around me receded with routines like homework, going to school, to church, chores, and other tasks along the road dotted with society's frequent signposts pointing toward adulthood and responsibility urging me relentlessly in that direction. Still, looking back, there was an enormous amount of freedom though I did not fully realize it. Taxes, a job, bills, caregiving, maintenance of vehicles, a garden and of a house were all still in the distant future. One could and did, with Mom's or Dad's permission, still climb aboard someone's car and enjoy an outing. That is what I did twice that summer thanks again to Mr. Hawxhurst. He had purchased in May another sedan, his first since the long gone Oldsmobile. This used vehicle was a gray '49 Pontiac with its now familiar (in my catalogue of memories today) fastback styling and the arresting hood ornament of Chief Pontiac's profile shaped from a hard plastic the color of amber. A quick mathematical calculation apprises me of the fact that this car was older than the Olds was on that pre-school summer's day. Mr. Hawxhurst was clearly, not a wealthy man. I had learned, by the time of this pre-pubescent period of my life, that he worked in the city as an elevator operator. The house he lived in was built the summer after the Blizzard of '88 and had been in his wife's family since shortly after the first world war. I did not recall him and the family ever apparently vacationing or leaving the house for any extended trips. But now Mr. Hawxhurst, though his commuting still did not require it, decided to utilize his recent acquisition to, among other things, at last entertain himself and his children, as well as my brother and I during this school-free season. With Mrs. Hawxhurst's blessing, the first journey began with the five of us sallying forth to upper Manhattan and the boyhood haunts of Mr. Hawxhurst.

In this summer of talk about a young senator named Kennedy, an angry man named Khrushchev and a frightening pocket book and movie entitled "On The Beach" ("don't worry, it's fiction…that's make believe, Timmy" Mr. Hawxhurst had assured me) the first stirrings of a sense of mortality, that had been quiescent since just about the time of the first auto trip with Mickey's dad (a precocity and a preoccupation then with death had caused me, for several weeks, to pester my mother while she attempted to dust the furniture and make the beds, giving neither of us much peace until hunger, a nap and Grandpa's cheerful interactions dissolved these worries) returned to interrupt the stream of my usually carefree musings. Mr. Hawxhurst's plans provided a novel diversion that worked as well as Grandpa's games and Dad's sunny personality, and that would probably have brought even the most withdrawn child (which I was not) out of his shell. Like my Dad, George Hawxhurst was a combat veteran of the second world war and the air of confidence that both men exuded was taken for granted by we little ones. For misbehaving we might incur a slap across the fanny, a loud warning or expression of prohibition, but like six years earlier and consistently since, these were rare and loving acts all for the sake of safety and were overwhelmingly outnumbered by equally loving, nuturing and educational examples of how to comport oneself and encouraging ways and attitudes that were simply wise and priceless jewels of child rearing. As in the bar, we were safe and trusting and these feelings were all reinforced by countless other acts and forbearances that revealed the good character of each of our parents. How fortuitous was this state of affairs and how, only relatively recently did I come to fully appreciate it.

We approached Washington Heights, oblivious to any traffic which was no doubt exceedingly light anyway, by 21st century standards. Our first stop was The Museum of The American Indian on Audubon Terrace. Coming here seemed so natural and it dovetailed with so much we had already absorbed. Books, magazines, history lessons in school and of course, western adventure shows on television and in the movies, made us fully cognizant of the native American in our history. The enormous interest his story engendered in our young minds guaranteed that no yawning or crankiness would ensue as may have occurred with a visit to a more conventional museum of fine art, statuary or dry displays of bones, tomes and artifacts devoid of any hoopla or promise of action and danger. The buckskins and clothing of various animals' pelts, the feathers, war paint, the dugouts, the weaponry of tomahawks, arrowheads, spears, and the three dimensionality of imposing mannequins wearing and carrying these items, thrilled us and intensified the fascination with what we had only seen in two dimensions up to that point. The past had now come alive and we were learning as one benefits physically from an exciting, competitive game in sports, unaware of its profit while thoroughly enjoying the process unlike a recitation by rote in a classroom or the monotony of a weightlifting workout. Afterwards, we snacked outside on a bench near the museum's entrance and then a chance for Mr. Hawxhurst to light up from his pack of Oasis filter cigarettes helped us to digest both the meal and our experience. Jamie, the youngest and least inhibited of us, started to whoop like a "redskin" (as his dad had usually described the subjects of our recent attention) recalling the sights and sounds of the dioramas and displays. Political correctness had not been conceived yet in 1960. Mr. Hawxhurst's use of the term, much like "injun", was almost purely descriptive and arguably "shorthand", by one syllable, for that of "indian." The fact of a land completely the domain of Americans of European ancestry and of white skin, was accepted almost unconsciously with neither any animus towards Indians nor any triumphalism over one's race's rule. "The nobility of the redman" was not a patronizing phrase as many a modern day revisionist historian might assert. Among his tattoos, most prominently and just below his left shoulder and near to the bicep, was one of the image of the profile of an Indian brave in full war bonnet and with the year "1934" appearing immediately below the neck of the two dimensional bust. George had been precisely in his mid teens when assumedly this particular body art was created. Mr. Hawxhurst had clearly been no child from a sheltered or pampered world or not without some "street smarts" or at least very strong inclinations to explore the world, its myths and to live out some of the dreams of a thoroughly dynamic American youth. This early rambunctiousness, then a hitch during the big war where he saw action in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and deep inside Germany (preceded by a dream very nearly pursued, but for economic constraints and family ties: to volunteer with the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940), and now the stature of a mature citizen/civilian and integral part of a Pax Americana, despite a Cold War: Mr. Hawxhurst had reason to be proud of his journey from "wild kid" to decorated veteran to his current role of working husband and father. He was hopeful about the future. It was now a time of peace and stability and it was a good time for America.

Presently we returned to the Pontiac and Mr. Hawxhurst shortly and wordlessly motored away from the museum seemingly lost in his own thoughts and continued thusly when after several minutes he circled and doubled back in an area in view of the mighty Hudson. "Where are we going?" asked Mickey with a slight hint of restlessness in his voice. "You'll see soon, son" answered his dad. Empty lots and weeds, not unlike our own neighborhood across the East river, but larger, more overgrown and with sizable industrial debris strewn about characterized most of the landscape before us. Mickey's dad parked the car. We were now fairly close to the water and tall cliffs nearby mirrored what we saw in the distance and hard by the Hudson's far shore. Looking carefully toward the near distance on the New York side of the river, Mr. Hawxhurst suddenly stood stock still. "There it is" he said, almost to himself as if he had found a valuable possession, the location of which, time had at first, eroded a wee bit his confidence in pinpointing. "What is it, dad?" asked Jamie. "Boys, come with me. Everybody hold hands and watch your step." A narrow path between the piles of loose concrete and rusted parts of automobiles and trucks wended its way closer to the edge of the mostly empty expanse of the urban wasteland we stood in. "Now stay right here with me boys. Jamie, stop fidgeting." The gulf between the area where we were and the sheer cliffs (and also man made walls), was a tremendous artificial canyon, at the bottom of which freight train tracks crisscrossed the entire space while close by, sooty smokestacks belched languorously and intermittently puffs of dark clouds that then drifted speedily away toward the river. "See that big tree growing almost sideways out of that wall? There! Way up but below the red paint along the top….the white letters!" "I see it daddy!" "Yes, I see it too" my brother piped up. There, against the smooth, yet rocky face of the huge verticality of a heavily rust stained retaining wall built to protect the rail yards below, were two gigantic letters painted in white with short drips extending downward not much more narrowly than the characters that read unmistakably: "G.H." "I did that" said Mickey's dad in a tone expressing more thoughtfulness than pride. "It was the summer after I got the tattoos." Several other initials, smaller and further down the facade were translated into the names of his companions of yesteryear. Twice he stated that "he's gone." The second time he mentioned "The Bulge."

A week later, Mr. Hawxhurst invited us again for a ride. My brother did not want to go, but Dad and Mom said that I could if I wished. With his sons and I, we all ventured down to the sea. Always the chatterbox in my early youth, familiarity and curiosity finally emboldened me to ask Mr. Hawxhurst questions, some of which I had long wondered about. "Did you know my Dad during the war? When did you first smoke? Did your parents allow it? How did you paint your initials without falling? Did the police catch you?" "Wait 'til we get to the beach and we're all settled" he quietly advised as he negotiated the rusting sedan through surprisingly thick traffic. Rockaway Beach was our destination. We bathed in the surf, again holding hands as before, but only when we stepped toward deeper water to jump up as a wave crested. Jamie once broke away as we made another advance away from the shore just before lunch, but he stayed closer to the sand as his dad's hortatory cries reigned him in and riveted him to one spot with an intense fatherly glare. Later, French fries and hot dogs were enjoyed and the salt air seemed to further loosen my tongue as I asked him about what each tattoo meant. He said that he didn't remember the reason for every one. The Indian chief's face was based on a cigar store wooden Indian that he loved and that stood forever, it seemed, outside a smoke shop on the corner near where he lived off Convent avenue. A faded image of a clown's face near the opposite bicep was simply picked out from a book that the tattoo parlor proprietor had shown him. A snake entwining a cross with a partially veiled woman weeping next to it covered much of his right forearm. He did not reply to the enquiry about it. In only his bathing trunks, I noticed for the first time droplets of blood falling from the tattoo of the heart over his heart and I pushed my shyness aside again with great effort to ask about it. "Oh, it's the last one I got… France, 1944. My buddy Jimmy on Utah beach had one and I liked it and wanted it to honor Mrs. Hawxhurst. See her name alongside?" "Marlene" was barely visible but decipherable now that it was called to my attention.

To our right while facing the sea the sun began its slow descent in the direction of the city and toward the point where the shore, the ocean and the once wild blue yonder all merged goldenly. The fair skinned Mickey looked quite the lobster despite the use of primitive suntan lotion. "Time to make tracks boys" Mr. Hawxhurst announced. I felt extra sleepy after the long day in the wind and sun and was falling quickly in the corner of the passenger's side of the Pontiac's rear bench seat. Just then Jamie decided to vocalize, long since surpassing his brother's efforts at entertaining. One of the summer's crossover hits from the country & western charts was "Mule Skinner Blues." More than a yodel and less terrifying than a Rebel yell, part of the refrain of the tune was a joyous, guttural yelp which was quickly and often imitated by Jamie who was obviously enamored of its expression of sheer delight, like his Indian war cry of the previous week. The car's radio reinforced his fixation with this melody as the local pop station played it seemingly incessantly while we headed back home. END OF PART 2