Gramp (it was Gramp in his motoring costume) shouted, “How does it look, Stevie? How does it sound?”
“Nice and loud, Gramp.”
“Jump in and we'll try the fences.”
I climbed, and cars were high in those days. (“On a clear day, Stevie, you can see Sandy Hook from up here.”) I sat down at Gramp's side, and he let down the outside brake, did something with a gas lever (no foot feed in those cars), did a short lap dance on some piano levers set on the car boards, and the car shook, gasped, moaned, and began to smoke. Then we moved, moved, quickly eating up the street at fifteen miles an hour, twenty, and when we hit the ice wagon we were doing thirty, but the brakes gripped at last. (it cost us ten dollars for the ice and twenty dollars to repaint the fender—it was solid steel in those days.)
Gramp limped a little at dinner that night, and I had a black eye where I had hit the dashboard, but no one noticed it because Gramp was in a growling mood. The sons and the daughters-in-law and the small fry not too damp to cat in the children's room all sat and waited for Gramp to thank God for the roast beef and clear soup, the baked white-fish and the slewed meatballs in sweet and sour sauce. the water-cress salad and the spiced peaches, the apple pie as big as a wagon wheel and the heavy cups of very black coffee. It was an ordinary meal for a family at home without company. Real eating called for the Spode china, the handmade silver service, the soup tureen of rare Ming, filet mignon Clomenceau, oysters, and crêpes Suzette Longstreet (Gramp's way of burning sugar in the sauce).
Gramp looked up and rubbed his hurt leg. “I'm leaving for California in two weeks. I'm taking Sari and Stevie, nobody is to do any business until I get back, and Henry, get me a thousand dollars in ten-dollar bills for the trip.”
Papa sighed, “Now Father, you know things are bad, postwar depression.”
“Get it.” said Gramp. “And Willie, I want six bottles of good brandy and find me a case of Veuve Clicquot.”
“Papa, you know America has given up drinking. It's against the law.”
“What arc those bootfooter fellows selling?”
“Bootleggers? You wouldn't buy from them, Gramp.” Mama said.
“Wouldn't I?” (So Gramp became the first scofflaw in our family.) “And see if he has any Clos de Vougeot.”
Willie said very low, “I'd like to see that come out of Tony's bathtub.”
The car behaved very well for a stone-age car. It had to be wound up like a clock to start. Papa usually cranked her while Gramp shouted orders and gripped the wheel. Once it started, Papa usually flew a few feet aside. The car started in jerks or leaps like an eager rabbit. Gramp sat over the wheel, wearing his driving cap backwards—he was an admirer of Barney Oldfield, the great racing driver, and dressed like him. I was on the shake-down trip we made around Central Park the night before we set off across the plains of New Jersey. There were no traffic lights in those days, and the police all knew Gramp (and carried his cigars close to their hearts just over their long underwear). We found out that the car didn't like to steer left, so Gramp invented a way of touring by right turns only. We went to California by making right turns only, and to this day I don't know how it was done. Gramp was ahead of his times, most likely, and had stuff on the ball Einstein never dreamed of.
We didn't damage Central Park, much, it's stood up to a lot of blows, but we did change a spark plug. Gramp had become an expert repairman. He carried wrenches, screwdrivers, and pliers in his fountain-pen pockets, and the big pockets in the back of his pants were full of short lengths of wire, cotter pins, steel nuts, and bits of wire.
Papa and Uncle Willie loaded the car that night, and we named her “Emma” after a departed cook who always got overheated when we had company and used to put her head in the icebox to cool off. The bootleg stuff went on the floor boards, and on this went Mama's trunks and Gramp's bags and mine. On the running board (dear departed running boards) were clamped a camp stove, a small icebox, and three steel cans marked: Water, Gas, Oil. There were also a folding tent and an oil lamp, a red railroad oil lamp in case the gas failed us. The lamps were lit by gas, and a small tank of gas was hung like a modern-day bomb under the right running board. We put up the top, a “one-man top” it was called, as it took one man for each corner; made of heavy black canvas on oak frames set into steel elbows and held down by tanned leather belts, the top took as much trouble to furl as the sails of a prize yacht.
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