I never forgot that poor man, and how badly beaten down he was and how good his lunch was—a fine ravioli in chicken broth that he had prepared for himself. Mama kept saying, “It's the real thing, Gramp. A bit of the old country, and how he respects us. A bit of the old country.”
“A bit of Old Hoboken, ” said Gramp, feeling better after the lunch and eating the poor man's own Mortadella bologna and finishing off with a small glass of Crema di Timo, 2 liqueur scented with thyme which I can still smell across the years.
The sad Italian suffered as we ate his lunch and said he was sorry he had to be such a liar as he had to make a living and the police had to be paid off and the boys who sold the beer had to be paid protection money. But he was happy to serve the Countess and serve us all, and did we mind if he sort of spread it around that the Countess had been to his place.
Gramp said, “Not at all. Let's have the bill.”
But he wouldn't take any money, and he said to Mama,
“I hope it is a boy … a real big boy.”
Mama said, “What?”
And Gramp said. “I'll tell you later.”
The blacksmith found us on the porch and said there wasn't much the matter with the car.
“I know that,” said Gramp. “I can put that car together blindfolded.”
The native nodded. “You must have, you forgot to connect the spark plug on the end to the wire. Two dollars.”
Which shows two things: that Gramp should have done things the easy .way and that the car doctors of those days were still moderately honest.
We got to Washington in one of those hot, wet evenings that Washington is famous for. and we stayed at a big hotel whose name I no longer remember. It had big whirling fans in the ceiling and chains attached to the fans that led off to a small steam engine that had been built in 1842, in an age well before air-conditioning.
Mama was tired, so after a dinner of the expected fried chicken and hot biscuits and the canned fruit and the usual extra service such as laving the bread-crumbs brushed off your tablecloth by a colored man with a silver crumb-scraper, Mama went up to bed and Gramp and I went for a walk. The city was warm and dark, and the heavy stone buildings were hidden in the dusk as we walked to the White House. Gramp and I stood against the railing and looked in.
“We, that is the people who fought the war, saved the Union. Grant saved the Union, never forget it, boy, and then later we had to save the Union from President Grant. Keep the generals out of the White House. It's a lesson we have to learn ever)’ two or three generations—keep the generals out of the White House. Grant was a fine man but a failure in politics. Washington was a fine country village in Civil War days, the streets smelling of the best horses, troops marching, and the old chain bridge across the river. They used to pull up the planks at night so no one could cross over or get out of the city.”
He stopped to light his cigar. “Life had a flavor then, Stevie. You were for the Union or against the Union, and all the women were beautiful. They still are, thank God, for these old eyes, but they had a sway and a way … but you'll learn about that later, the hard way. We marched down this street when Abe Lincoln lay dead in there in a big black coffin, and the drums were muffled and the horses had black ribbons on their bridles, and it was a sad day and the people stood and cried on the sidewalks. A big country was born that night … A bunch of farmers and city slickers and factory hands knew they were burying a great man and that as one union they were growing up. You listening, boy? I want you to remember all this.”
“I'm listening, Gramp. Was it a hard war?”
“They are always hard wars. Maybe not for some fat people, and Washington was full of fat people in clover. But out there in Virginia mud, with the fever and smoked bacon and the ground horse corn and the wormy hard-tack, it was hard. We all looked like smoked hams after the war, and it took us years to get back to sleeping in beds and using forks and getting over chewing tobacco. Your grandmother never liked iliac and spent her last ten years painting forget-me-nots and roses on tin spittoons for me.”
“Were you a brave soldier?”
“Hell, they didn't come no braver. I ate the army food, fired horse pistols made by contractors who never heard of steel, and I rode in the wilderness with Grant at twenty-four and my beard was black and long.” He stopped and took my hand. “I was young. Stevie, young as a courting rooster, and the juices in me were alive. Come on, it's time an old man was in bed snoring through his few remaining teeth …”
Gramp's pity for himself and his wild youth happened about twice a year, and we always expected it. And waited until he got over it. The next morning I found him in the hotel bar, already red of face and bourbon, and [ respectfully stood aside and waited, knowing the old man always got out of his depressive periods with the aid of good whisky. He saw me and grinned.
“Great day, huh?”
“Yes, Gramp. Can I have a drink?”
“Set 'em up for my grandson, ” Cramp said to the barman, “a slug of lemonade with a jigger of sugar … and don't spare the lemons, the kid can take it.”
I was let down. “Can I smell your breath, Gramp?”
Gramp nodded, and I inhaled good bourbon and sipped my lemonade.
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