Winterview

By Paul Levine

Winterview is a book of memories, musings, and life stories about growing up, work, relationships, marriage, divorce, loneliness, remarriage, and becoming older.

Included are essays about the pain and grief of loss, reflections about the difficulty of seeking child custody, the struggles of being a writer, and the challenges of working with the developmentally disabled.

A number of the pieces included in the book are based in part or in their entirety on previous writing published in The New York Times, The Single Parent, the Berkeley Fiction Review, and American Way, the in-flight magazine of American Airlines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491707869

Paul Levine

The author of twenty-two novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote twenty episodes of the CBS military drama JAG and co-created the Supreme Court drama First Monday starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The international bestseller, To Speak for the Dead, was his first novel and introduced readers to linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter. Bum Rap was an Amazon Number One Bestseller. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed Solomon vs. Lord series of legal capers. His latest book is Cheater's Game, which digs deep into the college admissions scandal. He divides his time between Santa Barbara and Miami. For more information, visit his website at paul-levine.com or his Amazon Author Page at amazon.com/Paul-Levine/e/B000APPYKG/ or follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/PaulLevineAuthorPage/ or on Twitter @Jake_Lassiter

Book preview

Contents

Before

I Had Wanted To Write A Memoir

Part I Bereft

And All The Kings’ Horses

No Answers

Perspectives

The Plot

This One Will Do

There Was Nothing To Do But Hope She Came Back

The Tulips Will Flower Again

Part 2 Growing Up

The First Thing I Remember

Tommy’s Stolen Yoyo

Alone

Girls

My High School Reunion

Part 3 Making My Way

Mazes

The Ultimate Weapon

Nails

I Could Have Had The Badge

The Welfare Department

The Clipboard

You Work On The Pumpkin Floor

George

Coe

The View From The Ends Of The Bell-Shaped Curve

The Life of the Party

Two Wars

Part 4 Others

Words of Wisdom

Sunday Football Daydreams

The Issues Of The Marriage

An American Flag On My Ceiling

Binoculars

Tag Sale

Warburton 1

Amoebas In The Rain

The New Lawyers I Use

The Ant And The Tree

The Social Worker

My Two Probation Officers

The Custody Folder

A Theatrical Interlude

A Girl I Meet In The Library

Civic Club Dance

A Queen Size Bed For One

The Right Person

Part 5 Changes

The Spider Plant

One Of The Spokes Of America

The Low Budget

Blended Family Vacation

To Start Another Day

Misplaced Timing

I Wish I Could Be Like Miss Houser

The Snugli And The Job Interview

Part 6 Writing

Notebooks

The Index Cards Of High School

You’ll Never Send Anything To The New Yorker

The Dream of Iowa

The Man Getting Fired

The Man Getting Fired

A Rainy Night At City College

Rejection

The Highs And Lows Of Writing

Part 7 The Coming Of Winter

A Strange Interview Question

Dr. Talner

My Last Week

The Enormity Of Time

Part 8 Winterview

Passing Time

Becoming Older

Work Again

Happy Birthday

An Ordinary Man

Memories Of Thanksgiving

Scattered Thoughts

Winterview

Before

I Had Wanted To Write A Memoir

But I couldn’t. A memoir is like a picture, and who can recreate a picture with all its details that show things just as they are. Things just become too fuzzy, and when they are not fuzzy, we make them so because some details are too harsh to deal with. So we modify the realities to fit our ability to withstand the truth, or at least our perceived truth. And age does funny things. It sets up new filters and we do not even know they are there. And so I really wouldn’t call anything here a memoir. It is more a reflection. A reflection is a word that says that it might not be so clear. That it is not a photograph. It happened, but can never be an exact replica. For that would be a seventy-two year old video. And that would be much too long to watch. Even with the editing.

Part I

Bereft

And All The Kings’ Horses

I don’t know why my sister died at thirty, but she did. She had leukemia, but I still don’t know why. My parents and I went into the hospital chapel the night before she died, but no one said anything. We just sat there and stared at the stain-glass. The peaceful browns of the pews and the greens and blues of the glass. The low light. No words.

When my sister died, I was able to stop counting the number of transfusions she had. I stopped counting her chemotherapy appointments. Her loss of hair. The way she did not want to give in to my mother’s sadness. I stopped counting the number of times a day my mother cried. The number of prayers my father said. The number of doctors that came and went. The hopes they gave and then were gone.

I remember at the end she did not see her children because she was not able to deal with seeing her children. And I remember her talking about being buried next to my grandfather.

When my sister died, my mother was in her early fifties and she couldn’t explain it, and my father was just over sixty and he couldn’t explain it, so they tumbled down like they were pushed from a wall. And all the kings’ horses, and all the kings’ men couldn’t put them back together again.

No Answers

My cousin’s death at fifty-seven from cancer effected everyone he knew because of his upbeat view of life, the way he never complained—his interest in others. With his positive energy, he was like a job applicant who would always get the job.

At the cemetery, it had started to drizzle as the Rabbi recited the prayers. I looked back at a group of workers who were waiting for the graveside ceremony to be over so they could finish their work and probably begin to think about going home and watching TV.

All the mourners gathered around the grave after Joseph’s coffin was lowered. At most Jewish funerals, there is only a traditional sprinkling of dirt as the shovel is passed from one family member to the other. Those gathered at Joseph’s grave soon took turns shoveling dirt onto the top of the coffin. But here there was despair in their faces. Desperation with how they moved about. Their unbearable pain. Their feeling of loss and not knowing what else to do. As the service drew on, they become fiercer in a collective mission to put my cousin to rest.

And so one by one, they waited their turn, increasingly taking bigger scoops of dirt. Amid the heightened display of sorrow, the Rabbi sang on as the shovel continued to be passed from one to the other. Those who already shoveled soon came back for more. The men now had their shirtsleeves rolled up and there was sweat on their faces. Off to the side, I watched as the hole started to fill. And I wondered if they would keep going when they reached the top. If they, in fact, would make a hill or work even more and keep on going with a higher mound of dirt that would soon obliterate all else.

The despair at Joseph’s funeral reminded me of my sister’s death so many years ago. My mother at the time had blamed the doctors. How can a perfectly healthy woman of thirty get leukemia just after giving birth? she asked. My mother needed an explanation to lessen her pain. Or direct the pain toward something the doctor overlooked, or treated incorrectly, even misjudged, misdiagnosed, misperceived, didn’t know. Skipped. Lost. Forgot. Leukemia couldn’t just happen.

When my sister died, my father never said a word. Instead, he went to synagogue in the morning and in the evening every day for a year. He sat and stood and said all his prayers, and found solace in the Mourner’s Kaddish with the other men. It was not my father’s face, but his body that told his story as he became sick all too quickly.

There was a change in my mother’s face, though. She looked for answers, but there were none. On the way to the cemetery, the Rabbi rode in the car with us, and my mother asked him why. He didn’t even wait to think, but responded, God needs another angel. That’s what he said as we approached the cemetery. He said it with that deep voice that always seemed to proclaim what is just. That there was no other possible answer. Clear voiced, pulpit baritone right. Did he really believe that? That there was a need for another angel?

For the moment, the answer satisfied my mother, but I wished he had said something different. I wished he had said that there was no valid reason. That it just happened. That it was a mystery and that even a Rabbi sometimes cannot explain it all. Because people get sick and it might not be part of any grand design or the need for more angels. I wished he had said that if he was able.

Perspectives

The shortest distance between two points is a memory of another time that is always there. My mother is diagnosed with stomach cancer three days before she dies. But three days is not a lot of time for perspective. And three days is not a lot of time for thought.

There are those moments when a parent appears old. Most often, though, the perception is small and only momentary. A child even second-guesses his view. The aging of a parent is like the sequence of frames in a film where each segment appears to be the same. But it is really not. For there is a slight difference. And it makes a child aware that there has been change, that time has not stood still, after all, and that something is altered.

I find out about my mother’s illness during an August vacation in Alaska. One night the stars shoot arrows of light across the northern sky. Glaciers sound like thunder, and the first snow, a sugary confection, coats the tops of mountains. Alaska can cover Texas twice. Its vastness gives the feeling of humility and hope. But when I learn my mother has died, I am in Anchorage, and she is in South Florida, at the opposite end of the diagonal that cuts across America. And the majesty of Alaska becomes small.

The Plot

I am seventy-two and I don’t have a will. My wife and I talk about the need to call Mr. Osbrey, the elder attorney she knows on City Island. I say we need to do that soon. It’s a priority. It has been our priority for three years.

We buy a safe as a temporary measure. We buy an easy to use computer program, MyAttorney, about do it yourself will making but find it complicated, so we type up our wishes instead, for the distribution of our bank assets, life insurance, the house.

We take our list of wishes to Boxes and Things where the owner is a notary and he notarizes our signatures because we think that will make our list air tight, and we place it in an envelope on top of the safe because we have already lost the key.

Every time my wife and I go on a trip, I take our cemetery deed out of the folder marked cemetery, put it in the envelope and place it on the top of my brown dresser near my loose change, and I write my daughter’s name on top of the envelope. I also write the word IMPORTANT in large letters. It is a strange ritual to do as I’m packing toothpaste, clothes, and a bathing suit. But it is no stranger than the day my wife and I went cemetery shopping.

Memories of that day seem vague, veiled by the murky haze left by the unpleasant task of death planning. But we go because we think it is the mature thing to do, like going for a colonoscopy.

I don’t remember if we go to the diner before or after we give our deposit. Although I can understand our going before, it would be more like us to be ready for diner food after our business was over.

The things I remember about that day seem normal enough. Getting out of bed, putting on clothes, drinking two cups of coffee, starting the car, listening to the morning news, driving. But it becomes a bit surreal as soon as we park in front of the Kensico Cemetery administration building. As we walk toward the building, there are the manicured lawns with monuments and shrubs. Some of the stones even have flowers in front of them. Really nice here, I say, as if we have gone to The Botanical Garden.

We are soon sitting in an office with George Frampton, the cemetery’s sales representative. There are pictures of his wife and kids on his desk. He wears a dark suit, and he tells us about the various sections of the cemetery, as if he is talking about our choice of retirement condos in North Miami or Boca Raton. The way he speaks about the cemetery reminds me of the time we once looked at vacation property. Especially when he asks what our needs are. For a moment, he could have been behind the ticket booth at a Broadway show, and I could have been telling him we wanted two center orchestra tickets or front row mezzanine. But he is Mr. Frampton of the Kensico Cemetery, and I stammer out something non denominational, where a Jewish person and Catholic person can be. It is as if I have said, Something by the pool, please, or, We like to be not far from the golf course, the way a knowing smile forms on his face. Not to worry, he says beginning to look through his book.

As we sit there, I wonder what Mr. Frampton thinks about his job. If he really likes helping people purchase what he refers to as your resting place. When he says that, I