Last Words

Five years before, Harry Becker had shut the door to his shoe repair shop for the last time. It was completely empty at that point. All his inventory; all his tools; the huge mechanical shoe repair finishing machine, a byzantine contraption of belts and nibblers and sanders and brushes and buffers that commandeered almost an entire wall and had been there as long as he had; the big brass filigreed National Cash Register that stood like a centurion on the counter near the entrance and dwarfed Harry behind it—everything had been sold or junked. 

Still, with the shop as bone-bare as a nursery rhyme cupboard, Harry went through his ritual door-locking routine, shutting the door tightly, inserting his key and turning the bolt until he heard it click, then pulling and pushing the door with everything he had, as if trying to thwart his own efforts and, when failing to do so, doing it again. And again. Shaking and rattling the hinges until, spent and short of breath, he was finally satisfied that the empty space inside was safe from potential thieves.

Then, knowing he would never return, Harry had put up the handwritten sign he always put up when he closed for lunch, or to run an errand, or to bowl a game or two with his friend Meyer, or to leave for urgent personal business that could well take the rest of the day: Back in 20 minutes. It was an inside joke, for which he was the only insider who would see it. 

How things had changed since that day just a little over half a decade ago. Now Harry was as spent and short of breath merely getting out of bed in the morning as he had been after all his exertions making sure the door to his shop on the old North Side of St. Louis was impenetrable. The neighborhood, too, had changed in ways he couldn’t have imagined when he and Lena moved to University City to be closer to their children and grandchildren so they could help take care of the aging couple who had spent their life taking care of them. And Harry needed care.  

His doctor never told him that his heart condition was terminal, but he didn’t have to be told. He knew. In his heart. How much time did he have left? He couldn’t say, of course, except that it wasn’t much. At seventy-three, he’d already received his biblical allotment.

And so, after having spent his entire life trying to figure out how to live, he would now have to figure out how to die. 

Harry couldn’t count the number of times he had been to the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City; thrown a shovel of dirt onto a casket; visited departed loved ones, including his daughter Goldie who followed his son-in-law Sid there; and driven past it on his way to be with his family, have a meal with them, tell stories that still tickled his grandchildren even as they had grown up. It was a life that was narrow but full, meager but rich.

Harry knew the cemetery would be his last stop on this earth—he had already bought plots for Lena and himself—but he’d never thought about that except in the most fleeting way. It was something that was waiting for him down the road, a road that somehow would never end, and he would continue to travel. A distant time that would always remain distant. But in moments of awareness that vanished as quickly as they arose, he caught a glimpse of the horizon shrinking. 

Harry looked into his closet and regarded his clothes: old, threadbare, unfit even for a rummage sale. No one would want them, including himself. Even his shoes, which had always been in good repair—he made sure of that—weren’t anymore, now that he no longer had the tools to keep them that way, and he was loath to let someone else do his job for him. The sight of his wardrobe embarrassed him, as if it reflected the state of his own body, and he didn’t care to look in that mirror. One day he’ll be gone, but all these shmatas—the shirts and pants, the coats and hats, the shoes, the ties—would still be here. It seemed unjust to a man who had always valued people over things. 

Valuing people as he did, having concern for others, he felt it was his responsibility to start clearing things out himself, thinning out his possessions so others wouldn’t have the burden of doing it for him. To do otherwise would be selfish, a trait that to Harry was the root of all evil. 

The leather jacket—he’d certainly be gone before the seasons turned, and he wouldn’t need that again. But as he reached for the hanger holding it, he stopped. What if he did make it to the fall and winter? He might. What did he know? He wasn’t a doctor. Well, he was a shoe doctor, as the decal on the window of his old shop proclaimed, but he wasn’t a shoe. What if he had more gas in the old tank than he realized? Did he really want to have to buy a new jacket or winter coat in a couple of months? On second thought, he’d better hold onto this one. You never know. After all, there was the blessing from the Torah that everyone knew, “May you live till hundert un tsvantsik”—one hundred twenty.

Maybe he would. 

*

The Cardinals had fled old Sportsman’s Park not far from Harry’s North Side neighborhood the year before, and Harry felt that a family outing to that new gigantic flying saucer they built downtown to replace it would be just what he needed. He called all of his grandchildren, but they, too, were among the things that had changed over the years. 

Marshall was in the army reserves at a two-week summer training camp. Sandy had a boyfriend whose interest in baseball was in inverse proportion to her interest in him, so she was a no thank you. Marty and Joey had their own lives, too, and couldn’t seem to commit. So that left only Harry’s most reliable baseball date, his daughter Libby, who took the busy day off from her big job at the Famous-Barr department store to go with him on a Sunday afternoon in late July. 

Neither of them liked the new stadium, a cold, concrete monstrosity with none of the charm, idiosyncrasies, or personality of the old one. “Not heimishe, that’s for sure,” said Harry. He’d never feel at home there. But it didn’t seem to bother the players, or their performance anyway. The Cardinals were in first place and playing exciting baseball.

“They haven’t even put their foot on the gas yet,” Harry said. “These boychiks can go all the way. Ya think, Libby?”

“They could. They’ve got the pitching.”

They also had the offense. As happy as Harry was about that, he was sorry that Stan Musial was no longer a part of it. He was the team’s general manager now, but Harry felt he deserved to be on the field. His timing, always perfect at the plate, was just a bit off as far as his career went, having retired in 1963, the season before the Cardinals won the World Series for the first time in twenty-seven years. But age caught up with him, and now he was missing out playing on this team too. 

It made Harry wonder if he was also going to miss out. Would he be around to see how far this team could go? He didn’t want to think about that and quickly changed the subject in his mind. Boy, is it hot, he said to himself. And it was. The hottest day of the year. In the bottom of the third inning, as he sat breathing heavily, Libby could tell her father was having a hard time, and she said, “Papa, let’s go. It’s so hot.”

“It’s early, Libby.”

“But I’m uncomfortable. Come on, let’s go home. We’ll listen on the radio. Wouldn’t it be nice to get in my nice air-conditioned car?”

This was a first. Neither Harry nor Libby had ever left a game before the final out was made. But Harry had to agree. “Yeah, you’re right.”

*

A few weeks later, when Harry was having one of his better days, he said to his wife Lena, “Come, let’s go for a drive.” 

“To where?”

“To anywhere. To nowhere. Come. I’ll drive you like a lady.” 

Lena always enjoyed the idea of that, so she got into the machine, as they both called the car, and took off on the road to anywhere or nowhere. But Harry actually had a specific somewhere in mind, and when Lena realized where he was heading, her attitude changed. 

“You’re going to Warne?” she said, the avenue on the North Side where Harry used to have his shop across the street from the four-unit flat. They had bought it years ago after they had finally saved enough money, and their daughters had lived there with their own families in their own apartments before they moved to the suburbs.

“Sure. Why not?”

“Why not? It’s not the same, Harry. The neighborhood, it’s dangerous, they say.” 

“They say a lot of things, Lena. Let’s see.” 

The old neighborhood was indeed not the same. Everywhere Harry looked, the places he remembered and grew into himself as an American were gone, closed, and often boarded up. The only remnant of the Florissant Lanes—the city’s renowned bowling alley where the best bowlers in America competed on teams sponsored by Budweiser and Falstaff (which brews Harry and his friend Meyer drank as they rolled a game or two on lazy afternoons)—was the non-functioning neon sign that read BOWLING and ran alongside the top two floors of its three-story building. Ernie’s hardware next door to their flat where Harry dropped in just to kibbitz with the owner and his neighbors; Western Auto where Harry proudly bought polish, wax, and chamois to keep his first car, a ’54 Chevy, shining like new; the Circle Fountain, a place where Harry and his family found comfort in cozy booths sipping ice cream sodas; Horne’s Candy, where every fall Harry would buy his grandkids hard red candy apples that Lena always warned they’d break their teeth on; the ornate O’Fallon Theater adorned inside with French paintings between columns of the auditorium’s walls where Harry was acculturated in the American lore of the Wild West, gangsters and bootleggers, and his favorites, the screwball comedies; Ed’s Pool Hall, where Harry honed his surprising untapped skills to earn a reputation as a hustler that spread beyond the North Side; even Lucille’s, the diner that was the lifeblood of the neighborhood where Harry shmoozed and joked with Lucille and her steady stream of customers almost every day—all of them were gone. 

The bustling street traffic of a diverse community was no longer bustling or diverse. What had been a mixed neighborhood of Germans, Jews, Italians, some Irish, and a few Black people was now predominantly the latter. The one thing that seemed to be the same was Harry’s shop, still empty, locked, and shuttered as he had left it. With one small difference. Long gone with the wind was the paper sign that Harry had written in his own hand five years before and taped to the door just before he left for good: Back in 20 minutes.

“Oy a broch,” said Lena as they drove down the streets, stating in a few foreign syllables her opinion of the neighborhood. It was a disaster. 

Harry had to agree. But his emotions, unlike Lena’s, could not be expressed so simply. They were too mixed and complicated: a knot of sadness, anger, guilt, fear, and oddly, a peculiar portion of pride. 

The sadness came, of course, from seeing how his once beloved, vibrant neighborhood, his first home when he settled in this new land and a symbol to Harry of the promise of America, had fallen so low in just a few years. What a shanda. 

The anger arose from the fact that this could happen at all in a nation so rich, so strong, so high-minded and filled with opportunity. And some of that anger was directed at himself, accompanied with a pang of guilt that he was in part responsible. 

Harry and his family were among the many who had abandoned the great cities of America over the previous decade, the period of White Flight to the suburbs. He had left at the urging—insistence—of his children. And they had had good reasons. He was old. It was time he retired and be as physically close to them as he was emotionally. As for themselves, they were looking, as had all their venturous predecessors, for a better life— more room, better schools, greater opportunity. 

But what were they fleeing? As ashamed as he was, Harry had to admit it: they were fleeing the Black people who had been moving to the North Side in ever larger numbers, driven by exactly the same desires as those who had fled.

It was difficult for Harry to confront this reality, but it was inescapable. It was even more difficult for him to confront another feeling enmeshed with all the others. His fear. His fear was not of Black people. Harry was always as open and welcoming to everyone as he wanted people to be open and welcoming to him. How could he not be? He, too, had once been considered an outsider, shunned, denied, and confined to ghettos.

Harry’s fear was of another sort—the fear he felt seeing how his old neighborhood had deteriorated. It had gotten old and sick, and now it was dying. Well, he thought, welcome to the club. Happens to the best of us. But somewhere in the swirl of all these emotions, a conflicting, anomalous feeling popped to the surface. A feeling of pride. 

Half the cities in the country, it seemed, had gone up in flames, beset by riots, lootings, and uprisings during the long hot summer of 1967. Detroit, Newark, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia. Even small cities like East St. Louis, just across the river, Dayton, Ohio, and Des Moines, Iowa, saw violent unrest. Scores were killed, thousands were injured. Property was burned to the ground. The worst of it came just a few weeks before, around the time Harry and Libby went downtown to see a ballgame at the new stadium, and only now was there an uneasy, uncertain peace. 

But St. Louis had stayed quiet. Sure it had its protests, but peaceful protests, a right guaranteed in the Constitution, a document Harry so revered. St. Louis had been spared the worst because its citizens had obeyed the rule of law. And this for Harry was a source of pride. One that also somewhat allayed his fear. The city had survived. Even his old neighborhood, though no longer what it once was, had survived. Maybe he could, too.

*

When Harry got home and opened his closet, he again considered all of the old, shabby clothes inside. And he made a decision. He would finally pitch them all. But after having visited the old neighborhood, it would not be a surrender to the inevitable, but an act of hope, or maybe defiance. Now he would get rid of them with the intention of making room in his closet for new clothes he would replace them with. 

Again, he turned to Libby. Not only did she always have indisputably impeccable taste, she also had a generous discount at Famous-Barr, where she worked as a designer and decorator. She would be his wardrobe consultant and something of a benefactor. Harry made a secret arrangement to meet Libby at Famous-Barr alone. That way Lena would be surprised when he walked in the door all spruced up in his new threads.

Libby was thrilled with her new assignment. She took her father’s arm as they browsed the enormous selection of men’s clothing, picking out shirts, pants, a lightweight poplin jacket, and a deep navy wool overcoat. 

“How about a suit, Papa?”

“A suit, Libby? Where am I going, the White House?”

“For the High Holidays. At shul.” 

Harry arched his eyebrows thinking it over. 

“My treat, Papa.”

“I can afford, Libby.”

“I know, but let me. It would make me so happy to do this for you.”

Harry could see in Libby’s beaming face just how happy it would make her, and if he could ever do anything to make her happy, he always did. 

“Okay, then. Why not?” 

They picked out a charcoal gray suit and a new tie to go with it and, after the fitting, arranged to have everything delivered to Harry’s address, except the new clothes he would wear home.

“Oh, one more thing, Papa, to top it off.” 

And Harry and Libby strolled down the aisles as giddy as a new couple to the hats department where he chose a classic fedora: a charcoal gray Borsalino Torino. Harry admired himself in the mirror, assessed how it rested on his head from multiple angles, then, with a crisp snap of the brim got the look he was after.

“Like Bogart I look, right?”

“Oh, much handsomer,” Libby said.

“Sold American!” said Harry with a broad smile. 

Together they headed for the elevator, Harry never looking more dapper or more pleased in his new duds and chapeau. But before they reached it, Harry stopped, clutched his chest with a groan, then grabbed Libby and held onto her before losing his grip and collapsing to the floor. 

It would be the first and last time he would ever wear his new clothes.

Libby sat helplessly beside her father in the ambulance watching a poorly trained attendant do what little he could as the vehicle sped, wailing to the Jewish Hospital’s emergency entrance. It wasn’t like Libby to pray for divine intercession—she got that reluctance from her father—but she did now.

*

Lena and Tillie, their middle daughter and oldest surviving, arrived first, followed later in the afternoon by the rest of the family. None of them could say they were surprised, but that didn’t lessen their sorrow and pain. They exchanged moist, numb glances as they fretted in a waiting room and took turns going to Harry’s bedside to say what they were sure would be their last words to him as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

When he opened his eyes, confused, semiconscious, and unsure where he was, the tubes in his veins provided the answer. Lena sat grimly in a chair near his bed and Harry blinked. She rose, walked to his side, and caressed his hand. His eyes remained open just long enough to make contact with hers, then closed again. He tried to speak, if to say nothing else, to tell Lena he loved her. But he didn’t have the strength. Every breath took all he had out of him. So, this is it, he thought. Would he ever be able to speak again? If not, he wondered, as he began to drop off maybe for the last time, what had been his last words? He couldn’t remember.

When he woke again he saw Libby and Tillie walking out the door. He’d just missed them. He tried to call, but nothing came out. Where were his grandchildren? He didn’t remember seeing them, or maybe he did, but it might have been a dream. He couldn’t be sure. But somehow he sensed their presence. He knew they were there, or had been. Or would be.

The thought of his last words recurred to him, frustrated that he still couldn’t recall them. What were they? And the last story he told? What was it? He had no idea. 

Harry loved to talk, to engage others with his words, and he wanted his last ones to mean something. Something to be remembered and be remembered by. What should they be? 

He recalled what he had told Libby and Lena years ago when they were having problems and unhappy with the hand life had dealt them. Harry had no patience for that. Didn’t they realize how good they had it here in America? They had freedom. Opportunity. Indoor plumbing. They had everything that mattered. What were they complaining about? Exasperated, he said to them, “Be grateful and not take for granted.” 

True enough. Good advice. He might try to say that the next time they came in. But no, he didn’t want those to be his last words. Those were instructions. Commands. And spoken in frustration. He didn’t want to leave issuing an order, like he was a boss. 

Harry had never lost his passion for justice and the rule of law. He was always quoting or paraphrasing the nation’s founding documents, and he wondered if maybe something from those should be his last words. “Provide for the general welfare.” “Obey the rule of law.” “Free speech. Say what’s on your mind and assemble peacefully.” Those were the principles that had kept St. Louis from being engulfed in flames. 

But fine words to live by, though they surely were, they, too, were directives. Too big and lofty to be his last. And they weren’t his own. He wanted his own words, something that stated who he was, what he valued, what he believed in. Something humble and simple. But what? 

Harry again struggled to recall the words he had last spoken and finally he thought he knew what they might have been. He was at Famous-Barr. Right. And, as far as he could remember, his last words were, “Can I get a receipt?” 

No. Not that. Those couldn’t be his last words. They were too mundane, too transactional, too much about money. That wasn’t him at all. He had to find new ones.

And a voice with which to say them.

The next time Harry woke up, he felt something that he didn’t recognize. Something hard in his mouth. He had no idea what it was, but an intubation tube had been inserted into his trachea to help him breathe. Whatever was going on, Harry realized that if he hadn’t been able to speak before, there was no chance now. Not with that thing stuck down his throat. 

Yet he continued to think about his last words. Even though he’d never be able to say them, he asked himself a question that would put him on the path to find the right ones. “What quality of yours is the most important?” That was it. And he had a ready answer—his sense of humor. Of course. His last words should somehow convey that. But he couldn’t say (as if he could say anything), “Have a sense of humor.” That fell into the same trap as everything else. Another command. He had to find a way to express that side of him, to leave them laughing, at least put a smile on their face, without telling them what to do. But then he reconsidered. “My last words a gag line? Who am I, Jack Benny?” 

No, of course not. He was a shoemaker. A humble shoemaker, father, grandfather, friend, neighbor, and all the rest. He wasn’t a comedian. But as he probed more deeply, he reversed himself again. So what? Humor was important. It was his natural gift, one he shared with everyone. It put things in perspective. It eased pain. It helped people cope with the injustices in this world that he had always fought against. It brought the highfalutin back down to earth and reminded us that we’re all in this together. And it kept Harry young at heart, even as his own was aged and beating its last. 

Yes, that is what he wanted to be remembered for. His sense of humor. But here he was, alone with his thoughts, unable to speak even if he had something to say. And no one to hear him even if he could. And again, he drifted off. 

Later, who knew how much later, his eyes opened again. For the last time? he wondered. He watched a nurse doing whatever a nurse does with a man dying in a hospital bed, checking his vitals, adjusting his tubes and the plastic bags of whatever was going through them. Checking that thing they stuffed down his throat? He didn’t know. And just then, it suddenly occurred to him what, in his voicelessness, he wanted to say. He gestured to the nurse with what little strength he had left, miming a hand writing on paper.

“You want to write? Is that it?”

Harry blinked his response. The nurse understood and brought him a small pad and a pen. 

“Is this what you want?” she asked placing them in his limp hands. Harry found the strength to grip them. He would try to write his last words. Of course, they wouldn’t be spoken, but he consoled himself with the idea that the written word was better. It would last forever. Like the Torah. And, as the nurse left his room, Harry summoned what was left of his dwindling energy and wrote on the pad his final words. Then he let the pad drop to his chest, and the pen roll to the floor. 

*

It was the middle of the night. Libby and Lena had never left the hospital and were nodding off in uncomfortable chairs when the nurse called them into Harry’s room. Libby held her mother’s arm to support her as they entered and saw Harry lying inert in the bed, the intubation tube removed. A doctor stood at his side. His look said it all. 

They approached the bed to see Harry up close, hear his final silence, and feel his ebbing warmth with their hands. When she did, Libby noticed the notepad on his chest, picked it up, and read what her father had written on it in his weak, but distinctive, scrawl.

She smiled as she sobbed, and handed it to her mother, who did the same. 

Yes, that was Papa, Libby thought. An inside joke for which both she and her mother were insiders. It said: Back in 20 minutes.