Sitting Shivah at Lutece
Mayer, Milton
Sitting Shivah at Lutece by MILTON MAYER "I'm in great shape," I said. A "Absolutely," said my friend, R. C. McNamara, Jr., "only don't shake your head; it might fall off." I was observing my...
...I'm in great shape," he said...
...But there's one thing that occurred that night That filled my heart with fear: They took the ice right off the corpse And put it on the beer...
...We both recalled Carl Sandburg...
...All my old friends were in them, convalescing from life...
...For all the good I've done myself or anyone else, I might as well have lived decently and died with a decent prospect...
...3. It would seem that you have to do more than change your name to make it...
...It was o.k...
...He recalled Adlai Stevenson and "Harry" Luce...
...I observed that he was careful not to shake his head...
...Chorus) That's how they showed their respect for Paddy Murphy, That's how they showed Their respect when Paddy died...
...4. Gabriel gives Green Stamps too...
...Where did the time go that I saved by changing my name from Milton Sanford to Milton S. and then to Milton...
...How much better is the crowd for my having swelled it...
...I recalled a song that John Patrick Howe and I used to sing in the days when death was something that happened to other people: Oh, the night that Paddy Murphy died I never shall forget...
...I asked him what I would do with the time I'd save...
...He thought we ought to commemorate John Patrick Howe by having dinner together...
...Consider," said Bill, "how often a man signs his name in this life and how much time you'll save...
...He said I would live and learn...
...I was observing my fifty-ninth birthday by burying my oldest friend, John Patrick Howe, sixty-two...
...The evening passed in recollection of John Patrick Howe, resting now (as when hadn't he...
...Bob Hutchins was hanging on—as usual, without trying—at sixty-eight...
...We ate at a beanery called Lutece...
...Made it," he said when he greeted me...
...I concluded the celebration of my fifty-ninth birthday by meditating the mutability of human affairs, and I remembered my arrival at the home of John Patrick Howe on his sixtieth birthday...
...I said, "Absolutely...
...To live through it," he said...
...All any of these solitaries wanted was to die among their loved ones at home...
...It fell off...
...in peace...
...1. Death is the opposite of the weather: Everybody does something about it, but nobody talks about it...
...When he changed his name to William B. Benton, I changed mine to Milton S. Mayer, and when he changed his name to William Benton I changed mine to Milton Mayer...
...2. At the services I commended John Patrick Howe to the Lord (as I had so often commended the Lord to him...
...After dinner Bill said we had just eaten at the most expensive restaurant in New York...
...Bill and I recalled the blowing away of our friends as the leaves blow away (more each day) in November...
...That's how they showed their respect for Paddy Murphy, That's how they showed their honor And their Irish pride...
...I hurried to the opposite coast to see who had been blown off the Western Slope recently...
...The whole damn bunch got Stinking drunk And some ain't sober yet...
...The Western Slope, or End of the Trail, is full of Convalescent Homes, where the young have stashed the old to get them out of sight, out of mind...
...When we parted, in the lobby of the Waldorf, which was like a tomb, our eyes were filled with Lutece's champagne...
...When I began changing my name I was shooting my frayed cuffs in The Progressive, and I still am, while Bill has accumulated a string of corporations, colleges, and orphan asylums...
...The cells are all sanitary and sunny...
...I shook my head...
...What is it like, O Cephalus," I said, "to be old...
...Sitting Shivah at Lutece by MILTON MAYER "I'm in great shape," I said...
...As the barely survivors left the church, I fell in with Bill Benton...
...The same," he said, "as it is to be young: not good...
...I can't say that I lived any better or learned any more than if I'd stayed just plain Milton Sanford Mayer...
...And what is the object of life...
...How did I improve each shining hour...
...I asked Bill how he was...
...Where's home...
...He used to be William Burnet Benton, just as I used to be Milton Sanford Mayer...
...With a bit of keening it might have been a wake, or, with a bit of wailing, what the Jews call sitting shivah...
Vol. 31 • November 1967 • No. 11
