SEPTEMBER 27, 2023 – Gaga’s antique Toyota was nowhere to be seen. Cliff later informed me that UB and Angelo’s attempts to resuscitate it had failed; it was subsequently junked (for good)) so the garage it had occupied could be rented out by Cliff’s efforts for UB’s benefit. Also gone was Grandpa’s 1984 burgundy Cadillac, which UB had used until well into the current century when the mysterious Hans loaned him the Chrysler minivan. But Hans had taken the dinged-up minivan back, and UB was now driving a battered green Taurus station wagon—the very color, make and model that our family had owned . . . 20 years before. We’d traded it in[1] when it was just shy of 50,000 miles. UB was proud of the fact that his Trashmobile—purchased used—had over 168,000.
Naturally, the car was a limited edition . . . of 42 Baghdad Street: when I opened the passenger-side door, most of what was piled on the seat spilled onto my feet. At least some of it would’ve been good reading—a large quantity of the Sunday Times. UB cleared the rest by chucking it onto the rubbish that already covered the backseat.
“That’s the cargo space back there,” he informed me, “and we need to fill it to remind us it’s there.”
The “world according to Bruce,” I thought. Just then I experienced a flashback: the trunk and back seat of UB’s ’73 gold convertible Mustang (starting in late 1972) and the same condition of the ’67 aqua convertible (on our first ski trip to Vermont right after Christmas in 1966). In retrospect, I realized, his untidiness was by then beginning to come undone. The brand new Buick Electra convertible in ’64 and bright new ’60 Pontiac Bonneville before that had been as neat as could be inside. Admittedly, I never saw what might have been hidden in the trunk.
As UB maneuvered the Taurus out of his parking spot in the midst of his chaotic garden center on the west side of the house[2], he gave me a full script endorsement of the ancient vehicle. His childlike enthusiasm was entertaining. He pointed out every “special feature,” such as a numeric speedometer and power seats. The drive to Fischer’s for lunch seemed to propel UB’s ardor for the old car. I marveled at his awe over something so time-worn, forlorn and trashed out, though I had to agree with him that despite a rough start, the engine ran quite smoothly, as did his own physical constitution.
If the lunch fare at Fischer’s wasn’t remarkable, the conversation certainly was. After talk about his investments (on his initiative), his health (again, his initiative), and Mother (my initiative), I broached the topic of Hamburg, which had been the focus of my recent letters to him. Amazingly, he was ready to talk about the alternatives I’d laid out. As I reported in my journal entry for that day, “For a guy past 89 years of age, his mind is remarkably sharp, even though the condition of his house reveals some very serious aberrations of the mind.”
When he said, “Why don’t I just give Hamburg to Nina?” I nearly swallowed whole the French fry I’d just poked into my mouth. I felt like the fisherman whose rod bends and line nearly snaps when the trophy fish strikes. You give the fish plenty of line, then play smart with the rod and reel until you’ve brought the exhausted creature alongside the boat and into the net. Only when the fish is in the cooler can you say you’ve caught the giant pike.
After swallowing, I said, “You know, Uncle Bruce, I think that’s probably the best idea for it. Let’s follow up on that.”
Anything more, I knew, would scare him off. If I tried to reel in his improbable statement I’d be telling Cliff and my sisters about “the big one that got away.” I was still smarting from his promise to stop sending money to Alex; a commitment he’d made in writing to Cliff and me five years and half a million dollars before. Now that he’d dangled the lure of gifting Hamburg to Nina, I had to set the hook. It wouldn’t be easy.
One pleasant surprise spawned another, however. When the time came to pay for lunch, UB not only covered the tab but left a tip in the form of a $2 bill. He informed me that he’d gone to his bank recently and purchased $1,500 worth of “Jeffersons” to use as tips. That struck me as exorbitant, given the prices at Fischer’s, but then again I was sure he never left more than one $2 bill at a time. At that rate he’d be good for another two years.
Yet another surprise unfolded on our way back to 42 Baghdad Street. On a bet with myself, I asked if we could stop at Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst right at the Rutherford line, where Gaga and Grandpa’s remains had been laid to rest. Initially, UB had no interest. I would’ve been surprised if he’d said otherwise. The man who “didn’t do funerals” would hardly be the sort who would visit cemeteries, and in fact, as he then divulged, he’d never set foot in the cemetery where not only his parents but grandparents and great-grandparents were buried. I didn’t press the matter except to say that however he might feel about it, I wanted to visit their gravesite—having never done so before.
He acquiesced. We turned off the street leading to Rutherford and entered the cemetery. Since neither of us had a clue where the Holmans were buried, I suggested we inquire at the cemetery office. There I hopped out and obtained directions. As I showed the way UB seemingly made the car tip-toe along as if to ensure the dead remained that way. When we reached the Holman plot, he continued his streak of surprises: he pulled over, turned off the engine, got out of the car, and followed me toward rows upon rows of . . . gravestones. He then stood next to me as we faced the headstones of three generations of Holmans. If Cliff could see us right now, I thought, he’d be howling.
“I remember my grandparents,” UB said matter-of-factly, staring at the graves.
“What do you remember about them?”
“That they were old when I was young.”
“What else do you remember about them?”
“Ha! You’re asking me to remember things from a long time ago.”
“Sure, but you must remember some things about them.”
“Grandpa Holman—your grandpa’s father—was hard of hearing.”
“Yeah,” I said, “Mother told me that, but not much else about him. I thought maybe you could.”
He seemed disinclined to say anything more about the grand master of the Holman clan, by the measure of his accomplishments surely a highly unusual, talented, and fascinating individual of refined tastes. I didn’t push it. I wanted to ask if any of the ancestors suffered mental illness, but why throw a bomb at the progress I seemed to be making starting with the surprising conversation at lunch?
Instead, UB threw me a curve ball. Instead of driving back to 42 Baghdad Street, he dropped me off at Union Square at the far end of Park Avenue where the bus to New York stopped every 20 minutes. As the old green Taurus station wagon pulled away from the bus shelter, I wondered how much progress I’d actually made.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] For a Chrysler minivan!
[2] Location of the tennis court back in the gilded day of my great grandparents. By the 1980s, UB had plunged into horticulture, mostly on the floral end of the spectrum. The flowers were beautiful, but the arrangements seemed slap-dashed. His ever-expanding work area was a perennial mess, with tools scattered everywhere among his oddball contrivances for weeding, spraying, and watering.
