Write me a Letter

me to meet Uncle Theo and escort him north to Uncle Teddy’s.”
    ”Well, a hotel right near Uncle Teddy’s,” she said. ”Yes, please. Could you?” She turned on her Lillian-Gish-in- Orphan-of-the-Storm look.
    ”I might be able to,” I said. ”When does he get in?”
    ”Saturday morning. I know that’s six days away and mother might even be better by then, but I thought I’d try and make arrangements now just in case, so if you were tied up, I’d have time to think of something else.”
    ”Let me just check the little old schedule,” I said. I put on my specs reluctantly, got out the little old schedule, which was in fact a Cosmopolitan magazine’s ”Desktop Diary for Today’s Woman,” a thoughtful present I’d uncovered in my stocking the previous Christmas from my favorite, thoughtful blonde, who was not without a flash of humor from time to time. The year before she had given me a hunter’s and fisherman’s diary, so if you ever want to know how much the largest pike ever netted in American waters weighed, you know who to call, except I chucked it out when I got the new one.
    I opened the diary to the appropriate week, making sure that Miss Braukis didn’t get a peek at it. Aside from such domestic trivia as ”buy Mom present,” ”have brakes checked,” ”thpaste,” ”mthwash,” ”1 case ginger ale,” and ”Jockey shorts,” it was as blank as a doctor’s expression just after you’ve asked him how much longer you had to live.
    ”The time I could find,” I said truthfully. ”But why me? I mean, why anyone? Why doesn’t Uncle Theo just hop a connector flight to Oakland , then take a cab?”
    ”Because he can’t speak English,” she said.
    ”Not at all?”
    ”Not at all.”
    ”What does he speak?”
    ”Estonian,” she said. ”And of course Russian.”
    ”Of course,” I said. ”What luck my Russian is flawless, Tovaritch.”
    It was then that the amazing Miss Ruth Braukis leaned forward, gazed at me earnestly from those marvelous orbs, ran the tip of her adorable tongue over her equally if not more adorable upper lip, and oh, dream on, big fella, dream on, asked me in that voice redolent of late nights and saxophones, ”What do you think?”
    At that point, precisely what would you have done in my position, may I ask? Made some lame excuse, mayhap a pressing appointment with your gum specialist, and turned her out into the swirling smog? Of course I said I’d do it. Of course I said, in the most reassuring tones, ”Leave it to me.” Of course there did occur a brief but satisfactory discussion of monetary matters, including a hefty chunk up front.
    Then I elicited the necessary details from her—the time Uncle Theo was due in—3:44. Where—LAX. What airline— TWA. Coming from where— New York . She also gave me Uncle Teddy’s address up north and his phone number; her address in town, the Fairfax Hotel (on Fairfax, appropriately); another number where I could leave a message for her; and the name of the hospital where her mother was— the Hollywood Kaiser, an establishment of healing I knew all too well and have the scars, the bills, and a certain redheaded nurse’s home phone number to prove it.... Now, now, rumor mongers, simmer down. I hasten to add at this point that said redhead’s moniker is Duke, he once played tackle for Arkansas State, and as well as being a nurse, he’s also an osteopath who makes house calls. Then madam offered various other bits and pieces such as Mummy’s name— June Braukis—a photo of Uncle Theo, and a letter from Uncle Teddy to Uncle Theo he’d air expressed down explaining all to Uncle Theo in Russian. On the envelope was written ”Fioder Bielken,” which, on inquiry, turned out to be Uncle Theo’s name writ in a westernized form of the Ruskie alphabet.
    Oh. Speaking (as I just was) of bits and pieces, of bitty bits and patchwork pieces torn from some greater whole— oftentimes, especially in bars late at night—I think that perhaps all my days (and most of my life) consist of nothing else. And unlike those who search for religion, truth, love, forgiveness, or oblivion in the bottom of their glasses, all I was hoping to find was some sort of cosmic superglue. I thought about asking madam if she happened to know where I might purchase a large, family-size tube of same, but I didn’t.
    I thought about asking her what her favorite color was, or if she liked yellow roses, tangoing, big bands, bigger men, Dolly