Traveling

My dad always bought Chevies, 60 years of them.

His car was a workhorse, a way to earn a living.

But on Blue-Law Sundays we wouldn't shop.

We'd go for drives,

visiting relatives in different parts of town , our Jewish pilgrimage.

We'd visit sometimes 12 homes.

Traveling as a family was the unspoken law

as if some secret might be

shared, some epiphany reached,

and heaven forbid one of us should miss it.

On some Sundays, though, my dad

would take me and me alone with him

to Perchersky's Deli on Mellon Street

to buy whitefish and bagels and cream cheese

or lox if he had a good selling week.

My dad in those years was round-bellied  and spoke little

to me of his world or mine.

So we'd ride the short distance to Mellon Street in silence,

the Chevy filled with the grey-black smoke of

his Garcia Vega.

Forbidden from smoking in our house, my dad claimed his domain in the Chevy.

I loved that choking smoke because it meant he was home.

Our rides were brief and utilitarian.

He'd circle and recircle the block

in search of the perfect parking spot.

I'd sit in the coveted passenger's seat ,

my mother's usual throne,

and pretend that I, too, knew how to drive.

On a warm day, I'd roll down the window and

rest my arm on the door,

lounging  with the air of someone important.

The Chevy wagon was our one opportunity

to be a pair.

As I pull my well-creased silver Chevy into the driveway of Weinberg Village,

I miss the curve as usual and do a worse parking job than a drunken 16-year-old.

My dad's already there, perched at the handles of his walker

like an expectant bird.

The round-bellied man is 90 now,

skin parched and hanging .

He greets me with such delight

that it catches in my throat.

First I place him carefully, gently, into the passenger's seat, buckle

the seat belt

around his bony frame,

stopping to receive a kiss as I bend over him.

As I round the curve of the driveway,

he chatters incessantly,

asking the same question 5 times in 6 minutes,

apologizing for not remembering the other 4 answers.

We're going for his haircut, my dad and I,

buzz cut, #2 blade.

I could easily do it myself in his room at Weinberg.

All I'd need is a $19.95 hair clipper.

But once a month, if the weather is warm enough,

we drive into Squirrel Hill.

First the haircut and then a corned beef sandwich from Kazansky's.

"Let's get one for your mother, too, " he always reminds me.

My tiny daddy sits beside me in my Chevy-

always buy a Chevy-

as we head home.