I STOPPED by to visit an old friend in Chicago last Sunday, and by "old" I mean 96 years of age but with all his faculties intact, which makes him a natural wonder you could exhibit at carnivals for two bucks a head, writes GARRISON KEILLOR
Children under 10 could go free with a parent, all lured by a big sign: SEE MAN BORN ON DAY TITANICWENT DOWN - HE TALKS, HE MAKES SENSE.
The Wonder was sitting in a deep chair under an Einsteinean burst of white hair, nibbling blueberries, his walker handy along with a bottle of JB when I arrived. Newspapers were strewn on the floor, which the Wonder reads to keep close tabs on the Cubs and Barack Obama. I offered to show him how to read the paper online. "That'd be like trying to bounce a meatball," said his son, across the room.
"You think Obama can do it?" the Wonder asked me. "It's in the bag," I said. He frowned. He's worried. Too good to be true. I got the idea he was planning to hang on until November to find out for himself.
How does it feel to be 96? "Lousy!" says the guy who knows. "I'd like to check out."
His legs are gone, his bowels are cranky, and all his old friends are dead. But he still has plenty to say, which is good if you're deaf and can't tune in to the conversation. He was recalling with relish the days of prohibition when Capone and Bugs Moran ran Chicago, and a cop wouldn't bother you if you slipped him a tenner, and a Smith Wesson was considered standard wearing apparel. That was the modus operandi. The old man loved to say "modus operandi" and drew out the syllables in a style suggestive of Edward G Robinson. He had Robinson nailed.
As he yakked I studied him to see what 96 is like, since I'm thinking about going there myself and not stop along the way. All the folks who hang out in gyms ought to stop in at the Wonder's house and pay the two bucks and have a look. He'd tell them how much he loves cigars and Scotch, and that his only exercise was sex and carrying a suitcase. The irony is that when you're old you feast on your memories, and if you spend too much time on exercise you may not have too many.
He spoke of a con man named Titanic Thompson who in 1928 nailed the famous Arnold Rothstein in a rigged card game at the Park Central Hotel in New York, to the tune of three hundred grand.
Rothstein was the guy who put the "organised" in organised crime, and fixed the 1919 World Series. He was no novice. He realised he'd been snookered and refused to pay up, which was not sporting of him, so they shot him and on his deathbed he refused to rat on the killer. He told the cops, "My Mudder did it."
Meeting the old man, you're shaking the hand that shook hands with the man who knew the man who beat Arnold Rothstein at cards. There is a certain grandeur to that.
Grandeur - ruined grandeur - is what a 96-year-old has to offer. It's like coming across an old Zeppelin crashed in the jungle. The epitome of luxurious travel, a great silver blimp, and here it is in a swamp, enfolded in vines, but the old captain lives on in the grand salon. He won't be rescued.
There's still a year's worth of canned beef and biscuits, and 50 bottles of a 1938 Margaux plus a case of Scotch and a hundred-year-old cognac. Call off the chopper, he is just fine and chooses to stay with his ship.
He totters to the door and bids farewell to the search party and gives his benediction:
"Every night when the sun goes down, I say a blessing on this town.Whether we last the night or no, life has always been touch and go. So stick with your modus operandi; Ingenuity! Guile! Art! Good luck. Good bye."
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