My father and I emerge from the long green canopy and stand outside the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway where we live. It’s Sunday afternoon. 1949. Winter. A chill wind blows. I am four. 

My father wears his gray felt fedora at a jaunty angle, the shadow from the brim hiding one eye. That fedora with the grosgrain ribbon is my father. He’s pulled up the collar of his overcoat against the cold. His cheeks pulled in, he’s puffing on a cigar, his face in three quarter view. Unlike my mother, I love the smell of his cigar. That smell, that cigar is almost as much him as his fedora. My father’s sad blue eyes stare into space as I look up at him in adoration. Then he turns his eyes on me, they light up and he smiles that side smile, the cigar dangling out the side of his mouth. That smile makes me feel special, makes me feel I’m the only one.

This time when I see that smile, my wool hat feels uncomfortable. It’s pulled down too low, just above my eyes. He bends down, the handkerchief in the breast pocket of his overcoat is always folded just right. He pushes my hat back gently, reties the bow under my chin. 

“Ya mother!” he says, shaking his head with disdain. “She doesn’t even know how to put ya hat on right! Your mother’s mother never taught her anything!” He takes the cigar from his mouth. “You’ve got to take a deep breath in through your nose like this Butchy to keep warm, then let it all out,” I watch him inhale though his nose, exhale though his mouth. “Ya gotta keep doing that.” 

 We start walking. I do what he says. He smiles in approval. This makes me feel warm inside. Next thing I know we’re both skipping down Broadway! My father, the tough guy, the gambler, skipping, my little hand in his. I’m laughing, screaming in delight, my father looks down at me lovingly, laughing. Double decker buses, yellow checkered cabs head down the wide avenue. We pass the large clock on the southwest corner of 73rd Street, the church, the Embassy Theater, Walgreens Drugstore on the northwest corner of 72nd Street where we’ll stop and have malted milks on our way back from Riverside Park, after he carries me on his shoulders up the winding stone stairs when I tire of the playground by the boat basin.

But right now, we sing nonsense songs as we skip and burst out laughing. On the street, women pull big fur collars of their coats closer and hold on tighter to their sweethearts or their husbands or their hats. Couples, old people, young people, everyone smiles at us. We’re such a happy pair.

I wonder now if people thought he was my grandfather. He was fifty-three years old.

***

A Tennessee Williams Fellow in Fiction, Roberta Allen is the author of nine books, including three story collections, a novel, a novella and a memoir. Well over two-hundred stories have appeared in such magazines as Conjunctions, Epoch, recently in New World Writing and upcoming in the Evergreen Review. Also a conceptual artist, her work is in the collections of The Met and MoMA. Most of her art has been acquired by The Smithsonian Archives. Her writing papers have been acquired by the Fales Archive of NYU. See robertaallen.com