Arrival. Destination unknown.

1.
My father and my mother

are seen standing on what appears to be

a city rooftop.

almost any city you might imagine.

If you imagine New York, so shall it be.

Boston? OK, Boston.

No, Chloe. It’s not a rooftop overlooking
the lost city of Tibet.

they're not dressed for Memphis, although

I know they went there at least once
during their young marriage to visit my mother's brother,
Nathan and his sizzling red-headed wife, Annabelle, called: "Billie".

but on a rooftop this day, they’re dressed to the nines.

Annie, wrapped in a coat's fur collar which
circles her neck like a coconut doughnut, bird feathers
are inserts for her hat and stability's maintained by sensible,
yet somehow, fashionable shoes.

her head is slightly bowed, almost humbled as her eyes look forward.

she rigidly promised to honor and obey.

this promise will find a way to slacken over time.

William wears a tailored topcoat over a dress shirt

and necktie tucked beneath a straight-necked,
shoulder to shoulder, sweater.

he sports a new fedora; not a hint of sweat along the band.

shoes, polished to a glaze “Shinola” would covet

for its advertising pages and

leather gloves of high quality. soft. pliable.

you'd like to shake the hand of the man who wears a glove like this.

(the line above is a paraphrase of one of the greatest one-liners
in the history one-liners.)

the time: bootcamp during the Second World War.

Seaman, Artie Shaw, a Hollywood clarinet player who "knows"
many of the female stars of the silver screen, is greeted by a fast-
approaching, glad-handed Lieutenant Commander of the U.S. Navy
who delivers the great one-liner to the stunned Artie Shaw:

“I just wanted to shake the hand that patted the ass of Lana Turner”.

2.
William shakes with the right hand, also. –– but wait.

the right hand’s busy.

we see protruding from the leather glove,
the sneaky duck’s-ass end of a Luck Strike!

this is a common sleight-of-hand technique used by gentlemen

in the late '30s through the '40s to conceal their lit cigarettes
while being photographed in the presence of a lady.

good technique, William.–– but you know,

I’ll have more to say about the consequence of diagnostics in due time.

as to where and when you are, well, it's enough to say: there you were.

(the paraphrase about Artie in the Navy was supplied by
Lenny Bruce in his comic-relief volume:

"How To Talk Dirty And Influence People"
whose title is itself a parody on Dale Carnegie's:
"How To Win Friends And Influence People"
which my father read as a salesman on the road.
I read Lenny's book instead.)