Time waits for Norman
by David Finkle
[ fiction - july 06 ]
It does me no good - it does none of us who know Norman Leventhal any good - telling him to meet at seven for a seven o'clock movie. It does less than no good, because by his own admission Norman always arrives Jewish Time.
For gentiles who don't know what Jewish Time is or for Jews who are hopelessly secular, it's arriving a half-hour late. Without fail. Tell Norm the restaurant reservation is made for nine - including any restaurant where they're persnickety about punctuality - and he shows at nine thirty. Tell Norm the tennis match starts at one, which requires that you leave by noon - something he already knows and surely has known for years - and he trots over the horizon at twelve thirty. When you finally reach Flushing, the first set is nearly over. Tell Norm the train pulls out of the station at four forty-eight precisely and, yup, he misses it, has to wait for the next one which gets him there just in time to catch the end of whatever ring-a-ding event you've scheduled.
The solution seems obvious, doesn't it? Make the appointment with Norm for a half-hour before he needs to check in. Forget it. Doesn't work. He knows when he's being played and adjusts accordingly. He has a weird sixth sense that shifts into high gear. You tell him everyone's gathering for drinks at six, when everyone's really gathering at six-thirty, and at six thirty, he's still not there. He hurtles through the door at seven with one of his wooly tales.
And God forbid, you're foolish enough to think this might be the lucky day you'll get him there on time for, say, a play with an eight o'clock curtain, which - to be on the safe side - you say started at seven. You're cooling your heels at eight on the nose, and he reaches the row just after the curtain goes up at eight ten - stepping on patrons' feet as he pushes past them. Collapsing noisily into his seat, he wants to know what he missed. "You almost missed me, palsie" is what you want to say. But you don't.
You don't, because he's Norman - lumbering, open-faced Norm. That's how he gets away with it. Everyone he knows lets it ride for a while, at least - no matter how put out he or she is. And everyone is definitely put out. Why the forgiveness right up until the urge strikes not to forgive? Here are some of the reasons regularly declared: "What are you going to do? That's Norman." "So what if he's late? Once he gets there, he's so much fun." "Norm's such a big-hearted guy, so generous, there are worse crimes." "You have to cut Normie some slack. He's hasn't always had it easy."
True enough. Norm hasn't always had it easy. But neither has anybody else who manages to get there on time. Granted, Norm may have had it worse than some. He lost his father when he was seventeen and had to go to work to support his mother and sister Emily, which he did while putting himself through college. He didn't get married until he was in his early thirties, because he wanted to make sure Emily was paired off and settled first, which is what she wanted - to be spliced and to start a family. And what Emily wanted was what protective, considerate (in everything but promptness) Norman wanted for her.
Then the woman with whom he tied the knot - too quickly, since he was in a hurry to make up for lost time - left him after three years for a fast-talking gynecologist. This calculating shtarker, who was called Devora, thought she was trading up, which she might have done if Norm, who was a pharmacist, hadn't invented and patented a pill dispenser now used in pharmacies on a couple continents that guarantees him a plush financial cushion for life.
So in some ways, Norm has had it better than some, and still, as I say, it was no good my telling him to meet me at seven for a seven-thirty flick. It didn't take long for me to realize the ploy wasn't working. Others took longer to figure it out, although eventually most of us friendly with him gave up. We just opted to tell him what time we need to meet and then bring a book or order a drink or finish the crossword puzzle or organize our planners - anything to give us something to do while waiting for him to rush in, dramatically winded, with another of his hairy, by now hoary, explanations.
And they are veritable doozies, because Norm didn't just dawdle on the way or get caught at the office. For one thing, he no longer goes to an office on a daily basis. He has one, of course, and he has a secretary - excuse me, an executive assistant - ensconced in it at a fancy-shmancy desk. But he only drops by occasionally. These days he does most of his work by cell phone, mobile phone if he's in England. He's either talking on it or - heaven, help us! - texting most hours of the day, which seems a perfectly acceptable way for him to carry on his consulting business.
For, yes, Norm has become a - tada! - consultant. It's the result of his success with the pill dispenser. It gave him an aura of knowing what pharmacies need in order to flourish, and so he began by advising other pharmacies. In time, word of his acumen spread, and he was asked for guidance by a widening spectrum of businesses. This has made the plush financial cushion of his even plusher. Besides which, he bought ten thousand shares of Google when Larry Page and Sergey Brin finally agreed to the IPO; he sold the day before Google peaked.
Proof that for some things his timing is perfect. Yet it did nothing to ameliorate his inevitable tardiness on the social level. By rights, his current business operandi should have given him the wherewithal to be early, wouldn't you think? If he can accomplish his counseling from anywhere a cell phone gets a static-free connection, he ought to be able to reach the restaurant (theater, sporting event, et cetera) before he's expected and simply operate whatever his pressing biz is from that vantage point.
Nothing doing. "There was a terrible traffic jam on the East Side," he'll say. "I think the President is at the UN." The President is not at the UN. "A man collapsed on the side walk, and I wanted to wait with him until the medics arrived," he'll say. This was undoubtedly true, but it eventually comes out that a crowd of people were waiting along with him. "You gave me the wrong address, and for the longest time I couldn't remember the name of the place," he'll say. You're pretty sure you gave him the right address but can't swear to it. "I ran into a guy I went to school with at Penn, and he wouldn't let me get away until he'd told me everything that's happened to him since." By now, I'm under the (false?) impression he went to school with scores of talk-your-ear-off classmates.
So since it's availed me nothing to try tricking him, I tell him - told him - to meet me at the restaurant at seven thirty, which is when I'd made this particular reservation for. Nope, I didn't tell him to meet me at seven or even split the difference and tell him to be there by seven fifteen. I said seven thirty and meant seven thirty. "I mean seven thirty, Norman," I said to him. "Do you hear me?" "I hear you, I hear you," he said. "I'll be on time." He screwed up his big frying-pan face and smiled. "When am I not on time?"
I ignored the little joke on himself (or was it on me?) and said, "You better be, because this is Vendee, and if you're not there promptly, they give your table away. They tell you as much in no uncertain terms when they put you in their book and take your telephone number. As well as your date of birth and mother's maiden name."
"I'll be there on the dot," he said.
Of course, he wasn't. I come through Vendee's front door at seven twenty and am shown to the bar. There's the self-congratulatory reception you get at the kind of place where the management knows it has the upper hand. And there's also the self-congratulatory hum among the patrons. The word-of-mouth is good; whoever's now pontificating on good chow at The New York Times has given the joint three stars; patrons are just glad they've been approved for service. Such wholesale smuggery can get on your nerves, but if you're caught up in the Manhattan madness of it all - and my wanting to try Vendee means I qualify - you decide to play along.
Playing along results in standing at the bar getting various looks from the maitresse d' every time she passes by. There's the questioning look - a widening of the eyes - that says, When is your companion arriving, if he's arriving at all? There's the threatening look - an arched eyebrow and a tightening of the mouth - that says, If he doesn't come soon, we'll have to take measures. There's the resigned look - the eyes sad, the shoulders shrugged - that says, There's precious little I can do for you now.
I'm taking the last of these looks in when I glance away from the bar boor who'd interrupted my Wall Street Journal catch up. For twenty minutes this Donald Trump-coiffed, logorrhea sufferer has appropriated my ear to deliver a lecture on hedge funds. (That's what I get for reading the WSJ in public.) He's downing an oh-so-trendy Mojito (whatever happened to Cosmopolitans?) while awaiting the person late for him. He's already made the chilling suggestion that if our respective parties don't arrive, we could sit with each other.
He says this when he notices me checking my watch. It's 7:46. I laugh as if I think he's making a joke, although I know he isn't. As a matter of fact, it occurs to me that this gregarious clown could be the type who's stood up regularly by people who know what they're in for, and consequently he makes a habit of snaring unsuspecting dinner partners to close the deal on whatever he's leading up to selling them.
It's 7:53, and the maitresse d' - maitresse d' translating as estaminet dominatrix - has just, as I say, launched a missile of a look my way that says in so many unspoken words that my coveted table is a thing of the past. So while the prattling tormenter at my right presses on about the advantage hedge funds have over money market funds, I stew in the kind of oil they aren't working with in the frenzied Vendee kitchen.
I check my watch again at 7:59, only to look up from it as Norm bombards through the door, broad smile blasting, energy surging through his broad, worked-out body as he pants his salutation. "Sorry I'm late," he says, nodding at my bar buddy but not really taking him in. "I'll tell you about it when we're seated."
"I don't think we're going to be seated," I say. "The reservation was for seven thirty, and it's now - ," I pointedly look at my watch, " - the stroke of eight."
"Jewish time," we both say together - Norman as if it's a big guffaw, I as if it's truly friendship-ending.
"Alors, Monsieur Leventhal," the maitresse d' says, approaching us as if we're long-lost relatives and beaming at me as if I'm her especially adored cousin Marcel. "I see you found your friend. We have your table ready." And quicker than you can say "soupe du jour," we're led through the madding Emil Nolde-like throng to a table for two that doesn't face either the kitchen or the toilets. As we're sitting, she says, "Your waiter will be right over. To start, Jean-Georges sends you drinks on the house."
Humiliation comes in many packages, and this is one I'd never unwrapped before. There I was, on the point of upbraiding Norm for forfeiting a table I'd gone through a few tricky maneuvers to secure. But far from having lost it, we're seated at a choice one with a hostess's grand flourish. This is not because of me but because, it turns out, Norm Leventhal - our own Norman "Jewish Time" Leventhal - is a consultant to the Vendee proprietors and has been for some time. In addition to the business expertise he'd made available to them at his generally reasonable retainer rates, he's come up with some sort of corking device they're in the joint process of patenting.
"You didn't tell me you're involved with these people," I say when the maitresse d' had backed away as if from a monarch.
"I didn't?" Norm says. "I thought I did. Didn't I offer to take care of the reservation? I'm sure I meant to. Hah! Well, Dan, now you know."
"So you figured you could be late because you knew there'd be a table for you no matter what time you arrived," I say, with accusation shooting out of me like arrows from a crossbow.
Norm reacts as if those unseen arrows had turned him into Saint Sebastian. "Why would you say something like that?" he asks. "I'd've been here at seven thirty, but just as I was putting on my coat to leave the house, the most peculiar thing happened."
"All right," I say. "I'll bite."
"You say that as if you think I'm lying," Norm responds.
I listen to myself on mental playback and have to agree with him. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to imply anything. What peculiar happened?"
"I was putting my coat on and heading for the door, when the buzzer rang," he says, "and Pablo at the front desk said a Mr Rifkind was downstairs. I only know one Mr Rifkind - my brother-in-law, Mark Rifkind. I had no idea why he would be there, because he never leaves Yeaden, Pennsylvania, for big, bad New York City. Hates it on principle. 'Put him on the phone,' I said. When he got on the phone, it wasn't Mark. It was his son, my nephew Hughie. He was dropping in on me."
I'm going to cut this story of Norman's short. It's peculiar but not that peculiar. It is, however, vintage Leventhal. Sixteen-year-old Hughie had run away from home. There'd been some fracas at school he said hadn't been his fault, but his parents didn't believe his version and grounded him for an important high school event. Feeling "misunderstood and unloved" - two fairly standard teen-age feelings, I'd say - he'd staked his hefty allowance on a bus ticket. He was intent on seeing favorite uncle Norman in toddling Manhattan. Norm had calmed him down, had made him call home, told him he could stay the night - to watch the Philadelphia Eagles on Norm's plasma screen - and then settled on sending him back to his Philadelphia suburb and to his relieved and mollified parents, Emily and Mark, in the morning.
You see, Norm does have a big heart. I know it; we all know it. I also know I can be as petty as the next man - pettier, if I put my mind to it. It irks petty me that Norm comes Jewish Time to Vendee, one of the most difficult places at which to secure a table (according to the latest Zagat's as well as to word-of-mouth), and is handsomely rewarded for his lateness, while I face the stinging reality that my punctuality will have to be its own reward. Those drinks to start, by the way, are poured from a bottle of Champagne so expensive I don't even recognize the label. They're poured by Jean-Georges Clement lui mëme, while other patrons look on, wondering who we are that a three-star chef bolts across the room to welcome us.
So in my (petty) frame of mind, I swap the latest news with Norm, while entertaining the notion that perhaps there is some tactic I haven't tried - we all haven't attempted - to cure him of his enduring transgression. Suspecting that no solution will come to me while my attention is divided, I file the search away through the remainder of the superb meal and take it up later in tranquility.
Perhaps the larger truth is that Norm is good company. Without hinting he might have noticed certain misgivings of mine, he's jollying me out of my spiteful mood with a dirty joke that's making the rounds. And incidentally, once Norman tells you whatever it is that kept him, he figures the subject can be dropped. There's no further reference to it. He moves on to jokes, to the latest news from whatever Rialto he's just crossed - figuring you're ready to move on as well.
In other words, he wholly subscribes to the forgiving "That's Norman" attitude. Why ever not? He has noticeably concluded that everyone has quirks, everyone has minor faults. Jewish Time is his.
So the rest of the Vendee meal goes great guns, and - since Jean-Georges Clement's hospitality reaches so far but no farther - the bill arrives, and I win the tug-of-war over paying it. It's steep, all right, but I'm not going to suffer the further humiliation of letting Norm buy himself out of his gaffe.
"But I kept you waiting," Norm has said, "so I should pay." "You were seeing to your nephew," I say. And then I say, "Besides, I was here first, and it's the first one who gets to cover the costs." Then Norm has the balls to say, "Okay, fair enough, but next time I'll be first."
I say, "Okay, I'm going to hold you to that," because I'm thinking about what I was going to get around to thinking about later.
"Please do," Norm says with his characteristic sincerity, a sincerity born of his looking you straight in the eye with his wide-set brown eyes.
And that's pretty much the evening.
When I recollected his "please do" in relative tranquility at home, I even entertained the thought that Norman's forthright supplication freed me to cook up whatever plot I wanted to cook up in order to get him at this delayed date to recognize and honor promptness. I also decided, while putting my thinking-cap on, that whatever occurred to me to do was legitimately for Norm's own good. I couldn't quite go all the way to congratulating myself on altruism, however, because I was aware that pay-back was driving my thoughts. Nonetheless, I was able to feel excused from strictly unadulterated vengefulness.
So that night I committed myself to coming up with a fail-safe wise-up scheme for Norman. The sole criterion was that it be something about which he - if arriving late, as he unquestionably must - would be endlessly regretful.
It took awhile to get to something workable. For instance, I thought about organizing a New Year's Eve group outing to watch the ball drop. The problem with that one was that nobody I knew wanted to be in Times Square on New Year's Eve. I certainly didn't want to be - not even to teach Norman an overdue lesson. And who among this crowd cared a fig about the ball dropping anyway?
For another instance, I thought about inviting Norm to an eclipse of the sun party. If he came late, he'd miss the eclipse. The problem was no eclipse of the sun was due any time soon. Not only that, but I had no clue whether Norm gave a hoot about eclipses - sun or moon - in the first place.
For yet another instance, I toyed with asking Norm to an opera at the Met, because, as regulars are fully aware, they allow no admittance after it begins. Latecomers have to watch the first act on grainy monitors in a stuffy ante-room with other tardy, disgruntled patrons. The problem there was that Norm had long since made it clear he has no taste for opera. Asked to such an evening, he wouldn't just pull up to the revolving doors Jewish Time; he wouldn't pull up at all.
Since no matter in what direction I pointed my imagination I was coming up against invisible brick walls, I consulted some of the others who'd cooled their heels waiting for Norman so often that by now their feet needed defrosting. These were friends Norman and I had in common - Cleve Morris, Philip Walcoff, Stewart Kahn, Stanley Konig, Charley Devin, a couple others.
The lot of us mulled the situation for more than a week. Winged Mercury, a famously fleet boy, busily facilitated many intense phone calls and emails. Initially, several heads weren't necessarily better than one, though. We were more like chefs spoiling the broth as a consequence of strife over who'd control the kitchen.
This is a group of men who know their own minds or, in many circumstances, think they do: Unanimity, let alone consensus, isn't easily achieved. If a majority of us liked a suggestion, at least one of us objected to it. Not harsh enough, the objection went up from Cleve. Too cruel, the objection went up from Stewart. Impractical, the objection went up from Stanley. Ineffective, the objection went up from Charley. Would go over Norman's head, the objection went up from Philip. Might work despite its not being fun for the rest of us, the objection went up from Allen.
But then about a week into the intense deliberations we hit on it, and when we habitual Jewish-Time victims reached the decision, there was much subsequent enthusiasm. "We've got to do it" was the merry cry. It was agreed by one and all that we also must plan it carefully so that nothing could go wrong. We had to be sedulous about carrying out our plan to the letter.
What we came up with was this: a five-day Caribbean cruise. There may have been no eclipses in the offing, but Norman's 50th birthday was conveniently coming right up. We thought we'd tell him we planned to do something special to honor his 50 years of living on Jewish Time, and the cruise ship plot appealed to us for a couple of particular reasons. Firstly, through a couple of delicate chats with Norman we ferreted out the info that he had no contacts with the shipping line and therefore couldn't delay sailing by phoning some mucky-muck dispatcher with whom he was chummy. Secondly, we ascertained that the shipping line discourages passengers arriving at the last second. Given various happy and unhappy global circumstances, it's requested that voyagers embark a safe sixty minutes before departure.
Though none of us quite said so, it was the hour leeway that provided us with the kind of comfort zone we all needed for pulling our little, or not so little, practical joke. The self-serving attitude strongly implied was: We'll show him, although we wish we didn't have to show him.
We forged ahead. Knowing Norman had some family thing with his mother and two of his exes set for the actual date, we set a Blue Seas Adventurer cruise ship jaunt that would take place the week before his big day. Once we'd accomplished that, the biggest hurdle we had to surmount was whether we book Norman a room. The assumption was, of course, that he'd miss the boat in the most literal realization of the cliché. Why should we be out the $1400, a few of us wanted to know, although Cleve - always the comprehensive event planner - figured we could use the empty stateroom as a party room. Stan pointed out the ship was undoubtedly chockablock with party rooms. "Not private," Philip said. Michael said, "If we're sufficiently obnoxious, we can render them de facto private."
Charley, behind the plan from the get-go, maintained that not booking Norman a room was more cynical than he was prepared to be. Stewart said more than once to me that there was the possibility that Norman would arrive on time. In the nick of time, he conceded, but still in time. Ultimately, we all agreed with him. There was the slimmest chance - ho-ho-ho-hee-hee-hee - that Norman would make it in time. Thus the eight rooms, which actually netted us a group discount, thanks to Cleve's quick thinking.
(Incidentally, the reason for the eight single rooms is that we knew enough not to double up. Although Charley was willing to bunk in with any of us - Charley likes to chat after lights out, he let it be known - the rest preferred paying the extra fare to retain sanity. We all liked each other, but not that bloody much.)
Putting the scheme in precise order included making certain that Norman understood all the specifics. No fair, it was agreed, being at all vague in order to catch him out. The small print on the e-tickets was clear on the matter. It was more than clear; it was just short of threatening. It was enough that the no-show passenger's name would be stricken from the roster, but the ticket language was so severe it practically warned that the delinquent would be tracked down, dragged to the vessel and thrown into the brig for later flogging.
Each of us was charged with reiterating to Norman that he absolutely had to be at the ship no later than 3:30pm for a 4:30pm sailing. As we refined our plot, it did occur to me - and I tried to suppress the thought, unsuccessfully - that we were like the honorable men who lured Caesar to the Capitol on the fateful March ides. The difference, needless to say, was that Caesar's assassins counted on him to be prompt. For Norman and us Brutuses, Cassiuses and Metellus Cimbers it was just the opposite.
"What is it with you guys, telling me every five minutes I have to be at the boat sixty minutes ahead of time," Norman implored over the phone the fourth time I drove the point home.
"What do you think?" I said. "We know you. This is a big event. We don't want you coming Jewish Time."
"Not to worry," Norm said. "This trip, I'm gentile."
We'll see about that, I thought to myself.
"Yes, Marilyn Monroe gentile," Cleve said when I relayed the comment.
But each of us abided by the rules we'd set down, and the day came. A gorgeous early May day, an ideal day for getting on a cruise liner and tossing cares to the white caps. Not wanting to be tagged with Norman Leventhal-like characteristics, we all adhered to the 60-minute-before-departure demand and were there in plenty of time, passed through security with only minor irritations.
Cleve, Stan, Michael and I were the first to drop our bags in the separate staterooms - each of which featured a sizable picture window and was furnished like something you'd find in an over-reaching Days Inn. Immediately, we tipped a steward for access to Norman's projected space on the pretext of arranging surprise birthday party decorations. "Too bad Norman's going to miss it," Michael said, when we'd done nothing about banners, balloons or funny hats but instead had poured ourselves a couple of early cocktails and collapsed around the room waiting for our mutual friend not to arrive.
When all seven of us had congregated and held our drinks of choice, Charley suggested we go to a railing facing the dock to watch Norman race along it as the ship pulled away without him aboard. Allen said the ship was too large for us to find a good spot overlooking the gangplank, and the rest of us quickly concurred it wasn't worth the effort. We'd just continue drinking and waiting to see if Norman walked through the door. After all, there was always the possibility he'd want to make this voyage badly enough to alter his ways. There was even the slimmest of chances he was already on the ship and headed our way. There was also the possibility that one of us had just won the lottery.
As the badinage gathered momentum, I started to pick up a certain unexpected undercurrent. Maybe I wasn't alone in this, although no one waxed explicit about it. When Allen mentioned the difficulty of finding a vantage point from which to watch Norman stage a futile run, I heard us agreeing it might not be worth the energy, but I detected a communal decision based more on not wanting to witness such a dismaying sight. Where previously the collective thought was that Norman's fruitless jog would be good for a laugh, laughing at his expense seemed out of the question now.
Veering away from this line of thinking, we got into swapping stories about the many, many, many times when - and places where - Norman had arrived Jewish Time. We just chortled away - showily jovial at the kick-off of boys' week out. Some of our recollections were truly amusing. At the same time, there was a lot of watch-checking and quasi-furtive glances towards the door. The story-telling took on an overly enthusiastic tone that only became more pronounced as the departure time crept slowly up on us and then arrived.
Norman, of course, didn't.
And when it was definite he hadn't, that he was not aboard ship, a silence fell on the room. The Pinter-esque pause meant we could hear the ship's boom signal the actual departure. We each of us felt the ship's barely perceptible movement. "Guess he came Jewish time again," a couple of us said. "Looks that way," a couple others of us said. Or statements near enough to those. "That's our Norman," Stan said. Then we fell silent again for a minute.
That's when I said, "Look, Norman lovers, we knew he wouldn't make it. We figured we'd enjoy celebrating his birthday for him but without him. We counted on it."
"Right you are," Philip said, pulling himself from the chair into which he'd sunk as much as it would allow. "We need to have some fun."
Cleve endorsed the sentiment. "You said it," he added. "Now's the time to go on deck and get the thrill of leaving the harbor for the open sea."
His suggestion was greeted with hearty approval. The noisy camaraderie would indicate we were out for unadulterated heady times. Anyway, that's what I bet we all hoped,
We made our way as far forward on the top deck as we could and reached a large, railing-enclosed pie-wedge of space. We pressed against that welcome railing, drinks still in hand, wind in our faces. Curiously, the seven of us were the only passengers who'd opted for this bracing activity. And there we were well into the first half-hour of sailing, more or less as pleased as we could convince ourselves we were.
Sometime in there, I spotted a helicopter in the distance. Actually, it was one of two or three in the air, all flying lower, of course, than the jets heading out of JFK and progressing down the west side of Manhattan. The helicopter of which I speak, however, was moving closer to the ship.
"We're being watched," I said to the other guys, all of them now aware of the menacing vehicle. The comment prompted a few wry responses about homeland security.
Just as we began riffing, the ship's boom suddenly sounded once again. The ship had been gliding along with the amped-up stateliness of a dowager moving to greet a beloved nephew. Now, abruptly, the ship slowed. It was as if it and all of us on it had shifted into slow motion. It was as if the dowager had suddenly developed indigestion. It was as if time stuttered.
We seven exchanged what-the-hell-is-this glances. They only became more pronounced when the helicopter that had been stalking us like a mutant dragonfly in a nature-goes-out-of-whack thriller pulled directly overhead. Its propeller was making the sound helicopter propellers make - tent flaps caught in a high wind. A door slid open. Someone appeared and cautiously made his way out of the door, keeping hold of various handles and poles.
It was a bird, it was a plane, it was Superman. No, it wasn't. It was Norman with a back pack on. As the helicopter hovered, he began lowering himself onto an apparatus that emerged. He was just about in it when one of his feet slipped from its perch. For a long instant, it looked as if he might fall. I felt myself flinch. I looked at the others who, if they had not turned away completely, had brows as furrowed as a just-ploughed back forty and eyes as dark as cave entrances.
But this was rope-climbing Norman of the sizable biceps and triceps. No need to worry. He had a firm grip on the supporting straps and was able to shift himself solidly onto the metal seat. He shouted something into the helicopter that none of us could hear above the propeller's racket. With that he began descending like an aerialist after a triumphant series of maneuvers.
In minutes Norman had landed and been vociferously applauded by the couple dozen other passengers who'd been drawn irresistibly to the display. A brace of stewards who'd come to attend Norman released the helicopter's umbilical cord.
And Bob's your uncle, Norman was among us, ecstatic as a sailor on shore leave. He was joking and slapping us on the back and crowing about what great pals we were to arrange this major event. How had he worked this little miracle of his, we all wanted - needed - to know? How had he confounded our best-laid plans in such a way as to frustrate and delight us in one fell (helicopter) swoop? How had he - yet again - come Jewish Time and, while doing so, outstripped himself in the memorable late-arrival annals?
It turned out that though we'd scrupulously determined Norman had no friends on board to maneuver around tardy behavior, he did have an acquaintance at the 30th Street Heliport who owed him a favor. And the ship's captain, having been contacted by the helicopter company and whomever else monitors the local air traffic, was happy to oblige this once - or what he apparently announced he hoped would be once only and not precedent-setting.
Time - that occasional ally, that frequent jokester - had waited for Norman. And the reassuring truth is, he was such good company for the rest of us and for the length of the trip that we were glad that time had so gallantly waited for him. On the whole, that is: Norman was, of course, late to every meal.
