Get Me to the Church on Time

4.

“We got a menu as soon as we sat down,” I said. I was speaking on the model Camaro phone at Carlo’s, while Candy poked through her cold seafood salad, setting aside everything that had legs or arms or eyes, which was most of the dish.

“Impossible!” said Wu.

“We ordered and my primavera pesto pasta came right away. Maybe they have it already cooked and they just microwave it.” I said this low so the waiter wouldn’t hear. He had brought me the phone on a tray shaped like Sicily. It was beige, flecked with red. Dried blood? Carlo’s is a mob joint. Allegedly.

“What’s right away?”

“I don’t know, Wu. I didn’t time it.”

“I need numbers, Irv! What about breadsticks? Do they still have those skinny hard breadsticks? How many did you eat between the time you ordered and the time the food came?”

“Three.”

“Three apiece?”

“Three between us. Does knowing that really help?”

“Sure. I can use it either as one and one-half, or as three over two. Numbers don’t he, Irv. Parallel or serial, I’m beginning to think my T-axis problem is centered in New York. Everything there seems to be speeded up slightly. Compressed.”

“Compressed,” I said. When Wu is talking he expects you to respond. I always try and pick a fairly innocuous world and just repeat it.

“You’ve got it, Irv. It’s like those interviews on TV that are a little jumpy, because they edit out all the connective time—the uhs, the ahs, the waits, the pauses. Something’s happened to the connective time in New York. That’s why the phone rings ten times for me here—actually an average of 8.411—and only once for you.”

“How can the phone ring more times for you than for me?”

“Ever heard of Relativity, Irving?”

“Yes, but…”

“No buts about it!” Wu said. “Theoretically, a ninety degree twist could cause a leakage of Connective Time. But what is causing the twist? That’s the…”

His voice was starting to fade. Truthfully, I was glad. I was ready to concentrate on my primavera pesto pasta.

“Pepper?” asked the waiter.

“Absolutely,” I said. I don’t really care for pepper but I admire the way they operate those big wrist-powered wooden machines.

Candy loves to shop (who doesn’t?) so we headed across Grand Street to SoHo, looking for jeans on lower Broadway. Since there was no waiting for the dressing rooms (maybe Wu was on to something!), Candy decided to try on one pair of each brand in each style and each color. We were about a third of the way through the stack when the salesgirl began to beep; rather, her beeper did.

“Your name Irv?” she asked, studying the readout. “You can use the sales phone.” It was under the counter, by the shopping bags.

“How’s the coffee?” Wu asked.

“Coffee?”

“Aren’t you at Dean and DeLuca?”

“We’re at ZigZag Jeans.”

“On Broadway at Grand? Now my fuzzilogical GPS transponder is showing slack!” Wu protested. “If I’m three blocks off already, then that means…”

I stopped listening. Candy had just stepped out of the dressing room to check her Levis in the store’s “rear view” mirror. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Incredible,” I said.

“My reaction exactly,” said Wu. “But what else could it be? The bus, the breadsticks, the F train—all the numbers seem to indicate a slow leak of Connective Time somewhere in the New York metropolitan area. Let me ask you this, was your plane on time?”

“Why, yes,” I said. “At the gate, as a matter of fact. The little bell went ding and everybody stood up at 7:32. I remember noticing it on my watch. It was our exact arrival time.”

“7:32,” repeated Wu. “That helps. I’m going to check the airports. I can patch into their security terminals and interlace from there to the arrival and departure monitors. I’ll need a little help, though. Dmitri, are you there? He’s sulking.”

“Whatever,” I said, giving the ZigZag girls back their phone. Candy was trying on the Wranglers, and me, I was falling in love all over again. I rarely see her out of her uniform, and it is a magnificent sight.

In the end, so to speak, it was hard to decide. The Levis, the Lees, the Wranglers, the Guess Whos, the Calvins and the Glorias all cosseted and caressed the same incredible curves. Candy decided to buy one pair of each and put them all on my credit card, since hers was maxed out. By the time the ZigZag girls had the jeans folded and wrapped and packed up in shopping bags, it was 3:30—almost time to head back to Brooklyn if we wanted to beat the rush hour. But Wu had given me an idea.

Even guys like me, who can’t afford the Israeli cantaloupes or free-range Pyrenees sheep cheese at Dean and DeLuca, can spring for a cup of coffee, which you pick up at a marble counter between the vegetable and bread sections, and drink standing at tall, skinny chrome tables overlooking the rigorously fashionable intersection of Broadway and Prince.

D&D’s is my idea of class, and it seemed to appeal to Candy as well, who was back in uniform and eliciting (as usual) many an admiring glance both on the street and in the aisles. I wasn’t halfway through my Americano before the butcher appeared from the back of the store with a long, skinny roll of what I thought at first was miniature butcher paper (unborn lamb chops?), but was in fact thermal paper from the old-fashioned adding machine in the meat department. The key to Dean and DeLuca’s snooty charm is that everything (except of course the customers) is slightly old-fashioned. Hence, thermal paper.

“You Irv?”

I nodded.

He handed me the little scroll. I unrolled it enough to see that it was covered with tiny figures, then let it roll back up again.

“From Wu?” Candy asked.

“Probably,” I said. “But let’s finish our coffee.” At that very moment, a man walking down Broadway took a cellular phone out of his Armani suit, unfolded it, put it to his ear and stopped. He looked up and down the street, then in the window at me.

I nodded, somewhat reluctantly. It would have been rude, even presumptuous, to expect him to bring the phone inside the store to me, so I excused myself and went out to the street.

“Did you get my fax?” asked Wu.

“Sort of,” I said. I made a spinning motion with one finger to Candy, who understood right away. She unrolled the little scroll of thermal paper and held it up the window glass:

“Well?”

“Well!” I replied. That usually satisfied Wu, but I could tell he wanted more this time. Sometimes with Wu it helps to ask a question, if you can think of an intelligent one. “What’s the ON TIME ON TIME ON TIME stuff?” I asked.

“Those are airport figures, Irv! La Guardia, to be specific. All the planes are on time! That tell you something?”

“The leak is at La Guardia?” I ventured.

“Exactly! Numbers don’t lie, Irv, and as those calculations clearly show, the connective temporal displacement at La Guardia is exactly equal to the Time axis twist I’m getting worldwide, adjusted for the earth’s rotation, divided by 5.211. Which is the part I can’t figure.”

“I’ve seen that number somewhere before,” I said. I dimly remembered something rolling around. “A shoe size? A phone number?”

“Try to remember,” said Wu. “That number might lead us to the leak. We know it’s somewhere at La Guardia; now all we have to pinpoint it. And plug it.”

“Why plug it?” I said. “This no-delay business just makes life better. Who wants to wait around an airport?”

“Think about it, Irving!” Wu said. There was an edge to his voice, like when he thinks I am being stupid on purpose. In fact I am never stupid on purpose. That would be stupid. “You know how a low pressure area sucks air from other areas? It’s the same with Time. The system is trying to stabilize itself. Which is why I can’t get the proper EMS figures for Hurricane Relief, or Ido Ido. for that matter. Which is why I asked you to delay your wedding in the first place.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. I was so excited about my upcoming Honeymoon that I had totally forgotten the wedding. “So let’s plug it. What do you want me to do?”

“Go to La Guardia and wait for my call,” he said.

“La Guardia?!? Aunt Minnie is expecting us for supper.”

“I thought she was Lifthatvanian. They can’t cook!”

“They can so!” I said, more out of loyalty than conviction. “Besides, we’re sending out for pizza. And besides—” I dropped my voice. “—tonight’s the night Candy and I officially have our Honeymoon.”

Honeymoon is one of those words you can’t say without miming a kiss. Candy must have been reading my lips through the Dean & DeLuca’s window, because she blushed; beautifully, I might add.

But Wu must not have heard me, because he was saying, “As soon as you get to La Guardia…” as his voice faded away. We were losing our connection.

Meanwhile, the guy whose phone it was was looking at his watch. It was a Movado. I recognized it from the New Yorker ads. I kept my subscription even after moving to Huntsville. I gave him his phone back and Candy and I headed for the subway station.

How could Wu expect me to hang out at La Guardia waiting for his call on the night of my Honeymoon? Perhaps if the Queens-bound train had come first, I might have taken it, but I don’t think so. And it didn’t. Taking Candy by the hand, I put us on the Brooklyn bound F. It wasn’t quite rush hour, which meant we got a seat as soon as we reached Delancey Street. Did I mention that the train came right away?

Even though (or perhaps because) I am a born and bred New Yorker, I get a little nervous when the train stops in the tunnel under the East River. This one started and stopped, started and stopped.

Then stopped.

The lights went out.

They came back on.

“There is a grumbasheivous willin brashabrashengobrak our signal,” said the loudspeaker. “Please wooshagranny the delay.”

“What did she say?” asked Candy. “Is something wrong?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

Turns out we were in the conductor’s car. The lights flickered but stayed on, and she stepped out of her tiny compartment, holding a phone. “Ashabroshabikus Irving?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Frezzhogristis quick,” she said, handing me the phone.

“Hello?” I ventured. I knew who it was, of course.

“Irv, I need you in baggage claim,” said Wu.

“In what?”

“I’m closing in on the Connective Time leak. I think it’s a phone somewhere on the Baggage Claim and Ground Transportation level. I need you to go down there and see which payphone is off the hook, so we can… what’s that noise?”

“That’s the train starting up again,” I said.

“Train? I thought you were at the airport.”

“I tried to tell you, Wu,” I said. “We promised Aunt Minnie we would come home for dinner. Plus tonight’s my Honeymoon. Plus, you’re not looking for a pay phone.”

“How do you know?”

“The 5.211. Now I remember what it was. It was a battery for a cell phone. It was rolling and I stopped it with my foot.”

“Of course!” said Wu. “What a fool I am! And you, Irv, are a genius! Don’t make a move until I…”

But we were losing our signal.

“Make if sharanka bresh?” asked the conductor, a little testily. She took her phone and stepped back into her tiny compartment and closed the door.