From the story, When Murray Met Helen

A week from Wednesday was approaching and, as it did, the snippets of banter between Murray and Helen escalated over the fence and through the foliage.

“I’m seeing myself in right field,” Murray ventured, “a Schlitz in one hand, fightin’ the fellas off of ya with my other.”

“Wow,” she said, “that’s chivalry, that I’d get the service of your good arm.”

“Naw,” he teased back. “The Schlitz gets my good arm. They’re four bucks at the park ya know.”

“Do they still even make Schlitz?” she goaded him.

“Now don’t you be insulting my beer in the form of a question. Schlitz is back, honey. I made them fix it. l can show you my letter.”

And it went on like that until Monday, when the small matter of Murray not actually having a ride to the stadium began to press on him. He knew she could make this miserable for him. So he opted for the no eye-contact direct approach, over the phone.

“Helen?”

“Yo. Murray.”

“I have a little problem,” he confessed

“Oh this ought to be good.”

“You remember Biv?”

“Help me,” she said.

“Eddie Bivers, Biv, I’m sure I introduced you.”

“Right,” Helen acknowledged. “Biv. I thought he died.”

“Yeah, and the thing was, um, Biv was my ride. When I’d go to the game.”

Helen had to let that sink in.

“Oh. Oh!” she finally said. “I get it. You want me to drive to the game.”

“Well, that’s…”

“You want me to drive to the game,” she said, adjusting her needle.
“You want me. To drive you. To the game.”

“That would be one way to frame it,” he said, just wanting the skit to be over.

“Murray the Man,” she kept going, now with a rhythm in her voice. “Wants a dame. To drive, The Man, to the game.”

She could barely contain her delight.

“Look,” he said. “It’s not like I’m asking you to buy the bratwurst.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she giggled as she released him, and placed him back in the water, so to speak. “I gotta go now. You’re making me really hungry.”

photo courtesy Wikimedia images.

From the story, When Murray Met Helen

Helen being Helen, it was just impossible for her to let a guy have the last word in a spat, even if it was a playful joust, even if the guy was fifty years older.

“You devil!” she said, folding her reading glasses atop the Travel section of the Sentinal-Journal and briskly retreating inside, to change from the red bikini into the souvenir Brewers jersey that an old boyfriend had given her. It was white, with the gold and blue numeral 20 on it, with “Thomas” across the back, as in Gorman Thomas, the belovedly-bearded former center fielder and home run king.

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From the story, When Murray Met Helen

As in:

It was the third of May, blue and unseasonably warm, such that Murray was down to his t-shirt, yanking on dandelions, preparing to put in more strawberries.

Helen was wearing a red bikini beneath her silk, Japanese bathrobe, using her reading glasses, working her way through the Sunday paper and applying a tall glass of lemonade as a paperweight.

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From the story, When Murray Met Helen

As in:

It was only in the last year of his life that Murray began to hint, to Helen, that there’d been this other life.

For a decade and a half she’d only known him as her grandfatherly next door neighbor, a lanky man with wispy white hair. He wore a canvas, bucket hat in summer and, in winter, he favored an old Green Bay Packers knit cap that he often wore with a purple Northwestern jacket.

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