AXES AND MURDERERS

The first time we lived in Manhattan, my husband and I made friends with an elderly gentleman who told everyone he was looking out for us. When we first moved to NYC, a friend of a friend told us we should meet Bennie and scribbled his telephone number on a card with his name.

“Don’t give his number out to anyone unless you ask me, first” our friend told us in all seriousness. 

Sheesh. We lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, for years before, but moving to the big city meant making other kinds of friendships.  

Bennie invited us to his Upper Eastside apartment several times monthly for a delicious homemade Sunday brunch and bagels–so we could catch up.

Bennie* was full of stories about when he was a hard working young man in New York, and he’d remind us that “It ain’t like it used to be.”

(When we returned to New York years later, he had long passed, but another elderly friend said, “It ain’t like it used to be,” the same way he did. It’s mostly a way old New Yorkers start a conversation with our reply being, “Oh, yeah. How is it not the same?”)

In his directness, Bennie always assumed we’d be disappointed somehow. He always went first, and after his colorful retelling of a story–perhaps about his latest event with his two elderly cats and Dauchsund hound and what a pain it was taking them all in cages in a cab to the veterinarian–he’d ask us how things were going. Since I was younger, and still fresh from Minnesota and well-mannered, he winced whenever I told him an overly optimistic retelling of a friendship we had just made.

“Oh, yeah? Where does his family live?” 

“I have no idea,” I shrugged.

“For all you know, he could be an ax murderer! You gotta be careful,” he’d shout back at me.

Years later, that saying, “He could be an ax murderer,” is our longstanding joke. 
We miss Bennie and think of him whenever we visit New York. He cared about us and looked out for us. And he’d wince if he heard me say this, but there’s always someone like him.  Someone with informed opinions looking out for us. That part of New York is the same. *Not his real name.