A Constant Carol

The building above was once the home of my best friend Carol Bessey. She lived on the second floor with her parents, an older sister, and a kerry blue terrier named Sable. Her kindhearted Aunt Marie inhabited the lower apartment, and a cranky old man named Mr. Blitstein oversaw a shop and lumber yard at the street level. The ugly auto parts sign did not exist, nor were aluminum enclosures slid nightly over storefront windows as they are today, and our main forms of graffiti were the chalk-drawn hopscotch squares on the sidewalk.

It was never a pretty neighborhood, but its wide streets were fine for games, and those vintage turn-of-the-century brick buildings all sported rooftops and fire escapes to which we had special access for playing with dolls and inventing stories and feeling deliciously secret and apart.

It was the 1950s.Carol was my first friend -- aside from siblings, which is a very different matter. I lived a few doors down from her at 624, and I don't even remember how we met; she was simply always there, at least from the time we were four or five years old. She was as blonde, blue-eyed, and upturned of nose as I was not, and she was playful and generous and sunny. Her very name to this day seems blonde and sunny to me; it prompts a glimmer of Christmas too, of the candy cane and sparkly snow variety.

Speaking of snow, I remember how we took turns pulling each other along Coney Island Avenue on a Flexible Flyer sled, now and then running into the foyer of my building to warm our mittens on the radiator. And then there was the time we found amusement by pelting passing trucks with slushy snowballs, laughing gleefully until one irate driver pulled over to run after us. (Never fear: we were skinny and fast.)

But we were self-consciously virtuous too, even when we weren't. Both of us were enrolled in Sunday school, religious instructions, and choir at St. Mark's --the Besseys had rescued me from my heathen family and drawn me into a benevolent circle of Methodists--and Carol and I approached it all with naive sincerity, walking around singing hymns, memorizing the names of the books of the Bible in correct order, trying to be good. This impulse to be good manifested itself mostly in our kindness to animals. We were always willing to feed a stray cat, buying a tin of cat food on credit from Harry Nathanson's grocery store. ("Just put it on my mother's tab," I'd say, as if it were all preauthorized.)

And one day...a snowy one...we befriended a sweet, sad, tan-colored dog. He was large but bony, and we fed him well, then christened him Chris because it was almost Christmas. We patted and hugged him and said our good-byes, but of course he wouldn't leave. He followed us all the way to St. Mark's, where we were headed for choir practice.

So we pushed open the heavy church doors, led Chris into the warmth and holy light of the sanctuary, then made our getaway to the other side of the building. We heard the squeals of church ladies: "There's a dog in the sanctuary! Someone brought a dog into the sanctuary!"

But was this not the house of God, and was Chris not one of God's creatures, even the smallest of whom mattered? We never learned his fate, but we clung to the belief that we had set in motion some progression towards adoption, for we could not imagine that anyone would have turned our Christmas dog back out onto the street.

It may not sound like it, but Carol and I were also doll-playing girls. We loved to wheel our babies in doll carriages along the leafy side streets, pretending to be a pair of smart young mothers who each had the good fortune to live in one of these beautiful houses. In April forsythias and rhododendrons lined the walkways and there were flower beds of hyacinth and violets. Springtime was fragrant and the air seemed to hum. Our unimagined husbands asked nothing of us at all.

Other times we played with Barbies, or their predecessors, Revlon dolls -- tip-toed, high-heeled-wearing vinyl ladies -- and tiny Ginny doll daughters. We also had a big bald baby-doll named Ben who served as the man of the house, despite his being chubby-faced and all out of proportion. We made little apartments for the dolls on the floor of the lobby beneath the mailboxes, complete with handkerchief blankets and thimble goblets, or we danced them around on the fire escape. We scripted all sorts of soap opera adventures for them.

For ourselves, there were other scripts that we acted out freely as we wandered the streets: good and evil fairies always in conflict, trickery and drama at every turn, teachers and doctors and strange motley families. A cardboard appliance box might be our cozy house or space ship, the street after rain might be the deck of a ship, that sinister man with bottle-glasses and an overcoat might be a Russian spy trying to track us down, but we'd throw him off course.

We were great aficionados of sweets, which we consumed in dizzying quantities. Joe Gluck's candy store at the corner had racks of candy to choose from for a nickel or even a penny. There were ice cream cones with sprinkles to be had, and egg cremes at the counter.

Our sugar-fueled shenanigans didn't always end well. I for one had a temper and did not always hold onto it. One day Carol and I came to blows. I don't know what would have provoked us to physical violence, but we were rolling around on the sidewalk, punching each other, when a woman passing by thumped us each with her umbrella, shouting, "Stop it this instant! I never dreamed I'd see little girls fighting! Boys, yes, but little girls?! Lordy me!"

I suppose she wondered what this world was coming to, but Carol and I thought she ought to mind her own business. We stopped fighting, stood up, and instantly reaffirmed our loyalty to each other. I'm sure we went on our way holding hands. We were, after all, best friends.

I could drift even further afield into childhood memories of Carol...I've barely scratched the surface here...but I want to plant us in the present and explain why she is on my mind. The excerpt above is your clue, and check out that beautiful, old-fashioned penmanship!

Yes, a Christmas card arrived from Carol yesterday. And if you don't think that's any big deal, let me add that I have received a Christmas card from Carol every year, none skipped, for the last fifty at least, and maybe longer.

It's a breathtaking kind of continuity. My family moved away from Brooklyn in the early 1960s, and I think Carol came to visit me on Long Island at least once after that. The last time I actually saw her in person was in the 1970s, in upstate New York, a quick touching of base after many years. But there have always been the Christmas and birthday cards, consistent and unfailing through the decades. She would often enclose photos of her son Joseph too, so in annual installments I have watched him grow up and get married.

And, on the very day of my 60th birthday, Carol became a grandmother. She mentioned in her letter that year that when we used to play with our dolls she never imagined she would hold a grandchild in her arms someday. Well, I should think not. I mean, did we ever even imagine we would one day be this old?

And even if we could have imagined our current selves, I don't think I would have believed that my friend would still be sending Christmas cards. Recently there was even a photo of herself, an older woman with a round pleasant face, someone who might work in a village bakery and serve you warm cake while you retreat from the rain. There was something familiar about the eyes, but I doubt I would have recognized her.

Maybe we wouldn't even know what to say if we saw each other today; maybe we couldn't relate to each other at all-- our lives have been so different --but even as I write that, I somehow think we could. Because Carol is forever part of my consciousness, a star in my childhood constellation. She's the one with whom I first discovered friendship. She's the one who got me out of the house, away from shadows, and I saw it could be fun out there. She's my touchstone.

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