Guess Who Left Not Holding the Bag

It is about a 45-minute taxi ride from Midtown Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport, and the fare is about $30. We caught a cab in front of the Waldorf-Astoria, having allowed plenty of time to catch our 12:15 p.m. flight to Los Angeles.

From Queens we looked back at the Manhattan skyline, which is undoubtedly the most spectacular of modern man’s constructions. From a distance it looked like a crystalline growth I had seen in the Harvard mineralogy museum. More than ever the city looked to me like a great machine that was constantly breaking down and spewing out waste and lives and being repaired and rebuilt and revitalized.

We passed again by Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. It was empty and forlorn, and it would remain empty and silent that night when the Dodgers, up 3 games to 1, were squaring off in Oakland against the A’s in what might be the final game of the World Series. With luck, I would be home in time to see it.

Our driver was not one of the usual Latinos or Middle Easterners or Caribbeans who seem to have taken over the business. If I wasn’t mistaken, his accent was strictly Brooklyn.

When we reached the airport he opened the trunk and lifted out our three bags. Against my custom, I had also entrusted him with my carry-on bag, in which I carried my life-preserving pharmacy. My life depended on that bag, and I usually carried it by hand.

When we got to the ticket desk I realized I didn’t have it. The driver had shut his trunk and driven off. We reported the loss to the airline lost and found, which gave us the taxicab commission’s number. They told us all such articles were taken to the police. We reported the loss to the police. That’s as far as we could go.

I put it out of my mind. It wasn’t critical. We could call our pharmacist as soon as we reached Los Angeles and have him replace everything.

We had already seen the in-flight movie, “Bull Durham.” It was about a minor-league baseball team groupie (Susan Sarandon) who sexually sophisticates each season’s most promising young player, only to fall for a retread catcher. Pretty funny; but more about sex than about baseball. Either way, the dialogue was not essential, so we didn’t bother to rent earphones.

After escaping the crush of New York it is reassuring to fly over the great wastes of the West and see that the whole country is not paved over. At 30,000 feet we flew over the four corners where Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet, and if there was anything down there, I couldn’t see it. Not even a cow.

Our faithful son was waiting for us at the airport with my wife’s car. While I was collecting our bags, she called our pharmacist and arranged to pick up replacements for my lost paraphernalia.

Then two good things happened.

That evening, in the comfort of my own swivel rocker, I watched the Dodgers beat the Oakland A’s, 5-2, to win the World Series, 4 games to 1, Orel Hershiser pitching a 4-hitter and the irrepressible Mickey Hatcher hitting a 2-run homer.

It was a triumph so improbable that even Los Angeles Times sportswriter Sam McManis was moved to the kind of metaphysical explanation that I had become used to in the Eastern press:

“Fact and fantasy had mingled for weeks, like a Hollywood creation slowly unfolding. But now they have somehow intertwined, and the Dodgers’ improbable dream of winning the World Series is a reality. . . .”

Two days later I got a phone call from New York. A man asked if I was Jack Smith. I said I was. He said, “I got your bag.”

I said, “Is this the airport?”

He said, “No, I’m the taxi driver. I found the bag in my trunk. It’s full of medicine. I thought you might need it.”

I told him to send it collect, and said he should have called collect.

“Never mind that,” he said. “You were nice people.”

His name is Norman Feinberg and he lives in Brooklyn.

Four days later the package arrived at our post office, intact.