Going in Style by Robert Grossbach

a beautiful princess marooned on top of a glass
     hill. Would-be saviors would mount furious upward charges, only to slide sadly and inexorably back to the bottom.
    Al stood up and put his arm around the old man’s shoulders. “Damn motonnen nowadays,” he said. “They don’t teach ‘em how to
     drive proper anymore.” He steered the man toward a seat.
    “I’m going shopping,” said the man. His voice was a thin, dry rasp.
    “I see,” said Al.
    “I’m seventy-three years of age.”
    “Nice,” said Al. He waited till the old fellow was comfortably settled before returning to Joe and Willie.
    “Thank you,” the man called after him.
    Al waved. “Too bad we can’t take him along with us,” he said to Joe.
    “Too old,” said Joe.
    “He’s younger than you.”
    “He’s too young, then. He can barely move. I think in a strong breeze he’d blow away like so much dust.”
    “A shame,” said Al.
    Joe shrugged. “What can you do? I felt like him two days ago.”
    The train crossed over the Queensboro Bridge on the way to Manhattan. Far below, even in the bright sunshine, the East River
     was a cloudy blue-brown, gentle swells too muddy to reflect much light. Barges and tugs dotted the length of the waterway;
     ten thousand toy cars clogged the East River Drive. Ahead, the sky was crowded with the thrusting spires of the city.
    “I used to swim in that river,” said Willie.
    “You did?” said Al.
    “Sure. When I was a kid. We lived in Long Island City then, about a block from this bridge. Every summer afternoon you’d have
     maybe twelve, fifteen kids in the water.”
    “Bet it was a lot cleaner then,” said Joe.
    “Oh, it was cleaner,” agreed Willie, “but you’d still have the river rats to look out for. Sometimes I’d raise my face from
     the water, and next to mewould be this big, ugly snout—large as cats they were—twitching, covered with fur.”
    “Scared the hell outa you, I’ll bet,” said Joe.
    “Nah, we was used to it,” said Willie. “We’d use the breast stroke, push ‘em away with our arms.” He paused, remembering,
     feeling the cool water lapping against his ribs, hearing the shouts of his friends. “The real danger was the current,” he
     said. “It would carry you down toward the harbor, and some days it was pretty strong. Most times, of course, we’d just go
     with it, swim back to the Queens shore further down or catch the tip of Roosevelt Island. One friend of mine didn’t make it
     though.”
    “He died?”
    “They found his body two days later. My friend, Frankie Calmani. He was eleven years old.”
    “That was too bad, Willie.”
    Willie nodded. “It was a long time ago,” he said. “A long time ago.”

    They walked south and west, heading generally downtown, their path pretty much aimless, determined mainly by which traffic
     lights happened to change.
    “I hear they may close this place,” said Al, when they passed the Radio City Music Hall.
    “Geez, I hope not,” said Joe. “I used to go here with my kids.”
    “That’s the problem,” said Al. “People wanna see adult movies these days. Nobody cares about the children anymore.”
    “Tell you,” said Joe, “the thing my son used tolike best was the electric hand driers in the men’s room downstairs. He wouldn’t even care about the movie. The girls would
     be watchin’ the picture an’ he’d say, ‘Daddy, take me down,’ an’ we’d go to that men’s room, an’ he’d press the buttons on
     every damn drier in the place. That was his big enjoyment.”
    They turned down Sixth Avenue, then cut over toward Broadway.
    “It’s a different era now,” said Willie, as they paused under the marquee of the Belasco Theater. “City’s dyin’. Middle class
     is movin’ out, government can’t pay its bills, Bronx and Brooklyn turnin’ to bombed-out graveyards… I think the whole thing’s
     gonna collapse on our heads.”
    “Not my head,” said Joe. “I’ll be