by Roger Herst
She waited for him to relax his probing pick, and then muttered, “Thanks to you, things turned out okay.”
“And you, too, Rabbi Lewyn,” he said, leaning over her open mouth. His pick passed above the incisors and worked along the bicuspids to the molars, first the lowers, then the uppers. Her inlays caught his eye. “California dental work, I presume. You can always tell a Californian artist. Am I right?”
As soon as her mouth was free, she answered. “You know your trade. These were done by my childhood family dentist.”
“Well, he immortalized his craft in your mouth. I see you’re a good flosser.”
“How do you know that?”
“You can read a person’s life history in his mouth. It’s like reading a personal resume.”
“Well, I hope you’re not reading deep mysteries into mine.”
“Only that you worry a lot, you’re a poor sleeper, and you grind your teeth at night.” Joel momentarily probed for thin enamel. Then, after depositing his instruments on the utility tray, he placed his fingers along her jaw to check for tumors. Finally, he inspected her gums, noting their color and texture. Nothing warranted further treatment, so he pulled his facemask off to reveal a friendly smile. “That you grind your teeth is the bad news. A tooth guard at night will stop that. The good news is that I don’t see any cavities. You’ve got a healthy mouth.”
Gabby leaned forward to sit up. He stood, suddenly looking down at her. “While I still have you captive in my chair, I’d like to ask for a little help. Your sister organization, Mothers Against Guns, is ganging up against me. They’re trying to close down my shooting club for youngsters at the Izaak Walton Rifle Range.”
“Your what?” she asked, finally able to roll off the chair and stand.
“I've started an NRA Eddie Eagle pilot project. On weekends I teach kids from the inner city about gun safety. Every Saturday afternoon, from spring through autumn, we bus thirty to forty kids from Northeast and Southeast Washington to Seneca, Maryland, where we teach them about handling guns safely. The program is named the Kids’ Instructional Shooting and Safety Club. But nobody actually calls it that. Folks prefer the acronym KISS.”
“You continuously surprise me. You must see why mothers in Southeast would want to shut you down. To them, introducing inner city kids, their children, to guns is like pouring gasoline on a fire. I truly can’t say that I disagree.”
He absorbed her criticism, his eyes telegraphing disappointment. “I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong, Rabbi. I’m not introducing these kids to guns; guns are already part and parcel of life in the inner city. Kids can buy them as easily as booze or drugs, and many do. What the public doesn’t understand is that these kids commit over ten thousand accidental shootings each year. We’re not talking here about gunfights or robberies or murders. We’re talking about stupid, foolish, senseless, totally avoidable accidents. Do these kids have fathers who take them to the rifle range where they can learn about firearms? Are there positive role models in their community who are responsible about the use of guns? Nothing like that exists in Southeast and the new gun laws haven’t done much to change things. Kids like this shouldn’t have guns – of any type or caliber. But that’s a dream world, not the real world. Whether we like it or not, they have access to all they want. And this leaves us with two alternatives: either do nothing and accept accidents by innocent kids and delinquents alike, or become proactive and teach kids how to use guns safely and responsibly.”
She was impressed. He has obviously thought deeply about the subject. “Do you let delinquents shoot guns?”
“Absolutely. At KISS we don’t play policemen. For our purposes it’s irrelevant whether a kid has had trouble with the law or might do something illegal in the future. Our goal is to teach them respect for firearms. You can’t teach about guns in a vacuum. We give our kids experience in handling firearms and shooting on our range. I’d love to show you our school. It might change your attitude.”
“I don’t subscribe to your view that shooting is a noble sport.”
“Inner city kids live in ignorance. But so do your friends at the Coalition. If guns are inevitable, why not learn about them? I think you’re open-minded enough to look before you come to a conclusion.”
“You’ve got me confused with Annie Oakley, I think,” she said. The invitation appalled her on many levels; not least of which was that shooting on a rifle range seemed completely inappropriate for a rabbi. But she couldn’t resist a smile as she responded. She found it impossible to dismiss Joel Fox, gun enthusiast and NRA board member that he was, as a member of the enemy camp. He was too complex and too engaging.
She passed from the narrow corridor into the waiting room where a receptionist was preparing a Visa slip for payment. Joel Fox followed and when the receptionist tried to pass the charge slip over the counter for signature, he snatched it from her fingers. Gabby tried to wrestle it back.
“On New Year’s Eve you saved me from getting thrashed,” he said. “The least I can do is see you have clean teeth. Call it professional courtesy. I do this all the time for Christian clergy. Why not for a rabbi of my own faith?”
“That was the last century. My congregation pays me a good salary, enough to pay my dental bills. Nevertheless, this time I’ll accept your generosity, but only if I can pay in the future. Otherwise, I’ll find myself another dentist.”
“That means I’ll have to become a member of Ohav Shalom in order to attend your services.”
“No, it doesn’t. Our doors are always open to the public free of charge. You can come anytime you want – without joining our membership.”
He calculated his bargaining position and quickly compromised. “Okay, a deal. Next time you pay for dental services,” he said, helping her into her navy blue winter coat. “But I’m going to call and invite you to KISS. Look at us in action, then give me your verdict.”
She took a moment to digest the proposition. It would be mid summer before she considered another cleaning and, with lingering snow on the roadsides and slow-melting ice behind isolated buildings, even spring seemed far away. “Normally, after even mentioning the National Rifle Association I wash out my mouth with strong antiseptic,” she said, smiling to indicate humorous exaggeration. “But I recall a story about Theodor Herzl when he was trying to find allies for the Jewish homeland. In 1903, he agreed to talk with Konstantin Pobedonostev, the bloodthirsty Procurator of Alexander III’s Holy Synod and architect of murderous pogroms. If Herzl could talk to Pobedonostev, I guess I can chat with you. I can’t imagine Gabrielle Lewyn at a shooting range, but then there are lots of things beyond my feeble imagination. Just don’t think you’re going to make me into a gun lover.”
There was a call from the inner office for dental attention and Joel responded quickly. “Perish the thought, Rabbi,” he said as, vanished into back.
***
In late January, Joel began attending Friday evening Erev Shabbat services at Ohav Shalom. Invariably, he would come alone, sitting in the forward pews, opposite the pulpit, where seats were plentiful. She could not avoid seeing him though his eyes rarely rose to meet hers. As if studying dental charts, they remained lowered over the Hebrew and English text of his prayer book. Afterwards, he attended the brief Oneg Shabbat receptions in the foyer, where worshippers sipped Kiddush wine and snacked on chunks of challah before returning home for Sabbath meals.
In early February, Gabby and Joel exchanged more words, politely avoiding the subject of guns. Toward the end of the month, he held onto her hand for an extra few seconds during the customary greeting and, in that interval, asked her to have dinner with him.
Should she have been surprised? It was obvious he liked her. While he was far from her image of the ideal date, she felt comfortable in his company. Many of the Jewish men in her life suffered from a shortage of hair and bulging midsections and, at thirty-four herself, it was time to stop fantasizing about men like Titus Cecera. Handsome Gentile athletes did no
t inhabit her world and she surely did not reside in theirs.
“Are you inviting me to see your art collection, too?” She was ambivalent about Joel’s dinner invitation and hid it with levity.
Never slow to turn a question to his own advantage, he said, “Why, Rabbi, nothing would please me more. Unfortunately, though, I have no Gaugins, Turners, or Henry Moores. Just guns. But you’d love the two-pound French howitzer in my hallway. A piano mover installed it because it was too cumbersome for the furniture movers. Oh, and my Kalashnikov sniper’s rifles from Vietnam. Anytime you’re in the mood for a real thrill, just let me know. For the present, though, I’m offering only dinner. To make the deal, I’ll throw in a free toothbrush and some dental floss.”
Most of the congregation had departed shortly after breaking bread for the motze, leaving the foyer empty except for Gabby, Joel, and a few stragglers who wished to make conversation with the rabbis. Dov Shellenberg approached Gabby to confirm details for the Shabbat service the following morning.
“You know Dr. Fox?” Gabby re-introduced him to Dov, though she suspected it was unnecessary as his memory for names and faces was far better than hers.
“Of course, the Jewish hunter,” he said, purposely withholding his hand. A frown rippled his forehead. Clearly, he’d found nothing commendable in what Gabby knew he characterized as the melodramatic exhibition by a dentist on New Year’s Eve. To his mind, spoken repeatedly, no one was likely to have fired one of those mud-splattered, rusty pistols hidden among the hors d'ouevres—certainly none of the guests. And the press coverage after the event had been better suited to fiction than journalism.
Joel dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement. “Stereotypes are dangerous, Rabbi Shellenberg. Jews are not all the gun-haters some paint them to be. Take a poll of the members here at Ohav Shalom and you’d be surprised how many are owners. We know because the NRA has already run similar studies, the results of which would astound you. Firearms don’t become obsolete like cars. Just about every weapon manufactured in this country since 1865 is still around somewhere and probably able to fire. And that doesn’t include the millions of imported and smuggled guns. Do the numbers. If Jews own only two percent of the firearms in this country—their percentage of the population—that’s over six million guns. One for every Jew murdered in the Holocaust. Of course, your people probably don’t advertise their ownership, but I can assure you they have them. Souvenirs, war-memorabilia, handguns by their beds for protection, hunting rifles, shotguns for goose and duck hunting, childhood keepsakes. You name it.”
The challenge took Dov unprepared. “Surely you exaggerate. At least the members of this synagogue don’t go around shooting innocent animals for sport.”
“If you’re saying they don’t hunt, you’re wrong again, Rabbi.” Joel scanned Gabby to see if she was prepared to enter the skirmish. “We’ve commissioned responsible studies on that, too. Jews hunt geese, ducks, deer, and elk. I grant that they’re not much for fox hunting; a fact that makes me and the critters I’m named after feel a little more comfortable. It might be interesting if you sent out a questionnaire and discovered how many hunters you have in this synagogue.”
Gabby took Joel’s arm to turn him away from further argument, saying, “We’ll poll our membership on this divisive question over my dead body. Dov, have a pleasant Shabbat. Let’s meet in the robing room at 9:10 tomorrow morning.”
Dov glowered at Gabby and buttoned his lips to withhold what he was obviously thinking: “Be careful, Gabby. This man is dangerous.”
A minute later, Gabby and Joel stood alone, just inside the sanctuary door. A cleaning lady had swooped down on the tables to clear away Kiddush cups and leftover challah. Gabby put out a hand toward Joel to say goodbye and he held onto it.
“You haven’t answered my question about dinner. How about it, Rabbi?”
“You’re entitled to an answer and, yes, I would be pleased to have dinner with you.”
“Then give me a date. I’ll put it on my calendar and promise to wash off all the gunpowder from my fingers before we go. No talk of guns. We’ll chat about other subjects.”
“How about tonight?” she smiled, deepening her dimples and revealing the sparkling teeth that Joel’s hygienist has so ably polished.
“I’m a very busy man this Shabbat,” he responded. “A cancer patient in a local hospice wants me to rush over tonight and apply fluoride to his teeth. Others there want me to teach them how to floss. If I don’t go tonight, tomorrow may be too late. But for a nice woman like you, I’m certain these unfortunate souls will be patient. Let’s get something to eat!”
Over dinner at Persimmon in Chevy Chase, Gabby found herself reluctant even to answer Joel’s gentle questions about her background. During the Zentner trial reporters had dug up everything, beginning with her childhood in Beverly Hills. Ambitious sleuths had managed to track down old dates and schoolmates she barely remembered. She’d felt violated and, seventeen months later, the wound was still raw. Still this was hardly fair to Joel, whose questions were polite and conversational. She responded as best she could, and shifted the conversation to his background. He was unreserved.
Joel Methuselah Fox (his unusual middle name given to signify the long life his parents presaged for him) was born in Crescent City, California. He earned an undergraduate degree in physiology at Stanford, paid for partly by scholarship and partly by college loans. But his original dream of becoming a physician had been shattered by the cost of a medical education. So when Columbia Dental School offered him a scholarship and long-term loan, he modified his ambition and accepted. Upon graduation, he began an apprenticeship in Pittsburgh where a blind date with Agnes Marsha Silver, an actress in a small repertory theatre group, led eventually to marriage. A year and a half later, they moved to Washington where Agnes had grown up.
The dental practice Joel bought into in suburban Bethesda had flourished, but the professional partnership that went with it did not. So he started a solo practice in Chevy Chase to accommodate a growing patient load from the District of Columbia and its Maryland suburbs. Meanwhile, Agnes wrote and filmed television documentaries but, like many documentary makers, yearned to produce full-length movies. This put pressure on the marriage and the two-career family floundered. Determined to make her fame on the big screen, Agnes left what she considered a dull existence in Washington to pursue her career in Hollywood. Joel stoically accepted the breakup, but not the loss of his two sons, Donald and Ian. He could have fought to retain custody, but that would have meant a long, bitter battle in court with negative impact upon the children and, given the climate of domestic affairs courts, only limited prospects for success. He traveled west frequently to spend long weekends in California.
“Thank God for jet aircraft.” He sounded resigned to making the best of a bad situation.
“Are your relationships with Donald and Ian good?” Gabby asked.
“Absolutely. That’s my reward for avoiding a nasty fight with their mother. We talk on the phone every other day. I fly out there about once a month and they visit me on school vacations. That’s all positive. The negative side is that schools in Southern California train kids for nothing but starring in movies. Mathematics, who needs them? Reading and writing? What a waste when everything necessary for modern living appears on the sacred screen. Drugs are as common as Coca Cola. Young teenage girls have more sexual experience than many married couples. I’m afraid I may have to revisit the custody issue soon.”
“Sounds like Donald and Ian have a wise father,” Gabby remarked, approving of the way he was managing a taxing situation. “And Agnes? Is she producing mega-movies?”
“Aggie? She claims she’s about to hit the big time. But my guess is that’s typical Hollywood puffery. Her days seem filled with high-powered lunches and frantic telephone calls. Let’s give her the benefit of a doubt and say she’s a talented dreamer.”
Joel ordered a dark porter. Gabby preferred to continue the Shabbat
tradition of drinking red wine. She studied the menu for low-fat options and chose a fennel and arugula salad with vinaigrette dressing, followed by salmon with artichokes, mushrooms and basil risotto. Joel chose to begin with a classic Caesar salad followed by seared beef tenderloin.
When their first course arrived, she took a bite to taste her salad and then said to him in a half giggle, “So Mothers Against Guns is beating up on you, is it? Hard to believe that a few mothers could intimate a future president of the National Rifle Association.”
“That's the point. The press sympathizes with them. If heroic, underprivileged women, scratching for a decent existence under hard living circumstances, are against teaching gun safety to kids in their neighborhood, they must be right.”
“And you think of this as reverse discrimination?” Gabby asked with mild sympathy.
“In one form or another. Pardon my French, but Ersiline Patricia North and Delilah Senegal have turned out to be pains in the proverbial tuchee. They’re trying to ruin my project. Delegates on the City Council have complained to me that the mothers pester them about KISS. Street banners in Southeast show me cradling a Kalashnikov-47 assault rifle while teaching a five-year-old child. The truth is I wouldn’t let any kid near an assault weapon, even if I had one in my collection, which, on the QT, I must confess I do. As much as I want kids to learn to shoot, I don’t want them shooting automatic rifles that have no function but to hurt people.”
A couple at the far end of the restaurant waved convivially at Gabby. She returned the gesture half-heartedly. She vaguely recognized them from the Jewish community but couldn’t place their names. No doubt they would crank up the local rumor mill about Rabbi Lewyn seen in company with an unidentified male companion.
