the Bar Studs)

by Levinson, Len

  “I need a job, Milton. Have you got any ideas?”

  “Well, Teddy, you know I can’t give you your old job back here. If you had your face fixed I’d be happy to, but, well, you know how things are.”

  “I know how things are.”

  “You’re a bright boy and I knew you’d understand. Just sit there and let me make some calls. I have friends in business and maybe one of them has something for you. By the way, my dear, your body is just as gorgeous as ever.” Milton looked at the ceiling, picked up his telephone, and dialed.

  Teddy sat and looked around the office as Milton spoke on the telephone. Milton’s desk was stacked with correspondence, bills, and receipts, and in the corner near Teddy was a copy of Gay Life magazine. In the other corner was an eight-inch erect cock carved out of white marble and mounted on a wooden base. Teddy wondered if Milton ever locked the door and stuck it up his ass. On the far wall was a poster of a naked man with a weight-lifter physique and a huge limp cock that hung like a pink hose down to his knees.

  Milton hung up the phone. “I’ve got something for you, darling. An old friend of mine owns a French restaurant called L’Aiglon on West Fourth Street not far from where you live. He needs someone to work in the kitchen and he said he’ll hire you. His name is Jonathan Westwood and he knows you—maybe you’ll recognize him because he comes here a lot—and he’d like to help you. You see, dear, you still have friends. You’re not alone.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “Well it’s dishwashing, actually, but you know you have to crawl before you can walk. He said you could work up to being a cook, and that would be good for you because L’Aiglon is a very fine French restaurant. And since you’re back there in the kitchen you won’t have to look your best.”

  Teddy closed his eyes; dishwashing was a big step down for him. “Should I go over now?”

  “He’s expecting you, but there’s no rush. He’ll be there all evening.” Milton scratched his moustache. “Do you know you still look sexy?”

  “I do?”

  “Of course you do. Your basic interior beauty just shines forth through your injuries. Your body has always been divine.”

  Teddy hadn’t had any sex since his encounter with Oliver the orderly, and the cock sculpture and poster of the weightlifter made him feel a little horny. “Would you like to suck this for awhile?” he asked, unzipping his fly. He wore no underwear and his cock fell out.

  Milton sank to his knees and grabbed Teddy’s cock with both hands. “I’d be delighted,” he said. He opened his mouth wide and greedily filled it with Teddy’s lengthening cock.

  Teddy leaned back in his chair and looked down at old neurotic Milton blowing him. Teddy had always wondered what ugly people did for sex, and now he knew. They fucked each other just like beautiful people, and it felt pretty much the same.

  * * *

  The Tiferith Israel Synagogue was made of large rough-hewn stone blocks, had a spire, and differed from a small Christian church only in decoration: stars of David and menorahs instead of crucifixes.

  It was late in the afternoon when Leo climbed the wide stone steps of the synagogue and opened the massive wooden door. He felt lonely and depressed; he had suffered sarcasm and hostility for three nights straight at Bartholomew’s Pumpkin and now wandered here to the old synagogue where he had been circumcised, bar-mitzvahed, and where he had said kaddish for his dead mother and father.

  From the wooden box in the small lobby he took a black yarmulke and put it on the back of his head. He opened the next door and entered the dim main hall of the synagogue. Nothing had changed in the five years since he’d been here last. Before him were rows of blond wooden benches, the Holy Ark, lectern, menorah, and the table on which he had read the Torah on the day of his Bar Mitzvah.

  He took off his sheepskin coat and sat on the rear bench near the center aisle. Scattered before him on the benches were eight old men in prayer shawls and phylacteries, and the three standing rocked back and forth in the rapture of their prayers. It was so still he could hear their fervent whispers. Leo listened and relaxed; he felt safe here.

  After a while he felt an urge to pray. He picked a prayer book from the rack in front of him and leafed through it, but he remembered that many prayers could be recited only by a minimum of ten men together. He returned the prayer book to its slot and tried to remember one that could be said alone. The Shema, the ancient Hebrew declaration of faith, came to mind. He stood, closed his eyes, and whispered the Hebrew words he had learned in cheder more than twenty years ago in this very building.

  When finished he sat down and realized he felt better. Harry Ryker and his ridicule couldn’t touch him here. He looked around at the wood-paneled walls that rose into the darkness high above. Maybe he should come to services once in a while. He decided to go downstairs and see if Rabbi Gelberman were in his office.

  He arose, walked back to the lobby, and descended the steps to the basement of the synagogue. At the bottom of the stairs was the spacious room used for meetings, social receptions, and oneg shabbat, and at the far end of the room were doors to the offices of the rabbi, sexton, and cantor. Leo approached the door on the left and was gratified to see on it the same old stenciled sign RABBI ABRAHAM GELBERMAN. He knocked on the door.

  “Who is?” asked an old curdled voice inside.

  “Leo Anussewitz.”

  “Leo Anussewitz? Come in!”

  Leo opened the door and saw Rabbi Gelberman, more wrinkled and more gray, sitting on his old wooden armchair before his old wooden desk. He wore a yarmulke, had a long beard in which there were crumbs, wore a stained black suit and soiled white shirt, and was holding a typewritten letter. His large nose resembled the mating of a hawk’s beak with a potato.

  “Please sit down, Leo Anussewitz,” he said warmly. He dropped the letter atop a pile of other papers on his desk.

  Leo sat in the chair before the rabbi’s desk and laid his sheepskin coat on the adjacent chair. He could see it becoming dark outside through the small basement window above the rabbi’s head. The left wall was covered with rows of books, and on the right wall was an oil painting of a pious-looking bearded man in yarmulke and prayer shawl holding the Torah in his arms. A brass lamp on the rabbi’s desk gave the silent room a warm glow.

  “I haven’t seen you, Leo, since your mother of blessed memory left this earth. Vhat is the great occasion?” The rabbi spoke with a heavy Yiddish accent.

  “No occasion,” Leo replied. “I just thought I’d come by and say hello.”

  Rabbi Gelberman nodded his head rhythmically. “He says it’s no occasion. But vhen somebody does something he hasn’t done for years—there has to be a reason. Vell, vhat’s the reason?”

  Leo wanted to have a nice little chat, not talk about reasons. He’d forgotten what the rabbi was like.

  “I esked you a qvestion. Vhat’s the reason?”

  “I haven’t been here for a long time, so I thought I’d drop in and say hello. But I can see you’re busy, Rabbi, and I’ll come back some other time.” Leo stood up and reached for his coat.

  “Sit down, please,” Rabbi Gelberman said softly.

  Leo sat.

  Rabbi Gelberman held the palm of one hand upwards. “People just don’t vander in here after so many years of being avay. Vhat’s your proplem?”

  Leo squirmed uneasily in his chair. “I don’t have a problem.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Rabbi Gelberman narrowed his eyes. “I think you’re lying to me.”

  Leo shrugged. “Everybody has problems and I guess I’m no different from anybody else.”

  “Your ridiculous life is catching up vith you?”

  “Not any more than usual.”

  The rabbi looked sternly at him. “Are you drinking too much?”

  “No, I don’t drink very much at all.”

  “That’s nice,” the rabbi said sarcastically. “Is it a shiksa?”

  There was no
point denying it. “As a matter of fact I do happen to know a shiksa.”

  “You’re thinking maybe about marrying her?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Good—at least you’re not completely crazy. Are you in love vith her?”

  “Oh no.”

  “So you just vant to go to bed vith her.”

  Leo avoided the rabbi’s stare. “I suppose so.”

  “And if she said yes you’d be in bed vith her someplace and not here, but she said no so you came here. It’s either that or she said yes and now you’re tired of her and you vant me to tell you how to get rid of her. Is it number one or number two?”

  “Number one, more or less.”

  The rabbi took out a surprisingly clean white hanker-chief and wiped his nose. “Do you know vhy you vant to go to bed with this shiksa?”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “That’s not vhy. That’s who. You vant to be vith this shiksa because you need sexual intercourse. And vhy do you need sexual intercourse? Because you’re not married to a Jewish girl as the Torah and Talmud counsels you to be. And vhy aren’t you married to a Jewish girl? Because you’d rather be a smart guy. And vhy are you here today? Because you’re starting to realize that being a smart guy has its drawbacks. Vell, you’ve come to the right place. Your only hope is to become a good Jew instead of a momzer.” Rabbi Gelberman looked at his watch. “It’s almost time for the Evening Prayer. You’ll come up vith me and pray and then you’ll come down vith me and ve’ll talk some more. I told your father of blessed memory that you’d come to me some day, and here you are.”

  Leo smiled. “I’m glad to see you again, Rabbi Gelberman, and I’d like to come to services once in a while, but I don’t think I could ever be a good Orthodox Jew like you want.”

  The rabbi narrowed his eyes. “Vhy not?”

  “This is 1974. It’s impossible to live like an Orthodox Jew these days.”

  “Vhat’s so impossible?” The rabbi raised his eyebrows. “I live like an Orthodox Jew these days.”

  “You’re a rabbi—you’ve got the time.”

  “It doesn’t take much time. If you’ve got time to chase shiksas you’ve got time to do mitzvoth.”

  “Mitzvoth rituals don’t make sense anymore.”

  “It makes sense to chase shiksas? Look where it got you. Religious duties make sense because they keep Jews out of trouble. Am I coming to see you or are you coming to see me? The laws vere given to us by Him, and He knows vhat’s best. Some of the laws are peculiar, I admit, but if you think about them a little maybe you’ll understand better. Maybe it vould be good for your so-called mind to think about them a little.” The rabbi looked at his watch again. “It’s time. Come upstairs.”

  Rabbi Gelberman opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out his purple velvet bag of religious articles. He stood up, tucked the bag under his arm, and walked around his desk.

  “If your father and mother of blessed memory could see you now, shmendrick, they’d be proud,” he said to Leo, tapping him on the head. He opened the door and held it, a big smile on his face. “I’ll tell you something—I know a nice Jewish girl whose father owns a dress factory in Brooklyn. You’ll meet her on Friday after the Shabbos service.”

  Leo arose and followed the rabbi up the stairs into the prayer hall.

  * * *

  Jake looked up and was startled to see Melinda stumble drunkenly into the Reno, her arms linked with a tall, ugly black man.

  “Hiya, Jake!” she said boisterously.

  “’Lo.”

  She and the black man staggered to the bar. They were both dirty and disheveled, and the black’s bushy hair was filled with dust and lint. He had no teeth in front and Jake could smell him three feet away.

  “Meet my boyfriend Malcolm,” Melinda said.

  Jake looked away from Malcolm and wiped down the bar in front of them. “Whataya drinkin’?”

  “What do you want, honey?” she asked Malcolm.

  “Tokay.”

  She unslung her shoulder bag. “I’ll get it. You go over and find us a table.”

  Malcolm winked at Jake, turned, and tottered away.

  “Pour Malcolm some Tokay,” Melinda mumbled drunkenly, “and I want some sweet red.” She opened her pocketbook, took out a change purse, snapped it open, and pulled out some bills.

  Jake reached for two glasses. “Where’d you find the monkey?”

  “He’s better-looking than some people I know.”

  “You’d better start wearin’ glasses.”

  “You’d better start filling some.”

  Jake reached for the Tokay. “You’re payin’ for his wine?”

  “What of it?”

  “I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “Don’t think too much. It’ll give you a headache.”

  “You really like that nigger?” Jake couldn’t believe it.

  Melinda hung onto the bar with both hands and licked her lips. “I’m craaaazy about him.”

  “I think you’ve finally gone bananas from drinkin’ too much.”

  Melinda rolled her eyes. “I’m crazy about his big black banana too.”

  Jake almost gagged. He pushed the two glasses of wine toward her, took her money, rang it up, and returned with change. “I think you two garbage pails deserve each other,” he told her.

  “Up yours.”

  She dropped the change into her purse, dropped the purse into her shoulder bag, and carried the two glasses of wine to the corner table that Malcolm had selected. Then she hung up her parka, bent over, and gave Malcolm a juicy smooch right on the mouth, as Jake watched horrified. She moved a chair beside Malcolm, sat on it, and they began hugging and kissing like teenagers in a drive-in.

  Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. As he walked back and forth behind the bar pouring wine and hooch for bums he kept glancing at Melinda and her black boyfriend carrying on in the corner. How could she even touch a scumbag like that? Malcolm had his hand under her green dirty sweater and was squeezing her little boobs, and then he sneaked the same hand under her wrinkled gray dress and wiggled it around. Melinda’s right hand was buried deep in the folds of his cruddy topcoat and looked like she was jerking him off. Jake’s hand trembled as he poured a glass of port wine. They were slurping each other’s faces and Jake could even catch glimpses of their tongues. Khrushchev the kitten, who’d been sitting near the corner on the lap of a bum, leapt to the floor, walked over, and rubbed against their legs. Their lips were glued together and drooling spit.

  Jake thought his blood might burst through his skin. She used to be a lady—how could she carry on with that ugly nigger? How could she like the nigger more than him? It meant she thought he was even worse than the nigger, and he couldn’t deal with that. He poured himself two fingers of Jim Beam and gulped it down.

  The kitten jumped up on the table and butted his head into Melinda’s arm. Melinda unfastened herself from Malcolm and they both petted the kitten and spoke to it for a while, but not too long. They went back to their passionate kissing, and Jake poured himself more whiskey. He wanted to throw them out, but he couldn’t let her see how upset he was. He’d just have to act naturally, like nothing was happening.

  A bum nearby in a backwards baseball cap picked his nose. “I ain’t never seen you take a drink before, Jake. Welcome to the club.”

  Jake snarled and threw his partially filled glass into the garbage can, where it smashed against an empty beer bottle. He picked up his Daily News, leaned against the cash register, and looked through the pages, but the words and pictures made no impression on his churning mind. He wanted to take out his pistol, walk over to them, and blow their brains out.

  In the remaining hours of the night Jake served booze to drunks, washed glasses, looked through his paper, stocked the beer cooler, and performed various chores behind the bar, trying not to look at the lovers in the corner. Once when he was reading the paper the kitten came behind the bar to ea
t some tuna fish, and he bent over to pet it as it passed. The kitten meowed and ran away from him.

  Finally and mercifully it was closing time. “Okay, everybody out!” Jake yelled, relieved, pointing at the big Budweiser clock above the cash register. He rolled up his sleeves and stomped from behind the bar. “Out!”

  He dragged a bum toward the door by his foot and looked at Melinda and Malcolm still carrying on in the corner as if they hadn’t heard him. “OUT!” They kept kissing and feeling each other up. He’d start at the other end of the tavern and systematically work his way toward them. Hopefully they’d get up to leave before he reached them. “Let’s go, you fuckin’ bums!”

  One by one the bums went sailing out the door, closer and closer he came, and Malcolm still had his hand up Melinda’s dress. Then most of the bums were out on the sidewalk and they were next. He rapped his knuckles on their table. “Hey!”

  They separated and looked up at him, and Melinda smiled as if she’d just won something. “You closing up?” she asked.

  “That’s the general idea.”

  She looked at Malcolm. “Let’s go, baby.”

  Malcolm stood up but didn’t look at Jake. He seemed embarrassed or afraid, but not Melinda. She stood up, put on her parka, and ran her fingers through her matted hair. Then she glowered at Jake. “See you later, jackass.”

  “I hope not.”

  She leaned groggily against the wall and smiled. “What’s the matter? You don’t want me to come in here?”

  “I can live without havin’ you around.”

  She looked amused. “Isn’t my money good?”

  “It is, but you ain’t.”

  She laughed unconvincingly and then put her arm around Malcolm’s waist. “Let’s go, baby. I don’t like to be where I’m not wanted.”

  Jake stood stiffly with his fists balled at his sides and if Malcolm said a word he’d deck him, but the two turned away from him and zigzagged across the floor and past tables to the door. Jake watched until they were outside and then angrily grabbed the nearest drowsing bum by his hair. “Geddup, you fuckin’ snot!”