Collected Short Stories: Volume II

by Barry Rachin

“I was wondering if you would you like to take a drive …go meet the latest edition to the family?” On the ride over to the dairy farm Nadia asked, “Buying a cow – is that another example of emergence theory?”

  Mr. Rasmussen shook his head in the negative. “No, it’s just animal husbandry.”

  June 29th

  The Tarahumara consume huge amounts of an alcoholic beverage, tesguino, which is made from fermented corn. The Indians consider being intoxicated a matter of pride and are not ashamed to become drunk. Properly understood, it is an inextricable part of their tribal culture

  These communal drinking festivals are important because they allow the Tarahumara to vent violent and aggressive emotions, something that would not be acceptable in ordinary, everyday life. It is said that ninety percent of all social infractions – fighting, adultery and occasionally murder - occur at the ‘tesguinado’. What is amazing, from our skewed, European point of view, is that a person who commits one of these crimes is unlikely to be punished or suffer any serious repercussions. The Tarahumara simply blame anything that happens during the tesguinado on the alcohol.

  The roots of the Tarahumara beliefs and religion are very puzzling. In the middle 1600’s Franciscan missionaries arrived in the Copper Canyon and tried to instill Christianity as the Indian’s religion. The Tarahumara never fully accepted Christianity. They believed that their own views on religion were too important to just forget, and so, over time, the Tarahumara have assimilated bits and pieces of both religions. It is now impossible for people to find the roots of current Tarahumara beliefs. Their most important belief that has remained unchanged over the years is that God is the sun, his wife is the moon, and the Devil is the father of all non-Indians. This belief is an example of the Tarahumara extreme ethnocentrism; they believe that they are a superior race and that they are more important than other people.

  The Tarahumara are not very hygienic. The washing of their clothes is usually either an annual or semiannual tradition. The Indians have no regular sleeping habits and simply go to sleep whenever and wherever they are tired and feel that they need rest. The practice of childbirth is also distinct to the Tarahumara. When a woman feels that it is about time for her to deliver the baby, she will go off by herself into the wilderness, brace herself between two small trees and attempt to have the baby safely. Infant mortality is very high. This fact is counterbalanced by the fact that the average Tarahumara woman gives birth to about ten babies hoping that three or four will survive. Adulthood is usually short for the Indians with the average life expectancy being forty-five.

  Nadia, who was lying on the living room couch, flipped the page but discovered no more entries. It was the end of the journal but certainly not the final chapter in the saga of the Tarahumara. In an illustrated book, Indians of the Southwest, located in the history section of the library, she learned that the Mexican government had run train tracks through the isolated Copper Canyon opening the region up to tourists. A medical clinic, the first of its kind in the isolated area, had reduced infant mortality among the Indians by half, but the increased numbers inhabiting the region had put a strain on natural resources. There simply wasn’t enough open space and farmable land left to sustain the Indians’ traditional lifestyle.

  *****

  In late October, two months after the Jersey arrived at the Rasmussen’s, Nadia stopped by the Rehoboth Feed and Grange. “I’m on my way to Logan Airport and was wondering if you would like to come along for the drive.”

  “Going away?” Jonathan asked.

  Nadia shook her head. “It’s a bit complicated,” she hedged, “but I can explain everything on the Southeast Expressway. When do you get off work?”

  Three hours later as they were cruising north on route three into Boston, Nadia told Jonathan about the ornate, leather-bound journal. “Now that I’ve finished reading it, I’m leaving the diary at the airport for someone else to find.”

  Directly ahead and slightly to the left, the Prudential Building loomed high above office buildings dotting the metropolitan skyline. Chinatown came into view and just as quickly disappeared as the car entered a tunnel under the city outskirts. “Sure wish you’d told me this earlier,” Jonathan muttered.

  “And why’s that?”

  “I'd sure like to read the journal.”

  “Then we made the trip for nothing.”

  Jonathan thought a moment. Up ahead a sliver of light indicated that they were exiting the tunnel heading in the direction of Faneuil Market and the Boston Aquarium. He pressed down on the directional, easing over into the far right-hand lane. “So the drive won’t be a complete loss, why don’t we double back to Chinatown and grab something to eat?”

  Nadia rested a hand on Jonathan’s forearm. “That sure is sweet of you.” They were already winding through narrow, congested streets lined with oriental restaurants and exotic shops. Many of the signs on storefronts were lettered in Chinese characters. A young Asian woman with jet black hair fluttering about her waist hurried by. The woman wore a skintight dress fashioned from two-tone silk brocade with a Mandarin collar. The car inched up to a red light. “My father teaches physics at the community college.”

  “Which makes him both a dairy farmer and a man of science,” Jonathan quipped. Reaching out with his free hand, he grabbed her palm and gave it an affectionate squeeze.

  “Emergence theory… Are you familiar with the concept?”

  Jonathan shook his head and turned sharply into an outdoor parking lot that bordered a string of glitzy Chinese eateries. “Never heard of it.”

  Once settled in the restaurant, Nadia made a mental note to tell Jonathan about scaly termite mounds taller than most NBA basketball players; and ravishingly beautiful ice crystals as ephemeral and fleeting as a heartbeat; and desert sands whipped into frothy, undulating ribbons when caressed by the super-heated North African wind. Over pork chop suey, pan fried Peking dumplings, won-ton soup and endless cups of Oolong black tea, she would explain how seemingly random, meaningless and thoroughly unremarkable events might conspire to enchant and ultimately transform an otherwise drab universe.

 

  Back to Table of Contents

  Two Pockets

  According to Hasidic tradition, everyone must have two pockets, so they can reach into the one or the other, according to need. In the right pocket are to be the words: ‘For my sake was the world created,’ and in the left: ‘I am dust and ashes.’

  Since graduating high school, Miriam Applebaum noticed a creeping malaise among her friends. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen. But waiting for what? For the moshiach, the messiah, to come the first time? The ‘other one’, her father insisted indignantly was a well-intentioned, if somewhat misguided, false prophet.

  Her best friend, Mitzi, was waiting – waiting to find a husband and begin raising a family. Mitzi’s brother, Yossi, attended Brandeis. He returned from the prestigious college with a bachelor’s degree in nothing-in-particular. After loafing about the house for the better part of a year, the boy went to work in his uncle’s delicatessen cooking brisket, corned beef and tongue. And waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to figure out what to do with the rest of his miserable, well-educated existence on planet earth.

  Of course, Miriam’s brother, Saul, didn’t suffer from any such existential ennui. On Saturday evening, she spied the tall, emaciated youth with his wispy beard and skullcap, prancing about the house in a freshly ironed shirt, his frizzy hair blow dried, and cheeks reeking of St. Johns Bay Rum cologne. He favored the fragrance with West Indian lime that left a cloying trail of pungent citrus odors in every room he passed through. “Where’re you going all dolled up?”

  Saul was preening in front of the bathroom mirror. With a pair of pointed scissors, he snipped a few errant hairs– his beard was still a work in progress - from the side of his chin. “No place special.” Pulling a billfold from his back pocket, Saul took silent inventory of his finances.


  “Must be a heavy date,” Miriam said in a goading tone.

  Flashing a dirty look, he bolted for the front door.

  Did he have to call ahead, Miriam wondered, to let the Russian sluts know that the rabbinical student, Saul Applebaum, was on his way? Slathered in St. Johns Bay Rum with a hint of lime and horny as hell, God’s anointed messenger would be arriving shortly.

  Later that night as she lay under the covers, Miriam felt like a dry leaf in late October. Waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. For what? To fall. To fall and, perhaps, be caught in a frigid updraft of autumnal air. No more malaise. A new life. A new beginning. Which was not to say that Miriam would ever turn her back on her faith.

  Once a Jew, a Jew for life.

  But a Jew with a myriad of options. Just as the Sephardic Jews in Medieval Spain learned from the Moslem invaders to cross-pollinate their Cabalist theology with Sufi metaphysics, so too would Miriam Applebaum, an orthodox Jewish woman who followed the precepts of Halakha, find a way to pass cleanly through the eye of the needle.

  * * * * *

  The dark-haired girl arrived unannounced. Though the weather was humid in the mid-eighties, she wore long sleeves buttoned at the wrists and a drab, moss green skirt that hung well below the knees. The skin was pale with an ivory texture and lush, jet-black eyebrows that lent the otherwise placid features a haughty boldness. “My name is Miriam Applebaum and I live in the slate blue house with the shutters on the corner.”

  Mark Cassidy, who was seated at the kitchen table drawing up a list of building supplies, threw the pencil aside. “Yes, I know the house.”

  The Applebaums moved into the community several years back. They belonged to an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, Beth Ohavai Shalom, off Seneca Drive. Every Saturday the congregants traipsed in and out of the temple, the men dressed in black with skullcaps and prayer shawls. The women covered their heads with scarves even through the scorching, late summer months. “What can I do for you, Miriam Applebaum?”

  The exotic-looking girl took several steps forward and was standing at the kitchen table now. She was medium height with a fleshy body. “Your pickup truck pulls onto the street every day in the late afternoon.” “Fournier Builders. General carpentry. New construction, interior and exterior renovations.” She recited verbatim as though reading directly from the metallic red lettering on the cab of the truck.

  An easygoing affable smile lit up her features, and the thought occurred to Mark that the annoyingly persistent Jewish girl with the long sleeves wasn’t leaving anytime soon. “I was wondering if you might have an entry-level position available.”

  A Chevy pickup with a blown muffler pulled into the driveway and his foreman, Kenny, lumbered up the backstairs and into the kitchen. Kenny handled finished work – oak staircases, cornices, custom fireplace mantles, fancy trim, baseboard, windows and moldings. Noticing her strange dress, the middle-aged man gawked uncertainly at the girl.

  “This is Miriam from down the street,” Mark said. “She’s looking for work.”

  Kenny rubbed the back of his sunburned neck with a row of stubby fingers. The nail on the left index finger was blackened from an errant hammer. “What can you do?”

  Again, as if on cue, her malleable features dissolved in an eager grin. “Anything, everything. I’ve never done construction, but I thought maybe …” The sentence sort of petered away.

  “Since Smitty quit, we ain’t got no helper,” Kenny ruminated, as though talking more to himself than anyone else in the room. “And we need someone to prime all that freakin’ fascia and baseboard trim.”

  A week earlier, Mark placed an order with the lumber company for several hundred square feet of molding. The shipment of wood arrived bare, with no protective primer coat. Rather than return the wood, the lumberyard agreed to sell him the entire load at cost. When Mark balked, the purchasing agent threw up his hands and said, “We got no use for it... take the crap and we’ll eat the loss.” The senior community center project was already three days behind schedule due to bad weather and now a new headache; since Smitty quit, the mountain of unpainted lumber that cost him diddly-squat was utterly useless. Think wonders, shit blunders!

  “What’s a helper do?” Miriam pressed.

  “Anything and everything,” Mark reiterated what she said a moment earlier. “One minute you’re filling a dumpster with worksite debris, the next your lugging four-by-eight sheets of plywood to where a crew is installing subfloors.”

  Mark stood up and leaned forward so that his nose was a fraction of an inch from the girl’s face. “Any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”

  The girl never blinked but only grinned more brazenly. “How soon can I start?”

  Fifteen minutes later, as she was leaving, Mark called out, “Wait up!” Lumbering to the front door, he positioned his work boot over Miriam’s string sandal and pressed down gently. “Imagine that instead of this being my foot it’s a pressure-treated four-by-four post slamming down on your big toe.” He eased the dirt-crusted shoe off her foot. “You’re gonna need a pair of steel-toed work boots when you start on Monday. Also, no skirts. Pants or dungarees but no skirts.”

  “Anything else?”

  The impish grin was beginning to grate on his nerves. “Yeah, pick up a pair of work gloves, preferably heavy-duty.”

  “Now comes the hard part,” she said, the smile wilting noticeably.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’ve got to go home and tell my parents.”

  * * * * *

  Later that night as Mark was preparing for bed, the phone rang. “I bought the steel-toed work boots.”

  “Where did you get my telephone number?”

  “Off the side of your pickup truck, of course..”

  “That’s nice.” He didn’t quite know what else to say.

  “And a pair of genuine rawhide work gloves, too.” When there was no reply she added. “Should I go directly to the worksite?”

  “No, just drop by my place at around eight o’clock.”

  “Good night.” She hung up the phone.

  *****

  Miriam Applebaum showed up Monday morning for her first day at Fournier Construction dressed in a navy blue uniform that made her look more like a janitor or maintenance worker than carpenter’s helper. “We need the raw lumber primed.” Mark brought her out back of the Brandenberg senior center where several sawhorses were lying next to a pile of molding and random boards. “The paint and brushes are just inside the door.” He pointed to the back entrance to the building. “Any questions?”

  She shook her head, which was covered by a dark scarf similar to the ones he had seen the other Jewish women wearing as they walked back and forth from the Orthodox synagogue on Saturday mornings. Mark sauntered to the front of the building where a heavyset man with blond hair was framing the walkway for a handicapped ramp. “There’s a girl taking Smitty’s place. A nice kid. You leave her alone, okay? No foul language, ethnic slurs or dirty jokes.”

  The fellow slid a metal-shanked, Estwing hammer from his carpenter’s belt and looked up. “Why should I give her any grief?”

  “Because you’re an asshole with a warped sense of humor,” Mark replied and walked away.

  The previous week the crew gutted the interior of the main function hall, framing the structure according to the architect’s new plans. Now three palettes of drywall had to be installed before the plasters arrived midweek. Because the building was older construction, an extra width of board had to be doubled up to reach the ten-foot ceiling. More aggravation and wasted time.

  At ten-thirty Mark laid his pale blue Makita screw gun on the ground and turned to Kenny. “I gotta check on the Jewish girl.” Out in the back of the building he found a row of freshly painted boards lined up on the ground. “Not bad.”

  A drop of white paint was smeared across the side of her cheek. “It’s not rocket science.”

  He waved a hand at the remaining pile of unpainted boar
ds. “We got two more piles of this stuff coming. Once the wood is done, we’ll get you inside and involved with basic carpentry.”

  “Okay.” She dipped the brush in the can, wiping a glob of excess paint on the inner rim.

  “I met your father,” he suddenly said, shifting gears.

  She lay the brush aside momentarily. “When was that?”

  One day in late September, as Mark explained it, he was coming home from work and spotted a heavy-set, older man standing next to a Subaru with a flat tire. Mark pulled over. “What’s the problem?”

  The bearded man, who was dressed in black pants and a white shirt, waved a tire iron in the air and glowered at him suspiciously. “Lug nut’s frozen… won’t budge.”

  Mark went back to his truck and returned with his own iron. “Too big!” The middle-aged man exploded angrily. “You don’t see what such a little tire I got?”

  Mark pointed at the four-posted tool. “Each end has a different size socket. This one should fit your car.” Still fuming, the man reluctantly stepped aside. Mark seated the tool over the frozen nut. “With the T-shaped design, you get twice the torque to muscle rusty bolts free.”

  Bracing his legs, he leaned into the tool twisting counter-clockwise, and, after a moment, the nut slid to the left. He loosened the rest of the bolts and stood up. “Can you handle it from here?”

  “Yes, thank you so much.” There was a perceptible softening to the man’s tone, tinged with appreciation.

  “The younger fellow with the thin beard who was with you father…”

  Miriam resumed painting, brushing the creamy white paint over a length of beaded molding in smooth, even strokes. “That would be my brother, Saul.” Finishing with the fancy strip, she laid it aside to dry and reached for another.

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t work. Saul is too busy with other pursuits.”

  “Such as?”

  “My brother spent most of last year at a yeshiva, a Jewish seminary, in Jerusalem. He’s studying to be a rabbi.”