“For God’s sakes, Maxie, use lemons!” she would implore.
After lunch, our appetites for juggling undiminished, we would be at it with the lemons in the kitchen. In open-mouthed despair we watched the dull, yellow fruit (how it had sparkled in his hands!) dodge and dart away from our fingers. It seemed an overwhelming task for a mortal with only two hands. In the midst of bruised lemons bonging off the radiator and clunking off the refrigerator, we were struck by the obvious and only reason for our failure: eggs were easier, lighter, more apt to float in minimal breezes, and less slippery than those slick lemons. My brother mustered the courage to open the refrigerator and wrest victory from the egg tray.
“They’re lighter,” he announced. Success was in his hands. He tossed the first into the air. The second followed, but not quite rapidly enough; for the third had to be launched with extraordinary speed if the first was not to fall onto the floor.
“What was that?” Mom called.
We glanced at the yellow splotch at our feet. The kitchen floor could be cleaned up easily. What fairly fascinated us, however, was the spreading, wretched yellow mass that was descending the wall, its rich, clinging nutrient glue conquering new areas without surrendering old ones. For an embryo it must be the perfect medium, but this golden, rich, nutritious mix was also spreading across our parrot.
This bird, rich in blue-green and red plumage, was really an astonishing creation. Regal, compact, and flamboyant, it cocked its beak in an egotistical smirk; there was no doubt that bird could talk and knew what to say. Most memorable, and fearful to a child, were its sharp grasping claws. If anything inspired me toward art, that bird played its part. Mom had painted it right before our eyes on demand. Although no juggler, she was not without her Uncle Maxian talents — talents that run rich and natural like great seams of high-assay ore that rarely reach the surface, but when they do break through on occasion, they dazzle the eye as only traces of great treasure can.
We never even knew where she kept the palette, oils, and brushes, but once every few years she would bring them out and execute whatever we asked for right on the spot without so much as a preliminary sketch. At first we leaned toward parrots, rabbits, ducks; later it was trains, planes, and other wonders of technology. No matter, she could do it all. Then she would step back, admire it for a moment, and forget about it until some years later some mysterious impulse sent her for her oils again.
We were expecting some form of retribution to explode on our hindsides. To our surprise more than our delight — unrealized expectations among primitives always present a problem — we merely received a reprimand or two. “God dammit, can’t you kids ever listen?” A little “Why did God curse me with children like you,” but nothing with any emotion. She had expected it. “Damnation,” she muttered, angry and sad, with the timeworn frustration of the sedentary civilized against the destructive unrestrained joy of the nomadic primitive. For all his genteel charm, Uncle Maxie was a socioeconomic barbarian — a Hun of family life, an economic Vandal. She had known that once the latter-day Visigoth had been permitted to perform in Rome, it was only a matter of time until the Sistine Chapel was sacked, if you will, for that parrot was a very rich bird.
Then, too, Uncle Maxie was her uncle. Maybe she remembered her childhood pleasure in having an uncle who could juggle like that. Or again, maybe with her palette and paints, she had some of the same chromosomal splendor and knew that it couldn’t be totally suppressed. Those Litvaks didn’t worry so much about skeletons in the closet; such calcareous residents bespoke permanence and predictable behavior from their dull, dark dwellings. What spooked Litvaks were the mysterious twists of the essential, living genetic material. Tay-Sachs disease, Houdini juggling, and Raphael oils aren’t in the blood; they’re in the stuff that makes the blood and everything else. Little Litvak chromosomes that suddenly override the deep sustaining rhythms of life and break into a little tango all their own while the deep inner sustaining rhythms go to hell. Whatever else you say, it’s worth the price of admission and it promises to be a show stopper.
There’s some of the Litvak in me, too, although it’s watered down by a Russian influence, less brilliant, more melancholy, but not without its own charm: deep obsessive perversions that alter the very basic rhythms. For the Russian, a minor fleeting theme lasts not seconds or minutes, but decades and in some cases generations. Potatoes versus daisies. Still, that Litvak chromosome or part of it is somewhere inside of me, undiscovered, but I fully expect it to burst forth some time. Whenever audience participation is called for, I cling to my seat for fear that some deep, mad force will propel me onto the stage where I shall perform a perfect kazatzke, skip marvelously along a tightrope, or recite from memory the epic poem of Peru. (Anything but juggle.) And I’m enough of a Litvak to feel disappointed in spite of all my Russian fears if it doesn’t happen someday.
Being a bit of a Litvak doesn’t mean I’m like my Uncle Maxie. No one was thought to be like Uncle Maxie. It was a great mystery and an even greater scandal that Uncle Maxie was like Uncle Maxie. His lack of apparent followers was cause for a collective familial sigh of relief. He was not the hero of the family, but rather the black sheep, although a very fair, blond, blue-eyed one. By the time he was my great-uncle, the hair had departed and the light complexion had garnered its fair share of those dark mottling marks which we called liver spots. But the eyes were something else — forever roving and forever blue — a rare, light, clear blue, the blue of a soft winter’s afternoon sky when the cool light has just begun to recede. From appearance alone, one would hardly guess that we were relatives. Until I came to Jerusalem to await the Messiah, I was rather thankful for the lack of similarity. Now, however, I was here, and I found myself thinking about him with mixed emotions. And why not? Why should my emotions be any different from His mixed holy blessing of the Torah? After all, if pigeons and doves, why not a talking parrot with ruthless grasping toes? A kosher dove would never speak, but in America silence doesn’t articulate and you need words for heaven’s sake. Is it any wonder my emotions were mixed?
I found myself thinking that neither of us changed underwear toward the end. Whatever else you say about the rest of the family, they change their underwear daily, socks too. And there’s a lot of toothbrushing as well. I used to change underwear religiously although the brushing of teeth was never my thing. Uncle Maxie, however, was a superclean man. I have no doubts that he brushed at least twice a day and showered at least once, probably twice. That whole family, my grandmother included, were hygiene nuts. The word “dirty” was pronounced with a grimace for fear that the powers of dirt might be so great as to permeate the word itself and contaminate the speaker. Even among the men in the family, the word “filthy” was used only in anger and wasn’t even permitted in polite conversation. On this I differed from them. Insofar as they kept kosher, the motivation was cleanliness. On the Day of Judgment, none of them would have been surprised if the first thing the angels did was check behind their ears.
My Uncle Gabe, Uncle Maxie’s younger brother, who had the honor of being Uncle Maxie’s primary patron, warned me against all commercial hamburgers because he had been told that they were made from kangaroo meat and would give you a jumpy stomach. In addition, Uncle Gabe always demanded from hotels at least fifty extra towels to “sanitize” every exposed surface. His toothbrush lay above and below so many embossed, bleached white towels that the princess herself could have fallen asleep on the whole pile without so much as imagining a pea lay beneath, much less a bristly plastic toothbrush.
I tell all this for several reasons. For one, things that sound screwy — people, too — can often be on the level. The level, in a manner of speaking, has its ups and downs like everything else. Who knows for sure that there isn’t a little frozen kangaroo meat in a Big Mac, and who knows for sure that the Messiah won’t come today, or better yet, who knows for sure he isn’t downstairs waiting for us now.
I have another reason, too —
I wish to demonstrate that Uncle Maxie was a very clean person. As black a sheep as he was in a family that valued stability, loyalty, hard work, and decency, he could not violate the real taboo, cleanliness. Once when I pressed Uncle Gabe for any reason that could possibly justify Uncle Maxie’s double desertions, he loyally defended his older brother: “His first wife was a very dirty person. After a day’s work, he used to have to come home and clean the house. She once cooked a chicken without gutting it. Can you imagine that?”
Frankly, I could.
“What was wrong with the second one? The mother of his four kids?” I asked.
“She wasn’t very clean either. Not like the first, but she was dirty, too,” he said sadly.
If Uncle Maxie stopped changing his underwear, there had to have been an unusual reason. He was still lucid and in good spirits, unless his sisters insisted that he change his underwear. Then a chase ensued around his small apartment. What the results of this steeplechase featuring two octogenarians and a nonagenarian were I never knew, although I do confess a great curiosity. For all of Maxie’s former fleetness of foot, at that time I think my money would have been on my grandmother and great-aunt. My grandmother had great staying power. I do remember her distress. “It’s so unlike Maxie; he was always such a clean person.”
My mother claimed that his behavior was typical of old men. “They can’t part with anything near them. It’s related to impotence and death.” I reject this analytic thesis for two reasons: Maxie was the least typical person I ever met, and his impotence was far from proven. A year later, in his final weeks, when he was well into his nineties, he was charming hospital nurses with all his old verve. “He’s such a wonderful old man. We all love him,” and it wasn’t clear from what distance.
Uncle Maxie wasn’t changing his underwear because he was waiting for something, something redemptive, and Uncle Maxie awaited it eagerly. His not changing underwear was an act of faith, an unarticulated faith that the Messiah would come. If there are closet homosexuals, perhaps my rascally old great-uncle was an underwear-drawer Messianist.
Uncle Maxie’s juggling was intimately connected with his awaiting the Messiah. The Messiah will usher in a new era: strife will vanish, peace will reign. Historical time will be ruptured. Time will stop. We will be men but as in the Garden of Eden before sin. What a market there will be then for Messiah, Son of David’s garden specials! It will be life of a very different consciousness. What in our world can now be glimpsed only in rare moments will in that world be the ongoing reality.
Uncle Maxie was a master of illusion, truly alive only in those moments when he directed the eight eggs into the air simultaneously. How tragic the world was for him when those eggs were not in the air. In those rapturous moments, however, when the tedious days, months, and years of clumsy gravity gave way to dexterity and flight, then Uncle Maxie knew there was hope. If the Holy Sabbath is said to be one-sixtieth of the World to Come, maybe a seventy-year-old’s keeping all the potential chickens off the griddle is some small percentage of the Messianic Era.
I’m not claiming that he articulated all this. Let’s face it, toward the end his memory was none too keen and the old man might have had moments when, if he weren’t slipping toward senility, he wasn’t keeping his distance all that well either. When his fingers lost dexterity, his eyes lost focus, and his body lost graceful coordination, and the day came when he spilled drinking water from his cup, he whose hands had once been so sure then strived to recover those days when he could juggle eight eggs while dancing a jig and singing Verdi. In those moments when he fought to recapture his past and focused on subjects swirling in memory, they did not have the scent of fresh eggs or the fragrance of Sunkist lemons, but they did have the whiff of redemption. He caught the scent of the Messiah or at least one-sixtieth of it.
Not that he was too good for this world. Quite the contrary. I suppose I shouldn’t criticize someone whom I am beginning to resemble, but I didn’t come to Jerusalem not to call them as I see them. Uncle Maxie had marvelous God-given talents that couldn’t buy him a cup of coffee, be supportive of another human being through love, or afford himself any measure of stability. When it came to unrealized potential, Uncle Maxie was a superstar. If he didn’t need the Messiah, I don’t know who did, because what is the Messiah going to do if not permit us to realize our divine potential?
In the world of Truth there must be a little book where people are listed according to talent. Who knows if Einstein, Moses, and Babe Ruth will lead the list? Or if Maxwell Wein, Warren G. Harding, and Don Larsen (the only perfect World Series game to his credit and his career status shows more losses than wins) might not be given a Messianic resurrectional instant replay and rewrite the divine record books. When envy has died, those eclipsed will cheer louder than the rest; for they will be the most appreciative. Uncle Maxie couldn’t manage anything on his own. His brother supported him, his sisters fed him, and the whole family clothed him. He had more different initials on shirt pockets than most commercial laundries ever cleaned. And to top it off, he was a deserter. He left those kids with his last name, I suppose, because he couldn’t take it with him.
Uncle Maxie was only for Uncle Maxie. The eternal child. In some ways the perfect child: bright, beautiful, talented, charming, and totally dependent. When his parents died, his younger siblings assumed the nurturing role with generosity, love, and compassion. He grew old, but he never grew up. His brother supported him. His sisters changed his linen, did his wash, brought him food, and, yes, they sprinted after him with clean underwear. And in filial piety he promised never to reject their support nor to share the spotlight with anyone else. It was a great performance.
The whole world participated in his monumental commitments to self. Lyndon Johnson developed a Great Society just for him and his beautiful baritone. Or so it seemed when federal monies became available for the aged. Uncle Maxie rode the Golden Age Club boom the way IBM commandeered the space age. He joined and performed at every club for miles around.
Uncle Maxie was musical, but for him the bugle only blew retreat. Well, almost “only.” He surrendered his children, his pride, his livelihood, any and all responsibilities (who said Americans don’t surrender?) but he never surrendered center stage. That he wasn’t about to surrender to anyone (who said Americans don’t have principles?}, including his great-niece who had been invited to perform Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs for the Jewish Golden Age Club. In the middle of “Aufn Pripatchik,” as she strummed on her guitar, the attentive audience broke into raucous laughter. She looked up to discover her great-uncle had snuck up behind her and was making faces. Later, when the fourth generation of the female line that had indulged him shamelessly asked him to justify his behavior, he, not buying women’s lib — or anyone’s lib for that matter — answered, “We had ‘em standing on their heads.” Maxie was Shirley Temple’s big brother, world’s oldest performing child star. And it wasn’t easy.
A child, his attitude towards death must have been a fear that fueled his rejection of anything so unpleasant. Young children believe that death is an exclusive province of the adult realm. At Uncle Maxie’s advanced age, immortality must have been a difficult proposition to maintain. All his friends had died, and he could no longer juggle. Yet he himself wasn’t prepared to give up his golden-age status, which represented such a rich investment in years.
What options were there? As things stand, there is no way to tell the Angel of Death to get lost, but there is the chance to change the rules. If you’re losing in the fourth and final period, announce that the game has five periods. But games have rules. Only children don’t understand that — and Maxie was the perfect child. He never accepted anyone else’s rules his whole life. Maxie expected the Messiah to bail him out. Why should he have expected less? People had been bailing Maxie out for four generations. Let’s be fair, the Messiah had been promised; it wasn’t Maxie’s idea. Why shouldn’t the Messiah save him from dying? His ears were clean, weren�
�t they?
If I sound too quick to judge, it is not without reason. To put it in perspective, the doves of the Wall are not the pigeons of Broadway. I don’t care what the Litvak parrot says; birds of a feather flock together. The two of us don’t molt our skivvies with the rest of the family. We let them wear out and leave them in situ. If I sound confused by all this, I am. When I came to Jerusalem, of all the people I expected to see balanced on top of the Western Wall, the last one was my Uncle Maxie — and juggling eggs in his underwear yet! And now I discover that I am scaling that holiest of walls to join him. I remember him not without affection. Without illusion, too. I remember him with fear. He deserted wives and children. This I didn’t do yet, but I deserted everyone else by coming here to Jerusalem. We share a common economic attitude toward family and government called dependence. He was a superchild. And what artist isn’t childish? Creation is an egocentric act. Every artist knows full well that when the evil tongue is said to kill, these words refer to criticism. No, if artists aren’t children, then politicians aren’t liars, and lawyers aren’t thieves. In its proper context, each vice has its social rewards.
Since arriving in Jerusalem, I’ve been in virtual retirement. Uncle Maxie was one of the great retirees of all time. When I look up there and see him sitting on the Wall, I have reason to fear.
I have more than a sneaking suspicion who waits for the Messiah. The Messiah is for losers. The big cop-out. Yes, the Awaiters of the Messiah gridiron eleven have perfected one play and one play only — punt formation. Let’s be honest, faith has its seamier side. You can root for the right team for the wrong reason and that team can still win, too.
I was frightened. I was frightened because I had surrendered enough of myself already. The thought of running around the rest of my life in shirts emblazoned with everyone’s initials except my own filled me with dread. I was frightened because my brothers were too far away. I was frightened because Maxie’s life was so unhappy when the eggs and lemons weren’t in the air and I didn’t even know how to juggle. I was most frightened to wait in a land where time was so strange. I was so frightened that I went to work.
Kagan's Superfecta: And Other Stories Page 26
