The One-Star Jew: Stories

by Evanier, David

  “Dad, do you ever see Rupert Pike anymore?”

  My father’s face lit. “Yes. Today, as a matter of fact. He asked me for a dollar for an ice cream soda. He knows that if I think he’s going to have a martini I won’t give it to him. He has a new girl friend he picked up on the Bowery. He says she’s a princess. She told him she has $700,000 but Welfare is keeping it for her because she’s unstable. I asked him if she’d ever been institutionalized. He said, ‘Mmmm … I think so,’ and smiled. What a fellow.

  “You know, Bruce, you’ve said some terrible things about mommy to me. Do you think she treated me badly?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Why don’t I see it? I think about it and think about it and can’t agree with you. How could I expect better treatment? I saw how she treated her own father—like a dog. So I certainly couldn’t expect her to treat me better than her own father!

  “There were a couple of times I was afraid she was going to poison me.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It was ridiculous … I was afraid the two of them, your mother and grandmother, would poison me because I wouldn’t give mommy a divorce. But she wouldn’t have had the nerve.

  “Your grandfather was afraid … maybe this is why … he was afraid they would poison him a couple of times when they gave him a glass of water. And he hardly even had any life insurance! It was silly.

  “When I dated your mother, we would come home to her house and she would put on an apron and go into the kitchen. An apron! She’d come out with some food as if she cooked it. But her mother did all the cooking. She’d never cooked in her life. I found out later. She put a chicken in a pot and burned the whole thing. She didn’t even know it needed water to boil. She laughed about it—she had a sense of humor. We laughed together. I can’t complain. Those first years we were married, living in her parents’ house … the two of us in that master bedroom, having a ball, while her mother cooked for us. She was … a princess.

  “I saw your mother again, about five years ago. I hadn’t seen her for many years. I was at the Laurels Country Club for the weekend. She came walking through the door. I was talking to a girl, Rhonda, who had asked me to drive her home at the end of the weekend and I had agreed. That’s what these women are like at these places. When you meet them, the first thing they try to get is a free ride home on Sunday nights. But when I saw your mother, I said you’ll have to excuse me—that’s my ex-wife—and if she needs a ride home I will want to take her. I went up to Mommy. And you know the first thing she said to me? ‘You’re not going to drive her home?’ ‘Who?’ I said. And she pointed to Rhonda. ‘I can’t stand her,’ Mommy said. After all this time.

  “And we danced together, and talked, and I spent time with her. At the end of the weekend on Sunday, she said, ‘Please drive me home.’ I said of course I would, but that I had promised I would drive Rhonda as well and a promise is a promise. I would take them both home. ‘But I hate that one,’ she said. I said I had to. Finally she agreed. Then she said—listen to this, Bruce— ‘Is she going to sit in the front seat beside you?’” My father laughed. “I teased her and said yes. Then I said: ‘Of course not. You’re my ex-wife. You’ll sit in the front seat beside me.’ Then she said, ‘Who will you take home first?’ ‘I’ll take her home first.’

  “So I drove them home, Rhonda first. Your mother invited me up for a drink. So I went upstairs, and I saw the apartment— your little room—after so many years. You can’t understand this, Bruce, but I saw the bed you slept in. She said, ‘You’re not going to call that girl, are you?’ I said, ‘Of course not.’ We had a drink, and talked, and then I got up to go.

  “At the door I chucked her on the cheek—like this.” My father tapped his cheek with his knuckle. “I know I could have kissed her … that she would just melt … with loneliness.

  “I didn’t … She has no one, Bruce. If you don’t give, you don’t receive …

  “And you know the last thing she said to me? ‘I’ll bet you’re going to call her.’”

  My father shook his head.

  11

  8:30 TO 10:00 P.M.

  I learn tonight that, although my seventy-five-year-old father has been claiming increasing deafness for years, he can hear perfectly well. At least, that appears to be the case when he listens to his girl friend Rosie talk. He does not cup his ear, shout, or ignore her words, as he does mine.

  My wife, Susan, and I are on a double date with my father and Rosie. It is the night before New Year’s Eve. We want to look her over and encourage my father’s first real relationship since the divorce—thirty years ago. He agreed to the evening, although he will not tell us Rosie’s last name.

  Rosie is a beautiful woman, after a long parade of women in their fifties and sixties with peroxide blonde hair, with their minks and jewelry, glistening from every pore. She is dark and smoky. She looks perhaps fifty—a remarkable fifty. My father has always preferred blondes and “clean, white skin.” He still recalls with pain his mother calling him “nigger,” because of his complexion.

  My father calls Rosie—unlike me—by her right name. He has been calling me Louie, the name of his best friend, lately.

  Rosie’s name is her greatest asset, for it is the name of my mother. “Imagine, after all these years!” my father said when we drove to pick Rosie up tonight.

  But she has a fatal shortcoming: a spinal injury that has caused her to lose the use of her foot. She walks with a cane, and has been getting steadily worse. My father says he only sees her now out of pity.

  Earlier in the evening, we drove to Rosie’s apartment house and found her waiting at the curb at eight-thirty. A neighbor was chatting with her as we arrived. It was difficult to move her into the car; she was almost unable to walk. Once she was settled and introductions were made, my father laughed heartily and said:

  “Well, you didn’t waste any time.”

  “Samuel, he is a neighbor—a married man.”

  “That’s all right, you have a right to be friendly with whomever you want. You’re a free agent.” My father continued to laugh and went on in this way until we reached the restaurant.

  My father usually talks to people about his flashy Cadillac (purchased for $2,000), his trips to the Concord, cruises. Then he will deny, with a coy laugh, that he has any money. He does not want to be believed.

  But now my father is talking about a subject he is ashamed of: the loss of his office. As an inactive insurance salesman, he had been placed in the bullpen years ago, a nest of desks clustered together in one room and shared by the old-timers. “It’s finally happened, what I’ve dreaded all these years,” he says. “The manager called me in. They’re taking my desk away. But he was very nice: I asked him if I could keep my mail drop, and he said I could. And the company is shipping my file cabinet to my apartment and paying the cost themselves. Some of the other managers would act as if I was a blind spot in their eye.”

  A young man with a butter tray greets Rosie and tells her that he is graduating from high school in the spring. They discuss his future.

  My father rolls his eyes and says through his teeth, “My God, I can’t turn around for a minute.” He says this with his rakish laugh, showing his uninvolvement.

  “Samuel, he is a boy. Why can’t you trust me?” She places her hand over his. He starts to speak but doesn’t. He quiets down.

  “My ex-husband has been adopted by a family in Hong Kong,” Rosie says to us. “He went there to import kosher Chinese food. Something happened to him in his fifties. He grew afraid, and he became a manic-depressive. Then he started playing around. I’m not sorry about our marriage. There were good years. I wanted to be an actress when I was growing up. I was a member of the chorus in synagogue musicals, then I graduated to speaking roles.”

  “You didn’t tell them you wore tights,” my father says.

  “I was just getting to that, Samuel. I wore tights—black leotards.” Rosie holds out her cigarette for my father
to light. He does.

  “A legal adoption?” I ask, getting back to her husband.

  “Legally, Bruce. They went through the courts. He’s a charming man, my ex-husband, when he wants to be, and an erudite man. I learned from him. He had intellectuals over to the house. I listened. But I was never intellectual—”

  My father opens his mouth wide in astonishment.

  “I’ve never heard you talk so much.”

  “Well, Samuel, you generally talk more. I’ll shut up—” She continues. “When I was a child, my mother beat me with a cat-o’-nine-tails. And she would get up on a chair to beat my brother—”

  “I’m a naughty boy, I shouldn’t say anything,” my father says.

  “That’s all right, Samuel. I’m finished.” She peeks at him, amused. She smiles and dimples appear on both cheeks.

  “I’m mean, aren’t I?”

  “I find you very kind and thoughtful, Samuel.”

  My father looks at her and is silent.

  Susan says to my father: “Rosie looks very much like Mary Tyler Moore.”

  “Yes, she does,” my father replies immediately. He gazes at Rosie.

  My father and I are in the street. Rosie wants to smoke, and so, by mutual agreement, after their biweekly dinner, he goes for a walk. Susan has stayed with Rosie.

  “I like her very much,” I say.

  “Look, I give the devil his due. She’s a lovely woman.”

  “You ought to marry her.”

  He stops in the street. “You’re funny, Louie. I don’t even like her. I only talk to her because I know it gives her pleasure, and I feel sorry for her because of her clubfoot.”

  “You do like her.”

  “And she’s wonderful company—I resent that too,” he says.

  I laugh.

  “I do. I had a car accident because of her. And I like change— excitement. This is a routine, Louie. That’s why I make it every other week. And I don’t even want that. First I would see her at seven. Then seven-thirty. Then eight. Now eight-thirty. I’m not seeing her New Year’s Eve. I’ll see her New Year’s Day instead. I don’t want any responsibility, Louie. Her children treat her badly and I get upset.”

  “She’s a real companion.”

  He stops in the street and tugs at my arm. He enumerates with each finger all the things in life he enjoys: “I go to these singles dances. I’m the most popular man there. They send me invitations—I don’t even have to pay the three-fifty admission. Poor Rosie’s been marked lousy with her foot. They don’t even send her invitations. You should see me do the hustle. I make jokes to young girls in elevators. I’ll say to a girl: ‘Is there a modeling school in this building?’ At first she’ll frown. Then she smiles when she gets it. I wake up when I please. I have my roast chicken from the kosher butcher and yogurt. I read my paper. Louie thinks I’m crazy to be seeing her. He says to me: ‘Why are you wasting your time?’”

  “You’re afraid,” I say.

  “Of what?”

  “Of getting hurt again. Of being betrayed—like my mother betrayed you.”

  “Louie, I like excitement. She doesn’t excite me. I haven’t had sex with her since her foot operation four years ago. I brought her into the hospital walking straight and tall, and she came out with a cane—and she’s had the cane ever since, poor thing.”

  “But she’s beautiful.”

  “She used to be more beautiful. You should have seen her then, standing so straight. It was a pleasure to be seen with her.”

  He stops in the street again.

  “Bruce, I see you and Susan and I’ll admit it’s very nice to see what you have together. That I admit. But I’m too old and set.”

  “I think you love her.”

  He laughs and laughs. “Let’s go back to the restaurant. Love her? I don’t even like her! If it wasn’t for the bum leg I wouldn’t even see her anymore! Love her? I wish she’d get better so she could date other men. But she’s getting worse, she’s so bent over and stooped.”

  Susan and Rosie are waiting for us. Rosie’s limp is worse— she can hardly move the leg.

  In the car, my father says, “Maybe your neighbor will be waiting for you at the curb!” He drives her to her house and helps her out into the street. We say good-bye at ten.

  We drive off.

  When I speak, my father says, “Speak louder, Louie. You know I’m deaf.”

  12

  THE ARREST

  I

  I was in trouble. My wife was in the hospital and I was stuck with my fifteen-year-old stepson, Danny, at home. A lump had suddenly appeared in Susan’s neck. It was very painful. It got bigger. A dental problem, the doctor said. The oral surgeon agreed and made an incision in my wife’s neck. The lump got bigger. She lay wide awake in bed through the nights, the pain cutting through her, touching the lump. I would awaken every few hours and know she was up, staring into the dark. A neck surgeon looked at it and placed my wife in the hospital within two hours.

  We had been married only four years. Danny was in the shadows. I had nothing in common with him, I thought. I had met Susan when I was a graduate student in Vancouver.

  Now in Manhattan I was alone with the kid and two cats and Susan dangerously sick in the hospital and a full-time job. A little freedom might have its rewards, I had thought—more time to work on my writing—but I ran between the job, the hospital, and the apartment, where I cooked or handed Danny money for food, fed the cats, shopped, and drank. I ate after leaving Susan at the hospital at eleven at night, long after my appetite was gone.

  Just a month before Susan was hospitalized, we had been on our way to a loft theater in Hell’s Kitchen. We passed Polyclinic Hospital, where I was born. I told Susan of this, and she said, “Shalom” (the only Jewish word she knew). I kissed her that moment, and held her.

  At 11 P.M. I left the hospital, a gnawing hunger in me, but as usual put off eating until later, after Danny was deposited in bed, after I’d had a drink and fed the cats. A little oblivion.

  I had a drink and thought about food. Three Chinese restaurants on the block—which one was less lonely to eat in alone? I thought about it, weighing the differences, the pluses and minuses, and had a second drink, a third. A nuisance, getting into the elevator, to the restaurant, and so forth. I wondered why Danny wasn’t home.

  I sat down at the typewriter. I decided I would write a letter to Charles Bukowski, who was finally making it since the freaks decided he was okay, that he liked to kick ass, beat up chicks and hassle landladies.

  I felt I had a mission. Bukowski had written nastily of Sinatra. “I have long waited to tell you this, Buk,” I wrote, “but you are wrong about Frank. I’ve had a few drinks and now I’ll finally tell you. Frank and you have a lot in common. You’re both bastards, and you both have talent. So listen to his voice, Buk, get to know one another, and let there be peace between you at last. Doobie doobie doo.”

  The phone rang. I took it into the bedroom, kicked aside the clothes and shoes and cartons of bones from TV dinners and lay down on the bed.

  “This is Officer O’Malley of the twenty-third precinct. Is this the father of Daniel Van Der Dyke?”

  “No it is not.”

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Bruce Orav.”

  “Is not the aforementioned Daniel Van Der Dyke your son?”

  “I have no son.”

  “He says you’re his father.”

  “Look, officer, my wife is in the hospital. I have just left her there. She is very ill. Danny is her son. I am very disturbed. I have had no dinner. I am exhausted.”

  “I am very sorry to hear that, sir. But your son has been arrested on a serious charge. He has been painting graffiti on subway cars.”

  “Of course he has. My wife encourages him to do that. She thinks it’s a healthy outlet.”

  “You will have to come down and pick up your son.”

  I paused, bit the telephone chord, and pounded the bed with my fist.r />
  “Look. Officer. I have just left my wife in the hospital.”

  “I understand, Mr. Van Der Dyke. But if you don’t come to pick up your boy, at dawn he will have to be remanded to reform school. I will give you traveling instructions by subway to Queens.”

  “How far is it?”

  “It’s very far, sir. On the tip.”

  I told him to wait a moment, that I would get a pen and paper. I found a paper bag on the floor and ripped a piece off of it.

  “Look, I can’t come. It would take me hours to get there. I’d be there at 3 A.M. Send him to reform school. We’ll get him back later.”

  “It is my duty to warn you, Mr. Van Der Dyke, that if you are not here by 3 A.M., and I am not trying to threaten or warn you, that you are the person cognizant and responsible. I am terribly afraid it would not look nice to the judge, and this is not a warning, if you were to shirk your responsibility as the responsible parent. What time may we expect you, sir?”

  I had slid to the floor. They had me. They at last had me. They would crucify me.

  “What time, sir?”

  “I don’t know. 3 A.M.”

  “I would hope by 3 A.M., Sir. 4 A.M. would be too late. We will wait for you until 3 A.M.”

  They gave me involved instructions, left and right turns at corners when I got off the subway. I scribbled furiously, cursing, all over the rest of the brown paper bag.

  I jammed the paper into my pocket and threw the phone against the wall.

  “How did this happen to me?” I screamed. “How the fuck did I get into this mess?”

  I ran around the room hitting the walls. “And I can’t even tell his mother about it. He figured it out perfectly.”

  II