A Far Piece to Canaan

by Sam Halpern

  “How much Torah does Nate know? He’d eat a pig’s ass if it chewed a cud.”

  “Morris . . .”

  “What’s so old-fashioned about being able to read Hebrew? What’s old-fashioned about having read th’ Talmud? What’s the matter, don’t they want a Jew for a president?”

  “Morris, he’s—”

  “—old-fashioned,” said Dad. “He don’t play golf. He’s a butcher. He didn’t make a million during th’ war. His boy fought in th’ Battle of th’ Bulge and was decorated.”

  We drove a couple more icy miles, then Mom said, “The women don’t like Abe.”

  “Why don’t th’ women like Abe?”

  “He calls them names. They go in for meat and he cuts everything off the same piece. He’ll say, ‘You want chops? Chops! Bam! Flank? Flank! Bam! Roast? Roast! Bam!’ And they can’t argue with him. He’s the only kosher butcher in Lexington.”

  Dad chuckled. “What’s he call them?”

  “Old yentas.”

  “To their faces?” and he started laughing.

  “Yeh,” and her voice laughed too.

  Dad sighed. “Well, maybe Abe is a little hard t’ get along with, but he and I don’t have any troubles. He always looks me up and talks t’ me and makes me feel like I belong a Jew. He’s not ashamed to say ‘Good yontiff’ to a dirt farmer like me. You watch the rest of them t’night, how many greet me and talk t’ me when I speak t’ them.”

  “Morris, they know you don’t like them.”

  “How th’ hell can you like people that make a white slaver head of a shul!”

  “Morris, the chil—”

  “It’s the truth! It’s Rosh Hashanah. We need to tell the truth! They shouldn’t even take Henshy’s pledge until he quits. It’s wrong. M’dom, don’t you see it’s wrong?”

  “Yes, it’s wrong, Morris. I know it’s wrong,” and we pulled into the shul parking lot next to a big Cadillac.

  At the door of the shul somebody gave me a yarmulke and we went inside. It was like it always was, with the women on one side and men on the other. I stood beside Dad, who had on his suit and felt hat. He never wore a yarmulke or tallis, but he read the prayers, which he understood even though the Hebrew letters looked like hen scratching to me.

  The rabbi up front was chanting, and every now and then Mr. Gollar would walk up all grizzled with a black and white striped tallis with fringes around his shoulders and start singing. When he did, tears come rolling down his cheeks and soaked into his salt-and-pepper beard. His voice made me sad because it sounded like he had a rock on his heart.

  Pretty soon, I noticed Stacy Kalman and some other boys walk toward the door. I looked at Dad and his face said if I wanted to go out, go ahead.

  In the parking lot I saw Stacy and the others and walked up to join them. Just as I got there, they stopped talking.

  “Hi,” I said, and somebody said, “Hello.”

  There was this little quiet period, then they began talking about bowling and how Stacy had just bowled 180, and was good enough to bowl in a league next year.

  “You gonna bowl in a league?” I asked, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about, which I didn’t because I had never seen anyone bowl in my life.

  “Yeah,” said Stacy, and it got quiet again.

  Then they started talking about going next year to Henry Clay Junior High.

  “Y’all goin’ to Henry Clay Junior High next year?” I asked, figuring that ought to get me into the conversation.

  “Yeah,” said Stacy. “Where you goin’, Middletown?” and they all laughed.

  He knew dang well that’s where I was going to go someday. I had been looking forward to going to Middletown too. It sounded like nothing when Stacy said it.

  “Middletown can’t beat anybody. They never make it past th’ first game in th’ basketball tournaments,” Stacy said, snickering, and the rest of the boys snickered too.

  “There ain’t anybody but goyim at Middletown,” said Martin Millheim, and everybody snickered again.

  “I ain’t goyim and I’ll go there,” I said, and they snickered louder.

  I could feel the hot come into my face as they made fun of me. Then Stacy motioned with his head and the whole crowd walked off, leaving me standing there. It was cold and lonely, so I went back inside the shul.

  At last they got to the part I liked best, blowing the shofar. Mr. Gollar would stand there and say something in Hebrew and the rabbi would blast away on the ram’s horn. It was really pretty to hear and I couldn’t help thinking how much it sounded like the fox horns around home. Over and over the rabbi blew it, and each time power rushed up into my chest. I felt like I could lick the world. I even felt like I could lick Lonnie, which was dumb because wudn’t any way I was ever gonna lick Lonnie Miller.

  The rain that was falling on the way in started again on our way back, only this time the wind had shifted and some come through the broken-out window onto Naomi and me. It felt like it was going to either sleet or snow and we were shaking so bad we almost couldn’t stand it, all wrapped up with our arms around each other and faces stuffed against one another’s necks. I looked up once as a car come past and almost screamed. Naomi’s hair had turned white! Just before I yelled, I realized that it was water drops glistening in the headlights. It was pretty. Naomi was pretty. Not as pretty as Rosemary, but kind of like Joy West. I was about to compare her to some of the other girls when she pulled my head back toward her neck.

  “For criminy’s sake, Samuel.” She shivered. “Stop lettin’ cold air in on me.”

  I put my head down and listen to the Ford’s engine and the tires on the wet highway and the sounds of cars passing us. That’s all I could hear until I heard Mom say:

  “We are going to get rid of this car!” and her teeth were chattering.

  “What for?” come out of Dad. “This is a good old car.”

  “You may think it’s a good old car, but I think it’s a sh . . . shitting car. The window is broken out. It doesn’t have a heater. The windshield wipers don’t work so someday we won’t see somebody and have an accident and kill us all. The wadding is coming out of the seats and a spring jabs me in the tuches every time I sit down. The brakes are almost gone. It won’t go in the backup gear. It drips oil . . .”

  “It doesn’t drip oil,” said Dad.

  “It drips oil!” yelled Mom. “I’ve seen it on the ground every time you move the car!”

  “A quart of oil lasts me almost two weeks, M’dom. That’s not a bad leak.”

  “A shmozzle of your leak! Get a new car!” Mom yelled.

  “Aw, naw. I’m not makin’ Mr. Ford any richer. That Bundist bastard!”

  “Then get one from General Motors. Maybe they’re patriotic enough for you!”

  Nobody said anything for a minute, then Mom started talking again, her teeth still chattering. “Someday . . . someday I’d like to have just a little something good. A decent house with water, a bathroom I can walk to without stepping in chicken manure. I’d like a cooking stove with gas instead of building a coal fire each morning. I’d like a decent refrigerator, a few of the things that make life easier. And not secondhand like this shitting car! New things!”

  About then I heard Dad laugh softly.

  “It’s not funny, goddammit!” said Mom, and she almost never said that.

  “I didn’t mean that it was, M’dom,” he said. “It’s just that you’re carryin’ on so.”

  “Carrying on! I don’t have a decent dress to my name. My children are going to die of pneumonia from riding in an open wreck. I won’t know it, I’ll have already died of the same thing. What will you use for caskets, Morris, cardboard boxes!”

  “Now, M’dom . . .”

  “M’dom nothing! I want a decent car!”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll see about gettin’ a heater and th’ window fixed.”

  “Heater and the window fixed? How about a new car!”

  “I told you, I’m not makin�
�� General Motors or Ford rich. That kind of money is a down payment on a place . . . almost.”

  “So! We’re going to ride in dreck and walk in rags while you skimp for a farm. You’re just like Alfred. Why don’t we make Samuel’s pants from flowered feed sacks?”

  Dad’s head kind of shook a little. “M’dom, that is not fair.”

  “Oh, it’s not fair! It’s fair that I’m deprived of any of the comforts that make life a little easier. That I never get to see any of my Jewish friends. That if I didn’t like Lisa Shackelford, I’d die of loneliness. But what Jewish things can I talk about with Lisa? She’s Christian!”

  “And she’s a heck of a lot nicer than those Lexington trash!” said Dad.

  “And just what makes you such a judge?”

  More quiet, and the road sounds returned. I started to raise up and look, but Naomi’s hand grabbed the back of my head and pulled it against her. I let out a muffled “Ow” as my nose hit her collarbone. I was about to say, “Quit it” when from the front seat come Dad’s voice.

  “Who should I talk to in Lexington, M’dom?”

  “I don’t know. What’s wrong with Isadore Gold?”

  “What have I got in common with Isadore Gold? He’s not bad, but he doesn’t know anything but runnin’ a hock shop.”

  “What’s wrong with Joe Blumberg?”

  “Same thing, only clothin’ instead of hock shop. He’s dumber’n owl shit too.”

  “And Hyman Millheim?”

  “Same thing. Dry goods. He doesn’t know the slightest bit of literature. He thinks Tolstoy sells ladies’ ready-to-wear. They’re all greenhorns. In th’ old country their families were illiterate, poverty-stricken, and hungry.”

  “Oh, so, they’re too dumb for you. Maybe you’d like Justice Brandeis.”

  “Justice Brandeis, I’d talk to,” Dad said with a laugh.

  “Hooray! You know, I just noticed tonight that there were windows in the Millheim Cadillac. Sarah Blumberg was wearing a hundred-dollar dress. The Gold children are in a private school. Their boy, Shecky, is going to be a doctor.”

  “Shecky’s eleven years old. What makes you think he’s gonna be a doctor?”

  “Because he’s getting a good foundation. He’s going to a private school so he can get into a top university. Then he can get into medical school. It’s hard to get into medical school if you’re a Jew. What’s my son going to be, Morris, a tobacco yap?”

  There were sounds of crying from the front seat and Naomi could hear it too because I heard her say, “Ohhh” real soft.

  Poor Mom. I didn’t know who was right or wrong. Everything seemed okay to me. Other than I was cold, I mean. But we’d be home soon and I’d warm up. I never thought about Mom as unhappy. It made me sad thinking about it.

  “M’dom,” said Dad, so soft I could hardly hear him, “I’m just not like those people. I know there’s a lot of things you’d like to have and we’ll have them someday. After we get our own place. Put things off just a little longer. Trust me.”

  It was quiet for a while, then I heard Mom say, “You know, Morris, I must really love you. We’ve been married for twenty-five years, and that’s how long I’ve been waiting. I must really love you, you know,” and I could hear her laugh between her sobs and I knew she was wiping her eyes with a tiny little handkerchief.

  The car slowed as Dad pumped the brakes five, six times then turned right. We were at the gate to the lane. We were home.

  24

  The cold snap ended after Yom Kippur and Indian summer returned with its warm weather and trees all colors and sky October blue. Through the long open ventilator panels, you could see tobacco curing in the barns golden brown, and smell its warm spiciness on any road you cared to walk. It was good curing weather, and people would start stripping early. It was great fishing weather too, and the first nice Saturday I grabbed my pole and a pocketful of worms and took off for the Mulligans.

  It had been over three weeks since the flowered pants thing and I hoped Fred was cooled off enough to see me. It looked like he was going to get his way about school. One of the sheriff’s deputies told Dad that when Fred didn’t show at Selby the truant officer went to the sheriff and asked him to put Alfred in jail. The sheriff told him that if he locked Alfred up the kids would starve so he wudn’t gonna do it. The truant officer got hot then and said it was his duty to lock Alfred up and the sheriff told him he didn’t give a shit what anybody thought, he knowed his duty and it wudn’t to starve kids.

  There was nobody in the yard when I got to the Mulligans so I climbed up on the gate by the hog lot and yelled, “Fred!” Nobody answered.

  “Whoa, anybody home?” Still no answer, so I started across the yard to the pond.

  “Hidey, Samuel. Whatcha want?” come from the upstairs window.

  I turned and there was Annie Lee. Her hair was mussed and she was wearing a man’s white shirt. It didn’t have nothing under it neither because her tittie nipples showed. “I’m lookin’ for Fred,” I said. “Figured him and me’d go fishin’.”

  “Don’t know if he’s ready t’ see you yet,” she said, leaning her elbows on the windowsill, which caused the shirt to pull tight and her nipples to stick out more. “He’s still real down. You know how he gits . . . won’t eat, up half th’ night.”

  Annie Lee started to say something else when this hairy arm reached up and got her shirt. The hand had a big square ring on its middle finger and I knew it was WK’s.

  “Gitchegoddamnhandsoff’nme. I’m a-talkin’ t’ Samuel,” she said, and a low voice said something and she slapped at him. There was a “pop” then an “oow” from below.

  “He’s down’t th’ pond, Samuel,” she said, getting back into the window. “He’s still spooky, but he might talk t’ you. He’s been actin’ a little better last couple days.”

  I said, “Thanks” and took off, just as WK’s hand reached up and got Annie Lee by the shirt again. She fell over this time and I heard her giggle.

  All the way to the pond, I thought about what to say to Fred. I had to say it right or he might not see me for weeks. Fred couldn’t stand it if he thought you were doing something because you felt sorry for him. I thought about turning around and going back because maybe it was too soon, but then old WK might tell Fred he saw me and he’d know I was hunting for him and figure I was worried about hurting his feelings and he sure wouldn’t have anything to do with me after that so I better go on. Suddenly I was at the pond. It was too late now because I knew Fred would’ve already spotted me.

  I searched the brush-hidden banks with my eyes but couldn’t see him, so I walked through the brush and there he was at our favorite spot beside a big sycamore log. He glanced up, then turned back toward his bobber. I waited, then crawled over the log, unwound my pole, and baited up. For some reason wouldn’t any fish bite. Finally, I thought of something to say.

  “Got any makin’s?”

  Fred didn’t move nothing but his hand and it reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out the Durham sack.

  I opened it and stirred the fluffy gray stuff with my finger. “Got any wrapper?”

  He reached inside his shirt again and out come several pieces of brown paper sack. I took one and he put the rest back. “You not smokin’?”

  Fred barely shook his head.

  “You gonna make a man smoke alone?” I said, trying to sound half mad.

  Out come the slips again and I handed him the sack. He took some and put the sack back in his shirt. I just sat because I hadn’t ever rolled a cigarette.

  A little grin come on Fred’s face. “You gonna roll hit or dip hit like snuff?”

  “I ain’t too good at cigarette rollin’,” I said, and spent the next ten minutes pasting together a bulging mess and held on while we smoked. Boy, it was bad. I was trying to get a best friend back though, so I talked about how good it was and how it opened my bronical tubes.

  “Hit’ll do hit ever time,” said Fred. “Uncle Charlie says
they give it t’ people with numone and hit brings ’em back t’ life.”

  “It’s good all right,” I said, nigh puking.

  “More rabbit tobacco this year’n I can remember. Hit’s gonna be a bad winter.”

  “Figure it will, huh?”

  “Hun’ney, hit never fails if they’s a big crop of Life Everlastin’.”

  Then we just set. The sun glinted off the water next to my bobber, making it hard to see, and I squinted. “We ain’t had a bite in an hour,” I said.

  “Been that way all week. Fished hard yesterday and only caught two little brim.”

  “Why don’t we do somethin’ else?”

  “Whatchawantado?”

  I thought for a minute. “Don’t know. What about gettin’ some hickory nuts.”

  “Ain’t ready yet, hun’ney,” he said, scratching his toe. “Ain’t been enough killin’ frosts. Besides, they’s a poor crop. Let’s ride up t’ the sweet apple tree on your bike, get some apples and eat ’em with that coarse salt in y’all’s feed room.”

  “Let’s go,” I yelled, and we took off. I felt good. I had my best friend back.

  Skinnying up the sweet apple tree was hard, but when we got up it was loaded. We filled the basket on the front of my bike, then headed for the feed room.

  Sweet apples taste awful unless you know how to eat them. We spread these out on a bale of straw, put a little mound of coarse cattle salt in the middle, then lay back on some sacks of bran, licked the apples, and dipped them in the salt. They wudn’t bad like that.

  “You want any more, Fred?” I said, eyeing the pile that never seemed to go down.

  Fred was lying almost flat with both hands over his bulging belly. “Hun’ney, if I et ’nother apple I’d puke.”

  “Me too. Let’s throw these t’ th’ hogs?”

  We were almost at the hog lot with our arms full of apples when Fred pulled up short. “Hun’ney, I got a great idea! You ever make a deadfall?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s just what we’re gonna do, and we can use these here apples for bait.”

  “You know how t’ make a deadfall?”

  “Deadfall? I make dandy deadfalls,” he said. “Let’s go cut some triggers.”