by Joshua Braff
“Anything you need. Anything you want. The theater is half yours. Your father was family to me. We had our moments but he was a brother, my older brother. You saw us fight, I know. But you also saw us hug. Let’s you and I hug now.”
We do.
“So we’re good? We can work together?” Ira says.
“I have to go now.”
“What about your sister?”
Ira speaks louder because I’m moving away from him. “You’re right. Let’s do it at a more respectful time.”
I head down the path to the beat of gunfire and decide I’ll never see Ira Saltzman again.
“You should call her now,” Sarah says. “She should know.”
“Yeah? Well maybe she should call me.”
“It’s her father, David.”
“I didn’t want a Lichtiger funeral. I told you that.”
“I could call her.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Will you stop?”
Running, yes, from the grave, from Ira, from telling my sister. “I just want to go home, Sarah. Can I drive you somewhere?”
“Leo said he’d give me a ride home.”
“Leo? He did?”
“Brandi should’ve been able to speak,” Sarah says, trying to change the subject.
She’s looking at me, wanting me to feel jealous and I do.
“I guess I’ll see you later,” she says, and climbs in the back of Leo’s Dart. From my father’s car I see her lighting a cigarette. She holds it high, between her middle and pointer fingers, like someone taught her how. A shotgun blast is heard and my shoulders flinch at the noise. Sarah looks at me as if the world just shook. And I drive home.
Oliver Twist
I FOUND SOME RUM. I like it with juice, this red juice I bought at a deli on the corner. I drink it until it gets dark and then I fall asleep on my dad’s bed. When I wake up the “Star Spangled Banner” is playing in the living room. It’s creepy somehow, in the blue light from the TV, a flag waving in slow motion. My scrotum stretches like Silly Putty so I wrap it around my finger like a dumpling and realize I’m drunk. I start to jerk off but feel like a scumbag, like one of the regulars at the Imperial with their pants at their ankles. I can’t sleep. The phone rings at 4 a.m. but when you’re dead you’re not there to pick it up. Hello? Are you there? Is it you? No, I’m dead. I can’t talk to you now. In fact I’ll be dead for quite some time and will never be able to speak to you again. The most precise word in the English language. How long? Never. How about after that? After never? It rings again and it’s stupid how I lift my head from the pillow to look at the receiver until it stops. Ring, ring, fucking, ring, ring all you want. What do you want anyway? Oh, you want to talk about my dad. You want to console me, to help me, to put your skin on mine for warmth because you know I am Oliver, the orphan boy. Ringing again, five thirty, it’s the tax man, the police, the garage, Larry Abromowitz. It’s his dry cleaner, his barber, some stripper he once knew. I throw one of Brandi’s pink pillows at the phone and it spills onto the floor. “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again.” You sound nice, lady, you sound really swell. No more calls, please. I’m an orphan now and don’t need to pick up the phone if I don’t want to. The view from my dad’s bed is the flat rooftop of a post office and I see puddles of rain and a yellow kickball floating in one of them. At six the neighbor upstairs is jumping in place or maybe it’s jump rope, yeah, the tap, tap, tapping on the floor is the rope. If I try to keep up with him, I need to leap like a toad, like a pogo stick, straight up and down. As soon as I land I hop even higher and I’ve never been much of an athlete but I think if I try, hup, hup, hup, I could place my palms on . . . the . . . ceiling.
I hear a knock on the door and tiptoe to look through the peephole. It’s Ira.
“You in there or what?”
I stay as quiet as a tree no one hears, a bird in the wind, a farting mouse. Knock, knock, knock. Go away Ira, go the hell away. Not here, out to lunch, visiting relatives on a patch of land in the Baltic Sea.
“I know you’re in there, David. I can hear you.”
I sit on the floor, one wall away.
“You’re missing print jobs, kid. People are calling in for ya. If you don’t want ’em I’ll find someone who does.”
Through the peephole his nose is huge. Moist little hairs rooted in the cavern of the round tip. He stands there for five minutes sighing and giving my eye the finger. Finally he leaves.
Three slices of American cheese, a jar of apricot jelly, blue-crusted Wonder bread and two double A batteries in the slot for eggs. What a feast. I eat in his bed and see his suit pants on the chair by the window, black and forgotten, like a pair of legs left behind. What now, say the pants, the belt drooping off the chair to the floor. Stuck there for eternity, a pair of paralyzed slacks, longing to get to the closet where their matching blazer resides. I try them on—they’re a little short around the ankles but fine in the waist. The interior is silky and cool against my skin and I see no reason to wear anything else for the rest of my life. Doorbell. I freeze.
“David, it’s Brandi. What are you some kind of hermit now? My key is still missing. I left some of my clothes in the closet.” Doorbell. “David, I know you’re in there. I can hear the television.”
Her nose is narrow and powdered. There are no hairs for miles and miles. The wig is curly and tight and she pulls on the bangs.
“I could send a cop in,” she says. “I might be saving your life.”
Don’t do that. Please don’t do that. I wonder if she even has hair under that wig. Or actual skin beneath the goop she puts on. She rings the bell twice before leaving.
My father has shoe trees in his closet, an iron bowl of pennies, a tuxedo with dandruff on the shoulder, and a mountain of dry-cleaner plastic. There must be ten pairs of women’s shoes and two dozen dresses. Wig boxes galore. I find another one of his suits. A white three-piece. It smells like cigarettes and cologne, a battle of nicotine and chemical musk. I decide to put it on. Debra used to get nauseous from the cigarette smell and she’d steal the packs from his jackets and stab them with a protractor. She hid them too, buried them in the yard in Newstead and in the gully behind the Slaters’. Dear Debra, Dad is . . . really sick. Dear Debra, Dad was sick and he died so now you know. Dear Debra, when is your wedding to the butcher in Fiddler on the Roof. I have some news. About Dad. Dear Debra, is your fiancé a bearded man in tzitzit who raises his arms when he dances in circles and snaps simultaneously with both hands saying, oy, oy, oy, will you marry me, Dena, oy, oy, oy, will you be the seventeen-year-old mother of my eleven children? Moses and Isaac and Ezra and Solomon and Tabernacle and Esau and Dear Dena. Dad is gone. May my family ever be perfect in your sight. Grant me light, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
I fall asleep on the couch still in his white suit. I’m dreaming of hundreds of Hasidim, an ocean of undulating hats and wigs. I’m not invited to the wedding but I stand under the huppah with my sister, the bride, and her husband, the butcher, and I walk around her seven times and my mother is stunned that I know this ritual and it makes her love me. I can see it, she loves me. She’s proud of me, finally at peace with herself and her son. She grips the brim of my fedora and shakes it, smiling.
I wake up and stare at the phone still off the hook. I have to tell them. Hup, hup, hup, he died, hup, hup, hup . . . hup . . . hup . . . hup.
I hear a key, metal in metal, and the door is opening. “Hello!” I yell, and slowly poke my head out of my father’s room. Brandi Lady.
“I knew it,” she says.
“You knew what?”
“You didn’t kill yourself,” she says, pulling off her white opera gloves. “Ira thinks you killed yourself.”
I sit on the couch, my back to her.
“It smells in here.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“And the phone’s off the hook. Leo’s been calling you for days. And you’ve wrinkled the hell out of your
father’s suit. Have you been sleeping in it?”
I look down at the lapels, the crease in the pants. “Your clothes are in the closet.”
“Why did you take the phone off the hook?”
“It was ringing.”
“Why aren’t you coming to the theater?”
“Because I quit.” I look right at her.
She puts both hands on her cheeks and stares back at me. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then. Maybe Sarah will take your place. She’s been coming in every day since the funeral.”
I watch her go into the kitchen.
“To the theater?”
“Yup,” she says, and I hear her put the receiver back in its cradle.
“She’s a Hasid, Brandi.”
“She was a Hasid.”
“Don’t let her do it.”
“Don’t let her do what? She’s her own person. Sorry,” she says, “I’d be a hypocrite if I told her to leave.”
“Then just be an adult.”
“Ya know what? I’m not telling an eighteen-year-old girl what she can and can’t do.”
“Then get out! Get the fuck out!” I open the door for her but she doesn’t budge.
“You sure are angry. Why don’t you scream. Do it. Screeeeam!”
“Stop.”
“You want to hit something, David? Do it, do it now, get it out, man!”
“I don’t need you to root for me, Arlene.”
“Oh, be real,” she says behind me. “You’re hurting, look at you. I want to be here for you, I’m trying to be here for you.”
Be real? Be real? What a joke. I have to laugh at this person in her opera gloves in July. “Be real?” I say. “Brandi Lady? No, sorry, Luna Von. I mean how many little dirty secrets do you have, Arlene Morrison, from some hick town in Michigan? I mean who are you, exactly? Do you even know? Which one of your characters is telling me to be fuckin’ real?”
Her shoulders shrug. “Feel better?” she says.
“No! I’ve had enough bullshit.”
“So I’m a phony?”
“Look at you, you look like a stripper. Who dresses like that in public?”
“I do, you jackass.”
“Well why don’t you be fuckin’ real and buy a normal dress.”
“Hey, hey, hey what’s all the yelling about?” Leo is in the doorway. “I could hear the screaming all the way down the hall.”
“You talk to him, Leo, he’s being an asshole.”
“Where the fuck is Sarah? Huh, Leo?”
He looks at Brandi first and then to me. “I haven’t seen you in four days and that’s all you got for me?”
“See what I mean?” Brandi says.
“Are you giving her work?”
“No. She’s just been coming by the theater.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. She asks if I’ve talked to you and I tell her your phone’s off the hook.”
“Is she there now?”
“No. I dropped her off at the set in Kingsford. She said she wanted to help out.”
I run my fingers through my hair and give it a yank. “Help out? With what? Help out with what, Leo?”
“Listen, I came here to see if you were okay. Ira thinks you stuck your head in the stove. But I really don’t like the way you’re talking to me.”
“Have you filmed her doing anything?”
Brandi and Leo exchange a look and Leo shrugs. “No.”
“Good.”
“But she’s eighteen years old, ya know?”
It’s the first time I’ve ever stepped up to him. The first time I’ve ever put my finger in his face. “Don’t . . . touch . . . that . . . Hasid.”
“I didn’t.”
I pull my father’s jacket off and run down the hall to my own room to find the pants and white shirt I wore to the funeral. When I get back, Leo’s whispering to Brandi and they both look pissed off.
“The loft, Leo. I want to help out too. Please. Take me to the loft.”
BRANDI HAS TO come too. Just to nag me, I think. The whole ride to Brooklyn I listen to her talking about love and parenthood and child rearing and how so many people “fuck it up.” Leo and I don’t say a word but she doesn’t care. She’s in know-it-all mode and seems to have this particular speech prerecorded. Kids needs space and unconditional love, blah, blah, blah. When we arrive, I run from the van but find no one in the loft. There are dirty dishes in the kitchen and someone left the TV on.
“What a mess,” Brandi says.
From the bathroom window, I can see Jocko and Tiki and that cock slinger Stewart Haynes.
“I don’t see her,” I say.
Brandi comes in and looks down at the garden. “What are they doing back there?” she says.
They’re filling out college applications, they’re painting a picket fence, they’re practicing for a choir recital, they’re helping a calf give birth, they’re carrying an old, blind woman across the street, they’re making a difference in so very many ways, utilizing their collective gifts to contribute to our precious planet.
“They’re shooting a porno.”
“Outside?” she says.
The garden is surrounded by tall fencing and even higher yellow shrubbery that blocks the view of any neighbors. The phone booth stands in the center of a patch of lawn. There are two cameras, one mounted inside the thing and the other outside the door. I don’t see Sarah and am hoping she went home. I head down to the garden just as Tiki and Stewart get nude in the phone booth. Jocko is on his stomach on the grass, looking through the camera. “Hi, David.”
“Hi. You seen that girl Sarah?”
He gets to his feet and looks around. “There she is.”
She’s filling a watering can from a garden hose. I tell myself to be calmer than I feel. She sees me before I get to her and turns off the water. “There you are,” she says, eyes wide. “I was worried about you.”
“What are you doing here?”
She looks down at the spigot. “I’m working.”
“Working? Great. This is your job, now?”
“Why are you talking like that?”
“You shouldn’t be here, Sarah.”
“And why not?” she says, moving away from me.
I take her elbow in my hand and she yanks it away. “Please get off me.”
“Come on, I’ll take you home.”
“No. I’m going to pour water over that phone booth. That’s all I’m doing.”
I step closer to her so I can whisper. “I don’t want you working with Leo.”
“You work with Leo.”
“No, I don’t. He just tells me who’s hiring. I’m independent, remember?”
“What do you think I’m trying to be, David?” She takes the watering can and climbs the ladder next to the booth.
Leo comes out with a bagel in his mouth. “See, buddy. She’s just helping out. Sarah? When I say action, just pour it over the phone booth, okay. Get it all wet. Tiki, Stewy, you ready?”
Tiki and Stewy put their cigarettes out and step barefoot into the booth. “Good, just start kissing and go from there. Are we ready?”
“Ready,” says Jocko.
“Okay, here we go. Action! Good. Let it rain, Sarah. Let it rain.”
Brandi stands with me by the back door of the building. “You owe me a big apology,” she says, but I ignore her.
Sarah tips the can and water beads down the glass as Tiki drops to her knees to pull the string on Stewart’s sweatpants. It’s revolting, watching a blow job next to my father’s girlfriend so I walk away from her. No one speaks as the scene is shot but Leo paces back and forth. “Move her hair, Stewy,” he says.
Stewart begins to moan as he puts Tiki’s hair behind her ear.
“Your line,” Leo says.
Stewart squints his eyes, trying to remember the script. “Line!”
“All I wanted was a dime,” Leo says.
Stewart nods. �
�Alls I wanted was a dime.”
Tiki smiles and looks up at him. “That’s okay, you can keep the change.”
Leo pumps his fist and looks back at us, smiling.
“Battery’s dying, Leo.” Jocko waves his arm. “Battery light.”
“Cut!”
Tiki rises from her position with her hands on her hips. The rain stops. “What’s wrong?”
“Where’s the other camera?” Leo says.
Sarah steps down and heads back to the hose. “Can I talk to you alone?” I say in my kindest voice and no, I don’t pull her, I never force her, but she’s mad at me, fighting me. “No, you can’t.”
“I just want to talk.”
“About what?”
“David,” Brandi says. “Will you leave her alone?”
“She’s leaving, it’s fine.”
“You’re leaving, Sarah?” Leo says.
“Yes,” I say. “We’re going over to my sister’s.”
Sarah looks at me and puts the watering can on the ground. “Your sister’s?”
“Yeah. I haven’t told her yet.”
“About your dad?” Sarah says. “You didn’t tell her about your dad?”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m going to head over there right now. I thought you’d come with me.”
“Maybe you should go by yourself,” she says.
They all stare at me and I see Jocko picking his nose.
“This is what you want, Sarah? To be one of these people for the rest of your life.”
Stewart adjusts his dong in his sweatpants and steps up to me. “One of these people? What about you?”
“Exactly,” Brandi says.
“He’s having a bad day,” Leo says. “A bad week. He doesn’t mean it. Let’s get back to it. Come on, where’s the other camera?”
“That wig,” I say to Brandi.
“Yeah? What about it?” she says.
“Nothing. Just that I lived with you for over two years and I’ve never seen your real hair. Maybe you’re afraid. Afraid to be real.”
“Oh boy,” Leo says.
I step closer to her. “Do you even have hair underneath that thing? Or are you bald?”
