Dreidels on the Brain

by Joel ben Izzy

“Gladys?” said a woman at the counter. “Is that you?”

  “Esther?” said my mom. “What are you doing here?”

  It was the third Esther, who is neither Chopped Liver Esther nor Esther Nestor, but Never Stops Talking Esther. She looked at my brothers, then at me.

  “You’re the baby, aren’t you?”

  “I used to be,” I said. “When I was small.” I get that a lot, and don’t generally like it, especially when it’s followed by that grabbing of the cheek thing, which makes me feel like a chipmunk. But that didn’t happen this time. Instead she said, “Wait a minute! You’re Joel! Aren’t you the one who does magic shows?”

  I nodded.

  “I read the article about you in the Temple City Times. It said you’re a professional magician!” Her eyes lit up. “Wow—a celebrity right here in the Jewish Home for the Elderly and Infirm!”

  People heard her talking and started to gather around. “Look!” she said. “This is Joel, Gladys’s son! He’s a real live magician!” A couple of people applauded, even though I hadn’t done anything. “Can you show us a magic trick?” she asked.

  I always have something with me, ready to impress whoever asks. I pulled some sponge balls out of my pocket—red and fluffy. I put one in my hand, one in hers, picked up a pen from the counter to use as a magic wand, and waved it over both our hands. I opened my hand to show that the ball had disappeared. Then she opened her hand, and she had both of them! More people had wandered over and they applauded. I made one ball disappear—and pulled it out from under Esther’s clipboard. Then I did it again, but this time pulled it from the ear of an old man standing next to me. Everyone loved that.

  “Hey,” she said, “this gives me a great idea. Why don’t you come do a performance for us?” Before I could answer, she said, “Ever since I started working here last month, everyone asks me, they say ‘Esther, why don’t you bring in a magician to do a magic show for us?’ And I say, ‘I don’t know any magicians.’ But, now, just like that, here you are! It’s magic!”

  She brought a calendar down from the wall and turned some pages to December. “I know!” she said. “Let’s do it for Hannuukkah! Our celebration is Sunday afternoon, December nineteenth, in the social room. The kitchen will serve latkes for lunch, then we’ll light the candles, and then you! It’ll be wonderful! How much do you charge?”

  I had no idea what to say. This was way bigger than a birthday party. Could I charge forty dollars? Fifty? I gulped and was just about to speak, when she said, “We have one hundred dollars in the entertainment budget. Will that be enough?”

  My heart nearly stopped. One hundred dollars?! All I could do was nod.

  And the best thing of all was right then, my grandmother came up to me. Only she wasn’t the screaming grandmother. She was the nice grandmother. She put her arm around me and said, “This is my grandson Joel—he’s the baby.” She squeezed my cheek. “He’s a wonderful magician!”

  “Don’t I know it!” said Esther. “Not only that, I’ve just hired him to do a magic show for us at our annual Chanukka party!”

  My grandmother didn’t say anything; she just reached over and squeezed my cheek again. It was the happiest I’d seen her in years.

  I put the arm guillotine away. “A magic trick is only good if it works for your audience,” Mister Mystery had said at my first lesson. “The most important thing is not the trick. The real magic is in you, the magician.”

  Since that lesson, I’d been working hard to make myself as magical as possible.

  “Hey there, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages!” I said to the mirror in the hallway. “I know why you’re here. It’s because you believe in—” And this is the important part. The pause. That’s what really nails it. You don’t rush; you take your time. But not too much time—just enough to look slyly to one side. When Mister Mystery does it, he actually winks, usually at some beautiful woman in the audience. It’s not just charming, it’s misdirection; they’ll look at your face instead of your left sleeve, where the bouquet of spring-loaded feather flowers is hidden. Then they’re amazed when you pull it out and say, “—magic!”

  It’s in those first few moments onstage, Mister Mystery says, when you win them over. “You know how long it takes an audience to decide if they love you or hate you? Thirty seconds. You need a fast and flashy opening, Joel, to show them you are confident and in complete control. After that they’re in the palm of your hand.”

  Taking my glasses off, I looked in the mirror, working on my smile. “Hey there,” I said, winking at myself. “How you doin’?” I was just getting it, the perfect magical look. “I know why you’re here. It’s because you believe in—”

  “Hey, Joel?” my dad called from the other side of the house. “Could you give me a hand?”

  I put the flowers away and went to my parents’ bedroom, where my father stood in his boxers and a T-shirt, with some clothes and about thirty bottles of pills on his bed. About as unmagical as you can get.

  “Oh, good. Can you bring down my suitcases? The big one and the little one.”

  “All right,” I said. The attic is above my parents’ closet, and that’s where the suitcases live. Getting them down is tricky, and takes someone small, so it’s my job.

  I got the old yellow high chair from the corner of the kitchen and used that to climb to the upper part of the closet. From there I pushed open the square trapdoor that leads to the attic, and climbed up. It’s filled with dust and a lot of junk, as well as the suitcases my parents have had since they moved to California, which I brought down.

  Packing clothes for the hospital is easy, as you don’t need to wear much, just those robes they give you that leave your tushy sticking out. The hard part is packing my dad’s medicines. He’s always taking pills, some for pain, some for vitamins, and some for who knows what. The problem is that he needs help reading the labels. As bad as my eyes are, they’re the best in the house, so he calls me when he can’t see. He picked up a bottle, squinted at it, lifted up his glasses, and squinted again.

  “Can you read this?” he asked.

  “A-ce-ta-min-o-phen,” I said.

  “Good—put it into the small suitcase. And how ’bout this one?”

  “Ascorbic acid.”

  “Good,” he said. “Vitamin C. For healing. Put that one in too. And this one?”

  “Prednisone.”

  “Ah! That’s what I was looking for,” he said.

  “Should I put it in?”

  “Nope. Put it on the top shelf in the bathroom, so high up that I can’t reach it. I’ve been taking it for years, and Dr. Kaplowski told me to stop taking it at the beginning of last week, or he couldn’t do the surgery. I haven’t touched it since, but want to be sure I don’t bring it along by mistake. All right, how about this one?”

  We went through the bottles until the little suitcase was filled.

  “What’s the big suitcase for?” I asked.

  “The Neck-O-Matic, of course!”

  “You’re bringing it to the hospital?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “Not just bringing it, I’m going to sell them the design! Last week I told Dr. Kaplowski all about it, and he’s really interested. This is the perfect opportunity!”

  It was a crazy idea. “But, Dad,” I said, “that doesn’t make any . . . It’s not—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s a patent pending, so it’s protected.” A couple months ago my dad wrote to Washington, DC, to apply for a patent for his design. “Let’s set it up,” he said, “one more time before I go.”

  I wanted to go back to practicing my magic, but my dad made it sound like his last meal on death row so I dragged the box with the Neck-O-Matic from the corner of the bedroom. It was really heavy, so I had to slide and kick it all the way to the door that leads to the ba
throom. I opened the box and took out the neck brace, which looks like something you’d wear if you had whiplash, then the pulleys and rope, which I looped over the chin-up bar in the doorway. There was also a heavy-duty blue plastic tray that said DRIFTWOOD DAIRY on it. It’s supposed to hold milk cartons, but my dad uses it to hold bricks for the Neck-O-Matic. That’s what was in the rest of the box, which is why it was so heavy. I set up the pulleys like he’d shown me, and the tray, which is held up at each corner by a rope and has to balance just right so the bricks don’t fall off. My dad took his place in a chair under the chin-up bar, made sure everything was right, then fastened the brace around his neck.

  Even though I’ve helped him with the Neck-O-Matic for years, it still creeps me out. If you were to walk into the room, you would think I was helping my dad to hang himself. It’s supposed to relieve pressure on his neck and back by slowly separating his vertebrae. That’s the problem with ankylosing spondylitis—it turns your spine into one solid bone. I don’t know—maybe the Neck-O-Matic really works. My dad thinks it does, and he’s the one being stretched.

  When the rope was tight, he motioned with his hand for me to put in the first brick, then another, then a third. The hand motions are key, as you can’t really talk while you’re in the Neck-O-Matic. He grimaced for a moment, breathed out, then relaxed, a look of calm spreading over his face. A moment later, he motioned for me to put on another brick. There was the grimace, then the sigh, then the hand motion again. Finally he signaled for me to stop, which I did. Then he gave me the other hand motion, which meant it was joke time. That’s the only part of the whole business I like.

  For the Neck-O-Matic to work, my dad has to sit there, not talking, for twenty minutes, which is like a Guinness world record for him. To pass the time, I tell jokes.

  “So this guy goes into a job interview,” I said. “And the first thing he notices is that the man interviewing him has no ears. He doesn’t say anything, of course, and the interview goes well. At the end, the interviewer says, ‘Well, you seem like just the man we’re looking for. I like your spirit, your drive. There’s just one final question—do you notice anything unusual about me?’

  “The guy thinks about it, then decides to be honest.

  “‘Well, in fact I did notice something. You don’t have any ears.’

  “‘That’s true,’ says the interviewer. ‘Thank you for coming in—we’ll keep your application on file.’

  “Right away, the guy knows he blew it. The next candidate comes in, and the same thing happens. The interview goes well and, at the end, the interviewer says, ‘You seem great. Just one question—do you notice anything unusual about my appearance?’

  “He thinks about it, then says ‘Well, as long as you’re asking, I can’t help but notice you don’t have any ears.’ The same thing happens—he doesn’t get the job.”

  My dad motioned for me to add another brick, which I did, then went on.

  “As the second guy leaves the office, he sees a third guy waiting, and says, ‘Look, pal, I just blew this interview—I’m never gonna get the job. I don’t know why, but I’m going to do you a favor. The guy who’s going to interview you doesn’t have any ears. And he’s kind of sensitive about it. So, if I were you, I wouldn’t mention it.’

  “The third guy goes in, and the interview goes well. Then, at the end, the interviewer says, ‘You seem like just the man we’re looking for. Let me ask one more question—do you notice anything unusual about my appearance?’

  “The guy pauses for a moment, then says, ‘In fact, I do. Unless I’m mistaken, I believe you wear contact lenses.’

  “The interviewer gets all excited. ‘Yes! That’s right! Well, we can really use someone with your observational abilities. That’s terrific! Tell me, how did you know?’

  “‘Well,’ says the guy. ‘It’s obvious. If you had any ears, you’d wear glasses.’”

  My dad busted out laughing. That was good and not good. Good because it’s good to laugh, and my dad always says laughter is the best medicine. But not good because if you laugh too much while you’re wearing the Neck-O-Matic, it yanks the rope, which starts the tray of bricks bouncing up and down, and one of the bricks could fall on your foot. If that happens, laughter is the worst medicine.

  I adjusted the bricks in the box, and tried to figure what to tell him next. Usually I can make a story out of whatever happened in school, but I didn’t want to tell him about getting called into Mr. Newton’s office, or anything about the assembly. All day long I’d pictured the scene of my family and me, looking pathetic as we huddled around our menorah. The only consolation was that my father wouldn’t be there, because he’d be in the hospital recovering from his surgery. That, at least, was lucky. Having him at the assembly would be a disaster. Everyone would howl with laughter at the way he looked and walked.

  I switched to waiter jokes, which are funny, but not brick-on-your-toe funny.

  “So, two guys go into a restaurant and both order iced tea. ‘And be sure the glass is clean!’ says one. A few minutes later the waiter comes back with the iced tea and says, ‘Which one ordered the clean glass?’”

  Tonight when we lit the candles, we were all in a pretty serious mood, with surgery early the next morning. But not my dad. He looked happy as could be—maybe even a little taller, after the session with the Neck-O-Matic.

  “You’ll never guess who called today,” he said, the moment we finished the blessings, even before we tried to sing “Maoz Tzur.” We all looked at him. “It was the principal of Bixby School!”

  “Mr. Newton?” said Kenny. “Why?”

  “Well,” my father went on, “let me tell you the whole story. Bixby School has to have an extra day on Monday. And to make it special, they’re going to have their holiday celebration.”

  “That’s what they call it now,” said Howard, “because when I was there we kept complaining about mixing church and state. But all they did was change the name. It’s still just a Christmas assembly.”

  “Ha!” said my dad. “That may have been true then. But not this year! And do you know who will be the star of the celebration?”

  Kenny and Howard looked baffled.

  “We will!” he said.

  I couldn’t believe it. My dad knew the whole time.

  “That’s right. Joel will be telling the story of Hanikkah to the whole school! Mr. Newton said that they’ve never celebrated the holiday before. They want to have our whole family there, onstage, lighting candles! Can you picture that?”

  I could, even though I’d been spending all day trying not to.

  “How wonderful!” said my mom. “We’ll be making Bixby School history! I think I’ll wear my blue dress.” Then she began to hum “The Horrible Song.”

  “Absolutely!” said my dad. “And I’ll wear my bow tie.”

  “But, Dad,” I said, “you won’t be able to come, will you?”

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world! As soon as Mr. Newton called, I telephoned Dr. Kaplowski and told him I had an important event on Monday. He said not to worry, that the recovery should be quick—and that by Monday, I’ll be dancing! Picture that! Me with my new golden hip joints, dancing around the menorah!”

  With that, he started singing “If I Were a Rich Man,” like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, my dad’s favorite song from the whole musical.

  I was mortified. It was bad enough that the whole school would be watching my family do our Jewish thing in public, but picturing my father dancing made it far worse. Everyone would look at me and think: Now I get it! That’s why Joel is such a dork.

  My father was oblivious, singing and trying to snap his fingers—“Yabba-dabba-dabba-do!”—sounding like a cross between Tevye and Fred Flintstone.

  “Please, God,” I whispered, “whatever you do—don’t let my father come to the assembly on Monday
.”

  THE FOURTH CANDLE: A Tiny Shred of Something to Believe In

  Wednesday, December 15

  It took forever to fall asleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my dad on the Bixby School stage, and heard the deafening sound of laughter. Then, this morning, I woke up early from a dream and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was standing with my father on top of a hill, in the fog. We were both wearing our pajamas. He had invented a special kind of kite that flew without wind. My job was to hold the kite. At first it was going great—there was no wind, and the kite took off. But then it carried me up, high into storm clouds, with lightning. I called to my dad, but no sound would come out of my mouth. I could hear him, though, shouting, “This is great! They’ll love it!” as I was carried higher into the sky. “We’ll be rich!”

  That’s when I woke up. It was still dark outside, but I got out of bed and ate a bowl of Chex, then went back to my room. It was really quiet, a quarter till six in the morning. My mom and dad were heading to the hospital early, and would be up soon.

  “Hey, Herrmann,” I said. “You awake?”

  I took her out of her cage and sat her on my lap. “How you doin’?”

  She scrunched up her nose, which is what she always does.

  “Me, I’m not so good,” I went on, “but thanks for asking. I had this dream about a kite. And a storm. And my father.”

  I told her all about it. She didn’t seem particularly interested, but neither of us had anything better to do, so I kept on.

  “I’m also kind of worried because he’s going to the hospital today—again. For another operation. To put gold in his hip joints.”

  Even as I told Herrmann about this, I began to wonder how they do such a thing. Do they have liquid gold they somehow squirt in? If so, how hot does gold have to be to melt? Do they use a needle? Herrmann wasn’t interested. She crawled off my lap and began to hop around the room.

  Herrmann is actually my second rabbit. I named the first one Houdini, but he escaped. I should have seen that coming. Even so, I’m not entirely sure how it happened. The rabbit cage is in a corner of the den, and when Houdini was here, it was surrounded by newspaper several feet around the cage. That’s because Houdini was a boy rabbit. When I picked him at the pet store, I didn’t think of something that every magician should know: Boy rabbits can learn to pee standing up in their cages. Or at least Houdini did. I think he used to play a game with himself to see how far he could get. Hence the newspaper.