Mort Ziff Is Not Dead

by Cary Fagan

  Herbert Spitzer’s smile turned downward. “Mort Ziff is no longer employed by me.”

  “We think you’ve made a mistake,” Amy said.

  “Do you? Well, Norman, Amy, let me tell you something about the hotel business. It is very competitive. You and your families could stay at the Doral or the Hilton or a dozen others. I need to provide entertainment that people actually want. Nowadays, that means the latest, up-to-date thing. And right now that thing is the Beatles. I can’t get the Beatles, but I can get the Centipedes. Did you see those crowds last night?”

  “I’m sure you’re right about most people, Mr. Spitzer,” Amy said. “But not everybody. Our parents like Mort Ziff. We like him too. The Centipedes were fun for one night, but not for every night. We think a lot of people are going to be sorry not to see Mort Ziff perform at dinner. In fact, they might want to move to another hotel.”

  “Now, now,” Herbert Spitzer said quickly. “Let’s have none of that talk. But even if I wanted to keep Mort Ziff on, there’s nowhere to put him.”

  “Yes, there is,” I said. “There’s the coffee shop.”

  “That dump?”

  “Maybe it isn’t exactly fancy. But they make a pretty good grilled cheese sandwich. If you let Mort Ziff perform there, Mr. Spitzer, then people will have a choice.”

  Herbert Spitzer rubbed his chin. “The coffee shop, you say? I don’t see the harm in trying for a few days. We could put him on tomorrow night just to try. Of course, I couldn’t pay him nearly as much. The question is whether or not he’ll do it. Mort Ziff used to be a much bigger star. Playing in a coffee shop is a definite come-down.”

  “Maybe it isn’t about the money,” I said. “Mort Ziff just needs to perform.”

  “And anyway, it will be like a night club, won’t it?” Amy asked.

  Herbert Spitzer looked at us. “You two are very persuasive. Myron!” he called to the man at the desk. “Get Mort Ziff on the line.”

  Snort Dinko

  The next day, our parents made me and my brothers take a bus tour of old Miami. “Why do we want to see anything that’s old?” Larry asked, but my mother insisted that it would be fascinating. She said we would get to see a lot of buildings in the “art deco” style.

  “Looks to me more like ‘snort dinko’ style,” said Marcus, looking through the bus window. After that he kept pointing and saying, “Wow, look at that ‘snort dinko’ house! Look at that ‘snort dinko’ Laundromat!”

  As soon as we got back we changed and headed for the beach. After staying there for a couple of hours, we went back to our room to change for dinner. Larry tried to convince my mother that there was such a thing as being “too clean,” but she still made us take showers again. I kept trying to figure out how to convince my parents and my brothers to eat at the coffee shop tonight. My brothers loved the food in the dining room, and my parents had enjoyed dancing like teenagers to the Centipedes.

  I waited until everyone was dressed in their good clothes. Dad was standing in front of the mirror, adjusting his new purple tie. He had on a yellow sports jacket. Mom was fixing the wide belt on her new dress.

  There was nothing for me to do but come out with it. I tried to sound casual. “So how about tonight we, ah, eat in the coffee shop?”

  “Right, Wormy,” said Marcus. “And how about I give you a super-wedgie?”

  “No, I mean it. I heard that Mort Ziff is performing in the coffee shop.”

  Dad looked at me. “Let me get this straight, Norman. You want us to eat in the coffee shop. The one that smells like boiled eggs.”

  “I thought you liked eggs.”

  “Even though all the other kids are going gaga over the Centipedes, you want to see an old comedian you’d never even heard of three days ago.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better, Dad.”

  “But why? You don’t laugh that much when he performs.”

  “That’s not true. I laugh inwardly.”

  “Well,” said Mom, “I for one am impressed. Norman isn’t just like every other kid. He has his own taste.”

  “Yeah,” Larry said. “His own bad taste.”

  “Remember, we wouldn’t even be in Miami Beach if it weren’t for Norman. Besides, we’ve seen the Centipedes two nights in a row. Unless, of course, you boys would like to dance with your mom tonight.”

  “Definitely not!” Marcus said.

  “Okay.” Dad shrugged. “Then it’s the coffee shop.”

  Larry groaned. “Good-bye giant plate of ribs.”

  Marcus came up beside me and whispered into my ear. “There’s something going on with you,” he said. “Some secret you’re not telling us. But don’t worry, dear brother, I’m going to find out what it is.”

  He gave me a devilish smile. I gulped but didn’t say anything. We headed for the elevator, and it felt a bit strange being all dressed up for the coffee shop. If my brothers had realized it, they probably would have taken off their jackets and ties, but I was glad they didn’t.

  Once again, we met up with the Horvaths in the elevator. Mr. Horvath looked grim. “We’re not going to the dining room,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me,” Dad said. “You’re going to the coffee shop instead.”

  “You too?” asked Mrs. Horvath.

  “It’s almost as if our youngest kids got together and made a plan.”

  “Right.” Amy pretended to laugh. “As if that would ever happen.”

  The elevator opened onto the lobby. My brothers looked with longing at the crowd waiting to get into the dining room. “Thanks a lot, Wormy,” Marcus said. “You’re a real pal.”

  We reached the coffee shop. The sign with the crooked magnetic letters had changed. It now said—

  LIVE FROM THE COFFEE SHOP!

  THE COMEDY STYLINGS OF MORT ZIPP,

  MAYOR OF MIAMI BEACH!

  “They spelled his name wrong!” I said.

  “We ran out of the letter f,” said Deloris with a shrug as she came up to us. “Your usual booth, Norman? And your family in the next one, Amy?”

  “You two know the waitress?” Mom sounded startled.

  “She’s probably just a good guesser,” I said lamely.

  The old couple that always ate soup was already there. Two more couples and another group of four drifted in, but that was all. The waitress dropped some menus on the table and Marcus and Larry started to grumble as soon as they read them over. We ordered fish and chips and milkshakes. When the food came we were all so hungry that even my brothers thought it tasted okay, especially with a lot of ketchup. While we ate, Deloris carried in a microphone on a stand. She put down a wooden crate for a stage.

  And then Mort Ziff walked in with Napoleon under his arm. Nobody seemed to notice him. He stared at the crate a moment and then took a careful step onto it, as if afraid it might collapse.

  He tapped the microphone.

  “Is this thing working?”

  People looked up.

  “So tell me, how’s the food? I ate here about ten years ago. But I’m better now, thank you.”

  “I went to the shoe store today. The salesman tried to put a shoe on me. He said, ‘You sure have a very large foot.’ I said, ‘I know, but it was the only way I could match the other one.’ ”

  “I ran into a man I know. He said, ‘You know, when my wife and I had our baby he was very cute. But as he gets older he gets a little uglier every day.’ I said, ‘Well, did you expect him to look like you all at once?’ ”

  “At my age you can get a little confused. Yesterday I went into my car. I saw that thieves had broken in and stolen everything—the radio, the gearshift, even the steering wheel. Then I realized that I was sitting in the back seat.”

  “I met a little boy on the beach. He said, ‘Do you know that in a few years astronauts will go to the moon? And after that they’re going to go to the sun.’ I said to the little boy, ‘How can they go to the sun? It’s too hot—they’ll burn up.’ The boy looked at me like I was a ni
ncompoop and said, ‘Well, of course they’re going to go at night.’ ”

  “You’ve been a very select audience. Thank you for coming. After all, I don’t like to waste my time. I prefer to waste other people’s time.”

  It was a strange thing, but being so close to Mort Ziff, watching his face, his jokes seemed funnier. Everyone laughed more. And at the end we applauded. Mort Ziff looked over at me and then at Amy. He raised one eyebrow and then the other, like a teeter-totter. He turned around and shuffled out.

  A Disgrace to the Family

  At the start of a holiday it feels like it will last forever, and then suddenly the end is closer than the beginning. This is what I thought on the morning of our fifth day, looking out the bedroom window.

  A big pelican flapped by, juggling a fish in its mouth.

  Today our parents didn’t make us go anywhere. My brothers and I played our first-ever game of tennis on the hotel’s tennis court. Marcus thought he was going to be instantly great at it, on account of his being good at Ping-Pong. He got pretty frustrated when the ball kept zipping out of bounds. In the end, we found it more fun to make up our own game, throwing the ball over the net and running back and forth before somebody threw it back. Then Larry accidently beamed Marcus in the head and Marcus started to chase him and that was the end of tennis.

  We swam in the ocean, afterwards lying on our towels and reading old Mad magazines. When I opened my copy I found a note from Amy.

  We both arrived at the coffee shop at the same time.

  “I guess you two can’t get enough of this place,” Deloris said. “Must be my company.”

  “And the milkshakes,” Amy said. We slurped on our straws while she told me about Teaneck, New Jersey, and I told her about Toronto, Ontario. I was starting to feel sorry that we didn’t live in the same town.

  “I thought I might find you two here.”

  It was Mort Ziff. Napoleon gave a bark, jumped out of his hands onto the bench and licked my chin.

  “You were good last night,” Amy said.

  “You know, it reminded me of my early days. Sometimes there was almost nobody in the audience. But if I made one person laugh, I was happy. It’s good to remember.”

  “And you’re going on tonight?” I asked.

  “I am. But there needs to be a much bigger audience or else I’m finished. So says Herbert Spitzer. Well, he does own the joint. But even if there aren’t more people tonight, it was a good try. And I think I have a pretty good idea who to thank. Well, I better go and prepare for the show tonight. That basically means taking a nap. Please don’t feel as if you have to come.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “We wouldn’t miss it.”

  He smiled—almost—and left. Amy and I didn’t speak as we finished our milkshakes, but I knew what we were both thinking. There just had to be a bigger audience tonight. But how could we help? If only we could get that Cessna airplane to pull a banner advertising Mort Ziff’s appearance! But even if I figured out how to arrange it, we didn’t have the money.

  Finally, I said it out loud. “There has to be a bigger audience tonight.”

  “I know. And we have to help get people there.”

  “Exactly. But how?”

  “I think I know how,” Amy said. “Word of mouth.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s when a person tells her friends about something good, and those friends tell other people, and on and on until lots of people know. We have to spread the word. I just hope there’s time to do it on our own.”

  We heard a shout.

  “There they are!”

  “I told you!”

  “Traitors!”

  Amy and I looked up in fear. There was Marcus rushing into the coffee shop, followed by Larry, Gloria and Danielle!

  Instinctively, I jumped up. So did Amy, but there was nothing we could do. They had caught us red-handed, and we were surrounded.

  “Stab us in the back, will you?” Gloria said. “We should have known, Amy.”

  “And you, Wormy? You’re a disgrace,” Larry said. “To a hundred generations of Fishbeins!”

  Amy looked across the table at me. I felt like I knew her so well that I could read the expression in her eyes. It was time to stand up for ourselves.

  I said, “Amy and I don’t want to be enemies.”

  “That’s right.” Amy nodded. “We don’t want to compete with each other, either. We just want to have fun. We want to be friends.”

  “We are friends,” I affirmed.

  “Friends?” Marcus said. “Friends? Ugh! You two make me sick!”

  “Me too,” Gloria echoed. “And you’re both going to pay for this.”

  “That’s right,” Marcus said. “You’ll pay.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t care what you do.”

  “Me neither,” Amy said.

  Our brothers and sisters stared at us in amazement. For once they didn’t know what to say.

  And then Amy’s eyes sort of lit up. I knew she had another idea. “What’s more,” she said, “we need you to stop being enemies too.”

  “That’s right,” I said. I looked at Amy. “Why do we need them to stop being enemies?”

  “Because they have to help us, that’s why.”

  I nodded and crossed my arms. “Right. You have to help us.”

  “Help you do what?” Gloria asked.

  “Save Mort Ziff’s show,” I said. And then I called out, “Deloris! Bring us four more milkshakes!”

  As Marcus, Larry, Gloria and Danielle sipped on their milkshakes, Amy and I explained the situation. I told them about Mort Ziff losing his job, and about how we went up to see Herbert Spitzer and got him to agree to use the coffee shop. Amy told them how he would only let Mort Ziff continue if the audience got a lot bigger, and that we had to help. She told them about word of mouth and what we had to do.

  “But why should we help?” Marcus asked.

  “Yeah,” said Gloria. “What’s in it for us?”

  Amy sighed. “Does there have to be something in it for you?”

  “It’s better than this stupid rivalry,” I said.

  Marcus took a noisy slurp. “If we help, can we meet Herbert Spitzer? I’ve never met a millionaire. Maybe he’ll really like me and decide to give me a suitcase full of money.”

  “I want to meet him too,” Gloria said.

  “Us too,” added Larry and Danielle.

  “Sure,” I said, as if Herbert Spitzer was my best friend. “You can meet him.”

  “Okay, then,” Marcus grinned. “Let’s do it.”

  Amy and I told them what we needed to do. In truth, I could still hardly believe that they knew Amy and I were friends and weren’t going to do anything mean to us. I guess we had given each other the courage to stand up to them. And the amazing thing was that, once they agreed, all of them got really enthusiastic about our plan. We said good-bye to Deloris and went to the lobby.

  A tour group had just arrived, and everyone was standing beside their luggage, waiting to check in. We moved nearby so that they could hear us.

  “Did you hear the news?” I asked in a loud voice.

  “What news?” asked Amy.

  My brothers said nothing. I kicked Larry in the shin.

  “Ow! I mean, yes, tell us the news.”

  “Mort Ziff is performing tonight in the coffee shop.”

  “Mort Ziff?” Gloria said. “The comedian? He’s so funny. He’s the funniest man alive.”

  She said the words as stiffly as a robot. “That’s right,” I said. “They call him the Mayor of Miami Beach. And he’s playing the hotel coffee shop tonight. But space is limited, so you better get there early.”

  “I sure will,” Danielle said.

  “Me too,” said Amy. “And I’ll bring all my friends.”

  “You don’t have any friends,” Marcus said, slipping back into his usual attitude. I gave him a stern look.

  He said, “I mean, I’ll
bring my friends too.”

  Amy and I walked away, then turned to see that the others were still standing there. So we had to return and get them. Then we went to the pool and repeated the act. After that we split up into pairs, me and Amy, Marcus and Gloria, Danielle and Larry. We went to the sidewalk by the side of the hotel, outside the front doors, by the hair salon inside, everywhere we could think of. Each time, we repeated our little play. Would it help? Would people believe what we said and decide to come see Mort Ziff?

  When we were done, we all met back in the lobby.

  “I think I got better at it,” Gloria said. “I like acting. I’m going to join the drama club at school.”

  “All I know,” Marcus said, “is that doing all this good is making me nauseous. I need to go swimming.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Amy said. “Let’s all go swimming together.”

  “Together?” Larry said.

  “You heard her,” Danielle said, swatting him on the arm. “Last one to change into a bathing suit is a rotten egg!”

  We ran for the elevators, at least until a bellhop told us to slow down. In the room, our parents agreed to come and watch us on the beach. We got into our suits, grabbed towels and hurried our parents out the door. When our elevator opened onto the lobby, the one next to it opened at the exact same time with the Horvaths in it. We six kids walked as fast as we could through the lobby with our parents behind us, and as soon as we touched the beach we dropped our towels, pulled off our T-shirts and shook off our sneakers and flip-flops.

  “Surf’s up!” shouted Gloria.

  We ran across the beach and threw ourselves into the waves.

  Reservations

  It wasn’t hard to convince my brothers to go to the coffee shop for dinner this time. And Amy’s sisters felt the same way. They wanted to see if our act had worked. It was our parents who were surprised.

  “Really, Marcus,” Dad said. “I never would have guessed that you’d agree to go to the coffee shop a second time. I thought you loved the dining room.”

  “Who, me?” Marcus said. “Who needs all that food, anyway?” And then he leaned over to me and whispered, “I better get to meet that millionaire.”