Boca Mournings

by Steven M. Forman

“Actually, I’m going to postpone the colonoscopy,” he decided. “We have to make sure you don’t have any brain damage.”

  “Some people would say my ass would be the best place to look for brain damage,” I told him.

  Claudette drove to the lab where I had the scan then returned home to rest.

  “I have good news and bad news,” Dr. Koblentz said when he phoned me later that afternoon. “The good news is the MRI confirmed that there is a brain in your head and it’s not damaged.”

  “The bad news?”

  “We can go forward with your colonoscopy,” he told me.

  “I hope my ass does as well as my head,” I said.

  We made plans for my impending colonoscopy, and two days before the exam Dr. Koblentz began preparing me.

  “We have to clean out your system,” Dr. Koblentz said over the phone.

  “Is there a tool for that, too?” I asked.

  “Do you have a fax machine?” he asked.

  “You are not sticking a fax machine up my ass.”

  “I want to fax you instructions,” he said.

  “Oh, okay . . . You can do that,” I said.

  Claudette had a fax machine at home. Dr. Koblentz sent the instructions.

  I glanced at the list.

  Don’t eat this . . . don’t eat that . . . swallow this . . . yadda, yadda, yadda . . . then take a flying shit for yourself.

  Claudette got me the recommended bowel blaster at the drugstore. She handed it to me in the morning like it was a time bomb.

  “I can come home early if you need me,” she offered.

  “No problem. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll be home by six.”

  “I should be real horny by then.”

  I slept most of the morning, watched some television in the afternoon, and swallowed the first ounce and a half of Phospho-Soda at four.

  This tastes like shit, I thought, getting into the spirit.

  Claudette arrived home shortly after my first eruption.

  “Eddie, are you alright?” she asked through the bathroom door.

  I groaned. “I think I just passed my ears through my ass.”

  A half hour later I got the urge to breathe through my nose again. I wearily shuffled from the bathroom to the living room and smiled self-consciously at Claudette.

  “Do you think I’m sexy?” I asked.

  “At this moment . . . or ever?”

  Before I could think of anything clever to say I got the feeling that all my internal organs were about to drop out of my body onto the floor. I did an abrupt about face, imitated the sound of a steamship leaving port, and called “Bon Voyage,” over my shoulder.

  At eight o’clock I took the other ounce and a half of drain cleaner and prayed there was nothing left in me. My prayers went unanswered. I read every magazine in the house and I was starting Claudette’s copy of Palm Beach Woman when I remembered I hadn’t talked to Lou Dewey in a while. I had turned off my cell phone early in the day so as not to be disturbed but about the only thing that hadn’t disturbed me was my cell phone.

  “Claudette, could you bring me my cell phone?” I called to her.

  “I am not coming into that room,” she said. “I’ll leave it at the door.”

  I was reminded of a scene from Ben Hur, a classic movie where guards lowered food into the Valley of the Lepers but would never enter.

  I retrieved the phone and returned to the throne.

  “Hi, Lou,” I said weakly when he answered.

  “Eddie, where you been?” he asked. “I’ve been calling your apartment and your cell phone every hour on the hour.”

  “Sorry, pal,” I said. “But I’ve been out of commission.”

  I issued two short blasts and one long.

  “That sounded like an SOS signal,” Lou commented.

  “Rusty pipe,” I lied. “You know I went to Wilton Manors the other night.”“

  “Yeah, on that missing gay guys case,” he said.

  “I must have made some real progress because someone took a shot at me.”

  “No shit.”

  “I wish that was true,” I said, feeling my stomach churn. I told him the story and gave him my theory.

  “Do you want me to research the bartender?”

  “Not yet. Actually, I want you to do something for me on Izzy Fryberg’s case.”

  “That case is closed,” Lou reminded me. “Just turn in the rocket scientist.”

  “I have a different idea,” I said and explained what I was thinking.

  “What happened to the heartless cop from Boston I heard about?” Lou asked.

  “It’s like you said in the hospital,” I laughed. “I think it’s an age thing. Look what I did with you.”

  “Yeah, but I saved your life,” he reminded me.

  “Years ago, I would have busted you anyway. I’m changing.”

  I erupted again.

  “That pipe sounds like a pain in the ass,” Lou Dewey commented.

  “It is,” I said. “Gotta go.”

  I loved my colonoscopy. A cute gastroenterologist named Dr. Veronica Bannister prescribed a dreamy anesthesia for me and I got to the point where I didn’t care what they stuck where.

  I was lying on my side watching a flexible tube on a small TV screen snake its way through an intestinal maze.

  “That’s your colon,” Dr. Bannister said.

  “Fabulous,” I said, thinking of my ablation and how much I liked anesthesia.

  I woke up in the recovery room still groggy.

  The vivacious Veronica was at my side.

  “You have a perfect colon,” she told me cheerfully.

  “Thanks,” I slurred. “You, too.”

  Christmas vacation in Boca can best be described as more fun than a barrel of monkeys - without the fun. The monkeys in Boca’s barrel are northern children and grandchildren who descend on South Florida, demanding the best and expecting the worst.

  For fourteen chaotic days South Florida resembles the deck of the Titanic during its final moments.

  Women and children first . . . so get the hell out of my way, Grandma and Grandpa.

  The inane poolside conversations of three generations that I heard in Boca go something like this:

  GRANDPARENTS TALKING ABOUT THEIR GRANDCHILDREN TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T CARE:

  (Grandchild’s Age Range: one minute to twelve years)

  “I’m not saying this because he/she is mine but my grandchild is (fill in the blank:

  (1) “amazingly intelligent.”

  (2) “unbelievably clever.”

  (3) “extremely talented.”

  (4) “incredibly athletic.”

  (5) “absolutely adorable.”

  GRANDPARENTS TALKING ABOUT THEIR GRANDCHILDREN TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN:

  (Grandchild’s Age Range: thirteen to eighteen years)

  “When did he/she get so fresh?”

  “That’s some body my granddaughter has.”

  “Those kids keep fooling with the air conditioner in the apartment.”

  “What a bar mitzvah he had. My son spared no expense.”

  “My grandchild is going to Emory. It’s the Harvard of the south.”

  “She should be shaving her legs already.”

  “She needs a nose job.”

  “He hasn’t lost that twitch.”

  GRANDPARENTS TALKING ABOUT THEIR OWN CHILDREN TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR:

  “My daughter-in-law upsets me.”

  “My son-in-law is out of work again.”

  “Why is she still single? Isn’t there some guy who would marry her?”

  “Maybe she’s a lesbian.”

  “Why is he still single? Isn’t there some girl who would marry him?”

  “Maybe he’s gay.”

  MARRIED COUPLES TALKING ABOUT THEIR PARENTS TO OTHER MARRIED COUPLES (or to each other):

  “This is the last time we’re doing this. Your father is driving me crazy.”

  “You
r mother never liked me.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “I can’t keep eating dinner at four thirty in the afternoon.”

  “Next year we’re getting a hotel room.”

  “Kids are peeing in the pool.”

  “I have to call my office. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  GRANDPARENTS TALKING TO GRANDCHILDREN OF ALL AGES:

  “Merle, stop scratching yourself there.”

  “Britney Berger, stand up straight.”

  “Beryl, you’re twelve. Stop picking your nose already.”

  “Sammy Curley, stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

  GRANDCHILDREN AGED TWO TO TWELVE TALKING TO GRANDPARENTS:

  “Grandpa, you have hair growing out of your nose.”

  “Grandma, why do your thighs shake?”

  “Grandma, are you and Grandpa going to die soon?”

  “I did not pee in the pool, Grandpa”

  “I don’t care about sea lice. I want to go in the ocean, Bubba.”

  “The water is too hot, Papa.”

  “The water is too cold, Nana.”

  “I’m hungry, Grandma.”

  “Bubba, I have sea lice.”

  RANDOM

  Grandmother: “You don’t like it here . . . go home.”

  Daughter-in-law: “Mom, don’t talk to her like that.”

  Grandmother: “She’s disrespectful.”

  Daughter-in-law: “You yelled at her.”

  Grandmother: “She was holding her brother’s head under the water.”

  Daughter-in-law: “Okay, that’s it. We’re leaving.”

  Grandmother (to son as daughter-in-law departs): “I told you not to marry her!”

  The traffic is so dense in Boca Raton that even the weavers stop weaving. Restaurants are mobbed by crowds of starving people who haven’t eaten anything for at least an hour. The scene outside Boca delis at Christmastime is similar to the frantic crowds surrounding food trucks in the Sudan . . . except the people in the Sudan are better behaved.

  It was during this Christmas crush that Lou Dewey phoned to tell me he had Noah Paretsky in his sights at ground zero: Deerfield Beach on a Sunday afternoon.

  “I’m watching our geek as we speak,” Louie told me. “How soon can you get here?”

  “January,” I said, exasperated. “Who goes to Deerfield Beach during Christmas week?”

  “Everyone,” he said. “Look, you told me to follow him until I was satisfied he wasn’t Doctor Evil. I’m satisfied. If anything, he’s Doctor Boring. He’s alone on the beach. Pull up to the front of the Deerfield Hilton and ask for Juan. I tipped him twenty-five bucks to park us both.”

  “We’re only making fifty bucks an hour,” I reminded him.

  “The nearest parking space to Deerfield Beach this week is in Key West,” Lou said. “It was Juan for the money . . . or two for the show-me-the-way-to-go-home. Don’t worry, the parking is on me.”

  “I thought you were in this for the money,” I joked with my teammate.

  Juan looked at me as I parked my MINI at his valet stand in front of the Deerfield Hilton.

  “Jew Louie’s fren?” he asked.

  “Jes. Jew Juan?” I got right into the swing of things.

  “Da’s me, mang,” he told me. “Gonna cos’ you a Jackson an’ a Lin-Cohen to park here, like I tole my mang Louie Dewey.”

  “Lou said he already paid jew,” I told him.

  “Jes, he pay for hees car.” Juan was a grinning fool.

  “Juan, let me tell you sumtin’,” I stepped closer to him. “You get twenty-five bucks for both cars or you get a visit from immigration.”

  “Why didn’t jew say so in the first place, homes?” The smile remained frozen on Juan’s lips but the rest of his face was not happy. “Okay mang, I take good care of your MINI.”

  I found Lou Dewey standing on the sidewalk adjacent to the beach. He was dressed in black slacks, a black T-shirt, black shoes, and white socks. His hair was parted on the side with a big wave in the front.

  Skinny Elvis.

  “Hey BK,” he waved. “Did you just get a Juaning?”

  “Jes,” I jested. “He asked for another twenty-five. So, where’s Otis?”

  “As in Otis Elevator?”

  “Jes,” I told him.

  The beach was jammed with jelly-bellies, six-pack abs, big boobs, small boobs, hard asses, lard asses, tan lines, sandcastles, screaming kids, sandwiches, blankets, beach chairs, tans, burns, iPods, and Frisbees.

  Why does anyone come here?

  “There he is,” Louie pointed. “The swizzle stick with the metal detector.”

  Noah Paretsky was tall but stooped. He had a long face under a floppy brimmed, shapeless hat and he wore cheap, black sunglasses. He was narrow at the shoulders and broad at the hips . . . like a parsnip. He wore a pullover shirt with horizontal blue stripes, and green checkered shorts. He wore black socks with brown sandals. He was scanning the sand with a handheld metal detector, listening to earphones.

  “Do you want me to back you up?” Lou Dewey asked.

  “I think I can handle this,” I said. “I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “Seriously, how are you going to approach him?”

  “Maybe I’ll talk to him about metal detectors,” I said.

  “What do you know about metal detectors?”

  “I know he’s using a Tesoro Umax,” I said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “The Tesero is excellent in the sand,” I told him.

  “You’re good,” Dewey pointed at me.

  “Also, the name is printed on the top.”

  I approached Noah Paretsky casually to avoid scaring him. I didn’t want a scene . . . or a chase.

  “Any luck?” I asked him casually.

  Her looked down at me from six feet and smiled like we were old friends.

  “Hello, Mr. Perlmutter,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Whoa! Spooky!

  Paretsky removed his sunglasses. His eyes were friendly and unafraid.

  “My parents told me Delray Vista hired the Boca Knight,” he said. “I figured it was just a matter of time before you’d get to me.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said.

  “So am I,” he replied. “How did you find me so soon?”

  “The Internet,” I said.

  “I heard you were from the old school.”

  “I am,” I said. “See that man in black over there?”

  “The skinny Elvis with the bad overbite?” Noah said.

  “My computer expert,” I nodded.

  Lou saw us looking at him and I motioned him to join us.

  I introduced Noah to Lou, and they stood looking at one another.

  “This is awkward, isn’t it?” Noah said to Lou.

  “A baby giraffe is awkward,” Lou said. “This is bizarre.”

  We found a bench in the shade where Noah and I sat down.

  “I’m going to leave you two alone so you can bond,” Lou said. “I’m getting a cold drink. You guys want anything?”

  We declined, and Lou walked toward a refreshment stand that was under attack by red-skinned tourists with sun-block war paint.

  “First of all, I want you to know I meant no harm,” Noah told me.

  “I believe that,” I said. “You were all neighbors from the same hometown, right?”

  “Chelsea, Massachusetts,” Paretsky nodded. “Low middleclass families with small summer cottages on a lake in New Hampshire. It was like a Kennedy compound for Jews. We were all best friends.”

  “What happened?”

  “Life happened,” he said. “The kids grew up, and the parents grew old. Everyone changed; friends became strangers and began fighting over little things.”

  “Like elevators.”

  “That was the final straw in a big pile of hay,” he said.

  “What did you expect to accomplish by sabotaging the elevator?
” I asked.

  “I wanted to remind them how much they needed each other.”

  “By scaring the shit out of them?”

  “No, by giving them a common cause,” he explained. “I stopped the elevator when first-floor people were riding and I stopped it when second floor people were riding. There was no pattern and no one to blame. I hoped they would come to each other’s rescue, like the old days.”

  “I don’t know anything about their old days,” I reminded him.

  “They were so close,” he said. “Izzy Fryberg, the guy who hired you, lives on the second floor. Mo and Maxine Myerson live on the first floor. The Myersons don’t talk to the Frybergs anymore. In fact, I heard Maxine gave Izzy the finger the other day.”

  “I saw the whole thing.”

  “What you didn’t see was Izzy Fryberg between Maxine Myerson’s legs in the backseat of his Ford station wagon during a snowstorm in nineteen forty-nine.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “Delivering her third child, a son they named William,” Noah told me. “We called him Billy. Mo couldn’t get his car out of the driveway because of the snow. So, he called Izzy, who drove a big station wagon with snow chains. Izzy rushed over with his wife Emma. They put the Myersons in the backseat and headed toward the hospital. But Maxine was too far along. Izzy had no choice. He delivered the baby. It was a legend in Chelsea.”

  “Where was Mo?”

  “Passed out in the front seat.”

  “And now they don’t talk to each other.” I shook my head.

  “That’s my point,” Noah said. “They’ve forgotten who they were and don’t like who they’ve become. I tried to jog their memories. I wanted to show them that everyone’s life is hanging by a thread . . . or in this case an elevator cable. I wanted them to re-establish their common bond by saving each other.”

  “Did MIT make you this stupid or did it come naturally?”

  “A lot of things I did in life didn’t work out the way I designed them,” he said.

  “Like the baby-teeth doll?”

  “I wanted to make children happy,” he said. “I just didn’t see all the potential pitfalls.”

  “Like the ones involved in sabotaging an elevator?”

  “Exactly,” he bobbed his skinny head. “I wanted to restore friendships. Those people are very important to me. Here, look at this.”

  Noah removed an old black-and-white photo from an equally old black wallet and handed the snapshot to me. It was a well-preserved laminated picture showing a large group of people standing by a lake.