An Orphan's Tale (13 page)

In the car, Danny slept with his head against Charlie's shoulder.

*

SATURDAY

At our game today we won 34 to 6 and Charlie yelled the whole time. He hardly ever smiles at games. It's the way he gets the boys to work for him: He saves up his smiles and uses them only when it really matters!

I asked him once if Dr. Fogel shouted the way he does and he said Dr. Fogel was so good he never had to raise his voice. Because I've never really played sports Charlie thinks I can be a great coach someday like Dr. Fogel. But I don't have the kind of brain which can plan things far ahead.

For example: at the Home I tried learning chess a few times but I was no good at it.

Murray stood next to me at the game and told me that Charlie could have been better than Sid Luckman or Bennie Friedman or Marshall Goldberg if he'd played football. And if he'd played baseball he could have been another Al Rosen or Hank Greenberg. Murray said he could have been the greatest Jewish athlete of all time, but he decided to get married instead! Sol got him a tryout with the Brooklyn Dodgers when he was only 16 and they offered him a contract but he turned it down. He was married by 17.

There are a lot of married players, I said.

But Murray said that Charlie refused to do anything that would make him leave his wife overnight. Everyone pleaded with him INCLUDING SOL but Charlie wouldn't listen to anybody.

Anita was wearing a beautiful orange and black plaid wool coat at the game with a big collar that turned up and made her hair look red and soft inside it. I looked at her stomach when her coat was open but it didn't look any bigger.

She's in her 4th month now which means the baby already has everything a baby has, including all the internal organs and fingernails and hair. She's having the baby by natural childbirth the way she had her last 3 and Murray will be in the delivery room with her. Last night he talked about the last time and how hard the contractions were and this is what Charlie said: If they get too bad again tell her to subcontract!

I saw the way the mothers of some of the players looked at Charlie. I was glad when the game was over and we were back in his car. He asked me what Murray was chewing my ear off about this time and I told him about what Murray said about giving up his sports career for a wife and he said that was bullshit.

He told me he played semi-pro ball and he knew just how good he really was—good enough to make the major leagues but not good enough to make it big. He said he had more money now than he ever would have had if he had fulfilled Murray's dream.

Last night we spent Shabbos with Murray and his family but Charlie didn't say anything about our visit to Dr. Fogel. Murray and Charlie argued about being Jewish and I agreed more with Murray who says that if Jews don't practice Judaism then Judaism will die. Charlie tried to act as if he didn't care and I hated him for doing that! But then I remembered what he told me he felt about imagining himself and his son at his grandson's Bris and I felt better.

He said that if I saw Murray at Eli's Bris 4 years ago I would see that he really felt the things he spoke about. Charlie said he never saw a human being more proud and excited than Murray was on that day.

He told me Murray used to be very different. He said that 10 years ago Murray was very active in civil rights and he and Anita spent summers together teaching at black schools in Alabama. He was once beaten unconscious during a march.

While we were coming home from the game Charlie said there was one thing that stopped him when he thought about becoming a Rabbi.

What is it? I said.

That I'll never be able to eat lobster again, he said.

I never had lobster, I said.

He thought I was kidding and asked me if I wanted to try and I said I thought he had to get back to the office since it was Saturday, but he smiled and we went to a restaurant.

It was the 1st time I ever ate in a restaurant where waiters came and served you! There were red checkered tablecloths on the tables and the waiter and the owner wanted to please Charlie. They asked him about Sol and Charlie told them Sol was fine and would be visiting him soon after his cross country trip. I had to wear a plastic bib when I ate the lobster and Charlie showed me what to do and how to crack the claws with a nutcracker. I saw how expensive lobster was and I asked Charlie if he could afford it.

This was his answer: I save money faster than I can spend it.

I can still taste the lobster now. I never tasted anything so beautiful and tender. I ate every piece I could, even in the thinnest claws!

When we got home and Charlie told Mr. Mittleman where we were this is what he said: A ship in the ocean was caught in a great storm and all the passengers were screaming. The waves were coming overboard and women were tearing their hair out and praying to God to save them. Only a little old Jewish man sat quietly without screaming. Don't you care what happens to the ship? a fellow passenger asked. Is it my ship? the Jew replied.

Why I hate Mr. Mittleman: because when Charlie was in the bathroom for a minute and we were alone in the office, he smiled at me and said: Tell me—how do you know you're really Jewish?

He called Charlie crazy for giving up Saturdays and Sundays for sports when those are the big selling days but this is what Charlie said back to him: Living well is the best revenge!

I told Charlie that when it came to lobster he might be wrong about desire. It would be easier to become a Rabbi if you'd never had any at all!

SUNDAY

In the morning we went into the city with Murray and I met their friends from the Home. I met Irving and Louie and Slats and Herman and Stan and Morty and I saw how they still look up to Charlie as a hero. I even played some football with them and caught a pass from Charlie 2 times. Murray and Charlie made up to say I was from the Home and that Murray had me on loan for his school as an exchange student. They asked me things about Dr. Fogel and if certain other teachers were still there and how many of us there are left and things like that.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WAS NOT WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I WAS WITH THEM BUT WHAT HAPPENED AFTER!

When we got home and I was here in our room reading he came in and picked up my real estate book and started reading out loud like a normal reader!

Do you know why I can do it? he asked me.

Because you're happy, I said.

He told me I wasn't paying attention. I told you once that I read better when I'm excited, he said, and then he said he was excited not because he had a good time with his friends but because ALL DAY LONG FROM THE TIME THEY FIRST MET IN THE MORNING HE'D BEEN IMAGINING HIMSELF DEAD!

It's what I do whenever I'm with them, he told me. I try to feel what each of them would feel at different points—when they'd get the news about me, when they'd first see each other, when they'd see me in the coffin, and when they'd shovel earth on top of me.

I'm getting gooseflesh again, hearing his voice in my head saying that! I told him he was trying to scare me and he told me that I couldn't deny how well he was reading. There's hope for me too, he said, and he went downstairs to fight with Mr. Mittleman.

I don't know what to do when he does things like that. He makes me feel very helpless.

LATER

We didn't talk about Dr. Fogel all day.

The man I liked most from their group was Irving, who's a Professor. I liked him because he didn't ask me any questions.

Just before I came up, when Mrs. Mittleman asked about Anita, Mr. Mittleman said: Maybe Murray and Anita are so talented, they'll give birth to an orphan.

They were watching movies of Mrs. Mittleman and her sister in a boat on the 1000 Islands in Canada. Mr. Mittleman asked him what was the difference between a Rabbi and a prostitute and when Charlie said he didn't know, Mr. Mittleman said that a Rabbi sends bills.

His voice never changes. I hate him more because he's a Jew!

I said I had a stomachache and I came up here to write.

Herman kidded me and asked if I was a member of Murray's Alumni Association and if I had a membership card and I got scared for a minute, thinking he knew I ran away, but from the way they talked I found out that Murray once tried to have a meeting of Alumni from over 50 years and rented a big ballroom but less than 30 men came and they stayed in groups and only talked with people from their own years at the Home who they knew already.

I think Anita's jealous of the time Murray and Charlie spend together and of all the years they had together before she met them!

MONDAY

I have to be ready to go shopping with him in 5 minutes because he says I have no winter clothes. Does this mean he's going to let me stay with him all through the cold and the snow? Even though it's been harder living with him since our visit to Dr. Fogel I don't want to leave. I'd rather live with him worried than any other man relaxed!

When I woke this morning I found him looking at my Tephillin but I didn't let him know I saw.

At school he and Murray made jokes about cultivating Murray's garden. Murray said he was fertilizing his lawn with chicken fat and Charlie asked Murray if he could plant him a TSURIS TREE.

They joked about sitting under it together and letting their worries seep into the ground and feed the tree.

I have to hurry. When we do things he won't let me use any of my own money. He gives me some money for errands I do for him and for writing things down for him, but I keep that money separate. I think he pays Mrs. Mittleman for my meals.

I need to save my money because later I'll need it to buy a new suit for my Bar Mitzvah.

A girl sat next to me in the school library and asked me if I was the boy who was living with Mr. Sapistein and she said that Murray spoke about me to her class and told them how much I accomplished in my life even though I never stayed in a real school.

She didn't interest me. I told her I was busy with things to study and she went away.

I read in a book about Zionism and I read about the Fernald Tracing Method against dyslexia and I studied for Mr. Mittleman's test.

It's true about Theodor Herzl wanting to let Jewish children be baptized, but he changed his opinion later on. When he was young and for his whole life he really only loved blond and blue-eyed little girls! Also: He was once in favor of intermarriage so Jews would be better looking! This is what he wanted written on his gravestone: HE HAD TOO GOOD AN OPINION OF THE JEWS.

What else I discovered: The King Frederick who locked all the children in the room without words crowned himself King of Jerusalem in 1229.

The best thing that happened today: I found this saying in PIRKAY AVOS and wrote it out in Hebrew and in English for Charlie:

“LET A MAN DEVOTE HIMSELF TO THE STUDY OF TORAH AND TO THE COMMANDMENTS EVEN FOR AN ULTERIOR PURPOSE, BECAUSE FROM AN ULTERIOR PURPOSE HE WILL EVENTUALLY ARRIVE AT THE REAL PURPOSE.”

He thought about that for a while and then he said: I was right then, wasn't I? What do you make of that?

He said he would try to memorize it and he put it on his list: Memorize Danny's Saying.

TUESDAY

He came up and stopped me from writing any more last night. It's morning time now and I'm up before he is. When we got home last night there was a message from Murray saying he got a postcard from Uncle Sol.

After we finished shopping last night we went to a beautiful white house with a long circular driveway. It was past 10 o'clock when we got there and a tall woman came to the door and spoke with an accent. Her husband came to meet us in a red silk bathrobe.

Charlie introduced me to them. Their names are Mr. and Mrs. Szondi. Mr. Szondi is Charlie's stockbroker. They escaped from Hungary in 1956. Charlie didn't waste any time. Before they sat down he was yelling at Mr. Szondi and asking him why he paid him good money. Mr. Szondi told him he expected the market to turn and Charlie said he didn't depend on miracles, that there was as much money to be made in bad markets as good. Mrs. Szondi sat very stiffly in a high velvet chair and her eyes seemed to burn. I couldn't tell how old she was.

The room was beautiful with lamps and teacups everywhere. The walls were made of wallpaper like velvet with curlicues in reds and pinks. Mr. Szondi tried to explain things to Charlie but Charlie wouldn't listen. He said he paid Mr. Szondi to do his thinking for him. Mr. Szondi told Charlie he knew about a merger and pension funds that would buy into the new company. The pension funds have been staying away from the market recently. Mr. Szondi said that if things went well Charlie could buy and sell within 60 days for a good profit but that would mean taxes.

Charlie said he never worried about taxes. That was his accountant's department. Mr. Szondi asked who I was and Charlie said I was a smart Jewish boy.

When we were leaving he asked Mrs. Szondi how she liked living in their house.

This is what she said: The hills are very beautiful but they are not mine.

Charlie made me promise to study a book on the stock market after finishing the real estate one. He said he played dumber than he was and I said he didn't have to tell me that. He seemed happy after we left and he said that Murray followed the daily ups and downs of things too much. Charlie called that death.

He explained to me what an overlay is and he said that's what he always invests in. An overlay is if a horse is a 2 to 1 favorite in the morning but the crowd makes him 5 to 1. An overlay in land is when it can be developed in 5 years when everybody else thinks 10. If you only bet on overlays you can't go wrong!

I took a chance when he seemed in a better mood. I said this: If you don't let me help you learn to read I'll leave you.

And go where? he asked.

Lots of people could use a smart Jewish boy, I said.

I'll think about it, he said.

You're afraid, I said.

You're right, he said, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do anything about it.