A Stranger on the Planet

by Adam Schwartz

  “Telling dumb stories.”

  “Seamus, come on. Her second marriage ended twenty-seven years ago. Do you think she just stopped being interested in men?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, considering the men she was married to, that’s what I think.”

  Didn’t he know about Jimmy Conroy? Or did he pretend not to know? I wondered if I could have scored a knockout by telling him all about Jimmy, but then thought better of it.

  “Well, I don’t believe such a thing,” I said. “I even think I remember seeing Mom and Elijah together. Remember that time we went to a Christmas party at Alice’s house, circa 1966?”

  “I don’t know. I would have been six years old then.”

  “That was the day a cop pulled us over because Mom ran a red light. She had drunk too much eggnog at the party, and when the cop accused her of being intoxicated, she told him that she was Jewish and hadn’t realized that eggnog had alcohol in it.”

  Seamus glared at me. “Seth, is there anything you don’t remember?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  I recalled that the cop actually let my mother go after she pleaded with him that if she lost her license she wouldn’t able to drive to work and support her children. He called a cab and then graphically told her about all the drunk-driving accidents he had seen, many of them involving children. He told her a story about a little girl who had gone hurtling through a windshield. The little girl’s mother had had an open bottle of beer next to her. “What type of mother would do something like that?” the cop had said, just as the taxi pulled up.

  “John Coltrane’s version of ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’ was playing on the phonograph,” I continued. “Mom and this black man were dancing together, holding each other very closely. Mom was smiling and her eyes were closed. She looked like she was having a nice dream. I’m sure that man was Elijah.” I also remembered how her bare arms had gleamed with a thin film of perspiration, but I decided to leave out this detail.

  “Seth,” Seamus said, “you were ten years old in 1966. How did you know you were hearing John Coltrane?”

  “Seamus,” I replied, “some things you just know.”

  “You don’t know,” Seamus said. “Elijah was our mailman.”

  “I know he was the mailman. But they still could have been lovers.”

  “Elijah is a religious man. He has a family and goes to church every Sunday. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “I’m not disappointed. They still could have been in love.”

  Seamus gestured dismissively with one hand and straightened his hat with the other one. “You know, Seth, I came here with you because I thought you wanted to have a heart-to-heart. But I have to go now.”

  “Wait! I did. I do,” I said.

  “Then how come you’re going on like this about Mom and Elijah? Why do you always have to turn everything into such a megillah?”

  “Just hear this,” I said, putting my hand on my brother’s arm. The John Coltrane version of “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” was already on the record player because I had played it about fifty times over the last two days.

  I turned it on and the music, velvety and mournful, actually appeared to calm Seamus. He closed his eyes and his rigid posture relaxed. My brother and I had not embraced in years, not even on this day, the day we had buried our mother. I put my arms around him and began to sway with him to the music. Seamus held me tightly; I felt my brother’s wet, bearded cheek against my own. “Oh, Seth,” he whispered, “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  AT SIX O’CLOCK, I left to get Rachel at her hotel. I brought my mother’s old copy of Pride and Prejudice with me. Driving to Seamus’s house, Rachel asked if I had had a good visit with my brother.

  “Yes. We slow danced to John Coltrane’s version of ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye.’”

  “Oh, all right,” Rachel replied.

  “I’m totally serious,” I said. “But I guess you had to be there.”

  The front door to the house was open when we arrived. Rhoda and a clutch of my elderly second cousins were standing just inside the door. The cousins included Marcia from Great Neck, Milton and Pearl from Hempstead, and the twins, Jenny and Jeanette, of Rockville Centre, who had lived together for the last thirty-five years, ever since Jenny’s husband had died and Jeanette’s had fed. I introduced Rachel by name but not by relationship. All my cousins said it was nice to see her again, presuming they had probably met her at some point. Then Marcia marveled at how much I looked like my mother. I replied that I thought Seamus looked more like Mom than I did, and this sparked a five-minute debate about who looked more like Ruth. Then Jeanette said the person I really looked like was Zeyde Jacob. Jenny told her she was completely out of her tree—how could she remember what Zeyde Jacob looked like when she couldn’t even remember to turn off the lights inside the house? Jeanette pressed her lips into an angry line. Rhoda interjected that different people remember different things, but Jeanette wasn’t about to be mollified and she proceeded to describe how my face was an exact reproduction of Zeyde Jacob’s. While all this was going on, I noticed my grandfather sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. I asked Rhoda if I ought to go over and say hello to him.

  “Sure, doll, go ahead.”

  “Do you think he’ll remember who I am?”

  “Who knows? I live with him day and night, and it’s a complete mystery to me what goes on inside his head.”

  I excused myself, seized Rachel’s hand, and went over to my grandfather. I pulled up a chair. He stared vacantly past me, his mouth wide open, rivulets of saliva running down his chin. I reached in my pocket, pulled out the yarmulke supplied by the funeral home that morning, and dabbed the saliva away.

  “Hello, Poppa. How are you?”

  He stared at Rachel and me.

  “How’s the family?” he asked.

  Behind me, I could hear Jenny and Jeanette still arguing over nothing.

  “The family’s great, Poppa. Couldn’t be better.”

  “How many children do you have now?”

  I was my grandfather’s only childless grandchild.

  “Two, Poppa. A boy and a girl.”

  The old man’s eyes went out of focus for a moment. Then he fixed his sight on something just over my shoulder. I turned around and saw that it was a mirror draped with black cloth.

  He bent close to me. “Did someone die?”

  I could have said anything. I could have said that nobody had died, or I could have named one of the dead from long ago— Esther or Samuel, Jacob or Dvorah.

  I took hold of his hand.

  “Poppa, do you remember your daughter Ruth?”

  “Sure, I do!” he said, his dentures gleaming. “How is Ruth? I haven’t seen her in so long.”

  “She’s fine, Poppa. Couldn’t be better.”

  I planted a kiss on his cheek and Rachel and I headed for the drinks table.

  “It’s strange to think that’s the same man who tyrannized my mother for so many years,” I said.

  “He’s so sweet now,” Rachel commented.

  “Just imagine. We’d be the happiest family in the world if no one remembered anything.”

  I spied Avi and Zipporah sitting at the kitchen table, looking at a book.

  “Come,” I said to Rachel, “I’m going to try to get my brother’s children to like me.”

  “You go yourself, sweetie. I need to just be myself for a couple of minutes.”

  They were looking at a book of illustrated Bible stories. I squeezed myself in between them. “Who remembers me?” I asked. They exchanged shy, uncomfortable smiles.

  “Zipporah, you know who I am, don’t you?” I said.

  “Uncle Seth,” she replied quietly.

  “Yes!” I said brightly. “The one and only Uncle Seth. So, who’s your favorite uncle?”

  She looked puzzled for a moment. “We just have one uncle,” she answered.

&nbs
p; I wondered if she was referring to Aaron, but I brazened it out and exclaimed, “Then it must be me!” I clapped my hands against my cheeks.

  Her lips pursed into a coy smile.

  “Avi, am I your favorite uncle?”

  He looked to his sister for an answer. A small knitted disk of a yarmulke was fastened to his short hair with a bobby pin. A choo-choo train motif ran around its border.

  “That’s a nice kippah,” I said.

  “You know kippah?” Zipporah asked.

  So I had been described as some type of apostate, a family member who did not live by the Torah. They might read their book of Bible stories and think of me as a Cain or an Esau, a wayward, bitter brother.

  “Of course I know kippah,” I replied, and placed the one that was still damp with Poppa’s saliva on my head. “I never go anywhere without one.”

  The children laughed at me and then returned to their book. I went back into the living room and saw Seamus bent over Poppa, whispering in his ear. I was standing by a table laden with scotch. I poured myself a drink and waved Seamus over.

  “Does Poppa know who you are?” I asked him.

  “It’s difficult to tell.”

  “But you speak to him anyway?”

  “Sure. Might as well. You never know what gets through to him.”

  “Sort of like praying to God?” I said.

  Seamus eyed me warily, then seemed to decide that my comment was sincere, that I really was interested in how he prayed.

  “Yes, you could say that,” he answered.

  I pulled Mother’s battered paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice out of my back pocket.

  “Here, Seamus,” I said, holding the book out to him. “I want you to have this.”

  Seamus turned his head sideways to read the title. “What? Is this supposed to have some big message for me?”

  “No, no message at all. I know you don’t want to keep anything from the apartment, but Mom read this book from cover to cover during a game at Yankee Stadium in 1968. The Yankees beat the White Sox four to two. Mel Stottlemyre pitched into the seventh inning, when he was relieved by Jack Hamilton. Here. It would mean a lot to me if you took this.”

  “Thanks,” he said, accepting the book. “I’ll try to keep all that in mind.”

  Then I added, “I also thought Zipporah might like to read it when she’s older. You can tell her it was Mom’s favorite novel.”

  “Why can’t you tell her yourself?”

  “I can? You mean that?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Oh, Seamus, thank you! Thank you very much!”

  Seamus stared at me as if I were some intractable mystery.

  “Seth, can I tell you something that I’ve always wanted to say?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  “You’re my brother, and I love you, but you are a very strange man.”

  I burst out laughing. “Oh, Seamus, thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “Well, you are,” he said, laughing back. “Why can’t you come right out and tell me you want Zipporah to have this book? Why do you have to do some song and dance about a baseball game almost thirty years ago? Or like the way you were playing games with Sandy and Selma at the cemetery this morning, or creating this big megillah about Mom and Elijah. I don’t even know how to explain it, Seth, but you do things like that all the time.”

  “You mean like acting funny when I’m really sad?”

  “Exactly!” he exclaimed, as amazed as if Poppa had suddenly become lucid. “So you know you’re doing it?”

  “Usually, yes.”

  Seamus’s face went slack with sorrow. “Seth, I know we’ve had our problems, but you don’t have to keep me at arm’s length at a time like this.”

  I could feel the vein between my eyebrows beating violently.

  “Tell me what’s on your mind,” Seamus said.

  “I really wanted to eulogize Mom this morning,” I replied, my voice trembling badly. “How could you not have trusted me?”

  Seamus pressed his lips together and bowed his head. I placed my hand against the side of my brother’s face.

  “I would have given a beautiful eulogy!” I cried.

  “I know you would have, Seth. I know you would have. I apologize.”

  Just then the doorbell rang. From where I was standing, I could see out the picture window. Alice, Freddy, and Elijah were standing at the door.

  “You better go, Seamus. Elijah is ringing your doorbell.”

  “Not just yet,” he said. “Deborah will get it. I have something for you too. In my study.”

  I followed Seamus to a small room with a desk and a computer. On the walls were photographs of his children and his ornate ketubah, or marriage contract. He opened a box on his desk and a pulled out a thin paperback book. I needed a moment to register the title.

  A STRANGER ON THE PLANET

  By Seth Shapiro

  ON THE COVER WAS AN illustration of a boy in his bar mitzvah suit and tallis, looking out at the ocean. A woman, his mother, was standing several feet behind him.

  Seamus could see that I was flummoxed.

  “Mom wanted me to have copies of this story privately printed,” he explained.

  “How many copies?” I asked.

  “One hundred twenty.”

  “One hundred and twenty? Is that a Jewish thing? Mom used to say she hoped I’d live one hundred and twenty years.”

  “Yes, it’s a Jewish thing. Moses lived for one hundred and twenty years. So it’s a hopeful number. We all hope that we can attain the longevity of Moses.”

  “So . . .,” I said. “Did you read the story?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I think you treated Mom much better in that story than you did in real life.”

  “My ex-wife—remember her? the one you never met?—said something very similar to me one time.”

  He lightly raked his fingers through his beard and sighed.

  “Seth, I owe you an apology. It was bad of me not to have called you when you lost your baby.”

  “Thank you, Seamus. That means a lot to me. It truly does.”

  I paged through my story. It was actually bound and typeset like a book, on book-quality paper.

  “Do you think Zipporah might like to read this too, when she’s older?” I asked.

  “Yes, I think she would like that very much.”

  WHEN WE RETURNED TO THE LIVING ROOM, I saw that Rachel and Sarah were sitting next to my grandfather. Both women were crying. I went over to them.

  Poppa fixed his gaze on me. “You! What are you doing here?”

  For a moment I was dumbfounded. Then I realized that Poppa had mistaken me for the person I most closely resembled.

  “Oh, no, Poppa,” I said. “I’m not Elliot. I’m Seth, your grandson.”

  Poppa looked at the ground and put his hand on top of his head. Then he looked back up at me.

  “You know what your father did?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Yes,” I said. “I know everything.”

  Poppa turned to Rachel. “My poor Esther never recovered. Did you, darling?”

  “That was a long time ago,” Rachel replied. “I’m doing much better now.”

  Esther had died before my father abandoned us. I wondered if, over time, my grandfather had conflated the two events in his mind, refashioning family history so that his wife’s death was caused by the great injury done to his daughter.

  “We’re all doing much better now,” Sarah said.

  “What about Ruth?” Poppa asked. “I didn’t think she would recover from such a shock. She was always so anxious.”

  “She’s fine, Poppa. Just fine,” I said.

  “Oh, I hope so. I haven’t seen her in so long.”

  “I’m going to visit with the grandchildren now,” Rachel said to Poppa.

  “All right, Esther, sweetheart,” Poppa said. Sarah stood up too.

  “Rose, my
dearest,” he said to Sarah, “come back soon.”

  “I will, darling.”

  As we walked away, Rachel said, “He thought I was his wife Esther. He kept telling me how much he had missed me.”

  “He thought I was Rose,” Sarah said.

  “You don’t look bad for a woman who’s been dead for nearly thirty-five years,” I commented to Rachel.

  “Don’t, Seth,” Sarah said. “It was so sad.”

  I looked at Sarah and Rachel.

  “I’ll tell you what’s really sad,” I said to them. “I’m looking at the only two women in the world I really love and I can’t sleep with either of them.”

  “Don’t get Freudian on me, Seth,” Sarah replied.

  Rachel laughed, then said to Sarah, “I think the comment was meant mainly for me.”

  “Am I that transparent?” I said.

  Both women answered, “Yes!”

  “Do you know what your mother said to Seth after he told her I was gay?” Rachel asked Sarah.

  “Oh, God,” I said, putting my face in my hands.

  “She asked him if it was because he hadn’t sexually satisfied me.”

  Sarah laughed loudly. “That sounds exactly like Mom.” Then she turned to me and said, “Actually, I remember you saying the same thing.”

  “I plagiarized the line from Mom.”

  Seamus came over and asked what we were laughing about.

  “Just telling Mom stories,” I said.

  He appeared concerned.

  “You don’t want to hear them,” Sarah added.

  “Good,” Seamus said.

  Rachel looked at the three of us with a big smile on her face.

  “What?” I said.

  “Your mother really did do something right.”

  Sarah’s eyes welled up and she embraced Rachel tightly. “Thank you,” she said when she pulled back. “Mom would have been so happy to hear that.”

  Sarah said she was going to step outside for a moment. Rachel said she needed to pee. I said I needed another drink. I went over to the drinks table and poured myself a scotch. Alice cast me a reproving look from across the room. She and Freddy had become born again about twenty years ago and they no longer drank alcohol or danced. Freddy made his way over to me and clapped me affectionately on the back. “Seth, my man, you feel like some company?” This was Freddy’s style when he thought I was in trouble. Freddy had been one of the men my mother had enlisted to help me when I younger. Freddy would stop by the apartment with a basketball under his arm and say to me, “Can you run with me, my man?”