by Peter Orner
Dean’s still doubled over. Sammy, too. He can hardly breathe, Sinatra’s so goddamn funny. But watch Sammy closely when he comes back to the mike. He’s still laughing, but his eyes are through with it. Sammy gazes out at the crowd, as if he’s looking for somebody.
Seymour too is roaring along with everybody else. He smacks his knees. He gulps his drink. Oh, that Frank. But he thinks, I’m with you, Sam. You’re one of us now. No matter how high you build yourself, they’ll always find a way to tear you down. Damn right we don’t live in tents, not anymore. Now we live out here in the suburbs with the rest of the musketeers.
With his free hand he reaches to rub the back of Bernice’s neck. She shifts in her seat, only inches, but enough for his fingers to dangle, for a moment, before he retreats them to his drink. Why can’t I touch you, Beanie? Why do you always pull away?
October 18, 1944
Mrs. Seymour Popper
1308 Lunt Avenue
Chicago 26, Illinois
What do you think about when the lights go out at home and you crawl in? You don’t tell me what I want to hear—I’m sending you all my remaining war bonds—So if you wish to get that silver fox jacket, and Jules will extend us some credit on the strength of those—then go ahead—I don’t want you running around to luncheons and be the only woman present without some fur—I’m being sarcastic, my lovely—Chatter says we ship out next month—
Seymour
Camp Bradford
Norfolk, Virginia
PS. If you only knew how I look for your mail, you would never stop writing.
1444 North State Parkway
3
CHICAGO’S NOT A PLACE YOU LIVE
“A woman ought to be careful who she marries,” said Mr. Dooley.
—Finley Peter Dunne, “Home Life of Geniuses”
MIRIAM
Fall River, Massachusetts, 1956
Miriam’s father collected paperweights and phone books. The paperweights Miriam understood. She remembers one was of Robert Burns. The farmer poet, the great lover of freedom, her father always said. It was Burns who said, “Liberty’s in every blow!/Let us do or die.” How’s that for a man?
Miriam used to ogle the poet’s face. A beautiful man, high forehead, small tuft of hair, about to speak, sing, forever trapped in the thick glass of the paperweight.
But the phone books baffled her. Once she asked her father why. She was standing in his study and roaming her fingers across the rows and rows of Fall River directories.
“Why do you collect books that are all the same?”
He was sitting in his swivel chair with cigarettes in both his ears, entertaining her. She didn’t want to be entertained. She simply wanted to know why. Why all the books that are the same book?
“All the same? Every year the dead and gone, and every year the born and added. God’s math in its most fundamental form in these books. Same? Whose kid are you? Was there a mix-up at the hospital? Names, Squeezeface, don’t you know, all those names, name after name after name, constitute the hope of all us fools. We give our children names, Miss Foxglove, as if it makes any difference if they’re called Jehovah or Omar. And still we do it, every day we do it. We stake our lives on names! Let’s call him David, that one over there with the button head, how about Saul? Let’s call him Jimbo, her Mary, her Sunshine. And you, you, my darlingest darling, let’s call you, let’s see. Hortense! No, what about Eleanor? Too Roosevelty. Hmmmm… Wait! I’ve got it. Miriam. How’s that sound?”
“Why of all the names on the planet did you have to—”
“Have you not yet read Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun, unworthy child?”
“I tried. Six times. Dull. And Mother says Miriam’s life’s tragic.”
“Dull! Hawthorne! And Miriam’s not tragic, she’s mysterious. Wouldn’t you like to be mysterious? Not to mention that Miriam was Moses’s only sister and a prophetess in her own right until God gave her leprosy. Wonder why he did that?”
“I’d rather be Judy.”
“Hawthorne, funny, a good marriage, but haunted, so haunted. I wonder what by—”
“Or Nancy.”
“—the past, of course, what else? His and everyone else’s. But even so, you’d think the gloom would lift once at the sight of his Sophia—”
“Sophia’s nice.”
“Call me Nancy. No, no ring to it. There’s always got to be a ring in a name. Otherwise—”
“Even Susan, I’d take Susan over—Otherwise what?”
Her father didn’t answer. You wouldn’t be you and who would I be if you weren’t you? I can’t even imagine. But he didn’t say it. Because wouldn’t it have shot a hole in everything he just said? Instead, he began to take the phone books one by one off the shelf. He piled them up in his arms until they towered past his head and swayed for a long moment as he intoned, The heaviness of names, the weight of names, names, each name in each of these books contains multitudes, a life, an inexplicable, never-knowable life…
Kantowitz, David (Anna) Prime Poultry and Meat Mket Osb 7-9311
Kanuse, Geo W (Rita) custdn City Hall Osb 5-7055
Kaplan, Walt (Sarah) treas Kaplan Furniture Osb 6-8571
Karagianes, Thos M. Pres Central Ice Cream Co Osb 9-5642
Karitan, John (Shirley) taxi driver Osb 9-6411
IN SPAIN
It wasn’t that she betrayed him by leaving. Even he knew she was always going to leave. It was that she took the first boat out of Fall River without hardly looking over her shoulder.
Chicago? My Miriam left me for Chicago. You don’t live in Chicago, Chicago’s not a place you live, Chicago’s a place you’ve heard of, read about in Upton Sinclair, that stink, maybe you visit for a convention, but live?
And where did you meet this Chicago?
I told you, I’m calling from Spain! I met Philip in Spain.
Never send your kid back to the Old World. How many generations did we spend getting the hell out of there? Spain! Don’t you know Franco lives in Spain?
Tell Mother, don’t worry, he’s Jewish, and he’s studying to be an attorney, and he’d like to run for office. He’s got a terrific sense of humor and—This call is costing too much—We’re getting married.
Is he kind, darling? It’s my humble contention that kindness is still rarer than even Jews. And lawyers? Politicians? Comedians?—Sarah! Sarah! Your daughter’s engaged to Bernard Baruch—
What?
On the phone, Sarah, she’s on the phone—Spain—She says she’s calling from Spain. Hurry, the charges—
It didn’t mean she didn’t love him. It wasn’t even rebellion. At first she thought it was only relocation. She’ll betray him again. When the time comes—not far off—she will sell his phone books, and if no one is foolish enough to buy them, she’ll leave them on the sidewalk for the rain.
November 3, 1944
So we had services here at the base in Puerto Rico this morning—There were about fifty other Jews, men and officers, and a rabbi who has only been in the Navy for a month—He did a fine job, though—He’s a sad sack, too, leaving a wife and a 15 mo. old baby—You get religion when you’re in an outfit like this—I want you to be sure that the children go to Sunday school and learn what it’s all about—Get a little prayer book and let them learn a few prayers—Will you please go and have your pictures taken? When the ship goes down, I’ll need something to hold—You and the children and you alone—Make them 5 x 7s. Go to Mandel’s—Ask for Larry—
ROSEHILL
Chicago, 1961
An unmarked grave in Rosehill Cemetery on North Ravenswood in Rogers Park. Philip wanted him to be buried up north, near the old house on Lunt Avenue. Miriam didn’t care what ground, what neighborhood. What could that possibly matter?
At a crossroads on the northwest side of the cemetery, near where Western Avenue meets Peterson, there is a tree with a white arrow that directs cars to go one way. From this tree walk south (away from the road) until you reach the Mo
rtimer Kahn family plot. Then walk fifteen paces to the right. Should the tree ever be gone, the Mortimer Kahns never will be. They have perpetual care. From the Kahns walk fifteen paces to the right. Between the Felsenthals and the Braudys there is a small patch of slightly sunken grass.
She’s forgotten other things, but not where his little bones are. He was so small he was hardly there at all. In more than forty years she hasn’t gone back.
So long as she remembers.
They went out there in the rain with an assistant rabbi. He was kind. He was too young. He kept pushing hair out of his eyes. Miriam tried not to look at his face. She was twenty-three years old. Philip stood back, blinking into the wet wind. She had insisted on no other mourners. She hardly listened to the words, but she remembers this, that the young rabbi recited something that he called a half Kaddish. And then lines from Deuteronomy, which ended with the words “And there was no strange god with him.”
Later, she would sometimes think of him, not in the ground but somewhere out on the streets of the city, how if he headed west out of the apartment her dead boy could walk for days and never run out of sidewalk.
No strange god? The iron sky, thick and close. Miriam in the rain, March 1961.
1444 NORTH STATE PARKWAY
Chicago, 1964
PHILIP (in front of the TV, wagging a drink): Johnson leads Goldwater by 65,000 votes in Kansas. In bleeding Kansas!
MIRIAM (in the kitchen, making herself a martini, her one-year-old son, Leo, draped across her shoulder, balancing himself, his little legs and arms stretched, reaching): And if Kansas goes for Big Daddy, who else can resist?
It will pass. They aren’t naïve. Good news always does. A lot quicker than other news. They know that tomorrow will be only another tomorrow and they’ll again wake up alone, not lonely, alone, and wonder why. Why so alone if we’re here together?
Right now, though—
They turn out the lights and go to bed, but keep the TV going in the living room all night, half-listening.
Leo sleeps in his crib to the lullaby of a landslide.
Their bookcase in the glow of the city undarkness: Immortal Poems of the English Language, O’Hara’s Sermons and Soda-Water, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, Sandburg’s Lincoln: The Prairie Years, The War Years (Philip’s, an unread gift from his father), Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind (Miriam’s), Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back (Miriam’s), O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (inscribed, 7-15-60, Dear Miriam, I hope you enjoy this trip as much as I have), Goldstein’s Trial Technique…
The television speaks in the dark:
CHET HUNTLEY: We have received word from Providence that Lyndon Johnson has taken 89.9 percent of the vote in Rhode Island…
PHILIP (mumbles): Khrushchev doesn’t get 89.9 percent in Moscow. Come here.
MIRIAM: I am here.
PHILIP: I mean here here. All the way with LBJ.
MIRIAM (laughs, laughs).
Because he used to make her laugh, Leo years later would tell his brother about the years before he existed. Explosive, croakish laughs. Leo said he used to lie in bed and worry she was choking.
THE FIRES
Chicago, 1968
Miriam watches the city burn. She stands motionless in front of the west-facing windows in the apartment on North State Parkway. A holy address, an address Philip, Miriam, and even Leo will later sometimes repeat like a prayer. Oh, 1444 North State, it really was the perfect little starter apartment. The doorways had these chapel-like arches. There was a breakfast nook perfect for three, beautiful built-in walnut bookcases, and those huge west windows. Those were good years—
But tonight. Dr. King is dead and tonight Chicago is destroying itself in his honor. All the lights in the apartment are off, and Miriam, motionless, stands at the window and watches the soft glow of the fires pulsing like a creeping second sunset. She’s not afraid. She’s never been a worrier. A little more than a mile away, but West Madison may as well be a different country. It is a different country. Up here there’s no sound, only the thrum of the air conditioner. Miriam turned off the radio hours ago. The rioters are moving west and burning as they go. And the mayor said, Stand up tonight and protect the city, I ask this very sincerely, very personally. Let’s show to the United States and the world what the citizenry of Chicago is made of…
Philip is away on business downstate. The phone rings often.
She doesn’t answer.
Leo’s in his room, in his bed, his blond curls spread across the pillow. He’s awake. In the darkness he listens to his turtle, Adlai, as he meanders around his tank, slow churnings in the sand.
Is this, Miriam wonders, what they call the march of history? And even if she doesn’t fully understand, it doesn’t mean she can’t appreciate the need, the periodic need for some people to resort to gasoline, rags, and matches. Doesn’t it always come to this? Isn’t history as much about tearing things down as it is about building things up?
Out the window the rising band of fires glows wider.
Leo emerges from his room holding Adlai by the shell. Stubby green feet crawl the air. The turtle is used to this, being carried around the apartment by his five-year-old keeper.
“The fires are still?” Leo says.
“Yes, but they won’t reach us.”
“Why not?”
Miriam looks at him. His face is pale and serious. Leo and his questions. Leo’s not five. He’s never been five. Even holding a turtle he’s not five.
“Because the police will protect us and the fire department will put out the fires.”
“But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do they want to get us?”
“Not us.”
“Who, then?”
“They don’t know who. That’s the trouble. They’re searching. But even if they did know, it wouldn’t be us.”
Leo shakes his head. He won’t be had. “The bosses,” he says. “They want to burn up the bosses.”
Leo doesn’t move. His wide eyes are mesmerized by the light.
“Honey, take Adlai back to bed.”
Burn it. Burn it all and maybe they will listen.
Who?
I know who. My kid just told me who. Mayor Daley and the rest of the kings who rule the planet.
“They want to burn us, too, Mom.”
“Leo, we’re not the bosses. You and I will never be the bosses.”
“We’re not?”
Miriam watches her son. She smooths her rising stomach. Leo holds the turtle up to the window. Adlai claws across the emptiness.
November 19, 1944
Here we go—Tomorrow morning at 0800, destination unknown, length of time unknown—But my guess, my darling, is not too long, because when these Japs find out I’m on the way, they’ll probably give up from laughing—And cripes, I forgot to tell you—You have to turn the water off to the hose connection in the yard so the pipes won’t freeze—There is a little drain at the shutoff that should be opened, too—
A HOUSE WITH TREES
My God, what’s wrong with us?
—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (August 1968)
My thanks to you all and now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there—And Philip weeping, the story goes, Philip weeping, he can’t stop weeping, kneels down to explain to Miriam’s stomach that—contrary to what he or she inside there might be thinking now—the world, in addition to housing murderous rampagers, has, among other things, zoos, peacocks, and begonias. And Miriam laughed. She laughed through her own tears, even though all along she’d been for Gene McCarthy. Like a lot of people, Miriam loved Bobby more, so much more in newborn death than she ever did when he was alive.
“Now we’re stuck with Humphrey,” Philip said to her stomach. “And we know what Tricky Dick will do to him.”
Still laughing, crying—Miriam—and then she wasn’t laughing.
“Phil?”
“Yeah?” (His lips still on her stoma
ch.)
“I want a house with trees. I want a house with trees and grass for the children. A lawn like a tablecloth.”
“All right.”
“Grass, lots of grass.”
“Okay.”
“A backyard and a front yard.”
“Got it.”
105 RIPARIAN LANE
We hear some very fine people are a bit disturbed over the settlement among us of some excellent families of the Hebrew faith. Tastes do differ, but why object to the sons and daughters of Abraham? We don’t object to them, rather we commend them, for they pay their bills one hundred cents on the dollar every time and pay promptly and cheerfully any obligations they make… We will welcome the Hebrews here.
—Sheridan Road Newsletter, March 15, 1901
… and so northward to the new Jerusalem. It was what certain Chicago Jews did. When your time came, you migrated from the city to the North Shore.
Those who had the money went to Highland Park. Jews who didn’t have means (the migrators liked to tell themselves) either stayed put in Rogers Park or they went north and inland away from the lake, to Skokie.
The young Popper family had the money and they didn’t deviate. Plus, Seymour and Bernice had already paved the way to Highland Park, years before.
The moving van—a stuffed green Mayflower—creeps up the Kennedy Expressway, northward. Philip, Miriam, Leo, and the baby—Alexander. Having been delivered prematurely at Michael Reese Hospital in October of 1968, five and a half pounds, four ounces, the new kid was promptly robbed of his birthright. So long, Chicago, I never even knew ye.
The Poppers follow their furniture, giddy, apprehensive, beloved city shrinking behind them. The problem with any Promised Land is what you do after you get there.