My Old Man

by Amy Sohn

  THE inside of my parents’ house smelled sickeningly sweet. My mom was in the kitchen mixing the tsimmes, wearing a black-and-white plaid belted dress, stockings, and heels. “What’s in the oven?” I said.

  “Honey cake,” she said.

  “Happy New Year,” I said, trying to sound normal.

  “Shanah Tovah to you too.” She took in my face, frowned, and put the back of her hand on my forehead. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You look a little pale.”

  “I’m wearing base.” I snuck a peek at the kitchen clock. Twenty to seven. I hoped he came soon, which meant I really hoped Liz did.

  “So where’s Dad?”

  “He said he was going to be a little late. He wanted to stop off at the bookstore and pick up some programming books. He’s trying to update his skills to meet the needs of the new technology market.”

  What a snake. Then again, knowing him, there was a good chance he really had stopped off at the bookstore on the way over to Liz’s. He’d pried Adobe for Dummies from the stack when he spotted Adultery for Dummies and decided to buy that instead.

  I glanced at the door, willing him to come through. I severely doubted he’d do a postcoital linger; he knew how important this dinner was to my mom. Then again, he was right at this very moment kicking it to an anorexic chippie; it wasn’t fair to say I knew much about anything anymore.

  “Did you bring the wine?” my mom asked.

  I did a V8 smack to the head. The one time I had a decent excuse for forgetting something I couldn’t even share it. It was just my luck. What was I supposed to say? “No, I didn’t. See, I heard Dad ejaculating and kind of lost my head”?

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I forgot. You want me to run out now?”

  “Never mind,” she said, with the hint of exuberance she always showed when I let her down. She might never be a rabbi or even a star student but she could always beat me when it came to practical matters, to matters of the home. “I’ll call Dad.”

  “I don’t think you should do that,” I said quickly, running over to her as she went to the phone.

  “Why not?”

  “Because—I’ll just go out, OK?”

  “He’s on his way,” she said, picking up the phone. “Lemme tell him.”

  I heard his keys in the door. “I’m ho-ome!” he shouted, like a mental Ward Cleaver. He strode in with a huge shit-eating grin, which I hoped was just metaphorical, given Liz’s predilections.

  “You look beautiful,” he told me, planting a big one on my cheek.

  “She’s wearing base,” my mother said.

  He ran up to my mom and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. “Shanah tovah, my precious,” he said.

  She spun around and gave him a funny look like she wasn’t used to such attentiveness. He took a brown bag from under his arm and withdrew a bottle of red. “I thought we might be out,” he said.

  It was totally unthinkable: his affair was making him a better husband, not a worse one. He was acting like a more honorable family member than me.

  He sidled up next to me, as I began setting the table, and said, “I mean you really look lovely. I don’t know whether it’s this new man in your life”—I flashed him a look to see if he was being sarcastic but he just smiled like our whole fight in the movie theater had never happened—“or what, but you really seem like you’re glowing. You’re so radiant, so alive.” He stood behind me and massaged my shoulders. I flinched like Ted Danson’s daughter in the Very First Prime-Time Movie on incest.

  He retrieved a bottle opener from the top drawer and uncorked the wine ceremoniously. “I cannot tell you how happy I am at this moment,” he said, pouring a glass and filling one for her and one for me. “To be here, on this perfect night, with the two most beautiful women in the world.” They held their glasses in the air and sipped.

  “That’s really good,” said my mom.

  As I laid out the challah I spotted something very strange on the floor under the table. It was a big white box that said “iBook.”

  “What is this?” I said.

  “Dad bought it the other day,” my mom said, spinning around.

  “You bought a Mac?” My father had been a PC guy since the days when PCs were the only computers that existed. He learned how to program on a computer the size of a wall. His favorite pastime was taking apart old Compaqs and putting the hard drives in new ones. At any given moment he had thirty half-dismantled computers strewn all over his office.

  “I figured it was time to make the switch,” he said. “I want to get into Web site designing and the graphics programs work so much better on Macs.” He raised the box and ran his finger over the picture. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  “But you hate Macs!” I said. “When I told you I was using one in the computer lab at Wesleyan you didn’t speak to me for a week.”

  “And you told me I was antiquated and stubborn, which I have now realized was completely true. Macs are the way of the future.” Liz’s influence was stronger than a million “Switch” commercials. One pussy hair could pull an entire ship.

  Couldn’t my mother see how unusual he was acting? A PC-to-Mac transfer was better proof of infidelity than lipstick on the collar.

  “The food smells so delicious!” he pronounced, running up to her again. “Do you know who this woman is? This is the Ringling Brothers of Women. The greatest wife on earth!”

  “Let me vomit,” I said.

  “Give your mother a little credit!” he said, frowning. “Look how hard she’s working, slaving over this meal! You shouldn’t take your mother for granted, especially on this of all nights! Wake up and smell the tsimmes!” He lifted two pot lids from the counter and clanged the two of them together like a dork.

  My mom giggled and grabbed the lids from him. He put his mouth on her neck and gave her a big sloppy kiss.

  I wanted to bolt for the door. I always thought if a guy cheated he’d be tormented by it, racked with guilt, but the strangest thing about my father’s infidelity was that it was turning him into a generous person.

  “Would you cut that out?” I said.

  “Can’t I show your mother a little affection? Come on, Rach. Get in the spirit of the holiday.”

  “She’s not going to services,” my mom announced triumphantly, as she set the brisket on a trivet in the center of the table.

  “What do you mean you’re not going?” my dad said, losing his faux chipper tone for the first time all night.

  “I just don’t see the point in going through the motions,” I replied dully.

  “Going through the motions?” he said, his voice rising. “You’re going to abandon synagogue the same way you abandoned rabbinical school? Just like that?”

  “Yep.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense! I know you’re doing some soul-searching but not to go to synagogue with your parents on the holiest night of the year?”

  “Second holiest. Kol Nidre’s the holiest.”

  “Why are you doing this? To hurt your mother?”

  “No! I just—I can’t go through with it. Nobody feels guilty for the bad things they’ve done.” I gave him an even, steady gaze but he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Nobody actually keeps any of their resolutions.”

  “That’s not true,” he said. “I vowed last year to control my temper better and I have. Right, Sue?” She nodded emphatically. Of course he was controlling his temper; he had nothing to be mad about anymore.

  “Look, I’m not going to services and I’m never getting ordained. And the sooner you both realize that, the better it’ll be for everyone.”

  They silently exchanged the kind of worried, fed-up glances they’d exchanged for most of my teenage years, and then my mother set some glasses on the table and my father kneaded his forehead self-pityingly. “Well,” he said. “I just hope Mom can get a refund on the ticket.”

  After we sat down he tapped his g
lass with his fork and said, “I’d like to propose a toast.” My mom raised her glass happily and I lifted mine too.

  “To the two most beautiful women in the world,” he said regally. “And a new year filled with love, happiness, and prosperity.”

  “That’s a laugh,” I snorted as they clinked. “We’re totally poor.”

  “We’re not poor,” my mom said.

  “Yes we are,” I said. “Four months on one income is a long time.”

  “Three and a half,” he said.

  “Maybe you should just throw in the towel, Dad, and retire early. I mean what are the chances of a fifty-five-year-old getting a job out there in this economy? You’re banging your head against a brick wall.”

  “I can’t believe the way your daughter talks to me,” he said.

  “She’s not my daughter,” my mom said. “She’s yours.”

  “That was really mean,” I said.

  “If you’re not honoring your parents,” my mom chimed in, “why should your parents honor you?” He put up his hand and the two of them jubilantly high-fived.

  She asked him to serve the brisket and as he speared a few pieces onto her plate, he had a weird twinkle in his double-crossing eyes.

  “So how was your interview today?” she asked.

  “Very promising,” he said.

  “A computer job?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said, lowering his head slightly.

  “What, then?”

  “Personal assistant,” he said.

  “For who?”

  “Susan Sarandon.”

  “What? Why are you interviewing for a job like that?”

  “Gosh ding it, Rach! You don’t even ask the important questions! I waited for her under a Warhol. An original. I am telling you, this woman is as beautiful now as she was in Atlantic City. More. I had to hold myself back from jumping across the table.” My mom rolled her eyes the way she always did when he made jokes about other women, but this time it didn’t seem so funny to me.

  “How’d you find out about this anyway?”

  “She put a classified in The Nation. She felt it was important the person share her politics.”

  “What are the responsibilities?”

  “I’m supposed to help her with scheduling, light grocery shopping, and some computer work.”

  “But you can’t take orders.”

  “I could take orders from Susan Sarandon!” he said. He was going down the tubes in every department. Kissing Liz’s ass on a nightly basis was enough to make him kiss the world’s.

  “Why would you want to do something like this?”

  “Advancement.”

  “But you’re middle-aged. By the time you’re ready to advance you’ll be dead.”

  “Try to be more charitable,” my mom said. “There’s nothing wrong with him keeping an open mind.”

  “You should listen to your mother,” he said.

  “Why are you acting so schizo, Dad?”

  “What do you mean, schizo?” he Haskelled.

  “You treat her like shit ninety-nine percent of the time and then you come in here acting all Father Knows Best.”

  “He doesn’t treat me like shit!” my mom said.

  “You said he was being a total jerk about your menopause! You said he was making you feel lousy about it!” Her face turned red.

  “You think I’m being a jerk about your menopause?” he asked, wounded.

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “It’s OK,” he said genteelly. “I know I have been less than pleasant to be around these last few months. But in the interest of making reparations on this holy night, inasmuch as that is possible, let me make a resolution.” He took her hand. “I am going to work really hard not to be a lousy sonuvabitch in any way this year.”

  “And me too,” she said. “I will try really hard to control my emotions, and accept that my Change can be a good thing.” I eyed the challah, wondering whether I could fit the entire loaf into my mouth. He reached for her palm and kissed it. “Get a room,” I muttered.

  My mom yanked her hand out of his and grabbed my arm. “You know what?” she spat. “I wanted us all to be together tonight but if you’re going to keep this up for the rest of dinner, I’d rather you just went home.”

  “Fine!” I yelled, hurling my napkin onto the table and running to the door. My life had sunk to a sad new low. I was the only child in the history of the Jewish people to get booted from Rosh Hashanah dinner with the fam.

  Outside I started running. I ran and ran and ran toward Smith Street. I thought about Jeremiah as I raced and how he hated being a prophet, hated knowing what he’d known. But even he never had to hear his father ejaculating through a cheap door.

  I kept running, trying to block it all out, but I was so out of shape that I had to stop after just a few blocks to rest. I put my hands on my knees, panting, right in front of the Serenity Hair Plus Salon, and as I did I saw something small and furry scamper right toward me. I yelped and jumped back. It stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, disoriented, then disappeared down into the subway grate. Just my luck. It was the year of the rat.

  Relationship Rescue

  WHEN I got home I lay on the bed and thought about Powell. I felt certain that if he loved me everything else would fall into place. I had to try not to panic, not to assume it was over. He was finishing Who Killed My Wife? He didn’t have time to spend with a psycho twentysomething bartender. He wasn’t blowing me off. He was just a Very Important Person.

  I went to the closet, took out my racerback dress, and smelled it. There was a faint whiff of Powell on it, masculine and musky. I threw myself on the bed, held it over my face, and sniffed in deeply. I didn’t want to be lying alone in my bed thinking about him. I wanted him near me, whispering horrible things into my ear.

  The phone rang. I jumped and raced. “Hello?”

  “I was wondering if you could meet me at this party,” he said. There was a loud ambulance noise and I couldn’t hear anything he said. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m at a pay phone.”

  “Don’t you have a cell phone?”

  “No.”

  “What do you do when you go to LA?”

  “I try not to go to LA.”

  “Where’s the party?”

  “Julian Schnabel’s.”

  “On Rosh Hashanah? Shouldn’t he be at services?”

  “He’s not that kind of Jew.”

  “I can’t believe this!” I said. “Who’s going to be there?”

  “A lotta people.”

  “Who?”

  “I dunno. De Niro, maybe. Willem Dafoe.”

  “This is incredible,” I said. “I used to be a rabbi and now I’m going to a party with Jesus!”

  “If you’re gonna be like this maybe I should ask someone else.”

  “Just give me the address.”

  When I hung up I jumped up and down into the air a couple times and then opened my closet. I had to look like I wasn’t trying to be famous but I also had to look good. Powell was going to be walking me around on his arm and I had to come off as the kind of original, non-cookie-cutter eye candy that other men would approve of but at the same time respect. I put on a pink, yellow, and orange wraparound dress with split Oriental sleeves. It had a miraculous way of making my tits and ass look huge while keeping my waist slim. I put my hair in two low braids for originality and instead of lipstick I put on a little gloss.

  On the train ride over I stared up at the ads feeling intoxicated and antsy. The new year might turn out all right after all. He had invited me to Manhattan—and not only that but to a celeb-packed party. He couldn’t think I was a total whore.

  Schnabel lived in a converted factory in the meatpacking district. There was a coat check in the entryway, tended to by two women way too good looking to be checking coats.

  I climbed a set of concrete stairs and entered into a huge gaping space that was dimly lit, with paintings all over the walls an
d minimalist Renaissance décor. I felt a blinding flash of light on my face and then a photographer, an affable guy with greasy long hair, came up to me and said in a raspy voice, “I need to get your name.”

  “Rachel Block.” He frowned and gave me a look as though wondering whether it should ring a bell. “I’m not a boldname,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said, then walked away like I’d wasted his time.

  I looked around the room and saw Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed making their way around with a little dog that everyone was pretending to be interested in as a way of not seeming interested in the two of them. I felt someone bump into me and when I turned around I saw Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau coming in. Vince was getting fatter and Jon was getting skinnier. I wondered how their friendship was changing, if the power dynamic was the same as it had been at the beginning, how they felt about each other’s successes and failures. “Sorry,” Vince said. “Didn’t mean to bang you there.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Jon Favreau said, and they moved away.

  I made my way into a side room and saw Jim Jarmusch lying on a chaise chatting with Harvey Keitel. “You gotta go there in the winter,” Harvey was saying.

  Trying to act casual and normal in the presence of two living monuments to cinematic greatness, I sat down on a couch opposite them, dipped some olive bread into some ambiguous-looking sauce, and took a bite. “Whaddaya think?” Jim asked in his deep baritone.

  I almost choked. Jarmusch was the only filmmaker I respected as much as Powell and meeting him felt like meeting a president. “I-I’m not sure what it is,” I said. “I don’t even know if it’s a vegetable.”

  “Me neither,” he said. “And I don’t eat anything when I don’t know the food group.” I giggled a bit overzealously and they looked at me with tired eyes. Everyone here was a star or an onlooker and there was no doubt as to which group I fell in.

  “I like that dress,” Harvey Keitel said to me. I felt like asking if he wanted to rip it off me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It’s used. I mean, it’s vintage. But that’s really just a nice word for used. It was one of those dresses that you try on and then instantly have to have, you know? I’ve had to stitch the side and the underarm like three times because the thread is so corroded and old but—”