by Ric Klass
Loud laughs at Ronnie’s expense from Coco, absurd apologies of “I thought you were the maid” from Harriet, and No wonder you can’t keep help thoughts by Ronnie precede Ron’s polite boot out the door and Harriet’s unmistakable command, not suggestion:
“Coco, why don’t you and Ronnie go for a drive? Now.”
This is my chance, simultaneously occurs to both sexes of the expelled couple. Coco slides into Ron’s Jaguar convertible. “Ronnie, take out your cell phone.” He obeys, knowing he’s found himself in the eye of a Topler family hurricane. “Call this number and tell the man who answers to turn around and not come home today.” A few rings and the deed’s done. Both Ron and Coco’s antennae crackle with the electricity of the moment. They peer deep into each other’s business-trained eyes: “Have you ever seen the beautiful view of Long Island Sound from the Hampton Hideaway Motel, Ronnie?” Both engines, the XKR’s and Ron’s, roar into gear hell-bent for the sex snuggery.
Am I Too Old for White?
contemplates Elaine after her call to Harriet. Maybe I should go for a hot pink wedding dress. Something daring but still demure. She took the afternoon off from LFOD and now searches carefully for wrinkles in the motel mirror, to her satisfaction. Her daily pounds of hypoallergenic, citrus aurantium dulcis (orange peel oil) beauty creams have paid for themselves in near perfect skin. In addition, her regular dose of megavitamins, careful – mostly – dieting, and exercise routine casts from the looking glass the youthful figure of a woman at least ten years younger than her less-than-springtime real age.
Now the jackpot’s paid off. Maybe big-time. The thought, Only God’s CPA knows what Albert’s really worth, brings goose bumps between her still creamy – thanks to gobs of Retin-A – thighs. Even if Harriet gets half, there’s got to be plenty left. She takes a long very hot – then very cold – shower and considers what might be the timing of Albert’s divorce and her marriage to him. Now turning to honeymoon plans while applying eyeliner: The poor thing needs a long vacation. With him it’s either his business or seeing me here, which lately has been work for him, too. I thought he was having a Nelson Rockefeller heart attack the last time, and today his recently unreliable worm died on me.
The roar of a purebred, souped-up convertible motor outside her window interrupts her long dallying and daydreaming.
A man’s voice floats its way into Elaine’s room. “I can redial to find out if I want to. You had me call your dad, didn’t you, Coco? Why?”
“Coco?” and why indeed? Elaine asks herself.
I’ve Been Betrayed
but by whom? ponders Harriet. She waits with Sugarbush until 9 PM for Albert’s coup de grâce. Finally, a light bulb goes on and she calls security.
“Mr. Topler pulled in and turned around real quick like hours ago, Mrs. Topler.”
Then her uncharacteristically unladylike to the P.I., “Don’t call me again or send me a bill until you can tell me what’s going on,” casts the private investigator into the cloudy night with the Pella French door slamming shut behind him.
She methodically ticks off the suspects. Elaine? No, that nafka set it up in the first place. Sugarbush? No, not that dimwit, and he stood to make a nice bonus. Daniel? The dear can’t know anything about this. And then drifting off to maternal matters, I just must pay him a visit at that place. He has to think horribly of me for ignoring him. But I’ve been so busy. I hope they keep him there long enough so that I can fit it into my schedule. Maybe I should at least call. Back to business. Ronnie? No, he just arrived by happenstance and, I think, actually believed I would grab my maid by the blouse and drag her to the floor. He’s a bit stupid like his father. I don’t care if he did land some fancy job in the city. Coco? Harriet’s mind grinds to a complete halt.
Coco. Is Coco taking sides against me, her own mother? When she knows how I’ve suffered with that lout? Harriet’s sorry now she didn’t record the call from Elaine as evidence. In any event, Enough’s enough. I’m getting rid of him and will take the bastard for all he’s got. Harriet’s machinations cease for now as she answers a call from a certain art professor who claims he adores her but has never proven it. She makes a mental note to call Dolores later to ask her husband, a prominent real estate attorney, for a divorce lawyer suggestion.
Only One Block
away from home – Albert hears a conspiratorial James Bondlike order, “Turn around and don’t come home today.” – but from whom? He suddenly torques his Mercedes away from some disaster – but what? the fugitive asks himself. He almost hits a fire hydrant and drives onto the grass of Fran Duckworth’s house – he knows he’ll never hear the end of his knocking over the old maid’s fucking alabaster pink flamingos. A quick decision to call later to make amends. Al backs off the ravaged lawn and murdered plaster wading birds, then tears off out of the gated compound to find somewhere he can get plastered himself.
Whatever the particulars, he knows his and Harriet’s marriage has finally gone kaput. He veers to the exclusive Northeastern Shore Country Club where forty years ago he was the first member of Polish background to be allowed in. Formerly only Yankee and German-Jewish families of culture passed muster, but expenses had risen dramatically, making admission of the newly rich seem more palatable. Besides, Jonathan Schwartz, a respected Island attorney, and his wife Dolores paved the way for the Toplers. Not Lower East Side Manhattan types, they personally vouched. And Harriet’s lineage is prominently displayed in The History of American Jewry. Thusly, decades ago a junkyard man maneuvered onto the club’s manicured grounds and now changes his torn trousers for green golf shorts in his seven-foot-tall oaken cubby at the rear end of the men’s locker room.
Over time, Albert’s open and sociable disposition made him a popular member. He’s welcome on the golf course where he never fails to treat all comers to drinks at the nineteenth hole. He’s retained the same gift of gab and sunny temperament that primed strangers to do business with him when he first set out for himself as a twenty-four-year-old. His winning personality still makes him popular wherever he goes – except at home.
A call to his links partner, Jonathan, “What now, Jon?” Albert takes the suggestion to stay in one of the few overnight guest rooms of the club and calls a recommended divorce law firm. Jonathan’s no marital law expert, but he advises Al to stay away from any woman who could get dragged into the proceedings and maybe cost him tens of millions – and, “Yeah, of course I won’t mention anything to Dolores. Geez, we’re best buds and both men!”
Now Albert’s thoughts turn to romance. Not see her? The thought of upsetting Elaine, too, makes Al reach for the Pepto-Bismol Chewable Tablets he’s carried with him nonstop ever since their first steamy afternoon at the Hampton Hideaway Motel.
Dr. Bernstein’s Not Smiling
this time as he leans over prostrate and nearly comatose Dan. “I could send you directly to Bellevue Hospital and lock you up in a straitjacket for the next year. Or I could tie you up and have Linda spoon feed you your meals. The former WWE pro wrestler who’s been assigned to you as your CA will change your potty for you – when he remembers. Is that what you want?” Bernstein shakes with anger, making him feel as sick as his patient. “Don’t you know you could have died right here in front of me, you little moron?”
“I liked you better as Dr. Frankenstein than your new role as Nurse Ratched,” gasps Dan, coming to. The physical agony still pervading every nerve hasn’t shaken the smart aleck out of him. “Doc, I have an urgent question.”
“What is it now?”
“Do you think the Miss Universe that put me on this gurney will still go out with me?” Dan knows his priorities. “I upchucked all over her pink dress.”
Softening a bit, “At least it’s your favorite color. Why do you say she put you here?”
“I said no, Doc. I told her I couldn’t drink and she poured spirits down my throat anyhow. Don’t you love a gal that won’t take no for an answer?”
Handsome Dan melts down th
e doctor’s fury. “No, Daniel, I’m a sane adult. I don’t love women who want to kill me.” He walks to the door of the LFOD infirmary. “No matter how rotten you feel, Daniel, you should be able to get up and shower in a few hours. I still want you to attend tonight’s discussion group. This is your final chance from me or I’m shipping you off to Bellevue.” He then leaves without another word.
“A Little TLC
never hurt anyone,” Helen softly tells Danny while rubbing his hands. She waited until Dr. Bernstein’s daughter picked him up and drove away before bullying her way into his room. “Don’t mess with me,” Dan overheard her tell the night attendant in the hallway who foolishly tried to prevent her admittance. Even in his sorry state, her threat made him crack up.
“You called the ambulance didn’t you, Helen?”
“You’re such a silly child. I knew you wouldn’t stay put and peeked in your bedroom at midnight. When I saw the empty bed, I guessed you were probably at that ridiculous Bruce Langford’s house drinking like a damn sailor. I called him to check up on you just about when everybody went apeshit about your passing out. Pardon my language, sweetie.” The longshoreman posing as a gentle, white-haired old lady smiles at him.
“My buddies crack me up.”
“Uh huh. They’re not doing you much good. What you really need is love.”
He takes a long look at Helen and nods off. “Thanks, Mom,” he exhales, and then the sedative takes full effect.
Preparing for Battle
sums up his attitude. Dan finally awakens in his suite at 5 PM the next day. The phone gets him out of bed – a gourmet dinner’s on its way, compliments of Monsieur François – but in fact paid for by Albert’s house charge. He wolfs it down. He has no choice but to go to the meeting at the temple.
Before leaving, he picks up the flashing red-buttoned phone. A voice message from what sounds like a young girl, “Where the hell have you been today? Did you shave or do you still look like crap? If you didn’t come to the pool today because you don’t like me anymore then our (then in a whispered voice) secret deal is off and I don’t like you either.”
Oh, yeah. Ally.
The second message, “I just heard the dirt that they brought you back here in a police car cause you almost drowned in some pool around here but you didn’t die cause some girl gave you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation which I coulda done for you if you wanted me to and needed it though that sounds kind of yucky but that you’re OK now and still a spoiled punk. I almost drowned too so we’re probably better friends than ever huh so forget what I said before about not still having a you-know-what with each other.”
A spoiled punk? For Christ’s sake. Can’t I even get sick and die without the East Hampton Stasi maligning me and alerting the media?
Third message, “In case you didn’t know, the other two calls you heard where the person didn’t say who it was was me, Ally. Ally from the pool. Nurse Linda said we could have a date I mean see each other tomorrow. OK? See ya.”
At least somebody thought to call, Dan considers. I hope she’s OK, he thinks, but decides he doesn’t have time to call her back just now. The temple group’s on his mind. I’ll teach doc not to invite undesirables like me to meet his tired-out clique. The opposing ideas: Those meddlers should have let me die; and, But, I’m pretty lucky Helen called for help, scramble his brain. The key to his chariot lies waiting for him on the commode.
Later, traffic thins and he reaches fourth gear on the Long Island Expressway. The cogs in his mind spin endlessly about the past day and the meeting where he’s headed. His own mental motor grinds to a halt. I don’t know what the fuck to think anymore, ends the line of non-reasoning as he lays rubber into the Temple B’nai Israel parking lot, skidding to a complete stop. And it’s a good thing, too. Just now Dan can’t remember where he is or where he was going.
The Library
seems kind of cramped to Danny as he stands tentatively at the door, though only a few men lounge there shooting the bull. He scouts around before entering. A puffy couch and comfortably padded armchairs have been gathered in a circle in the middle of the room, evidently for the meeting. Dan’s first impressions: The men aren’t so old that the meeting seems like a visit to an old age home, but they’re not young either. Two men appear to be of an age that he could imagine himself having a conversation with them without thinking that they might collapse mid-sentence. Evidently I came early enough so that the meeting hasn’t started yet, Dan thinks. Rattled a bit. Will their rabbi be here?
Considerable relief no one wears a yarmulke or anything like that. In all, they’re pretty much normal, casually dressed, some in khakis, others in tan or olive explorer shorts – the ones with pockets everywhere. Mostly overweight. Only one seems to be in decent physical condition. Sort of like a gathering of dad’s brothers or his poker game. Men I would politely shake hands with if introduced to by Uncle Hy and then wait an appropriate time to sneak away without being rude. Not act rude? I haven’t attended a family function in so long that I forgot I could behave like a nice guy when required.
Coming here fills Dan with a strange combination of pleasant nostalgia and vehement rejection. Years ago his dad coerced him into completing the whole Sunday school and confirmation razzmatazz through the tenth grade – not even Albert with bribes of outrageous gifts could persuade him to be bar mitzvahed – the last time he ever set foot in a synagogue until now.
The library measures maybe twelve by twenty, surrounded on all sides by ceiling-height bookshelves with an eight-foot foldout table along one wall. Delicious smelling coffee steaming in a large silver urn on the table draws Dan near. Thank God it’s caffeinated. He almost tiptoes so as not to be drawn into the conversations.
“Daniel, grab a cup and come over here and meet the men,” calls Bernstein. Dan hadn’t spotted him when he came in and now panics and comes this close to hightailing it out the door. But he obeys instead and takes a chair as far away from the others as possible. The men politely nod at him and continue their conversations. Quite a large man updates the men on the latest e.r.a. statistics for the Yankees and Mets rosters. A flesh-and-blood Excel spreadsheet, Dan marvels. Travel and their grandchildren now dominate the gab. A few more men wander in, exchange greetings. Then, “OK, let’s get started. I think everyone’s here except Sam,” begins Jacob Bernstein – Jack, his friends call him. “We have a guest today, Daniel Topler, and, if there are no objections, maybe for some more sessions.” Dan cringes in the spotlight.
Noncommittal glances all around. A hefty but intense, confident, and intelligent-countenanced man of maybe seventy offers, “Certainly, why not?” Glen Sobel appears younger than his seventy-six years and holds the singular distinction in this crowd of still working full-time, and non-stop at that. Amiably taking off his Oakley glasses, “Jack, why does a young man like him want to commune with old fogies?”
Affecting a just noticeable wince, the hulking stat-spewing Barry approaches, vigorously shakes the newcomer’s hand. “Welcome. I’m finally not the youngster of this group.”
“Only 60. A baby,” cheerfully appends trim David Ansterman, an all-hair-still-in-place button-down-shirt preppy sort. He projects the adman image he still lives – reduced pitches per day notwithstanding.
Jack signals that the discussion is about to begin. Dan feels he has at last been called to action. Under no circumstances will this tribal medicine man expose him as some raving lunatic. He can very well do that for himself and will. Danny rises suddenly to tell these geezers just where they can get off, “You all should know. . . .”
Jack springs up, “Just a second, Daniel. Let me give the introduction,” guiding a somewhat unwilling Dan by the arm back into his chair. “Dan is one of my first-year medical school students at Stony Brook. He’s considering gerontology as a specialty and I thought by meeting you cranky sons of guns I might discourage him.” Laughs all around.
He’s pulled a fast one on me, Dan realizes. Then – I didn’t know h
e taught at medical school. Who is this guy?
“Why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves?” offers Jack.
And then nap time on our blankies, Dan doesn’t say aloud. Making fun of others has always been his best defense.
“Barry,” simply responds the smiling, imposing man across from Dan on the couch. Maybe because the immense six-three Barry is half lying down with his hairless belly slightly sticking out of an orange Lacoste polo shirt, he reminds Dan of a moronic, middleclass Buddha. Still, Dan reconsiders. A dimwit? No way. This guy spouts sports data like a human calculator. Everyone there is in line to collect an automatic Go directly to jail! Do not pass go! card from worldly Danny Boy.
Next, athletic and still wrinkle-less, “David Ansterman. Nice to meet you, Daniel.”
“You can call me Dan.”
“I’m a PR man with a couple of clients left. Here’s my card.” David stands up, crosses the oval that divides them and hands it to Dan who pretends to read it.
From Robert Vitriol, a recently retired Wall Street trader standing at the urn, “Hey, does anybody know how to make coffee? There’s only a little left and it’s cold. There isn’t any cream either. Can somebody go get it?”
“Yeah, your former secretary,” shouts Morton Mavis, a wiry, goateed 71-year-old. “Have her bring us some danish while she’s at it,” he grins at the others. His comment and tone carry with them Morty’s customary combo of humor and biting edge.
A startled Dan takes note that this evening might not just consist of discussing Dr. Katz’s Seven-Step Guide to Prostate Health. Or is it three steps on the TV ad?
“I don’t drink coffee anymore,” begs off Harry Rosenthal, the 68-year old former CPA and comparative youngster in this group. Daniel unconsciously reaches up and touches his hair while considering Harry’s round, bald crown, which gives the man a monk-like appearance.