What Goes Up

by Allen Weiner

  “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” Max responded with little conviction. “It’s just that I’m tired and have a lot on my mind.”

  Max had a lengthy history of not being able to safely extract himself from these encounters. He was hungry, wanted a strong cup of coffee, and wanted to be left alone.

  “Can we talk about it later, please?” Max pleaded.

  Max’s mother didn’t reply. Instead, she walked a few steps to their open kitchen and put together a hearty breakfast for her son. As Max dug into a plate of home fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, Harold Rosen came into the kitchen. The senior Rosen kissed his son on the top of his head and sat down across the kitchen table. Harold was not a coffee drinker, instead opting for a glass of V8 juice.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” Harold Rosen said between sips. Max’s mother served her husband the same breakfast, adding a piece of rye toast to the plate. As she placed the dish in front of him, she whispered something into her husband’s ear.

  “Listen, I’m finished,” Max said, clearly not in the mood for any sort of family discussion about his career. “I’m going downstairs to look for the winter coat that I left here.”

  Max’s mother was about to say something, but Harold raised his hand toward his wife, indicating it was best to let their son go to the basement and think things through. Looking for his coat, which was actually in an upstairs closet, was just an excuse to be alone.

  The Rosens’ five-year-old home was a duplex with a good-sized basement. When Max was in college, and then later in graduate school, it was his domain. A large oak desk faced a picture window looking out at the backyard, and a red and gold sofa—a relic from their previous home—sat against a wall on the right side of the room.

  Max remembered everything he ever wrote on the monstrosity of a desk at the bottom of the stairs that sat thirty feet straight ahead. His first paycheck was a hundred dollars for an op-ed he wrote on the future of media that ran in the Hartford Courant just one year before. He sent the finished piece to thirty newspapers, never expecting to get a single bite. But, when the Courant accepted his work, Max knew he had found his calling. That op-ed was part of a portfolio his mother had put together of everything he had published, including the series on chemical dumping for the Chronicle that put him on the map.

  Max sat down at the desk and lifted the protective sleeve that sat on the IBM Selectric—the same kind he used at work—and remembered how that electric typewriter changed his life. He reached down and opened the large file cabinet drawer and pulled out a folder overflowing with paper. Each piece of paper was a rejection letter from a newspaper Max had applied for full-time work. There were a hundred sheets in all, but on sheet number one hundred—the last one in the stack—was the Chronicle’s response offering him an interview for a full-time job.

  The nostalgia hour wrapped up as Max reached for the phone that sat on the far corner of the desk. He had two calls to make, both to people he knew should be home and available Christmas Day, as they were Jewish.

  “Hey Barrett,” Max said, with anger rising in his voice. “What kind of idiot wears a luxury winter coat over a janitor’s uniform to pull off a clandestine operation?”

  “Merry Christmas to you too,” Barrett replied, none too happy about the reprimand. “You weren’t there. It was freakin’ cold, and there was no heat in the lobby of City Hall.”

  “Well, thanks to you, I am in deep shit. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. I am home today and tomorrow. Let me see how today goes, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “Whatever. Happy Hanukah,” Barrett replied with deep sarcasm and hung up.

  Max’s next call was to Norm Weiss, his friend who used his legal prowess to throw the book at Anderson Trucking for its chemical dumping role.

  Norm was not home, so Max left a brief message on his friend’s answering machine asking him to call back as the matter was urgent and private.

  Max sat on the red couch in the basement that graced the previous Rosen house for many years before his parents moved to this new home. This family heirloom of sorts was long enough for Max to stretch out and sleep, which he had done on more than one occasion. Those were memories not worth digging up, so Max went back upstairs just as he heard the front door open, signifying the arrival of his sister, Nancy.

  Even if he was unwilling to acknowledge it, the day of family togetherness did him a lot of good. Max and Nancy talked about their all-time favorite Hanukkah gifts—Max’s was his first Strat-O-Matic baseball board game while Nancy’s was the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album right after it came out in 1967. Neither sibling grasped the meaning of the songs or their social implications, but given that the Beatles were the soundtrack of their youth, they just loved the music.

  Before a dinner of corned beef, oven-roasted potatoes, fresh string beans, and salad, Max wanted to call Barrett and apologize to him for his earlier outburst.

  “Now what did I do?” Barrett answered, half-joking.

  “I’m sorry about before. When I tell you the entire story, you’ll understand why I was so angry. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “I was thinking about going to Atlantic City to play blackjack, but I think I’m banned from most of the casinos,” Barrett replied, boasting about his notoriety.

  “How about we meet for lunch before you go? My treat.”

  “Sure, why don’t you grab some Chinese food and bring it over,” Barrett said, knowing all too well his lifelong friend hated every type of Asian cuisine.

  “Funny guy. I’ll surprise you.”

  Before dinner, the Rosens lit the candles for the second night of Hanukkah. It was Max’s job to recite the blessings. His mother’s usual comment was she wanted to see if the money they spent on religious school paid off. After many years of hearing the same line, Max chose to ignore the remark.

  Max brought holiday gifts for his parents and sister and laid them on the dining room table. He got the new cookbook for his mother, Julia Child & Company, which was based on the French Chef’s new TV show. He had a pouch of imported pipe tobacco for his father—something that caused his mother to shake her head—and for his sister, he bought a new cassette player.

  Everyone in his family chipped in and bought Max a beautiful leather briefcase for Hanukkah. Unlike the one he had, which resembled a small suitcase, this one was made of soft imported leather and had a strap so it could be slung over his shoulder. Max loved it but couldn’t help thinking about his new gift’s value if he lost his job . . . or worse.

  The family gathered around the living room and their new color TV and watched a rerun of M*A*S*H, followed by WKRP in Cincinnati. Afterward, Nancy said her goodbyes, and the Rosens—who considered 10 p.m. the middle of the night—got ready for bed. Max said goodnight to his parents and thanked them for the gift.

  Once his parents left the living room, the warm spirit of the day also left. The headwinds facing Max were overwhelming, and any solution to avoid the wrath of Joe Taylor while fulfilling his commitment to the newspaper seemed out of reach. Max got up from the living room couch and did something most would consider odd that gave him comfort in times of stress—he sat down in the corner between the living room and dining room with his back flush against the wall.

  With Taylor holding Max’s future in his hands, the young reporter felt scared and vulnerable. Fighting against that object panic was a conflicting feeling of strength and power that inspired him. In what amounted to an episode of fight or flight, Max decided it was time to get beyond the looming, palpable threat and use his brain and courage to beat the odds. He would find a chink in Taylor’s armor and be the co-author of a tremendous story of greed and corruption.

  For Max, his time putting himself in the corner felt like ten minutes, but it was a full hour. In the cool air of the Rosen house—his parents rarely turned the heat on—Max was soaked with sweat. It was as if his inner engine worked overtime and created a massive amount of excess heat.

/>   After a brief shower, Max crawled into bed with a plan—at least the framework of a plan. He would need to meet with Barrett and Norm Weiss to fill in some of the gaps. If things went his way, Max would head back to Nesquehoning on the twenty-seventh with a course of action. He did not have any other choice.

  There were some loose ends to tie up when he got back to Carbon County. Max had to come up with an explanation to Jack Devlin about delaying the story, and then there was the heads-up for his reporting partner Aaron Grant. That could be tricky; Max wanted to tell him the truth, or some version of it. And then there was Sue. Max wasn’t sure what to tell her since she was spotted in the city hall lobby. Max put a Sue update at the bottom of his pile of major issues for at least the current moment.

  After breakfast with his parents the morning after Christmas, Max said he had plans to visit Barrett before lunch. His parents had known Barrett for as long as their son had and considered the former-attorney-turned-hustler a good man and loyal friend to Max. Max’s mom and dad told Max to send Barrett their regards.

  Max stopped at Brooklyn Bagels on Bustleton Avenue and picked up a dozen assorted, a small amount of lox, and some cream cheese. He knew Barrett missed Sunday breakfasts with his parents, who had left Philadelphia for Florida’s sunny weather. He saw them only a few times each year, finding the wall-to-wall elderly Jewish people of Miami depressing.

  There was no traffic to speak of, so it took Max only twenty-five minutes to get to Barrett’s condo, which overlooked the Delaware River. With the two-bedroom place came a picturesque view of beautiful Riverton, New Jersey, a borough known for forbidding alcohol sale. Barrett got his unit before the complex was complete and was looking to sell it when the price was right.

  Max knew the code to the condo building’s front entrance and made his way to the top floor where Barrett lived. Max knocked on the door, and ever the wiseass, Barrett replied, “If that’s the Avon Lady, I’m out of toilet water.” Max’s friend opened the door in hysterics, laughing at his rather lame joke.

  “Hey Barrett, remember the time we saw George Kirby perform at the hotel in Puerto Rico? You couldn’t get over how funny he was.”

  “Your point being?”

  “You’re no George Kirby. Don’t quit your day job. Wait, you don’t have a day job.”

  The banter was short-lived. Max and Barrett sat at the kitchen table, and Max watched while his friend devoured a poppyseed bagel with cream cheese and lox. Barrett didn’t usually have much of an appetite in the mornings, but he ate this late breakfast as if he hadn’t eaten in several days. While his friend munched away, Max filled him in on Taylor’s Christmas Eve bombshell. Barrett put his bagel down, wiped his face with a napkin, and interrupted Max.

  “Did this guy see me plant the FM transmitter in the elevator?”

  “No, he didn’t. Come to think of it, even if he got a call from the lobby, how did Taylor know to look for a transmitter in the elevator? There’s something here we’re missing regarding this guy Bull, the mayor, and this story we’re planning on running.”

  “I have something that might help. I called my parents last night down in Miami—by the way, they send their regards—and told my dad a little bit about our little scheme,” Barrett said, hoping Max wouldn’t interrupt him. “My dad had a lot of political friends in Philadelphia when he was a lawyer and said the story of the mayor and his more-than-able assistant reminded him of a case from the past.”

  “I take it you didn’t tell him about the eavesdropping, did you?”

  “No, I made it seem like I was part of your investigatory work. He liked that. By the way, stop interrupting me. You’re going to like this.”

  “Proceed, Your Highness.”

  “Two similar cases were going on involving FBI stings in the early seventies. One became famous, called ‘Alscam,’ and the other had no name but involved Congressman Teitelbaum getting money under the table. Remember him? We went to Hebrew school with his kids.”

  “Right. There was a daughter your mother used to call ‘Nanny’ because she had a face like a goat.”

  “My father helped Teitelbaum get a job after he was arrested for taking a bribe to help rig the bid for a new wing of Albert Einstein Hospital. He lost his congressional seat when he got caught in a low-level FBI sting. He paid a big fine but never did any jail time. Alscam—the one in which FBI agents posed as wealthy Albanian businessmen wanting to get casino licenses—got the headlines. Both were elaborate FBI stings.”

  “And?” Max said when he realized Barrett was done with his story.

  “My dad said it’s worth talking to some people who work for the mayor to see what’s behind Donahue’s alleged wrongdoing. Someone might be trying to set someone else up. Not sure if a third party is setting up the mayor or Taylor.”

  Max sat, processing everything his friend told him. He added these new threads to the massive array of events—past and present—involving Donahue, Taylor, or the Lehigh County Democratic Party. And then there are possible bribes to the recently relocated toy manufacturer and typewriter companies from local unions. Max realized he needed the assistance of a more experienced reporter to do some sorting of the facts, and he immediately knew Tex was the man for the job.

  Barrett motioned Max into the living room where a Franklin Sports table hockey game sat on a table in the middle of the room, the version in which two players pulled levers back and forth to move the players and puck from end to end.

  “Before you leave, we have to play one game,” Barrett said with an ear-to-ear grin. “It’s a relic from our youth. Remember, we used to play in my basement after I beat you in table tennis.”

  “Do you have the Doors album we used to listen to?”

  “Glad you asked.” Barrett walked over to his stereo console and flicked it on.

  You know the day destroys the night

  Night divides the day

  Tried to run

  Tried to hide

  Break on through to the other side . . .

  Max smiled. Some things are worth remembering.

  The third night of Hanukkah is usually not a big deal in Max’s family. But, with Max’s recent success, his parents wanted to show their praise. His mother cooked a brisket—avoiding the traditional Jewish-style onion soup mix braise—but more like the way such things are done in Texas. While his mother had never been to Texas, she adopted the low and slow method by using an old cast iron pot and placing it on a gas grill in the backyard. Even in December, the Rosens made good use of the Weber they got as a gift when they had purchased their new home.

  A dinner of moist, savory down-home style brisket and potato latkes was a nice send-off for Max. Knowing her son would be leaving early in the morning, Max’s mother wrapped the leftovers for him to take back to Nesquehoning after dinner. In addition to placing the food in a brown paper shopping bag, she slipped in a note with a big red heart on it, telling him how proud she was of his work.

  Max wanted to get going early on Wednesday morning, the twenty-seventh. He was up and out the door before eight o’clock while his parents were still asleep—or pretending to be asleep to save him the embarrassment of a touch-feely goodbye. Max grabbed a bagel, popped it in the toaster, and then lightly buttered it on one side to eat during his journey.

  Max had stopped by his apartment to drop off his clean laundry and leftovers before making his way to the office. There were no other reporters around because, with their seniority, most had enough vacation time to take off from Christmas through New Year’s. There was only one colleague Max was interested in seeing.

  “Tex, sorry to bother you at home,” Max said, speaking from his desk at the bureau. “I need to see you in a fairly important matter. Is there any way you can spare an hour or two for me today?”

  “Well, yeah,” Tex responded in a somewhat affected drawl. “My in-laws are here, and I’m looking for an excuse to get away. Where should we meet?”

  Max thought for a moment. “Can we mee
t at my apartment around three? I can do later if that’s better.”

  “No, my friend. Three works.”

  Max had three hours to make a list of all the puzzle pieces he hoped Tex could help him unravel. As a grad student, Max learned a lot about research, so he made a rough Venn Diagram with overlapping circles. Each circle had a name or action in it, such as Mayor Donahue in Springfield in one circle, Joe Taylor finds FM transmitter in another . . . and so on. At that point, Max realized he’d have to tell Tex everything that happened dating back to putting the eavesdropping device in the elevator at the Carbon county courthouse and how it led to Chris Albrecht’s arrest and a prison sentence.

  At two o’clock, with several sheets of legal paper in his brand-spanking-new briefcase, Max headed home, making a quick stop at Weis Market to grab some beer and snacks for his guest. Before Tex arrived, he wanted to straighten up and set up a card table in the middle of the living room. The card table was a family relic once used at family cookouts. It came with two folding chairs that Max kept in his bedroom closet for rare occasions when he had more than two guests.

  Tex arrived at three o’clock on the button. He parked his luxury car a block away to avoid getting his precious wheels dinged. Tex was a man with many passions in life, but none topped his love for his BMW. Even in the dead of winter, the car was immaculately detailed, looking like it just came out of the showroom.

  Tex took the steps two at a time and saw Max poke his head out of the apartment. “Hey, man, nice to see you. You saved my life; my in-laws were ready to show slides from their trip last month to New York City. It was the first time they’d ever been there.”

  Max welcomed in and handed him a cold Yuengling, Tex’s favorite beer.

  “So, what’s all this?” Tex asked, pointing at the stack of paper on the card table. “Are you writing a book about your memoirs? It’s a little early, no?”

  “Sit down; I have a long story to share,” Max replied, waving Tex over to the couch.