Prioritize, he must prioritize. The Commodore looked at Putzie. Could this pipsqueak really beat Mogie in a wrestling match?
“How confident are you, Mr. Paultz, in your abilities on the mat?”
“I had him beat in high school before he bit my neck. As long as he doesn’t cheat, I know I can beat him.”
The Commodore could not form a picture in his mind’s eye of Putzie Paultz, athlete. He certainly bore no resemblance to the statuary of Roman-Greco wrestlers the Commodore so favored. But the Commodore was desperate, and lacking another plan to rid himself of Mogie, he was stuck with Putzie and his puny biceps.
“Well now, we won’t have to worry about Mogie’s chair on our home turf, will we, Mr. Paultz? Nevertheless, you ought to commence a training regimen at once.”
THE GOYIM WERE RIGHT?
Raymond drove Putzie’s Buick at a crawl down Steam Boat Road. A long line rof cars honked their horns behind him, but Raymond didn’t care. He had a job to do—to make sure Putzie got his exercise in for the day. Mrs. Tannenbaume sat in the passenger seat. Neither Putzie nor Raymond asked her to come along but she insisted on coming. After all, as she pointed out, you don’t spend thirty-five years in education and not learn a thing or two about Phys. Ed.
“Don’t forget to breathe, Mr. Paultz,” Mrs. Tannenbaume yelled through the passenger window at the small man struggling to jog one block. Mrs. Tannenbaume’s regimen called for Putzie to jog a block and walk a block.
“One of Captain Tannenbaume’s fathers was a surfer,” she said through the window after Putzie pulled up for a breather. “That’s the kind of body you want. A surfer’s body. Picture a surfer in your mind’s eye as you jog.”
The long line of cars honked their horns when Raymond put the Buick in park to wait for Putzie, who panted alongside the car. “I don’t . . . know any . . . surfer.”
“Visualize!” Mrs. Tannenbaume barked at Putzie. “All great athletes use visualization!” She turned to Raymond. “It’s all about vision. You gotta have a vision or you’ll never succeed at anything.”
“I don’t have a vision,” Raymond said. “I’m just a Martinizer, remember?”
“Not just a Martinizer, dear. You’re the best Martinizer in all of New York.”
Raymond guided the Buick down Steam Boat Road while keeping his eye on the long line of cars in the rearview mirror. The cars were honking their horns more than ever now. Mrs. Tannenbaume kept an eye on Putzie. She watched him trip over a crack in the sidewalk. He was clearly getting tired.
“Look where you’re going, Mr. Paultz. The last thing we need now is an accident.”
The words were barely out of Mrs. Tannenbaume’s mouth when Putzie ran smack into a low-hanging maple branch and crumpled onto the sidewalk. Raymond did not see the crash because he was too busy looking in the mirror. Before Mrs. Tannenbaume could tell Raymond to stop the Buick so that they could rescue Putzie, Raymond drove into the rear end of a parked car.
To make matters worse, the parked car and the tree both belonged to Mrs. Tannenbaume. They had somehow managed to crash directly in front of her home.
The maple tree stood in the middle of Mrs. Tannenbaume’s front yard. A long gnarly branch had grown parallel to the ground, out across the front lawn, and dipped down low over the sidewalk. She had meant to do something about it for years but had somehow never gotten around to it. The branch was nine inches in circumference and stood exactly four and a half feet off the ground—face-high if you are Putzie Paultz.
Putzie lay motionless on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Tannenbaume’s house, his face bloody, his black eye patch askew, his Nike Air running shoes gleaming in their newness. Midshipman Jones, busy inspecting the wooden cross he had planted in Mrs. Tannenbaume’s front lawn, looked up when he heard Putzie’s head hit the pavement and then ran over when the Buick piled into Mrs. Tannenbaume’s VW Beetle. The Beetle was in mint condition. Mrs. Tannenbaume rarely drove it—she only took it out of the garage to park it on the street in front of the house every day. Midshipman Jones had told Mrs. Tannenbaume that it was a dangerous place to park her Beetle, but Mrs. Tannenbaume wouldn’t listen. She liked to look at it from out of her window, and besides, it kept just anyone from parking in front of her house.
Mrs. Tannenbaume got out of the passenger seat without a word. She stood on the sidewalk with her hands on her hips and surveyed the damage. The Buick had ripped off the Beetle’s chrome front bumper. She shook her head in disgust and then walked over to Putzie. She bent over and peeled back the eyelid on his good eye and peered into it. She turned to Midshipman Jones, who did not seem at all surprised that it was Mrs. Tannenbaume who had wrecked her own car.
“He’s out cold. You’d better drag him up onto the lawn.”
“I told you about that branch, Mrs. Tannenbaume,” Midshipman Jones said.
“I know, love. You told me to not park the Beetle on the street, too.”
Raymond got out of the driver’s seat and joined them on the front lawn. Raymond told Mrs. Tannenbaume how sorry he was for crashing into her Beetle. He told her that he was good with cars and that he would fix the Beetle good as new.
Mrs. Tannenbaume merely nodded. She was inspecting the wooden cross. “You think it’s sturdy enough to hold the Jesus?”
“Yes, ma’am. I used two bags of Sakrete.” Midshipman Jones grabbed the cross with both hands and shook it hard. “See? It doesn’t budge.”
“Ahh, excuse me, you two,” Raymond said. “Don’t you think we should do something with Mr. Paultz?”
Mrs. Tannenbaume looked down at Putzie lying on his back on the grass. “He’ll come to soon enough. The fresh air is good for him. In the meantime we might as well hang Jesus.”
The first time Midshipman Jones came to Mrs. Tannenbaume’s house, he and Mrs. Tannenbaume could not agree on the best way to nail the Jesus to the cross. Midshipman Jones thought it should be done while the cross was on the ground. Mrs. Tannenbaume wanted to plant the cross in the ground first, then nail the Jesus to it—she thought it would be more authentic that way. She did not want to do anything sacrilegious, what with Sister Mahoney acting funny about the papier-mâché Jesus in the first place.
Midshipman Jones had finally agreed to do it Mrs. Tannenbaume’s way, but by that time it was late and he needed to get back to the academy. He returned the next day, dug the hole, and planted the cross in the ground. He had come back today to hang Jesus. When she said he was doing more than he needed to, he replied that he was honored to be able to help Captain Tannenbaume’s mother. Apparently all the nice midshipmen loved her sonny boy.
Midshipman Jones grabbed the Jesus from under its armpits, hoisted it off the ground, and stood the Jesus up in front of the cross. “You mind giving me a hand?” he asked Raymond. “I’ll pick him up and put him in place if you’ll grab that hammer and nail him to the cross.”
Raymond put both hands to his mouth and stepped backward, tripped over Putzie, and fell flat on his back. He lay there on the ground and looked up at the life-size papier-mâché Jesus, fighting back tears.
“I . . . I . . . I . . . , I . . . I don’t think I can do that.” He broke down and started to cry.
Mrs. Tannenbaume snatched the hammer herself, stuck a few nails in her mouth, and said through the nails, “Hold him steady, son. I’ll nail him up.”
Mrs. Tannenbaume started with the feet. She often wondered, whenever she pondered the crucifix at St. Aloysius, why the Romans nailed Jesus’s feet to the cross. Was he kicking? Mrs. Tannenbaume asked Father McSorley about it once. “If Jesus died for our sins, then why was he kicking?”
“Jesus went to his death meekly,” Father McSorley told her. “A lamb to the slaughter.”
“Well, then why did they nail his feet down?”
Father McSorley told her it was for stability reasons, so that Jesus wouldn’t fall off the cross, which sort of made sense. Maybe.
Mrs. Tannenbaume grabbed hold of the Jesus’s feet. She was about to
hammer home a nail when she stopped. “You know, I don’t think Jesus needs a nail in his feet.”
“Nails in his feet will probably help stabilize him.”
“That’s what Father McSorley said. I don’t buy it. I think the only reason they nailed Jesus’s feet was because Jesus was trying to kick them in the teeth. Wouldn’t you kick like crazy if a bunch of people were trying to nail you to a cross? Father McSorley has got it all wrong. But then again the Catholics have got a bunch of things wrong.” Mrs. Tannenbaume waggled the hammer in Midshipman Jones’s face. “Like the fact that Father McSorley says his long-ago church Fathers told him to be celibate. I said to him, ‘Father, why would another man want you to be celibate?’ I told him I thought it was the typesetter’s fault. The church leaders way back when said the priests should celebrate. The knuckleheaded typesetter wrote celibate instead of celebrate, and because of that one simple typo, priests have been celibate for centuries! It makes you question their judgment. If they got duped on the question of whether or not to have sex, it makes you wonder what else they’re getting wrong. Father McSorley is a nice man and he tells a good homily but he’s got no saichel, getting duped like that.”
“Seh-kel?” Midshipman Jones said.
“Common sense.”
“Where do you get these words anyhow?”
“You hang around this town long enough you pick up a few expressions.” Mrs. Tannenbaume motioned for Midshipman Jones to hold the Jesus steady. “If you think nailing the Jesus’s feet to the cross will help stabilize him, well then, I’ll just put a few nails in his feet.”
Mrs. Tannenbaume nailed the Jesus’s feet and then held him up around the waist while Midshipman Jones nailed the Jesus’s wrists. The papier-mâché Jesus had red paint around the wrists and feet, so, in the end, Mrs. Tannenbaume figured nailing his feet made the whole thing look more authentic. They stood back and admired their handiwork.
“All he needs now is a good coat of varnish,” Midshipman Jones said.
“Varnish?”
“I’ll get some marine varnish from the shed on Mallory Pier, back at the academy. A few coats of good Spar varnish and the Jesus’ll shed rain like water off a duck’s back.”
Mrs. Tannenbaume looked over at Raymond and noticed that he was unusually quiet. He stared at the ground in front of him before turning his glare toward Mrs. Tannenbaume. He then looked to the heavens and shouted, “I was not a part of this!” and dropped to one knee before the Jesus, crying softly to himself. Mrs. Tannenbaume knelt beside him and patted him on his head. Raymond, it seemed, was just another fearful Catholic. If she’d seen one, she’d seen a hundred—the St. Aloysious was full of them. Putzie, meanwhile, began to stir. Lying flat on his back, he opened his good eye. He heard Raymond crying and saw Mrs. Tannenbaume consoling him. When he moved his head to the right, he saw the mound of dirt. Then he saw the Jesus. His good eye began to blink.
“Oh my goodness, the goyim were right after all.”
Mrs. Tannenbaume turned toward Putzie. “What did you say, Mr. Paultz?”
“Jesus on the cross. I can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe what?”
“That when a Jew dies, he sees Jesus in heaven.”
“Heaven? You’re not in heaven. You’ve got a little bump on your head. Relax.”
“But what’s with the mound of dirt? And why is Raymond crying?”
“He’s a good Catholic. He’s afraid of committing a sacrilege.”
“What happens when a Catholic commits a sacrilege?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “That’s what’s so great about Catholicism. All you have to do when you commit a sin is go to confession. It’s the most convenient religion going.”
Putzie looked at Mrs. Tannenbaume absently, then touched his head and looked at the blood on his hand. “The last thing I remember is running like a surfer. How did I end up here?”
“You ran smack into my tree.”
“And I ran your car smack into Mrs. Tannenbaume’s Beetle,” Raymond said. “But I’ll fix . . . oh no.” Raymond’s hand shot up to cover his mouth. “The Commodore!”
Raymond pointed at the maroon Chrysler LeBaron, the standard government car issued to ranking officers of the academy, rolling to a stop across the street from Mrs. Tannenbaume’s house.
“We’re not at the store to give him his shirts,” Raymond said. “He’ll be very upset.”
The Commodore got out of the LeBaron on the opposite side of Steamboat Road and waited for the cars to pass. When the traffic cleared, he started to cross then stopped. He looked towards the main entrance to the Merchant Marine Academy, a half a block away. The football team, jogging in tight formation, had just departed Vickery Gate and was heading up Steamboat Road for their afternoon run. He decided to wait for them to pass—he liked the way they sang out a greeting to him as they jogged by. The team, however, took an abrupt turn to the left and ran down Stepping Stone Lane. The Commodore stamped his foot on the ground in disappointment, causing the dust on the side of the road to swirl around his pant leg. He slapped at his leg with his hand to rid his uniform of the dust and, in a fit, started across Steamboat Road without bothering to look for traffic.
A cream-colored 1950 Mercedes convertible, artfully restored and with its top down, came to a screeching halt ten feet in front of the Commodore. The driver honked his horn and shook his fist. The Commodore, in response, stood erect and unflinching and stared imperiously at the driver, not an easy thing to do since the afternoon sun threw a glare on the windshield that hid the driver’s face. When a cloud passed overhead, the glare on the windshield faded and he was able to make out the face of the driver.
It was the bandleader.
What was going on here? The bandleader was reported to have been missing. What in God’s name was this man up to?
Before the Commodore could accost the bandleader, the convertible lurched into reverse, skidded to a stop, then came ahead again, its wheels screeching as it swerved around the Commodore. The Commodore did not move a muscle as the convertible sped past him. He stood still for a moment longer, long enough for the world to witness his dauntlessness, then crossed to the other side of Steamboat Road and strode up Mrs. Tannenbaume’s lawn.
“An assassination attempt,” the Commodore said when he reached the others. “You have all borne witness to a brazen attempt on my life.”
“Assassination?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “Don’t you have to be a world leader to be assassinated?”
A leader of little people such as yourself!
“You walked across the street without looking,” Mrs. Tannenbaume said. “The driver did everything he could to avoid hitting you.”
And I am doing everything I can to avoid accosting you, madam!
“The important thing is that you are Ok, sir,” Raymond said.
“Indeed I am,” the Commodore said, composing himself. “Indeed I am. And you are correct. It is important that I have survived this brush with death. For we have work to do. I am reminded of Frost, ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep/But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep/And miles to go before I sleep.’”
The Commodore swept his hand as gracefully as a jazz singer as he recited the stanza. He was proud of the improvement he had made in his hand gestures—proof that practice makes perfect. The Commodore looked for signs that the others were impressed with his public speaking ability. When they gave no reaction to his gesticulatory flourish—no visible feedback—he deliberately turned his body and looked over at Putzie.
“Just the man I wanted to see—are you ready for combat, Mr. Paultz? You have clearly been training, sustaining injuries along the way it seems. Not to worry, my good man. As far as I am concerned, an unblemished athlete is simply not trying hard enough.”
Putzie remained seated on the grass. “I can take Mogie any day of the week, as long as I don’t get stuck in that chair of his.”
“Well then,” th
e Commodore said, “we ought to schedule the wrestling match ASAP. I’ll have my secretary make the necessary arrangements.”
The Commodore reached out a helping hand and Putzie took it. The Commodore released his grip when Putzie was standing up, only to watch the poor man’s knees buckle when he tried to walk. Oh dear. Were his hopes of ridding himself of his nemesis resting on the slight shoulders of this inadequate man? The Commodore watched Putzie wobble toward the Buick. Short, slight, an eye patch over one eye, Putzie wore the hangdog look of the defeated. Perhaps a pep talk was in order.
“Mr. Paultz.” The Commodore called after Putzie. “Do you believe you can defeat Mogie?”
Putzie stopped in his tracks and turned inquisitively toward the Commodore.
“I mean, dear man, at your core, do you believe it? As a core belief ? Do you have the desire to defeat Mogie? A burning desire—not some half-baked notion or flimsy wish, but a red-hot burning desire? Because without a deep belief in your abilities and a burning desire to excel, you relegate yourself to the trash heap of mediocrity.” The Commodore glanced out of one eye to see if the others were listening. When he saw that they were, he strode over to a spot on the lawn where he was able to face them as a group. Now would be the perfect time to practice his pause, scan, and nod technique.
When he finished nodding, he continued with his speech. “It is never too late to start believing in yourself, Mr. Paultz, and that goes for the rest of you as well. It is never too late to hone your desire for excellence. Because, you see, each day that God gives us is simply another day in which to excel. Yes, today is another day in which to excel. Tomorrow is yet another day in which to excel. Do you all want to know the secret to success? Do you? Do you sincerely wish to be a success in life? Here then is the key to success.” The Commodore paused, scanned, and nodded, to great effect, he thought. “The secret is ‘mental mapping.’ Mr. Paultz, you must form a picture in your mind’s eye of defeating Mogie in O’Hara Hall in front of a crowd of midshipmen screaming your name. Think of victory! Think of glory! Think of adulation! Everyone will be looking at you, admiring you, wishing they could be you. It happens to me all the time. When I give my speeches, the crowd nearly carries me away on its shoulders, so great is their love for me. Think of how envious others will be of you. Think of how inadequate you will make them feel. When you win, you see, someone else loses. Think of that. Sometimes you do not even have to win. When someone else loses, I feel like I win. If everyone adopted my philosophy, think of how much better off we would all be. We would all be winners. Don’t you see? It is so easy. Choose to not be a loser, Mr. Paultz. Think of others as losers, and you will always be a winner.”
A Commodore of Errors Page 7