He found Mrs. Godwin and Stella in their robes in the kitchen pouring glasses of juice and arranging thick cut slices of babka on a china platter. You’re up early, honey, Stella said, pointedly going up to him, knife in hand, to peck him on the lips. Morning, Stella. In light of her mother’s presence, he resisted an urge to kiss her back. Keeping his spine straight, stoic as a military-school graduate, he nodded over her head. Mrs. Godwin. She nodded back. Irene! she called out with a gravedigger’s gaze fixed on Jackson and in a voice loud enough to startle. A robust Irish woman put her head through the pantry door. Plug in the coffee, please. For our guest. I’m going with your daddy to services, Jackson told his girl, who rolled her eyes at him.
Mrs. Godwin gave the couple a variant of Stella’s straight, secret smile. I don’t know why I’m asking this, but will you accompany your friend to shul, dear? I’m astounded he’s going, her daughter answered, causing Jackson to wonder if he’d got himself tangled with her unawares by showing her father a son’s respect. He tried to catch her eye, but she’d turned from him to get cups and saucers from a cupboard.
Leonard Godwin and Seth came to the kitchen in topcoats and fedoras. Mr. Godwin drank juice and ate babka with one hand, the other clutched a tallis bag close to his chest. Neither Godwin spoke but chewed and slurped mechanically like men on the run. Irene brought Jackson a black silk yarmulke, which he dropped on his head then patted with the flat of his hand to nestle it firmly in his hair.
Are we waiting for the ladies to dress?
Mrs. Godwin laughed. No, no. Usually I do attend, but today I want to stay here and catch up with my daughter, who won’t go to one of the happiest places of her childhood without a bribe.
The men set off on foot. Mr. Godwin informed Jackson they were three blocks from the temple, he wouldn’t live any farther away. Some of the local Jews, he informed, drove to shul, but he just couldn’t do it. Jackson changed the subject. You have another son, I believe, sir. Will I meet him there?
My son Aaron is in, um, New York this week. On business. He met the, um, finance secretary of Mombasa Cooper’s party last year, you know. Jackson took Mr. Godwin’s confidence as an attempt at apology. Really, he remarked as if fascinated. Then Seth, who did not seem to Jackson to be such a bad sort, took over to explain the nature of Aaron’s trip to the garment district, a subject in which Jackson feigned more interest, complimenting Stella’s brother by asking intelligent questions about the quality and quantity of dry goods the ancestral factory produced.
Other early rising Jews walked briskly by them as they talked, wishing the Godwin family and their guest a good Shabbos, which wishes were returned as they passed. By setting the pace, Mr. Godwin managed to show off Jackson as the beau of a daughter the entire congregation thought too sharp a specimen to land any man at all. Jackson, of course, was not aware of his intent, but neither could he miss the stares that swept over him from head to toe. He checked his buttons, shirttails, and zipper several times in puzzlement over their attentions.
After a block and a half, two black men in somber suits much like those worn by colored funeral directors back home approached. Leonard and Seth Godwin immediately turned their heads toward each other and their conversation took on an odd intensity while they asked each other questions about minute details of Aaron’s contacts along Fourteenth Street. Jackson gave the passersby a pleasant, down-home glance and wished them a good day. They were a few steps beyond them when Leonard and Seth Godwin stopped short.
Seth said: We don’t speak to them. You shouldn’t speak to them.
Why?
Jackson wondered if this was some arcane Yankee rudeness that refused to extend pleasantries to respectable-looking men of color on the street.
They’re real-estate brokers!
Seth spoke in a contemptuous manner as if real-estate brokers were kin to murderers and thieves.
The trio walked the rest of the way in a grave silence Jackson could not decipher. But then he’d felt a traveler in a foreign land from the moment he’d stepped into the Godwin foyer. He tried to seize snippets of events to hold in his mind awhile ‘til he could analyze them like those common phrases in an unknown language one picks up touring overseas.
He did pretty well during services. Inside the temple, seating was divided between men and women, the latter housed in a balcony facing the men on either side of the Ark. For Jackson, the Reform Jew of infrequent appearances in any house of worship, it was an alien arrangement. He raised his neck in amazement to regard the women, dressed in their Sabbath finest, perched like so many well-feathered birds up there behind a decorative grillwork, yes, altogether like birds in a cage. Seth elbowed him. With a jerk of his head, Stella’s brother gestured toward their father to inform Jackson of the impropriety of his curiosity. Then the chazzan began the morning chants, and Jackson was able to demonstrate in his sterling tenor the lessons Perry Nussbaum taught him nearly a decade before. The Hebrew he flubbed here and there—Yankee Jews used so much of it—but where the chants were different from what he was accustomed to, Jackson employed the fine musical sensibility Mama had instilled in him. He absorbed just a few bars of melody, was able to anticipate the notes coming up, and let them out con brio. Stella’s father and brother were suitably impressed.
After services, the congregation trooped downstairs to the basement function room to bless wine and bread and take a snack from an array of herring salad, egg salad, challah, and kichel laid out by the Sisterhood. Introductions to several congregants were made, but after the initial once-over, no one was sufficiently interested in the conundrum represented by a Mississippi Jew who could not see the difficulties inherent in a liaison with that Godwin girl. There were more pressing matters to discuss.
Leonard. Leonard. The Fassbinders put a For Sale sign up. And the Greens, both the father and his three sons! That’s six signs in four blocks! You have to talk to them. They’ll listen to you, Leonard. Or everything, all this, will be gone. It will be theirs, Gott in himmel. The shvartzes! Tell them what you told me when I was wavering. How we owe it to our parents and grandparents of blessed memory. That if no one sells, there’s nothing to worry about. Tell them about nothing to fear but fear itself and how we stand together or we all fall down.
While he had no idea what everyone discussed passionately all around him, Jackson noted that Leonard Godwin appeared a leader of his community, a man armored with detailed knowledge and persuasive arguments about the subject at hand. He tried to follow the conversation so that he might reference it politely to Mr. Godwin later on, but there was too much Yiddish and Yankee slang bandied about for him to do so, and his mind wandered. It was far more entertaining to study his surrounds and imagine Stella at age four like that little darling over there clutching her mama by the leg, or twelve like that poor gawky child who looked so serious nearby, or seventeen like any one of that group eyeing the boys talking baseball across the room. This is where she grew up, he thought, this is where she first let go of her mother’s skirts, where she first found that pure and generous ethos that drives her, where she first flirted with young men too shy to stop her in her tracks, which freed her to find her way to Connecticut and to me. I guess that makes this a holy place for me, Ark or no Ark. And he gave thanks.
When the men returned home, Mrs. Godwin and Stella were still not dressed. They huddled, heads together, at the kitchen table, which was spread over with open magazines. A bottle of champagne sat in a silver bucket on the countertop. The women held aloft empty flutes to salute their men. Their color was high, their voices loud. They made jokes to each other the men did not catch. Then Mrs. Godwin squealed: Stella told me your news, Jackson! and rose on unsteady feet to rush over to embrace him knocking herself into cabinetry along the way. She deposited a loud, sloppy kiss on his cheek while her frozen-in-place husband and son looked on with perplexed, open mouths. They’re getting married! Mrs. Godwin told them over Jackson’s shoulder. Can you believe it? Our Stella, getting married! The
n she erupted into a loopy chain of chuckles, whispering into Jackson’s ear so that he and he alone could hear her joyous claim: She’s your problem now, son. All yours.
Seth rushed forward to clap him on the back. Brave man, he said. Brave man.
Leonard Godwin held his arms up as if to welcome Jackson to his bosom, but when he stepped up to receive that blessing, Godwin dropped them to his sides. I would have expected a Southern boy to ask my permission first, he said. It’s the way we do things up here. Jackson turned forty shades of red and apologized. I am so sorry, sir. I meant to do so, he stuttered, gallantly taking all the blame for offending him until Stella’s father reached out and clapped him to his chest anyway. It’s alright, son, he said. Just do what you can to make her happy.
On their drive home the next morning, Jackson complained to Stella that she’d ignored his wishes completely on the matter of informing the parents before a ring had been purchased. You compromised me in your daddy’s eyes, darlin’. And you’d promised me, you’d promised me to wait. It turned out alright, she told him. They’re over the moon to get rid of me. I don’t see what you can complain about. He had no argument there, only the nagging premonition that not to argue with her on this point constituted a dangerous precedent, one that would come back to haunt him. But as he began to expound on this to assure he had the authority men expected in those days over their wives, she gave him an upwards look of big-lashed brown eyes set above a wheedling pout. He found Stella’s pose adorable, and thus put all misgivings aside.
Jackson was not yet old enough to possess the bit of self-knowledge required to inform him he was a flat-out sucker for the simplest of feminine wiles. His adolescent romances were one instance of manipulative disaster after another, although Jackson was the last individual on the planet to view them that way. When in tenth grade Amanda Riley dumped him the day before Christmas vacation so she could go to the Reindeer Ball with the dimwitted star of Stonewall High’s wrestling team rather than the boy who’d done her homework all year with barely a kiss to show for it, Jackson was crushed but forgiving. Mama was not. The first morning of vacation when he arrived to the breakfast table late, glum and red-eyed, she won from him the sad tale of his broken heart at the first prodding.
Well, she pronounced, at least now I can rest easy that you’re not stuck on stupid. I was worried how that yellow-haired sack of vacuity would affect your mind. You’ve got to upgrade your taste, boy. You need a gal with a little more upstairs and a little less down there. Someone who knows what you’re worth and won’t throw you over for the first mess of muscles wrapped around a stick that comes along.
Hot-cheeked and wretched, Jackson defended his Jezebel using much the same argument as Amanda Riley employed when she broke the news. Mama, I don’t think she could help herself. She’s a junior squad cheerleader. A cheerleader can’t say no to a varsity man. Why, that would ruin her career before it half started.
Oh, you don’t say? Are you sure it wasn’t going to the big dance with the class Jew she thought might ruin her almighty cheerleading career? Now, don’t give me that “Please, Mama” look. I know more than you think and my considered advice to you is to stick with your own kind. A nice Jewish girl would cherish a young man like you. Positively cherish.
Yes, Mama, Jackson agreed, mostly to end the conversation so that he could continue his bout of lover’s grief in peace. What Mama didn’t know was that Jackson harbored in his wicked heart a long and lasting lust for the idea of a Jewish girlfriend, principally because all the boys swore they were easy. Apparently it was as painless for a Christian boy to get his hand down a Jewish girl’s blouse as it was to slice ice cream on a July afternoon. Mama’s advice took root. He sought one of his own kind out.
First he talked to Mickey Moe to determine which of the girls of their tribe might soothe the torments of a young man gone mad from frustration. Mickey Moe informed that he wasn’t certain, he didn’t have personal experience here, but he’d heard from reliable sources that Frieda Mae Baumgold was easier to invade than a banana split was to swallow. Jackson set his sights for her.
The pursuit was the easy part. Frieda Mae Baumgold collected boyfriends like other young women collect hair ribbons. Curvaceous and big-eyed, black-haired, honey-voiced like Stella, she was more than willing to accept Jackson’s attentions. But getting her to sit still long enough to be the object of his much considered, much rehearsed advances strained his imagination. She was one of those young ladies who hop out of chairs and flit across a room, who busy themselves at the turntable then bend over in their tight tweed skirts to pick through records on the bottom shelf of the bookcase just long enough to glaze the eyes of a virgin lad like Jackson Sassaport. They kneel and stretch their backs until their breasts point up and a young man’s hands itch to shoot forward for a grab. But too late. In the last moment, they jump up to fetch something suddenly necessary from another room. Frieda Mae Baumgold was a temptress, alright, but tempting was about as far as she went. Jackson courted her for four months, until she tired of him and cast about for fresh bones to add to her collection. Not one to give up in this essential quest, Jackson pursued two other Jewish girls but neither of those would accept a third date. He tried another Christian girl, from his school. He struck out there, too.
The next time Jackson saw Mickey Moe, the two of them leaned against the back end of Great-Aunt Lucille’s two-stall barn after a Cousins Club dinner smoking cigarettes. What if I never get to touch a girl, Mickey? he asked his childhood hero in the desperate notes of the hormonally tortured. Not in my whole life? Ah, his cousin said, you gonna get lucky someday, son. Everybody does sooner or later. Jackson went into a long rant bemoaning his piss-poor luck with Amanda and Frieda Mae, Sarah Celeste, Rachel, and Mary Rose. I swear to God, if I don’t get to touch something female sometime soon it’s gonna kill me. I can’t think of anything else most times, I don’t sleep right, and my schoolwork’s suffering. Mickey Moe inhaled deeply on his smoke, blew it out in a thick blue cloud against the black night. That bad, huh? The family genius can’t study? Ole Mr. Head of His Class? Well, don’t you tell nobody I told you this, Jackson, but if you’re in that much pain, you can always go down to the village. There’s gals there make their living easing the pain of a boy like you.
Jackson was shocked and excited at the same time. I never did think ... he started to say, then finished: Have you ever?
Me? Me? Mickey Moe, who by this time was twenty years old, strapping and handsome, a good old boy in flower, burst into gales of laughter, coughing out the smoke Jackson’s question had surprised while still deep in his lungs. I don’t ever have to feel that much pain, boy. A long time now I’ve got me a lady who is very kind, very kind. He reached out and ruffled his hair as if Jackson was still a kid. Console yourself! I’m older than you. I have my moves. Then he pushed away from the barn wall with one foot and sashayed down the path that led up to the big house as if demonstrating said moves, dipping his hips and twirling his arms. Jackson hollered and laughed until Mickey Moe was out of sight, then slowly slid down to his haunches. He sat in the dirt for half an hour, gazing up at the big house, smoking cigarettes, titillated by impure thoughts about the girls of the village.
Thereafter, constant images of those dark angels of professional mercy preyed upon his young mind. He pondered all the different body types and shades of them. He thought of whole rooms of them naked. He imagined the things they did to men, things the girls he knew didn’t even realize existed. He suffered shame at his thoughts, squelched them good, but they were more potent than he understood and they always came back. Eventually, he was driven to ask questions as discreetly as he could to see what his classmates knew about hired love in the village. He determined a handful of names and a primary address. He found out the price of what he wanted, or rather a scale of prices ranging from four bits for the simplest of pleasures to five dollars for what the boys called the whole shebang. Fear of God and his parents forced him to redouble his eff
orts to tame his fantasies for a short while. But his unclean visions returned unbidden and with a vengeance. Once more, he tried to banish such thoughts and was successful in the daytime, although he reveled in them in the night when he was sure he was alone.
Months went by this way and then it was spring in Mississippi, he was sixteen, and the warming air, the thick scents of new growth and of the Pearl coming back to life, and the return of the insects—all of it increased his torment until he broke. Mama and Daddy went out one Saturday for the annual Parents’ Night Pot Luck Dinner at Stonewall High. Mama made her special seltzer brisket or, rather, made sure that Eleanor followed the old family recipe to the letter. She browbeat the poor woman all afternoon. Sukie was getting old by then, so they hired a babysitter for Bubba Ray, a rambunctious, sturdy little fellow of nine who ran rings around any sitter that took him on, had them chasing him from room to room, playing by a boy’s rowdy rules and generally wearing them out. Once he had them good and tired, he’d sneak up on them from behind, snip at their hair with Sukie’s sewing scissors, steal a dollar from their wallets, or barge in on them in the bathroom. Mama heard quite a number of complaints about Bubba Ray, but her judgment on the matter was tainted. No one could say a word against Bubba Ray in her presence. They were that tight. The least she could expect from those spoiled young heifers, she said, was that they earned their dollars down to the dime. Not every child was a Jackson, upstairs peaceably reading a book from the time he was four. Some had spirit to get out of them.
That night they were breaking in a new sitter. Rebecca Headly was a college sophomore home for Easter vacation. Big-bosomed, big-boned, and red-haired, dressed in a pink shirt, a gray poodle skirt, and saddle shoes, she looked like she could take on Bubba Ray and have a chance at keeping up. Jackson was introduced to her. He stood tall with his chest puffed out when Daddy informed her that her charge was Bubba Ray, not this hulking lad. Jackson would be going out to the library most of the evening and return home likely after they did.
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