Potatoes Are Cheaper

by Max Shulman

  Well, I’ll tell you in one word how I felt when I learned the truth about Jonathan: disappointed. I don’t mean I look down my nose at forgery. I certainly do not. It’s a highly skilled business and there’s big opportunities for people with shrewdness and boldness.

  But Jonathan wasn’t that kind of a forger. First of all, do you know whose signatures he was forging? My uncles’, for Christ sakes! Now, how’s that for big-time thievery?

  And second, the checks were so little, it was embarrassing. Jonathan would look for a corner grocery store in a faraway neighborhood where nobody knew him, and he’d walk in and start his usual line of wisecracks with the storekeeper and when he had him laughing real good, he’d con him into cashing a check—never more than a couple bucks naturally because how much can you get from a corner storekeeper even when he’s laughing? So the grand total of Jonathan’s whole crime came to a little over two hundred dollars, and I bet he walked a thousand blocks to get it.

  Well, I really expected something classier from Jonathan. Here was a guy who’d been so many places, done so many things, knew so many stunts, a guy with glamor—I’m not ashamed to say it—so what does he wind up pulling? Forging my uncles on two dollar checks! I mean that’s real chickenshit, even when your motto is “Steal small.”

  Plus on top of it, he goes and gets caught. And easy too. How much trouble could the cops have had with a description like this: thirty-five years old, six feet tall, a black moustache, a gold tooth, and a little red hose sticking out of his pocket?

  So I told him how I felt. “Jonathan,” I said, “I am disappointed.”

  “What did you expect?” he said. “The Lindbergh baby?”

  “You shut up, goniff,” said Ma to Jonathan, her first words; till now she’d just been pacing and glaring. Now she talked. “You shut up,” she said, “and everybody else shut up too and sit down and listen. Officer Mulcahey, good-by. You we don’t need here.”

  “Indeed, Mrs. Katz?” said Officer Mulcahey. “Then who’ll be escorting Mr. Kaplan to jail?”

  “Bite your tongue!” said Ma. “Kaplan ain’t going to jail.”

  “Who then is going?” said Aunt Bryna. “Our husband?”

  “Nobody is going,” said Ma. “We’re gonna pay back every penny.”

  “Who is?” said Aunt Ida.

  “All of us,” said Ma. “This is family business and the family got to stick together.”

  “Mother Katz is right,” said Jonathan to the aunts. “So come on, girls, let’s dig into them mattresses.”

  “You shut up,” said Ma to Jonathan. “But he’s right,” she said to the aunts. “You got to borrow me two hundred dollars.”

  “Never!” hollered Aunt Lena. “Scheiss on Kaplan. Let him go to jail.”

  “Listen,” hollered Ma, “you think I wouldn’t like him in jail, that pascudnyak? I’d love him in jail. In the electric chair better yet. But Mr. Respectable Big Shot High Tone Zimmerman, that’s all he needs to hear—a jailbird in the family—and it’s good-by, Morris.”

  So the aunts stopped hollering and gave a sad nod because they knew it was true what Ma said.

  “Okay, you see how it is, girls,” said Jonathan to the aunts. “So how’s about some volunteers? Just fifty bucks apiece and we got the whole two hundred.”

  “You shut up,” said Ma to Jonathan. “But he’s right,” she said to the aunts. “Please, my sisters, my flesh and blood, borrow me the money. Libbie and Morris are both working. They’ll pay you back, I promise, I don’t care if it takes five years.”

  “So let Libbie and Morris pay back the storekeepers who got stuck with the checks,” said Aunt Esther. “What do you need with us?”

  “Ah, but there’s the paradox, ladies, don’t you see?” said Officer Mulcahey to the aunts.

  “The what?” said the aunts.

  “I mean,” said Officer Mulcahey, “that if Mr. Kaplan here had been able to write more substantial checks—for fifty or a hundred dollars, let’s say—his victims might be willing to wait a few years for their money instead of prosecuting. But for two dollars I’m afraid they feel very much as this lady here does.” He turned to Aunt Lena. “What was it you said, madam?”

  “I said, ‘Scheiss on Kaplan. Let him go to jail,’” said Aunt Lena.

  “There you are,” said Officer Mulcahey. “Unless you can pay these storekeepers in full and immediately, I think you’ll not be seeing Mr. Kaplan for a while.”

  “You hear that, girls?” said Jonathan. “We’re not playing peesha-paysha here, so let’s come up with the money, shall we?”

  But the aunts just kept standing and looking sad.

  “Pearl,” said Aunt Ida to my mother, “you want my arm? Take. My leg? Take. Take anything. But money? We ain’t got, that’s all.”

  “Maybe somebody else would borrow you,” said Aunt Bryna to Ma. “Don’t you know nobody with a steady job?”

  “Who?” said Ma, giving a shrug. Then all of a sudden her eyes popped wide open. “Hey, wait a minute!” she hollered.

  “Oh, no!” hollered Officer Mulcahey because that’s who Ma was looking at with the wide eyes. “I’ve seven growing children and a blind mother in Donegal.”

  So everybody went back to looking sad.

  “Listen,” said Jonathan, “this is serious. Ain’t anybody here got anything they can sell, for Christ sakes?”

  Nobody answered. For a second I thought Aunt Lena was going to say something but she didn’t.

  Officer Mulcahey cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about this, Mr. Kaplan,” he said, “but I’ve my duty to do. You’ll come quietly, I trust.”

  He took Jonathan by the arm. Libbie didn’t make any problems because she fainted instantly. So Jonathan started walking across the room with Officer Mulcahey but he stopped just before they got to the door. “Officer,” said Jonathan, “could I say one last word?”

  “But of course,” said Officer Mulcahey. “We’re all humane and civilized people here, I hope.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Jonathan, and turned to Ma. “Mother Katz,” he said, “I’d like to thank you for all your efforts and I want you to know I don’t hold no grudges.”

  “Grudges!” hollered Ma. “You are talking grudges? After all you done?”

  “All right, what did I do?” Jonathan hollered right back. “I’ll tell you what: First of all I brought Libbie the greatest happiness she has ever known. Ask her when she comes to. Second, whatever money I scraped up, I shared fair and square. Didn’t I hand you a hatful every Sunday? And third, haven’t I kept everybody in stitches since I moved in? Has this family ever had so many laughs in your whole farkakte life?”

  “He got a point there, Ma,” I said.

  “You shut up,” Ma said.

  “Thanks, Morris,” Jonathan said. “You’re a good kid and I wish I could be here to guide you in the difficult days ahead. Tell Libbie I’ll write as often as they let me. For the rest of you—well, I guess the less said the better.”

  “Don’t be too hard on them, Mr. Kaplan,” said Officer Mulcahey. “I’m sure they want to help.”

  “Hah!” said Jonathan, giving this bitter laugh. “I’m ready, Officer.”

  But all of a sudden Aunt Lena jumped in front of them. “Wait!” she hollered.

  So they waited.

  Aunt Lena opened her mouth to talk just like she did before, but again she couldn’t do it. Once more she tried, twice more, three times, and still she couldn’t.

  “Lena, what is it?” said Ma.

  Finally she got the words out. “All right, Pearl,” she said. “I’ll borrow you the money.”

  “Fifty dollars?” said Ma.

  “The whole two hundred,” said Aunt Lena.

  Everybody gave a gasp naturally.

  “God bless you, you should live a hundred and twenty years with your husband and children together,” said Ma. “Where you gonna get so much money?”

  “For you I will sell my fur coat,” said Aunt Lena.
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  “Oh, no!” shrieked Albert and I felt my knees buckling. In case you forgot, this was the fur coat Albert stole to pay his tuition.

  “What kind of a no?” said Aunt Lena to Albert. “It’s my sister, my flesh and blood.”

  “You can’t!” shrieked Albert.

  “Who says?” said Aunt Lena.

  Albert looked this way and that way, like maybe there was help coming from somewheres but there wasn’t. “Well, I guess this is it, Morris,” said Albert to me.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  So he told his mother.

  You never heard such a silence.

  “Would you like me to book the lad, madam?” said Officer Mulcahey to Aunt Lena. “I’m on my way to the station anyhow.”

  “A hundred dollars?” said Aunt Lena to Albert. “That’s all you got for a Hudson seal in spotless condition? Come on home, I wanna talk to you.”

  “Don’t go,” said Ma. “Please, don’t nobody go. You too, Kaplan. Everybody stay, I’m begging you. Sit down and help me think where to raise two hundred dollars.”

  “I know where,” said Pa, which nobody expected, you can bet.

  “You?” said Ma.

  “The Jewish Home for the Aged and Infirm,” said Pa. “Remember we deposited two hundred dollars to put Nettie and Gittel on the waiting list?”

  “Oh, no!” screamed Aunt Esther. “Oh, no! No, God damn it, no! That money is to stick those old bats in the Home and that’s where they’re going the minute there’s an opening. They are not gonna keep living with me. No, sir! No, no, no, no, no, no!”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” said Pa.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Ma to Pa. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, don’t say it.”

  “You got maybe a better idea?” said Pa.

  Ma thought for a while. “No,” she said at last and gave a sigh that shook the whole room. “Okay,” she said, “so that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Wait a minute,” hollered Aunt Esther.

  “Never mind wait a minute,” said Ma. “I’m taking back the two hundred dollars from the Home and Nettie and Gittel will come and live with me.”

  “Ma, don’t do it!” I hollered.

  “You shut up,” said Ma. “You shut up and go eat your supper and then go to your job. And don’t be late. And don’t be sassy with Mr. Zimmerman. Also with Mrs. Zimmerman. And with Celeste you’ll behave like Ronald Colman with Tyrone Powers together. Because just remember one thing, boychik: if God forbid you don’t marry some money, I am stuck with Nettie and Gittel for the rest of their life. You know how long that could be?”

  I didn’t answer, just gave a shiver, because everybody knew Nettie and Gittel were good for another fifty years minimum. Why not? They had the electrocardiogram of a twelve-year-old kid and the digestion of a dog.

  So right there and then I knew it was all over with Bridget, this time for sure. What kind of a rat would I be if I went after Bridget and lost Celeste and sentenced my own mother to fifty years with Nettie and Gittel? No, I just couldn’t do it. So later that night I took my translation of Itzik Fishel’s poem Esther Resnick, American and hid it away in the bottom of a drawer—a classic lost to the world just like Bridget was lost to me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nettie and Gittel moved in with us the next morning, and naturally the first thing they did was escape. And they kept right on. How they got out, don’t ask me. The doors and windows were locked at all times. Pa’s theory was they slipped through the mail slot and he might just be right.

  Anyhow, for the first week there wasn’t a single day when Officer Mulcahey didn’t have to go looking for the old ladies. Most of the time, luckily, they didn’t take very long to find because either they’d be in the spraying room at Formanek Brothers Auto Repainting or else jumping in the hair pile at Al Rosen the barber, both just a block from the house. But of course when they were able to hitch a truck it could take Mulcahey a whole day or even more before he brought them back. And when it was a garbage truck, generally he’d refuse.

  Well, Ma saw there was no way to keep Nettie and Gittel locked up so instead she made Jonathan take them for an outing every day which you’ll agree was only fair. I mean if not for him, that petty larceny prick, we wouldn’t have them.

  So Jonathan would shlep them around town on a Flexible Flyer from breakfast till 6 P.M. which of course they loved. Then he’d bring them home for supper, and that’s when the trouble began. Naturally the old goers wanted to go again, but who could take them? Jonathan was too pooped from dragging the sled, and Libbie was too pooped from working all day at Monkey Ward. I had to be at my job at the Fine Arts Theatre. Pa can’t go out in the dark because he gets lost. And Ma wouldn’t leave the radio.

  So at first Ma tried putting Nettie and Gittel to sleep right after supper. Incidentally, if you’re wondering where they slept, here’s the arrangement: Ma borrowed a crib from Mrs. Jorgensen over on Dayton Avenue. There was always a crib or two at the Jorgensens because they had this daughter Reba, about twenty-five years old with hot pants, who was all the time getting knocked up. Mr. Jorgensen, Reba’s father, was assistant principal over at John Marshall Junior High and of course in his position he couldn’t afford any scandals. So whenever Reba had a baby, they’d claim it was Mrs. Jorgensen’s, not Reba’s, and they’d raise the baby like their own.

  There were six kids at the Jorgensen house, all ringers but Reba, and frankly I don’t know who Mr. and Mrs. Jorgensen thought they were fooling. Maybe at first they could get away with it, but in my opinion it’s not even worth trying once a woman passes seventy.

  Anyhow Ma borrowed this crib from Mrs. Jorgensen which she set up in her bedroom, and that’s where she put Nettie and Gittel to bed right after supper. They seemed willing enough. Ma undressed them, stuck them in the crib, gave them their good night treat—a piece of halvah for each—then kissed them and switched off the light. Sure enough, they were asleep in ten seconds.

  So Ma went back to the living room and turned on Cecil B. deMille Presents The Lux Radio Theatre and about a half an hour later she was sitting there enjoying when—bang!—all of a sudden in ran Nettie and Gittel all dressed up and hollering for breakfast. Because that’s what Ma didn’t know yet: thirty minutes sleep per day was all they ever needed and they woke up refreshed like lions.

  So we learned the bitter truth in a hurry: that from now on, every night and all night, Nettie and Gittel would be chasing each other through the house, bumping and thumping and hollering and banging the cymbals they stole from Ralph Rifkin, and nobody in the family would ever get a minute’s sleep till I raised $200 to stick the old ladies in the Jewish Home for the Aged and Infirm.

  Which of course meant marrying Celeste because where else would I get the money? Not from my salary at the Fine Arts Theatre, I can tell you. You know what that sonofabitch Zimmerman finally decided to pay me? Fifteen cents an hour, for Christ sakes!

  “Mr. Zimmerman,” I said to him on my first payday, “this is illegal under the Wagner Act.”

  “So go work for Wagner,” he told me.

  So all I could do was keep pressuring Celeste to set a wedding date. But go pressure Celeste. Believe me, it’s easier to shit a football. Night after night I put the question to her, and night after night all she ever said was the same thing: “Oh, stop pestering and let’s you-know.” More and more I began to wonder if Jonathan hadn’t been right when he told me I was out of my class tangling with millionaires. I mean, look at the score so far: A. M. Zimmerman had himself a doorman for fifteen cents an hour, and Celeste had herself a stud for free. And what did I have? A bent putz and two crazy boarders.

  Meanwhile time kept flying. First November went, then December went, then 1937 was declared, and still I had no progress. And as if this wasn’t discouragement enough, pretty soon I started getting needles at home from Kaplan, the King of Krime. “Nu, Baron Rothschild?” he’d say to me every night when I came in.
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  “Don’t you worry,” I’d say, forcing a smile and a wink and walking around whistling, he shouldn’t know how bad things were.

  But by the middle of January I couldn’t keep up this shallow pretense no more. “Jonathan,” I said, “I think I’m fucked.”

  “Well, Morris,” he said, “I won’t say I told you so.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then I won’t break your big oily nose.”

  “Because this is no time for I-told-you-so’s,” he said. “Kid, we got here a crisis. Have you taken a good look at your mother lately?”

  “What about her?” I said.

  “You know I ain’t exactly ga-ga over the old hatchet,” he said. “But still and all, it’s no fun watching a person crumble up right in front of your eyes like Lost Horizon.”

  I stuck my head in the other room where Ma was sitting by the radio. She did look horseshit. She was shlumped in her chair fast asleep giving little moans and twitches and mind you, the radio was playing real loud—in fact, “Mary Noble, Backstage Wife,” Ma’s second or third best favorite. And to show you how pooped Ma was, not only was the radio blasting away but there were terrible screams coming from the bathroom where Nettie and Gittel was soaking in the tub. The old ladies weren’t screaming; they loved their bath. But the cat didn’t, so it was him.

  But noise or not, Ma slept. So did everybody else in fact. Pa was snoring at the breakfast table with his necktie in the farina. Libbie was at the sink washing dishes, but not really. She was just holding a plate and sleeping on her feet while the water ran.

  “See, Morris?” said Jonathan. “Your own family—zombies? Will you stop dreaming already about the Zimmerman millions and go call Ruthie Bumgarten?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, and I really did because at this point I would have taken help from anywheres. I mean, the best I could save out of Zimmerman’s coolie wages was a crappy two dollars a week. So far all I’d been able to stash away was twenty dollars and fifty cents—the fifty cents was my Christmas bonus—So at this rate it would take another ninety weeks before I had enough to stick Nettie and Gittel in the Home. Who could live so long? Besides Nettie and Gittel, I mean.