by Joshua Braff
The guy gets in my face. His breath is best described as cigarettes, shit, and tomato soup. “Tomorrow? How ’bout this? Tell your father and that prick Leo that the next time I need the Imperial for anything, I’ll kill myself instead. Got it? Kill myself!”
As I leave he gives me his chubby middle finger and calls me a faggot. My fight light goes off, blinking red, as I see him shuffle back toward the girls. I get outside and the city spins as I look straight up at the sky. I think of my sister at the compound, picking raspberries on a dirt path behind what’s called the forest shul. She’s trying not to crush them as she plucks them from the vine. “Help her,” she says. “Help, her, David. Don’t leave her up there.” I walk back in the elevator and rest my thumb against the button. I’m sure she doesn’t want to see me. But I open the door anyway.
“What the hell do you want?” the guy barks.
“The girl in the bathroom. I need to talk her.”
His arm cocks back and although I see it coming it’s a wreck I can’t avoid. A meaty closed fist connects with my nose, the left side of my mouth. Specks of white dot the darkness and I’m on my knees, touching my mouth, a child in the schoolyard with blood on my lips. I hear the door slam closed and I kick it twice with my right foot. Forget it. I take the stairs down. I can feel my lip is bruised and swollen. I think my teeth are all in the same place but my left nostril is throbbing. Outside I head uptown, my lip expanding with each step. It stings when I touch it with my tongue. I think about calling Leo and telling him what happened. Fuck it. I’m fine, really okay, and decide to go to the next job. But if I see one single Hasid I’m leaving. Sarah Danowitz. What a nightmare.
It takes a half hour to get to my next job at some pervert’s house in Hell’s Kitchen, about a block from the Lincoln Tunnel. Leo says this guy works for Doggy Style magazine and pays double the going rate. I smell man-ass the second I walk in. Paunch-stomached, hairy people with floating comb-overs and brown socks. The owner is wearing a red masquerade type mask and black knee pads. He offers me a joint and says, “Looks like you got punched.” I smoke it and hand it back to him with a blood spot on the spleef. He doesn’t notice. As I set up, the headache starts and I’m convinced I have a blood clot or an aneurism and I’m going to have a seizure and die during this orgy shoot. One of the ladies they’ve hired is so fucked up that she’s tangled in her heels and big white panties, rolling backward off the mattress. The pictures I get are gross and tragic and nauseating and my head and gums are throbbing. And I’ve got to get out of here.
“Where ya goin’?” asks the masked man.
“I’m going home.”
“Home?”
“I have a . . . thing. I forgot about this thing.”
“You just got here.”
“I’ll send you the good ones.”
“You work for Leo, right?”
“No. We work together.”
“Tell him to call me,” he says, and takes one of the women by her ponytail. “Did you hear me, kid?”
Dear David,
I agree. The raspberries paths are the best part of the compound. And no, you never told me you used to hide there during minyon and Shabbos services. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write back. I’m sorry the pictures you sent me were returned. All the mail here goes into one bin in the office and it’s sorted by a seventy-five-year-old rabbitzin. I think she sends back the letters from boys or goyim, especially boys who are goyim. It makes me so mad. Which pictures did you send me? I’m so sad I can’t see them. It’s raining hard here today but it didn’t start until noon. In the morning my group beat group Shin in a tug of war and steal the hamantashen, which is exactly like steal the bacon without the traif. The win means we get a second helping of dessert for Shabbos tonight. Vanilla marble swirl. Shabbos here is easier than other days and makes everyone in a good mood. We use the outdoor sanctuary, which is just behind the new synogogue, to the right of the baseball field and the creek. Remember that? The rabbi allows us to wear white tops now and the sight of the clean white blouses look beautiful against the purple sunset. From the women’s section I can look through a small hole in the mechitzah and see the men dancing. The amount of them is remarkable, so many more than last year. The floor becomes a black lake of men and it moves and ripples and hops, all in the name of Hashem. It’s pretty powerful. I will write again as soon as I can. I’m very sorry the pictures came back to you. If you send them again, don’t put a return address on it. I love you and hope you’re not mad.
D.
The black and whites I sent all came back from Maine. The envelope had been opened and placed in a larger folder. The first one is of Debra at the compound, three years ago, picking raspberries with some girl. The rest are on the beach in Atlantic City. She runs from me, laughing, kicking sand. And Sarah. Barefoot, in a dress down to her ankles, her mouth wide, her arms like wings. A girl like that. With her clothes off. I’m sad for her. I pray she’s okay. I pray in my own way. I hear my father and Brandi at the door. I’m not in the mood to explain so I shut my eyes.
“Hello!” he says, and I turn on my side. “David?”
“You’re yelling in my ear, Martin.”
“He had three jobs today.”
“Isn’t that his bag?”
“David?” he yells. “You here?”
“Stop barking, Martin.”
I’m asleep, I say to myself. I didn’t hear you come in, must have been dozing.
“So tell me all about her,” Brandi says. “I hear she’s a real dynamo in the sheets.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Cobwebs in the pooter. That should be her stage name.”
“Real sweet, Arlene. You have such a way with words.”
“I know you slept with her.”
“That’s a flat-out lie. If you don’t know the facts, then why speak at all.”
“Is that what you used to tell Mickey?”
“And keep her the hell out of this.”
“When you used to meet me at the Holiday Inn. I can hear it now, ‘If you don’t know the facts, Mickey, then why speak at all.’”
“You’re exhausting, Arlene. I don’t have to answer you.”
“No, you don’t. Because you have no soul, Marty. You just want to keep me around so you don’t look so old and alone.”
“I want to be alone.”
“Then go already!”
“You’re in my apartment. Right? You’re all over me. Go get a life of your own already. Who needs you?”
There’s a precious moment of silence. I wrap my pillow around my head. It’s like being back in New Jersey with my parents. The sport of spitting on each other.
“Stop being a horse’s ass and maybe I’ll keep you around.”
“Did I stand by you? Did I?”
“And I thanked you.”
“Chemo?”
“And I thanked you.”
“All those weeks.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re not welcome.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Who are you close with? No one. I wonder why?”
“I’m close with lots of people, Arlene. The more they stay out of my life the more I like them.”
“Like Debra?”
Silence.
“I’m here,” I yell into my pillow, and my mouth stings.
“You let her get away, just like you’re doing with me.”
“She’s better off without me.”
“Maybe I am too.”
“Then go already.”
“I will. You watch.”
“I’m watching. Go.”
“You let a lunatic steal your daughter.”
Pause.
“That’s your only goddamn weapon? Debra? And this makes you worthy of what? Living with me? Why don’t you and Ira open up your own whorehouse and leave me the hell alone.”
I jump out of bed and throw my door open. “I’m heeeere!”
; “David?” my father says. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sleeping!”
“Oh. Sorry. We just got home.”
“Really?”
Brandi walks out of the kitchen like a punished child.
I close my door.
The sporadic sleep I get takes me into the night, through the smell of dinner, all the way to my father’s steady snoring. The clock reads midnight, then 2:16 a.m.. At 6 a.m. I’m wide awake and my lip is so bubbled and tight that it might pop and spray the mirror with pus and goo. I go back to bed and see Sarah in a dream. She’s on the beach in her Hasid clothes, kicking sand. We are alone and she kisses me. Until Leo arrives. He’s wearing a sombrero, which Sarah pulls off his head. She’s got it on.
“Going in early,” my father says, rubbing my back. “Meeting with Ira. What time you coming in?”
“Still sleeping.”
“What?”
“Dreaming.”
“I need you today. It might get messy.”
Your Child
ON THE CORNER OF BROADWAY and Eighth a woman is holding up a poster on a stick. The picture is of a naked woman being crammed into a meat grinder.
“This is your child. Reduced to chopped meat by smut peddlers and pimps. What happened to the little girl you brought to this earth? How did you let her become this? Help her. Pull her from the jaws of this machine.”
She camps out here every Thursday morning, about fifteen feet from our front door. When she sees me today, she holds her sign high above her head and walks at my pace, her shoulder pinned to mine, her determination heightened. “This is your child!”
“I hear you,” I always say, but she never hears me. I see Jocko out front with his ladder and box of marquee letters.
“Give the kid a break,” Jocko says to her. “Buzz the hell off!”
“This is someone’s child—”
“We know,” he says.
“Your child,” she says.
“I don’t have a child, lady,” he says.
She stares at me before sneezing, and slowly heads back to her corner.
“My dad here?”
“What the hell happened to your face?” he says.
“It’s . . . I don’t want to . . . Where is he?”
“Inside with Brandi and Ira. They’re all bitchin’ about something. You want some ice?”
“What are you putting up?”
He bends to lift a G from the bucket of letters and looks up at the marquee. “Gang bang,” he says. “I think Ira’s pushin’ too fast. You watch, your dad’s gonna be pissed at me. He likes to have a heads-up, right? I mean who doesn’t? A gang bang? At the Imperial?”
“THIS IS YOUR CHILD.” Through a bullhorn now. “REDUCED TO CHOPPED MEAT BY SMUT PEDDLERS AND PIMPS.”
“Ira booked a gang bang?”
“Next week. I mean he’s got real balls, that’s all I’m gonna say. Anything for a buck, right?” He reaches in his pocket for a flask and tips it to his lips.
“Where’s Leo?”
“Oh, he found a telephone booth for sale on Mott Street. You’d think he found the Holy Grail. Says he needs help getting it off the van in Brooklyn. He was looking for you.”
“A phone booth?”
“Yup.”
“For a porn flick?”
“He’s really excited.”
Last year Leo decided to make his first porn film. Tiki and a guy named Stew having sex on an empty N train. It became something of a local hit at the Imperial. He’s made twelve or so more in recent months and now wears a beret when he shoots and yells “Action!” at the top of his lungs.
“He can’t just use a mattress?”
“David?” says a soft voice behind me. She’s wearing large, white sunglasses and a brown suede skirt. It’s relief I feel most—to see her face, to see her dressed. I smile and my bruised skin stretches and aches.
“I’m really happy you’re here,” I say.
She reaches to touch my face, her eyes focusing on my mouth.
“Jocko, this is Sarah.”
He offers his hand.
“REDUCED TO CHOPPED MEAT BY SMUT PEDDLERS AND PIMPS.”
“He hit you,” she says.
“No, no.”
“You David’s girlfriend?” Jocko says.
She smiles at me. “No.”
“Cuz he really needs one. We all tell him.”
“Let’s take a walk,” I say.
Jocko pats me on the back with his tongue out and Sarah and I cross the street. “I heard you at the door,” she says. “I saw him hit you. I came out right after but you were gone.”
“We don’t have to talk about that.”
“I know. You must have a lot of questions.”
“You left your family?”
She nods. “My mother talks to me. Listen, it’s a long, fucked-up story.”
We look at each other and she’s embarrassed.
“It’s not safe, Sarah.”
“I’ve never felt unsafe.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I haven’t.”
“Maybe you should try typing,” I say, and her lips harden, a little shocked. “Or how about—?”
“It’s good enough for you.”
“I never said that.”
“I don’t need your advice or your opinion of me, David. I live alone now. Okay? All I do is stand there, nothing else . . . and they pay me.”
“Just stand there?”
“Stand there.”
“Nude.”
“Big deal. It’s not like I’m—”
“It’s a long way from yeshiva.”
“I didn’t come here for a lecture.”
“Okay.”
“I came here to tell you about your sister.”
Our eyes meet and she starts to smile.
“Where is she?”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
“Too long. Where is she?”
Over Sarah’s shoulder I see Tiki’s head pop out of the theater entrance. She’s looking for someone.
“Brooklyn,” says Sarah.
Holy mother of things large and small. There is no sound as my mind absorbs these words. Under my nose—all this time.
“I wasn’t sure if I should tell you.”
“She called you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last week. She’s getting married.”
Thump, thump, thump, goes the heartbeat in my lip. Married. Right, good, seventeen years old. Perfect. Hasn’t been permitted to be alone with a boy in her whole life. Of course married, wonderful, mazel tov, a wedding to someone bearded and smelly, like the butcher in Fiddler on the Roof. A singing man with a bloody apron and Theodore Bickel’s face. Od Yishama B’arai Yehuda U’vchutzos. Let it speedily be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of happiness, the sound of my sister being forced to screw through a penis-sized hole in a sheet.
“You’re upset.”
“I need to see her,” I say.
“She’s in Kingsford, at her stepfather’s apartment. Avram.”
“Do you have an address?”
“David!” Tiki yells, finally spotting me. “Thank God. Come here, quick. It’s your dad.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
I run across the street and inside, where Brandi’s in the lobby, teary eyed and shaken.
“Is he okay?”
“He just slapped Ira in the face. Help me.”
“Slapped him?”
“Ira came into the office and started screaming. The next thing I see is your father’s hand against his face. He’s lost it this time.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s up there,” she says, pointing at the ceiling.
I bolt past the bar and the stage where an afternoon bachelor party is under way. My father and Ira are coming down the stairs.
> “Dad!”
He faces me with fury in his eyes. “David, Get this fuckin’ ass wipe away from me before I rip his throat out!”
“Hold on,” I say. “Talk to me.”
Ira’s left eye is bruised. “I’m calling the cops,” he growls.
“This motherfucker booked a gang bang. Ira booked a gang bang in my theater.”
“It’s a business move!” Ira says. “And it’s my goddamn theater too.”
“Just like the movies, Ira? Is that a business move too, or do you just want to see my wife getting shtupped on a cherry picker? Huh? Which is it?”
“That was her decision, Arbus! She’s a grown woman. And she’s not your wife until you marry her!”
“Where the hell are the fuck films of your wife, Ira, gettin’ banged like a rag doll? I want to see those, I’ll buy all of ’em without telling you so we can run ’em on every screen we got. Sound good, ya schmuck?”
“You act like I fucked her. They’re old movies, Marty. It was her idea, anyways! How many goddamn times do I have to say it?”
My father walks right up to him again, his right fist clenched. Then Brandi appears and gets between them. “No more fighting!”
“C’mon, Dad,” I say, but when I touch his shoulder he jolts away, glaring at Ira.
“Did you just say you fucked her?” he says.
“No, Martin, listen for a change. I said you’re acting like I fucked her.”
“Did you?”
“Of course not!”
“Did you?”
“I hate you, Marty,” Brandi says. “I’ve had enough.”
My father looks at me. “He just went and bought the films. Is that a scumbag or is that a scumbag? What else don’t I know about these two?”
“I gave Ira permission,” Brandi says.
“And why didn’t you ask me, Arlene? Why ask this putz?”
“They’re classics!” Ira screams. “It’s a business move. It was twenty years ago for Christ’s sake!”
“You’re both lying to my face.”
“Forget it,” Ira says, “Just keep booking burlesque acts, Marty. I’m finished!”
My father’s arms raise and he brings his fist down on his own leg. “Tell me right now if you fucked my girlfriend, Ira.”
Ira waves his hand at him in disgust. “Go kill yourself, Martin. I’m tired of your bullshit! I’m a married man who’s trying to make a buck for his family so go back to 1940 with your dear old dad and book all the crap acts you can find.”