“I don’t feel bad if you pay it,” said Hugh, laughing.
“I just hate splitting tabs. I feel like a communist.”
Hugh kept laughing, drained his last drink. “You’re generous,” he said. “I get it.”
And it was Hugh’s dismissive sarcasm in that moment (the same laconic sarcasm that Ed otherwise greatly appreciated) that clarified for Ed the true destination of the day.
He wanted—in fact he needed—Hugh to see his father’s house.
If Hugh could only see where Ed was from—or so Ed reasoned—he would admit that he felt superior to Ed. Ed always sensed superiority, but each time he confronted Hugh about it, Hugh insisted he was being paranoid. There was an incident at the Museum of Fine Arts that still elevated his heart rate; Ed had mistaken a Monet for a Manet, gone on to elaborate for a good minute on the latter’s life story before Hugh bothered to point out his mistake. And only after Hugh had let him go on and on.
The thing was, Ed didn’t really mind if Hugh felt superior in terms of where they came from. In fact, maybe what he was realizing was: He preferred it. They were from two different places, and on venturing into the world Hugh had definite and specific advantages. Ed only wanted to hear Hugh acknowledge he’d had it easy in comparison, which Hugh never would come out and say. He preferred offering philosophical arguments, which were rarely enlightening, which were, in fact, irritating and only backed up Hugh’s stubborn denial that any of it mattered.
Ed would get over this discrepancy in their backgrounds; he would. Because he was going to personally level the playing field, and he was looking forward to it. He didn’t want to be an underdog forever.
Yes, they wanted entirely different lives, and, yes, Hugh cared little for Ed’s version of success, just as Ed cared little about the Third World, unless it was in the context of untapped resources that might affect the marketplace. And perhaps it was senseless to frame anything between them as a competition, because there was no relevant contest. But could Hugh be totally uninterested in money? Could anyone be?
Ed only wanted the acknowledgment before they left the starting gate that he was the underdog. Objectively. And that maybe it wasn’t fair, maybe it wasn’t even important. But it was so.
As they drove along in his new Thunderbird (top up), Ed watched the circus that was Blue Hill Avenue through a faint whiskey haze: the fruit and fish stores. The sock and underwear stores. The bakeries and hosieries and crowds of people in transit. He watched the old men in skullcaps and long black coats, the Negro women in bright clothing, and the men in those wide-brimmed hats that Ed knew came from Roxbury’s Hat Man; he watched the balabuste matrons haggling and lugging their goods. And Ed, of course, watched Hugh, who was also taking in the scene.
The Italian banana man called out, “Banana, banana, banana.”
When Ed switched his focus entirely to Hugh, he saw two things: that Hugh’s expression was unreadable and that the avenue—when he attempted to view it with an outsider’s gaze—was, if nothing else, lively.
“Roosevelt rode his limo right here,” Ed said, as if he had complete confidence that Hugh was even vaguely interested. “Thousands of Jews throwing rose petals—can you imagine? And JFK—he ate French fries in kishke grease right there.” He pointed at the G & G Deli, with its enormous vertical sign. “Ever had kishke grease?” Ed asked.
Hugh shook his head, but whether this was an answer to Ed’s question or whether he was simply overwhelmed was unclear. “I’ve never seen so many pharmacies,” he said.
Hugh was quiet, and maybe Ed was imagining it but he seemed either overly respectful or profoundly uncomfortable as they parked in front of the triple-decker three-family home.
“He knows we’re coming,” Hugh asked, “right?”
“Not exactly,” Ed said, getting out of the car. “It doesn’t matter,” he assured Hugh, but he sounded unconvincing—even nervous.
As he led Hugh up the steps and knocked on the door, Ed wondered if maybe this was a terrible idea. He was suddenly overcome with the fierce desire to have never revealed a single personal detail, not only to Hugh but to anyone he had ever known. Power emerged from mystery. And what the hell else was he doing besides killing any vestige of mystery he possessed? This was—he was sure now—a terrible idea, but when he heard his father coughing his way to the door, he also knew he didn’t have it in him to run away, leaving his father (not to mention Hugh) to wonder why someone would do such a thing—such a little-punk thing to do to a broken man.
And then the door opened.
His father stood still, without greeting them. All that was missing in this initial exchange could be found in his yellowing undershirt, in the little hair left on his olive-skinned head springing up in peppery tufts, and in the plentiful hair that was everywhere else—erupting from under his shirt collar on his still-broad chest, springing from big knuckles and meaty forearms.
When his father leaned forward, peering through the screen door to make sure it was Ed, there was the unmistakable smell of alcohol seeping out of not-young skin, and Ed nearly said, Sorry, Pop, sorry, but we gotta run. Just wanted to make sure you’re still alive.
But instead he pretended that he was happy to see his father; instead, he grabbed him in a hug—clearly aggressive in the strength of the grip but a hug nonetheless. Ed thought if he acted affectionate, then perhaps he might feel affectionate, and maybe all this affection wouldn’t allow for Hugh to perceive his home to be as repellent as it really was. But hadn’t he wanted Hugh to see it all, to see and understand?
Hugh Shipley shook Murray Cantowitz’s hand, and Ed couldn’t help but admire Hugh’s confident handshake and imagine his father rating it the way he knew his father habitually did, though he hadn’t shared these ratings with Ed since he was fifteen, when he’d rated Ed’s handshake a five (“at best”) and Ed had shouted at his father, who in turn had not spoken to his son for nearly three weeks.
Ed knew Hugh had scored high on the handshake test because, instead of proceeding right back to his spot in the living room and letting Ed and his friend fend for themselves, Murray Cantowitz shuffled in to the orange kitchen, and Ed and Hugh followed close behind. The refrigerator was nearly empty, but after a few moments of painfully awkward silence, wherein Ed avoided looking at Hugh by examining the refrigerator’s contents, his father asked Hugh if he liked chopped liver.
“I can’t say I’ve ever had it, sir,” said Hugh. “I’m curious.”
“It’s like pâté,” Ed explained, and his father gave a snort before emptying a half-empty box of crackers onto a plate, surrounding the plastic container of chopped liver—a plastic container that never would have made the journey from kitchen to living room, had his mother been alive. Hugh would never have been allowed into the kitchen at all. She would have carefully scraped the chopped liver into a glass bowl; she would have offered Hugh more and more until Hugh would have had to laugh and say thank you too many times, until it became a joke between them.
They followed Murray Cantowitz into the living room.
“What’s with the shuffling, Pop?” Ed muttered, despite knowing nothing good could come of such a question, which his father, in any case, either didn’t hear or chose to ignore.
Hugh sat down on the filthy amber couch, his legs splayed to the sides like a basketball player’s, as his hands gripped the couch in between. Ed saw that Hugh was trying his best to sit up straight, but the couch sank so low that he was unable to do so.
Ed claimed the green armchair and dipped a stale cracker in chopped liver, which tasted kind of spectacular.
Murray Cantowitz didn’t sit. He produced a bottle of rye and two glasses. “I know Eddie won’t drink.”
“Really?” asked Hugh, as Murray Cantowitz gave him a generous pour. Hugh reached immediately for his full glass, clearly pleased to have something in the way of common ground. “Nice to meet you,” Hugh said in the way of a toast, before taking an eager sip. “I’ve heard a great deal.”<
br />
“Shit, I hope not,” said Ed’s father, who still didn’t crack a true smile. Murray Cantowitz hadn’t looked terribly surprised that Ed was there, or that he’d brought a friend. He only set his drink on the mantel after all that shuffling back and forth. Maybe his father had quickly sized up Hugh and was attempting to appear more tragic than ever. Maybe his father wasn’t immune to the fantasy of the wealthy stranger. The one who appears on an ordinary doorstep and turns shit into gold.
Hugh must have inspired that fantasy every time he left the house; he must have appealed to all the poor suckers who crossed his path, because Hugh just looked rich. No matter how earnestly he strived toward egalitarianism, no matter how threadbare his sweaters or how hard his living might ever get over the years to come, he exuded privilege. Ed could feel his father softening, sucking up to Hugh before he even realized he was doing it.
“What’s doing, Pop?” Ed asked. His knee was bouncing up and down, with no end in sight. He knew that his twitch was forthcoming and that his father could not stand the twitch. “You getting outside?”
“Getting outside? You already forget how hard I work?”
“Of course not. Did you get an injury on the job?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” his father said mockingly.
“I thought you were limping or something.”
Murray Cantowitz took a slug of rye and shifted his weight. “I hope you don’t forget what hard work is.” He shook his head. “I know you think I should pick up and leave with the rest of them. I just hope you don’t forget how many years I been working here—right here—and coming home right there to where you’re sitting.” He gestured at Hugh.
“I can move,” Hugh said, and Ed had to laugh.
“Stay where you are,” said his father.
“Stay right there,” said Ed.
“You planning on sitting down with us, Pop?”
Murray Cantowitz shook his head. “I like standing.”
“Okay, then,” said Ed. “Well.”
A shard of light pierced the closed curtains, and Ed was overcome with the urge to go lie down on his old bed, to sink into a fast, hard sleep. He even closed his eyes for a moment, only to open them and understand exactly where he was and how infrequently he’d sat here since the twelfth grade. During summers, he’d worked so hard during the day that, by the time he made it home, he went straight to sleep, and in the morning he went from bed to door, drinking coffee with the guys on the job.
But here he was, surrounded by the same fake-wood paneling, the same fake-crystal bowls filled with decades-old lemon sours gathering dust on the shelf; here was the same fake-ivory sailboat surrounded by real faded seashells that his mother had collected during summers at Nantasket.
“Is that you?” Hugh asked, pointing to the portrait—oil on canvas—done by a neighbor when Ed was nine years old.
“That’s Eddie,” said his father—as if all American citizens were, by law, forced to hang portraits of their children on their living room walls and, were it not for such a senseless law, he would have never been trapped into hanging such sentimental nonsense.
“It’s a good likeness,” said Hugh.
“You think so?” asked Ed’s father, in a manner that was unsettlingly natural.
“Yes,” said Hugh. “Who painted it?”
Murray Cantowitz shrugged. “A neighbor kid.”
“Huh,” said Hugh, and, as Ed’s father topped off Hugh’s glass, “thanks.”
“I wonder what ever happened to that kid,” said his father.
“You never know,” said Hugh. “That painting might be worth a mint someday.”
Here were Hugh and his father conversing with ease. Here was his father with a not-particularly-bitter smile, and Hugh eating chopped liver with evident gusto, and it occurred to Ed that he was, in fact, the only problem here.
He was the one unable to see anything besides the closed windows and drawn curtains that had, for most of Ed’s life, been opened each morning by his mother, who had once broken up the marital spat of a couple of strangers by offering her unsolicited opinion through the open window. He was the one seeing the dust coating the television, which surprisingly was turned off and facing Hugh, offering a dark mirror.
Ed imagined that he had switched places with his friend and that he was the one faced with his own reflection at that moment. That he had the legitimate right to be the one thinking: What the hell am I doing here?
His father coughed wetly. Finally he said, “You people almost finished with school?”
“That’s right,” Hugh said. “Ed sure is going places, isn’t he?”
Among the spectrum of possible replies, Ed knew, there would not be anything close to a yes or an oh yeah or even a noncommittal nod.
“That depends on whether he does or doesn’t,” said Murray Cantowitz. “I’m not holding my breath—it’s only winter. Lot can happen before the ink is dry on that diploma.”
“That’s true,” said Hugh, indulgently, Ed thought. “We can’t take anything for granted. At least I can’t.”
“A fellow like you!” his father exclaimed, as if he was a person who made pleasant comments from time to time. “Oh, I’d say you’ve got it in the bag.”
Hugh shook his head with infuriating modesty. Ed’s father was nodding.
What the hell was happening here?
“Take it from me,” said Hugh, “no one has a better shot than Ed.”
Why did Ed want to punch Hugh right then? Why? When he was saying nothing but what Ed had always wished someone might say to his father on his behalf?
Murray Cantowitz still hadn’t sat down. He’d been leaning on a side table and was now shuffling to the breakfront cabinet.
“Pop,” said Ed, “you don’t see how you’re walking?” Even as he said it, he knew it was not concern that motivated him. And as his father chose to ignore his line of questioning yet again, as he opened the cabinet and took out a new bottle of rye, a voice rose up outside the window:
“All right now. AW-RIGHT! I am BACK. And see here: Ain’t no one goin’ home till this nigga gets some goddamn heat. You hear me, old man? You hear me?”
“Pop?” Ed asked, as his restless leg finally stopped bouncing. “Who the hell is that?”
His father only gestured, as if he was swatting at fruit flies.
“I am HERE!” the man shouted. “On MY goddamn Sabbath!”
“Pop? You gonna answer the man?”
“That schwartze isn’t talking to me,” said his father, with an expression that could only be described as revulsion, and Ed had the feeling that it wasn’t the man outside the window who was the subject of his father’s deepest scorn.
“Sure sounds like it,” Ed replied. He could hear the panic in his own voice.
“He isn’t talking to me,” repeated his father. “You think I don’t know?”
Ed felt the surge of heat, the particular heat that results only from the shameful words and actions of one’s own family. Then he parted the curtain and looked for himself.
A Negro in a pair of brown trousers and a button-down shirt was raising his fist and hollering, “You hear me, old man, I know you hear me. Make some fuckin’ improvements on your goddamn building.”
“Goldblatt,” said his father, pointing toward the top floor, where their landlord had lived for all of Ed’s life. “He hasn’t left yet, either. This schwartze keeps after him, I’ll give him that.”
“Quit using that word,” Ed spat out, still looking through the window.
The man shook his head over and over.
“Schwartze?” asked his father. “You want me to stop with the Yiddish? In front of Johnny Harvard here, I’m embarrassing you with the Yiddish?”
“It’s not the Yiddish,” Ed said. “Just stop.”
His father picked up one of his mother’s seashells, a scallop. He fingered the ridges and held it in his hand. “You want
to go to shul again? Have a heart-to-heart with the rebbe? You can mull it all over. You can talk about your beloved schwartzes—”
“Christ—”
“Sure, him, too—why not? You and Rabbi Steuyer and Jesus Christ can talk over how you and the schwartzes should create a new holiday. Why don’t you go and do that? You can serve sweet potatoes with matzoh for the Seder. You’re so fuckin’ smart—we know all about that—so why not write up a Haggadah full of our slavery stories, because we really have so much in common. That’s what Rabbi Steuyer wants to do, did you know that?”
“When’s the last time you stepped foot in a shul?”
“Don’t you worry. My information is good. Goldblatt upstairs gives me updates. You and Rabbi Steuyer—you could have long satisfying discussions. And then, when you’re finished with your big discussions, when you’re done with your bullshit about tikkun olam, when you’re done with your important and noble plans, you can step outside and get your wallet stolen and your ribs kicked in for good measure.”
It was all Ed could do not to take the yellowed undershirt in his fist and slam his father up against the bookcase and watch it all come down on top of him, every last disintegrating lemon sour.
“What’s tikkun olam?” asked Hugh, predictably.
“It’s an obligation to heal the world,” said Ed.
Hugh nodded before standing up slowly. “Mr. Cantowitz,” he said.
“My son should not have brought you,” Ed’s father nearly whispered to Hugh, so suddenly soft and low was his voice.
“No,” said Hugh. “No, I’m glad he did.”
“Everyone’s gone,” Murray Cantowitz said. “Everyone. You don’t understand,” he said, ostensibly to Hugh. “Nobody’s even callin’ me up to guess how little these houses will be worth in one year’s time. Whole neighborhood’s gone or leaving.”
“What about the slumlord upstairs?” asked Ed.
“Yeah, he’s here. Him and me. We’re just alike, right? That’s what you think?”
“Why don’t you leave, too, then?” Hugh asked, in a fake-helpful tone that Ed heard as masked disgust. And Ed, though he knew he had no right to be, was irritated. He was annoyed with Hugh for speaking up, for acting as if he understood anything about this neighborhood.
A Dual Inheritance Page 7