“What’s the matter with you, what’s the matter with you?” Esther glared. “Are you an animal? A pig? You can’t eat without getting sick all over my mother’s best tablecloth? What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m ... sorry,” the boy said. For a minute he shook. Then he was gone, whirling and gone, out the window and up the fire escape, gone.
“What’s the matter with you?” Esther shouted after him, staring at the window a moment before throwing the sponge onto the tablecloth, slumping back in her chair, her arms clasped behind her, breasts jutting. “What’s the matter with him? What is it with that boy?”
“Easy, Esther.”
“I’ll talk how I want to. He can’t hear me.”
Yes, I can. Yes, I can. Every word.
“Done is done, Tootsie.”
“Look at this tablecloth. Made by hand. Priceless. Look at it.”
“It don’t exactly whet the appetite.”
“I just don’t know what it is with that boy. Don’t I try?”
“Don’t we both?”
“Yes. Both. And look at the thanks we get. Just ... don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Sid, I mean it, Sid—”
“That’s my name.”
“The blinds are open.”
“Not in the bedroom.”
“I’m just too upset—don’t doooo that.” Laughter.
“Dessert. I’m still hungry. I want a piece of Esther. Beats cheesecake all hollow.”
Laughter.
“Come on, Tootsie.”
“First let me clean this up.”
“The kid made the mess. Let him clean it.”
“The kid. Chicken and corned beef and look what he does with it. Spoiled, that’s all he is. How many kids get chicken and corned beef? Hash he’ll get from now on. Hash he understands. That’s all he deserves, hash.”
Outside and above them, the tiny face nodded, mouth open, eyes closed, yes, yes.
“I’m terribly hungry,” Sid said. “Faint from hunger. Dangerously weak.”
“Not that weak, I hope.”
“Never that weak, Tootsie.”
Laughter. Fabric. Then a door.
Silence.
The dark child clung to the fire escape. His tiny hands gripped the rusted red bars; his feet dangled in space. Pushing his head through the bars, he stared at his feet and, below them, the narrow back alley. Slowly at first he began to kick his feet, and when they were running he raised his eyes, challenging the setting sun. Eventually, of course, his legs tired and the sun forced him to look away. The boy fell back then, lying flat, facing the gentler sky. He did not know the word “unworthy,” but the feeling was familiar.
After six years of being his grandfather, Old Turk one day became his friend.
The transformation was brought about primarily, if indirectly, by the depression, which did not exactly balloon the door-to-door-encyclopedia-selling business. Nor was it much help to the door-to-door-imported-china-marked-down-to-one-tenth-its-actual-value profession, which Sid tried next. He was still a great salesman, incomparable as always, but the goddam Republicans had loused up the goddam economy (probably not with his specific ruin in mind, but he wasn’t 100 percent sure even of that, Republicans being what they were) and people just weren’t buying. No money; was it his fault? Didn’t he try everything? Refrigerators after china, magazines after refrigerators, newspaper subscriptions after magazines? (Get a job, Esther berated, but what job? Behind a desk, behind a counter? Strangulation. Even if he could have found one, he would have said nix. He was a salesman, a door-to-door executive, best in the west, and there was money in it too if the goddam Republicans hadn’t etc.) After unsuccessfully pushing newspapers, Sid retired, because he had his pride, and besides that, if he worked full-time, pool playing could more than pay the bills. So he took the little cash remaining and he started playing pool, nice and easy, no big plunging, a few bucks at a time.
But his touch was gone! Sid found it difficult to believe. Always before, when it had been for laughs, he had had it, right there, right in the sensitive tips of his fingers, but now, when it was for a lousy loaf of bread, he couldn’t sink a six ball in a bushel basket. Until he was totally broke, he always managed to answer Esther’s shouts with shouts of his own, coupled with assurances that he was on the trail of something hot and to morrow would, indeed, be another day, but once his last pennies had fled, he had no antidote for her venom, sitting head bowed, dumb, taking it like what was left of a man, and when Old Turk’s offer of gratis room and board was voiced, Sid could do nothing but submit silently, all the time trying to incorporate the somewhat sullied image of a failure forced to living off the dole into the larger truer picture of the Super Sid he knew himself to be.
The boy, when informed of the coming shift, was troubled only until he remembered that Old Turk’s apartment also possessed a fire escape. After that he didn’t really care.
They made the move one bitter spring morning, Old Turk delaying the opening of his deli to come over and help. He came in a small truck, on short-term loan from Rosenheim, an old and sometime friend who ran a Chinese laundry down the block from the delicatessen. They moved with a minimum of chitchat, Esther pointing here, pointing there, Sid and the old man gathering up whatever it was she indicated, lugging the stuff downstairs to the truck. The boy did what he could to help, then, just before the final journey, he slipped out the window, up to his rusted place, standing in the cold, looking down and around and all over until Old Turk stuck his head out the window and said, “Come. Mine’s got a better view.” The boy joined the old man, the two joined the others, the four squeezed wordlessly into the truck and Rosenheim’s motor took care of the rest.
When they reached the deli, they unloaded onto the sidewalk, Old Turk returning the truck to behind the laundry, while the others began to trek the belongings up to the second floor. The old man rejoined them, helped them finish the chore, then said, “Welcome, make yourself at home, excuse me” and hurried downstairs to open the store. Sid carried a suitcase into the bedroom and began to unpack, grabbing two hangers of pants, opening a door to hang them up. “That’s a closet?” Sid said, pointing. “That?”
“Shut up,” Esther said.
“Six handkerchiefs would fill it. That’s not a closet, it’s a crack in the wall.”
“It will hold our clothes,” Esther said. “And shut up.”
“My wardrobe it might. Your wardrobe would strain the Normandie. If I had half the money I’ve spent on your clothes—”
“You’d lose it at pool. My father gave us his room. His room. He’s sharing the living room with the boy so we can have—”
“The living room’s bigger,” Sid said. “He’s no fool, that cocker.”
“What’s lower than contempt, I wonder? Whatever it is, that’s what I feel for you.”
Sid turned away from her, mumbling, “Why d’ya gotta say things like that for?”
“I speak what’s on my mind.”
“If that were the case,” Sid said, whirling back in triumph, “you would have nothing to say and wouldn’t that be a blessing?”
“How does it feel to be a failure?”
Sid turned away again, slumping onto the bed, the hangers of clothes wrinkled across his lap. “I can’t live in a place like this, Esther.”
“You’re talking about my home, Failure. I was brought up here.”
“Don’t say that word anymore.”
“There’s work to be done, Failure. Do it.”
“I’m used to better things.”
“The world’s only Jewish maharajah, that’s you.”
“Esther, it may come as a surprise to you but you’re getting to me.”
“Not only a failure, but sensitive yet. My cup runneth over.”
“Bitch!”
“Bast—Rudy? Rudy, darling?”
“Yes” from the living room.
“Go down and see if you can help
your grandfather in the store, will you do that?”
“Yes.” The apartment door closed.
“Bastard!”
The boy heard the word through the door, and the words that followed too, but they faded as he raced down the stairs to the store. Old Turk was sitting in his chair by the pickle barrel, reading a thick book. He held the book in his lap, and his chin was dropped onto his chest, so that as he read he looked as if he were using his gigantic nose as a pointer.
“Can I help?” the boy said.
Old Turk lifted his nose, aiming it first at the boy, then slowly around the empty store. “Thank you,” he said. “But I think I can handle things.”
“Mother sent me down to see if I could help.”
Old Turk said nothing.
“They’re very busy unpacking.”
Old Turk nodded, and for a moment they listened to the muffled shouts from the room directly above. “Yes. I can hear.”
The boy said nothing.
Old Turk dropped his nose and began to read.
“Mother sent me down to see if I could help.”
The old man pulled a toothpick from behind his ear and dropped it into the book, marking his place. Then he closed the book, resting both elbows on it. “We could talk if you like. That might be considered helping; it would pass the time.”
The boy said nothing.
“I somehow feel that that idea doesn’t thrill you.”
“No—”
“Please.” And Old Turk raised a finger.” I understand. When we talk, I do all the talking. But that is as it should be. I’m old. It’s my right. When you are old, then you can do all the talking.” He picked up the thick book, holding it out a moment before setting it on the counter. “Philosophy,” he said. “Are you knowledgeable on the subject?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, and I am very knowledgeable on the subject. Philosophy is what you study when you desire to increase your ignorance. Why aren’t you out on the fire escape?”
“It’s very cold.”
“Yes. So it is. Sad for you, joy for the coal man.”
The boy stared at the wooden floor, standing on tiptoe, moving his feet a little this way, a little that, avoiding the cracks.
“Since there is little in the way of help at the present, I release you.”
The boy continued to avoid the cracks.
“You may go,” Old Turk said.
“Yes.” But he did not move.
“I see,” the old man said. “Where will you go? Upstairs is ‘unpacking,’ outside is cold, here an old man jabbers.” He sighed. “At best, an unappetizing selection. But perhaps if the old man quieted, that, at least, would be something. You could go read labels and pretend you were alone. I recommend the tinned fish. They swim here from all over the world, a lesson in geography.” He pointed to a far corner. “Read in peace. The old man is shut.”
The boy moved to the indicated corner and sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the shelves.
“One thing more,” the old man said.
The boy turned.
“A pledge, a promise, as God is my witness what I have to say is so.”
The boy waited.
“I want nothing from you.”
The boy stayed by the shelves until it was time for lunch. Then the old man made sandwiches and the boy carried them upstairs, leaving Old Turk to munch alone by the pickle barrel. The boy entered the quiet apartment and put the sandwiches on the small dining table. His father was sitting on the sofa, looking out the window; his mother was lying down in the bedroom, looking at the walls. “Food,” he said to his father, and again “Food” to his mother, and then he sat down at the table to wait. He was very hungry but they did not come. “Food,” he repeated to his father, who still sat across the room, still staring out the window. The boy reached for a sandwich, salami on dark rye. He waited a moment longer, then nibbled at the sandwich. It was delicious and he tried to wait some more but he couldn’t, so he took a big bite, then another, and by the time his parents got to the table he was done eating.
Sid picked up a salami sandwich and looked at it. “You call this food?” he said.
“I’m all done, may I go?” the boy said.
“Go,” Sid said.
“Stay,” from his mother.
“If I’d said stay, you woulda said go, right?”
“I’m not talking to you,” Esther said.
“How I only wish that were true,” Sid said.
“May I please?” the boy said.
“Sure, kid, sure, Rudy. I’m your father and I say you can go.”
“Yes, Rudy, go before you catch whatever he’s got.”
“Are you saying I’m diseased?”
“I’m not talking to you.”
The boy darted for the fire escape but as he opened the window he started to shiver at the cold air and when his father shouted, “You want to freeze us all? Close the window!” it was already shut. The boy crossed the room to the front door and skipped down the stairs into the store. “Good salami,” he said to his grandfather, who sat, as before, reading by the pickle barrel. The old man nodded with grace and the boy sat down again on the floor in front of the tinned fish. A few minutes later he heard a sound, so he turned to see Old Turk devouring a dill. The old man caught the turn and pointed to the barrel and the boy nodded, so Turk reached down for a pickle, discarding several before making a selection, then threw his choice end over end across the store. It was not a perfect toss, too high, but the boy reached up with one hand and made the catch.
“In my youth I was more accurate.”
“It wasn’t a bad throw.”
“Thank you.” He returned to his book.
The boy began to eat the crisp pickle, taking little bites.
“They’re that interesting, the labels?” Old Turk said later when the pickle was gone.
“What?”
“Can you read?”
“Yes. Of course I can read.” He picked up a tin. “This is salmon.”
“Almost.”
“It isn’t salmon?”
“Tuna fish. But they’re very close.”
“Oh, of course. Look.” He pointed to the label. “Tuna ... fish. I wonder why I said salmon.”
“Slip of the tongue. Everyone is prone.”
“Tuna ... fish.”
“That is correct,” and he returned to his book.
“I can’t exactly read,” the boy said then. “But the labels are very pretty.”
“Beautiful,” the old man agreed. “Sardine labels—there, two stacks to the left—they’re my favorite. Genuine works of art.”
“They are nice. But I think I like the tuna ... fish better.”
“You may well be right. Taste is a peculiar thing. Some people prefer the salmon—the stack in between—the salmon labels to either.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the boy said. “Not the salmon labels. The tuna is much prettier. The sardine too.” He brought a sardine tin close to his face and stared at it. “Maybe the sardine is the prettiest after all.”
“The tuna is certainly lovely. If I were forced to choose I think—” And he stopped as a sudden burst of screaming came from above. The old man shook his head. “They’re at it again?”
“At what?”
“You’ve got to listen to that every day?”
“Listen to what?”
“Nothing,” the old man said, and he picked up his book. “Nothing. But it can’t be much fun.”
“No,” the boy said, “it isn’t much fun.”
The next day was cold, so after breakfast the boy left the apartment and went downstairs. Entering the store, he approached the pickle barrel and stopped. Old Turk looked up from his book. The boy nodded. The old man nodded. Then the boy moved to the canned-soup section and sat down. After a moment he picked up a can and held it up. “This is ... ?”
Old Turk sat forward, squinting. “Bean,” he said finally.
“Bean,” the boy repeated, staring at the letters on the can. “Beeennnnn. B-e-a-n. Bean.”
“Last night, how was my snoring?”
“You snore very well.”
“I meant, did I keep you awake?”
“I wasn’t really tired. This is ... ?”
“Pea. You are given to rolling around.”
“I am? Pea. I’m sorry. P-e-a. Pea soup.”
“Forgiven. I snore, you roll, some gnash; who amongst us can lay claim to perfection?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if you jump up and down long enough, eventually you’ll smell. Good morning, Mrs. Feldman.” He smiled at the large lady entering the store.
“Good morning, Mr. Turk.”
“The little Feldmans?”
“Bigger.”
“As it should be.”
“Three quarts milk, a loaf of rye and a pound of your good Swiss cheese.”
“A tasty order,” the old man said, leaving his beloved chair. He set the milk on the counter and was going for the cheese when a can of soup floated into view above a shelf of appetizers. “Beef,” Turk said.
“What?” Mrs. Feldman said.
“Beef,” came a voice.
Mrs. Feldman peeked over the appetizers. “Who?” she whispered.
Old Turk shrugged. “A stray,” he replied. “Either a small boy or a midget. Backwards in either case.”
“B-e-e-f. Beef.”
“All he does is read soup labels. I checked the symptom in a medical text. There is a disease. Rare. Cogito ergo sum is the Latin name. In English it’s called Double Stupidity.”
Was that a laugh? From behind the shelf of appetizers? The old man listened. There was no more sound. The old man sighed.
“I’m not hungry,” the boy said as Old Turk finished making the second sandwich. “I’ll just take those up to them and come on back down.”
Old Turk wrapped the sandwiches in a paper napkin, opened two bottles of celery tonic and pushed them across the counter to the boy. “What will your mother say about your not eating?”
“She won’t mind,” the boy said, and he cradled the food in his arms and hurried up the stairs to the apartment. His father was in the living room playing solitaire. “Lunch,” the boy said, and he set the food down. His mother came out from the bedroom. “Lunch,” he repeated.
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