“Hey!” Charlie shouted, the tip of his nose in Danny’s face. “Hey!”
“I’m sorry,” Danny said, blinking.
Mr. Mittleman seemed puzzled. “Tell me-how old did you say you were?”
“I’ll be thirteen soon.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I told you to lay off,” Charlie said.
“We should go over this before you sleep,” Mr. Mittleman said, opening a book. “We have a good profit on the property, but if we sell, we want to avoid tax, right? What to do—we mortgage the property and sell it subject to the mortgage, taking back a second mortgage for you for the remainder of the purchase price. You don’t mind, do you? You’ll have the cash from the first mortgage in your pocket and you can take installment reporting to avoid having cash this year.”
“Whatever you say,” Charlie said.
Mr. Mittleman closed the book, put it aside, and picked up a folder. “You shouldn’t worry, young man. It’s very Jewish to be a landlord. It’s a tradition.”
Then Charlie and Mr. Mittleman talked about the project Danny remembered hearing them talk about earlier—buying land for a shopping center, near the George Washington Bridge. Mr. Mittleman said the property was zoned residential now, but that he had assurances, and that it would cost Charlie eight thousand to pay for the assurances. Mr. Mittleman looked at Danny and spoke for his benefit. “Where land is bought at residential prices and rezoned for commercial purposes,” he said, “the benefits are extraordinary. Your friend is into a good thing. The land costs are low in relation to the cost of improvements, so that we have wonderful depreciation built right in—” He turned a loose-leaf book around, for Charlie to look at. “Here are the figures.”
Charlie waved him away and spoke to Danny. “Come on.”
“You should look at them,” Mr. Mittleman said.
Charlie winked at Danny. “What for? I told you a hundred times—I’m a counter, not an accountant.”
“So?”
“I believe in money, not figures. You know that.” He went to the door, and Danny followed him. “I keep all my money tied up in cash.”
“It’s one way to do business,” Mr. Mittleman conceded.
Charlie switched on the light at the top of the stairs and entered the room. From the other side of a large double bed Danny heard a metallic sound, then saw a head rise up. “It’s only me, darling,” Mrs. Mittleman said. She wore a pink flannel nightgown. “I heard you coming and I remembered that I forgot to see if the cot was underneath your bed. It must be in the cellar.”
“Forget it,” Charlie said. “We’ll sleep together-like old times at the Home, right?”
“But wouldn’t you both be more comfortable—? I can get it myself. It won’t be a bother….”
The room impressed Danny as having been decorated not for a son but for a daughter. The bedspread was robin’s-egg blue, and the curtains, at the far end of the room, were white with blue trim. The furniture was made of shiny blond wood, and the only item that seemed meant especially for Charlie was a modern black leather easy chair. Charlie opened a closet and took out a bridge chair, unfolding it and setting it beside the bed. “Danny can use this for his clothes tonight. We’ll get him some new ones soon. I’ll make room.” He went to his desk, marked the item on a list.
“But it won’t be any trouble.”
“Just leave us be, all right?” Charlie said sharply, and Mrs. Mittleman backed toward the door. “I told you before that I didn’t like you nosing around in here. I take care of things.”
“I didn’t mean to interfere,” she said. “Wouldn’t I do the same if my son brought a friend home?”
“You don’t have a son.”
“I just wanted you and—” she hesitated, then spoke coldly “—your friend to be comfortable.”
“You meant well,” Charlie said. “You always do.”
Mrs. Mittleman left, and Charlie cursed. “Shit,” he said, “why does she get to me? Why do I let her—?”
Danny sat on the chair, unlacing his shoes. “What’s depreciation?” he asked.
“I’ll explain tomorrow—it’ll be easier when we can look at real buildings.” He sat at his desk. “I have some things to do first, so you get to sleep now.”
Danny slipped out of his shirt and climbed into bed. The sheets were cold and smooth. He pulled the cover to his chin. He dozed, then woke, and he watched Charlie at his desk, writing. He was glad he hadn’t fallen asleep completely; he remembered now to say the Shema to himself: Hear O Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is One…. Then he reviewed the things he’d learned. He wanted to be able to keep all the sayings he’d memorized in his head at once, but he wondered if there would, after a while, be enough room. He thought of getting out of bed and writing in his notebook, but he decided that it might scare Charlie if he did.
When the lights were out and Charlie was in bed, Danny spoke. “I’m glad I was right—that you do buy and sell land. I think I can help you.”
“I’ll bet you can,” Charlie said, but he was drifting off to sleep.
“I think I know how you can get a lot of money.”
“You impressed Max with what you memorized—that’s something.”
“I mean it. But you have to swear to me first that you won’t send me back.” Danny laughed.
Charlie smiled. “Sure,” he said. “No deposit, no return, right?”
Danny propped himself up on an elbow. Charlie’s half of the bed sloped downward, from his weight. Charlie was turned away from him, on his side. “I mean it,” Danny said. “Swear it to me.”
“Let me sleep, okay?”
“Swear it. Please.”
“Okay, okay. I swear.”
“All right,” Danny said, and he lay back down, smiling. “I know something and it’s this: Dr. Fogel has over three thousand acres of land.”
Three
TUESDAY
Today was the 1st day we were apart and even though I know he won’t be home until after practice I keep going to the window and looking out for him. I’m afraid something will happen to him in the city but I don’t want to telephone the school because I don’t want him to see how much I worry about him.
Why I’m writing in my notebook again: 1. To help myself imagine that he’s here with me. 2. To record this precious period of my life in writing.
I’ve been with him for 3 weeks and 6 days now and he never mentions my going anywhere else. We’re together all the time: in the city, at the school, in the office, and in his car. I stayed here today because he said he might have time to stop at the Home.
What I feel: that more has happened to me during these few weeks than in my entire life up until now! Charlie can tell how happy I am. He always smiles at me and roughs up my hair and this is what he says: When you’re in love, Danny, the whole world is Jewish!
A question: Is Charlie thinking about me while he’s away, and if he is and he misses being with me the way I miss being with him, when he comes back will he say so, or will he be angry because I’ve made him become attached to me and will this make him give me back to Mr. Gitelman?
Mrs. Mittleman came up before and brought me cookies and a glass of milk. She asked me to call her Shirley but I won’t. She saw my notebook and she told me not to throw away education. There was a sign in her school when she was a girl which said
AN EDUCATION ENABLES YOU TO EARN MORE THAN AN EDUCATOR.
While she kept talking I worked on my memorizing. Two days ago I found the saying in PIRKAY AVOS that our motto comes from but guess what? The motto part isn’t even from Maimonides! He was quoting somebody else’s saying! Here’s the way the whole thing really goes:
AS THE SAGES USED TO SAY, “GIVE ME FRIENDSHIP OR GIVE ME DEATH.” AND IF A PERSON CANNOT EASILY FIND A FRIEND HE MUST STRIVE WITH ALL HIS HEART TO DO SO, EVEN IF HE HAS TO GO SO FAR AS TO COMPEL THE PERSON TO LOVE HIM, EVEN IF HE HAS TO BUY HIS LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.
Mrs. Mittleman looked out the window
and said she was worried about Charlie being knifed or mugged. I told her I was doing special work for him and needed to be left alone.
Every morning at breakfast Mr. Mittleman pinches my arm to see if I’m fattening up.
Here are some of the things Charlie does in the city:
1. He collects rents for Mr. Mittleman. Some of the rents are his but most of them belong to Mr. Mittleman and buildings he manages. Charlie gets extra money for the stores and apartments in the black and Puerto Rican sections. He calls this “combat pay.”
2. He checks to see that the buildings are running right and he calls plumbers and electricians to fix things. Sometimes he fixes things himself and shows the supers what to do.
3. Every morning at 9:30 he calls his stockbroker. He says stocks are good because they’re liquid. Other things he keeps his money in are land, bank accounts, Treasury notes, and options. He buys and sells options on land and stocks. He says he learned that from Mr. Mittleman. It’s a way to spread your money.
4. We look at buildings and vacant lots and houses Charlie is thinking of buying, but when he asks me if I like a house I don’t know what to say because I wonder if he’s thinking of buying it for us now, the way he wanted to do for him and Sol.
5. He talks a lot about Sol with me and says that Sol never works at all and never did, as far as he knows. He told me that Sol’s father was a very wealthy Jew from upstate New York who owned a company that made uniforms for athletic teams, and that Sol saved sample uniforms of old teams that are gone like the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Pilgrims and St. Louis Browns and original Baltimore Orioles. Once a year in the spring Sol would bring his uniforms to the Home in a trunk, along with famous souvenirs of signed bats and gloves and balls.
The reason Charlie’s worried about Sol’s money is because Sol’s father sold the uniform business when Sol was a young man and Charlie thinks that maybe most of the money Sol got then is used up now. He told me that Sol’s father was a founder of the Home. He says people always enjoyed doing things for Sol. He says that’s the most important thing: to make other people want to please you.
He talks to me like that all the time, making sure I learn things, and here are some of the things he taught me so far:
1. The 3 most important things to consider in buying any piece of property are 1. location, 2. location, and 3. location.
2. Always use other people’s money! You can buy things with small percentages and when you sell you get the whole profit after you pay back the loan. He calls this LEVERAGE. In Murray’s house Dov always wants him to crack walnuts in his fingers and when Charlie does Dov shouts “That’s leverage!” and it makes Charlie laugh.
Will Charlie really speak with Dr. Fogel? What will Dr. Fogel feel when he sees him after all these years? If Dr. Fogel finds out how Charlie found out about the land will they get together and try to make me go back?
I’m only afraid of that when he’s not with me but I’m not afraid of Murray anymore. Now that he thinks I’m so smart the way he was he tells everybody in the school I’m a special exchange student from the orphanage he grew up in. Also because he really loves Charlie! When Charlie was 1st put into the Home Murray was older and used to rock him to sleep in his arms every night.
I watched practice with Murray yesterday and he even put his arm around me. I told him how I thought he looked the same as he did when he was a boy in the photos except thinner and he told me about the heart attack he had 4 years ago and how he’s lost 35 pounds. He told me about Charlie visiting him in the hospital every day and what Charlie said to him, through the oxygen tent: “Get well for yourself and nobody else.” Charlie told him that people forget very quickly and Murray said he was right. Charlie said that if Murray died, Anita would remarry, his kids would grow up and have lives of their own, and for everybody else he would only be a memory and “a conversation piece.”
This is how Murray runs his school: The students march from room to room, even the ones who are 18 years old. If you don’t wear a school uniform you get sent home. Smoking, hand holding, and talking are not allowed in the halls. The students have to stand whenever an adult enters a room. All adults are called Mr. Mrs. Sir or Ma’am. Every student must practice a musical instrument 1 hour a day. Every student must study either Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. Every student must play on an athletic team. Murray is allowed to enter a classroom at any time and test students or check homework.
If a student doesn’t like the way he’s treated he can have a 15 minute interview with Murray, but Murray’s decision is final, and there are things he won’t discuss. If students or parents are displeased, they can leave the school.
What surprised me: How happy the students seem to be!
Also: The girls have to keep their arms covered at all times, and the men teachers have to wear jackets and ties.
Murray runs the school this way because he says democracy isn’t everything. He believes that True Freedom comes from developing resources and skills in yourself that you can use for the rest of your life!
What Charlie says: Murray’s happy because he’s the boss.
When they were boys Murray was allowed out of the Home like me to go to a regular public school because he was so smart but Charlie wasn’t. They had teachers come to the Home the way we do for regular subjects, but going to a public school gives you a better chance to get into college.
Every time I ask Charlie if he wants me to help him learn to read he ignores me. In the school library I read about what Charlie has. It’s called DYSLEXIA and it comes because the hemispheres of the brain didn’t establish the right “dominance” when you were young. I read about ways it can be cured with hormones and vitamins and training.
Some dyslexiacs read from right to left, but it doesn’t make them Jews. I asked Charlie and he told me that things switch on him sometimes.
Words I thought of that would be fun if I had mirror vision like him: LIVE would be EVIL. LIVED is DEVIL. WAS is SAW. PAL is LAP.
A Palindrome is a sentence or word that’s the same backward as forward, like MADAM I’M ADAM or DEIFIED.
I told Charlie I thought it would be exciting to be that way so that things could turn inside out at any moment of your life and you might discover something new, but he wouldn’t talk about it.
LATER
It’s pitch black out but he’s still not home. I already had some supper with Mr. and Mrs. Mittleman but I didn’t eat much. Mrs. Mittleman said that Charlie might be late because he was having a date with a woman. She said it was normal for a grown man to want to be alone with a woman and she looked at me when she said it but I didn’t show anything. I wondered if Charlie would visit Dr. Fogel in his home to talk about buying his land.
In the afternoon before supper I turned on the shower so they wouldn’t hear me and I practiced my Haftorah and Maftir. Then I got into bed and played with myself. I have as much hair as some of the players on the team at Charlie’s school. I do exercises and run with them sometimes but I don’t get into a uniform. I’m better coordinated than I used to think I was. I thought of how Charlie and Murray were laughing 3 nights ago because Murray recited what the Director used to lecture to them at their Assemblies. This is what he said: MASTURBATION SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO GET OUT OF HAND.
We eat at Murray’s house at least one night every week, and Murray and Charlie like to argue with each other while Anita watches. Charlie says he’s worried about Sol because nobody’s heard from him, but Murray says he’s really worried about himself. He says that’s the reason Charlie took me in—because he wants somebody to take care of him when he gets old the way he wants to take care of Sol because Sol took care of him when he was a boy! Murray says that he went through a crisis also when he was getting close to 40 about growing old, but Charlie says it has nothing to do with Murray’s theories.
After I played with myself I slept for a while and while I was sleeping I dreamt that I was Charlie. When I woke up I couldn’t tell at first if I was Da
nny Ginsberg who had just dreamed that he was Charlie or if I was now Charlie dreaming that I was Danny Ginsberg.
WEDNESDAY
It’s nighttime now and the room is hushed with quiet. Charlie’s at his desk, hunched over and adding things up, and I’m sitting in his black chair with my shirt off so I can feel the soft leather against my back. I have my feet up and my socks off.
I was sleeping when he got home last night but he woke me up to tell me he stopped at the Home. He said the place looked so empty it scared him and that he only stayed a few minutes and didn’t speak to the Director or try to see Dr. Fogel. He said that as soon as he saw the way the Home is now he decided not to save it, “Let’s just work on saving you, OK?”
I acted as if I was drowsy from being woken up and I said, “Save the Home!”
“But there are no more orphans,” he said. “What do you want to do—import them?”
I told him that was a pretty good idea. There are poor Jews in other places in the world where they don’t have so much birth control. There are Jews in India and China and Poland and Russia and even in Egypt and Syria. I told him that when men and women soldiers in Israel were killed by Arabs and their children made into orphans we could bring them here until they reached the age when they could go back. That way we could save the state of Israel the expense of raising them and training them.
He scratched his head and laughed at the way my brain works and said it would be cheaper to take in black and Puerto Rican kids from the city and teach them to be Jews but I said Jews weren’t allowed to proselytize.
I was glad I didn’t try to force him to promise me anything more because it might have made the shock of seeing the Home worse. He was relaxed today. We walked in my old neighborhood where I first saw him and I told him about my mother and he told me about his. He said he remembers his mother as being the most beautiful woman he ever saw. He remembers her when she was almost gone and weighed less than 70 pounds, but he said her face still glowed and that she had a look in her eyes which he said would last him forever.
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