Texting

I went to an Au Bon Pain in Penn Station in NYC last year for coffee. I had dragged my boyfriend in there, rather than the million other places we'd passed, because I wanted to show him the cool oatmeal bar they have, where you can load up on nuts and raisins and sugar! But we were in a rush, as we always are, train to catch or some such nonsense, so we moved quickly over to the coffee bar and tried to get out of there as fast as possible (I had wasted precious minutes of ours by showing off the oatmeal bar, as if it were my own). My boyfriend has only milk in his coffee, and there was plenty of milk in the container, so he moved through quickly. Me, I need half and half, and the container was empty. I rushed over to the nearest Au Bon Pain employee, a young girl who was restocking the sugar container, and I handed her the half and half container, shook it, and said, "It's empty. It's empty. We need more." My voice sounded urgent. Well, I stood outside the swinging door to the kitchen waiting for her to emerge with the cream, and I waited, and waited, and waited. My boyfriend looked at me pleadingly from the cashier line, his eyes saying "We gotta go." I said one sec, and waited some more. Finally, I saw another cafe employee and said, "Excuse me. I need half and half, and I sent someone into the kitchen for it, and I've been waiting 15 minutes for her to come back." (I lied. It was about 6 or 7 minutes). Well, the woman, who was Russian, spun on her heels and stormed into the kitchen and seconds later, emerged with a cold, fresh container of half and half.

"Here," she said, in that warm way only Russians have.

"Thank you," I said. "What happened to the girl and my half and half?"

"Texting," she said in clipped English.

Pier 39

Just beyond the parade of t-shirt and scrimshaw shops along San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf is Pier 39, a small marina for pleasure boats and vessels that make daily excursions out to Alcatraz. At the end of the pier, there are about a dozen floating docks the size of a raft to which one might swim and sun themselves during a family vacation at the lake. On each dock, there were several sea lions, splayed out in all of their blubbery glory, as the sun dried the water off of their skin.

Some docks had just a couple of sea lions. Others had as many as 10 or 12, so many that on some, the corner of the dock was partially submerged from the weight.

The sea lions on some rafts slept peacefully, lined up like sardines, their little fin-like arms draped over the creature next to them. One had its tail sticking right up onto the neck of another, like a person’s foot might end up in the face of a friend if the two were sleeping head to toe. The sea lion with the tail in his face didn’t seem to mind. He simply pointed his head upward, lest he would get a fin in his mouth.

Other rafts were less peaceful, as one sea lion– usually a large one – would sit vigil on the corner of the raft and use the top of his head, while bearing his teeth, to keep other sea lions from getting on the raft.

On some rafts, this sentry seemed to be protecting his family from intruders, while making sure they had enough room. But on others, there would sometimes be a large sea lion sitting in the middle of a raft all by himself, with plenty of room, and yet if another sea lion dared to climb up, he would rush to the edge and use his head to try to push the invading animal back into the water. As the two animals locked in struggle, their mouths would open revealing a couple of teeth under their whiskers. Their growls sounded like they’d kill over something much smaller.

On one particular raft toward the front of the pier, a sea lion, who had a float all to himself, rushed over to the edge as another sea lion approached. The intruder managed to get onto the float but only just. He was still near the edge when the sea lion already on the raft rushed him and pushed him over the edge.

The intruder made a second go, rushing the raft, climbing on top, but again, as he tried to get himself farther into the middle of the raft, the other sea lion pushed him back into the water. He tried again, only this time, he swam around to the other side of the raft, climbing up onto the corner. The sneak attack gave him a little more time to get farther onto the raft, and before long, he was in a pushing match with the other sea lion, as the two head butted each other and barked. The intruder was now in the more advantageous position, fighting from the middle of the raft, while the other sea lion was slowly being pushed toward the edge.

But then suddenly, the other sea lion seemed to give up the fight. He relaxed his body, and let it sink down to the ground as if he was about to give in. As he did that, the second sea lion relaxed, and as soon as he let his guard down, the first one popped up and swung around so that he had the power position in the middle of the raft and his opponent , putting his opponent to the middle of the raft, putting him once again in the position of power. Soon, he was once again pushing the second sea lion toward the edge of the raft with his head, farther, farther, until the second one dropped backward into the water.

The second sea lion made another rush at the corner of the raft, only to swim around again and sneak onto the back corner of the raft, getting up on top of it, and again pushing his advantage against the first sea lion, only to fall once again for the old "I don’t want to fight anymore” maneuver, wherein the first one once again reversed the situation, got into the power position in the middle of the raft, and pushed the second one backwards until he fell off the edge of the raft and back into the bay. The second one loitered for a moment under the water at the edge of the raft before swimming off, leaving the first one victorious and baying on his empty raft.

Broadway

When I arrived at the restaurant, David was already standing out front. David and Bill were going to take me out for my birthday, but at the last minute, Bill cancelled because he had to take care of his sister, who was on crutches. David said once Bill cancelled, he was going to cancel as well.

“I didn’t know what we were going to talk about,” he said. A college drop-out who does odd jobs for people on our block, David usually left the talking to Bill, who was a little more polished.

“I know you, too,” I told him, as we sat down at a table outside.

As we ate lunch, we talked about people on our block, how Mrs. Washington’s husband was cheating on her and yet she refused to kick him out, how Mrs. Beatrice spoke so rudely to her children, people were tempted to call child services, how a man who planned to run for mayor had just moved in to number 106. I liked to hear stories about the doctor for whom David did maintenance work now and again. Dr. Dora was always having trouble with her tenants, and I liked to hear about it because it made me feel like I was in good company. I had troubles of my own, and I liked to be reminded I wasn’t the only one.

When we finished our meal, the waiter brought the bill. David took it, and said it was his treat. As he looked down at the check, he began shaking his head and smiling. “I knew it,” he said. “It’s fifty dollars.”

He began to tell me how he’d never been to the restaurant, and so not wanting to be late, he arrived 30 minutes early. He was born and raised in New York City, but he spent most of that time in Harlem. He wasn’t that familiar with the Upper West side. With nowhere to go, he sat down on one of the benches located on a greenway that ran along the middle of Broadway.

Soon, he began talking to a man seated a few benches down. The man was waiting for a delivery from the grocery store, and his truck was parked along Broadway. David told him how he had wanted to get his truck driver’s license, but things hadn’t gone as planned, which is often the way it goes.

As he spoke, David noticed an elderly gentlemen walking across two lanes of traffic, heading right toward him. The man was white, about 75 years old, and had a thick mane of white hair and an unkempt appearance, as if he hadn’t bathed or changed his clothes in a few days. The old man mumbled as he walked. He stopped short a few feet away from David and continued to talk to himself as David finished his conversation. When the delivery man got up and went back to his truck, the old man walked toward David.

"Are you hungry?” he asked.

Here we go, David thought. A black man sitting in the middle of Broadway. He must be hungry.

It was the old man who looked hungry.

“No, thanks,” David said.

“I’ve got these coupons,” the man said.

David said he’d seen the two coupons sticking out of the man’s pocket.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” the man said.

“Yes,” David said. He lied.

The old man grabbed David’s hand and stuck a crumpled bill into it.

“Take this,” the man said. “Go buy your girlfriend a meal.”

David said he noticed a five on the bill.

“You sure you don’t need this?” David asked.

“Don’t worry. There’s plenty more where that came from,” the man said.

David said he thought the old man would be happy now and leave him alone. He could tell the man just wasn’t going to quit until David took something from him. As he took the money, David thanked the man, but then he suddenly feared it was a set up and looked both ways to see if anyone was watching. He imagined the man would flash a badge and David would be arrested.
For what, he wasn’t sure.

A black man stood on the sidewalk across the two lanes of traffic watching the exchange. He waited in anticipation, hoping the old man would approach him next. But when the old man crossed the street, he walked right by the man and headed downtown along Broadway.

After the old man walked away, David opened up the bill in his hand and saw it was $50.

“I think this guy walks around and gives money away,” David said.

“They say there’s an old guy who comes to Harlem around Christmas time and gives money away to people along 125th Street. Maybe that was him.”

David picked up our lunch bill.

“See that? It’s $50. I knew it,” he said, and smiled as he placed the bill on top of the check.

Into the Wild

Eileen Goldfinger said a raccoon has been swimming in her pond. She can tell because when he enters the water, he usually kicks over a couple of her potted plants.

“I think he wants the fish,” she says.

Her husband, Paul, put down traps and secured the lids on the garbage pails, as the raccoons seem to have quite a varied diet.

Eileen said when she lived in Chester, her neighbor had a gopher in her yard that would dig into the ground and chew the roots of her plants, killing some of them. Being a nature lover, she didn’t want to kill the gopher. She just preferred it to eat someone else’s plants. She bought a Have-a-Heart animal trap, set it, and much to her surprise, the trap worked. The baby gopher walked into the trap and was caught. She now had to take the caged animal and set it free. But where? Surely, not in a neighbor’s yard. So she and Eileen put the cage in her car and drove around Chester looking for a wooded area in which they could open the trap and set the animal free. But there were no woods to be found. Every lot had a house on it. And so they drove into town and found a little patch of public space and set the trap down and opened the cage. They had to coax the animal out with a couple of sticks because it seemed to have grown accustomed to its new digs. Or perhaps it found the public space in the middle of Chester inhospitable, compared to a wooded backyard filed with plants. But they finally got the gopher out of the cage and the two women drove off, feeling they had just taken a brief excursion out into the wild.

Mourner's Kaddish

Some of the greatest works of art fill cathedrals around the world, from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to the stained glass of Riverside Church in Manhattan. Our temple in East Meadow, Long Island was a tribute to fiberboard. The walls had wood paneling, and the stage on which the rabbi and cantor stood, as our representatives before god, was covered in green shag carpeting. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the temple staff would open up the folding doors between the sanctuary and the catering hall in the back to accommodate those who only seemed to find God during the holiest of Jewish holidays. In the Judaism I was taught, God was like Santa on Yom Kippur, dividing everyone into those who were naughty and those who were nice, except instead of getting presents, nice Jews get to live on earth for another year.

My best friend, Eileen Shapiro, and I would sit toward the back of the room and watch as they would say the blessing and open up the doors of the cabinet in which they housed the sacred Torah, a special place that received a special name in Hebrew: Aron Hakodesh. They would open up the little doors, and they would close them. They would open them, and they would close them. Sometimes, they would take out the torahs, scrolls that were dressed in velvety robes and adorned with etched silver hats and shoes. They would parade the torahs them around the room, and people would trip over each other to touch them as they went by, like they were rock stars. Eileen and I would point to our mouths and say, “Aron Hakodesh,” and to our nostrils, and say, “Aron Hakodesh,” as if any little cave or orifice was a place that could house a Torah. After the temple elders would march by, I would look down at the way my thighs would spread out on the metal folding chair and then I’d look at Eileen’s, and I’d notice how much fatter mine looked in comparison.

The first year we fasted, we didn’t make it much past lunch before we were dizzy with hunger. The following year, we sat in the backyard with Betty Crocker cookbooks and flipped through the pages, looking at pictures of Hamburger pie and Chicken Cacciatore, hoping it would satiate our hunger. We made it to sundown, but once we were able to eat, I consumed so much food so quickly, I threw up and wound up in bed with a headache.

Fasting used to be the most notable part of Yom Kippur for me. It was a dare, a way of seeing who had more control over me, my mind or my, well, my mind. But as I’ve gotten older, one of the most significant parts of the day is now the part of the Yom Kippur service in which one honors loved ones who are dead, a prayer they call the Mourner’s Kaddish. It’s a very solemn prayer that used to frighten me when I was young. The drone voices of the temple’s elders, who were mostly men, would grumble the words Yisgodol, veh-Yisgodosh, Sheh-may Rah-bah. The words of the prayer are repetitive and are stated flatly, devoid of emotion. I didn’t know what they meant. I just knew people would bow their heads and that they were talking to the dead, and for that moment, the dead might has well have been in the room with us. There’s a scene toward the end of the 1970s movie, The Sentinel, where the gateway to hell is left open, and the ghouls and fiends come out and join us on earth. And so it was with the Mourner’s Kaddish. The dead would come out into the room and sit down in folding chairs next to those who mourned them.

When my father was dying of cancer in 2001, I decided to go to temple on Yom Kippur. I stumbled into one on the Upper West side of Manhattan. I listened to the prayers for about half an hour, and then when they got to the Mourner’s Kaddish, they asked those who hadn’t lost a loved one to leave. I felt like I’d been tossed out. But I knew the following year I would be allowed to stay, and that saddened me more. My father did pass in late 2001, and I’ve been going to temple on Yom Kippur, for about an hour, hoping to catch the part of the service in which they recite the Mourner’s Kaddish. Sometimes I catch it. Other times I’ll wander in as they’re reciting the names of the families who have given money to the temple. This year, I was looking forward to it. I was to meet my father’s sister, Gloria, at her temple near the Lynbrook railroad station on Long Island. I got off the train in my plaid wool suit, black tights and leather boots. It was cool out when I left my house by the Jersey Shore. By the time I got off the train in Lynbrook, it must have been about 70 degrees, and I was beginning to perspire. I followed my Aunt Gloria’s directions, taking a left by the White Castle restaurant, going around the bend, and the temple would be there on the right. I kept walking farther and farther from the train station and couldn’t find the temple. Soon I was at the next major intersection, and I knew I’d gone too far. I turned back around and went back to the train station, but still I couldn’t find the temple. I peered down one of the sidestreets and saw a big beige building that looked ugly enough to be a synagogue, but as I got closer, I saw it was a union hall. I asked a car mechanic standing outside whether there was a temple around there, and he pointed me down the street. As I walked another three blocks farther from the train station, I thought I must be going in the wrong direction. I couldn’t believe it could be that far.

“Nice boots,” a man said, as I rushed by him with my thick, suede, knee-high boots. I couldn’t tell if he liked them or was mocking me for wearing them in 70-degree heat.

When I reached the temple, I ran inside and rushed to the doors of the sanctuary and saw it was empty. There was a group of people sitting outside, and I asked them what happened? Where was everyone? They said they were on break and asked what I was looking for. I said I wanted to say the Mourner’s Kaddish, and they laughed. That was 11 o’clock that morning, they said. I asked if there was another temple, perhaps, that was closer to the train station. They said there was and told me how to get there. As I rushed back out into the heat with my wool outfit, I could feel the sweat running down my back. I raced back to the train station, and as I walked, I began to recite in my head, “Yisgodol, veh-Yisgodosh, Sheh-may Rah-bah.” I owed my father that much. I said as much of it in my head as I could remember, and then I began to repeat the same words over and over again. It was a poor rendition. I finally found the temple and ran in and sat down next to my aunt and my cousin and made it for the Mourner’s Kaddish with plenty of time to spare.

We returned to my aunt’s house and ate challah and honey and smoked whitefish and salmon and herring and pickled beets. After dinner, my cousin said she wanted to interview my aunt about her parents. We moved into the dining room and sat around the table. My cousin perched her camera on the table and began to interview my aunt. We heard some stories I’d heard before, about my grandmother’s sister, Esther, and how she died young of cancer and left behind three boys, who were sent off to relatives in New Jersey. We heard about my grandmother’s other sister, Bertha, and how she had a nervous breakdown. My aunt told us how when they all lived in the same house, Bertha and her husband would fight, and my grandmother would take my aunt for a walk around the block to get her out of the house.

“Did your parents ever fight?” I asked.

“No. They didn't,” my aunt said. She paused. “But they weren’t very affectionate. They were cold people, and I didn’t realize that until I met Gene’s family. But they didn’t fight. My father would raise his voice and me and my mother would shudder.”

“Did he ever hit you?” I asked.

“Never,” she said.

She talked about how she and my grandfather used to sit in his car and listen to baseball games, and she would keep score of the players and the runs on a grid on a pad. “Do you know what just happened then?” he’d ask her. “I know,” she said, and she’d record it on the grid.

She said when he was dying, he was very worried about my father because we had just moved into a bigger house, and my grandfather didn’t think my father could afford it.

“He’s so stubborn,” my grandfather told my aunt Gloria.

“He’s just like you,” my aunt told him.

I thought about my father and how his father was always so critical of him, how he tried his whole life to win his father's approval, which always seemed to evade him. And then I thought of my father and how he was critical of my brother. I remembered one night about four months before my father died, he came flying out of the house looking for my brother. He was on a mission. He needed to tell my brother how wrong he was behaving in his marriage. And he was going to chastise him about it. I mourned for all of them, for the accomplishments they failed to see in each other and for the successes they failed to see in themselves.

Humble Pie

This is my first blog entry. I had what seemed like a lot of good ideas, and now, with the stage lights on me, I'm frozen. I suddenly feel incredibly self indulgent. Why would anyone want to hear what I have to say? How crass and arrogant.

Hopefully, I'll feel differently tomorrow.