Air Time II

Summer Days - Catch

2007-05-03T09:36:00.000-04:00

May 5, 2005

I played catch with dad today. I didn’t really want to do it, but it felt really good to play, the way we used to when I was a kid. This time, it was just the two of us, tossing the ball back and forth...

It was Sunday, which meant that my dad couldn’t hide out from us by going to work, or sending us to school. As he did most weekends, he encouraged me and Allie to find friends to play with, or something to do. Allie decided to sleep at her friend Sharon’s house on Saturday night, and then spend the day with Sharon’s family. My dad even found afternoon playdates for the little kids.

I planned on going fishing with Jimmy and his dad. We had talked about it for a few days, and I was really excited about driving to the lake with them, and fishing all day. I had never gone fishing before, but Jimmy made it sound so exciting. We were going to start on a row boat in the morning. After fishing in the middle of the lake, Jimmy said his dad would bring us to the pier, where we could fish, and sometimes, he said, his dad would even let him finish off his beer.

We would fish and horse around in the afternoon. Jimmy said his dad always brought a big radio, and we would be able to listen to the Tiger’s game while we fished. Around supper time, we would take out the fish we caught, gut them, and put them on the grill. They normally caught enough to eat and bring some home, but just in case, his dad always brought a package of Ballpark Franks. I was a little nervous about eating the fish, and was relieved when I heard about the dogs. Nothing like a hotdog on a Sunday afternoon while listening to the ballgame.

My dad looked really glad on Saturday night when I told him the plan. He had already found something for the younger kids. I didn’t know what he was planning, but he looked really glad to be kid free for the whole game. “Fuck you,” I thought to myself. “This is your family.” But I kept my thoughts to myself, and went up to my room.

I picked out some shorts and a shirt for the next day, watched TV, and went to sleep.

Unfortunately, I forgot to set my alarm, and when I woke up at 8:30, I had missed Jimmy and his dad by over an hour.

I went downstairs, grabbed some breakfast, and told my dad I was off to fish. He smiled, nodded, and away I went. I didn’t have anyplace to go, so I hopped on my bike and just started riding around the neighborhood. There wasn’t much traffic, and there wasn’t anything to do at 9 am on a Sunday morning. I rode around aimlessly throughout the subdivisions. I had been riding for almost an hour when I decided I needed to see a newspaper. I passed house after house with newspapers sitting in the box outside the house, trying to build up my courage and resolve.

Finally, I picked a house. The shades were drawn, and the street was empty. It didn’t look like anyone was home. I rode past the house three times, trying not to look suspicious. My heart started to pound, and for a second, I doubted whether I had the stones to lift the paper. Finally, I made my move. I rode over to the newspaper box at the edge of the street, reached in, and pulled the newspaper out of the box.

Some of the circulars fell to the ground as I rode off as fast as I could. I could swear someone was chasing me, but when I looked back, the street was empty. The only sound was my thumping of my heart.

“I did it,” I yelled, pumping one hand into the air.

It was the first thing I ever stole, and I didn’t know if I should be excited about getting away with it or sick about stealing. It’s only a lousy buck and a half, I told myself. If they want a newspaper that bad they can just go buy another one.

I rode for a while, clutching the newspaper in my arm, tucked into my chest, before I found a school yard. The sun was out, and I wanted to read the sports section, so I got off my bike, laid the paper on the merry-go-round, and read for a while.

I knew that I had all the time in the world. My dad thought I was fishing. No one knew where I was, and no one, at all, would be looking for me.

I read through the paper slowly, looking at the stats, the box scores and the week’s upcoming games. The Tigers season was just about over and it was only May. I crumpled the paper up, and left the stolen goods in the school yard. I was feeling hungry, so I climbed on my bike, and rode home. I made sure to avoid the street where I stole the paper from. I didn’t think anyone would know it was me, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

I was starving when I finally got home. From the looks of it, no one was there. I walked in, and finding myself completely alone, I heated up some pizza in the microwave, and went out back to eat it. I was sitting in the back yard, eating my pizza, when my dad came home. I don’t know where he was coming from, but he was alone. And he was smiling.

A minute later he was out of the house. “Andy,” I heard him call out my name. I didn’t answer him at first, but then, when he called me again, I answered “Back here, Dad.”

My dad walked around the house, and came into the back yard.

“I thought you went fishing,” he asked.

“I woke up too late,” I said.

“Where were you all day?”

“I rode my bike around the neighborhood. Then I hung out in the park for a little while.” I wondered what he would say if I told him I lifted the newspaper from someone’s house, but decided to keep that information to myself for a while.

“Why didn’t you say anything this morning?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me around. So I just left.” I felt my body shake, and was surprised when I had to hold back tears. I caught myself, jumped up, and calmed down.

“Wanna throw a ball around?

His question caught me off guard. We hadn’t played catch since forever, it seemed.

“I guess,” I said, “I’ll go grab our mitts and a ball.”

A minute later I was outside. We stood where we had always stood in the backyard.

For a few minutes, as the ball flew in monastic silence between my dad and me, time stood still. We were back in the place where we both felt comfortable. It was the one place where we were transported back to a time when everything seemed normal.

I don’t know how long we played catch together. I can only remember the monastery-like silence that enveloped up, cocooning us a safety blanket where nothing bad could happen. I hope we play again soon.

Summer Days - Intro

2007-04-18T04:42:00.000-04:00

My family is completely, dysfunctionally fucked up.

In every family, there are stories that are told and retold and told again. They become part of our collective memory, so that you don’t realize whether you are actually remembering the event that happened, or the story that you heard throughout your childhood.

In my family, those stories revolve around baseball. Little League games won and lost, Tiger heroes and goats. Even family birthday parties, like when my grandmother played with us at her 90th birthday party weekend. I was only five years old, but I remember she hit the ball, and I ran for her all the way to first base with my parents and uncles cheering me on, while my dad’s cousins tried to field the ball and get me out.

I got my first glove when I was six years old. Not one of those junky plastic ones; a real leather mitt. It was tan, just like the gloves of the major leaguers I would watch on TV on Sunday afternoon, and had Cal Ripken Jr.’s signature inside. My dad and I would go out into the back yard, or take a stroll to the park. He would toss it underhanded to me. Sometimes I caught it, and he made a big deal about it, but most of the time it bounced away from me, and I had to chase after the ball. Then I would throw it back as hard as I could, usually missing him by a mile and laughing as he had to go chase the ball.

As I got older, and learned how to catch and throw, those games took on something of a religious ritual. Usually, there was no talking while we were playing catch. It was a sacred time between us; a time when words would only stand to get in the way and interfere with the connection between me and my dad. The whizzing of the ball through the air and the thwap of the ball hitting our gloves were the only sounds.

As my sister Allie got older, she joined us in our games of catch, breaking our silence by begging dad to throw her the ball. He carried a tennis ball when we went outside, and would toss it to her whenever she shrieked loud enough. Sometimes he would toss it right to her, but usually he would toss the ball over her head, and have Allie chase it down while he and I continued to throw back and forth. As Allie got older, and learned how to throw and catch, she would usually join us after dinner, when dad got home, and throw with us.

Allie was three years younger than me. Justin was three years younger than Allie, and Caitlyn was a year younger than Justin. My mom used to say she wanted a big family, and so that’s what she set out to do.

My dad loved to BBQ. All summer long, he would have his friends over, the guys he grew up playing baseball with. The guys he spent countless summers with, living and dying a little with each Tiger win and loss. I grew up sitting next to my dad as he drank beer and downed hamburgers with his buddies, talking to his friends about the glory days. After a while, all the kids would all run out front, and play running bases or Five Hundred, or just toss a ball around.

My mom used to make a big deal out of Opening day. She would take all four of us out of school. Well, three of us. Caitlyn’s too young to school. An hour before lunch, she would come to the school, and then there would be a loud announcement over the PA system telling us to come to the lobby. She would take me, Allie and Justin out of school, and tell the school it was for a dentist appointment. Then we would go to the car, put on our Tiger caps, and head on over to the ballpark. When I was in second grade my dad came too, but now that he has a big fucking important job, he says he’s too busy and can’t take the afternoon off.

You’re surprised I dropped the “F” bomb? Don’t be. I use it all the time. Fuck Fuck Fuck Double fucking fuck fuck.

My therapist told my dad that kids who walk in on their dad screwing their best friend’s mom on the couch when they come home early from opening day because it was rained out frequently lash out in anger. It’s why I get a pass from my Dad when I swear like a sailor. And its why may sister walks out of the house looking like she is going to work on a street corner when she goes to school. Dad gives her a pass on that too.

Mom kicked dad out of the house that day. She gave him an hour to get his stuff and get out. I didn’t really understand what was going on; I knew about the birds and the bees, but I guess it never really hit me before that sometimes adults did it for fun.

I cried as I watched him carry his bag to the front door. He stopped, hugged the four of us, and said he would see us soon. Then he took his baseball glove and a jacket from the front hall closet, and walked out the door.

Mom and dad spent the next year in court. When it was all over, mom got the house and us. My dad got us on occasional weekends.

We lived like that for a year. It was a really angry time in my house. Mom didn’t trust anyone, and yelled at us all the time. She started to work, and I would come home from school to an empty house. We would see dad, but it was never the same. Sometimes we would play catch, but most of the time, we would just sit around, go out for some fast food, and then get dropped off back at home.

I didn’t play too much ball that year. Every time I picked up a glove it made me feel sad. So I stopped playing with my friends, and dropped out of Little League. Dad tried to convince me to play, but he didn’t understand; playing baseball hurt too much.

Around then, I guess, was when mom first found a lump on her breast. Dad started spending more and more time with us at our house, as mom was spending more and more time in the hospital. I had never known anyone who died before I lost my mom. By the time she had taken her last breath, she had made peace with dad, who was living in our house, in a small bedroom in the basement.

After she died, he took his time before moving her stuff, but after a while he was in the master bedroom. It was a confusing time for the five of us. I was 11, Allie was 8, Justin was 5 and Caitlyn was 4. We had spent the last year watching our dad move out, our mom die, and our dad move back in.

Even though everything had changed, we now had to go back to living as a family.

Before he left, my dad was the greatest. We never knew that the reason he was such a good dad was because of all the effort my mom put in behind the scenes. With her gone, my dad seemed overwhelmed with the task of raising four kids. He couldn’t sit down and joke with us at dinner time the way he used to, because now he was getting dinner ready. Evening games of catch became infrequent, as he needed all the time he find after dinner to get Caitlyn and Justin into bed. But he trudged onward, giving us everything he had.

That summer that I turned 12 was the summer I rediscovered who I was. I fell in love, again, with baseball.

The Gambler

2006-12-24T15:40:00.000-05:00

Every story has a beginning. Mine is no exception.

But unlike most stories, I don't know where mine begins. Was it today, in a courtroom, or was today the ending. The final, sad chapter in a life spent running and chasing dreams. Only time will tell whether today was footnote, or an ending. Or, I fear, could it be the beginning?

I turned to God today. I turned to him for the first time since I was fourteen. Since our baseball team played in the Yeshiva High School championship series. I had never prayed as hard in my life as I did that day. Not at my Bar Mitzvah, a year earlier, or when my Grandmother was dying in the hospital a few years before. What I wanted was simple. I wanted to win.

And as I watched the winning run score from my position in Left Field, on a fluke double to right by the worst hitter on the team, I could swear I heard God laughing and walking away. Two runs in their final at bat. Winning the game and breaking our team's collective heart, and my spirit. We lost 2-1, and for me, that mocking laughter I heard in the back of my mind was undoubtedly God, the same one that I prayed to three times a day, and spent my mornings studying his books, laughing and walking away.

That was the last time, until today, that I prayed. I put on an act for a few years. Went to Minyan and wore T'fillen, but never again did I bother talking to God. What was the point anyway. If he couldn't grant me the one thing I needed more than anything else, if he was going to let me go down, I was going down without him.

The day after the game, I missed Minyan for the first time since I had turned 13. I was in the hospital late into the evening, and the rabbi's chalked up my absence to my mysteriously smashed right hand. They new it was broken, supposedly from punching a wall so hard in the JCC locker room that I broke my fingers and shattered half the bones in my hand.

Was that the beginning of what happened today?

I learned two things the day of the game. Three things, really. The first, was never count on God when you were up against the wall. The second, was never get into debt with a bookie, even if that bookie was your roommate and you couldn't imagine him hurting a fly, no matter how sure thing the bet was. And third, never bet on baseball.

I wish I could tell you that my hand healed, and with time, so did my relationship with God, but you know, already, that our relationship never healed. And neither did my hand.

As for my roommate, Mordy, at once my best friend as well as my bookie, well, we'll get into that later.

I learned another thing that day. It was much better to be the bookie than to be the better. At least, it is until you get caught.

Was there gambling in my yeshiva? Absolutely. Seventeen years later I still cannot close my hand without feeling pain, and even then, my grip is weak, like that of an old woman. And the stakes were high. Too high for a fourteen year old who didn't even understand what it meant to have $1,500, let alone lose that amount of money.

But this story goes in circles. Its how I remember it. The circles that swing around and slay you later.

When we got word today that the jury had reached their verdict, I prayed once again. Dear God, I said, I know that I have walked away from you. I know that we haven't been good in a long time, I whispered, but please, let them find me innocent. Let them tell me I am a free man.

I was sure that I heard laughing this time. Only now, I wasn't sure if it was God laughing as he walked away, are the memory of my own maniacal laugh as I bludgeoned Mordy with a sledgehammer. It wasn't revenge for his act of treason. I understood my smashed hand. That was business, and so was this.

I rose from my seat when the judge instructed me to stand. I listened to the foreman when the judge asked if they had a reached a verdict, and stood stonefaced as the foreman read the verdict the jury had reached.

On the count of murder in the first degree, they found me guilty.

I looked back at my wife in the galley. There were tears in her eyes, and something else. Total disbelief that this had happened to her.

Then the bailiff came over, held my hands close as he snapped handcuffs on my wrists, and walked me out of the courtroom.

The Fall - Part 1

2006-04-27T15:01:00.000-04:00

It had been eight days since Moshe had last shaved. He spent Pesach at Mount Airie Lodge resort, and did not bring his shaver with him. He, along with his wife and daughter, had spent the week in the Poconos, and then, stayed on for the weekend, not coming home until Sunday. Moshe’s beard, which would start hinting at a five o’clock shadow by two thirty on a normal day, had come in full and thick, and with his beard trimmer broken after falling into the toilet a year earlier, all he had was the trimmer that was built into his Norelco triple head 3200.

And the trimmer wasn’t making a dent. His face hurt, and it felt as if each hair was being pulled out by the roots. Again and again he tried to clear the space on his face, so he could show up to work the next day without looking like a homeless drunk, but the hair continued to rebuff him. Moshe peered into the shower. Sara’s razor hung on a hook on the wall. He had wondered about using it for his face in the past, but never did. Shaving with a razor was one of those halachos that he didn’t understand, but had never violated.

Shaving with a razor looked so simple. He had seen it done at least a thousand times while watching football games. Three blades, four blades, today, during the basketball game he caught while waiting at thew airport, he saw an ad for some Gilette 5-blade razor.

Moshe was curious about the razor that hung on the shower wall. He put down his electric shaver, and gingerly took the razor off the hook it was hanging on. Moshe glanced at the bathroom door, took a step in front of the door, and locked the handle. Now, confident that Sara wouldn’t walk in on him, he sat down on the toilet, and examined it closely. Three little blades, close together, held by an off-white handle. There was a teal grip on the handle, and the razor fit comfortably in his hand.

Moshe wondered how much easier his life would be if he tried shaving with a razor blade. Sara would never find out, and if God was going to strike him down, it probably wouldn’t be illegal shaving.

Shaving with a razor was safe, private, and his next step toward freedom from the religion that had held him hostage.

Moshe unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. He had watched Sara shave her legs a few times when they first got married, always in the shower, and it seemed like a safe place to try out her razor. He unbuttoned his pants, and stepped out of his boxers.

"Sara, I'm jumping into the shower," he called out through the closed door.

He heard her yell something back, but her voice was muffled by the door.

Moshe turned on the water, tested the temperature, and stepped into the shower. He washed his face with his wife's facial soap, washed his hair with Pert Plus, and cleaned his body. Was he procrastinating, pushing off the great razor experiment? He had already showered that morning, and didn't really need a good cleaning.

He decided to test out the razor on his leg, just to make sure it worked. He bent down, determined to shave an unnoticeable small bit of hair off his leg, just above his ankle. The test run for the great razor experiment went perfectly. The skin was smooth, and there were no cuts on leg, like he had seen on TV commercials.

"Sara must use a good quality razor," he thought to himself.

He brought the razor up to his neck, and started to clear off the forest that was growing there. Moments later, his neck felt soft and smooth. "Still not in violation," he thought to himself, until now. He placed the razor on his cheek, and in one upward motion, felt the cool metal razor against his skin. The warm water brushed over him, creating a hot and cold sensation that he found pleasurable.

Moshe continued.

There was no mirror in the shower, and Moshe had to go in and out of the shower three times to check his progress before he was finished shaving. The floor in the bathroom was soaked.

Moshe felt his skin. It was soft and smooth, and the warm water running over his face was stopping him from feeling any burning sensation. He rinsed the hair off the razor, and hung it back on the hook in the shower.

Moshe let the hot water down his face for another minute, then turned off the shower, and stepped onto the soaking wet rug next to the shower. He took his towel off the rack, wrapped it around his waist, and scooped his clothes off the bathroom floor before walking into his bedroom to get dressed.

Cheese Man - Part 4

2006-02-21T13:50:00.000-05:00

Steve Brown, Esq., had never defended a murder suspect. He had only been out of law school a year, a public defender for three months, and had successfully defended plea-bargained 6 cases. But this case was different. This was the kind of case that the media loved to dig their teeth into. This was the kind of case that could build a career.

He drafted a press release, read it, crumpled it up, and rewrote the release. A trial isn’t about the law, he remembered hearing Tom Cruise say in A Few Good Men. It’s about convincing twelve people that your client isn’t the right guy they want. And this was a case that needed some positive public opinion.

He finished off his second draft, read through it twice, made a few changes, and sent it off to all the major media outlets. Within an hour, he started getting calls from major news agencies from across the US. CNN and FOX news both wanted to talk to him, and Court TV was planning on having some coverage of the trial.

But it was the call that came in at 4:00 pm that got Brown excited. People Magazine wanted to know if he had a picture of her, and was hoping for some more information. If this was as good a story as his press release indicated and if Lisa was attractive enough, this story could end up on the cover of People magazine.

He emailed a picture of his client to People, and that night, People Reporter Ann Widder was in Detroit, scheduled for an interview the next morning with Lisa Berger.

-----

Ann sat across from Lisa in the visitors room at Jackson Prison. Cameras were banned from the prison, although a requests had been put into the warden asking permission to photograph Lisa Berger.

They talked three times that week, Lisa talking about her relationship, her innocence, and her hopes for the future. Permission was granted for a photographer to come into the prison, and Lisa was shot in her orange prison jumpsuit, her blond hair looking glamorous, as she stood against a prison fence. She looked attractive, with a faraway look that conveyed both a deep sadness and hope for the future.

Steve was there for all their conversations, and was pleased with the tone the article seemed to be taking. He wished they had a picture of her in regular clothes, to make her look like less of a prisoner, but overall, this fit in with his plan.

Ann interviewed him extensively, and he hoped this article would be the start of things to come for him. There were plenty of school loans to pay off, and that Lexus he had his eyes on since he was a little kid, a some free pub could propel him to the next level.

Two weeks later, Steve Brown grinned when he saw Lisa Berger’s face smiling up at him from his mailbox.

Steve didn’t even notice the headline, which said Coldblooded Q-Tip Killer in blood-red letters.

----

“Have you seen this,” Lisa’s mother asked her on her weekly visit, tossing the magazine on the table that separated her from her daughter. “Have you seen this,” she yelled.

Lisa hadn’t seen the magazine yet, and was surprised to see herself looking up from people magazine.

“Look at that cover. It’s bad enough that you killed your husband, a chaval on our whole family, but how is your sister ever going to find a good shidduch.” Lisa’s mom was almost in tears. “Look at you. Wearing pants, hair uncovered, in jail. Oy, why couldn’t you just be in jail without telling the whole world who you are?”

“Ma,” Lisa interrupted, “This is part of my attorney’s strategy to get me out of here. A little good PR never hurt anyone.”

“Good PR. Oy, My baby is sitting in jail, like a murdered criminal, with all the shkatzim in the world here, and telling the whole world about it, and her attorney thinks she is getting good PR.”

“Tell me, Lisa, what am I supposed to do at Shul? Estelle suggested I go off the sisterhood board, and Shiffy won’t sit near me during shul or Kiddush. And your sister. Your sister. She is never going to get married now. The phone has stopped ringing. Before, after the killing it was slow, but now,” she paused and lifted the magazine up slightly off the table, “now it’s stopped. And she is going to be alone and not get a good shidduch.

Lisa waited for her mom to stop. “Sorry, mom, but I didn’t think about that. I”

Her mother interrupted. “Of course you didn’t think. Not when you married that bum, not when you killed him.”

“Lisa was near tears. “Stop it mom. Don’t you care about me getting out of here. I didn’t kill him, and this is going to help me get off.

“Oy, better you should stay here then bring this shame on your father and me. What did we do that was so bad.”

Lisa’s mom turned around, and walked out of the visitor’s room.

----

After her mom left, Lisa brought the magazine back to her cell. The guards took out the staples so she wouldn’t use them as a weapon, so she had to hold the pages together so they didn’t fly away.

She flipped through the pages, and read every word.

“That Ann,” she said out loud. Ann had turned everything she said around. The story was a disaster, making it look like she hated cheese, and hated everyone who liked cheese. All she had said was that she thought her late husband ate too much cheese.

She hadn’t seen Steve Brown in a while, he claimed he was preparing her defense and didn’t have time, but she thought he was probably trying to get himself some more face time on TV some more.

------

Carol walked over to Yitzi. “Yitzi, come to bed,” she called into the other room. Come see my new outfit.

Yitzi walked into the room and stared. Carol stood with her leg against the bed, wearing nothing but a short skirt and bra top made up completely out of Q-Tips.

“Come and get it, bad boy,” she said, grinning.

Yitzi walked over, and planted his lips on Carols.

-------

The trial was scheduled to start in two weeks, and Jack Kay was working overtime. Ever since he started working with Jose, the two of them discovered they shared a passion for ears. They were determined to put Lisa in jail for the rest of her life, and worked sixty hour weeks putting their case together.

The People Magazine article just helped their case.

Anyone who has ears and has eaten cheese will feel safer when she is off the street, they would say. Should make picking a jury a breeze.

The preceding story is Fiction. You can find the beginning of this story earlier on this blog.

Previous Section

The Flight

2006-02-17T12:16:00.000-05:00

The lights receded through the open window, getting smaller and smaller until they could no longer be seen out the window.

The plane shook slightly, and Donna settled back in her seat. She sat in silence, closing her eyes , listening guiltily to the conversations that swirled around her.

Ahead, a stranger on his way to New York for the first time regaled his fellow passengers with his entire career history. He had worked in the restaurant business, Hooters, actually, before moving into the booming ReFi market. Tomorrow, in New York, he would interview for his dream job, he breathlessly jabbered, as his seatmates hung on every word.

Behind her, a man talked about tires. Whether he bought tires, sold tires or manufactured tires was not entirely clear. Regardless, he talked incessantly about tread and wear and steel=belted radials.

The weather was rough, an the plane bounced around, reminding Donna of the little boat her daughter would play with in the bath.

Caitlin would splash, and make waves. And tip the boat over.

"What about the people in the boat," Donna asked her daughter one day. "Are they OK?"

"Oh mama," Caitlin answered, "Jesus is watching over them."

Donna tried not to cry, and fought back the tears. It seemed that everything reminded her about Caitlin nowadays.

Caitlin, so sweet when she was younger, so beautiful and innocent. It almost killed Donna to remember the last time she saw her daughter. She was smiling as she went into the delivery room.

Donna chose to wait in the waiting room. Going into the room would bring back too many memories of cancer and her own mother.

Caitlin was smiling and excited. For the first time in months, she looked like a happy fifteen year old when they wheeled her out.

Three hours later, a doctor sat Donna down and gave her the awful news. Caitlin was dead, and the baby might not make it through the night.

The next morning, there were two bodies to bury.

This trip was supposed to help Donna get away from her grief, give her some distance. Donna didn't think anything could help her.

The turbulence was awful, and getting worse. Donna thought about trying to sleep, like the old lady across the aisle, but the idea of waking up to a crashing plane was too frightening to imagine. She would stay up, try not to vomit and if the plane was to crash, she would take solace from the fact that she would meet her daughter in heaven.

Was she going to heaven, though, Donna wondered, and even if she did go to heaven, would Caitlin be there. Donna was sure the baby went to heaven, so pure and innocent, but her daughter might be a different story. She did get pregnant outside of marriage, and died without confession.

Donna had thought about her daughter';s eternal resting place every day since Caitlin died, and she couldn't decide. Was Caitlin in heaven or Hell? She thought about talking to the priest at church, but the pastor who had been in the church for all those years was in jail for fifteen to twenty, part of that whole priests screwing little boys thing.,

He, Donna was quite sure, was going to Hell.

The new priest was a young man, probably in his late twenties, and she wasn't about to go looking for religious guidance from someone who was born in the 80s, twenty years her junior.

So Donna just wondered. Sometimes with a drink in her hand, and sometimes with the whole bottle in her hand. Sometimes it was just so hard.

Just so hard.

Cheese Man - Part 3

2006-01-24T14:39:00.000-05:00

I did not look pretty when I stood in front of Judge Rostenberg for my arraignment. It had been ten days since my last shower, and everyone in the courtroom could sense my presence.

Case #264399, the State of Michigan against Lisa Berger. “Ms. Berger, you have been charged with first degree murder in the death of your husband. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty, your honor.”

“Mr. Prosecutor,” the judge asked, do you have any bail recommendation?

“We request that the state hold Ms. Berger without bail. Her crime was both heinous and deadly. She killed her husband with a Q-Tip because she didn’t like cheese. We have no idea how dangerous this woman could become if she was set free, and ran into someone who served her decaf when she ordered regular.”

“OK then. Ms. Berger, you are hereby sentenced to remain in the custody of the state until the trial. Your heinous and deadly crime with an ordinary household object will not go unpunished in my courtroom.”

“Bailiff, warn the prison staff that she is coming today. I understand they are serving grilled cheese in the prison cafeteria.”

-------

“Ummmm, ohh, Jack, don’t stop. Oh yes. Yes. Oh Jack, oh my god, ummmm, oh Ja – OUCH. YOU BIT ME”

Jack opened his mouth, and stepped away from Sandy’s ear. The small TV in the office was reporting live from the Oakland County Court House that Lisa Berger had been held without bail, for killing her husband with a Q-Tip.

“Did you see that,” Jack asked his secretary. “She killed him with a Q-tip.”

“You almost bit my ear off,” Sandy screamed back.

But Jack continued, not even hearing her. “She went after him in the most vulnerable of places, his ear.”

“It’s bleeding. Are you happy, you broke through the skin.”

“What kind of animal can do that to someone,” Jack asked to no one in particular.

“Are you listening to me, Jack Kay. There are going to be teeth marks on my ear. What am I supposed to tell my boyfriend when he sees that?”

“Call the Oakland County Prosecutor’s office. Tell them Jack Kay wants to come in and put the Ear Whacker in jail for the rest of her life.”

Jack looked over at Sandy. “Did you know your ear was bleeding? You might want to take care of that.

-----

Sandy had easily gotten through to the prosecutor’s office. So far, there had been offers to help in the prosecution from three cheese advocates and one men’s right groups, but Jack was the first ear aficionado to call.

“It’s all so vulnerable. Just tissue and interesting structure, and this woman, this monster, just tore through all that and killed him. I want to be part of the team, Jose. When I went into law, it was to put these monsters away.”

Jack finished his pitch, and waited for the head Oakland County prosecutor, Jose Gomez, to answer.

Jose cleared his throat, and laughed. “I’m sure we can have a place for you on our team, Jack. Welcome aboard.”

An hour later Jose broke out in hysterical laughter.

“Sharon, you gotta see what Jack just sent over.”

Sitting on his desk was a mountain of cheese, with a package of pigs ears on top.

--------

I sat with my court-appointed attorney, Steve Brown. Steve was the only attorney from the pool willing to defend me, and I could tell right away that he had some reservations.

“Are you sure you don’t want to plead guilty, and spare the nation this trial,” he asked.

“I am not guilty. I am being singled out for my dislike of cheese. You have to help me beat this. I can’t spend the rest of my life in prison.”

Steve thought about it, but he had no choice. He was my attorney. Come hell or high water, he was going to stand next to me at trial.

“OK,” he finally said. “Let’s work on our strategery. We are going to need to win over public opinion.” Steve had a big grin on his face.

"Now go take a shower."

-----

With the apartment next door empty, Carol and Yitzi resumed their evening activities.

The preceding story is fiction. Any similarity between characters mentioned, their names, their attributes, or anything about them is merely coincidental.

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Cheese Man Part 2

2006-01-19T16:15:00.000-05:00

The funeral was the next day. Everybody was there. Michael and I had been one of those fabulous couples that get involved in everything, so the whole world made time for the funeral. Even the old, crotchety guy from shul who always complained that young people were taking over the shul showed up to pay his respects to the 'young punk.'

The Rabbi spoke beautifully, talking about how when a couple is ripped apart by something so tragic, it is like a bagel being destroyed, and the only way to soothe the pain, he said, for me, for Michael’s family, for the entire community, was with cream cheese. A few people laughed out loud, and the old crotchety guy shook his head and muttered something about the young punk rabbi, but most people were able to maintain the proper funeral decorum.

It wasn’t until Michael was being lowered into the ground that all hell started to break loose. First, the casket fell slipped off one of the ropes that was holding it up above the hole, before they lowered it in. The people tried to lift the casket up and straighten in out, but it was too heavy, and the rabbi decided they should lower the foot end of the casket into the ground, so Michael could find peace and not be crunched up head first inside the casket.

But that was nothing compared to what happened next. Town yentas live their entire lives waiting for a moment like this, and today was their day. As the bottom half of the casket was being lowered into the ground, Michael’s mother walked over to me.

“Mom, I’m so sorry,” I started.

The tears that had filled her eyes during the service were replaced with rage. “You killed my boy,” she yelled. “You knew he was standing there, and you did it on purpose. I never liked you anyway. You little slut. You stole my little Mikey, and then you killed him.”

She would have continued to yell and scream, but one of her sons grabbed her by the arm and led her away, back to the car. As she was led away, all she kept yelling was “You little slut, you killed my boy.”

Carol came over and held my hand. “Are you ok,” she asked.

“I’m just glad I’m not related to her anymore,” I said.

Shiva was a disaster. When we got back to my apartment, friends had come and set up the house. Mirrors were covered, there were those small chairs for me to sit on, and four people had dropped off huge cheese platters.

Really, hadn’t I suffered enough?

Carol was with me. Come to think of it, she had barely left my side since the incident the night before. “When this shiva is over,” I whispered to her, “I am going to get rid of all the cheese in this house. I am going to have a huge cheese tossing party, and get rid of every single stinking piece of cheese in this house. I don’t ever want to see another piece of cheese again. Not cheddar, mozzarella, muenster, brie, or any of the other crappy cheese flavors that have filled my fridge the past six months.”

The doorbell rang; it was a delivery boy. "Cheese delivery," the boy said, handing the tray to Carol before I could shoo him away.

I was OK for the first few days of Shiva, but by the third or fourth day, I was ready for a shower. I hadn’t planned on Mike dying, and I hadn’t showered since the morning before he died. It had been a week since my last shower, and I was feeling really disgusting. I still had two days to go, and I didn’t know if I was going to make it.

“Carol,” I said. “If anyone ever asks you, tell them to take a shower before they kill their husband.”

Carol gave a nervous laugh. “You know,” she said, “the police officers that were here the night Michael died came over to talk with me last night.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess they are just trying to see if you killed him on purpose.”

“You told them I would never kill him, didn’t you?”

“Of course I told him that, but I just wanted you to know they are asking questions, so you might want to tone down the ‘I just killed my husband’ talk.”

“Can I talk to you about something personal,” I asked her, changing the subject.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“This is kind of awkward, but do you think you and Yitzi could go one night without, you know, umm, doing it?”

Carol started to turn red.

“Carol, I love listening to you guys most of the time, but with Michael being dead, and me sleeping alone, I was just hoping you guys could, ya know, take a night off, out of respect for the grieving.”

Carol stood up, and walked out the door.

----

Shiva was almost over. It was Wednesday afternoon, and I all could think about was taking a shower and cleaning my apartment, when there was a knock on the door. My mother was over, and opened the door. There were two police officers at the door, the same ones who had come by the night Michael died.

“Is Lisa here,” one of them asked. “She’s inside,” I heard my mother answer.

“Can we come in,” the officer asked. “We’d like to talk to her about a few things.”

“I don’t think now is a good time,” my mother answered. “She is getting up from Shiva, you know mourning, this evening, and I think needs some quiet time.”

“Ma’am, we could come back with a warrant, or we can just talk to her now,” the officer said.

My mother started to answer, but I interrupted. “Let them come in, Ma,” I shouted.

The two officers walked into the living room. I was still sitting in the low chair, and they sat on the couch across from me.

“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Berger,” one of the officers said. “We just want to talk to you a bit, for the file.”

My mother sat down on the floor next to me, and I instinctively grabbed her hand.

“I’m Detective Lawrence Gil, and this is my partner, Detective Eizen.”

I nodded at both of them. They returned my nod, so I nodded again. Again, they returned my nod. I thought about nodding one more time, but let it go. Detective Gil started to talk.

“I understand you and Michael had a fight the day he died. Is that true?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. We used to fight a lot. He was always trying to serve cheese all the time.”

“So you did fight on the day that he died.” He paused, wrote something on his notepad, and then continued. “Can you tell me about the events that happened the night that Michael died?”

“What events?”

“The timeline. What you were doing leading up to the Q-Tip.”

“We ate dinner, watched some TV, and went to bed. He was in the bathroom getting ready to go to sleep, and that’s when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“When I opened the door to the bathroom. That’s what killed him, I guess. I opened the door, it bumped into his arm, and the force of the door pushed the Q-Tip into his brain.”

“What did you do after he fell?”

“What do you mean, after he fell?”

“Did you call an ambulance?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I checked his pulse. He was dead. I called my rabbi because I didn’t know what to do.”

“Our witness says she thinks she heard something large fall down at 10:15. She knows it was exactly 10:15 because she was watching TV and ran into the bathroom at the commercial. She says it had to be really big because you play your music very loudly. She also says that you like to get involved in other people's business for no reason at all. Phone records show that you didn’t make a call for almost 20 minutes, until 10:33. What happened during those twenty minutes?”

“Umm, I don’t remember.”

“The Q-Tip was pushed pretty far into your husband’s brain. Are you sure he didn’t fall down, and then you pushed the Q-Tip deeper into his head, ultimately killing him.”

“You’re crazy. I didn’t intentionally kill my husband. I went into the bathroom to get a hair removal kit. I checked his pulse. He was dead, so I got the hair removal kit out, used it, and called my rabbi. Are you happy now? I have a hairy upper lip, and didn't want that to go in the file. But now there it is for everyone to see.”

He ignored my ranting, wrote something else in his notebook, and continued.

“Let me get this straight. You fought with your husband. He was dead on the floor, and the first thing you could think of was to take care of some unwanted hair?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”

“But you just said you didn’t remember what happened.”

“Stop trying to confuse me. Please leave. This conversation is over.” I squeezed my mother’s hand tightly. She hadn’t said a word at all to the detectives, and I was wondering what she thought of me now.

Detective Gil looked over at Detective Eizen.

They both stood up. “Detective Eizen spoke for the first time. “Please stand up ma’am,” he said.

He was tall and imposing, and I listened. “Lisa Berger, you are under arrest for the murder of Michael Berger.” In one motion, my hands were handcuffed behind my back. “Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”

I looked over at my mother, and watched as she collapsed on the floor.

The preceding story is Fiction.

Part One

Part Three

Cheese Man - Part I

2006-01-19T07:53:00.000-05:00

“I was thinking we would have some fried mozzarella sticks, French onion soup and some kind of pasta, maybe fettuccini with melted cheese on top,” Michael told me.

“Every day, its cheese for every meal. I swear, Michael, I can’t take it any more. I need something real,” I said back.

“Lisa, baby, cheese is real food.”

“No it’s not. I’m sick of it.” I was shouting now. “Why can’t you be a real man? Why won’t you be like all the other guys, and make steak, or hot dogs, or burgers? Cheese, cheese, cheese. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“You can never go wrong with cheese.” He was yelling back now. Cheese is the most delicious food on the whole damn planet. It’s creamy, and smooth, and I love it. And I won’t stop eating it. Not for you, not for my doctor, not for anyone.”

Michael walked out of the bedroom, and I followed him. “For Christ sake, you have a dairy grill. You wear boxers with little squares of cheese and mice on them. It’s really sick. Don’t you ever want to just scream enough cheese? We’ve been married for six months, and I haven’t seen you eat a single piece of meat in all that time. What is with your obsession with cheese?”

Michael ignored me and sat on the couch. He turned on the TV. Cheese Freaks was on the Food Network, and he could not be disturbed while he was watching his show.

I walked out onto the balcony. Our neighbors were sitting on their balcony, on the sixth floor of our apartment building.

“I wish, for one night, Yitzi would let me cook some lasagna or baked Ziti,” Carol said to me. “Maybe we should swap husbands for dinner some time.”

I laughed. “You heard us?”

“Every word, Lisa. You know these walls are paper thin.”

I did know that. I knew that Yitzi and Carol, our newlywed next door neighbors, were trying to set some kind of newlywed lovemaking record. I knew Yitzi was a real man, tough and demanding and always eating meat. And I knew that there was something seriously wrong with Michael and his cheese obsession.

“That’s the third time this week I’ve heard you fighting over cheese,” Carol commented. “You guys might want to get into some kind of counseling for that.”

“I can just imagine that,” I told her. “Counselor, my husband is obsessed with cheese, and I can’t stand it. I think I would score at the very bottom of the complaint list. Oh god, sometimes I just wish he was dead.”

I walked back inside. Chef Marty was showing how to create a cheese diorama using cheddar and Muenster cheese.

I walked into our bedroom, turned on a baseball game, and watched the players beat each other up.

“You should be watching sports, like a real man,” I shouted into the next room.

“Screw you, Lisa,” he shouted back.

We didn’t talk during dinner. We sat on opposite ends of the table. He munched joyfully on his fried mozzarella sticks and fettuccini, while I ate carryout from the Chinese place around the corner. We did not talk at all during dinner.

We watched TV in silence, fortunate that we both liked the Thursday night television lineup. At least we wouldn’t be fighting over the TV.

The show ended, and Michael went into the bathroom that was connected to our bedroom. I wanted to use the second bathroom that was in the hallway of our two bedroom apartment, but I needed to get my Sally Hansen Spa Wax Hair Removal Kit. A quick glance in the mirror reminded me that I needed to take care of the hair growing above my upper lip.

The Shower CD that we had gotten from friends was blasting in the bathroom, and I’m sure Michael didn’t hear me coming. I heard him singing along with the CD, ‘N Sync, I think, and I rolled my eyes. I pushed the door open quickly.

I had no idea that Michael would be cleaning out his ears with a Q-Tip at that moment. I had no idea that he would be standing next to the door, his elbow out, digging furiously to try to clean out some hard to reach ear wax.

I also had no idea that when I pushed open the door, it would push his elbow toward him, pushing his hand toward his head, and forcing the Q-Tip through his ear, and into the brain.

I had no idea that the force of the Q-Tip going through his ear and into his brain would kill him before he hit the floor.

He didn’t even make a sound. I needed all my strength to force the door open, which was being held by his now dead body.

I forced my way into the small bathroom, his crumpled body now flopped over on the floor, and checked his pulse. There was nothing. Michael was dead, in a bizarre Q-Tip accident, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. I reached under the sink, and took out my Sally Hansen Spa Wax Hair Removal Kit, and applied it to my upper lip. I watched TV for fifteen minutes until Sally Hansen had finished her important work, rinsed my face, and felt my smooth upper lip with my tongue. I was guaranteed to be hair free for the next eight weeks.

What do you do when you accidentally kill your husband, I wondered. And how long does it take before I get my life insurance check?

I didn’t know if I should call the police, the ambulance, or my rabbi. I didn’t want to get police involved, there was no crime here. It was too late for an ambulance. So I called my rabbi. He showed up twenty minutes later with two police officers who were just going to look around for a few minutes.

The preceding story is fiction. Any similarity between the characters to people in real life is merely coincidental.

Part Two

2005-08-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

Center of it All VI

2005-08-23T16:56:00.000-04:00

301 W Adams. I sat in my car and looked at the building. It looked to be about ten stories of pure slum, surrounded by a few blocks of more slums. Urban decay had hit Phoenix, although not as hard as some of the cities I was used to visiting back east.

I had debated for about ten minutes whether or not to go back home. In the end, curiosity got the better of me. I decided to take the next step, and go to Yoni’s home. His address was on his license, in his wallet, and his keys were among the items in the manila envelope the hospital had given us.

I decided to go in the evening, when the heat gave way a little, and hopefully, the apartment would not be very hot. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on some files that were nearing their deadline. I finished the work, emailed PDFs to my client, and spent the early part of the evening lounging around the pool.

After the sun disappeared behind the vast Arizona desert, I got in my car, and drove to his home. This was not the first time I was going to enter an abandoned house. My mind flashed back to the summer we were 17. We were both hanging out in the mountains, working as waiters at camp.

On our first off day, we rented a car, and drove around, looking for something to do. As we were driving, aimlessly, we passed an old house that was barely visible from the road, and looked like it had been abandoned for the last hundred years. We drove past it once, and then came back to it. Yoni parked the car, and we walked the hundred feet through thick brush to the house. There were boards covering the windows, and the door looked like it had been nailed shut.

There was an uncovered window in the back of the house, and we looked inside. I had never seen anything like it before. The floor was covered with garbage, and the furniture looked like it had been slashed with a knife.

“You wanna go in,” Yoni asked.

“Not really,” I said. I had hoped we would do more than just kill the day. My day off plans were more like going ATVing, getting pizza, and maybe meeting some girls.

“Why not,” Yoni asked, “Chicken?”

It was more of a challenge than a question, and I knew we were going in. My only hope was that there would be nothing interesting inside, and Yoni would get bored and want to leave.

I tried to set the terms. “If we don’t have to break anything, I’ll go in. I just don’t want to get arrested for destroying property,” I said, needing to save face.

Yoni and I both looked over at the back door. The door had been broken long ago, and barely hung on to the hinges.

“You got your wish, bro,” Yoni said. “Ladies first.”

I walked up the steps leading to the door, and pushed it open the rest of the way. The house smelled old, but was definitely abandoned.

“Half an hour,” I said, as I walked in.

“Whatever,” Yoni answered, walking in behind me.

We looked around the room we had just entered. We were in a very old kitchen. There was an ice box and a pot-bellied stove.

“Anything we find in here we split,” Yoni said, breaking to momentary silence. It wasn’t a question. More a statement of fact.

I walked across the room, to a pile of newspapers that were on the floor. It was an old copy of the Greene County Chronicle. It smelled like mildew, but the date was still readable. “June 4, 1924,” I read to Yoni.

“Anything happen that day,” he asked.

“Yankees lost both games of a doubleheader against Washington the day before.”

“Anything else?”

“Not much. Something about a town meeting.”

Before picking up that newspaper, I was ready to walk out the door. But I had always been fascinated by newspapers, and there was nothing better than reading about what the world was like long before we were born. There was a large pile of papers, and I sat on the floor to flip through them.

“What do you think happened to the people who lived here,” Yoni asked.

“Maybe they moved, or just died.”

“You think there is a body here?”

“Why don’t you walk around and find out.” I wanted to read through the papers now.

Yoni walked out, while I went through the pile of papers. I tore a few, but most of them I handled gingerly, and did not damage them. The papers were only a few pages each, and after a few minutes, I had gone through the pile that was on the floor.

I had a vague feeling that Yoni had been calling me, but I had ignored him. Now I walked around, calling him. The last paper I found was from 1928, which meant that as far as we could tell, no one had lived in the house in over 60 years.

I called Yoni’s name again, but no one answered.

Where was he, I thought, and turned the corner, walking from the dining room into what must have been a large living room.

“Hey Winters,” I yelled again. No answer.

The floor creaked with every step I took, and I was starting to get a little freaked out.

“Yoni,” I yelled one more time, “Are you there.

Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and nearly jumped out of my skin.”

I turned around, and there was Yoni, laughing.

“You scared the crap out of me, Winters,” I yelled.

“You should have seen yourself jump,” was all he could manage between the laughs.

“You are so dead,” I replied. “So dead.”

We hung out in the house for another hour. We found boxes of letters, bills, what looked like some family keepsakes. The people who lived there were named Smithson, and they seemed to have left in a hurry, judging by the clothes hanging in the closet. We found a wallet with a few dollars in it that predated World War I, and a bucket of change. A quick rummage through the bucket turned up coins from the 1800s.

“This stuff could be worth a fortune,” he said.

“Maybe we can find some old baseball cards around here,” I answered.

It was already past noon, and we had some loose plans to meet some of the guys from camp for pizza.

We agreed to keep this house as our secret. In the meantime, we decided to leave everything in the house. The truth was, if we brought it to camp, we had no place to keep it. And we decided to come back on all our off days.

We went back to the Smithson house four more times that summer, each time discovering more and more treasures. Some of it we kept as souvenirs, others we sold and split the money. In all, we found over $65,000 worth of coins, cards and antiques.

The Smithson house was always our secret. We never told anyone about it, or about the treasures we had uncovered. When asked about the money, I always gave vague answers about savings from a job, and I imagine Yoni did the same thing.

I looked back at the apartment building. The street was completely deserted. Night had fallen on Phoenix, and for the first time all day, I didn’t feel like I was a walking sweat machine.

There was another abandoned house to go through, I thought, as I crossed the street and went inside.

The preceding story was fiction. you can find the first five parts earlier on the blog.

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Center of it All V

2005-08-22T15:25:00.000-04:00

I rented a DVD player at the front desk, and went upstairs to watch the movie. I felt a little queasy as I popped the DVD in the player. I had never purchased porn before, and it had been years since I rented a porno. Gay porn was a totally new experience for me, a line I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross, even as I unraveled the mystery of Yoni Winters.

I went to the windows and opened the blinds. I wanted to make sure the situation was as unsexy as possible. I remember George on Seinfeld saying “It moved” after a man gave him a message, and did not want to find myself thinking the same thing.

I took out the envelope I received from the hospital, figuring it would serve as a distraction from the movie. Anything to keep myself from watching the movie too closely.

But I needn’t have worried.

From the moment I hit play, I was treated to 45 minutes of Yoni Winter’s greatest hits. As I heard his voice, I was taken back to the dorm rooms where he first practiced scenes for this movie.

There are some people destined to be doctors, or lawyers, or attorneys. Yoni was born to make this movie.

There were four or five of us sitting around the dormitory that day. Dinner sucked, and one of our classmates had been kicked out of Yeshiva the week before. Finals were coming up, and there was about an hour before we had to go to night seder. The mood was ripe for an all out yeshiva bitch session, and that’s exactly what started.

We had been going for five or ten minutes, complaining about the food and the rules and the food again when yoni walked in. He listened for a second, heard what was going on, and went off. There was a desk in the room, and he stood next to it, shuckling, and imitating Rabbi Rosenblum having sex. OR as he put it, Shtupping his wife. We were rolling on the floor. He kept working in all of Rabbi Rosenblum’s pet Yiddish phrases, and finished with a loud “Gevaldik.”

We were laughing so hard, we couldn’t breathe, but Yoni wasn’t finished yet. The year before we had learned Kiddushin, and all year long Yoni had imitated Rabbi Green saying Beeah, ya kin be mikadesh her with beeah.

For the first time, Yoni brought the voices of Rabbi Green and Rabbi Rosenblum together, for a frolicking gevaldigah beeah session that ended when Rabbi Rosenblum yelled Gevaldigah, and Rabbi Green said that’s enough Beeah, its time for first seder.

The movie on my TV may have shown animated bunnies and hunters running around and having sex, but the voices were straight from my Yeshiva days. Yoni had cut out a lot of the Yiddish, but everything else was still there, and the voices were dead-on. In one scene, he even had the rabbi end with a boisterous Gevaldigah.
I laughed my ass off for 45 minutes, and was sorry to see the movie end. When I wasn’t flashing back to my Yeshiva days, I was picturing Yoni having the time of his life as he preserved those voices for eternity in the movie.

The movie ended, and I looked at the contents from the envelope that I had put on the bed. It was strange to hold a dead guy’s possessions. I had never been the next of kin, and never received a packet like that.

As I looked at the wallet, keys and other assorted odds and ends, I felt like a trespasser. For the first time since arriving in Phoenix, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Yoni had cut me and everyone else out of his life for a reason; was there any reason to invade the wall he had built around himself.

I thought about taking everything on the bed and throwing it out. I pretty much knew what I needed to know. He was poor. He was probably gay. And he did not have fond memories of his yeshiva days. What more could I find out? I didn’t want to find all the lurid details of his life.

The preceding was a work of fiction. You can find the beginning of this story earlier on this blog.

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2005-08-08T15:20:00.000-04:00

“You guys want another beer,” Yoni asked, as he reached into the cooler for a cold one. We broke out laughing hysterically, the way we always did whenever Yoni imitated voices. Sometimes it was the Rosh Yeshiva, other times, the Mashgiach or a teacher. His imitation was dead on, and we had been outside drinking and laughing for the better part of the afternoon.

We were hidden behind the dorm, our towels laid out on the grass, and were spending the second day of Shavuos relaxing and catching some sun. We had some novels and a backgammon set, but most of the time we just laid on the ground, soaked in the sun, and smoked cigarettes we lit off our yahrzeit candle.

It was turning into the best Shavuos ever.

“One day for Hashem,” Yoni said, imitating the Mashgiach one more time, “One day for us.”

None of us saw the Mashgiach appear from behind the dormitory. All we heard was his voice saying, “Boys, what’s going on out here.”

“Yoni,” Menachem said, without looking around or opening his eyes, “that’s fucking amazing.”

Rabbi Rosenblum walked over to Menachem, and blocked the sun.

“What the fuck,” Menachem asked, still not opening his eyes.

“In my office in fifteen minutes, all three of you,” Rabbi Rosenblum said as he walked away. “And put some yomtovdike clothes on. You look like shkutzim.”

All three of us picked up our heads and watched him walk toward the Yeshiva building.

After he was out of site, we cleaned up our area, and went into the dorm to get dressed.

“Menachem, you might have fucked yourself, but you saved us,” I said hopefully. “Rosenblum didn’t mention the beer, cigarettes or novels that were partially hidden outside. He just got mad because you kept dropping F bombs.”

Menachem looked worried. This was his third Yeshiva in two years. He knew what was going to happen next. He was on probation from the start. Just swearing in front of Rosenbutt was going to get him kicked out, he was sure.

Fifteen minutes later, with freshly brushed teeth, we knocked on Rabbi Rosenblum’s office door. He opened it, and inside we saw both Rosenbutt and Goldbutt, the Menahel. “I asked Rabbi Goldberg to join us, boys. We have a serious problem.”

Rabbi Goldberg jumped in. “We can’t have boys outside on Yomtov tanning. Is that the kind of Yidden you want to be? I thought you were holding at a more Halige Madrige.”

“Oisverfs, Mamush,” Rosenblum added. “And you, he said pointing at Menachem, “with the nivel peh. A shonda.”

Menachem tried to explain, but there was nothing he could say. It was Yoni who stepped in. “Excuse me, Rabbi Rosenblum,” he said with his angelic voice, “but didn’t Rabbi Feuer say at the beginning of the year that there were no rules in this Yeshiva? Didn’t he say that all we follow is the Sholchon Aruch?”

I could not believe Yoni was going on the offensive. My strategy was to sit quiet and hope.

Rabbi Rosenblum and Rabbi Goldberg both nodded.

“Then I don’t see what the problem is here.”

Yoni continued.

“There is nothing in the Sholchon Aruch which prohibits sitting outside on a Yom Tov day. In fact, don’t we learn in Gemara in Shabbos that Rebbi would frequently sit outside near the river on Shabbos and enjoy the Shabbos afternoon.”

The Rabbis seemed dumbstruck, so Yoni continued.

“And the nivel peh incident, that was an accident. But sometimes when people are surprised, they react in ways that they wouldn’t normally act.”

“There is a Rambam, I think I saw it in camp in the summer, which says that someone can’t be held responsible for things he says when he is attacked or surprised. I think Menachem is sorry for what he said, and has Charata. He is three quarters of the way to Teshuva Gemurah. I think you should let it slide.”

Two minutes later we were out of the office, and back on our way to the dorm. Not even a slap on the wrist for any of us.

Yoni was amazing. He had no fear, no limitations, no boundaries. He could walk into a room and sell them on anything, even though almost everything he said was a lie. He had a charisma that Rabbeim feared, teachers admired and friends loved.

Twenty years later.

I hung up the phone, feeling completely numb. Five minutes ago I had been playing catch in the yard with my son. I answered the phone, and it was a charity hospital in Phoenix. They told me my best friend, Jonathon Winters, had died of pneumonia after a prolonged battle with AIDS.

It had been at least fifteen years since I had seen or talked to Yoni. We didn’t have any falling out, more like a drifting away. I got married, and moved back home to Detroit. Yoni wasn’t sure what he was going to be doing, but he was moving to California. He hoped to get a job doing animated voices, and one day, being a choreo-animator. He was getting on a bus the morning after my wedding, and we hugged and he promised to keep in touch. I gave him a pack of Marlboro Reds for the road, and he gave me a pack of Marlboro Lights. He knew I had quit smoking before I got married, but he knew I would relapse.

“Think of me when you’re burning through these,” he said, as we slapped hands and he got on the Greyhound at Port Authority.

And that was it.

How did he go from a bus to California to a charity ward in Phoenix, I wanted to know. How did the one person in our class we all knew was going to grab the world by the throat and bend it to his will die at 37 of AIDS-related pneumonia?

And why didn’t he ever call, write or email?

I suddenly needed to know what Yoni had been doing for the past fifteen years.

What happened to the boy I once knew?

The next morning I was on a flight to Phoenix. I needed to understand.

The preceding story is a work of fiction.

Next Section

Center of it All Glossary

2005-08-08T15:10:00.000-04:00

Glossary

Bais Medrash - Study hall

Beeah - Sex

Bochurim - Boys/male students

Charata – Regret for one’s sins

Davening - prayer

Gemara – A collection of the oral torah.

Gemurrah – Complete

Gevalidigah - Awesome/Excellent

Halige Madrige – Holy level

Hashem – God

Kotel - The remaining western wall from the temple in Jerusalem

Mamush – Literally

Mashgiach – The person in a jewish school who is responsible for developing one-on-one relationships with students tohelp them become more complete jews. Frequently this means someone who can’t teach a classroom setting.

Menahel – Principal

Mikadesh - Marry

Nivel peh – foul language

Oisverfs – screw ups

Rambam – A Jewish scholar from about 1100s Egypt

Rosh Yeshiva – Dean of the Yeshiva

Shavuos – Jewish holiday that takes place seven weeks after Passover

Shkutzim – Non jews

Shonda – A bad thing

Sholchon Aruch – Jewish book of laws

Shtuppin - Pushing, or in this case screwing

Taka - A word that has no real meaning, other than sometimes meaning you're right and more often indicating that the person saying it needs to think about what he is going to say.

Teshuva – Repentance

T'fillin - Black boxes that male jews over the age of 13 wear while praying. You could call them phalactyries, but no one would know what the hell you were talking about.
Yahrzeit – Anniversary of a death

Yeshiva – Religious Jewish school, frequently all male

Yidden – Jews

Yomtov or Yom Tov – Jewish holiday

Yomtovdik – Appropriate for a holiday

2005-08-02T15:24:00.000-04:00

Jack was still in Nevernever Land when he felt something burning on his chest. He looked down, and saw steaming black coffee all over his shirt. An upside coffee cup in Sharon’s arm seemed to be the problem.

“You are an ass, Sharon said to him. “A perfect male ass.”

“Did you just pour coffee on me,” he asked, barely feeling it through the layers of fat that protected his nerve endings.

“That poor girl came in here to manipulate the case,” Sharon continued, ignoring his protest. “You couldn’t stop staring at her ears. And I have news for you, Mr. Jack Kay famous lawyer. Those ears aren’t natural. They’re fakes.”

Jack wasn’t sure if he was angrier about the coffee or the allegation about her perfect ear lobes. He tried to ignore the coffee, which was flowing down the large rolls of fat underneath his shirt. He hoped it would cool off before it made it too far down his body.

“MaryAnn Maxwell does not have fake ear lobes. And she did not come here to manipulate this case. She came to talk about a settlement.”

“Then why did she invite you to her place at ten PM tonight,” Sharon asked. “What kind of settlement is she looking for?”

“She invited me over,” Jack stammered. “Did she leave an address?”

Sharon rolled her eyes, and gave him the address.

“Julie,” Jack yelled, “Call my wife and tell her I have a late client meeting and won’t be home until very late tonight.”

He looked at Sharon. “I should fire you,” he said.

“Who will serve you coffee if you do?” Sharon answered sweetly.

Jack knew when he was beat. “Get out of here. And bring me a new cup of coffee.”

------

At precisely 10 PM, Jack Kay was standing in front of MaryAnn Maxwell’s building. He had arrived twenty minutes earlier, as he knew how long it would take him to shimmy his way out of the car, and catch his breath.

Now, he stared at the door, fantasizing about what stood on the other side. The most perfect earlobes the world had ever seen. And he, a short, fat bald man, was minutes away from pleasuring those beauties.

He knocked on the door, and instantly, it was opened.

She was wearing a sheer red satin robe, with black trim, that seemed to illuminate her body. But Jack didn’t even notice. His eyes were glued on the side of her head. At the strange earmuffs she was wearing.

“Do we have a deal, Mr. Kay,” MaryAnn asked. “A night with me for the case?”

Jack wished he could say no. He wished he could tell her to go to hell, but this was MaryAnn Maxwell, and he was powerless against her bidding.

“Of course,” he mumbled.

He stepped toward her and tried to reach up to her head, but she caught his hand and led him inside, to the living room couch. Drinks were already prepared. Scotch on the rocks for her, black coffee for him.

“I talked to Sharon in your office. She said you would only drink coffee while you were working.”

Jack was glad. He rarely drank anything other than coffee, and was glad to have his comfort food, to witness his glorious moment with MaryAnn Maxwell.

“From now on, whenever I drink coffee, I will think of you, MaryAnn Maxwell,” he said.

And from now on, she thought, I will try not to throw up when I drink scotch and think of you, you fat disgusted bald man.

They drank their drinks and made small talk, before she led him up the spiral staircase, to the bedroom. While they were sitting on the couch, he tried to move over and touch her ears, to remove the earmuffs that she wore.

They reached her room. Her robe dropped on the floor. She wore nothing but the earmuffs.

“Aren’t you forgetting something,” he asked, looking at the earmuffs as he undressed.

“My ear lobes are my life. You cannot touch them.”

“But I need to. All day I have been dreaming about putting them between my lips and teasing them with my teeth.”

“Do you think I want you to eat my ear lobes? You are a very fat man. You might eat them.”

“I would take most gentle care of them, MaryAnn. I have spent a lifetime dreaming about ear lobes like yours.”
“That is not part of the deal,” she told him. “You may take me, but you must not touch my ears.” She looked at him, and was sickened. Rolls of fat. And bad body odor. But it was for a good cause she thought. Money.

“No ears,” Jack said, “No deal.”

They negotiated for a few minutes before they came to an arrangement. Jack would have full access to her entire body, except her ears. If he proved himself gentle and worthy, he could suck on each ear for one minute.

Jack tried to be as gentle as possible, and six minutes later, he had his ears access pass granted as well.

He took her earmuffs off, and saw the most beautiful earlobes he had ever seen. And for so seconds, they would be all his. He took one on his mouth, and wished he could hold the other one in his hand, but he knew the deal. Tongue and lips only. No fingers.

The earlobe looked perfect, but it felt stiff and unwieldy in his mouth.

“Are these real,” he asked.

“Get out,” she screamed. She pushed him, and he fell backward, rolled over like a bowling ball, and crashed into the wall.

She was screaming at him, but all he could feel was a sharp pain in his chest. He thought about MaryAnn Maxwell’s earlobes, and smiled. A minute later, he was dead.

-----

It is always complicated to bury the very fat. They need square plots and square caskets. It is even more complicated when the deceased is found naked in a supermodel’s home, while his wife is home alone with their child.

It took three firemen to remove Jack Kay from MaryAnn Maxwell’s home. They brought him to the morgue, where there wasn’t a refrigerator large enough to hold him.

That night he started to decompose. Cremate him and toss out the ashes, his widow told an answering machine at the morgue. And so, the next morning, they did.

The Preceding Story was Fiction. It is the conclusion of this story.