that’s my family
desperate times require desperate measures. i was born in san rego, a district filled with boxers and prostitutes, thugs and street vendors. you know my childhood was not a success. dad gave me to a tutor, who lived in far away bellin, where the food was bland, and the people kept no taste for feelings. my tutor had gray stubble on his face; i was not treated particularly well. left chronically homesick, the one thing that kept me going was music. in an abandoned barrack i found an old victrola, left by the teenaged daughter of a retired officer, i saw her once, with curly brown hair and a blue cotton shift. she had taped a penny to the tone arm, to keep it from skipping, the needle was so blunt, so i came in through the back door and played woody and cisco’s “buckskinner blues” over and over and over again. this was before i discovered tabu ley, oryema, or even makeba. father was a rabbi who kept powerful secrets. he was feared and occasionally liked. you really had to make sure there wasn’t the slightest bit of misunderstanding with him. using your wits. but personally i was not too concerned, as i was his son, and it was my job to make him his breakfast on lazy day sundays. i had to clean up after the dog in the back yard too; like a man, with a shovel and cardboard, not like people do these days, with those plastic bags full of doggy-do dangling from their belts like a treat from the green grocers. some people said he was the form taken on earth of a dead ancestor, here to protect the living. maybe it was true. his mother’s hazel green eyes, high forehead and receded gums gave the look of a thousand thousand years. she smelled like napthalene and fed you cold flounder with unsweetened lemonade. she could have been the kind to come back, to appear at festivals and rituals, in times of rain or times of drought. etheric voice. a singer. you did not touch her unless she touched you first. mother was a woman of great air and fire. floating in her night gown, so soft and tender, she ate the scraps off the children’s plates, we kept no pets. in albany, where she spent her youth, other people cleaned and cooked for her, so it was ironic she became a cook and cleaner. music played a role in her life, too. grandfather listened to yiddish radio and drank soup from a huge tureen. when not at the office or playing cards he relaxed in a giant lazy boy in the living room, dozing off to the latest reports in medieval german peppered with bits of russian, polish, aramaic, and hebrew. his wife, my mother’s mother, on the topic of giving gifts: “i always give cash, otherwise they’re never happy” pronouncing the money referent with a very short “a” followed by a “y”, caysh. “six million…how could god allow it…?” she was won’t to be heard saying, into the air, to no one in particular. sometimes she asked me the question, as if i, aged 11, could possibly give the answer. near the ocean they lived, next to the boardwalk, but it always rained, so what difference did it make? “consume, digest, understand!” was my father’s advice on leaving home. travel was the priceless period. upright. home is home, but the road is open air and sun. yet everyone seeks the source at some point, if only to prove a point, and my tuition was paid in advance. that was the reason why in 1960 i came back to new jersey. the beeches were in bloom and the azaela’s aflame in a riot of creamy golden yellow. but i realized quickly it wouldn’t be easy. times had changed, tastes had changed. the old folk were gone, and the adults had gone grey. no more schnapps under the table at lunch. no more bitter tea drunk out of glasses with sugar cubes held between teeth. when yetta was dying she drank warm water from a tea pot’s spout. this made an impression. i was to be a lawyer and brother a doctor. we’re still supposed to be if bertha has her say. bertha schizer, look it up, the first woman pharmacist in new york city, 1915, dead now for 28 years and still holds an opinion. that’s my family.
