Are You Kosher? (7 page)

Chapter 14

You Are What You Eat

With the modern-day craze of fad diets and calorie counting, a very popular term is “You are what you eat.” That was not so true in days past. For example, in the dark ages, people ate crap disguised as cuisine and didn’t seem to care if they were fat. In fact, if they were slightly rotund, they more often than not stood a better chance of surviving illness or the occasional kick to the face by some crazed mule.

Today, different groups thrive on various types of diets. Shvartzes love to eat food that is inherently bad for you, especially the southern ones, but they are always happy while doing so and meal time is often a gathering time for family and friends. Middle Easterners have been known to eat testicles, for the love of you-know-who, and with the exception of a few, I wouldn’t say that they are all dicks. What you eat does not dictate who you are, unless you are a vampire. A perfect example of this is my love of garlic. I love it, but it does not love me. If I have a meal that is heavy on the garlic, I wind up with heartburn for a week. For us, what we eat, or more specifically, what we drink, has a direct effect on our systems for sometimes a couple of days.

When it comes to feasting, the effects can be entirely different. You see, when you drink the blood of another, you take on a small part of them, who they are. That’s not to say that if you feast on a homosexual, you are going to become one, but you may wind up with a better sense of fashion then you had previously. You may wind up with an uncanny urge to listen to old Judy Garland records or read a book by Nicholas Sparks. It is more of a subconscious thing than a physical one.

Now that the pig is out of the closet and I’ve come forward with my confession of pork addiction, let me give you some examples.

Shortly after my epiphany about the joys of pork, I decided that it was time, after all these centuries, to hunt bigger game. My first “kill,” and I hate to use that word since I didn’t kill her, was a lovely little Mexican named Rosa Sanchez. Her family had just recently moved into the neighborhood, the first Latin family to ever do so. It started quite the scandal among the various homeowners who were convinced that property values were going to plummet. Even Bubbe, the beacon of racial tolerance, was not happy. “Why do they need to move here? Do I look like I need a housekeeper?” And you wonder why she has never sought political office.

Anyway, I’ve always believed that Latino women are among the most beautiful creatures on the entire planet, but because they were distinctly not kosher, they were forbidden. Fortunately, D.J. popped my cherry to the wonders of pork and I liked it, so I was left to say to myself, “Why not?”

I worked that little maraca for almost a month before she was receptive and willing to accept an invitation to a romantic dinner. After a couple of weeks, she was no match for my charm, and the feasting could commence. That’s not even talking about the sex. I don’t know where they learn some of those techniques, but G-d bless them for it.

The night was perfect. I wined her, dined her, shtuped her so hard that her pupik almost popped. She was so warm and inviting, soft to the touch, and aggressive in her lovemaking. I remember vividly being inside of her and feeling like I had never felt before. As she straddled me, I could not keep myself from taking in every part of her—her hair, her breasts, her perfect skin, and of course, the pulsating veins running up her gorgeous neck. I sat up with the two of us still connected and held her close while sinking my teeth deep into her, drinking long and hard. Feasting and climaxing at the same time is a wondrous thing when you are able to pull it off, and on this occasion, I hit a home run. It is to this day one of the greatest nights of my very long life. My first non-kosher girl and I got it right on the first try.

After a few hours, when exhaustion had finally set in, I found myself lying in the dark next to her. Our bodies both naked and sweaty, I leaned over and gently kissed her forehead and rose to get dressed. She was beautiful in the faint moonlight creeping in through her bedroom window. The contours of her body looked almost ethereal in the glow. I leaned over to give her one more gentle kiss on the lips and whispered, “Adios, mi amore.” That was interesting. I didn’t even know I could speak Spanish.

I walked home, taking in the beautiful late evening night, the glow from streetlights, the occasional sound of a car passing by, the gentle summer evening breeze on my face. I noticed that I was walking a little differently, however. There was a certain rhythmic motion to my step. At an intersection, while waiting for the light to change, I was overcome by the desire to start moving my hips and feet, much as I had seen them do on that celebrity dancing show whenever they did a Latin dance. This was really interesting. Did this always happen? Had I never noticed before because I exclusively feasted on Jews up to that point?

When I arrived home, it was after two in the morning. Bubbe was waiting up for me as she often did. My mother was fast asleep or just passed out from her best friend, Absolut. My mother has never been a hands-on kind of gal. She takes much more pleasure in hearing Bubbe’s daily reports on what a bad boy I am than actually having to deal with it herself. And for Bubbe’s part, the alter kocker has mastered the art of ball-busting.

“And where were you without calling?” she asked in a very hostile tone.

“Chill out, Bubbalita. I was out doing some feasting and getting my freak on.”
What was that?
was my first thought.
I don’t talk like this
. Bubbe picked up on it immediately and was not happy.

“Who is Bubbalita, you little pisher? And why are you talking like that?” she yelled.

What I wanted to say was, “Calm down, Bubbe, I’m just joking. Is there anything to eat?” What I said was, “Chill out,
jefe
. Go on to the kitchen and get me some
chicharones
.” Oh shit.

The old lady’s head almost popped off her shoulders. “Chicharones? That’s pork! Why would you want pork? Is that how I raised you? Where’s my spoon?”

Have you ever seen anyone have a conniption? It is not a pretty sight and is magnified when the person having the conniption is a six thousand five hundred-year-old vampire who has already seen and heard everything, so for her to fly off the deep end is saying something.

Bubbe raced to the kitchen in search of her preferred weapon while I made a run for my bedroom, barricading the door behind me to block the wrath of Zena Glassman. For the next two hours, I yelled through the door, trying to convince her that I was only joking, which was made more difficult by the fact that I was still speaking with a Latin accent and using the slang of the people. Eventually, she was satisfied that all I was doing was rehearsing lines for a role that I was playing in the local community theater. Of course, she wasn’t happy about that, either, because Bubbe has always believed that actors are all faygelahs. That’s okay; I could work on that over time. The important thing then, as now, was to make sure that she did not know that I had strayed from kosher law.

That’s just one example. I was not prepared for the repercussions of feasting on a non-Jew. This experience came in handy in future endeavors, like when I feasted on a Jamaican girl and was overcome with the sudden desire for bean pies, beef patties, and, of course, ganja. Bubbe still wonders why I was referring to her as “mon.”

Of course, I also had a fling with a very lovely Irish girl who consequently turned me into a foulmouthed, drunken shmendrik for a couple of days. And how can I ever forget the wonderful time I spent with a Polish woman who so discombobulated me that I was actually caught urinating in Bubbe’s fleishik sink because I could not remember where the bathroom was.

Are these generalizations about different groups of people? Yes. Are they stereotypes? Most definitely, but they are still true. I didn’t make up the stereotypes; I am just living proof that they are true.

The moral of this, my non-bloodsucking friends, is this, I suppose. Enjoy yourselves; eat whatever makes you happy. Don’t be a victim of cultural or religious restrictions, because whenever those things get involved, the fun has totally left the room. Just keep it in the back of your mind that in some very extreme circumstances, you really are what you eat.

Chapter 15

Alter Kocker of the Lost Ark

By now it should be quite apparent to even an idiot that nothing is taboo to me and I am brutally honest in my opinions. You may also be picking up on the fact that I am incredibly neurotic and very, very old. I’ve actually been alive since before the time of the great flood. You know the one I’m talking about. The one from the Bible, from Noah’s day. Yes, that Noah—the one with the ark.

You are probably wondering how we survived the flood since it specifically says in the Bible that the only survivors were Noah and his family. Well, that is an interesting story, and I’m about to share it with you. Really, guys, you need to stop being so pushy; everything will be revealed in due time. Why would I even consider leaving such a great story out of my memoirs? You are paying good money to read this, and I am all about catering to my audience.

At this time, Bubbe, my mother, and I were living in Canaan, in the Jewish section—Lower East Side in point of fact. The Gefilte Fish War had just ended and Tsvi the Dominant was defeated. As punishment, he lost his license to practice medicine, which brought a great deal of shame to his mother. Like any other Jewish mom, she had dreamt of the day that she could brag about her “son, the doctor.” She sat
shiva
for weeks in the aftermath, as if he had died. I’ve told you how we all thought of him as a
nudnik
; well, the matzo ball doesn’t fall too far from the ladel. Anyway, the Nephilim I mentioned earlier were still running amok. They were stealing food, taking brides, talking to trees, and having casual sex with camels. It was anarchy, I’m here to tell you. This is not how life was supposed to be in the post-Tsvi era. People, including Bubbe, were beginning to wonder if there was any hope for the world.

One day, I was sitting at home shaving my legs—don’t judge me—when Bubbe came into the living room in a particularly bad mood, muttering to herself under her breath in Hebrew. It was never a good sign when she was speaking Hebrew; it meant she was really on about something. I was only hoping that she was not about to ruin my evening, because there was an Egyptian town not too far away, and contrary to popular belief, there were Jewish Egyptians, and they were good feasting. Also, and I hate to disappoint you Kwanzaa scholars, the Egyptians were not black. I should know; I was there.

Bubbe went about her business, starting on some basic household chores, muttering the whole time. This was one of those occasions that I wished my mother was in the room so she could be the one to ask the all-important question, but she was busy sleeping off a bender. Are you picking up on the theme regarding my mother? After watching her rant to herself for almost an hour, I decided to just get it over with. Bubbe may have acted like she didn’t want to share what was going on, but the longer you took to ask her what was wrong, the more pissed she tended to get.

I finally got up the nerve and went into the kitchen where she was busy kneading dough for challah bread. This was bad; she only makes challah for holidays or when the lava of Mount Zena is about to erupt.

“So what’s wrong, Bubbe?” I asked.

She kept muttering. “Bubbe, what happened?” I persisted.

“He’s finally lost what was left of his mind.” She spit.

“Who?” I asked, slightly agitated.

“The crazy alter kocker up the road,” she said, as if that was supposed to explain everything.

“You are going to have to be a little more specific, Bubbe. Half the valley is full of alter kockers,” I said.

She looked at me as if I were the biggest moron on the planet and said, “Noah, you shmuck. Noah!”

This did explain a little of what she was upset about. Noah had the reputation of being quite eccentric and often came up with these absolutely ridiculous theories. Like the time that he said if you stared into the horizon long enough, eventually you could see the back of your own head. I remember when he tested his theory. For almost three months, he sat on the highest hill he could find and just stared off into space. He never moved, not even to go to sleep, which he did in a seated position, or to go to the bathroom. He just sat there, pishing and shitting himself, occasionally yelling out, “Wait, I think I see something!” and then getting pissed because it was just a bird or a prairie rat. His poor wife and sons had to wait on him hand and foot. He took all his meals on that rock the entire time and did his drinking there, too. Noah was not just a drunk, but an abusive one.

Anyway, Bubbe turned from her dough and said, “He’s going around telling everyone that G-d told him that the world was going to come to an end in some great flood and he was personally commissioned to build an ark that would safely carry only his family and two of every kind of animal on Earth.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle; this was original, even for him. “Did he really say that?” I asked.

“No, I’m making it up!” she shouted, throwing flour on the board.

“Well, what do you care what he says?” I asked, trying to calm down the situation. “Did he say anything else?”

“Yes!” she exploded. “He asked to see my boobs again!” Noah loved to ogle Bubbe.

“Did you show them to him?” Bad question.

“I most certainly did not! I slapped him and you are going to be next, young man, if you don’t show some respect.”

I finally was able to calm her down to the point that we agreed to just mind our own business, which for a Jew is a task in itself. We would just watch as this whole thing blew over.

Unbelievably, the days turned to weeks, the weeks turned to years, and that crazy drunk continued the construction on the ark. The worst part about it was that I don’t think he ever slept. He was the talk of the community. Nothing he ever set out to do was ever completed, so this was monumental. The only thing he ever seemed to do really well was drink, and he somehow managed to fit in the time to do plenty of that, too. It was driving everyone crazy. In the middle of the night, in the afternoon, at breakfast, you could hear the sounds of sawing, hammering, and of course, Noah, in various degrees of inebriation, spouting venom at his sons.

Ham, Shem, and Japheth did not deserve that kind of abuse. They really were nice guys.

“Ham!” you would hear him yell, “I told you I wanted two by fours, not fucking three by sixes!” Sometimes he would get really mean and say something like, “Shem, I swear that you are the load I should’ve dropped on your wife! Now get your head out of your tuchas! You remember who we are building this for? And where’s my cocktail?” And sometimes, he even included his poor wife in his horrible behavior. “Japheth, I’m going into the ark and I’m going to beat the shit out of your mother because there is no fucking way on this Earth that I am your father!”

This continued for what seemed like a millennium. Over the course of time, he just became the butt of jokes for the surrounding populace and it was apparent to everyone concerned that the old man had, in fact, finally lost it. All except Bubbe, of course. I don’t know what it was, but she started acting funny, paying a little closer attention to the goings-on in the Noah camp. I would catch her looking at the sky on a regular basis. And when the animals showed up, that was all the proof she needed.

She came into my room one day, without knocking of course, and announced that she wanted to start packing. “Izzylah,” she always calls me that when she wants something, “I’ve been watching that shmuck like a hawk and I think that even if he is wrong, we need to be prepared just in case.”

“Prepared for what?” I asked. Now she was losing it.

“Whatever it is that he thinks is going to happen.” She explained that Noah had told her that the doors to the ark would eventually be closed and that there would be no getting in or out until G-d allowed it.

“So how the hell are we supposed to get in?” I asked.

“Through the side door, you silly boy.” She smiled.

“How do you know about a side door? He won’t even let anyone near the damn thing.”

“I showed him my boobs.” She shrugged.

My head was starting to hurt and I rubbed my temples. “Let me get this straight. You want to stow away on the ark?” I asked.

“Stow away has such a negative tone.” She shook her head. “Uninvited guests.”

Her plan was set in motion. We packed light and took only what we needed; obviously Bubbe can’t live without her wooden spoon. We watched as Noah began to load the ark with every type of supply you could imagine and began to bring the animals on board. Every type of creature there was, was loaded in an orderly manner onto the giant ship.

Finally, Noah led his family aboard—his wife, Lois, their sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and their wives Gina, Lola, and Bridgita. Once they were safely inside, he locked the door behind them. Bastard.

We gathered at the house. Bubbe, my mother and me and six of Bubbe’s closest friends she was intent on bringing along. Frank and Lizzie Markowitz, Joe and Clara Weiner, Rabbi Gandalf—don’t ask, and Goldie Hawn. Yes, that Goldie Hawn. Come on, you had to know how old she really is; you didn’t think that she could still look that good and not be an immortal, did you?

Together we watched as the skies became more and more forbidding, waiting for this so-called storm to begin. After about a week, the rain started, a drizzle at first and then coming down with considerably more gusto. We moved quickly, gathering up our belongings and heading for the side door that Noah claimed existed. I was still skeptical; I wouldn’t put it past him to make the whole thing up in order to get a look at Bubbe’s boobs. Amazingly, the door was there and in we went, Bubbe warning all of us to stay inconspicuous for as long as this took. Right, stay inconspicuous, this coming from a woman who is about as subtle as a nearsighted gynecologist.

On cue, the rain began in a way that none of us had ever seen before. I have to admit that it was a bit frightening. We scrambled to find an out-of-the-way spot to hide, which actually was not that hard given the size of this ship. The only hard part was finding what Bubbe referred to as the “kosher section.”

“I’m not sleeping next to any pigs,” I remember her saying. Right, the world is coming to an end and she is worried about whether or not G-d is going to hold intermingling with swine against her. How about the whole bloodsucking thing, Bubbe? You ever think of that?

The animals were obviously agitated by what was going on. The people on the boat were not doing much better. Moans and wailing echoed throughout the ark, and that was just from Noah. Apparently he was seasick. Outside the ark, I can only imagine the horror. What I would have given to be an umbrella salesman at that very moment. What? I’m Jewish. This was an extraordinary business opportunity.

For forty days and forty nights, it rained. Forty days and forty nights of listening to the drunken rantings of Noah as he took every possible opportunity to berate his family and spew every form of profanity and sexual innuendo you could imagine, and I’m not even going to go into what he did to the livestock. They say that G-d rested on the seventh day of creation; well whatever angel recommended this drunk for this task should be relegated to trying to convince the JWs that they are not the only people in heaven.

Bubbe wasn’t much better to get along with. She was living on a giant ship with millions of species of animals, and all she could do was complain about how filthy the place was. She wanted to clean, but was afraid of being discovered, so she eventually learned to tolerate it. My mother, on the other hand, almost blew our cover on several occasions when she snuck down to Noah’s family quarters to steal some wine for herself. Fortunately, Noah always blamed his wife and remained blissfully ignorant to our presence.

Feasting was a problem because we could not risk discovery by going after the humans, so we fed on the animals. I said before that sometimes you are what you eat. Well watching the choices that my fellow vampires made in regard to feasting told a lot about who they were. I personally made the mistake of feasting on a coyote one night, and for the next two days I walked around the ark licking myself and smelling my mother’s tuchas. Goldie seemed to have quite the taste for cougars; need I say more? And Rabbi Gandalf was briefly engaged to a marmot. Thank G-d the waters were receding.

A little longer than a year after the rain started, we came to rest on Mount Ararat in Turkey. That’s right, Turkey. We landed in fucking Turkey! I hate Turkey! Have you ever been to Turkey? You think it’s a shithole now? You should have seen it after a year’s worth of cataclysmic flooding. I spent the longest year of my life with these nudges to ensure that I was not going to die, and this is where I wound up.

“At least we all made it,” Bubbe said, a little too cheerful for my taste at that particular time.

“Where to now, Zena?” Frank Markowitz asked.

“I’m not sure,” Bubbe replied, “but we can’t stay here. This place is a shit hole.”