For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories (9 page)

With Doe locked away Marty turns his chair toward the window; he reads three chapters of his book; he calls home frequently to make sure his family is still there. He hangs up on
his wife. He gets information from his daughter. And tries, over and over again, to catch his son.

Sammy answers the phone.

“Hiyah,” Marty says. “Heh, there.” The boy will have nothing to do with him when he’s like this, so Marty strikes quick: “Everything going OK? School OK? Any new girlfriends?”

“You can’t be serious.” Marty is surprised by his son. Proud. Already a cynical little man.

“Sure I’m serious. I called special to talk to you. You know,” Marty says, “you’re allowed to come by and visit. What I’ve got’s not catchy, I can promise you that. Like painting a picture or carrying a tune, like people who can bend their thumbs all the way back. You’ve either got it or you don’t. Understand?”

Nothing. Only silence.

“You were born here for Christ’s sake. Don’t you even want to see the place?”

Sammy hangs up the phone.

These are the things his Leah has told him: The rabbi kept calling as he had promised Marty he would. The rabbi continued to call even after Robin asked him not to—until Robin told him to say she wouldn’t take his calls. “Tell Marty that I wouldn’t talk to you,” her mother had said. “Tell him I slammed down the receiver in your ear.” As far as Leah could tell, the rabbi was happy with this. He never called again.

Marty is a Kohen, of the priestly class of Jews. In the Orthodox community in which they live this holds weight. The Levites wash Marty’s hands on High Holydays. During the repetition of the Eighteen Benedictions he approaches the ark in stocking feet and drapes his tallis over his head. He fans his fingers, presses together his thumbs, and, turning to face the congregation, blesses them in the name of God.

Out of the one hundred and seven families who attend, there are only eight Kohanim, including Marty and his son. The first aliyah to the Torah, the first called up to say the blessing over the weekly portion, goes to the Kohen. Marty should have been called up for an aliyah every eighth week. He kept a tally in his head. They had cycled three times fully and not once called his name.

Marty knew why they passed over him but considered his community self-righteous and unjust. They shushed him when he sang louder than the hazzan, and hissed when, in the tradition of the Talmudists, he engaged the rabbi in a dialogue during his speech. Others might behave differently, Marty knew. But he’d committed no crime. The disrespect they showed him, in comparison, was indefensible according to Jewish law—a sin greater than murder for which one loses his place in heaven. Marty had learned this himself from the books that the Habad missionaries, milling about outside Penn Station, give away.

So he had gone up on Saturday to get his aliyah, gone up to the bimah even though the gabbai had called Irv Wexler’s name. He felt like tradition was on his side. For what other reasons are birthrights given except to be rightfully claimed? Marty beat Irv to the Torah and grabbed hold of the rollers. He told the gabbai, Dave Falk, to cancel Irv Wexler and call his Hebrew name. Dave Falk rolled his eyes and spoke to Marty out of the side of his mouth. “Marty, this ain’t the bank. You can’t cut in line.”

“Call my name,” Marty had said, squeezing tighter as if he wanted Falk to say “uncle,” as if every twist to the rollers sent him a rush of pain.

Leah was upstairs in the women’s section, consigned to the audience. Robin was home making lunch. Sammy had acted, walked briskly to his father’s side. “I’m begging you,” he said. He gave his father’s sleeve a tug. But Marty was making a point. The gabbai wouldn’t take back what he said and looked
to the rabbi for help. The rabbi, with all those years of private counseling, could not have known more about whom he was dealing with, could not have had better odds at knowing just what to say. This might be the reason the rabbi stayed in his seat; maybe he was trying to figure out the halachic solution, if it was indeed possible to cancel the aliyah of Irv Wexler—a man present, willing, in good standing and good health. As for talking Marty down, he had to know this couldn’t be done.

Irv Wexler was not seeking Talmudic remedies. He had grown up in Brooklyn with Dave Falk and Marty and half the congregation. He had a solution of his own. Irv climbed the two stairs and stepped through the opening in the railing that circled the dais. He told Marty to beat it and gave him a shove. That’s how the fight broke out. It was like a boxing match at the Garden, all the men in suits surrounding the ring, the women in the blue seats screaming down from above. It wasn’t even Marty, but the gabbai, Dave Falk, who knocked the Torah to the floor.

Very strict. They live by the letter of the law. When a Torah hits the ground, is disgraced in such a way, the community must share in a fast of forty days. They split the days among them.

Thinking back, Marty decided he got short shrift. It was Dave who knocked over the Torah. Robin should have turned Dave Falk out of the house, sent
him
to Five Cedars for a rest.

Leah told Marty this also: The rabbi wasn’t the only one making calls. Robin had called the rabbi first. She begged him to cancel the fasting. It was torture, her mother said, to have the community fasting in her husband’s name. The rabbi, of all people, knew Marty was a sick man. But Rabbi Baum wouldn’t ask anything of anyone. Sick man or not.

“I’m not sick,” Marty told Leah. “Do I sound sick to you?
It’s a matter of levels. My levels are ajar. Not exactly typhoid fever. It’s not the black death, after all. It is a number that doesn’t match some other number on some chart. A discrepancy. Only a small discrepancy in my blood.”

“It’s a waste if you’re not going to smoke them,” Marty says. Doe takes a second puff to show his good faith. After a day in solitary that’s all Marty can expect. “Now don’t go trying to prove anything,” Marty tells him, “we’ve got it damn good, as long as we have to be in here.” Leaning back in his chair, Marty feels his eyelids sliding down over his eyes. “Like heaven,” he says. “It’s like being in heaven.” Marty means this in so many ways. There is the soft light from the windows and the soft white-clad nurses floating in their silent white shoes down the halls. There are the medications that seep like molasses into all the crevices of the mind. After meds at night, who can say, lying back in bed, that it isn’t like being cradled in the dense ether of a cloud?

The luggage is piled by the nurses’ station. “His brother is my rabbi,” Marty is telling them for the thousandth time. “Now isn’t that a kick?” Doe is at his side, waiting for a goodbye.

Marty pulls out a gold-plated card case and hands a business card to Doe. He passes a second to Marjorie. “In case he loses that one,” Marty says. He gives her a wink, like it’s a private joke. To Doe he says, “Come. You’ll stay with us when you get out. You’ve helped me get better in here. Like your brother, more and more. Next it’s my turn to get you back on your feet; no more nights on the street. Stay by me,” he says. A slap on the back and a nurse buzzes Marty out the door.

The house is there when Marty pulls up, no potatoes or parking lots, no wrecking crew tearing down walls. It’s evening and all the lights are on. There’s a dish on the dining room table and a half-full half gallon of milk—still cool. He finds a glass on the kitchen counter with the last sip forgone; a spaghetti pot soaking in the sink. Sammy’s room is a mess as usual. Leah has a family photo album open on top of the schoolbooks on her desk. Marty’s bedroom, their bedroom, looks as if Robin called in a maid. There is a studied organization to their knick-knacks, every surface has a lemony shine. Someone has gathered up all the short, wide, one-hundred-pill bottles of lithium from around the house and piled them into a pyramid in the middle of the dresser. It’s something Leah might have done while waiting for her mother. Something her mother might have done instead of saying goodbye.

Marty grabs the pewter ashtray from his night table, takes a fresh pack of cigarettes, and sits down in the middle of the stairs. He pulls at his pant legs and hunkers down, resting his elbows on his knees.

Marty calls the rabbi, sure that Robin would have spoken to him first. “She must have told you something,” he says.

“She didn’t consult me, Marty. She called me after and didn’t leave a number. She said she’d call once a week until you call. And then. Then the usual time, the usual meeting, but not to fix things. In the past I’ve always talked her into meeting with you when she’s given up. Now I’m asking you to give her the same courtesy when, it appears, she’s given up for good. She wants to meet you, with me here. To settle things, as it were.”

Marty does not tell the rabbi about Doe.

“You should know, Rabbi,” he says, “I feel pretty bad about the Torah, even if it was David Falk who knocked it over. I feel bad about messing up the service. I wasn’t exactly myself. I hope you understand.”

“Things like that shouldn’t ever happen, Marty.”

“I know, Rabbi. You know I know.”

“Yes,” the rabbi tells him. “I guess I understand.”

“Well, the house is still here. That’s a sort of triumph, of sorts.” Marty is showing Doe around. The upright piano in the living room. “A gift for my Leah.” An antique clock on the mantel: porcelain, fine, detailed with lavender flowers and emitting a slow and masculine tick. “My grandmother brought it from Vienna. Martin, you know, is an Austrian name.”

Doe still has his bag in one hand and a paper sack from the Five Cedars pharmacy in the other. Marty has not invited him to put anything down. “They’re gone, huh?”

“So it seems,” Marty says, “so it seems. Want to see the upstairs?”

“Yeah,” Doe says. “Let’s.”

Marty stops with Doe at each of the doors, following them along the hall. First the master bedroom, spotless, only the pyramid of bottles out of place, then the bathroom, then Leah’s room, exactly as it was when he arrived, just as the plate and the glass and the now sour carton of milk sit out downstairs. “Sammy’s room,” Marty says at the end of the hallway. “You can stay in here.” Marty considers his friend for the first time since his arrival, as if giving him the once-over for a menial job. Doe is clean shaven. His jeans and shirt, dingy but laundered. His old boots, shined up.

The room is a mess.

“Like a museum,” Doe says. “The ones with the rooms that you can’t go in. Rooms with glass half filling the doors.”

“I can see that,” Marty says. “Very sharp. They sharpened you right up in there.” Marty enters first, feigning ease. “Make yourself at home. But don’t touch anything. When they come back I want it all right as it was.” Marty lifts a record album from the unmade bed. A sock hangs by its heel from the record’s sleeve. He puts it on the desk across the room.

“What’s with the sock?” Doe says.

“Tape,” Marty tells him. “It has to be just right.”

They both nap. Marty in Leah’s and Doe in Sammy’s bed. Marty is up first and walks down the hall, comforted to see someone sleeping under the covers. “Wake up,” he says, and gives Doe a shake. He looks at his watch. It’s time for them to take their pills.

“What?” Doe says. “Sleep,” he says.

“I told you,” Marty tells him. “I’m going to get your life on track this time. That means schedules—for both of us. Dinner at dinnertime. Sleeping at night. Awake during the day.” Doe has lined his pill bottles up on the base of the night-table lamp. Marty goes through the prescriptions as Doe stirs.

There is one name that he doesn’t recognize. A pill he has not taken or read about or heard mention of before. He pops the cap and pours a couple of giant green tablets into his hand.

“What the hell are these horse pills for?”

“Which?” Doe says, his eyes still closed.

“Green. And dry looking.”

“They’re supposed to keep me from turning violent.”

“Do they work?”

“Never have before.”

The owner of the kosher pizza place is a member of Ohav Shalom. She is a kind woman and keeps a tab for Marty. She
knows Robin will eventually take care of the bills. She always does.

Marty and Doe share a table for four. Marty is in a suit and wears a black yarmulke, Doe is wearing a yarmulke of Sammy’s, the boy’s name knit around the border by a girl in his class. Doe looks like a bum even clean. The customers stare without restraint.

Marty and Doe eat an extra-large pizza. They drink can after can of Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda.

Doe is a grand listener, even off the ward. Marty has never had someone with the same background and similar problems to talk with before. He has never been open in the down-there world, never been honest off the ward. Now he sits out in public talking, telling Doe about his first episode as if it were first love.

“There is nothing in your body then. No inhibitors, no drugs. And it all happens at once. The response is hidden somewhere in your makeup, building up for a lifetime, waiting with its own biology, its own need to be born. For me, it started with synesthesia. I’m outside walking and it’s a bright day. Summer. And I can see the grass. And it’s green. And I can smell the grass but it’s not grass smell, it’s green smell. And I can taste it and hear it and everything, my whole me was green-grass green. It lasted a minute or a second or an hour. But I saw what I could do. What I could make happen. Like when you wake up in a dream and know it’s a dream and until you fall out of it you can fly and fuck strangers and turn yourself into an astronaut or a wolf. But I was calm, and feeling good, and thinking about my dead mother. I loved her so much. Missed her like anything. And so that’s what I used it for. And she was there in this all-around all-sense way, and I could talk to her and touch her and remember her while I walked with her. See her young and old in the same blink of an eye. It was a miracle. And I walked in that miracle for a day
and a night and a day. And I brought my mother home that way, the whole experience of her. I was so happy, so overjoyed and overwhelmed and at peace, I wanted to show Robin. To have Robin see this, to share this all-sensory, all-being, honest-to-goodness miracle with my wife.”