New York Echoes (25 page)

She was slowly recovering, looking now
around the room, trying to imagine what was going on in his mind.

“He had this thing,” Freshetti said.

“What thing?”

“Painted all the time. I saw him lugging
his stuff every day. Looks like he painted everything in sight.”

“Even me,” Cynthia said.

“Lots of you. That's for sure. But then,
you were his daughter.”

“Big deal. Did he ever once come over to
me, speak it me?” She felt herself turning angry now. “Crazy bastard.” She
raised her voice. “Why didn't he ever acknowledge me?” It wasn't a question
directed to Feschetti but he answered it anyway.

“Hey lady. Didn't acknowledge you? He
painted you over and over. Means something. Doesn't it?”

She didn't answer him, but agreed with
the thought.

“I'll just have to deal with it,”
Cynthia said. “All these paintings.”

“They gotta go, lady. Can't get away
from that.”

She took a deep breath and nodded, then
she called Todd and explained what she had observed.

“What shall I do?” she asked.

“They're yours.”

“So?”

“We'll have them appraised. Make a
market. That's my business. We'll put them in storage and go from there. Maybe
. . . just maybe this is your lucky day, baby. One thing,” he said, before
signing off. “He didn't forget you?”

That set her off and finally big sobs
heaved up from her chest and tears rolled over her cheeks. For some reason she
leaned against Feschetti, who embraced her.

“Jesus,” Feschetti said. “It's OK.”

“Daddy,” she said, when she found words.
“My Daddy.”

After awhile she untangled herself from
his embrace, reached into her pocketbook, pulled out some tissues and wiped her
eyes and cheeks.

“We'll take everything off your hands.
Everything. We'll be making arrangements.”

“That's good. He wasn't a bad guy. I
guess he didn't want anything to interfere with his painting.” He looked around
the room. “This was his life. It takes all kinds.”

“You have a point. He shut everything
out but this.”

She started to move out of the
apartment, then stopped and turned to face Feschetti.

“His ashes.”

“Nearly forgot.” He looked under the bed
and pulled out an urn. She took it from him.

“He was my father,” she said.

“My father, the painter,” he said,
perhaps trying to get her to smile.

She did.

Warren Adler is the author of 28 critically
acclaimed novels, including four short story collections. The film adaptations
of two of his novels,
The War of the Roses
and
Random Hearts
continue to enjoy great popularity throughout the world. A previous short story
collection,
The Sunset Gang
, became a successful trilogy on PBS. A
forthcoming novel
Funny Boys
will be published this Spring by The
Overlook Press.

Mr. Adler is a native New Yorker and a
graduate of NYU. He studied creative writing in the New School. His wife Sonia
is the former editor and owner of the Washington Dossier. They have three sons
and four grandchildren.

A collection of short stories makes
for especially interesting readers group material since it ranges over a wide
landscape that can make for lively debate and commentary. Here are some
suggestive topics and questions that can provoke interest and inspire
insightful discussion in connection with
New York Echoes
by Warren
Adler.

1. Does one get the sense after reading
   these stories that New York City is a land unto itself, circumscribed by
   its own mores, habits and attitude than the rest of the country?
   
2. Of all the stories in the book, which one
   resonated the most to you?
   
3. There are a number of stories that deal
   with parents and grandparents like “The Cherry Tree” and “Oral History”
   and the divide between the generations. Do you believe this divide is
   growing more so than in previous generations?
   
4. A number of these stories like “My Father
   the Painter,” deal with the obsessive needs of the creative artist where
   the pursuit of one's art trumps all human relationships. Is the artist
   justified in pursuing such a single-minded pursuit?
   
5. Some of these stories like “Good
   Neighbors” and “The Mean Mrs. Dickstein” deal with coping with living in
   close proximity to others in a bustling, frenetic, high-energy city. How
   do you cope with this phenomenon in your daily life?
   
6. As the story “The Obituary Reader”
   implies, guilt and shame for past actions magnifies itself as time goes
   on. Do you believe that time enhances or blunts such feelings?
   
7. The pursuit of celebrity through show
   business is passion that apparently brooks no hardship. In the story
   “Actors” and “Better Than Donna Reed” one confronts the reality of this
   hardship. Is it worth the candle?
   
8. The story “A Dad Forever” deals with the
   irrelevance of a parent to a grown child?  Do you believe this is an accurate
   portrayal?
   
9.  Memories of young love and passion
   permeate a number of stories in this collection, as in “A Love Story.”  Do
   you believe that such early experiences of love and sex are as endurable
   and powerful as portrayed,
   
10. There are a number of stories like “A
    Birthday Party” that deal with loss and loneliness. Do you believe that
    living in a crowded city like New York enhances such feelings?
    
11. Stories like “I Can Still Smell It” and
    “That Horrid Thing” deal with the trauma of 9/11 and how it continues to impact
    people's lives. Although more than six years have passed since that
    traumatic event, does the anxiety and fear engendered by it still generate
    the same amount of anxiety and worry as it did immediately after the
    event?
    
12. In the story “Epiphany” latent and hidden
    cultural anti-Semitism rears its ugly head in a divorce dispute. Do you
    think it will ever be possible to erase this hateful strain that afflicts
    the human psyche.
    
13.  In the “Dividing Line” and “Oral
    History” fading generational memory is explored. How much does historical
    memory really matter? 
    
14. Because the author is a father, it is
    natural that a number of the stories deal with fatherhood and its
    consequences. Do you think this has been a neglected topic in recent
    fiction?
    
15.  The short story, once a staple of
    reading formats, has experienced a decline in recent decades because of
    its elimination from magazine content.  The Internet is now responsible
    for an upsurge in interest in short imaginative fiction. Do you believe
    the short story format is now on the upswing?
    
16.  Would you like to see another volume of
    short stories dealing with life in New York City?
    

The woman opened the door to Gorlick's suite and
two men emerged. The shorter one grabbed the woman's buttocks and squeezed.

“Is that a tush Pep or what?”

“World class,” the taller man said.

Mickey Fine, who had been waiting in the
corridor puzzled over the men.  The shorter one wore a brown pin stripe
double-breasted suit with a red rose in its lapel and a beige fedora. His
glance washed over Mickey like a spotlight in a prison movie, freezing him in
its glare like a pinned insect.

The other was taller, handsomer, dressed to the
nines in a blue serge suit, matching satiny blue tie on a white on white shirt.
He wore a pearl grey fedora and and his black shoes were spit shined in
contrast to his shorter companion's scuffed browns. He was also handsome in a
hard way and his lips wore a thin smile that was anything but warm.

Mickey watched them both swagger toward the
elevators. It was the tall one who looked back at Mickey, studying him briefly,
as if trying to recall him from some previous occasion. Mickey had the same
sensation.

"Mr. Gawlick will see ya now," the
woman said, dissolving his effort at remembering. She was tall, with a
voluptuous figure and a low-cut dress that showed much fleshy cleavage. He
followed her as she pranced into the suite on swivel hips that swung at an
exaggerated wide angle. A tush like the Pied Piper, he thought confirming the
earlier comment. Follow it anywhere. Does it come with that swing? he wanted to
say, then thought better of it. But the idea did boost his energy level and
chased the edginess that the appearance of the two men had brought on. He came
into the suite with a theatrical bounce and a face-aching smile. 

Clouds of smoke layered the air in Sol Gorlick's
suite. He was a short corpulent man with squinty eyes and thick lips. As Mickey
entered he was just lighting a long expensive looking cigar. The jacket of his
double-breasted suit was open, showing sweat puddles on his blue shirt. His
pants were high belted over a balloon like stomach and his bald head appeared
lacquered, reflecting the slanting rays of late afternoon sunlight.

His complexion was waxy and although his face
was round and fat, his skin did not hang in jowls. Greeting Mickey with a nod,
he pointed with his cigar to a chair beside the coffee table.

"Sit," he grunted.

Mickey sat in an upholstered chair beside the
coffee table, on which were a number of used highball glasses, a half emptied
bottle of seltzer and nearly empty bottle of Johnny Walker. Salted peanuts were
strewn around the table. There was also a silver pistol cigarette lighter and
an ashtray filled with smashed cigarette and cigar butts.

The woman who had shown him in sat opposite
Mickey on a matching chair, crossing her legs, showing an expanse of pink flesh
on either side of her black stocking suspenders.

"This is Mickey Fine Mr. Gawlick," the
woman said.  Gorlick's big behind sank deeply into the soft cushions of the
couch. He sat upright, his back stiff, his belly resting on his thighs. Mickey
noted that he had star sapphire rings on pinkies of both hands.

"Here I'm Fine," Mickey said.
"But finer in Caroliner."  Keep the one-liners coming, he urged
himself. He prayed that his nervousness wouldn't erase his memory.

 Gorlick smiled thinly, nodded and picked up a
paper from the coffee table. Mickey watched him as he puffed on his cigar,
blowing thick smoke rings as he read. Mickey could see it was the letter he had
sent outlining his experience. Not earth shaking. He had been a waiter and
substitute tumler at Blumenkranz's in Lock Sheldrake for two summers. Before that
for three summers he had been a bus boy at Grossingers and been in some of the
weeknight shows.

Off-season he played small club dates, mostly
Jewish veterans and women's groups. Days he helped in his father's  ladies
underwear store on Sutter Avenue in Brownsville. Nights he went to CCNY.

"It's short," Mickey said. "I ran
out of lies."

"You're twenty-two?" Gorlick said,
inspecting him.

"All year," Mickey replied.

"He looks like a Jewish Tom Mix. Don't he
Gloria?,"  Gorlick said, tossing his head toward the woman.

"And here I thought I was passing for a
goy. I know. You saw my horse Tony." Mickey turned toward the woman.
"He's circumcised. How can you hide it?"

Gloria made a sound like a Bronx cheer.

"Sometimes I forget and say "Oi Oi
Gold" instead of Hi Yo Silver."

"That's the Lone Ranger," Gloria
snickered.

"You think he's not Jewish. Why do you
think he travels with his tanta."

Gorlick, not reacting, puffed a
smoke ring into the air, then picked up a stray peanut from the cocktail table
and popped it into the smoke cloud belching from his mouth.

"Such a tumler," Gloria said winking.
“He's a real cutie pie. The girls would get a kick out of him.”

Mickey felt her inspection, distracted by the
swell of the upper part of her full breasts. But when he forced himself to
shift his glance, he found himself watching that stretch of pink bare thigh.

"What kind of a store your father
got?" Mr. Gorlick asked looking over the paper again.

"Foundation garments," Mickey said, not
with a slight twinge of embarrassment. People always reacted with a snicker and
Gorlick and Gloria were no exceptions. 

There was humor in it, he knew, but mostly to
others, less to Mickey or his mother or father or sister. To them the store
meant survival and they lived above it. To the Fines foundation garments were
serious business, although Mickey had developed a repertoire of jokes about it.

"Corsets, girdles, things like that?"
Gorlick asked, smiling.

"We fix flats, too," Mickey said,
looking pointedly at Gloria, who needed none of his father's wares. As if to
emphasize the obvious, Gloria straightened in her chair and flung out her
chest.

"Bet you seen plenty," Gorlick
chuckled.

"Plenty is the word for it. It's turned me
into a vegetarian."

Gorlick grunted another chuckle, then turned his
eyes back to the paper.

"What kind of courses you taking?"

"General," Mickey said. "If
things don't work out, maybe, as a last resort, I'll become a shyster."
Despite the joke it was a bone of contention between him and his parents. To
them a tumler was not a proper career path, although they often laughed at his
jokes. “I get a kick out of making people laugh,” he told them. You can still
be a lawyer and make people laugh.  It was a never ending complaint.

"A shyster." Gorlick nodded. "At
Gorlick's a shyster would have a field day." He turned and winked at
Gloria who smiled thinly.

"That's if show business doesn't pan
out," Mickey said, reluctant to reveal his secret yearnings for comedy
stardom.  

"A putz business," Gorlick said.

"Maybe he wants to be a movie star,"
Gloria interjected. "The Jewish Tom Mix and his faithful horse
Moishey." She laughed heartily, her big tits shaking.

He felt a sudden tinge of resentment, wondering
if they were taking his ambition seriously. That part was not a joke.

"What we are seeking here," Gorlick
said. "is a special kind of tumler for "Gorlick's Greenhouse", a
classy boy, a diplomat, an organizer, a social director with "tum" ya
know whatimean?"

"Also funny Solly," Gloria said.

 "Goes without saying. Sure funny. It also
helps if you can sing a little."

Mickey nodded. He had a fair voice. "And a
good dancer. A refined talker. Ya know what I mean, a smart classy funny boy
who can keep the guests happy."

"They liked me at Blumenkranz," Mickey
said. He was at somewhat of a disadvantage over that. He had been set for the
season at Blumenkranz, another Catskill hotel, then Mrs. Blumenkranz hired her
brother's son for the job. With ten days until Decoration Day when the Catskill
hotels traditionally opened, he was in no bargaining position. It was
Blumenkranz who had recommended him to Gorlick who had apparently had some
disagreement with the tumler he had hired then fired.

"Blumenkranz," Gorlick sneered,
"A pig sty cockeninyam operation.  We're not like the other hotels. We're
special. We got a special clientele." He took a deep drag on his cigar and
looked at Gloria. "Small but eleganty. One fifty guests max on weekends. A
showplace.  Great coozeen. Kosher but goormay. We don't even have to advertise.
All woid of mouth. In the middle of the week we got the wives, the kids, the
girlfriends. Weekends when the boys come up we expect you to put on a show,
sometimes we hire a specialty act, and we got a three-piece band all week. I
say sometimes, because mostly the boys want action."

"Action?"

"Big time action. Poker. Crap tables.
Slots."

"Is that legal?" Mickey asked,
instantly regretting his hasty response. Bluemkranz and Grossingers had been
straight places. But Sullivan County, which covered the Catskills, was
considered wide open for gambling in some of the hotels. He had played slot
machines at hotels near Lock Sheldrake.

“Legal shmegal. Not my business.”

Mickey shrugged, watching Gorlick use his big
cigar as if it were a baton.

"....it's the weekdays I worry about,
especially when it rains. When the boys come, ya know, they inject a happier
prospect if you get my meaning. But in the weekdays the girls get bored with
the machines and not all are not into cards. You gotta tumel them, keep them
happy. They get bored, moody, start to complain about the coozeen. On the
weekends they tell the boys and we got tsooris." Gorlick raised his eyes
to the ceiling, as if he needed validation from a higher source.

"Tell him about last years Solly,"
Gloria piped. She extracted a compact from her bag and began to fix her makeup.

"A schmuck. Not bad on a stage. A good
dancer. A schmoozer. He could tell a lotta jokes. A genius at Simon Sez. But on
the floor, he was not a diplomat. Worse, he was a shmuck with a schmuck, if you
get my drift." He looked toward Gloria who peeked out from behind her
compact and giggled.

"I love it Solly."

"In the right place, at the right time, a
young schmuck with a schmuck is a valuable asset. At the wrong place at the
wrong time it's tsooris. This shmuck's shmuck gave me tsorris."

"One thing I know is my place, Mr.
Gorlick," Mickey said seriously, calculating that the matter was a serious
issue with Gorlick.

"It's your schmuck that's got to know its
place,"  Gorlick said, looking down at the paper on the coffee table.
"Mickey."

"No question," Mickey said. He was
remembering Blumenkranz's. On weeknights the women were barracudas. To some, he
hadn't been averse, but he knew it was tricky business.  "I know how to
draw a "Fine" line." The pun sailed right over Gorlick's head.  

 "Last year's social director is still in
the hospital," Gloria said from behind her compact. "It's a miracle
they let him live."

"I won't even tell you what they did to
him,"  Gorlick said. "But you can imagine."

"Jesus," Mickey said, feeling the
sudden chill as he envisioned what they might have done.

“We gotta cure, tumler,” Gloria said, winking.
“Only it costs.”

Gorlick looked at Gloria and shook his head.

“Hey Solly. What about our two minute special?”
Gloria giggled.

"Now funny. Show me funny," Gorlick
said, flicking an ash into the ashtray on the coffee table.

But the stab of fear had dampened Mickey's
enthusiasm. He was also confused. He thought he had been funny, showing them
his funny attitude and his ability to integrate funny patter into the
conversation.

"Tumler shtick," Gorlick prodded.

"I've got a terrific file. One liners and
routines. Lots of blackouts." Mickey said. But when they didn't react, he
cleared his throat and stood up.

"Now take my boss. He's the biggest man in
who owes who. If he can't take it with him--he'll send his creditors. He gives
me plenty of exercise. When he gives me a check I have to race him to the
bank."

Gloria giggled.

"Boss jokes are okay," Gorlick said.

"Except for garlic. He hates to be called
Garlic," Gloria interjected. Gorlick nodded.

"That would be in bad taste," Mickey
said, searching Gorlick's eyes for a glint of acknowledgement. He found none.

"Jokes on wives are okay. Shvartzers.
Pollack jokes. And be careful on smut. There are kids around.”

“Stinky little brats,” Gloria piped. “Course
they think they're all Little Lord Fantelroys and Shirley Temples.”

“And that's the way you treat them. Make nice,
nice, nice,” Gorlick said.

“And be careful with the ladies. They like dirty but not in
front of the men. The boys get edgy think you're try to…you know…heat up the
frying pan. With the men everything goes. They love smut, smuttier the better.
But the biggest no no of all. Hear my woids.” Gorlick put a fat finger in front
of Mickey's nose. “Absolutely no wop jokes. You  put that one in your
tuchas."Gorlick tapped his temple. “Get in the habit, just in case.”