On My Knees (4 page)

The closets were filled with thousands of plastic necklaces and hundreds of pairs of vinyl shoes. The bathroom was peach—peach tiles, peach towels, peach shower curtain, peach plastic tissue holder. My grandparents hadn’t slept in the same bed in over a quarter of a century and, as such, the bedroom had two single beds in it. In an attempt to pretend my life was normal, I pushed the beds together to form some sort of fake king-size bed, which resulted in an enormous bed in the middle of the room with a giant dent down its middle.

I had fashioned the second bedroom, which had been my father’s and Uncle Bark’s bedroom and was brimming with heinous pictures of Aunt Ruth, Jyllian, and other family members we hadn’t spoken to in years, into my office. This meant that it had thousands of pieces of paper strewn about, but more to the point it was pretty much a giant ashtray.

The living room housed the giant pink couch, which was actually very cool in a French chaise longue kind of way. The only problem was that I was too depressed to take the plastic cover off. The kitchen was beyond disgusting. Fake tile, cheap dishes, old, crusty stove, plastic containers shoved in every corner and, of course, the requisite three million packets of Sweet’N Low my grandmother had stolen from every diner she had ever been to. Never mind that she didn’t even
use
Sweet’N Low.

I was trying to create a home for myself amid the chaos but there was no point in unpacking because I had no idea how long I was going to be there since I was there illegally. The apartment was in a state of chaos, and literally and figuratively everything was a mess. I was reeling. In addition to hardly eating, chain-smoking, drinking way too much espresso, I had begun to spontaneously gag. Even my own body was turning against me. I hadn’t spoken to Noam in ages and I couldn’t even say his name without bursting into tears.

My mother—my wonderful, dear, amazing, loving mother who I adore with every fiber of my being—was driving me crazy. I knew that she was worried sick about me and just trying to help, but she was nevertheless making me insane.

She had taken to sending me e-mails like these:

It was so nice to spend time with you yesterday (it never is enough time).

I appreciate your comments re: not speaking with food in my mouth, so you will not be offended by the following comments:

1. Your hair—you simply can’t imagine how this “hairdo” destroys your appearance. I understand that you are upset and stressed but this looks ill-groomed.

2. Why wear a dinner dress with flip-flops? This looks like a resident in a nursing home who wants to look glamorous but can’t wear nice shoes because she has old feet.

Okay, I will stop only because I do not want to stress you more. I am trying to help you improve by being objective.

I will not embarrass you in front of others (even though you do it to me).

And most of all I love you and care about you more than anyone.

Please take care,

Mommy

In addition to having to contend with my mother and Uncle Bark, my genius plan of moving into my grandmother’s apartment and taking over her lease was not going as smoothly as I had imagined. The reality was that I was illegally squatting and it became eminently clear that if I wanted to stay there, I was going to have to get a lawyer. And fast.

I had been delusional to think I would be able to just
take
Grandma’s apartment. I had no legal right to be there. In the biggest real estate sale in the history of New York, Stuyvesant Town, the complex where my grandparents had lived since its inception, which had originally been created for the working people of the city some sixty-odd years ago, had recently been purchased by Tishman Speyer for several billions of dollars. Tishman Speyer basically owns half of New York City. When they bought the complex they began a massive overhaul, billing it as “luxury living in the city.” This is a crock of shit the proportions of which I can hardly begin to articulate. The complex looks better than it did when I was a kid, to be sure, and from a business perspective, not that I know jack shit about business, it seemed like a smart move. Most of the original residents were dead or dying and the moment a tenant kicked it, Tishman Speyer would swoop in, renovate, and quadruple the rent—which was precisely why they bought it.

Like most of their first residents, when my grandparents moved in they were paying fifty-some-odd dollars a month for their relatively large two-bedroom apartment.

By the time my grandmother died, her rent was around a thousand dollars. Of course everything is relative and while a thousand dollars is more than most people in the world make in a year, a thousand dollars a month is dirt fucking cheap for a two-bedroom apartment in downtown New York City. True, I had no business living there, but thousands of other people did. Tishman Speyer didn’t give a shit about that. They were in the midst of trying to evict innocent elderly people and vacate as many apartments as humanly possible. They wanted to avoid, well, people like me at any and all cost.

They were like vultures and their little scheme wound up blowing up in their greedy little faces as the whole deal eventually went bankrupt. I may have had no business being there, but you can’t just kick old people out of their homes. The other thing you apparently can’t do is pretend you’re a dead woman in order to take advantage of a rent-controlled apartment. At heart, even in my darkest moments, I must be an optimist. I really thought I had a chance.

I found an attorney, a nice fellow named Herbert Lust, of all things, to try and help me. I told him the whole history, how my grandparents Lillian and Seymour Aschenbrand moved into apartment 4B in 1948 and my grandmother lived there until her death on September 12, 2008. I told him that my grandfather may or may not have fought in Pearl Harbor, that my grandmother was a New York City public school teacher, that my father and Uncle Bark had grown up in that apartment, and that it was only right that it be handed down to me. I even talked about how I was a struggling artist and how that should count for something. After I got through my heartfelt tale, I asked him whether he thought my writing an impassioned plea to Stuyvesant Town explaining all this would help my situation. Mr. Lust looked at me and said, “Tishman Speyer wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”

He told me I could sue them if I wanted to and that he’d be happy to represent me but I would wind up spending tens of thousands of dollars (that I didn’t have) and I would never win.

So I switched tactics. I decided to wait them out. I figured my best bet—and quite frankly my only option at that point—was to stay put until they realized I wasn’t my grandmother, at which point they would kick me out. This, as it turned out, was exactly what happened. It would take them about nine months and we would eventually settle.

In the meantime, my newly found freedom felt more like prison. In the midst of my suffering, Uncle Bark decided we had to go through Grandma’s stuff and decide what we were doing with everything so we didn’t get stuck doing it when I suddenly received an eviction notice, which could happen at any moment. My father, who likes to keep things as simple as possible, wanted nothing to do with the apartment. He likes things done by the book and illegally squatting in a dead woman’s apartment does
not
fall into that category. My dad’s job was to handle all of Grandma’s bills and other similar affairs, which he did meticulously. As far as he was concerned, we could have set everything else on fire and that would have been just fine with him. My mother was more concerned than ever—and she was calling me more than ever. And as a result I wanted to put my head through a pane of glass. Even though my mother came to this country from Israel fifty years ago, she still has the most ridiculous accent in the world.

Me, answering the phone at noon, having just dragged myself out of bed, with raspy voice: “Hello?”

My mother: “
Hallo?
Peri?”

Me: “Yes, Mommy.”

My mother: “Oh! I didn’t know it was you!”

Me, already losing patience: “Well, who else would it be! You just called my cell phone!”

My mother: “I know. That’s why I was confused. It didn’t sound like you. You sound terrible.”

Me: “Is that what you called to tell me?”

My mother: “You sound like you’ve been smoking.”

Me: Silent.

My mother: “
Have
you been smoking!”

I remained silent but could feel my blood pressure rising.

My mother: “So you
have
been smoking.”

Me: “Mommy, now really isn’t a good time for this.”

My mother, starting to scream: “It’s
never
a good time! That’s exactly the problem! Every time I call you, it’s not a good time! And then you say you’re going to call me back and you never do! It’s terrible! This is a terrible way to live! This is a terrible way to have a relationship! I don’t want to come visit you in the cancer ward!”

Me, wanting to kill myself: “Mommy, relax. I’m not smoking.” I said as I light a cigarette.

My mother: “I can
hear
you smoking! I don’t know when this is going to end but it’s not good! You don’t know what you’re doing to your lungs! And the whole apartment stinks like smoke! It’s disgusting!”

Me: “Mommy, I
really
have to go, Uncle Bark is on his way over.” And I hung up.

Then I walked into the peach bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. And gagged. I couldn’t bear to take a shower, so I splashed some water on my face and sniffed around. I really hoped the apartment didn’t stink like smoke because Uncle Bark would have a heart attack and I didn’t need some long talk from him about his high blood pressure.

Uncle Bark, in all of his grief and mourning and great enormous love for his dead mother was, much like myself, fairly delusional. While I was under the misguided impression that we would put everything into giant garbage bags, Uncle Bark wanted to keep
everything.
And when I say everything, I mean
everything.
Nothing was too insignificant and every last piece of junk had value. I would leave the room for a second and when I came back he would be fingering a red plastic beaded necklace as though it were an antique diamond Cartier.

And all of the stuff that he absolutely could not keep he wanted to sell. I was like, “Uncle Bark, let’s just make a pile and call Goodwill.” No, no, no, he wouldn’t hear of it. He had this cockamamie idea that we were going to
sell
all this garbage. So I had to sit there with him and photograph all this shit and then list everything, item by fucking item, on Craigslist
.
It was a nightmare. I just about lost my patience when he was waxing poetic about Grandma’s rug, which he kept referring to as a “Persian-style” carpet. It was (a) mint green, (b) stained, and (c) made in China. I tried to explain that we were wasting our time (not that I had anything else to do) and that the resale value of garbage is quite low. He wouldn’t hear of it. And because he had no idea how to take a photo, let alone upload one to a computer, I spent hours making ads like these:

• Salton Rolling Tea Cart with Hot Tray Top (doesn’t work but can be rewired) $75.00

• Naugahyde Vinyl Recliner (does not fully recline) $40.00

• 2 “Persian-style” carpets (in good shape but need to be cleaned) $175.00 & $90.00

• Stuyvesant Town Kitchen Dinette Area Hardwood Table with Removable Leaf & 4 Matching Green Seated Chairs (minor nicks in table and chairs can be repaired) $350.00 for set

• Metal Closet with Hanging Rod & Sliding Doors (doors need to be replaced) $40.00

• Microwave (works well but needs good cleaning!) $75.00

And this was how I pretty much lived the next nine months—grieving, cleaning, or, for one reason or another, spending a significant amount of time on my knees.

4

Innocent until Proven Guilty

O
n one of his many visits, Uncle Bark took one look at my tobacco-stained teeth and said, “First of all, I know you’re smoking in here and it’s disgusting. Second of all, you better go get your teeth cleaned. They’re disgusting, too.”

When Uncle Bark left, I went back into the peach-tiled bathroom and inspected the brown enamel in my mouth. I couldn’t imagine garnering the energy to pick up the phone to make an appointment, let alone carry out an actual trip to the dentist’s office, but I was even grossing myself out. Under the best of circumstances I loathed going to the dentist. I blamed this on my mother for forcing me to go to her freak-show dentist, Dr. Bogdanovich, when I was a kid. Dr. Bogdanovich worked out of his basement in Queens, wore a hairpiece, smelled like salami, and had bad teeth. What kind of self-respecting dentist had bad teeth? Even as a kid, I knew it was unconscionable. It was like having a fat trainer. As I was debating whether I had it in me to make it all happen, the phone rang.

Who was it? My mother. Who else would it be?

Me: “Hello.”

My mother: “Hi, Pootsilé.”

Pootsilé is my mother’s nickname for me. It is pronounced poot-see-leh. Once when Hanna was over for dinner, she heard my mother say this and she pulled me aside and in a very concerned voice, asked, “Why does your mother call you Pussylips?!”

Me: “Hi, Mommy.”

My mother: “What are you doing?”

Me: “I’m thinking about going to the dentist.”

My mother: “Oh good, because you really do need to get your teeth cleaned again. I didn’t want to say anything but your teeth are disgusting from all the smoking. It’s really terrible. You
have to stop smoking.
I’m not kidding.”

My mother is famous for saying “I didn’t want to say anything, but . . .” and then she says the rudest thing in the world
and
she acts like she’s doing me a favor. She also never skips a beat.

My mother: “If you want to go to Dr. Bogdanovich, he would be happy to see you again. He asks about you every time I see him. He’s such a nice man.”

Me: “Mommy, just because he asks about me every time he sees you does not make him a nice man!”

My mother: “He takes very good care of me and Papa.
And
takes our insurance, which is more than I can say for your dentist.”

Me: “First of all, you only like Dr. Bogdanovich because he’s Jewish. Second of all, I’m not even convinced that he actually
is
a dentist. Have you ever seen any evidence of this? He is a Russian immigrant with rotten teeth and a toupee who works out of his basement in Queens. That he happens to own dental equipment does not necessarily mean he is a dentist.”

My mother, completely ballistic: “Okay, Peri! You know everything as usual! That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life! And he does not work out of a
basement
! He works out of a very nice office and it just happens to be in the lower level of his home!”

Me: “Well, last time I checked, the ‘lower level of a home’ is actually the dictionary
definition
of the word ‘basement.’ And to boot, his breath always smells like salami.”

My mother: “Oh, please, Peri, you are acting like a child! He’s a very good dentist and he does
not
smell like salami. That’s ridiculous! He may have smelled like garlic on one occasion because he had just eaten lunch.”

Me: “Well, that’s an unacceptable explanation. Dentists should smell like Listerine.
All the time
. And I don’t know why you give a shit what dentist I go to anyway. Or why you care whether he takes my insurance. I finally found a dentist I like. Isn’t that enough? And I love Leslie, my hygienist. What difference does it make to you! I mean, really!”

My mother: “Oh! I forgot how wealthy you are and that you can afford to go to a dentist on Park Avenue! And what does that mean, you
love
your hygienist? That’s ridiculous! What is she, your friend?”

Me: “Well, actually, if you must know, she is kind of my friend! She’s very nice and she’s very gentle
and
she loved my book!”

My mother: “Oh, Peri, please! That is
not
why you pick a doctor. I really don’t know what’s wrong with you. What are you going to do?” My mother started screaming, “What are you going to do with your life! Do you even have a plan? You better start getting serious!”

Me: “Last time I checked I was dead serious about my life. I’m hanging up now.”

Our conversation enraged me enough to call Dr. Mulligatani’s office and make an appointment for a checkup
and
to have my teeth cleaned. I knew that at least everyone in the office would be nice to me. And I really did like Dr. Mulligatani. He was lovely and soft-spoken and very clean and he was always meticulously dressed. He had great teeth; beautiful, thick, slicked-back jet-black hair; a wonderful Indian accent; beautiful skin; and deep, soulful brown eyes. The first time he examined me he took one look inside my decaying mouth and determined that I had not one but
four
cavities that according to him needed to be attended to immediately. He filled two of them on the spot and told me to make another appointment for next week.

I told him I wasn’t sure I was prepared for this kind of a commitment, that it was nothing personal but that I really kind of hated going to the dentist.

With a Gandhi-like calmness and a matching accent, he said, “You are in-b-iting root cah-nal. You will be bock.”

I liked him, too, because he had good judgment. He knew how crazy I was, so before Dr. Mulligatani ever put anything in my mouth, he attached a mask filled with nitrous to my face. And so I trusted him. Unlike my mother, who thinks that being Jewish is the single good criteria to determine whether or not you are a good doctor, I actually need to
love
my doctors. I also need to feel like they love me.

Let me be clear here. Doctors are fucking shady. They’re just as shady, if not
more
shady than everybody else. Having a degree in medicine does not qualify you to be a good doctor and it sure as shit doesn’t qualify you to be a good person. I judge doctors the same way I judge everyone else—with my instincts and by observing the way they behave. Being Jewish can help, but on its own, it’s not enough to cut the mustard.

As I relayed to my mother, one Dr. Allan Zarkin, a
Jewish
ob-gyn had actually
carved his initials
into a patient’s abdomen after delivering her baby via caesarean. According to the
New York Times
, “Immaculately dressed in a cashmere turtleneck, Ferragamo loafers and a brown suit, the silver-haired obstetrician calmly pleaded guilty to second-degree assault. When asked by Justice White what he had done, Dr. Zarkin responded in a steady, almost soothing tone, ‘Using the scalpel, I scratched my initials into her.’”

I told my mother that the state also cited the clinic where Dr. Zarkin worked “for not thoroughly checking Dr. Zarkin’s credentials” and for allowing him to perform surgery unsupervised even though a psychiatrist had told clinic officials that Dr. Zarkin had a “brain disorder.”

My mother said, “Maybe
you
have a brain disorder. You find a random Indian man you know nothing about and suddenly you’re acting like you’ve discovered the best dentist in the tristate area! Your behavior is erratic and you pick your doctors for all the wrong reasons! Because they’re nice? What kind of criteria is that? I’m getting very worried about the decisions you’re making.”

Maybe I should have been worried about certain decisions I was making, too, but going to see Dr. Mulligatani was not one of them. He was wonderful. I called Veronica, the receptionist, with whom I had also become very friendly, and made an appointment for the very next day.

In addition to the fact that my teeth were brown, I could tell they needed to be cleaned because it felt like I had a small sweater on each of them. I also knew that Leslie wouldn’t judge me, that my teeth would be as good as new, and that I really had nothing to worry about as far as pain. Leslie was the gentlest hygienist I had ever met. She always took her time with my decrepit teeth, slowly bringing them back from brown to light yellow. She was always happy to see me and from the first time I met her she became my favorite hygienist in the entire world. She would tell me stories about her travels and even about her son, Dino, who was studying abroad in London. She also had the most incredible teeth I had ever seen in my life. They were so bright they almost shone. And they weren’t those fake horse teeth veneers either.

I felt like I had actually accomplished something by making the appointment. And I was actually looking forward to going there. I was as excited to see Veronica as I was to see Leslie. Veronica was a fierce Puerto Rican woman and she was the one who always called me to remind me of my appointment and I appreciated that. When I got there, though, Veronica seemed quieter than usual. She said “Hey, Mami,” and gave me a hug, but she was lacking her usual enthusiasm.

I didn’t really think anything of it and settled in with a copy of
Better Homes and Gardens
.

As I was sitting in the dentist chair waiting for Leslie and my nitrous, a strange-looking woman walked in. Even though she was as white skinned as me, I could tell she was Latina because her eyebrows looked like they had been drawn in with a Sharpie. Having grown up in Queens, I knew this is a look that was pretty much specifically reserved for members of the Latina community. She smiled at me. Her teeth weren’t great and I figured she was the cleaning lady or something. So imagine my surprise when she said, “Hi! I’m Marabelle. I’m the dental hygienist and I’ll be cleaning your teeth today!”

I started to freak out and blurted, “Where’s Leslie?”

Marabelle had no idea what I was talking about or who Leslie was. That made me freak out even more and I got all weird and skittish. I was like, “Well, where’s the nitrous? I don’t get my teeth cleaned without nitrous.”

Marabelle: “Ohhhhhh, we can’t use nitrous.”

Me, apoplectic: “Why not!”

Marabelle: “I’m trying to get pregnant and it’s really bad for the baby.”

Baby? What baby? If you’re
trying
to get pregnant there is no baby. That’s number one. Number two, I don’t know who this woman thought she was kidding. Maybe if she swallowed an in vitro clinic she would get pregnant. She looked about forty-five years old.

Me: “I don’t think so.” And I stood up.

Marabelle: “Is everything okay?”

Me: “No, everything is not okay.”

Like a lunatic, I marched into reception and was like, “Veronica, what the fuck?”

Veronica, nonplussed: “What’s the matter, Mami?”

Me: “This isn’t the Puerto Rican Day parade. Cut the ‘Mami’ shit. Where is Leslie? And who’s the
chola
with the eyebrows in there?”

Veronica sucked her teeth at me. She was like, “Mami, please, I’m the only
chola
up in this bitch. And don’t worry, Marabelle will do a very good job.”

I could tell that Veronica didn’t like Marabelle any more than I did. I was like, “Marabelle will
not
do a very good job because Marabelle is not coming anywhere near me. You know Leslie is the only one allowed inside my mouth. Where is she?”

Veronica: “She ain’t here.”

Me: “I can see that, Veronica. I can see that she’s not here. I can also see that I schlepped all the way to Ninety-Sixth Street, which is about eighty blocks farther uptown than I like to be, to
see
Leslie. So if she wasn’t going to be here, why didn’t you tell me I had to reschedule?”

Veronica, lowering her voice: “Listen, Mami. I gots to tell you something. Leslie don’t work here no more.”

Me, confused: “She only works at your other location?”

Veronica: “No, Mami, you not gettin’ it. Leslie don’t work for the company no more.”

Me: “What do you mean Leslie don’t work for the company no more! What happened?”

Veronica, narrowing her large Puerto Rican doe eyes into small slits: “I can’t tell you . . . but . . . something—”

Me: “Something? What!”

Veronica: “Something . . .
huge
.”

I start to wonder what could possibly be
so
huge. Leslie was a middle-aged Jewish woman. She shared intimate details of her life with me. For example, I knew she was a widow and currently had a new boyfriend, who worked in finance. What could be so
huge
? Whatever it was, was much less important than the fact that I needed her to clean my teeth.

I was like, “I don’t want anyone but Leslie to clean my teeth.”

Veronica narrowed her eyes back to slits. She was like, “What you sayin’? You don’t want to be a patient here no more?”

I narrowed
my
eyes to slits. I grew up in a pretty gritty neighborhood in Queens. I’m accustomed to dealing with tough Latina bitches and was not intimidated by Veronica’s nonsense. When I was fifteen, I earned my stripes (and still have scars) from a brawl with a five-foot-eight girl named Manilla. She confronted me after hearing that I called her a whore, which she was, and punched me in the face. I proceeded to beat her about the head with my wooden clog.

All of this is only to say that Veronica’s tough girl act may have intimidated some people, but even in my fragile state I was unfazed. In fact, the only thing that Veronica’s reluctance to tell me what happened to Leslie did was to make me more curious than ever. Veronica could tell that I was less than impressed and tried to change her tune. She was like, “Listen, Mami, I know you love Leslie and to tell you the truth, I ain’t all that crazy about Marabelle myself, but she’s a good hygienist. Will you at least give her a try?”

Me: “Okay, fine. But you
have
to tell me what happened to Leslie.”

Veronica, lowering her voice again and getting really serious: “For real. I can’t. I’ll get fired.”

Now I was
dying
to know what was going on. I figured if I pressed Veronica hard enough, she would probably fold, but I didn’t really want to put her in that position. I decided to cut my losses for the moment. My teeth felt like they were covered in fur and I was already there, so I let Marabelle clean them,
without
nitrous so that her nonexistent fetus wouldn’t be born with a third head. I bade farewell to Veronica and went home.