Sabbath’s Theater (55 page)

“So that’s the only mail there is.”

“The heck with that.”

“No, you don’t need that. You don’t need a life insurance policy.”

“No, no. I got one. I think about five thousand dollars or something. My neighbor, he pays for it all the time. That’s the policy. I never carry big insurance. For who? For what? Five thousand dollars is enough. So he takes care of that. After my death it’ll bury me, and he gets the rest.” He pronounces “death” like “debt.”

“Who knows,” Fish says, “how much longer have I got to live? The time is running out. Sure. How much more can I live after a hundred years? Very little. If I have a year or two I’ll be lucky. If I have an hour or two I’ll be lucky.”

“How about your lamb chop?”

“A guy is supposed to come from the Asbury Park
Press
to interview me. At noon.”

“Yes?”

“I left the door open. He didn’t show up. I don’t know why.”

“To interview you about being a hundred?”

“Yeah. For my birthday. At noon. Maybe he got cold feet or something. What is your name, Mister?”

“My first name is Morris. Mickey is what they’ve called me since I was a boy.”

“Wait a minute. I knew a Morris. From Belmar. Morris. It’ll come to me.”

“And my last name is Sabbath.”

“Like my cousin.”

“That’s exactly right. On McCabe Avenue.”

“And the other guy, the name is also Morris. Oh, gee. Morris. Huh. It’ll come to me.”

“It’ll come to you after you eat your lamb chop. Come on, Fish,” I said, and here I lifted him onto his feet. “You are going to eat now.”

Sabbath never got to see him make the lamb chop. He would have liked to. He would very much have liked to see the lamb chop itself. It would have been fun, thought the puppeteer, to watch him make the lamb chop and then, when he turned around, take the lamb chop quickly and eat it. But as soon as he got Fish into the kitchen, he excused himself to go upstairs to use the bathroom and returned to the dining room, where he lifted the carton out of the sideboard—it was not empty—and carried it out of the house.

The black woman was still on the top step of the porch, sitting there now and watching the rain come down as she listened to the music on the radio. Awfully happy. Another one on Prozac? Features that could be part Indian. Young. Ron and I were taken by the other sailors to a district on the outskirts of Veracruz. A kind of nightclub that’s half outside, sleazy and shabby, in a honky-tonk district with strings of lights and dozens and dozens of young women and sailors at crude tables. As they made their bargains and finished their drinking, they retired to a low-slung row of houses where there were the rooms. All the girls were a mixture. We’re on the Yucatán peninsula—the Mayan past is not far away. Admixture of races, always mystifying. Takes a person to the depths of living. This girl was a sweetheart with a lovely personality. Very dark. Decent, smiling, engaging, warm in every way. Probably twenty or under. She was lovely, there was no hurry, there was no rush. I remember her using some kind of ointment on me afterward that stung. Maybe this astringent stuff was supposed to forestall any disease. Very nice girl. Just like her.

“How’s the old man?”

“Eatin’ his lamb chop.”

“Yipp
ee
,” she cried.

Christ, I’d like to meet her! Don’t stop bangin’. No. Too old. Finished with that. That’s
done
. That’s
out
. Good-bye, girlfriends.

“You from Texas? Where’d you get that yippee? Yippee-ki-yo-ki-yay.”

“That’s only when cattle’s involved,” she said, laughing with her mouth open wide. “Whoopee ti-yi-yo, git along, little do-gies!”

“What is a dogie, anyway?”

“A little stunted calf whose mother’s left it. A dogie’s a calf that’s lost its mom.”

“You’re a real cowpuncher. I took you first for an Asbury girl. I like you, ma’am. I hear your spurs ajinglin’. What do they call you?”

“Hopalong Cassidy,” she told him. “What do they call you?”

“Rabbi Israel, the Baal Shem Tov—the Master of God’s Good Name. The boys at the shul here call me Boardwalk.”

“Nice to meet ya.”

“Let me tell you a tale,” he said, brushing his beard with a raised shoulder while, by the side of his car, cradling in his two arms the box of Morty’s things. “Rabbi Mendel once boasted to his teacher Rabbi Elimelekh, that evenings he saw the angel who rolls away the light before the darkness, and mornings the angel who rolls away the darkness before the light. ‘Yes,’ said Rabbi Elimelekh, ‘in my youth I saw that, too. Later on you don’t see those things anymore.’”

“I don’t get Jewish jokes, Mr. Boardwalk.” She was laughing again.

“What kind of jokes
do
you get?”

But from within the carton, Morty’s American flag—which I know is folded there, at the very bottom, in the official way—tells me, “It’s against some Jewish law,” and so, on into the car he went with the carton, and then he drove it down to the beach, to the boardwalk, which was no longer there. The boardwalk was gone. Good-bye, boardwalk. The ocean had finally carried it
away. The Atlantic is a powerful ocean. Death is a terrible thing. That’s a doctor I never heard of. Remarkable. Yes, that’s the word for it. It was all remarkable. Good-bye, remarkable. Egypt and Greece good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!

♦ ♦ ♦

Here’s what Sabbath found in the carton on that rainy, misty afternoon, Morty’s birthday, Wednesday, April 13, 1994, his car, with the out-of-state plates, the only car on Ocean Avenue by the McCabe Avenue beach, parked diagonally, all by itself, looking toward the sloshing-unimpressively-about sea god as it grayly swept southward in the tail end of the storm. There was nothing before in Sabbath’s life like this carton, nothing approached it, even going through all of Nikki’s gypsy clothes after there was no more Nikki. Awful as that closet was, by comparison with this box it was nothing. The pure, monstrous purity of the suffering was new to him, made any and all suffering he’d known previously seem like an imitation of suffering. This was the passionate, the violent stuff, the worst, invented to torment one species alone, the remembering animal, the animal with the long memory. And prompted merely by lifting out of the carton and holding in his hand what Yetta Sabbath had stored there of her older son’s. This was what it felt like to be a venerable boardwalk jerked from its moorings by the Atlantic, a worn, well-made, old-fashioned boardwalk running the length of a small oceanside town, immovably bolted onto creosoted piles as thick around as a strong man’s chest and, when the familiar old waves turn on the coast, jiggled up and out like a child’s loose tooth.

Just things. Just these few things, and for him they were the hurricane of the century.

Morty’s track letter. Dark blue with the black trim. A winged sneaker on the crossbar of the
A
. On the back a tiny tag: “The Standard Pennant Co. Big Run, Pa.” Wore it on the light blue letter sweater: The Asbury Bishops.

Photo. Twin-engine B-25—not the J he went down in but the D he trained in. Morty in undershirt, fatigue pants, dog tags,
officer’s cap, parachute straps. His strong arms. A good kid. His crew, five altogether, all of them on the airstrip, mechanics servicing one engine behind them. “Fort Story, Virginia” stamped on back. Looking happy, sweet as hell. The watch. My Benrus. This watch.

Portrait photo taken by La Grotta of Long Branch. A boy in cap and uniform.

Photo. Throwing the discus at the stadium. Getting ready to make his circle, arm back behind him.

Photo. Action shot. The discus released, five feet out in front of him. His mouth open. The dark undershirt with the
A
emblem, the skimpy blue shorts. Pale color photo. Runny like watercolor. His open mouth. The muscles.

Two little recordings. No memory of these at all. One addressed from him at 324 C.T.D. (Air Crew), State Teachers College, Oswego, New York. “This living record was recorded at a USO Club operated by the YMCA.” His voice is on this record. Addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. S. Sabbath and Mickey.”

A metal backing on the second record. “This ‘letter-on-record’ is one of the many services enjoyed by the men of the armed forces as they use the USO ‘A HOME AWAY FROM HOME.’” VOICE-O-GRAPH. Automatic Voice Recorder. To Mr. and Mrs. S. Sabbath and Mickey. He always included me.

Isosceles triangles of red, white, and blue satin, stitched together to make a yarmulke. White triangle at the front shows a
V
, below the
V
dot-dot-dot-dash—the Morse code for
V
. “God Bless America” beneath that. A patriot’s yarmulke.

A miniature Bible.
Jewish Holy Scriptures
. Inside, in light-blue ink, “May the Lord bless you and keep you, Arnold R. Fix, Chaplain.” Opening page headed “The White House.” “As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve . . .” Franklin Delano Roosevelt commends “the reading of the Bible” to my brother. The way they got these kids to die. Commends.

Abridged Prayer Book for Jews in the Armed Forces of the United States
. A brown palm-size book. In Hebrew and English.
Between two middle pages, sepia snapshot of the family. We’re in the yard. His hand on my father’s shoulder. My father in his suit, vest, even a pocket hankie. What’s up? Rosh Hashanah? I’m dressed to kill in a “loafer” jacket and slacks. My mother in a coat and a hat. Morty in a sports jacket but no tie. Year he went in. Took it along with him. Look at what a good kid he is. Look at Dad—like Fish, a camera and he’s frozen stiff. My little mother under her veiled hat. Carried our picture in his prayer book for Jews in the armed forces of the United States. But he didn’t die because he was a Jew. Died because he was an American. They killed him because he was born in America.

His toilet case. Brown leather engraved “MS” in gold. About six by seven by three. Two packets of capsules inside. Sustained-release capsules. Dexamyl. To relieve both anxiety and depression. Dexedrine 15 mg. and amobarbital 1½ gr. (Amobarbital? Morty’s or Mom’s? Did she use his case for her own stuff when she went nuts?) Half a tube of Mennen brushless shave. Little green and white cardboard pepper shaker of Mennen talcum for men. Shasta Beauty Shampoo, a gift from Procter & Gamble. Nail scissors. Tan comb. Mennen Hair Creme for Men. Still smells. Still creamy! One unlabeled bottle, contents dried up. Imitation enamel box, bar of Ivory soap inside, unopened. A black Majestic Dry Shaver in a small red box. With cord. Hairs in the head of it. The microscopic hairs of my brother’s beard. That is what they are.

A black leather money belt, supple from being worn next to his skin.

Black plastic tube containing: Bronze medal inscribed “Championship 1941 3rd Senior Discus.” Dog tag. “A” for blood type, “H” for Hebrew. Morton S Sabbath 12204591 T 42. Mother’s name beneath his. Yetta Sabbath 227 McCabe Ave Bradley Beach, NJ. A round yellow pin that says “Time for Saraka.” Two bullets. A red cross on a white button and the words “I Serve” at the top. Second lieutenant bars, two sets. Bronze wings.

A red and gold tea chest the size of a small brick. Swee-Touch-Nee Tea. (From the house, wasn’t it, to put doodads in, wire,
keys, nails, picture hangers? Morty take it with him or did she just put his things there when they came back?) Patches. The Air Apaches. The 498th Squadron. The 345 Bomb Group. I can still tell which is which. Ribbons. The wings from his cap.

Clarinet. In five pieces. The mouthpiece.

A diary. The Ideal Midget Diary Year 1939. Only two entries. For August 26: “Mickey’s birthday.” For December 14: “Shel and Bea got married.” Our cousin Bea. My tenth birthday.

A GI sewing kit. Mildewed. Pins, needles, scissors, buttons. Some khaki-colored thread still left.

Document. American eagle.
E pluribus unum
. In grateful memory of Second Lieutenant Morton S. Sabbath, who died in the service of his country in the southwest Pacific area December 15, 1944. He stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live, and grow, and increase its blessings. Freedom lives, and through it, he lives—in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America.

Document. Purple Heart. The United States of America, to all who shall see these presents, Greetings: This is to certify that the President of the United States of America pursuant to authority vested in him by Congress has awarded the Purple Heart established by General George Washington at Newburgh, N.Y., August 7, 1782, to Second Lieutenant Morton Sabbath AS#o-827746, for military merit and for wounds received in action resulting in his death December 15,1944, given under my hand in the city of Washington the sixteenth day of June 1945, Secretary of War Henry Stimson.

Certificates. Trees planted in Palestine. In Memory of Morton Sabbath, Planted by Jack and Berdie Hochberg. Planted by Sam and Yetta Sabbath. For the Reforestation of Eretz Yisrael. Planted by the Jewish National Fund for Palestine.

Two small ceramic figures. A fish. The other an outhouse with a kid sitting on the seat and another kid waiting his turn around the corner.
We
were kids. We won it one night at the Pokerino on the boards. Our joke. The Crapper. Morty took it with him to the war. With the ceramic bluefish.

At the bottom, the American flag. How heavy a flag is! All folded up in the official way.

He took the flag down with him onto the beach. There he unfurled it, a flag with forty-eight stars, wrapped himself in it, and, in the mist there, wept and wept. The fun I had just watching him and Bobby and Lenny, watching him with his friends, watching them just fool around, kid, laugh, tell jokes. That he included me in the address. That he always included me!

Not until two hours later, when he returned from tramping the beach wrapped in that flag—up through the sand to the Shark River drawbridge and back, crying all the way, rapidly talking, then wildly mute, then chanting aloud words and sentences inexplicable even to himself—not until after two solid hours of this raving about Morty, about the brother, about the one loss he would never bull his way through, did he return to find in the car, on the floor beside the brake pedal, the packet of envelopes addressed in Morty’s easy-to-read hand. They had dropped out of the carton while he was unpacking it, but he’d been too emotional to pick them up, let alone to read them.