The Old Neighborhood (3 page)

(Pause)

JOEY
: I’ll tell you where I would of loved it: in the shtetl.
(Pause)
I would of loved it there. You, too. You would of been Reb Gould. You would of told them what Rabbi Akiba said …

BOBBY
: You think they fooled around?

JOEY
: Who? In the shtetl?

BOBBY
: Yeah.

JOEY
: The guys in the shtetl?

BOBBY
: Yeah.

JOEY
: I think it was too small.

BOBBY
: But when they went to town …

JOEY
: When the guys went to town?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: With Polish whores …?

BOBBY
: Yeah …

JOEY
: I don’t know.

BOBBY
: You think you would have?

JOEY
: No. With who?

BOBBY
: Or some young Jewish thing …?

JOEY
: Inside the shtetl …?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: And, what, defile my home …?

BOBBY
: You think you would have.

JOEY
: You would be found out …

BOBBY
: I would?

JOEY
: Because you were a, yeah. Because you were a Jew. If you wanted to go out fuck around who’d have you? If you stayed home you would be found out. I think,
(Pause)
But on the other hand who’s to say what could go on. At night. In Europe.
(Pause)
That’s true, too … 
(Pause)
Judy would be old … she would have some incurable disease … we would be married years. But I would not be old. I would be deep in grief, and deep in contemplation of my life. Some young, the daughter of one of my customers, the orphaned daughter … is this what you’re saying?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: She comes to me, the whole town is silent with sympathy, “I baked this for you.”
(Pause)

BOBBY
: Righty-o.
(Pause)

JOEY
: Is this what you’re saying?

BOBBY
: That’s right. What did she bake?

JOEY
: What did she bake? What did she bake? What did she bake?

BOBBY
:
(Pause)
 … yum.

JOEY
:
(Pause)
 … carbohydrates …

(Pause)

JOEY
: Yeah, many times I wished to go back, to the war, to when my folks came here … to Orchard Street … you know, to Maxwell Street … to pushcarts … to …

BOBBY
: We wouldn’t have liked it.

JOEY
: You think?

BOBBY
: No.

JOEY
: I don’t know …

BOBBY
: You know what I would, I’ll tell you what I would have loved, to go, in the twenties, to be in Hollywood …

JOEY
: Huh.

BOBBY
: Jesus, I know they had a good time there. Here you got, I mean, five smart Jew boys from Russia, this whole industry …

JOEY
: Who?

BOBBY
: Who. Mayer. Warners. Fox.

JOEY
: Fox? Fox is Jewish?

BOBBY
: Sure.

JOEY
: Fox is a Jewish name?

BOBBY
: Sure.

JOEY
: Who knew that?

BOBBY
: Everyone.

JOEY
: Huh.
(Pause)
I always saw their thing, it looked goyish to me.

BOBBY
: What thing?

JOEY
: Their castle, that thing on their movies …

BOBBY
: No.

JOEY
: I thought it was a goyish name.

BOBBY
: “Fox”?

JOEY
: Twentieth Century-Fox.
(Pause)
Century Fox.
(Pause)
Charlie Chaplin was Jewish.

BOBBY
: I know that, Joe.

JOEY
: Yeah? People fool you. Oh, you know, you know who else was Jewish? Mr. White …

BOBBY
: Mr. White …?

JOEY
: Mr. White. On Jeffrey. The shoe store …? Miller-White Shoes.

BOBBY
: … yeah …?

JOEY
: On Jeffrey …?

BOBBY
: He was Jewish?

JOEY
: Yeah.

BOBBY
: Huh.

JOEY
: My mom told me.

BOBBY
: He didn’t look Jewish.

JOEY
: That’s what I’m saying … 
(Pause)

BOBBY
: He was a nice guy.

JOEY
: Yes. He was.

BOBBY
: I remember him. They always gave you what, a lollipop something when you came out.

JOEY
: Why do you think kids hate trying on shoes?

BOBBY
: I don’t know.
(Pause)
You know, actually I don’t like trying them on either.

JOEY
: You don’t?

BOBBY
: No.
(Pause)

JOEY
: I don’t think that I do either.
(Pause)
Jimmy does.

BOBBY
: He does?

JOEY
: Yeah.
(Pause)
So I was reminiscing with my mom …

BOBBY
: … yeah …

JOEY
: You know, about the shoe store, huh? ’Cause I took Jimmy in to get his shoes, I’m talking about when we stopped on Pratt, I say, “The old shoestore the goyish guy, Miller’s partner.” So she goes “Jerry White …” He was the shamus, Temple Zion thirty years.

BOBBY
: Huh.

JOEY
: Huh …?

BOBBY
: How about that.

JOEY
: That’s what I said.

BOBBY
: How about that.
(Pause)
He still alive?

JOEY
: No. He died.

BOBBY
: He died, huh?

JOEY
: Yes. He did.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: The store still there?

JOEY
: Oh, Bobby, it’s all gone. It’s all gone there. You knew that …

(Pause)

JOEY
: Life is too short.

BOBBY
: Life is very short.

JOEY
: It’s very short. We’re sitting on the stoop, we’re old … 
(Pause)
We’re married … we have kids … 
(Pause)

BOBBY
: How’s Judy?

JOEY
:
(Pause)
I pray, you know, I pray every night, I pray that I can get through life without murdering anybody.

BOBBY
: Who would you murder?

JOEY
: I’m saying I’m uncontrollable.

BOBBY
: Hey, hey, you’re human …

JOEY
: … and I got married wrong.
(Pause)
Well … there,
(Pause)
there you are.

BOBBY
: You didn’t get married wrong, Joe.

JOEY
: Yes, I did. You don’t know. I want to tell you something, Bob, she’s a wonderful woman, but there’s such a thing as lust. I don’t know if it’s lust. Yes. Yes, it is. I, I, I say this is a feeling … I, I’m not alone.
(Pause)
Then I walk out the door …

BOBBY
: We all feel like that sometimes …

JOEY
: You don’t know what I’m going to say, I walk out of the door I say, “If I never saw them again, it would be fine …”

BOBBY
: We all feel like that sometimes …

JOEY
: No, no. Listen to me. There are times, a feeling I think gets so overpowering it becomes a fact, and you don’t even know you did it. Sometimes I think, “Well
if they were killed … if they died …” and sometimes I think I’ll do it myself.

BOBBY
: It’s just a feeling, Joe.

JOEY
: I pray you’ll never know it. Sometimes it goes farther. I have killed them, and I take the plane, I don’t call anyone, because now I don’t care; and fly to Canada and rent a car and go into the forest and begin to walk … I know I have to die … so I walk … and I’m going north. I feel so free. I can’t tell you, Bobby … I have a pistol, I can end it any time. I feel so free … If I could feel like that in my life … I swear there are people who can live like that. I know there are. Who exist. Holy men. Visionaries, scholars, I know they exist.… I know they’re cloistered.… I know that it’s real. But I can’t get it up. I’m going to die like this. A shmuck.
(Pause)
All of the stuff I’d like to do. I’ll never do it.
(Pause)
What do you make of that?
(Long pause)

BOBBY
: You really have a gun?

JOEY
: What gun?

BOBBY
: You said you have a pistol …

JOEY
: I said that I have a pistol …?

BOBBY
: You said you were going north …

JOEY
: In my dream. In my dream … in my fantasy … you know …

BOBBY
: Oh.
(Pause)

JOEY
: In my imaginings.

BOBBY
: Oh.
(Pause)

JOEY
: I actually
have
a pistol. In my store.

BOBBY
: You do?

JOEY
: Behind the counter.

BOBBY
: Mmm.

JOEY
: For burglars. You worried I would shoot myself?

BOBBY
: You said you would.

JOEY
: I actually might. I think that sometimes.
(Pause)
Don’t you?
(Pause)
Bobby …?

BOBBY
:
(Pause)
Sometimes.
(Pause)

JOEY
: I knew you did.
(Pause)
I wouldn’t take the pistol from the store, though. And I’ll tell you why, because I think that just its presence, that you know it’s there
discourages them.
(Pause)
Let them go rob someplace else. Everything, everything, everything … it’s … I’ll tell you: It’s a mystery … 
(Pause)
Everything is a mystery, Bob … everything.
(Pause)
I don’t know how things work. I can hang up a coat hook, people that I know can fix a stove.
(Pause)
Anyone can change a tire—although Lucille bought a new Pontiac, she went to change the tire, the jack wouldn’t fit it.

BOBBY
: Maybe she wasn’t putting it in right.

JOEY
: She said that she was. I think they gave her the wrong size, they custom things today and you can’t change a fucking tire with the wrong size jack. People could die of something like that. Because everything is so far from us today. And we have no connection.

BOBBY
: There are people who have a connection.

JOEY
: Who? Who are they?… and there are lives, Bobby, where people never have a thought. Where all day it is like they aren’t there. Where they are a dream of their environment. Where their lives are a joy. Where questions are answered with ritual. Where life is short. We read them in the books.

BOBBY
: … what books …?

JOEY
: I don’t know what books … that’s what I’m saying … but there are things … there are things … 
there … there are ways to get there that exist. They … 
(Pause)
In rituals, I’m saying that you didn’t make up, but existed … they would cause you pain.

BOBBY
: Who would?

JOEY
: … they’d take you in a hut. You’d come out, you would be a man.
(Pause)
And, by God, that is what you would be.
(Pause)

BOBBY
:
(Pause)
I think I invent ceremonies, but I never keep them up. I know I should, I say if I forget this now, I’ll never keep it up, but I don’t.

JOEY
: What? Like what?

BOBBY
: Like anything.

JOEY
: Like what?

BOBBY
: Like prayer.

JOEY
: You don’t keep up prayer?

BOBBY
: No.

JOEY
: What? Did you used to pray?

BOBBY
: I’ve prayed.
(Pause)

JOEY
: Judy and I joined a synagogue.

BOBBY
: You did?

JOEY
: Yeah.

BOBBY
: Which one?

JOEY
: It’s new.

BOBBY
: Up by you?

JOEY
: Yeah.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: What do you do, you go there …

JOEY
: … we just joined …

BOBBY
: You did.

JOEY
: Yeah.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: Hey, you know?

JOEY
: Yeah, I know.

BOBBY
: What?

JOEY
: I know.

BOBBY
:
(Sigh)
Joey … Joey … Joey.

JOEY
: Bushes are steel.

BOBBY
: Bushes are steel. What else in the world would they be?

JOEY
: That’s right.

BOBBY
: And what’s the second manhole?

JOEY
: It’s a ground rule double.

BOBBY
: Take your base.
(Pause)
D’you ever think that we would live to be this old?

JOEY
: No.
(Pause)
I never thought about it.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: You think we’re getting old?

JOEY
: Yeah.
(Pause)
I suppose we are.
(Pause)
Isn’t everybody?