Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin (6 page)

Arial, a gloriously charming and delightful

woman. She is an acupuncturist in Hoboken

and I know Lee will wish to meet her. Duvid

is introduced to Sef and Alek. Erika asks if

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we want anything. Yesterday the coffee had

no caffeine. Today, she whispers, she made

caffeinated. Indeed, yes, please.

Sef, Alek, Duvid, and I talk about music.

Duvid is a guitarist and has an artist’s soul.

We discuss playing alone versus playing with

and how sharing musical space is so hard for

some who emphasizes personal ability over

art. He and Alek discuss rock and Arial and

I gab about New York, medicine, organic

foods, health. She is a pleasure to talk with.

They both are. I haven’t seen Duvid in nearly

a decade. Before that, once. It was an after-

noon when I diligently worked at convincing

him he did not need his pacifier.

Duvid and Rom are not the cousins I hear

of all the time. They are not the ones I was

regaled about, compared to, measured against.

There is no resistance here. We trade emails,

phone numbers. Look at the butcher shop

walls.

“It looks like we could sell add space. Or we

should all autograph it.”

There is agreement. I pull out my pen and

write, tiny, at the very top corner in a space

of less than half an inch, “Adam was here.”

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From a foot away, it is hard to see it as any-

thing but a mark on the stark white. My uncle

walks over, looks up and says, “Discreet.” It is.

My name. Unobtrusive. Hardly there. Appar-

ently, easy to forget.

The day wears on and groups have formed.

The siblings are off in corners discussing wills and arrangements. It seems continuous but

more so regarding the disbursal of money, the

purchase of the building than the burial of

the body. Through this I hear snippets but try

to not listen. Each person having received

forty-two thousand, grandkids getting this or

that, grandpa’s new Lexus immediately

switched with one of the kids for his old one.

Through it all one person has not stayed

long in any group. Everyone seems to know

him but me and my kids. Irwin.

He appears to be in his seventies. Tall,

broad, white-haired. He seems nice. He seems

gentle. Who is he? I ask. Grandma’s brother

married a girl, she died. This was their son.

Soon after, he married his sister-in-law and

then, sometime later, the brother died. Does

that make Irwin my cousin? I think so. He

talks with my parents before coming over to

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me. We speak. He seems oblique in his ques-

tions though fully friendly and comforting in

a way no one else has been. He alone either

does not know there is nothing to comfort or

he alone needs comforting and has general-

ized that to me. To all.

The day moves on and we cousins talk

more. No other cousins will be coming in. I

shall not meet any of those I am held in com-

parison to. They will not come.

The funeral is at eleven tomorrow. We are

asked to meet here at nine as that is when the

limo arriving. I am not the only one asking

why we’re all meeting here if the limo will

only hold the siblings and husband. Most of

us state we’ll be at the cemetery by eleven.

Evening is coming. It is nearly five and my

daughter is hungry. My son is hungry. I prob-

ably am as well. My father mouths something

and I tell him he’ll have to break tradition

and at least whisper instead. He tells me they

will leave first and then we can leave but don’t make it look suspicious. That we’ll have dinner with “your brother” and Amy. They leave.

What is long enough to not look suspicious?

What else am I supposed to do, and what is

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wrong with going out to eat with my brother?

There is no food in the house so everyone here

is going out, as far as I can see. Frankly, no one seems to care.

A few minutes later my cell phone rings. It

is my father giving me instructions. I ask,

“Which way do I drive?” and immediately he

tells me, “Don’t use the word ‘drive.’ ”

I have walked toward the front window.

Out of earshot? Probably not.

He tells me, “If you use the word ‘drive,’

they’ll know you’re going somewhere. Walk

over to the window.”

“How did I get here? Of course I’m driving.

Do you think someone will decipher a dia-

bolical dinner plan from me asking what

direction to drive, considering I don’t live here and drove two hours from Palm Bay?”

“I’m going to call Dana and find out where

they want to go. I’ll call you back. Stay put

till then.”

We say our goodbyes and leave. In the car

I call Dana. My father wants us to drive to

his house and go from there because he wants

to cruise around and look for a place we’d all

like. That sounds like a warmed up version

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Adam Byrn Tritt

of Hell; Ft. Lauderdale traffic, back seat car

sickness, and squabbling over what place is

healthy and what place not. I suggest just

picking a place and meeting. We agree this is

a far better option and he suggests the Cheese-

cake Factory. Just tell me where it is. Where?

That far? What time?

Sawgrass Mills: third largest mall in the US.

From the air it is shaped like an alligator.

From the inside it is shaped like a mall. We

are a bit early. We find the Cheesecake Fac-

tory and I walk inside to use the restroom

leaving Alek and Sef outside in the courtyard

of the Oasis section next to the Blue Dolphin

entrance or the Pink Flamingo lot or some-

thing like that. When I come out everyone is

there, gabbing about who was there today. I

ask, “So what was up with Duvid getting mar-

ried and no one getting an invitation?” Sev-

eral people gasp, “Oh Geez,” and my brother

says that’s why he doesn’t give them any more

than a hello and a goodbye.

“We just finished talking about that,” he

says.

“I’m sorry. How the hell was I supposed to

know? It was an innocent question. The way

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people run their lives in
that
family” (I am careful to say “that”), “I figured their wedding was the last thing under their control. I’m

careful not to judge intent. I was just

curious.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk about it” is his

immediate reply.

Lee and I eloped. Actually, we reverse-

eloped. My parents said they’d throw us a

wedding if her parents weren’t invited. Her

parents said they’d throw a wedding if I

wasn’t invited. We waited for a weekend both

sets were out of town and got married.

There wasn’t even an announcement for

my brothers. Not that I recall. I never thought

about that. Not until now.

We hear our last name and file in.

•

It is eight-thirty in the morning. I am putting

on the best I have and so is Alek. I had dress

black pants, but Alek needed a pair for some-

thing and by the end of the evening he had

ripped them beyond repair. Sef’s best is much

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Adam Byrn Tritt

better. South Florida has far better thrift

stores.

We are into her car, feeling late at ten

o’clock. Driving up 95, we exit at Hypoluxo

Road, go too far by three miles into Lantana,

turn around, find the correct road and the

cemetery with its length directly boarding

the highway. It is ten-thirty. We have not

eaten and drive a mile the opposite direction

looking for something I want but should not

have. A bagel.

We finally come across a Dunkin Donuts

and, in a place you would think would be rife

with delis, it is the best we have found. Inside.

It is crowded to its seeming capacity on this

Friday morning and we each get coffee. I get

a bran muffin, not giving in to my wants, and

each of the kids gets their bagel. Dana calls.

How far away is it? What road is it on? Join

us, I say. We are five minutes away but there

seems to be too little time and we finish our

breakfast and drive back to the cemetery.

Pulling in at ten till eleven I see no cars we

recognize. I park by the tent, as directed. The

first tent. There are three. When my father

said, “We’ll be at the tent,” I knew that would

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be problematic. I asked which tent and he

told me there would be only one. One? “Do

they only bury one person a day?” I asked.

This was a fair question, asked in an unfair

way, I grant. But this was the man who once

hit me for insisting he was wrong when I

asked what flavor ice cream was with no fla-

voring added. “Vanilla,” I was told. I said

vanilla was a flavor. Wouldn’t it taste just like milk? For some reason that deserved my

being slapped. I learned to ask questions in

unfair ways.

We walked and found workers, asked them

where Tritt was and they pointed to the large

building close to the wall that divided those

who had already found death from the eight

lanes of those speeding toward it.

We walked. We entered. Lee called. She had

called several times that morning, while we

were waking, showering, dressing, to tell us

she would be late, each time keeping me on

the phone as I tried to rise, shower, or dress,

telling me in great detail why she would not

be there on time. Finally, I said it was OK.

She had no need to call to tell me she would

be late as a device to take up time so she would 67

Adam Byrn Tritt

be late. It was a trip, for her, of just over one-and-a-half hours.

So she called Sef. Sef was not as charitable

and told her squarely if she got off the phone

and stopped complaining about being late,

she’d have been on her way. But what does

she wear? It doesn’t matter. Bring clothes for

later, yes.

Now we are waiting at five minutes to

eleven and Lee tells me where she is, that she

may be late. I let her know she is fewer than

five minutes away and I will wait for her. Two

men in black suits tell me the “family” is in

the office and will enter together. More peo-

ple arrive. Lee arrives, hugs me, and walking

the long hall between the twenty-foot walls

of vaults, we go in.

In the front of the hall is an ornate, gold-

toned casket. To the right of it, in the corner, is the lectern. There are seven rows of seats

and ten seats to a row. The first row is empty,

the second mostly full, the third, full from the far end halfway in. Behind, they are empty.

In the last of the half-full row is my brother

and we take our seats—I next to my brother

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and Lee next to me. Alek and Sef sit in front

of us with their second cousins.

I look for my mother and do not see her.

Then, I do, at the end of the second row, thin,

in a cap, small and frail, she looks to be a little boy. Next to her is Erika.

There is talking, quiet laughter, joking. Is

she missed? It is hard to say. Not by her grand-

children, it would seem. At least not by all.

Not by her great-grandchildren.

The two men in the black suits enter and

ask all to stand for the family. We do and they

enter, single file, my grandfather at the lead,

on a cane, then my aunt, my uncle, and my

father, last. They sit. We sit. The rabbi enters.

He is dressed in black, black and black

topped with a wide-brimmed black fedora.

Behind the lectern he stands and starts by

opening his mouth and pausing, says he did

not know the deceased, pauses, looks at his

notecard, and says, slowly, “Mrs. Tritts.”

He is corrected by a voice from the assem-

bled. “Tritt.” But there are four Mrs. Tritts in the room: three living. One Mrs. Tritt not

present. One Mrs. Tritt to be and one Miss

Tritt. I look around and see I am not the only

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person to notice this. I look at Lee and, turn-

ing, find her eyes instantly.

He continues to call her Mrs. Tritt, eulogiz-

ing five women in one. He talks to us about

her being a daughter of the Jews and his sister

and, therefore, knows her just the same. His

sister, Mrs. Tritt. He starts with the prayers.

He reads them in English quickly. So quickly

I can barely follow. He then says them in

Hebrew because, he tells us, the soul under-

stands its native language best. He says them

at a speed that is ferocious and fluid so there

are no divisions between the words, no mel-

ody, no rhythm. These are prayers and he says

them as though they are a pharmaceutical

insert, skimming out loud in search of some

hidden important information. They are