1968 Changed Everything
Chapter 1
October 1968
Towering elms line the wide pathways crisscrossing the University of Buffalo’s campus: reds, vibrant oranges, yellows all set against a brilliant blue sky. As the wind whips up falling leaves swirl with each gust. Students hurry in every direction.
The high energy of the students arriving in Mitchell Hall is quickly blotted out by the sober expression of twenty-eight-year-old teaching assistant Jeremy Slater, who surveys the room looking anything but casual, despite his effort to not seem overly serious. Whatever thoughts preceded the students’ entrance into the room they prepare to get to work. For the lucky few this is much like the eager silence of a concert hall as the performer is set to begin. A few coughs and ready to roll. For others, staying motionless and quiet will soon become imprisonment. For the next hour they must not make a sound. Or drift so far away that they visit never-never land.
Like the other lecture rooms Mitchell Hall is overheated, its steam radiators hiss while water bleeds at the rusted knobs. Hoping to combat student torpor, an enormous central window has been swung open so crisp October air blows in. That window frames a majestic maple tree which has turned a spectacular scarlet as it does every October. Fortunately, there is a good reason for the students to stay alert. Every campus had one in the sixties—a teacher who could excite his students with his ideas and passion. Cynics have compared Jeremy to a rock star. So, have admirers. This afternoon he is on a roll.
Jeremy’s hazel eyes glisten whenever his discoveries hit their mark. Ideas keep popping out of his head. One thought stimulates the next and then the next. Riff after riff in a rhythm.
Sitting off to the side, CC belongs to him. She’s gotten prettier and prettier, but now, in her senior year, she has blossomed into a beauty. Her ginger hair, streaked blond by the summer’s sun, frames her emerald eyes. They have a hint of sadness in them. But each time Jeremy hits a sweet spot they sparkle.
CC’s eyes dropped to the ground the first time they met Jeremy’s. In the worst way she wants to hold his eyes with hers, and not panic. She is hopeful she can overcome her usual bashfulness with men she doesn’t know. He wants the same thing. But he doesn’t dare. Carol, his wife, owns this part of him.
This is not the first time. With the class full, and his mind crystal clear, Jeremy is living out his dreams. Fantasies rarely become actual, but when they do, danger seems to disappear. He knows he is scoring again and again. Especially today. Everything is coming together.
Pointing in CC’s direction, a classmate whispers to the student next to her, “Look at CC.”
She smiles. “I know.”
“Look at Professor Slater!”
The two students have big, knowing, sarcastic grins on their faces as they watch CC and Jeremy. It doesn’t entirely erase their envy.
Jeremy writes “WITTGENSTEIN” on the board. Emphasizing the V pronunciation in Wittgenstein, he speaks dramatically.
“You have to understand. Ludwig Wittgenstein placed truth above any other human quality. To many people, the value of truth isn’t important. Most decide to pursue it to whatever extent they choose, but it is no big deal. Wittgenstein didn’t have this freedom. Meaning, an alarm would go off in his head whenever an idea seemed untrue. He’d be seized with doubt. It was like he was on a high wire and suddenly aware he might lose his balance.
Imitating Wittgenstein, Jeremy shouts, “No!”
He looks around the room.
“No!” he repeats theatrically, as if on stage. He has a hold of the students.
Jeremy continues. “A conclusion, agreed upon by everyone else, including himself three minutes before, suddenly has become dubious. Wittgenstein was particularly sensitive to the power that groups have, to capture other people’s agreement, the pressure they put on others to go along with them, not least because he was human. He was as likely as anyone else to be swayed.”
Jeremy’s voice rises. “But suddenly Professor Wittgenstein would snap out of it, recognize that he’d been duped. What he had thought was true wasn’t true at all. He was seized by doubt. Defiance took hold of him.”
Jeremy faces the class. His eyes move from student to student as he speaks. Then, they rest on CC. Her shyness, which ordinarily encloses her, is dissolving. Every word, even Jeremy’s hesitations, works its way through her, singing in a rhythm that is becoming rapturous. His eyes remain on her as he continues his lecture, gripping her with every syllable.
“He was a professor of philosophy at Cambridge University. He never wrote a book. The world eventually learned about him from his students’ notes which were published later on. But without acclaim from the usual places, his reputation was remarkable. Other Cambridge philosophy professors would sit in at his classes, hoping to harvest his ideas. They knew he was the real thing. Bertrand Russell called him ‘the most perfect example I have ever known of genius.’”
Still carried away, Jeremy continues. “Who was this man?” Jeremy asks, walking around the room, pausing in front of the blazing maple which, for a moment, seems to smolder with his words. He hesitates, allowing his question to resonate. “Sometimes,” Jeremy says, dropping his voice so the students need to lean in to listen, “sometimes during a class, Wittgenstein suddenly dropped what he was talking about. He’d moan, ‘Idiot!’ This wasn’t theatrics. Wittgenstein had felt like an idiot.”
Jeremy hesitates for the class to savor that thought.
“A monumental battle was taking place inside Wittgenstein. What he had intended to say no longer made sense to him. His doubts had gained the upper hand. The remarkable thing is that his misgivings didn’t issue from the challenge of a listener, but from his own doubts.”
Jeremy takes a deep breath before continuing.
“Ordinarily people don’t do this. Not in public. They don’t doubt themselves that way. It is crippling. The mind is meant to function quietly. We are confident enough of our ideas that we don’t have to go over them a second and third time. We possess them. They possess us. When challenged, we can usually hold on to them, even if a bit of doubt creeps in. Perhaps it is stubbornness or laziness, or we may simply be unwilling to abandon such a nice comfortable place in our mind. We don’t seek the unknown, to feel lost, to welcome confusion. Man is not a rational creature. He is a rationalizing creature, and most will settle for whatever half truth their mind provides. This wasn’t good enough for Wittgenstein. He wasn’t able to submit to the tidal pull of consonance. Challenges from others are the last thing we need. Perhaps that is why we join groups with basically the same ideas as ours.”
Jeremy again stops, letting his silence speak. Then he cries out: “Not Wittgenstein!”
He looks around the room. Once again, his eyes stop at CC.
“Being in a state of doubt can be fascinating. Hamlet, which many consider the greatest play ever written, is all about doubt. We empathize with Hamlet’s discomfort. We wait to see what he will do. But no one wants to be like Hamlet, a frenzied soul tortured by his confusion, on a pathway to self-destruction. We try to end doubt as soon as we experience it.”
“It isn’t just us. When we see doubt in others, it’s unpleasant. Like they are lost. Anguish is best kept private.”
Again, Jeremy gives a bit of time for his thoughts to be digested, then continues.
“So, you would think Professor Wittgenstein would lose his audience when he would lose his way.” Jeremy calls out happily. “But it was just the opposite! Feeling like an idiot served as his launchpad.”
Jeremy stares at one student, then the next, energetically as if he is building to a crescendo.
“The students in Wittgenstein’s classroom were mesmerized by the process. He shared the excitement as if he were proceeding on a highwire. His safety was only momentarily disturbed. He wondered how, until then, he had not seen his mistake. He had an unusual talent. He could cogently present the problem he was having. Identify what he had gotten wrong. He turned himself inside out and retained his dignity, dissecting what did and did not make sense, as if his cognitions were a fascinating puzzle. After his initial disturbance, sharing his clarifying insight triumphantly eliminate his uncertainty. It was a kind of courage, leaping on the high wire and landing so securely that it was if he was now standing on solid ground.
Jeremy looks in CC’s direction, their eyes now quickly lock. Self-consciously, she breaks it off. He is still there when her eyes return.
“So, in the end, his public self-doubt was a kind of strength. It was part of what drew the professors. They knew all too well where he was. They, too, were often stymied. Most had run out of ideas long ago, not a good thing when you are in the idea business.
“It was the way Wittgenstein went about it. His students recollected his previous encounters with confusion. And because again and again the answer would materialize, not knowing could be relished, suspense that was about to be resolved. Out of thin air, like magic, Wittgenstein would come up with a new way of looking at a problem that just a moment before had stymied him. The cavalry arrived just in time.”
Swept up by his momentum, in his excitement, Jeremy is now staring almost exclusively at CC, as if he is speaking to her and her alone. The other students are aware of this, but they did not take Jeremy’s course to be given lessons in professorial etiquette. He has a reputation. Nor does it seem unusual that someone as beautiful as CC would pull a lecturer’s eyes. Everywhere she goes, eyes are drawn to her.
Jeremy continues. “Logical Positivism, when it was new, was able to answer a lot of questions that had long perplexed philosophers. The name had a ring to it, like existentialism, which had captivated the French and German philosophers. But logical positivism was quintessentially English. Good English words describing philosophers’ most noble virtues. The power of logic, of robust reasoning. Having the certainty of mathematics. Ever forward to the next challenge. No artsy-fartsy French poetry junking up the English mind.”
Jeremy walks back and forth in the front of the lecture hall. He’s teaching a course in literature, not philosophy, but he indulges himself with this lecture every year.
He continues. “Everyone was excited by Logical Positivism. They thought they had finally reached the ultimate answer, offering final proofs and the promise of more. With the power of this new tool one after another philosophical paradoxes were dissolving. Does God exist? If you followed logical positivism’s logic, the answer was clear. Asking questions where no proof is possible was a meaningless proposition. That was the magical word, meaningless, dismissing the unknowable as neither true nor false but as meaningless. That declaration was the answer, the certainty philosophers crave.”
Jeremy again hesitates for effect.
“It was great for a while. But then the party was over. The questions that vexed them returned. Labeling issues as meaningless was a cheap trick. They were back to square one. They had painted themselves into a corner. It is absurd to dismiss meaningful questions as meaningless by inventing rules. Somehow all of this was written about in a way that left everyone perplexed. The logic and complexity of philosophical treatises on the subject were enormous and practically incomprehensible. No one, not even those in the world-renowned Cambridge University Philosophy Department, could think his way out of the trap. Not even brilliant Dr. Wittgenstein.
“What was Wittgenstein’s solution? He quit philosophy. He became a hospital orderly, then a gardener. He never mentioned to his coworkers that he had been a professor at Cambridge. For ten years, no one heard a word about him, or from him.
“Then one day he reappeared. He had discovered a way out of the trap. He founded a branch of philosophy called ‘ordinary language philosophy.’ Basically, pleased by the irony, he said that philosophers should study how ordinary people communicate. That was the way out of their puzzlement.”
Smiling broadly, Jeremy continues. “In other words, the study of philosophy, all the years spent carefully defining, clarifying, refocusing – driven by a powerful need to get at the truth— was not the way to get there. The language of ordinary people—gardeners, hospital orderlies, his colleagues for the last decade—held the real answer. Cutting flowers or pushing a gurney undoes the paradox.
“The professors loved it.”
Jeremy windmills his arm as if he is swinging a scythe.
“It was a coup de grâce to the steel certainties that had been their bulwark against confusion, that had kept them focused, but which no longer functioned. They had been imprisoned by logic and precise language.”
As Jeremy continues, imbued with conviction, there is a musical quality–he loves this part of his talk… “Among philosophers, a convincing new paradigm is as exciting as the discovery of the New World—fresh, beautiful, new thoughts, unhindered by doubt.”
“If it were a soccer match, they would have put him on their shoulders for scoring the winning goal. If he were. . . What’re the words to that song?” Jeremy’s face lights up. “Rudolph! The red-nosed reindeer.” He starts to sing it. “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. . .”
CC’s mind spins appreciatively—a childhood song amalgamated with philosophy at the most profound level. Her delight brings the comfort of an epiphany. She still remembers when true was true, before becoming complicated by further thoughts.
“As Rudolph went down in history… That’s what happened to Wittgenstein.”
He repeats his name in her mind as if it were a magical word. “Wittgenstein!”
The bell rings. Some students file out. Others swarm around the lectern. Jeremy’s eyes have not stopped wandering to CC as she gets her things together. Books pressed against her breasts, CC attempts to seem businesslike as she approaches him, but her eagerness isn’t hard to discern as she joins Jeremy’s entourage at the front of the classroom. She waits patiently as, one by one, he answers the questions of the students. When he is finished and they have left, he turns to CC. Unlike her, he is not very successful at appearing calm and collected. She has worked long and hard to maintain her persona. Unlike Brooklyn where Jeremy developed his style, seeming unperturbed was required in Great Neck, where she grew up.
“You seemed interested in Wittgenstein,” he says as casually as he can.
“My brother Mark talks a lot about him.”
“Really. What did he tell you?”
“How he came from one of the richest families in Europe.”
“True.”
“How he gave away all his money. Every penny.”
“He was extremely intense and impulsive,” says Jeremy. “All of his brothers were. His father tried to educate their impulsivity away. He was a titan of the steel industry. He hoped to prepare at least one of his boys to step into his shoes. But he failed. They went in the opposite direction, totally uninterested in business. They did, however, absorb one quality from him.” Jeremy’s tone of voice changes. “He was incredibly exacting.”
He stops, letting what he is saying sink in. CC is excited; exchanging stolen looks was one thing, his exclusive attention another. She and her brother Mark have thrown ideas at each other quite a lot, even been excited as the ideas flew back and forth, but this was her professor, on a whole different level.
“Imagine this. Paul, Ludwig’s brother, was practicing on one of the seven grand pianos in the Wittgenstein’s mansion when he suddenly shouted at Ludwig in the next room, ‘I cannot play when you are in the house. I feel your skepticism seeping. . . from under the door!... Each of the brothers felt continually scrutinized. Ludwig was lucky. As a philosophy professor, he had found a good outlet. But that feeling, of being scrutinized, is a sickness, paranoia. Being alone with self-doubt is a plague. Three of his brothers committed suicide.”
“Jesus.”
“Not Jesus. Jewish. By other people’s standards, he was enormously successful, the star professor in the world’s finest philosophy department. Yet, as I described, he continually had to snap out of failure, think his way back to solid ground. He had to stop being a professor when he couldn’t find his way out the confusion logical positivism led philosophers to.
“Geniuses frequently have that quality. Jascha Heifetz would practice his violin until his fingers felt like they were falling off. And then he would practice another two hours. What he heard coming from his violin again and again sounded wonderful, but there were always a few notes that weren’t wonderful enough. Perfect moments would not suffice. He wanted perfection throughout.
“Fortunately, despite his dissatisfaction, he was a bit of a peacock. He liked to perform in front of audiences. He bathed in his audience’s adulation, even if he believed he should do better.
“Vladimir Horowitz wasn’t so lucky. Despite ecstatic reviews, despite rapturous responses from his audiences, he repeatedly lost confidence that he could get where he felt he had to be. He couldn’t perform from 1953 to 1965. It’s happening again. He’s stopped playing in public.”
“You think that is Jewish?”
“Well—”
“My brother told me Wittgenstein wasn’t Jewish.”
“He was raised a strict Catholic by his mother. But his father was Jewish and his mother’s father was Jewish. That’s where the problem came from.”
“You really think it was being Jewish?”
Jeremy appreciates her challenge.
He smiles. “I’ve thought about that a lot. Maybe, maybe not. I’m probably over generalizing. I’m not just talking about an exclusively Jewish quality. People who know Akira Kurosawa, the Japanese film director, say that despite the masterpieces he keeps producing, he often talks about how he isn’t measuring up. Not one of his movies has come close to what he expects of himself. . . Partly it’s about being Japanese. Only the emperor is entitled to be godly, meaning perfect. . . But he doesn't allow himself that expectation. He’s got a bad case of expecting it from himself, trying to get there. The glass may always be half empty. His job is to fill it. And he can’t. He doesn’t understand anything else. Did you see Woman in the Dunes? They had it here at the festival.”
“No.”
“It’s about this guy who is trapped in a large sand pit. He must get rid of the sand that has encroached on his house from the night before, or it will be engulfed. So, each day, while it is daylight, he digs the sand away.
“It returns as he sleeps. The cycle never ends. Eventually, he becomes resigned to his fate. For the existentialists, that acceptance is what matters.
“We’ll be reading The Myth of Sisyphus in two weeks. Sisyphus uses every ounce of his strength to push a boulder up a hill. If he stops, it will roll back and crush him. Each time he gets to the top of the hill, the boulder tumbles back to the bottom, and Sisyphus must start over. That is the human condition. The existentialists thought they had the answer. Choose to do what you must do. By making it a choice, you are in charge.”
Skeptical that existentialists have found the answer, Jeremy exhibits the smile of his tribe, the perennial doubting Jew.
“Eh?”
Without self-consciousness, appreciating his manner, from some ancient part of herself, CC smiles, touching Jeremy’s arm affectionately. He is so much like her brother Mark, for years her mentor and hero.
She imitates him. “Eh?”
He laughs.
Jeremy continues: “Existentialists think choosing to do what you gotta do puts you in charge. To me it’s a cheap trick. I don’t know how that’s a victory. It doesn’t change that you gotta do it.”
“My brother Jay does everything he’s expected to do. It never occurs to him not to do it. Yet he feels very much in charge of his life.”
“That’s one solution. . . It’s got to be boring. But . . .” He looks into her eyes. “Wittgenstein really fascinates you, doesn’t he?”
“He does.”
“Do you have a class now?”
CC glances at her watch. “Not until two-thirty.”
“Let’s go to my office.”
CC follows Jeremy out of the classroom, then through a series of corridors. Both she and he are aware of the possibilities of privacy... As they walk along, CC’s trepidation is pushed aside by her unformed expectations. Repeatedly they smile at each other. He’s a guy. A beautiful woman is following him. That’s happened many times in his fantasies but not in reality.
Jeremy's office is a hole in the wall with books piled high on his desk. He clears books off a chair for CC to sit.
“So, what is it about Wittgenstein?” she asks.
“It isn’t that complicated. He was a genius. His thought went where no one else was going.”
“You’re into geniuses?”
“Everybody is into geniuses.”
“A genius?” she counters. “What is that? I never thought about it until college. My idea of a stupendous human being was John Lennon. My other brother, Mark, was into Tom Seaver. They’re no geniuses.”
“They’re stars. That’s what I meant.”
Mark told me last year, Seaver had a great year.”
“He did.” Jeremy adds.
“My brother is a big Mets fan. Before Seaver, it was Duke Snider and Bill Sharman.”
“Sharman had a sweet jump shot. A perfect jump shot. It was magic.” Jeremy crumbles a piece of paper, leaps and shoots from over his head. It lands in the waste basket. “Swish,” he croons triumphantly.
“You’re just like him!” CC observes, pleased with her realization. “Until midway through high school, Mark was all about athletics. Then all of a sudden Mark’s hero became Ludwig Wittgenstein.”
“It is kind of amazing that we have the same heroes” Jeremy adds, pleased by the link up. Even the part about Duke Snider. “Did you ever see Duke Snider play?” he asks CC.
“I was too young.”
“Those somersault shoestring catches. Ballet. Not every time, but you see him do it once and it gets fixed in your memory. No one had ever done that before. No one since. You never saw him do it?”
“No.” Mark hadn’t mentioned shoestring catches. Their conversation is making her uneasy. “Does someone have to be a genius for you to be interested in them?”
“You want the truth or bullshit?”
“The truth.”
“The truth is, that’s what matters to me. The truth? I mostly ignore people unless they are very special. I can fake it. I do fake it, but—”
“So that eliminates nine tenths of the human race, all of us ordinary people.”
“Are you serious? Did you ever look in the mirror?”
She is pleased but uncomfortable. Her looks are a fragile commodity. When she was sixteen, she had bad acne for half the year. Her mother was helpful and sympathetic, but CC sensed the truth. Her mother hated her, hated to look at her, like she was a gruesome pathetic monster, as if it was her fault. CC is 98% sure there will be no recurrence of her acne but her uncertainty about how good she is looking will probably remain with her ‘til her dying day.
Jeremy is in quite a different place.
Enthusiastically he shouts at her. “There is a mirror on the wall. Take a look at yourself.”
She barely glimpses. Her embarrassment has now fully taken over. Jeremy’s flirting this way flusters her.
“It must be hard on your wife. You expect her to be perfect? Does that make her one of the nobodies that aren’t worth your interest?
“She says I’m a baby. I’m into heroes like a ten-year-old. She’s waiting for me to grow up.”
“Is she right?”
Jeremy shrugs. “I’m sure she is. But I am who I am. Even if I could change it, I wouldn’t. Doesn’t matter. I can’t.”
“Most people find a way to be satisfied.”
“Most people live a lie.”
She doesn’t know what to say. It may be true but so what. Besides they may not have to lie. Maybe they don’t have to be a somebody. CC says nothing.
He’s still on a roll. “By the way, this Sunday I’m having a barbecue. Several students are coming. You’re invited.”
Chapter 2
The Barbecue
It is Sunday afternoon in late October. With the long, gray Buffalo winter ahead, Jeremy and his wife, Carol, are thrilled that it is still warm enough outside for a barbecue. Their home is modest, but lit by the sunshine, the fall colors surrounding their yard glitter, a pallet of perfection. Both of them grew up indoors—apartment houses in Brooklyn—museums their only bits of beauty. A backyard in the country is as exciting to them as Prospect Park.
Jeremy is manning the charcoal, Carol’s setting up the table. Just under five-four, slightly chunky, but pretty–not striking– pretty, Carol has cider colored hair and wonderful delft blue eyes. Today she is full of fire. She loves having company. She brings out a pitcher of iced tea. Then she returns to the house and comes out with napkins and paper plates.
“I think I hear Alyosha crying,” she yells to Jeremy. “Lately, he’s only been napping half an hour.”
Jeremy frowns. “I was counting on two-hours.” Disappointments like this can sometimes be irritating but not today. Since Jeremy’s moment in the office with CC his life seems to be moving along wonderfully. It’s full steam ahead. He’s been waiting for today all week.
It is hard for Carol to ignore Jeremy’s excitement, but she has managed so far.
“He’s just fussing. I’ll be back,” Carol yells to Jeremy as she makes her way to Alyosha, her eighteen-month-old treasure. In his sleep, he’s whimpering. Every once in a while, he screams angrily into his blanket before returning to sleep. Tiptoeing, Carol moves forward, watching him without being seen. She moves quickly to the crib, gently takes his hand. Softly, she sings, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
She needs only one line. Singing the song to herself he hardly whimpers when she leaves,
“If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it—”
Returning to the outside, her singing stops abruptly as her eyes are drawn to CC, who has arrived with three other students, two males and one other female. Startled by CC’s beauty, Carol’s frightened by its implication.
Each offers her a hand as their name is called.
“Carol, this is CC, Deborah, Gabriel. You know my cousin Jeff.”
Jeff has brought a football. Jeremy grabs it.
“Go long, Jeff.”
Jeffrey takes off. Perry, their Lab, runs alongside, barking. Jeremy throws a perfect spiral, which Jeff catches without breaking stride. As the catch is made, Jeremy triumphantly glances quickly at CC. Carol notices.
“Now you, Gabriel.”
Once again, a perfect pass and once again Jeremy steals a look at CC, but this time he is aware that Carol is watching him. CC also notices. Her eyes drop to the ground.
When they are finished eating, sitting around on the patio, Jeremy takes out a joint. Carol isn’t happy that he’s brought out pot in front of the students, but she says nothing. He passes it around. Carol takes only one hit, refusing a second. “Someone’s got to function,” she says.
She cleans up while the others stare into space. As the afternoon winds down, CC approaches Carol shyly. “Can I help?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got it under control.”
CC nevertheless clears the dishes from the table and follows Carol inside.
“You took the bus, right? No one’s going to be driving stoned?”
“Right.”
“Okay.”
Carol forces a smile.
“Are you a junior?”
“Senior.”
She holds up her hand, shows her middle finger crossed over her index finger for good luck. “Hopefully, I’ll graduate in June.”
“Oh, come on. Jeremy tells me you’re smart.”
“He’s talked about me?”
“When he told me who was coming.” She hesitates. “You’re a senior—ready to take on the cold, cruel world?”
“Not yet. Going to school for social work after this, although my father tells me I should be a lawyer. Says I think like one.”
“Do you?”
“I can get like that sometimes,” she says shyly. “I was on the debating team in high school. But I’ve already been accepted at Columbia for social work.”
“That’s a good school. Are you going home? Did you grow up in the city?”
“When I was young, we lived in Queens.”
“Where in Queens?”
“Kew Gardens Hills. Actually, Simon and Garfunkel grew up there.”
“Did they?”
“Art Garfunkel always makes it seem like he is from Forest Hills. I think he was embarrassed. Kew Gardens Hills was on the wrong side of the tracks from Forest Hills. But all of their songs about home—that was Kew Gardens Hills.”
“Were your parents embarrassed?”
“Not really. They saw it as a step up from Brooklyn. On the way to Great Neck.”
“So what was Kew Gardens Hills like?”
“I was very young but I remember there were always a lot of kids outside. It beats Great Neck by a mile in that regard. Those garden apartments– my parents thought they were nicer than apartment houses.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Well, not really. Five of us lived in four rooms, and we couldn’t afford much of anything. My parents slept in the living room on a Castro convertible.”
“That’s no fun.”
“My father went to law school at night, and by the time I was four, my family made it to Great Neck. How about you?”
“I’m from Brooklyn all the way,” Carol says proudly, ignoring CC’s earlier put-down.
“I don’t really know Brooklyn. My mom and dad are both from there.” CC tells her.
“Did you ever see where they grew up?”
“My mom took me once to Fortunoff in Brownsville. It looked pretty dangerous. This one guy approached the car looking for money. My mom had us lock the doors. That’s about it.”
“I was in the good part of Brooklyn, Bay Ridge.” Carol tells her. “There were no muggings. Jeremy’s parents grew up somewhere nearby, Manhattan Beach, I think near Sheepshead Bay.”
“You don’t know?” CC asks.
“Jeremy’s origins can get confusing.”
“He’s never taken you to where he grew up?” CC asks.
“Not really.” Carol answers.
“How come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Sheepshead Bay? CC asks.
“You really don’t know?” Carol asks, surprised that people in the suburbs know so little of the city.
“What do you know about Long Island?” CC retorts
“Nothing. That’s a whole different world.”
“You weren’t curious about Brooklyn?” Carol asks.
“I guess not. Brownsville scared me.”
“So how are you going to be a social worker? You can’t just stay in your office.”
CC shrugs. “Maybe I will be a lawyer. I just don’t like the bad mood my father came home with after work. Plus I want to make the world a better place.”
“If you can do something like that it would be nice.”
Despite Carol’s suspicions about CC, a bond is forming between them. The marijuana has loosened their tongues, undermined their distrust.
“Jeremy’s mentioned you a few times. I was wondering what you would look like.”
“Am I what you expected?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Jeremy may seem like he is ruled by his brain, but he’s a typical guy. His hormones are in charge. He gets a certain look when he talks about particular students.”
CC is pleased she has been mentioned by Jeremy, less pleased that Carol sees her as a rival.
“We were both undergrads at Penn,” Carol tells CC. “It’s funny. Even when he was a student, he liked to lecture. He has so many ways of looking at things.”
“He gets so carried away by his ideas,” CC gushes, which Carol notices.
“When I met him, he wanted to be a rock star. He loves being on stage,” Carol says.
CC smiles happily. “Was he any good?”
Carol shrugs.
“He probably wasn’t good enough. His band went nowhere. But he needs to be center stage. I think he has found his thing.”
Carol continues. “When he gets going, he can be a real turn-on. Like his hero, Wittgenstein. I assume he’s spoken about Wittgenstein?”
“He has. He just gave that lecture.”
“He has that lecture perfected. . .. It’s very polished. He may have wanted to grow up to be Duke Snider, but now he wants to grow up to be Ludwig Wittgenstein. Certified Genius. Were you wowed?”
CC blushes.
“Don’t worry. I remember how irresistible he was when he got all excited about some big thought.” Carol grimaces. “But now—”
“He doesn’t do that to you anymore?”
“I’ve heard his shpiels a thousand times.”
“I can’t imagine it getting old.”
“Believe me, everything gets old. His thing with ideas is like an addiction. He has to have them. Like food. Happy when he’s got a new one, grouchy when there’s not enough. Fortunately, he has other qualities.”
“Like what?”
“He enjoys being Peck’s bad boy. He won’t win any awards for being a responsible adult.” She hesitates a bit with that observation but then continues. “He’s actually a nice guy.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s plenty. There is very little cruelty in him. Insensitivity, yes—there is a lot of that. He thinks about himself and his ideas too much. But intentional cruelty—no. In a marriage, kindness is what counts. If he could just get his head on straight and finish his dissertation, we’d be in a good place.”
“His dissertation is a problem?”
Carol swallows hard. “Big problem. The fact that Wittgenstein hardly published anything has been a perfect excuse. Jeremy can’t just get it done and get his damn doctorate. Anything less than a masterpiece would be humiliating to him.” Carol laughs as she finishes.
CC smiles approvingly. “I like that he aims so high.”
“I know that sounds heroic, but the other side of it is that it leads to deep fears. The professors in the English department are nationally known. It’s an unusually creative department. I don’t know why they’re here, but right now U of B’s English department is hot. It’s attracted top talent—John Barth, Leslie Fiedler. That’s what drew Jeremy.
But the competition is ferocious. High expectations make daily life difficult. If he were training for the Olympics, that would be one thing. Everyone understands that kind of glory, the ups and downs of trying to be the best. But this is worse. Athletes know when they have won or lost. Jeremy can never tell where he stands. One minute, he believes he is a genius. . . .” Her voice rises. “The next, he’s a nobody. Do you know Dr. Miller?”
“The chairman?”
“He believes Jeremy is extremely gifted. Dr. Miller has said something to me.”
“That must be exciting.”
“Yes and no.”
“Why no?”
“Because several of the faculty members treat him like he’s a jerk. Don’t know if they are jealous, or think Jeremy is too full of himself. But when he has had contact with his supervisors, nine times out of ten he comes home deflated. Fortunately for him, soon enough, he begins to believe he’s the next Wittgenstein again. Round and round he goes, loop de loop.”
“Still, all of that must be exciting.”
“He needs to outgrow his grandiosity and just get his damn doctorate done.”
“I didn’t realize there’s so much pressure on him.”
“It galls him that he’s not there yet. Thinks he deserves in, on the basis of all the great ideas he has. Dr. Miller and a couple of other senior faculty members actually do find his ideas special, which is very nice, but everything hinges on his dissertation. And that’s not working so well. It’s not easy to knock off a masterpiece.”
“So, he’s given up?”
“Are you kidding? He has the energy of a madman. Over a week he’ll write twenty, sometimes fifty pages. Good pages. I’ve read them. Some great pages. But by midweek, he’s doesn’t like them. He tears them up. He thinks that makes him Wittgenstein because he did the same thing. I remind him Wittgenstein didn’t have a wife and kid.”
“So, all that talk about geniuses—he thinks he’s one?”
“Half the time. The other half—don’t ask. He knows how stupid it sounds to others, how stupid it is to think that way, and when he believes it, he’s a handful. They used to tease him in high school. Called him ‘Pompose.’ For pomposity. And that’s when he wanted to make it with his band. He’s already figured out the perfect defense. If not in this life, then after he’s gone, someone will discover him.”
“He’s said all that?”
“No, but we were watching this movie about van Gogh, how he never sold a painting when he was alive.”
“Really?”
“Not a single one. Jeremy got all choked up. I asked him about it. He said it was nothing. The movie just made him sad. But the way he cried . . .” Carol wipes a tear. “Boy, I just had one puff of the marijuana.”
“So, he has delusions of grandeur?”
“Right after college, he had something published in the Yale Review but nothing since. I don’t really think it’s delusions of grandeur. He’s able to laugh about it with me. But whatever that genius thing is, Jeremy’s got a bad case of it. I swear. He thinks geniuses are the only people that truly belong on Earth. Everyone else is taking up space. That’s one side of it. Then, suddenly, he’ll hate every word he’s ever written. He fears he’s ordinary. Being average scares him. He thinks I wouldn’t love him. No one would. Which is so crazy.”
“You’re saying he’s really screwed up.”
“Yes, in his way. Mind you, everyone is nuts when you really get to know them. Jeremy is Jeremy. He’s just a guy. He talks up a storm, but I still see this college kid. Both of us were kids when we met. . .. You’re Jewish, right?”
“Yes,” CC answers
“A lot of Jewish men are like him. Very ambitious. Can’t imagine their life as not getting to the top. Nervous as hell that they’re not up to it, that they’re a nobody. That’s what Jeremey talks about a lot. Being a genius or being a nobody. Nothing in between.
“Still, I think it’s exciting.”
“Maybe, but it’s not easy to have irrational standards. You’re either gold or you’re gone. It’s hard to be around.”
“Must be.”
“I’m not complaining. Well, I guess I am. But it doesn’t matter. I love him.” Carol stops for a moment. “I guess it’s his vulnerability. There’s a look he gets. I can feel his pain. My mother thinks I’m crazy. But I can’t help it.”
“You’re saying having an ambitious husband is no fun.”
“This is way beyond ambition. The genius thing . . . I’ll admit it can lead to accomplishments, but over the last year—his time is running out to get his dissertation finally done. We’re not having a good time. If we can just get through this crisis, then I could put up with my genius husband.”
“Do you save the pages he throws away?”
“I should. If he ever gets to where he thinks he belongs, they will be worth something.” Carol stops, listens carefully. “I hear Alyosha. You want to meet him?”
CC smiles. “Absolutely.”
Carol takes CC to his room. Carol bends over and, sliding her hands beneath the baby’s armpits, gently lifts him from his crib. She sniffs his bottom in the no nonsense way of a mother at work, smooths back his bangs sweaty from sleep and then hands him to CC with such tenderness and trust that an ache CC never knew she had, steams straight up from CC’s heart. CC’s had practice with her brother Jay’s little boy, but she’s never reacted like this. CC moves the baby back and forth, curled in the crook of her arm. “Aly-o-sha.” Happily smiling, she half sings, half whispers in a melody, holding him, still singing in mostly a murmur. CC follows Carol into the kitchen, then outside, a rising moon is pierced to the side of the sky. She feels as if she has joined the family, then vaguely feels guilty for picturing herself in Carol’s place.
* * *
Early evening, CC is on the pay phone in a small alcove in the second-floor dorm lounge talking quietly, trying to keep her conversation private. Fortunately, there is only one other person in the lounge, CC’s friend Brittany, unlikely to gossip.
Mark, her brother, is in his Dwight Street apartment in Berkeley, phone in hand, spread out on the couch.
“Mark,” CC says, “come on.”
“The last three times we’ve talked, we’ve ended up talking about Jeremy.”
In his appearance, Mark has matured into the male version of CC, unusually handsome, almost pretty. His eyes are a beautiful green color like CC’s, a light in his gruffly unshaven face, the style in Berkeley. His gestures are robust, almost exaggeratedly so. He speaks with a deliberately aggressive edge that took him time to cultivate as he struggled to bury his childhood softness and emerge as his version of a man. It was automatic, as it is for many guys. At a certain point, junior high for most, being a sissy is not allowed in the company of the other boys. Despite his effort, he can’t altogether cancel out what is behind his bluff, a still-delicate soul rooted in a certain softness from childhood, when he was allowed to seek solace in the folds of Grandma Mimi’s apron. Country Joe and the Fish can be heard playing in the background.
“Mark, he’s married! He has a one-year-old son.”
He teases, “I know you, CC.”
Almost swooning, she replies, “I’ll admit,” CC says slowly, “he’s the most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”
CC looks Brittany’s way, fearful that she has heard something. She hasn’t. She’s laughing away at the Jackie Gleason show on TV.
Mark’s picked up on CC’s swoon.
“CC, you’re in love,” Mark teases. “You’re in love. That’s what it is.”
She grits her teeth. “It’s not so simple. I like his wife a lot. Someone said she has lupus. I could never do that to her.”
“Strange coincidence. You’ve got myasthenia, and he’s flirting with you. Does he know?”
“I don’t know how he would.” Then, after thinking it over she adds, “Maybe.”
“Myasthenia is not a small thing.”
“No comparison. You can get really sick from lupus. You can die.”
“There’s a tiny chance, but so could you. Your Jeremy has a thing about rescuing sick gals.”
“I don’t think he even knows I have myasthenia.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t know who knows, who doesn’t know. I don’t talk about it. Hardly ever.”
“Telling you—this guy loves to rescue damsels in distress.”
“Mark, let’s keep it simple. He’s married.”
“Big shit.”
“He talks a lot about Wittgenstein. Your hero.”
Mark’s very pleased, “What about him?”
“How Wittgenstein demanded so much of himself. Jeremy’s got the same problem. Everything has to be one-in-a-million good, or he can’t go with it. He’s like you.”
“I’m not like that.”
“Since when?”
“Give me a break.”
“Anyway. There are problems. He hasn’t finished his dissertation and its overdue. According to his wife, several professors in the English department love him, but they can only extend the deadline for so long. Some hate him. They can’t stand his self-importance. His time is running out. Carol’s worried that—”
“Carol?”
“His wife. If he doesn’t get it done by this summer, they’re going to cut him loose. He’s feeling incredible pressure.”
“She told you all that?”
“More or less. We were stoned.”
“Oh.”
Mark is pleased that CC is still smoking dope, in his mind, happy that he turned her on to one of life’s treasures.
CC continues: “Jeremy worries a lot about the upcoming deadline for his dissertation. Practically every night he can’t sleep. Lately, nothing comforts him.”
In a boasting tone, Mark proclaims, “Me, Jeremy, and Wittgenstein.”
She teases him affectionately. “Yeah. You like to make things ten times harder than they have to be.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“What’s there to get? How to be crazy?”
“You think Jeremy and I are crazy?”
“And Wittgenstein!”
“You think we are crazy?”
CC doesn’t answer. She’s pleased that she has gotten under Mark’s skin. He’s pleased that she is in love with someone that is so much like himself.
Chapter 3
They Meet Again
A week later, after Jeremy’s class ends, CC helplessly follows Jeremy into his office without being asked.
“I liked Carol,” CC blurts out as soon as Jeremy swings the door shut behind them. This time CC notes that his office is a pathetic mess. And yet there is something glorious about the buildings of books, one piled so high on top of the other, threatening to topple at any second, a world incredibly fragile, undone by the simplest shove. He has hung over the bare light bulb that swings from a cord of black, a gorgeous fabric all shimmer and sheen, from India it seems, in teals and turquoises that cast colors everywhere. CC’s eyes, as if magnetically, are drawn to his crammed bookshelves where spines are printed with titles like Beyond God the Father and Logical Positivism and The Bloomsbury Group. Who, CC wonders, was The Bloomsbury Group. In her mind's eye she sees hydrangea in shades of perfect pinks, their formed florets tilted towards the sap of the sun.
“Carol liked you.” Jeremy says. He reaches around CC and clicks the lock closed.
“Hopefully, we can get together again. Ever eat at Main Moon?” CC asks.
“The take-out place?”
“They have incredible dumplings. They have some tables. I go there a lot.” CC tells him.
“It’s not going to happen.” Jeremy answers, his voice suddenly switching to a dark tone. “Carol’s not happy about my friendship with you. When she heard you came to my office, she let me have it. She doesn’t want me seeing you here.”
“Something I did?”
“No. She likes you. It’s me. She doesn’t like the look I get when I mention you. Things heat up quickly if I even say your name.”
“She’s that jealous?”
“Not usually, but I think she has good reason.”
“What do you mean?”
Jeremy has a funny look on his face. He walks behind his desk, as if it might give him the stature or confidence he needs to do what he next does. He leans forward at the waist and gently brushes CC’’s bangs out of her eyes.
“You can’t figure that out?
He moves closer to her. CC doesn’t retreat. Jeremy tries to kiss her. CC turns her head away.
“Jeremy, no. Carol . . .”
But as he backs off, he can see the disappointment in her eyes. He tries to kiss her again. Her hand moves up quickly, covering her lips. He plants a kiss on her cheek, puts his arms around her in a fatherly way, but soon that becomes romantic, tensing her up. Nevertheless, he senses her resistance is losing its hold on her. Practically overcome with desire, he’s hoping her no will soon become yes. For a man beset with uncertainties, his confidence soon feels like a gush of gold. His persistence may be winning out. Although she’s afraid, her desire keeps interrupting her intention, which is to end it right here. Every time that happens, he senses it, as well as the opposite. At first her desire slipped through her armor. Now it’s taking over. She’s lost.
There’s a knock on the door. Sharp and short. They quickly disengage, straighten their clothes. Jeremy’s erection is poking into his pants. He sticks his hand in his crotch and directs his penis down to the floor. CC finds that funny. And exciting.
That night in bed, Jeremy tosses and turns, imagining the romance he has always yearned for. Carol notices his fervor but decides not to ask. Instead, she holds the baby close, brings him into bed.
That same night, CC lies in her bed, musing. The fantastic fabric. The pathetic piles of books in tentative towers on the verge of collapse. The titles, each one alluring. The press of them together, his signature scent, pine leaves and nervous sweat. In ten minutes, it will be midnight and her twenty-first birthday will begin. Her mother sent her the incredible sapphire stud earrings she always loved when her mother wore them. The studs had arrived in the afternoon. When CC opened the package, she was stunned, surprised her mother had noticed. CC had never said anything, but evidently her mother saw the way she looked at them.
Still, her mother loved those earrings. It’s not like her to be this generous. Too often her mother seems to ignore her about things like that. She’s not indifferent, CC’s relationship with her mother is of great importance to both of them. But her mother often lands up being on CC’s case, unhappy with one thing or another.
It’s not easy for her mother either. She doesn’t enjoy being a nudge. She didn’t enjoy the way her own mother use to bug her. Her mother thought she was a princess but there was always some way she could improve. It is her job to make CC the best version of herself, to improve her enough to match her not unreasonable standards.
CC is not happy with this. Fair enough that what her mother does is in the service of her mother’s vision. Trying to get CC to where her mother considers a nice place. CC knows her mother’s intentions are good. Her mother is sure everything she wants CC to become is the fulfillment of her potential. Her mother comfortably believes this when all is going well, and CC seemingly goes along, but sometimes what she tells her hurts. Why am I not good enough? The nice things she says are often nonsense, obligatory compliments. After suggestions about how she can improve she forgets even when she knows her mother’s praise was genuine. She could see it in her eyes. But that is forgotten when her suggestions for improvement come. CC feels at the mercy of an incessant critic.
So this present is very special. Trying the earrings on, CC gasps at their beauty, almost disbelieving what she is seeing. Then in the mirror she sees the rest of what is before her. Her face with the earrings. She looks lovely. How much CC likes what she sees, is unusual. Or has she changed? Is it Jeremy now in the picture? The earrings are even more exciting than they had been when her mother wore them. She notices how blue they are in the lamplight, how bright. She turns to put one of them in the shade. She likes that color blue as well. She tries several other angles, turns off the light entirely. Enough light sneaks through from the dorm hallway light, to capture the depth of the sapphire’s blue, perhaps the most beautiful blue of all.
Her hand returns to fingering the one on her left ear. As she does so a wave of love for her mother settles within her. She doesn’t usually feel this way. It is a greater love than on previous birthdays when she liked her present. Has she finally arrived, become the person her mother has all along longed for, the person she expects? Does this allow CC to love her mother back? For the moment the answer is yes.
Or is it that she really loves those earrings?
She keeps the earrings on to sleep with them. As soon as her covers have been pulled up and she has been able to be sucked into her pillow, her hand goes to a sapphire, touching it, rolling it squeezing it, confirm that it is hers. She enters the reverie before sleep that is hers almost every night. Her hand moves through her thick hair, buried in it, flowing back. Once, twice, a third time. Slowly... Then gathering it into her neck she puts a tiny soft pillow against her ear and presses. This usually puts her to sleep.
“Twenty-one” cries out in her thoughts. “Thanks, Mom.” She means it. But it is Jeremy’s kiss that now fills her mind and thrills her. The possibility of that ends a perfect day before her birthday.
Chapter 4
Prequel: The Gordon Family
After a night of happy dreams, CC’s birthday morning turns to nostalgia. Unlike most seniors at school, CC has remained very attached to her family. She thinks about them often. She has multiple pictures of them on her bureau, which she often studies and recalls when they were taken. Leslie, a classmate from across the hall, has popped in and wished CC happy birthday. She lingers at the door, noticing that once again, CC can’t take her eyes off one photo in particular. That one shows a beautiful dame, Lauren Bacall Ish, sultry, around thirty, in galoshes, with a Marlboro coming out of the corner of her mouth, her fox fur coat over her nightgown.
“Who’s that?”
“My mother. My father took that picture. She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“She was,” Leslie answers.
“Could have been a movie star.”
She reflects further. “ She wasn’t the easiest person. I remember how we used to choose who was going to wake her up for morning carpool. How scared we were.”
CC takes the photo in her hands.
* * *
Jay, Mark, and CC are in front of their mother’s door. Jay is eleven, Mark nine, and CC six. They show their lineage especially Mark and CC– both handsome versions of their mother, Looks are extremely important to Evelyn. When they were young children every time the family went to the club Evelyn relished their entrance. She is a serious shopper, up on the latest styles. Everything must fit perfectly. As they are shown to a table she pretends to ignore others staring at them, but she swells with pride as she always has, growing up a beauty. Back then CC was told that one of their father’s friends in the business suggested that Evelyn bring her children to an ad agency. Evelyn would never put her kids through that. Fortunately, the family doesn’t need extra income. She can drink up the admiration she and they receive and leave it at that.
Not that her mother was easy. Right now CC is recalling the fear she and her brothers felt if they had to wake up their mother when it was her turn in the carpool.
On the floor in front of the door the children move their fists up and down as they chant together: “One. Two. Three.” Jay catches Mark’s eye. He silently mouths “One.” Mark keeps his face straight enough to fool CC, who has noticed their signals but as usual, lacks the courage to challenge her brothers for any cheating they might come up with.
As they simultaneously throw their clenched fists down and open them they shout “Shoot!”
Each chose One. The brothers exchange the same sly smile they had before the last shoot. CC isn’t sure if she noticed that Mark is secretly holding up two fingers for Jay’s eyes only.
“One. Two. Three. Shoot.”
Having put down one finger, and her brothers “two,” CC must suffer the consequences. She has been chosen to wake up Mom. Not fair and square but she understands that all is fair in love and warfare.
She stands and puts her hand on the door knob. “You should be good at it,” Jay taunts. You’re her boop-sala. Right, Mark?”
Mark joins Jay, giggling. In a teasing voice, he adds, “Boopsi?”
Mark and Jay laugh happily, their pleasure multiplied by seeing how CC’s fear has actually grown.
CC slowly opens the door and enters. Mark carefully closes it behind her. With the curtains drawn, it is practically pitch-black. Slowly, she tiptoes toward her sleeping monster mother.
She trips on a throw rug. The sound of her stumble freezes her. Apparently, Evelyn has heard, but remains unperturbed. Protecting her sleep, she pulls her quilt closer to her face. CC’s eyes now accustomed to the dark, is relieved. There are no further signs her mother is waking up. CC moves closer and closer, staying alert, each step led by her toe, the result of her ballet lessons. Silence… silence. Finally, she is bedside.
“Mom?” she whispers.
No response.
Slightly louder.
“Mom. It’s snowing.”
Half asleep, eyes still closed, Evelyn growls in a snarling tone that has scared CC in the past, now as much as ever.
“No, it’s not.” Evelyn grumbles.
“Mom! It’s snowing. Three inches,” CC insists. “It’s your turn in the carpool.”
“Go away.”
Once again, firmly. “Mom!” She knows she is right.
“Okay. Okay.”
Ira is drinking coffee in the kitchen. Still in her nightgown and slippers, with the children following her, Evelyn ambles past him. Eyes still half closed, she goes to the front closet and puts a fox fur coat over her nightgown. Eyes puffy, she puts on her sunglasses. Without taking her slippers off, she maneuvers into galoshes. Ira is there with his Polaroid, which he often keeps on hand, to capture his gorgeous wife. He thinks the scene is goofy enough to be picture-worthy, particularly with the kids bedraggled appearance trailing behind her. It’s welcome relief. He enjoys how put together she usually is. Every once in a while, waiting for her to make herself perfect can irritate him. But he also has a sense of humor. Besides, he still thinks she is beautiful no matter how disheveled. He peels off the picture as it comes out of his Polaroid. Years later, CC had it enlarged. It’s the picture that’s now on CC’s desk.
With her sunglasses hiding her swollen eyes, smoking her Marlboro, half awake, as it could be in a Norman Rockwell cover, Evelyn is forging forward in the snow with her three children as well as Tommy and Alan, two neighborhood kids. All five children are looking out the car’s side windows. The air is becoming smokier and smokier.
CC coughs from the smoke. Quietly. She doesn’t want her mother to think she is complaining. Then Mark coughs.
In a sleep-besotted voice, Evelyn responds, “Okay. Okay.”
She opens her window an inch.
“Thank you, Mrs. Gordon,” one of the neighborhood kids politely responds.
* * *
CC studies a new childhood photo, this one of Mark and herself, same age as in the last photo.
Mark is showing off his biceps in profile, fist tight, elbow bent (the classic “Look at my muscle” pose). CC is turned to the camera, with her hand overlying the bump on Mark’s arm. He is proud as can be. She is seemingly just as pleased as her brother.
This photo celebrating Mark’s triumph has a story.
CC was six. A boy had pushed her down on the ground. He was poking at her collarbone, telling her to get up again so that he could push her down again.
Mark was smaller than the bully, Gerry Tishfeld, but he gave Gerry a whack on his head, sending him to the ground. CC was very taken with her rescuer. It wasn’t the first time Mark had come through for her.
Mark pointed at Gerry. ‘That’s my sister.’. . he told Gerry in a commanding tone.
Not all of CC’s thoughts about Mark are fond ones. Particularly lately, CC sometimes wishes Mark would leave her alone. The tension that sometimes develops between them upset Mark as much as CC. For so many years they were close, unusually so, more like best friends than brother and sister.
Finally, CC’s eyes turn to a photo that always captivate her. As she studies the picture, a black-and-white photo of their mother standing at the top of the stair landing at home, shot from below. CC’s face softens. CC remembers being at the bottom of the stairs as she and her father waited for Evelyn to appear. She was five. Clearly frustrated by the wait, she looks at her father for encouragement.
“You know Mom. Everything must be just right.”
As Ira picks her up, CC croons, “Mmm, Daddy, you smell so good.” Ira has splashed on an abundant amount of Canoe, a lemon lavender aftershave. Perhaps too much, but in the 50’s men did that, as did women with their Chanel fragrances.
CC hugs him, moving her nose along her father’s neck. Gently, he puts her down. She smiles up at him. He smiles back happily. He hands her a Lifesaver.
“Cherry, right?”
“The red one.”
“Don’t tell your mother.”
“She lets me have candy.”
“But not before supper.”
Studying CC’s face, delightedly Ira moves his hand through her hair. “You got it from your mother. One day you’re going to break a lot of hearts.”
Evelyn makes her entrance on the landing. She looks amazing, in a gown that Scarlett O’Hara might have worn as a belle, before the Civil War.
“Mommy, Mommy,” CC gasps. “You look so beautiful!”
Beryl watches with a touch of amusement at white people’s foolishness. That observation in no way lessens her affection for all of the Gordons. She is part of the family and feels the same pride they feel at how stunning Evelyn can look. Still staring at the photo, eyes watering a bit, CC whispers to herself, “Beautiful.”
* * *
The three of them, Mark eleven years old, Jay thirteen, and CC eight, are excited to be in Miami during their Christmas break. They are running in every direction, checking out their room at the Fontainebleau Hotel. Mark turns the TV on. CC goes to the balcony and looks out at the ocean. Jay opens the mini fridge.
“Look at all that Coca-Cola.” He opens a bottle.
“Jay, let me have a sip,” says Mark.
“Get your own.”
“Come on. I’m thirsty.”
Jay passes Mark the bottle. He gulps a mouthful. Mark offers CC a sip.
“You want some?”
“Hey, Mark. I didn’t say you could give it to her. She’s got cooties.”
“She does not. Open another bottle.”
Mark hands the Coke to CC.
Jay goes back to the refrigerator. Evelyn enters the room. Despite her winter paleness she is stunning, her perfect figure highlighted by her bright lavender bathing suit. She admonishes the children.
“You’d better not let your father see you took something from the fridge. It costs a fortune. Here, give me your coats. I’ll put them in the closet.”
Ira enters the room. He hasn’t seen her in a bathing suit since the summer. He already imagines the gorgeous tan she will have by the end of their vacation.
“God, Evelyn. You are something else. I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
She shoots him a “stop being silly” expression.
He’s got it bad. He watches her closely. He loves the look on her face as she dusts the boys’ coats, the birdlike speed of her hand, as she uses it like a brush to rid their coats of the morning’s debris, Devil Dog crumbs.
The children are hurriedly taking off their clothes, putting on bathing suits. As they drop their clothes, Evelyn picks them up and neatly folds them on their bed.
Ira is as excited as the children. He trusts them enough to give them the green light.
“I’ll meet you by the water.”
Evelyn shouts to them as they are about to take off. “Wait.”
Jay returns from the door. She’s putting Coppertone on CC.
“You’re next, Jay.”
As she finishes CC, Jay dutifully presents his body. Evelyn hurriedly wipes the lotion all over him.
Mark doesn’t go to his mother. “You’re not putting that stuff on me.”
“Then you’re not going swimming.”
“So I won’t.”
Ira gives him a shove. “Get over there.”
Mark does as ordered. As she rubs the lotion on him, she speaks affectionately. “Why do you always have to make trouble?”
Mark isn’t listening.
As soon as the children close the door, Ira lowers Evelyn’s bathing suit and fondles her breasts.
“Get going, Ira. I don’t want them near the water without you.”
He lowers his head intending to kiss her breasts, but she moves away.
He persists.
“They’re old enough.”
She pushes his head away and pulls up her top. “You wonder where Mark gets it from?” Her eyes command him. “Get going.”
They are on the third floor. He jumps down the hotel stairs racing to beat the children to the beach. Fortunately, they got off the elevator on the wrong floor, then walked down a hall looking for a sign. There wasn’t one, but now they have found their way.
They see their father ahead, eagerly walking towards the water. The boys go flying by him. Jay and Mark race through the sand to get to the water first. Running as fast as she can, CC trails behind. She isn’t getting very far. Her feet are sinking into the sand.
“I won!” Jay shouts
“No,” Mark counters. “I won. You had to touch the water.”
Soon, Ira is riding a wave successfully, a long, glorious run to the shoreline. Eager to match him, Jay and Mark excitedly push into the ocean, Jay with a smile, Mark with a determined expression. They dive into an oncoming wave.
CC watches from the shore as she tentatively enters the water. She enters the ocean one cautious step at a time, steadily moving forward, then holds her position as a wave crashes in front of her, almost pushing her down. Ira watches, ready to protect her, but he isn’t overly concerned. They’ve done this before. She makes her way until soon she is standing with him. “It’s freezing!” she squeals.
A gigantic wave is surging forward toward them. “Watch me!” he shouts, as he dives under it.
She is almost knocked down, but she dives under the next wave like her father did. After which she stands, eyes closed, mouth wide open, proud of herself. She feels even better when she sees how pleased her father is with her courage. Determined, CC follows her father still deeper into the water. When the water is chest-high, her mouth is wide open, and her hands are held high in the air as she bobs up and down. Ira watches her happily. Once again, he rides a wave in. She follows only half successfully. Soon Mark, CC, and Jay are near one another, out deep, not apparently frustrated by their previous attempts to get the hang of it.
Mr. Gordon shouts to them. “You have to find the right wave.”
CC’s the first to succeed. A wave carries her splendidly to the shore. At the end of her run, she stands up, all smiles, drinking in the admiration the boys begrudgingly show with their smiles. She reenters the deeper water for a repeat, joining her brothers. Mark and Jay are not going to let CC get the better of them. They are soon off again with only half a run. Ira approaches CC with an inviting smile. “Come here.” With forlorn expressions they watch CC as she and their father grab the same wave and fly towards the shoreline.
Ira approaches Jay. Hand in hand, they walk farther into the ocean. A wave knocks both of them down. Jay swallows some water. Ira lifts him in the air, then stands him up. As he gags, Ira hits his back to clear his breathing. Soon enough he recovers. Jay moves ever deeper, determined to prove to his father he isn’t a wuss. But also, Ira’s protectiveness has multiplied his courage. When the water is waist-high, Ira holds Jay horizontally, and when a wave comes, he glides him into it. He has a good run. He gets up seeming cool as a breeze, but he is excited. He returns to deep water, and this time grabs a wave by himself. Mark, meanwhile, is continuing to fail.
“Come here,” Ira shouts to Mark.
“No, I can do it.”
With a touch of anger, Ira’s voice escalates. “Come here!”
“I can do it!” he answers defiantly.
Mark is Mark. Ira turns around and heads to the shore.
Evelyn arrives. All except Mark rush toward her. He remains in the water. She towels Jay and CC, drying them off. A beachboy arrives with two chairs. She lays out a blanket in front of them. They all watch as Mark makes two more tries at riding the wave. Both time he fails. But then he finally gets it done. Redeemed, he heads back almost boastfully toward the family. Evelyn has a towel ready to wrap around him. Mark takes his own towel.
CC’s cold. Her lips are blue. Evelyn hands her a sweatshirt. Soon after, she puts more Coppertone on CC’s legs. She hands the bottle to Jay. He puts some on his face. He offers the container to Mark, but he waves Jay off.
On a transistor radio, rock ’n’ roll loudly lays out a rhythm for CC, who shows Evelyn the latest dance steps (as interpreted by a six-year-old). She is doing amazingly well, but Evelyn is only briefly interested. She gives CC a perfunctory smile, but her eyes go to the boys. CC and her mother watch Ira, interested in what he’ll do next.
Ira has a Spalding. The boys immediately take the field. He throws pop-ups to each of them. They are both ballplayers, relaxed and sure handed.
“Throw it over my head,” Mark shouts.
Ira does so. Mark races back, diving into the sand to make a spectacular catch. Ira’s face lights up. He looks around to see if there were other onlookers who caught Mark’s heroics. One did. The man nods at Ira with a smile. Jay also takes off. Trotting, he smoothly catches a fly and throws the ball back.
Imitating Vince Scully, Mark narrates his own outfield play. He shouts excitedly, “Snider charges . . .”
He does a Duke Snider shoestring catch, grabbing the ball an inch from the ground and then doing Snider’s famous somersault. As he completes the somersault, landing on his feet, he triumphantly holds the ball in the air.
Smiling, Evelyn is proud of Mark’s gracefulness. How is it possible? He came from her body. She was such a klutz on a ballfield. Hats off to Ira, who put the seed in her. She looks at him lovingly.
Ira is also beaming as he catches still more people’s reactions to Mark’s catch. How could they not? Mark was shouting. He really did sound like Vince Scully. One onlooker does a thumbs-up. That gesture makes Ira’s day. And the day after that.
Evelyn shouts to the boys, “Don’t knock yourself out. We have to visit Nanny.”
* * *
Toward evening they are in Nanny’s dining room, seated around a large round oak table covered with very thick clear glass. Beneath the glass are picture after picture of Nanny’s brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, children, and grandchildren. Those from her generation are not smiling. They are dressed up, posing formally, trying to look distinguished for posterity. Everywhere around the apartment there are ever-so-slightly yellowing crocheted doilies, pillow covers, and the large bedspread, which must have taken a very long time to complete. They are presumably family heirlooms, some brought from Russia, but many crocheted in America by Nanny herself. None of the Gordons is fond of them. They give a musty, old-fashioned look to the place. Nanny gifted several doilies to Evelyn, who, try as she might, couldn’t find anywhere in the house where they looked good, but they were placed conspicuously so when her mother-in-law visits, she would see them. Even at this late date, she is still vying for Nanny’s respect. She’s 80 percent there and expects to win it all eventually, but she can never be sure. Not showing the doilies isn’t worth even a minor loss of status.
The smells of Grandma’s cooking saturate the air. The silverware has been polished and formally set out next to Grandma’s best fleishig dishes. A seltzer bottle, with its squirting top, is placed in front of Ira for him to control the dispensing of the soda. As usual, Grandma and Evelyn do the serving. They bring course after course: stuffed cabbage, followed by brisket and string beans with slivers of almonds—something Evelyn had introduced her to—and mashed potatoes with a very light amount of schmaltz, the secret ingredient of all things Nanny, and forbidden to modern palates. Jay, Mark, and CC ask for seconds and thirds.
Their stomachsqqa2z full, bursting with goodness, Jay and Mark are soon restless and bored.
“Can we be excused?” Jay asks. “The Giants are on.”
“There’s still dessert, applesauce,” replies Nanny.
Mark and Jay look at their mother with pleading eyes. She addresses Ira’s mother.
“Mom, I think we are busting out of our clothes.”
“And members of the Clean Plate Club,” CC eagerly adds.
“Which says something about your cooking. We all love your applesauce,” Evelyn tells Nanny. “It’s just that they’re full.”
“Mom, the Giants,” Ira complains.
“Go,” Nanny tells the boys.
Ira kisses her forehead. “Thanks, Mom.”
He leaves with the boys. Evelyn starts to clear the table.
“Go—CC and I will take care of it,” Nanny says proudly. “She’s the best dishwasher in the family.”
Evelyn looks at her daughter affectionately.
Nanny washes. CC dries. As soon as they finish, Nanny sits on a kitchen chair. She calls CC over, points to her lap. CC climbs on.
“You’re not the best dish dryer in the family. You’re the best dishwasher in the whole world.”
“You mean dish dryer.”
Nanny smiles. “Dish dryer.” Then: “What’s happening in school?”
“Nothing.”
CC knows Nanny is interested in only one thing.
“I’m getting good grades.”
“I’m not surprised. Are you learning how to spell?”
“Yes.”
“Spell antidisestablishmentarianism.”
“A-N-T-I . . . disestablich?”
“Ment.”
“A-N-T-I-D . . .”
“I’m teasing,” Nanny says. “That’s the longest word in the dictionary.”
“No, I can spell it. A-N-T-I-D-I-S . . .”
She’s three-quarters through the word.
“Honey, you don’t have to spell it.”
“But I can.”
“I want to continue where we left off at Thanksgiving. Okay?”
Nanny tenderly strokes CC’s cheek as CC enters into her grandmother’s domain. With a studious tone of voice, CC begins: “Daddy’s father was Joseph.”
“Your grandfather. He would have been crazy over you. Oy, was he smart. Once, he was walking by your father while he was doing his math homework. ‘That’s wrong,’ he said. ‘You have to multiply, not divide.’ Where did he learn that? They only taught arithmetic in the shtetl. This was algebra. How do you think your father got all hundreds on his math Regents?” She points to her head. “Brains from his father.” She squeezes CC’s knee. “From your grandfather. . . Go on.”
“Joseph was the son of Joshua.”
“What did Joshua do?”
“He made gold jewelry.”
“Beautiful gold jewelry. Like your grandfather. Look at my earrings. You can touch them.”
CC touches one of her grandmother’s gold earrings.
“Nice, aren’t they?”
“I love them!”
“They are yours when I pass away. Okay, go on.”
“Joshua was the son of Pincus. Pincus was . . .” Unhappily, she confesses, “I don’t remember.”
Her grandmother pinches her.
“Ow!”
With a noticeably stronger Yiddish accent, her grandmother continues: “Pincus was the son of Samuel. He studied the Torah morning till night. He felt very close to God. . . . Say it again.”
“Pincus was the son of Samuel.”
“And Samuel’s father?”
“I don’t know.”
She pinches CC harder than the first time. CC flinches but says nothing.
“Samuel was the son of Joseph, another Joseph. He wouldn’t be too happy that he’s disappeared so soon. Do you want to disappear forever?”
“No.”
“So, respect Joseph. He was a chazan. They say he had a voice that would make the angels cry. Who did that Joseph belong to?”
“Moishe.”
“Right, Moses. . . And his father?”
“Solomon.”
Nanny smiles and resumes dramatically: “King of Israel.”
“He was the king of Israel?”
“No, just named after the king. But he was wise, like Solomon.”
Her grandmother shakes her finger at CC.
“Get it right. Every last one of them is in your blood. Beautiful music, brilliance, wisdom, studiousness—they’re in you waiting for you to find them. If you honor them, you will inherit their abilities. They are you if you let them be you. If you dishonor them, you will be alone and weak.”
From CC’s expression, her grandmother sees that she has gotten her message across, which means a lot to her. She takes out her cookie bin, filled to the top with oatmeal raisin cookies she made that morning.
“You can have one.”
CC tries to take two cookies.
Nanny says in a scolding voice, “Just one!”
* * *
The children are all in bed at the hotel that night.
“Did grandma pinch you?” Mark asks.
“So what?” CC snaps back.
“I don’t like her pinching. She shouldn’t pinch.”
“You probably deserved it. What were you doing?”
“Nothing!” Mark says emphatically. “She kept saying ‘Zayn shtil.’ I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means ‘quiet.’”
“I didn’t want to be quiet.”
“So, you deserved to be pinched.”
“I like ma’s mom better, Grandma Mimi more. She doesn’t pinch.”
“But her cookies aren’t that good. Graham crackers.”
“I like graham crackers,” Mark claims.
“No, you don’t. How come you make things up?”
Jay admonishes the two of them. “Shhh. Let me sleep.”
