As Heshie outlined it, this was my job: “Listen closely, girlie, this particular number, it’s my bread and it’s my butter. And to me a life isn’t a life without it should have bread and butter. If, God forbid, I shouldn’t be able to unload this number as per usual, my wife Sadie will never let me hear the end of it that ‘Revka-down-the-block-she-should-drop-dead was able to go to Florida and get a nice tan and me — whose husband is supposed to be such a big deal in the garment world, yet — I can’t afford to go around the corner.’ Now, this number is going to roll past you at a rate of, oh, one every five seconds, but we can adjust — faster, slower, you name it. I want you should wash your hands real good. I want people that they are walking down the street and never saw you before in their lives that they should take time out to pass a remark that such clean hands they have never before seen on a person, except maybe on a surgeon as he slips into the rubber gloves, and what with the dope and dreck that they had when they saw it on the surgeon, his hands were pretty blurry, but on a bet they would say yours were cleaner. With these clean, clean hands, I want you should gently grasp each of these number 12 regulars here, pull it tenderly toward you, and then with these No. 2 Magic Markers that my brother Morris, he should live and be well, has seen fit to provide me with at a special discount, with these No. 2 Magic Markers, you should with a swish and with a swash fill in that little dime-size white spot just below where the pupik should be. Sam Spade — pardon me — with an X-ray machine should be able to look at this dress and not see dark edges from where the Magic Marker overlapped onto the part that’s already blue. He should not be able to see one little hint, one little breath, one little zephyr of a white spot left over from where the No. 2 Magic Marker, God forbid, missed. Have I conveyed the importance of this task? Yes? Well, then, begin. I will stand here until I see that you’ve got the hang of it, the swing of it, the art of it. Good, good. I knew you were the one for the job when I saw you walk in. I will come back in an hour to check on your progress. I figure that with hard work and steady effort, you should be able to say to me at six o’clock on the dot, just before I am ready to lock up and go home to Sadie the nudzh, ‘Mr. Herschberg, I have the honor of informing you that I have finished my appointed task and the number 12 average is, thank God, ready for shipment.’”
Well, children, the finish is, I walked out of there cross-eyed. Before I had gone three feet, I had to resist the impulse to color the spots before my eyes. That cleared up after a block or two, but now if I see a white spot on a dog, I want to fill it in.
I saw Sadie Herschberg as I was leaving. She was so fat she could have used a bra on her kneecaps — about a 38D. I mean to tell you, she was 360 degrees fat. Herschberg himself was a beanpole — a loksh. When they went down the street together, one streaking, one shloomping, they looked like a lame number 10 or maybe an 01, depending.
Newark
A few minutes ago, I was listening to the local TV newscast, and the announcer said something like: “Fred Jones of Rahway, New Jersey, has been indicted for milking a bankrupt kosher meat company of thirty-three thousand dollars.” Milchedig and fleishedig! A frosk in pisk to Fred.
Happiness, Montana
What am I doing in Montana? What am I doing in a town called Happiness? Nothing. So I make long-distance calls to the circulation departments of the New York Review of Books, the Partisan Review, and Commentary. I say, “Hello, [name of magazine]? This is Miss Cream at your fulfillment house in Iowa [all fulfillment houses are in Iowa]. Could you please give me a list of your subscribers in Happiness, Montana? Our computer has gone haywire, and we are double-checking our records.” There is a short wait, and I look out the window at the pyorrheic mountains while New York checks its records. New York comes back on the line with a list of two names. In each case, they are the same two names.
Then I call up the local newspaper, the Happiness Chronicle, and speak to the editor-publisher-reporter-layout man. I say, “Hello, Chronicle? This is Life magazine calling. Miss Sweet here. We are doing a survey on ethnic and religious groups in Montana and want to include your town in the survey. We know you’re on top of things out there, and if you can help us we’d be glad to mention your name in the piece we’re doing. Our question is twofold: (a) How many members of the Jewish faith are there in Happiness? And (b) What are their names?” The editor-publisher-reporter-layout man says, “Well, yes, there’s a Jewish fella out here — Mel Blankenstein. He’s the only one of Jewish persuasion in this town. A real nice fella too. Keeps to himself. Joe Kerry down to the superette does land-office business on farmer’s cheese because of Mel, I hear tell.” Then I say, “Thank you so much for your cooperation, sir. Look for your name and the name of that fine paper you’re running in the pages of Life magazine.”
I hang up and I compare my Partisan Review — New York Review — Commentary list. Yes, Mel Blankenstein, reader of the above-named magazines, is one and the same Mel Blankenstein that is the nice fellow who has a taste for pot cheese. But — wait a minute. There is another name on my magazine list. What of that? I stare at the name. The name is Leonard Birdsong III. Leonard (surely Lenny) Birdsong (Feigelzinger, perhaps, or is the last name simply a flight of Wasp-inspired fantasy?). And III, of course just means third generation on Rivington Street. I now know something that nobody else in town knows — not even Mel. I know that Leonard Birdsong III is a crypto-Jew. My God, he’s passing — the geshmat!
I look at the two-page phone book and, yes, there they both are, the proud Jew and the meshumad. I decide to send Lenny a note before I leave town. My note will say: “Dear Lenny: Can you come over Friday night? My wife will fix you a meal like in the olden days. A little gefilte fish, a little chrain, some nice hot soup, a nice chicken. Who knows? Maybe a kugel even. Come on, Lenny, enough shlepping trayf home from Kerry’s Superette (though the pot cheese is unbeatable — imported from New York). It would be an averah if we Jews didn’t stick together, especially way out here. I am so sick and tired of looking at goyim I could plotz! We’ll expect you early. Best, Mel. P.S.: If you like pepper, please bring your own. We don’t keep it in the house. It’s such a goyische thing, pepper, but to each his own. M.B. P.P.S.: Bring this note with you. I am writing my autobiography and ask all my friends to save any invitations, postcards, etc., I send them. I could have sent you a carbon, but I feel it’s so much nicer to receive an original. So bring it with you and I’ll keep it on file under F for Feigelzinger. You can refer to it whenever you wish to — if you happen to be writing your memoirs also. M.B.”