“All the women would sit around in a circle in the dark,” she said, “with a candle on the table. The medium would close her eyes, tremble, and say, ‘Habe sich, tischele.’ Lift yourself, little table.” (“And would it?” “Of course!”) “Women would start to scream and faint. ‘Is that you, Moishe? Oy gevalt! it’s Moishe!’ More screaming, more fainting.”
Dorothy threw me a sharp look and said, “Your mother would have marched in, turned on the light, and said, ‘What is this nonsense?’” Dorothy’s husband and I both stared open-mouthed at her. Before he could stop her she leaned toward me and hissed, “She never loved you. She never loved anybody.”
The next morning I realized that although I had not said “That’s ridiculous” before I scored off Davey, Dorothy had nonetheless heard the words. The mother in her had heard the mother in me.
I saw the man again today. This time it had been five years. My mother and I were on upper Broadway, looking for a shoe store recommended for its walking shoes. As we approached Eighty-third Street he turned the corner. Involuntarily I flinched. “What is it?” my mother asked. “Nothing,” I said. But her eyes had followed mine and she saw that I was held by the face of a man like that of fifty other derelict-looking men one might pass in a twenty-minute walk on Broadway.
“Who is that?” she pressed me. “You know him?”
“Remember the man in the doorway years ago? The one I see every now and then?”
“Yes, of course. That’s him?”
I nodded.
She turned her bold urban stare directly on him.
It happened twelve years ago. I was living on First Avenue at Twentieth Street in two whitewashed rooms flooded with eastern light, and a tree outside that filled the window in spring and summer with birds and foliage. Across the avenue Stuyvesant Town, one of the oldest middle-income housing projects in the city. On my side of the avenue Irish and Italian tenements where people had been born, raised, married, and raised families of their own in the same apartments. Binding us all together, the glittery noise and movement of First Avenue. When my aunt Sarah first came to visit she leaned out the window, breathed in the
fumes, and said, “Just what I love. Rush, rush!” I felt the same. I deeply loved First Avenue. Loved it and felt safe on it. People sat in windows watching the neighbors all day long. Shopkeepers registered every foreign and familiar face moving past their storefronts. The equation was simple: you lost anonymity, you gained protection.
One Saturday morning in June I ran down to the supermarket a block away to get a container of milk. The avenue sparkled in the early sun. The air was sweet, balmy, pollinated. Coming back from the market I suffered an allergic attack of “spring fever.” I sneezed so hard I couldn’t move: stood helpless on the street, holding myself against the rapid-fire seizure that had taken hold of my body. As the fit drew to an end, only one more sneeze in me, I could feel it, my head lifted in expectation of deliverance. At that moment my eyes locked with the eyes of a man coming toward me in the morning crowd: He was slim and Mediterranean-dark, in his forties, wearing a white shirt and black pants, carrying a brown paper lunch bag. A waiter, I thought, on his way to work. As the final sneeze was expelled my neck and shoulders lifted reflexively and I laughed, into his eyes, as it happened. Clearly, I was laughing at myself. No other interpretation of the gesture was remotely possible. The man didn’t even smile back. His eyes flicked on me, off me. He kept going, I kept going.
I crossed the street and turned into the doorway of my little building. As I was about to insert the key in the vestibule door I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned. The man in the white shirt and black pants was standing there, blocking me in. His eyes were pinpoints of rage. His mouth
was twisted to the
Dorothy threw me a sharp look and said, “Your mother would have marched in, turned on the light, and said, ‘What is this nonsense?’” Dorothy’s husband and I both stared open-mouthed at her. Before he could stop her she leaned toward me and hissed, “She never loved you. She never loved anybody.”
The next morning I realized that although I had not said “That’s ridiculous” before I scored off Davey, Dorothy had nonetheless heard the words. The mother in her had heard the mother in me.
I saw the man again today. This time it had been five years. My mother and I were on upper Broadway, looking for a shoe store recommended for its walking shoes. As we approached Eighty-third Street he turned the corner. Involuntarily I flinched. “What is it?” my mother asked. “Nothing,” I said. But her eyes had followed mine and she saw that I was held by the face of a man like that of fifty other derelict-looking men one might pass in a twenty-minute walk on Broadway.
“Who is that?” she pressed me. “You know him?”
“Remember the man in the doorway years ago? The one I see every now and then?”
“Yes, of course. That’s him?”
I nodded.
She turned her bold urban stare directly on him.
It happened twelve years ago. I was living on First Avenue at Twentieth Street in two whitewashed rooms flooded with eastern light, and a tree outside that filled the window in spring and summer with birds and foliage. Across the avenue Stuyvesant Town, one of the oldest middle-income housing projects in the city. On my side of the avenue Irish and Italian tenements where people had been born, raised, married, and raised families of their own in the same apartments. Binding us all together, the glittery noise and movement of First Avenue. When my aunt Sarah first came to visit she leaned out the window, breathed in the
fumes, and said, “Just what I love. Rush, rush!” I felt the same. I deeply loved First Avenue. Loved it and felt safe on it. People sat in windows watching the neighbors all day long. Shopkeepers registered every foreign and familiar face moving past their storefronts. The equation was simple: you lost anonymity, you gained protection.
One Saturday morning in June I ran down to the supermarket a block away to get a container of milk. The avenue sparkled in the early sun. The air was sweet, balmy, pollinated. Coming back from the market I suffered an allergic attack of “spring fever.” I sneezed so hard I couldn’t move: stood helpless on the street, holding myself against the rapid-fire seizure that had taken hold of my body. As the fit drew to an end, only one more sneeze in me, I could feel it, my head lifted in expectation of deliverance. At that moment my eyes locked with the eyes of a man coming toward me in the morning crowd: He was slim and Mediterranean-dark, in his forties, wearing a white shirt and black pants, carrying a brown paper lunch bag. A waiter, I thought, on his way to work. As the final sneeze was expelled my neck and shoulders lifted reflexively and I laughed, into his eyes, as it happened. Clearly, I was laughing at myself. No other interpretation of the gesture was remotely possible. The man didn’t even smile back. His eyes flicked on me, off me. He kept going, I kept going.
I crossed the street and turned into the doorway of my little building. As I was about to insert the key in the vestibule door I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned. The man in the white shirt and black pants was standing there, blocking me in. His eyes were pinpoints of rage. His mouth
was twisted to the
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