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Thanksgiving

Drew Marshall

    Twin sons from different mothers. That’s what we always said to each other. His father died at forty-five when Eli was five. My father died at forty-five when I was five. We were both only children. As fate would have it, our mothers never remarried. Was it just a coincidence, that Eli’s father’s plot was right next to my father’s family plot, in a huge Cemetery outside of Hackensack, New Jersey?
    These facts built a bond between two childhood friends, that could never be broken. We were born and raised in Brooklyn, a few miles apart. We met at the tender age of eight. Our mothers became close friends, after attending a Parents Without Partners meeting. A few years later, Becky and Eli moved to Queens in 1969. Mom and I followed in 1974.
    Mom passed away at eighty-two, in 2002, under bizarre circumstances. She succumbed to pneumonia, while in the hospital for a routine, ambulatory procedure. Becky lasted until 2008. She was ninety-five. I hadn’t seen her in three years. My second mother was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease. Only occasionally, did she recognize her son. I wanted to visit Becky, but Eli advised against it, so I complied.
    I was stunned when Eli died at fifty-four, from a heart attack, nine days after we buried Becky. There wasn’t any room left in the New Jersey cemetery, so his widow bought plots in Flushing, a few miles away from their apartment.
    Eli’s job as a special education teacher was difficult enough, being assigned to various dangerous and unsavory locations. It most certainly took its toll on him. He was also the proud father of bright, beautiful, baby girl, who he and his wife adopted from China. It’s big business, and not just for Americans. It took half a dozen trips overseas and almost two years before Eli and Shana could bring Betty back to America, not to mention over twenty thousand dollars.
    They married late in life at forty-eight, a short courtship. It was Shana’s second marriage. Shana worked as a nurse at a Manhattan hospital, mostly night shifts or weekends. It was her idea to adopt. Shana, in Hebrew, means beautiful rose. She was neither.
    She had done her required military service in her native Israel, refueling jet planes. The way she barked orders out to everyone, made me believe the woman thought she was still in the service. Shana was definitely a contrarian, always complaining about something. The total opposite of my bosom buddy. It’s said that opposites attract, but how long do they last together?
    The closest I ever came to speaking to Eli about this, was when we were alone in his living room. I told him it seemed that he and Shana had little in common. He agreed with me that on the surface it was true. But on the few important things in life, they saw eye to eye.
    I left it at that. You don’t tell one of your best friends that you can’t stand his wife. As Percy Sledge sang, in the classic soul song; When a Man Loves a Woman, he’ll turn his back on his best friend, if he puts her down.

***

    I missed Betty’s birthday last year and wound up mailing the gift to her. Since Eli’s passing, I usually saw the kid once a year, at Thanksgiving. Her birthday was at the beginning of November. Shana’s saving grace was that she was an excellent cook, and you never turned down a dinner invitation. I didn’t remember what Betty’s favorite ice cream flavor was. In addition to her birthday gift, I brought with me two gallons of Turkey Hill’s Neapolitan ice cream. I was expecting two other couples to be there, college friends of Eli’s.
    I was greeted enthusiastically by the ten-year-old and gave her the ice cream. I told Betty to put it in the freezer before it melts. “Let’s eat it now!” was her response. I told her it was for dessert. “I want it now.” she countered. I repeated my request and added I would give her the birthday gift after she returns from the kitchen.
    “BRING THAT ICE CREAM IN HERE NOW BETTY!” shouted Shana from the kitchen. Her shrill voice sliced through me like a knife. The child swiftly ran into the kitchen with our dessert.
    The kitchen was really a kitchenette. For three quarters of a million dollars, this two-bedroom, two-bathroom coop apartment with a doorman, in the prime real estate area of Forest Hills, should have a full kitchen, I thought. Shana popped her head through the doorway to acknowledge my presence, in her usual distant manner. I spotted another character that made me uneasy on the TV screen, Betty’s favorite, SpongeBob. The enormously popular and controversial square sponge character, that lives on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
    Betty tore through the gift wrapping of my art kit and immediate popped onto the sofa and started drawing with the colored pencils. I was sharing the child’s joy she was feeling over her artistic work-in-progress, when a totally bald man marched straight at me from the kitchenette. Turned out to be Jeff. I hadn’t seen him for a year and his hair was gone. I almost didn’t recognize him at first.
    “Anna is dead. Did you know Anna is dead?” he asked. His wife of twenty years managed a women’s clothing store in Bayside. Jeff delivered mail for the Post Office, after dropping out of community college. Her death was news to me.
    Before I could respond he added. “Three months ago, this week. She died in her sleep from heart failure.” I saw Betty looking up at the cartoon and laughing, while trying to process what Jeff had just told me.
    I asked Shana when Larry and Cathy would be arriving. “They moved to Florida six month ago.” was her casual reply. Cathy was also a special ed teacher. Larry hadn’t worked in fifteen years, due to a breakdown. He never sought treatment and had become a shut in. Cathy was about two years short of retirement. This seemed to be a very abrupt move on their part.
    I called Shana every few months to say hello and see how they were getting along. I just wanted to stay in touch with Betty and keep the lines of communication open.
    Shana didn’t think enough of me to inform me of Anna’s death or Cathy and Larry’s sudden departure.
    Shana was recuperating from a double mastectomy, before her husband passed on. I offered up my services as baby sitter or anything else I could help her with, but was told it was not needed. This bitter woman was not the type to ask for help. My mother had a lumpectomy procedure a few years before she passed. I was not unsympathetic to Shana’s situation. She not only lost Eli’s income, but hers as well. Donald, the wealthy brother-in-law, paid off Shana’s mortgage. The widow managed to secure a part time, administrative position at the hospital upon her return to duty.
    I delighted in watching Betty drawing with her new art set. Occasionally the ten-year old looked up to the forty-inch television screen, in order to keep tabs on SpongeBob’s latest activities.
    “Well, it has been a year since Donald Trump was elected president. I always thought Andrew Cuomo would make a great president.” Jeff opined.
    I turned to him and started to relate the story about the time I spent the weekend handing out flyers for Mario Cuomo. He was running against mayor Ed Koch for the governor’s office, in November of 1982. I spoke softly so Betty couldn’t hear me.
    I liked Cuomo and loved Koch. Ed was great for New York. I wanted him to remain the Big Apple’s mayor. Ben asked me to come along for the ride so I did. Ben was my best friend and no stranger to community activism. Ben was a veteran at this sort of thing, as well as a veteran from two tours of duty in Vietnam. We stood at a cross street off Broadway, on the Upper West Side in Manhattan.
    I told Jeff that Ben had a wicked sense of humor. Occasionally he would shout out; “Don’t vote for the homo, vote for Cuomo!” This was a saying that was bandied about at the time, in reference to Ed’s possibly being gay, but not identifying as such. As soon as I finished my sentence, Betty looked at me and asks; “Do you mean homosexual? What’s a homosexual?”
    She had heard the word, but did not know its meaning. Shana called Jeff into the kitchen to help her bring out the food. I was left to field Betty’s inquiry on my own.
    “You can ask your mother after dinner.” was the best response I could come up with.
    I would have sworn that Betty was so engaged in the cartoon and her artwork, that she wasn’t paying any attention to me. I was reminded of the fact that adults needed to be careful about what they say in the presence of children. You simply don’t know what kids are hearing or how they will interpret it.
    “Are you a Christian? was the next question this angel faced youngster hurled at me. This really threw me for a loop.
    “No. I’m of the Jewish faith. Why did you ask me that?” I queried.
    “You have a beard. Jesus had a beard.” she innocently shot back.
    I tried explaining to her that many men have beards and are of different faiths. I thought about telling her that Jesus himself was a Jew, but thankfully she lost interest as soon as the food was brought out. The girl dropped her sketch board, jumped up, and ran over to the dining table to seat herself for our Thanksgiving meal.
    Whenever I tried to tell Betty something about Eli or Becky, Shana would immediately contradict me on what I knew to be a fact. This, regardless of whatever Eli said or didn’t say to his wife about himself or his mother. I kept quiet out of respect and not wanting to challenge her in front of the child. Betty had been told she was adapted and seemed at peace with that fact.

    The final divide between us came when I spoke at the headstone unveiling, a year after my friends’ death. I was almost left speechless when I saw the headstone. Shana had omitted, Beloved Son. You have to be a Beloved Son, before can become a beloved husband and father. She never got along with Becky. As a matter of fact, they hated each other’s guts. I admit Becky was a handful in her final years, demanding, irrational, but there was no excuse for this omission. This was something for which I will never forgive her. To my mind it was deliberate, not an oversight. Common sense told me to be silent on the matter.
    The truth was I never cared much for Larry or Jeff, but I only saw them a few times a year, if that. I got along well enough with Kathy and Anna. They weren’t on the same wave length as Eli and I. Eli had a genius I.Q. and had been a member of Mensa for a while. He left because he couldn’t stand being surrounded by elitist snobs. Ironically, he wound up marrying one.
    As a favor to my confident, we agreed to let Larry be best man at the wedding. It would get the shut in, out of his apartment. Larry seldom said much in front of me. he dressed very casually at the wedding, and showed up at the funeral looking like a homeless bum, in dirty and tattered clothes. I can’t fault Eli for hanging on to these two couples, as I’ve done the same thing with friends from my younger days, that I’d long outgrown.
    Shana put on some Hebrew music that both Eli and I detested. She only listened to this and classical music. Eli and I enjoyed a wide variety of music, but were rock and rollers at heart. We attended our first half dozen rock concerts together back in the 1970’s. Seems like only yesterday.
    At some point during our small talk, Betty shouted out; “BE QUIET! Abba can’t hear the music!” The three of us stared at the young innocent. Abba was Hebrew for father. I never heard Betty call Eli by any other term.
    For some reason I declared; “If your father is here with us now, he can hear both the music and our conversation.”
    Silence ensued. At that moment, the specter of death seemed to permeate the air like a thick fog. The host mentioned something about her sister up in Boston. Elena taught online classes in Hebrew. I knew Shana was envious of her sister. Shana’s brother-in-law was a millionaire who earned his fortune in computers. Donald had three children and lived in a mansion with servants. When I asked our hostess if she ever considered moving up to Boston to be closer to her family, she bit my head off.
    “ARE YOU CRAZY? she shouted. In a slightly lower voice, she continued. “Do you know how cold Boston winters are?” She proceeded to tell me. I was ready to leave the premises then and there. Even Betty was shocked and taken by surprise after her mom’s sudden outburst. One look at the child’s face said it all. To change the subject, I asked how Betty was doing in school. No one had asked how I was doing. I was stuck in neutral, my life was a bed of thorns, not of roses. But I knew better than to share anything with this crew.
    Upon finishing our feast, Betty jumped up and ran into the kitchenette. She returned with a half-eaten popsicle from the day before. “What about the chocolate-vanilla-strawberry ice cream I bought for you?” I asked.
    “I don’t want it.” she snapped. The adults finished off the two gallons swiftly and assuredly, with a minimal amount of talk.
    
    I offered to help with the dishes but Jeff quickly volunteered and they both disappeared out of view. It looked like they had developed some sort of strange bond between them, since they were now both widows. I knew that Shana had spoken disparagingly of Jeff in the past.
    Betty returned to the TV so she could catch up with SpongeBob. She then hopped on to the sofa to continue with her creative efforts. I surfed through some titles on the freestanding bookcase and pulled out a book on Rene Magritte, the Belgian surrealist artist. I sat on a chair next to the sofa and started to leaf through the colored prints in this edition.
    The schoolgirl had told me earlier in the evening that she wanted to be an artist and a ballerina. Betty suddenly looked up and asked; “What are you doing?”
    I responded that I was looking at the book on Magritte, one of my favorite artists. I added that if she continued doing well with her drawing, maybe I’ll be reading one of her books someday.
    “Well stop it! It’s my book and I don’t want you looking at it!” she said with a nastiness that I had never heard from her before. I decided to ignore Betty’s remark and returned the book to the shelf. Shana had told me earlier that the young lady was cranky. Her mother had been dragging the child around for several days, shopping for the food and preparing it. Betty had been kept up long past her nine o’clock bedtime last evening.
    I walked over to the Yamaha Keyboard positioned against the wall on the other side of the living room. Betty had played a perfect version of Over the Rainbow, prior to dinner and had been taking lessons for several months.
    I too had recently acquired a similar keyboard along with some guitars. I rediscovered a passion for these instruments, that I hadn’t touched in almost twenty years. I had barely gotten through the notes of the E Major Blues scale, before this precious little flower growled. “Stop it! That’s my keyboard and I don’t want you touching it!”
    I realized I had overstayed my welcome and it was now time for me to leave. After Shana ripped me apart for having asked her about relocating to Boston, I already had my excuse to call it a night and make an early exit. I shut the keyboard off and marched into the kitchen.
    I screwed on a smile and tried to be polite and charming long enough to be gracious and say goodnight. I thanked the widow of my childhood friend for inviting me. Told her and Jeff it was good seeing them again. I had a wonderful evening, but all good thing must come to an end. I was expecting the exterminator at my apartment, first thing in the morning. I complimented her on the gourmet meal and wished them a happy and healthy new year. I turned to leave when Jeff told me to stay a bit longer and he would drive me home. I wondered how much a bit longer would be. I was dying to get out of here. A free ride instead of waiting for the subway at this late hour, on a Sunday evening, was an offer I chose not to refuse.
    I retreated to the bathroom to answer natures call and then wondered into Betty’s room to check out her toys. I paused to ponder at the framed photo of Eli’s wedding day in the hallway, taken a decade and a half ago. I was featured prominently in this distant memory, as well. I walked out onto the terrace.

    After Becky’s funeral, Eli and I stood on the terrace looking down the boulevard. We had a clear view of the Kennedy House, a luxury, high rise apartment, well beyond my means. He and I joked about when we were college students, we vowed that someday, we would live in the Kennedy House. I congratulated Eli on his success, as he had come the closest.
    “I’m glad we’re still friends.” I told him.
    “I love you like a brother.” he responded. We hugged. That was the last time I saw him.
    You never know when you are seeing someone for the last time. Too many things are left unsaid. It happened with my mother and several others. At least there was one person, close to me, that always knew how I felt. Eli and I didn’t agree on everything, far from it. That would be quite boring, if it had been the case. But unlike my other friends, I can’t remember any time when our emotions got the better of us, and we raised our voices in anger towards each other.
    As Jeff and I were leaving, I opened my arms and kneeled for a goodbye hug. Betty was demonstrably affectionate and we always hugged at the end of my visits.
    Instead, she sticks her hand out, offers me a sideways glance, and indifferently says; “A handshake will do.”
    Another dagger, right through my heart. I knew I was never setting foot in this apartment house again and would mail Betty’s gifts to her from now on. Without me, my mother, Becky, or Eli around, I could only hope the child wouldn’t turn into a heartless shrew like her adapted mother.
    I gave Jeff directions to my place as we headed down Queens Boulevard. He lived in Bayside, which was about ten miles away from our present location in Forest Hills. Jeff was driving me an additional three miles out of his way, to my home. Bayside was in the opposite direction, and he was not familiar with my neighborhood. A light rain began to fall.
    Traffic crawled along at a snail’s pace, as we approached the Union Turnpike intersection in Kew Gardens. We had come to a full stop. There had been a horrible accident. A silver-grey Toyota had hit the lamppost. The front half of the car was crushed. A crowd of people had gathered and several police officers were trying to assess the situation.
    To my immediate right, the driver was lying face down in the street. His motionless body, a few feet away from the demolished vehicle. This stranger was covered in a pool of blood. His smashed eyeglasses, lay by his head. He appeared to be about forty years old. I rolled up the window.
    Throughout dinner, Jeff had only mentioned Anna once or twice in passing. It had been almost three months since her untimely passing. I assumed he accepted the fact, and was making the transition. However, he chose this moment, after barely acknowledging the accident that kept us from moving forward, to bear his soul, or to simply use me as a sounding board.
    “My life in New York is over with. I can’t stay here without Anna. My mother wants me to move in with her and my new stepfather in Fort Lauderdale. I’m going to move in with my sister in Washington D.C. She has a good job with the Red Cross there and says she can probably find me something in their organization. I’m serving notice to the post office tomorrow.” he cried.
    “You’re nine months away from completing your twenty years and retiring. What about your pension? I asked.
    “I don’t care.” was Jeff’s response. I turned to look at the dead man, when traffic finally started moving again. I was ready to get out and walk the half mile back to my apartment at this point.
    Jeff remained conspicuously silent for the remainder of the trip. His Corolla hung a left off Queens Boulevard, and we passed the apartment building where Becky and Eli had lived. I pointed this fact out to Jeff and he mumbled; “Everyone’s dying on me.”
    It suddenly hit me that Jeff’s car was the same exact shade of silver-grey, as that of the deceased man’s auto. I gave him very specific instructions on getting back to Bayside. I was angry and upset over tonight’s events.
    I was home for about half an hour, before I realized I did not take my sciatica seating pad with me. Either I left it in Jeff’s car or in Shana’s apartment. The cushion cost me seventy-five dollars. I had been suffering from a herniated disc several years ago, at the time I purchased it.
    I had one at home and a backup for when I was on the road. The pad was small, comfortable, inconspicuous, and easy to travel with. Unfortunately, the company that made this product, was out of business.
    I reluctantly approached the phone and dialed Shana’s number. She told me Jeff had ignored my instructions and gotten lost. He doubled back to Forest Hills to return the pad to her. This woman, who I remember taking an instant disliking to when we first met, said she would leave the pad with the doorman in the morning. I would stop by in the afternoon and retrieve the item.
    Immediately upon me my return from Forest Hills the next afternoon, knowing she was at the hospital, I called Shana and left a voice message on her machine. I had the pad, thanked her, and quickly hung up. It had been a terrible Thanksgiving. An evening I hoped to forget, but knew I never would.
    The following November, I mailed Betty’s gift to her, by priority mail. Delivery was confirmed. We hadn’t communicated during the previous year. I received no response for my efforts. I was foolish to expect any.

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