February 15, 2013--2,000th Blog Posting--Chapter 26--"Dirty Jew Bastards!"

The wedding dinner was proceeding without a hitch.  That is, until Jack Kelly began to weave his way toward the microphone. 

The waiters, who had manned the Viennese dessert table, had put aside their flaming swords (brandishing such swords is how they announced the entrance of the rolling carts of pastries and other delights) and thus it was clear it was about time to send the new bride, Lydia, and the groom, me, off on their honeymoon in Canada.   

Just as we were beginning to move toward the room where we would change into our departure outfits, as carefully chosen as Lydia’s wedding gown and my stripped pants, Jack, who had had more than a few belts, appeared to want to say something.  And so he staggered to and then grabbed hold of the band’s microphone, as much to use it as to support himself. 

But before continuing I should tell you how he came to be invited to the wedding in the first place since it was considerably more complicated than simply sending an invitation to him and his wife Rose. 

Rose was my father’s long lost sister who had resurfaced just a few years before, after a life of living and working on the road.  Most recently as a prostitute.  You are likely wondering how a Nice-Jewish-Girl from a middle-class Brooklyn home wound up as a prostitute.  When I found out that she existed and then subsequently learned about her profession, you can be certain I too wondered.  In fascination, since all my other aunts were either traditional housewives or worked as bookkeepers in the City. 

Rose’s mother, my Grandma Annie, on the other hand, always wanted one of her children to be a star—not in medical school, law school, or in business, but on stage.  And Rose, the last in the line of her thus-far untalented children, was, I learned, Annie’s final hope.  So from an early age she dragged her from talent agent to talent agent, from tryout to tryout, from amateur hour to amateur hour, thinking that since her final child looked like Shirley Temple and sang like Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, she would be a star before she turned eight.  

But in spite of Annie’s dreams and her assessment of Rose’s looks and talents, all the agents, all the producers, all the amateur hour hosts thought otherwise.  Showbiz then and now was a crass business and what Rose heard and Annie ignored was, “She’s ugly and she sings off key.”  

Annie was if nothing else persistent; and after years of being schlepped from place to place, when Rose turned 16, to get away from her mother and her vicarious dreams, she ran off on her own.  Heading West.  

And after she disappeared, Annie pretended that she had never existed, shredding all her 8x10 glossies, while her rivalrous siblings, who were relieved to see Rose gone, also pretended she never existed—the four of them could now resume competing for their mother’s begrudged dollops of attention.  Drifting back to the way it was before “what’s-her-name” arrived and spoiled all of their lives. 

And so I grew up thinking my father had just two brothers, Sonny and Ben, and one sister, Madeline.  

During the first fifteen years of my life, my father never ventured out further than a very occasional trip to Jersey City to visit his beloved Aunt Bess.  So when one day he announced he was going to Wyoming, to say the very least, we were stunned.  We even felt the need to double check the map to see if there might be a Wyoming, New Jersey.  There did not appear to be such a place; and so we were compelled to assume, no matter how unimaginable, that he was headed considerably west of the Garden State.  And we knew this for sure when he said he’d be gone for at least a week and that he was going by train.  

My father disappeared and ten days later returned, without any explanation about why he had left in the first place, but with a small pouch full of silver dollars, casually remarking, as he tossed the deerskin sack on the kitchen table, that this was the basic currency in, yes, Wyoming, Wyoming.  That was all he revealed.  Not a word about the train or what he saw much less why he went or what he experienced.  

He just gave the silver dollars to me, as if that were explanation enough.  As if to say, “Son, in case you’re wonderin’, I moseyed off to Wyoming to get you a fist full of dollars.”  But, in truth, they were so exotic and magical to me that I quickly lost curiosity about why he had gone West and instead spent hours fantasizing about how these well worn coins might have circulated among cowboys in saloons and maybe even among Indians. 

About a year later, without warning, Grandma Annie.  Most stricken was Madeline, who was irreconcilable in grief.  In her moaning, I thought I heard her sobbing, “Rose, Rose, where is my Rose?”  I imagined in her grief and delirium she was speaking in a Jewish version of Tongues.  “Rose, Rose, where’s my Rose?.” 

But from my parents’ furtive glances and averted eyes I began to sense that there was a better story here than they had thus far revealed.  Finally, after further attempts to ignore Madeline’s wailing, and relentless prodding from me, they told me that she was talking about Rose, someone she knew and was calling out to during these sad hours after her mother’s sudden death.  

Not satisfied that this was the whole or best story, I pressed on, asking again, “But who is this Rose?”  

My mother, after trying to change the subject, at last confessed, “Rose is Madeline’s and your father’s sister.” 

“Her what?  His what? They don’t have another sister, there are just three brothers—Dad, Uncle Sonny and Uncle Ben.  Am I missing someone?” 

“Yes, you have another aunt--Aunt Rose.” 

And then bit by bit, story by story, I learned the details of my new aunt’s life, leading to the dénouement--that she had run off to Wyoming at sixteen; she had worked in a bar; and she had “entertained” ranchers in a room upstairs.  And then she had been arrested and went to jail.  “And, remember when years ago your father went to Wyoming,” my mother looked around and then whispered,” I nodded, “Well he went there to get her out of jail and bring her home.” 

“Home where?  To Brooklyn?  Why haven’t we visited her?” 

“Actually,” my mother replied, “she lives in Buffalo.  With her husband.” 

“You mean I also have another uncle?” 

“Yes, I guess so, Jack Kelly.  But he’s not Jewish.”  

And so, it came to pass that I met my new aunt and uncle for the first time at Annie’s funeral because Madeline insisted there would be no funeral unless her sister Rose was there.  Over the strenuous, very strenuous objections of her brothers, especially Sonny’s (the family millionaire who had a mansion on the water in Sands Point and who did not want his Long Island friends to know he had a sister who didn’t go to the beauty parlor much less who had a goy for a husband and had spent much of her adult life as a prostitute), because of Madeline’s insistence, my Aunt Rose and Uncle Jack were allowed to slip into the chapel in the funeral home but were not permitted to go to the cemetery for the burial much less show up afterwards for the shiva. 

After this quick glimpse of them, true, they were spirited off to the train and sent home to Buffalo. 

I must admit that even that brief encounter fired my fevered adolescent imagination—Rose in that instant became my most intriguing aunt, quite an antidote to the others who resided in my affections more as loving and sacrificing than alluring, mysterious, and sinful.  As I relentlessly counted and stacked my cache of silver dollars, I thought about how each of them might have perhaps been Rose’s.  Best, of course, were those she might have earned in that room above the bar where she entertained her ranchers.  It was time for me to move on from the Lone Ranger and Tonto and instead associate my own Aunt Rose with the Wild West.

Thus, some years later, when it was time for Lydia and I to make up a list of whom to invite to the wedding, when we got to the category of uncles and aunts, I insisted that we include all of my aunts and uncles—Jack Kelly and Rose too. 

This precipitated a dispute within the Zazlo family.  With her life story fully out in the open, my father shouted, “I will not have that who-er at my wedding!” 

By then I had become unafraid enough to confront him—“First of all it’s not your wedding, it’s mine.  And if we are inviting Sonny and Ben and Madeline we are also inviting Rose.” 

This battle, and it was just that, lasted for weeks.  If it had gone on much longer, Lydia and I would have eloped.  My father began to sense that and thus relented.  The Kellys were duly invited and accepted.  I couldn’t wait to see them again.  

They were the last to arrive for the ceremony and slid into seats in the last row of the chapel—just as at Annie’s funeral.  But I was hoping that after the ceremony they wouldn’t steal away to Buffalo before I could talk with them and begin to get to know them and maybe even, if I had had enough wine, ask about their time in Wyoming, including, I hoped, what went on upstairs above the bar. 

They did stay on and joined their siblings and in-laws at the table assigned to the Zazlo aunts and uncles.  As Lydia and I worked our way among the tables it was obvious that that table was uncharacteristically quiet.  Under more ordinary circumstances the tummling going on there would have drowned out even the three-piece band.  But I did get a chance to talk with them, albeit superficially—this was neither the right setting nor time to try to find out anything about Rose’s ranchers.  But we promised to try to drive down to Buffalo after our Canadian honeymoon so we might have a real visit. 

We were interrupted by the flaming swords, which signaled the final festivities.  And then Jack got up, wobbling from considerably more than a glass or two, and made his way forward to where the band was.  He turned to them and whispered something and then spoke into the microphone— 

“I want to sing a song dedicated to my new niece and nephew.  They are wonderful people, having brought their aunt, my wife Rose, back into the family after all these years.” 

With that, the band began to play and he sang a beautiful rendition of “Danny Boy.”  It was the highlight of the wedding and sent us off to Canada basking in the tearful spirit of love and happiness 

*    *    * 

A few months later, my cousin Lori, Uncle Sonny’s daughter, was to be married in a huge tent on the lawn of their property on Long Island Sound.  We knew it would be something sumptuous, dwarfing what Lydia and I had been able to provide at the catering hall of the South Orange Jewish Temple in New Jersey.  We heard about plans for a trellised wall of orchids that would form the backdrop for the ceremony and the fountains of Champagne that would dot the grounds and the white-gloved French service and the eleven-piece orchestra.  It would be something special.  How special it turned out I could not begin to imagine.

Since Jack and Rose had made our earlier wedding so memorable and within the Zazlo family feelings toward them had warmed, they were once again invited and they once again accepted. Lydia and I had not been able to arrange to visit them during our honeymoon and hoped that at Lori’s wedding there would be time to sit together and exchange life stories.

All began quite well.  Though my immediate family was a lfeeling competitive about the dueling weddings, we were nonetheless having a good time and feeling no pain.  There was a Champagne fountain every ten yards and it was difficult to resist frequent stops as we circulated among the tables and guests.  It was indeed a beautiful affair. 

Inside the soaring tent, the tables were covered in lace and topped with gold and crystal.  The orchestra had set up before the incredible, as advertised, orchard-covered trellis.  All that appeared to be missing were tropical birds. “For the next daughter,” my father muttered, “they’ll have parrots.” 

There were at least eight courses and wine flowed along with limitless quantities of Uncle Sonny’s favorite, Chivas Regal.  The music and dancing were elegant.  Uncle Sonny and his wife Aunt Lola kvelled, glowed with pride.  All that hard work to be able to afford these things, all of this success so sumptuously on display made the long days and years of struggle and scheming worth it.  This was what America was about.  So what if none of their daughters had gone to Ivy league colleges; if this wedding was an intimation of the future, at least they all would marry well and live nearby in equivalent houses by the water with sterling silver everything. 

Then, as a culmination to all of this splendor and happiness, after a literal barge of dessert was launched and consumed, Jack Kelly pulled himself to his feet.  With a little more difficulty than at our wedding, because he had made frequent visits to those Champaign fountains, he again wove his long way toward the orchestra and once more took hold of the microphone.  Perhaps leaning on it to steady himself.  But this time not whispering anything conspiratorially to the conductor. 

In anticipation the crowd silenced.  Would he sing “Danny Boy” again or something even more special considering the surroundings and how much money they had spent per couple on the catering. 

With a voice more slurry than a few months ago, Uncle Jack began to speak to that rapt audience— 

“I want to say a few words to the Zazlos.  Specially to Rose’s sister and brothers.  All along you knew about the kind of life she was living in Wyoming and how she needed to make a living.  You knew that she was always in trouble and even a few times wound up in jail.”  I noticed the beginning of stirring at the Zazlo table.  “You knew all those things, and what did you do?  I’ll tell you--Nothing.  Not one thing. Here you are with this mansion,” his gesture took in the tent, the rolling lawn, and the faux-chateau.  “You have money for a thousand orchids and for your sister, your own flesh-and-blood, you pretended she didn’t exist and, when she needed you, you did nothing.”  He spat, “Nada.” 

My father was on his feet. 

“You spent a fortune on this wedding and your sister needs new teeth.  Did you raise a hand to help her?  No.”  My father was tacking his way between the tables, heading toward Jack and that trellis.  “And now she’s living with me, an Irishman who loves her,” he began to sob, “in a five-floor walkup in Buffalo surrounded by coloreds, and what did you do?  Again, nothing.”  My father was about fifteen feet from him.

“You know what you are?”  The microphone was screeching with feedback and the sound and his words was ricocheting up and down Gamecock Lane and across all of Sands Point. 

“You’re just a bunch of dirty Jew bastards.  That’s what you are--Jew bastards.” 

My father pounced on him, his brother-in-law, and both, entwined in a gruesome embrace, toppled in among the retreating musicians.  Cousins and Zazlo friends leaped out of their chairs and screamed for the police.  Cousin Lori, the bride, her wedding ruined, ran hysterically into the Zazlo mansion.  

And the trellis, with those bouquets of South American orchids, came crashing down on the musicians, my father, and Jack who remained locked in a drunken tangle, rolling on top of each other until stilled by exhaustion. 

When the police finally arrived (we learned later that Lori, locked in the house, had called them), they helped direct the fleeing guests to their cars out onto Sands Point Road and safety. 

As the mayhem began to subside, the police asked what to do with Jack Kelly and Rose, the “perpetrators,” who stood off to the side in calm contemplation of Sonny’s world, taking in the sweep of the gardens, the statuary, and the immense house.  Since there was no legitimate statute under which to arrest Jack (in spite of this my father and Sonny tried to convince the police to come up with a way to do so), and because they had come to the wedding by train, the Long Island Railroad, someone would have to get them back to town. 

The police indicated they would take them to the station, but I stepped forward to say that I would drive them and wait with them until a train to New York City came through. 

Which I did.  And during those two hours, Rose told me her life story, including how she earned those silver dollars.