American
Auschwitz
By
Clifford W. Lazar
Copyright Ó
1985, 2002, by Clifford W. Lazar
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Sid Leibowitz, the liquor wholesaler, 47 years old, thought this was going to be the usual vacation. He would be terribly wrong. He drove his Buick station wagon, filled with family and the stuff of their summer vacation: clothes, tennis rackets and baggage up the winding mountain road, through the Maine forest. He had the window down, even though the air conditioner was running. His arm rested on the windowsill with the fingers of his left hand gripping the upper casing of the window, forcing the pine-scented air to blow over his face. From time to time he'd suck the air in through his widened nostrils and feel the resins hit and dissolve with a sour taste in the dampness of the back of his throat.
Judy, his wife and the former college girl he never seduced, the mother of his two children, sat at the far right of the front seat.
The space between them contained no hands or warm glows, but rather echoed of old forgotten bickers and twits and fresh forgettable new ones. Sid could drive for hours and almost physically forget Judy, the grim presence, on the seat next to him. He would think of the road or business or an old turn-on and he could blind-out Judy's image that otherwise came in the corner of his eye.
The last twit was Judy demanding that he grovel because they were late and would miss dinner at the Camp.
"Late, because you had to cater to another helpless customer.
"Your killing time on the telephone, in that crummy Al's Diner while we all sat around was unforgivable. This will ruin Rachel's arrival. It'll set her back socially. All the other girls will have made their contacts on the first night. All except Rachel. She won't know anybody. You always put business before your family!"
"Judy, Smith's Catering is an important customer. He called me at home, late yesterday. The third case of champagne never arrived, and I had to settle it today, before we get to camp. Had to call the office and straighten out the delivery and then get back with Smith," Sid explained plaintively.
"How can selling a few bottles of booze be more important than your family?"
"A few bottles of booze!” He burst. "Jesus, Judy. Jesus!...It's not just a few bottles of booze."
Shit, thought Sid, there's no point in discussing it. She'll never understand how business operates and how it's important to a man. She's smart, smarter than I am on some things, especially in figuring out people. She knows who's upset, who's on the make and who's going to be divorced. She makes a good home; raises the kids well. But, that's her focus. Her frame of reference -- the family. My business is important.
Sometime the family's just got to wait, Godammit. Where is the money for this goddamn vacation coming from anyway?
Sid looked to the side, at the pine trees flashing by. He stretched out his hand to feel the pressure of the wind on his palm while he opened and closed his fingers, letting the warm air rush through.
”Crummy Al's Diner?” he thought, “I loved that place. Loved the thick china plates and the cracked reddish linoleum tabletops, even the grooved aluminum edges with the brown grease and breadcrumbs gummed in them. Used to stop at those places with my parents on vacations. 'Apple, berry, cherry, coconut cream, banana cream, chocolate cream pies.'
”Jesus”, still thinking to himself, “same menus, typed, and even in faded blue ditto, and covered in yellowing plastic. 'Special for Saturday: Sirloin Tips in Gravy.' And the waitress put our order on that tin carousel with the rubber bands.
”Kids didn't like it. 'Wasn't Hojo's or the Marriott, that we passed on the interstate?’
”And the glasses, they didn't like the glasses. Those fat, scratched-up, thick walled glasses. I almost couldn't hold them when I was a kid, and they were scratched, even then.
”Grandpa Rudolf had a glass like that; kept his teeth in it. I used to have to go to the bathroom, late at night at his house. Go down the dark hall with that thin gray rug, open the heavy wooden door with the thick shiny white paint (It had a glass door knob that was loose and didn't work.), step into the middle of the cold floor that was made out of little dirty white and blue hexagons and wave my arm until I hit the pull string for the light. ON would go the light, and there would be Grandpa's teeth, in water, in that fat thick walled glass.
”Good old Grandpa, he used to hug me and give me a kiss nearly every time he could grab me. Scratch me with his white whiskers. He used to say, 'Sid you're a good boy, especially when you sleep.'
”God, he was an old man at fifty-five. Lost his business in the depression. Did shit work after that. Never got himself started again. Senile at fifty-five. Grandma ran the household. Boy she was tough.
"Hey kids," Sid turned to the back seat, and looked at Neal, his eighteen year-old son, and Rachel, his sixteen year-old Jewish Princess. "Kids, did I ever tell you that my grandma Elizabeth used to work in a New York sweat shop? Chained to a sewing machine and one day she said, 'Enough,' and didn't go in."
"And that's the day it burned down," Neal said, somewhat bored.
"The Rabbi told that story at her funeral,” Rachel added. "Said she had tickets for the second sailing of the Titanic, too. Said she was a very lucky woman."
"Yeah," Sid said. "But there's another point. She made up her own mind. She didn't like the situation, and she made up her own mind. She voted with her feet. She didn't wait for the government or the union or her friends or even her family. She didn't like the situation and she saved her own life."
"Sure Dad. We don't have sweat shops anymore or child labor or rotten meat, except maybe the sirloin tips at Al's Diner," Neal joked.
"Don't always be so sarcastic, Neal," Rachel said.
"Well it's true. The government stopped all that stuff," Neal responded.
Rachel gave Neal a dirty look and went back to her book. She took her father's side in family spats when she could. She loved her father, even though he had become so distant. When she was a little girl he would read to her while she sat on his lap. Anytime at all she'd jump onto his lap and he'd give her loves and cuddles.
When she was eleven, she was developing, had a training bra, the other girls were so jealous, she started to sit on Daddy's lap to give him a kiss. To her surprise he put out his hand and stopped her. "Rachel, I'm reading," he had said and shut her off, scowling at his book. Ever since then, his voice was warm and he'd kiss her cheeks and squeeze her shoulder, but no more loves and cuddles.
Rachel didn't think her father loved her any more, or at least not in the same way. But she loved him. And his point about Great Grandma Elizabeth was important, and stupid Neal was just acting smart.
"Sid, what about those Nazis on Cronkite last night? You saw them, those bastards with their swastikas and their uniforms. Where do they get the right to be in public, in America?"
"Judy, don't get in an uproar. They're a bunch of zit-faced latent homosexuals. They can't score, so they get a uniform and march around," Sid pronounced.
"They beat up an old Jewish man. You saw that, Daddy," Rachel chimed from the back seat.
"See what I mean," Judy leaned over and nudged Sid with her fingertips. "They're not just marching."
"So the schwartzas do it every day, and we call it integration," Sid rebuked.
"Daddy..."
"Yes dear.” Sid hoped Rachel was going to change the subject.
"Why do we have to go to Beth El? There are always the same dopey boys there, and the same catty girls. Why can't we go to a real resort, like Becky Nussbaum's family?"
"Rachel, all year I deal with the Goyem and the schwartzas. I want to relax, and I want you and Neal to get some Jewish culture. Meat and potatoes, hot dogs and McDonald's hamburgers are not Jewish culture. God knows what they are. And I want you to meet other Jewish families. I want you to understand and appreciate my parents before they die."
"Things aren't so bad anymore," Neal added. This year I'll be going on that Maccabean survival trip. We're going to learn how to hunt and survive in the forest. We're going to make our own bows and spears."
"What's this? What's this camp coming to?" Judy whined. "You're a civilized city boy and you shouldn't be killing. Leave it to the Safeway butcher! Sid, you approved this? Without a family discussion?"
"Judy, he didn't get Boy Scouts, because you said he had to practice piano. One thousand dollars, and he can play 'Jaws.' Every boy needs to live close to nature once in a while. My father grew up on a farm. I grew up on a sidewalk. Neal, at least, can get to feel the leaves under his feet."
"But killing?"
"Who says he'll kill? A dozen boys tramping in the forest; they'll never see a deer, and they'll never catch a rabbit. Some life-experience before he has to face customers and taxes and mortgages. Please!"
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