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Authors: Enid Shomer

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Imaginary Men

BOOK: Imaginary Men
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title
:
Imaginary Men John Simmons Short Fiction Award
author
:
Shomer, Enid.
publisher
:
University of Iowa Press
isbn10 | asin
:
0877453993
print isbn13
:
9780877453994
ebook isbn13
:
9781587292217
language
:
English
subject
 
American fiction.
publication date
:
1993
lcc
:
PS3569.H5783I4 1993eb
ddc
:
813/.54
subject
:
American fiction.
Page i
Imaginary Men
 
Page ii
The John Simmons Short Fiction Award
 
Page iii
Imaginary Men
Enid Shomer
University
of Iowa Press
Iowa City
 
Page iv
The publication of this book is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., a federal agency
.
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 1993 by Enid Shomer
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Richard Hendel
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shomer, Enid.
Imaginary men/Enid Shomer.
p.    cm.(John Simmons short fiction award)
ISBN 0-87745-399-3
I. Title. II. Series.
PS3569.H578314  1993
813'. 54dc20                                                     92-34204
                                                                                    CIP
97 96 95 94 93 c 5 4 3 2 1
 
Page v
For Nirah and for Oren
 
Page vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts and to the Florida Arts Council for fellowships which helped to support me during the writing of these stories.
Acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications in which these stories have appeared:
Florida Review
: "Taking Names"
Midstream
: "Tropical Aunts" and "Street Signs"
New Letters
: "Goldring among the Cicadas"
New Yorker
: "Disappeared"
Orlando Sentinel
(in the Sunday supplement,
Florida Magazine
): "Companion Planting"
Plainswoman
: "Stony Limits"
Woman's World/Woman's Weekly
: "Imaginary Men"
Zelo
: "The Problem with Yosi" (under the title "A Solution for Yosi")
"On the Boil" won the H. E. Francis Fiction Award offered by the Ruth Hindman Foundation as well as the
Iowa Woman
Fiction Prize. It appeared in
Hometown Press
and
Iowa Woman
and has also been reprinted in the anthology
Lovers
(Crossing Press, 1992).
"Street Signs" is included in
New Directions in Prose & Poetry 55
(New York: New Directions Press, 1991).
"Tropical Aunts" has been reprinted in
NEW VISIONS: Fiction by Florida Writers
(Tampa: Arbiter Press, 1989).
 
Page ix
CONTENTS
In the Family
Street Signs
3
Tropical Aunts
16
Goldring among the Cicadas
29
Her Michelangelo
45
On the Land
Taking Names
69
Imaginary Men
74
Stony Limits
88
The Problem with Yosi
101
Companion Planting
112
Disappeared
125
On the Boil
138
 
Page 1
IN THE FAMILY
 
Page 3
Street Signs
My brother, Beryl, was eleven when he decided to change his name. The kids at school had taunted him about it for years, insisting it sounded like a girl's name or a kind of fruit. Raspberyl, blueberyl, blackberyl. My parents were reluctant to agree: he was the only namesake for my mother's Great Uncle Beryl, a man famous for overturning with his bare arms a wagonful of Cossacks who had called him a Jew-dog and ordered him off the road. The story went that when the Cossacks came looking for him in the village the next day, even the gentiles lied to protect him. This all happened in the Ukraine, in the dim ages before we spoke English.
"Pick a name that begins with 'B,' all right?" my mother said. "Maybe Bruce?"
 
Page 4
My brother said he liked the name Brad.
''Brad is that little brass thing on envelopes. Like a paper clip.''
He must have given it quite a bit of advance thought. "Then Bart," he said. "I want to be called Bart."
"Rhymes with fart," my father said.
He was not discouraged. "Bob? Just plain old Bob?"
Finally they settled on Barry. It didn't sound too ordinary, my mother said, or too gentile. It sounded a little French, a little continental.
They went downtown to the courthouse the next day after school. My brother told me if I ever called him Beryl again he would pour calamine lotion in my eyes while I was asleep.
After that, only my brother's best friend, Asher Levandowski, was allowed to call him Beryl, and only in private. Beryl and Asher were both born in August, which accounted, Mother claimed, for their sticky temperaments, her way of saying they were pests. I hated them most of the time. They were boys. They were vulgar. They picked their noses and ate it. They said bad words when no adults were listening, then denied it on their lives. At the movies on Saturday afternoons they waited until there was kissing on the screen, then exploded their popcorn boxes. Worst of all, they played the pinball machines on Georgia Avenue, a known hangout for hoodlums.
Asher would have liked to change his name, too, but his parents were religiousrecent refugees from Europe. Because the Levandowskis had paid dearly for their heritage, Mother said, they were determined to keep it intact. The Levandowskis made no concessions to the
meshugos
, the crazinesses of "Amerikeh." The result was that Asher behaved as if he were two different people. At home he was obedient, dutiful, and careful. He took piano lessons and was not allowed to read trash like comic books. Asher's house on Friday nights and Saturdays was a dreadfully quiet place even my brother avoided.
The other Asher was hell-bent on adventure, despite the oversized galoshes, the leather cap with earflaps, the heavy wool mittens, and, of course, the umbrella. Mrs. Levandowski believed that the umbrella was the first bulwark against catching colds. She fastened it to Asher's coat sleeve with a giant safety pin. Later, he carried the large black umbrella hooked over his forearm. It gave him a formal appearance, as if he were about to bow. Like Beryl, Asher wore thick eyeglasses which he broke about once a month. That may have added to their
 
Page 5
camaraderie. Also, Asher understood Yiddish. He had always known that the name Beryl meant a great, ferocious bear.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Now they are widening the road that leads to my brother's house. Alongside the hilly, winding blacktop, giant backhoes churn and shovels drool uprooted sod. These are the first road improvements since Barry and his wife moved out there twenty-five years ago. He wanted his kids to grow up with plenty of trees, birds, and fresh air, the occasional wild rabbit and raccoon. He didn't want them subject to the push and tumble of city life, by which he meant our old house on Garfield Place. I thought we had enough of the countryside in the old neighborhood. We had stinkbomb trees and mimosas and acorn oaks. We had room in the backyard for Mother to raise a few tomatoes. We had the workmanlike sound of the garbage tracks in the morning and the dreamy whir of the street-cleaning machine at night.
He moved farther out than he had to, but then that was always his way.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
From the sidewalk outside Rudy's Pinball Palace you could hear the machinesthey sounded like a hundred cash registers going at onceand see their lights flashing. It was a hot day in late September when I bribed Barry and Asher with a dollar apiece to take me there. I had saved up three weeks' allowance and scoured the house for
gefineneh gelt
the loose change that disappeared into sofas, chairs, and the washing machine.
The double entrance doors were open, and three ceiling fans chopped away at the heat. I followed Barry and Asher into the deepening gloom, past boys of all ages intently pushing buttons and flipping levers.
They chose a game called Frisco Goldrush. Barry said he'd kill me or Asher if we touched the machine. He released the first ball, then began pushing and leaning on the machine with all his weight. That was just like him: he was always making rules for other people and breaking them himself. Asher didn't seem to mind. Mother said Barry was a born ringleader and that he had Asher going in circles.
BOOK: Imaginary Men
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