Someday the Rabbi Will Leave (7 page)

“All right. So why would he want the job?”

The rabbi shook his head. “That I don't know.”

“Maybe he got religion,” suggested Brooks.

The rabbi smiled. “Maybe. I suppose that's the way a tycoon would get religion, by becoming president of the congregation.”

9

Tony D'Angelo's small furnished flat in Revere was curiously at odds with the dashing figure he cut. It was in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, and the sparse furniture was cheap and shabby at that. A largish room served as kitchen, living room, dining room, and bedroom, and there was a tiny bathroom. But it didn't matter—he never brought anyone important there.

Millie Hanson, who had been living with him for several months now—like being married, he thought sometimes in wonderment—was forty and blond and buxom. Originally from a small town in Nebraska, she had drifted east, maintaining herself by a succession of odd jobs—salesgirl, supermarket checkout cashier, waitress—and had finally come to Revere, where she worked as a cocktail waitress in one of the nightclubs on the promenade. She was easygoing and friendly, and it had required no great effort on Tony's part to get her to come home with him. There was no lengthy courtship. She moved in easily and although nothing was ever said, it was tacitly agreed she would simply move out, if either of them wanted a change.

She continued to work at the nightclub. Sometimes he would drop in near closing time and take her home. When he did not, she would take a cab. If the apartment was dark when she got home, it meant he was sleeping, in which case she would undress in the bathroom, finding her way there with the aid of a pocket flashlight, and then slip into bed beside him.

Normally, he was up first and made toast and coffee for both of them. If he stayed home, she reciprocated by preparing their lunch, usually canned soup and sandwiches. In the evening they ate out at small, inexpensive Italian or Chinese restaurants, and then came back to the apartment to watch television until it was time for her to go to work.

During the day she hung around the apartment in housecoat and flapping slippers, reading the newspaper or romance novels she got at the drugstore, or watching soap operas. Sometime during the day, she would make the bed and clean the apartment, and occasionally she would go shopping for the few groceries they needed.

Sundays they both got up late, and while he lounged about in bathrobe and pajamas, she prepared a special breakfast of French toast and sausages. They ate in front of the TV set so that he could watch the political panel shows. This Sunday, when she began to dress, he asked, “Going someplace, Baby?”

“Just down to the drugstore to get the paper.”

“Get me some cigarettes, will you? Got enough money?”

“Yeah, I got enough.”

She was back in less than a half hour. She drew a pack of cigarettes from the paper bag she was carrying and tossed it in his lap. Then she took out a yellow envelope. “I got the pictures from that roll you gave them to develop.”

“Oh yeah? Any good?”

“I haven't looked at them yet.” She handed him the envelope and looked over his shoulder as he drew out the photographs. “You cut off part of my head there,” she said as he held up the first.

“I guess I was focusing on your legs.”

The next one he had snapped as a sudden gust of wind had blown her skirt up. “Oh, that was mean,” she exclaimed. “My whole whatsis is showing.”

He slid his hand under her dress along her thigh to the buttock. “It's a very nice whatsis,” he said and massaged it affectionately.

“Oh you.” She took the package of prints from him and began to shuffle through them, commenting on each. “This is a little out of focus … Oh, this is a good one … You moved on this one … What's this?”

He took the print from her. “Oh, that was taken at the Blainey testimonial dinner a couple of months ago. See those five guys at the head table?” He laughed loudly. “That's Rocco Vestucci and Charlie Mayes, and that's Jim Blainey in the middle, and then on the other side of him is Frank Callahan and Whatsisname Peterson, Nels Peterson. And every single one of those guys has been indicted and is going to jail. What do you think of that?”

“Nice bunch of friends you got.”

“Aw, Baby, it's business. You do business with them, so when they ask you to buy a ticket to a testimonial for a friend of theirs, you got to buy a ticket.”

“But you don't have to go.”

“Well, it's usually a good feed, and you've paid for it. Besides, they almost always have entertainment. That's why I took the camera with me. Know what I mean?”

“Sure, you mean naked girls.”

“Not this time, there wasn't. There was a priest there, one of the guests. I bet the guy that sold him a ticket got hell when he told the committee.” He dismissed the idea. “Nah, a priest wouldn't buy a ticket. He'd get one free. Maybe on Blarney's orders. He's a very religious guy, Jim Blainey. Goes to church every Sunday.”

“And if he's in jail?”

“Think they ain't got a church there?”

“I suppose. Say, who's this guy at the end. He been indicted, too?”

“Lemme see. Gee, I don't remember him sitting there. Maybe he came in for a minute to talk to Nels Peterson or one of the others. He remind you of somebody?”

“Nobody I know.”

“How about Tommy Baggio?”

“Who's Tommy Baggio?”

“He's a city councillor here. He's running for state senator. His picture was in the paper yesterday. You got yesterday's paper? Did you throw it out?”

“I don't think so. Just a minute, I'll see.”

She went to the cabinet kitchen, rummaged in a large basket, and found the paper, which she handed him. He turned pages, scanning each page quickly. Then he exclaimed, “Ah, here it is. Now, don't he look just like the guy in the snapshot?”

Although wanting to please him, she could not help shaking her head. “No-o, Honey. This guy in the snap has no moustache.”

“So we give him one. Look.” He covered the lower part of the face in the newspaper with a fingernail. “Look at the eyes, the forehead, the hair.”

“Ye-ah, maybe …”

“It's nothing to add a moustache,” he mused, his eyes focused on the ceiling, his mind far off.

“But why would you want to?” she asked.

He smiled. “It could pay off, Baby.”

“How could it? What would it do?”

He smiled broadly. “Make me some money, Baby.”

“But how?”

“There are angles, Baby. I got to think about it.”

10

“You got a minute, David? It was Morton Brooks, the Principal of the religious school.”

“Sure.”

“I'll be right up.”

The rabbi replaced the receiver, wondering at the principal's politeness. Usually he didn't bother to call to inquire if the rabbi were free when he wanted to see him. His normal procedure, even if the door of the rabbi's study was closed, was to knock perfunctorily and barge in. A few minutes later, the length of time it took him to mount the stairs from his office in the vestry to the rabbi's study on the second floor, Morton Brooks entered and flung himself in the visitor's chair in front of the rabbi's desk.

He was dressed in a sober gray business suit, a blue shirt, and a knitted black tie. His outstretched feet were encased in highly polished black shoes. It was not his usual costume, which tended to be on the sporty side and ran to loud tweed jackets and even knotted kerchiefs in place of a necktie.

The rabbi raised his eyebrows and asked, “Been to a funeral, Morton, or were you asked to read for a part in a play?”

“Nah”—with a wide sweep of the hand—“show business is lousy.” Then understanding came. “Oh, you mean the square-type threads. That's on account of the new president.”

“You mean Howard Magnuson suggested you wear more sober clothing? He asked you to change from your usual attire?”

“When they ask, David, it's already too late. Then it's criticism, see? It means you've done something—not wrong, maybe, but not right either. You've got to understand about these tycoon types, David. They can dress any way they please. They can come into the office in overalls, but the peasants, the underlings, they got to dress strictly square. Maybe he wouldn't say anything, but in his mind, he'd think this one is not a team player.”

The rabbi's lips twitched. “And you came up to see if I was properly dressed?”

Brooks looked at him with a sort of avuncular compassion. “You'll never be dressed properly, David. That's on account of you've got no clothes sense. Maybe it's not what you wear so much as how you wear it.” With a wave of the hand he dismissed the rabbi's sartorial problem. “No, I want you to take a look at this, David, and tell me what you think.”

The rabbi took the paper held out to him.

The paper was headed D
UTIES AND
R
ESPONSIBILITIES OF THE
P
RINCIPAL OF THE
R
ELIGIOUS
S
CHOOL
. It was typed and ran the length of the page. The rabbi read, nodding occasionally, “… responsible for formulating curricula for each grade … recommendations to School Committee … budget … confers with Rabbi on direction … hires teachers … confers with parents …”

“That's pretty good,” said the rabbi when he finished. “Seems to me, though, you've put in a lot that's pretty much implied in the first sentence about overall supervision of the school.”

“In this kind of thing, David, the more you put in the better. It builds up the job.”

“Well, in that case, you might put in that you arrange with the cantor about special tutoring for the Bar Mitzvah boys.”

“Say, that's a good idea.” He reached for the paper and penciled into the margin, “Cantor—Bar Mitzvah boys.” “Anything else you can think of?” He looked up, pencil poised.

“Well, when a teacher is absent, you take his class.”

Morton Brooks considered as he scratched his thinning hair and then patted it back solicitously over his bald spot. Finally, he said, “Uh-uh. That might give him ideas.”

“Him?”

“Magnuson. He asked for this. Didn't you get one? If I say that I cover classes for absent teachers, he's apt to get the idea that I have time to take on another class, and maybe save a teacher's salary. Guys like Magnuson worry me.”

“Really? Why?”

“If he has us do job descriptions, next thing he's apt to do a time and motion study on us, maybe end up paying us piecework.”

The rabbi laughed. “That's not too likely.”

“No? What do you know about Howard Magnuson?”

“I understand that he's connected with Magnuson and Beck, so I assume he's in the retail business—”

“Nah.” Brooks was scornful. “They sold that back in 1929. Maybe they bought it back again because Magnuson and Beck is a conglomerate, which means their business is businesses. I read all about the company in
Time
magazine, and I looked it up and read it again when he got elected. What Magnuson does is buy and sell businesses like other people buy and sell shoes or automobiles. He buys up a business. Then he brings in his team of managers and they jack up the efficiency of the company and fire all the old hands—that's called cleaning out the deadwood. Then if they show a good quarterly report and the stock goes up, they use the upgraded stock to buy another company, or maybe they milk it for a while and then unload it. They're into electronics and hotels and shoe manufacturing and a company that makes cleats for baseball shoes. The article called him a romantic on account of he's apt to buy into something that interests him. Some romantic!”

“So you think he's going to try to increase our efficiency and then trade us in for another synagogue, or maybe a church?”

“Go on, laugh, David, but I'm telling you he's going to be trouble. He's not our kind.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“We're all second generation or third generation. Our parents or our grandparents came from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, or wherever. I'll bet there isn't a single member on the Board of Directors who if their parents didn't talk with an accent, then their grandparents did. The smell of the
shtetl
still clings to us. But he's different. He's fifth-generation American, or maybe even sixth. His great-great-grandfather, according to this article, fought in the Civil War. He don't think like us. He's a Yankee, a Wasp—”

“A WASP? A white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant?”

“Maybe not a Protestant, but you know what I mean. He's not like us, and that means trouble. You take these job descriptions he asked us to write. Now I'm not saying that Sam Feinberg, say, might not have had an idea like that when he became president. I can even imagine him sending out these forms. Then when we'd made them out, he'd read through them maybe, and toss them in a desk drawer and never think of them again. But that's not the way Howard Magnuson is going to deal with them. He's going to go over each and every one and check one against the other. And if they don't jibe, then there'll be trouble.” His tone became very easy and casual, and the rabbi sensed that now he was going to hear the real reason for his coming. “So I thought, since we both have supervision of the religious school, each of us in a separate kind of way, we ought to adjust our job descriptions so that they'll kind of mesh instead of maybe conflicting.” He looked expectantly at the rabbi.

“I didn't write one.”

“Didn't you get one of these forms?”

“Yes, I got one,” said the rabbi, “but I assume it was a mistake.”

“If they sent it to you, it was no mistake, David. Magnuson wanted you to make it out.”

“It was addressed to employees of the temple,” said the rabbi, “and I don't consider myself an employee.”