Just Kidding
Lenny Levine
The first time I witnessed the full effect of my uncle Sidney was at my cousin Richie’s bar mitzvah. My parents didn’t want us to go at first, but thought we should, for some reason. So we went.
I didn’t know much about Uncle Sidney, except some dim, early childhood memories and my parents’ general attitude toward him, which didn’t seem very positive. They’d jokingly refer to him as Sid the Kid, which seemed odd to me, since he was my father’s older brother. But it also sounded like a gunslinger, and that’s what I asked my parents about as we climbed into the car for the drive to the bar mitzvah.
“No, no gunslinger!” My mother laughed. “We call him Sid the Kid because your uncle Sidney likes to kid around with people.”
To my twelve-year-old sensibilities, that sounded pretty cool.
“He must be a funny guy,” I said as I buckled up in the backseat.
My father gave a snort.
“You think so, Jason?” My mother turned her head and gave me a serious look. “You wouldn’t feel that way if you were his target.”
“I don’t know,” I said, just to be contrary. “We give it to each other pretty good at school.”
“Amateurs,” muttered my father as he backed the car down the driveway.
“Maybe he’ll watch himself today, for his son’s sake,” my mother said.
My father snorted again.
~ ~ ~
Uncle Sidney greeted us at the entrance to the synagogue. He was a big man, about six-four, with a mane of grayish-brown hair, in contrast to my dad, who was shorter and had a bald spot. Uncle Sidney had positioned himself in the doorway and was squinting at everyone going by. When he saw my father, his eyes lit up.
“Harry!” he shouted, clutching him in a bear hug. “It’s so great to see you!”
He beamed at my mother and me while still holding onto my dad, who was gently trying to extricate himself.
“Rose, it’s so nice to see you again, and Jason! Look how big he is!”
“Well, it’s been a while; he’s grown,” said my mother, as my father finally obtained his release. I modestly looked down at my shoe tops, which was a mistake.
Uncle Sidney followed my gaze.
“He sure has grown!” he said. “Look how short those pants are on him. They look like cutoffs, for God’s sake! What’s the matter, Harry, you couldn’t afford to buy him a new suit?”
“Sid!” my mother exclaimed, as I felt my face burn.
“Just kidding!” he said with a grin, as he guided/pushed us into the synagogue.
“Enjoy!” he called after us.
“This is going to be a long day,” my father said as we picked up our prayer shawls and yarmulkes.
“Your suit looks fine,” my mother whispered to me.
“Let’s sit toward the rear,” my father suggested, which I was all in favor of. So that’s what we did, but not for long.
“Look at these shrinking violets, these shy folk!” Uncle Sidney was standing in the aisle at the end of our row.
“You don’t have to hide; we’ve got plenty of room down front. Come on, sit down front with us.”
My parents quietly sighed as we slid out of the pew and followed him down the aisle toward Aunt Edith, who was standing and waving at us from the third row.
“That is, unless you think you’re too good to sit with us,” Uncle Sidney said over his shoulder, causing several people nearby to look up.
“Just kidding!” he said with a big smile.
Aunt Edith kept waving at us, even though my mother had already acknowledged her by waving back.
“Yoo-hoo!” she cried.
The arm that she wasn’t waving was curled around a nervous-looking kid who I assumed was the bar mitzvah boy, my cousin Richie. He, like Uncle Sidney, was someone I only dimly recalled from early childhood.
I didn’t recognize anyone else, which wasn’t surprising. My mother had told me that, since my dad had such a small, far-flung family, most of the guests would either be from Aunt Edith’s side or people from Uncle Sidney’s real estate business.
Move over, everybody. My brother and his family are sitting next to me. And I hope Harry finally got rid of that body odor. Just kidding.”
With a grand sweep of his arm, he bade us enter the pew, as Aunt Edith and Richie moved to the aisle to let us by. First, my mother, then me, then my father.
I smiled at Aunt Edith as I tried to move smoothly by her.
“Look how cute he is,” she gushed and, to my shock, pinched my cheek.
I slid past Richie and said, “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, making brief eye contact, then looking away.
“Good luck?” Uncle Sidney, who’d sat down on the other side of my father, stared across him at me. “You don’t say good luck to a bar mitzvah boy. That’s how you give him bad luck; isn’t that right, Harry?” He gave my dad a playful poke in the arm. “Tell him. You’re supposed to say, ‘Mazel tov!’”
“But doesn’t mazel tov mean good luck?” I asked, because I couldn’t help it.
“No, who told you that?” He gave my dad another poke. “Harry, is this what you teach him? You’re making your son ignorant, you know that?”
“Sid…” my father began.
“Just kidding!”
Everyone grew silent as the rabbi approached the podium to begin the service.
What followed, as I experienced it, were two hours of sitting, standing, and muttering. There was also some singing, but I didn’t know any of the songs, and I couldn’t understand my prayer book because I couldn’t read Hebrew, even though I knew what mazel tov meant.
Richie’s part consisted of being called up to the bema, the table on which the Torah is read, and chanting some stuff, which I’m sure he studied hard for.
Then, as I looked at my watch for the twentieth time, the rabbi announced that Richie would now give his bar mitzvah speech. That’s when it got interesting.
“Thank you, Rabbi Willman, and hi, everybody,” said Richie. “The portion of the Torah that I read just now was the story of Abraham and Isaac. In it, we learn that God ordered Abraham to take his only son Isaac to the top of a mountain and kill him as a burnt offering. As they walked up the mountainside, Isaac, who didn’t know what was supposed to happen, asked his father why there was no lamb for the sacrifice, and Abraham told him, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’
“It must have been a shock to Isaac when Abraham tied him up and put him on the altar. Then, just as Abraham was about to plunge in the knife, the Lord spoke to him through an angel who appeared. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ the angel said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’ And that’s how Abraham became blessed and why his descendants went on to multiply and to flourish, and why we’re all here today.”
Richie looked up from the piece of paper and over at the rabbi.
“Rabbi Willman, you always encouraged me to think for myself, isn’t that right?”
The rabbi nodded, with a tentative smile.
“So, with your permission, Rabbi, that’s what I’d like to do.” He folded the piece of paper. “There are a few questions I have about this story. First, if God knows everything, why didn’t He already know that Abraham would be faithful to Him? Why did He have to play a trick on him and put him through all that?”
He glanced over again at the rabbi, whose smile was still there, but whose eyes looked a tad wary.
“I asked Rabbi Willman that very question during my studies. He said that, of course, God knew what was going to happen, but He was testing Abraham’s faith, and it became stronger as a result.
“Okay, maybe that’s how we should interpret it. But I’m still not sure it was the right thing to do.
“I mean, Abraham had to tell a lie to his son to keep him from resisting. And think of the terror that Isaac must have felt on that altar. Then, when God revealed that He’d only been fooling Abraham, wasn’t that sort of like saying He’d lied to him?”
The rabbi was now staring intently at Richie, and I thought I could sense Uncle Sidney begin to fidget.
“I guess I’m trying to say that I can’t see this story the way most people do. To me, the moral isn’t to have faith in God, no matter what.
“To me, the moral is: Fooling someone you have power over is easy. That’s what makes it especially cruel.”
He looked straight at Uncle Sidney, for an instant. Then Richie’s eyes roamed the rest of the stunned congregation.
“Thank you and Shabbat shalom,” he concluded.
~ ~ ~
The catering hall for the reception was a short drive away. As we walked through the large oaken doors, the band was playing “Hava Nagila.”
Dozens of people were already there. A lot of them, evidently, had skipped the service, something I didn’t know you could do.
My parents got two glasses of wine and a Coke for me at the bar, while I snagged some canapes from a passing server. Then we wandered over to the counter with the little cards that tell you where you’ll be sitting.
“Doesn’t matter,” my father said as we rummaged through them. “We won’t know anyone at our table anyway.”
“Oh, God!” exclaimed my mother as she found the one with our names. “He put us on the dais!”
And sure enough, that’s where we sat. Richie, of course, was in the center, with Uncle Sidney and Aunt Edith on either side of him. I was next to Aunt Edith, and then came my father and mother.
To the other side of Uncle Sidney was Fred Goldberg, his business partner. I knew that bit of info because my father whispered it to me as we were taking our seats.
Fred Goldberg was a short man with a round, genial face. Next to him were his wife Claire and his daughter Emily, who I instantly couldn’t take my eyes off.
She was my age, or a little older, and had long blonde hair and big brown eyes. Her mother said something to her that made her smile, and that did it. I forced myself to look away before I became a drooling idiot.
Even if I’d wanted to stare at her, however, my line of sight was periodically blocked by Aunt Edith, who kept leaning over me to talk to my parents. One thing about bar mitzvah receptions; they’re very noisy. The band plays all the time, and you have to yell to have a conversation, so she was practically shouting over me.
I did try to peek past her at Richie and Uncle Sidney. When they’d first sat down, it looked like they were arguing, but I couldn’t tell because of Aunt Edith’s voice and “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” at max volume.
Now, as I glanced over again, Richie was talking with two friends who’d stopped by the dais, while Uncle Sidney, facing away from him, seemed to be in earnest conversation with his partner.
I dared to peek beyond them toward Emily, and my heart nearly stopped. She was staring straight at me.
I instinctively looked down at my plate and felt like a schmuck, so I looked up again. She gave me a brief, totally delightful smile and then went back to whatever she was saying to her mother, while I went back to controlling my libido.
The salad course came and went, and the band’s lead singer invited everyone to get up and boogie down before the soup course arrived. They launched into “Get Ready” as people began to crowd the dance floor.
I, of course, stayed put.
My mother, sensitive to the situation, offered to dance with me. I found the prospect mortifying, so I politely declined.
As I was starting to discover, there’s nothing more depressing than to watch a lot of other people have a good time. I sat there, contemplating an entire day of it, when I realized someone was standing behind me.
“Would you like to dance?” Emily asked.
My first thought was that I was being set up.
“Really?” I blurted out.
“Yes, really. Do you want to?”
“Sure,” I said.
She preceded me to the dance floor, and we began to move to the music. I did my standard gyrations, while she really cooked. She was smooth and graceful and obviously a superior dancer. I wondered if this was part of the joke, to show me up. But why, and for whom?
“Get Ready” ended, and the band began a slow tune, “Ooh Baby Baby.”
I figured that was it, but it wasn’t. Unbelievably, she came into my arms.
We danced close, and I had the thought that if this was a joke, it was worth it, whatever happened next.
“So you’re Sidney’s nephew Jason,” she said into my ear.
“Guilty as charged,” I said, trying to be witty.
“I’m Emily. My dad’s his business partner, but you probably knew that. I’m curious, how come your parents came today?”
“Huh?”
“Given what happened between them and Sidney.”
I was trying to deal with everything; her body against mine, my clumsy feet, the surprising nature of this conversation.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You don’t know?” She drew back her head and looked into my eyes. “Wow, you really don’t.”
“Know what?”
The song ended with a final “ooh ooh ooh ooooh!”
“I guess I’ll have to tell you later,” she said, as everyone began to return to their tables for the matzo ball soup that awaited.
As I sat back down my mother said, “Well, you two seemed to hit it off.”
“You looked very nice together,” my father added.
I wanted to ask them so many questions, but Aunt Edith was right there next to me. If the band wasn’t on a break, maybe I could’ve leaned over and been camouflaged by the noise. But now it was too quiet.
And besides, what was it Emily had said about telling me later? That meant there’d be a later, didn’t it?
“Jason, look at you!”
Aunt Edith had turned her attention to me.
“I haven’t seen you since you were in kindergarten! What grade are you in now?”
“Um, seventh grade,” I answered, fighting through the turmoil in my head. Did she know what happened between Uncle Sidney and my parents? She must know, I realized, and then also realized that I might be the only person at this table who didn’t.
“Well, you’ve become quite the handsome young man,” Aunt Edith said as she tousled my hair. Then, to my great relief, she went back to noisily imbibing her soup.
Since kindergarten, she’d said. That meant that it must have happened during that year. Was it something I could remember if I tried hard enough?
When was the last time I’d actually seen Uncle Sidney? For some reason, the word kindergarten reminded me of something. Didn’t he once pick me up after school? Yes, I thought he did.
My father was supposed to pick me up, but Uncle Sidney was there instead because my dad was stuck at work. But he couldn’t take me home right away, he explained, because he had to check out this new house his real estate company was putting up for rent. But we could do it together; it would be fun.
And it was, sort of. The place had been furnished, and it had a big-screen TV. He found the cartoon channel and sat me down in front of it with some snacks, while he did what he had to do around the house. After a while, my parents came and we went home. That was about all I could remember, and so what?
“May I have your attention please, everyone?”
Uncle Sidney had the microphone. The bandleader had brought it over to the dais.
“May I have your attention?”
Everyone slowly quieted down.
“I’d like to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for coming out today to honor my son. I want to especially thank my brother Harry, his wife Rose, and my nephew Jason. Can we have a round of applause for them? C’mon, put your hands together!”
We awkwardly acknowledged their polite hand claps. It felt weird.
“I just want to say a few words to you now about my son Richie, the boy who became a man today.”
Uncle Sidney was one of those people who put their mouths right up against a microphone and talk real loud. I noticed someone on the bandstand furiously adjusting dials on the soundboard.
“I guess most of you heard his bar mitzvah speech this morning, right?” He looked around the room. “Maybe some of you thought it was directed at me, which would be natural because I’m so God-like. Just kidding.
“Actually, I couldn’t be prouder of my son. His mom and I recently discovered that Richie, all on his own, had put together a very substantial and impressive collection of gay porn; didn’t we, Richie? Just kidding.”
From two seats away I could sense him squirm.
“But Richie’s a good kid, very hardworking, very industrious. You should see him every day, scrubbing acne cream into his face. That’s maximum effort, let me tell you! I don’t know how much good it does, judging by his complexion, but he uses so much of the stuff that Clearasil’s stock went up ten points last week. Nah, I’m foolin’.”
He was getting laughs, but they were hesitant laughs. I wondered if he was aware of that, or if he cared.
“Anyhow, I hope Richie appreciates how much money went into today’s festivities. The band alone cost me three mortgage payments, to say nothing of the caterer and the hall. And his mother’s dress? Don’t get me started!”
That got an actual laugh, although not from Aunt Edith.
“The main thing I want to say, however, in all seriousness, is that everything we do here today is done out of love.”
He gazed down fondly at Richie, who looked up at him.
“Someday, son, when you think back on this day, I hope and pray you’ll understand how much love went into it.”
This got a nice round of applause.
“But above all, I want you to remember one thing: I can still beat the living crap out of you, and don’t think I won’t.
“Kidding, just kidding.”
He looked around at the crowd.
“Okay, folks, we’ve got some more dancing, and then the main course is coming. Enjoy!”
The band kicked in with “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I excused myself and began to move down the table.
Emily looked up as I approached, as did her parents. For the first time in my life, I did the smart thing.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg,” I said, “I’m Jason, Sidney’s nephew.”
“Yes, I know,” said Fred Goldberg, smiling as he shook my hand. Claire gave me a smile too, and it was exactly like her daughter’s.
“I suppose you’d like to dance with Emily,” said Fred Goldberg.
“If it’s all right.”
“It’s okay with me. Why don’t you see how she feels about it?”
“Would you like to dance?” I asked Emily.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said, rising from her chair.
We headed for the dance floor, and I wondered how we were going to work this. Right now, the music was too up-tempo for us to dance close and talk. I figured we’d just boogie away until they played a slow tune, which wouldn’t be at all bad, but she’d already figured out something else.
“Over there,” she mouthed at me as we danced, tilting her head toward an area beyond the bandstand. It was a small alcove where some extra chairs were stacked, and it was out of the dais’s sight line, which was why I hadn’t noticed it before.
We danced our way over there and then stopped.
“Okay, so you really don’t know about what happened between Sidney and your parents?” she asked. The music was still plenty loud, so we had to stand close to hear each other.
“No,” I said. “Did it have something to do with when I was in kindergarten?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“I just thought it might have happened during that year, because that’s when my parents stopped being in touch with him.”
“Well, I don’t know what year it happened, but he kidnapped you.”
In all the noise, I couldn’t be sure if I’d heard her right.
“He what? No, wait a minute.”
I told her what I remembered, about Uncle Sidney picking me up at school and taking me to the house, and how I was there for only a couple of hours, and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong about it.
“My parents eventually came by and picked me up. Everything was fine,” I finished.
“Did they seem angry?”
I honestly didn’t know. I was only five years old at the time. One thing about my parents, they were very good at keeping things on an even keel in my presence. They would definitely have saved it for later, after I was asleep. For all I knew, they could’ve been off-the-charts furious on that trip home and I would’ve been oblivious to it.
“Maybe,” I told Emily.
“Believe me,” she said, “they were very angry. Your father wasn’t stuck at work that day. He got a phone call from a woman who claimed to be from your school. She told him that classes would let out a half hour later because of a special assembly. That’s why he wasn’t there to pick you up.”
I tried to process this.
“And Uncle Sidney had her do that? Why?”
“To teach your dad a lesson. At least in Sidney’s warped mind. He was always talking about how your father was too trusting of people. So he decided to play a trick on him, to show how easy it would be for someone to do him harm.
“He waited for just enough time to go by, for your dad to show up at the school, find you gone and panic, but not yet call the cops. Then he called your dad on his cell and disguised his voice. He said he’d kidnapped you, and he demanded fifty thousand dollars or he’d kill you.”
“Holy shit!” I said.
“That’s right, holy shit. Sidney even waited a few seconds, so your dad could really suffer. Then he switched to his regular voice. He said you were fine, and that he was just kidding. He gave your dad the address and told him he could pick you up anytime. Then he laughed and hung up.”
It was almost too much to take in.
“But…how do you know about it?”
Emily looked down at the floor.
“Because the woman who’d called and said she was from the school? That was my mother.”
She looked up again, and there were tears in her eyes.
“She didn’t know what she was doing. Sidney lied to her. He said it was part of a surprise birthday party for your father, that your mom and all his friends would be at the school waiting for him. My mother only found out later, when Sidney bragged to everyone about what he’d done.”
I tried to imagine Uncle Sidney’s state of mind. He must have known how angry my parents were; how could he not? And still, he bragged about it.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“So that you’ll know what an asshole your uncle is.”
I almost had to smile. “I think I’ve been getting a pretty good idea of it already. But why is it so important to you?”
Now the tears were gone. Now her eyes blazed.
“Because he’s been screwing my father for years, that’s why. He stole hundreds of thousands from their business.”
Boy, this was getting intriguing.
“Wow! How was he doing it?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “Something about hidden commissions and false filings. I don’t understand it, but my dad does. He discovered it last week and he contacted the FBI. We’re waiting to see what their investigation turns up.”
“Wow!” I said again.
“We almost didn’t come today, but we didn’t want Sidney to suspect anything was wrong.”
She looked past me at the people on the dance floor, moving and grooving to “Midnight Confessions.”
“Come on, let’s dance,” she said. “Before he notices us standing here and wonders what we’re talking about.”
We got in there for the final chorus, and then the bandleader announced that the main course was being served.
As we walked back to the dais, I whispered to Emily, “Thank you for telling me. And I want you to know that I think you’re beautiful.” It more or less just came out of me.
“I think you’re very attractive too,” she said, almost sending me into a swoon.
We went our separate ways, and I sat down next to my parents for the roast beef. My dad winked at me.
About halfway through the course, a man in a tuxedo came up on the dais. He quietly introduced himself to Uncle Sidney as the assistant caterer. He said the photographer wanted to take some individual portraits of the bar mitzvah party, and would he mind stepping out to the vestibule for a minute to have his picture taken?
“I’m right in the middle of eating,” Uncle Sidney complained.
“I know, sir, and I’m sorry,” said the assistant caterer. “But the photographer needs to do it now. It won’t take but a moment.”
“God damn it! You people are going to give me indigestion. All right, all right!”
Uncle Sidney rose from his seat and followed the man out.
I suddenly got a funny feeling about it. “Excuse me,” I told my parents, “I need to use the restroom.”
“All that dancing,” said my mother, and my father chuckled.
The vestibule was the next room over. As I entered, a man suddenly appeared from the shadows and put his hand on my arm.
“This area is restricted,” he said as I looked past him at Uncle Sidney, who was flanked by two men wearing FBI jackets. They were putting him in handcuffs.
“Uncle Sidney!” I cried out. “Don’t worry, this is only a prank! Those aren’t real FBI agents!”
He looked at me, and there was a confused hope in his eyes that, as long as I live, I’ll never forget.
“Just kidding,” I said.
Lenny Levine
The first time I witnessed the full effect of my uncle Sidney was at my cousin Richie’s bar mitzvah. My parents didn’t want us to go at first, but thought we should, for some reason. So we went.
I didn’t know much about Uncle Sidney, except some dim, early childhood memories and my parents’ general attitude toward him, which didn’t seem very positive. They’d jokingly refer to him as Sid the Kid, which seemed odd to me, since he was my father’s older brother. But it also sounded like a gunslinger, and that’s what I asked my parents about as we climbed into the car for the drive to the bar mitzvah.
“No, no gunslinger!” My mother laughed. “We call him Sid the Kid because your uncle Sidney likes to kid around with people.”
To my twelve-year-old sensibilities, that sounded pretty cool.
“He must be a funny guy,” I said as I buckled up in the backseat.
My father gave a snort.
“You think so, Jason?” My mother turned her head and gave me a serious look. “You wouldn’t feel that way if you were his target.”
“I don’t know,” I said, just to be contrary. “We give it to each other pretty good at school.”
“Amateurs,” muttered my father as he backed the car down the driveway.
“Maybe he’ll watch himself today, for his son’s sake,” my mother said.
My father snorted again.
~ ~ ~
Uncle Sidney greeted us at the entrance to the synagogue. He was a big man, about six-four, with a mane of grayish-brown hair, in contrast to my dad, who was shorter and had a bald spot. Uncle Sidney had positioned himself in the doorway and was squinting at everyone going by. When he saw my father, his eyes lit up.
“Harry!” he shouted, clutching him in a bear hug. “It’s so great to see you!”
He beamed at my mother and me while still holding onto my dad, who was gently trying to extricate himself.
“Rose, it’s so nice to see you again, and Jason! Look how big he is!”
“Well, it’s been a while; he’s grown,” said my mother, as my father finally obtained his release. I modestly looked down at my shoe tops, which was a mistake.
Uncle Sidney followed my gaze.
“He sure has grown!” he said. “Look how short those pants are on him. They look like cutoffs, for God’s sake! What’s the matter, Harry, you couldn’t afford to buy him a new suit?”
“Sid!” my mother exclaimed, as I felt my face burn.
“Just kidding!” he said with a grin, as he guided/pushed us into the synagogue.
“Enjoy!” he called after us.
“This is going to be a long day,” my father said as we picked up our prayer shawls and yarmulkes.
“Your suit looks fine,” my mother whispered to me.
“Let’s sit toward the rear,” my father suggested, which I was all in favor of. So that’s what we did, but not for long.
“Look at these shrinking violets, these shy folk!” Uncle Sidney was standing in the aisle at the end of our row.
“You don’t have to hide; we’ve got plenty of room down front. Come on, sit down front with us.”
My parents quietly sighed as we slid out of the pew and followed him down the aisle toward Aunt Edith, who was standing and waving at us from the third row.
“That is, unless you think you’re too good to sit with us,” Uncle Sidney said over his shoulder, causing several people nearby to look up.
“Just kidding!” he said with a big smile.
Aunt Edith kept waving at us, even though my mother had already acknowledged her by waving back.
“Yoo-hoo!” she cried.
The arm that she wasn’t waving was curled around a nervous-looking kid who I assumed was the bar mitzvah boy, my cousin Richie. He, like Uncle Sidney, was someone I only dimly recalled from early childhood.
I didn’t recognize anyone else, which wasn’t surprising. My mother had told me that, since my dad had such a small, far-flung family, most of the guests would either be from Aunt Edith’s side or people from Uncle Sidney’s real estate business.
Move over, everybody. My brother and his family are sitting next to me. And I hope Harry finally got rid of that body odor. Just kidding.”
With a grand sweep of his arm, he bade us enter the pew, as Aunt Edith and Richie moved to the aisle to let us by. First, my mother, then me, then my father.
I smiled at Aunt Edith as I tried to move smoothly by her.
“Look how cute he is,” she gushed and, to my shock, pinched my cheek.
I slid past Richie and said, “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, making brief eye contact, then looking away.
“Good luck?” Uncle Sidney, who’d sat down on the other side of my father, stared across him at me. “You don’t say good luck to a bar mitzvah boy. That’s how you give him bad luck; isn’t that right, Harry?” He gave my dad a playful poke in the arm. “Tell him. You’re supposed to say, ‘Mazel tov!’”
“But doesn’t mazel tov mean good luck?” I asked, because I couldn’t help it.
“No, who told you that?” He gave my dad another poke. “Harry, is this what you teach him? You’re making your son ignorant, you know that?”
“Sid…” my father began.
“Just kidding!”
Everyone grew silent as the rabbi approached the podium to begin the service.
What followed, as I experienced it, were two hours of sitting, standing, and muttering. There was also some singing, but I didn’t know any of the songs, and I couldn’t understand my prayer book because I couldn’t read Hebrew, even though I knew what mazel tov meant.
Richie’s part consisted of being called up to the bema, the table on which the Torah is read, and chanting some stuff, which I’m sure he studied hard for.
Then, as I looked at my watch for the twentieth time, the rabbi announced that Richie would now give his bar mitzvah speech. That’s when it got interesting.
“Thank you, Rabbi Willman, and hi, everybody,” said Richie. “The portion of the Torah that I read just now was the story of Abraham and Isaac. In it, we learn that God ordered Abraham to take his only son Isaac to the top of a mountain and kill him as a burnt offering. As they walked up the mountainside, Isaac, who didn’t know what was supposed to happen, asked his father why there was no lamb for the sacrifice, and Abraham told him, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’
“It must have been a shock to Isaac when Abraham tied him up and put him on the altar. Then, just as Abraham was about to plunge in the knife, the Lord spoke to him through an angel who appeared. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ the angel said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’ And that’s how Abraham became blessed and why his descendants went on to multiply and to flourish, and why we’re all here today.”
Richie looked up from the piece of paper and over at the rabbi.
“Rabbi Willman, you always encouraged me to think for myself, isn’t that right?”
The rabbi nodded, with a tentative smile.
“So, with your permission, Rabbi, that’s what I’d like to do.” He folded the piece of paper. “There are a few questions I have about this story. First, if God knows everything, why didn’t He already know that Abraham would be faithful to Him? Why did He have to play a trick on him and put him through all that?”
He glanced over again at the rabbi, whose smile was still there, but whose eyes looked a tad wary.
“I asked Rabbi Willman that very question during my studies. He said that, of course, God knew what was going to happen, but He was testing Abraham’s faith, and it became stronger as a result.
“Okay, maybe that’s how we should interpret it. But I’m still not sure it was the right thing to do.
“I mean, Abraham had to tell a lie to his son to keep him from resisting. And think of the terror that Isaac must have felt on that altar. Then, when God revealed that He’d only been fooling Abraham, wasn’t that sort of like saying He’d lied to him?”
The rabbi was now staring intently at Richie, and I thought I could sense Uncle Sidney begin to fidget.
“I guess I’m trying to say that I can’t see this story the way most people do. To me, the moral isn’t to have faith in God, no matter what.
“To me, the moral is: Fooling someone you have power over is easy. That’s what makes it especially cruel.”
He looked straight at Uncle Sidney, for an instant. Then Richie’s eyes roamed the rest of the stunned congregation.
“Thank you and Shabbat shalom,” he concluded.
~ ~ ~
The catering hall for the reception was a short drive away. As we walked through the large oaken doors, the band was playing “Hava Nagila.”
Dozens of people were already there. A lot of them, evidently, had skipped the service, something I didn’t know you could do.
My parents got two glasses of wine and a Coke for me at the bar, while I snagged some canapes from a passing server. Then we wandered over to the counter with the little cards that tell you where you’ll be sitting.
“Doesn’t matter,” my father said as we rummaged through them. “We won’t know anyone at our table anyway.”
“Oh, God!” exclaimed my mother as she found the one with our names. “He put us on the dais!”
And sure enough, that’s where we sat. Richie, of course, was in the center, with Uncle Sidney and Aunt Edith on either side of him. I was next to Aunt Edith, and then came my father and mother.
To the other side of Uncle Sidney was Fred Goldberg, his business partner. I knew that bit of info because my father whispered it to me as we were taking our seats.
Fred Goldberg was a short man with a round, genial face. Next to him were his wife Claire and his daughter Emily, who I instantly couldn’t take my eyes off.
She was my age, or a little older, and had long blonde hair and big brown eyes. Her mother said something to her that made her smile, and that did it. I forced myself to look away before I became a drooling idiot.
Even if I’d wanted to stare at her, however, my line of sight was periodically blocked by Aunt Edith, who kept leaning over me to talk to my parents. One thing about bar mitzvah receptions; they’re very noisy. The band plays all the time, and you have to yell to have a conversation, so she was practically shouting over me.
I did try to peek past her at Richie and Uncle Sidney. When they’d first sat down, it looked like they were arguing, but I couldn’t tell because of Aunt Edith’s voice and “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” at max volume.
Now, as I glanced over again, Richie was talking with two friends who’d stopped by the dais, while Uncle Sidney, facing away from him, seemed to be in earnest conversation with his partner.
I dared to peek beyond them toward Emily, and my heart nearly stopped. She was staring straight at me.
I instinctively looked down at my plate and felt like a schmuck, so I looked up again. She gave me a brief, totally delightful smile and then went back to whatever she was saying to her mother, while I went back to controlling my libido.
The salad course came and went, and the band’s lead singer invited everyone to get up and boogie down before the soup course arrived. They launched into “Get Ready” as people began to crowd the dance floor.
I, of course, stayed put.
My mother, sensitive to the situation, offered to dance with me. I found the prospect mortifying, so I politely declined.
As I was starting to discover, there’s nothing more depressing than to watch a lot of other people have a good time. I sat there, contemplating an entire day of it, when I realized someone was standing behind me.
“Would you like to dance?” Emily asked.
My first thought was that I was being set up.
“Really?” I blurted out.
“Yes, really. Do you want to?”
“Sure,” I said.
She preceded me to the dance floor, and we began to move to the music. I did my standard gyrations, while she really cooked. She was smooth and graceful and obviously a superior dancer. I wondered if this was part of the joke, to show me up. But why, and for whom?
“Get Ready” ended, and the band began a slow tune, “Ooh Baby Baby.”
I figured that was it, but it wasn’t. Unbelievably, she came into my arms.
We danced close, and I had the thought that if this was a joke, it was worth it, whatever happened next.
“So you’re Sidney’s nephew Jason,” she said into my ear.
“Guilty as charged,” I said, trying to be witty.
“I’m Emily. My dad’s his business partner, but you probably knew that. I’m curious, how come your parents came today?”
“Huh?”
“Given what happened between them and Sidney.”
I was trying to deal with everything; her body against mine, my clumsy feet, the surprising nature of this conversation.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You don’t know?” She drew back her head and looked into my eyes. “Wow, you really don’t.”
“Know what?”
The song ended with a final “ooh ooh ooh ooooh!”
“I guess I’ll have to tell you later,” she said, as everyone began to return to their tables for the matzo ball soup that awaited.
As I sat back down my mother said, “Well, you two seemed to hit it off.”
“You looked very nice together,” my father added.
I wanted to ask them so many questions, but Aunt Edith was right there next to me. If the band wasn’t on a break, maybe I could’ve leaned over and been camouflaged by the noise. But now it was too quiet.
And besides, what was it Emily had said about telling me later? That meant there’d be a later, didn’t it?
“Jason, look at you!”
Aunt Edith had turned her attention to me.
“I haven’t seen you since you were in kindergarten! What grade are you in now?”
“Um, seventh grade,” I answered, fighting through the turmoil in my head. Did she know what happened between Uncle Sidney and my parents? She must know, I realized, and then also realized that I might be the only person at this table who didn’t.
“Well, you’ve become quite the handsome young man,” Aunt Edith said as she tousled my hair. Then, to my great relief, she went back to noisily imbibing her soup.
Since kindergarten, she’d said. That meant that it must have happened during that year. Was it something I could remember if I tried hard enough?
When was the last time I’d actually seen Uncle Sidney? For some reason, the word kindergarten reminded me of something. Didn’t he once pick me up after school? Yes, I thought he did.
My father was supposed to pick me up, but Uncle Sidney was there instead because my dad was stuck at work. But he couldn’t take me home right away, he explained, because he had to check out this new house his real estate company was putting up for rent. But we could do it together; it would be fun.
And it was, sort of. The place had been furnished, and it had a big-screen TV. He found the cartoon channel and sat me down in front of it with some snacks, while he did what he had to do around the house. After a while, my parents came and we went home. That was about all I could remember, and so what?
“May I have your attention please, everyone?”
Uncle Sidney had the microphone. The bandleader had brought it over to the dais.
“May I have your attention?”
Everyone slowly quieted down.
“I’d like to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for coming out today to honor my son. I want to especially thank my brother Harry, his wife Rose, and my nephew Jason. Can we have a round of applause for them? C’mon, put your hands together!”
We awkwardly acknowledged their polite hand claps. It felt weird.
“I just want to say a few words to you now about my son Richie, the boy who became a man today.”
Uncle Sidney was one of those people who put their mouths right up against a microphone and talk real loud. I noticed someone on the bandstand furiously adjusting dials on the soundboard.
“I guess most of you heard his bar mitzvah speech this morning, right?” He looked around the room. “Maybe some of you thought it was directed at me, which would be natural because I’m so God-like. Just kidding.
“Actually, I couldn’t be prouder of my son. His mom and I recently discovered that Richie, all on his own, had put together a very substantial and impressive collection of gay porn; didn’t we, Richie? Just kidding.”
From two seats away I could sense him squirm.
“But Richie’s a good kid, very hardworking, very industrious. You should see him every day, scrubbing acne cream into his face. That’s maximum effort, let me tell you! I don’t know how much good it does, judging by his complexion, but he uses so much of the stuff that Clearasil’s stock went up ten points last week. Nah, I’m foolin’.”
He was getting laughs, but they were hesitant laughs. I wondered if he was aware of that, or if he cared.
“Anyhow, I hope Richie appreciates how much money went into today’s festivities. The band alone cost me three mortgage payments, to say nothing of the caterer and the hall. And his mother’s dress? Don’t get me started!”
That got an actual laugh, although not from Aunt Edith.
“The main thing I want to say, however, in all seriousness, is that everything we do here today is done out of love.”
He gazed down fondly at Richie, who looked up at him.
“Someday, son, when you think back on this day, I hope and pray you’ll understand how much love went into it.”
This got a nice round of applause.
“But above all, I want you to remember one thing: I can still beat the living crap out of you, and don’t think I won’t.
“Kidding, just kidding.”
He looked around at the crowd.
“Okay, folks, we’ve got some more dancing, and then the main course is coming. Enjoy!”
The band kicked in with “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I excused myself and began to move down the table.
Emily looked up as I approached, as did her parents. For the first time in my life, I did the smart thing.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg,” I said, “I’m Jason, Sidney’s nephew.”
“Yes, I know,” said Fred Goldberg, smiling as he shook my hand. Claire gave me a smile too, and it was exactly like her daughter’s.
“I suppose you’d like to dance with Emily,” said Fred Goldberg.
“If it’s all right.”
“It’s okay with me. Why don’t you see how she feels about it?”
“Would you like to dance?” I asked Emily.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said, rising from her chair.
We headed for the dance floor, and I wondered how we were going to work this. Right now, the music was too up-tempo for us to dance close and talk. I figured we’d just boogie away until they played a slow tune, which wouldn’t be at all bad, but she’d already figured out something else.
“Over there,” she mouthed at me as we danced, tilting her head toward an area beyond the bandstand. It was a small alcove where some extra chairs were stacked, and it was out of the dais’s sight line, which was why I hadn’t noticed it before.
We danced our way over there and then stopped.
“Okay, so you really don’t know about what happened between Sidney and your parents?” she asked. The music was still plenty loud, so we had to stand close to hear each other.
“No,” I said. “Did it have something to do with when I was in kindergarten?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“I just thought it might have happened during that year, because that’s when my parents stopped being in touch with him.”
“Well, I don’t know what year it happened, but he kidnapped you.”
In all the noise, I couldn’t be sure if I’d heard her right.
“He what? No, wait a minute.”
I told her what I remembered, about Uncle Sidney picking me up at school and taking me to the house, and how I was there for only a couple of hours, and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong about it.
“My parents eventually came by and picked me up. Everything was fine,” I finished.
“Did they seem angry?”
I honestly didn’t know. I was only five years old at the time. One thing about my parents, they were very good at keeping things on an even keel in my presence. They would definitely have saved it for later, after I was asleep. For all I knew, they could’ve been off-the-charts furious on that trip home and I would’ve been oblivious to it.
“Maybe,” I told Emily.
“Believe me,” she said, “they were very angry. Your father wasn’t stuck at work that day. He got a phone call from a woman who claimed to be from your school. She told him that classes would let out a half hour later because of a special assembly. That’s why he wasn’t there to pick you up.”
I tried to process this.
“And Uncle Sidney had her do that? Why?”
“To teach your dad a lesson. At least in Sidney’s warped mind. He was always talking about how your father was too trusting of people. So he decided to play a trick on him, to show how easy it would be for someone to do him harm.
“He waited for just enough time to go by, for your dad to show up at the school, find you gone and panic, but not yet call the cops. Then he called your dad on his cell and disguised his voice. He said he’d kidnapped you, and he demanded fifty thousand dollars or he’d kill you.”
“Holy shit!” I said.
“That’s right, holy shit. Sidney even waited a few seconds, so your dad could really suffer. Then he switched to his regular voice. He said you were fine, and that he was just kidding. He gave your dad the address and told him he could pick you up anytime. Then he laughed and hung up.”
It was almost too much to take in.
“But…how do you know about it?”
Emily looked down at the floor.
“Because the woman who’d called and said she was from the school? That was my mother.”
She looked up again, and there were tears in her eyes.
“She didn’t know what she was doing. Sidney lied to her. He said it was part of a surprise birthday party for your father, that your mom and all his friends would be at the school waiting for him. My mother only found out later, when Sidney bragged to everyone about what he’d done.”
I tried to imagine Uncle Sidney’s state of mind. He must have known how angry my parents were; how could he not? And still, he bragged about it.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“So that you’ll know what an asshole your uncle is.”
I almost had to smile. “I think I’ve been getting a pretty good idea of it already. But why is it so important to you?”
Now the tears were gone. Now her eyes blazed.
“Because he’s been screwing my father for years, that’s why. He stole hundreds of thousands from their business.”
Boy, this was getting intriguing.
“Wow! How was he doing it?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “Something about hidden commissions and false filings. I don’t understand it, but my dad does. He discovered it last week and he contacted the FBI. We’re waiting to see what their investigation turns up.”
“Wow!” I said again.
“We almost didn’t come today, but we didn’t want Sidney to suspect anything was wrong.”
She looked past me at the people on the dance floor, moving and grooving to “Midnight Confessions.”
“Come on, let’s dance,” she said. “Before he notices us standing here and wonders what we’re talking about.”
We got in there for the final chorus, and then the bandleader announced that the main course was being served.
As we walked back to the dais, I whispered to Emily, “Thank you for telling me. And I want you to know that I think you’re beautiful.” It more or less just came out of me.
“I think you’re very attractive too,” she said, almost sending me into a swoon.
We went our separate ways, and I sat down next to my parents for the roast beef. My dad winked at me.
About halfway through the course, a man in a tuxedo came up on the dais. He quietly introduced himself to Uncle Sidney as the assistant caterer. He said the photographer wanted to take some individual portraits of the bar mitzvah party, and would he mind stepping out to the vestibule for a minute to have his picture taken?
“I’m right in the middle of eating,” Uncle Sidney complained.
“I know, sir, and I’m sorry,” said the assistant caterer. “But the photographer needs to do it now. It won’t take but a moment.”
“God damn it! You people are going to give me indigestion. All right, all right!”
Uncle Sidney rose from his seat and followed the man out.
I suddenly got a funny feeling about it. “Excuse me,” I told my parents, “I need to use the restroom.”
“All that dancing,” said my mother, and my father chuckled.
The vestibule was the next room over. As I entered, a man suddenly appeared from the shadows and put his hand on my arm.
“This area is restricted,” he said as I looked past him at Uncle Sidney, who was flanked by two men wearing FBI jackets. They were putting him in handcuffs.
“Uncle Sidney!” I cried out. “Don’t worry, this is only a prank! Those aren’t real FBI agents!”
He looked at me, and there was a confused hope in his eyes that, as long as I live, I’ll never forget.
“Just kidding,” I said.
