(c)2012
When the time came for my bar mitzvah, I
was not given the opportunity to show off the wisdom I might have gained had I
been permitted to prepare for this ancient ritual. I would not bask in the acclaim of guests, be anointed a reincarnation of Maimonides
or collect a slew of checks. My mother had other ideas. The proper path for
her male progeny, on the cusp of adulthood in modern America, was to be exposed
to the depredations that still lingered in this affluent land of ours. I would
receive a “socialist bar mitzvah.”
Worse, she decreed
this alterative rite could not be accomplished by a mere MTA
ride to the other side of town, to Roxbury, the North End or even Charlestown. Au
contraire, the poverty that existed in those places was the bi-product of
racism or immigrant status. What she had in mind was showing me that when push
came to shove, the captains of industry were still willing to grind their iron
heels into the sons and daughters of our original pioneers. To achieve her objective,
Mom connived a road trip into lands where, by her accounts, there yet dwelt original
American (read “white”) serfs. We'd travel to Appalachia.
So it was
that in the spring of 1958, four of us (for we were obliged to schlep along my
little sister) with my father, whose personal opinion was “it’s a crock of shit,”
at the wheel, invaded the hills and hollers of West Virginia in Dad’s spanking
new, black and chrome Mercury Turnpike Cruiser with its all-leather interior,
electric windows and Massachusetts plates.
Mom
selected our route based on AAA maps. Scrupulously avoiding red roads and reluctantly
settling for blue when all else failed, she steered us at every opportunity onto
the dotted lines — the so-called “improved roads” — which meant in some spots
they’d put gravel over the dirt.
But once we
penetrated into the habitat of the endangered American serf Mom’s bravado began
to waiver. Insecurities seemed to set in. She became anxious when I strayed
more than a few paces from the car. She passed up one of her regular joys,
browsing roadside stands, though they were laden with enticing ciders and
native produce. She prodded us to hush whenever we settled into the worn-out
booths of the area’s dilapidated “whites only” diners. And she scolded us to
remain invisible when my father negotiated for one of the region’s ubiquitous
accommodations, a kerosene-lit cabin cum outhouse. Whether she was
fearful for our safety among this proletarian salt-of-the-earth or was
concerned an exchange with some local might reveal flaws in her caricatures of
them, I wasn't able to tell.
As the days
passed, the trip devolved into a something akin to a Disneyesque amusement ride
where one never actually comes in contact with anything. From the back seat I
got to see ramshackle dwellings roll by, elders rocking and gumming on sagging
porches and their smudged-faced, barefoot offspring frolicking in yards that
looked like pig slop. Sure enough, she’d confirmed for me that there were
indeed people in these United States that looked like the Yokums of Dogpatch. But
what did they think? Were they the besotted mindless hillbillies that populated
Al Capp’s comics, or were they actually mighty revolutionaries simply biding
their time until they got “The Party’s” call to assault the citadels of
power? Such an inquiry was not on her
agenda.
Then,
despite the best-laid plans of my socialist tour-guide, the hermetic seal was
broken and the bitter pill of truth poked through. My alternative rite-of-passage
bore unexpected dividends.
The sun was
already dipping in and out from behind a series of steep, denuded hills when my
father rolled to a stop beside the pumps of one of those last-gas-for-fifty-
miles service stations. “Couple bucks of hi-test,” he grunted in the direction
of the proprietor while attempting to mask his thick Bronx accent.
The gaunt
codger to whom my father directed this order squinted in an attempt to read our
plates, making his nose curl into a hawk’s beak. A cheek bulged with what
ballplayers called “chaw.” He pushed off from his rocker in the shade where
he'd been fanning himself with some newsprint and shuffled over to our shiny
vehicle, scrutinizing its contents as if we were a box of chocolates and he was
pondering his selection. “Two-a super,” he confirmed, taking the opportunity,
now that his mouth was in gear, to squirt a brown gob of tobacco juice out of
its corner.
It was then
that my father noticed an ancient red Coke machine sputtering away on the
fellow’s porch. He squeezed himself out from behind the wheel to investigate,
returning a few moments later to report with evident delight, “They're still a
nickel down here.”
Indeed,
he’d discovered a backwater Shangri-La of pricing. In New York and Boston the
nickel Coke was a thing of fading memory. How, I wondered, could they keep the
prices so low here in Hicksville? It certainly wasn't volume.
Euphoric at
this discovery, my father's generosity was exceptional and he sprang for twenty
cents worth of the elixir. Moments later all four of us, little sister
included, were in reverie, nursing our very own bottles of Coca Cola — savoring
that pause that refreshes. But after the bumpkin had pumped out those eight
gallons of his highest- octane fuel we still had plenty of soda left in our
bottles.
Little did I
realize our dawdling with those colas was fraught with peril. The wholesale
pricing had lifted my father's spirits and he deflected his impatience to get
back on the road by wringing additional considerations out of those two bucks.
Heedless of the “know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em” rule, he insisted
the fellow check the oil, then the water levels in the radiator and battery and
after that, the air in the tires. And still, when the proprietor appeared at
our window, palm up, wanting to be paid, we'd not finished our drinks.
Dad peeled
off a couple of bills and as the man shuffled off to ring up the sale, hit the
gas. The next thing I heard was something that sounded like a rebel yell — and
then some more of the same. I peered out the back window where I was just able
to make him out —running through the cloud of dust and gravel kicked up by the
accelerating Turnpike Cruiser, a strap of his overalls flapping. Had we left
something behind? Was this old codger attempting to warn us of an unknown hazard?
As my father slowed and the dust began to settle, the answer was revealed –no,
it was nothing like that. His face was grim. His jaw was set. He was charging
toward us like an infantryman, with a double-barreled shotgun cradled across
his chest.
From my
spot in the back seat, I could use the rearview mirror to see perspiration
spreading over my father's brow. Dad was keenly aware of his helplessness at
the hands of this hillbilly. His fingers were gripping the steering wheel
tightly. There was fear in his eyes — the fear of the Jew in Gentile-land since
time immemorial. Was this curtains for Manny Willdorf? Would he be wacked with
a load double 0 buck like his boyhood hero, the Bronx mobster, Dutch Schultz? Or
were we in for a necktie party —a West Virginian version of the murder of Leo
Frank, the only Jew lynched for certain in Georgia since before the Civil War?
Dad rolled
down his window and waited until the yokel came abreast of him, then gave the
fellow a nervous shrug. My mother, uncharacteristically, had nothing to
say. But the owner of the gas station
was not similarly tongue-tied. “Now jus' hole on ther', Yankee,” he drawled,
“hole dem gol-darn hosses.”
My eyes
were drawn to the gun. I'd seen these double-barreled affairs before on TV. The
guy who sat next to the stagecoach driver always had one. Enthralled, I noticed
the old fellow's thumb resting on the hammer behind one of the barrels as he
contemplated cocking the weapon. Ahah,
I thought, not fully in touch with the delicacy of our predicament: At last, the real Appalachia. He must be one
of those revolutionaries willing to pile up corpse upon corpse to unseat the
capitalists and seize the reigns of power. Here's the real McCoy Mom's always
talking about. We'll straighten this out in no time. All Mom has to explain is
that we're socialists and revolutionaries just like him. No problem. Go ahead, Dad.
Tell him even though we have this new four-door black car that looks almost
like a limousine, you've got a college education and work as a white-collar
engineer, tell him that we're his comrades.
But such was not in my
father’s game plan. Instead, he could only summon a sputtering, “What's wrong?”
“You run off without payin’
no deposit on them colas you got. That's what's wrong, Yankee,” the hillbilly
snarled. “You owe me eight cents, two each for them four bottles you lit out
with. So you jus put them bottles back in the rack or gimme eight cents right
now.”
My father sighed with relief.
He wasn't getting lynched. “Sorry,” he said, smiling. “Just a
misunderstanding.” But there was a hitch
in his voice that I knew well. The buckshot-riddled ghost of Dutch Schultz was
calling. I recognized that old deep-down reluctance he always had to part with
a penny, especially urgent here, as this demand came from a yokel wanting eight
cents in hard currency. “Try something,” the Dutchman whispered, and my father
began to feel for an angle. “Look,” he said, “I got some empties in the trunk.
How about I give you four of them so the kids can finish their drinks and we'll
be on our way?”
The old man scratched the
stubble on his chin while he considered the proposal. He didn't quite like it
–knew he was dealing with a fast-talking Yankee bottle thief — but he couldn't
sniff out the game. “Les jus' see them bottles, Yankee.”
“Sure, sure,” said my father
as he hauled his butt out of the car. He popped the trunk and there, to one
side, was his wooden crate filled with coke bottles, a few of the large
five-cent deposit kind and a slew of smaller two-centers.
The hillbilly peered inside
and spat again. He knew the moonshine business all right and this smacked of
something like it. He fretted with a
hammer on his gun. He squinted. He frowned. Obviously not a man of words, he looked
to be turning over in his mind the ones he intended to use. “Now I know what
you been doin’ down here, Yankee. You been thievin’ our Coke bottles.”
I snickered. Could this
backwater yokel really think that my father had actually earned a brand new
Mercury by stealing empties from gas stations? But then, except for his
exaggerated idea of the profit involved, the hick had struck pay dirt as to the
truth of the matter.
The air was redolent with the
tang of gun oil. My father stared at the weapon. The glaring sinister voids
that were its pair of muzzles. The carved cross-hatching of its walnut stock, polished
to the sheen of a recruit’s boot. The dust-free ebony barrel sparkling like
river rapids at sundown. If that gas station jockey loved anything in this
world, it was that piece. It brought Dad to his senses. “Take some of the big
ones,” he gulped. “Your choice.”
Not a greedy fellow, the West
Virginian satisfied himself with a couple of the five-centers.
After we got home my father
began telling everyone that he was so moved by this downtrodden worker’s
distress, he gave the fellow an extra two cents, and everyone believed him.
Well, I’m no Maimonides and I don’t know
my Torah all that well, but I did manage to take away some useful lessons from
my socialist bar mitzvah. You don't have to be educated to be smart. Schooling
is not an inoculation against stupidity. If you bullshit well enough, there are
plenty of people out there who won’t be able to distinguish it from the truth. And,
it doesn't hurt to keep your shotgun well oiled.
