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  Svi smiles, nods, and pulls the brim of his hat lower.

  “David,” Debra says and I walk to the mechitzah. She puts her finger through the triangular cutouts. I hook my thumb over her pinkie and we laugh a little.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” I say.

  “She’s so mad about yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you. It was a mistake. I was only thinking of Dad and what he’d want.”

  “Dena,” my mother says, and our fingers come apart. “Over here now, please.”

  “It’s time,” Debra says. “Shaindee is about to announce she’s a kallah.”

  “A what?” I say.

  “A bride.”

  All of the women and Peter Rabbi come out of the kitchen and to the front hall. Yussi, Svi, and Avram all walk next to me. Shaindee, Sarah’s older sister, is pretty like Sarah but already a snood, you can tell. It’s all behind the eyes and the way she walks, like a waddling, wearisome duck. She sits on a folding chair in the center of the room. Sarah sits next to her and the rest of the family stands around them. Peter Rabbi says a prayer: “Od Yishama B’arai Yehuda U’vchutzos Yerushalayim, Kol Sason v’Kol Simcha, Kol Chatan v’Kol Kalah. Let it speedily be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of happiness, the sound of a bride and the sound of a groom.”

  Svi now walks around the mechitzah and he and Shaindee both stand together. I look at my mother and her eyes are tearing.

  “Svi and I,” says Shaindee, “wrote in to the grand rabbi last week.”

  My mother walks from her spot and is now behind Becca, who’s begun to yelp softly in what I believe is Yiddish.

  Shaindee takes a piece of paper from a pouch in her apron. “I’d like to read this to you. It’s what I wrote to the grand rabbi last week.”

  To the honorable and holy, our master, our teacher, our rabbi,

  My name is Shaindee Danowitz. Three years ago I saw you on the street in Brooklyn and you looked into my eyes before a man called your name and you looked away. Do you remember that? I have enclosed my picture in the hope that you might remember me. I know that you see many, many people each day and are so intelligent, wise, generous, giving, noble, selfless, and kind. I understand if you don’t remember me or my face. I am writing you today to ask for your blessing. I would like to become a kallah. The man I’d like to marry goes by the name of Svi Kutensky and he is a seller of fine jewelry in the diamond district of New York City, New York. I am the daughter of a baal teshuva rabbi named Pinchus Danowitz. His shul, Ohev Shalom, is located in Vincent, New Jersey. My mother is also a BT and her name is Becca Danowitz. Svi and I have obtained the blessing and approval of my parents. And although Svi’s parents, Jules and Edith Kutensky, are conservative Jews who live in Maryland, they are very supportive of our union and know that we will build a true and everlasting Hasidic home. It would please us both to no end if you allowed us to marry and to form such a family. I hope you will call or write us soon. Please feel free to keep the picture.

  Sincerely,

  Shaindee Danowitz

  “And?” says Avram. Hut, hut, hut.

  “The office called the house two days later,” says Shaindee.

  “And?”

  “And I am a kallah!”

  The group surrounds them and the mazel tovs are said loudly and often as the women kiss each other and the men pummel Svi with aggressive back patting. Peter Rabbi yells, “Now we dance,” and Svi and Yussi start pulling me by my elbow toward the living room. “No, thank you, no, no, no,” I say, yanking my arm back. “No, really, no thank you, I don’t dance.”

  “You’ll like it, David,” says Peter Rabbi. “It’s a celebration. All the men must dance.”

  “It feels good,” says Svi. “I promise.”

  I have to nearly throw my arm to get free of Svi’s grip. “Enjoy yourselves, okay? I’m not a dancer.”

  “You must, David,” says Peter Rabbi. “A wedding has been announced. My daughter’s wedding and you are a guest in my home. All the men in this home must dance together in celebration. Please. Now. Come.”

  Svi has a record album, which he hands to Peter Rabbi and in seconds a fast and rockin’ version of some Hebrew wedding song starts, “Od Yishama B’arai Yehuda U’Vchutzos Yerushalayim . . .” Svi approaches me again and takes hold of my wrist. I cannot fucking believe this. I look down at my arm and then through the mechitzah, back at my stripper/Hasidic mother, who isn’t helping me at all.

  “Just do a little,” she says, and I’m taken, dragged, literally strong armed onto a pile of stale Lichtiger manhood. My God, a circle of bodies whose hands squeeze the shoulder of the guy next to him to form a sphere, a spinning wheel of black garb that attempts to keep up with the drums and horns of this fast moving song. And as I’m flung around and around it’s like a nightmare, truly I’m stuck on some Hasidic carousel of sweat and vodka and Hebrew prayer. I can only see the mechitzah and not the faces that look through it as I’m whipped around the room. Faster and faster we climb, these seemingly sedentary men now airborne and feather light, whirling me round and round and all I can think about is what would happen if the Polaroid fell from my pocket. Avram has a monkey-wrench pinch on my already sore shoulder and it kills so I leap out of this fucked up situation by counting to three before diving out and nearly tripping on the sofa. But I’m out and on the other side of the mechitzah. All the woman glare at me like I just shot God and I take my mother’s hand in mine. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Why are you pulling me?” she whispers.

  “Go back and dance, David,” says Becca.

  “I don’t want to dance. I want to talk to my mother. In private.”

  “When the song is over,” Becca says.

  “It’s ended twice, it’s just repeating now.”

  “When it’s over, David,” my mother says.

  “No! Now!” I don’t plan to say it that loud but it comes out in a shriek.

  Peter Rabbi walks around the divide. “David!” he says. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you I don’t dance.”

  “May I talk to you in private, please?”

  “No. You may not.”

  “Mom? Are you gonna talk to me? Huh? Mom?”

  She stares at the dancers, the song repeating again. “I am celebrating, David. I don’t want to do anything but celebrate this blessing.”

  I fling open the front door, leap from the top step to the sidewalk, and run to the car, where I turn on the ignition and blast the radio. Then I yank out the keys and slam them on the dash. “Fuck yooooooooou! You lying, two fuckin’ faced Hasidic wannabe stripper! You have to be fucking kidding meeeeee!”

  A person is there, suddenly there, on the sidewalk, a coat wrapped around her. It’s her. I do not know if she heard me. Her eyes are bloodshot but her mouth shows fury for the disruption on this day of days for the Danowitzes. I open the door and get out and walk to her.

  “I told them I didn’t dance, Mom.”

  “You were rude to the rabbi.”

  “I drove here to talk to you. I found something today and I wanted to talk about it.” I reach for the Polaroid and put it in her hand. She takes it, glances at it. Her eyes widen before blinking, and then I see tears.

  “Proud of yourself?” she says softly.

  “What?”

  She looks down at it again, then gives it back to me. “So what?” she says.

  “You were a dancer?”

  “And now I’m not.”

  We stand there, staring at each other and I can see that she despises me.

  “I’m someone better,” she whispers. She takes a long deep breath that has her face pointed up at the sky. “It was exciting for you,” she says. “To come here today. To my friend’s home. You found that. Or your father gave it to you and you couldn’t wait to hand it to me. Couldn’t contain the thrill of seeing me, of hurting me.”

  “No. This was in a b
ox in the garage and—”

  “You decided to come here, in front of my friends?”

  “Mom?” I say and touch her arm.

  She flinches. “I want you to leave.” I see a tear jump from her eye. “I love you,” she says and cries harder. “You’re my son, David. But I want you to leave here. I want you to leave.”

  The feeling is in my bones and blood. A trickling of nerve endings that prickles my skin. She walks back on the sidewalk, then runs to Becca and Debra on the porch. I get in the car and drive past them, watching them crane their necks as I go. My sister raises her hand to wave and I instinctively do the same, but she can’t see me. There’s no way she saw me. My mother’s tears are on my hand. Or maybe they’re mine. I’m crying, just here alone, driving and moaning like an idiot, like an actor in a movie, weeping as he goes, somewhere, nowhere, back to my father.

  THE DANCER IS an Asian burlesque performer and she’s dipping her big toe into a five-foot martini glass. It’s a larger crowd than I’ve ever seen around the main stage. The music is live, a three-piece band with a drummer, a sax player, and a piano that’s tucked in the corner off stage right. I don’t see my father or Brandi or Leo, but Jocko is tending bar. I ask him where my dad is and he points to the ceiling. Up the stairs, I go. Brandi’s in the dressing room across from my dad’s office. There are five or so girls in there, all sitting and smoking and listening to her as she applies something to her face.

  “Sleek here with elongated high arches. Shave them if you’re a diehard but pencil and some patience is better. The rest is the same as before. Your face should be a creamy pale ivory with rose-toned cream blush applied to the cheeks with powder. If none of you . . . David!” She walks over to kiss me on the cheek. “Where’d you go, your dad is worried?”

  “I was in Jersey.”

  “Go see him. There’s pizza in the office. Pepperoni and mushroom.”

  Across the hall, I open the door.

  “Fuck off, Bobby. I’ve been bookin’ acts in Atlantic City as long as there’s been an Atlantic City.”

  My father waves me over to him, puts his hand over the phone. “Where ya been?”

  I remove the picture from my pocket and place it in front of him on the desk. In the silence that follows, I look out the window toward Broadway. I’ve noticed this before but if I lean the top half of my body outside, I can see the enormous neon penis that hangs off the Marion Theatre. Within a few seconds it will fire those thousand tiny bits of white confetti into the air. I lift my Nikon and wait for it to snow in May. Three, two, one, boom, there it goes. Click. Click. Click. I feel my father’s hands on my arm.

  “You’re gonna fall,” he says.

  Click.

  5. Smashed Staircase Railing

  4. Old Man with Hand in Garbage Can

  “David?”

  3. The Hasid and the Stripper

  2. Burnt Orange Sun Setting between Skyscrapers

  1. It’s Snowing on Broadway in May

  “I guess we should talk,” my father says.

  I come in out of the window and stand with him, his hands on my shoulders.

  “Ask me questions,” he says. The band finishes downstairs and lazy applause is heard. “Ask me anything.”

  I put my camera on his desk before opening the top of the pizza box. “Mushroom. Can I have some?”

  Part II

  Summer 1975

  Uncle Bobo

  BY LATE MAY, SPRING FADES in New York and I can’t find a breeze anywhere. Summer will be early and hot, I can tell. In the shower I decide I’m in a jungle rainstorm near Tikal. It’s a typhoon, really, a mass dumping from the sky that leaves me deaf to the world beyond the plummeting storm.

  “Save some hot water,” Brandi yells from outside the bathroom, and strangely I’m back from Guatemala. When I come out I see the French final in the manila envelope on my bed. This one is multiple choice and like the other exams I’ll take it alone and unmonitored at the kitchen table. SPD is the category. “Split parent dwelling.” The status is one of empathy, I think, and allows me to be trusted more than students whose parents still like each other.

  1. Je ___________ assez bien Paris, mais je ne ___________ pas où habite le Président de la République.

  a. sais . . . connais

  b. sais . . . sais

  c. connais . . . sais

  d. connais . . . connais

  I go with C.

  2. J’ai rencontré Claudine et je ___________ invitée à sortir ce soir.

  a. l’ai

  b. la ai

  c. lui ai

  d. l’y ai

  A?

  3. Réflexion d’un touriste: ___________ Bordeaux les enfants parlent français!

  a. À

  b. Aux

  c. En

  d. Dans

  I don’t know, D.

  4. Je voudrais que vous ___________ à la maison avant minuit.

  a. soyez

  b. serez

  c. êtes

  d. être

  I think these are all fine.

  5. X: Quand vas-tu voir tes amis de Grenoble?

  Y: Je vais dîner avec _________ ce soir.

  a. elles

  b. leurs

  c. ils

  d. eux

  No idea.

  I’m late. I decide to finish later and hurry to get to Larry’s by two o’clock. His store is gutted; the chipped linoleum floor is covered in dust. He’s got everything in boxes, including sixteen film canisters of porn movies that were never part of the deal. He says he has to get rid of them so he’ll “give” them to me—long pause—for five hundred even. I tell him I’ll talk to my dad, but I doubt it. He asks me how much I think it’ll be to buy porn from LA or San Francisco. “This is a steal,” he says.

  I suggest he throws them in for free since he won’t have much use for them in Boca Raton. Ole Larry shakes his head and runs his finger over the canisters.

  “Ten each,” he says.

  “Deal,” I say, like I’m Monty Hall. Though I haven’t watched the movies, I’m pretty sure they’re fine. Girls with no clothes on. People fucking. I’m sure they’re fine. For the next three hours, Larry reads off his inventory as I tag everything in the store with product markers. The dildos take the longest: “The Great American, $15.00. The Squirter, $10.50. The Challenge, $15.00. Five-inch balls, $9.50. White realistic, $10.00. Black realistic, $18.00. Willy, an even $10. Knobby Ed, $9.50. Uncle Bobo, $15.00. Cock nose with headgear, $20.00. King Kong Dong . . .”

  TUESDAY MORNING IS graduation. My father wakes me with another new camera. It’s a Graflex, a Crown Graphic 4x5 with an Ektar 127mm f/4.7 lens. He puts it in my hands before I even open my eyes and it’s beautiful and thoughtful. “Got it for dirt cheap,” he says, and I hear Brandi in the hallway, “It’s from me too.”

  “I love it,” I say, and when she pokes her head in, I think of my mother and whether she knows what day it is. If I call her, she’ll say, right, right, I’m so sorry and tell me it’s some Jewish holiday like Erev Stinchus Pinchus. I’ll tell her she’s a better stripper than a mother, a better liar than a Hasid. Yeah. That’ll make her love me.

  “It’s called a Graflex,” my father says. “I put film in it. Black and white.”

  The phone rings the loudest in the kitchen.

  “Hello?” I hear Brandi say as I get out of bed.

  “I think you should bring it to Atlantic City.”

  “David, it’s your mom.”

  “It’s your mother,” my father repeats, his hands on my shoulders. “Get Deb for Friday. Don’t mention the beach. Just tell her we’ll meet her at Halfway Hojo’s. Tell her it’s for my birthday.”

  I lift the phone in my father’s room. “Hello?”

  “Hi. Happy graduation.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t know if you were going to the ceremony.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to.” Silence. “I mean . . . if you w
ere going, I’d go but knowing you, I thought you’d think it was . . .”

  “A waste of time.”

  “Yes. Knowing you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How are you going to get your diploma?”

  “They’ll mail it. Where were you? I called you twenty times last week.”

  “We’re not here a lot, David.”

  “You should get one of those machines.”

  “They’re expensive. Plus, I hate the phone.”

  “But I can’t reach you.”

  “I know, I know, I can’t believe how busy I am these days.”

  Silence.

  “Is Debra there?”

  “No.”

  “Where is she?”

  “School.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “They’re having a—”

  “Will you tell her to call me?”

  “Yes. Yes I will.”

  “Did she get my letter?”

  “I don’t know. I can ask her.”

  “Ask about Debra,” my father whispers. “Two nights. Next Friday. Tell her I’ll have her back on Sunday.”

  “I just wanted to say congratulations,” she says. “You did it. You made it through. I’d like to send you something if it’s okay.”

  “Oh. Sure, yeah. Listen, we’re going to the beach next Friday,” I say. “And Dad was wondering—”

  My father’s waving his arms at me, shaking his head. “You said beach.”

  “If Deb could come with us.”

  “I’ve told him this so many times, David. She doesn’t have a bathing suit. And she burns just like me. You know how fast it happens. I’d prefer it if there was a different plan.”

  “That’s the plan. She doesn’t have to go in the water.”

  “But her skin . . .”

  “Dad suggests we meet at the Howard Johnson’s.”

  “The sun is very bad for the skin. I’ll talk to him. Is he there?”

  I hand my father the phone. He stares at it like it’s a tarantula.

  “Hey there, Mick,” my father says. “Long time. Where ya been?”

  Pause.

  “Uh-huh, you real Jews have so much on your calendar.”

  Pause.