Are You Kosher? (12 page)

I followed the colonel into his room, which was right next door, and he informed me that I was going to make him a very happy man. I looked him in the eye and said, ”Happy Chanukah to me.
Gey tren zeicht
!” His jaw dropped and before he could call for help, I tore open his throat and made my way down the hallway to the führer’s chambers.

“Mein Führer!” I knocked on the door.

“Who is it? Vhat do you vant?” he asked in a surprisingly feminine voice.

“I must speak to you now,” I replied. “We may need to move you.”

“Go away!” he shouted. “I’m playing canasta.”

He’s doing what?
I thought. “I have a better idea,” I announced and kicked the door in. There he was, the most evil person who has ever drawn a breath of life. The mass murderer of millions of Jews, the man who destroyed most of Europe, the lunatic who wanted to rule the world, Adolph Hitler. And he was wearing a garter and Betty Boop makeup.

“Get out now!” he yelled. Eva Braun was standing next to him, wearing his infamous uniform and holding a horse whip. She pulled out a Luger and fired it at me. The bullet missed and ricocheted off a trophy for runner-up in the “Ms. Austrian Drag Queen” competition, 1934. The bullet hit her square between the eyes and she fell dead. The Führer was stunned and slowly turned to me. I looked at him, took a step closer and said, “More fun for us, sweetheart.”

I have to tell you that I was expecting a bit more of a fight from a man who so brazenly imposed his will on others. “You are about to get a little lesson in Jewish justice, my little cross-dressing friend,” I informed him and threw him across the room, slamming him into a chair. He sat on the floor crying and whining, begging for mercy, telling me that it was all his generals’ fault and he was only a puppet, that all he really wanted to do was sing and make people happy.
Oy vey
.

Hitler sat in front of me for about an hour, watching as I feasted on the carcass of Eva. Never swallowing, just sipping and spitting to scare him. It obviously was working. Twice, he lost control of his bodily functions. I taunted him by informing him that the Russians were on their way and it was either going to be quick and painless if I killed him, or slow and intolerable if they caught him.

He began to cry like a stuck pig, and in between whimpers, asked for a last request. I thought about it for a moment and decided that I would give him what he had denied so many, so I granted his last request. How was I to know that he wanted to serenade me to “I want to be loved by you”? This was too creepy for words. Adolph Hitler, in his little Betty Boop outfit, a dead Eva Braun on the floor behind him, doing what was actually one of the best Betty Boop impersonations I have ever seen. The sound of mortar was beginning to reverberate throughout the compound and it was obvious that the Russians were getting close. I stood and told Hitler that it was time for his curtain call. This, I was going to enjoy. I turned to make sure that the door was locked, so I would not have an unexpected intruder, when I heard the gun go off.

I quickly turned to find him lying on the ground with a splatter of blood and brain matter against the wall behind him. The little coward obviously had a gun hidden on him. Where he had it hidden is a question I would rather not know the answer to. I was glad to see this sight but also very angry. He had denied me the pleasure of doing what I originally set out to do; plus, I’d had to endure almost two hours of his singing.

The sounds of war were atop the bunker now and I could hear gunfire from above. The Nazi’s were about to meet their fate and it was time for me to make my way out of there and back home.

It took me a few months, but I finally landed back in New York harbor and decided to walk home. It was good to see the sights of Brooklyn again, to walk past newsstands and see the headlines of victory. To smell the seductive aromas of fresh baked breads as I walked past bakeries, and to think of the warm homecoming I would get upon my arrival.

I took measure of what I had done. I personally killed almost two thousand Nazis and nobody would ever know it. I liberated a concentration camp, indirectly killed one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the earth, and had a private floor show performance in the act of doing so. Sometimes it’s good to be a vampire.

As I entered my home I saw Bubbe sitting on the sofa knitting; it was as if I never left. She slowly turned her head toward me and I said, “I missed you, Bubbe.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Where’s Mom?” I asked; another shrug.
What’s going on?
I wondered. “Are you mad at me for something?” I asked, mildly irritated. She put down her knitting needles and asked, “Would it have killed you to write?”

Sometimes it’s no fun being a vampire.

Chapter 23

So You Think You Have Problems?

As you have probably figured out by now, the human art of kvetching drives me up the wall. Why do you think somebody who is always positive is so remarkable? Because every single one of you is a big baby. What you don’t appreciate, even though you like to say it often, is that there is always someone worse off than you. It just so happens that I knew someone who had it a whole lot worse than any of you and I didn’t do much in the way of helping the situation.

Not too long after the flood, at least to a vampire it wasn’t too long, the three of us had settled in a place about three hundred miles east of what is now modern day Baghdad.. Life was comfortable. Bubbe had made some very shrewd business decisions, I had made some new friends, the aforementioned Jerry and Shlomo, and even my mother was doing well, loving the local wine.

There was a man who lived not too far away that the entire community loved. This man was the definition of being a mensch. Although he was wealthy beyond anyone’s imagination at the time, he was a humble man and, to my knowledge, he never offended anyone. That’s why what happened to him left you with no choice but to feel real
rachmones
for him. His name was Job. He had wealth, land, livestock, beautiful children, and a pain-in-the-tuchas wife by the name of Sylvia. It seemed that he was actually blessed by you-know-who, but for some reason, things went south for him very quickly and tragically.

In what seemed like the span of only a few days, his home was destroyed, his wealth was gone, his crops and his children were dead, and the poor guy was covered from head to toe in hideous boils. All he had left was his Jewish wife to comfort him. Try to keep a straight face on that remark, no more fur coats for Sylvia or trips to Miami for the winter. He was left with nothing and was now living under no more than a tarp to keep the sun off of his frail body, scratching at the boils with pieces of clay pots. This was pathetic, tragic, painful to watch, and thankfully, it wasn’t me.

Don’t get me wrong; I felt for the guy. Everyone in the community did. They rallied around him to the best of their ability to try to comfort him, but you have to understand that the Jewish concept of comforting entails trying to make someone feel better by either blaming someone else, or making the afflicted person think that it is his fault, or telling him what a hardship it is for them to even be there in his time of need. Fate has nothing to do with it; someone did something wrong and in Job’s case this was no different. The boils had to be the worst part of the whole situation since he was such a good-looking guy and he didn’t even have that to fall back on anymore. People from all around came to try to make him feel loved, but the problem was that whenever they did, Sylvia was standing over their shoulders scowling at him.

In spite of everything, I decided to go and try to do my part to cheer him up. Even Bubbe pitched in by making a batch of poppy-seed hummantaschen for him, and I bought him a little something to alleviate his discomfort. This was no small task for me; I do not do well with physical ailments. I wanted to see him but was not sure that my stomach could handle it.
Suck it up, Izzy
, I would repeatedly tell myself,
it’s a mitzvah
.

I packed up Bubbe’s treats and my gift and headed over to “Caleb’s Camels” to rent a ride so that I would not have to walk the five miles to where Job was now squatting. The ride was no picnic. I hate riding camelback, but it is still better than walking. It was hot, I was getting all shvitzed, and all that I kept thinking was that he had better really be sick because this was one hell of an inconvenience. As I pulled up to the makeshift camp and dismounted, I saw Jerry and Shlomo approaching. They had just finished their visit.

“Hey, guys, how is he?” I asked.

“He looks terrible,” Shlomo said, “but Jerry cheered him up a little, I think.”

“I told him that at least Sylvia doesn’t even want to touch him, and if she decides to divorce him, he’s got nothing to give her.” He broke into a chuckle.

“Very subtle, Jerry.” I said.

“Hey, are those some of Zena’s poppy seed hummantaschen?” Shlomo asked, excited. “Give me one.” He reached for the cookies. I pulled them back.

“These are for Job, you shmendrik. If you want some, go ask Bubbe,” I ordered as I walked past them.

“But she doesn’t like me!” Shlomo yelled.

“She doesn’t like anybody!” I replied over my shoulder.

I could see the tarp and slowly made my way to see Job, hoping that I could keep it together. Jerry and Shlomo’s visit must have made him physically and mentally exhausted, and it was now even more important that I handle this visit with a great deal of care, tenderness, and understanding. For G-d’s sake, I had to keep my big Jewish mouth out of the way. I remember repeating to myself over and over again,
You can do this, you can do this
.

Now we’ve all had, at one point or another in his life, one of those conversations that just goes wrong from the beginning and we actually wind up doing more harm than good. For all of you reading this that have made this horrible error, all I can say is that I have all of you beat. This is another one of those times when you may want to go to the bathroom or get a cold drink, or perhaps have a cigarette, even though you shouldn’t because those things will kill you and they make you taste funny. I seriously, seriously fucked up this attempt at comfort, but in my defense I can say that he looked really bad.

I walked around the tarp and saw him sitting in front of me in all of his putrid glory. He really was not doing well. I once had an ingrown hair and thought that was bad; it was nothing compared to what this poor fellow was going through. He looked up at me with sad eyes and simply said, “Shalom, Izzy.”

“Shalom, Job. Holy hell, you look like shit!” I said before I could even catch the words. He dropped his head a little and replied, ”Yeah, well …” “No, really,” I interrupted, “I heard stories, but what the fuck? Look at you!” I exclaimed.

Job, now looking more uncomfortable, simply said, ”It has been a real struggle.”

“I’ll bet,” I replied. “Are those things everywhere?”

“I suppose so,” Job answered.

“They’re not contagious, are they? Because I have very sensitive skin.”

“As far as I know, they are not,” Job said. He looked up at me and asked, “So how are you doing?”

At this point, a smart man would have realized that he still had time to correct his faux pas, but instead, being the shmuck that I am, I only made matters worse.

“Well, I got this splinter in my finger a couple of days ago and it’s starting to turn colors. I can’t seem to get it out. What do you think?” I asked as I shoved my finger in his face, “Does it look infected to you?”

“Maybe,” Job replied awkwardly.

“Yeah, maybe I should go and get it lanced or something. I don’t know.” Once again, Job lowered his head and I remembered my gift, time to save face. “Hey, I got you a little something to make you feel better.”

His head lifted and there was a faint glimmer of joy in his eyes. “Really? What is it?” he asked.

I pulled out my gift from the wrapping that it was in, “Tah-dah!” I announced, “It’s a back-scratcher. I figured you could use one instead of using those shards of pottery.”

Job smiled mildly and thanked me. He reached for me to hand it to him and once again I ruined the moment. I drew back a little and asked again, ”Are you sure those things aren’t contagious? Because that one there looks like it is about to pop … and there it goes.” The boil exploded.
Stop talking, Izzy
was all that I could keep telling myself.
Give him the cookies and get the hell out of here. Do it now
. Yes, the cookies, that was the answer. Who doesn’t like Bubbe’s cooking? But I could not seem to make things that easy. I just continued to talk and it all got even worse.

“So you lost everything, I hear. Is that right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, his head lowering again.

“Your kids, too?”

“Yes.” Now tears started to flow.

“Even Rebecca?” I inquired.

He looked up at me and said, “Yes, all of them.”

“Damn, she was hot,” I said without thinking, following the theme of the conversation.

Job looked up at me and asked, “What did you just say?”

“Nothing,
gornischt,
forget it.” This was getting worse by the moment. I desperately needed to change the conversation away from his losses and his ailment. Once again I failed miserably. “So aside from the boils, how are you feeling?” I asked like a shmuck.

“Well,” he started, “My sciatica has been acting up, so my back has been killing me.”

I shook my head in agreement and said “Yeah, I got that too. Sucks, doesn’t it? Maybe I should get a more form-fitting pair of sandals; what do you think?”

“What?” he asked with an obviously more irritated tone in his voice.

“Oh I am so sorry, Job. Here I came to comfort you and I’ve made it all about myself.”
The cookies, Izzy
, I said to myself,
the cookies
. “My bubbe sent you some of her world famous hummantaschen that I know you love.” I unwrapped the package and presented them to him. His eyes brightened just a bit and I thought that maybe the nightmare of this conversation was almost over.

“Are those the prune ones that I love?” he asked longingly.

“Uh, no I think they are poppy seed,” I replied innocently.

Job’s face went red and it was not from the boils. “Poppy seed?” he exploded, “Poppy seed? I’m fucking allergic to poppy seed, you goddamned shmendrik!” he yelled. “Why don’t you just pour lemon juice on my wounds, you asshole?” This seemed slightly uncalled for.

“Woe, woe, woe, bumpy,” I shouted back. “There is no call for that tone whatsoever. My bubbe went to a lot of trouble to make these cookies for you because she knew how much you liked them. She wanted to cheer you up. Did that pain-in-the-tuchas wife of yours do anything like this? I don’t think so.” I was now yelling at this poor man. “I happen to know for a fact that all she has done is been a wart on the inside of your ear, spewing filth about how you have to blame everyone else for your problems, including you-know-who, but the fact is that everyone, including me, warned you not to marry that royal pain in the ass! She is a spoiled little Jewish bitch who could only crack a smile if her cheeks were being dragged in two different directions by a herd of camels! All she cares about is money, so don’t take out your frustrations on me, you ungrateful little douche!” I looked at him and saw that his eyes were as wide as fresh-baked pita and his head was shaking “no.” I suddenly went cold and said, “She’s behind me, isn’t she?” He nodded “yes.”

I slowly turned and smiled at the scowling Sylvia. “Lovely to see you again. Sylvia,” I said. “I was just telling your husband how difficult a woman Bubbe was to live with.” She took a step toward me. I thrust the basket of cookies into her face and said, “Here, have a cookie. I have to go before I get charged late fees on the camel.” I ran as fast as I could, yelling over my shoulder, ”Hope you feel better soon, Job!”

Things eventually turned around for Job. His wealth and land holdings slowly returned. His wife, the insufferable bitch that she was, gave him more children, and she even found time in her busy schedule to tell Bubbe the entire content of my conversation with her husband. Pay back is a bitch, and so is Bubbe when she hears of inappropriate behavior by her grandson. Bubbe is not a woman that you want to get angry, but even she pales in comparison to Sylvia, the wife of Job.

I wish that I could go back in time and make things right regarding my failed attempt at comfort. I would have liked to be more supportive, more understanding, and more compassionate. And I think that I would have liked to ask him if he had a boil on his shmekel.

Now that would have been funny.