Dreidels on the Brain (22 page)

“Ah! Jo-el,” he said. “It means witness to God! Well, Jo-el, let me tell you, your father is a fine man—and a good roommate to have in the hospital. He's kept me in stitches since he woke up.”

“Not that you need more of those, Father!” said my dad. Father Joseph laughed. Or, rather, he whistled through his throat, which was creepy, but funny.

“Of course, he didn't say much the first day I was here,” said Father Joseph. “In fact, for a while there, we thought he was going back to Jesus.”

“We don't believe in Jesus,” said Howard. “He would have gone back to Moses.”

There was more whistling laughter from Father Joseph. “Well, whomever he'll meet in the hereafter, I'm glad he's here now, because he makes me laugh, and laughter is the
best medicine. Bob, tell them what you did this afternoon, when you woke up. Oh dear, that Claudia is not pleased with you, is she?”

My dad's face lit up. “So this morning the nurse came in to get a urine sample. You know, when you're in the hospital they're always doing something to you, taking your blood pressure, or your temperature, or having you pee in a cup. Sometimes they wake you up to give you sleeping pills! Evidently, they hadn't been able to wake me for a couple days, and they're making up for lost time. So this nurse, Claudia, came in and said she needed a sample. She left a cup on the table and went out of the room.” He tried to shift to a more comfortable position, then gave up. “Well, I didn't have anything to give—sometimes you gotta go, sometimes you don't. But on the tray I saw a little container of apple juice that came with breakfast, so I just poured some into the sample cup. A couple minutes later Claudia came and got it. Just as she was walking out the door, she said, ‘Something about this sample doesn't look right.'

“‘Lemme see,' I said, and she brought it back to me. I held it up to the light and said, ‘Well, it looks okay to me! But if you want to be sure, I'll run it through again!' Then I drank it!” My dad started laughing, and so did we.

“The look on her face was priceless!” said Father Joseph.

By then Kenny had set up the candles for Shabbanukkah,
and Howard, who considers himself Mr. Junior Rabbi, took charge.

“We light these candles to commemorate miracles in the days of old,” he said, like he was making a speech.

“Oh yes, son,” said Father Joseph. “I know all about the Maccabees, Books One
and
Two. You'll find them only in the Christian Bible—in the Apocrypha.”

My mom struck a match, and we took turns lighting the candles, singing the blessings quietly. But when we got to “Maoz Tzur,” the same thing happened as last night. We sang it out—loud. Maybe because now we actually knew the words. “Rock of ages let our song/praise thy sheltering power . . .” As we sang, a couple nurses came into the room, looking kind of confused, as well as the dancing janitor we had seen polishing the floor downstairs.

“We should say the Shehecheyanu,” my mom said, once we'd finished singing. To Father Joseph she added, “That's the blessing to thank God for bringing us to this point in time.”

“To be sure,” said Father Joseph. “Let's hear it, then.”

I guess we were inspired by him, and by the fact that our dad was alive, because we sang louder. As we did, other people who must have been visiting patients started to come in, like it was a party, and soon there were almost a dozen people in the room. Some even knew the words, so they
must have been Jewish, and others hummed along.

“Tonight is also the Sabbath,” announced Howard. “The Jewish day of rest.”

Father Joseph nodded as my mom lit the Shabbat candles. These blessings have a different melody than the ones for Chahanukah, and we always mix them up. But now it didn't seem to matter.

Then Kenny brought out the bottle of Manischewitz, which is this extra-sweet wine that Jews drink for holidays. Some people love it, some hate it—I like it, even though it tastes like cough syrup. He poured some into a kiddush cup, which he brought to my father, who held it up and sang the blessing. Then he drank some, licked his lips, and said, “Man-O-Manischewitz!”

By now there must have been about fifteen people in the room, including a couple of doctors. Kenny held up the challah and started the next blessing. A lot of people joined in, and when we finished, he passed it around, saying, “Everyone take some! Just pull off a hunk!”

That's when Claudia came in. You could tell it was her, because she looked mad, her face all scrunched up.

“What's going on?” she said. Then she spotted the candles. “There are no candles allowed in the rooms. You'll have to blow them out!”

There was a long awkward moment while Kenny,
Howard, my mom, and I all looked at one another. That may be the hospital rule, but blowing out these candles is something you just don't do. It's not like birthday candles, where you make a wish and blow them out. The whole point of Ckakanukah candles is that they're
supposed
to stay lit. Same with Shabbat candles. And even if you do blow them out, it's never supposed to be because someone tells you to. Only tyrants make you blow out candles.

“You need to blow them out,” she said to Howard.

As we stood there, facing off, I had an idea. I reached into my backpack.

“Well?” she said again. “Someone please blow them out. Or do I have to?”

“Claudia,” I said, stepping forward, “these aren't just any candles.” She was shocked that I knew her name. “These are Chckahnukkah candles—so they're magic!” With that, I waved my hand, and a ball of flame appeared over the menorah—then disappeared. Everyone gasped and applauded. Flash paper is a wonderful thing.

“You see, Chhhhanukah is a time of miracles!” I said, not at all sure that I believed it. “Like, it's a miracle that our dad woke up.” A couple of nurses nodded, and Father Joseph covered the hole in his throat and said, “Saints be praised.”

“It's a time when dreams come true,” I said, pretty sure this was a complete lie. I had simply learned to swallow chopped
liver without gagging. “Take my father! Who knows if, while he was asleep, he dreamed he was a rich man? Like Tevye!”

Jewish or not, everyone knew who Tevye was.
Fiddler on the Roof
is the one thing everyone knows about Jews. “Look!” I said, pointing to a spot just above the menorah, where the flash had been. Suddenly, a coin appeared at my fingertips. More applause, and I was into my routine for the Miser's Dream.

I snapped my fingers and began to hum the melody for “If I Were a Rich Man.” A couple people hummed and clapped along with me. “Yidel-deedle-didel-yidel-deedle-didel-deedle-dum!” The only thing missing was the bucket. I stood there with a coin, wondering what to do next. And then I saw something on the counter: a stainless-steel bedpan. Still singing, I walked over and picked it up. It was empty! Saints be praised, I thought
.
One step ahead! I tossed in the coin—clang! Perfect. Even better than the professional bucket. A moment later, another coin appeared at my fingertips.

I trotted around the room, singing the song and pulling coins from everywhere, tossing them into the bedpan. I pulled coins out of the faucet in the sink, from Kenny's ear, and from under a Shabbat candlestick, tossing each one into the bedpan.

“I wouldn't have to work hard!” I sang.
“Yabba-dabba-yabba-dabba-dabba-dabba-dabba-dum!” I walked up to one of the doctors who was watching, lifted up his right arm, then pulled it forward, like a slot machine—and three coins came out of his left elbow. Now everyone was singing along and clapping their hands. Father Joseph was the most enthusiastic and—though I can't believe I did this—I pulled a coin out of the hole in his throat. “Praise Jesus!” he said.

“Moses,” Howard corrected.

Everyone was loving it but Claudia, who did not look happy. I got to the part in the song about discussing the holy books with the learned men, then marched right up to her and sang, “That would be the sweetest thing of all!” I patted her on the back, and a half-dozen coins fell out of her nose. Everyone cheered, and even Claudia smiled.

Finally, when I came to the end of the song, I stood by my father's bed, shaking the bedpan, which sounded like it had fifty dollars' worth of coins, and belted out, “If I were a weal-thy maaaan!” With that, I turned the pan over onto my father's head. Everyone gasped again—and out poured confetti.

There was loud applause—and whistling, from Father Joseph. The loudest applause of all was from my dad. “My son the magician!” he said, and everyone cheered.

When that finally died down, my dad cleared his throat to make a little speech.

“As you may know,” he began, “I've been asleep for a
while. I'm told it was almost two days, and they wondered if I would ever wake up. And yet, as my youngest son, Joel, the magician, says, Chhanukkah is a holiday of miracles.”

The room got quiet.

“But that's not all!” he said. “On Monday, the last day of Chchchanukkah, Joel will be making a special presentation at his school's holiday assembly! And they've invited our family to light the menorah in front of the whole school!”

People clapped. My mom beamed.

“I was supposed to be there, dancing on my new golden hips. But, as they say, ‘People make plans, and God laughs.'” He paused for a moment. “The doctors said I should rest in bed for at least a week.”

And thank God for that, I thought.

“But I said, ‘Rest? Who needs rest? I've been sleeping for days!'

“‘Yes, you have,' they said, ‘but you certainly won't be able to walk for some time.'

“When I explained the situation to the folks in physical therapy, including Jose here,” he said, motioning to one of the guys in the room, “you won't believe what he did!”

Now Jose stepped forward, smiling.

“Jose, will you do the honors?” my dad asked.

“With pleasure!”

Jose helped my dad to sit on the edge of the bed, then
reached behind the curtain and pulled out a beat-up old aluminum walker.

“Ain't she a beauty!” said my dad, pointing at it like he'd just bought a brand-new Cadillac. “And would you look at the feet!”

There, on the bottom of each front leg, was a tennis ball. But they weren't the normal tennis balls people put on the bottom of walkers to help them slide. These were fluorescent green!

“Jose has connections!” said my dad. “He knows someone who works in a sporting goods store, and they just got these in! You are looking at the only walker in Los Angeles with Day-Glo tennis balls!”

Jose helped my father up from the bed to stand behind the walker. When he turned around, his butt showed for a moment through the hospital gown, but no one said anything. He was as proud as could be. “Just wait until the kids at Bixby School see this!”

“What?” I asked. “Wait—you're coming to the assembly?”

“Like I said, Joel—I wouldn't miss it for the world!”

“So I still don't get it,” said Brian. “If they're matzoh balls, why are they red?”

Once again, he had completely missed the point of the trick. I was practicing my sponge ball routine, making them appear and disappear in all kinds of cool ways. I even turned a round red ball into a black square. But from the moment I said, “And now, the Magic Matzoh Balls!” he kept interrupting me.

Explaining things to Brian can be frustrating. He's always interested, which is good, but when his mind gets stuck on something, it won't let go, and he'd been fixated on matzoh since last Passover when I'd brought it in my lunch. He was curious, so I had shown him how it has dotted lines, but never actually
breaks
on those lines, and when you
do
break it, you always end up with a bunch of crumbs. He wanted to
try it, so I gave him a piece. He chewed it and said, “It tastes like nothing.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And if you're not careful, you end up eating the cardboard box, because you can't tell the difference.”

“You're right,” he said, eating some more. “So why do you eat it?”

“It's kind of a long story,” I'd said, figuring he'd let it go. But he didn't.

“Yeah? Tell it to me.”

I explained how the Jews had been in Egypt, and left in a hurry, so they didn't have time for the bread to rise. He kept on asking me questions until I ended up telling him the whole story, about the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea and everything else. Since then, he keeps asking me if I've got matzoh for lunch. I explained that you only eat matzoh during Passover—why would anyone eat it any other time?

As for Brian's interruptions this morning, I suppose I brought them on myself. I had asked him over to watch me practice for tomorrow's show at my grandmother's nursing home. I wanted to make it a dress rehearsal, so I put on the white tuxedo jacket and black pants I bought last year, and even clipped on my bow tie. I must have grown since then, because now the jacket was really tight and the pants were
high-waters. I pulled them down as far as I could and stood on the base of the stairs leading to the living room, while Brian sat on a bridge chair. It was so hot that I was sweating before I began. I'd made us a whole large can of frozen orange juice—one part concentrate to three parts water—and we had nearly finished guzzling it before starting the rehearsal.

My plan was to tailor the patter to my audience, like Mister Mystery says. I figured that everyone at the nursing home was Jewish, and it was supposed to be a Honiqa show, so I had come up with ways to Jewishify my tricks, and even used fluorescent tape on my suitcase to write the words
CHAPPY CHANUKAH!
The sponge balls had become The Magic Matzoh Balls. Aladdin's Vase—where you pour out water until it's empty and then, a minute later, pour out more, and keep doing it through the show—became The Bottomless Oil Jar, though Brian said it didn't pour like real oil. For the first trick, where Herrmann magically appears in a fancy-looking wooden cage, I realized I had enough room in the secret compartment for a couple of dreidels. I also changed her name from Herrmann to Maccabee, which I figured she wouldn't mind, given that she already had a boy's name and no idea what it was.

“Ladies and gentlemen, meet Maccabee, the dreidel-playing rabbit! Whenever he spins, it lands on Gimel—
because he's so lucky! You can tell he's lucky because he has all four of his feet!”

“Hold on!” said Brian. “Wait a minute. What happened to Herrmann?”

“This is Herrmann,” I said.

“But you just said it was Maccabee!”

“Maccabee's a nickname.”

“Really? For Herrmann?”

That's how it went with every trick. Brian wasn't heckling me, at least not on purpose—he was just asking a bunch of questions.

“Look, let's just pretend they're matzoh balls, okay?”

I had Brian playing the role of all the volunteers. He had closed his hand around the matzoh ball, and I was about to wave my magic wand over it so it would turn into two balls, but he wouldn't shut up about the color.

“Maybe it's food coloring?” he asked.

“No, Brian, it's just—they're not really matzoh balls. It's . . . a metaphor.”

That didn't help. “What's a metaphor again?”

“A metaphor is like a simile,” I said, “only different. All right? Look, can I just do the trick?”

“Okay. But just one more thing about matzoh balls,” he said. “Tell me again about Marilyn Monroe.”

Brian loves my jokes, and when he hears one he likes, he
wants me to tell it again and again. This is his current favorite. He has a poster in his room of Marilyn Monroe standing over an air vent in New York City, with her dress blowing up all around her.

“All right,” I said. “I'll tell you about Marilyn Monroe—and then, can we go on with the show?”

“Deal.”

“So, Marilyn Monroe got married to Arthur Miller, the super-brilliant playwright, who happens to be Jewish. She went to his family's house for the Passover Seder, where they had—”

“Matzoh ball soup!” he said.

“Right. The next day you know what they had?”

“Leftover matzoh ball soup!” he said.

“Right again. And the next day, the same thing. Finally, after three days of eating matzoh ball soup she said ‘Isn't there any other part of the matzoh you can eat?'”

Though Brian had heard me tell that joke a half-dozen times, he laughed like he was hearing it for the first time, and orange juice came out of his nose.

“That's so cool!” he said. “Marilyn Monroe was super-sexy, and could have married anyone, but she liked the smart, funny-looking Jewish guy!”

“Yep!”

“Just like Amy O'Shea likes you!”

“No way,” I said. “She doesn't
like
me. She's just my assistant. It's just a job for her. So she can buy food for Daisy.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but whenever I see her, she's with a group of girls, giggling about something. I think she's telling them how much she likes you. Where is she, anyways?” asked Brian. “Shouldn't
she
be here practicing?”

“She can't come tomorrow—she had to go be with her dad, in San Bernardino. That's why you're here, so I can get used to doing the tricks alone. And I could do that if you would stop interrupting—”

“I wish I was funny-looking. And Jewish.”

I stared at him. “I think that's the dumbest thing you've ever said, which is saying something. Now that I've told you about Arthur and Marilyn—again—I want to show you a trick I made up especially for this show.”

It was the Menorah Card. First I forced a card on him—the nine of diamonds, though he didn't know it was a force. Then, instead of just telling him what it was, I pulled out this rolled-up banner from my hat, faced backward for the big reveal, then turned around.

“Whoa!” he said, counting. “There are nine diamonds! But that's the card I picked! And it looks like a Jewish watcha-ma-call-it!”

“Menorah.”

I was pretty proud of it—I'd worked hard with markers
to make each diamond look like a flame for each of the eight candles and the shammes.

It took some time, but we got through the finale—my biggest illusion, the Square Circle. There's a big box with a hole cut in the front so you can see a tube inside. You show the audience that both the square and tube are empty, and then—Alakazam!—you produce a ton of things: streamers, scarves, feather boas, pretty much whatever you want, ending with Herrmann—or rather, Maccabee. That trick seemed like a good place to Jewish-up the show, so I renamed it the Holy Temple, and figured out a way to produce more dreidels, candles, and even the string of letters, which had lost some, so it now read
HAPPY HANUKK
. The challenge would be loading all that stuff in—especially Herrmann—without Amy O'Shea. But I managed to do it, and Brian was really impressed.

Afterward we sat on the front porch. Howard had locked himself in his room to study, and Kenny was over at Danny Jarlsberg's house. My mom had gone to the drug store to buy the medicine my dad would need this afternoon when we brought him home from the hospital. On the way we would celebrate by eating at Canter's Deli—my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles—where we would also get my dad some chicken soup so he'd recover faster. Meanwhile, Brian and I sat on the AstroTurf drinking more orange juice—
we'd finished off the first pitcher, so I'd made another—and complaining about how hot it was.

“Winter or not, this is the hottest it's ever been,” said Brian.

“Yeah,” I said. “It's so hot that when the dogs chase the cats, they both walk.”

He made the sound of the rim-shot—“ba-da-bum!”—then added, “It's so hot, you can fry an egg on the sidewalk!”

“Nope,” I said. “You can't. Because by the time you crack the egg open, it's already hardboiled.”

That was a new one. He laughed, and then, out of nowhere, asked, “So, have you given up yet?”

“What?”

“Your fight.”

“What fight?”

“The one you picked with God.”

“Oh, that,” I said. “You were right.”

“Told ya. You got your butt kicked, didn't you?”

“Yeah, kind of. I guess I got off okay. At least my dad's not in a coma. But I'm not even sure if I believe in God.”

“Well, that's your problem right there!” said Brian. “No wonder God's on your case. You want to keep God happy, you need to go the other way. Be even more Jewish. Maybe wear one of those beanies.”

“They're called yarmulkes.”

“Whatever they're called, you need to wear one.”

“Yeah, right. I already feel like I walk around with a neon sign saying
JEWISH!
Wearing a yarmulke would make it flash. No thanks. It's bad enough that my dad's planning on coming to school on Monday . . .”

The moment the words were out of my mouth, I realized what I'd done. I watched Brian's face slowly rearrange itself into a question mark.

“Hey,” I said, trying to distract him, “you just reminded me of a great joke. There's this Jewish guy with a long beard and sideburns named Shloimi. For his whole life he's dressed in a black coat, a hat—the works. Then on his fiftieth birthday, he decides to go for a whole new look. He goes to a barber and says, ‘Take it off—the beard, the sideburns, all of it. Gimme a crew cut!'”

Brian wasn't buying it. “Monday? Why would your dad come to school on
Monday
?”

“Then Shloimi goes into a clothing shop. Instead of the usual black suit, he buys a red-and-white checkered jacket, with a pair of purple pants! And white shoes!”

“Monday,” Brian said again, scrunching up his face. “This doesn't have anything to do with the assembly, does it?”

“Shloimi is a whole new man! He dances off down the street and suddenly—wham!—he's hit by a bus. As he lies there, dying on the street, he calls out.

“ ‘God above! For fifty years I've been your faithful servant! And now, you do this to me?'

“Suddenly, the clouds part and a voice says, ‘Shloimi? Is that you? Sorry—I didn't recognize you!'”

“Wait a minute,” said Brian, not even getting the joke. “The assembly. And your dad is coming . . . Does this have to do with the surprise?”

There was really no point in keeping it a secret anymore.

“Yes,” I admitted. “It does.
I'm
the surprise.”

Now he looked even more confused.

“You?” He shook his head. “I don't get it. I thought it was Sonny and Cher!”

“Mr. Newton had this dumb idea. That's why Mrs. Gabbler called me into the office on Monday. It wasn't for sneeze-honking. It was for the winter holiday assembly. I'm going to be telling the story of Honnika.”

“You mean the one with Judah the Maccabee?”

I nodded.

“In front of the whole school? Whoa. That was one thing when you were a little kid—but now? I mean, you're in seventh grade!”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“All right, that's weird. But what does your dad have to do with it?”

“That was Mr. Newton's other dumb idea. To have my
family with me, lighting the candles and singing the blessings.”

“Onstage? In front of everyone?” He shook his head and whispered, “Do you know what will happen when they see your dad walking in? I mean,
I
won't laugh, but everybody else . . .” He whistled. “Man, you're in big trouble. If I were you, I'd put on one of those beanies and start to pray.”