Oreo (11 page)

Because of these and other Schwartzes, Oreo had decided to call it a day. She had gone
crazy at a delicatessen on Broadway called Zabar’s and had bought a lot of goodies to eat,
the gourmet in her temporarily winning out over the stingy person. To compensate for her
lack of control around good food, she was going to save money by sleeping overnight in the
park instead of checking into a hotel. She had found that Riverside Park’s major drawback as
a campsite was that it was long and narrow. It was flanked on the west by the Hudson River
and the West Side Highway. Because of its narrowness, it had been difficult for Oreo to find
a secluded spot, away from children, dogs, bicycle riders, tennis players, joggers, lovers.
The place she had chosen for her picnic dinner she thought would be ideal for her overnight
bivouac. It was hidden by trees and a huge rock, was near a water fountain and a park john,
and was, for the moment, clear of people. She shoved her orange and white Zabar’s shopping
bag under a natural shelf in the rock and went to the john.

As she sat there, she noticed a hole about the size of a half dollar in the door that would
provide a midget’s-eye view of the toilet. Sure enough, a few moments later a midget’s eye
appeared at the hole. Oreo could recognize one anywhere. The midget giggled, and Oreo picked
up an empty cigarette pack that someone had dropped on the floor and slammed it against the
hole.

“It’s giving me Marlboros,” said a high-pitched voice.

Oreo got tired of stretching from the toilet seat to the door and dropped the pack. The
hole was clear for a few moments. Then the eye came back. A few seconds later, wiggling
fingers replaced the eye. Oreo grabbed the fingers and twisted them with a gentle but
persuasive torque. The fingers were withdrawn from the hole hastily. “Yah, yah, that didn’t
hurt,” said the voice.

“It will the next time,” Oreo warned. She finished quickly and moved silently to the door.
When she yanked it open and looked down, she was disappointed in herself. It wasn’t a
midget, just a normal-sized redheaded shifty-eyed kid of about eight. “It’s a gypsy!” the
boy howled when he saw Oreo, and he ran off.

What kind of dumb kid thinks I’m a gypsy? Oreo thought. A Canadian dumb kid, she found out
a few minutes later, when he came back with his parents. Oreo smiled. The boy’s parents were
midgets. She hadn’t lost her eye for spotting midget blood after all.

“I’m Moe,” the man said.

“And I’m Flo,” said the woman.

“And we’re here to say hello,” they said together.

Oreo was about to introduce herself, but she thought that more than three rhymes in one
chorus would be too Cole Porter. Instead, she leaned down and said, “And what’s your name,
little boy?”

“Look into your crystal ball, gypsy.”

Scrock, thought Oreo.

His parents apologized for his bad manners. “Joe’s his name,” said his father.

“And we came,” said his mother, who obviously leaned toward internal rhymes,
“heigh-ho-the-derry-o . . .”

“. . . from Ontario.”

Moe and Flo Doe explained, in maddening doggerel, that they sold dog whistles and had been
traveling all over so that Joe, who would inherit the business, would really get to know his
territory—North America.

“Yep, we came from way out yonda,” said Moe.

“On a Honda,” Oreo put in before Flo could open her mouth.

“Yes, yes, yes. How’d you guess?” Moe said, grabbing the whole couplet for himself and thus
revealing a selfish streak that Flo would doubtless have to contend with in their later,
choliambic years as they went scazoning toward life’s dead end.

How many caesuras would a rhymester as undisciplined as Moe not hesitate to rush into? Oreo
wondered. How many catalectics make acatalectic, spondees amphimacerize in his mad rush to
complete rhymes all by himself, without the help and support of the musette he loved? True,
Oreo had been guilty of infringement when she snatched—nay, usurped—Flo’s Honda line, but
she had just met the midget woman and could hardly be accused of disloyalty.

The twice-deprived Flo raised a determined chin and said, “Why pay the rent? Pitch a tent,”
leaving Moe with his mouth open.

Oreo saw that Flo could take care of herself and stopped worrying about her. The couple
explained that although three Does could ride with comfort on one motor scooter, they always
traveled with two, so that either Flo or Moe was riding with Joe while either Flo or Moe
rode the scooter with the family camping gear. They saved on hotel bills by camping, usually
illegally, in parks and any other wide spots in the road they could find.

Oreo admired their thrift. She went back to her rock, a stone’s throw away, and took out
her buffet of noshes. Since the odds were that the Does could not eat much (a nanonosh), she
offered to share her food with them. They declined with a klutzy quatrain (prose version:
they were looking forward to the menu they had planned and wanted to get their camp set up
before they prepared their evening meal). Oreo sat on her rock ledge and watched them. While
she munched on smoked sable, chopped liver, and scallioned cream cheese, the munchkins
pitched a hop-o’-my-thumb tent, then scurried to and fro with their dollhouse equipment.

Flo motioned Oreo over to ask that she watch the charcoal fire they had just started in the
grill while she and Moe went to the bathroom. They didn’t want little Joe poking at it.

“Whatever you do . . . ,” said Moe.

“I beg of you . . . ,” said Flo.

“. . . don’t let the flame go out . . .”

“. . . scout.”

Moe had obviously learned his lesson. He had left long pauses for Flo’s lines.

Oreo turned to the fire as they walked off. Groovy, she thought, a sacred flame to tend.
She noticed that the Does’ charcoal briquettes were about the size of Chiclets.

“It’s starting to go out,” Joe complained. He was staring at the flames with pyromaniacal
intensity.

“Oh, shut up. It is not.”

“Boy, will they be mad when they come back and see that you let the fire go out. It has to
be a certain heat for what we’re cooking.”

Oreo looked at the fire. It
was
dying down. She had never tended a charcoal grill
before. She couldn’t let the flame go out and scrock up her sacred trust. A failed fire
tender? Never! Now, what had Flo done to get the fire going? Oreo had seen her pour some
stuff from a red can over the black Chiclets. Oreo took the can and gave the dying flames a
generous dousing. With a phoenix tune, the flames sprang back to life and shot up the side
of the can, just in front of Oreo’s hand.
Whoosh, whoosh!
flapped the wings of the
phoenix as the flames soared several feet straight up from the nozzle of the can. With
unseemly haste, Oreo set the can shakily on the ground. It teetered and finally fell,
sending a weed of flame scuttering through the dry grass. Oreo started for the can,
hesitated, started again, and finally dashed forward to right it on a flat rock. Flames
thrummed merrily from the nozzle.

Oreo backed off to survey the situation. “
Oi vei
, you mothers,” she said to the
scampering flames. She turned quickly. Joe was a safe distance away behind a tree, his
shifty eyes wide with excitement and glee. He was
laughing
at Oreo. Oreo ran first
to the weed of flame and danced on it. Her sandal caught fire. She slipped it off her heel
and flung it away. It hit a scabby sycamore and fell into some grass beckoning from a fork
of the tree. The grass caught fire. Joe was in a pyrophilous frenzy over Oreo’s
concatenating combustions. As she hopped about putting them out one by one, she knew that
she was avoiding the main problem. She could hear the murmurs of the unsuspecting
recreators—who might soon be piecemeal all over the foliage because Oreo was chicken
shit!

She was stamping out the last small fire when she forced herself to face the red can with
its high-powered
Whoosh whoosh!
She calculated her chances. “If it hasn’t
exploded yet, it probably won’t explode. On the other hand,
since
it hasn’t
exploded yet, it’s probably ready to explode. If
I
blow, who knows how wide an area might go
if
it
should blow? On the other hand, it certainly would be dumb if I were to go
over there and do the heroine bit, save everybody in the park, and get blown up myself. I
mean, I don’t even
know
these people.”

In the time it took to read all that, Oreo had run over to the Does’ camping equipment,
picked up a wee potholder in the shape of a wee mitt, shoved it on her index and middle
fingers, flung herself at the can, and cut off its thrum
in flagrante
. Oreo smiled.
Chicken shit my Aunt Minnie!

Joe looked disgusted. The only flames he had going for him now were the ones on the
charcoal grill, the original sacred flame. He ran over to the grill hungrily.

Just then, Flo and Moe came back. They thanked Oreo for keeping the fire going.

“Heh, heh,” Joe snickered.

“Before we sup . . . ,” said Flo.

“. . . please fill this cup,” Moe told Joe. He was stretching a point to make the rhyme.
The “cup” was a bucket.

“It’s what we need—don’t you feel?” he said to his wife.

“Oh, yes, indeed—to make our meal.”

“We almost needed some water for this whole place,” Joe said, smiling nastily at Oreo. He
went off swinging his bucket and whistling a medley of gypsy tunes.

Oreo asked the couple what they were fixing that required the special temperature that Joe
had mentioned. But of course: braised dog biscuits. The Does said that dog biscuits were the
perfect food for small campers. They had all the vitamins and minerals for the adult midget
minimum daily requirement, they were lightweight, easy to pack and carry, and they were
tasty. Braising over a hot charcoal fire brought out their subtle flavor.

Oreo made a mental note to tell Louise. But why this preoccupation with dogs? she wondered.
Dog whistles, dog biscuits.

“You see things from their point of view . . . ,” said Flo.

“. . . down amidst all this do-do,” said Moe, lifting his leg high as he walked over the
grass.

On her afternoon walk, Oreo had discovered the Seventy-ninth Street Boat
Basin, where private yachts, speedboats, and houseboats were moored. She thought it would
look pretty at night and was headed there when she heard music. Somewhere near the boat
basin a rock group was working out. As she walked along the esplanade toward the boats, the
music seemed to come from above her. Several people were going up the steps that led from
the esplanade to an undomed rotunda, the upper perimeter of which served as a traffic circle
for cars entering or leaving the West Side Highway at Seventy-ninth Street. The rotunda
itself was a pedestrian underpass of the highway exit; its archways encircled a large
central fountain. Earlier that day, Oreo had watched children and dogs playing in the
fountain under black and white signs that read:

That afternoon, strollers had sauntered coolly through the frescade of overlapping
shadows cast by the archways. Now, for some reason, no one was allowed access to the rotunda
from the esplanade.

Oreo and several other people backtracked through the park and went to the upper perimeter
of the rotunda, darting through the circling traffic to get to the narrow ledge that formed
the base of the waist-high upper wall. They looked down on a rothschild of rich people
(dancing), round tables (sprouting beach umbrellas), and rock groups (playing at opposite
arcs of the stone circle).

None of the onlookers seemed to know what was going on, so Oreo crossed the traffic circle,
ducked under the chain draped across the steps leading to the rotunda, and joined the party.
No one questioned her as she wandered around tasting canapés and reading place cards. A few
movie and television personalities walked by and pretended to know her when she pretended to
know them.

She was about to leave when a boy of about eighteen—tall, thin, and supercilious in his
black tie and white dinner jacket, with a nose as pointy and put-upon as an ice cream cone—asked her to dance. They were essentially dancing by themselves, one occasionally glancing
at the other to see whether the other saw what a good dancer the glancer was.

Finally Oreo said, “I've been to so many benefits lately, I can’t keep track.”

“Tay-Sachs.”

“Christine Clark.”

“No, dear, that’s the name of the disease this little party’s in aid of.”

“Never heard of it,” said Oreo.

“Of course not. It’s virtually exclusive to Jews—Ashkenazim.”

“
Nu
, I’m half Jewish.”

“Half a loaf is better than none.”

“And sickle-cell anemia to you.”

“Never heard of it,” he said.

“Of course not. It’s virtually exclusive to blacks—gesundheit.”

“Some people have all the luck.”

“Well, mine has obviously run out—I met you. But half a wit is better than none.”

They stopped dancing and got down to the real business of seeing who could top whom. It
went on for about fifteen minutes, his tit for her tat, and vice-verbal, until they both got
tired and conceded the match was a draw.

Oreo never discovered her opponent’s name, but she was happy for the chance she’d had to
flex her snot-nosed-kid muscles. She headed back to the campsite, comforted by the knowledge
that the Jewish half of her had kept her from getting sickle-cell anemia and the black half
had warded off Tay-Sachs disease.

Oreo said good night to the Does, fifty baby steps away, and snuggled
under her rock ledge on newspapers she had chosen for the purpose. She had picked ad pages
with a high percentage of white space, not only because their good-taste quotient was likely
to be high, but also because it would cut down on the amount of newsprint that could come
off on her dress.