Dreidels on the Brain (24 page)

That's when my mom spoke up.

“Well, this year, with all that's happened, it's been especially hard to think about presents . . .” I couldn't believe it. Here we were, seven nights into Kchanakah, and she was giving us The Explanation. But then she said, “So, today, when I was at Thrifty's, I saw something and thought . . . well, it's not much, but here you are. There's one for each of you.”

She pulled out a shopping bag from behind the chair and handed out three plaid flannel bathrobes—a red one for Howard, a green one for Kenny, and a blue one for me. We put them on over our clothes, then looked at ourselves and one another.

My dad beamed. “My three sons,” he said.

It was the first Khchanukkah gift we'd ever been given. Howard and Kenny seemed thrilled with their bathrobes,
but I didn't know what to think. Because in my mind I was wearing that T-shirt:
I'
M NOT WITH THEM
.

A
nd tomorrow,
I thought,
I won't be. I'll be dressed in my tux, amazing the crowd.

No more waiting around for miracles—I'll be making magic of my own.

There are no good sounds that can come from your parents' bedroom. Go through the list if you want—or, as Mr. DeGuerre likes to say, “You do the math.” But you may as well take my word for it.

At five o'clock this morning I heard my dad screaming in pain and then, a moment later, shouting, “Where the hell are my pills?” Then there was a lot of shuffling and moaning, which turned into arguing.

I tried to go back to sleep, but kept thinking about my show. I pictured the room full of people clapping, and lines of patter kept running through my head: “I know why you're here! Because you believe in . . . magic!” “These aren't just matzoh balls—they're
magic
matzoh balls!” I was trying to keep track of all the changes I'd made and all the things I would have to do because Amy wasn't there. The hardest part would be dealing with Herrmann—Maccabee—but
I had a little travel cage for her, so I could manage. I had almost asked Brian to be my assistant for the day, but it would have been harder to teach him to do the tricks than to figure out how to do them myself.

I finally did fall back to sleep, and slept a long time. When I woke up and went to the kitchen, my mom looked like she hadn't slept at all. Her hair was a mess—not a hair-in-curlers-and-then-will-be-beautiful mess, but a who-can-think-about-hair-when-your-husband-is-up-all-night-screaming-in-pain mess.

“Hey, good-lookin',” she said, attempting to smile, “what's cookin'?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “How's Dad?”

“Well, he had a rough night.” That was an understatement. “But I'm sure he'll be better today. He's resting.”

“That's good,” I said. “So, when do we go?”

“What?”

I thought she hadn't heard me. I said louder, “When do we go? The show's at two, and I should be there by one thirty to set up.”

I could tell by the blank look on her face that she had completely forgotten.

“Oh, right. Of course,” she said. “Your magic show. Today. Of course.” Then she nodded and smiled, like she'd been looking forward to the drive. She took a deep breath,
wiped her hands on a towel, and looked at the clock. “Let me just finish cleaning the kitchen, shower, and get dressed,” she said. “How about we leave in an hour and a half?”

“Okay,” I said, heading off to the den to prepare. But then I turned around and saw her there, looking drained and disheveled. I heard my dad moan in the other room, and realized she had nothing left—nothing at all. And she was willing to give it to me.

But I couldn't take it.

“I don't think so,” I said. “You stay here, take care of Dad. I'll take the bus.”

“Oh,” she said. “Really, it's . . . Are you sure?”

“Of course,” I said. “No problem.” That was a lie and we both knew it. It was a
big
problem, especially dressed in my tux, carrying my suitcase and Herrmann's cage.

In the kitchen, under the Phone-O-Matic, is a drawer stuffed with maps and phone books and receipts and a bunch of bus schedules. Making sense of which bus goes where and when is a really complicated puzzle. I like puzzles, and this one would have been fun if I didn't actually have to
ride
the buses. I figured out that I needed to take the 259, the 57, and then the 93, which had a stop right across the street from the Jewish Home for the Elderly and Infirm. Looking at the Sunday schedules, I saw it would take three
hours and fifteen minutes to get there. Working backward, to get there by 1:30, I would have to be at the bus stop on Baldwin Avenue at 9:57—in thirteen minutes.

No time to shower, no time for food. I downed a glass of orange juice, threw on my jacket and pants, clipped on my tie, put Herrmann in her travel cage, grabbed my suitcase, and dashed out the door. Sure enough, I got to Baldwin just as the bus was pulling up, dropped my quarter into the box, and collapsed into a seat near the front. There were just a few other riders, and with my suitcase and everything else, they must have thought I was running away from home. I suppose, in a sense, they were right.

We stopped to pick up a few people as we rode down Baldwin, but maybe because it was Sunday we were pretty much on time. The air conditioner even worked, which was a first. But the second bus—the longer ride, all the way to the downtown L.A. bus terminal—was crowded and hot as could be. It was stinky too, as if someone had peed in the corner. Wearing my too-small tuxedo, I was already sweating. Evidently neither the windows nor the air conditioner worked on this bus, so the driver kept opening and closing the door every chance he got, trying to use it as a fan. It didn't help.

I scrunched into my corner and ran through my patter.
“Chanuukah is a choliday of miracles!” I said to myself. “Watch this!”

“Hey, man,” said a voice behind me. “Nice bunny. What's his name?”

I turned to see the bearded face of a hippie. He had a backpack and bongos.

“
Her
name,” I said. “She's a girl. And, well, it's Herrmann.”

“Herrmann?” the hippie said. “
Her
name is Herrmann?”

“That's right. But just for today I've changed her name. To Maccabee.”

“She's a girl, but her name is Herrmann, and you're calling her Maccabee?” He looked confused, but nodded. “Oh, I see. Maccabee. Like Judah, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Far out!” he said. “So, what are you, a magician or something?”

“That's right. I'm going to do a magic show at my grandma's nursing home.” I realized this was a great chance to practice the patter that was running through my head. “And this,” I said in my deep magician's voice, “is Maccabee, the dreidel-playing rabbit! He's lucky! You know how you can tell? Because he has all four of his feet!”

The guy broke into a laugh, so I kept on going. “And I know why you're here! Because you believe in . . . magic!” I didn't have the feather flowers loaded in my sleeve, but
had managed to dig a sponge ball out of my pocket, which I produced from thin air.

“Oh, man!” he said. “How'd you do that?”

“Magic!” I said. “And it's a magic matzoh ball!” I made it appear and disappear a couple times, then produced it from his ear. I was pretty pleased with myself.

“Whoa!” he said. “Trippy! That's totally amazing!”

Suddenly he looked out the window, and called to the driver, “Hey—this is my stop!” Then he said to me, “This lady I met said I could crash here.” He grabbed his stuff and ran toward the door. “Hey, you!” he called back. “You're a magic man! Don't you forget it! Happy Haanakah!”

He's right, I told myself as he jumped off the bus. I
am
a magic man.

I was feeling pretty good when we got to the terminal in plenty of time, but the third bus was running late. Really late. I waited ten, fifteen, then twenty minutes before it came rolling up. When it finally did, the driver must have figured it was a good time to tell his life story to all the other drivers, because he stood there talking to them for another fifteen minutes. When we pulled up at the nursing home, it was already five minutes till 2:00, so I ran inside to the front desk, where a woman sat doing a crossword puzzle. I stood there, catching my breath.

“May I help you?” she asked, without looking up.

“Hey there!” I said, still breathing heavily, trying for my deepest voice. “How ya doin'? My name is Joel Edwin—and I'm here to . . . do magic!”

She looked up at me, staring. I felt pretty stupid, but figured I'd try again. “How you doin'?” I said, suave as I could muster. “Is Esther around?”

“Esther? I'm not Esther. Esther's not here.”

“That's all right, Not-Esther,” I said, reminding myself that I was the magician, and in complete control. “No Esther, no problem.” I tried to sound like Mister Mystery. “As I was saying, my name is Joel Edwin, and Esther hired me to perform a magic show for today's Chanuquah celebration. Today. At two o'clock.” I looked at the clock. “That's in . . . three minutes.”

“Your name is Josh? And you want to do magic tricks?” she said.

“Actually . . .” I cleared my throat. “My name is Joel. And I've been hired to perform for the Hanika party. By Esther.”

“Esther doesn't work on Sundays,” said Not-Esther. “And she didn't tell me anything about a magic show. Then again, nobody ever tells me anything.” She picked up a clipboard, flipping through several pages. “All it says here is, ‘Menorah lighting in social room. Two o'clock.' But as long as they're
just sitting around, you may as well do some magic tricks. It's not like they have anything else going on.”

“Great,” I said. “Also, my grandmother, Anna, is a resident here. Would you happen to know where she is? I know she was looking forward to it.”

“What's her name?”

“Anna.”

“Last name?”

It's the same as mine, and I didn't want to say it out loud. Luckily, I spotted a list of residents' names on the counter and pointed to my grandmother's.

“Oh, her.” She frowned. “She doesn't usually come to activities, but I'll ask the orderlies if they can bring her in.” She pointed to a doorway. “The social room is at the end of that hall.”

I rushed with Herrmann's cage and my suitcase down the hall, opened the doors, and stepped into a room filled with noise and cigar smoke. My dad had said they didn't let people smoke on Saturday, because it's forbidden on Shabbat, but apparently they make up for it on Sunday.

There was a stage at one end of the room, with a big TV on a metal stand, set to a soap opera. On-screen I could see a woman talking to a doctor, but couldn't hear what they were saying, because there were a dozen people in the room talking loudly, some in Yiddish, some in English, all of it kvetching.

“Attendant, it's too hot in here! I'm
shvitzing
!” That means to sweat—a lot. “Why don't they turn on an air conditioner?”

“I'll tell you why—they're too cheap to buy one!”

“Nurse! Nurse! Light my cigar!”

“Yeah!” someone else said. “And then light
my
cigar!”

I figured they didn't let the residents have matches, and that's why, on a table next to the TV, there stood a big electronic menorah with a cord and nine pointy screw-in lightbulbs instead of candles.

I climbed the steps to the stage. There was no backstage, so I went into a corner and knelt down to set up the tricks as quickly as possible. I loaded the feather flowers up my sleeve and prepared the Twentieth-Century Silks—or Escape from Antiochus, as I was calling it—where a multicolored handkerchief vanishes from one place and appears in another. I pocketed the Magic Matzoh Balls, and set up the deck for the Menorah Card, making sure the nine of diamonds was on the bottom, and that the banner was tucked into my hat. I prepped the Miracle Rope, put the linking rings—Eight Rings of Chanukkkkah—in order. I found a drinking fountain and filled the Bottomless Oil Jar. Finally I loaded the coins for Miser's Dream, which I was calling Magic Gelt Trip. I had a coffee can to toss the coins in, though it wouldn't be as cool as the bedpan in the
hospital on Friday. They probably had bedpans there, but I didn't want to ask.