This One Is On Some Childhood Memories
I have very few memories from before I became a man. Jews— even just cultural Jews— consider that to be on your 13th birthday. “Today you are a man.” It means you can be one of 10 “men” (Jewish men) who can gather in a prayer service, read the Torah and be heard by God. Those 10 men make a minyon— like a quorum; 9 men won’t cut it. That’s what a bar mitzvah is all about.
My father—a devout atheist— didn’t want me to have one but everyone else did and all my friends were having them so I rejected his offer to take the family to Europe in lieu of a bar mitzvah. At least he prevented me from going to one of the brainwashing places where they try to turn you into some kind of rah-rah Zionist Jew. The dingy little neighborhood synagogue around the block from where we were living on East 17th Street in Brooklyn that he picked out was just the basics— they made you memorize the page in Hebrew you had to read from the Torah and that was it. Other than that, I had to get a suit and learn ballroom dancing.
The guests were all my parents’ friends. When I was searching high and low for a photo of Otto, I can across a couple of handwritten pages of the guests who came to the bar mitzvah and how much they had given. I’m going to someone’s wedding and giving them a valuable painting (below) by Howard Finster worth a few thousand dollars. Look what the guests gave me. The biggest amounts were $75 and $50 from my parents’ two closest friends (from their high school days) but the average gift was around $20.
I don’t remember much about the bar mitzvah except how happy I was that it was over and I didn’t have to go to Hebrew school or ballroom dancing classes anymore. But my friend Stuie Cohen and I were walking down Avenue P towards PS 197— he had just been bar mitzvahed as well— and out comes one of the elders of the congregation where I had “studied” and been bar mitzvah-ed and he offered us $20 each a week if we’d stop in every day on our way to school so that they’d have a minyon. That was a helluva lot of money, so we did it. There were really only 7 old Jews and we made 9 and they had a black janitor who they convinced themselves was an Ethiopian Jew to make the 10th.
Before that, I don’t remember much. I wasn’t close with anyone in my family except my mother’s parents. My grandfather was a Russian socialist who came to the U.S. as a teenager; he taught me about politics. My grandmother was a fantastic cook and her love for me was unbounded; I was her first-born grandchild. For me, “running away from home,” meant taking the bus to Bensonhurst and staying at their house, where they had books, something that I don’t recall ever seeing in my parents’ house.
I always had the impression my father hated me and that, like his marriage and life in general, I was a big disappointment. He didn’t like that I would rather go to a museum than play sports or that I got bored at the Dodgers games he dragged me to at Ebbets Field. I don’t think he ever paid any attention to me until I was in college, dating a stunning model and brought her home one weekend. Was he jealous!!! But that was a decade after he had already made it clear how much he didn’t like me. We sometimes went for years without speaking to each other. I used to think I must have been adopted. I had nothing to do with these people. In the last decade, my father’s spirit comes to me in a friendly way on a ray of sunlight when I’m swimming in my pool. I’m happy to hear from him. I guess I’ll be joining him soon and… being more respectful each other.
Once, when we were living on Long Island— Valley Stream or Roosevelt— they went shopping on a Saturday and left me home and I was playing with a hose, not watering anything as much as… playing. I guess the water was very expensive because when they got home my father decided to beat me up. I took off and started scrambling under the neighbors’ fences, one yard after another. It was too much for him and I think he had a heart attack or some kind of stroke. Whatever it was it didn’t last and it definitely led to a few years of us not speaking to each other. We never recognized each other’s humanity.
I also remember that when they moved back to Brooklyn, they left my dog, Princess, behind. Miraculously, she managed to find us in Brooklyn and they let me keep her. But what a bastard to leave my dog— the family dog— behind!
My parents and their friends smoked cigarettes and drank. Thanks to them I’ve never smoked a cigarette or tasted a beer (or coffee). They also loved Frank Sinatra. He was their idol in high school and they used to play his records all the time I was growing up. My father dressed like him and tried to make me dress like him too. You can see how thrilled I am about that in the photo up top. I so disliked him and all the other Rat Pack music they played. And as the houses and apartments got smaller and smaller, there were fewer chances to get away from it. What an irony that I wound up as the president of Sinatra's record label— and wound up respecting his vision immensely.
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