Are You Kosher? (28 page)

The stairs are creaking. Bubbe is coming; I can smell the faint aroma of mineral oil on her wooden spoon. I wish that I had paid more attention in Hebrew school, because I am sure that there is an appropriate prayer for just this kind of situation.

Shalom, my friends.

Kiss your tuchases good-bye.

Chapter 46

So Long, Farewell, Abi Gazunt, Good-bye

I have to say that I am frankly a little disappointed in all of you, and I am feeling slightly betrayed. You guys were all as guilty as I was. Nobody was holding a gun to your head forcing you to read these memoirs. You did it of your own volition. The least that you could have done was give me a heads up, or at the very least say, “Izzy, maybe you should put that book under lock and key.” Did I not stress during the process of writing this that we were all in a lot of trouble if we were found out? I was counting on every one of you to look out for me, and do you know what I have to show for it? A swollen, red tuchas.

Not once did any of you
mamzers
warn me, and now I may never be able to compete professionally in the luge again. That’s right, the luge. I was saving it for the sequel.

You can argue that I’ve been around for a little under six thousand years and I should have known better, but that is not the point. Obviously I am a shmuck, and the least that my friends could have done was warn me that the delicate nature of my ignorance was going to put me in harm’s way. I considered every one of you a friend, even the shvartzes, but did you reciprocate my friendship? I think not. Now I am getting well acquainted with an ice pack. Bubbe can still swing that spoon like Babe Ruth.

Oh look, another country heard from. Here comes Yankel, the little traitor that he is. I see that he is walking a bit funny as well. I guess Bubbe gave him what-for, too. Serves him right, he also could have warned me.

I do not think that I can adequately describe how bad my tuchas hurts right now. The only thing that I can say for sure is that Bubbe knows who each and every one of you are, and your time is coming. I’m glad that you think this is all funny. We’ll see how funny it is when you are the ones with the throbbing tuchases.

Perhaps I have to reevaluate my life. Maybe it is finally time for me to find a place of my own after just around six thousand years. Let’s face it, I don’t have a job. I live with my mother and Bubbe, and even my own cat, whose life I literally saved, doesn’t have the decency to warn me when trouble is brewing. What has the world come to?

Bubbe is stewing downstairs about the reasons behind my feeling it necessary to write these memoirs. I’ll give her two guesses, and they are both red and sore right now. By the way, I’ve been grounded for two weeks.

I think that a lot of ground has been covered over the last forty-eight hours, as I tried to make you more aware of my own personal situation as well as bringing you to a new level of understanding about those who live around you. Maybe the next time you wake up with an oddly-placed mosquito bite and can’t remember where the hell you were the night before, you might give it a second thought. You may look at your reclusive neighbors in a whole new light, and maybe, just maybe, you will not be so fast to judge people without knowing who they are or where they came from. Those of you in the southern part of this country can take a lesson from this before you decide to make mother jokes, you ignorant fucking rednecks.

I have learned a valuable lesson. It is a lot less painful to go to professional therapy than it is to try and sneak around behind Bubbe’s back; she always finds out. How she does it will forever be one of the great mysteries. I also learned this evening after our last conversation that if you lightly feast on Dwayne, he is an articulate, thoughtful man, even if he has the unfortunate tic of grabbing his crotch whenever he talks. That will go over big in rabbinical school.

Being immortal is a true gift, and the last thing that I wanted to express in this journal was that it was some kind of curse. As I said before, it is not for everyone and not for anyone. What does that mean, exactly? I don’t know, but fuck you, I’m lying down with an icepack on my tuchas because you just sold me out to the “Masher of Marine Park”—that’s my new nickname for her.

What do I do next?

Considering the pain, both emotional and physical, that I experienced writing this book, I think that it would be prudent to get it published. Maybe, if I can help one lonely vampire living under similar circumstances, it would be like saving the world. Say what you will, but you have to admit that it was a pretty interesting story, and what makes it even better is that it’s all true.

I have to make travel arrangements now, since my mother is engaged. Dwayne’s family is from Virginia and it is customary to meet the in-laws. Can you imagine that trip? Zena Glassman going to Rednecksville, USA to meet the new crew. Maybe we will just convert the entire clan. The jury is still out on where the two of them are going to live, but my money is on their living here. Thank G-d I took down that ceiling mirror.

I’m not calling him Dad. It has nothing to do with him being a shvartze, but one of these days I hope to find out who my biological parents are. Wouldn’t that be something if I found out that I was a distant relative of Pope Pius? That is a thought too horrible to think about, but it would explain my passion for shaving my legs.

I am happy for my mom, but I am still not sure if she is doing this for love or to piss off Bubbe. Both are very good reasons. You think that Jewish guilt is bad? Try Jewish spite. That’s why you almost never hear a Jew refer to “cutting off his nose to spite his face.” Can you imagine that? One Jewish shnoz could clog up the Panama Canal. A true weapon of mass destruction, especially if they suffer from seasonal allergies.

Maybe I’ll do some traveling. Believe it or not, there are a lot of places in this world that I have never been to. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, even China; how do you think that those disgusting cat eaters would like me? I don’t know if I could blend in there, even with that stupid pointy hat. My only dilemma about traveling is, who’s going to watch Yankel? Bubbe is pretty mad at him right now.

Bubbe is another concern, I’ll bet anything that she is busy writing her own memoirs at this very moment. It will probably be called,
That No-Good Little Pisher: A Scorned Bubbe’s Memoirs
. It’s kind of catchy, but will most likely have a limited audience.

They say that sometimes the best therapy is writing down your thoughts; well, tell that to my tuchas. Is this a true statement? Did I write down my innermost thoughts in some subconscious way of seeking inner healing? I’m not really sure and I am not about to wax poetic about my motives or go all ‘Oprah exclusive interview’, or sit on the sofa of
The Today Show
to explain myself. What I think happened was that I was just really bored.

I hope that I didn’t bore you. You have to admit that it was a pretty good story.

Did you learn anything from it? Did you learn to laugh at yourself? Did you learn that the human race is a constant comedy of errors that could only be truly brought into the light of day by someone who has been a firsthand witness to all of your follies? Did you learn to appreciate the fact that even though you may not have known that vampires are living among you, we are not the threat that the mainstream likes to portray us as? Aside from the feasting, of course.

Was I able to dispel some of the popular misconceptions that have plagued my kind for centuries? Are you now convinced that we are not that much different from you? We have a similar family dynamic. We love, hate, get aroused, and will fight to defend our own at any cost. We are not monsters; we just play ones on TV.

Where does my life take me from here? I’m not sure. Maybe on a national book-signing tour. How funny would that be?

One thing that I think I can take away from this experience is that I still have a lot of growing up to do. Perhaps I could have been more sensitive, but gey tren zeicht. If any of you were offended, that’s your problem. I may have spoken in terms that many of you found to be racist or politically incorrect, but I am too old to worry about any of that mishegas. I know that I have said this before, but it is perhaps the most fundamental truth behind all of this. The simple fact of the human condition is that you do not learn from your mistakes or listen to your elders. Well, you are not going to find someone more “elder” than me.

What is the next six thousand years going to bring? For me, I’m not sure. For you, well, you won’t be around to worry about it, and that is the point. Relax and try to enjoy yourselves and each other. Stop taking everything so seriously and learn to laugh at one another without getting offended.

It would be a great world to live in if all of you realized that you are all assholes. You should all learn to respect and appreciate each other, and yes, laugh at one another. Jews and Palestinians, Catholics and altar boys, Republicans and Democrats … OK, that one might be pushing it.

Who knows? Maybe aliens will land on this planet and teach all of you the meaning of life. Of course, they will probably be Jewish, so none of you are going to like them anyway. Who else could afford that type of technology? Maybe they can help find that cowardly goat-fucker Osama bin Laden.

I see that Yankel is chewing on an envelope that is addressed to me, it appears that I have won a trip to Puerto Rico. How great is that? Six days and five nights in the land of Tsvi the Shmendrik? If cats could talk, I bet I know what Yankel would be saying about the irony.

Will I write again? I can almost guarantee it. There is much more to tell, and since Bubbe already knows that I have done it once, what else is there to hide? There is the time that I was doing Jell-O shots with the captain of the Titanic. That whole unfortunate experience in Salem, Massachusetts, and the time in Alabama when I told that shvartze lady that I was quite comfortable where I was and she could take my seat in the front of the bus.

I’m going to head down to the porch now and have some of the leftover Manischewitz martinis that Jerry made and smoke a cigar. How much more trouble can I get in tonight?

The night air was cool and the neighborhood had a peaceful calm to it. I know that you thought I was done, but this was priceless. This might be what I have been talking about the entire time.

I sat on the porch drinking happily and taking slow drags from my hand-rolled cigar. Bubbe came out to join me. At first, I was scared shitless, but she did not say a word. She was just content to sit next to me. After a few moments, she spoke.

“Quite an evening,” she said.

“Yes, it was,” I replied.

“Do you think that everyone enjoyed the food?”

I looked at her slightly puzzled and replied, “How could they not? You’re the best.”

She shrugged. “I’m still mad at you.”

“Listen to me, Bubbe …” I tried to say. She waved me off.

“Do you think that I am so naïve that I don’t know what’s going on under my own nose or that I can be difficult?” I tried to answer and she cut me off. “That was a rhetorical question.”

The two of us sat silently for a few minutes, and she slowly reached over and grabbed my cigar. She took a long drag from it and asked, “Are you going to publish that dreck?”

“I think so,” I replied.

She looked up at the few stars in the sky. “So what do you think Dwayne’s family is like?”

I smiled and said, “I don’t know, but I am willing to bet that they are all black.”

She let out a small chuckle and replied, “You really are a little pisher.”

“Where would you be without me, though?” I asked innocently.

“Probably a lot less happy,” she answered.

I looked at her and said, “You know what, Bubbe? Sometimes it’s good to be a vampire.”

“Yes it is, bubbelah,” she answered. “I’m still mad at you, though.”

This concludes Book One of the Latke Trilogy.

Be on the lookout for Book Two:

Next Year Jerusalem

Yiddish for Goyem:
A Glossary

I thought that it would be kind of me to leave all of you with a nice little parting gift. I use a lot of Yiddish words in my everyday vocabulary, and I am sure that many of you have no idea what the hell I am talking about, so here is a brief glossary of some words and phrases that I used. They are limited to the most frequently used items. The others can probably be found on that Internet thing that I hear all of the kids talking about.