The Global War on Morris (16 page)

ELDERCARE

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2004

E
ven at the age of ninety-six, Minny Schwartzman had a crush on that nice man who visited her room twice a week. He would sit next to her bed as she watched
The Price Is Right
on the wall-mounted television. He studied the family photographs that littered her room. He nodded with interest at the stories she shared about her life. He helped her eat her favorite Melba Toast snacks and made sure she took her medications. And how handsome he was! With that Clark Gable mustache and the Charles Boyer voice.

Having escaped the surveillance of federal authorities on Long Island, Ricardo Montoyez found a new home—specifically, the Bella Abzug Home for the Aged in Riverdale, New York. He volunteered there to provide people like Minny companionship in their incredibly old age, posing as a retired hedge fund executive who wanted to give something back. And take a few things in the process.

The Abzug Home was like a pharmaceutical gold mine, a treasure trove of medications that kept hearts ticking, blood creeping, bowels moving. From Avodart for prostates to Xarelto for blood. Drugs for brittle bones and drugs for foggy brains. Drugs to keep every overworked organ functioning for at least another day. Twenty, thirty, forty pills a day. Scooped and shoveled out of plastic cases that looked like fishing tackle boxes. Inserted through ancient lips, washed across toothless mouths, and choked down grizzled gullets.

All those medicines. Under the watchful eye of Guadalupe, the flirtatious pharmacy assistant with the butterfly tattoo rising from her chest. Not exactly Ricardo's type, but here in the mausoleum romance wasn't difficult with someone who still had her own teeth and didn't forget her name.

He thought sometimes about the blond receptionist he jilted on Long Island.

I've gone from Victoria with those sexy legs to Minny with one foot in the grave. Aaaaah, the sacrifices I must make.

But it was worth it. He was stockpiling medications, delivering them to a safe place on Long Island where they were soon watered down and chalked up. Then they were resold into the retail market and stocked on the shelves of America's drugstores. True, people were dying. But he was making a nice living.

He learned one thing at the Bella Abzug Home for the Aged: We all die, sooner or later. Or in the case of Minny Schwartzman, way, way later.

CALL YOUR MOTHER

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2004

Y
ou're kidding, right?
Hassan asked God.

The hurricane had come. And it had gone. Barely scuffing the Paradise Hotel and Residences. As if God Himself, in one of His infinite mysteries, decided to spare Boca. Florida's orange groves—those He destroyed. The Zionists, the infidels, the occupiers of lands and towels, they escaped His wrath. Again.

You've got to be kidding!

Balancing on a stepladder, Hassan returned the
TWO TOWELS PER GUEST
sign to its place. A cart containing dozens of laundered towels was parked next to the hut. Hotel workers raked the beach and swept the grounds to erase any sign of the hurricane. An early-morning sun glowed on the horizon, winking at an ocean that seemed to sigh with relief.

Hassan stepped off the ladder, bent toward the cart, scooped the
first pile of fresh towels, and placed them on the shelves in the hut.

Then he heard it:

“So
nu
? You're back in business?”

Like the call of the muezzin, a sweet beckoning to Hassan.

“Good morning, Mrs. Feldstein! You survived the storm, thank God.”

Rona waved dismissively. “
Gottenyu
, all that hype! Morris and I were fine. His biggest crisis was when we lost the satellite TV. As if he didn't already know the ending to
Meet Me in St. Louis
. Did ya evuh?”

“I nevuh, Mrs. Feldstein. May I give you a towel? Or two?”

Rona turned, and her shoulders drooped.

“Is something wrong, Mrs. Feldstein?”

“No towel today, Hassan. I'm afraid my pool days are over for now. Morris and I going home. To Great Neck. Morris has to get back to Celfex and I have my clients.”

Hassan felt his stomach tighten. Who would give him medicine if his headaches returned? Who would mother him?

Rona interrupted his despair. “Hassan, I have something to say.”

She cleared her throat, as if summoning the words from inside, bit her lip, and said:

“Hassan, I've given it a lot of thought. I'll be very concerned about you when I leave. So I want you to keep this. For when you need it.”

Hassan felt a thin slab of metal attached to a crumpled card pressed against the palm of his hand.

“It's the spare set of keys, Hassan. To our unit. You can keep an eye on things for me while we're away. And God forbid, while you're checking on everything, you put on some air-conditioning . . . watch some satellite TV . . . make yourself a little nosh . . .” Her voice lifted the last word of each phrase into the air, as if singing a jingle about the amenities of her condo.

“Oh no, Mrs. Feldstein. I couldn't. What about the
schmutz
?
Remember what you said about other people's
schmutz
in your unit—”

“Oooh, pul-eeeeeze, Hassan. I've seen how you fold towels! You're very professional. And you're not like other people! You're like family! I'm your surrogate mother, Hassan. Your surrogate Jewish mother from Great Neck, New Yawk! How many Arabs can say that!”

Probably not that many
, Hassan thought.

“I wrote down my cell number. I want you to call me. When you want to schmooze. When . . . when you need someone to talk to, Hassan. Promise you'll call me, Hassan.”

“I promise, Mrs. Feldstein.”

“Good. Now, we're going to make a little deal, you and me.”

“A deal, Mrs. Feldstein?”

“Yes. You can use our unit. But don't breathe a word to Morris. It's our little secret.”

I can keep secrets,
Hassan thought.

“And one more thing I want you to do.”

“Yes, Mrs. Feldstein?”

“I want you to call your mother.”

Reflexively Hassan pushed the keys back to Rona. And just as reflexively Rona held up both hands.

“Ah, ah, ah. I am not taking no for an answer! I'm a professional. I'm trained to pick up certain clues. You don't think I noticed how you reacted when I asked you about your mother? The clenched fists? How your face shriveled up like a day-old Danish?”

Hassan lowered his eyes.

“Don't be embarrassed, Hassan. The mother-son dynamic is complex. Entire books have been written on the subject. Have you read
Chicken Soup for the Oedipal Male Soul
? No? I'll send it to you. With the Migramize. I'm trying to help, Hassan. Call your mother.”

The sweat of his palm now covered the key. “I cannot . . .” His words were course and heavy.

“Hassan. I'm not asking you to call your mother in my
professional capacity as a certified social worker with a degree from Long Island University. I'm giving you this advice . . .” she paused in a futile effort to keep her voice from trembling, “. . . as a mother myself.”

Hassan noticed Rona's lips begin to quiver. “I have two precious children. My Caryn wants to be a filmmaker. Documentaries. Have you seen
Fox News Fascists
? On YouTube? That's Caryn.”

“Now my Jeffrey, he's another story! Whatever you think your mother did to you, you've punished her enough. No, you've tortured her, Hassan. Because when a mother loses a son, it's torture. God knows my Jeffrey and I had our differences. I wanted him to go to law school. I begged him. But no. Stocks, he said. Did you evuh? One day they're up, the next day they're down.

“ ‘Jeffrey,' I said, ‘you want to earn a living on a roller coaster, you should go to work at Disneyland.' So we fought. Like cats and dogs. But I cannot imagine how it would be if Jeffrey stopped talking to me. Fighting I can deal with. Silence? It's like torture. Tor . . . cha!” Rona bit her upper lip, removed her sunglasses, and wiped her glistening eyes with a fresh Kleenex she retrieved from her tote bag.

Hassan felt an uncomfortable stirring inside. Rona managed to do what no CIA interrogator could hope to do: She got inside his head. Dredging the muck. Starting a flow of submerged thoughts. Eroding his willpower. And Rona knew where to pull the pin of the emotional grenade: in that part of the brain where guilt resides. That was the sweet spot. Rona knew it, as did all the Jewish mothers and the Italian mothers and the Irish mothers and even Hamidah Muzan, a Palestinian mother in Gaza. They could be their own category in the Geneva Convention prohibitions against cruel and inhuman punishment; but no one wanted to upset them by suggesting it.

Still, Hassan knew that calling home—just for a moment, just to hear his mother's voice, just to let her know he was alive—could compromise the entire operation.
One call from my cell phone and the next thing I know, a B-52 drops a five-hundred-pound bunker buster
and there's a crater where the towel hut used to be. No thank you, US Air Force!

“Perhaps another day, Mrs. Feldstein.”

“Take it from me, Hassan. Take it from a mother.”

Resist, Hassan!

“I will write to her, Mrs. Feldstein.”

“Writing is always nice . . .”

Excellent, Hassan!

“Assuming your mother gets the letter, of course. Acchhh, who knows with the mail these days? You'll write a letter to her and God only knows when she'll get it. Or if she'll get it. But I'm sure she can wait. After all, she waited all this time to hear from her son. What's another few weeks. Or months? Or evuh?”

Hassan thought:
Plus, she could open the letter, get a paper cut and blood poisoning, and that's that!

“Here.” Rona extended her cell phone to him. “You can borrow my cell.”

“Yes, Mrs. Feldstein.”

NEWS BREAK

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2004

T
hat night, in Morris and Rona's Great Neck dining room, the negotiation of what to watch on television commenced over some Italian food from Luiggi's Ristorante.

Morris surrendered early.

After all, the Mets had dropped nine in a row. Morris was tired of losing. The only thing better than watching another agonizing Mets loss was watching the agonizing news.

He sat in the RoyaLounger. Rona curled up on the couch. And the dramatic CNN overture filled the room.

Wolf Blitzer began with a report of a deadly battle between US troops and Shia forces in a place called Sadr City. And Rona bit her lip.

Then Blitzer reported a grizzly milestone: the one-thousandth American death in Iraq. Rona let out a long, quivering sigh. Or cry.

This is why we shouldn't watch the news
, Morris thought.
It's always bad, these days. And there's nothing we can do about it. So why bother?

On the couch, Rona felt the lump in her throat grow. And couldn't help but liken it to the lump on that chair.
Staring at the television as if it were just one of his classic movies, as though he could just change the channel instead of trying to change the world.