The Old Neighborhood (2 page)

(Pause)

JOEY
: I was thinking I was up on Devon.… You ’member when we used to take the Ravenswood …?

BOBBY
: When? See the Cubs …?

JOEY
: Yeah.

BOBBY
: Oh yeah … Is that joint still there?

JOEY
: What? Frankels …?

BOBBY
: On Devon …?

JOEY
: The roast beef …?

BOBBY
: Yeah.

JOEY
: Yeah. It’s still there. It isn’t on Devon.

BOBBY
: No?

JOEY
: It’s on Petersen. It’s in Rogers Park.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: You ’member those two broads we had?

JOEY
: The Rogers Park broads?

BOBBY
: The folk dancing broads …

JOEY
: … yeah …

BOBBY
: The two Debbies …

JOEY
: Debbie. Yeah. Right.

BOBBY
: Rubovitz and Rosen.

JOEY
: Debbie Rubovitz and Rosen.

BOBBY
: For five bucks, which one was mine?

JOEY
: I don’t know.

BOBBY
: For ten bucks?

JOEY
: Rosen.

BOBBY
: You’re full of shit.

JOEY
: Rosen. You owe me ten bucks.

BOBBY
: It wasn’t Rosen.

JOEY
: You don’t know, you fuck, you’re bullshitting me. You don’t remember.

BOBBY
: I remember. Mine was Rosen.

JOEY
: That’s what I said.

BOBBY
: No.

JOEY
: You said, “Which one was Rosen.” I said yours.

BOBBY
: She was?
(Pause)

JOEY
: I don’t remember …

BOBBY
: Which was the short one …?

JOEY
: Yours. Right? With the curly hair …?

BOBBY
: And which one was her name?

JOEY
: I don’t know.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: Whatever you think happened to those broads?

JOEY
: I don’t know.

BOBBY
: You ever think about them?

JOEY
: Very seldom. When I go through Rogers Park.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: You think they were dykes?

JOEY
: I don’t know. D’you think that?

BOBBY
: I kind of did.

JOEY
: I kind of did, too.

BOBBY
: At the time?

JOEY
: No. Are you kidding me …? Who knew? I tell you what I think: They were before their time.

BOBBY
: Oh yeah … they were …

JOEY
: They were before their time.…

BOBBY
: Fucking broads.

JOEY
: I tell you how I always knew the broad was yours, the broad she couldn’t find her way outta the bathroom, that was yours …

BOBBY
: And what were you, a head man …?

JOEY
: Except for Deeny, of course.

BOBBY
: … what …?

JOEY
: Except for Deeny. Yes, I was a head man, yeah …

BOBBY
: You wanted to discuss, what …?

JOEY
: … and the broad, she couldn’t find the light switch, that was yours …

BOBBY
: … okay …

JOEY
: “Why’s this black stuff coming out of the salt shaker?”

BOBBY
: … some intellectual giants …

JOEY
: … that’s right …

BOBBY
: “Tell us about Moby Dick” …

JOEY
: You wished …

BOBBY
: And so which broad was mine?

JOEY
: Rosen … I don’t know … Rubovitz … Some Jew broad … some folk dancer. I don’t know … some JAP … some Eskimo … 
(Pause)
How’s Laurie?

BOBBY
: Fine.

JOEY
: Yeah, but how is she, though …?

BOBBY
: She’s fine. What did I say?

JOEY
: You said that she was fine.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: All right.
(Pause)

JOEY
: So?
(Pause)

BOBBY
: So what?

JOEY
: Yeah. So what, so how is she, you give me this shit all the time … you never fuckin’ changed you know that, Bob: “Fuck you, I don’t need anyone, fuck you” …

BOBBY
: And what are you, huh? You been reading
Redbook
…? What is this all of a sudden … 
(Pause)
You want to know how she is? She’s fine.

JOEY
: Well, that’s all I asked. I ast you how she is, you barked at me. Fuck you.

BOBBY
: Hey, you know, Joey, you know, people get married …

JOEY
: Yeah. I know they do.

BOBBY
: They … 
(Pause)

JOEY
: What?
(Pause)
What?
(Pause)
What? Mr. Wisdom … speak to me.

BOBBY
: I should never have married a shiksa.

JOEY
: Yeah. I know. ’Cause that’s all that you used to say, “Let’s find some Jew broads and discuss the Talmud …”

BOBBY
: This is something different.

JOEY
: Is it?

BOBBY
: Yes. I’m talking about marriage, you asked a question, I’m answering you. You don’t want to fuckin’ talk about it, we’ll talk about something that you like.
(Pause)

JOEY
: Tell me.

BOBBY
: You know what she said?

JOEY
: Who, Laurie?

BOBBY
: Yeah.

JOEY
: No, what.

BOBBY
: Listen to this: “What are we going to tell the kids.”

JOEY
: She said that?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: When?

BOBBY
: Right before I left …

JOEY
: “What are you going to tell the kids …?”

BOBBY
: Yeah.
(Pause)

JOEY
: What
are
you going to tell the kids?

BOBBY
: What is there to tell? The kid is a Jew.

JOEY
:
(Pause)
Well, Bob, the law says he’s a Jew, his, you know what the law says, he’s a Jew his mother is a Jew.

BOBBY
: Fuck the law.

JOEY
: Well, all I’m saying, that’s what the law says …

BOBBY
: Joey, Joey, what are you saying, a kid of mine isn’t going to be a Jew? What is he going to be? Look at him …

JOEY
: I’m, I’m only talking about …

BOBBY
: I know what you’re talking about. What I’m saying, common sense? They start knocking heads in the schoolyard looking for Jews, you fuckin’ think they aren’t going to take my kid because of, uh …

JOEY
: No. No.

BOBBY
: Well …?

JOEY
: What I’m saying …

BOBBY
: … are they going to take him, or they’re going to pass him up ’cause he’s so …

JOEY
: I’m talking about the law.

BOBBY
: ’Cause he’s so blond and all, “Let’s go beat up some kikes.… Oh, not
that
kid.…”

JOEY
: Hey, Bobby, don’t make me out the bad guy here, I only brought it up.

BOBBY
: Well, listen to this, Joe, because I want to tell you what she says to me one night: “If you’ve been persecuted so long, eh, you must have brought it on yourself.”
(Pause)

JOEY
: She said that?

BOBBY
: Yes.
(Pause)

JOEY
: Wait a second. If we’ve been oppressed so long we must be doing it.

BOBBY
:
(Pause)
Yes.

JOEY
: She said that.

BOBBY
: Yes.
(Pause)

JOEY
: And what did you say to her?

BOBBY
: I don’t know …

JOEY
: What do you mean you don’t know? What did you say to her?

BOBBY
: Nothing.
(Pause)

JOEY
: She actually said that?
(Pause)

BOBBY
: And
(Pause)
And I mean it got me thinking …

JOEY
: Ho, ho, ho, ho, hold on a minute, here, ho, Bobby. Lemme tell you something. Let me tell you what she feels: She feels left out, Jim. Don’t let that white shit get into your head. She feels left out. They got, what have they got, you talk about community, six droll cocksuckers at a lawn party somewhere: “How is your boat …?” Fuck that shit, fuck that shit, she’s got a point in my ass, what the fuck did they ever do? They can’t make a joke for chrissake. I’ll tell you something, you’re sitting down, the reason that the goyim hate us the whole time, in addition they were envious is; we don’t descend to their level … 
(Pause)
because we wouldn’t fight. The reason we were persecuted because we said, hey, all right, leave me alone, those Nordic types, all right, these football players, these cocksuckers in a fuckin’, wrapped in hides come down and ’cause we don’t fight back they go “Who are those people …?”
(Pause)
“Hey, let’s hit them in the head.” Because we have our mind on higher things.
(Pause)
Because we got something better to do than all day to fuckin’ beat the women up and go kill things. My dad would puke to hear you talk that way. I swear to God. Alavasholem, he would weep with blood, your father, too, to hear you go that way. What are they doing to you out there?
(Pause)
You’re too shut off, Bob. You should come back here.
(Pause)
My dad.
(Pause)
You
know, when we were growing up, he always used to say: It will happen again. We used to say, huh …?

BOBBY
: I remember.

JOEY
: I used to say, “Papa, you’re here now. It’s over.” He would say, “It will happen in your lifetime.” And I used to think he was a fool. But I know he was right.
(Pause)
I’m sorry that now he isn’t here to tell him so.
(Pause)
Because I wish he was here.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: ’V’you been out to Waldheim?

JOEY
: Judy and I went last month. We try to go once a month.

BOBBY
: Would you like to go out?

JOEY
: We could go. Yes.

BOBBY
: Just the two of us.

JOEY
: I know what you’re saying.

BOBBY
: When can we go?

JOEY
: How long will you be in town?

BOBBY
: Till the weekend.

JOEY
: You want to go tomorrow?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: All right.
(Pause)
We’ll go in the morning.
(Pause)

BOBBY
: I’ll pick you up.

JOEY
: All right.

BOBBY
: We’re really going to go.

JOEY
: All right.

(Pause)

JOEY
: I’ll tell you something else: I would have been a great man in Europe—I was meant to be hauling stones, or setting fence posts, something.… Look at me: the way I’m built, and here I’m working in a fucking restaurant my whole life. No wonder I’m fat. I swear to God. You know how strong I am? We went to Judy’s folks, they had a tree had fallen in the road. Up in Wisconsin …?

BOBBY
: Yeah …?

JOEY
: I picked it up.
(Pause)
They wanted me to take a crowbar to shove it aside, the car could pass. I didn’t
know what they meant. Huh? I wasn’t showing off … you know I’m strong …

BOBBY
: … since grade school.

JOEY
: And Arthur says, “We got to move the tree …” I picked it up, I put it over there, I put it down, he’s standing there, a crowbar, all their mouths are hung open.
(Pause)
It was a big tree, too. That’s what I mean, Bobby, that’s where we should be, farming somewhere.… Building things, carrying things … this shit is dilute, this is schveck this shit, I swear to God, the doctors, teachers, everybody, in the law, the writers all the time geschraiying, all those assholes, how they’re lost … of course, they’re lost. They should be studying talmud … we should be able to come to them and to say, “What is the truth …?” And they should tell us. What the talmud says, what this one said, what Hillel said, and I, I should be working on a forge all day. They’d say, “There goes Reb Lewis, he’s the strongest man in Lodz.” I’d nod. “He once picked up an ox.”
(Pause)
Or some fucking thing. I don’t know if you can pick up an ox, Bob, but I tell you, I feel in my heart I was meant to work out in the winter all day. To be strong. Of course we’re schlepping all the time with heart attacks, with fat, look at this goddam food I sell … that stuff will kill you, it killed my dad … it’s good to harvest wheat, to forge, to toil; my father’s sitting on his ass for forty years driving through Idaho for Green and Green,
what did he need for nourishment …? Nothin’. He should have been … the time should come we’re sixty we look back, our wives are there, our children, the community … and we are sitting there, we are something.… And we’ve been men. You know …?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: And we’ve lived. We’ve lived the life we were supposed to live.
(Pause)
Not this, Bobby. Not this … 
(Pause)
I don’t know. I’m getting old. I look at the snow the only thing I long that I should be in Europe.

BOBBY
: I’m sure it was no picnic there.

JOEY
: In Europe?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: Ah, fuck, I don’t know, Bob … I don’t know …

BOBBY
: Joe, with the Nazis …?

JOEY
: Fuck the Nazis. Fuck the Nazis, Bob. I’m saying, give a guy a chance to stand up.… Give ’im something to stand for.

BOBBY
: That’s very pretty, and when they stick glass rods in your dick and break them off …

JOEY
: … that was the Japs …

BOBBY
: I’m saying, Joey, that’s romantic shit …

JOEY
: Is it …?

BOBBY
: Because, yes, because, yes. It is. And to a certain, yes, it is, and to a certain extent it’s, I’ll tell you what it’s, it’s profaning what they went through.

JOEY
: Oh. Is it …?

BOBBY
: Yes.

JOEY
: And why …

BOBBY
: Because they went through it.

JOEY
: They did … what I’m saying, that I could have, too, that’s all I’m saying.

BOBBY
: You don’t know you could have …

JOEY
: Yes. That’s what I’m saying, Bob … I could …

BOBBY
: … to go through that shit in the Camps …?

JOEY
: Yes.

BOBBY
: No, Joe, no. You don’t know what you would have done.…
(
JOEY
shrugs.)
You don’t know what the fuck you would have done, what you would have felt. None of us know.

JOEY
:
(Shrugs)
If you say so, Bob.