Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red (14 page)

As the men were folding up their prayer shawls. Dr. Malitz, one of the older men, remarked, “He was too embarrassed to come. I suppose.”

Dr. Greenwood, a dentist like Malitz, shook his head. “Why does it have to be a Jewish boy?”

“What do you mean a Jewish boy?” said Norman Phillips indignantly. “There were five of them and the Selzer kid was the only one who was Jewish, and what’s being Jewish got to do with it? He’s an American, isn’t he? He got the same rights as anybody else, hasn’t he?”

Dr. Malitz came to the defense of his fellow dentist, he was a periodontist and Greenwood sent him patients. “You see in the papers that someone with a Jewish name has made some scientific discovery – you know, has done something good – you feel kind of proud it was one of ours, don’t you? We all do. So naturally when one of us sees something not so nice, we feel –”

“You feel guilty. Right? Well, I don’t; said Phillips stoutly. “I feel that as an American citizen I got just as much rights as any other citizen, and that means I’m no more responsible for what someone named Cohen or Levy does than I am for someone named Cabot or Lodge. Naturally, I’m sorry for Mai Selzer, but you know, in a way he was asking for it.”

Greenwood stared. “What kind of crack is that? What father deserves to see his son in trouble?”

“Well look, my kid goes to college. Rensselaer Polytech. Doc Malitz here has a boy in college. I don’t know about your boy, Doc, but I know my kid acts up a little now and then, he’s kid, see. Last year, for example, they had a riot at his school, the cops turn up, reporters, the works. My kid says he was just looking on, you know, watching the fun, maybe he was; maybe he wasn’t. I’m not one of those fathers that thinks their kid can’t do no wrong, anyway, he gets pinched and he spends the night in jail and he has to pay a fine, he? Me. I had to pay it.”

“So?”

“So my point is, did I go around bragging how my kid was a big student leader?”

“So you brag about something else that your boy did, maybe that he got into Rensselaer.”

“I just mentioned that because –”

“Makes no difference.” said Greenwood. “Fathers brag about their children. I’m sure Malcolm Selzer would rather brag that his boy was getting high marks and scholarships.”

Dr. Malitz had a sudden thought. “How do we even know the Selzer boy had anything to do with the bombing? All the paper said was he was one of those at the meeting and the D.A, was planning to question him.”

“When the D.A, questions somebody, like as not he ends up in jail.” said Phillips. “What I’d like to know,” he went on. “is what the rabbi knows about it, he teaches there. I notice he didn’t come today; either.”

“He’s the guest speaker at the men’s bible study class at the Lynn Methodist church this morning.” said Dr. Malitz. “There was a notice in the Lynn paper.”

“Just our luck.” said Phillips disgustedly. “So that means they’ll get the inside dope, not us.”

The rabbi arrived home shortly before noon to find an impatient Malcolm Selzer waiting for him. “Your wife said you’d be along any minute,” he said. “Besides, my wife was so sure you’d be able to do something I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d missed you.”

“Just calm down. Mr. Selzer, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

Selzer looked at him gratefully, then took the seat the rabbi offered. “Well, Friday I heard the news same as everybody did, and I’ll admit I had this little funny feeling maybe my Abner might be mixed up in it.” He held up a hand. “I don’t mean that I thought he could do anything like a bombing, a thing like that. I know my boy; he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I thought maybe he knows about it, maybe some group he could be connected with – You know how you think, how all kinds of funny ideas can come into your head?”

“Of course. Take your time and tell me what happened.” Selzer nodded. “All day Saturday; I thought of calling Abner. You know, not asking him point-blank, but just how’s tricks, what’s new, that way, if he was involved he could say something. It wasn’t so much me as my wife who kept nagging me. ‘Call him up; you got a son; talk to him once in a while.’ And to tell the truth, I would have, except I was afraid it was like asking for it. My mother, may she rest in peace, always used to say, ‘Don’t start anything,’”

“Like tempting fate,” said the rabbi with the ghost of a smile.

“That’s right.” Selzer said, pleased that the rabbi understood. “So I suggested to my wife we go to the movies. You know, to give us something else to think about; besides, I know she’s not going to ask me to go out in the middle of the picture to make a phone call.”

He looked off into space as if marshalling his thoughts, then he continued. “I thought maybe we’d go out for a cup of coffee afterwards, like we always do, but my wife insisted we go right home, like her heart told her, as soon as we drive up to the house, I know there’s trouble because the light in the kitchen is on, which means Abner has come home, and why would he come home on a Saturday night if he weren’t in some kind of trouble?

Nevertheless, my wife tries to act as though nothing happened. ‘Have you eaten, abner? There’s some chicken left. Let me make you a sandwich, he’s so thin. Look how thin he is. Malcolm.’ Of course, this doesn’t fool anybody; not me; not Abner, not even herself, she’s just stalling, putting off the time when we’ll have to ask him why he came home. But me, I’m a businessman and I don’t horse around. So I put it to him straight: ‘Are you in trouble, Abner? Are you involved in this bombing?”‘ Selzer raised a forefinger to call for special attention.“‘Involved.’ I said. Rabbi. Not did he do it. I just asked him if he was involved. What’s involved? Anybody can be involved. If it’s my son, I’m involved. My wife is involved, the police are involved. It’s no crime to be involved.”

He shook his head sadly. “That started it, he starts yelling I don’t trust him, he comes home and all I can think is he must have bombed the school or done some terrible crime, that I’m part of the Establishment and the Establishment is trying to suppress the non-Establishment and they’re trying to make this a decent world and my generation is not letting them, and how we use the pigs to keep them in line. By pigs he means the police, you understand.”

Selzer got up and began pacing the room. “He yells and I yell. I suppose, and my wife cries, and after an hour of it I know as much as I did before. Finally, we all quiet down, and I say to him nice, quiet, calm. ‘Look Abner. I’m not accusing you. I’m just asking, not because I’m nosy but just because I want to help. Do you want me to get in touch with my lawyer?’” He rapped the coffee table with his knuckles. “This table answered me? That’s how he answered me. Not a word, like suddenly he’s deaf and dumb, he just sits there smiling a little to himself like it’s all very funny, and then he finally speaks. What does he say? He says. ‘I think I’ll hit the sack. Tomorrow could be a long day.’ And he gets up and goes to bed, and my wife? She opens up on me. Why did I talk to him that way? Why can’t I believe in him? Why am I driving my son away from us? You know, my wife. God bless her; for her, Abner can do no wrong. Whatever he wants, give. Whatever he does, fine. When I try to get him to shape up, to study, to act like a responsible citizen, she accuses me of nagging him, he was an honor roll student in high school, so if I want him to get good grades in college, that’s nagging him. Why was he on the honor roll? Because I kept after him. I’m in business and I know what it takes these days for a young man to make it. You don’t go to a decent college, you’re nothing these days. So he gets into Harvard, that was bad? That was nagging? And if he had lived at home, like I wanted, instead of in the dorm, like he wanted and his mother went along with, he’d still be in Harvard right now, that would be bad? I tell you. Rabbi, the trouble with kids these days is their parents don’t nag.”

The rabbi had not interrupted because he sensed Selzer wanted to talk, but now he brought him back sharply to the main issue. “So what happened. Mr. Selzer? Why did you come to see me?”

“So this morning,” said Selzer in a flat monotone, “the pigs came and took him away. Who were the pigs? Lieutenant Tebbetts, who was his scoutmaster, who Abner would talk about so much I would get practically jealous, he was the pigs.”

“In that case, I think you had better get in touch with your lawyer, Mr. Selzer.”

“Two minutes!” cried Selzer. “Two minutes after my son was out the door, I contacted Paul Goodman, and half an hour later he came by – he wasn’t even dressed when I called – and picked me up and we went down to the police station.”

“And?”

“And nothing. My son wouldn’t even talk to me, or to Goodman. Just. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ This is the way a boy talks to a father, Rabbi?”

“So what did you say?”

“Nothing! I was embarrassed in front of Goodman. So I didn’t show I was sore. I didn’t holler at him. I didn’t say anything, just told him this was Mr. Goodman who would be his lawyer, and I left them together. But later, when Goodman came upstairs – we saw him in his cell in the basement, you understand – he said the boy had refused to cooperate.”

“But he agreed to defend him?”

“Oh sure. What’s he got to lose? He won’t be sitting in jail.” He got up when Miriam entered the room. “Look. I’m keeping you from your dinner. I just came to ask you to go and see him. Talk some sense into him. I know he thinks a lot of you from when he was in your post-confirmation class, he’ll listen to you.”

“He must’ve been terribly hurt.” said Miriam after Selzer had left.

“What do you mean?” asked her husband. “By whom?”

“By his father, of course. Suppose there was a rumor that you had done something terrible, something inherently abhorrent to you, and suppose if instead of knowing you could never do such a thing. I asked you if the rumor was true. You might sit down and patiently explain how unlikely it was. On the other hand, you might feel so terribly hurt, especially if you were a youngster of Abner’s age, that you just wouldn’t say anything.”

“Yes. I see what you mean.”

“Go and see the boy., David.”

“And tell him what?”

She smiled. “You could tell him to try to forgive his father, I suppose.”

The Boston police asked us to pick up the Selzer boy, so we picked him up.” said Chief Lanigan, he was sitting at his dining room table with the Sunday paper spread out before him.

“Do they have any real evidence against them?” asked the rabbi.

Lanigan shrugged. “You know how these things are. It’s the D.A, who looks over what they’ve got and who issues the orders, he certainly wouldn’t tell me. Even the D.A, of our own county wouldn’t necessarily take me into his confidence on a matter that occurred right here in my own bailiwick. But from what Schroeder said, what they have on him is obvious, he was one of a committee that met with the dean, they talk for a while and then one of them gets vituperative and the dean walks out, they wait around for her to come back, and when she doesn’t, they leave, a few minutes later a bomb goes off in her office. Now I put it to you, that’s certainly grounds for suspicion, add a couple of other little items: one, there was a bombing in the school during the spring semester; two, a member of the committee, somebody called Ekko – I don’t know if that’s his real name or just a nickname – skips, that suggests guilt certainly.”

“On the other hand.” the rabbi observed, “none of it is what you would call real evidence, the building is open and anyone can walk in. Dean Hanbury left her office unlocked, so anyone could get in after the committee left. From what little I myself know about conditions in the school, there are other student groups, more or less revolutionary, who are seemingly as opposed to each other as they are to the administration.”

“Well, you don’t have to convince me. Rabbi. It’s the people in Suffolk County you’ve got to convince.”

“Is it all right if I see the boy now?”

“Sure. Let me get my shoes on and I’ll run you down to the station. You can talk to him in my office if you’d like.”

The young man was visibly surprised when he saw the rabbi. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I thought it was the lawyer guy again.” He walked the length of the room and looked out the window, then he faced around. “Cops!” he exclaimed. “They’re not human. Do you think he’d bother to tell me who’s here? He just says somebody wants to see me in the chiefs office, and when I tell him I don’t care to go – thinking it was the lawyer or my old man – he says, ‘On your feet, bigshot,’ and practically hauls me up here.”

“He probably didn’t know who it was either,” the rabbi said mildly.

“Rabbi, you don’t know these guys. You just haven’t had the experience.”

“All right,” he said good-naturedly. “Now what’s your objection to cooperating with the lawyer?”

Abner Selzer spread his hands and let his shoulders droop in exasperation. “Goodman! He didn’t ask me a thing, he just said if I was planning on making a speech, forget it. I’d be standing before Judge Visconte and he’s hard as nails, he’d throw the book at me. If the judge asks a question, he says. I’m supposed to stand up and address him as Your Honor. Otherwise, keep quiet, don’t whisper with the others. Just sit up straight, look straight ahead at the judge, and look interested, that’s planning a defense? Then he takes a look at me and tells me he wants me clean-shaven and wearing a regular suit when I come to court tomorrow morning. Rabbi, how can I communicate with a man like that? So I asked him how would it be if I wore a kilt and crossed my legs and showed part of my behind to the jury.”

The rabbi laughed and the young man grinned. “What did he say to that?”

“He got sore and just said he’d see me in the court in Boston.”

“I don’t suppose it makes much difference.” said the rabbi. “The arraignment is largely a formality, as I understand it, the law requires you to be brought before a magistrate within twenty-four hours of your arrest.”

“But what if a guy’s innocent?”

“That’s not the judge’s concern at an arraignment, abner, he’s there just to determine whether the police have enough evidence to hold you for the grand jury. If they want you held, the judge will usually go along, all right, I can understand about your lawyer, but why don’t you want to see your father?”