A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“Take it,” he says.

My hands remain in my pockets.

“Take it,” he repeats more urgently.

“What is it?”

“What does it look like?”

“One might assume it’s money,” I say.

He pushes the envelope towards me. “You idiot,” he says. “I’m trying to help you. I feel bad, I should have handled things differently, and you,” he says, “you should have finished your book.”

“Blame the victim,” I say, hands still in my pockets.

“I couldn’t protect you — I had nothing to use to support my argument.” Again he pushes the envelope towards me.

“No thanks,” I say.

“On what grounds?” he asks.

“On the grounds that I don’t take envelopes of money from anyone. For all I know, you’re setting me up, having your secretary witness, call me in, making me walk out to your car, where you have the envelope hidden; for all I know, there are cameras everywhere, recording this — the car is miked.”

“You are a paranoid motherfucker,” he says.

“I am a Nixon scholar,” I shout. “I know whereof I speak,” I say, as I turn on my heel to march across the parking lot and back to the building.

“Where are you going?” he calls.

“Office hours,” I say.

I hear the chirp-chirp sound of him relocking his car, and his hot breath as he jogs to catch up with me. “Look, it’s not about the money,” he says.

“But you are offering me money, hush money to go gently into the night.”

“It’s my own money,” he says. “Not the department’s.”

“That makes it even more perverted.”

“I hope you’ll reconsider,” he says when we get back to the department. “Think of it as a research grant.”

I pick up the boxes that I left outside his office door, one of which someone has inexplicably filled with balled-up sheets of paper — all I can think of is target practice.

There is someone in my office, sitting in the guest chair. His back is to the door, a yarmulke bobby-pinned to the back of his head.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Professor Silver?”

“I am.” Does he know what just happened in the parking lot? Is he sitting here ready to receive my confession of temptation — is it like some Scared Straight program, or is he part of the setup? “Are you interested in Richard Nixon?” I ask, taking my seat.

“Not so much,” he says. “I am a rabbinical student.”

“You get to dress like that even though you’re still a student?” I ask.

“Dress like what?” he says, looking down at himself. “This is the way I dress.”

“Are you working for the Chair?” I ask.

“Pardon?”

“Schwartz, the Chair of the department, just tried to get me to take an envelope of money from him.”

“And what did you do?”

“What do you think I did?” I ask. “I told him to go fuck himself.”

“I’m interested in your brother,” he says.

“Drumming up business?”

“Exploring the Jewish relationship to crime. With the exception of gambling, Jews aren’t much engaged in criminal activity.” He gives me an amused look, like he’s stumbled on a treasure chest of goodies and is trying desperately not to show how excited he is.

“How did you decide to become a rabbi?”

“I didn’t decide,” he says. “In my family we are all rabbis. My father is a rabbi, my uncle is a rabbi. My sister is a car mechanic; she felt to be a woman rabbi had too many restrictions.”

“My brother, George, had a bar mitzvah because he wanted the savings bonds, the clock radio from my aunt, the Cross pen from the temple Sisterhood, and a free trip to Florida from my grandparents. He got lucky down there, met some girl who gave him his first, um, oral experience. His affinity has nothing to do with God and everything to do with sex.”

“I want to study him,” the rabbinical student says, and then corrects himself. “I am studying him, but I want to study up closer.”

“What is your premise?” I ask. “Jews gone bad?”

“May I sit in on your class?” he asks, not even acknowledging my question.

“No,” I say quickly.

There is silence.

“Jews don’t kill their wives,” he says.

“Are you talking with anyone else?” I ask.

“Lefkowitz,” he says.

“The Ponzi who stuffed Rolexes and his wife’s jewelry up his dog’s ass and then took the pup for a walk while under house arrest? The dog would crap, and then some shmo would come along and pick up the poop. He cleaned the watches, sold them, kept fifty percent of the profits. The feds used to call him Shitty Fingers.”

“That’s the guy,” the student says.

“Who else?”

“Hernandez and Kwon.”

“They’re both converts,” I say. The rabbinical student is surprised that I’ve heard of them, but why wouldn’t I? I am after all in the business of knowing about things.

He pauses. “Can I ask you, what is your relationship to God?”

“Limited,” I say. “Limited with the exception of spontaneous prayer in times of acute distress.”

“I’d like to learn more about your family.”

“I’m a very private person,” I say. “My brother and I, we’re not the same person. Different sides of the coin.”

“But you have much in common. What do you do when you get angry?”

“I don’t get angry,” I say. “Mostly I don’t have any feelings.” I check my watch. “We’re going to have to stop for now,” I say. “I have to prepare for class.”

“I’d like to see you again,” he says.

“During office hours, my door is open.”

“Next week?” he says.

“Sure,” I say. “If you feel compelled. May I ask your name?”

“Ryan,” he says.

“Interesting,” I say. “I never met a Jew named Ryan.”

“We are few and far between,” he says, leaving. “See you next week.”

My office shelves are filled with Nixonalia; I purposely packed the place with fat historical volumes, wanting the students to see my office as a historical repository. I also have some rare political posters — McGovern/Eagleton, Humphrey, Geraldine Ferraro. I carefully take things down and roll them up. Apart from Nixon, my second favorite is LBJ. I think it has to do with when I came to political consciousness, when I realized there was a world outside my parents’ living room.

En route to class, I take the boxes to the car; the envelope is on the front seat. The door is locked but I see it right there, on the seat. Did Schwartz plant it? Am I being set up? I take the envelope and try to put it back in Schwartz’s car; the doors are locked. I try stuffing it through the top of the window; I get the edge of the envelope in, but the fatter part (the bills) won’t go in. I hurry back up to the office. Schwartz’s door is closed; the department secretary is gone. Shit! I put the envelope back on the seat of my car, relock the door, and hurry to class. I don’t want it with me. I don’t want a confrontation in the classroom.

“Good afternoon,” I say as I enter. The room is only a third full. I give them a few minutes’ grace period and then begin with a series of announcements about exams, last dates to make changes with the registrar. “As you know, your assignment was to write a paper, which is due today. Would you please pass those forward?” I wait as twelve papers are passed forward. “I’m wondering when I might hear from the rest of you?” No one says a word. I glance down; the paper on top is titled “Richard Nixon as Villain: A Story in Pictures.” I flip through. The student has made a comic book in lieu of writing a paper; I should be annoyed but I find the idea promising. His drawings are distortions of Nixon, Haldeman, and Kissinger with exaggerated features, an elaboration on “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” There is intentional blurring, such as “Let me be perfectly clear.”