Stanley Elkin - The Rabbi of Lud

I phoned John Charney.

“Sure, the offer’s still open,” he said. “Nah,” he said, “why would I have to check it out with Artie? Artie’s already signed on. It was Artie’s idea, for goodness’ sake. Klein’s the one with the vision in this outfit. He’s our Columbus and our Queen Isabella too. Of course I’m sure,” he went on, continuing to supply answers to questions I hadn’t asked, insisting on conducting the conversation as if he were an actor on a telephone on a stage. “No,” he said, “no. It’s not of the least consequence to either of us that you’re in the doghouse just now. Shull’s and Tober’s loss is Lud Realty’s gain. Well, frankly,” he said, “because if anything, we stand to gain from the publicity. What do you mean how do we know? We know. That’s how we know. Certainly. Of course. Look,” he said, “burying people, making holy holy over them is one thing, and we’re the first to admit that, rabbi-wise, the two old frauds are entirely within their rights to put you on hold and send you to Coventry. It’s bad enough people have to die in the first place. That they should have to put up with the additional indignity of some compromised offshore yeshiva bucher getting in the last word for them is out of the question. At a time like that they got a right to expect the best and not have to worry whether they’re going to end up in some chop shop with some sad-ass, on-call chuchm that’s fighting for his life from a flakey kid to stand between death and New Jersey for them. They have this right. They have every right.

“No,” he said, “I’m not holding you up to scorn. I’m not. I said we want you in, and I meant we want you in. What do you mean the real reasons? All right, okay. You’re nobody’s fool. That ought to be real reason enough right there, but all right, you want real reasons I’ll give you real reasons. I’ll spread the cards out on the table. A, you’re a rabbi. B, you’re famous. C, death, impending or otherwise, is at best a grim business and we happen to think that maybe that little extra aura of laughingstock you give off might just lend you a sort of cachet. At the very least it ought to get your foot inside death’s door for you.”

Then Tober called. I was still under a contract that had fifteen more months to run on it, he reminded me. And since not many people would want me to bury their dead for them anymore, he and Shull had seen fit to sell my contract to Lud Realty. He understood, he said, that that probably wouldn’t be a problem for me since I’d already been in contact with Charney about a job anyway. He softened his tone. “Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry. Really. You think I’m trying to save a few bucks off your grief? Not off your grief,” he said. “Never off the grief that comes from children. I appreciate what you must be going through. Just thank God she’s healthy. Thank God she can see. Thank God she’s kept her sense of balance and that she don’t fall off chairs when she crosses her legs.” He lowered his voice still further. “The fact is,” he said, “I’m not getting any younger. In less than a year I’ll be sixty-five, an age most men see fit to retire. Sonia was sixty-two last week, and our daughter’s birthday is just around the corner. The family’s almost two hundred and twenty-four. We’re getting up there, Rabbi. How much longer can we hold on? Edward’s only thirty-eight. The cash has got to be there for him when we’re gone. Everyone knows it costs more to maintain a shitty, feckless life than the life of Riley.”

Shull called to apologize.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” he told me, “don’t think I bought into this pursuit-of-happiness thing because I value pleasure any more than the next guy. I’m just this overachiever. I can’t help it, Rabbi. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, you know? The fact is, I happen to be entering a particularly heavy cash-flow cycle just now. Something’s been missing from my life. There I was, the man that had everything, a glass of fashion, a mold of form. My shoes and suits, my shirts, coats and ties are on the cutting edge. I have furniture and tsatskes they ain’t even shown yet in the witty, high-budget films. I drive fast cars and run around like a fleet that just put in. I’ve everything money can buy. What else can my money buy? Then one night I wake up beside a woman she could be a world-class spy or the girl from Ipanema, and it comes to me like a bolt out of the blue: Schmuck! What are you, a spring chicken? You won’t see sixty again! You should be married, you should have a family, obligations. Jerry, it was so clear. When it’s that clear you don’t even think about it, you just do it. I know this widow, a lovely girl. I proposed and she accepted. She’s in her forties. Oh, her biological clock ran out on her years ago, but she married a little later than most and still has these five teenage kids, three still in high school, and twins, just entering college. It will be my privilege to support all of them. That’s what else my money can buy!

“And a leopard can’t change its spots, you know. I don’t kid myself that I’ll be settling down. A leopard can’t change its spots, and you don’t teach an old dog new tricks. I’m under no illusions. This is the way in the animal kingdom. I’ll still hit on the ladies. You’re a spiritual, you may not have thought these matters through, but it costs a married man more to fool around than a single guy. The price of a hotel suite, tips to the doormen and bellhops, what they get from you for room service these days.

“Anyway,” he said, “now you know why I need to scrape up more dough, and that it’s nothing personal we sold your contract right out from under you and traded you to Lud Realty in your darkest hour. Or that you’re going to have to earn back the cost of your contract before you ever see a nickel from the commissions on the grave plots you sell.”

It must have given them a kick to chat me up. Over and above whatever business they may have legitimately had with me. I honestly think so. No matter what Tober told me about hanging back from a parent’s privileged grief, it’s exciting after all to have an opportunity to yell “What in hell’s wrong with that lunatic daughter of yours?” into her dad’s ear and ask if she’s fucking gone crazy. It lent spice to Charney’s day to put humbling questions into my mouth and then provide the devastating answers to them. Even Shull, who’d run through all the pricier pleasures, was not above the cheap ones. And those reporters, don’t tell me they were just doing their job. The Star-Ledger guy runs an innocent “No comment” out of context! I wish I had gotten through to the Archbishop of Newark. His refusal to take my calls made him seem classy.

Understand, please. I’m not a cynical man. I haven’t turned sour. I repudiate no one. I honor God, I cheer His Creation. The world’s a swell place to be, and Humanity is a jolly good fellow. But don’t it give a person just that little something extra to hang around grief, to rub himself warm near its hearth?

The town’s other funeral director, Billy Zimmerman, called. He was genuinely sorry, he told me, but he already had a real rabbi.

“Who asked you?”

“No, really, Mr. Goldkorn,” Zimmerman said, “I’d like to help you out but I run a strictly Orthodox show. You’d be lost. What could you know of the hesped? Washing the body, the chevra kadisha? Of the shomrim who guard our Orthodox dead? What would you make of the tachrichin, all death’s white-linen laundry, or the kittel like a kind of body bag? Would you cry out the kriah, would you remember that rending? In the cemetery, in the cemetery, would you make seven stops to recite seven psalms? Would you splinter your finger on a plain pine box? Could you take up the shovel with everyone else? Or remember to wash your hands with the mourners? What would you bring to the meal of consolation?”