It’s a hot August morning and our movers, Johnson and Blake, want fried chicken for breakfast. My mother-in-law, Mina, makes a face.
“Is there a place where we can get it this early?” I say, looking back and forth between them, hoping to distract the movers with my sympathy and deter my mother-in-law from speaking. I want to forge a bridge, or bridge a fjord, something, a difficult task I fear is going to consume the day.
“Yes, ma’am,” Johnson says. He’s the foreman of the two, although they’re not really movers but employees of Uncle Roy’s furniture business. He’s my uncle by marriage, Mina’s brother, and his workers have agreed to move my husband and me to Washington, D.C., for less than we would have paid a moving company. Uncle Roy said they would jump at the chance to earn some extra money. David and I, strapped for cash but feeling guilty, promised them their meals for the day.
“That’s what they like,” Mina says, turning and speaking to the invisible person behind her.
“Well, let’s go!” I say.
But some in our moving ensemble won’t even consider fried chicken for breakfast, so David hands Johnson and Blake a twenty and tells them to meet us back at the store. Fifteen minutes later, bagels and lox in hand, we join them on the sunny apron of grass and clover next to the street.
“Isn’t it too buggy?” Mina says.
“It’s early, Mom,” David says. “The bugs aren’t out yet.”
She swats her arm anyway.
It’s a picnic. Or racial profiling. Or both! It’s awful. Only Mina speaks: about how moving is one of life’s most stressful experiences, about a friend of hers who is dying of cancer, about the heat. We eat quickly. When we’re finished, David’s father, Leonard, collects everyone’s trash. For that, I’m grateful.
When I joined the family, Uncle Roy pinned me in a corner at the wedding and told me a long story about a neighbor of his who had a small dog. Apparently this dog barked all day and sometimes into the night. Uncle Roy called animal services and found there was a law against such canine behavior, so he investigated further. It seemed the dog’s owner, a middle-aged widow with no children, was a nurse. She left her dog outside while she was at work, even when she had the night shift. “I didn’t want to cause any trouble,” he said, “but…” He threatened her with a lawsuit. She agreed to invest in dog training, but to no avail. The dog still barked and Uncle Roy called animal services so many times the police finally got involved. After several warnings, they confiscated the dog and now no one knew where it was.
“I’m sorry about it, but I have to live!” Uncle Roy said.
At the time, I thought the story was going to have some wedding-day wisdom at the end, but I was wrong. Not knowing what to say, I nodded and immediately felt complicit. At subsequent family gatherings, Uncle Roy always pulled me aside and told me a story about something going on his life, something he was at pains to justify. He made his money selling cheap furniture on credit to people who couldn’t afford it. His only employees were Johnson and Blake, who delivered the goods, for which he paid them low wages in cash. Yet I often heard about the nights he and Aunt Jessie volunteered at the JCC shelter. Once he encountered a homeless woman with her baby boy. She was playing the old upright piano in the room to put him to sleep. At least, until Uncle Roy asked her to stop.
“I had to! Those were the rules!”
Apparently, she played quite well, and it was unsettling for Uncle Roy to hear an irresponsible young mother playing the piano with ability.
“She might have had a sophisticated upbringing,” I offered.
“Oh, no. You should have seen her.”
“She probably had a very hard road to end up in a shelter with her baby.”
“Then where was her family? Piano lessons are expensive so there must have been money.”
“Maybe the family lost their money, or her parents died, or she couldn’t go home–”
“Couldn’t go home?” He shook his head. “That would never happen in this family,” he said. “You see?”
He thinks there are no homeless Jews.
“Families are not all the same,” I said weakly.
Part Two
We caravan to D.C. — David and I in the lead, then his parents and Uncle Roy, then Johnson and Blake — and although we never lose sight of each other, there is much calling back on forth on the walkie-talkies given to us by David’s father. Leonard is a frustrated engineer — he left a burgeoning career to take over his father’s business, a hardware store, and for thirty years, to keep his mind sharp, he’s fixed everything himself, from the cash register to the central air. He plans road trips as if they are military campaigns, and when it comes to helping his children relocate, this particular combination of strategy and exertion delights him. Before we set out, he dug the walkie-talkies out of the basement and gave us all road names.
“Paperback Rider? This is Sergeant Pepper. Do you read? Over.”
“Yes, I read,” I say, meaning the activity, not the understanding of his message. “Over,” I add, trying to be a good sport.
David and I are moving into an apartment on 17th Street. The building is actually a small row of townhouses, the interiors of which were gutted and redesigned by the owner-architect some time ago. On the first floor there’s a deli, the “Meet Market,” a tribute to the owner’s father, who had been a butcher. The second floor is a used bookshop, and on the third and fourth floors there are several small two-story apartments. Ours is in front overlooking the street.
When we get there, Uncle Roy, Johnson, and Blake are immediately depressed by the stairs. It’s three flights if you count the one internal to our apartment, but we tell them they can leave most of the boxes on our first floor. Leonard is thrilled by the tactical challenge, and Mina, glancing up and down the street, pronounces the neighborhood “sweet.” She lives in a large white house with a front porch and garden. We’re going to be sharing a front step with a deli. She clearly thinks of this as her son’s urban phase and hopes he’ll outgrow it.
Blake parks the truck expertly along the curb in front of our building. It’s a Sunday afternoon and the street doesn’t seem too busy, so I propose filling the meters and getting some lunch before we start. The four corners of our intersection are anchored by a McDonald’s, a Safeway, a liquor store (“Cairo” spelled vertically in pink neon) and the Meet Market.
This time we get a little closer to an ecumenical menu: Mina brings a sandwich from the Meet Market over to the McDonald’s and we all sit together at a front table by the windows. For a short time, we discuss the drive. In the silence that follows, everyone begins to notice one of the features of our neighborhood: two men walk by holding hands, then another couple, and another. A group of five men stop in a circle on the curb in front of us and talk and laugh and eventually kiss good-bye.
“Very interesting,” Mina says.
“Did you know?” Leonard asks David.
“Unbelievable,” says Uncle Roy.
I start stacking and crumpling our wrappers. “Everyone finished? Should we get started?”
I glance at David. Our priority is unpacking the truck: The sooner we start, the sooner we can send them home. Cowardly, but circumspect.
Back at the truck, Johnson and Blake begin unloading. David and I go upstairs to unlock the apartment and turn on the air-conditioning. When we come back down, our bedroom furniture is on the sidewalk. Pedestrians are picking their way through, glancing here and there as if at a yard sale.
“Are you going to, um, put everything on the sidewalk before it goes up?” I ask.
“No, ma’am,” Johnson says. “Just room by room.”
I turn to Leonard, the engineer, hoping his sense of efficiency and design might be offended, but he’s busy lashing two dollies together with electrical tape.
“Okay,” I say.
Mina commandeers a corner patio table at the Meet Market and orders an iced tea. She plans to enjoy what she calls “the spectacle.” She puts on sunglasses, but her astonished eyebrows are clearly visible, as is the slow tracking movement of her head. David asks if she’d like to help, but she declines. She’s tired from the drive.
Within the hour, Johnson, Blake, and Uncle Roy’s attitude toward our new neighbors shifts from uncomfortable to brazen. They were furtive leaving McDonald’s, as if they wanted to move fast and get out of town. But now–
“Ho, ho!” they say to each other if a particularly colorful couple passes.
Leonard hushes them.
“You know, you’re staring,” I say to Mina, but I’m holding a heavy box as a shield against a discussion.
“They don’t seem to mind,” she says.
A short time later, she hires two men off the street while the rest of us are upstairs. Two homeless, white men. It is both pacification and provocation, I realize, a brilliant move.
“Better?” she says when I emerge from the building, having passed a wobbly, smelly man carrying a box of mine marked “Kitchen: Breakables” up the steps.
Mina later claims she did not realize the men were drunk when she offered them twenty dollars each to help us. Once it is established – one of the two dons our living room lamp shade – no one is willing to fire them for fear of making an already conspicuous scene more so.
“This was her doing,” I say to Johnson when I get the chance, my back to Mina. “But don’t worry. You and Blake will still get what we agreed on.” I’m surprised at my conspiratorial tone.
“That’s fine, ma’am,” he says, unperturbed.
The drunks seem astonished by their good fortune: money, a morning’s work, the camaraderie of shared effort. They are gentle in conversation, if not with our things, and once they understand who is moving into which apartment, they welcome David and me with real enthusiasm. They tell us we will love the neighborhood, we will be happy. I manage to get the chattier of the two, Melvin, to put down the small wooden cow he is carrying in one hand, even as he tries to lift our furniture, but Joe will not take off the lamp shade.
“Moo cow,” Melvin says, and leaves the figure on the sidewalk by the truck.
It starts to rain, a misting drizzle. The hot pavement smells salty as it dampens, a thick scent you can’t get out of your nose, and our cardboard boxes start to soften and buckle. We traipse up and down the stairs. In the apartment, I put a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom and hang a dish towel over the stove. This improves the place enormously, I think. But then again, I don’t seem to be judging things well.
David and I have been married a year. I knew him a year before that, and, sometimes, if I think about his family, I can convince myself he hatched. I picture myself using this idea in an argument one day with his mother, but it wouldn’t end well. Mina would say, and she would be right, “Well, he didn’t. I raised him.” And then she’d raise those eyebrows of hers and smile.
The first time Mina came to visit after David and I were married, she brought me a lady-of-the-house present: a new pan with all the ingredients for her son’s favorite cake. I thanked her and put everything on the kitchen counter, where it remained until she was safely back home. When, at that point, David did not make the jokes I’d anticipated, I tried the cake. It didn’t come out well, but David ate all of it.
There’s a story he tells about meeting his mother for lunch in New York City. Arriving before him, Mina mistook a famous actress for a waitress because she was wearing a white blouse with black pants. The actress was very kind and said to Mina that she would be back in a moment, but when David arrived the mistake was discovered. He claims to have spoken to the actress for some time when she returned to the table bearing coffee, Mina’s order. Everyone laughed. The threesome made friends. A real waitress and the actress compared trousers. It’s hard to see just how he did it, but David turned the story from farce to fairytale. Whenever the story is retold, people laugh with Mina instead of at her. That’s the kind of life she has.
Part Three
It’s six o’clock by the time everything’s out of the truck and into our apartment. Then, a miracle. We are all headed out of the city tonight, David and I to a friend’s wedding over the weekend, everyone else, home, but we all agree on pizza before we go. I lock the door, Johnson and Blake lock the truck, and the seven of us head out on foot. On Connecticut Avenue we find a Greek-Italian place and decide to sit outside. We dry off two tables and pull them together into a figure eight.
“Or the sign for infinity,” Leonard says.
The men order a pitcher of beer; Mina and I decide to share a carafe of house red. We choose toppings in a snap: one pizza with pepperoni for Johnson, Blake, and Leonard; another with green peppers and sausage for the rest of us. The ease of it buoys our spirits. The day has been gray and still, but as we sip our drinks a wind begins to stir. The wet leaves on the street saplings start to tremble.
At first we speak of Melvin and Joe. After Mina handed them their money, they crossed the street and disappeared into Cairo.
“Like moths to a flame,” Leonard says, shaking his head. “I’m not sure you should have tipped them.”
“Oh, five extra dollars isn’t going to do any harm. They just need a little help,” Mina says with real kindness.
“Don’t we all,” Uncle Roy says and tops off Blake’s glass. I’ve never seen him so chummy.
“I like your apartment,” Blake says to me.
“You do? Thanks.” I feel myself blushing.
“Yeah, it’s really nice,” Johnson adds.
I want them to know that David and I do not have a lot of money. We have finished law school with enormous debt and are about to start jobs for nonprofits.
“Well, it needs some work,” I say, “but we can’t do anything now.”
“You could learn,” Johnson says.
“Oh, yes. That’s true. We could.”
Music comes on in the restaurant, a tune from Zorba the Greek. Strains of it waft out to the patio.
“You know, when we were unpacking,” Leonard says to me, “two men stopped to look at the furniture. When you and David came out of the building–” Leonard stops.
“Go ahead,” Mina says.
“They called you something.” He pauses, uncomfortable, then says too loudly, “Breeders.”
David and I look at each other. A waiter appears, which would have been a help, but his tray is for another table.
“It made me wonder,” Leonard says. “You’ll be in a significant minority here.”
“Are you planning to start a family?” Mina asks.
David’s nodding and shrugging, all at the same time.
“Okay, wait a minute,” I say, putting down my glass. “You’re being so wrong.” I take an awkward breath. “David and I love this neighborhood, we love cities. Cities are diverse, and diversity is good.”
I’m not sure what I’d hoped for — it seemed clearer in my head before I started.
“We’re not judging you, dear,” Mina says. “It seems they are.”
Just then, someone inside switches on the restaurant sign and we’re thrown into a buzzing red flourescence.
“Oh, I just hate these lights,” Mina says. “They’re so ugly.”
Johnson and Blake agree. They look up and nod as if this is the wisest thing they’ve ever heard.
I look at David, but he’s looking at his plate.
The pizzas arrive and we eat quickly. Uncle Roy consults Blake about some problem with the truck and which route to take home. Mina talks to David about local hotels, places where she and Leonard might stay when they come to visit. Leonard would normally say something like, “Oh, now, Mina, we have to let the kids get settled before we start planning visits,” but tonight he is terribly curious about any information David has. Anything to attach himself to their discussion and avoid talking to me. I chew my pizza and pour myself another glass of wine.
Part Four
When the meal is over, we walk back to the truck. Mina links her arm in David’s and Uncle Roy appears by my side wearing a familiar expression. The day has faded and the promise of wind is gone. Everywhere the trees stand limp.
A story from Uncle Roy is the last thing I want, but it seems I have no choice. He looks determined. “It won’t take you long to get settled,” he says, delaying.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“I don’t like moving.”
“No, it’s not much fun. Thanks for your help.”
We’re walking down Q Street, a stately avenue of mature trees and lovely townhouses. Up ahead, I see Mina gesturing appreciatively, David looking up and around as if on a lecture tour.
“I had a dream the other night,” Uncle Roy begins.
“Oh?”
“I was in a play of a famous story. I can’t remember the details, but it was something like… Was it Orpheus who wasn’t supposed to look back? Well, I was that guy and I knew the ending was going to be bad, so in the dream I made this appeal to change the story. I said, This time it will be different. And you know what? It was. Everything ended happily even though nothing had changed.”
When I don’t say anything, he looks confused. “It was a dream,” he prompts.
“I understand that.”
“Well, I don’t want to bore you.”
“You’re not boring me, Uncle Roy. I guess other people’s dreams are just hard to understand.”
“Not this one,” he says, patting my shoulder. “I think it means I’m an optimist. Like you. We have that in common.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and squeezes me to him.
On the street by the truck we all kiss cheeks or shake hands. David has checks for Johnson and Blake, but when he gets them out of his wallet, the two are embarrassed and look at Uncle Roy.
“They’d prefer cash, David, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” David says, thumbing through his wallet. I open my purse, too, but together we don’t have enough. While I wait with the group, David runs up the street to find a bank.
No one speaks. Mina takes a few steps away and runs her fingers through her hair. She breathes deeply, as if enjoying the sunset over the Safeway. She may have had too much wine. Johnson and Blake climb into the truck and turn on the radio. Uncle Roy jangles his keys, then says he’s going to get the car and bring it around.
Suddenly I am so tired I sit down on the sidewalk, cross-legged, back straight. Down here I feel detached, unmoored, and it’s lovely. I can hear crickets. Leonard looks at me, confused, but I stay right where I am until David runs up with the cash.
Back in the car, David and I are quiet. I glance through the paper while he drives south again toward the town where our friend is getting married. The evening is hazy and growing dark fast, the mountains on our right full of blue light. David reaches out to turn on the radio, and just then a dog crests the grassy embankment along the road in front of us. It’s black, followed by another one white and brown.
“What in the–” David says.
I strain forward, my seatbelt locking. The white dog has a large number on its flank — 319 — covering most of the left side of its body.
“Is that a branding?” I say.
“Where the hell did they come from?” David says, trying to keep his eyes on the road.
The dogs come up the embankment fast, tails high, running together. Something about their movement, their confidence, reminds me of nature documentaries I’ve seen, the bond of the pack. They show no fear of the road or cars.
“I don’t like this,” I say, yanking at the seatbelt to give me more slack. I look back in time to see the dogs trot into the lanes of heavy traffic without hesitation. Brakes screech. The white and brown one catches his foot under a tire. He bows, turns, and runs off. The black one makes it farther, is caught between lanes.
“Can you see him?” I yell.
“Who?”
“The one in the middle of the road!”
“I can’t see anything. I’m trying to drive.”
Before the road turns, I see two cars pulling off and the white dog running hysterically back and forth along the shoulder. In the fading light, his white fur glows.
I turn around and cover my face with my hands. In the car, everything seems strangely quiet and undisturbed. The radio is playing soft classical music.
“You okay?” David asks.
I shrug, my face still covered.
“No one honked,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe the noise would have scared them off.”
“You didn’t stop,” I say, looking up, thinking of the other cars.
“No.”
“You’re not a stopper.”
“A stopper?”
I try to readjust my seatbelt. “Yeah. A stopper.” I yank the belt hard and it locks. “Someone who would have stopped back there to help the dogs. Two cars did, you know.”
“Jesus.”
“What?”
“You’re going to break the seatbelt. A stopper. Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Do you know how dangerous it is to pull over on the highway? People get hit.”
“Never mind. It runs in your family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re an optimist. You assumed the dogs would be fine.”
“Honey–”
“Forget it.”
“Fine,” he says, but shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
After a minute he says, “I was just trying to keep you safe.”
“That’s what you say.”
The line of mountains is disappearing in the night. I can still make it out, but if you didn’t know it was there, you could easily think it was a bank of clouds gathering on the horizon. In this light, it’s impossible to tell the difference.
