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| Chapter XV
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| "He
put horse shit on my doorstep! Danny saw him!" Tatfletale Danny tells: "Him and Cleo. I saw them." Annie is embarrassed. Harry is also embarrassed, and furious. Grandpa, seated at the table, feels guilty, and says nothing. Tannenbaum rants on, "It's all your fault! You'll pay for it! I tell you." She is gasping at the hor- rendous meaning of it all. "Where is that little bandit! I'd like to lay my hands on him." Grandpa, though shamed, is angered. "You'll lay your hands on nobody. We're sorry about what hap- pened. I apologize." "That's not enough! I want that brat given a lesson he won't forget! And I want that stable moved once and for all!" Exit Mrs. Tannenbaum, pulling Danny out after her. Stunned, Grandpa looks at Annie. "Where is Davie?" "In his room." Wearily Grandpa gets up, retires toward his own room to collect himself. Harry's voice snarls after him, "Your smell of life!" Grandpa has no answer now. Harry, with a grimly fired determination, starts to walk out of the kitchen, toward my room, and Annie asks him, anxious, "What are you going to do?" Harry stops, looks back, and snarls again, "What do you suggest? That I give him an ice-cream cone?" Annie, holding her hands to her mouth, gasps, "Don't hit him." Harry gives her a long, cold look. Anger and disgust "I have had it, Annie. From all of you." Annie, frightened, just waits and listens. I am under my blanket, completely covered, my head unseen. Awaiting the dreadful. Harry stalks into the room, to the bed, pulling down the blanket In my nightclothes, I feign sleep. Harry turns me over on to my stomach and beats me with his belt. "I'll teach you a lesson you won't forget, you bloody spoiled brat." He hits me across the bottom, harshly. And again, and again, and again. "They're ruining you!" I scream in fear and pain, and Harry whacks me again. Continues to beat me mercilessly. His breath- ing becomes labored. Belt through air whistling. "Put horse shit on somebody's stairs." Whack. "Grandpa knows, eh?" Whack. "Eh?" Annie opens her father's door. "Go! Stop him!" In my room I am screaming, and Harry is beating me, belting me. Grandpa rushes in and pulls Harry away with such force that Harry bounces against the wall and into the hallway. I sob as I watch the two men, my eyes wide at my grandpa's anger. Grandpa's face is large, like a tiger's. Grandpa is Zion. Grandpa is shaking Harry with great force, dragging him toward the living room. "You ever hit that child again. I'll kill you." "He's my son, and I can do what I want with him!" "Raise your hand to him once more . . . and I'll tear you limb from limb." Grandpa is breathless with fury. "He deserved it. And you're to blame. Let go of me!" Grandpa is holding Harry by the neck. Grandpa is Gabriel. Grandpa is my Avenging Angel. Annie shouts out in fear at her father's anger. "Pa!" Grandpa releases his grip, but pushes Harry down onto the living-room sofa. Half on the floor, and half on the couch. Harry shouts up at his father-in-law. "Is it any wonder he did what he did, with the bullshit you've been filling his head with?" Grandpa, breathing heavily, stares down at Harry with disgust and contempt, but what to say? Zaideh gasps for air as he talks. "Never ask me for another penny... as long as I live! You hear me?" Annie runs to me and tries to console me. Harry, exasperated, humiliated, and defiant, makes his way through the hallway to his bedroom. A plain- tive cry shambles from his throat high-pitched and dry. "I want a divorce!" Annie runs back to the doorway, confused and frightened. She stands in the doorway, looking after Harry, not knowing what to do. Grandpa comes over to her, softening, but bitter still. "Go. Maybe you'll be lucky, and he meant what he said." The woman follows her man into the bedroom. Harry is lying on the bed, shaken by the encounter with his father-in-law. Annie is standing beside the bed. "You didn't have to hit him like that. One slap would have been enough." "Get out of here. Leave me alone. I'm trapped." Annie goes over to the crib. Looks down at her sleeping baby. Will it all pass over? "All right. We'll move." Harry turns over on his face, face in the pillow, obliterate. He's depressed, and empty, and angry at the whole stupid world. "My cufflinks aren't selling. The idiots don't appreciate them!" Annie just nods. It's all so inevitable. Meanwhile, I huddle in one comer of my bed. Grandpa stands there waiting. "Why did you do it when I told you not to?" he asks softly. I don't answer, and won't look at my grandpa. Again the old man asks gently. "Why?" And I answer him, "You're a liar too." Grandpa takes a while to let that sink in. Softly, again he asks, "Why do you say that?" I look at him. "You lied, and Mamma lied. Not only babies suck at women's breasts. Men do it too." Grandpa is quiet, and moves closer to me. Still. "Who told you that?" I look Grandpa straight in the eye. "Nobody! I saw!" "What exactly was it you saw?" "Mr. Vernier does it with Mrs. Bondy!" Grandpa's-face screws up. He's puzzled. "In the store?" Irritated, I explain. "No! In her bedroom!" "You were there?" "No. Through the window. Cleo saw them too. All the kids." "Yes, well. . ." The old man stands. Pauses for a moment, and then starts pacing. "It wasn't that I told you a lie," he explains. "I just left something out I should have told you." He pauses again. He's thinking hard. This is dif- ficult "When your Mamma and I said only babies suck at breasts, we meant only babies suck at breasts for milk." He hunts for words to explain. "Men suck at their wives' breasts for pleasure. ..." A momentary pause, and some confusion on his face. "I know Mrs. Bondy isn't Mr. Vernier's wife, so it would be best for everybody if Mr. Bondy didn't hear about it... and if Mrs. Vernier didn't hear about it either. Men and women are supposed to be married when they ... when they do things like that." Aiee, this is a tricky one. "Maybe when the Messiah comes, everybody will be able to do it and nobody will consider it a sin, but today it's not considered right if a man sucks an- other man's wife's breast . . ." Grandpa groans again. It isn't coming easy. I certainly am not impressed by Grandpa's explana- tion. To tidy up the tangle and to get away as quickly as possible, Zaideh blurts out an improvised talmudic quotation. "Davie, it's like the Talmud says, 'Give unto children what is for children, and to men'.. . . aiee...." Grandpa bolts toward the door. He stops at the door, looks back at his Davie. And David sits, stone- faced, looking back at his zaideh. Grandpa stands in the doorway. Calms. And finds his gentle voice. "He won't hit you again. Not while I'm alive. Good night, Davie. ... Go to sleep now."
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