Maybe I'm Stupid - 2

By Steven Schutzman

And Tannenbaum was good, if a little overboard. In a few days, he got me all these pictures of my wife with the new guy. In his car and among painted backdrops so blurry you couldn't tell if they were oceans or mountains or graveyards or what. But you could sure tell what she was doing to him. I was shocked and crushed.

But those weren't the only pictures he took. He showed me several shots of my wife's visits to me in the guest room.

"You were sneaking around my backyard?"

"Sure. That's my job. It was fun," he said. "But you have an opossum you know that? He scared me half to death."

It was hard to imagine this wheezing wreck sneaking around anywhere.

"That wasn't your job."

"You wife is not only cheating on you with him. More importantly, she's cheating on you with you."

"Now that makes a lot of sense. I'll see you around, Rabbi."

We were at his little apartment which was a mess and smelled of corned beef just like he did. But he had the best stereo system I ever saw and walls and walls of old records. Not a book in sight.

"You'll be back, Bro," Tannenbaum said. "Because very soon you will need my legal expertise. Stanley, of course, will take care of my fee plus expenses."

&mdash 3 —

The next time I saw Tannenbaum was the night of my crime. Stanley had come with him to the hospital where I was laid up with a concussion, broken ribs and splinters of glass in my forehead from the crash. My policeman was out in the hall flirting with the nurses. Those two outlaws had to be frisked before coming in. They must have loved it.

Me, I was feeling pretty good because of the IV painkillers dripping into my arm and because, well, I had finally stood up for myself.

"Angry, angry, angry, Bro," Tannenbaum said.

"I have reasons."

"But acting out your anger like you did is the other person controlling you."

"Your God acted angry all the time in the Bible."

"Yes and probably with less cause."

"So there."

"What were you thinking, that you'd actually be able to run them over through a wall?"

"I was mad, not thinking. Like your God in the Bible."

"And that's why I'm a Jew," said Tannenbaum. "I'm angry too at the state of the world, at being ignored, at compact discs, but I don't want to wind up in jail like you're probably going to so I let God get angry for me."

"Maybe you two should start believing in me," I said, pulling his leg.

"Not a bad idea in this world of opposites. I'll consider it."

"Where is God, Rabbi? Inside or outside?"

"Both. With God, the inside is the outside and the outside is the inside."

"That's what I think," I said. "And you know what taught it to me? Ecstasy."

"Lucky you. Ecstasy is a road to God but it's a hard road for everyone to get on."

"You got that right," said Stanley.

"Sometimes music can take me into ecstasy."

"I meant Ecstasy the drug. When I was on it, I thought that the inside is the outside too and the outside is the inside and your human body is like a fence between them and when you die, the fence falls down and then you know whatever there is to know. And that made it okay for me to get totally wasted."

"Interesting guy, your brother," Tannenbaum said to Stanley.

"I think he's pulling your leg," said Stanley.

"I am sorry about the dog which your God never was, about the dogs he killed in the flood."

"Stop saying ‘your' God. He's your God too, Bro. You're stuck with him."

"Why?"

"By birth. You can't help it. No Jew can."

"You watch me, Rabbi."

"The road to God is no longer paved with piety or good deeds. Now it is paved with pain and evil deeds. The Holy One, Blessed Be He, has given you this path of pain so that you might learn and find your way to Him."

"Nice guy, God."

"Spend your pain, Bro, before it spends you. And what did your wife do exactly? I'll need details if I'm to defend you."

"Never mind her."

"How can I help you then?"

"I don't want your help."

"If you never hired an attorney, I'd say you desperately need my help. I'd say you need all the help you can get."

"I already lost everything."

"There's always more to lose."

"Please go away."

"He never had too much on the ball," Stanley put in, making the sign for stupid on his forehead.

"Never in school, Stan, on tests, but I got pretty good at living, you know, being happy like you can't seem to be anymore."

"Right. You're happy. Look at you."

"I had a good run though."

"Give me a break, Louis. How long do you think this affair has been going on?"

"I don't know."

"How long has she been acting in plays with the guy?"

"I don't know. Years. They have a troupe."

"So you've been living a lie."

I took a sharp breath, neither out nor in, that hurt my broken ribs. Because of the drugs, I was, up until then, like an inch above the bed but then I crashed landed into myself and felt terrible.

"All those parts they had, big kisses on stage. See not only did they do it, they even made you watch. I bet it really turned them on."

"Get out the two of you."

"He was never a genius and then he took too many drugs," Stanley said.

"The only hope for a guy like you," said Tannenbaum. "Is to get smarter guys on his side."

Suddenly no one was saying anything which was rare in their religion which was based on constant talking and arguing as far as I could tell. In the quiet, you could hear something wheeling down the hall, the wild wind outside the window and laughter at the nurses station. And below all that the humming of the hospital generator like the engine of an ocean liner.

My shame, my burden, my stupid brain.

Your life leads you around like a blind dog into each moment and I had been there in that kind of moment so many times before it felt like this was me, my whole self, my whole story, my fight: my mother calling me ‘very sweet' in that sickening way she had; how she didn't even bother to send me out of the room when she had secrets to tell someone else; my father not teaching me the business except for deliveries and unloading stock while my brother talked to buyers or customers or stood over me with a clipboard; how neither of them ever came to one of my basketball games in my high school career and I made third team all-county. It's like I wasn't really part of the family.

My father and Stanley were dead ringers for each other, short and bald with the same bent nose and brilliant geniuses and businessmen everyone agreed, and my mother was much taller than Dad, a high-strung, bony woman who could do any crossword or word jumble and write letters so beautiful people saved them. So where did I fit in? Tall, big-boned, with thick hair and an average brain. Where did I come from?

I looked them over, Stanley and Tannenbaum; two short, soft, horny guys who were schemers like my wife was a schemer.

"Okay," I said. "You want to know why I did it? Because I trust people. Because I don't know how to think. Because I'm stupid."

They leaned forward. The Rabbi snapped his sunglasses down.

"I'm stupid and I always trusted everybody, my wife, Mom and Dad, everybody. I don't know. I just did. But did Mom and Dad ever come to one game of mine in all of high school while if Stan had a science project suddenly he was taking taxis to school and they were closing the store? What was I, the family dog? Thou shalt not be Jewish and stupid, should be a ten commandment instead of adultery which everyone is doing anyway."

"All right, so you're stupid," Stanley said. "What's the big deal? You're also, well, a very nice person."

"I'm just stupid. I let her trick me out of everything and then I'm stupid on top of stupid for what I did with the car."

It was all true. It turned out my wife had pulled her plan off to perfection. Sneaking around with the new guy allowed her the time to make sure of him before she dropped me. The blow jobs kept me in line and from spilling the beans to Karen while my wife arranged sleepovers for her at her girlfriends' house so she could stay with the new guy while I cried at home. Most important, she schemed to win custody of Karen by refusing to leave our house to live with the new guy and filing charges of child abandonment when, for the sake of my sanity, I went for an extended visit to my parents in Florida. You don't know what insanity is until you've been to a place in your mind that makes my parents' condo development in West Palm Beach look safe and normal.

"He just got back today," Stanley said.

Tannenbaum snapped his glasses up.

"If it wasn't for all the cuts, Louis, you would look very well with a tan," he said.

"So tonight she wanted me to sign the custody papers," I told them. "Karen was on another sleepover."

"What did you do?"

"I decked her."

"Bravo," Stanley said. "It's about time."

"You decked her? How?"

"Open handed on the cheek. Sat her right down on the floor."

"That was stupid, Bro."

"I know. She sat on the floor and said she would be filing assault charges."

"What a tiger," said Tannenbaum. "So what did you do?"

"Nothing more. And then she stormed out."

"That's when you should've started praying to God or at least called me."

"Why you?"

"I'm your attorney."

"No, you're not."

"I'm your attorney now. Go on. What did you do next?"

"I went for a ride."

"A ride?"

"The ride."

It wasn't a long ride. Nobody was out. Not a soul. The wind was blowing hard that night and throwing wild shadows from the trees and streetlights over the windshield. The roads were shining, leaves and papers blowing down them. This world looked like another world, shining and new. Why would it shine just then? I don't know. Maybe from my burning anger. I remember I almost crashed from watching the leaves blow in the road instead of where I was going.

When I got to the guy's house I saw my wife's car and then caught a glimpse of those two in the window, trailing each other like ghosts sent into this world to haunt me and then they moved away from the window and I just about went blind with rage at how they must have been laughing at me, how soon they would fuck or whatever, and all their custody tricks.

So I revved the car and did what I did. And my last thought before passing out was a happy one; at least I stood up for myself, at least I did something.

— 4 —

When I finally made myself get out of bed and go downstairs my first morning out of jail, Stanley was off to the Home Depot, a note on the kitchen table said, and Deborah to her Buddhist temple already. I decided to go for a walk.

It was a beautiful day out. Sunny, warm, with the last of the crickets singing the sad end of summer.

In a nice neighborhood like Stanley's, you could almost fool yourself that you're in heaven, as if all the songbirds and gardeners in gloves and straw hats and fat squirrels running around for nuts had been hired to amuse the angels and you're an angel. Everyone says hello. You could also almost fool yourself that your life isn't your life from the fresh smell of the air. Your heart may be broken inside but when the cool air touches your skin something else takes over and walking starts to feel good like it used to and then the warm sun hits your face between the leaves and you feel happy and then feeling happy makes you want to cry.

It wasn't long before I reached this big corner house that looked like half a castle made of gold stones and a huge wood front door and hedges so green they were almost black.

Out front by the sidewalk were two kids, a boy and girl about the same age, maybe ten at the most and probably twins, behind a table with a hot pink poster and green printing: "Free Puppies".

The girl was beautiful like most girls are at that age, so fresh looking and bright with long straight hair and big eyes that look at you longer than you can ever look back at them. Just like Karen's blue eyes but this girl's were brown.

"What do you got there kids?"

"Golden retrievers pups," the girl said.

"Can I see?"

"That's why we're here," she said, coming from behind the table. "To give them away to a good home."

I knelt to the cardboard box with three pups in it yiping and biting and jumping and peeing all over each other from the excitement of seeing me. The girl was close now.

Such girls a lot of times, and Karen is one, smart as a whip (luckily she didn't inherit my brains) such girls as that feel so sure of themselves even so young that they aren't shy with guys and are always testing their charms on you. You have to think these girls are their father's favorite like Karen is mine and have known nothing but big love all their life.

"You want to hold one, Mister," she said.

"Sure."

"Pick the one you want."

I reached in and lifted up this nippy pup who started wriggling like mad and trying to leap for my face. He was still so small I could grip him with one hand under his warm, soft belly and hold him up so his legs were moving like he was reaching for the ground but couldn't find it. It was very funny, him trying to swim in the air toward my face, so everyone laughed.

"He's my favorite too," the girl said.

"Yeah?"

"I call him Van, short for vanilla because of the scoop of white on his belly. But I have to tell you something."

Now I'm a big guy, six four, so kneeling I was still pretty up there, not even but not too far below the girl's eyes I was looking into from a foot away. "What's that, Sweetie?" I said. It just came out.

"See, it's that he could get bad hips when he's older because his mother had forged papers."

"Oh that's too bad."

"But we're going to get her an operation."

"That's great."

"So you could get Van one too, right?"

"Okay."

"Her name's Hanna. She's a great dog."

"You sound like a great owner too."

It was then, in my miserable state, that I reached up and petted the back of the girl's head a couple of times and her father, who must have been watching, came charging down the front walk saying real frantic "Excuse me, excuse me," and, I don't know, I took off running down the street with the dog.

When Stanley came home I was in the back yard and he found me there. The dog was in my lap so pooped from attacking me that he didn't bother attacking Stanley when he came out. He just barely raised his head, let out this whiny moan and put his head back down.

"What's this?"

I shrugged. I knew it was a stupid move to bring a puppy into the house just before it was to go on the market.

"Tell me that's not your dog."

"Sorry, Stan, I got it for Karen for when I can see her again," I said and started bawling really hard over how stupid I was about the puppy and to lose it like I did crashing the car and lose seeing Karen too.

Now Stanley, I'll give him credit. For all his spouting off, if you ever need help he'll help you, like with bail and a detective-attorney-Rabbi so called, but we're not done with him yet. I know Stanley will let us stay on his farm for as long as we need to, me and Karen and the dog, once the papers are signed and the judge changes the custody and restraining order.

Stanley likes to say, "Louis, you know I'd give you the shirt off my back and I have a lot of shirts".

And all his spouting off is like, "We're brothers so I can say anything to you but none of it matters, it's only words, love is what you wind up doing by people."

See, spouting off is one thing, and acting a part and lying through your teeth and doing people dirty like my wife did a completely other thing because life is life, not words. Stanley's there. Stanley comes through. And going to prostitutes to be whipped? I don't know. You figure it out.

So my brother sat on the grass with his arm around me, saying for me not to blame myself, until I worn out crying.

"I'm sorry for what I said about your science projects," I told him. I don't know, it was still bothering me. "They were really good ones, Stan."

Tannenbaum came by after Shabbat was over looking like he'd slept in his clothes. If God said rest, probably he did it big time all day. Like maybe from Friday noon to Saturday night listening to his old records.

The puppy was out in the backyard, yiping like mad to be let in. This had been going on since well before dark and was getting pretty hard to take.

Tannenbaum told me that yesterday he had shown my wife the pictures he took of her visits to me in our guest room and because the pictures had dates on them he made her understand that the new guy might be upset about what she was doing to me when they were supposed to be so much in love and engaged to be married already. So the child abandonment charges were dropped and custody settled and Karen would be with me half the time though my wife would still get the house, if she paid me half the money.

I got up and kissed Tannenbaum on top of his bald, corn beefy head and then told him how smart he was to have taken those pictures. And he said he knew that. But to me, really, it was more like peeping tom horniness and dumb luck.

Then he said to me, "It is my duty, not as a lawyer but as a human being, to tell you that have another option, Bro."

"What's that?"

"After the papers are signed, you could still send the guy the pictures if you want."

"Why should I?"

Stanley and Tannenbaum gave each other the kind of knowing looks I see a lot. I would've given myself a knowing look too but how do you do that?

"Oh I see," I said finally. "To pay her back for how she did me wrong."

"May I humbly suggest that you don't do it and let The Holy One Blessed Be He handle the revenge and anger angle this time."

"Good idea, Rabbi."

"Unlike your brother, you're already halfway home, Louis. See, Stanley's life is great, money, a great wife and the rest, but Stanley's still miserable, so miserable he takes himself every week to be whipped. My life is terrible, nothing but terrible want in every department except the audio one, but I am happy. Why? Why does Stanley follow me around like that puppy crying out there? What is the difference? Because I have surrendered to something greater than myself and no longer give a crap about being happy and I am happy. Just as that puppy is crying out there for us to let him in, our souls are crying out to God. The first step is to realize, as you have done, something that little puppy already knows. Bring him into the house, like God brings us into his heart, and you'll see how fast he stops crying."

© Steven Schutzman 2009

• << TEX Home
• 1
• Page 2