An Out

Morris sat his narrow ass on the edge of the armchair, peering at his laptop on the tray table in front of him. “The rabbi’s letter this month is weak,” he said. 

“Weak?” Nancy said.

“Like, meh. What does it even say?”

“Ah,” she said. “Hmmm.”

“They’re barely holding on, you know. They’ve only got forty-five families, it says here.”

“We could join,” she pointed out for the hundredth time. 

“You know how expensive it is,” he said. “And on top of the dues, they’ve got a five hundred dollar annual security fee, if you can believe that.”

“We can afford it. It could be a good thing, at our age.” She wasn’t Jewish, wasn’t anything, really, having left her family’s Christianity far behind. After more than forty years with Morris, she considered herself an honorary Jew, though she didn’t say it out loud, not that he would have argued. He was not religious himself, but the culture was in him on a cellular level, microscopic yarmulkes spinning, like platelets, in his bloodstream. 

“We’re not joiners, though,” he said. 

“We’re not that,” she agreed.

Nancy had been a joiner in her youth. Extracurricular activities in high school. Social justice organizations in college. Her mother had been a leader in their community, always writing some newsletter or registering voters, and she had internalized that model of civic engagement and expected to carry it forward. 

Morris had set her straight one evening not long after he’d met her mother. They were on their way to their favorite restaurant, where they planned to continue their streak of paying more for alcohol than for food.

“I admire your mother’s activism,” he’d said, “but that’s not the people I come from.”

“But don’t you think it’s our responsibility to be involved? To volunteer, to work for causes you believe in?”

“Listen, my parents give plenty of money to nonprofits. The American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association — hell, the… the Anti-Scurvy Institute, for all I know. You name it, they donate to it.”

“That’s wonderful, but what’s wrong with giving of your time?” She was aware of sounding earnest, slightly priggish.

“Don’t get me wrong, Nance, what your mother does is all well and good, but charity starts at home,” Morris had said, firmly.

“But—”

“I mean, write a check, already.”

*

“Right here,” he said now, tapping his index finger on the laptop screen. “Right here is where they go wrong.”

“What now?”

“The Temple Supper Club. They’re meeting at some joint out on Cumberland Road, Miyako Hibachi.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You think there’s anything vegetarian on that menu? No way. It’s a Japanese steak house.” He started typing on his keyboard while Nancy returned to scrolling her iPhone in search of good news.

After a minute he cleared his throat, as if to get her attention. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh, what did I tell you?”

Nancy sighed. “Morris, for heaven’s sakes.”

“Says here they’ve got one — exactly one — vegetarian dish on the menu. What if I don’t want that one, lonely vegetarian dish? I mean, a selection would be nice.”

“Maybe they’d make something on request,” she offered.

“I doubt it,” he said darkly.

“And are you planning to join the temple supper club?”

“Of course not.” He looked at her as if she were nuts.

“Then why do you care? Why do you care?”

“Forty-five families. How do they expect to get young people when they’re going to goddamn Miyako Hibachi for their goddamn supper club?”

She sighed and looked back at her phone. Would it be so wrong if the news reported something good for a change?

A while later, she saw the receipt in her inbox. Morris had made another donation to the temple, the one they did not belong to, the one he refused to join.

*

In retrospect, their first date might have told her all she needed to know about the years ahead, but she had failed to recognize its import at the time.

All right, he’d said when she’d asked him if he’d like to go to the movies with her. She was direct, but casual about it, and she was encouraged by his response. No big deal.

When she asked him, they were standing behind the information desk at the bookstore where they worked. Chicago, light years from their current town which was in the Deep South and large enough to have a convention center but small enough to have free parking. He’d taught at the local college before retiring.

Back then, Morris had glossy black hair that fell in waves to his shoulders, and he dressed more formally than everyone else. Tropical weight wool pants (she’d never heard of tropical weight wool till she met Morris) and lambswool sweater vests and rep ties (she’d never heard of rep ties till she met Morris) and tweed sport coats. Delicate tortoise shell glasses that settled perfectly into the gaunt structure of his face. He was attractively aloof and everyone whispered that he was brilliant. Brooding. How could she resist?

On the evening in question, she climbed into his Toyota, and so it began.

“How are you?” she inquired.

“Not bad,” he replied. “Not bad, I mean, except for the plumbing issue.”

“What plumbing issue? What’s going on?”

“My, well, the toilet in my apartment. It’s been giving me fits. It’s overflowed a couple times.”

Terrible, terrible. Much gnashing of teeth over the state of his plumbing.

“So look. Bottom line, we’ll go to the movie, but I can’t promise anything after.”

“Okay,” she said evenly.

“I mean, we’ll see.”

“That’s fine.”

Parameters established, they settled into the date. It turned out they made each other laugh, which was a big plus, and Nancy liked the way he operated the manual transmission — methodically and with evident skill.

The movie, 84 Charing Cross Road, was about bookstores, and the two of them were engaged in a lively conversation as they left the theater. He said the movie was sentimental, and she said how sentimental could it be if the lovers never even met?

“So look, you want to go get a beer or something?” he said when they arrived back at his car.

“Sure. But what about your toilet?”

For a split second, he looked farmisht (a word he taught her not long after), but then his face settled. “Jeez, I almost forgot. How about this: We’ll swing by my apartment and I’ll go check to make sure everything’s okay, and if it is, then we can go get that drink.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.

His building was only a few blocks away. “Wait here,” he said as he leaped from the car and bounded up the stairs to his apartment.

Of course, the toilet was fine, they had that drink (well, drinks), and a year later, after they were married (he worked fast), she found out that there had never been a plumbing issue at all; he’d just set up the scenario in case he needed an out.

“What if you were a weirdo?” he asked.

“Did I seem like a weirdo?”

He shrugged and grinned.

“And what were you doing while I waited in the car like a chump?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just sat on the couch until enough time went by to make it seem credible.”

And that was the thing about Morris. He always required an out, like a gangster on the banquette at the back of a restaurant with a view of all the entrances and exits.

At the threshold of any room he was already plotting his escape. 

*

“I’m very disappointed in the new rabbi. She’s really old school,” Morris said. He was reading the next month’s temple newsletter on his laptop.

“What does that mean?”

“She sounds like every other Reform rabbi I’ve known from the time I was a boy. Same old, same old.”

“Well, what do you expect? She’s a Reform rabbi in a Southern city with a tiny Jewish population. Do you think she’s going to talk like a radical? What is it you’re looking for, anyway?”

“Like, a more ethical-humanist approach. Philosophical. Not so specifically religious.”

“So you want the rabbi to not be so religious. Got it.” Really, he could be tiresome. “If you want ethical humanism, we should go to the Unitarian Church. I know several people who go there.”

“Sure, from your league.”

“The League of Women Voters, yes.” The League of Women Voters was the only group she belonged to, and though Morris understood her interest in the abstract, he wasn’t thrilled.

“The Unitarians are very welcoming. I mean, if you want to affiliate.”

“You know I can’t go anywhere that calls itself a church,” he said.

“Don’t you think it’s just a tad presumptuous to expect the rabbi of a temple you don’t attend to meet your requirements? Requirements she’s not even aware of, I might add. Maybe you should actually go to a service instead of ruminating about it.”

“I made an appointment to talk to her.”

This was a surprising new wrinkle. “You did? Huh. What about?”

“Oh, her worldview, her philosophy, why they don’t modernize their approach.”

“That’s a start. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It doesn’t matter. I cancelled it.”

Nancy sighed. “Of course you did.”

Morris was the King of Cancellations. By his own admission, he probably cancelled seventy-five percent of all appointments. Certain he was inches from death, he’d make a doctor’s appointment, then freak out and cancel forty-eight hours before (“What good is it to know I’m dying? I don’t want to know. Anyway, they can’t charge me before forty-eight hours.”) Sometimes it occurred to him he was wasting his retirement, and he’d sign up for a volunteer opportunity. But as the appointed hour grew closer, he’d panic and bolt. (“What do they need me for? And more importantly, why do I need them?”)

“This push and pull tires me out, Morris.”

“Go take a nap, who’s stopping you?”

An hour later, another email receipt.

*

About a week after the fourth receipt popped up in her email, a card came in the mail. Dear Mr. Steckman, We are so grateful for your kind support of the Temple, which enables us to continue to serve the Jewish community of our city. We invite you to attend our monthly brunch for new and prospective members, which will be held on Sunday, November 17^th at 11 a.m. in the Moskowitz Fellowship Hall. I know I speak for the entire Membership Committee when I say Thank You and Shalom! — Esther Goldberg.

Nancy had wondered what the temple thought about these donations from a stranger; now she knew. “A lovely thank you card,” she said, handing it to him.

He flipped it over and looked at the back. “Holocaust Museum. I think we have these same notecards, they’re free when you make a donation. I mean, would it kill them to have their own stationery?”

“That’s not very gracious,” she said. “They’re thanking you, that’s what’s important here.”

“Well, they ought to thank me, but I never said I wanted to join. They don’t know me from Adam.”

“How are they supposed to know you if you never leave that chair? I don’t get you,” Nancy said, exasperated. “No, wait. I do get you. You want to know there are other Jews around; you just don’t want to spend time with them.”

“Bingo.”

“All right, okay, let’s just forget about it then.”

“It’s forgotten already.”

*

But another card came a couple of weeks later, this one from the rabbi herself. Thanks for your continued support, Mr. Steckman. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat, but I’d love to meet with you whenever you’re available. Shalom! — Rabbi Ariel Levy.

“I guess she’s desperate for new members,” he said.

“Cut her some slack, Morris, she sounds like a lovely person. I don’t know what you want from her.”

For once, he had no comeback.

*

“Sure, sure… right… well, that’s very nice of you… my pleasure… I will check with my wife and see if we’re free… yes, happy Chanukah to you, as well.”

Morris set his phone down and rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable. They won’t take no for an answer. Damn it, I know not to pick up. Why did I pick up?”

“It was the rabbi herself?”

He nodded. “The next brunch is Sunday. We’re not busy, are we? I’m not going alone.”

“You mean you actually want to go? Are you feeling okay?”

“How should I feel? I got roped into this.”

“I don’t know, it sounds nice. We never do anything.” Against her better judgment, Nancy felt a speck of hope. A bisl, her dear mother-in-law would have called it, may her memory be a blessing.

In the days that followed, Morris made several offhand comments, as predictable as they were disappointing. “You know, I’m thinking I won’t feel well.”

“You don’t feel well?”

“I won’t feel well. On Sunday. I’m thinking I’ll have a cold, maybe.” He closed his eyes and put his hands to his temples as if receiving a psychic message. “Yes, yes, or maybe a positive COVID test.”

Nancy knocked reflexively on the end table. “Hush, don’t say that.”

“You never know.”

Nevertheless, when Sunday rolled around, he put on his best khakis, a white shirt, his sweater vest, as of old. A striped tie and a tweed jacket. “You look so dapper,” she said.

“What, you think I’ve forgotten how to put myself together?”

“It’s just you look very nice.”

“Here’s the deal. We’ll have a bagel, some coffee, schmooze a little, then out we go. In and out, baby.”

“We can’t just eat and rush out of there, it’s rude. As long as we’re going, we should stay a little while at least.”

“No way. I’m not going to get stuck talking to some lunatic for half an hour.”

*

The temple was only four blocks away, but Morris insisted on driving (“In case we have to make a quick getaway,” he said, and winked).

At the temple, Morris took one look at the room — at the conference table where bagels and cream cheese, lox, Danish, a carafe of orange juice, and several large coffee pots were arranged, along with cups and a tall stack of gleaming white plates — and whispered, “Nance, I think we may have stumbled into a Holiday Inn Express.” Despite herself, Nancy laughed.

As they hesitated at the threshold, a middle-aged woman approached and extended her hand. “Esther Goldberg, Chair of the Membership Committee,” she said. “And you are?”

“Nancy Steckman,” Nancy said. “And this is my husband, Morris.”

Her face lit up. “Oh, Mr. Steckman! We’ve wondered about you. Our mystery man. We’re so grateful for your financial support.”

“Oh. Well.” He shrugged, looking uneasy. “A lovely facility you have here.”

“We’re a small congregation, as you no doubt know, but we do our best.”

“You know, Mrs. Goldberg, I have some thoughts on that. Your strategy, I mean. I—”

But he was cut off by a man’s voice – loud, urgent – breaking through the pleasant murmur: “Kill the Jews! Kill the Jews!” Chairs, upended, crashed and skittered across the floor. They turned and saw the security guard, a heavy-set man they’d passed on the way in to the building, struggling with a black-clad figure, masked and hooded and carrying a bag in one hand, a gun in the other. Tactical, Nancy thought, a word she’d heard only on CNN.

She grabbed Morris and pushed him to the floor, then fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, covering his body with her own. They hadn’t been so intimate in years.

Others had joined the fray, as if carrying out a protocol they had trained for. Three men — two young, one old, maybe as old as she was — swarmed the intruder while shouts and screams filled the air.

All around them, people were scattered on the floor like jacks thrown by an unseen hand. Knucklebones, she thought, remembering the origin of the game, a useless fact. Some young fool had tossed a red rubber ball into the air while they waited to see who would be scooped up, who would remain.

She felt Morris gasping beneath her. “Na — Nancy,” he whispered, hoarsely.

“They’ve got him!” a man yelled. “They’ve got him but stay down! Stay down until you get the all-clear.”

“Danke gott!” an old woman cried from her hiding place beneath a piano bench.

“Thank God,” a young man echoed her.

“I’m right here, honey,” Nancy said. Morris was trembling, his forehead damp with sweat, but he was shivering like an old man who couldn’t get warm. She squeezed and felt his bones shift beneath the skin. Damn it, he was an old man, and she was an old woman, and here they were, clinging to each other for dear life.

“Nancy,” he said again.

She loosened her grip on him. “Am I holding you too tight? Am I too heavy for you? I’m sorry, I just—”

“No,” he said. “No. It’s only—”

“What? What, my love?” she said tenderly, though her heart still hammered in her chest.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the police dragging the assailant away. A young boy, maybe fourteen years old, a look on his face.

“It’s only — I knew we shouldn’t come. I knew it. Why did you make me come? Always pressuring me…” He looked around wildly.

“It’s all right. We’re all right, Morris. Morris, listen to me: Everything is going to be all right.”

His eyes returned to her face and he looked at her coldly. “What do you know? Huh? What do you know? You’re one of them.”

Her breath caught, and he looked away again. “What did I expect?” he said. “What did I expect? Lying on the floor like an idiot.”

His face crumpled, then, and sobs wracked his body.