Fried Matzos and Ham, Sam, I Am!

August 26, 1956

Skokie, Illinois

“What the h...”

A writhing blur of white and black energy bounding onto the bed pushed between the two... between the now one sleeping person.

Awaken with a start, “What the h...” on the outside, almost shoved off the bed, attempting to hang onto the pillow, but having no substance, the pillow, coming off the bed with him, Mitchell fell onto the linoleum covered floor with a room shaking thud.

Looking over the side of the bed, hesitating but a moment,  Cricket bounded onto Mitchell’s stomach.

“You... “Realizing what had woken, and shoved him off the bed, laughing so hard he could hardly get the words out, “...rotten dog!”

Awake now also,  flinging herself off the bed, onto her husband and dog-in-law, “What did you call me?” Tickling him, “A ‘rotten dog’?”

“No!” Laughing harder, tightening his sphincter against a full bladder, trying, but not too hard, to get away from Cricket’s lapping tongue and Marsha’s tickling fingers. “ I didn’t call you a rotten dog! I called this rotten dog a rotten dog.”

Awoken by the noise, running through the communal  closet into the front bedroom, “Cricket, you weren’t supposed to go in there!” Seeing his brother and Marsha awake, on the floor, wrestling with each other and the playful Dalmatian, the narrow space between the two beds becoming a conglomeration of arms and legs, Morton, of course, jumped into the melee.

Feeling a hand grab a breast over her pajamas, “Mitchie,” Marsha said playfully, “stop!”

“Huh? Stop what? I ain’t doin’ nothin’!”

“Yeah, sure!” But looking, discovering it wasn’t her husband’s hand, “Mortie!” Laughing, barely able to get the words out, “Mitchie, your baby brother’s feeling me up.”

“Hmm, wonder where he got that from?”

Moving and holding Morton’s hand, “Yeah, I wonder!”

But the little boy must have liked what he felt, because, attempting to hold her other breast with his other hand, “Morton,” laughing again,  “stop that”

“Yeah, Mortie, it ain’t nice to feel up my... Phaghtt!” Pretending to spit as Cricket poked her tongue into Mitchell’s mouth.

“Hey, what’s all the noise up here?” An apron over her slacks, standing in the doorway, always enjoying the sight of her boys roughhousing, smiling, “Come on, get dressed.”

Disentangling himself, holding the fly of his pajamas shut, and his – not entirely urine induced –  erection down, Mitchell sat up as, hanging onto both of Morton’s hands, Marsha looked at her mother-in-law.

“You wanted to start early today, so I called Ma and Pa and told them you were here and that they should come over for breakfast, and they’ll be here any minute.”

“Great, Mom, I wanted to see them anyway... Dad up yet?”

“No, but I’m going to wake him now... Morton, get your brother up and let these two get dressed!”

“I’m up! I’m up!” Larry called from the back bedroom. “Who could sleep with all the noise in this crazy house?”

“What’s for chow, Mom?” Mitchell asked. “It smells great!”

“French toast you can get any time,” Myra said, looking at Marsha. “so I decided to make fried motzie and ham.”

Although often having fried matzos with ham, bacon or pork sausage in this house, it had become kind of a standing joke between Mitchell and his mother.  “ ‘Fried motzie and ham’, Mom? Sounds kind’a...”

Having had this meal here before, aware of the interplay, “Sacrilegious.” Marsha, jokingly, finished her husband’s sentence.

Always feeling slightly guilty at serving a pork product with matzo, “Yeah, well,” Myra said, “your father-in-law likes it that way.”

“Hey, fried motzie and ham sounds just great to me, but Ma’ll have a conniption.”

“She always does,” Myra said, “but Pa loves it, and God...” jerking her thumb upward, “hasn’t struck the house with lightening yet.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, yet!”

The Walter Lipenskys had never kept Kosher. As a matter of fact their apartment on the west side of Chicago and their home in Skokie had been the ‘free zone’ for any relative or friend with a Kosher zealot for a mate who might be in need of a pork fix.

                                                          *

“Ma,” Coming through the doorway, Jennie crinkled her nose at the odor of frying ham, but before she could say anything to her daughter, taking his grandmother into his arms, hugging the frail old lady, “I’m so glad Marsha and me are able to see you before we go back.”

Although Jennie Barrish, at age seventy-eight suffered the same ailments most older women experience, she had always been, at least in her family’s opinion, somewhat of a hypochondriac and through the years had complained of  “not feeling so well” so often her family have always had a problem deciphering the truth from the imaginary. But all agreed that at her age now, if Jennie even thought she ‘doesn’t feel so well’, then most probably she didn’t.

“So, nu, Mitchella, would I miss seeing you and your wife?”

Turning from her grandson, Jennie was immediately taken into the arms of Marsha, “Bubby,”  said sincerely, “it’s so nice to see you again!”

“Me, too, mein kind.”(my child)

Pressing the flat of her hand onto Marsha’s stomach, who on this day was wearing one of Mitchell’s old shirts that hung loosely over the waist of her unbuttoned blue jeans. “And to me,” the old lady said, looking at her closely, “you don’t look so pregnant.”

“I’m only first going into my third month, Bubby.”

“Pa!”

Two years older than his wife, Morris Barrish had always been a robust, handsome man. Now, his eyebrows were long and scraggly. The whites of his eyes were tinged with a slight yellow cast and a barely noticeable haze covered their gray, once hawk-like corneas. The stubble of his beard pure white, the flesh beneath his chin hung looser than Mitchell  remembered.         

Perpetually a symbol of love and strength, looking at his grandfather,  now more than ever, the young man was sadly reminded of the old man’s age and as the two men clasped each other in warm greeting, Mitchell forced himself to hold back tears.

                             *

Finished with his third helping of fried matzo, “In about seven months, Pa,” and his third cup of coffee, “if all goes well,” Mitchell said, “I should be discharged just about the time the baby’s a month old.”

“And now they pay for the hospital, and a real doctor?”

“Well, the doctors at Public Health are ‘real doctors’...”

Through eating, “But, yes!” Marsha interjected, “Now, thank God, I can go to a real doctor.”  

“Yeah, Ma,” squirming, tightening his sphincter against the first onslaught of stomach gas, “and tomorrow afternoon she’s going to start looking for a, uh, real doctor.”

On his third cup of coffee, too, as glad as Walter was to see his son and daughter-in-law, it was, after all, a clear day with a steady north-east breeze so, If they leave soon enough, he thought, maybe I can still get...

Looking at him, often having the uncanny knack of knowing what her husband was thinking, “Walter,” Myra said, “we don’t see the kids that often that you have to rush through breakfast so you can get to your farshtinkener boat.”

Always mystified at his wife’s feat of, as she so often told him, ‘knowing you better than you know yourself,’ “I’m not rushing! I was, uh,” Walter lied, “thinking of Sam Katz.”

“ Sam Katz?”

“Yeah.” Speaking truthfully. “Sam called when you were out Friday.” Putting a fork full of matzo in his mouth.

“Yes? So?”

“He wanted to know if we’d like to go into a third share partnership with him and his brother-in-law in some kind of a new kind of a restaurant.”

“ ‘Some kind of a new kind of a restaurant’? Why would we, all of a sudden, want to go into business with Sam Katz and his brother-in-law, no less, in ‘some kind of a new kind of a restaurant’?”

“D’know. He said it’s, uh, different. It’s the, so Sam said, ‘the wave of the future’. He said he thinks it’ll be big, really big! And that we can go in for a third if we chip in about four grand.”

“About ‘four thousand’, from each of us! About twelve thousand dollars for ‘some kind of a new kind of a restaurant’!”

“Yeah! And it’s not even really a restaurant.” Thinking a moment... It’s some kind of a place called a, uh, quick food place.”

“Some kind of a new kind of a restaurant called a ‘quick food place’? That’s it’s name, Myra said facetiously, “A quick food place?”

“No, ‘a quick food place’ isn’t it’s name, but it’s got some kind of a dumb name.” Thinking, “Uh, like in the kids song, Old Macdonald Had a Farm.”

Going on in her same mocking tone, “That’s the name of this ‘quick food place’? ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’?”

“No!” Becoming somewhat flustered, “Yeah, something like that. But don’t worry, I told Sam that it doesn’t sound like such a hot idea and to count us out.”