It's the Economy, Jew Boy!

PART TWO.

Senator Joseph Lieberman (R/D, Conn.) gazed with relish at the frayed payot and scuffed prayer shawl of a member of his rarified race run afoul. His swollen nose hung like an old man’s gut over gouged smile lines. He clenched his jaw and stared at me his relishing gaze quickly disappointed and fading to the look of a man disgusted by his wife’s cooking.

One of my assailants passed Lieberman a brown, suede briefcase. Lieberman took it and placed it on his desk. His eyes never left me. He unfastened each lock with a deliberate clack and allowed the top to spring open. From the briefcase he removed an 8.5” by 11” manila envelope. The other assailant flanking Lieberman clamped the case shut and removed it from his desk immediately.

“William Heschel Herschovitchz,” he said tapping the folder. “I knew a Heschel Herschovitchz once…”

He let the words linger. I could survive an encounter with Lieberman. I doubted I could survive a conversation about my father.

“He was a congressman for a spell, Fifth District, Waterbury. A lame duck, but a mensch. Definitely a mensch. Sold beautiful watches. I am not so sure he would be proud of the man his son has become.” He paused for effect. I cursed silently under my breath. He raised an eyebrow and then emptied the contents of the folder onto his desk. Pictures and programs, a few ticket stubs, horse hair, two gun shells, a piece of parchment, a yarmulke, two copies of Shiksa Tail (October 99, shit, I have been looking for that one!), a tattered copy of Twice Chai, and then you Die, and a dreidel all tumbled onto the varnished oak desktop. The dreidel landed on Nun.

“What a shame,” he sighed. “I saw the play, Twice Chai, with Hadassah in 1998. We liked it very much. The fact is I thought you were probing the depths of the Jewish soul in a manner befitting a young Philip Roth. The fact is I thought you had promise and talent. The fact is I was wrong.” He dragged his arm across the desk, raking all the contents toward its edge. The same guard who had produced the briefcase out of apparent nowhere waited with a wire garbage can to collect my file. I wanted to scream take it, take it all, just leave me October ’99! But the relics of my life flopped into the receptacle, a side door opened, a diminutive Latino maid scampered in, took the garbage can, bowed her head in the direction of Lieberman, and scampered out.

“I wish, for your father’s sake alone, I could say otherwise. I wish that William, but the fact is your once promising career has turned into a farce. Ever since the Obie ceremonies in September of 1999 you have displayed what I would characterize as horrific judgment. Two years sabbatical in Venezuela doing God knows what. Years of co-authoring a comic book with some Canadian hip-hop has-been. I’m not going to even try to pronounce his name. Last fall you were arrested in an empty office in the RNC National Headquarters with a blood toxin and alcohol level so high it’s a miracle you didn’t explode. Actually it’s less of a miracle and more of a shame. Somehow, you have ended up covering the McCain campaign for a periodical no one on my staff heard of. A periodical we should know. And you have made a mockery of that assignment in less than a month! The Hanoi treatment? Trysts with Sela Ward? Taking claim for Recipe-gate! How do you account for this behavior? How?”

I braced and made ready to answer. I had listened patiently while my brow bunched. Before I could open my mouth though he was back at it, practically standing, and leaning on both elbows out over his desk.

“I have just one question for you, William. Just one. Have you ever seen the Owen Wilson film Behind Enemy Lines?”