Seeing Red: Toldot

Call me Red. I was a wild man in that life. A wild ass of a man, to be precise. I’d overheard my Uncle Smallie use those very words to describe me to my mother Becky. The hell of it is that I always idolized Smallie, ever since he started showing up again at family functions. When he came back to bury Pops was when I saw my chance to finally have a real role model. After all, my own father, Smallie’s brother, Izzie, kept sending me out on these dangerous ‘errands’, like it was nothing. Imagine your own flesh and blood telling you you had to “eat what you kill.” Ugly, and more than a little scary. I knew there was some bad blood between Smallie and Izzie, but it seemed like they buried the hatchet along with Pops, my grandfather Abie. Smallie was my kind of guy. He had his own operation off by himself, and had launched his own big family, twelve branches! He didn’t mix much with our little clan. Everybody says Izzie is this major dude, especially now that he runs Pops’ outfit. All I see is a bunch of low level foot soldiers, that ancient consigliori Weezer and my homebody brother Jakie. Little Jakie. Everybody thinks he’s a harmless nerd, so they don’t send him out to do the heavy lifting. I know better. He totally swindled me, and all I ended up with was beans. Actually seeds.

I came back empty handed from one of Izzie’s ‘errands’, not a good thing in this family. I found Jakie at the kitchen table, his usual spot to hang out to be close to Becky, the conniving little runt. This time Becky wasn’t there. So I walk in just as it looks like Jakie’s hurrying to cover up this wooden bowl on the table, like he was hiding a stash of something pretty hot, maybe some blow or some horse. You never know with that sly little bugger. Anyway, I’m thinking if I can get my hands on whatever he’s got it’ll satisfy Izzie that I didn’t come home empty handed. That little creep had me by the short hairs and he knew it. I was desperate. Only years later, when for completely different reasons I paid real cash to see a shrink, did I realize that I was actually starving. Starving for affection, from Izzie. Forget Becky. I knew there was never any love lost there. That pain is so deep I can barely recognize it’s coming from me. My one chance was with Izzie and I didn’t want to blow it.

So the little punk looks up at me, all red-eyed and innocent, and says to me, “OK, bro, I’ll let you have this whole stash on one condition.” I could feel my fists curling into tight balls, but I knew I didn’t dare touch him. The dirty secret in this family is it’s the chicks that really have the power. I definitely couldn’t afford to cross Becky or I was toast. She was supposed to be a psychic double of Grams, her mother-in-law, my grandma Sa. Everybody somehow knew it was Grams who orchestrated whatever bad shit it was went down with Smallie and his mother. Not to speak ill of the dead, you understand, but I’m no fool. So I kept my mouth shut and nodded to Jakie to tell me his proposition. “I want you to sign over your cut of the family operation to me,” he says, absolute deadpan. I was stunned. I looked at his face to see if he was pulling my leg, but no. That must be one el primo stash for him to try to pull a stunt like that. Stupid, really. Wouldn’t be worth the scrap of paper it was scribbled on. Izzie would laugh in Jakie’s face. Or so I thought. “OK,” I says to Jakie, “I’m in.” He nods to a pad of paper and a pen on the kitchen counter, all the while hunched over his little hoard, like he was afraid I’d try to make a grab for it. I scratched out our little ‘contract’ and signed it and smacked it down on the table right in front of him. With both hands, the little drama queen pushes the bowl across the table in my direction.

You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. “What the fuck is this shit!” I must’ve yelled loud enough to wake the dead. Jakie was busy stuffing the piece of paper into his back pocket. He didn’t even meet my eyes as he mumbled, “Acapulco Gold. Primo seeds, specially bred for superior yield and potency.” I couldn’t believe it. Fuckin’ farmer in the fuckin’ dell. How was I going to explain this to Izzie? I’d been had by the coolest little con man working the turf north of Houston Street. Totally floored me. But that wasn’t the end of it. I actually did have to start paying my residuals to Jakie, the frickin’ snake. Every time I counted it out I could feel the blood rise behind my eyes. But the whole family backed him up and I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Some time after the Acapulco Gold fiasco—which by the way ended with Izzie giving the seeds back to Jakie and telling him to see if he could “do something with this shit your brother gave me, maybe plant it in the greenhouse and see what grows”—Izzie gave me a second chance.

I still remember it like yesterday. Izzie calls me into his study late on a Monday afternoon. He’s rocking in his favorite La-Z-Boy covered in a mountain of afghans Becky made for him. I suddenly notice how old he looks, like some geezer on the deck of a cruise ship, something he would never allow himself to do. I’m not even sure he can see me, his eyes had gotten so bad. Kind of ironic, because to tell the truth I never really felt like Izzie could see me. But I never stopped trying. “Boy,” he says to me, “come close.” As I kneel by the chair he gives me an affectionate whack on the back of the head. “Boy, you know that Cuban Chinese place way over on the Upper West Side?” I didn’t, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “Yes, sir.” Suddenly Izzie has a terrible coughing fit. I think he’s going to kick right then and there. But he motions me to stay put. “I really got a yen for their spare ribs and Spanish rice. I want you to swing over there and bring me back some before I conk out for the night. Then we have some business to discuss.” I’m on my feet and practically out the door before he adds, “And Red.” I pause, “Sir?” He coughs without even looking in my direction, “Don’t fuck it up.” My ears must’ve turned bright red and I’m outa there like a bat out of hell. Almost knock over Becky on my way through the door. Funny look on her face, definitely not affection, but I can’t figure it. Later it all makes sense.

When I get back with the ribs and rice I’m really stoked. I had asked Weezer if he knew the place the old man was talking about and bingo I was on it. Couldn’t have taken me more than an hour and a half, two max, including waiting for the food to come out of the kitchen. I couldn’t help noticing what a grubby dive the place was. Wondered how Izzy’s finicky gut could even digest this stuff. I practically leap through Izzie’s door and can’t resist letting out a big “Tada!” as I hold out the grease stained paper bag. Izzie practically falls out of his chair, he starts coughing so hard. His face looks like he’s seen a ghost. “Shit!” he finally manages to spit out, “What the hell is going on here?” I’m puzzled, to say the least, but I’m getting this nasty feeling that something isn’t right. “What’s the problem, sir?” I’m truly in the dark. “It must’ve been your brother.” Turns out Becky was listening in and figured out what the ‘business’ was that Izzie wanted to talk about. The one last thing that Izzie could give me to offset the loss of income due to handing over my cut of the family business to the little jerk. The signet ring. Passed on from father to son, it opens doors you can’t even imagine. But Becky sure could imagine. She imagined her sweet little Jakie waltzing through all those damn doors.

So it was a set up. While I was driving like mad crosstown, Becky was on the phone to Grubhub and offered a sizeable tip if the driver could get there in under an hour. The real coup de grâce was she actually got some of my cologne, my unique fragrance for God’s sake, and splashed it all over that little shit Jakie. I even overhear them laughing about something Izzie said about being confused by “the stench of Red and the voice of Jakie.” As I stand by Izzie’s La-Z-Boy I have a sinking feeling in my gut that I know that somehow Jakie has gotten the jump on me again. I beg Izzie, so humiliating, to think of something he can give me, anything. Izzie hesitates, and I know there is something else. Finally he spills, “OK, Red, there’s a place up the Hudson Valley where the family has kept a cache of weapons in case of ‘emergencies’. You’re probably gonna need them, with your personality. Let’s just say persuasion isn’t your strong suit. But you can’t touch any of it until I’m six feet under. Then you’ll get access to all the firepower you could ever dream of. Capiche?” I nod and, God forgive me, I wish Izzie dead then and there. Then I’d take care of that rat, Jakie. When I walk out into the hallway I let out a howl that shakes every window in the house. Next thing I know they pack Jakie off to the old country, before I can even give him a goodbye hug, if you know what I mean. I find myself lurking around the house at odd hours, trying to figure out what these two people who were supposed to be my parents want from me. Then it comes to me. Becky presents Jakie’s journey to Izzy as a fait accomplis, “After all, we don’t want him running with those Harlem types like his brother. Let him find a good girl, from the family.” So that’s it. Next day I hightail it to Uncle Smallie’s place to ask him if I could date his daughter. The cute one. Meanwhile my every third thought is of Izzy’s death.