As I’m typing this, my Dad’s been dead for 46 years. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over it. I had been married exactly one month, and I had just turned 22 when he died. He was 50 years old. Just a few years ahead of the medical knowledge the doctors needed to prevent such post-operational complications.
He was not an ordinary man. Ben was 10 years old when he came to America with his family from Stolin, Poland. Benko Tkatch. Of course, he never used that name. He’d tease about it telling me it was pronounced “T-koch.” We thought it was a Polish name with various interesting pronunciations. Several years ago I met a gal with the same name. She told me it was very common in the Ukraine and was indeed pronounced T-koch. A moot point, since Zadie, Dad’s father, (Moshe Tkatch) somehow left Ellis Island as Morris Cohen. (The Ellis Island folks insist that they didn’t change people’s names. But Zadie would never have chosen Cohen; he wasn’t a kohane. A Judaic thing; maybe I’ll explain it later. Probably not. Zaidie’s brother, Michael, left Ellis Island with the name “Kay.”) Ben was the oldest son; his brother, Uncle Jack, was challenged and appropriate educational opportunities were unusual. Dad had two younger sisters, both born in the USA. Sara and Lillian.
They bought a house on Beach 82nd Street; a boarding house that brought in most of its income in the summer when people would come out from the city and rent rooms for weeks or weekends. Bubbe Goldie, my Dad’s Mom, ran the boarding house. This was the home in which Dad, Jack and then Sara and Lillian grew up. There was a large apartment in the front, and a whitewashed hallway with tile floors led back to the door to Bubbe and Zaidie’s home and also to the stairs to the upper levels. Entering the apartment was always a little scary for me when I was young. It was very dark and there were closed doors as one came through. There was a complete kitchen for cooking the meat dishes and then, in the main part of the apartment, the everyday kitchen for cooking the dairy foods. This kitchen dominated the living space. There was a small living room, and two bedrooms at this end of the house. The toilet had a room of its own, and it had a wooden seat and a chain hung over head for flushing.
Upstairs were many bedrooms on several floors. People on each floor shared a kitchen and a bathroom. I remember the inside of the house best in winter. In summer we spent our time outside. But in the winter I could roam around the chilly house, which smelled always of damp sand; iron beds painted white with white bedspreads stood in every room. My older brother and I would play hide and seek on the upper floors in the off seasons. When we’d dash back into Bubbe’s house, the warmth of baking would always rush at us, the smell of hot bread. And if Bubbe knew we were coming to visit, she’d bake challah and mini-challah’s for each of us kids. And her wonderful cherry cookies. But somehow, thinking back on it is more comforting than it was comfortable when we were kids. I always felt as though I had entered a foreign country when I stepped across the threshold. Of course, I had.
There were lockers behind the house and shower stalls. Bubbe Goldie would rent the lockers by the day so visitors could stash their stuff when they went across the street to the beach. And then they had the use of the showers. Also, under the house, was a candy store. Today we’d call it a convenience store. Over the years anyone in the family who needed to make a few bucks would run the store in the summer time. When Dad was growing up, he and his sister, Lilly, helped his Mom run the store. When he was in high school, he ran the store to send himself to college.
Bubbe Goldie was quite a business lady. From what Dad told me, she learned this at her mother’s knee. Theirs was not an agrarian tradition. (Although Dad truly knew how to cultivate a garden, and he didn’t learn it in Rockaway) She and my Dad had a private, special relationship – open enough that she told him everything, and he’d scold her. And sometimes they’d shout at each other. It was, of course, always in Yiddish so I never did get inside their relationship. Also, she died the year I graduated public school. She was in her early sixties. I was 12 years old.
Zadie was a cobbler. In Europe he was a boot maker. In this country, he repaired shoes and had his own shop in the main shopping area of Rockaway. He worked hard. There was always a lot of whispering about Bubbe and Zaidie’s relationship, but the whispering was always in Yiddish. Although it was truly the Mammaloshen, in our house it was pig Latin – the secret code. Sadly, my brothers and I always understood just enough to misunderstand completely. I remember Zaidie’s shop. And I remember the thick, lyrical way he spoke Yiddish. And I remember that he kept pigeons behind the house, above the lockers and showers.
I have later memories of Zadie. But I’m not writing a book here. Dad told me other stuff. Not all good. He didn’t tell this with bitterness. Zaidie was apparently very tight-fisted with money. He also contracted tuberculosis and was in hospital for quite a long time when the family was young.
Dad would speak to me about his family on drives to Rockaway Beach. Once a week, usually on a Friday night or on a weekend evening, Dad would try to get one of us to go to Rockaway Beach for the obligatory visit. In the summer it was not a problem. All of us welcomed a walk on the boardwalk or a run on the beach or an hour at Playland. But on the winter evenings…well, I was usually the one who went. It was not a hardship. I had Dad to myself for the drive out and back. And he would talk about stuff to me then. Getting him on his own, well, that was when he was who he really was. And he was pretty damn smart. Not only with the stock market. And he was very smart with the stock market. He borrowed wedding gift money from my mother after their marriage and returned it to her in a year with interest. The income from that money, he turned into the college funds for three kids, vacation money, and eventually the nest egg he never got to retire with and which became my mother’s freedom after his death. He also invested money for Zaidie after Bubbe died, when the city bought the house by eminent domain; the house and all the houses like it were demolished for low income housing. Everyone always thought my father was a millionaire. Partly because he was so clever with money; but mainly because Jennie, my mom's mother, told the world he was. Isn’t that remarkable? People love to believe shit like that!
Dad spoke English with a very slight George Jessel accent. (You probably don’t know who Jessel was or what his accent was like and I can’t help you there.) He was fluent in Yiddish; he understood Hebrew and could read it and translate it. He spoke fluent Spanish from high school Spanish and fluent German from college German. One day I heard him speaking Polish to an old lady in Rockaway, albeit tentatively; blew my mind. He didn’t seem able to forget anything! His powers of logic were phenomenal; he read and discussed philosophy. He loved fine books – not just the content, but book-art; the covers; the calligraphy; the paper. He didn’t have time for sports although he was a very strong swimmer and played a mean game of handball. And above all, he loved music. He had a stereo system built into the house. Speakers in several rooms. And a solid collection of the classics as well as jazz sung by female vocalists. His favorite was Lena Horne. He listened to Gilbert and Sullivan and Mahler and Mozart. Dad educated himself in books and music and theatre. He loved a stroll through a museum. His favorite was the Museum of the City of New York. It’s not an enormous place and the presentations are always varied and integral to New York’s history. Dad loved New York. It was for him the only city in the world.
Every Saturday I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in Manhattan – from the time I was eight years old – to take modern dance and speech (elocution) classes. Sometimes my Dad would meet me after my classes. He’d take me for lunch or tea at Little Vienna, a favorite café of his. It was a typically charming old-days New York café, steps down under an awning, with several little rooms or areas that felt like separate rooms. The only thing I remember eating there were the desserts: the waiter would bring a three-tiered cart and all of these gorgeous desserts would sit on their own flowered plates daring me to choose. I almost always chose the fruit tart although I was torn between that and the petite Napoleons.
I remember best the fruit tart that was filled with half a peach (or apricot?) lying upside down in sweet custard. Dad would let me agonize and then tell me to have both! I wonder sometimes how often we went. Surely more than once, but maybe only twice. In my internal child’s place, it was enough times to create history between us. No one else in the family ever went there with him.I recall my Dad reading books to me when I was little. I remember sitting in his lap and looking at picture books together. And he would tell me the same made-up story whenever I asked him to tell me a story. I’d feign anger and he’s laugh. Sadly, I don’t remember that story. On Valentine’s Day, I’d sit on the stairs in the living room waiting for him to come home. He’d always have an armload of roses for my Mom and one of those big, satin boxes of chocolates, and usually lingerie or something like that. And he’d always bring me one of those sweet, tiny heart-shaped boxes of candy.
Dad and I went to the theatre together a couple of times that I can recall. We went to see The Wall when it was on Broadway. We both wept. And once when I was in high school, we went together to see Le Commedie Francaise perform Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. We had great fun that evening; neither of us understood a word of the play, but we laughed a lot. After, we went for dessert someplace, (Lindy’s I think) and I was decked out in my beret. I pretended I was French and spoke with an accent and he was so amused and lit my cigarettes; people at nearby tables reacted as though we were on a date. Dad thought that was really terrific. We had a great time.
He was an awesome shopper and loved having an excuse to go through specialty stores and European markets. Dad loved good food. His favorite restaurant was The Abbey – an authentic schmorgasbord at a hotel in Manhattan. He loved being able to eat little bits of lots of different foods. When Mom was off at a meeting, we’d empty the refrigerator and make our own schmorgasbord. I don’t recall him cooking very much until after Jennie died. It was my father who taught my mother how to make bread. I remember them in the kitchen together, mastering that. He loved to cook Sunday breakfast – lox and eggs. Not my favorite, but he prepared it very well. And of course from his days running a candy store, Dad would make jelly apples (they call them candy apples now). That was a great treat when our friends came over.
He was a field auditor for the New York State tax department. One of his clients owned Lundy’s Restaurant in Sheepshead Bay. In those days, the old Lundy’s was three or four stories high and was run with sleek efficiency by a major domo. When we went to Lundy’s for dinner – usually a “Hallmark” occasion like Mother’s Day or a birthday – Dad always got a table. A good table.
He wasn’t free with money -- it hadn’t been easy to come by. And he loved a bargain; he’d rather wait to discover a real find than simply go into the store and buy a piece of furniture. His generosity was a generosity of spirit. For example, at tax time, the entire family would come to see him to have him fill out their taxes for free. It would annoy him, especially after long days at work doing the same thing, and because the relatives just expected it. Nevertheless, he’d do it; he never turned anyone away. And not just for his relatives; Jennie’s family would march in as well. And in his inimitable, schizophrenic way, he’d oblige and then be angry with himself.
But the best story related to Dad’s tax time, was his relationship with Shultzy. My brothers couldn't help me remember who exactly Shultzy was. Possibly, he and Dad went to college together. Or he was from Dad’s neighborhood in Rockaway. Mr. Shultz had an office in a poor section of Brooklyn. I think he sold insurance. He might have been an accountant. Dad had known him for a very long time; he called him Shultzy; Shultzy was a dwarf. One of his great talents was as a calligrapher. Sometimes I could convince him to address an envelope to me. A few times when I was a teenager, my Dad asked me to go with him to Shultzy’s at tax time. He’d go several times during the tax period to help Shultzy out. My job would be to sign people in. The clients were mainly poor folks who lived in the neighborhood. They were always very suspicious of me: “We want to see the man,” they’d say. And I’d hear my father talking to the clients. Scolding the women who’d had another baby that year and still no husband. He’d always charge them: a dollar, a quarter. Always something. I asked him the first time we went there why he charged them so little. “Because they’re very poor,” he said. Then why do you charge them at all, I asked. “Because they’re proud,” he answered.
He never took any of the money with him. He left it for Shultzy.
He loved mermaids and the idea of mermaids. I wear a ring that was his; a silver ring that is a mermaid. One of his favorite films was Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. I don’t know what that was all about; perhaps it had something to do with growing up near the ocean. And loving things fantastic.
And he was my greatest champion and most awesome critic. You were either very smart or you were stupid. In between didn’t work for my Dad. In public school, by all early reports I was not too bright. So he didn’t expect much. But when evidence appeared to the contrary, Dad’s expectations changed. In high school, any grade below a 90 was failing. I had an 89.9 average at the end of junior year, so I didn’t make Arista, the scholastic honor society. He was very disappointed. I did break 90% on the math regent, a huge accomplishment for me. I applied to three colleges and got into all of them. I wanted to go to Bard College; it was small and I felt I could cope with it. Dad went with me to Carnegie Tech for my audition. When I had to stay overnight for the audition callback, he returned home. But he made up his mind that if I got in I would go. It was to him a “real” college. It was Spring Carnival weekend, and the girls were running around in cheer leader outfits, and Dad was so impressed with the youth and the energy. He wanted that for me. I did get in, and I did go.
I got excellent grades. He accepted my success with trepidation. Carnegie Tech was a professional college, and I was in the theatre program. He wanted me to go another year and get my teaching certificate along with my BFA. Of course, since our relationship always put us at odds with each other, I refused to do that. He was right of course, as time revealed. But, no, he wasn’t perfect. I may have made him sound that way. Well, at the end of my sophomore year, I wanted to leave Carnegie Tech. I applied, and was accepted into, the graduate program at Yale School of Drama as a playwright. Unheard of! At this far end of my life, I realize what that would have meant to me – graduating from Yale with an MFA. But Dad wanted me to finish at Tech. Not finishing was a sin; a totally unacceptable form of behavior. He couldn’t have known about Yale and what that degree would have meant to my life. I didn’t fight hard enough I guess. I was probably scared to do any of it.
When I graduated Tech with a 3.8 something factor, I gave my Dad my diploma and said something like – hey, didn’t do too badly, did I? – and he said, “But you didn’t take any hard courses.” Then he laughed, embarrassed, because he knew he shouldn’t have said that. I, sadly, have never forgotten that he did.
I worked in downtown Brooklyn for almost a year after graduating college. I would wait at the station on my way home for Dad to come off the train, and then we’d walk to the house together. He was very distressed that year.
He was having health problems – prostate. At his job, he was losing the opportunity to work in the field and would be tied to a desk. My older brother was starting out at Dupont earning more than my Dad’s salary after 26 years with the State. The walk home from the Avenue H station together was an island in time. The station itself – now called “the little station in the woods” – has an old-fashioned railroad station house. Stepping off the train there felt a bit like arriving some place remote; country perhaps. Ebinger’s Bakery was right there, and it was likely once a week that we’d buy a “black-out cake.” (It looked like a cake but tasted like chocolate pudding.) Dad would confide his day to me; his concerns about the change in his job. His health was worrying him. He required surgery – a bigger deal in 1961 than it is today. Mom was struggling with menopause and the emotional ups and downs caused by that and the emptying nest. Once I announced that I was going to marry, a wall went up. We still talked, but through a chink in the wall.
The wedding happened. Dad spent the day of the wedding in bed. My Aunt Edith coaxed him out of bed and to the wedding. At the last minute he handed each of my brothers a camera so there would be pictures of the wedding. The next day we came back to pick up the few gifts that were there and my stuff. The last thing my Dad said to me was “Now I have two of you to worry about.” And he left in his brown fedora and old overcoat. A couple of weeks later he went for prostate surgery; he died of an embolism. His funeral was a month to the day of my wedding. He had been a paradox; the only truly brilliant person in our family. He was gone. I had just turned 22. The day of the funeral I suspected that I was pregnant (thanks to the Margaret Sanger Birth Control Institute and their gimmick). My mother said it was “a life for a life.” It was “a name.” Indeed, it was. I gave it to my son. He can’t know the power of the gift.
It’s Saturday. I’m no where near Brooklyn, or Rockaway, or Ebingers. My children’s father turned 75 today. My friend's father died this week at 80. My Dad died at 50. Losing Daddy. There’s never a good time.
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