Old Friends

An old man tells his friend (over the telephone) that
he is going to shule that evening. It is a broken-
down shule in a hostile black neighbourhood in Los
Angeles. There is never even half a minyan (ten
men). The worshippers are old, the prayers are badly
spoken, the place is draughty and full of shabbiness
and lumbago. The old man is inviting his friend to
laugh with him over the wreck of a failed spiritual
adventure, an adventure in which both of them once
cherished the highest hopes. But his friend does not
laugh. His friend becomes Nachmanides, the
Bodhidharma, and St. Paul all rolled into one religious
accountant. “You should not have told me that you
were going to shule. You lose all the merit you
would have gained had you remained silent.” What?
Merit? Silence? Who is the old man talking to?
That's rich. His friend is rebuking him for boasting
about his piety, but he lets it go (sort of). After
they say goodnight, the old man puts on his robes,
which don't fit so well now that he's given up
smoking. There is an almost full bottle of Prozac on
his night-table. He bought the refill a couple of
months ago, but almost immediately stopped taking
the pill. It didn't work. Hardly anything works
anymore. You can't even tell your friend (over the
telephone) about your lumbago without getting a
lecture. At least his dentist didn't reproach him
when he went back last week. After two years'
absence and a rotting mouth which everyone
(dentist, assistant, himself) could smell when the
scraping started. His dentist was an old man too.
“Let's tackle this,” was all he said. The old man ties
the strings of his robe and puts on all the lights in
the house (so he won't get robbed again). He drives
into the war zone, locking his doors on the way, and
he parks in the courtyard of the zendo (it isn't really
a shule). Eunice is there. She's been there for
twenty-five years. “At my age,” I heard her say the
other night, something about how easily she catches
cold now. Koyo is there. I forget his Christian name.
The fingers of his right hand are swollen from a cat
bite. Infected. He fumbles with the incense. Eunice
sneezes and coughs and hacks. A police helicopter
drowns out the chanting. The place is freezing. Just
the three of us. The fluff is coming out of the
cushion, just like the juice is coming out of this
story, and I'm not pissed off at you anymore either,
Steve. And what is more, old friend, you have a
point. You have a point.

1985