In
1966 when I was 13 my girlfriend breaks up with me for a kid with a bigger
finger.
At
16 I am dumped, the flimsy excuse being that every time I have an orgasm the
expression on my face reminds my girlfriend of Lee Harvey Oswald at the moment
he was being shot by Jack Ruby.
A
year later I finger my grandmother…for a series of convenience store hold ups.
In
1973 I am booted from our ancestral home for eating my mother out…of house and
home.
These
four episodes, significant in their import and timing became crucibles in fact
and the fodder for the fiction that follows.
I
never got along with my mother. She was a very cold and remote woman. If I ever
told her I loved her of tried to hug her, she would tase me. Her idea of
affection was a left hook to the liver.
We
fought constantly.
1972
Schneider/Schneider 1-The Brawl in the Hall
22nd
round - my mother brings one up from the floor catching me flush on the button.
I’m seeing angels. I manage to get into a clinch to try and clear my head. My
only memory of this moment is an olfactory one, the fetid smell of sweat and
stuffed cabbage. No one could
bring it like that nasty, straitlaced woman. I began working the old battle axe inside figuring she would
weaken from the accumulation of body shots, but to no avail, the bitch who
suckled me into life kept on coming.
In
the 24th round I finally caught her with a snap hook. The old hag
wobbled, but the expression on her face still said, “You’re going to bed early
tonight!”
Round
29 – both of us fighting on fumes I summon my last vestige of energy and bolo
punch this vilda chaya who for 19 years had made her bones as my mother. She
was so tired the missile might as well have been launched from another zip code
ending her reign, a turn of events that was sure to make Pierce Egan kvell
from his grave and pen another installment in his seminal opus Boxiana. My
sainted mother never her saw it coming and fell like a redwood counted out
before even hitting the canvas.
1974
Schneider/Schneider 2 - Static in the Attic
The
Jewish mother and Jewish son are at it again in a rematch The New York Times
called “Typical!”
Round
12 – We are in a clinch and my mother tries to get into my head by reminding me
that I’m no good. Jewish guilt. Not falling for it I push her away and start to
box. Dancing and weaving, throwing everything at her, my youthful vigor having
no deleterious affect. Mom just grins at me absorbing my best until I
was looking for an oxygen tent.
Rope-a-son?
Round
19 - I am exhausted. Mom is still determined to put out my lights and avenge
her ignominious loss of 1972 when she caught me with an uppercut that almost
lifted me out of my tighty whities. I didn’t argue with the result, just
floated off to my room for a little bed-e-bye.
1975
Schneider/Schneider 3 – Passover Massacre
“Hey
Ma…Hey Ma? Never went down Ma…you hear me? Never got me down…”
Had
that been the case Scorsese would have made the film about me, but I did go
down that day lying under the Seder table while the youngest son Mathew recited
the Four Questions. You see my mother was no pushover and my constant griping
about the veracity of the Passover ritual was getting under her skin. Without
any hesitation she uncorks a left hook to the right side of my temple. I hit
the ground like a ton of bricks and the next thing I know I am staring at the
varicose veins of my Grandma Babe and thinking to myself that I got to get the
fuck out of this place.
***
My
mother may she rest in peace called me today and asked if I would come over and
drive her to the cemetery to help her pick out a burial plot. Not one to ever
pass up a pleasure trip I gave her a resounding “YES!” Needless to say even the
speeding ticket received on the way over couldn’t dampen my
spirits. Mother purchased a sweet little plot with a very nice view, but the feature
that really made me smile and one that I was gladly willing to pay for, was for
an additional $200 bucks, I got her early check in.
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