Jay Hyman cringed beneath the Ark.
His eyes were lowered in what could have been mistaken for an effort to hide emotion, tears. Indeed, many watching smiled at that; it was a big day for Jay. The cringe, however, was in anticipation of the Rabbi’s final words. They would be, of course, harmless, congratulatory, a simple ‘Mazel Tov’ followed by a chorus of Mazel Tovs from the Jews sitting in the massive and modern sanctuary, plus a few from a handful of Gentiles who’d been invited. After that there would be some self-conscious Mazel Tovs from the remainder of the unchosen less familiar with the iconic phrase.
The cringe had nothing to do with Mazel. It came from Jay’s hours of repetition of his Bar Mitzvah – the big BM as he called it – components, the various portions he would recite this day leading to his final thank-you speech to one and all. He’d heard many others’ speech and he figured on a simple thanks and generic nod to how much this meant to him. He had gone over it so many times that it was automatic. In his sophomoric mind those words always concluded with the Rabbi saying, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The humor helped keep his nerves down.
Lost the way a Bar Mitzvah boy is lost in the muscle memory of the ritual, he half expected those very words going as far as to raise his foot in preparation for smashing a glass and only stirred with the Rabbi’s gentle hand patting his shoulder.
Then Jay heard the mazel tovs and looked upon the tears and cheers of the collected faces with the embarrassment only a somewhat plump, short, bespectacled 13-year old boy dressed up like a middle-aged accountant can feel.
It was at that precise moment that he affirmed his faith in the almighty; ‘Thank God it’s over.”
But it wasn’t quite over.
Sitting in the front row, spotlighted by a rogue ray of sun that bypassed the stained-glass window of Moses with the 10 Commandments, was the shining pride of Jay’s mother as manifested by a smile glowing from newly whitened teeth. She took a deep breath, her breasts heaving in the act, forcing Jay to squint as that ray of reflected the diamond encrusted hamsa straining around her neck. She touched a tissue to a tear, taking in the multitude of mazel tovs from surrounding guests coming to congratulate her.
One would have thought it was her Bar Mitzvah. Jay said as much to her one day, sarcastically suggesting maybe he could play a role other than the entertainment. His father raised a hand as if to slap him, but just shook his head. It was his mother who slapped him with a “Stai zitto!”, Italian for ‘shut up.’ She would revert to such phrases periodically which enchanted his father.
Jay didn’t want any of it. He had proposed a Bar Mitzvah in Israel as much for a cool trip as any religious longings. He argued it would be more meaningful and when that failed that it would save enough money to cover a semester at a decent private college. His father was almost moved by that, suggesting Jay would make a good lawyer and went off on that tangent.
Then Mama intervened. Mama, born Marissa Gianetti, said she hadn’t gone through the ‘God-you’ll-pardon-my French-damn conversion’ just for a trip to Israel when her side of the family expected a big Jewish affair. Jay’s father gave her a hug because she hadn’t said big ‘Jew’ affair.
Besides, she’d say, they didn’t have a daughter, so an expensive wedding wasn’t in the cards and didn’t she always know what was best? Hadn’t she been serving polenta at Passover even before the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards ruled it okay? Jay always thought maybe his mom’s ‘Uncle’ Carmine, the one with ‘connections’, had made the Committee an offer they couldn’t refuse. He was her godfather, the real deal. The also called him ‘the butcher’ because he had, well, the butcher concession at Key Food’s throughout Brooklyn. No one shared the joke with Carmine.
His Bar Mitzvah, maybe, but her party, one she arranged in the finest Northern New Jersey Hebraic detail down to the Mercedes of challahs delivered that very morning from Orwasher’s on the upper East Side, chopped liver, smoked salmon and sable from Zabars, all to be centrally displayed. The band, which played at Jerry Seinfeld’s wedding, would offer up chosen klezmer tunes and conclude with a crooning of “New York, New York.” Flower centerpieces would go to the person who found a red circle under their chair. Iceboats of caviar and broiling platters of rumaki would be discreetly off to the side.
Jay characterized all this as over-the-top extravaganza more suited to the wedding of the only daughter in a large Italian family than the son of moderately successful orthodontist. “Che la luna” swam through his head. He imagined a Vito Corelone in the Rabbi’s sumptuous office divvying out favors before the dreaded party that was soon to be. It was going to be a circus down to the sideshows.
The sideshows? Jay had balked but Mama had insisted because hadn’t every Bar Mitzvah she attended had sideshows? There is a competitive element to suburban BMs. Jay wanted something subdued, maybe a band for the adults, and an ice-cream bar for the kids. But at his shul, the sideshows were de rigueur; the nerdy magician, a slick DJ you wouldn’t want your daughter to date with his entourage of super attractive dancers bumping and grinding inappropriately with a crowd of aroused 13-year old boys. Don’t forget about the photo booth that could hold half a dozen adolescents mugging for the camera, pinball machines, lots of them, the bizarre glass closet blowing dollar bills for kids to grab (talk about your cultural stereotype), face painters, colored hair sprays, artificial tattoos and the ice-cream bar with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. And hot fudge. Jay insisted on that.
On the way to the show, Jay’s mother hugged him constantly in the backseat, periodically spitting on a tissue to rub into oblivion her lipstick residuals. His father turned from the front seat at least a dozen times to say how proud he was. Jay but stopped after eight. Even the driver caught on with a mazel tov in a distinctly Latin accent.
Jay was biting his tongue, trying to imagine the gifts that were his due. An attempt to loosen his tie met with a mild slap from his mother across the back of his head, causing him to bite harder on his now bleeding tongue. She said he had to look good – “like a mensch” — for the photographer. It came across as ‘metch’ but at least she tried. It wasn’t the right word exactly, but Jay’s father added ‘listen to your mother,’ sealing the deal.
The photographer started snapping the moment the car stopped in front of club, trying to position Jay in various spots around his parents, relatives, and complete strangers offering more mazel tovs. Oh, and envelopes. Lots of envelopes. One casually dressed man in plaid pants seemed to take offense saying somewhat aggressively he was a member and not part of some damn wedding. Jay imagined a parenthetical ‘Jew wedding’ was implied. Any discord dissipated when a large man in a small suit whispered something and the member hurried off. The large man returned to open a car door for Carmine displaying a ‘whatever’ with his left hand hand an unlit cigar with his right.
“Hey Giacobbe,” said Carmine gesturing Jay over. He put a thick envelope in one of Jay’s inside pockets and a cigar in the other. “Cuban,” he whispered. “For later.”
Later couldn’t come too soon. There were the usual prayers to start things off led by a musty-scented great uncle spitting when he spoke. Then there was the second event Jay dreaded; the mother-son dance. In dance practice he begged his mother to forget this part, but she insisted. When she put on her too revealing BM dress, he begged once more, on his knees, for her to wear anything else. His father advised ‘when you got ‘em flaunt ‘em’ which pleased Mama to no end. “Don’t forget Jay-bird you’re half Italian and you should be proud of that.” How that played with her ample bosoms he didn’t know.
Then there was grandmother-grandson dance, the silver lining of which was that Bubbi couldn’t dance very long. And then the asshole band leader insisted the girls dance with the Bar Mitzvah boy to oohs and ahhs of the collected. However, enough adults had crowded the floor to allow Jay and friends a ready escape only to be trapped by the DJ and his bimbettes as Jay’s friend Eli put it, and the roving magician who approached everyone otherwise engaged in close conversations with a raccoon puppet and red sponge balls. The little children appreciated him. They were surrounded by 13-year girls babysitting them until they go their turn in the photo booth. Jay’s cousin Vinnie, mom’s side, who at 14 was almost had a moustache, asked, “Whose idea was all this?” Jay shrugged, allowing several envelopes to fall from his jacket pocket. “Marone! How much? Seriously. Count it. Oh, yeah, mazel tov.”
Jay liked his cousin, especially liked his attempt to be a tough kid who mimicked any number of characters from The Sopranos. “It’s an Italian thing, so va fangul,” he’d say. Jay called it an affectation, reminding Vinnie that while he might be from New Jersey his father was an oncologist at Sloane Kettering and his mother taught English at Barnard to which Vinnie would make rude noises with his hand under his armpit and offer a “fuggedaboutit.”
It was Vinnie, holding the cigar Carmine had given him, who said to Jay, “Stogies!”
The pair attempted to edge away unnoticed until the DJ pointed to Jay and said “And mazel tov to the man of the hour” through his mike. Jay thought he’d forgotten his name, which was just as well, until the DJ said “Come up here Jay and show us what you got.” Two of the more bimbo-esque of the bimbettes put their arms around him, gave him slobbery kisses, and they danced around him while Jay thought about baseball scores. None of his friends joined in, but the slew of the youngest guests danced with the remaining bimbettes yelling “all fall down” periodically to hearty squeals.
Jay slunk off the dance floor, flaccidly embarrassed, until pulled aside by Vinnie with a cigar in his mouth waving a $20 bill in front of his face, “Want me to ask if they’ll do give you a lap dance?“
It was entirely possible that Vinnie would do just that
“C’mon, let’s get a drink.”
It wasn’t the first thing Jay wanted to do – his tippling heretofore had been limited to a syrupy Passover wine and not much of that and a sip of a similarly sweet whiskey sour his father had allowed him at his grandfather’s 85th birthday party. But it wasn’t the last thing either. No, the last thing he wanted to do was stay in the rumpus room, get more mazel tovs, kisses from aging aunts, or teases from the bimbettes. At least not for a few more years. Anyway, his friends seemed content with the sideshows. He turned to the screams out of the money booth where Arnie Moskowitz had just grabbed the only $50 bill in the sea of ones.
“You coming?”
Vinnie let the way to the quiet end of the long bar pulling on Jay’s sleeve the whole time. “Watch this,” he said. Vinnie gave a ‘pssst’ to a young Hispanic bartender, who first shook his head, looked toward the busy bartenders down the rest of the line, and took the $20 bill Vinnie left on the counter. He nodded with his head to just behind the bar where Vinnie dragged Jay out of sight. Moments later there were two whiskey sours, each with two maraschino cherries and an umbrella, left at the edge.
“Cousie, it’s the only cherry you’ll pop today,” said Vinnie with a grin and then downed the drink in three gulps. Jay took five.
“Line ‘em up Gustavo!” leaving a $20 he’d taken from Jay’s pocket.
It took them a few more gulps to finish the second batch and when Vinnie went for another $20, Gustavo shook his head mouthing the words ‘no mas’. Jay allowed that he was feeling no pain anyway to which Vinnie shrugged his shoulders and dragged Jay outside.
It’s possible that had they stopped there the next thing wouldn’t have happened. But no. Vinnie lit his cigar, put it Jay’s mouth, and lit Jay’s for himself. “To Carmine,” he said. They puffed away. And away.
“Jay-bird, where have you been?”
It was Mama, a little tipsy, Dad in tow.
“They want to cut the cake.”
Dad with his doctor’s eye, a dentist’s anyway, asked if Jay was felling all right. Vinnie answered with a shrug. “It’s the Bar Mitzvah thing. It’s a big day you know, in a Jewish boy’s life.” Jay shrugged in sympathy.
It might have been that shrug, enough of a movement to challenge the equilibrium of two young men who’d drank whiskey sours on empty stomachs followed by puffs on a particularly strong Cuban cigar known as a Churchill.
If Mama thought something was amiss, she didn’t show it but pulled Jay back into the club, climbing the steps like a rocky boat hitting waves, with Dad pushing from behind and Vinnie trailing at an increasingly slow pace. Jay held closely on his mother’s arm who thought that was an adorable display of affection as they went bouncing up the stairs. “I love you, too,” she said.
In the dining room was a massive cake with the words “Mazel Tov” written in the same blue that adorns the Israeli flags, yellow stars of David on the cake’s borders. Jay had the wherewithal to think those were in poor taste, but that thought gave way when his mother pushed him to the cake emitting its rich odor of marzipan – a flavor his mother insisted upon. His father was already there, beaming and mouthing the words “I’m so proud of you” as he handed Jay a bright cake knife that flashed into his unfocused eyes.
The crowd stood for Jay’s final thanks, their mouths already forming for yet another “Mazel Tov” and saliva accumulating in anticipation of the marzipan-laden cake they could smell even at the tables where distant relatives were made to sit.
Mama said words he didn’t hear into a microphone which he thought ended with ‘I love him so much’ when she leaned over, almost spilling out, and hugged him. She wouldn’t let go, his face smothered into her, as tears rolled down her chest, reinvigorating the potent scent of La Vie Est Bell Intensément by Lancôme.
Lancôme’s description boasted that “Intensément introduces an addictive fusion of red iris and red vanilla, bringing a floral and warm vibration to the iconic perfume.” To an inebriated 13-year old reeling from a rich Cuban, Intensément
was the final straw on a nauseous camel’s back. Upheavals, plural, were the result.
The first was over his mother’s dress. With the hands she’d clasped around her son’s head she thrust him back, his blue suede yarmulke embroidered inside with the word’s “Jay’s Bar Mitzvah” flying off. To Jay it felt as if his brain went at a faster pace than the rest of him, until he stopped at which point his brain rebounded forward, his second upheaval following suit over the cake overpowering the marzipan scent.
Mama ran off to the bathroom streaming tears of another emotion along with some choice words one doesn’t hear at a Bar Mitzvah. His father dunked a napkin in cold water and wiped Jay’s head who thought he heard “I’m not proud of this” but couldn’t be sure.
Gustavo now played the part of busboy and pushed the table holding the cake away from the crowd. He kept his head down gagging on the noxious smell, but keen to escape.
Having given his son a glass of seltzer and dirty looks, Jay’s father took the mike, strained his facial muscles with a forced grin, and apologized sort of; “It’s been a big day for Jay and I think it all got to him. The caterer has cookies and canolis in the back so let’s give Jay one more big mazel tov. A few unenthused mazel tovs followed the retreating crowd. Lagging behind was Uncle Carmine who with an uncharacteristically Jewish gesture tossed his hands in the air.
Vinnie put a hand on Jay’s shoulder. “Hey man, I’m really sorry about the trouble.”
Jay looked around at the emptying hall and took a breath of relief. This day now was over. For the first time that day he could smile. ”Huh?” he asked. “What trouble?”