Blood Splendor

He sat amongst the golden oaks.  His wheelchair was molten bronze and he was silent.  An anthropologist for over thirty years at New York University, he had left for non-departmental reasons.  His was a unique path.  The importance of beads in pre-historic culture being used for spiritual reasons.  Something to do with the use of art and culture and personal expression.  He had even been written up in an anthropological magazine years ago. 

I ran my hand over his pinky.  He cocked his head and pursed his lips ever so slightly.  What could be said for this type of action. He never so much as acknowledged me in class thirty years ago and now he was at my side.  George’s father sat decidedly quiet in his chair of ebony.

 George wasn’t up to talking.  His mother had warned him about this problem. He wouldn’t have wanted to garner a thread of respect for the old man at any time.  His patients had told him too many evil stories.  A psychiatrist should never socialize with anyone with issues.  At least that he knew about. Everyone wanted to tell him their problems, especially the middle aged men who had been dumped by their wives looking for younger men in sports cars with money.

George had gone to school at Columbia and Princeton.  Jersey wasn’t good for him. He had to put up with too many minorities that had problems with fitting in. He wanted to live in Manhattan with all of the other Jews.  His grandfather had been a Rabi in Poland during the second world war. George’s father had rejected the faith and turned to the Catholic side of his wife’s spirit.  Rosary beads and Communion fitted him much better than Passover seder.  Rosh Ha-Shanah never met his expectations for the problems of the world. George on the other hand had challenges far greater than most being deaf in one ear and walking with a limp.  He had turned towards the Hebrew passages early in life and expected much from them.  He loved the Yom Kipper fast and ceremonies and made the exquisite hut for Sukkot.  He and his wife had had their wedding toast there in the autumn of 1989.  Their children loved the experience of building the hut and served dessert and wine by the light of amber toned candles.

 George’s father on the other hand had no place in the Synagogue.  He ran with the French anthropologists in nature and in spiritual terms.  The swinging of the incense was for him like the first shovel put into the earth for a new excavation. The caves in Spain and France were his specialty and he always took several young girls from the graduate program with him to keep him warm at night.  Sort of a ménage a trios, but not what George would like to think about. His father always found the most beguiling women from Georgia and Florida and loved their accents.  They were old fashioned girls, Southern belles who took care of his needs. Not like those uppity women from the west coast with their feminist ideas.

George and his wife spoiled their children.  Even the girls had bar mizvahs.  The oldest one, Evelyn, had studied for years in Rabi Tenauch’s classes.  She wanted a big party, so they hosted an event at the Roosevelt Hotel.  Champagne and roses and candy and honey.  Candles and much dancing.  Evelyn, became a doctor like her Father, but specializing in pediatrics.  She wanted a child in the worst way, but a suitable husband was not on the horizon as yet.  One afternoon at the cape, she confessed her desire to have a child on her own using a sperm bank for Jewish graduate students.

 George’s father sat at the ceremony in his steel caged chair.  His edifice. His coronation booth. The widow’s face was caked with powder and bronze eye shadow.  She wept and placed her foot on top of the floral spray near the coffin.

 George’s father had been drinking gin that night.  He had had a bit too much with one of his graduate student frauleins and his pewter Porsche had spun out of control on a turn.  He plowed into the oncoming car going 50 mph and it was a wonder he wasn’t dead himself.                                                                      

George never gave up on his prayers for the dead man’s soul, but his father wasn’t able to comprehend anything. After finally waking up from being in a coma for two weeks, he wasn’t all there. What would be the result of a complete neurological exam and its associated issues. 

 George wanted desperately to know his wife’s secrets.  She had once uttered a man’s name in her sleep while they were on a trip in the Caribbean. Then, he had overheard a phone conversation in the early morning hours of their thirty-fifth anniversary.  “Yes, Thomas, I do, I do,” she had said.  Whatever was going on George wasn’t about to do much of anything about it.  He had a hit and miss attitude about her activities that was not in his control.  After all, he had once had a trifling encounter with another student in his third year residency at Columbia.  She was in one of his group workshops and they had a dry hump in a patient’s room after the body had been taken to the morgue.  What could he do about it now.  Confess, something that really wasn’t much of anything to his wife of thirty-five years.  And at a funeral no less.

George’s wife was very upset by the ceremony.  She swayed back and forth while the service began and stood next to the casket afterwards.  Her hand brushed the mahogany surface and she tapped on the lid with her newly painted rose fingernails.  The dead man’s wife was over near the window and his wife walked up and held out her right hand.  The woman took her fingers in her hand and glanced over at the spray of flowers in the front of the space.

“Thank you,” she said and her face held no emotion.  Her eyes shot out a red flash visible to George across the space of the chapel. She appeared to be filled with a white light like he had seen in the statue of the Pieta in St. Peter’s by Michelangelo. 

His wife drew back and walked over to the casket again.  “Oh Tom,” she sighed.