The King's Highway Rabbi

Tony of Bensonhurst Brooklyn was feeling low as he stood out in front of Vincent's Barbershop with Mickey and Mikey and Joey.

"Can't we break this stereotype?" asked Tony, watching a pretty girl across the street walk by.

The girl was fine and they all wanted her with the unthinking, hopeful want of people who offer nothing but self-obliviousness.

"What stereotype?" Mickey and Mikey asked.

Joey belched. He was drinking out of one of those bottles of wine that come with the wicker holder.

None of them were doing anything with their lives. Their parents worked. Mickey's dad was a made man, commuted over to Jersey to muscle small contractors. Mikey's dad worked for transit authority and Joey dad owned a pizza parlor called Pisa Pie.

Tony's Dad sold medical equipment from his home office. He liked wop literature, Dante, old Roman stuff. He was always holding forth about ancient Rome. Tony knew it all by heart. From Romulus and Remus to the Decline and Fall.

"Scipio Africanus," Tony muttered out in front of Vincent's.

"What?" asked Giuseppe.

"Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal in 202 BC."

"Did you say your mother's an animal and needs to pee? How rude!"

"Yes, that's exactly what I said," said Tony. "Listen, I gotta go."

"Where ya goin Tony?"

"I just got to get out of here."

"He wants to break free!" sang Mickey and Mikey.

"Yeah, well fuck you then!" said Joey. "Go suck a dick mother fucker, fagot, queer."

"Tony's a fagot!"

"Fuck you people, god damned stereotypes. You know what the problem with you people is?"

"What? What's the problem, Tony?"

"None of you have any information."

"Like what information should we have, Tony?"

"Like historical information."

"Like whose been sleeping with Mikey's sister?"

"Hey, fuck you Joey."

The farther he walked down toward the sea, the more he began to think about the things Stacey had told him.

"You've got to see the Rabbi," Stacey had said.

They were laying in Stacey's bed in her room in the Midwood apartment she shared with two other girls. Stacey was an orderly at Beth Israel hospital. That's where she heard about the Rabbi. She was a gorgeous blond. Tony never had bad luck with women.

"I don't need to see no Rabbi."

"He'll help you!" she said. "He helped my brother, you know my brother Barry? You know Barry, don't you, red hair, big head, tiny face, kind of mongoloid."

"Yeah, I know Barry."

Barry was one of those guys all he ever does is walk. If you lived in the neighborhood for long enough, you'd know him: that redheaded guy always walking, carrying on conversations with himself. Once they had cleaned up Stacey's yard together. Someone left a bunch of plywood back there and they wanted to have a barbecue.

"We'll, the doctor said he had Tourette's Syndrome, do you know what that is? Tony? Are you listening to me baby?"

"Yeah, I'm listening."

"Well, so we're there, Barry, me and Doctor Hershel, when Doctor Hershel's brother walks in, Noah Hershel. You know Noah Hershel?"

"How the fuck should I know Noah Hershel?"

"Well, Noah Hershel says he doesn't have Tourette's. He's just got to see the Rabbi. The Kings Highway Rabbi. Of course, Doctor Hershel didn't like that, but after when we were leaving, I got his address from Noah Hershel and we went to visit and look, now Barry, my brother Barry's got a job!"

"Where's he working?"

"At the biali place on Avenue T."

"That's a good place. Can he get me some free bialis?"

Tony lay looking at the ceiling listening to the gorgeous blond. He felt near and far, connected and loosened.

"See the Rabbi! You've got to see the Rabbi!"

***

Now, Tony was thinking about his life, how strangling himself with the extension cord just seemed the thing to do at the time. First he was out with Mickey and Mikey and some other so and sos. He hardly had anything to drink. The idea didn't seem that bad. It just popped in there when he got home.

"Get that cord off your head you stupid Umbrian jack ass! What are you doing?" his father said, taking out his swiss army knife, unfolding the blade and cutting the cord where it lay taught between the radiator and Tony's neck.

"I just wanted to see what it felt like!"

"What do you mean you just wanted to see what it felt like! You stupid wop. Look at you! I don't know what that gorgeous little blond dish sees in you, you stupid shit stick!"

"I'm sorry Dad!" Tony said.

Later than evening, Tony's Dad was sitting in front of the fireplace reading out of one of his jumbo books. He had stoked a roaring fire, although it was only October.

"Get the fuck out of here!" his father said sensing his presence at the entryway. "Kids getting his rocks polished ten times a week, and he's still a shit bird."

***

Standing around eating cheese fries at Nathan's on Cony Island, Tony decided to do two things. To see the Rabbi and then to propose to Stacey. He would say, "Look, Stacey, I saw the Rabbi. Now, will you marry me?"

And she would cry and of course she would say yes and then he would move in with her.

***

The Rabbi's house was located in the King's Highway neighborhood, which is a part of Brooklyn where a lot of different kinds of people lived mashed up against each other. It's a fairly decent part, lot's of bargains, cheap junk, restaurants. A fairly decent American place. Tony took the Q train up there.

He had been to King's Highways several times, usually by accident. It was the kind of place you ended up after you got drunk and wandered around at night. You'd come upon it and say, "King's Highway. Shit." It was a sure sign that your thoughts had strayed and it was 4 am.

Now it was about 3 pm on a Thursday. Tony wondered if the Rabbi would be home as he knocked on the door of the brick townhouse right around the corner from the shop and stores.

"Yeah, uh," I think I got the wrong house, he said when he saw the hippie.

It was a big hippie with blond dread locks, a blond beard and a red face.

"You won to see da Rabbi?" the hippie asked in a weird kind of accent.

"Yeah, does he live here?"

"Come on up," said the hippie.

The hippie followed him up a flight of steps. He opened the door at the top, entered a dark room. The rabbi sat at the opposite end of the room next to another door. Tony knew he was the rabbi for his Jewish regalia, although his white shirt was unbuttoned all the way, which was unusual. A slender white beard ran from his narrow face all the way down his chest to his crotch. The face itself was all nose and glasses and just a trace of mouth. He wore a large fedora. A loud stationary fan positioned against the wall jerkily craned its neck to the left and the right.

The hippie closed the door.

On the other side of the door was a large Chinese man. A Chinese body builder.

"What the fuck is this?" asked Tony.

"What the fuck do you think it is, mother fucker? You came to see me, didn't you? Now what's the problem," said the tiny Rabbi. His voice was disproportionately deep, melodic, mocking.

"What?"

"What's the fucking problem? How am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me what the god damned problem is you stupid Tuscan schmuck."

"Hey, fuck you!" said Tony, turning to leave.

But the hippie and the Chinese guy held him fast.

"Oh no you don't," said the rabbi. "You leave through this door, not that door, this door!" he patted the door next to him. "Enter in one end and come out the other, like a big piece of shit."

Tony suddenly felt afraid of the other door. It was painted those hippie rasta colors. The house wasn't that big, and he couldn't imagine what lay beyond. The room had no windows.

"Now, let's start at the top."

"Hey, fuck you I ain't telling you..."

The Chinese punched him in the side of his face, hard. Tony felt like he was about to black out. He had never been hit that hard before, or so he could recall. Suddenly, Tony was terror struck. "Do you know who I am? I have friends. Mickey's dad is a made man." Or was it Mikey's? At the spur of the moment, he couldn't remember.

"Do you think I give a fuck about Mickey's dad?" asked the Rabbi, turning his head. He had a two dimensional quality, as if, if he were to turn totally to the side all you would see would be a black line descending down from a nose with glasses attached to a large fedora.

"Now the sooner you start talking, Tony, the sooner this will be all over with."

"I'm depressed, ok?" Tony felt himself begin to speak the truth.

"What are you depressed about, nice slice of lasagna like you? I bet you got a nice big cock," said the rabbi.

Tony felt tears run down his cheeks.

The hippie and the Chinese body builder began to laugh.

"You want me to suck it for you?" asked the rabbi. "Suck your big cock? Would that make you feel better?"

"I ain't a fag!" Tony sobbed.

"What? Who's a fag? Are you calling me a fag, fagot?" asked the rabbi.

"No, I'm not calling you a fag. I'm just saying that I ain't a fag."

"Just teasing!" said the rabbi. "Stop being so sensative! There are no gay orthodox Jews, didn't you know that? Or so they say. And besides, I'm sure you got a nice girl, big calzone like you. You got a girl, Tony?"

"Yeah."

"What's her name?"

"Stacey."

"She a hot little blond who loves to suck..."

"Stop it!"

"Ok! I"m sorry! I'm sorry! Got a job?"

"No."

"What do you want to be?"

"I don't know. Maybe a hard hat."

"Hard hat? This boy says he wants to be a hat!"

The Chinese remained mute, but the hippie broke down laughing hysterically. "A hot!" he repeated. He had some weird European accent, said the word hat like hot. "He wans to be a hot!"

"No, come on, serious. What do you want to be? What did you want to be when you were a little kid?"

Tony thought back to when he was a little kid. He desperately searched his memories. At first there was nothing, but then it all came back. There was only one thing he really wanted to be, ever. And did he ever want to be that thing. He wanted it like nothing else. He wanted it like gold in his pockets, like endless Christmas, like a 1st grade love dream. "A cowboy," he muttered.

"What?" asked the rabbi.

"A cowboy."

"What? Speak up!"

"A cowboy!" Tony shouted, tears running down his cheeks.

"That's more like it! Pepperoni dick says he wants to be a cowboy. So, you got a girl with a nice little bod who loves to suck your big Italian bread stick, and you want to ride the range and rope buffalo or whatever those people do, those cowboys! There you go! Life ain't so bad, ain't it? Bring the cowboy here."

The Chinese and the Euro hippie lifted Tony up by his elbows and brought him over to the little Rabbi. The Rabbi placed his hands on both of his shoulders, squeezed, leaned in close and began to speak rapidly. Tony felt the little hands on his shoulders tense, smelled the rabbi's onion breath. The incomprehensible words washed over him pouring out from someplace deep, like an old kind of forgotten music released from a cave. All of a sudden Tony felt some kind of warmth spread down through his shoulders and flow through his entire body, and whatever was there, the thing that fed off him and slowly strangled the life out of him, dissolved. Then, the hippie opened the door and the Chinese shoved him out into the light. And now he was falling, falling through open space down onto a pile of old mattresses. Tony sprang up.

"You're so dumb your pants fall down!" chanted a little boy in the neighboring yard.

Tony ran down the street.