My First Jew

My first Jew is a tale taken from the upcoming memoir, So.. a Jew, a Mennonite and a Mason walk into my life, and…
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Truthfully, this story is about my second Jew. Meaning the second tribesman I pretzeled, lox’ed and bagel’ed, gefilte fished (one can make any phrase have sexual subtext) burned the brisket, you get the picture. Yes, this twist and tale is about the second Jewish boy/man who entered self and life.

The first one I try to suppress.. it wasn’t his Ashkenazi breathing (heavy and hoarse), or his fur-like skin which made me wince and tighten (and itch, I’m very allergic), it was that I found myself sharing sheets with someone .. someone…I didn’t even want to share space with. So.. sheets shared, sex swapped, I swore I would never get in bed with a Yid again unless I, and the ‘others’ got called to the town square where we were told to ‘only bring one piece of luggage’. I always think it’s a good thing my crowns are porcelain not gold, just in case some Fraulein wants to add gold lame to her china.

So.. following the first Jew night stand and a post-sex aversion to any music by Chris Isaak, I swam in more multicultural seas:
a Mennonite
a mason
a blonde beach boy
a sound guy with a love of the reefer,
a writer with a love of the drink,
a fundamentalist Christian
a black fundamentalist Christian, though a Democrat,
a first-generation Indian, full of hip hop hopes and immigrant pains.

And then there was—my first real Jew—beyond one night and a morning muffin. This one. .this first Jew was/is a person of my past, a high school friend, though we cannot recall having any significant conversations or interactions. He wasn’t a full-fledged crush-(that privilege belonged to the menshy SG) he was someone I admired, or maybe squeezed at (squeeze is less severe than crush) from a far. More precisely, I oggled at him in Geometry class. It was there that I fell for this quiet soul. Maybe it was the way he used his protractor, embraced postulates, rotated his compass, or maybe it was the sincerity behind his silence. Or maybe just the fact that he was passing (thriving actually) geometry and it was the only class in my life time.. LIFETIME that I could potentially, realistically, fail.

Geometric Falsehoods
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I could not for the life of me agree with Geometry’s premise of postulates: a proposition that requires no proof. NO proof? What? Add to that its inclusion of a world lived with.. assumptions, hypotheticals, and a need to order and name and solve.
“If it’s an assumption why do I need to prove it?”. Trying to convince me that the world was made up of only cylinders, triangles and rectangles –none of which I could point out on my overweight Great Aunt Bess’s body. She was curves and obstacles, and loneliness and pain. The need to shape and order a world full of curves, imperfect paths, unwieldy roots and limbs is oppressive.

Truthfully, I have a small motor problem (diagnosed in kindergarten) so It was hard for me to manipulate the compass-but not it appeared for the squeeze with the soft face and Heeb-like hair who sat adjacent to me and rarely uttered a word.
“Nice protractor.’
“Thanks.”


J' dates
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Fast forward 20 years where we (Squeeze and I) find ourselves together in his recently adopted town; the visit in part is the result of email exchanges full of flirt and fantasy. He is instantly familiar – like waking. Like the changing of seasons. Like home.

My mother did for awhile send me JDATE postings of men she looked up (in my geographic area), and whom she thought might suit me. Her words, "You’ll see...you’ll be more comfortable with a Jewish boy..” were(are) a kink in my neck. I usually wrote her back with, “make it a black Jewish doctor and you’ll have yourself a deal". No deal, yet.

It’s not that I intentionally avoided dating, playing pinball, goin’ down, eatin’ out…with Jewish men, a large part of it was and is lack of opportunity. I don’t or have not in years lived among many Jews. My closest Jew neighbor is a convert (she sews and cooks a lot and is so...not Jewish). Yet.. the first time I hung out with Squeeze.. my mother’s words moved from neck tension “You’ll see...” to a tangible truth.

Little Feather and Running Brook
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So.. this man of past appeared in my present. Our first adventure, 20 years later after we walked high school hallways, was surprizingly blissful. In my life of love or romance or dating or sex, it was one of the most unexpected, harmonic moments. It moved from skee-ball, to food, to a visit to his therapist (I waited across the street) to a vanilla latte, to late, late night conversations on everything from our Indian and Indian princesses princes' names*:
" Mine's Little Feather, I was little and light"
" I'm Running Brook. fast yet, slow?
And we poured out tales about our fathers and on loss and love unrequited. There was silence and sadness and later that night, sex and sweet talk, the sublime, and.. we won matching bracelets at skee-ball. Score!

**Indian Prince and Princess were son/father and daughter/father organizations where we ‘got back to nature’ or went camping without bug spray.***

Maybe I was desperate to not have to explain myself, maybe I was finally relieved that all my jokes were at least received, maybe after such a forced break from my past and the people –I finally was ready to remember, to acknowledge the world where I both flourished and floundered. Where a nose job was like getting a cavity filled. Where poverty, racism and classism were words to be read not experienced, nor attempted to be understood. Where people left and returned to live lives like their parents, full of creature comforts, and creatures who for the most part look and sound like each other.

This Squeeze was on the periphery like I. A wanderer. Tormented. Artistic. A life in the head, a hole in the heart, life. And living (like I) economically outside the world grown up in, and living a less traditional life than our contemporaries. Through knowing him, talking with him incessantly, creatively collaborating, I felt less like the outsider, the stranger in a strange land, I felt ..a little more whole, felt some hope.

IN-BREEDING
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My friend Sharon has often said, “the problem with Jewish boys is Jewish mothers, “ (her boyfriend is a 6’1 gentile actor-type). She blames them, the mothers, for many of Jewish boys' neurosis, severe self-doubt, lack of awareness, & anxiety, (Should I then blame my father for all of my nutbag of tricks? Most likely, yes). And my first Jewish boy, who is really my second, embodied many of those symptoms, or was certainly not immune to them.

But truthfully, that is what I found to be of comfort. Some people need to have leather seats in their German cars, some people need to have central air, or a Slavic/Polish cleaning lady, or Mexican landscapers, or weekly manicures, or a garbage compactor.. but someone who swims in sadness, lounges in compulsions, simultaneously doubts-self and ignites self- is comfort to me. It’s human, flawed and raw. And quietly,I felt love for it.. for its fearlessness. It’s fearless to fail and fall. To acknowledge pain. To wake up even when all you feel is darkness.

My first Jewish boy, who is really my second, I discovered was painfully similar to I. And it is/was in this discovery, this tapestry I sought hope and real possibility. I longed for late nights and lattes and long walks with no destination filled with stories of grandparents, past love and dreams deferred. I longed for lifetimes of creative collaboration, frenetic searches for the afikomen, and a chocolate phosphate with two straws.

My father, following the divorce from my mother, “dated” only a couple Jewish girls (one turned out to prefer women) but most of the women my father would find himself in bed with were chicksas---the Jewish’s boy’s trophy and the often polar opposite of the Jewish mother. My father, loved I think their long legs, their frizz-less hair, their symmetry, their interest in his ‘ethnicity’ or the fact that he told them he did, "two tours in Vietnam and was in a bunker," (truth he was discharged at 18 due to Crones) but moreover it was their (the women) lack of familiarity.

I believe my dad had love for these women but the love was a love of intrigue and assimilation. Prior to my birth, my dad changed his last name so he (and I..) wouldn’t sound so ethnic and Jewish, and thus be kept out of places and positions sensitive to Jews. Isn’t that what nose jobs are for? Mmph.

The story doesn’t really end here—but it is at an impasse. MY first Jewish boy, who is really my second, may indeed be my last. He, at this juncture, is returning to a prior path, one that was very destructive, but one filled with elusive beauty, long legs and frizzless hair. I have frizzy hair, shorter legs and am cute in a Sephardic-Julia-Louis-Dreyfuss kinda way, but more blonde. Not that it would matter.

He, (the first, no second Jewish boy) like I desires that which is outside, often out of reach, unfamiliar, unavailable and then works to make it part of the inside, in reach and familiar. It is exhausting. We make love so difficult sometimes, but perhaps that is its intention. It wouldn’t be love unless it was wrought with struggle.

Commonality , creative chemistry and comfort are not ingredients for love—I was swayed slightly by this squeeze to believe otherwise - but more than likely I’ll return to the pastures of gentile goats, Christian cows, and Hindu horses. Pure-breeds are so…’out’ these days…and mixed breeds (designers) are so.. in.

Cute jewish girl
Searching /wandering for
an opposing ‘tension’
Someone .. Irish.. Jordanian.. a Saudi?
Doesn’t need to be literate or funny.
Must love cats.

Letter from a Leftover

I know I reheat well. Maybe even taste better the next day, perhaps even a littler saltier, as the only Jewish spice (salt) settles in. I know I’ m re-heatable.. reusable…recyclable, an ecologically sound treat.. if we could just try us again.

However, there is never a next time.. rarely a reheat. In fact.. once left.. usually inspires the eater, in this case the ex, lover, boyfriend, soul-mate, renter—to discover theirs.. their salt to their pepper, their x to their o, their life sympatico.

Many people discover patterns of behavior in their adult life, patterns carefully outlined and scrutinized by their life-coach or therapist which seem to inhibit their ability to love, be loved, maintain a job, pay taxes..

“You know, Larry, as soon as someone wants to get close to you .. you find faults in them.. you project your own insecurities onto.. them! “

“I DO?!”

“Sanford let’s look at your past relationships. It seems you only involve yourself with people who are well...unavailable, reflective of unsurmountable obstacles.. you have lost them, before you even have them.”

“Go on..”

“Well… Olivia was incarcerated.”
“But temporarily….!”
“True, and Mrs. Cohn, though very supportive of you, was in the early stages of senility—“
“Don’t you see, Dr., or Social Worker, it made it an adventure. With her, I got to re-introduce myself each time, a tabula rasa, if you will.”
“And let’s not forget, the Mennonite.”
“Oh yeah.”
“You couldn’t even play cards around her.”
“I love cards.”
“I know, so you need to find someone who doesn't believe cards are a gateway to hell.”

My father, following the divorce of my mother, would date many women, women who for the most part were at least 10 years his junior, wore lots of lip gloss, and were to my child self, physically beautiful. Flight attendant, secretary (to him), drug trafficker, disco diva (LOVED HER!!) were my dad’s new life lovers. One even bought me a screwdriver. (It’s just orange juice!) I was eleven. His pattern in regards to mate selection was overtly non-detectable, some had degrees, some were just getting their driver’s license, some had children, were divorced, were now getting a divorce, one for sure was our family’s summer girl*, others were blonde Shicksas (Yiddish for non-Jewish woman, mostly blondish without a trace of Semitic frizz and curl) brunette Shicksas, and some were of the same Tribe, Jewish women usually very sassy who loved the rough and tumble of my father and his fast-paced, bookie-filled (we were told to call the bookie, Uncle Joel), and amphetamine filled life. The pattern surfaced following relationships with my dad.

Several, of the women but not all following the life and times of my father, which often included some sli-ght exaggerations such as:
"Yeah, I did two tours in Vietnam actually, my dad was discharged at 18 due to Crones)"
Or when requesting a table at a restaurant he would often state his name as,
"Dr. Alexander" (he actually never finished college). He told me we would get seated faster this way.

Several of the women we sat with, ate with, sometimes even vacationed with, and would soon after my dad, become? Discover? That they were indeed gay.

One woman who we will call, Luanne, in particular, who I liked quite a bit, she sold paper, and who I believe my father did as well, began a serious relationship with a woman, on the heels of a several year relationship with my dad. They did, what I would later learn is often typical of lesbian relationships,
“What’s a lesbian’s second date?
“Renting a UHaul.”

And moving in was not my dad, but a woman named Nadine.
“You and Nadine at least have the same hair color, though she has a little more muscle than you, and spits farther,”

“ Mmmph.”

Perhaps these women needed stability after the chaos of my dad or desired softer skin.
“Dad, maybe you should use some extra-strength lotion—soften your skin or something?”

Regardless of the why, my dad was left to question perhaps how the loves of his life.. not just left him but also left him for women, for the gendered opposite. In the Nadine case she was the opposite of my father in temperament, never smiled, wore purple sweatshirts, whereas my father had his clothes often created by designers (he had labels which read “Made for Buddy Alexander), and she didn’t shave.

It appears that I have inherited perhaps not his pattern (only one of the men I have swapped saliva with preferred guys over chicks, which may have explained why he danced so well), but a post-relationship pattern.
Quite systematically, almost every relationship I have had no matter how intense or how fleeting, 100 nights, 1 night, results in that person often immediately finding their spouse, their lifetime partner, their love. It’s like I either prep them emotionally to be able to reveal and be present in the subsequent relationship, or they seek the actual opposite: most likely Gentile, traditional (has serving pieces and cooks with things like coriander and cumin), little mental health history (or rather not tattooed or blazoned on a blog-wasn’t a test case for Prozac, la la..la), and likes dogs not cats. With the exception of one or two, the chronic pot smokers and alcoholics.. oh yeah, and the Mason, all of those that I have loved, deeply, profoundly, honestly, soulfully, seek love elsewhere and immediately after we hang up the phone or the ichat.
What is it? I try to not overwhelm, to wait, to live in a state of give and take, to foster equality.. to be present, I mean I fuckin’ teach this stuff—yet…

Yet, I’m left over, passed over (should I take the lamb’s blood off my door?) and many of these men who tell me I am, “magic, super-human even, the sweetest, the nicest, cutest, brains and beauty, sexy” find foundations and security and equanimity elsewhere. It cracks my soul. Even the men with whom I have initiated the departure, the dénouement (one, because all his stories ended in “And the we smoked this big fatty.” Needed a little more variety there.), find immediately their love of life, their raison d’etre, their flower, and sometimes from my own garden.

I imagine what their internal whether conscious or unconscious dialogue is,

“All right, Sam, sure.. sure, she made me laugh, dug moats so I could travel to undiscovered territories, helped me fight off my senses of self-loathing, empowered me to believe in impossibility, became a light to my darkness, was able to be submissive so that I could feel strong, wrote me poems about my struggles, our conversations flowed, there was symmetry and chemistry and creativity—BUT… she always calls me right back and she gives too much. Doesn’t make me feel nervous but too secure. I need a chase. And someone who doesn’t have a 401K and tenure.”

Maybe if I had got the Brazilian.. maybe then.

The why is elusive…the pain profound. I am consistently a leftover, as the most recent love or desire sits down to a life with their main dish, one full of carbohydrates, proteins, sweetness and security. And I sit, rewrapped, ready to be warmed up, but most often, discarded for something or someone whose ingredients to me are indeed a mystery.

*a teenage girl usually from Wisconsin or Michigan,, usually one who had never been to the big city of Chicago, who would live at the house, take care of the us kids, so the mothers could play Mahjong.