I Can Get It for You Wholesale Read online

  “Aah, you know I’d never forget that, Mom,” I said over my shoulder as I walked ahead of her to the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I know. Then why weren’t you home last night?”

  “Aah, now, Mom,” I said, “didn’t I tell you it was the last day of our first month? Didn’t I tell you I wanted to be downtown early so’s I could look through the checks that came in the mail? Didn’t I?”

  I set the packages down on the kitchen table and turned toward her. She was trying to wipe her hands on her apron and tuck her loose hair back at the same time. I put my arms around her quickly and kissed her, lifting her off the ground a few inches. In public I could kill guys that did things like that.

  “Heshie!” she said sharply, but she put her own arms around me and kissed me back.

  “Come on, now, Ma,” I said, kissing her again. “Didn’t I say I wouldn’t be home for the night?”

  “Sure you said it,” she said. “But just the same you weren’t home, were you?”

  I laughed and hugged her, lifting her off the ground again. “Say, you want to watch your figure, there, Ma,” I said. “Pretty soon I won’t be able to lift you up any more.”

  “Never mind,” she said. “Don’t tell me any stories. I weighed myself only yesterday.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “How much?”

  For answer she walked over to the table and began to undo the packages.

  “Come on, now,” I said. “How much?”

  She looked at me and we both began to laugh. “It’s okay, Ma,” I said, putting my arm around her. “You put on as much weight as you want. I’ll like you just the same.”

  “I know, Heshie,” she said. “But promise me you won’t stay away no more. It gets lonesome at night and I start worrying and I don’t know what happened.”

  I snapped my fingers.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “That’s another thing we’re getting. A telephone.”

  “Don’t try to mix me up what I’m saying,” she said. “At least you could call me up by Mrs. Hirsch, from downstairs.

  Even three o’clock in the morning she would call me to the telephone. Last night, for a nickel, you could—”

  “What?” I said. “And have Mrs. Hirsch know that I called up my mother?”

  “What’s the matter? It’s something to be ashamed of?”

  “Of course not,” I said, “but she don’t have to know my business.”

  Letting Mrs. Hirsch know something was like buying fifteen minutes on WEAF.

  “But Heshie—”

  “Aah, you don’t have to worry about me, Ma,” I said.

  “Sure I don’t have to,” she said. “But what am I going to do when it comes night—oh, Heshie!” She’d finally gotten the packages open and seen the cakes. “You didn’t forget!”

  “Me forget?” I said. “How could I forget a thing like that?”

  She broke off a corner of the cheese cake and bit into it. “A taste?” she said, holding it out to me.

  “Later,” I said, going over to the gas range and lifting the cover of a pot. “What, no blintzes?” I said, turning back to her.

  “Of course, no blintzes,” she said. “If you let me know in advance when you’re coming home, I’ll make you blintzes. But like this, you don’t come home two nights, you don’t call me up, you come home five o’clock in the middle of the day, without telling me anything, how should I know to make them?”

  “That’s a fine how-do-you-do,” I said, striking a pose like an actor. “A hard-working son like me, I nearly wear myself out and kill myself starting a delivery business, so my mother should have diamonds and furs, and when it comes to a little thing like blintzes, I can’t get them!”

  “Stop already with the fancy speeches,” she said, laughing. “Somebody would think I was starving you. So you’ll have them to-morrow. But tell me, Heshie, how did it go with the business? Everything is all right?”

  For answer I pulled out the roll of bills and held it up.

  “I think everything is all right,” I said. “How does it look to you, Ma?”

  “Oy, yoy-yoy, yoy-yoy,” she said, shaking her head a little and holding her hand to her face. “I thought you said it was a delivery business? You didn’t tell me it was also a bank!”

  “I thought you’d know that,” I said reprovingly. “Would I go into any business, Ma, if it wasn’t at least as good as a bank?”

  “Let me tokke take a look,” she said, reaching for the roll.

  “One second, Ma,” I said, dodging her skillfully. I peeled off six fives quickly and held them out to her. “This is for you for the house,” I said. “You ought to be able to make plenty of blintzes on that. You be a good girl, Mom, and make them like I like them, and you can have that every week. All right?”

  “I should say it’s all right,” she said, looking important. “Business is business.” She folded the money and put it into her small purse carefully. Then her face became pleasantly sad. “Ai, Heshie,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re a good boy.”

  Well, that was one thing about my mother. I was sure she liked me.

  “This is nothing, Ma,” I said. “This is only the beginning.”

  I snapped a rubber band around the rest of the roll and held it out to her.

  “Now take a look at the rest of it, Ma,” I said.

  She took it and squeezed it a little and bounced it in the palm of her hand. Then she handed it back to me.

  “That’s a lot of money for a young boy like you to carry around, Heshie,” she said. “Maybe it would be better if—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Ma,” I said. “Any time you want any, no matter how much or what for, you just ask for it. Okay?”

  “I know that, Heshie,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about that.” Maybe she wasn’t. “I was just wondering—” Her face took on a worried look. She leaned toward me a little as she spoke. “You’re making it in a nice way?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “All I have to do is stand on Forty-Second Street and Broadway in a full-dress suit and a silk hat and people go by and hand me twenty-dollar bills. It’s so nice, I don’t even have to touch the money. I wear white gloves.”

  The worried look disappeared from her face and a smile took its place.

  “Now you’re joking with me,” she said. “But maybe it’s better I shouldn’t worry. I’m sure if it’s your business, Heshie, it must be nice.”

  That was one way of looking at it.

  “For the time being,” I said, “it’ll do.”

  “I’m only a little worried,” she said. “I mean, now you’re making so much, what are you gonna do with—?”

  “Come on, and I’ll show you,” I said, taking her hand. I led her through the kitchen and the foyer to the living room and stopped in the doorway. “First of all,” I said, “look at that sofa. How long’ve we had it?”

  “How should I remember a thing like that?” she said. “What’s the matter, you think I have nothing else to do but to figure out how old every piece of furniture in the house—”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, patting her shoulder. “Don’t start with the speeches, Ma. I just asked how long we’ve had the damn thing.” She opened her mouth to say something, but I stopped her with a hug. “Never mind, Ma. Whatever it is, we’ve had it long enough. Well, that’s where part of this is going.” I tapped the money in my pocket. “First of all, the first thing, I’m going to buy a new sofa.”

  If I really wanted to, I could have moved her right then. But it wouldn’t have been to as nice a place as I was sure I would be able to afford before very long. When I’d do it, I’d do it right. And besides, I don’t like to make too big a splash right at the start. All it means is that later, if something goes wrong, you look like twice as big a jackass.

  “The next thing is this,” I said. I led her over to the armchair and said, “Sit down, will you, Ma?”

  She pretended she didn’t know what I was up to.
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  “Heshie,” she said, “I got things on the stove—”

  “They won’t run away,” I said. “Come on, Ma.” I took her arms and pushed her into the chair gently. “There. Now, how does it feel?”

  “Go tell him how it feels!” she said. “How do you expect it should feel? Like an elephant? It feels like a chair!”

  “That’s what you say, Ma,” I said, laughing. “To me it feels like a coal pile.”

  “Since when did you get such a soft behind?” she asked, smiling up at me. “All these years it was good enough, it felt like a chair. For your father, he should rest in peace, it felt good enough. For me it felt good enough. For you, even, it felt good enough. But all of a sudden, from a clear sky—”

  “All right, Ma,” I said. “So that’s settled. So we’re getting a new chair.”

  She broke into a laugh and slapped my hand.

  “It’s yet a lucky thing for the world that my Heshie didn’t all of a sudden decide he wants to wear his hat on his feet,” she said.

  I looked at her.

  “What?”

  “Because otherwise,” she said, “you could be sure that before long the world would be walking on its head.”

  “Aw, don’t say that, Ma,” I said. “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to force a new chair on you. If you don’t want it, you just say the word, Ma, and I won’t—”

  “All right, all right, all right,” she said, still laughing. “So we’ll get a new chair. Maybe it’ll be easier to keep clean. What else?”

  I looked around the room at the dinky table, the cheap radio, the old horse of a mirror, the oilcloth rug, the old-fashioned pictures on the wall, the string portieres.

  “Aah, hell,” I said, waving my hand to take in the whole room. “Everything. We’ll throw the whole damn junk out and—”

  “What kind of throwing out?” she said, sitting up in the chair. “Who do you think you are, Rockefeller? You want to buy new things, all right. But we’re not throwing out anything. You want to get rid of it, so all right, we’ll sell it to the junk dealer or somebody. But what do you think, money grows on trees?”

  “For some people it does, Ma.”

  “For dopes,” she said. “Only dopes they think money grows on trees. A smart person doesn’t think like that. A smart person, even he’s got plenty money, he still doesn’t go around like a dope thinking money grows on—”

  “All right, Ma,” I said. “Money doesn’t grow on trees and we won’t throw this junk out. We’ll sell it. Then we’ll get new stuff. All right?”

  “All right,” she said. “Now, Mr. Millionaire, what are you going to do with the rest of that money?”

  “Plenty,” I said. “But first I’m going to take you out and buy you some fancy new clothes.”

  “What’s the matter?” she said sharply. “All of a sudden my clothes aren’t good enough for you?”

  “Sure they’re good enough for me, Ma,” I said. “But they’re not good enough for you. I want you to have—”

  She got up and put her arm around me.

  “Remember, Heshie,” she said, “The banks need customers, too.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be getting around to them.”

  “To the banks, Heshie, you should go first.”

  “There’s no rush, Ma,” I said. “The longer I wait the more they’ll have to shell out with when I get ready to take them over.”

  She laughed and shook her head.

  “Come on,” she said, “you’re such a good boy, I’ll make you some blintzes.”

  “But what about the stuff you already got on the stove?” I said.

  “Don’t stick your nose in my pots,” she said. “Let me worry about the cooking. You want blintzes, so I’ll make you blintzes. The other things we’ll save for to-morrow, or we’ll throw it out or—”

  “What kind of throwing out?” I said, imitating her voice and scowling. “Who do you think you are, Mrs. Rockefeller?”

  “Good things you learn quick,” she said, laughing.

  “Not good things, Ma,” I said. “Smart things.”

  “Is the same,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “So all right,” she said. “So we won’t throw it out. So we’ll save it for to-morrow.”

  We went into the kitchen arm in arm, laughing. I sat down at the kitchen table, and she began to mix the batter.

  I rolled up my shirtsleeves and stretched my legs far under the table and watched her. It felt good to be looking at her. I realized suddenly that this was the first rest, the first real rest, I’d had in weeks. It was always that way when she was around. It was like putting your arm on a log after a tough swim. That’s why I didn’t like to see the gray hair. It scared me a little to think that some day there wouldn’t be a place to reach out and touch and draw a deep breath and rest a while.

  “Here, Ma,” I said, taking the bowl of batter from her. “Let me mix that. You mash the potatoes and fry the onions.”

  After a few moments she looked up from the gas range and said, “What are you looking at, Heshie?”

  “Nothing, Ma,” I said. “I was just thinking, why don’t you—why don’t you go to the beauty parlor once in a while, like the other women?”

  Take it from me, it’s no cinch telling your own mother she isn’t perfect.

  She stopped pounding the potatoes to stare at me.

  “What are you all of a sudden, Heshie, a little crazy?”

  “What do you mean, crazy?” I said. “All the other women do it.”

  “If all the other women are going to run up on the roof and jump off, so I’ll have to do it, too?”

  “That’s not the idea, Ma,” I said. “It’s just that you’re still a young woman. Why shouldn’t you—?”

  “Aah, Heshie, please! Don’t talk like a baby,” she said, bending over the pot in her lap. But I could see her blush a little and I knew she was pleased. “What are they going to do in the beauty parlor, make a young chicken of sixteen out of me again?”

  “No,” I said, “but they could make you look as young as you really are, and not older.”

  “Yeah,” she said, trying to sound sarcastic and taste the mixture of mashed potatoes and fried onions at the same time, “they’re going to make me look young!”

  “Of course they will, Ma,” I said. “They touch up your hair a little and they manicure your nails and they fix up your eyebrows—”

  She set the pot of potatoes down suddenly and shook with laughter.

  “What’s so funny about that?” I asked.

  “You,” she said. She held up her clean, worn hands, with the dishwater scars all over them. “In the first place, the girl in the beauty parlor, she’ll take one look at these hands, she’ll get the cholera. And secondly, other boys, they come your age, they go into business, they make a little money—they start looking around for a nice quiet girl she should make a good wife. But you, instead you should look around for a wife, you start sending your mother to beauty parlors.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s not wrong,” she said. “It’s just crazy, that’s all.”

  “All right,” I said, “so it’s crazy. But don’t forget, there, I like some cheese blintzes, too, not only potato ones.”

  “Aah, you always eat with your eyes, Heshie,” she said. “This is enough.”

  “Never mind,” I said, grinning at her. “By me it’s not blintzes unless I get both kinds.”

  She went to the icebox and took out the cheese.

  “I’d just like to see if your wife, when you get one, if she’ll cook for you two kinds of blintzes also.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll find that out in advance. No blintzes, no wife.”

  She looked at me slyly.

  “Maybe you got already a girl, you’re keeping it a secret?” she said.

  I looked at her as though I had been highly insulted.

  “Ma!” I said. �
�Would I keep a secret from you?”

  “So all right, then,” she said. “If you haven’t got a girl, I’ll get you one. I got one that’s for you just right.”

  Maybe it wouldn’t have so many curves. But it’d be kosher all right. Leave it to Mama.

  “Don’t do me any favors, Ma,” I said. “Just watch out for those blintzes, there.”

  Unless my nose had suddenly lost its sensitivity, my guess was that the old lady had been giving this matrimonial business a little more than just a passing thought. If I knew what was good for me, I’d get her mind onto other things, quick.

  “Did you ever hear of such a thing?” she said, addressing the frying pan as she poured the batter in. “Instead of thinking about a wife, he’s worrying about stuffing his stomach.”

  “That’s the way it should be,” I said. “Wives are easy to get. But blintzes like these—aah, Ma, that’s not so easy to find. You ought to see some of the junk they give you in restaurants.”

  She picked the hot thin pancake out of the frying pan with a fork, put it on a plate, and rolled it full of mashed potatoes. She worked swiftly and silently at this, the most important part of the process. But I knew she was thinking deeply, because when she set the first plate of hot blintzes before me, she said:

  “Maybe you’re right, Heshie,” she said. “Maybe you got time with a wife. Maybe you got other plans, hah?”

  If my biographer ever wanted to find out from which side of the family I got my brains, I guess he wouldn’t have much difficulty.

  “Sure I got other plans,” I said. “I always have other plans, Ma.”

  “Maybe now you’ve got a little more money, now you don’t work so hard, Heshie, maybe now,” she said hopefully, “you’ll go to school at night like Papa wanted you should, and you’ll become a lawyer?”

  My dear Mrs. Bogen, unless you drop your recently acquired critical tone, and pay more strict attention to business, I’m afraid we’ll have to drop you from the payroll.

  “Aah, Ma, please,” I said gently. “Let’s not start that all over again.”

  “Why not, Heshie?” she said, sitting down across the table from me. “You know it’s what Papa always wanted you should be. And now, now you got a business, you’re making money, you’re still young, you could go at night easy. Plenty boys they study at night and they become big lawyers. What’s the matter? They’re smarter than you? You’re just as smart as they are.” Smarter yet! “If by Mrs. Heimowitz that dumb Murray of hers, he could become a lawyer by studying at night, then you could do it in a one, two, three, Heshie. You know that.”