Listen to Barbra

His lips smothered my words as they ever­ so­ slowly landed on mine. My heart fluttered. His mouth pressed against mine a little then a little more and then moved away.

“Nothing to be scared about, right?”

…”I have a school for the deaf; I teach American Sign Language,” hurriedly followed by, “sorry, but I’ve got to run, remember, come visit.” Then touching her hands to her lips, then her heart waved goodbye.

“Now Barbra, I’ve never shown this to anyone before, ” she confided in hushed tones. “Thank you, and I will never, ever tell you what you will show me today. “Good,” she mouthed and smiled and opened the big white album to the first page.

I don’t remember how much longer it was, but the day came, and “my baby” was home. Aunt Gertie called and said’ “So, how is your baby?”, Time would tell that, in truth, she was to be mine.

On table four now collapsed was seated not unlike a humongous marshmallow on a Dr. Seuss cake was an American Standard white porcelain toilet. A sign dangled from above with one word printed on each side; it was DANGER in both English and Yiddish.

…Dotty stared at her shoes, the run in her silk stockings; even up at the peeling of the tin ceiling panels. It was impossible not to look again at his green eyes, the cleft in his chin and the hint of shadow. This could mean he shaved without a mirror or hopefully a wife to tell him the spots he missed.

I will keep my journal because someday I will be in the New World, where our cousins, Miriam, and Lucian Seinfeld the pharmacists live. It is a town called Brooklyn, New York America, I will marry and have children. It is because of my writing they will know their history and father as a young man.

…given my wayward ways, the name Barbra was never heard without it being tagged with, impish, unruly and my personal favorites as I look back, headstrong with exasperating running close behind.

In the black of the theater, we snuggled down in the top row balcony. It stunk of cigarettes; “a small price to pay” I thought for enchantment.

We were lost our first hour in Montreal, but it taught me a lesson in relating to my sister; the next time should I ask a question like; “is there a GPS in the car, I will for sure ask; “Does it work?

(Moses and Ant)
Mahaila was tall and looked older, but she wasn’t. Missy, he called her, she was the same color as Moses of course as he was her Daddy. I had to explain this to Adele who said she never saw anyone our age that color. I agreed that it was very special.

“Outside my window, many people are listening to a man screaming insanely; red flags fly behind him with what looks like a black spider in a white circle on it.”

Why he buried ten thousand silver dollars, no one knows. We can say these many years later; my father was famous for biking to the wheel of his own Raleigh.