Won't You Be My Neighbor?

It’s a beautiful day. I'm sitting by the window and the air is sunny and breezy. I hear birds chirp between sirens. The hum of fans.  My shoes are off and I debate taking off my socks to let my toes take a breath. The cat jumps next to me with her jittery, darting glance chasing the sirens, birds and unseen wildlife. Waiting softly to pounce something somewhere outside the screen window.

A horn beeps. Beeeep. Beep. Beeee.

I smell a cigarette. Someone sitting somewhere blowing out his or her smoke into the sunbeam.

Ahh.

Yesterday, I went to Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up spring color icing treats for my kid. They are called, Spring Sunshine or Loving Light or something. I want to get the kid Boston Cream but mistakenly get a raspberry filled chocolate heart.  The kid hates jelly. 

There is a man using a walker. He is thin and sunken. I recognize him.

For many years I have seen this man walking his Australian Shepard. The dog is white and gray but has an adorable black circle around one eye but only white surrounding the other. The white eye makes the dog look especially innocent and sweet, a dark eye peeping out of whiteness. The man has good hair like a groomed movie star. Over the years I see him with Key Food grocery bags. Sometimes he is with someone but mostly he is alone, with the dog. I have seen him with a cane hobbling along. Our eyes never met so I believe he has never seen me. I have seen him heavy with a bloated belly and I wonder why he got fat.

Today I see him in Dunkin’ Donuts with the walker. He is thin and looks beat up. I catch myself from staring. As if he would even notice. After I purchase the springtime iced treats I look out the window and he is hailing a cab. He looks unstable as he raises one arm, the other holding steady on the walker. For a moment I want to go outside and help him but I stop myself. I don’t look and he cannot see me.

Let's make the most of this beautiful day, since we're together we might as well say.. 

I've been thinking of him today. I wonder if I will see him again. I will recognize his dog. I know I won't miss them.

Remembering Shlomo

I was sitting in a Social Welfare class the semi-circle seated classroom in Social Work School, Yeshiva University, 1995. That’s when I heard Shlomo for the first time. He had a blotchy red face and a giant don’t fuck with me grin as he sassed back to the instructor. He was also an orthodox Jew. The yarmulke and simple white shirt and black pants were familiar to me. Recently moving my office from Soho to the Upper East Side, I found piles of letters I didn’t want to dispose of. I weeded through and found this letter from Shlomo. I haven’t seen him since 1996.

Dear Liz (also in Hebrew),

As this may represent my last missive and final communiqué, I figured I’d just lay it on the line. I’m pretty furious with you and partly saddened by your detachment. I am angry because of your backing away without any kind of explanation and enraged at your continuing unresponsiveness and attitude. At the same time I still feel warmth towards you and a frustration at not being able to communicate. My hurt especially goes out when I observe you looking downcast as you seem to seem to have been lately and I can't do anything for you. So, I'm just giving this one more shot.

So, what gives with you? I mean, it just doesn’t make sense that you’re deciding to just cut it off for some cockamamie, mamsy-pamsy malarkey reasons that I don’t think are applicable. Granted, there are some complicating emotions inherent in this relationship, but nothing that is not navigable. After all, every relationship is complicated, as you have been in the habit of saying recently. What is also confusing to me is how you seem to have dismissed whatever feelings you have expressed towards me. What’s that about? I know that you appreciated and enjoyed whatever friendship I offered. You definitely appear to me to just be “running away”. I am not going to speculate on why you are reacting that way, but I get the feeling that you're comfortable giving up on things and resigning yourself to what you probably call fate even when it makes you unhappy. BUT enough about you, especially since my understanding is so limited and because you’ve been so reluctant to speak. So, let me tell you where I'm holding. The bottom line is this- I have a real problem cutting off from somebody that I felt as connect and as close to as I did with you at one time. I just don’t have the experience of allowing someone into my life so extensively or sharing the things I shared with you, and then terminating it so abruptly without any cause or precipitating event. I mean,  I just don’t get it. What’s going on with you? I know you well enough that I know that the  ‘not wanting to hurt me’ line isn’t the real issue. Let me assure you that peeking behind your curtain at anything you don’t want me to see nor am I planning to pester you any further. I’ll even absolve you of the burden you described as “trying to be nice to me by saying hello,” (heavy sarcasm intended). BUT I do think that you could, at the very least, offer me some response, preferably an honest one.

So, Liz-o-leum, I've more or less gotten off my chest what was on my mind (that’s a mixed metaphor). I’m back to leaving the ball in your court an awaiting some reply-seems like a pretty familiar place. This is as direct and straightforward as I can be. Perhaps you could reciprocate the same.

Shlomo Zalman (in Hebrew, too)

Liz-o-leum was a nickname he gave me. Isn’t that cute? It’s a cross between Liz and linoleum. I'm not sure what that means and I don’t care. So what gives? If you the reader actually care to read on, I’ll tell you what gives. As is fairly evident, there were two sides to this story and Shlomo knew it. But similar to any person with little experience in matters of the heart, different sides and angles are left out because of pain and disappointment.

When I found this letter I googled Shlomo and found out that he was born in St. Louis Missouri on December 8, 1955 and died on October 11, 2003. He had been residing in Far Rockaway, Queens County, New York. Rabbi Satanovsky (his birth name) did not have an official congregational pulpit but was a talmid of Yeshiva Shor Yoshuv in Far Rockaway, NY. He worked for The Center for Return and was the campus coordinator at Queens College. He was 47 years old.

The fact that he died so young is relevant to our relationship. When I heard his sass and combined it with his Orthodox Judaism I was immediately intrigued. After that, or some other class, we started chatting and immediately connected. He was smart, irreverent and hilarious. He was also very sick. His illness was something I was familiar with; he was already on his second kidney and pancreas organ transplant because the first were rejected. The actual facts may be incorrect about one or both rejected organs, but there were complications and another transplant did happen. One of my oldest friends is also a juvenile diabetic and went through the same transplant procedure with a much more successful outcome. So Shlomo and I had that in common. Fairly soon after meeting we started spending time together. Schmoozing in the library and then shortly after that he started stopping by my East Village apartment with his car and we began our adventures. Before I reflect on the fun it’s important to note that Shlomo and I had a conversation about his contact with women, sitting in close proximity and other things that his orthodoxy permitted or not. It doesn’t matter now and I forget most of what we discussed, but I remember getting in the front seat of his car and thinking, all bets are off with the rules. None of the time of us going for rides alone made sense to me, even though I thought naively it was strictly platonic between us, except for one thing: looking back I think he was courting me but neither of us knew it. But somehow, that made it okay. He was looking for a mate, he was clear about that, but it couldn’t be me because even though I'm Jewish, I’m not frum, or orthodox (or planning on it) so I was not in the running. Also, I wasn’t giving up Friday nights and Saturdays. Though at the time those were minor and buried details of our mutual affection. We never touched each other, physically, and I can say this now as clearly as I felt then, I was not physically attracted to him and so maybe that was something I felt was guarding the potential intimacy and kept the boundaries safe. Nevertheless, We went to kosher restaurants in Rockaway and he loved showing me his favorite places. All of the trips were a surprise. He picked me up and swept me away to exclusive parts of Queens by the seaside.

Once while he was having an emergency procedure in the hospital I visited him and met his mother and sister. I was invited into the homes of his religious friends, we took walks on the Brighton Beach boardwalk and would say hello to his older women, married friends, wearing wigs. They knowingly smiled at us as if they knew we were in early stages of courtship. They knew I wasn’t one of them, but why not give it a chance?

One evening my buzzer rang.

HELLO

HELLO. IT’S CARLTON

WHO?

CARLTON.

I ignored the caller thinking it was a mistake.

The next day Shlomo asked me if someone came by and asked why I didn’t let him in.

I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS YOU

IT WAS A JOKE: I WAS CARLTON THE DOORMAN FROM THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.

Yes, it was funny. It was hilarious. It was also strange.

Not long after that Shlomo told me that he had strong romantic feelings for me. I couldn’t reciprocate them, I told him, and he seemed to accept this except I knew it was deeper and harder for him. I cut the cord: hence the letter above. I still think I did the right thing and don’t have any regrets. I am sure I explained the obvious, but the intimacy was fragile and I had to manage it on my end and I could see he was in need, hurt and I was not going to help him find a partner if I stuck around.

When we graduated from Yeshiva he told me that he had a gift for me. He didn’t give it to me directly, but to a classmate who held it for me. When I retrieved it from her and unwrapped the paper I saw a box containing a banana bunch stand. One of those products one keeps on the counter top. Very practical. Very funny. Very Shlomo.

I won't throw his letter away.

RIP Shlomo Zalman, Rabbi Steven Satanovsky