Fiction Short Story

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Fiction Short Story

by Barry Portney

My Poppa

In 1913 my grandfather worked as a doctor in a tiny Jewish shtetl.

In 1914 he was a tailor. As a widower he crossed the ocean to America with all five of his living children, my dad among them. He guided them away from their small unpronounceable town in Poland or Russia because both countries dipped their flags in his people’s blood.

The Jews didn’t care and couldn’t tell much difference between the shifting rulers. Each kept them separate but also had a peculiar penchant for using their circumcised bodies as fodder on the front lines. "For gut lok!" Poppa joked sarcastically. We called him Poppa, but his real name was Abe.

"Poppa, how come you’re not married?" I asked him when I was eight years old. By then, the white of his whiskers overtook his thick beard.

"You doan vanta kno," and he’d wink at me through the rising steam from his iron, "plus, boychik," his favorite name for me, "I’m havink too much a good time!"

It was true. The women adored Abe. He lived above his small shop in the center of the city. When my dad wanted to do some errands, he dropped me there to visit, in my Poppa’s care. In the course of an afternoon, three or four elderly women came into the shop carrying their husband’s pants and coats to be altered.

With each one he’d stop his sewing or pressing and pull up a few chairs to sit with them. Pound cakes, cookies, tongue sandwiches, you name it; these women kept us well fed.

He grabbed me as I reached for an extra cookie, "Lottie, dis boy is schmart! Come on, dell me," his voice formal like a teacher’s, "what does ANI ROAH mean?"

"Oh Abe," the women said, "he’s only eight, he doesn’t undershtand Hebrew!"

Poppa waited for an answer as drops of perspiration dripped from his face.

" It means...I - I...umm...I see?" and with a slight cock of his head only I could detect, "No, no, I mean I saw...I saw!" I yelled above the sounds of the honking cars outside.

Abe’s fingers grabbed the entire side of my face and squeezed it before hugging me into his chest. I heard the thumping of his proud heart. "You see Lottie (or Rose or Jenny), you see, now dat’s schmart!"

"Poppa how come you don’t speak right?" I asked him when I was 10. Oh, how he must have put up with me.

"Vell, to tell you da trute, I had vun Inglish buk ven I vas your age. "Gullible’s Travels", ever hoid of it?"

I shook my head.

"It’s dis shtory about a mon who travels to a strange voild vhere he’s enormous!" At this, he pointed all the way up to the ceiling and my eyes followed. " I alvays taut America vould be like dis for me. So if I shpeak wrong I blame it on Gullible!" His foot pressed on the steam peddle for emphasis.

One day we were having our lunch in the shop and a well-dressed man walked in. His tall black hat was fancier than I had ever seen. Poppa put down his sandwich and rose to face this big man across the counter. "Meester Trope vat can I do for you?"

Without a hello, he handed over his bag of clothes. "Alter them a bit tighter, press them and I’ll come back on Saturday."

Poppa took the bag. "Oh no Meester Trope, I’m not hopen on the Sabbath."

The man’s eyes narrowed and he muttered, "you Jews." He said it loud enough so I knew he wasn’t happy about us in general, and definitely not my grandfather in particular.

"Sunday morning eight A.M., no later. I need them for church," and with this he walked out, brushing the encounter off of his linen suit. I ran to the window and watched him get back into his large car and drive off.

Poppa shook his head as he came back to his seat. "Dat man. Tventy years I haf been mendink his clothes!" Opening the bag he pulled out a pair of old pants and smiled. "See dese? I betcha dey are scrumptious." He turned the pockets inside out as all sorts of small white pills and food crumbs fell onto the floor. "See all dese scrums?"

For some reason that I can’t remember now, I was at his shop on Sunday morning, or I just heard the story so many times from him that I may as well have been there.

At eight sharp, the man returned as promised. No sooner had Abe handed over the clothes all cleaned and pressed on wooden hangers when the man swatted his chest. His face turned from red to white to blue as he collapsed onto the old floor.

Poppa jumped over the counter, at least as he still tells it and started yelling the man’s name, "Tom, TOM," but Mister Trope clutched hard at his chest.

Poppa told me to run into the back and bring the glass jar that sat next to the press. "Hurry!" He screamed.

"Tom, you’re not goink anyvere, you shtay here vid me!" I could hear Tom moaning something awful.

Poppa quickly unscrewed the jar I brought, reached in for one of the small white pills and blew the dust off of it. He looked over at me and then gazed up, which is about as close to praying as I’d ever seen him come. Working Mister Trope’s mouth open, he slipped the nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue.

I looked into the jar. At least one hundred more of them sat among buttons and clips. "The scrums!" My eyes opened wide.

Poppa tells my kids this story to this day. It was the one time in America he could be a doctor again.

Copyright © 2004 Barry Portney

About the Author
Barry Portney is taming a mid life through writing. He’s been a member of WVU since 2003 and tries not to leave his computer very often except to eat and maybe nap a bit.