It couldn't be. No, it just couldn't be. God was really mad at me, wasn't he? Not that I blamed Him under the circumstances. Mom could be such a ... not that the word really made sense when applied to her, given the anatomical realities, but you'd think that I'd have learned not to listen to her when she got like that. I had used one of His places of worship for frivolous purposes, and now my punishment was playing out in the streets below.

"Is it frivolous for you to give me grandchildren, to not let my line die with us", she probably would have asked, so I knew not to raise the subject directly. Instead, I chose to let her see a bit of the truth for herself, and save her pride by letting her draw her own conclusions.

Touching a finger to my lips, I smiled in the conspiratorial way that children do. I was going to let her in on my game. She smiled, indulgently I think. I nodded toward the open window, crouching low and beginning to creep forward on tiptoe. Mom tried to do the same, winced in pain and shook her head. I nodded, giving a little frown of sympathy, before crawling to the window and drawing the shades closed. Placing a pair of chairs by the window as quietly as I could, probably too quietly to be heard by the water buffalo on the street below, I pointed to one of the chairs, smiling and inviting Mom to join me as the show began. She took her seat and, gladly accepting the wine I got up to bring her, even more gladly accepted as I put those tired old feet up in my lap and began to rub them.

Poor Mama. I should have know that would hurt. But she already seemed to have been caught up in the action, below. There they were, both of the crazies from church. Not just one or another, which would have been bad enough - and served me right - but both of them at the same time. The headache that had vanished from one side of our apartment ten minutes earlier, had suddenly returned on our back stairwell. It truly would not go away.

What were the odds?





"You're an utter lunatic, that's what you are", John screamed, in tones that weren't as good an endorsement of his own sanity as he might have imagined them to be. "Look at how you carry on in church! How irritating it is and how unpleasant for the onlookers!" I had to admit, I had been wondering about that, myself. I would have said something, but what did I know from mass? Maybe this was part of the goyish services, and I would have been the one making the scene?

But I guess that this wasn't, because John would know, knowledgeable in the ways of goydom as a lifetime in it must have made him, unless ...? How did I know that he wasn't up to the same thing I was? Maybe he had the same problem I did - only 200 single women in the city, and they all had mothers who had been to his bris? "Really, Meggulah, I know boys grow up, but I was there, and ..." and somebody's grandmother would draw thumb to forefinger, shaking her head sadly and knowingly. "You can't make a feast out of a cocktail sausage, even if it is a kosher one, is all that I'm saying".

No wonder they all had desert fever, after the shiksas, the whole bunch of them. The whole idea must have terrified them. But that still left me wondering if John and I would end up having two headed offspring if we ever married. Which we sure weren't going to, now! Like I needed to give birth to a carnival attraction! The drama continued in the theater below. "How can anybody compose himself to worship if he has to look at you?"

Silence. Had older crazy guy finally snapped and strangled younger crazy guy? Would the neighborhood finally get some peace, after the inquest? Peeking around the curtain, I saw that there was to be no such luck. Jack had his back up against the wall. Not that I blamed him. Moving his head away from the wall - another sign of coming sanity, given how long ago that wall had seen its last washing - he began to plead. "Don't be angry. Why should you be angry about things that don't concern you?"

"Thank you! Now yell for the police and move away, Jack? You are the less crazy of the two?", I thought. But I was wrong.

"I get angry when I behave badly ...", he started.

"At who?", I wondered.

"... but when somebody else does the wrong thing, I am delighted"

"Which would make those two pure bliss for the rest of us?", Mom whispered into my ear. "Exactly", I whispered back. This was going to be easier than I thought.

"So don't be angry if I tell you that it is the aim of my life to get people to look at me", Jack continued.

Which had been the least surprising surprise I'd ever had. Even Mom was starting to laugh at the guy. Victory and an end to the kibitzing would soon be at hand.

"Hope springs eternal", said Mom, as if reading my thoughts. Damn.