The House Call

Nice house, nice street, nice neighborhood, not a crazy belt king palace.

"What for? So I should get the evil eye?" Alvy would say.

Especially when the home was in the wife's name. You never know.

"Am I looking to make the cover of People magazine?" he'd say.

No, Alvy Shugar never craved the limelight, unlike his second wife, Candy, who had graced the covers of a couple of lesser known magazines like Jugs and Moto Vixens.

"Who needs the attention?" he'd say.

Especially when you declare an annual income of $27,500. Who needs any of it?

Harry rang the door bell and Candy answered.

"Hello," Harry said to her cleavage.

"What took you so long?"


Just say the magic word.

"Baby."

"Oh, Harry."

"Oh baby."

And that's all it took to get it going in the vestibule.

"Candace are you okay?" a nasal voice said from another room.

"Stop," Candy whispered to Harry. "Help me get rid of this Rabbi Shimmy."

Candy straightened out her itsy-bitsy black lycra dress. There wasn't much to straighten out though. Harry adjusted his hard-on. (What were Joey Prager's pecker-a-porter rules? "Puerto Ricans pack it to the left, polacks to the right and schvartzes strapped to the thigh.") Where did that leave Harry? Better to just untuck the shirt and walk bow-legged. Candy led Harry and the pup tent in his pants into the living room where the scraggly-bearded Rabbi Shimmy was gnawing on a piece on a biscotti.

"Mmmm," he cooed. "A kosher biscuit at it's finest," and coughed. "A little dry however...And who do I have the pleasure of meeting here?" Rabbi Shimmy stood up to greet Harry and coughed. An avalanche of crumbs cascaded from his beard and black coat onto the floor.

"This is Alvy's cousin, Harry Starr," she said while grabbing for the Dirt Devil. Candy learned long ago that when there were rabbis and refreshments, there were crumbs.

"Very nice, very nice. Is there anything better than a family visit? Did you put on your tefillin today? Rabbi Shimmy shouted over the drone of the Dirt Devil. He coughed up a piece of biscotti lodged in his throat. "A cold glass of seltzer water would be nice. Lemon lime if you have."

"Let me see what I have in the fridge, Rabbi Shimmy. you can talk to Harry while I look for the bottle."

"Of course, what a pleasure it would be to share some quality time with my new friend Harry Starr. By the way, are you related to Irwin Starr? He has a luggage and handbag repair shop."

Harry forced himself not to roll his eyes and bit the inside of his lip. He thought of decking the rabbi with an uppercut to the jaw, but recoiled with the notion of coming into contact with the scraggly beard. Then he begged The Almighty for forgiveness.  "No."

"Good, otherwise I would have had to be the bearer of sad tidings. Irwin just had a double bypass." Rabbi Shimmy lifted the plate of biscotti and offered one to Harry. "Biscotti?  To coin a name used by the hipster set. I however, am perfectly content to call these delightful goodies, mandel bread, just as HaShem intended them to be called. Do you know how important a name is, Harry?"

"Not really," Harry sighed.

"Very important. And what is your Hebrew name, Harry, if I may ask?"

"Chaim."

"Ah, Chaim. A wonderful name, the name of life. Perchance you have heard of Chaim Plotnick?"

"Did he pitch for the Yankees?"

"I donn't believe so, at least not the Chaim Plotnick I'm talking about who made fortunes in the scrap metal business in Australia--"

A life-saver. Candy finally returned with the bottle of lemon-lime seltzer. "One last bottle in the laundry room," she said while winking at Harry. Candy handed the rabbi a tall glass of the bubbling beverage.