Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [168]
Irv Shapiro, Danny’s father, couldn’t say no to a neighbor out of work, or on the shorts. He made a living, but barely. He always said if he collected all his IOU’s he could buy out the entire A&P grocery chain.
Although Molly was Gideon’s security, particularly with Miss Abigail gone, the boy knew his sister was entitled to her own life. Not only did Danny not pose as a threat, Gideon took to him as an older brother. He could always shake Danny down for a nickel or even a dime, to send him off to the ice cream parlor, so Danny could neck with Molly on the front porch swing.
Moreover, Danny had use of the family car, an Essex, and let Gideon tag along on a picnic, or to the beach, or the movies. Sometimes Gideon and Danny would go off to a ball game by themselves, which made Molly sore, but she wasn’t much interested in sports and kind of liked the closeness between her brother and her beau.
Molly got a summer job as a salesgirl at Kress’s five-and-dime store and bought a radio with her earnings. It livened life up considerably. On Sunday nights there was “The Jack Benny Program” and it seemed as if half of America was listening. There were other great programs, like “The Fred Allen Show” and “Major Bowes and His Original Amateur Hour” and “The Shadow” and “The Texaco Star Theater.”
Gideon sorted out and studied the really fine and original writing, particularly the radio dramas of Arch Oboler and Norman Corwin and Orson Welles and the adaptations of the great plays on the “U.S. Steel Hour.” There was “Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts” and Toscanini leading the NBC Symphony.
Nathan had shunned buying a radio because the programs were either “bourgeois trivia” or “reactionary propaganda.”
“That Gabriel Heatter is a fascist with his dirty news.”
When Molly brought home the Atwater-Kent table model set, Nathan realized he wasn’t going to get rid of it. It sat in the kitchen, which also served as the living room. If Nathan was caught listening, he’d quickly shrug in disgust and leave the room, or place himself between the radio and the family, open his copy of Freiheit, and read to himself aloud and make so much noise rustling the paper no one could hear. Nothing seemed to interest him but the Party. The hard-and-fast rules of life had been laid down by the Central Committee, so there was nothing further for him to explore.
Even Leah, with all her comings and goings, was reduced to tears by the soap operas, Bess Johnson in “Hilltop House” and “Orphans of Divorce,” which reflected the daily agonies of ordinary people she could identify with.
Life between Leah and Nathan had become rotten. Their arguments quickly turned into shrieking matches filled with terrible verbal violence. Nathan’s veins would protrude on his forehead almost to bursting, and Leah, of late, was given to beating herself in the face with her own fists. On other occasions, she would throw open the front window and scream out her misery to the entire neighborhood and constantly threaten suicide. The police knew the address well.
“I’m going to throw myself out of the window!” she’d yell. Nathan would then open the window and stand aside. Leah would invariably faint and lie “unconscious” until it was time to revive and drag herself off to a meeting, bravely.
Gideon had become an accepted member of the neighborhood gang, even though his mother and father were considered crazy. He told too many good stories to them and had become nifty with the glove as a first baseman. He was one of the guys even though he was a Jew boy.
There was a garage in the rear of the flat, but all it held was an excess of old furniture and piles of junk. It had a small loft and he could bury himself there and read and write stories by the hour. Only Molly and a few close pals knew of the secret office. His greatest joy was corresponding