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What You Pay
- University of Georgia Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
What YouPay D onnie McCall's birth name, Heshie Gollub heard from Lucky Schwartz who got it from the grandmother of his girlfriend, had been Joshua Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn's father was a Bavarian Jew,his mother a German Lutheran. On the storm-tossed crossing to America sixty years earlier, Mendelsohn had changed his name to that of the first Irishman he'd met— "another luckless bunch,"LuckySchwartz had sneered, "the sons of Eire"—and took on the new religion, too, after landing in Charleston, then making his wayto Mobile. McCall or Mendelsohn—it wasno matter to Miriam. Sheworried only that someone might accuse Morris of hastening the insurancehawker 's death. Only she knew the truth of what had happened. Morris had run to a grocery and phoned the operator to say please send a doctor right away, maybeMcCallwasstill breathing. Dr.Mulherin appeared, concluding that McCallhad suffered aburst blood vesselin his head, most likely exploded as a result of his fall. To Officer Flynn arriving on the scene,Morris made the report that he'd come to visit McCall about abusiness dealing—the man, after all,had a closet full of shoes from M. Kleinman & Sons—and had heard a crash. "I opened the door thinking something is wrong," he explained, "and saw him there, on hisfloor." That any yard man or society lady might have noticed Morris 102 What You Pa going into the house with McCall filled Miriam with dread. Even though customers, colored and white, began to filter back to Kleinman's the day after McCall's funeral, Miriam waited for the man who might accuse her husband of the most heinous crime of all. "Like Asa Spicer," she fretted. "A man dies in his hallway so everybody asks,c ls the man's soul on his hands?'" "This," Morris assured, "could not happen." Even as they heard tales of a black man convicted of violating a white woman on evidence that he'd whistled at her on the street; ofa Lebanese merchant in Gulfport run out oftown byalocal fish-market owner; of a Jewat Sand Mountain north of Birmingham kidnapped by snake-handlers who demanded his submission to the Holy Ghost (they acceptedahundred dollars instead),Morrisbelievedthat justas God had given Jonah agourd to protect hishead againstbadweather, so he had been given"the good people of Dauphin." But Miriam saw specters of men rising against the storefront at night likethose who had paused before her lasi home, the Romanian guard searchingout aJewsaidto have bashed in the head of apeasant after a quarrel. At her father's window she sawthe soldiers on their stallions wending through rows of houses, signaling shtetl dwellers they could be crushed given a commandant's nod. Sheheard voicesdeep in the Gulf Coast night, shards ofRomanian mixed with coarse drawls,so that when a window at the back of the store shattered after midnight's gong she leapt up and prayed for divine protection as Morris stole down the stairs wielding a cane. It was only Abe coming home late from courting, stumbling into the back door. Falling back asleep she dreamed of a corner of green in Brooklyn, a bright stone bench where Morris kneeled and said, "Don't you think I'm a good prospect?" and she leaned to kiss him and tumbled into the grass like a radiant sea that flowed around her, and she came out dry and smartly dressed and strolling with a new hat and bag along FlatbushAvenue, greeting neighbors with a wave of the hand. 103 [44.213.80.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 09:59 GMT) 104 CHICKEN DREAMING CORN The next night she woke from the same dream and went to the window, imagining noisy Brooklyn stoops rising against lively brownstones instead of silent, drearyAlabama streets. Who was there beneath the Modern Furniture awning, arms wrapped around a dusky girl? The man's back wasto her. The girl's face she recognized through the shadows: Milagros, the niece of Marta Pastor's. The man kissed her and turned toward the store, jogging across the street. "Avra/mm/" The next day Miriam wept to Morris, "Wemust leavethis place, this life here it is not good," but she did not tell him ofAbe and the girl. To Marta Pastor she said only how, given the port's appeal to sailors and bohemians, she feared for impressionable girls living close by,particularly one as innocent asMilagros. "Es el tiempo para ella volver" Marta exclaimed. The time,yes, for her...