The Good Sport

I kneel before my bottom drawer as if I’m praying to it, but I should pray for it, because this damned thing needs all the help it can get. I shake my head at the mess as if someone else had created it.

What were once semi-neat piles of nightgowns, silk pajamas, t-shirts and sarongs has become one big messy conglomerate - a terrifying ball of confusion that overwhelms and disgusts me. Oh. So basically, our current government is living in my bottom drawer.

I guess that’s why I’m in the prayer position.

I scoop a pile of tangled fabric into the crook of my arm, letting the overflow fall to the floor. A long cotton, rarely-worn Hanro dress cascades onto my lap, where it lays, deflated and limp. My husband gave it to me because of its softness but its shapelessness is a problem. One I’ll never solve. I fold it and start a Keep Pile.

On top of it, I throw a college t-shirt that has a silk-screened drawing of three drunk kids (I’m one of them) standing in front of The Melody Bar. I’ll never say goodbye to the memory of dancing near the juke box to “Second That Emotion” and I’ll never say goodbye to this t-shirt either.

I grab a bunch of other stuff, and there it is - my father’s favorite sports… wait - do people even say “sports shirt” any more?

My mother donated most of his clothing after he died, but I kept this khaki green ode to the 60’s because I couldn’t bear the thought of it winding up at Goodwill. I used to hold it to my face thinking I could smell his Old Spice - a slap to each cheek every Saturday night - and the weekly cigar he smoked on Sunday afternoons watching the Yankees. I conjured the sweetness of just-cut grass after the lawn mower was put away. And the sharp grapey hit of Manishewitz on Friday nights - a Kiddish cup passed around the table, each of us imitating the “Ahhhh” sound my father made after his sip - like air escaping a tire.

I hold it to my nose. Nothing.

The scents are as long gone as he is.

I run a finger over the raised emblem on the chest.

I used to think it was a small “f” for Fried, but my father would have found monogramming “a waste of good money.” Everything I wanted - from brand name cookies to Princess telephones to air conditioning - were wastes of good money. We could have afforded them, but his instincts skewed poor. He’d been brought up in a cold water flat and talked about his mother heating bricks in the oven, and putting them under the beds so it would be warm enough to sleep.

Or at least, I think that’s what he said. Father-memories take on shapes of their own, especially with no one to fact check them.

I finger the shirt’s buttons and picture him, on Father’s Day, emerging through the sliding door of our rec room, having changed into this shirt after he finished the grilling he despised.

“Look at me, all schmutzed up already” he’d say as my brother David helped with the coals and I was trotted out with waxed-paper-covered platters of hamburger patties and flank steak.

My father took on most chores with gusto, but grilling, to him, was a dirty job. He hated the mess. He hated schlepping the grill up the basement stairs and, with my brother in tow, dragging it to the furthest corner of the yard so it wouldn’t “stink the whole house up.” A jovial fellow in a “World’s Best Dad” apron, he was not.

Once the dreaded task was finished, my father would go inside to wash up, and emerge, tall, handsome, smiling, his grilling t-shirt replaced with a sports shirt - often, this one. The pale green looked fresh against his tennis-tanned skin.

It was more than a wardrobe change - it was an everything change. He took his place at the head of the table with a smile, and his wink made me feel chosen. He joked and cajoled and told stories about his childhood - stories we’d heard - but stories that made us pull our chairs in nonetheless.

He was handsome. Funny. Smart. And in his sports shirt, charming. I loved this version of my father - the version without a temper - the version that didn’t rant about Abe Beam ruining New York - the version that didn’t beep the car horn impatiently when he got home from work, then beep again - this time, one long angry blare - if we didn’t open the garage door soon enough. The version that didn’t scare the hell out of us kids, proclaiming that the world was more anti-semitic than we knew.

I lay the shirt on my bed and fold the arms around its back as if I’m arresting it.

I picture my father wearing it, on Saturday-nights, before company arrived, telling me to stick my hand out as he took a Sen-Sen pack from his dresser.

“One or two?” he asked. I always said two.

He turned the packet upside down and, with an index finger, gave it two taps, the way ladies at the swim club did with their cigarettes. The tiny Sen-Sen pieces floated between us and landed in my palm - two perfect black squares just for me. No matter that he did the same with my brother and sister - this was mine.

The licorice tasted grown up and thrilling.

“Let it sit in your mouth like a lozenge,” he’d say, and I’d wiggle my tongue to unstick it from my back teeth.

And then, the doorbell.

My father took long even strides toward the front door as my mother put a dish towel down. He flung it open and for a few hours, our house was filled with loudness, laughter and gossip. The scents of perfume and hors d’oeuvres mingled with the foreign smell of cigarette smoke and the tinkling of women’s laughter was a grace note to the male jocularity that passed for conversation.

No company was more fun than the Perth Amboy Boys. My father grew up with a group of buddies - neighborhood boys he went to school with. First generation Americans, they all enlisted when World War 2 broke out. No bone spurs for these boys. None of them talked about it much.

One of the few shots I have of my father in an army jacket.

They preferred reminiscing about high school basketball or joking or talking politics (which you could do back then without inciting an uproar.) They shook their heads and laughed fondly about how poor they’d been as kids, as only people who are no longer poor can do.

“Abie Baby!” my father yelled, as Abe Resnick marched in, giant cigar already lit. Joe Schlesinger’s sweet smile calmed any contentious kibbitzing that might begin between my father and Abe, and charming, handsome Saul Scott sweetly kissed our heads and plopped us onto his lap as the others crowded in. Berton Sher threw his head back and laughed, his shoulders moving up and down like jackhammers.

And then there was Artie - my father’s favorite. Artie didn’t give us kids a kiss on the keppe like the others - he grabbed us and threw us into the air. The only person who adored his affection more than us was my father, whose laughter was like candy to me.

If I could have had a month-full of Perth Amboy Boys, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat.

Some of the Perth Amboy Boys and the women who loved them. My parents are second from the right. Sadly, Artie and his wife Schiffie aren’t in this shot.

I continue to fold the shirt, picturing my father at the head of the Seder table.

Folding tables and bridge chairs were brought up from the basement and wedged together in the rec room. It was so snug that the only way to get to the far side of the table was to crawl under it. Once we were more or less seated, my father’s voice would cut through the chit chat.

“Page one,” he’d say with an his authoritative tone, while opening his Haggadah.

“Page one!” my grandmother repeated, her inflection identical to his.

“That’s what I just said, Blanche,” my father said, trying to look annoyed as he chided his mother-in-law.

“Yes, Larry, dear, I know,” she answered, her eyes twinkling. “And I’m saying it too. Page one.”

He shook his head with a smile as she implored him to continue. His seriousness was no match for her silliness and we all knew it. With his charming mother-in-law, my father was as malleable as play doh.

Toward the end of the seder, when was time to open the door for Elijah, he looked at me. I loved my job. I loved it because it felt good to smell grass and feel spring air after seven pounds of brisket. But what I really loved was how it sounded.

Here, on the front porch, I could hear them the way a stranger would - voices singing a sad, beautiful ancient melody. A family united in post-meal exhaustion. A family of sweet, squeaky voices. My family. My Karen. My David. My mother.

And mostly, my father. His voice rose above the others - strong, clear, unwavering.

He didn’t suffer fools and had no appetite for wise guys. He laid down the law and breaking it wasn’t something that even occurred to us. He had a temper. And no shortage of strong opinions. He was unapologetically dictatorial.

But he usually dictated goodness and insisted on decency.

He taught us to read Hebrew. And made us go to shul. Once, when we were almost home from a Saturday morning service and I was starving for lunch, he turned and drove all the way back to Pathmark, because he realized the cashier had given him too much change. Annoyed, I asked why we couldn’t wait until next time we were there and he said he didn’t want her to get in trouble. “I’m sure she needs that job,” he said, executing a perfect K-turn.

He broke cardboard boxes into little pieces before putting them into the garbage. I think of him every time I do it. He showed us how to get rid of black marks with a damp rag and Ajax before we washed the kitchen floor. I think of him when I do that too. “Be a worker, not a shirker.”

I loved watching him play tennis. His game was equal parts grace and force.

As was his life.

He ruled with a steely voice. Commanded us to be good kids. And intimidated the hell out of us.

But in this shirt, he charmed us, adored us, made us laugh.

I smile sadly, missing what was beautiful, accepting what wasn’t, letting the former overshadow the latter.

Because it did.

By a landslide.

As I said, the shirt has no scent anymore.But I hold it to my face anyway.

And smell the grass.

And the Old Spice.

And everything in between.

In another of his sports shirts - that’s the two of us posing for my Swimclub ID card. We were Family 75 and I was too little to hold the sign.

Addendum: After I finished putting things back into my bottom drawer that day, my son Ben walked past my room. Impulsively, I gave the shirt to him. He loved it. “But you have to promise to take good care of it,” I said. He looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course I will,” he answered. “It was Grandpa’s.”