Winter 1995: Cafe Avanti on Southport
His father, Barry, widens his very brown eyes behind his wire rims. All of us have brown eyes, as does their mother. Seth is reading Maus, Art Spiegelman’s nonfiction comic book about the Holocaust. The Jews are portrayed as mice, Poles are pigs, and Germans are cats.
“Do you know what he looked like?” he asks.
Jesse falls off his chair. They are pliable Saint Bernard puppies in down coats, playing too roughly with the sweetener packets at the center of the table. Jesse is writing in his journal about Teddy, who is either a bear or a boy. These boys are not quiet. They would be hard to hide in time of war. They are creatures made to roll in the snow, to bounce down stairs, to smear Sweet-n-Low on the tables of coffeehouses in their neighborhood. Their parents make them write in their journals daily. The boys complain about this. Seth chews off his eraser, looks up from Maus to put pencil shavings in his mouth.
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Barry is a short Allen Ginsberg; there would be no hope for him, though many of the obvious-looking Jews survived, even the darkest, the frailest. That is the riddle that goes beyond history, beyond DNA. He grew up among the Scandinavians of Minnesota, does not naturally seek his own kind. He’s indifferent to the holidays of his tribe. Got his poetry published in an anthology of Polish writing because of the land his ancestors once lived in, were confined to. Yiddish speakers who for a time lived among Poles. Presumably without full citizenship, without portfolio.
Surprising myself with patience, I say: “Let’s get the chair out of the way so people can pass through.” One boy cries over his drink. I ask again and again, “Which juice drink did you want if not this one?”
Continued Winter 1995: Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park
