A Castle in Brooklyn(64)
Of course, she revealed none of these episodes to her teacher, not even to her parents, who eventually heard the whole story from one of the mothers, a neighbor who had been assisting in the playground when the incident had occurred, revealing it all to Miriam one afternoon when the two ran into each other at the supermarket. Miriam related it to Zalman, and the two decided that neither would say a thing, either in advice or praise to Debbie. Naturally, they were proud of her. Mostly, Zalman was surprised over the intense loyalty his daughter had for her family. That night Zalman stopped at the drugstore on the corner and purchased a giant-size Hershey bar with almonds. It was Debbie’s favorite.
That morning, the morning he awoke with a purpose and a sparkle in his eye, Zalman arrived earlier than usual at his office. He unlocked the storefront and glanced up at the sign that proclaimed in neon yellow, WALLS FOR ALL. He sat down at the lone desk and moved his index finger along the list of names in the ledger. Satisfied with the number of bookings scheduled for the months ahead, he then checked the stack of gallon cans against the wall, confirmed the day’s purchase, and by the time Oscar and Manny arrived, had the load along with brushes, rags, and the tarps laid neatly in the back of the truck.
“Hey, boss!” called Oscar, wearing painter overalls as he strode into the shop, followed by his younger brother, who was carrying a bag filled with two large bologna-and-cheese heros and a couple of cans of Diet Coke.
“You could have let us help with that stuff,” he added, walking out again and taking a peek into the back of the white Chevy. “What time did you get here, anyway?”
Zalman shut the doors at the back of the truck and wiped his hands on the legs of his dungarees.
“Just a half hour earlier than usual. And still an hour before you two dummies got here.” He laughed at the men and winked to let them know he was kidding. The brothers exchanged glances. They weren’t used to their boss being quite this jovial, and certainly not this early in the morning. In the two years they had been working for Zalman Mendelson, they had known him to be a man who was kindhearted, generous, but also serious, all business.
“Where to today, boss?” asked Manny, the smaller and skinnier of the two, as he moved aside to open the ledger and placed his package on the desk. He came back outside, removing a Camel from behind his ear and rolling it in the palm of his hand.
“The Goodmans’ over on Dobson in Edison. Just closed on it last Tuesday. We’ve got the whole downstairs today, first coat. Easy, off-white, that’s most of what’s in the truck. The rooms upstairs are a rainbow, each one a different color.”
“That’s just what I like, a little variety on the job,” said Oscar, still standing by the open door of the vehicle as he looked up at the sky. Legs akimbo, hands on his wide hips, he appeared troll-like, a character from one of the cartoons Zalman’s daughter used to watch on TV.
“See that cloud over there? Could be rain coming soon,” he added, pointing a pudgy finger up at the sky.
“Why so worried? We’re not working outdoors today,” injected Zalman, jiggling the car keys in his hand as a signal that it was time to leave, then added, “Besides, everyone knows rainbows come out after the rain, and since we’re painting rainbows tomorrow, I’m sure the weather will hold till then!” He laughed. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the brothers exchange quick glances again, confused. But today he didn’t care. He was happy, and if he let his excitement slip from his usual serious demeanor, it was okay. Today, for the first time in a long time, he was excited about the future, looking forward to it. He didn’t even care when Manny removed another cigarette from a partially crushed pack that he plucked out of the pocket of his overalls, along with a silver lighter, offering the cigarette to his brother, and then lighting his along with the one he had been holding. Zalman leaned against the side of the truck and watched the men as, conversing in Spanish, they lingered in the doorway just outside the shop.
Looking at their expressionless faces, open and guileless, Zalman decided that he liked the two men. But he had liked them from the start. The workers, still both in their thirties, were, as luck would have it, neighbors of Zalman’s cousin, Moshe, the same one who had told him about the farm in Minnesota, and then again helped Zalman’s family find a place to live once he had made the decision to abandon his life as a farmer. Moshe had even gotten Zalman a job helping out at a kosher delicatessen in town when the family first arrived.
Oscar and Manny, along with their families—Oscar had two young sons, Manny, a baby daughter—lived in apartments on separate floors in a building a few blocks down in Highland Park. Moshe was a tenant in the same building, having left the old apartment years earlier, seeking escape from the suffocating and newly gentrified streets of Brooklyn. And when Zalman made the trip back east, it was only natural that he follow his cousin, where he quickly rented an apartment only blocks away on North Third Street. It all made sense, since he no longer knew anyone in Brooklyn. Not really.
It was luck, too, that Moshe was the kind of neighbor who liked to talk, liked to know everyone’s name, what made them tick. So, when Zalman just happened to mention only a couple of months after starting the business that he was overcome by the labor of being a painter and that the old shoulder injury had begun to bother him once more, Moshe immediately thought of the brothers, both adept with a hammer and nails, who would be only too glad to finally have some steady employment. Moshe was gone now, having moved—made aliyah—to Israel only a year after Zalman had resettled back in the Northeast. But thanks to his cousin, Zalman was finally home; even better, he had Oscar and Manny too.