Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham

Author:David R. Gillham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

17.

A Jew from Flatbush

He inspects the nose-­hair situation by examining the reflection of his inner nostrils. Funny how he can remember his pop doing the same thing. He sees the old man there in the mirror, staring back at him from his own reflection.

“Com’ere,” he hears Pop command, in that flat summoning tone that always signals trouble, motioning him over to the cash register. He can tell what’s coming next, the whack on the side of the head, but he obeys anyway and absorbs the whack when it comes. The whack that’s not supposed to punish him but just knock some sense into his kop. “Look at this,” his father instructs. “How many times I gotta tell you, huh? You don’t mix the ten-­dollar bills in with the twenties, okay? How many times?” he wants to know. “It makes you look like you’re stealing.”

This shocks Aaron. Stealing? “How, Pop?”

“Never mind. It does is all,” his father assures him firmly, placing the ten in its proper spot in the cash drawer. “I’m trying to teach you something, Aaron,” he explains with a frown. His face is set in a serious affect, trying to get through to this domkop son of his. Trying as hard as he can. “I’m trying to teach you something,” he repeats. “There are two kinds of people in the world. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I’m listening to you, Pop.”

“There are two kinds of people in the world,” his father explains. “Those people who don’t care if they do it wrong and those who work hard to do it right. Now which kind should a man be?” he asks, his voice muted but demanding.

Now, two decades later, Aaron stands in front of the bathroom mirror. He has never veered from his answer. The man who works hard is the man who does it right. It’s the man he will be. Must be. That much is chiseled in goddamned stone. But sometimes he wonders why. Sometimes he wonders what’s the point, ya’ know? To work and to die and to leave what behind? His pop left him behind when the old man’s heart burst an artery.

Standing behind the counter punching the keys on that holy cash register he was so damned proud about. The R.P.P.C. Cash Register from Burl & Kenny on Atlantic Avenue. Leased, not owned! But that was top secret information. God, how Pop worshipped that thing. It was his tabernacle. Not because he gave a shit about money, ’cause, really, everybody knew that money was like water running through his fingers. He never learned how to hold on to it. Mr. Generosity. Mr. Soft Touch to the whole fucking neighborhood. But that machine was a sacred talisman of menschenschaft. The orderly cash drawer was the sign of the orderly mind. The orderly soul. The ethical soul. It showed that he was somebody. A man who ran a cash register out of his own business, made his own buck, was a cut above.

But after he died,

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