Fiction by Jeffrey Feingold
FIVE EASY PIECES
Bobbie Bernstein rolled on her side to give Rayne a goodnight peck. She’d lost the baby a few days earlier, was still sore, and the rolling was a chore. White eyelet curtains fluttered as moist summer air drifted through the bedroom windows of their downtown apartment in the village of Grubsky. She reached over to switch off Rayne’s plump gourd bedside lamp, closed her eyes, then re-opened them in the living room of Ruben’s farmhouse. Ruben removed his reading glasses, placed the local newspaper, The Grubsky Pulse, on his lap, looked up at Bobbie. The sinking sun slanted yellow across snow piled halfway up outside thin old windows. Ruben’s fire crackled and hissed, while in his lap his black cat, Kugel, looked up momentarily at Bobbie, then resumed her imitation of a slumbering Bastet.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Barbara,” Ruben said.
Ruben was a smidge under six feet tall, blond, with Ukrainian facial features. He had been fit and handsome as a young father but had grown thick and stooped with middle age. Here he was now, though, yet again a fine, fit figure. He was sitting on a green crushed velvet sofa across from the armchair in which Bobbie was partially reclined. His pale face was softly illuminated by the iridescent glow from the lava lamp on the sofa end table. Bobbie watched the lamp’s amorphous blobs ooze up and down in slow, octopodal locomotion. Glub. Glub. Glub. He still has that old lamp, can you imagine? Always a bit of a hippy. This place—practically a museum.
Bobbie glanced about the room, taking in the black rotary desk phone atop a little telephone stand, the ancient record player, the tall metal stand chock full of smooth jazz vinyl records, the silver menorah, the mammoth shofar with a lion’s face etched in silver, and the walnut chime clock on the fireplace mantle. The clock always had a deep, pleasing tick-tock, but it’s so outdated, just like Ruben. I mean, who has use for a chime clock? Maybe I should make a video, put his tick-tock on TikTok. Really, though, he should charge tickets, give tours, make scads of money.
Ruben glanced at Bobbie, also pale, tall, and blonde, then turned to the television, clicked the remote. The TV was a relic. A huge, weighty affair with a thick lead glass screen, rabbit ear antenna, and wires and cables like a nest of vipers. The TV sat on a heavy wooden coffee table, which housed on a shelf below a clunky Video Home System, or VHS tape player, as people called it when Bobbie was a child.
“It’s called Soylent Green,” Ruben said. “Let’s watch the trailer first, Barbara.”
“It’s Bobbie,” Bobbie said.
“Right, Barbara, just check this out.” He clicked the remote.
Bobbie watched the television screen.
“It’s the year 2022 …” the TV voice said. “People are still the same. They’ll do anything to get what they need. And they need SOYLENT GREEN.”
Bobbie blinked several times. I’m home in bed. Yeah, home, sleeping next to Rayne. She pinched her right forearm with the thumb and index finger of her left hand. Her go-to test to see if she was dreaming. Oh, shit—that hurt. Weird. She studied Ruben’s profile as he stared at the television. Why does he look younger than I remember? Then, in another blink, Ruben was standing next to her, handing her a glass.
“Sparkling cider,” he said, “your fave.”
“No, no, Dad. What’s wrong with a nice glass of Chablis?”
The snow outside had turned to sleet. Bobbie watched the icy drops plink plink against the dark windowpanes.
“Chablis?” Ruben said. “You’re still too young, Barbara, but you’ll get there. Baby steps, remember?”
“I’m not a child.”
“You’re my child.”
“And people don’t say ‘fave’ anymore,” said Bobbie. “That’s so yesterday.” Did I just say so yesterday? I can’t believe I just said that. People don’t say that anymore, either. What’s happening?
“Well, at least you’re here,” Ruben said.
Here where? Home with Rayne-man. Aren’t I? Bobbie wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the glass stem, lifted the glass to her lips, and sipped. Sweet, sparkling—wet.
Ruben sat back on the sofa, clicked to start the movie. Bobbie had watched this flick with him before, when she was a teenager.
“I want to know you better, Barbara,” Ruben said.
He had said that the first night she’d watched this movie with him.
“You’re growing up,” Ruben said. “I want to re-connect.”
“You can’t,” Bobbie said.
“Why?”
“Because, Dad—I just, I just don’t know.”
“Relax. Baby steps, Barbara, remember?”
Kugel suddenly remembered that she was at that precise moment supposed to be somewhere else, perhaps at an appointment with a kitchen mouse. She shot like black lightning into the kitchen.
Bobbie sipped cider. The raindrops plinked while the movie droned on, and on, then, on some more. Something about the City of the Future. Overpopulation. Overheating. Overbearing. Over-easy. Eggs over easy, my favorite. A murder. A coverup. A biscuit, a basket, a brisket, a casket. Hey, wait, A-Tisket, A-Tasket—isn’t that the nursery rhyme Dad used to sing? Earth to Bobbie, come in, Bobbie. I like a little surrealism as much as the next millennial gal, but this is getting too Black Mirror. No, too Kafka. Read some Kafka, freshman lit. When the dude wakes up to find he’s a giant beetle. Not exactly living the dream, was he?
Bobbie recognized the muscular-looking guy playing a cop on the screen. The same actor who played Moses in The Ten Commandments. Now, though, he’s not freeing the Israelites from the misery of their bondage in Egypt. No, now he’s investigating shenanigans at Soylent Corporation. Someone or another Heston. Yes, that’s it. Marley, no, Charley, no, Charlton, yeah, that’s it, Charlton. Weird name. Who names their sweet little baby Charlton? Charlton Heston as Moses. Watched him save our people on television every year at Passover all those years I was growing up. Only now Moses is a cop at the end of the world. Go figure.
“They’re making our food out of people,” Charlton Heston said. “Next thing they’ll be breeding us like cattle for food.”
“This is crazy,” Bobbie said.
“I know,” Ruben said.
“You’ve gotta tell them,” Charlton Heston said.
“Tell them what?” Ruben said, as if he didn’t know. As if he hadn’t watched this movie for two thousand years, since our people were set free.
“Soylent Green is—people!” Charlton Heston said.
“No, it isn’t,” Bobbie said. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s awful, that’s what it is. I’m sorry, Dad, but Soylent Green is just an awful movie. I can’t believe you made me watch this again.”
The closing credits began rolling up the TV screen. Ruben’s eyes drooped with disappointment, like at a party when you give the gift of a lifetime to someone who has just opened the exact same gift one package before yours.
“But Barbara, it’s about the future—your future. An overcrowded, overheated planet. Climate crisis. End times. They saw it coming—we all did, or should have, but we were in denial. We thought it was science fiction. Now here we are. Denial, Barbara, so powerful. We denied ourselves right to this moment, this brink. I’m frightened for you, for the world you’ll grow up in.”
She wanted to tell him the movie was insipid.
“Some things can’t be denied,” Ruben said.
Bobbie loved Ruben, but really, Dad’s lost it. The world I’ll grow up in. I’m already in my twenties!
After the credits were done rolling, Ruben said, “It’s late, time for bed. Let’s talk about it on the way to your piano lesson in the morning. Have you been practicing Five Easy Pieces? There isn’t much time.”
Time before what? A recital? Senility? The Twilight Zone? Bobbie’s piano lessons had ended with the end of high school. She had then gone on to conservatory, studied under the great maestro, Jascha Milstrakh. Those years of solitary daily practice, of loneliness, culminating in a tour as a promising young soloist. But then, nerves. Anxiety Disorder, her therapist had said. Ruben didn’t believe it. He couldn’t. Eventually, Bobbie quit performing. She worked now in marketing, helping influencers develop vlogs for their TikTok followers.
“Vlogs,” Ruben had said to Bobbie’s mother, Sadie, a classical violinist, after Bobbie explained her new plans. “Vlogs! What is that? Her great-grandfather, God rest, fled pogroms, for what, vlogs?” Then Ruben rose from Sadie’s side on the velvet settee in their music room, shuffled over to the baby grand, and played Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with such passion that Sadie thought surely the piano keys must break.
“Time for bed, Barbara,” Ruben said.
Bobbie closed her eyes for a moment, breathed calmly—baby steps, Barbara, baby steps—and tried to think clearly.
*
When Bobbie re-opened her eyes, Rayne’s bedside table lamp was off, his head on his pillow in their bedroom, while he snored softly as a fluttering beetle’s wings. She reached over him to switch on his gourd lamp but was surprised to see thick green globs inside a lava lamp begin to slowly ooze about inside the illuminated glass. Glub. Glub. Glub.
“Rayne,” Bobbie said, “are you awake?”
He stirred as she nudged him.
“I had the freaky dream again. My dad, a movie.”
“Nice,” Rayne mumbled, then returned to snoring. He had the early morning shift at the factory.
“It was Soylent Green,” Bobbie said.
“Oh.”
“At my dad’s house.”
“Your dad?” Rayne said, then resumed his soft beetle-wing impersonation.
Bobbie nudged him again, harder. His snoring grew louder. She pushed even harder still, in response to which his snoring took on the tonal qualities of a dyspeptic bullfrog. What a night I’m having. Pouring rain outside, snoring Rayne inside. She reached over Rayne to turn off the burbling lava flow. My dreams, crazy. Maybe call my therapist in the morning. She closed her eyes, fell into another fitful sleep. Or is it the same sleep? Or am I awake?
*
“Well, speak of the devil,” Ruben said, staring at Bobbie.
She was back, slouched in Ruben’s armchair. The lava lamp was gone, replaced by a plump corded gourd lamp which cast a yellow incandescent light on Ruben’s face. Sleet still went plink plink on the windowpanes, while fire crackled and spat, and Kugel slept like death. Bobbie looked at Ruben as he pointed the clicker at the television. He looked younger somehow than when they had just watched Soylent Green, as if time were tick-tocking backward.
“Great movie for tonight,” Ruben said. “Whale Rider.”
“Whale what?”
“Whale Rider, about a young Indigenous girl in New Zealand. She yearns to ride a whale, but only the men in her village are allowed. Can you imagine? It makes me so mad. How about you? Does it make you mad, Barbara—being told what not to do?”
“Well, if you can’t be comfortable in your own village,” Bobbie said.
The bit of snarkiness was not lost on Ruben. They watched the movie. At the end, as the credits began rolling up the screen, Ruben studied Bobbie intently.
“Pretty heavy stuff, huh? I mean, her father—the whole village, the patriarchy—bearing down on her, crushing her spirit. Telling her what she can’t do.”
Bobbie did not speak.
“It’s OK to be angry,” Ruben said. “It’s OK to have feelings. That’s what your mother used to say. Feelings, you know, neither good nor bad. They’re just—feelings. Or something like that. It’s what we do about them that matters, she used to say.” He rolled his eyes, gave a little cluck from one side of his mouth while he looked up at the ceiling.
Ruben stood up from the sofa, walked to the fireplace, thrust the iron poker in the logs and rattled it around. The air-thickened flames swirled upwards. Ruben placed the poker down on the hearth and walked back to the sofa.
Bobbie looked down to see on the glass coffee table between them a large paperback book she had seen years earlier, the first time Ruben made her watch Whale Rider. She stared at the book, Communicating With Your Teenage Daughter Through Movies.
“So,” Ruben said, “are you angry?”
“Did you get that question from the book, Dad?”
Ruben blushed.
“Well, yes, yes, I did. Middle school years—among the toughest. I just want to reconnect with you. This book has these great questions, suggestions, at the end of each chapter about a different movie. It was a great flick, though, huh, Whale Rider? I mean, it made me angry.”
Bobbie was angry. Good and angry because I’m not sure what the hell is going on. But Dad seems to be trying. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Never wanted to. Not even when so many times over the years he over-reached with dumb dad jokes. Or awkward, forced heart-to-heart talks. Or books about bonding with your daughter through stupid movies. Not even when he left Mom. Sure, I’ve been angry with him, a hundred times. When he pushed me not to drop piano recitals. When he said vlogs were a waste of time. When he said on the plane to Spain that Rayne was a pain in the ass. And especially, most especially, when he at first denied that my anxiety was real. He denied me. She closed her eyes.
*
“Hey, babe, this a classic,” Rayne said. “Let’s watch it.”
Rayne was sitting up in bed, watching the flat screen atop their bedroom bureau. He clicked through a few channels. Summer breezes from the window fluttered the white curtains, Bobbie’s long yellow hair, and a few loose origami papers on top of the bureau. Rayne handed Bobbie a paper rose he had just made. She played along, blushed, held it up to her nose and sniffed.
“So how about a movie?” he said.
“Not another,” Bobbie said.
“Another? We haven’t watched one yet.”
“I did,” Bobbie said.
“Can we negotiate on this?” Rayne said.
He flicked through a few more channels then settled on TMC. A black-and-white flick, The Devil’s Bargain, was just beginning.
“I hate this channel,” Bobbie said, “Torpid Movie Classics.”
“I think it’s Turner,” Rayne said. “Turner Movie Classics.”
“No, it’s Torpid.”
“Well, look at this, The Devil’s Bargain. Listen to this description.”
He read the text on the screen.
“Earth is about to be obliterated by a massive asteroid. A young couple, haunted by the death of their parents years ago, is determined to make peace before the planet is blown to bits.”
“I’m not in the mood,” Bobbie said.
“Can’t we bargain? What are you in the mood for? Do you want to fool around?”
“Jesus,” Bobbie said, closing her eyes.
*
“Another classic tonight,” Ruben said. “Samson and Delilah.”
Ruben clicked the remote at the TV to start the movie.
“What, more movies?” Bobbie said.
“Oh, this is a doozy,” Ruben said.
“Yeah, I remember the story, vaguely. Well, if it doesn’t involve the government scooping up people from the street, carting them away to a factory, then turning them into little green biscuits, that’s a good start.”
“It’s about depression,” Ruben said.
“Huh?”
Ruben flicked on the gourd lamp on the table, clicked the TV pointer to pause the movie. “Samson is depressed,” Ruben said.
“Because Delilah cut his hair?” Bobbie said. “He’s a little over-sensitive about his man bun.”
“Peanut butter and jelly?”
“What?”
“Do you want me to make you a PB&J on wheat bread? Are you hungry, bubeleh?”
“Dad, a PB&J, really? With what, Twinkies on the side? How about some caviar and a glass of champagne? And I know he’s depressed. Who wouldn’t be? Delilah cut his hair, right, to take away his strength.”
“No.”
“No champagne?”
“No, that’s not why Samson was depressed. It was because of love.”
“Love isn’t depressing, Dad. Rayne and I are in love. We’re not depressed about it. Not yet anyway.”
“It is depressing, when your love betrays you.”
“Like when you left Mom?” Bobbie wanted to ask.
“Delilah cut Samson’s hair while he was sleeping, after he trusted her with his secret. She told the Philistines, who came that night, gouged out his eyes, took him to prison. Kraft Mac and Cheese, the original?”
“What?”
“I could make some mac and cheese if you don’t want a PB&J.”
“I’m good, Dad, really. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I do worry about you. I worry about when I’ll be gone.”
“Then what?”
“When I’m gone?”
“In the story.”
“Ah, well, time passes, then the Philistines have a huge soiree in the temple. Thousands of people. Who doesn’t love a good soiree? They chain Samson to the main temple pillars so everyone can gawk. But they don’t notice his hair has started to regrow. Delilah comes to see him at the temple. Even though he had been depressed, he forgives her, tells her to leave before it’s too late, but she won’t go. Then Samson prays to God for strength, pushes down the pillars. The temple crumbles, killing Samson, Delilah, and thousands of Philistines.”
“Ouch!” Bobbie said. “He forgives her then kills her. Sounds like a bad Tinder date.”
“He saved his people, Barbara,” Ruben said. “Because of his death, they were free. Sometimes you must let go, Barbara. You must let go.”
“Dad, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Can we skip this movie since you just told me the whole plot? I mean, spoiler alert! Can we watch The Breakfast Club instead? I remember that’s in the book, too. And it’s not so depressing.”
Bobbie closed her eyes.
*
Ruben had Five Easy Pieces cued up on screen. He sat on the velvet sofa next to the table with Rayne’s gourd lamp. She looked down at the coffee table between the sofa and her armchair to see a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut into strips.
“Better for braces, the strips,” Ruben said.
Bobbie had braces when she was twelve.
A white porcelain dessert plate held yellow Twinkies, arranged in a circle like sunflower petals. Dad always did have mean plating skills.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ruben said.
“Let’s get this over with,” Bobbie said.
They watched the movie.
“What do you think?” Ruben asked as the end credits rolled.
“I get it,” Bobbie said. “It’s about screwed-up families.”
“About a boy,” Ruben said, “practicing to be a concert pianist and the need he feels twenty years later to hide himself by pretending to be something he’s not, in this case, an oil field rigger.”
“I’ll steer clear of the oil business, Dad.”
“Then he goes back to see his family,” Ruben said. “To reconcile with his dying father. It’s about forgiveness, and acceptance.”
Bobbie stopped chewing. She placed the rest of a strip of peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the plate. She’d nearly forgotten how much she liked strawberry jam. And Ruben had remembered about the peanut butter. No chunky for her.
“He wants to be forgiven,” she said, “for dropping out?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, what else?”
“Maybe he’s there to forgive,” Ruben said.
*
The morning sun sent rectangles of light slanting in through the apartment’s open bedroom windows. It blazed onto the white sheets, the plaster walls, the bureau with loose papers on top, and the large white origami rose Rayne made for Bobbie the day of their first chance meeting at the city airport. Bobbie’s eyes were bleary, her limbs sluggish. She reached with effort toward Rayne, nudged his shoulder. Rayne snored.
“I think I’ve made some kind of breakthrough, babe,” Bobbie said.
Rayne was silent.
“I think maybe it will be alright,” she said.
Bobbie nudged Rayne. He stirred.
“Did you hear, Rayne? I saw him, again.”
“I’m sorry, I know it’s been hard,” Rayne said.
“Like he was never gone.” Bobbie closed her eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Barbara,” Ruben said.
Baby steps, Barbara. Baby steps.
Jeffrey Feingold’s stories, published widely in literary journals, have been nominated for the PEN America Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, the Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories. His first short story collection, The Black Hole Pastrami, won multiple book awards, including the National Indie Excellence Award. This was followed in the same year with his second collection, There Is No Death in Finding Nemo, which received numerous awards. Jeffrey resides with his family in Boston, Massachusetts.
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