FICTION

Ditil e n8 l o n 8

HOWARD KAPLAN

Special to The Jewish News

Illustrated by
Giora Carmi

Former Detroiter Howard
Kaplan resides in El Cajon,
Calif

80

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1991

e was a stooped man with
coarse skin and a yellowing
face blotted with patches of a
thorny, white beard. The jag-
ged lines surrounding his
pale-blue eyes creased into
deep folds, and his nose
looked as if it were partly
squashed and partly shaved
into a fine point.
There he sat on his rusty
bridge chair in the reddening
of a dry autumn day.
Hunched forward, he watched
his shadow become a waver-
ing thin line as he tipped his
body to the left. He tucked his
elbows into his lap and
shaped his shadow into an
oblong, flat disc. The colors of
his backyard were fading as
winter approached. Maybe it
was just his shadow covering
the grass that made
everything appear dying. The
sun seeped the shadow out
from the marrow of his body
and stretched it along the
ground, a shroud for the num-
bing grass.
"Pa, take off that old
sweater!" His daughter's
voice ripped across the back

yard. "Are you crazy? You
always wear that dirty thing.
What's the matter with you?
You want people to think I
don't take good care of you? I
spend hours every week doing
your laundry and cleaning up
after you, and you wear that
schmata. And what do I get?
No thanks from you. No
thanks from anyone in this
house. At least you can find
something clean to put on."
"She yells. Every minute a
yell." He pulled his sweater
tightly around him, fumbled
with the two bottom buttons,
and then waved his right
hand to shoo Gittel away as
he turned his head from her.
Shimson liked his black,
wool cardigan. It had holes
under both armpits and the
right pocket was torn, but it
was comfortable and it was
his. He remembered when
Gittel had given him the
sweater. She had spent even-
ing after evening late into the
night knitting. While she
worked away, Al had read the
newspaper and the boys had
hovered around their zayde.