Novella One Came Running By Don Frankel
"And when Jesus had gone forth into the way, one came running and kneeled and asked him. “Good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Mark 10:17
Chapter 1 The Unit
Teddy Green leaned back in his chair and watched Zvi Mordeci or Zvi the Avenger as Teddy had named him and thought that today, could be the day. The day that Zvi the Avenger, just lost his nut.
Most people in their unit thought The Professor might lose it first but then Teddy had inside knowledge and knew that The Professor already had a meltdown. The Professor was medicated now. No, Teddy had his money on Zvi.
Zvi had dark, curly, red hair that was receding in a prominent widow’s peak. It was the kind of hair that was hard to comb so Zvi just kept it slicked back and not too long. Zvi also had a pencil thin mustache and very fair skin. The kind of skin that would sunburn easily. Teddy figured Zvi was about five feet ten inches tall but that was hard to be sure because Zvi was always leaning over forward, almost like a crouch. It seemed to help Zvi when he walked because he always walked as quick as he could and then the crouch resembled a sprinter in motion. But Zvi stayed that way in that crouch, even when standing still. In the little over a year that Teddy knew him, he might have seen Zvi stand up straight maybe five or six times. So, Zvi’s actual height was just an estimate.
One thing that wasn’t an estimate was the thing that made him, Zvi the Avenger, and that was the object of Zvi’s seething rage. And, that object was the woman who had been his wife. Her name, Zvi never mentioned. She was just that woman who was designated with a string of curses that either started with “bitch” or a string of curses that ended with “bitch”.
And, as Zvi would announce with one finger pointed to the sky. “The day would come...” What day and when, another mystery. As Zvi would stop right there nodding his head up and down and then a little smile would spread across his lips, turning his mustache up into an almost comical curve. No, it was more rueful, no, rueful and comical.
What had she done? This modern-day Jezebel? Well, they all found that out on their first day together nine months ago. Of course, Zvi did not mention her when they first met that morning because the meeting of their little group was headed up by their Director Michael McMullen a tall, thin man with a slight paunch that came from sitting behind a desk for years. His once blond hair was almost all gray now. But he still carried an air of authority about him as he had supervised programs and people for most of his adult life. Teddy had known him or of him since he had first started working for the Agency. And Teddy knew McMullen’s problems, but he still liked him. Teddy liked him because despite his problems, McMullen was always a Professional. Also, present was their Deputy Director Arthur White Aka the Professor, so Zvi knew better.
That first meeting was held in the big conference room with the big windows, that looked out onto City Hall Park, and you could see the World Trade Towers clear across that park. The funny thing Teddy always thought was he would see the Towers whenever he walked out of the front of the building, and they loomed over everything around them. They were about a quarter a mile away and yet they would just sit there looking somehow, close. So close, it seemed as if he could just reach out his hand and touch them.
But somebody must have had big plans for their little group or more likely there just wasn’t anyone needing the big conference room that morning. They were handed different pamphlets on Accounting and Auditing. Michael McMullen talked quite a bit about how important an Audit was. Then how, there were going to be training sessions for the next two weeks conducted by an Accountant/Auditor from Price Walters and Jones.
After lunch they found the large conference room was in use and their Director Michael McMullen was in a meeting. The Deputy Director Arthur White told them to meet in the smaller conference room near their new desks as if he would be in there soon. But then Arthur White soon to become The Professor never showed up. So, there were no authority figures just Teddy Green, Mimi Hersch, Nicholas Tafaro and Zvi Mordeci about to become Zvi the Avenger. And there wasn’t even a table there that day for some reason. So, they were just sitting in a circle, almost like it was group therapy or some Kumbaya meeting when Zvi cleared his throat and, said.
“She...”
And Teddy swore he had that rueful comical smile on his face or was that something that was in his memory now because he had seen it so many times since. But Zvi started off calling her She. She was not the bitch as yet. That would come later.
So, Zvi started with “She...” and then he went into his tale of woe. Since Zvi was an Accountant Teddy liked to think of this tale as an addendum to the Canterbury Tales. This one, The Accountant’s Tale. But Zvi started off slow, his voice almost in a whisper at how he had come home after work like he did every day. How he put his key in their apartment door that opened into the living room and then when he opened that door, the living room was completely empty. Everything was just gone. All the living room furniture, the pictures and paintings on the walls, the drapes, the carpet, just all gone. Even the wood parquet floors were mopped and spotlessly clean.
For a brief, moment Zvi thought he’d walked into an empty apartment. That was not unreasonable because his parents owned the building, and he was also the Handyman, the Porter and the Renting Agent for the building. So, he could have the keys to a vacant apartment. He even looked at his key ring, and it said 4C. But he still couldn’t believe it, so he went to the front door and checked. The door said 4C. He lived in 4C. Then he wandered through the empty apartment, the kitchen, the two bedrooms and the bathroom, nothing, not even any dust on the floor. It was as if some evil force had swept through his life leaving nothing in its wake. It was all swept clean. She had left and taken everything, everything.
The only thing he could find was a note tapped on the bathroom mirror. He did not tell them what was on the note. No one dared ask as Zvi was upset enough, and everyone figured it was just some kind of goodbye.
Then Zvi put his head down and just shook it. He looked as if he might even be crying. Everyone just felt terrible for him. Mimi even reached over and patted his shoulder. No one knew what to say.
They all felt really, bad for him and that lasted two days. Till Mimi got the rest of the story from someone who knew Zvi from his neighborhood. And Mimi had found out that incident had happened just the way Zvi had told it, but it had happened fifteen years ago. The wife had remarried and had a son who was about to have his Bar Mitzvah.
Of course, the first day Zvi had not spoken of revenge that would come later in his many retellings of the tale. She or the “bitch” as she would become had not only taken everything, but she’d maligned him, belittled him ruined his good name and reputation.
Mimi explained that too. Zvi and his wife came from some small Orthodox Sect in Brooklyn, and his wife needed a religious divorce. Something that couldn’t be obtained without some claim of adultery or some other old, classic reason for the dissolution of a marriage. So, the wife had made those claims. And, they had only been married for a year which as Mimi pointed out wasn’t much in the marriage department. In fact, it was just a little more than going steady. Mimi had also found out what was on the note. Just one word.
‘Whoremaster.’
Then Mimi added.
“Okay I get it what she did was nasty. I could see him being upset for a couple of years. I’ll even give him two years, maybe four max but fifteen? Time to get over it. Time to move on.”
Mimi had said that when it was just Teddy, Nick and herself having lunch in their conference room that now had a table, and they had all laughed. And Mimi had also discovered one other thing about the bitch, her name. It was Miriam. And, that kind of took the edge off the stream of adjectives that ended or began with “bitch”. Because Miriam, well everyone had an aunt or a neighbor named Miriam and most probably, no one ever met a woman named Jezebel or “bitch”.
Of course, he was still not Zvi the Avenger that came a few weeks later after another retelling of The Accountant’s Tale. It was just Teddy, Nick and Zvi this time. It was Teddy and Nick because they were checking on a company, and they had gone to this aluminum bookcase that had all the phone books in it and that bookcase was twenty feet behind Zvi’s desk.
Zvi took the opportunity to go into another rendition of The Accountant’s Tale. While Zvi did talk about other things, like work and the building his parents owned, he could just jump into The Accountant’s Tale at the slightest provocation. This time had to have been the two dozenth rendition of The Account’s Tale. Zvi had also expanded the inequity of it all to include the things she did in the marriage. Like when she decided no more sex. What was he supposed to do? Then there were the lies, the slander, the defamation of his character. And then of course, “The day would come...” And, then Zvi broke into that rueful, comic smile with his hand pointing towards the heavens.
Teddy couldn’t help it he had always been a wise guy who usually had something smart to say. So, he just couldn’t help but ask.
“Hey Zvi when you were married did you like maybe do something wrong? Like maybe just one thing, one little thing.”
At which point Zvi turned purple with rage. He stood up, went over to the bookcase, raised his hand over his head and then making a fist, he slammed that fist, down onto the bookcase. The blow made a loud thud as the metal bent under the blow, leaving a two-inch dent in the top of the bookcase. Then Zvi exclaimed.
“I am not an Adulterer! I am not a Whoremaster!”
Then Zvi grabbed his hat off his desk and ran out of the building.
Both Teddy and Nick were so shocked they ran into Mimi’s office, shut the door and told her what happened. There was a moment when they were all shocked and genuinely frightened. Then Nick decided to show Mimi, and he stood up, shaking his head up and down trying to show how angry Zvi had been. Then Nick raised his hand above his head, made the fist just like Zvi had and then brought it down on the table. But he wasn’t going to hurt himself, so he slowed it down and just let it land on the table without any force. But then he let his body bounce up and down conveying the force of the blow. Then Nick announced in a harsh, emphatic whisper that gave the impression of a yell.
“I am not an Adulterer. I am not a Whoremaster.”
Then all three of them started laughing hysterically. Maybe it was the term Whoremaster as they all knew that was on the note. Maybe it was just from the stress of having to listen to Zvi over and over again. But for the next ten minutes they were just laughing helplessly.
Of course, they all knew that Zvi wasn’t going to actually do anything. He hadn’t done anything but harangue other people for fifteen years. It was all just bluster from some middle-aged Accountant.
But Teddy began to think at that point that a man with that much rage all bottled up in himself might just have a real meltdown. That’s when Teddy gave him the title, Zvi the Avenger.
Then they all laughed some more.
And today just might be the day because Teddy could see Zvi’s mouth moving, his head nodding and his hands making gestures to an unseen God. A God Teddy realized, who for the last sixteen years, just wasn’t listening.
Read the rest at Amazon don frankel one came running.
