An Atheist's Christmas in the Bronx

Even though my relatives and I were atheist Jews in a predominantly Christian country, I rarely felt as if I was out of the mainstream. Mom, Dad, and Nanny were just as American as anybody else, although maybe just a little louder. OK, a lot louder.

Up until the time I was six, I even imagined that I believed — as much as any fundy kid did — in Santa Claus. I had already dismissed the idea of god, because it just didn’t make any sense. But Santa Claus was different. I mean, the guy was all over the TV screen. He prattled on and on about good conduct with Pinky Lee and Rootie Kazootie, paid surprise visits on cowboys and spacemen and cartoon animals, and even joked snidely about Mrs. Claus with Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason. From the comfort of my living-room, I'd actually seen him ride down Broadway in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; every kid in New York knew that he was on the way to his big throne in the world's most famous department store. And he never said, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas — except for atheist Jews." He greeted us all, boys and girls of every persuasion. Santa's sole criterion for toy-distribution was a kid's behavior, not his heritage.

Mom, who was always a sucker for family togetherness as depicted in Norman Rockwell illustrations, encouraged my belief. She made a small bow to Chanukah by giving us chocolate gelt, pieces of candy money wrapped in "gold;" sometimes we even lit the menorah. But her obvious opinion, one which we kids shared, was that Chanukah couldn't hold a candle to Christmas. If it had been entirely up to her, we would have all gathered together like a perfect television family, to sing carols and drink eggnog under the mistletoe. Santa Claus was coming to town, and our household was on his itinerary.

Dad went along with her, but only because he didn't have the energy to fight. As a mailman, he worked particularly hard during the holidays when the post office was flooded with thousands of cards from those “meshuga goyim.” I think he reluctantly enjoyed the message of peace on earth, goodwill to men: "Do me something, but that Jesus must have been a real mensch. He was a Jew, d'ja know that?"

Still, Dad could never resist reminding us that we were strangers in a strange land.

"If some fat Christian in a red suit ever snuck up on my grandparents during the night, they would have thought it was a pogrom. But go ahead and believe what you wanna believe. Just remember, Santa Claus is poor this year."

In our house, we never had a Christmas tree. A few families in the community had Chanukah bushes, but not us. Dad hated Nature, and complained constantly that Mom's snake plants were stealing his air. He was sure that bringing a whole tree into the apartment would make it impossible for us to breathe. His main objection, though, was that it would be too much trouble.

"And who's gonna put it together? You?"

"There's nothing to put together, Dad. It's a tree."

"Listen, Sonny Boy, I work hard all day. I don't need to be monkeying around with all those momzer lights and doodads and that shiny stringy stuff—what do the goyim call it?—and having to remember to water the damn thing and not knock it over when I wake up in the middle of the night to pish. You want a tree, move to the forest."

Mom, who took on more and more of a "Babes in Toyland" persona the closer we got to the holidays, who walked around the apartment singing Hit Parade carols like "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," would have loved having a Christmas tree. And she probably could have prevailed easily over Dad if she'd insisted. But she worried about how she could smuggle it in without the neighbors seeing.

"Mom," I'd reason, "who cares? You buy ham and bacon at the store all the time, and we never go to shul."

"A Christmas tree is different."

"What's different about it?"

"Well, bacon is not about Jesus. But a Christmas tree ... that's a very, very Christian thing. It's a whole big megillah about stuff we don't believe in. Mrs. Tannenbaum downstairs would have a conniption if she saw us. I'll hang a stocking and we'll put out a little table for Santa to leave toys on. Nobody has to know."

And that's what she always did. On Christmas Eve, she'd tape two of her nylons, one for Risa and one for me, to the window of our bedroom. We had no chimneys in our project, which worried me. But Mom swore that Santa would ring the doorbell once we kids were asleep, and that he'd give all our toys to her. It never occurred to me to ask why we bothered going through the whole rigmarole with the stocking if he was just going to show up with the stuff at our door like an overweight version of the Seltzer Man.

What I did think to challenge, however, was the plethora of Santas. Everywhere I looked, there he was. He chatted with millions of children in every single department store in New York City. Mom's explanation, which worked for a few years, was that the guy kept running back and forth across the street between Macy's and Gimbel's, stopping this relay only occasionally to take the subway uptown to the Bronx for a stint at Alexander's. And, she added, when he wasn't holding court in some toy department, he was hopping from street corner to street corner to ring a bell for the Salvation Army, or racing to a TV studio to sit for a few minutes with Arthur Godfrey.

But by the time I was six, I was already well on the road to skepticism. I tallied up all the Clauses and thought: How can this be?

It was Nanny who came up with an intricate Santa Claus Classification System, an organizational hierarchy that sounded reasonable. She explained that the real, honest-to-goodness Santa Claus was the one at Macy's, except during the week she had a falling-out with the store because it had run out of My Sin perfume, during which time the Genuine Article had moved briefly to Gimbel's. He was also the one who appeared on prime-time television shows, as long as the star was somebody she liked.

"Oh, yeah," Nanny said, "the Jack Benny Santa Claus is definitely the real one."

"But who's at Macy's while he's on TV?"

"He puts up a sign: Out to Dinner. What, you don't think he has a nice supper every night, with that belly?"

"But if he was on with Jack Benny," I asked, "when did he eat?"

"Always with you it's questions. Listen, they gave him a tongue sandwich and a cup of red Jell-O backstage."

"So that's what happened when he visited Ed Sullivan, too?"

"No, no, use your head. That was an Actor. The real Santa Claus is gonna go on with that shmo? What are you talking?"

"What about the Santa Claus at Alexander's?"

"A Substitute. Santa has a big family, they all look like him. Y'know, like me and my sisters. His brothers go to all the stores, the managers never know the difference."

"Oh, so the one at Klein's is also a substitute, right?"

"Klein's? Feh? That one's a Faker. You'll sit on his lap, he'll try to sell you some shmatta. They're gonna get the real Santa Claus when they can't even clean their bathrooms properly? Who fills your head with such nonsense?"

"So what about the guys who ring the bells?"

"Helpers. Santa gives them a couple of bucks and they work for him."

"But they all look just like him."

"Yeah, so what? Santa's dumb? He advertises to hire, and it says they have to be fat. Except that skinny zhlub standing there by the subway entrance with his beard falling off. Listen, stop hocking me with Santa Claus and help me pick out a Chanukah present for your cousin Marty."

It was a lot of work using Nanny's elaborate taxonomy, and sorting each Santa into his proper slot nearly drove me nuts. But I was good at puzzles and games, and enjoyed the challenge of figuring out who was who. The Santa who had posed for the Coke ad in Life Magazine was, obviously, the Genuine Article; the one who had posed for Pepsi was an Actor. Canada Dry Ginger Ale's Santa was an acceptable Substitute, particularly when I'd had an upset stomach one day, but 7-Up's was a blatant Faker if I ever saw one.

* * *Regardless of who stood in for Santa on other occasions, I knew that he, himself, was gonna be the one to show up with the loot. That Christmas Eve when I was six, my sister and I were ushered to sleep in a state of near-delirium. Mom had been unusually Christmas-y all night, coyly crooning a medley of the great Yuletide standards written by Jews: "White Christmas," "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire," and her own version of a Jerome Kern classic:

They asked me how I knew
Santa Claus was true.
I of course replied,
"Santa has to hide —
Toys get in your eyes."

Even Dad joined in the festive spirit, using a lit cigarette to conduct Mom. My sister, who was only a year and a half old, had caught the excitement, and kept screaming "Santa Claus, Santa Claus," a mantra that eventually conked her out in mid-shout. Shortly thereafter, she was nestled all snug in her bed, dreaming, no doubt, of sugar plums, even though no one in my family had any idea what they were.

But I stayed wide awake, now and then ducking under the covers to check my glow-in-the-dark watch, a practical Chanukah gift I had received from an uncle with connections in the jewelry business. A half-hour eternity must have passed while I waited and waited and waited for the sound of the doorbell announcing Santa's arrival.

Mom peeked her head into our room. "You kids asleep?" she whispered.

I had recently learned that my fake snoring fooled no one, so I just lay there, perfectly still. Mom and Dad tiptoed quietly in. Mom was frequently subject to fits of giddiness, and was evidently in the throes of one. She couldn't stop tittering. Dad banged his knee on the little table they'd put in the center of the room, dropped what sounded like a 20-megaton toy, and yelled out

"Sonuvvabitch!"

Stifled snickering from Mom, who tried unsuccessfully to turn serious. "Did it break, Hon?"

"How the hell do I know? It's wrapped."

"I mean the table. It sounded like it went flying."

"Nah. It just slid along the floor a little."

"Do you think it scratched the wood?"

"It scratched my leg, I'll tell you that."

"You're not bleeding on the toys, are you?"

"Who cares about the goddamn toys, f'cryinoutloud? I'm wounded here. You and your farkockteh Christmas."

"Sha. Die kinder."

The next thing Dad did was to pull down a curtain rod on the window when he went to fill the stocking.

"Agghhh. Shit."

"Sha." Uncontrollable giggling. "What happened?"

"I got caught on the drapes."

"Don't break the window."

"Do you wanna do this, Babe? Do you wanna do this?"

Mom made a noise that sounded like she was being tickled unmercifully.

"Don't put a run in my stocking."

"Just tell me if you wanna do this. What are you, some secret shikseh, the Christmas maven? Owww. Goddamn radiator. It's hot, f'Chrissake! These chocolate cigarettes are gonna melt before the kids wake up."

"Gimme them. I'll put them on the table."

"What else goes in here?"

"The yo-yos and the sock puppets. Can you squoosh the puppets in?"

A ripping sound revealed that he couldn't.

"What'd you rip?"

"Your stocking. Relax."

Hysterical cackling. "That's a good stocking."

"Oh, and my knee wasn't a good knee?"

"Your knee, you can cover up. My stocking, everybody sees."

"So do me something. Next time we go out, you can wear the sock puppets. Are we done with this mishegoss?"

“I think the kids are up. Are you up?”

Aha! A trap. Mom expected me to say “no,” like I usually did. But I just lay there. Miraculously, I had managed to keep totally quiet through all the mayhem. I hoped I could resist the urge to get up right away and check whether all my new toys were still intact.

Mom whispered, "Well, I guess they’re sleeping. Gut yontif" — "Happy holiday" — and I could hear kissing. I hoped it was happening far enough way from my toys that they didn’t get any lovey-dovey cooties on them. I knew that in the morning, the room was going to look like it had been attacked by an army of Subs and Zhlubs, Helpers and Actors and Fakers. But as my parents walked through the door, both chuckling now, I lay there in my bed, a real atheist at last, proud of my discovery: Mom and Dad, and they alone, were the Genuine Article.

Seeds

All the political talk about abstinence education reminds me of something that happened when I was thirteen years old. After my mother and younger sister had left the kitchen table one night, going off to struggle once again with the Problem of Evil Homework, my father lobbed a three-pack of Trojans into my lap.

“You know what those are?” he asked.

Schoolboys didn’t use the word “condoms” in those days. “Yeah. They’re ... um ... scumbags, right?”

“Exactly. Carry those with you wherever you go,” he said.

“I don’t think I need them yet.”

He rolled his eyes. “F’chrissake,” he said. “By the time I was your age, I’d been laid, relayed and parleyed.”

“Did Mom say it’s OK for me to have these?”

“What are you, a sissy? Why would I ask your mother?”

That made me laugh, because I remembered how he’d acted five years before. Here’s the story.

* * * * *
I was about halfway through third grade, and I had come to the realization that my parents were never going to show me where the seed store was.

Mom had repeated the story to me dozens of times: Dad had planted a seed in her belly. Eventually, that seed, which I envisioned as a kind of pink and slimy Chocolate Baby, became me.

We lived in an apartment in the Bronx, so I knew very little about gardening. The only flora we had in the house were Mom's snake plants, about ten of them, which migrated from one knickknack shelf to another every few weeks. Mom called it "redecorating" every time she moved a snake plant and rotated her figurines. Sometimes the snake plants were surrounded by dancing porcelain elves; at other times they formed the background for a Bo-Peep scene. I once cajoled her into letting me use one as a cactus in a mini-drama that I was acting out for myself with plastic cowboys. The idea was that the bad guys would keep shooting the cactus instead of the hero hiding behind it. Bang, blam, p-shoing! The cactus would fall over dead. After its third demise, my mother confiscated it, and placed it back where Nature intended it to be, between Madame Pompadour and Neptune.

What I did know about gardening, I had learned from a children's record popular in the '50s. An unctuous boy's voice sang: "Carrots grow from carrot seeds." I couldn't imagine a child that I identified with less than this gooey paragon of stick-to-it-iveness. His story took up two sides of a big orange 78, but the gist of it was that he insisted on planting a seed even though his whole family told him he was full of crap. I often wondered why he would go to all that trouble for one lousy carrot, when he easily could have bought a whole can at the grocery. Still, he bragged: "I watered it; I pulled the weeds."

But who watered me and pulled my weeds?

Certainly not Dad, despite what Mom told me. He just wasn't a planting kind of guy. I tried to picture him as a farmer, in overalls and a straw hat. I'd see him standing in the middle of a field of corn, removing a piece of straw from his mouth, and, with the other hand, taking a puff of the Pall Mall that he always held between his index and middle fingers. The rest of his cigarette hand would be balled up in a half-fist, carrying a few seeds, about 20 Green Giant niblets drenched in butter. That's what corn seeds looked like in my mind. Every now and then, Dad would bend over and dig a little hole, move his pinky to let loose one of the niblets, and cover it up again, stray ashes and all. He'd pull a green plastic drinking glass full of water from his back pocket, and dribble a few drops on the seed the way Mom watered her snake plants at home. Then he'd stand up and scratch the back of one leg with the toe of his opposite foot, as he frequently did when he was trying to get his bearings. After a few seconds, he'd replace the glass in his pocket, take a drag on his cigarette, and then put the straw back in his mouth and chew it the same way he worked a toothpick.

"How come Dad never planted anything else?" I asked Mom.

"Well, he also planted your sister."

"No, I mean flowers. Where did Dad learn to plant seeds?"

"I think when he was in the army."

If Dad was in earshot of this conversation, he would call out, "A lot before that." But he was always suspiciously noncommittal about the rest of the story.

"Where'd you get the seed for me, Dad?"

"Ask your mother."

"I thought you planted it."

"Well, we kind of did it together. But she remembers better. Ask her."

"Did you get the seed for my sister at the same store where you got me? Who cost more?"

"I think you might have been on sale. Your mother remembers."

But my mother's recollection was hazy, too.

"Where's the seed store? Is it on Fordham Road near Alexander's? Can you show me it next time we go shopping?"

"You know, I must have forgotten where the store is. Isn't that funny? I just ... I just can't think of it."

Yeah, right. This was beyond credibility. Mom never forgot anything. She knew the words to almost every song ever written.

It was clearly time for eight-year-old sarcasm."Oh, right," I said. "You got your kids there, and you can't remember? Come on, Ma. Where is it? What's such a big deal about a store? Just tell me where it is. I promise I won't buy any seeds. "

Finally, in desperation one evening when I was particularly determined, Mom and Dad waited until my sister had gone to sleep. Then they went and powwowed in a corner of the kitchen while I half-heartedly watched Father Knows Best and sulked. I knew that they knew that I was trying to listen to their conversation because they were speaking in Yiddish. Yiddish had been Dad's only language until he was six years old, and he was completely fluent. Mom's Yiddish, on the other hand, consisted of only about a hundred words, most of them either names of foods or synonyms for "shmuck." I could tell whenever she started having language difficulties, because she'd suddenly resort to whispered English. Then Dad would say, emphatically, "Sha, Honey. Sha. Die kinder! Shvubb'm hubb'm tsubb'm." At least that's what it sounded like to me.

The next thing I knew, Mom was rushing upstairs to a neighbor. "I'm going up to Barb's to borrow a book for you. We'll read it together when your program is over. Did you finish your math?"

"What kind of book?"

"We'll read it together when your program is over."

"You just said that. What's the book about?"

"You'll see."

Dad retired to the living-room couch. In his own way, my father knew best, too, and what was best for him was to lie there making believe he was taking a nap. Many years later, he confessed that he’d spent the next hour staring into the armrest, listening and giggling.

It wasn't long before Mom burst back through the door, carrying a thin book against her chest. Her arms were crossed around it, shielding it from my vision. The message was clear: something in that book was dynamite. She summoned me from the television and led me into the bathroom. She lowered the toilet seat lid, and sat on it, gesturing for me to sit on the edge of the bathtub.

This was not as odd a place for an intimate chat as it sounds, because it was the only private area in the entire apartment. In the one bedroom, my sister was already snuggled in for the night, snoring contentedly. In the living-room, where Mom and Dad slept on a fold-out high-rise, Dad was supposedly taking his undisturbable snooze on the couch. The uncleaned detritus from dinner still filled the kitchen, and, anyway, the room's acoustics made noises echo throughout the house; we didn't want to disturb Dad while he was feigning sleep and having a giddy panic.

Mom opened the book. I suppose it was something like What to Tell Your Precocious Nuisance About Sex. But I never knew, because she didn't show me the cover. Nor did she read it directly to me, or even hold up any of the pictures. Instead, she silently skimmed each page, and translated it into Idiotese. After every few pages, she'd add: "Remember, you can only do this if you're married."

I didn't see why I'd want to do it at all. The whole thing struck me as pretty messy. The book — or Mom's rendition of it — suppressed discussion of pleasure or love or emotional gratification of any kind. And that's not the only thing I didn't get. For a long time thereafter, I was under the impression that the man peed into the woman. I suppose the surroundings in which I had learned the information subliminally planted that seed in my head. In any case, the entire procedure sounded pretty inconvenient for both parties.

"You and Dad did that?"

"Yes."

"There's no seed store?"

"No. The seed was in his body."

"So are you telling me there's no seed store anywhere? Anywhere? In the whole world?"

"Uh-huh. This is what married people do here, and in Europe, and in Africa, and all over."

That sounded like baloney to me. "Nanny did it, too?"

"Yeah, Nanny, too. Everybody. But remember, you have to be married." The skeptic in me kicked into high gear. There was no way that Nanny ever did that. "I can't believe there's no seed store. Are you positive?"

"Uh-huh."

"What a gyp."

But it wasn't enough of a gyp to keep me from passing it on to all my friends. The very next day, I began holding forth to any kid who would listen. "Hey, guess what? There's no seed store." For a while, I had the reputation among my friends' mothers as the worst influence in the entire neighborhood, the pervert of the playground.

Most of the kids didn't believe me; about six of them grabbed each other's hands to form a circle, and danced around me, chanting "penis and vagina, penis and vagina." Jerry reached into his pants, felt himself carefully, and screamed at me, "You're lying. There's no seeds in it." Shelley’s mother never forgave me. She’s convinced to this day that he still wouldn’t know the facts of life if I hadn’t spilled the beans to him while we were riding on the seesaw.

Weeks went by, and Dad didn't say anything at all to me about my lesson. Then one night, out of the blue, he asked, "So Mom wised you up? About the seeds?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"There's more," he said, and winked. "Remind me to tell you when you're older."

"After I'm married?" I asked.

"Maybe a little bit before," he replied.

"When?"

"Not today, OK? I need to take a nap."

Mrs. Numbeh Faw

[Yeah, this is an atheist blog, but sometimes I get so tired of the same old head-banging topics: religion sucks, fundies are stupid, creationism is nonsense, American politicians have sold out to ignorance. Yadda, yadda, yadda, and blah, blah, blah. When I feel that way, I like to clear my brain by publishing a post that’s apropos of absolutely nothing. Now it so happens that, since my wife and I are atheists, we didn’t join the rest of the people in Central Florida today, all of whom are praying that God will prevent Hurricane Fay from blowing their houses away. Instead, we did the most reasonable thing we could think of; we went out for Chinese food. And because going out for Chinese food always reminds me of my grandmother, I thought I’d share the following story.]

All young boys get embarrassed easily by their relatives. For an eight-year-old male, just acknowledging the existence of parents or grandparents is emasculating. But Nanny was a special case. Being with her was like having one of those dreams where you suddenly discover that you've got no clothes on — only I was awake and fully dressed. To me, that was the worst kind of naked.

The most serious humiliations always seemed to occur when we went to Nanny's favorite torture-site, her personal Chinese place. The Canton Dragon was an overcrowded mama-papa joint under the elevated on Jerome Avenue. Sometimes the restaurant would get so busy that a line of people would extend out the door. Waiting families would stand outside and scream conversation at each other as the trains clattered overhead.

But mere human bodies could not deter Nanny. She always managed to shove her way indoors, using me as a battering ram. Every time she'd push into someone, she'd shrug at the person and say, "Sorry. My grandson has no manners when he's hungry."

If a member of the immigrant family who owned and worked in the restaurant wasn't immediately available to seat us, Nanny would take offence. "Boy," she'd say, shaking her head. "This is some way to run a business. Maybe that’s how they do it in China, but in America people’s feet have corns."

Complaining, Nanny would head to the little couch next to the cashier's booth. She'd lower herself with a sigh that could be heard for miles, and explain to everyone within earshot: "My girdle is killing me." The word "girdle" would send me racing over to study the fish tank in the window. There were never any fish in it, but the plastic palm tree reminded me of China. I wished I was there.

All the waiters knew my grandmother. Whoever noticed her first would come and greet her with a slight bow and a joking "Ah, Mrs. Numbeh Faw." They called her Mrs. Numbeh Faw because, after spending an hour grumbling about the small type on the menu, she always wound up ordering the same combination platter.

"Mrs. Numbeh Faw. You eating with nephew again?"

"Don't you remember? I thought you people were so smart. He's my grandson."

"No. You not ode enough to have so big gran son. Mus' be nephew, Mrs. Numbeh Faw. You not ode enough to be bubba."

Before "Bubba" was co-opted by Southern good-ol' boys, it was the Yiddish word for grandmother. To Nanny, it conjured up a picture of a stooped, gray-haired old crone in a babushka, who smelled of chicken fat and could hardly speak English. Dad's mother, when she was alive, had been a bubba. But Nanny felt that this was in stark contrast to herself. Did a bubba put on costume jewelry earrings and a nice hat with a veil every day, and fight for a subway seat on her way to work? Nanny had spent her life climbing uphill, away from her forebears, to achieve the heights from which she felt free to bitch in a restaurant. Unlike a bubba, she was in control.

Still, she couldn't imagine how a Chinese waiter knew anything in Jewish.

"You understand 'bubba'?"

"Oy, Mrs. Numbeh Faw, you tink we have no Juicy people here but you? Come. I put you at best table."

Nanny prided herself on getting personalized service, even though, to me, all the tables looked exactly the same. We'd sit with our six-page menus and scan the choices.

Nanny would make a big deal of moving her menu back and forth in front of her eyes. If she captured an audience, she'd turn the menu upside-down, too. "What do they have, a deal with an optometrist? Can you read these chicken scratches? No wonder they all need glasses."

Eventually, she'd select her combo plate. Everything I wanted would be vetoed.

"You don't like that."

"Yes I do."

"You like moo goo gai pan? Since when?"

"Since always. That's what I want."

"Listen, believe me. You don't like that. Nobody likes it. I'm not gonna waste my money and have you leave over. Get a number four. It's the best thing here. They make it special for me."

For an appetizer, she'd insist that I ask for either the won-ton or egg-drop soup, because it came free with your meal.

"I don't want soup. I don't like soup."

"Of course you like soup. What are you talking nonsense for? Who doesn't like soup? I'm paying for soup, and you're gonna eat it."

She'd lean over to the nearby strangers at their inferior table. "Ever hear of a boy who doesn't like soup? Meet my grandson."

Eventually, the waiter would show up at our table to take our orders. "Let me guess, OK? Two numbeh faw?"

Nanny would light a Winston as we waited. She'd hold it in her mouth long enough to dye the filter bright red with lipstick, all the while puffing hard enough to send smoke signals throughout the Bronx. Then she'd set the cigarette down.

"This is what they call an ashtray?" she'd say, not so much to me as to the walls.

"What's wrong with it?" I'd ask.

"Lookit! This skimpy thing, by you it’s an ashtray? What is there, suddenly a shortage of glass?"

"Your cigarette fits."

"And what if I want another one later? Where am I gonna put it, in my hat?" She'd turn in her seat to address the people at the next table again.

"Excuse me." Then she'd point to me and say to one of our neighbors, "Tell my grandson. Tell him what you think of the ashtray. It's for midgets, right?"

"Well," her confidant would whisper to me, talking to an obvious idiot, "it is a little small."

Nanny would turn back to me in triumph. "Y'see? Y'see? A perfect stranger" -- and here my grandmother would poke her finger toward the person as if she were pointing at an inanimate object -- "agrees with me."

That was about the time our soup would arrive. The waiter would place our bowls in front of us. "Ready faw too code soup now?" I'd immediately try running avoidance plays. "Mmmmmm," I'd say, blowing on the won ton in my spoon to cool it off. "This is good." Nanny would take one taste and signal for the waiter, who, in anticipation, would be lurking nearby.

"What are you talking?" she'd say to me. "It's freezing. Send it back."

"It's hot enough for me. Really."

"Since when are you a snowman? Don't eat that won ton. Send it back."

"I like it this way. Please let me keep it."

"I don't understand kids today with their rock 'n' roll and their cold soup. No wonder they can't keep their shirt tucked into their pants."

Of course the soup would be returned to the fire, along with our tea. If Nanny was really on a roll, she might even complain to the waiter when our shrimps and lobster sauce arrived.

"Where's the shrimps? I see three. They should call this lobster sauce and lobster sauce. And it's cold. What, is the stove is on strike? My grandson is very disappointed."

Eventually our food would return, still steaming enough to form a cloud. The inferior table next to us would be using their napkins as gas masks. But Nanny always dug right in. I'd take one bite and fan my mouth.

"Stop monkeying around. I paid for hot food, not ice cubes. Eat!"

Our neighbors would watch in disbelief. Leaning over to them, Nanny always had to explain. "Did you ever see such faces? He's some comedian, my grandson."

“Nanny, how come there’s no lobster in lobster sauce?”

“What kind of question is that? Is there any mane in chow mein? Or a cow in moo goo gai pan? This is Chinese food. They call it funny things.”

Fifteen excruciating minutes later, we'd weigh the desert options. Nanny loved Jell-O, but the only flavor she would eat was "red." Anything in the berry group was fine; all other flavors, according to her, were "goyish." Orange and lemon were abominations. Lime, in particular, was known as "Ugh, that Hitler kind."

"Why lime?" I'd ask. "How can a flavor be anti-Semitic?"

"Listen, smart guy. If you can't figure it out, don't ask. Believe me, lime is plenty goyish. And on top of that, it's gassy. They should cook it with a Tum mixed in. Don't hock me with lime. I'll stick to red."

After determining that the Jell-O was "not our kind," we'd settle for pineapple and fortune cookies. Nanny would break open her cookie, remove the paper, and hold it as far as her arm would extend. Twisting around in her seat for "better light," she'd intrude into the air space of her new friends next door. She'd squint at the writing for a few seconds and then drop the paper in front of me.

"I guess they're trying to keep my fortune a big secret," she'd say to everyone. Then to me: "Read it. Loud, so we can all hear."

It was invariably something like: "A penny saved is money well spent." Or: "All work and no play makes busy unhappiness."

"That's no fortune. That's a saying. Why don't they just call them 'saying cookies'? Is yours a fortune? Lemme see. Wait. Read it out loud. I forgot that I forgot my glasses."

After having calculated our waiter's tip (10% to the penny, but generously rounded up if it came out to be a fraction), Nanny would excuse herself to go to the bathroom.

"I have to fix my face," she'd say.

"What's broken?" I'd ask.

"Very funny. Remind me to laugh later. Meanwhile, just sit here and behave for a few minutes. Don't embarrass me."

She'd fold her napkin on the table, and rise with a disparaging remark about her girdle. But as she walked toward the restroom, she'd hold her head up proudly, and smile at the patrons that she passed. Another dinner had been conquered. While she was gone, I'd sheepishly sneak a sip of my tea, which — after having had an hour to cool off — would finally be drinkable.

What Clown Called Me the "Pussy-minator"?

[Note: Well, I got tagged by Slut with a meme: “Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.” But I hate memes. Still ... Back in December, I shared An Atheist’s Christmas Memory, in which I talked about my grandmother. Some of my readers urged me to post more about her, so here’s another Nanny story. If you're a stickler for following directions literally, you ought to be able to dig out at least six non-important things about me by reading this.]

Nanny's bizarre idea of a good time was taking me on a bus ride up and down the Bronx's Grand Concourse. We never had a specific destination; these trips were her urban equivalent of the Cruise to Nowhere. The route of the Number 2 passed through its own sea of interesting island stopovers: Poe Cottage, Alexander's department store, Krum's ice cream parlor, the Loew's Paradise, the Bronx County Courthouse, and, only a few blocks away, Yankee Stadium. But we never debarked. Once we boarded at the junction of Snake Hill and Sedgewick Avenue, we just headed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, like prisoners of the transit system.

We'd make our plans on the telephone. Mom would have already told Nanny I'd go with her, so it was no use my pleading a previous appointment, or claiming that I was sick. As I talked on the phone, I'd make glowering faces at Mom, maybe even shake my fist, and mouth "I'm gonna kill you!" Mom never took offense; she usually had to rush out of the room to keep from laughing out loud.

"So I'll pick you up at 11 tomorrow morning, Pussyboy."

"You're not gonna call me 'Pussyboy' all day, are you?"

"Believe me, there are plenty of children around who wish they had a grandmother to call them 'Pussyboy.'"

"Name one."

“How do I know their names? What do I look like, a phone book? But believe me there are plenty. So what should I call you? 'Joe Shmoe?'"

"It's better than 'Pussyboy.'"

"Listen, don't tell me what to call you. I'll call you what I call you. If I remember — if — maybe I'll try not to call you 'Pussyboy.' But only if."

On the day of our ride, both of us would "dress up nice," Nanny out of choice. I would have been wrestled into a suit earlier in the afternoon by Mom. In those days, my garments were usually too large because Mom shopped at the "He'll Grow Into It" boutique. She must have had grandiose expectations for me, because the crotch of my pants never fit; it frequently hung down to my knees. I'd have to spend a few minutes hunting for myself whenever I went to the bathroom.

But to Nanny, I was always, "Nice. Very snazzy."

For our date, she always sported her usual overdose of bright red lipstick and a coat of face powder so thick it could hide her blemishes from a dust mite. Before picking me up, she would have shpritzed herself with enough perfume to keep a French whorehouse in business for a year. And of course, her body would be squeezed into her "two-way stretch," tight skirt, and high heels. Nanny was not a person who was comfortable being comfortable.

While waiting for the bus to appear, we'd make talk so small that it was minuscule: how handsome I'd be if only I didn't have my father's lips, how much better I'd look in my suit if only I could keep my shirt tucked into my pants, how tall I'd be if only I could stand up straight instead of slouching like a caveman — “is that so hard?"

Invariably, some wiseguy friend of mine would manage to pass just as Nanny was licking her finger to clean an imaginary smudge off my cheek. But she was not one to be discouraged by a deflective action.

"Whattaya pushing me away? You got shmutz."

"Just tell me where. I'll clean it myself."

"Since when can you see your own face? Stand still, Pussyboy. Oh, excuse me. Stand still, Joe Shmoe."

When the bus would finally arrive, she'd pay our fares and leave me standing next to the driver while she scouted. We got on at one of the first stops, so there were always plenty of available doubles; but Nanny had to walk up and down the aisles, checking out the cleanliness of the "chairs," calibrating the exact distance from both the front and the back of the bus, and, because she couldn't stand circulating air, making sure that the windows weren't stuck open even a chink. Finally, she would plop herself down in the aisle seat of a pair, and call to me in a loud voice. "Pussyboy! Joe Shmoe! Come on, already, somebody'll take this. Listen, you'll have to climb over me. I need the extra space for my corns. My feet are killing me."

Once I was seated, she'd ask me to hold her "bag" for a minute, while she got herself "arranged." I never understood what, exactly, arranging was, but as practiced by Nanny, it involved about five minutes of bouncing up and down and saying "Uy." The whole time, I’d be sitting there with an actual woman’s purse on my lap. A young boy is incapable of doing that without feeling as if the whole world thinks he’s a drag queen.

"What's in this thing anyway? It weighs a ton."

"Never mind. Just sit up straight."

But we both knew what was in her purse. It was always heavy with make-up and medicines: eyebrow pencils in three or four different shades of black, a tin of Bufferin, countless rolls of Tums, rouges and lipsticks and nail polishes in every garish variation of red imaginable, packets of Alka-Seltzer, dried-out mascara, a tape measure no one had ever used, a couple of completely abraded emery boards, loose corn plasters, a cracked mirror, half a dozen unmatched earrings, a few small atomizers of perfume. Nestled into the easily reachable side pockets were two packs of Winstons, both torn open. Near the bottom lurked a package of Charms candy and a box of pepsin-flavored Chiclets, each piece tasting suspiciously of My Sin. Somewhere in the mix was hidden a lurid paperback bestseller, wrapped in a blue plastic cover because it was "nobody's business what I read." All these items were buried under layers and layers of loose tissues, the leftovers from colds going back to the 1920s.

Usually, there was also a "surprise": a half-eaten giant Hershey's with almonds, ostensibly for me.

"I got you some nice chocolate. Y'want? It's a little melty cause I opened it on the way over, and nibbled a little bit. I just took a small taste. You don't mind, right? Don't wipe your hands on your pants. You need, I got Kleenex."

Whenever somebody would board the bus, Nanny would stage-whisper a critique of his or her looks: "Uy, get a load of the bald head on this one. I bet you can see yourself in it." Or: "If I had a shnozz like that I'd join the circus." Then we'd both laugh and share a square of chocolate.

"I don't know how she doesn't fly away with that hat. (Mmmmm, I got one with a lotta nuts.) This is some faygeleh with the swishy walk. Maybe he'll want I should lend him my lipstick. (How's your nuts? Did you get any?) Who does she think she's kidding with that dye job? (You done? I'm just gonna have one more piece to even it out.) What, we all need to see this shmendrick with his zipper open? (Where's my Tums?)"

I hardly ever contributed to these running commentaries. On the rare occasions when I did dare to say something, Nanny would stare at me in disbelief.

"Hey, Nanny, look at that fat guy!"

"Shhhh."

"He's pretty big, right?"

"I told you shhhh. He'll hear you. What are you, so perfect?"

As the man would pass us and glower in my direction, Nanny would point at me and explain, "My grandson. Eight. What's on his lung is on his tongue. They don't teach them any manners today. Sorry."

When an attractive woman got on, Nanny would incline her head in the direction of the newcomer and ask, "Who's prettier? Me or her?"

I knew that my sister, when confronted with this question, would always say, "Oh, you are, Nanny!" Then they'd exchange kisses, and that would be that. Maybe they'd even stop at Krum's for a sundae.

But I was older, and I'd been taught by Mom and Dad to always tell the truth.

"So? Who's prettier? Me or her?"

"Her."

"Very nice. It's so hard to pay somebody a compliment?"

"You asked me a question."

"Yeah, and she buys you Hershey's?"

"You didn't ask me that. You asked who was prettier. You want me to lie?"

"Such a smart aleck. But you're not so smart when it comes to cleaning behind your ears, are you? Maybe that dame will go for you when she sees the potatoes growing back there. Who knows? Maybe she likes potato salad. Should I ask her?"

I'd pray that the woman would head well past us, toward the rear of the bus. But most of the time she'd slither into the seat right in front, or directly in back, or immediately across the aisle. If the vehicle was crowded, she'd always find an empty strap to hang onto right beside us, her ample breasts swaying over our heads whenever we hit a pothole or lurched to a stop. Every near-poke in the head would elicit a muttered comment: "Uy, it's a wonder she doesn't kill somebody with those things."

Nanny never followed through on her threat to confront the woman with a report on my cleanliness, but I always spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes staring fixedly out the window.

"Whattaya looking at with so much concentration? You never saw buildings before?"

"I ... um ... never noticed that one over there."

"A brown apartment. So what?"

"I think it's ... um ... interesting."

“What are you, an architect all of a sudden? Since when are you interested in buildings? You can’t even stack two blocks together without one of them falling over."

"I just like it, OK?"

"You want a Charm?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Gum? You want a Chiclet?"

"No thanks."

"You always like Chiclets. Don't you like Chiclets? You like Chiclets. These are your favorite flavor. Blue. First you’re too good for Pussyboy, and now you’re also too good for Chiclets? Take one."

"No thanks."

"More Hershey's?"

"I'm not hungry."

Then Nanny would lean over to the good-looking woman, wherever she was situated, and say, "Look at this little Joe Shmoe. Y'ever hear of a boy who didn't want Hershey's?" Before I knew what was happening, the stranger would be sharing our candy, and using Nanny's aroma-doused tissues to wipe her hands.

When the woman eventually did get off the bus, Nanny would turn to me and say, "She seemed like such a nice lady. Can you explain to me please why she needs to show off her bust like that? And just out of curiosity: Who has a better shape, me or her?"

I wish I could report that I'd learned my lesson. But if you know me at all, you're aware that I never did. Even with my years and years of accumulated wisdom, if my grandmother were alive today to ask me that question, my answer would still be: "her."

But I would take a Chiclet. Particularly if it was my favorite flavor, blue.

An Atheist's Christmas Memory

So many atheist bloggers have written about their Christmas memories, leftovers from the days when they were believers. As I’ve mentioned many times, I was never a believer, and even if I had been, my family was Jewish. For my ancestors, the arrival of a bearded Gentile in a bright red uniform, laughing maniacally and swinging a heavy bag, would not have been a pleasant sight; it would have been another pogrom.

Still, though, I actually do have some fond recollections of the season, not the least of which is my yearly excursion with my grandmother from the Bronx into the heart of Manhattan. When I was a boy, Nanny took me every year to see a nighttime Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall. This was back in the days when the alleged main attraction was a big-budget first-run movie. But there was also a live stage show and the usual assortment of cartoons, shorts, and newsreels. The full program lasted at least three hours, and was well worth waiting for. And half the world seemed to think so.

We’d stand, Nanny and I, excited and freezing, outside the theater for an eternity, sometimes lasting almost two hours. The long line we were in would snake up and down and around the block, moving just a few feet every now and then until the movie or the stage show had reached an end. Then, as Nanny would say, we’d make “some serious progress.” If we were luckily unlucky enough to be stuck near the back of that line — and we always were — we’d have a great view of the hypnotic Rockefeller Center Tree. I found dozens of ways to stare at those lights to make them look different. I squinted. I turned sideways and peeked out of my peripheral vision. I pulled down my upper eyelids to create a curtain of tears. I closed my eyes really tight until I could see shapes, and then I opened them superfast to find those shapes floating on the tree. I tilted my head all the way over till it touched my shoulder; then I repeated that action in the other direction.

Even Nanny tried to embellish the view. She always wore a hat with a veil, and she’d stare through it at the lights. After a while, she’d lift the veil and gaze at the tree again. When she thought that none of the million other people were looking at her, she’d alternately lift and drop the veil quickly for a few rounds, as if she were playing a frenzied game of peek-a-boo with a giant plant.

Every three minutes or so, she’d ask me, “You warm enough?”

“Yeah.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“How can you be warm enough in that shmatta coat? You need a heavier one. Or something under. Whatever happened to that nice cardigan I crocheted for you?”

That cardigan would be home in my closet because, as Nanny whispered to my mother once, “I’m not from the measurers.” This was her way of saying that the sleeves ran from my apartment in the Bronx all the way to New Hampshire. She sometimes claimed that she made these things a “little long,” so I could grow into them. But I never did. Even if I’d gotten so big that the bottom of the sweater was up around the middle of my chest, there was no way the sleeves would fit anyone other than King Kong.

Finally, she’d say, “Awright. OK. Be cold. Do what you wanna, just don’t come crying to me next week when you’re sneezing and coughing. If I was your mother, you’d have a cardigan on, believe me. So what if you have to roll up the arms a little?”

Then she’d produce a thermos from the laundry bag she called her purse. “Here,” she’d say. “You’re cold. Have some cocoa. But only if you’re cold.”

“Well, I’m just a little bit cold.”

“So you are cold. Didn’t I tell you you were cold?”

She’d unscrew the lid from the thermos, and turn that lid upside-down to transform it, magically, into a cup. Steam would come rising up, warming my face as I stuck my nose as close as I could to the chocolate-scented mist. Then Nanny would pour some of the piping hot liquid, and take a healthy sip, leaving a smear of bright, red lipstick on the rim. When she’d pass the cup over to me, I’d use my gloved fingers to wipe off as much of the lipstick as I could.

“Whatsa matter? You’re afraid of my mouth? I’m your grandmother, f’heavensake. Drink from the other side if you’re so scared of germs. Believe me, in this dirty air, the other germs wish they could be as clean as mine. How come you’re not so scared of germs when it comes to wearing a nice cardigan?”

Nanny had a fakir’s tongue that could dance across hot coals. But when I’d sample some of the cocoa, I’d burn my lips. Then I’d start blowing furiously into the cup.

“Is the cocoa hot enough?”

“Yeah,” I’d say. “It’s boiling.”

“It’s not hot enough. But drink it anyway.”

As the line would move along, I’d become one with the billions of city lights flickering on and off in the surrounding buildings, reflected in car windows, glass doors, people’s glasses; the sound of Salvation Army bells ringing urgently all around me; the smell of chestnuts from the vendors’ carts nearby, the bite of a cold gust sneaking under the earflaps on my hat, and the taste of cocoa mingled with lipstick. It never occurred to me back then that there were unfortunate boys elsewhere in the country whose grandmothers took them to see movies at places where they walked right up to the ticket window, paid their money, and went in.

When Nanny and I finally got all the way to the main lobby of Radio City, she’d grab my hand and lead me up the enormous staircase to the balcony, which in those days was also the smoking section. With the help of rows of little lights shining from the backs of the seats, we’d find our way to the best place. Nanny always picked a seat right behind the one that would soon be occupied by the woman with the most gigantic hat ever seen. When that villainess would finally show up, Nanny would tap me on the shoulder and stage-whisper, “Uy. Y’see this hat? It’s a wonder her head isn’t crushed.”

“What hat?”

“Shhh.”

“Just tell me, what hat are you talking about?”

“Shhh. I’ll tell you later. Can you see all right? Or is it BLOCKING YOUR VIEW, TOO?”

Nanny would grumble about the lady in the hat for a while, and maybe even throw in a few nasty remarks about the tall fidgety teenager behind her who kept bumping her seat with his feet, or the old bald man sitting next to her who couldn’t stop passing gas.

But I never noticed them, because there was an exceptional holiday glow in this elevated region, a shimmering constellation of yellow chair-lamp beams and vivid orange dots emanating from hundreds of cigarettes. Candy wrappers crinkled everywhere, including in my seat, because Nanny never forgot to load her bag with a giant-size Hershey bar with almonds and enough sucking candy to moisten the throats of all the children and grandmothers in the tri-state area. The air was thick with smoke and perfume and peppermint and just a tiny bit of resisted slumber, and, although I didn’t know it at the time, I was about as contented as I’d ever be.

All Right, So Make it the Bronx

I’m not a big fan of blogging memes, because – let’s face it – they’re not really memes. Also, ever since I’ve started being hit with these things, I’ve been dying to use the pun title Meme Me in St. Louis. But the fact that I’ve never been to that city makes the gag seem inappropriate.

Still, I’ve been tagged by both OzAtheist and ordinary girl to take part in the “memory meme.” Since I put off my good friend OG the last time she tagged me, I’m not gonna snub her again. Ozatheist, a more recent acquaintance, gets a free ride on her coattails.

Anyway, The rules are:

1. Describe your earliest memory where this memory is clear, and where "clear" means you can depict at least three details;
2. Give an estimate of how old you were at this age; and
3. Tag five other bloggers with this meme.

I’m gonna tell you in advance that I won't be tagging anybody, so don’t go scrambling to find your name at the bottom of this post. If you haven’t been tagged already, and want to be, either consider yourself so, or send me an email and I’ll make the tag formal for the Atheosphere record books.

At my age, I sometimes have difficulty remembering what I did yesterday. So it’s almost impossible to sift through the mental clutter of my childhood, filled as it is with breakfast cereal jingles (all of which I can still sing on a dare), the tastes of sweets long ago taken off the market, and numerous instances of being told not to talk back. The child is father to the man, and I must admit that I still love to start the day with a bowl of crunchy goodness, stuff my face with cookies and candy and snack cakes, and talk back, not necessarily in that order.

I'm not able to pinpoint a specific incident that I can authoritatively say is my earliest memory. In general, though, I mostly remember watching a lot of TV. I mean a lot. This was back in the early 50s, and television was an amazing new toy. It was on constantly in my house.

When I was just four years old, in fact, I starred on my very own TV show. Hardly anyone knew about it except me. That was fine, though, because I was the only audience I cared about. From the time I woke up until the time I fell asleep, I kept up a running commentary for my sole viewer. "Notice the firemen on my pajamas this morning. Can we bring the camera in for a better look at them? Let's see if they've moved at all from where they were last night."

I was casual and personable, like Arthur Godfrey, who was ubiquitous on television and radio in the early '50s. Mom and I watched and listened to every one of his programs. Arthur Godfrey had a talent, rare in those days, of making housewives believe that he was talking directly to them. Mom sometimes answered questions that came over the airwaves. "I bet you like Lipton tea, doncha?" Arthur Godfrey would ask. "Not really," Mom would tell him, as she sipped her fifth cup of coffee.

I also asked questions during my continuous broadcast, and responded to them, too. "I bet you like chocolate milk, doncha?" "Oh, yeah, you can say that again."

Mom was entertained by this schizoid behavior. Occasionally, she allowed herself to appear on my show as what I called a "special guess."

"Let's ask Mom if she remembered to buy me Sugar Jets, shall we?"

"Well, Mr. Exterminator," she'd say, talking into the microphone that was my fist, "I think Sugar Jets are swell. But Rice Krinkles were on sale this week. I hope that's OK with the folks at home." Then she'd add, "Are you gonna sing something for us?"

Now and then, even Dad could be prevailed upon to make a cameo appearance. My father had aspirations, at one time, of being an opera singer. He had a wonderful tenor voice, but his dreams fell by the wayside when he had difficulty memorizing any aria other than "Vesti la Giubba" from Pagliacci. I liked hearing him sing that because there’s this “laugh, Clown, laugh” moment in it, where the grieving singer bursts into an ironic “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha.” My father could really milk that sucker for all it was worth.

Anyway, he’d usually oblige me. When he was finished, he'd shout into my hand, "Did you like that, folks? Did you? Well why don't you give me my own damn show, f'cryinoutloud! All I need is a coupla cue cards and I could be a star!"

This always got me annoyed because I thought it was inappropriate to compete with me during my personal airtime.

"Just kidding, people," I'd say.

"Are you apologizing for your father?" Dad would ask, actually getting angry. "Y'know, when I was a kid, if I ever apologized for my father, he'd give me something to really feel sorry about!"

"Honey," Mom would explain, "it's not a real show."

"Do me something, Baby," Dad would yell, "but real isn't an issue here. You don't apologize for a father. Ever! Not just on TV. Ever!"

Mom and Dad weren't the only ones who got into the act. Whenever Nanny, my mother’s mother, visited, I'd introduce her to my viewers. "Well will you look who's sitting in our studio audience, ladies and gentlemen? It's Nanny. Why don't you stand up, Nanny, and take a bow?"

She'd cover my little hand/mike with her palm so nobody else could hear. "Do me a favor, and tell them: I hadda stand on the subway the whole ride here, my feet are killing me, I'm not that big a celebrity they need to make such a fuss. I'll just sit and wave."

"Nanny, everyone!" I'd cheer.

Mom would applaud. Dad would shake his head and mutter, "That's some pffffffff program you got there. " By “pfffffff” he meant “fucking,” but I didn’t figure that out until much later, long after the network of imagination had cancelled my show.

Too Heavy

I haven’t included anything personal on this blog yet. That doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t love talking about myself, but I’ve been trying to remain “pure” to “my mission.” Still, a few people have asked me recently when and why I happened to decide that there was no god. I’m not really sure how to answer that, but maybe the following snippet from my memoir will do.

Dad was an atheist, not so much because of any deeply held philosophical convictions, but because he was suspicious of perfection. In his worldview, an omnipotent being was impossible. And he could prove it!

“Listen,” he once asked me during dinner, “if god can do everything, can he make a rock too heavy for himself to lift?” Dad sat back, with his hands smugly folded across his chest, and watched in exultation as five-year-old-me struggled with metaphysics.

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“But if he can’t lift it, then he can’t do everything. Can he? Hah? Can he?”

“Umm. Ok, I guess he can’t make a rock like that.”

Dad was triumphant. “Then he still can’t do everything. Right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Well,” I challenged, “who says he can do everything? Maybe there’s some stuff he can’t do.”

“And what kinda god is that to have?” Dad asked. “You want a god who can’t do everything? He’s god, f’Chrissake. You hear me? That’s his job. He oughta be able to knock off whatever dumb task you can think of. Otherwise, he’s just some shmendrick in the sky.”

I wasn’t willing to give in. “Well,” I said, “maybe he can make a rock that’s really, really hard for him to lift, but if he doesn’t give up, and keeps trying, over and over again, maybe he can finally lift it. What about that, Dad?”

Dad didn’t buy it. “You’re getting god mixed up with your little engine that could. I’m telling you, there’s no god. Believe me, nobody’s that perfect.”

I have to confess that I wasn’t completely won over to his point of view, because my mother interceded with a session of heavy eye-rolling.

“Put your eyes back in your head, Honey,” my father pleaded with her. “I’m trying to teach the kid something important here.”

But at our kitchen table, Mom’s facial expressions always trumped Dad’s words. Still, instead of chomping on her inedible meat loaf, I chewed on what he said. Silently, of course.

At this time in my life, I was already a trouble-maker, and I had gone up often against my kindergarten teacher, Miss von Steuben. This neo-Nazi was particularly hot on the concept of “good citizenship,” and, apparently, I was not a good citizen. Maybe this was because I chose not to color between the lines, or it could have been that I just didn’t think skipping to music was a worthwhile activity. Notes went back and forth between Miss von Steuben and my parents. If I didn’t learn to behave, she told them, I might be forced to repeat the grade.

Mom and Dad both pleaded with me to mend my ways. “Just do whatever the old bag tells you,” Dad said. “Is that gonna hurt you so much?”

It took a lot of doing, and a parent-teacher meeting at which my mother cried, but eventually I improved my citizenship. After that, Miss von Steuben went out of her way to commend me whenever I was sufficiently brain-dead to suit her. “Your conduct was perfect today,” she would say. Having lived for over five years with Dad, I found that impossible to believe. But I’d smile meekly and answer “Thank you, Miss von Steuben.” This went on for about three weeks.

So I guess I caught everyone — Miss von Steuben, Mom and Dad, and even some of my classmates’ parents — by surprise on the day that I dropped the burden of perfection with a permanent plunk. It was early in the morning, and Miss von Steuben, as she did occasionally, was reading a psalm to the class. This was back in the days when religious indoctrination was considered patriotic, and not just by theocratic right-wingers.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Put your hand down, young man, until I’m done. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth ... I see you waving, but now is a time for the pupils to just sit and listen. Do you need the hall pass?”

“I have to ask you a question, Miss von Steuben.”

“This is the bible. Is your question more important than the bible?”

I thought it was. “If god can do everything,” I blurted out, “can he make a rock too heavy for himself to lift?”

I don’t remember Miss von Steuben’s exact response, although her horrified look is still burned indelibly into my mind. I do know that Mom bawled like a baby during her subsequent chat with my teacher. Dad, oddly enough, never said a word to me about it. He must have known that I’d suddenly become a fellow atheist.