There was standing room only at the I. J. Morris Funeral Chapel in Flatbush that bitter cold December day in 1968. The rain that morning had turned to sleet, but relatives and friends bundled up and came in from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and even Jersey, to pay their respects to my uncle Morty Sugarman, dead at fifty-eight.
The chapel itself was a sturdy one-story red brick building, squat and solid, its skinny windows let in meager shafts of somber yellow light. Outside, a concrete plaque set into the brick near the heavy double mahogany doors read, “Established by the Morris Bros. 1907.” The doors themselves were carved with the familiar likeness of Moses holding tight to the tablets, with a bony finger extended pointing the way to Israel, the Promised Land. The door’s rusting old hinges made low moaning sounds as they were pulled open again and again, letting in the new arrivals along with blasts of icy air.
Women bundled up like bears in the fur coats they’d gotten at nice discounts from Morty’s Salon on Fifth Avenue, greeted one another with kisses and tears, while the men shook hands and patted one another’s shoulders, shaking their heads in dismay at the unexpected death that brought them together.
A small framed notice on the back inside wall indicated that the room held a capacity of one hundred ninety three, a number that’d been surpassed ten minutes after the doors opened. Every pew was so tightly packed that the faded and flattened maroon upholstery on the benches was barely visible. Mortuary staff in black single breasted jackets and clip-on leather ties scampered back and forth to a side storage room, grabbing two folding chairs in each arm to hand to the men who had gallantly given up their seats and now stood leaning against the side walls of the room, while the late arriving elderly were already kvetching that their feet were killing them.
Soon, a stew of smells arose from the crowd. A mixture of steam heat, wet fur and rubber galoshes, all mingled with the formaldehyde of embalming fluid. The din grew louder as people kept coming in, grumbling because they couldn’t find an empty hanger on the overflowing coat rack. Women’s bracelets jangled, as they bent to unhinge the metal clasps on their galoshes, while the bone buttons on the men’s heavy wool coats clicked and scraped along the wooden pews. The air got thicker and the room got hotter and there were calls to “Turn off the heat and turn on the air-conditioning.” Women began to fan themselves with the prayer pamphlets, and someone behind us exclaimed in a choked voice, “I can hardly breathe!”
Respectful whispers were abandoned as people went up and down the aisles, greeting one another and searching for an empty seat. In addition to Morty’s pinochle and poker buddies, there was our enormous extended family plus dozens of business associates. Well dressed men in expensive camel hair coats that were the last to see him alive and now stood uncomplaining three deep in the back of the room.
Morty Sugarman, died just three days before in the famous Empire Room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Back then it was known as “A landmark of sophistication,” decorated with opulent brocade walls and draperies in Napoleon Blue, gold and white. The hand painted wall murals depicting life in the Royal French court were lit with lavish Austrian crystal chandeliers that hung from gilt chains attached to the twenty-five foot ceilings. That Saturday evening the Guarneri String Quartet, played lively pieces by Bach and Mozart, but their fervent fiddling was no match for the laughter and backslapping of the nearly two hundred men who greeted one another after a three year hiatus. Some had come from as far away as Alaska and Saskatchewan and a few with the right political connections and a longing to see New York had managed to get there from the USSR. All were fur men, wholesalers, retailers, designers and suppliers.
Morty was in the pink. Just back from a week of fun in the sun in Miami Beach with his Swedish girlfriend, Helga, and thrilled to be the keynote speaker that evening at the gala meeting and dinner of the North American Furrier’s Association. He had a healthy head of hair touched with gray that gave him a distinguished man of the world look, while his fresh Florida tan brought out his always mischievous blue eyes. Morty was a lover of the good life, a first class fur connoisseur, who relished good scotch, Cuban cigars and beautiful women. He went for the tall, slender, long legged types, with amiable personalities, who didn’t give a damn if the sink wasn’t rinsed out. On that night Morty looked especially sharp in his black tux with white cummerbund, appearing taller than his five foot seven, due in part to his ebullient personality and his custom-made Adler Elevator shoes.
Waiters in spotless white jackets and red trousers circulated through the crowd, pouring wines and offering trays of hors d’oeuvres with varieties of imported cheeses, pates and meats that included succulent pieces of barbecued pork wrapped in crisp bacon. Morty wasn’t interested in the cheese or the pates, but couldn’t resist the pork. It was a delicacy he loved, but seldom ate because of Jewish guilt and Edna, his wife, who would never bring traif into the house. Standing at the rear of the room Morty lifted two pieces of the forbidden food from a passing tray and stuffed both of them into his mouth luxuriating over the perfect combination of crisp and savory. At that very moment Milton Stern, the Association president, adjusted the mike and calling for attention, said, “Would our esteemed member “Morton Sugarman please come up to the head table.”
Chewing like crazy and worrying about shreds of pork getting caught in his front teeth, Morty walked at a good pace from the rear of the huge room. He was heading straight for the dais, wiping his mouth on the white handkerchief washed and ironed just that morning by his wife Edna, and feeling for the speech folded in the jacket pocket of his tux. To the background of sweet applause from his peers who were by now on their feet, Morty broke into graceful athletic jog.
An important supplier from Chicago, grizzled and overweight, who had broken his leg the week before, was sprawled at a table in Morty’s path. The leg encased in a plaster cast from thigh to ankle was resting on a chair with the crutch propped alongside. Moving at a good pace, Morty luckily spotted the obstacle and arced to the right, only to trip on a camouflaged bulge in the patterned carpeting, causing one of his elevated shoes to go flying and leaving him precariously balanced on one foot like a ballet dancer. Frantic to avoid falling he blindly grabbed at the plastered leg. The Chicago man let out a curdling scream of pain and so startled Morty, that he hit the floor face down and gasping, he inhaled the half chewed wad of pork and choked to death while those nearby ran around in circles yelling, “Get a doctor!”...
My uncle Morty was the go-getter in the family, a rebel and the youngest and cleverest of five sons. At sixteen he decided that school was a waste of his time. Always fascinated by fur, he started in the business as a delivery boy, entrusted with coats worth thousands which he’d deliver to wealthy matrons on the Upper East Side. Morty was a good looking kid, and many of the ladies were lonely and would invite him in for a coke, or “some milk and cake.” He liked to say that’s how he got his education in life’s three most important subjects; fur, women and sex. But now at fifty-eight he was up there on a mortuary stage lying in a plain pine coffin as required by Jewish religious law, his speech still folded into the jacket pocket of his tux.
Rabbi Gerald Silverman, the head of Temple Emanuel, stepped out like a magician, from behind the side curtain of the mortuary stage. He walked with dignified shoulders to the lectern, stopping to drape his white tallis gracefully over his black Brooks Brothers suit. He paused, adjusted his yarmulke and looking down at the crowd through his half-glasses, he clasped both nicely manicured hands together. Like unruly children when the teacher enters the room, we stopped talking in mid sentence and gazed up at him with full attention.
“Your presence here today is testimony to the love, shock and sorrow you all feel for this man Morton Isaac Sugarman,” he said, pointing to the coffin where we now all shifted our gaze, half expecting to see Morty sitting up and listening too. Then, with sorrowful eyes, he looked down at Edna. She was flanked by her sons, my twin twenty-five year old cousins Michael and Jason, who sat unmoving like well dressed store dummies.
“For close to thirty years, he continued, “this woman Edna Sugarman has been Morton’s devoted and faithful wife, and these young men, Michael and Jason, his pride and joy. A loving brother, a sincere friend, and an attentive son to his dear departed parents, may they rest in peace….”
Edna sat like a little Spartan soldier with head erect and shoulders back. Her pointy nose matched her pointy chin and the feather on her black velvet hat stood straight at attention as well. A dotted black veil hid her eyes, and the only hint of emotion was her hands that twisted and untwisted an embroidered handkerchief.
Everyone in the family knew that Morty was a player, a ladies man. But not one of us ever knew if Edna suspected because she never, ever let on. She was the kind who never raised her voice, always sat with her kneecaps tight together and wore the pasted-on smile of a Pat Nixon.
“A very private person,” was how my mother described her. ”And very, very clean.”
Morty used to joke that Edna kept the house so neat, that if he got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the bed would be made when he got back. Visiting them in their mansion up on the north shore wasn’t a relaxing outing. Shoes had to be removed at the front door and exchanged for slipper socks that were neatly piled on an antique table in the foyer. Edna usually made her entrance with a dusting rag in one hand, and you always had the feeling she was wiping fingerprints off of anything you’d touched. Her cooking was healthy, but pretty tasteless because she never used salt, and the table was cleared almost before you got the last bite down. Their home was a revolving door for servants who came and went, usually in a day or two because not one could live up to Edna’s expectations.
The room got hotter. The women’s makeup was streaking and men were mopping their brow, but Silverman droned on and on. Elaborating on Morty’s philanthropy and determined to name every charity he’d helped. Through it all, Edna kept an unwavering gaze on the Rabbi’s face. When Silverman finally paused to take a sip of water and seemed to be winding down, you could hear whispers of “Thank God!” Just then one of the back doors moaned open, letting in a welcome gust of icy air, while every head turned to see who it was arriving so late...
The startled murmurs began from the back and rolled forward swelling louder as the tall blonde wrapped in full length white ermine and wearing backless shoes with straps thin as spaghetti walked down the center aisle. Her platinum page boy was almost blinding beneath the mortuary’s low hanging fixtures. She wore oversized dark glasses that hid her eyes but accentuated her full red lips and adorable straight nose whose delicate nostrils were pink from the cold. She held the ermine tight around her with one leather gloved hand and with the other she clutched an evening bag fashioned with a clasp that sparkled like three carat diamonds. Her long shapely legs were sheathed in shiny silk stockings, and as her scent wafted over the room, men of all ages on both sides of the aisle jumped up to offer their seats as angry wives tugged at their husband’s jackets and hissed, “Sit down, and stop making a fool of yourself!”
Great Aunt Basha, an old woman deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, was seated on the aisle. She cocked her head to one side and squinted up as the blonde passed by and then asked in a booming voice, “Who is that?”
An equally old lady sitting next to Basha shouted back, “I don’t know… but to me she looks like a Marilyn Monroe.”
Those words shot like a missile through the crowd. Marilyn Monroe? People stood up, handbags slipped off laps and everyone turned, straining to see, while Rabbi Silverman knowing he’d lost the crowd leaned into the mike and said, “People, please, decorum is called for, please, resume your seats,”
He then descended the three steps from the podium and personally escorted the blonde to a space we made for her in the second row. By now everybody realized it wasn’t Marilyn. After all she’d been dead for six years. Silverman held up one hand for silence as the blonde draped the ermine around her shoulders, pulled her tight dress up a few inches, sat down and crossed her legs. Then she smiled up at him, as if to say, “You can proceed now.”
While everyone was watching Silverman seating the blonde, I glanced over at Edna. She’d lifted her veil maybe to get a better look or take in more air, because now she was staring at the blonde and breathing hard like a runner, her flat little chest heaving up and down. She muttered something like, “That’s it,” and stood up like a bolt, pushing past Jason and out into the aisle, while the feather on her hat kept time with her determined footsteps.
My mother sensing trouble slapped both her hands to her cheeks and said, “Oh boy, something is about to happen, oy vey, this is terrible.”
She turned to my father, frantic, saying, “Ben, do something!”
“Me? He said shrugging, “What should I do? Edna has a perfect right.”
While my parents argued back and forth the noise of the crowd got louder. Edna climbed the three steps and strode, thin arms swinging, past the coffin to the lectern, and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “I want to speak!”
The rabbi bent lower to whisper something to her, but Edna adamantly shook her little head “No,” so the Rabbi lowered the lectern, adjusted the mike and stepped aside.
You could hear a pin drop as Edna’s eyes slowly roamed over the rows left to right and back to front, seeming to ignore the blonde.
“Rabbi, she began, in a firm voice “You said some very nice things about Morty today and I thank you for that. But Rabbi you left something out.”
And with those words she walked right up to the coffin and cupping her hands she shouted, “Morty I don’t know if you can hear me.”
Everyone was aghast. “What is she doing” they whispered, “Has she gone bananas?”
Edna repeated her words, “Morty, I don’t know if you can hear me, because who knows what the dead can hear? But I need to tell you Morty, that you never fooled me for one minute!”
And, leaning close to the head of the coffin, she said, drawing out each word, “From the beginning I knew!
Then this bird of a woman turned and faced the crowd, raising her small hand for silence. When we’d quieted down, Edna looked right down at the blonde and said, “You have a lot of nerve coming here today, you tramp!”
My cousin Blanche, newly divorced yelled out from the back, “Let her have it Edna!”
For a few seconds Silverman was uncharacteristically speechless. Then making a fast recovery he put a long arm around Edna’s shoulders to both comfort and control her.
“Friends, please, let’s all quiet down,” he said while making frantic hand motions down to my father and uncles.
Rushing on stage they each grabbed tight to one of the brass handles and to the count of three, they lifted it up, maneuvering down the steps and up the center aisle…
Letting out a gasp, the blonde with a few quick movements of her long legs, jumped out in front of them, holding her arms out like a traffic cop, to block the procession. The ermine had slipped off her shoulders and we could see her breasts heaving like live kittens inside her dress.
“Morton loved me!” she yelled with a tinge of a Swedish accent. The pall bearers stopped and we all fell silent.
“He was good to me.” she continued, softer now. “And I loved him and was good to him for almost eight years.”
She sniffled, wiped away a tear, and pandemonium broke loose.
“Eight years” was repeated up and down the aisles.
“Well,” one woman said, “that’s as long as I was married to Harry.”
An old guy in the pew behind us said, “Eight years? He must have met her when she was in bobby socks. What a hot number!”
During the commotion one of the men from the fur association, walked up to the blonde. He offered her his handkerchief, helped her on with the ermine and taking her elbow, gently escorted her out a side door.
My father and his brothers continued their procession, carrying Morty up the aisle and out the old wooden doors. We all scrambled into our coats, hats and galoshes and with Rabbi Silverman in the lead, we marched out responsively reciting the Kaddish, the ancient Jewish prayer for the dead. Our words rang metallic and chiseled in the icy air, and we gingerly made our way over the slippery cobbled-stoned path to Morty’s grave.
BIO: Mona Panitz is retired and lives with her husband, Ed, in Naples, Long Beach. She was honored to be the recipient of the Drury Writer's Award last spring, and appreciates being included in Verdad. She credits her growth as a writer of short fiction to her participation in the Long Beach City College Creative Writing workshop and its teachers.
