Alby - Introduction

I'm trying a different approach with my writing. I've decided to post my new book in chapters on this blog in the hopes of getting a wide readership. For many, the art of writing is cathartic. For me, it is not just the process of writing, but the knowledge that other people are reading my words. Everything I've ever written and anything I will ever write again has personal meaning. "Write what you know", the standard creed for authors, is evident in this, my very first BLOVEL (I've just coined a new word!!! Blog and novel!!! Consider this copyrighted!!!)

If you like what I write, please forward my blog to your family and friends and feel free to comment on anything at any time; my ego isn't fragile.

So here it is, the birth of my first BLOVEL.

In Memory of Albert Rich, H.B.E. (Human Being Extraordinaire)


"There are stars whose light reaches the earth only after they themselves have disintegrated. And there are individuals whose memory lights the world after they have passed from it. These lights shine in the darkest night and illumine for us the path . . ."

- Hannah Senesh
(The New Mahzor, page 568; Compiled and edited by Rabbi Sidney Greenberg and Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine; Consulting Editors Rabbit Irwin Grower and Rabbi Harold Kushner; The Prayer Book Press of Media Judaica, Bridgeport, CT; c 1978.
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The nurse’s name tag said JENNY and as she led the way, Alby and I took in our surroundings. The linoleum floors and painted walls of the center were white, and the only splash of color was in Alby’s cheeks. To look at him, you’d never know he was dying. We held hands, mine sweating, his warm and dry. Letters of gratitude from patients hung on a bulletin board and cheerful fabric daisies dangled from every door knob. There was a small food area, stocked with bagels and cream cheese.
“Make sure to get yours early – these bagels go really fast,” Jenny offered. Yeah, that was pretty much what I was worried about – would there be any bagels left for me? We continued what felt like an endless trek down the hallway that smelled of coffee and cancer. It made my nose hurt and the pain traveled down to my heart and made me want to cry.
With a smile and a welcoming motion of her hand, Jenny brought us into Room Number Seven. Strange, seven had always been my lucky number; two of my three children were born on the seventh of a month and during my first trip to Las Vegas with my father all those years ago I won $10.00 on number seven on the roulette wheel. My first thought was that seven might be lucky for my father, too. Maybe within these walls the chemicals were stronger than the cancer. We entered with trepidation, hope, prayer, and a lot of humor.
“Have a seat and make yourself comfortable, Mr. Rich,” the nurse said. Comfortable? You’ve got to be kidding. Without missing a beat my father replied, “I’d certainly be a lot more comfortable if you could get me a Chivas and soda; and hey, could you go light on the soda?” And that began our foray into a new world that would forever change the old one we’d lived in for so long.
Alby was diagnosed with Stage Four Adenocarcinoma of the lung, an ugly name for an even uglier disease. But if you knew Alby you’d know that there was nothing ugly about him. At five feet, five inches short, he was the tallest and most dignified person I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. “It ain’t the height and it ain’t the heft, it’s the heart,” he’d always say. He’d always say a lot of things.
















What a Pain in the Ass

As Jenny prepared the cocktail (unfortunately, NOT the Chivas and soda!) for Alby’s infusion, she dropped a glass vial on the floor. It shattered and the paper-thin shards dusted the floor like glittering talc. Alby began to laugh and said, “Hey, did I ever tell you the story…”

Before being called for service in the United States Army during World War II, I was an accounting student attending New York University. My Jewish immigrant parents from Russia, Samuel and Minnie, couldn’t afford to pay for my room and board so I was forced by circumstance to commute from Newark, New Jersey into Manhattan daily. I never complained because, to quote Lou Gehrig, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. My parents had never even completed a lower school education and here I was, a college man. The world was in my pocket.
On one particular evening, my friend Murray and I decided to share the expense of a city motel room so we could stay overnight and study for a big accounting test the next day. If we stayed in the city, we would have more time to concentrate on cramming without having the commute to worry about. We pooled our money and for about a buck we got a room in what was probably the dingiest and most bug-infested room in all of New York City. Even the bugs were looking for somewhere else to stay.
The only light was a single, low-watt light bulb dangling from the ceiling. It was so dim that it barely cast a shadow. You know how humid and thick the air can get around here? Well, the air was so stifling and heavy that we stripped down to our skivvies, opened the windows, and began an all-night studying session. Our dinner that night consisted of Nesbitt’s Orange Crush soda and two corned beef on rye sandwiches from the kosher deli and some cinnamon raisin ruggelach my mother had baked especially for us.
Murray and I tested one another on the ins and outs of Cost Accounting, from cost allocation systems to unit cost determinations. The soda, which had been cold when we first arrived, was turning into piss water from the heat in the room. But we kept studying and drinking the warm soda; a few hours into it, the lone bulb flickered and died, leaving us in the dark. It was bad enough there was no air conditioning and we were sweating like we’d just run a marathon, but now we couldn’t see past our own noses.
There was a black phone mounted to the wall and picking it up connected us directly to the front desk which, by the way, was nothing more than a small table with a bored college student earning a few cents an hour. I asked for a replacement bulb. Since studying was out of the question until the light was fixed, I decided to climb onto the bed and take down the bulb so when the desk manager came we’d be ready. I unscrewed it, put it down on the bed, and as I went to climb down, lost my footing and fell square on my ass onto the bulb. It shattered and slivers shot like bullets into my skin, piercing both butt-cheeks.
Try imagining how you’d feel if you walked through a row of thorns that tore your skin and you’ll have some idea of how I felt. I was moaning because all the tiny cuts felt like hot, burning pokers. I shouted to Murray, “You gotta help me. My ass is on fire!” But it was dark and he had nothing that could remove the glass splinters. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I was moaning so loud that Murray was unnerved. He didn’t know what else to do, so he had me lie across his lap and, in the dark, Murray put his face up as close as he could to my ass, began feeling for the glass, and used his fingers to pull out pieces one at a time.
“Get it out! Get it out!” I can remember yelling as the front desk manager walked through the door. This was the late 1930’s remember, not a particularly open-minded era, so when the young manager saw and heard what was going on, he naturally assumed something far from the truth and ran screaming down the hallway, leaving the replacement bulb rolling on the floor.
I can’t begin to tell you how hard we laughed. My ass was killing me but every time I thought about the horrified expression on that young guy’s face, I was reduced again to hysteria. Murray spent the rest of the night pulling out the splinters and laughing uncontrollably. We never did get to study after all. And you know what? We both got A’s. A for ass.

Jenny looked at Alby, put an arm around his shoulder and said, “Keep on telling stories like that and I might just grow to love you.”
She had no idea.