Dog Tags Read Online Free PDF Page A

and was swept back in time on a flood of perfumes, pastrami and corned beef, eddies of derma and chicken soup, a ripple of sturgeon; above the flood a light mist of beer and tea. He remembered an overheated, overupholstered living room in Brooklyn, a congregation of uncles and aunts orating a lost revolution, tea in glasses, exotic names. From infancy, it seemed, he had thought of Lenin as Ilyich. The day will come! When anybody can have in a shvarzeh one day a week! When no man will worry for food, shelter, a winter coat! What would it take, two thousand, three thousand a year? Nothing. With machines .
    Uncle Isaac: “And a pair teeth that fit .”
    Aunt Rose: “More sponge cake.”
    Uncle Jeremiah of the silky white mustache: “In the country. With chickens. You’ll see.”
    All: “Herzl.”
    Now Pinsky billowed toward them, all two hundred pounds, all five feet eight, Man Mountain Pinsky. Benny had remembered him as a Renaissance caricature, the harvest figure, carrot for nose, raisins for eyes, apples for cheeks, melon for chin, but Pinsky in the flesh surpassed his fantasy, Pinsky was a rebus, pickle-nosed, egg-eyed, beet-cheeked, potato-chinned, pumpkin-bellied: Pinsky and his life’s work were one.
    Beside Pinsky he saw 57359, skin and bones, for a second only, but how real! Benny blinked, perturbed, as he and Pinsky embraced. Pinsky, merely a lifelong friend, sobbed once. “You’re not hurt.”
    â€œI’m all right.”
    â€œThank God. You’ve filled out on that trash they feed you. Beans. Pork.” Pinsky shuddered like an aspic.
    â€œI’m big and hard.”
    â€œStrong as ever?”
    â€œStronger.”
    â€œThat’s pretty strong. How goes it, Jake?”
    â€œBenny’s back. How could it go?”
    Pinsky’s wide eyes gleamed; he giggled and jiggled. “Benny. Have a pickle.”
    Benny walked forward, tall and broad among the smaller ancients; Benny immense, alien. He swiped a plate from Pinsky’s counter and followed his memory, and then his nose, to the pickle barrel, the pickle barrel of myth, eternal and self-replenishing; on impulse he poured a handful of brine to the sawdusted floor: Thanks again, thou who art not. If God preferred gherkins? On such flaws and lapses empires fell. He fished with wooden tongs and landed a whopper. He knew then that he would never die, and bore it off in triumph. Jacob was seated, Pinsky hovered. “Anything you want, Benny. Name it. What you can’t get at Fort Mammoth.”
    They ordered. Benny wanted one of everything. “There’s Kantrowitz,” Jacob said. Waves, gestures, smiles. On each checkered cloth stood a jar of mustard, a family of small condiments, a cruet of vinegar. No sugar. Sugar upon request. Small pools of sound shimmered and spouted, babbling and cascading from table to table, wool, Roosevelt, Auschwitz, peg pants? from my shop? California weight. Pinsky, this is honey? Real honey, fum bees? A genius, Pinsky, a genius. “Aha,” Jacob crowed. “Karp, Karp, Karp. Sit.” Benny reached up to shake hands with Louis Karp, a small man, bald and skinny, who could be inconspicuous in a purple rayon suit. He glowed. “Benny, Benny. You’re all right?” All right. “Home for good?”
    â€œFor good. Hello, Mister Karp. You look good.”
    â€œDon’t ask,” Karp groaned. “I know things got to get worse before they get better. But always ?”
    â€œThat’s Trotsky,” Jacob gloated.
    Karp shrugged: “If the shoe pinch, fix it.” He cocked his head. “Benny. You’ll need clothes.” Karp was ffolliott Suitings. He sat down and sniffed at the mustard. “Fresh.”
    Jacob exhaled a classic raspberry. “Clothes he gets from me. From you overalls.”
    Karp chuckled. “With your Italian buttonholes. You’ll make him a balloon suit?”
    Jacob smiled at Benny and