Lunch With Rhea

[sd gross]

:spaghetti :

Lunch With Rhea
by Stephen D. Gross

There was a woman who lived down the hall from us, Rhea Altschuler. She had two sweet kids, a simple turnip of a husband named Dave, and lots of troubles. The kids, cute little extras from a Tod Browning movie named Sharon and Milton, related to their world with a consciousness which lay somewhere between that of a chicken and an eggplant.

Dave was hard working, not bad looking, and kind, except when he came home drunk, which was most of the time. Because he was also what we neighborhood brats called "swampy between the ears", it was hard to tell when he was being Dave, and when he was fermenting. Another thing was, he was married to Rhea.

Rhea was a heaving, panting mass, 330 lbs or more, scary to see getting into the elevator behind you. The rickety, old Otis had a brass shield which warned, "Max. Capacity - One Rhea", I would tell my friends. The little orange frizz she sported on top was the kicker. She had kinky, Little Orphan Annie hair from which streams of sweat trickled, unimpeded by eyebrows, down into her eyes. She constantly daubed at them; soft, almondy, fawn like, but so swinishly close together, bending her massive arms at the elbow so the flabby triceps hung like the neck pouch of a bull moose, and flapped loosely as she rubbed. Her asthma made her wheeze, she'd had a triple hernia operation, Mom told me, and her heart badly needed a vacation.

Like a family of evolutionary throw-backs , the Altschulers were easy to talk to, but better to avoid. The neighborhood kids made fun of them, they all smelled peculiar, and nobody took them very seriously. They were a family of demented clowns who forgot to remove their circus-brains and missed the Ringling Brothers' migration to Sarasota.

But my deeply compassionate mom felt sorry for the poor Altschulers. They couldn't help the way they were, she told me; they don't have a clue how they come across to people. They're just acting natural, being themselves. Just thank God you weren't born that way.... I almost fell off the floor!

Sharon, who at twelve was a couple of years my senior, had her mom's kinky, wild, red clown hair. It ate combs like a hungry barracuda. Her idiot mask was a permanent grin offset by a blaze of freckles which raged, like wildflowers, over every visible bit of her skin. Her voice was a nasally honk, a goose with sinus problems, and a thin trickle of drool swung pendulously from the corner of her mouth when she spoke. Not known for their compassion and kindness, ten- and eleven-year -olds love to swarm and sting the weak and helpless. Mom pitied Sharon. She couldn't tell the other kids how to behave, but she certainly let me know when I was being predatory.

Milton had the look of someone with limitless wisdom and smiled a lot, but to his credit, he hardly ever said anything. It was better that way. He looked more "normal" than the other Altschuler's - he beamed at everyone even if they mocked him or made derisive remarks. It wasn't that he was practicing tolerance - he just didn't understand what they were saying. So it never bothered him.

Rhea was the one I saw most of. With her frizzed hair, and enormous full moon face she rained sweat on even the coolest days. She always wore house slippers and Muu-Muus and Mom told me she had to because she weighed 330 pounds. She had terrible problems with Asthma, which caused her to make wet, pneumonic noises, even when she was sitting still. Dave would come home on the back of a Pink Elephant, and we'd hear his loud abusive ranting echoing down the third-floor hall. I often wondered if the tenants on the sixth floor and the first floor of our roachy tenement could hear him, as well. I was sure they could but I needed to check it out, so one night when his raving was bouncing through the hallways with some vigor, I stole down the hall and walked up the rank stairs at the end of the corridor. It always made me a little nervous, walking up the stairs at night, because of the dark nooks under the stairs which provided ample hiding places for goblins, demons or whatever cannibals chose to hide there. Coming down the stairs, I always ran really fast, often taking three steps at a time (mostly two), so the goblins and hungry gypsies wouldn't have time to reach out and grab me by the ankle. It was going up that I worried about.

As I traipsed down the hall, Dave's high pitched voice cut through the Altschuler's green metal door like a shiv through Jell-O. I could hear Rhea's protests rising and falling like disturbed and restless waves. The flock of Canada Geese packed into their tiny kitchen was just poor Sharon honking her miserable disapproval; Milton sweetly grinned as he grunted in confusion.

I hustled up the stairs to the fourth, and then the fifth and sixth floors. The distance hardly dulled his voice at all. I didn't think it would. So I walked up the last flight. Extremely dark and foreboding, it led to the door which opened onto the roof and always slammed shut with a clanging finality, as if it was never going to let you pass through it again. I pushed the heavy door open and moved away toward the roof's edge as it boomed shut. Gone were Dave's strident tones. Silenced was Rhea's modulated kvetching.

The April night was cool and bright. Yellow lights trickled sadly from the Kingsbridge Veteran's Hospital across the Harlem River. The trio of stained brick smokestacks crowning the Sanitation Department's Incinerator rose three hundred feet above the tracks of the 7th Avenue El. Day and night they belched noxious fumes of cremated tricycles, chicken bones and charred bean cans. A mile to the south, the necklace of lamps studding the George Washington bridge twinkled their way across the Hudson to New Jersey. Those lights caught my eye - captured my imagination. I'd stand there following that golden chain beyond the river, through the salt marshes and mud flats, past the pig farms and petrochemical plants, and across the Ben Franklin bridge into Philadelphia. I wouldn't stop there - I'd continue through the Delaware Gap, charge through Ohio and Indiana, streak across the fragrant, budding farmlands of Illinois and Missouri, bound over the Mississippi and not stop until I'd scaled the Dark Mysterious Rockies, streaked across Nevada and Utah's ragged crustiness and slid down the hoary Sierra and all the way through the Sacramento Valley to San Francisco. Some nights it was all I could do to keep from flinging myself off into the clean, cobalt blue space that hung out there, inviting me to become part of it.

Then I'd think about Mom down on the third floor cooking up some Chef Boyardee and wondering where her sonny boy was, and I'd make my way over to the roof door, certain that this time it wouldn't open. But it always did. I wondered if the Altschulers would still be embroiled in battle. You couldn't tell from the roof side of the door. I guess I'd been up there awhile; Dave had either drifted into a stupor or he was eating. The deteriorating brick warren tagged 5025 Broadway was at peace once again.

Mom felt sorry for Rhea. She was saddened by the way Dave hollered at her and the kids. She thanked God that her kid's I.Q. was at least, bigger than his waistline. Rhea, with her triple-hernia operation, her Asthma, her diabetes and her simple little children. Rhea of the Great Sweats. Because Mom always took the time to listen to her, Rhea came often to our house to share her misery. Mom would stop what she was doing, and invite Rhea to balance herself on one of our wood-grained vinyl dining room chairs. She would break out the Yuban while Rhea's huge forearms engulfed the blonde, wood-grained Formica table. Sometimes Rhea would lower her Rhino-like head onto her enormous arms and sob. Giant, wracking sobs that were so low you could barely hear them - but intense enough to rattle the pots and dishes in their cabinets and the roaches resting in their midnight crevices. I didn't dislike this woman - my mother had taught me not to. So what if she looked like a Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloon? Who cared that she weighed more than the elderly Bramleys next door and the arrogant Cohen tribe across the hall? I didn't care - except when I was eating - or about to eat.

I couldn't help it - she disgusted me. I didn't want to be disgusted by her. I even felt pity for her. Really, I did. But she moved in a sickly, sweet fog that was like the early stages of decomposition. And like a billion tiny fountains, her pores were always wide open. She gasped, and she huffed, and she panted and wheezed, and all these fine sprays of invisible spittle and malevolent germs would ride the moist winds she created. It turned my stomach. What could I do? It wasn't so bad if I wasn't about to confront a meal or do some noshing. I could go into my bedroom, crank up the old Sylvania and make believe she wasn't there. But her timing was impeccable.

I would learn that Dad was putting together Hungarian Goulash, or latkes or something that I really relished and looked forward to for dinner, and I'd wait for it to happen. I didn't consciously envision her wheeling out her door and down the hall, but my subconscious would play with the idea and tease me in a very nasty manner. I would imagine a giant, soft, slug-like alien shlurping like The Blob down dimly lit alleyways. I would be fleeing as it sluggishly pursued me, racing blindly into the blackness, plunging down nameless streets which held other, unthinkable terrors. But the milky, jellid glob would slither relentlessly toward me. A blind, embryonic form, hungrily sniffing me out.

Rhea would bang on the door just once and bellow my mother's name. "Pau-u-uline", the voice would reverberate off the flaking plaster walls, "PAU-U-ULINE!" Mom would open the door and there she was, heaving, wheezing and leaning against the door jamb for support. My appetite would vanish like a shadow when a great, dark cloud hides the sun. "Pauline I can't take it anymore - I can't take it....". "What's wrong, Rhea?", Mom always asked like she really wanted to know - "Sit down and I'll make coffee and you can tell me about it!" "Oy, Pauline, oy..." and she'd start to cry, but I was never sure when because the tears would mingle with the sweat and I couldn't tell them apart.

Often, while leaning against our tube-legged table for support, Rhea would quietly sob, rattling the glass butter dish and causing little white waves to wash across the surface of my glass of milk. It was more than I could take, and because I'd always been a very picky eater, Mom understood. She didn't mind if I took my food into my bedroom so "she and Rhea could talk about things." The problem was, Rhea's pungency lingered in my nostrils, I could still see her teary moon-face and her low, heavy sobs would send vibrations through the scarred oak flooring that lay between my privacy and the Flanagan brothers' bedroom down in 2B.

I felt pathos for Rhea - she was a powerful presence, yet pathetic and vulnerable. I'd often think of her as an inverted Galapagos Tortoise helplessly waving her leathery legs in an attempt to ward off the merciless sun. But, as ignoble as it may sound, I felt even sorrier for myself. It wasn't me walking into her apartment, ruining her appetite. I'd been in there only once - to deliver a bag of groceries from Beilkowitz' Market across the street.

It was one of those days when she wasn't feeling well - she had lots of those days. Dave was Downtown, and her kids were not yet capable of dealing with picking up a bag of groceries, so she'd called my mother to ask if I could help out. "Of course," said Mom, "Stevie wouldn't mind.." It wasn't a big deal and I didn't. I had A reputation for mannerliness, for holding doors open for people who were slowly approaching from two blocks away, for remembering and employing all those courteous responses that impress the neighborhood elders and make moms proud.

Arm's full, I knocked on Rhea's door with my foot and she groaned weakly which meant 'come in'. She reclined, half-consumed by an overstuffed easy chair, languorously lying with her eyes half-closed and her enormous head lolling over to one side. The second time I saw her in her apartment, she looked much the same.

It was late May and Mantle and the Yankees were off to another hot start. The Mick already had 19 round-trippers and we all expected the Bombers to repeat. I had my mind on watching that night's game against the White Sox when I came home from school for lunch. When I reached the third floor landing I saw two or three people standing around the hall talking and looking uncomfortable and nervous. I walked into our apartment and Mom quickly greeted me and gave me her "Your-grown-up-now-and-I-know-I-can-count-on-you". look. "I'd like you to check on Rhea", she said with a worried look. She'd gotten a phone call from Rhea's mother who lived in the Bronx. She had been speaking on the phone with Rhea when she suddenly announced, "Mom, I don't feel well...". and that was the end of the conversation. Rhea's mom couldn't get any further response so she called my mother and asked her to please check on her.

Mom had gone down the hall and banged on Rhea's door a few times, loudly calling her name so she would know who was knocking. But there had been no response. Sharon and Milton were expected home from school shortly, because they always came home for lunch. It was cheaper than the school cafeteria and there was less taunting. Mom had knocked and called her name again, and a few of the building's more curious tenants had come out of their apartments for the free entertainment.

I wasn't a lock pick, but I was small and capable of climbing out of one of the hallway's broken stained glass windows and out onto the fire escape, and that's what mom asked me to do. Damp, dark smells rose up from an inner courtyard which seldom saw any light. Raggedy clothes flapped, pennant-like on clotheslines strung between grimy windows. Rotting garbage spilled out of the two dozen coverless garbage cans that lined the alleyway. The acrid stench of horny tom cats who had liberally advertised their degree of machismo hung like a fog in the bat cave-like air. Our building's rear faced the backsides of several other tenement houses, and together they formed a sort of roofless cavern. I crawled onto the rusted flaking iron and worked my way past a few windows before I came to the one that looked in on the Altschulers' hovel. It was hard for me to avert my eyes and not look into the other apartments I passed, but I felt self-conscious - almost like an intruder.

I finally came to Rhea's and, fearing what I would find, hesitantly peeked in. It was so quiet and still in there - everything blending together in the dappled shadows. But then I saw her - and immediately, I looked away. I knew in a flash that she was dead. I didn't have to actually enter and take her pulse or hold a mirror up to her face (I'd seen them do that in a Gangbuster's movie recently). One quick look told me she was gone. All my life I'd seen that formidable mass heave and wheeze, gasp and moan, sigh and sweat, and now it wasn't doing any of those things. I didn't have to be a genius to figure it out. After my initial reaction, I struggled with my own emotions and forced myself to take another, longer peek. There she was, being swallowed by the same predatory chair, her head again lolling to the side - and her eyes only half closed. It was just like the first time I'd looked in on her, but this time she appeared as in a photograph. Very quiet - very still.

I was happy to get off that fire escape and climb back through the broken hallway window. The pigeons and squirrels seemed glad to have me out of the way, too. "Well?", said Mom, who already knew. "How is she?" "I think she's gone", I replied, reluctant to use the "D" word. Mom suspected as much but looked very upset by the news. More people had gathered in the hallway, and now they were making clucking noises and shaking their heads. "The kids are on their way home for lunch", Mom said to nobody in particular. I could see she was burdened by this thought, and not sure how to handle it. Fortunately, Dad was home and bravely took it upon himself to meet Rhea's kids and explain, as best he could, what had happened. Born in what used to be Austria-Hungary, dad's English was not very polished, and his tone was naturally, although unintentionally, gruff-sounding. But he was compassionate and very sweet, once you got to know him, and strong in situations that were shunned and feared by others. I stood around the hallway with the growing crowd of neighbors for a few minutes, until Mom suggested I head down the hall and have lunch before getting back to school.

I was quite relieved to be home with the door shut behind me. For now, the image of what I'd seen and all the ramifications of what it suggested, stayed on the other side. I felt bad for Rhea, for Dave who was Downtown doing what he did, not knowing his wife was dead. Not yet aware that he'd have to raise Sharon and Milton alone. I pitied Rhea's kids, pictured them trying to understand what Dad was telling them (probably about now), standing there with big foolish grins while trying to comprehend my father's words. I looked at my Swiss cheese and liverwurst sandwich but my appetite was out to lunch. Chalk another one up - her last - for Rhea, I muttered at the roaches poised on the refrigerator door. With all the misery creeping through 5025's rank hallways, I had almost forgotten to feel sorry for myself!