Family Matters Read online

  Something that looked like a bomb, with Bogdan’s credentials, degrees from a top university abroad, and now a U.S. degree, would be just enough to cause him problems. Maybe even the threat of deportation. As his wife, she would help only if he would give up Sabeen. This is what Harriet was thinking as they wheeled their suitcases down the sidewalk to the car service office. You couldn’t just flag a taxi in south Brooklyn. Any travel required a trip to the car service office first to request a ride to the airport. They called them limousines, but they were old Lincolns. Most were missing basic features like covers for the ashtrays, floor mats, and switches to open the power door locks for passengers. The windows in the back seat would not open, and for a moment, Harriet struggled for fresh air as she thought about what would happen at the airport.

  When they checked in for the flight, Harriet showed her U.S. passport to the airline representative. Bogdan carefully took his green card out of his wallet and placed it on the counter next to his passport. He wiped his eyes with his hand again, smiled and said, “Allergies!” The uniformed woman behind the counter looked at the identification pages of their passports and Bogdan’s card. She smiled at Bogdan as she handed his documents back to him.

  “Bring the suitcases to the X-ray machine on the way to security.” The woman directed that comment at Harriet.

  They dropped off the checked bags and headed to security with their carry-ons. Harriet wondered how they could retrieve the bags when she and Bogdan were not allowed on the plane later.

  “Make sure you see your bag go into the X-ray machine before you move through the metal detector,” said a young male TSA officer.

  In line behind Bogdan, Harriet could see the gray plastic bins holding his shiny blue laptop, his backpack, and his shoes. In one bin, she placed her new travel bag, the daisies bright against the paisley print.

  Bogdan stopped for a moment before the bags went into the X-ray machine. He unzipped a pocket on his backpack and took out a plastic bag holding a bottle with some eye drops and a small blue box with a white prescription label on it. Harriet recognized the blue box from the shoe box that held the letters to Bogdan and the wedding band.

  “The eye drops I got from my doctor back home are just better,” he turned to her and said.

  Harriet blinked.

  The TSA agent prompted her. “Your shoes, ma’am, please remove your shoes.” Harriet slipped off her shoes and reached for another bin as the agent asked, “Do you have any liquids, gels, or aerosols in your bag?”

  Harriet shook her head.

  Bogdan reached towards the conveyor belt and pushed the bins through. He walked through the scanner and stopped to collect his backpack and computer. He picked up his shoes and started walking.

  Harriet prepared to follow him, but a young man with crutches, his leg in a cast, moved in front of her from the other security line.

  The conveyor belt stopped. Harriet remembered she had put her bottle of eye drops for Bogdan in her purse before they left. Liquids! That must be the reason the officer was looking at the screen for the X-ray machine so studiously. She thought she saw him mouth the words timer and cable. He signaled for another officer to come look at the screen. Harriet realized she had planned for everything but this.

  “Ma’am,” said a TSA agent as she asked Harriet to step off the line, “has anyone had access to your bags? Did anyone ask you to carry something for them?”

  “I have some eye drops. I can show you.” Harriet tried to move forward in the line. “My husband . . .” She gestured towards the area past the X-ray machines where happy travelers were reconnecting with their computers and purses and roller bags.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. We have some questions to ask about the contents of your bag.”

  As she followed the TSA agent, two police officers, a man and a woman, quickly appeared at Harriet’s side. “But, my husband . . . we’re going to miss our plane.”

  As the officers led her away from the security line, Harriet looked down the hallway leading to the gates and planes. She saw Bogdan. He had put his shoes back on and was walking quickly with his backpack, moving further and further away from her.

  THE KALUKI KINGS OF QUEENS

  Cathi Stoler

  AN Italian and a Jew sit down to play cards. They invite a few of their friends—a Hungarian, a Pole, and a Greek—to join them.

  I know, I know, it sounds like the start of a very bad joke, and in some ways it was. But to Grandpa Louie and Grandpa Shy it was deadly serious, a life and death game for the Kaluki Kings of Queens.

  Back in the day, they played the game all over the borough from Jackson Heights to Forest Hills to Rockaway at any synagogue or Knights of Columbus hall that had a couple of decks of cards.

  Didn’t know how to play? Not to worry. Shy and Louie would teach you and take your money. They became so well known, they were even asked to play with one of the former borough presidents. I’d bet he went home a little lighter in the wallet.

  If you don’t know Kaluki, it’s a glorified version of gin rummy with pretty much the same objective—to lay out all your cards and go out, leaving your opponents with piles of penalty points in their hands that turn into cash in your pocket.

  As Shy and Louie grew older, their road trips dwindled, but not their desire for Kaluki. So instead of traveling all over the borough, their games took place like clockwork every Saturday at noon in the Florida room of our house on Ransom Street in Bellrose, Queens.

  LOUIE, my dad’s dad, had intense dark brown eyes and black eyebrows that tilted toward the middle of his forehead when he frowned, which he did frequently as play progressed. On the chubby side, he’d amble over from his house a few blocks away where he lived with my Grandma Marie, who usually sent along something she baked especially for me. It was no wonder Louie was chubby. He never met a cake he didn’t love, and Grandma was a great baker. I was lucky if Mom got to the package first, and tucked it away before its contents disappeared.

  Shy, a tall, thin version of me with pale blue eyes that never missed a trick, was my mother’s dad. He lived with us and had ever since his wife, Grandma Flo, passed away a few years ago. Shy wasn’t as spry as Louie, so my mother didn’t like him going out on his own and preferred that they hold their game at our house.

  Once Mom was sure they were settled in, she’d head out for her Saturday afternoon manicure appointment. “Watch over them, Petey,” she’d tell me with a jut of her chin in their direction, especially if any of their cronies were joining the game. “Don’t let them get into any trouble,” she’d add and pat me on the head as she grabbed her purse and left.

  I’d watch her go, wondering who in her right mind would leave an eleven-year-old in charge of those two. I think she was afraid they’d raid the liquor cabinet, and get so drunk they’d wander onto the Cross Island Parkway. Believe me, if they had wanted booze, I sure wouldn’t have been able to stop them.

  Some afternoons, it was just the two of them, and then the fun really started.

  “Chidrule!”

  “Yuld!”

  “Take that,” Grandpa Louie would sneer, as he slapped down his first meld of forty-plus points.

  “Amateur,” Grandpa Shy’d spit back with his own fan of cards.

  Much as I resented having to stay in and mind them for the hour or so Mom was gone, watching them play their game was always an adventure. I’d start at the doorway, then slide a little closer with every pick of a card, until finally I was sitting between them, elbows resting on the table, holding my head in my hands, eyes swiveling from side to side, taking it all in.

  It was like observing two male lions in the wild, circling each other, prepared to fight to the death with false teeth bared. Well, these two were old and were lucky they still had a few teeth. Even so, I knew what was coming, and my stomach would start to churn in anticipation.

  “Live and learn, Sonny Boy,” Louie would toss my way as he laid off the rest of his cards and went out, leaving Shy with a fi
st full of penalty points.

  “Ahggh,” Shy would reply. “I’ll get you next time, you Behema.”

  Both of them hated to lose. It was humiliating, getting Chmalyered, as they called getting totally creamed, and anything was fair game—insults, name-calling, misdirection. The only thing neither one could tolerate was cheating.

  “You know what happens to cheats, don’t you?” Louie would ask me as he shuffled and reshuffled the cards.

  I’d nod my head, my breathing growing ragged and my hands sweating in anticipation of the answer, even though I’d heard it a hundred times before.

  “First you cut off his hand,” Shy would reply, making a slicing motion in the air. “His dealing hand.”

  “Next, you stab him in the heart,” Louie would add and poke a finger at my chest.

  “Then you bury him in the cellar,” they’d both finish together, chortling away.

  After this last pronouncement, they’d give each other a look I didn’t understand, their faces turning sly with something that scared the pants off me.

  For years, I’d been afraid to go down to the basement. The door was in the hall outside our kitchen, and whenever I went past it, I rattled the doorknob to make sure it was locked. My mother would frown, as if wondering how it had gotten locked again, as she opened it and reached for the mop or broom that hung at the top of the stairs.

  This was not a friendly basement, even without the grandpas’ scare tactics. Dark and unfinished, it had concrete walls and a dirt floor. Shelves lined most of the space and were filled with all the discarded stuff from upstairs. Boxes of clothes, games, old stereos, TVs, and furniture made it seem like a haunted house. At least it felt that way to me. It was creepy enough on its own and creepier still when I thought of my grandfathers’ words.

  Whenever Mom asked me to fetch something she needed from downstairs, I made an excuse, terrified some disembodied hand would rise up from the floor and whisper: “Tell your grandpas I’m coming to get them.”

  “Petey,” she’d demand, “just do it.” And I would go, holding my breath, darting down the stairs and back up again as quickly as possible, sweat beading on my forehead.

  I’d hand my mother whatever it was she wanted and swear to myself she could never make me go down there again.

  BY one-thirty or so on Saturdays, Mom would be home and calling for me to go out and play. I never wasted any time as I made my escape and ran to meet my friends at the park on the corner. God only knows what she would have done to the grandpas if she’d heard what they told me. Death seemed like a good possibility.

  Often, their buddies left over from their traveling game joined Louie and Shy—guys like Bernie Simon, Shy’s friend from the Star of David Schul on Musket Street. Fat Lou and Skinny Lou who ran the candy store on Braddock Avenue, and Uncle Bob and Gigi who lived on the block all came around, a rotating cast of die-hard Queens Kaluki players.

  The person who came by most often was Nick the Greek. He owned a coffee shop on Hillside Avenue and lived above it in a small apartment. He was a big man with a booming voice and loud laugh. He loved slapping down his cards with a loud Opa. the Greek toast for good luck.

  Once when I was about ten, Shy and I took a walk to Nick’s place, and he treated me to a fresh-baked apple turnover and a glass of milk. Nick waved off Shy’s request for a check, saying, “I’m making plenty off you already from Kaluki. This is on me.” Then he gave a big, bellowing laugh and punched Shy in the shoulder. Shy smiled, but I knew he didn’t like it. Not the free pastry, not the slur to his card playing.

  Nick always wore a giant, gold signet ring on his left hand that Grandpa Louie said was made from an ancient Greek coin. It had the face of one of those Olympian gods on the top and looked like it weighed about a pound. Even I could tell it was worth a bundle. Nick would rub it while they played, bragging about how it always brought him luck. Whenever he said that, Grandpa Shy would make a gagging noise and give him a nasty look.

  The last time I saw Nick, he’d won big, and neither of my grandpas was too happy about it. After he left, they sent me to the kitchen to get them each a soda, and I could hear them whispering. When I got back with their drinks, they were already dealing the cards for their next game. They were unusually quiet while they played, and I wondered what they were up to. Probably nothing good, as Grandma Marie would have said.

  Nick never showed up again. When I asked about him, Grandpa Louie made a sour face. “He left. Sold his coffee shop and moved back to some island in Greece.” He slapped down a few cards from his hand.

  “Didn’t even say goodbye,” added Grandpa Shy. “You know how some people are.” He shrugged. “Just disappeared.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, or of my grandpas’ casual attitude about their missing friend. They hadn’t had a chance to recoup their losses from their last game with Nick and couldn’t have been happy about it. For weeks, I was on the lookout for those “missing person” posters people pasted on lampposts. I was sure my grandpas were involved in Nick’s disappearance, which made me more afraid than ever to go down to the basement. After a while, I realized that was crazy. They were old men who could hardly get around, never mind make someone “disappear.” But still.

  The card games continued for five more years until Grandpa Louie died. Grandpa Shy gave up Kaluki for good then. Nothing we said or did would change his mind.

  “It wouldn’t be the same.” He’d shake his head and sigh. Then, he’d give me that look, the sly one that passed between him and Louie every time they spoke about the cheaters. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  A few winters later, Grandpa Shy got pneumonia and things weren’t looking good. We all took turns visiting him in the hospital. One day, when I was there on my own, he raised his hand and waved for me to come closer.

  “Petey,” he said, his voice a mere whisper, “I need you to do something for me.” He placed a bony hand over mine and held it tight. “And you can’t tell anyone, especially your mother.”

  I nodded okay, sure he was going to ask me to bring him some treat his diet—and Mom—didn’t allow.

  “You have to go down to the basement, Petey. There’s something down there I need you to get.”

  I must have jumped back a foot at his mention of the basement, nearly dragging him out of the hospital bed. “The basement?” I croaked through a throat that had gone instantly dry. Not the basement. My mind filled with vivid images of dismembered hands and dead bodies. I wasn’t eleven anymore. I was going to be a freshman in college soon, but the basement still held as many terrors as a Wes Craven horror movie. Even though I was grown up, when I passed the basement doorway, I rattled the handle by habit to make sure it was locked.

  “But Gramps, what could you need from the basement?”

  “Not for me. For you.” He gripped my hand harder and pulled me closer, a serious effort for someone in his condition. Then he looked me in the eyes. “Be a good boy. Just do it for an old man.”

  Had he overheard my mother all those times she said those words to me? “Okay,” I finally agreed. “I’ll do it.”

  I WAITED until Mom left for the hospital before I made my descent into hell. She’d never seen me go down there without a fight, and I didn’t want to make her suspicious now.

  Grandpa Shy had given me detailed instructions on what I was looking for and where it was located. I think he would have drawn me a map if he could have, as though he was sending me on some sort of big treasure hunt. Right, I thought. Tell that to my pounding heart and sweaty palms.

  I made my way down slowly and finally reached the bottom of the stairs. The basement looked just as foreboding as it always had, maybe even more so, with more clutter and mess than I remembered.

  Following Grandpa’s instructions, I turned right and made my way past a stack of old luggage and backyard furniture and headed to a rickety bookcase next to the furnace. On the bottom shelf, there was an old set of encyclopedias, stacked every which way in several
precarious piles. Behind the last stack on the right, Grandpa said, I’d find a small cigar box and inside, the “thing” he wanted me to have.

  I stood there for a good five minutes deciding if I really wanted to know what was in the box—what if it actually was a hand? What would I do with it? Then, telling myself to man up, I took a deep breath and dug it out. Covered with dust, the box looked old and ordinary, like something you’d use to store odds and ends, and not, I hoped, bits and pieces of a body. I blew off the dust from the top and opened it slowly, dreading what I’d find inside.

  It was a ring. A ring I’d know anywhere: Nick the Greek’s big, gold signet ring. Its shine had dulled over the years, but the image of the god on the top still grabbed my attention, as did the folded, yellowing paper underneath.

  I took it out and opened it. It was a note to me from Grandpa Shy in his spindly writing.

  Petey,

  I know your Grandpa Louie and I scared the shit out of you with our stories about what we did to card cheaters. But they were just stories. Before he died, Louie made me promise to tell you the truth and give you this ring. Nick the Greek was the biggest cheater of them all. Sly and crafty. We never really caught him at it, but we knew he was doing it. So, when he decided to move back to Greece, we decided to take a souvenir: his good luck ring. He never wore it to work, so Louie snuck into his apartment one afternoon while I kept him busy in the coffee shop. Maybe he thought he’d lost it, or that his luck had run out. Who knows? Who cares? He left a few days later and we never heard from him again. Now, the ring is yours. But please, don’t tell your mother. She’d kill me.

  Grandpa Shy

  I STOOD there open-mouthed with Grandpa Shy’s letter in one hand and Nick the Greek’s ring in the other. For a moment, I thought about finding Nick in Greece and returning the ring anonymously, but that seemed crazy, and who knew if he was even still alive and still cheating at cards.