These Boots Are Made for More Than Walking

By Raanan Geberer

Visiting Tomas Sladek, my Czech immigrant friend, in his new incarnation as a graduate student in engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia raised a question in my mind: Would his newfound status change him?

After all, when I’d met him as an undergraduate at Brooklyn College, he was a drug user, a frequent shoplifter, an adulterer and a heavy drinker. From time to time, he also made outrageously racist, sexist and anti-Semitic jokes in public, not caring who heard them. All in all, these were not the type of qualities that would be considered ideal in a civil engineer, even though he was also a straight-A student. Would he now “go respectable?”

I followed him down busy Walnut Street -- which was hard to do, given how fast he walked -- to a stately old highrise building topped by a marquee with the name “Samuel Adams Hotel.” Walking into the lobby, I was stunned by the lack of activity. Looking past the desk into the rooms, it appeared that they were all empty. Mystified, I looked at Tomas, who was almost a head taller than I was.

“De hotel vent out of business,” he said rapidly in his deep voice. “Dey’re selling all kinds of tings dat ver in de rooms."

“Why don’t we take a look at what’s on these tables?” I said, motioning toward two tables in the back of the room. “Not so fast, not so fast,” he replied. “Come vit me!”

We took the elevator up to the 10th floor – a floor that was totally deserted. With the plain white rooms and white hallways and the furniture already gone, it looked to me more than anything else like a deserted nursing home. Tomas led me into one of the rooms.

“You see all de old brass doorknobs and chains? Dey must be vorth a lot of money!”

“So?” I asked.

“So?” he countered, smiling. He then reached into the high cowboy boots that every self-respecting twenty-something, myself included, wore in 1979. He took out two screwdrivers.

“Here,” he said. “Vun for you, vun for me!”

We spent the next five minutes or so unscrewing doorknobs and chains and stuffing them into our boots. On the way out of the building, Tomas suddenly went to one of the tables in the back of the lobby, then picked up a pillow as if to appear more legit.

“Is dis a fedder pillow?” he asked the middle-aged female cashier.

“What? … Oh, a feather pillow? Yes. It’s two dollars”

“I’ll take it, please,” he told her, taking out his wallet.

As we left, I found my answer to the questions I’d asked myself earlier that day. Yes, engineering student or not, Tomas was exactly the same as he’d always been.

The Singing Dentist of Bensonhurst

The Singing Dentist of Bensonhurst

By Raanan Geberer


“When you begin/Begin the beguine/It brings back the night/Of tropical splendor....”

Dr. Pearlman sang as he looked into Rob’s mouth and started poking around, the curbed probe in one hand, the tiny mirror in the other. Ever since Rob had moved to Brooklyn last year, in 1987, his father had tried to get him to see Dr. Pearlman as a dentist because Dr. Pearlman was a cousin and had grown up with his father in the East Bronx, and finally, here he was. Dr. Pearlman’s office was on the second floor of a rundown two-story building on a nondescript commercial street in Bensonhurst whose only redeeming feature was the Italian bakery next door. You walked down a long, narrow hallway to get to Dr. Pearlman’s office.

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H/ I got a gal in Kalamazoo/Don’t want to boast but I know she’s the toast/of Kalamazoo...”Rob had never heard of a singing dentist before. Not only does he sing, he thought, but he seems to sing only the songs of his own era, which would be the late 1930s and early ’40s. It’s incredible that this guy is still practicing, he thought. He must be in his late 60s, past retirement age. He idly glanced at the wall – here was a diploma from “New York University Dental School, June 1948.” Probably went to dental school on the G.I. Bill, he thought. Suddenly, he became alarmed when Dr. Pearlman picked up a drill.

“What are you doing with that drill? Aren’t you going to give me an anesthetic or an injection?”

“Well, the X-rays show that the cavity is very small and very near the surface, so we don’t need it. Open your mouth—you’re so good, you’re the best, you’re the champ. Here it comes. I’m not lazy! `I got spurs that jingle jangle jingle/As we go merrily along/And they say, ain’cha glad you’re single/And that song it ain’t too far from wrong’ ...You’re doing great! Don’t worry about anything. I’m the master! `In ‘76 the sky was red/Thunder rumbling overhead/King George couldn’t sleep in his bed/And on that morn/Uncle Sam was born’...You’re so good! Okay, rinse out your mouth!”

Rob bent over, grabbed a paper cup and rinsed his mouth. He watched the blood going down the drain. He had hardly felt anything. “There! That wasn’t so hard, was it? “ Dr. Pearlman asked. “I’m gonna do the filling now! You know, your father did some amazing, heroic things! Like the time he ran into the battlefield and carried the wounded lieutenant on his back to safety! They were gonna give him a medal for that, but, you know how it is!”

Rob had never heard that story before. Then again, his father rarely talked about his past. He was going to ask another question when....

“OK, we’re gonna put in the filling material next. Here it comes! Stay still! I’m not lazy! `Moon over Miami/Shine on as we begin/A dream or two that may come true/As the tide comes in.......’ Okay, just a little bit more. Just stay still. You’re the best! ...Bor’chu es adonai hamvoroch/Boruch atoh adonoi hamvoroch leolom voed/Boruch atoh adonoi/Eloheynoo melech ha’olam ... OK, we’re done here, kid!”

“I heard you singing that Hebrew brocho,” Rob said, referring to the blessing over the Torah that Dr. Pearlman had just intoned. “Wouldn’t those Hasidim I saw in the waiting room object if you sang that when they were here?”

“Fuhgedaboutit!” Dr. Pearlman responded, cheery as ever. “Don’t worry about them. They got nothin’ to say! OK, see you next time?”

“What should I pay?”

“Don’t pay anything! ‘’Cause you’re a relative, I’ll fix the insurance form so the price will be very high, so what they give me will cover what you should pay!”

“You don’t have a secretary?”

“Naah! I used to have a secretary, but if I did now, I’d have to charge you guys more! OK, kid! Give your regards to my father .....NEXT!!!”