Requiem for Moses

“I’d have to be comatose not to know what Sam’s doing,” she continued. “It’s Amway. He’s been selling Amway stuff for a long time now. You’ve been itching to get in on this. But you can’t quite figure out how to get in on it and at the same time keep up your practice. I sympathize; it’s tough to sell something to somebody after he’s anesthetized. Beforehand, your patient is too worried about the operation to get really interested in carpet cleaners. And afterward, he’s so happy he survived, he considers nothing more than getting the hell out of your hospital.”

Moe kept a straight face. Margie dealt in sarcasm. She was good at it. He didn’t care-particularly if she could come up with a solution to his problem.

So far, the best plan he could muster was to try to get on Sam’s good side. That would take a bit of doing. Even if Sam were willing to strike some sort of deal, Moe faced the implacable hostility of just about all his relatives who refused to recognize his marriage to a shiksa. Sam was reluctant to risk inclusion in the family’s ostracism of Moe.

However, Sam also was painfully aware that his son Morris was a social misfit. Put that on one side of the scale with beautiful, attractive, desirable Judith Green on the other and Morris becomes a happy camper. As does Myrna, mother to Morris, wife to Sam.

Any way one looked at it, it was a good fit.

Neither Sam nor Myrna wanted to incur the family’s ire. Yet they knew that Morris’s best-perhaps only-chance to be societally acceptable was in liaison with Judith.

Without Judith, and on his own, Morris likely would marry someone much like himself, and they would breed other little misfits. With current life expectancy, Sam and Myrna would be forced to grow old watching all this happen.

All of this Moe had forestalled. With little concern, he would sacrifice his only daughter for a share in Sam’s profits.

Judy hated the situation, but what could she do? And it was even worse than she realized: Her father’s scenario, unbeknownst to her, was leading her toward a brokered marriage.

And why not? From Moe’s vantage point, if it was good enough in the old country in olden times, it was good enough now.

Actually, that rationalization was beside the point. Simply put, Moe wanted a piece of Sam’s Amway action. If Judith was the price-so be it.

Enter Margie, with what she believed was a viable alternative.

“You can have what you want, Moe,” Margie said. “Without having to romance Sam at all. Without sacrificing your daughter. Or, to look at it from your angle, without having your daughter disturb your reading of the financial page.”

“Sounds pretty good, my dear. Just how does this happen?”

“Sam makes good money on Amway. And he works like a dog doing it,” Margie explained. “But Sam is shortsighted. He could make tons more if he concentrated on recruitment. He needs to spend more time recruiting other people into selling Amway. The way to make real money is to expand the network. That way you earn a percentage on the sales of your new recruits.”

“Smart, Margie. Very smart,” Moe said. “But how does that help me? I got as little time in the evenings as I got during the day.”

“So,” Margie said, “what was your ultimate offer to Sam going to be?” She held up her hand to silence Moe and permit her to answer her own question. “You were going to recommend your patients to Sam and sell your billings to him … right?”

Moe closed his mouth that surprise had opened. “Yeah … right. But, how did you-”

“Over the years, Moe, I have developed a knack for simply knowing how you think. A special gift of intuition.”

“I tip my hat to you, Margie. But I repeat: What good does your intuition do me? I tell Sam how he can make a better killing by concentrating on recruits? What does that do for me?”

“What this does for you is that I take over the Sam role.”

“I recommend my patients to you? You recruit? For you?”

How typical of him, thought Margie, to project his value system on others. Everything is either for himself or for someone else. Nothing is shared.

“For us,” she said. “We put the Amway proceeds in our joint account. You won’t have to mess with Sam anymore. You won’t have to fight Judy anymore to get her to date that horrid brat. And, best of all, you won’t have to try to force a marriage. I don’t think you would have won that one,” she added.

Green massaged his temple in thought. “I like your scheme.” He looked up at her. “I still could do it my way- including the marriage. But yours is simpler.” A little more thought. “Wait a minute. You figured out what I was doing a long time ago. What made you hold off till now to bring this up?”

“I was waiting for the right time. I put up with your pushing Judy into those god-awful dates with little Morris. I figured you were leading up to something big. My guess was marriage. I just had to wait until you played your ace before I trumped it.” Margie raised her voice. “Come on back in, honey.”

Judith returned, smiling hopefully.

Margie too was smiling, reassuringly. “It’s all settled, darling. No more dates with Morris, and, best of all, nothing serious like marriage. You just lead a normal life now.”

“Oh, Mother … Daddy … thank you! Thank you, thank you!”

“All that your mother said is true,” Green said. “But you still owe me.”

“What!” Margie almost screamed. “We made a deal!”

“And so we did. We go into the Amway business with you as the active partner. And, in return, Morris can go to hell.

“But I let her off the hook. I could have kept to the status quo and arrived at about the same goal. A bit more troublesome, but workable nonetheless.

“So, since I gave up a very livable option to make this agreement, I have the advantage.

“Look,” he said soothingly, “it may never happen. Maybe I never need a big favor. All I’m saying is: I got the option. You owe me, Judith. Maybe I never collect. But you owe me.”

How could he? Margie thought, and not for the first time. How could he use his own daughter, make a pawn out of her? And now he says she owes him! What sort of a man treats his daughter like … like a defeated enemy … or a slave child? Was there anything he wouldn’t do, any way he wouldn’t use anyone, even his own daughter, to get what he wanted?

Weird! What a crazy way to handle family affairs! Like bitterly separated opponents, thought Margie, fighting always to stay one step ahead.

From the start she had known this would be a loveless marriage. She knew she was marrying greed incarnate. So she had entered the marriage with open eyes.

Her ultimate hope now was that one day she would live to see him dead. Then everything would be hers to do with as she wished. Then she would make it up to Judy.

Meanwhile, she did not at all like this. Not for a moment was she fooled by Moe’s disclaimer that he might never collect a debt that he made up out of whole cloth. No, he would collect; she knew that. When and what would be involved she couldn’t yet know.

All she knew was that when Moe Green declared, “You owe me,” he would inevitably collect.

Chapter Seven

And so, for Judith, teenage life settled down to a predictable normalcy.

She dated whomever she wished. She did not wish to date anyone vaguely reminiscent of Morris. She was a gifted, natural, athletic dancer. Her training extended from classic ballet to modern expressionism. She grew more beautiful by the year.

She excelled in academics, was consistently on the honor roll and popular in extracurricular activities. Nothing seemed beyond her potential. Having experienced the limitations of Morris and the horror of having him thrust upon