If the homeowner wanted a cobblestone driveway built, Dick was the donkey who pushed the heavy wheelbarrows with stones to their spot, turned the wheelbarrow upside down where directed, and placed them in the style of a European cobblestone street. He liked working with his hands and was paid$11 per hour, which amounted to just $23,000 per year. He received no health benefits. He got no paid time off, even for holidays, when he didn’t work. Certain weeks he would get some overtime, but not enough to bring him above the poverty level, even with the occasional tips he received from customers.
He felt that $11 per hour was low, but at least it was better than minimum wage. After all, he had no college degree and had an arrest record. His pay permitted him to obtain a one-room loft in one of the seedier parts of Sedona and keep enough food in his refrigerator so he wouldn’t starve.
He kept the job at Greenery Landscaping for approximately eighteen years. He was now forty-three and well worn. He had lots of long hair and some of it stuck out from the sides of his head. He had grungy facial hairs, looking more like a large goatee than a full beard. The top of his head was thinning prematurely and almost all gone; what hair he had left he brushed as a comb-over to try and hide his bald spot. The sides drooped over his ears.
His car was a real piece of junk and needed a new transmission, which he couldn’t afford, so he left it parked on the street in front of the building he lived in. One night, while it was parked outside, the car was totaled by a hit and run driver. He couldn’t afford to buy another car but fortunately, Dick’s boss permitted him to use the company’s green pickup truck to and from work, provided he returned with it the next day.
His boss also provided him with a smart phone so that he could be reached when away on a job. Dick had learned how to use the computer in the office, at first when he needed to look up directions to a new customer, and later how to get answers to practically any question on Google. Now he could do both, even on his phone.
Dick Straub, was not aware that he had a twin brother, until one fateful Monday morning. He was working on a retaining wall at the Jacobson estate when the wife of the couple came outside to bring him a soda and showed him a copy of the local newspaper, which featured coverage of a banquet for a popular local Rabbi named Neil Bloom.
“Look at this,” she said. “You look a lot like our Rabbi. Isn’t that interesting!”
Not very much, he thought.
The next day, Dick went into his boss Joe Rung’s office to pick up his assignments for the day. He noticed the same Sunday edition of the Sedona Times Herald sitting on Rung’s desk along with other office papers and invoices. It was open to the story about the Rabbi, with a headline reading “Rabbi Honored at Fete Last Night,” along with the photo he saw before that, well, really did look like him. The image of the Rabbi smiling brightly, receiving all these honors and awards, gave Dick Straub uneasy feelings, leaving him flustered and mystified.
He then read the article. “Last night at the St. Germaine Golf Club a marvelous feast was held in honor of Rabbi Neil Robert Bloom by the local chapter of B’nai Brith, the Jewish charity. Over 2,300 people joined in this fete for the Rabbi in celebration and gratitude for his service to the community and as a philanthropist, not only for Jewish organizations but also for many other worthy charities, such as the Red Cross, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Catholic charities. They gave him a plaque which honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award as an honorable and distinguished religious leader.”
I look like just that son of a bitch, thought Dick, but he’s fucking rich while I live in a shithole. I just don’t get it.
He showed Joe Rung the photograph in the paper and asked him to “look at it closely.” Rung stared at the picture, with a puzzled look on his face, and finally asked Straub
“What is it you want me to see?”
Dick asked, “Don’t you think the guy receiving the award in the photograph looks a lot like me?”
This made Rung a little nervous, knowing Dick was a rough character with a quick temper. Though generally he had a quiet demeanor with customers, Rung was secretly a bit afraid of him. Cautiously, Joe answered, “Well, Dick, if you shave off the beard and mustache and get a haircut, I think I can see a resemblance between you and the guy in the photo.”
That was enough validation for Dick Straub to form his plan.
A month later he put his plan into motion. He began attending the Rabbi’s weekly services and for months not a single person noticed, indicated ,or implied to him that he looked like Rabbi Bloom. All they saw was a Charles Manson look-alike attending services. No big deal, what with all the hippies in Sedona, many of them trust-fund babies from rich families.
He learned how the Rabbi approached the bimah wearing a talis and a yarmulke, how he started his services, and when he needed to say a prayer for certain occasions. Rabbi Bloom and Dr. Google taught him what he would need to know, what to say, and what to do to be a Rabbi himself. Over months of attending Bloom’s services, he even befriended a few of the congregants by their first and last names.
Straub even brought in his smart phone
