After one of the services, he went home and did exactly what his boss had hinted at. He shaved his face completely and went to a barber to have his side hair trimmed short behind his ears. Then once back home again, he used some shaving cream and took a razor from a package he purchased at a local pharmacy and shaved the top of his head. He shaved a wide space all the way near down the back of the head leaving about two inches of hair just above the collar. He even removed the stubble, making him look bald. After all, that’s how the Rabbi’s head was, but he didn’t want the barber to see the resemblance.
As he checked his makeover in the mirror of the medicine cabinet back home, he stared at himself with an almost orgasmic smile and whispered to his mirror image, “Well hello, Rabbi Bloom!”
The next day, Straub began his search for a Rabbi to teach him Hebrew. He wouldn’t look in Sedona because he feared the resemblance might be noticed. He looked at several listings on the web and found Rabbi Isaac in Scottsdale, who offered the service mainly for young people. He wrote Rabbi Isaac’s phone number on a small yellow sticky-paper, removed it from its pad, and placed the yellow sticky with the phone number on his nightstand.
A few days later, he noticed the yellow sticky note on his nightstand and it reminded him to call Isaac. He called the Rabbi from his cell phone and asked him if he still gave Hebrew lessons. Isaac replied that he was retired, but still gave private Hebrew lessons. The man on the other end of the phone sounded too mature to be a kid seeking bar mitzvah lessons. The Rabbi was perplexed and cautious, not wanting to be another person training a potential homegrown terrorist. Rabbi Isaac’s fearful imagination, and good business sense, led him to think, I’d better ask some questions first. He asked Straub, “Why are you asking for Bar Mitzvah lessons?”
Dick replied, “Well Rabbi, my parents separated when I was twelve-years old, and I never got a bar mitzvah at thirteen like all other Jewish boys. I’m in my forties now and my parents have been deceased for a few years. I want to get this done so that I can be recognized as a Jewish man by my contemporaries.”
That sounded plausible enough for the Rabbi, so he agreed to the lessons at $50 per hour. Three times a week, if Straub could afford it. He asked the Rabbi if he would accept $35 per hour cash. The Rabbi, feeling the man’s distress said, “Yes, thirty-five dollars cash per hour is fine. However, I must be paid at the end of each lesson. You should not let it all accumulate until the end of your lessons.”
Straub asked his boss Joe Rung to give him as much overtime work as he could, without telling him why he needed the money. Rung was happy to do it, since many of his projects were behind schedule. Dick was thrilled to agree to the Rabbi’s terms and showed up on the day he was supposed to at Isaac’s home in Scottsdale.
After Dick finished with his work for the day, he drove the ninety-plus miles to and from the Rabbi’s home for each lesson. He sat somewhat near the Rabbi, but didn’t want to get too close to him so as not to offend him with his landscaping odors.
After six months, with lessons just twice a week, Straub felt that he now had enough Hebrew lessons to get by and knew enough to fake his way through any Jewish ceremony and conduct Sabbath services. Six months was also all he felt he could afford.
One week later, Scottsdale held its semi-annual gun show on Saturday and Sunday, Independence Day weekend. The show was guarded at the front doors of the massive Scottsdale Exhibition Center by both state and local police, which made Straub a little nervous. When he went indoors, he saw the booths of hundreds of weapons’dealers. On display was every kind of weapon a person from the NRA or the armed forces could want: rifles of every kind and caliber, shotguns, pistols, military grade AR-15s and even bazookas, among hundreds of other weapons that should never be on the street. He found one dealer selling a .45 caliber Glock which caught his eye, noticing it had a silencer.
“Aren’t silencers supposed to be illegal?” Straub questioned the seller.
“Let me see your I.D. for a minute,” said the dealer, needing to assure himself that Straub was not an undercover (UC) agent, and Straub produced it for him. “If you had been a UC then I would have said I was just teaching people how and why these fake silencers are illegal.”
“Fuck no, I’m not a UC agent, you think I would ask you a question like that while you were holding a gun in your hand? Why a fake silencer?”
The dealer whispered, “It’s not fake and they’re not exactly illegal. If for example, you wanted to shoot a raccoon going through your trash at night, you’d want to take care not to wake the neighbors. That’s a situation where you can legally use a silencer.”
This crap was convincing enough for Straub to accept without further concern. “How much?” he asked.
“I’ll sell you the gun and silencer for $1100 with any credit card and I’ll even throw in a box of .45 caliber shells.” Straub talked him down to $885 cash for all three items. The seller placed the gun, silencer, and a box of bullets into a long cardboard tube, which had originally held a large poster, wrapped it in newspaper and gave the package to Straub.
“The cops won’t check what you bought,” the dealer said quietly. “If anybody asks, just say it’s a reproduction Samurai sword.” Cash talked
