“What’s wrong?” the Reb asked.
Apparently, minutes earlier, Gunther had been outside, overseeing the parking, when the Catholic priest came stomping out and began to yell about all the cars parking by his church, because it was a Sunday and he wanted the spaces for his members.
“Get them out of here,” he hollered, according to Gunther. “You Jews move your cars now!”
“But it’s the High Holiday,” Gunther said.
“Why must you have it on a Sunday?” the priest yelled.
“The date was set three thousand years ago,” Gunther replied. Being an immigrant, he still spoke with a German accent. The priest glared at him, then uttered something almost beyond belief.
“They didn’t exterminate enough of you.”
Gunther was enraged. His wife had spent three and a half years in a concentration camp. He wanted to slug the priest. Someone intervened, thankfully, and a shaken Gunther returned to the sanctuary.
The next day, the Reb phoned the Catholic archbishop who oversaw the area’s churches and told him what had happened. The following day, the phone rang. It was the priest, asking if he could come over and talk.
The Reb met him at the office door. They sat down.
“I want to apologize,” he said.
“Yes,” the Reb said.
“I should not have said what I did.”
“No, you should not have,” the Reb said.
“My archbishop had a suggestion,” the priest said.
“What is that?”
“Well, as you know, our Catholic school is in session now. And they will have their recess soon…”
The Reb listened.
Then he nodded and stood up.
And when the school doors opened and the kids burst out for recess, they saw the priest of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church and the rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom walking arm in arm, around the schoolyard.
Some kids blinked.
Some kids stared.
But all of them took notice.
You might think that an uneasy truce; two men forced to walk around a schoolyard, arm in arm. You might think a certain bitterness would haunt the relationship. But somehow, in time, they became friends. And years later, the Reb would be inside that Catholic church.
At the priest’s funeral.
“I was asked to help officiate,” the Reb recalled. “I recited a prayer for him. And I think, by that time, he might have thought it wasn’t so bad.”
Life of Henry
Henry was often told “Jesus loves you,” and it must have been true. Because he kept getting second chances.
While he was in prison, Henry boxed well enough to win a heavyweight competition, and he studied well enough to earn an associate’s degree, even though he had never finished junior high.
When he got out of prison, he found a job in the exterminating business. He married his longtime girlfriend, Annette, and for a short while they lived a straight, normal life. Annette got pregnant. Henry hoped for a son.
Then one night, he came home and she was doubled over. They rushed to the hospital. The baby was born, three months premature, a tiny boy who barely weighed a pound. They named him Jerell. The doctors warned that his chances of survival were bleak, but Henry held the child in the palm of his big hand and he kissed the tiny feet.
“My son,” he whispered. Then he turned to God and asked for his help. “Let him live. Please, let him live.”
Five days later, the baby died.
Henry and Annette buried their child in a cemetery on Long Island. For a while, Henry wondered if the Lord had punished him for the things he had done.
But soon he turned bitter. His business soured, his house went into foreclosure, and when he saw that his drug-dealing brother had more hundred-dollar bills than he had singles, Henry turned his back on God and second chances and returned to the business of breaking the law.
He began by dealing a small supply of drugs, then a larger amount, then a larger amount. The money came in fast. Soon, he was acting like a kingpin, glorifying himself, giving orders. He bought fancy clothes. He styled his hair. He actually made people kneel down when they wanted something. Only when mothers came with babies did he soften up. They would offer him anything in exchange for drugs: groceries they’d just purchased, sometimes even a baby girl’s tiny earring.
“Keep it,” he would say, giving them a small bag. “But that earring belongs to me now. I want to see it on that baby every time you come in here.”
At one point, in the mid-1980s, Henry was making tens of thousands of dollars per month. He sold drugs at fancy parties, often to “respectable” types like judges, lawyers, even an off-duty cop. Henry smirked at their weakness and his momentary power. But one night, he made a common and fatal error: he decided to try some of his own product.
That was the cliff. And off it he flew.
Soon Henry was addicted to his own poison, and he wanted only to lose himself in a cloud of crack cocaine. Often he used the very product he was supposed to sell, and then, to cover up, he’d invent outlandish excuses.
Like the time he took a cigarette and burned holes into his arm, so he could tell his dealers he’d been tortured and the drugs stolen.
Or the time he had a friend shoot him in the leg with a.25 automatic, so he could tell his dealers he’d been robbed. They still came to the hospital, demanding to see the wound.
One bad night, already high and needing more money, he and a few others, including a nephew and a brother-in-law, drove a Coupe DeVille out to Canarsie, Brooklyn. Their method of assault was to pull the car alongside an unsuspecting target, jump out, demand the money, and ride off.
This time, it was an elderly couple. Henry sprang from the car and waved a gun in their faces.
“You know what this is!” he yelled.
The old woman screamed.
“Shut up or I’ll blow your head off,” he screamed back.
The couple surrendered their money, jewelry, and watches. Henry was unsettled by their older faces. A pang of conscience hit him. But it didn’t stop him. Soon the Coupe DeVille was racing away down Flatland Avenue.
And then a siren sounded. Lights flashed. Henry shouted at his nephew to keep driving. He rolled down the windows and out it all went. The jewelry. The money. Even their guns.
Moments later, the police overtook them.
At the station, Henry was put in a lineup. He waited. Then the officers brought in the elderly man.
And Henry knew he was sunk.
Once the man identified him, Henry would be charged, convicted, and face fifteen years in prison. Life as he knew it would be over. Why had he risked it all? He had literally thrown everything out the window.
“Is that him?” the officer asked.
Henry swallowed.
“I can’t be sure,” the old man mumbled.
What?
“Look again,” the officer said.
“I can’t be sure,” the old man said.
Henry could not believe his ears. How could the man not finger him? He had waved a gun
But because the ID was not certain, Henry was let go. He went home. He lay down. He told himself the Lord
