Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

CHAPTER FOUR

At precisely seven o'clock Wednesday morning, as on every other day of the year. Marcus Aptaker, the proprietor of Town-Line Drugs, came down to breakfast, he was a methodical, systematic man and the things he had to do regularly he did automatically. Freshly shaved, rimless eyeglasses gleaming, his thin brownish-blond hair was plastered down as though painted on, he was neatly dressed in his blue suit— the blue for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; the gray for Tuesdays. Thursdays and Saturdays. On Sundays, because the store was open only half a day and it was therefore a half holiday, he dressed in slacks and a sweater. To be sure, when he got to the store, he would hang up his jacket and put on a cotton store jacket, but it was as a doctor might put on a lab coat to make hospital rounds, the important thing was to be properly dressed going to and coming from the store, because as a professional man attention to dress was a responsibility he owed to his position.

He was seated at the dining room table when his wife Rose entered a few minutes later, she was still in her bathrobe, her hair pulled back from a round pleasant face and hanging down her back in a loose braid, she served him his breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice, eggs, bacon and toast, with a nod at the other place setting on the table he said pleasantly, "I suppose Arnold will be sleeping late today."

"No, he got up early, he's already gone," his wife answered.

"Gone? Gone where? And without breakfast?"

"He said he'd be back for it, he went to the temple for the morning service, he said you were supposed to pray first and then eat."

"Is this some special holiday? I hadn't heard anything about it."

"No, it's just the daily service, they hold it in the morning and in the evening. When my mother died, my father went for a whole year, every morning and every evening."

"Ridiculous," he said and drained his orange juice.

She had brought a cup of coffee for herself and sipped at it while he ate. "What harm does it do?" she asked reasonably. "A boy living alone? Better he should be interested in religion than in some of the things young people are involved in these days."

"Did you talk to him after I went to bed? Did he say anything about his plans?" Marcus asked hesitantly.

"Just that he had to get back to Philadelphia by Monday, he just had the week off."

"I mean his plans in general. Did you talk to him about the store? Did you tell him about Safferstein?"

"I told him we had a buyer for the store and that you said you wouldn't sell unless you knew definitely that your son would not take it over."

"And what did he say?" he asked eagerly.

"He said you should go ahead and sell. You could retire and we could travel or go to Florida or—"

"And then what would I do?" he demanded. "So I travel for a while, for six months, even a vear? Then what? I'm sixty-two years old and I'm in good health. What do I do after I’ve traveled? Sit around and wait to die?"

"But if he's just not interested..."

"He's got to be interested." Aptaker insisted, his voice rising. "I put almost forty years into that store, and my father fifteen years before that. It's a family enterprise. Do you just walk away from something you've worked at all your life and your father before you? It's not just a way of making a living. It's something we've built over the years."

"Yes, and you work sixty or seventy hours a week there. Why should a young boy like Arnold be interested when he has a good job where he works forty hours a week and doesn't have the headache and the responsibility?"

"But working for wages! If he has his own business—"

"So in time maybe he'll get his own store. Why should he tie himself up with this one that's been going downhill—"

"It's not going downhill," he shouted and banged on the table with his fist for additional emphasis. "We netted more this year than last year."

"A few hundred more."

"All right, so a few hundred more. But a young man could build it up—"

"It's the location, Marcus." She shook her head sadly. "You can't build up a location. You can fancy up the store, put in a new front, some new fixtures, but if the location is going down, it won't help."

"Locations change. If that high-rise for senior citizens goes through, it will be an A-one location for a drugstore again. If the location is so bad, why does a smart real estate man like Safferstein want to buy it?"

"Like he said, for his brother-in-law. I can imagine what the situation is. His wife has a brother whom he has to help support. So he figures he'll set him up in his own store and get him off his back. But for a young man like Arnold—"

"I tell you he could do well here," Aptaker insisted. "I'd make it easy for him to take over. I'd take back notes and he wouldn't have to worry about paying them on time, and I'd come in a few hours a day to help him, not for regular pay but just for expense money."

"So talk to him. Tell him what you have in mind."

Aptaker's shoulders drooped in despair. "I can't talk to him. It's like we don't talk the same language."

"What do you expect? If you talked to him like you talk to anvbodv else, like you talk to a customer or to McLane, quietly, reasonably—"

"I can't talk to him like to McLane," he exploded. "He's not just another pharmacist applying for a job. I can't sit down and discuss wages and working hours with him, he's my son, he should feel that the store is his, that I'm just holding it for him until he can get around to taking it over like I took over from my father."

"But how can he understand how you feel unless you tell him?"

"I shouldn't have to tell him, he should feel it himself. If you have to tell him, then right away, it's no good."

Rose Aptaker sighed. "Go to the store already, please, arnold should be coming home soon, and the way you're feeling now, I don't think it's a good idea you should be here."

"So I have to hide from my own son?"

"You don't have to hide, but sometimes it's a good idea if— I don't know, lately you're so irritable. Go to the store, please, and I'll talk to him again."