A Mobile Home

Mr. Hertz had a daughter that he didn’t like to talk about. She was 39 (how did she get so old?) and lived in Reno, NV. To Mr. Hertz’s mind, that was about as embarrassing as having her live in a rusty trailer next to his apartment. She worked in the business office of a casino, number fixing and completing other disreputable business tasks, and had been known to call him around the holidays to suggest that she could use a cash infusion from his retirement fund. He had been known to suggest that she go **** herself around the holidays, when the full weight of his familial failures really set in and bubbled into a bitter depression that was followed by aimless anger.

Hertz’s jealously of Morty was palpable. Morty’s proximity and tacit approval to his former step-son Emery was deeply moving to Hertz, but also a constant reminder of what he lacked with his own flesh-and-blood daughter. He wished to tacitly if not overtly be able to approve of Magda. (He had, however, stuck her with the name Magda. That was his first mistake.)

Magda showed up at his door on an unsuspecting Tuesday. Hertz was understandably shaken, sure that she was there to rob him before the holidays and take him out with the trash. Instead, fighting back tears, she stated her case right at the door, certain (correctly) that Hertz would not let her in otherwise.

“Robert has left me and taken the trailer with him.” (He KNEW it. A trailer in Reno.) “I had nowhere to turn. Mom is at a yoga retreat and Johnny (her ne’er-do-well half-brother) is in jail again on drug charges. I just need a place to stay for a few nights while I figure out where to go.”

A long-dormant fatherly instinct kicked in. He asked a question directly related to her safety: “How did you get to New York?”

“I hitch-hiked with this guy Saul. He was coming to New York to visit his younger sister, who is in a nursing home somewhere on Long Island. Hicksville I think.”

“Saul?”

“He was old.”

“You hitch-hiked with an elderly man named Saul?”

“It seemed safer than trusting a trucker.”

He stepped aside, granting her entry into the cramped apartment. “Do not touch anything.”

“How am I going to sit down?”

He pointed to one, somewhat dusty chair. “You can touch that chair.”

“What about if I want to sleep?”

“You can sleep in the chair.”

“I can’t. Dad, can’t you just cut me a little slack?”

Calling him Dad was a bit forward, Hertz thought. A little too familiar. “Phil. And I’ll let you touch the couch when I’m in my room and can’t see you.”

Magda nodded an approval of the arrangement. Sighing, she put her bag down next to the allowed chair. “Dad…Phil….Why are you so angry at me? I just got here.”

Hertz looked around the overcrowded, dusty apartment and thought of his ex-wife at her yoga retreat, calmly meditating and posing, knowing her daughter was other there thinking about her. He thought about Morty fondly calling Emery a putz in the hallway. And then, he thought about his own life, empty of people aside from his companions at Krispin’s and empty of activities aside from his board president responsibilities. “I’m not angry.” With some more thought, he added, “I am jealous. It’s a different situation entirely.”

He got up, put on some shoes. “I’m going to take a walk. Feel free to use the couch while I’m gone.” It would have to start with small graces. And she was out of Reno. That was progress.

Before leaving, he looked back, catching Magda from the back. He somewhat lumpy, hunched shape. She was, similarly, without people or activities. She had done him one better; she was without even an apartment. “I hope you’ll consider staying in this area when you sort your affairs out. Reno is really far away.” Maybe one day proximity could create fondness. Tear through the bitterness at being slowly abandoned by every member of his family. Eventually.

Magda smiled. “I’m done with the west.” And with that she curled up on the couch and closed her eyes.