Aaron Wolfe - Grandpa Bernie’s Clock

 

 

So, my wife, Naomi, calls and she says, “Aaron, I got the job. Can you believe it? I got the job. My dream job. I got it. They offered it to me right in the middle of the interview. I got it.” We just have to move to Boston. Isn't that amazing? And on the inside, I'm like, “No.” But on the outside, I'm like, “No.” [audience laughter] Because this isn't a job offer. This is an existential crisis. 

 

I have been a New Yorker for 38 years. Even when I lived in New Jersey, I totally told people I was a New Yorker. [Audience laughter] My parents are New Yorkers, my grandparents are New Yorkers, my great grandparents, Max and Minnie Goldfinger, they were New Yorkers and my kids are going to be New Yorkers too. Also, we had a great apartment, and you just don't give up a great apartment in New York at all. 

 

And then, Naomi says, “We have to let them know tomorrow afternoon. I love you. Bye” and she hangs up. [audience laughter] In the next 24 hours, we go through the first four stages of grief in every conversation, just like, “I'm not going. I'm not going. I'm absolutely not going. How could you make me move? Maybe we should try long distance. What am I going to do in Boston?” Like, over and over again. [audience laughter] 

 

And then finally at 07:30 the next morning, I reach acceptance. I call her up at work and I say, “Look, we've been treading water for so long in this city. My job's not going anywhere. I'm not happy at work. You've worked so hard at your PhD. This finally could be the moment where we become adults. Let's do this.” It's not just acceptance. It's relief. It feels good. It feels good to say it. 

 

And then, two days before we're leaving, I'm sitting, packing up our kitchen, I'm holding the silverware and I'm sobbing, [audience laughter] because it's my Grandpa Bernie's silverware. I look around the kitchen, and everything in my apartment is my Grandpa Bernie's. The art on the walls from his house in Bayside, the furniture, his record collection, my dishes, my love of food, my love of music, my first cup of coffee, my first hot dog, my anger, my affection, my New York sensibility, it's his. And now, I have to leave it. I don't know how to say goodbye to it or to him. 

 

And then, I see this clock on the wall in my living room. It's his clock from his store in the Lower East Side. It says, “Forsyth monuments established 1911.” And now, I know what I want to do for my last day in New York. The next day, Naomi and I pack our two-year-old son in the stroller and we head out for a really long walk. It's August in New York. Everyone in their right mind is inside in air conditioning, but we're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Chinatown, up East Broadway, then Delancey Orchard and then we stop at Stanton Street in front of Silver Monuments, the last Jewish monument store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, my cousin Murray's shop.

 

When my Grandpa Bernie retired, he sold the business to Murray. So, there in the window of Silver Monuments is this little sign that says, “Forsyth monuments established 1911.” It's the last shred of my Grandpa Bernie on the Lower East Side. And I don't want to go in, but I have to go in because Naomi's like, “You have to go in. We walked all the way here, you're going in.” [audience laughter] This is ridiculous. And I'm like, “I also have to go in.” I have to. 

 

Murray's not there, but his assistant is there. I can't remember his name, but he knows me because the last time he saw me, he was selling me and my mom a gravestone for my Grandpa Bernie. He squinches up his face and he's like, “Yeah, yeah, Beth David Cemetery, right? Yeah, yeah, buried near the Arbeter Ring. Yeah, yeah, how is your mother anyway?” I look at this guy, he could be 50 or 250. [audience laughter] He's never touched an iPad. He looks like he's of this place. 

 

He stepped out of the fabric of this store, which is dusty and claustrophobic. And there's yellowing paper everywhere. I reach out, I touch, I stabilize myself on a gravestone. The granite is cold and smooth. It feels exactly like it felt when I was 8 years old in my Grandpa Bernie's shop. I think, I can't do it. I can't leave this place. Who am I going to be if I leave this place? This is my New York. This guy is my New Yorker. And then he says, “Yeah, it's funny you should come in today of all days. It's really funny, because Murray just sold the building. We're moving to Long Island tomorrow. It's funny of all days, you're coming in today.” [audience laughter] 

 

And I rock back on my heels in stunned silence. All I could see is him and the gravestones and a clock that looks just like the one that's in a box in my house waiting to come up to Boston. I look at him and I just say, “Well, I guess this is goodbye.” And he says, “Yeah, I guess.” [audience laughter] And I leave. That clock, my Grandpa Bernie's clock, it never worked. One night, after hours of googling, I found these rare clock fuses and I replaced the fuses in the clock and I plugged it in and the fluorescent light turned on and then it ran backwards, [audience laughter] like a fricking time machine, but also like a time machine. 

 

My New York, my grandpa, Bernie’s, New York, it's gone. It doesn't exist anymore. But I still see it. Here of all places, I see it in the Lebanese market in Watertown. I see it in me when I'm walking across Cambridge Common and I'm amazed by the history. I see it in my son's love of Chinese food and smoked fish, and in my daughter's laugh and her scream. But most of all, I see it in the stories we tell each other around the dinner table at home, my home underneath the clock that says, “Forsyth monuments established 1911.” Thanks.