Empathy

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Authors: Sarah Schulman
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brother were asleep, Doc and Grandma and Jake sat on the couch trying to figure out what to do with the papers. Finally Jake got some clarity. He took those wooden building blocks that the kids played with and made boxes on the floor. One was A, one was B, one was C, and one was Fail. The doc and Grandma threw the papers and whatever they landed in, that was their grade.
    Doc tried to play chess, but as soon as Jake was losing he would say “Oops” and turn over the board.
    He also was filthy. He never took a bath. He slept in his clothes and smoked cigarettes. He slept on the couch in the living room in his black trench coat that he never took off. Doc gave him a present for Hanukkah. It was a bar of soap.
    Once Jake’s daughter came from New Jersey to visit him. Doc was about eight and she was about seven or eight. The three of them
were sitting on the couch and Jake was saying something but he didn’t know what he was talking about. He forgot what words meant and didn’t know how to explain anything. Later his daughter said to Doc, “When I grow up I want to be a lesbian.” It was the first time he’d ever heard that word.
    Jake died.
    A lot of things happen when you’re eight , he thought. And a lot of it is very important information. If you listen closely when people talk and look at the expressions on their faces, you will never forget them. Even when they die or disappear, you will always know how they felt and later, if you ever have that feeling, you will remember what it looked like on another person’s face. If you listen you won’t lose it. You will remember .
    That’s what it was like to live in that family. There were always people standing in front of you being vulnerable. Doc had a cousin named Shmul Rabinowitz. He was Orthodox, from Brooklyn. He was maybe twenty-three. Doc was nine. Shmul would come over to the apartment with an orange, a paper plate, and plastic knife because nothing there was kosher. One night Doc’s mom and pop were at the movies. His grandmother was in Miami. Then Shmul came over. He used to come over when he was upset and talk to Pop, but Pop wasn’t there so he talked to Doc.
    Doc sat and listened for almost three hours. His feet didn’t even touch the ground. Shmul went on and on. He talked very quickly in that Old World style, and he talked about God and what happens after you die and what hell is like. The whole time Doc sat, listening and making it possible for Shmul to talk. It was his first experience in psychoanalysis.
    When Shmul left the house he went to the top of Mount Sinai Hospital and jumped off. Later they had to pretend he was hit by a car so he could be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Everyone walked around talking about “the accident.”
    How did I know what to do ? Doc wondered. I was just a little kid .
    All his life Doc watched his parents calmly listen to people who
were out of control. A lot of people would come over when they were very upset. One woman had a son who died of meningitis. Doc also had meningitis. But he lived and the other boy died. That woman got drunk and came over and was screaming at Doc’s mom that her son had died while Doc had lived. Later, that woman used to have fights with her husband and come over to use the phone and yell at him. While she screamed, Mom sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. That was how Doc was taught such a high level of tolerance for maniacal behavior. It was some sense of professional obligation without the benefit of office hours. Doc’s parents couldn’t draw the line. They were listeners and afterward they would discuss. Many Jewish people grew up in homes with yelling. Doc’s family had yelling but they weren’t the ones doing it. They were sitting, listening, and the yellers came to them.

Chapter Eight
    Oh, for the good old days of 1980 , Doc thought. There was so much great stuff in the mirror then. All those horrible

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