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Show J77 fathers and best men and false friends. I had to get away." "I wish I hadn't come." "Don't tell me your troubles. I've got my own. You know, Ace. you can guess." Tall and elegant in his tux, Ben looked as if he could have conducted a symphony or inherited a million, but his face was worried, thin, I could see him losing weighty and he smoked nervously. I told him he looked great and he brightened a little: vanity does restore us. "Doesn't all this make you want to get married too?" I farted. "That for marriage." "To the point. But a rented ballroom, dinner for 250, drinks and a band for dancing, all that doesn't thrill you?" "Poor old Rubin, how can his heart stand it?" "How can his bank account stand it? I hope he's going broke. I'll tell you, Ace, I feel like Napoleon retreating from Russia. Mother Rubin has her own scorched earth policy." "She's scorched me." "But I'm not apologizing K for her, get that straight. Who apologizes for a natural disaster? And you know me, for a non-religious Jew I'm pretty tolerant of all the holy shit. Let it come down. But Christ, the show.1 You don't K just have a huppah -- that's the canopy under which we --" "I know. An arched trellis." "Yeah. You don't just have one, you have the most elaborate one anybody ever had, the most flowers, the most shmaltz, the biggest expense. That's what's killing me, the middleclass soul in action." "Conspicuous consumption." I'd been reading Veblen. "But you know that's a cultural thing -- like those Indians and potlatches." "Not the god damned phoniness. A middleclass mother, Ace, is a pimp selling her daughter for prestige. Not even a good excuse like she needs the money. <Sfee |
