Are you listening to me, darling? To your own flesh and blood a total stranger says get lost! So tell me, boychik, this is what they teach them in your area code? Or did this person get some coaching from a mutual party of our acquaintance who at this juncture I your father will go ahead and leave unnamed? In so many words, take a walk? I want you to tell me, Jerome, what kind of a creature says take a walk to the father of the child? Because I hope I do not have to remind you that the father who heard these words said to him is also the same father who would lay down his life for his cutie boy, please God I should only be alive and well to do it when you got nothing better planned and you decide in your mind it is time for you to ask.
Look, Jerrychik, if God makes a miracle and you find the strength to call me, who knows, maybe you could afford to take an extra two seconds to give me the figures on what it costs you in so many dollars and cents to get an operator to talk like this to a person of my advanced years and age, never mind if I told her it was an emergency and also that the party in question is also my very own child. Listen, would the woman divulge the first digit? You are down to her on your hands and knees to her, but is this a normal area code with a single shred of human decency?
Boychik, I am sitting here and I am thinking certain thoughts to myself. So are you interested in the nature of your father's current thinking? Because the answer is if a certain person wants to be a hermit, well and good — then let him go live where they don't have even an area code to begin with. But barring this contingency, I say that so long as you continue to maintain your permanent residence in 603, I think that I your father have a perfect right to be informed as to the rest of the particulars after these three digits!
Tell me, cutie person, did you ever stop to consider all of the ramifications of the situation we are dealing with here? So stop to think and tell me what if, for instance, it was a question of in sickness or in health? I want you to think about this, Jerome. I want you to consider it very carefully. They come in here and they shoot your father in the head. So like any normal person, I rush to the telephone to call you up and tell you the news. But what is the upshot in the situation we are considering? What is in this case the net result? Believe me, your father did not have to pick up and go to college to describe to you what you get when you look at the net result. Because the answer is it's some snip up there in 603 which says to me when I am bleeding to death in so many words get lost!
Okay, so don't excite yourself, Jerrychik.
I promise you, all is forgiven, all is forgotten. And besides, it was only for the sake of argument I said it could be a question of in sickness or in health. So far they didn't come in here yet and shoot me yet. All right, you never know, but so far they didn't. Meanwhile, thank God it was only a question of hello and good-bye, my sonny boy should live and be well. I give you my written guarantee, Jerome, this is all your father had scheduled for the agenda, Happy High Holidays and hello and good-bye. In two seconds flat, the whole deal would have been over and done with, and you know what? You would have lived to tell the tale!
So go pick up a hammer and bang me on the head with it because your father was going crazy to hear his sonny boy's voice. Cutie guy, you know what? I only hope and pray I am alive to see the day when vice-versa is the case. Please God, Heaven should make a miracle and your father should live that long, you won't have to worry, his number is in the book. Believe me, you would not have to talk yourself blue in the face, Jerome. You would not have to stand on your left ear and dance a jig and then hear my particular area code say to my child, "That's cute, that's nice, now do us a favor and go take a hike."
SO WHAT IS IT NOW, darling?
First, it was your own room.
Next, it was your own business.
So now, in the final analysis, season after season, it's what, sweet creature, it's what?
Sonny boy, can your father give you a piece of his personal advice? You promise you wouldn't excite yourself if your father talks to you as far as advice from the bottom of his heart of hearts? Because I am here to tell you, darling, sometimes your father does not know if he dares to open his mouth with you. But who can breathe with this on my chest, such a burden it's like a big stone? So go get a hammer and hit me with all your might with it, but meanwhile it is on your father's chest and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he's got to get it off.
Sweetie boy, you know what it means where it says enough is enough? It means you do not go overboard! It means whatever the department, it gets handled accordingly. Because there comes a time in every life when enough is definitely enough! And you know something? Your father did not have to go to college for him to tell you this is the rule. But go look it up for yourself, it's there in black and white. You name me the department, the answer is you do not go overboard as far as it because the rule is enough is enough. Like with the woman who goes up to the judge, for instance, you heard about this, Jerome? So this woman says to this judge, "You'll give me a divorce," and the judge says back to her, "At your years and age you want a divorce? You are how old — ninety maybe, ninety-five?" And the woman says to him, "Ninety-seven last July." So the judge says to her, "You come to me now, ninety-seven last July?" You hear this, Jerome? This judge says to this woman, "Why come to me now, a person who could any instant drop dead?" Jerome darling, I want you to know what this woman said to this judge. Boychik darling, are you listening with both ears to this? Because she said to this man, "Because enough is enough!"
This is wisdom, sweet person, this is wisdom. I don't have to tell you what wisdom. Granted, you are a genius in your own right. But even a genius could live and learn. Even a brilliant individual and an intelligent fellow like that judge could. Believe me, Jerrychik, that woman didn't have to go to college and study at the feet of no Einstein for her to teach that judge what it's all about. And the man was an educated man, Jerome! But just ask yourself, did the man or did the man not have a lot to learn?
Boychik, this is your father's advice to you from your father's heart of hearts. In words of one syllable, darling, there comes a time when you have to say to yourself enough is enough. But let's face it, who am I to open up my mouth and try to teach a genius like yourself? Listen, just because I am the father and know from bitter experience, does this make me entitled to tell you what it's all about? Forget even that I am the elder, Jerome. Forget even that I as your father would jump off the tallest building for you. It still doesn't give me the right to come along and spell out the facts of life for a person who is a genius, even if it just so happens he is a human being which doesn't know which end is up.
But meanwhile, cutie boy, your father knows what he knows, and he didn't wait around for some professor to come along and spell out to him the facts of life. You name me the subject, Jerome, every college in the world will tell you there is one rule which is first and foremost if you want to be a grown-up, and for your information it is the one which says to people enough is definitely enough. Granted, a genius has a perfect right to think to himself, "I am a genius and I just discovered a subject where the rule is enough can never be enough." You think your father does not understand this and give full faith and credit to it, Jerome? You think your father does not realize that with a genius the brain gets all balled up and it says to itself, "I just found a subject where all bets are off"?
So just for argument's sake, sweetheart, let's consider this particular situation. Because your father is willing to go along with you and to consider with you the question from all sides. Like just suppose I pick a subject off the top of my cuff and we go ahead and examine it like, let us say, two civilized adults. So how about for instance privacy maybe? Let's for instance consider a person who says to you he has got to have his PRIVACY or else. So for two seconds, Jerome, you and your father will make believe that this is our subject, P-R-I–V-A-C-Y.