I know I don't need to remind you that your father is a grown man, Jerome. In case you did not maybe yet realize, your father is meanwhile an adult. So as a grown man and as an adult, cutie guy, excuses I do not have to make to anyone, a certain unmentionable resident of 603 included. Sonny boy, these are the facts of life, and it was definitely not your father which happened to invent them.
So now you know. So let's not kid ourselves, it was only one night, but so now so my light of my life knows, so now sue me, so go call the Supreme Court and come sue me!
LISTEN, JERRYCHIK, between father and son, honesty is the best policy, this is my personal opinion. So it is addressing you along these lines, darling, that it is time to broach to you, let us say, the subject of Gert Pinkowitz. Do I make myself crystal clear to you, Jerome? Because even in my health and my years, I thank God that the question of romance is not totally for me out of the picture. But first and foremost, Jerome, I do not have to instruct you as to the fact that your father is the type of an individual who gives comfort where comfort is due. Now you take the creature which was just previously referred to, because for your personal information, precious, this is a person with enough heartache in her heart for an army. Listen, if you can believe it, darling, even worse than I your own father, this person, this woman, she suffers and suffers. Darling, not in all your born days could you even guess! But who knows, maybe I already told you what a svelte and adorable creature Gert Pinkowitz is, not to mention this woman is also an individual which could give your father cards and spades when it comes to the question of how much agony a human being would have to sit there and receive at the hands of their own flesh and blood! And guess what, boychik — just like your own personal father, it is a son which is in Gert Pinkowitz's case the source as to where every last shred of Gert Pinkowitz's tragedy as a parent is coming from.
Tell me, sweetheart, did you ever think you would live to see the day when I your father would run smack into such a terrific coincidence? Listen, I know it is a small world, you don't have to explain to me it's a small world, but a thing like this is nevertheless definitely unbelievable — right here in this same building with me a creature which just like your father which also got a son that you could sit there and break a blood vessel from.
But who knows if I already made mention? Maybe I did or maybe I didn't already in a prior communication make mention. On the other hand, precious, since I didn't write to you the day before yesterday, then I have to say to myself, "Face facts, Sol, you didn't." Because when you stop to consider the arithmetic, boychik, it is only twenty-four hours since the woman first set foot on the premises here and established her residence in this building.
So okay, sweetie darling, your father has been seeing a certain svelte person, it is nothing for us as adults to be ashamed of. So what if to this point it has been so far a whirlwind romance! You think I your father do not have the wherewithal to see for myself where the arithmetic speaks for itself? Meanwhile, it couldn't be avoided, sweetheart, two creatures which are both themselves available as to the annals of getting together and which meanwhile got so much unhappiness in mutual.
This is fate, boychik. This is what it means when you ask them for the whys and the wherefores and they come and say to you it is fate, it is fate, and you could stand on your left ear but you could not avoid it. Like with the fella who says to his brother, "So go to 305 and don't worry, I promise you I'll watch out for the cat, it'll be all right, in its whole life the cat wouldn't get better looking after than I your brother will give to this cat!" So the brother who is so crazy about his cat that he couldn't ever stand for two seconds for him to remove himself from the cat like for even a little vacation maybe, the man says to himself okay and goes to 305, Jerome, and when the man gets there, the first thing which he does is he picks up the telephone and he calls his brother which is still up in 212 and he says to his brother, "So how's the cat?"
Listen, Jerome. Because I want you to hear how the brother in 212 answers the brother who is in 305 when the brother in 212 says to the brother in 305, "The cat's dead."
So tell me, sonny boy, you did or didn't hear this—"The cat is dead"? So can you believe this, that the brother should hear his brother say to him, bing bang, the cat is dead!
So naturally it's a long silence with no one talking. And so then the brother in 305 says to the brother in 212, "You are some brother I got! I ask you how is the cat, and you answer me, bing bang, the cat's dead! What kind of a way is this for a brother to say a thing to a brother, bing bang, the cat is dead? Believe me, you should learn how to say a thing when a human being asks you a question — not just bing bang, no preliminaries, no fanfares, no overtures, the cat's dead! Listen to me — the next time somebody asks you so how's the cat, so how is the light of my life the cat, you say to them you took the cat up to the roof for a little breath of air and she got herself a sniffle and you got her in the bed and in a few days, please God, she will be up and around as good as new again, so don't worry, so do not vex yourself, so do not eat your heart out, go to your hotel, check in to your hotel, relax, put on a bathing suit, and in a little while we will talk. So then when I telephone back in a couple of hours to ask you what's what with the cat, you say to me, well, there's complications with the cat, we are getting in a specialist for the cat, we are sparing no expense, it went from the sniffles to in her chest, it went from the sniffles to her whole entire body, but with God's help she will pull through — not no bing bang, no overtures, no approaches, no highways or byways, just the cat is dead! So then when I call again to check with you what the specialist said, this is when you say to me you never know, there is never a guarantee, the cat you had to rush to the hospital two seconds ago and even with the top medical men in science from all over from every college of the world, lo and behold, things didn't go so hot, things went from bad to worse, life is but a raveled sleeve, the cat went ahead and passed away. This is how a brother speaks to a brother, not no bing bang, the cat is dead!"
So the brother that's in 212, Jerome, he says to the brother that's in 305, "Look, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, next time it'll be a different story, next time I'll know better, next time I wouldn't leave out the hearts and flowers so fast, I promise you." So this is when the brother who is in 305 says to the brother who is in 212, "Forget it. So it's only a cat. So meanwhile, so more important, so tell me, darling, so how is Mother?"
Jerome darling, are you listening to this? Did you hear when the brother that's in 305 says to the man, "So meanwhile so how is Mother?" Now pay attention, darling, because I want for you please to also listen and hear what the brother that's in 212 says to the brother that's in 305, because this, darling, this is what he says to the man verbatim. He says to him, "Mother?" He says to him, "Well, Mother, I'll tell you — Mother, the woman, I took her up to the roof for a little breath of air."
This is fate, boychik! This, what I have just told you, is fate and there is no two ways about it! So between your father and Gert Pinkowitz it is the same story — it's fate whichever direction you look at it from. And don't kid yourself, sonny boy, two individuals in our situation, it couldn't be avoided even if you sent for the police.
Okay, so at this point, I admit it to you, everything is still on hold in the dating stage. But even with Romeo, you had to have your dating stage before civilized human beings could let it get around to this, that, and the other thing. Believe me, your father is a patient man, Jerome — thirty-six hours, forty-eight hours, for a living doll like this creature, a person so svelte, your father could make an exception and wait to count his chickens when they come home to roost. But for some things, sweetheart, patience is already beside the point, patience would not make what wiser heads than your father call the big difference.