“It’s beyond me how you can be so snooty! What makes you think you’re any better than Kahnegi, Rahknfelleh, and Vendehbilt?”
Excetra, excetra.
Leave it to Pinye!
Who would have thought that a little dzhahb collecting synagogue dooz would lead in the end to a big dzhahb? And not one big dzhahb but two — one Elye’s collecting for a foinitsheh biznis and one Pinye’s collecting for an inshurinks kahmpeni. Wait a minute and I’ll tell you what they do.
WE’RE KEHLEHKTEHZ!
One good thing about America is that everything gets delivered to your home. And you can buy it in installments for a dahleh a week and fix up your house like a lord’s. It’s called foinishink deh epahtment.
Don’t ask me what kind of word foinitsheh is. Elye says it comes from “fein” and “tsheh.” Pinye says that’s ridiculous. In the first place, the word should be “feinitsheh.” And second, why a fine chair and not a fine mirror? Elye answers that only an idiot would say feinitsheh instead of foinitsheh. He says that’s the law of foinetiks.
They went at it so that they nearly came to blows. Luckily, Brokheh came along and put an end to it. She made them agree to ask an American — I mean a Jew who isn’t a grinhawn.
It turned out that the word is neither feinitsheh nor foinitsheh. It’s firnitsheh. Go figure.
No one in America pays cash — not unless you’re a Jew like Dzheykip Shif. They say he’s the richest man in America. That’s according to Elye. Pinye disagrees. Kahnegi, he says, is richer. And Vendehbilt puts Kahnegi in his little pocket and Rahknfelleh makes them both look like pikers. “That’s a good one!” Elye says. “You’re talking real estate and I’m talking cash. Shif ’s got more cash than all of them together.”
That was too much for Pinye. Elye, he shouted, didn’t know what he was talking about. Rahknfelleh gives away more cash in a year than all Shif ’s property is worth.
Elye hit the ceiling. “Pinye,” he cried, “you’re an anti-Semite!” Shif, Elye said, is a Jew, even if Rahknfelleh is richer. If we Jews don’t stick up for each other, who will?
“I don’t care if Shif is ten Jews!” Pinye said. “Does that mean I have to lie for him? You’re forgetting, Elye, that we’re in America. In America no one likes a blahfeh.”
“If you’re talking about lies,” Brokheh said, “I’d like to see one of my enemies drop dead for every lie told each day in New York City. And that’s not including Bruklin, Brawnzvil, and the Brahnks.”
She stopped that argument cold.
If you’re going to charge a dollar a week for firnitsheh, you need someone to go get the dahleh. That’s your kehlehkteh. There are plenty of them.
Every kehlehkteh has his own route with its own houses. He knocks on the door and says “Gud mawnink.” Then he says “Iz ah vehry neis dey,” takes your dahleh, writes out a receipt, and says “Gudbei.” That’s all there is to it. You don’t even have to take off your hat. It isn’t the custom. You can walk whistling into the richest man’s house with your boots on, or with a cigarette or tshooinkahm in your mouth, and no one will say a word. That’s America.
Elye likes his new dzhahb. It’s a lot better than selling haht dawgz in a delikatesn and he makes more money. Some weeks he brings home eight dahlehz, and some ten or twelve. It depends on the veddeh. If the veddeh is good, he vawks. If it’s bad, he has to take the stritkah. That costs a nikl. Elye doesn’t like to part with his nikelz. He’s tight with his money. He isn’t like Pinye.
Pinye is a big spender. He almost never vawks. That’s because he’s nearsighted and could be run over. Actually, he says, he’s more absent-minded than nearsighted. He’s always thinking about something. He can’t let a minute go by without reading a book or a noospeypeh. Even when he’s writing, he’ll stop to think in the middle of a sentence. He doesn’t hear what you say to him then. All of a sudden he’ll grab a pencil, or a pen and some ink, and fill both sides of ten pages. Nobody knows what he’s writing or plans to do with it, not even Taybl. When Elye asks him, he says:
“You’re too young to know.” We’ve grown older and still don’t know.
Nevertheless, Pinye makes a living. He’s a kehlehkteh too. Not for firnitsheh. Pinye kehlehkts for leif inshurinks. Actually, it’s more like death inshurinks. Everyone in America has it: husbands, wives, children, parents, brothers, sisters. It costs a nikl to a dahleh a week, no cash down. The more inshurinks you have, the more you pay. There are families in which everyone, from the little babies to the grandparents, carries death inshurinks. If there’s anyone who doesn’t, it’s up to the kehlehkteh to see that he does.
I can’t tell you exactly how death inshurinks works. All I know is that it’s a dzhahb Elye turned down. He’d rather be a firnitsheh kehlehkteh. Inshurinks means talking. And talking some more. And talking more than that. Pinye is good at it. He could talk a wall into falling down. Pinye could sell death inshurinks to the dead.
Pinye couldn’t care less who you are. He has an answer for everything. If you already have inshurinks, you need more. If you don’t, you better take it out. If you don’t take it for yourself, you can take it for your wife, child, cousin, or nekstdawrikeh. Once Pinye gets you in his clutches, you’re done for.
Nekstdawrikeh inshurinks isn’t really for your next-door neighbor. It’s a way of earning a few hundred dahlehz from the inshurinks kahmpeni if he dies. And your nekstdawrikeh does the same: if you die first, the money is his. You both pay the kahmpeni a kvawdeh a week. The kahmpeni comes to get it. I mean the kehlehkteh does. That’s Pinye. He kehlehks your kvawdehz and keeps half for his kehmishn.
That’s kehlehktink. Taking out inshurinks for the first time is called reitink ah pahlisee. If Pinye is the eydzhent who reits it, he earns fifteen-to-one. That means that if the primyim is a kvawdeh a week, he gets fifteen kvawdehz from the kahmpeni in one shot. You can figure out for yourself what two or three pahliseez a day add up to. That’s a heap of kvawdehz. It’s like coming into an inheritance.
“God help us,” Brokheh says to Pinye. “You’re flooding the house with money!” You should see Taybl blush as she watches Pinye shake the nikelz and kvawdehz from his pockets.
“So, what did you think?” Pinye answers, making separate piles of the kvawdehz and the nikelz. “That Kahnegi, Vendehbilt, and Rahknfelleh were born millionaires?”
If I had a fresh sheet of paper, I’d take some charcoal and sketch. This is what I’d put in my picture:
A table. At the head of it sits my mother, her arms crossed on her chest. To one side of her is Brokheh — big and tall, with monster feet. To the other side is Taybl — a skinny little quarter of a chicken. Both are at work, one sewing and one knitting. My brother Elye sits at the table’s end, a grown man with a beard. In one hand he’s holding ah bahntsh kahdz and in the other some dahleh bilz. They’re what he kehlehkted today.
Pinye is hunched across from him, smooth-shaven, a real American. He’s emptying his pockets of kvawdehz and nikelz. Being nearsighted, he brings every kvawdeh and nikl to his nose. Two piles rise high on the table, one of kvawdehz and one of nikelz. Pinye goes on counting. He reaches into his pockets for more coins. You can see that his pockets are still bulging. They look ready to burst.
Nothing lasts forever. And no one is ever satisfied. We’re tired of going from door to door for kvawdehz and nikelz. Better your own slice of bread than the next man’s loaf. That’s what Brokheh says.