One could say that Moe is antimaterialist. He claims that cluttering your life with too many possessions fetters your mind and soul. Aside from the old Airstream and the battered Dodge sedan
(1963, white over blue), he has nothing.
I rang the little cowbell and waited. Above the door, painted in Gothic letters, was the vehicle's name: "Der Schleppenwagen."
Moe says that there are three basic ways to measure a person: by what he is, by what he does, arid by what he has. The first is the most important, the second slightly less so, and the third almost meaningless. America's primary fault, he says, is that it foolishly persists in paying attention solely to the third item. Remembering this made me feel guilty again that I had so much, and I thought of Bartolomeo Vanzetti in his little rented room in Plymouth, giving the kids dimes. Moe was like him. Moe was like Thoreau too, with a modern-day, riveted-aluminum version of Henry David's hut.
A gravelly, irritable voice answered my yank on the cowbell.
"Who's dat?"
"Electrolux!" I chirped.
"Oh yeah? Well make like a vacuum and suck. I'm busy."
"It's me."
The curved slab of aluminum opened and Moe's angular, bearded face peered out. He was dressed in a soaked running suit.
"Oh hiya, Doc. What brings you here? Some masochistic desire for humiliation at the chessboard?"
I entered the tiny residence, which was akin to boarding a miniature, stationary airplane. I stood next to him but detected no locker-room stink from the sweat-soaked garments which I hadn't been washed in weeks. Moe runs over fifty miles a week and his sweat has about as much poison in it as distilled water. He rattled a metal Band-Aid box at me. It had a coin slot gashed in the lid and was wrapped with tape. It was his charity-of-the-month box. I heard the rattle of the coin of the realm inside. I pointed at the battered tin box.
"What this time?"
"Saint Bonaventure's Home for Runaways."
"Since when are you giving to Catholic charities? You're not Catholic."
"So? A runaway is a runaway. Let's have it." He rapped my trouser pockets with his knuckles. No coins. He glared at me. "It'll take folding green, Adams. Gimme a bill. One wit' double digits?
He took my ten-spot and folded it quicker than a beer vendor at Fenway, stuffing it into the slot. We were standing in the tiny galley kitchen of the trailer, whose cracked and crumbly linoleum counters were littered with banana peels, orange rinds, yogurt cartons, sprouts, granola, chocolate bars, and thick dark breads. All around us hung bags and baskets of dried fruit. On the tiny icebox was a photo of Albert Einstein. Underneath was a clipped headline message that said SMARTY PANTS. I grabbed a handful of dried apricots and followed Moe through a bead curtain, past the minuscule bathroom, and through his bedroom.
"Is someone in there?"
"Uh-huh. My friend is taking ga shower in there. Come on out back."
Whoever his friend was, he was a shrimp; the tiny shoes Moe kicked aside showed that. We went through a rear door of the Airstream, which connected it to the addition Moe had built to double the size of his dwelling, leaving it tiny rather than microscopic. The addition was a single room, twenty feet square. Three of its walls were bookshelves, broken only by windows, paintings, and stereo equipment. The fourth was glass and screens that slid open. The view was of the woods and goat corral. A wood stove provided heat; its big black box crinkled and tinked, and the air above it danced. The tiny color television was on; Moe was listening to Dr. Mortimer Adler discussing ethics. Another of Moe's aphorisms is that the amount of contentment and happiness you get out of life is directly and inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend worrying about yourself or trying to make yourself happy. Seek happiness, he says, and you'll never find it. Seek the welfare and happiness of others and you'll have more happiness than you'll know what to do with.
He is probably right about this. I say he's probably right because I have never known him to be wrong about anything. I suppose the idea is rather akin to that of Zen. Happiness, says Zen, is not seeking or expecting it. So these Zen Buddhist monks sit around in orange robes and shaved heads, keeping terrible hours and a starvation diet, whopping each other with bamboo stakes. Hey, c'mon and get happy…
"Wanna play?" Moe growled, hauling out the chessboard from beneath a photograph. The photograph was taken in 1967 and shows Moe with his then wife, standing in front of their big house in Lexington. A Mercedes and a Jag are visible in the picture off to one side. Moe is clean-shaven besuited, and trying his best to hide his strained smile. This is Moe Abramson in his former life- Moe
the Big-shot Psychiatrist. The material success was supposed to make him happy but it didn't. Underneath this portrait was another clipped-out headline: WHY IS THIS MAN SMILING?
Moe and his wife split and he underwent a startling metamorphosis, a reincarnation of the personalities in part of Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Thoreau, St. Francis, and Florence Nightin gale. The only trouble with Moe is that he's the world's biggest soft touch. Moe's such a sap he'd buy tickets to the Arsonist's Ball, bless his heart.
As he set up the wooden pieces I heard a soft patter of feet behind me and turned to see Moe's friend. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders and almost covered her breasts. But not quite.
As for her bottom half, it remained in full view as she swung into the room, making no attempt to cover herself.
"Doc, this is Loretta Popp. Lolly, this is my friend Doc. Lolly honey, I think you better put something on, okay?"
She stopped, dumfounded, as if the thought hadn't occurred and there was no need for it.
"Oh yeah… sorry, Moe, it's just that I'm used to… you know…",
"I understand. You go put something on now."
She turned and sashayed out of the room, swinging a luscious tail section and gorgeous legs. My knees quivered and I had the cold sweats. Soon the fantods would set in.
"What was that?"
"Mmmm. One of my charity cases. Lolly's been hooking these past two years. Started when she was sixteen, can you imagine?"
"Lolly Popp? Lolly Popp, for Chrissake?"
"Loretta. Then they nicknamed her Lolly. It was her, uh, nom de guerre. It seems to have stuck."
"Well she certainly is tasty-looking. She part black?"
"Half Jamaican, which explains the tawny skin and aqua eyes. She looks great now- a beautiful girl. But seven months ago she was a sick kid: hepatitis and V.D. Got her all squared away now. She's en route to a foster home."
"But I'm not going," said the lovely creature as she glided back into the room. She curled up on the sofa next to Moe and ran her fingers through his thinning hair. Then she pouted and let her head fall against his. She was wearing a big floppy Celtics sweat shirt. It became her. But then, an ox yoke would become her. She could glorify a slag pit. Moe rubbed her back. Then I saw his hand fall down behind her. Almost instantly he withdrew it, clucking his tongue like a scolding mother hen.
"Loretta. Loretta dear, I said get dressed?
She rose, still pouting, and began to return to the old trailer portion of Moe's dwelling. As she walked past, the sweat shirt rode up a bit and I saw the cause of Moe's rebuke. It seemed that lovely Loretta had neglected to put on pants. She turned and paused, and a faint smile of apology played about her full lips.
"Sorry, Moe. I'm just used to… you know…"
"Of course," said Moe, watching her disappear.
"Kiljoy," I said.
"So what's wit' you? You've just moved your bishop like a knight."
Lolly came back in a flash. In the truest sense, since she was still bottomless. But old Lolly Popp had a sense of humor all right. I have to hand it to her. She scowled at Moe, one hand on hip, and held a pair of black underpants up, as if for inspection, in her other hand. That is, I think they were black. So much light was coming through them it was hard to tell. I wouldn't exactly call them flimsy, but if she held them at shoulder height and dropped them, they'd take five minutes to reach the floor. "An extremely gratifying choice of undergarments, Lolly," I said. "Bravo."