“Well, yes. Yes, I do. But think how it would look to my grandchildren. Think of that.”
“How would it look?”
“It would look awful. Just terrible.”
“Are you a virgin?” Penny asked frankly.
“It’s been so long, I don’t remember.”
“Let’s have sex.”
“I think we should talk first.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything. Medicare. We could talk about Medicare.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Penny confessed.
“Then Social Security.”
“It doesn’t interest me.”
“It should. After all, your grandfather’s living on it.”
“Leave my grandfather out of this.”
“We could talk about your grandfather.”
“Mother Tucker!” Penny spoke her name through clenched teeth.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t I good enough to talk about your grandfather?”
“You just stay away from my grandfather!”
“I can’t. I have a date with him. We go to the same urologist and last week in the waiting room he asked me to play tiddleywinks with him and I said I would.”
“Break the date. I’m warning you, Mother Tucker!”
“He’s cute. I just love his goiter!”
“You keep your hands off my grandfather’s goiter!”
“And we have a lot in common,” Sonia persisted with an aged cackle. “Things your generation can’t understand because you’re just not tuned in on us.”
“What things?”
“Hemorrhoids. Gout. Senility. Things like that.”
“I don’t care. I want you to leave my grandfather alone. Now you pay attention to me, Mother Tucker. Don’t be cute. You leave my grandfather alone, or I’ll make things most unpleasant for you.”
Sonia took a deep breath. “I’m going to marry your grandfather!” she squeaked loudly.
“Never! After our relationship, how can you even suggest such a thing?”
“Our relationship was no more important than if I’d blown your nose.”
“You might have mentioned that before. I’d like to try that.”
“You have. You just don’t remember. It was back when I was wet-nursing you. Ah, the good old days.”
“You had values then,” Penny remonstrated. “In those halcyon days, old people did what they were told. I just don’t know what gets into you duffers today. Always bugging your younger betters. Spare the rod and spoil the senile!” Penny sighed.
“You just want us all to be hypocrites like you! You want us to riot and sit-in and wear flowers and do all the other square things your generation does. But we’re going to live our lives the way we want to!”
“We never should have given you the vote!” Penny remarked morosely. “First that, and now you want to marry my grandfather.”
“Why shouldn’t I marry your grandfather?”
“Would you want a fuddy-duddy to marry your grandfather?” Penny countered.
“Don’t be chauvinistic! Anyway, you have nothing to say about it. Your grandfather and I will decide for ourselves.”
“That’s what you think.” Perry was smug. “I’ve already foiled you. My grandfather is marrying a nice Jewish lady from the Bronx who makes chicken soup and belongs to the Hadassah. The wedding is tonight. So there!”
“I’ve got to get there and stop it!” Sonia stumbled to her feet, wheezing.
“It’s too late, Mother Tucker.”
“Not for us it isn’t. Maybe for you youngsters, but it’s never too late for us. I’ll just hop in my Aston-Martin, hit the freeway, crash the synagogue and stop that wedding before they even get to the chopped liver!”
“How are you going to stop it?” Penny scoffed.
“Simple. I’ll hide all the yarmulkes.”
“You’ll be too late for that.”
“Then I’ll rush up to the altar, push the rabbi aside, grab the groom and flee the synagogue with him.”
“They’ll stop you.”
“They’ll try. But I’ll clobber them with the crucifix and then use it to bolt the doors and—”
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Crucifix? What crucifix? Where are you going to find a crucifix in a synagogue?”
“Don’t bother me with details. I’m in a hurry.”
“Synagogues aren’t allowed to have crosses.”
“That’s the most anti-Semitic thing I ever heard!”
“Not really. It’s just that—-”
“If a goy can use a crucifix to break up a wedding, then I don’t see why—”
“Take my word for it,” Penny told her. “No crucifix.”
“So all right then. So instead I’ll bean them with the Torah. Then I’ll tie the doors together with my mezuzah chain. Before they can catch us, your grandfather and I will hop the first subway to Pelham Parkway — it should only be an express.”
“That’s pretty sacrilegious. And besides,” Penny pointed out, “if you do all those things, if you marry my grandfather, it’s going to put a strain on our relationship. Have you thought about that?”
“We could still see each other the nights he plays pinochle,” Sonia suggested. “Actually, it wouldn’t work out badly at all. We’d be one big happy family.”
“I can’t wait for the first Thanksgiving dinner,” Penny told her dryly.
“You’re right, I suppose. Anyway, it’s over between us. You can’t go on working out your Oedipus complex all your life, you know.”
“You’re too old for my Oedipus complex. We’ve gone beyond. As a matter of fact, there have been times when I felt I was getting uncomfortably close to necrophilia.”
“Necrophilia is a dead issue,” Sonia croaked.
“Who said anything about stillborn children?”
“Huh?” Sonia shrugged off the non sequitur. “Anyway, at my age it’s hard to draw a line,” she told Penny. “I once knew a necrophiliac who was orally oriented and who swore to me that his dead partner made the act reciprocal. The way he put it was ‘the deceased ate a hearty breakfast.’ ”
“But we digress,” Penny pointed out.
“And how!” The voice came from a table in front of the stage and now its owner, the same emcee who had enlisted Penny and Sonia before, leaped to the stage and called a halt to the psychodrama. “You’ve carried this improv as far as you can,” he told them, not unkindly. “Now let’s hear some reactions from the audience. You there.” He singled out a long-haired youth stringing his guitar. “What did you think? What was your emotional reaction?”
“I identified with the grandfather,” the youth replied.
“Like, he was caught by the Establishment. But I wanna ask the fink something.” He snarled at Penny. “How does selling out all the time like you come across make you feel inside? I mean really inside. Down in the gut! Down in the kidneys!”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Penny replied.
“He’s just trying to alienate himself even more,” another voice called out. “Why should he have to hide to perform a perfectly ordinary, everyday act that everybody does all the time? He doesn’t go into hiding to eat, does he? Then why should he go into hiding to eliminate?”
“I’m shy,” Penny replied.
“You’re uptight!” another voice called.
“That’s true,” Penny admitted. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Why are you shutting us out?” a sweet-looking girl asked sweetly.
“I really have to — Where is the bathroom anyway?”
“I’ll show you.” Sonia led the way from the stage. She guided Penny across the room and indicated a door in the far wall. “There it is,” she said.
Penny entered the door. It turned out to be the kitchen. A cook stirring a large cauldron of soup looked up quizzically.
“Yeah?” the cook inquired.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
The cook considered it. “Well, ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind,” he said, continuing to stir the cauldron. “But lately the Health Department’s been doing spot checks on us and I wouldn’t feel right taking the chance. You’d better use the john.”