YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

The Mark IV apartments, Beachwood, Ohio

I’m at my parents’ apartment near I-271. So loud — the highway. I’ll hitch down to Cedar-Taylor to get some air.

I’d like to see Sleeper and American Graffiti.

Cleveland . . . it makes one stop and think. I’m thinking of Boston and New York.

The history of the Jews. My parents grew up in the Kinsman neighborhood. Ezra lived in Babylonia.

How do you get the girls if you don’t go near them?

I left my heart in Sandusky.

My friend Chap drove his Corvette up and down Mayfield Road with 11 other Corvette drivers. Chap has a 350-hp engine with headers, minus emission controls.

I saw Sleeper. I resented the Jewish stereotypes.

Stan Smith vs. John Newcombe.

Never write about a place you haven’t done time in. And detail-for-detail-sake is useless.

I don’t want to live here.

—

Recap:

My dad said, “I’m sure you’ll be a success some day.”

At what? Whatever, I should do a good job of it. My father never said to me, “What are your plans? What do you see yourself doing in ten years?” That would have been cruel.

My post-college days were hell, but not that hellish. My mother lined up blind dates for me. The dates were usually with daughters of my mom’s friends. I took the girls to bars and restaurants and ordered 7&7s. That was my booze repertoire: 7&7.

Then I got feedback about the dates from my mother, who picked up tidbits at bridge games. Some of the girls liked me, some didn’t. One date thought I was “a little weird.”

She was weird. She had no business dragging me through her dad’s kangaroo court (his living room had World War II medals on the wall). What are my plans? What do you do?

What’s an apricot sour? That’s what the girl ordered at the bar.

Chap asked me to go to the Corvette rally at Manner’s Big Boy, Mayfield Heights. He had a brand-new 1974 ’Vette. He said, “You think you’re too good for my ’Vette, Stratton. You’d prefer a VW bus with a hippie slut. Why not try real chicks and real cars . . . Friday night at the Strongsville Holiday Inn, it’s crawling with chicks and ’Vettes. No, you’d rather be in Cleveland Heights. Any city that has a bumper sticker like that is a losing proposition.”

When my sentence (nine months) at the Mark IV was up, I moved to Cleveland Heights, into a double, sharing it with three guys I met off the Case Western Reserve rooms-for-rent bulletin board.

I’ve been in Cleveland Heights ever since, and I haven’t seen Chap in more than 35 years. He doesn’t hang around klezmer concerts, for one thing. Alice knocked on the door of the Cleveland Heights double in 1977, looking for a room to rent. Mom’s Dating Service, RIP.

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