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David’s Successor
As if whacking younger siblings is not enough, society demands that we send our sons out to be gladiators as soon as they are weaned off the nipple. Assuming they ever are.
This winter my boy Max, 5 years old, walked out onto the wrestling mat for the first time. If you’re a father, you might kvell at the thought, but in me it provoked both pride and fear.
I’ve had a long-held belief that every generation of so-called men is exponentially sissier than the one that preceded it. For instance, the Gilden family: My grandfather, the original Max Gilden, grew up on the shtetl. He lived in a one-room house with three families and a dirt floor. When he left Russia, Cossack bullets were whizzing by his giant ears. Then he hitchhiked to America on a cattle boat where he had to shack up with amorous bovines.
He made his living the hard way, first at the Sparrows Point blast furnace and then, more prestigiously, hawking shmattes. Finally, he settled in as a grocer, toiling from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m., six days per week. After that, death — probably from exhaustion.
His son, my father, was a high school cheerleader.
See what I mean?
I tried to reverse this trend and rally the family manliness. I was a varsity football player for Owings Mills’ Screaming Eagles. But at 112 pounds, I was no “Big Daddy” Lipscomb. Fortunately, I made up for my runtiness with poor coordination, bad hands, slowness, pre-spinach biceps and an indefinable effeminacy.
So given my theories, what would Max do? We signed him up with the North Baltimore Wrestling Club, a kind of gathering place for hyperactive gentile spawn, and waited to see.
I swelled with pride when Max put on his uniform, which is called a singlet, but was deflated again when his mother referred to it as a “onesie.”
At practice, he allayed my fears and beat all the wrestlers in his weight class. Yet it was hard to be too enthusiastic. Deep down I knew his success was based less on knowledge of the moves, and more on a streak of amiable homicide.
Anyway, as he readied himself for his first tournament, I didn’t know what to expect. But, as usual, I knew what to say. I steeled him by telling him that he was descended from the mysterious desert tribe that had invented wrestling.
“Really,” he said, “the Jews invented wrestling?”
“Better than that,” I told him, “the very first Jew actually wrestled God.”
His eyes grew wide with the pleasure of this news. “You mean, Jacob? He wrestled God?”
“That’s right,” I said. “In fact, when it was over, he changed his name to Israel and that means, ‘Wrestles with God.’”
“Why did Jacob and God wrestle?”
“I guess all Jews tangle with God,” I said. “We fight Him in our souls, struggle with Him, to understand His purpose.”
I wondered if his 5-year-old mind could possibly grasp what I was trying to tell him, but he knew more than I thought.
“So, Israel was Jacob,” he said.
“That’s right. Who was Jacob’s father?”
“Isaac,” he snapped, beaming at his own brilliance.
“OK!” My voice was rising, too. “Who was Isaac’s father?”
“Ooh, ooh, I know this,” he said, almost bursting. “Isaac’s father was Abraham, Abraham Lincoln!”
The next day, David’s successor appeared in the circle of battle. In about two seconds, his first-ever opponent descended upon him like a lion on a gazelle, bringing him down and tying him up in bitter defeat.
He’s his father’s son, all right.
Posted by on 02/08/08 at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
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