Friends' All
by:
Will B
(Copyright
2007 by the Author)
The author retains all rights. No reproductions are
allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...
Chapter 2
The Supper Party (the evening of July 15).
At 2:00 Steve reached over and kissed Al awake, and said “OK, Sleepyhead, time to get up. If we’re having company, we’d better get cracking.”
Al smiled at his lover and said “Speaking of getting up…., oh, never mind. You’re right.. I’ve got to clean the grill, and make sure the deck is clean.”
“And I’ve gotta get started on the potato salad and cole slaw,” said Steve.
At 2:30, Pete rolled over on to Joe’s abdomen, and kissed him tenderly, and said “I love you, buddy, but we should really get a few more boxes emptied before it’s time to dress and go next door to supper.”
Joe yawned and said “I’d rather have you on top of me, grinding your meat into my treasure trail, but, yeah, we’d better get moving.
The two young men got up, got dressed after their “afternoon delight,” and set to work unpacking boxes and putting things away. Their bedroom was just about finished and they turned their attention to the kitchen.
They unpacked the pots and pans and condiments and spices and a couple of cook books. On their way to their new house they had stopped at a Pantry Pride grocery store and bought eggs, bacon, bread, milk, cereal, and toilet tissue. No Baltimore house is fully stocked, especially in winter, if it doesn’t have bread, milk, and toilet tissue.
At 4:30 they went upstairs, showered, shaved, and dressed. Pete wore a light green shirt and beige trousers, with green socks, and loafers. Joe wore a yellow shirt, blue trousers, and dark blue socks and loafers.
“You know, Pete, they said we didn’t have to bring anything, but I’d like to take them something,” said Joe.
“You’re right, Joe. Look we have time, I’ll run down to the store and get some ice cream. What flavor do you think?”
“Get some vanilla. Almost everybody likes vanilla,” said Joe.
Off Steve went and was back in 20 minutes with a gallon of Breyer’s French Vanilla Ice Cream, and two bottles—one of chocolate syrup, and one of strawberry.
At 5:45 Pete and Joe packed the ice cream and syrups, closed and locked their back door, and went over to their neighbors’ house.
Al and Steve were on the deck grilling the steaks, and fixing the dinner. Sitting on the deck with them was an older lady, who smiled at the two young men.
Steve wiped his hands on a towel, and said “Sarah, may I introduce Pete Harris and Joe Jones, our new neighbors. Pete and Joe this is Sarah Schultz.”
“I am pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” the lady said with a smile. “Steve and Al have told me about you. I am Sarah Kahn Schultz, but you I hope you will just call me Sarah.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am—I mean Sarah,” Joe said with a smile.
Pete smiled and said “I hope we will be good neighbors, Sarah. I understand you live at #39.”
“Look guys, I know you said not to bring anything, but we …we just wanted to do something, so we brought some ice cream. If it doesn’t go with the meal tonight, you can save it for another time,” Joe explained.
Sarah clapped her hands. “How perfect! I was going to make apple strudel, but somehow, it turned out to be apple pie, and I think we could all enjoy apple pie and ice cream!”
“You bet,” came the response from all four men.
The five sat down to eat, and Joe said, “Would you mind if I said the blessing?”
“No, go ahead,” said Al.
They bowed their heads, and Joe said, “Lord, we thank you for this food, but more importantly, we thank you for the new friends we have made today. Amen”
The steaks were done to perfection and the salad and slaw were delicious.
When everyone had finished, Sarah went into the house and brought out the apple pie and Steve brought out the ice cream. The dessert was the perfect ending to a perfect meal.
After they had eaten their fill, Sarah asked Pete and Joe what they did.
Pete replied, “Joe and I have degrees in counseling. We work for the City Department of Social services, but we mainly deal with young people who are brought into the hospitals, the victims of the worst kind of abuse.”
Sarah got very quiet, and looked as if she were almost ready to cry. To give her a chance to recover, Steve asked Pete and Joe if they had any trouble finding their way to their new house.
“No,” Joe said. “We moved from near Taneytown, which is northwest of here, and we came in on Route 40, and took that new Beltway around to…I think it’s called the Jones Falls Expressway, and came down to Northern Parkway, and then up that way until we got to Milford Court. We moved to Baltimore because the over an hour commute each way was getting to us.”
“Yeah,” Al said. “A lot of new highways belt ways and through ways are being built to enable people to get where they’re going faster and faster—if hey don’t kill themselves first.’
Now Sarah spoke. “Thank you, Steve. I know why you changed the subject, to hide my discomfort. You are a kind man, a good man, but now I would like to tell you all something. Al and Steve know part of it, but I would like to tell you all. You will understand why I was so shaken when Pete and Joe talked about their work with young people who had been abused.”
“My name is Sarah Kahn Schultz, and I am 60 years old, and Jewish. I was born in the Netherlands. My mother died when my younger brother, Hans was born. He was born in 1923, so he was almost 20 years younger than me. I took care of the house for my father and Hans, and I loved Hans almost as if he had been my son.”
Sarah paused a minute to collect herself, and then went on.
“My brother was a wonderful young man. He was intelligent, and kind and loving, but he was…., well he was different from most of the other young men in our village. -He…, well, he liked boys rather than girls.”
“My father was not happy about this, and he talked to the doctor and our rabbi, and they told him that this was not something Hans had chosen, but that he was born that way. My father came to accept this, and he never stopped loving Hans, and neither did I. we even had pet names for each other. He was my Hansel, and I was his “Sadie-Sis.”
Sarah stopped again. Al asked her if she wanted a cup of tea or something. She smiled and said “Maybe later, thank you.’
She continued, “In 1940 the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Our beloved Queen Wilhelmina fled to England, where she made daily broadcasts to the people to keep their spirits up. Many Dutch people hid Jews in their homes to save them from the Nazis. You made have heard of Corrie Ten Boom. She and her father and sister hid Jews, until they were caught by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp.”
“Corrie’s father and sister died in the camps but Corrie escaped. I would like to meet her and thank her for all she did to help my people.”
“Anyhow, the Nazis came to our village one day. Someone must have told the officers about Hans’ liking boys, because one night they came to our house and took him away to their headquarters. Someone told me later that he heard his screams coming the officers’ quarters. I never saw him again.”
Here Sarah did break down. The men didn’t know what to do until Al went over to Sarah and out his arms around her shoulders, and just held her.
When she had calmed down, Sarah said, “Let me finish my story. There isn’t much more. The Nazis came and took me and my father to different concentration camps. I heard that my father died in the first winter. Somehow I survived. I don’t know how I did it, except the good Lord must have been watching over me. When the Americans came and liberated the camps, I was nearly dead from starvation. A Jewish doctor, Gabe Schwartz, found me, and got me to a hospital. He nursed me back to health. After the war, he got me to the United States, and …. we were married in 1946. We had 15 happy years together until he died in 1961.”
“Gabe and I had bought this house, and he set up his practice here. I’m not sure if the neighbors were happy at first with two Jews living in their community, but after Gabe pulled a little girl through a bout of pneumonia, the neighbors changed their minds, and began to treat us as if we were good people.”
Now,” Sarah said with a smile, “I have known Al for many years and I have known Steve for just a few months, but I know they are both good men, and I know, although they have never told me, that they care for each other deeply. Now that I have met Pete and Joe, I have the same feelings about them. You are all good men, and I am happy to have all of you as neighbors. My father is dead, and I am afraid my Hans is dead, although I have never quite given up hope, but with ythe four of you, I feel like I have a family again.”
Everyone was quiet for a while, and then Sarah said “I think I would like to have that cup of tea now, if it isn’t too much trouble, Al.”
“No trouble at all, Sarah. It’ll just be a minute. There’s five of us, so as Arthur Godfrey used to say, one for each cup, and one for the pot!”
By now it was quite dark, and there was almost no sound of traffic. The dark was lit by fireflies, or lightning bugs as they were called in some parts of the country,
The five people sat in the dark sipping their tea, watching the fireflies, and thinking thoughts: thoughts of love for their partners, love and compassion for Sarah, and on Sarah’s part, love for her four men. She was already beginning to think of them as four of her brothers.
* * * *
That night as they got ready for bed, Pete asked Joe what he was thinking about.
“Thinking, Pete? I’m thinking about how lucky we are to have each other, and to have such great neighbors.”
“I agree,” said Pete.
At #35, Al and Steve were lying in each other’s arms. “I’ll always have you, Steve,” said Al.
“And I will love you as long as life lasts,” Steve replied.
At #39, Sarah lay in bed, and just said, “Thank you, God, thank you for these good men I have as neighbors.”
To be continued.
* t.p.: toilet paper
Historical Note: Corrie ten Boom was an actual person. Her autobiography The Hiding Place was made into a movie with Julie Harris.
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Posted: 07/20/07