Page 390 - WhyAsInY
P. 390

Why (as in yaverbaum)
performed with great strength”) when a man performed some temple ritual (no matter how weakly), or elevate three ascending heights on my toes in concert with the saying of “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh.”
As is probably the case with most young people with families, our conversations were, I suppose, almost entirely of a procedural, child- rearing, or “news-of-the-day” variety and not of a “philosophical” or “relationship” nature, at least not as I can recall. But, as I said, I see few images of Phyllis and me by ourselves, for there was little time for us to really be alone, and I can remember no conversations of consequence, except at the end. I don’t recall that we had any concept of working on our relationship until that time. (We must have had conversations when we separated in 1977, but, as I said, I don’t recall any.) That probably didn’t matter. We were not suited for each other—or the lives that I believe each of us really wanted.
Harvey and the Rebells
Which brings me to the Rebell family and my reaction to it, some of which I have already described in Chapter Twenty.
I don’t recall whether it was the imminence of Danny’s arrival or his arrival itself that led us to move out of Park West Village, but we needed a two-room apartment and chose its location, just north of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, in much the same way that we had chosen the location of our one-bedroom just west of Central Park in Manhattan. Our apart- ment in Park West Village was within one hundred steps of the home of Phyllis’s cousin Franny Zelikow and her husband. Similarly, 10 Plaza Street was just a very short walk from 60 Plaza Street, where Phyllis’s brother Michael and his wife, Susan, were living.
Michael and Susan became fairly regular companions of ours, and more so after our sons were born. (Joshua, their son, for whom we had postponed our wedding, had been born in January 1969.) We spent so much time together that at one point Michael suggested that we jointly purchase and live in a brownstone in Park Slope. I demurred, which in
• 372 •



























































































   388   389   390   391   392