Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale Read Free

already, and so—by the way—is Anshel ,” Alfred responded.
    Evelyn came over and interrupted. “Congratulations honey,” she said as she embraced and kissed him.
    He responded, “Thank you,” a bit coldly, still affected by his mother’s comments.
    Evelyn stepped aside, and held Alfred’s hand while facing the others. “An emesse lawyer, a real lawyer, yes?” she exclaimed heartily. She would have to lose that Yiddish inflection, Alfred thought to himself. Aside from that, she would make a perfect wife.
    That was his plan—the perfect wife, the perfect family, the perfect home. Nothing would get in his way. Soon enough, the striking, tall, full-figured brunette with blue eyes, Evelyn Voratitsky, the princess of Bradford Street, would be taking diction lessons.
     
    They were married that August. Three months later, they abandoned the basement apartment of Sheindle Simenovitz’ East Flatbush home for a large new home in the exclusive town of Hewlett Harbor, one of the famed “Five Towns” on the south shore of Long Island. Ten years earlier, Alfred had inherited a substantial amount of money from his father, a successful furrier on the Lower East Side. Since his law school tuition had been courtesy of the GI Bill, and as a student he kept his living expenses to a minimum, he was able to save and invest. In those years, the stock market was his forte. He did quite well. Now, his sights were set higher, properties and buildings in the five boroughs. Real estate would be his future. Buying, selling, managing, and perhaps even developing.
    “Vhat is it you vent to law school for, to learn to be a salesman?” his mother asked, standing over a plate of smoked fish at the bris of his son Paul , just a year after he and Evelyn were married. Alfred had been talking up his latest venture to some of the guests and was caught off guard by the remark. “No, mom, I went to law school to learn how to argue with you,” he responded. Touché. He seemed to enjoy this thing with her.
    In truth, law school, as everything else, was simply a vehicle for Alfred. Practicing law was smalltime compared with what he had in mind, but he knew that the prestige of being a member of the Bar would be an asset. As a lawyer, people would be afraid to “screw” him. Alfred always thrived on the fears of others.
    Everything was going exactly according to plan. Until, that is, the exotic Loretta Eubanks entered the picture. Alfred had a weakness for black women. He was excited by them because they were taboo for a proper Jewish boy from Brooklyn.
    While he had regularly been fooling around on the side, he respected his home and kept his family insulated from his escapades. But when Evelyn hired Loretta as a live-in, things began to change. It wasn’t two months before he was sneaking into her room downstairs in the middle of the night. The danger of this made it all the more enticing, for both Alfred and Loretta.
    Loretta may have harbored fantasies of stealing Alfred from his family, but deep down she knew that she was no more than a mistress, not very different from many of the slave girls in the South a few generations earlier. She tried not to let that bother her, and the satisfaction of being more desirable than the white woman, in whose house she lived and worked, seemed to help. In the end, however, she knew she had no choice in the matter. It was either play along with Alfred, or find another job.
    For a few months, Alfred managed to keep his gallivanting under one roof. It was rather convenient while it lasted. Then, something happened. Loretta learned that she was pregnant with his child. This changed everything. He pleaded for an abortion, but she—a Southern Baptist—would have none of it. “Don’t you go worrying yourself about anything,” she told him, “I can take care of this child on my own.”
    Evelyn appeared to be unsuspecting, and assumed that the deed had been done by some boyfriend during one of Loretta’s