Free Harry Kaplan's Adventures Underground by Steve Stern

the time with Oboy, for whom time always seemed to stand still, I ducked out the door. I checked to make sure that the Beale Street bayou had not disappeared before I had the chance to get a proper eyeful.
    All that afternoon we heard the sirens. We saw the press gangs of police rounding up errant Negroes for the purpose, as we learned, of sandbagging the levees. A number of refugees from forced labor, undiscouraged by my father, found their way into the shop, and always they brought with them some late-breaking rumor: The water was still rising; there were plans afoot for evacuating the city. The mayor’s council had moved its offices on board the Island Queen , which had slipped its moorings and drifted away. Memphis was without any government. But Beale Street never surrendered to the general alarm. Pawnbrokers and merchants alike stood in their doorways with folded arms, showing themselves prepared to sink or swim. No disaster was so great that it could disrupt their appointed hours of business, nor deter them from an opportunity of turning a profit. And my father no doubt prided himself on being a member of this fraternity.
    But around dusk Papa got one of those phone calls from my mother, which usually spelled trouble. From where I stood I could hear her voice over the line, sounding a little like a muted kazoo. Whatever she was demanding, Papa was resisting, trying for all he was worth to pass the buck.
    â€œListen Mildred, we’re awful busy here,” he protested, his cheeks coloring slightly with shame. “Can’t Morris …? Can’t Dr. Seligman …?”
    By now I’d assumed the nature of her summons: Grandpa Isador must have been inconsolable again, his pacification requiring all available hands. That’s why I had to sigh aloud when Papa volunteered, “Okay, I’ll send Harry right over,” as if that settled everything. To my relief the proposal, which had overtones of sacrifice, apparently did not meet my mother’s terms.
    While his lips continued to mouth a few more silent but but buts , in the end Papa sulkily conceded to her wishes. With such tender consideration did he remove his sleeve garters and visor that I thought he was going to kiss them, like sacred vestments, before returning them to their respective hooks.
    â€œC’mon Harry.” His voice was approaching a whine. “We got to go home.” It was a pathetic echo of this morning’s rousing call to the funeral. Of course the family ought to be together at the end of such a day, just as we’d been together at the beginning, but the idea of going home now seemed like a kind of defeat. It meant returning to where we’d started, as if everything were the same as before the flood. But if nothing had changed, why was I seized with the impulse to say what I said?
    â€œYou go ahead. I’ll stay and mind the shop for a while.”
    Papa looked at me like, Whose little boy are you? “Look, it’s Shabbos already,” he pointed out, as if this were supposed to mean something, coming as it did from one who’d told his own father that the Sabbath was a luxury a man of business couldn’t afford. For this I figured “Nu?” was enough of an answer. Then he tried another angle, telling me that my presence would be required to help make a minyan. I asked him since when did the ritual mourning come before the burial, and besides, Jews didn’t sit shivah on Shabbos.
    â€œA k’nocker I got here,” Papa said to the bossed tin ceiling. “Awright, Mr. K’nocker, I ain’t got time to argue.” He gave me a look that I guess was intended to probe my murky depths, then hunched his shoulders to signify that I’d won. But this was too easy. Defiant sons aren’t supposed to overthrow their father’s mandates so handily, are they? And the realization that I’d done just that resulted in my immediate loss of nerve.
    My sinking heart,