“Stanley Tells the Same Joke”
This man was so handsome that I always told him he was of movie-star quality. He’d gave Cary Grant…competition. He was also a sweet man who told me the same joke a thousand times.
I’d listen and then laugh on cue.
He’d say, “My first wife had real jewelry but fake orgasms, my 2nd wife has fake jewelry BUT real orgasms”! Stanley would chuckle with twinkling. mischief in his eyes at his joke. Dear Stanley had Alzheimer’s.
His 2nd & last wife is Stella. She is an icy blonde, Polish beauty. He on the hand, was tall, dark haired with black eyes. You can imagine what an attractive young couple they made when they moved into our Manhattan Apartment Building in the mid1970’s.
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………. The Condolence Call……
I didn’t get to their apartment, to pay my respects until 7:00, that evening. Stella & I hugged as I entered her perfectly decorated suite. It is dated, but still posh, with a little Spanish influence remanence of the 1970’s. All the light velvet walls were covered with large abstract paintings of nudes’… ala Dali style. (A nose here, breast there, a buttock in the air)! Stanley had painted them in his retirement.
I was led to a sofa in the creamy -ecru living room that held no guests, except for a lone woman, clear across the room. She was staring in a bulbous glass of red wine…swishing its contents around…dead(?)… quiet!
Stella was fussing away in her kitchen, so I was feeling uncomfortable left in the room, with this woman. I had met her husband briefly, at a happier occasion, a while ago. He had a long Polish name, I remembered.
The quiet woman & I with a long 5-minute lull which prompted me, (Big Mouth to break the ice). We had nothing to say to each other as we were strangers.
(Here comes my faux pas), I smile then stupidly announce to her, “My late father-in-law was the violinist at the Polish National Hall”, trying to find something we had in common like perhaps some Polish ties to her country.
The perplexed flax -haired woman looked at me. 🙄Her eyebrows pulled up in bewilderment. “Why the fuck is this woman telling me this…? (She probably thought…And who gives a crap)! To be polite she asks, “Was it was that in Brooklyn”?
I reply, “No, it was in Manhattan”.
The conversation dies there! 🤐
“Hello”, Dee-Dee … the woman is not Polish it turns out! 💡
(What a schmuck I felt like…deservedly). 😨
Soon the room filled once again with Stella & set of other tenants that arrived.
We acknowledged each other as we use the same bank of elevators in our huge NYC apartment building. We said “Hello” then I ask the woman,
“Don’t you have a twin sister”?
“Yeh", she grunted smirking most annoyed. (I was still shaken from my Polish faux pas).
“How is she doing”? I question because her identical twin hobbles as she has an obvious affliction. It appears like it was a birth defect or polio which was a crippler in our youth prior to Salk vaccinations.
“She drives me crazy”! She snaps!
“I’m so sorry to hear that, I used to meet her in the laundry room doing your wash” I commented, “and I haven’t seen her lately”.
“She doesn’t do it anymore”, she explained obnoxiously, “because she would scream at me if I complained about how poorly she ironed my clothes. I’d shriek back, ‘But I PAY You to Do It’! Now I pay a housekeeper to do it. Fuck her”!
“Bitch”, I hissed mentally.
* I don’t do Condolence Visits…well. 🙄OBVIOUSLY!
