PARTISAN REVIEW
"Who pays for all the food?" she asked me.
"I do."
237
It
went on that way, all day and all night. Everyone showed.
It
was even more hectic and crowded in the evening. "Why do we
do this?" I asked the rabbi.
He shrugged and mumbled something about Moses. "It's a
custom that has gotten out of hand."
"I can't stand it any more."
He shrugged again and motioned me closer. "You have a
burglar-fire alarm system that goes clang clang?"
I nodded yes, but he had already turned and was talking to
someone about the one time in his life that Moses found it neces–
sary to use physical force.
It
was a disaster. Everyone panicked except my son. He knew
exactly what to do, because we had rehearsed it many times. Soon
as the alarm went off, cool as a cucumber, he opened his window,
climbed out on the garage roof, gracefully leaped to the tree grow–
ing nicely alongside the garage and shimmied to the ground. Stand–
ing there with gleaming eyes and a slightly bloodied knee, he kept
urging people not to panic and to move away from the house in
case there was an explosion. When everyone was out of the house,
I locked the doors, shut the alarm off, poured myself a scotch and
waited for the police. I let them in when they came, relocked the
door and invited them into the den: one lieutenant, two sergeants,
and six patrolmen.
"Mr. Roth," the lieutenant handed me his card and was the
obvious spokesman, "I am Lieutenant Walter Rudd. Your alarm
system went off." He pulled a small notebook and pencil out and
waited. Everyone else seemed terribly bewildered.
"Would you gentlemen like something to eat? A sturgeon
sandwich, turkey, CCL, anything?"
"Mr. Roth, the alarm system went off. There are five hun–
dred people on your front lawn- -"
"How about some beers?" I stood up.
"N
0
thank you," the spokesman said. "I don't mean to bela–
bor a point," he tapped his notebook with his pencil, "but a series
of events seems to be taking place here that we have to get to the
bottom of. When your alarm system went off in headquarters,
