Your Saturday Jack

Irving Schlamowitz, where are you?

We begin this Saturday morning, as we usually do on such Saturdays, with a trip to Owl Head/Old School/New York Bagels.

“Did I call you this morning?” my father says, I enter his apartment.

“You did.”

“What did I say?”

“You told me you were at the woman’s apartment.”

“What woman’s apartment?”

“I don’t know. You just said you were at so and so’s apartment and that I knew her.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Anyway, what’s new sweetheart?”

“Wanna go to breakfast?”

“Yeah. Where? You mean, your guy?”

“Yes. We’ll go to my guy.”

“Ach, Ba,” he says on the way down the hallway, “am I dying?”

“Not today.”

“No, it’s that. It’s just that I feel terrible. I don’t know what the hell it is. I can’t catch my breath. What is it, my age?”

“It’s definitely your age.”

“What should I be doing at this age?”

“You should be dead, actually.”

“You’re right. Usually 80, 82, that’s it.”