1938 Stewart Warner Sled

My friend Gili Rosen called.

“I have a radio for you,” she said.

This was my favorite kind of phone call. “Really?”

“Yeah, we were cleaning up Carl’s cottage and found it in the attic.”

Carl was Gili’s late father in law.

“Nice,” I said, “I’ll be right over.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she replied, “it has seen better days.”

I liked going to Harry and Gili’s house because, aside from the promise of free food, they always appeared to be genuinely pleased to see me. I would go in, rummage around the kitchen, ask Nida, who was their housekeeper, when she planned to make me chicken adobo, and generally would make myself feel at home. In return, I would launch into a twenty-minute self-deprecating tirade, replete with references to failed seductions and golf balls going awry and astray. There was not much in life which gave me more pleasure than making the Rosens laugh, and if their sometimes-cynical Gen X son Jacob laughed too, then I would know I was at the top of my game.

When I got there this time, I found the added bonus that Harry’s niece, Sarah, her husband Micah, and daughter Elise, were visiting from Israel. Ordinarily, I don't really like guests, or any people for that matter, but Sarah had once worked for me at Tumbleweed Press and she loved to tell the story of how she brought me Tim Hortons coffee instead of Starbucks and I sent her back to get it right. It is a story which I’m sure never happened but she took a lot of pleasure in recounting it and who am I to deprive someone of life’s little pleasures - even if it was a total fabrication. In addition, Harry had told me that Elise’s favorite book was Crazy for Canada which, although I had not written, was a Tumbleweed book and so, being vain and self-centered, I was heading over there to receive my well-earned accolades.

Elise did indeed love Crazy for Canada and Sarah went on about it and it was all going splendidly until I asked if Harry had given her my latest book - My Afternoon Guest - and Sarah, in very typical Israeli fashion said, “yes, we read it to her. She didn't like it at all.”

Which should have been my first clue that dark clouds were ahead. That’s when I should have left.

But I still hadn't had my pie.

I was wiping the remnants of the strawberry rhubarb from my chin, eyeing a second piece, when Micah, Sarah’s husband, said, “you know, I’m also a little bit in publishing.”

This is usually when somebody will tell me they have written this very cute book about a dog with three legs or a cat with five, and how they read the story to their kid and then to the kids at daycare and how everyone said they should publish it and would I mind taking a look at it. And this is usually the time I would stab myself with the knife I would have used to cut myself a piece of pie.

But Micah was actually in publishing. He worked with a publisher in Israel which translated the works of European philosophers into Hebrew.

“Huge market,” I joked, although I realized this was a bit rich coming from someone who had only sold 27 copies of his short story collection. Then, catching myself out and also remembering that my friend Allie had told me to be a little less full of myself and ask other people questions, I said, “wow, that is really interesting. Which philosophers?”

Micah, who had a PhD in philosophy, then, foolishly treating me like an equal, rhymed off a series of Germanic sounding names - the majority I was quite sure were made up or medical conditions. I just nodded my head like the idiot I am until he said, “and of course Spinoza.”

I was familiar with Spinoza, if only barely, but my insecurity and uneasiness generally cause me to resort to humor, and so I hesitated just a little because I was forming my reply (“of course, shortstop for the 1967 Yankees.” Which I think would have been funny), but he pounced on my hesitation and said, “you know who Spinoza is?”

But it was the way he said it.

“You know who Spinoza is?” Do you hear the disdain?

Then Sarah looked at me and, in her face, I could see she was thinking, “I used to get this guy coffee?”

Even Harold seemed a bit disappointed in me. This was not good.

I was usually the guy who made other people feel like shit for being dumb. That was my thing.

Then the baby cried and I slowly slinked out of the house declaring it had been one of the worst nights ever.

Gili yelled out, “You forgot the radio!”

I told her I would come back. Not even a radio could salvage my mood.

When I got home, I ordered Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy from Amazon. I also spent about two hours reading up on Spinoza and his mentors and disciples. The book arrived the next day.

I read the first 50 pages.

I mean, I read the words that were on the first 50 pages. They could have, for all intents and purposes, been written in Aramaic. Nothing was sinking in. Nothing. Not a word.

Jesus.

Was I dumb? Was I that guy?

Can there be anything worse than being really dumb but thinking you were really smart?

Jesus.

I read the 50 pages again. Still nothing.

Maybe Will Durant who had, with his wife, written the ten volume Story of Civilization, was a lousy writer.

Nah.

The guy was a genius. It was me. I was straight-up dumb.

The phone rang. It was my niece Rena. She was coming back from her religion class.

“Have you had an assignment yet?” I asked.

She said they had to go on YouTube and watch a commencement address given by a writer about atheism and write an essay on it. And I said, “oh, David Foster Wallace.”

And she said, “what?”

And I repeated, “David Foster Wallace.”

And she said, “how do you know that?” She was completely dumbfounded.

I explained that DFW was one of my favorite writers, and that some of his essays were considered classics in the field.

“It’s called This is Water, right?”

“Yessssss!”

“Yeah. Great commencement speech.”

“Wow,” she said, “you’re smart.”

And I said, “well, lucky guess.” Because, you know, I'm nothing if not modest. I hung up and thought to myself.

I am smart!

Here I had let this two-bit philosophy charlatan make me doubt myself. David Foster Wallace.

Damn right!

I grabbed my car keys and drove over to the Rosens.

I was going to tell Micah where he could shove his Spinoza. I marched into the house. Gili said, “come back for your radio?”

“Forget about the radio,” I replied. “Where’s Micah?” Micah was on the couch reading a book to his daughter. I did not hesitate.

“So,” I said. “My niece just called.”

“Nice,” he said.

“Yeah,” I stormed on. “She’s taking a religion course and had to watch a commencement speech from this writer.”

Then Micah, as casually as possible said, “This is Water by David Foster Wallace.” Like nothing. Like shaking hands.

And I, more than a little deflated, said, “yeah.”

And he said, “nice.”

And I said, almost in a whisper, I said, “I knew that.”

And Micah, without looking up, turning a page of Crazy for Canada which, to be fair, Elise was really enjoying, said, “Ron, everyone knows that.”

The radio was a 1938 Stewart Warner.

A wood radio with a very distinctive art deco design. Collectors called it The Sled. Gili was wrong about the shape. It was actually a beauty. I plugged it in and, although not the greatest sound, this original unrestored 1938 radio was playing really nicely. I wish I had known that Carl had it while he was alive. I carried it to my car and placed it carefully on the floor of the front passenger seat.

Then I went back into the house and got myself a piece of pie. Because, you know, I may be dumb, but I’m not that dumb.

The End.