What word rhymes with meatball? I had my head in my hands, trying to massage the pounding headache I had developed. This wasn’t what my parents had sent me to Eretz Yisrael to do. But I was going to be up all night if I couldn’t get this poem done. And all this fuss just about a meatball. ~ The first time I saw Mechel Grossman, I knew—maybe just somewhere in my spine and in the hair on the back of my hands, not in my head—that he was trouble. Thin, with the vague air of someone who has forgotten to eat, jumpy and direct—all those qualities were obvious from the initial moment. Though he was a yeshivishe guy, not chasidishe, he had prodigious peyos, tied under his yarmulke like a Gerrer chasid. He was an archetypal wild child, grown larger but not quite grown up. Wildness, as anyone who knew him in those days can tell you, was an essential part of his charm, which he had in plenty. At the time, I was perilously poor, having scrounged together the money to travel to Eretz Yisrael and go to yeshivah; my parents were in no financial shape to help.
Over the next year, my clothes grew tattered and stained, and I couldn’t replace them. My meager reserve of money was going to tuition and to the small vicissitudes of living in Israel. I was the ideal candidate to resent a son of rich parents, and I sometimes did that. But I never resented Mechel, even though I knew his family was wealthy and it showed, almost stereotypically, in his casual behavior toward expenses. He was simply too likable, even against your will. Besides the charm of his impishness, his good nature was also something that made you like him; he was generous, with drive behind his generosity that he didn’t always have in other aspects of his behavior. Nonetheless, it was clear he was trouble. He was the sort of person who might, say, commandeer an ambulance for a ride up to the tziyon of Rav Shimon Bar Yochai on Lag Ba’Omer, swathed in white, while his companions called to the crowd to make way for the mekubal. Not juvenile-delinquent trouble, more a yeshivishe type of trouble. But trouble nonetheless.Mechel and I had very different schedules. I was on the goody-two-shoes plan, waking up diligently for yeshivah Shacharis even though only a minority of the bachurim—we were older and independent—made an effort to attend. Mechel fluctuated. Some of the time he was a later riser; then there were the weeks of vasikin. I never quite figured out whether it was a mood thing or because he was doing things early in the morning.
At night, the situation was similar. I tried to get to bed by one in the morning, if not earlier, and my schedule was fairly regular. Mechel, for his part, might be in bed by 10 or he might be up all night. Because of the difference in our routines, because Mechel often ate his meals at his married brothers’ homes, and because we learned in two different styles and on two different sides of the beis midrash, we spoke very little to one another. But the few times that we did speak, Mechel treated me— maybe because I was an out-of-towner, not a New Yorker, like he was—as if I were an exotic sort of talking animal. He never asked me, like one roommate once did, “So did you ride cows to yeshivah when you were younger?” Instead of a mocking attitude, Mechel’s inquiry seemed more like a scientific study of the strange specimen that I was. But it took the meatball fiasco to get him to reveal what he was really thinking. ~ Finding places to eat on Shabbos was never my fondest part of my year in Israel. There was someone in yeshivah who would help you if you didn’t have a meal, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking him for a spot every week. So I had to try to conquer my own shyness and ask people. Mechel never had that problem. Social anxiety wasn’t on his radar, as they say. He tended more toward the totally uninhibited side. That was what caused the meatball episode.
One Motzaei Shabbos, I entered our dirah to find Mechel pacing in the kitchen, one of his peyos out from underneath his yarmulke and whisking around behind him like a banner of sorts. This made me wince a bit; since the kitchen was cleaned only by the bachurim, there tended to be living things on the floor frequently, usually of the slug or roach variety. I always stepped much more gingerly in there. “I need your help,” he suddenly said. “I insulted someone.” He had eaten out on Friday night at the home of one of the yungeleit he went to regularly. The wife, a particularly blunt sort, had brought out meatballs with the main course. Mechel—probably due to his tendency to listen to everything with only half an ear—had understood his host as saying that the meatballs had been bought in a takeout store. And after tasting them, Mechel had commented on their sponginess, suggesting that the couple make their future purchases at a different store, “one that uses less rubber and more meat.” Of course, the hostess had made the meatballs herself. Despite her gruff exterior, she had been insulted and hurt. The rest of the meal had taken place in an atmosphere of icy silence, punctuated by the sound of low crying in the kitchen every time she left the room.
The next morning at Shacharis, the husband had informed Mechel that his wife had been up half the night, upset that all the hard work she had put in on Thursday night after coming home from her job had been denigrated by someone she was starting to see as an ungrateful freeloader. Mechel had spent the rest of Shacharis trying to concentrate on davening, and the rest of Shabbos mooning around and staring into space. Mechel related this in his usual rambling way, and after he was done, he stared at me. “You’re a poet, aren’t you?” ~ The short answer was no. I wasn’t and am not a poet. But Mechel wasn’t accepting it. He had somehow gleaned from some source that I was a master at writing lyrical verse. I had eaten at his brother’s house a few weeks earlier, and I suspected that something in our conversations, which were uncomfortable and stilted and tended to skirt along the edge of “Did you ride cows to school as a bachur?,” had morphed into my sudden reputation. Mechel wasn’t the type of person to accept no for an answer. Furthermore, he was of fering money for a poem, and I lacked money. I lacked money to repair my weekday jacket, which had torn. I lacked money to get new shirts; my regular ones had turned blue in the washing machine that stood on the roof of the Sephardi yeshivah next to our dirah. (The rest of the bachurim in my yeshivah sent their dirty clothes to be washed by a kollel wife, a luxury I couldn’t afford.) So after my first protestations had fallen on deaf ears, I just quit fighting and thought about money. Mechel wanted a poem that would express his regrets and apologies. Could I have one ready as soon as possible? Um…yes. He stumbled out of the dirah, probably off to contemplate meatballs. I retreated to my room to contemplate them in my poetlike way.
Roses are red, Violets are blue. Your meatballs are great, As great as your hospitality. ~ Yes, I wrote that one, but I tore it up right away. I had a vague idea of poetry. I definitely had read some. Most of it was in a kid’s joke book I had had as a child. I love to do my homework, It makes me feel so good. I love to do exactly As my teacher says I should. I love to do my homework, I never miss a day.I even love the men in white Who are taking me away.—Anonymou
That was the sort of poem I remembered. I tried for a minute to juggle the verses and put meatballs in.
I love to eat your meatballs, They make me feel so fine. I love to eat exactly What on my plate is lyin’. I love to eat my meatballs, I never miss a bite. I even love to be dragged off By scary men in white.
Nope. Exactly what he wouldn’t want to say. Around one in the morning, I called my older sister back in the States. She would know about poetry. I spent an hour on the phone, muttering things like “Oh, yeah. I remember those. I don’t know if we discussed those in class.” The difference between the high school education in yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs was probably never as clear to me as then. I took copious notes and made her find an old textbook in the house and read me poems slowly, so that I could write them out and then try to disfigure them into becoming meatball/hostess/hospitality-praising works of art. After I got off the phone, I went to bed. Words, and the other words the first words rhymed with, were already swirling in my head and floating in the darkness above me. ~ Money talks, they say, and the whole next morning money seemed to be talking to me. The poem, and not the Rashba, occupied my attention, despite my efforts not to think about it. First seder came and went in a blur, with me staring blankly at the Gemara in front of me and occasionally twitching in my seat as a rhyme came to me. (Meatballs. Neat halls.) At the end of seder, my chavrusa stood up in disgust and stormed out. I sat there, still numb and cogitating. (Delicious dinner. Pernicious sinner.) I slowly got up. I was going to have to try everything. ~ Limericks. After my sister had mentioned them, I realized that I knew them as well, again from kids’ books. My favorite one was this:
There was a young man from Bombay Who was making explosives one day. He dropped his cigar in the gunpowder jar. There was a young man from Bombay.
It was my favorite because the last line was the same as the first one, just with a sadistic inflection on the word was. I licked the tip of my pencil.
There was a talented cook Whose meatballs were by the book. She served them up To an ungrateful kup. He gave them an ungracious look.
[I scratch it all out. “Stupid,” I say to myself, and start writing again.] ~
There was a young woman from Geula Who cooked a pot that was full o’ Delicious meatballs That could satisfy all Unless you’re some kind of fool-a.
He didn’t like it. “I’m not trying to make a joke. It’s very serious.” I held myself back from commenting on the seriousness of the situation, focused in my mind on the money, and went back to my notebook. ~ Haiku. My sister had given me a whole rundown on this. In English, haikus are generally thought of as having three lines of five, seven and five syllables respectively. Actual haikus from Japan, she had told me, didn’t use syllables. Instead, they used something called on instead, a Japanese phonetic unit…blah, blah, blah. Also, the Japanese liked to put something called kireji, or cutting words, into their poems, which served as a sort of punctuation. They were little funny-sounding words, like ka, kana, or the suffixes –keri and –shi. And then there was a whole later school of thought that haiku could be of any length, apparently, which seemed to defy the whole idea. She had read me a few, first a famous one from 1688, translated from Japanese:
now then, let’s go out to enjoy the snow…until I slip and fall!
This poet was apparently known for his wit. It seemed ancient Japanese wit wasn’t so funny. There were some modern ones as well. There was one called “Report Card”: Four days of the year, One tiny piece of paper Turns my stomach sour. The radical one-line haikus or one-word haikus didn’t seem like poems. For example:
an icicle the moon drifting through it Or tundra.
Apparently that last one was really supposed to be a poem. One commentator had written, she told me, about its deep power and symbolism.That method would simplify things, of course: meatball.
Or maybe, if I was feeling more expansive:meatball yum yum.
But I decided to just go ahead and try the traditional three-liner. ~
pot full of meatballs my mouth fills with strong hunger satisfying meal
“This is a poem?” he said, looking down at it. “Yes, it’s Japanese-style…” “I don’t like it.” He handed the paper back. “Would it be better if it said, ‘Pot full of meatballs kana’?” I asked. “Or how about ‘Satisfying meal-shi’?” “What?” he said, staring at me. “Nothing,” I said, and retreated. ~ I was in a state of desperation, so I decided to try my luck with altering the works of some famous poets. Rhyming, first. ~
Shakespeare:
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The delicious meatballs where every mouth doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to my very name When I unfairly mock that which fairly doth excel.
[I know, I know. The pentameter or something is off. I don’t think that’s the only problem.] ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on meatballs hath fed
And drunk the soy milk of Paradise.
[Once I changed the “honey-dew” to “meatballs,” I had to change the “milk” to “soy milk” so it wouldn’t be mixing milchig and fleishig. That messed it up a lot, but I still think there were problems beforehand.] ~ W. B. Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The guest cannot hear the time spent cooking; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The sauce-simmered tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all meatballs, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity about why they don’t like them.
[Just horrible all around, I think.] ~ T. S. Eliot:
There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces of the hosts you meet; There will be time to simmer and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a meatball on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before you comment on what you eat.
[The worst part is that “me” and “eat” don’t really rhyme, but I didn’t even bother thinking about a better word. This obviously wasn’t going anywhere.] ~ Mechel was waiting for his poem. He wanted it before the end of the week so that he could send it to his hosts on Erev Shabbos with a flower arrangement. But I had spent the week distracted during seder, muttering to myself at meals and walking blindly in the street, seeing words rather than the people and obstructions around me, while getting nowhere on the poem. “Do you have it?” he asked, flying into the dorm on Friday afternoon. “No,” I said. I thought I might try telling him the truth, again. “I’m not really a…” “I’m just going to send the flowers,” he said. He wasn’t listening to me. ~ I spent most of Shabbos in the doldrums. I had been hoping to get some money, and I also felt like a failure. On Shabbos afternoon, I davened Minchah early and went back to the dorm. I ate a small shalosh seudos rather than going out with the other bachurim to our usual places. I didn’t want to see anyone. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep until Maariv. I wasn’t falling asleep, though. Words were still coursing through my head. I felt lousy, and rather than sleep, I just let my mind wander where it wanted to. And a poem formed in my head. It was still Shabbos, and I was frantic. The quickest Maariv was nearby; I nearly collided with an elderly Yerushalmi man running there. I followed someone home for Havdalah and then ran back to the dirah.
You stood and worked above the stove With thankless lengthy toil. Your hard-earned rest you gave away To stand by pots that boil. The food you cooked you served to us On plates scrubbed white and clean. Your work you gave to be devoured By someone cold and mean. For when I bit into the meat You’d long-time well prepared, My foolish mouth I opened wide And foolish thoughts I aired.I didn’t mean to cause you harm Or bring you any ache Because, deep down, I’m very fond Of all you roast and bake. I’m sorry that I caused distress Inside your happy halls Next time I’ll keep my mouth shut tight Except to eat meatballs.
~ Mechel came back to the dorm late that night, but I was still awake. “Here,” I said, pressing the paper into his hand. He looked at it, reading it slowly. A smile grew on his face. “I knew you were a poet,” he said. He looked thoughtful for a minute. “You know what happened, though? She totally forgot about the whole thing.” He looked down at the poem again. “I need to pay you for this.” “No,” I said. “I enjoyed writing it.” And I had, though I’ve never written any poetry since, unless you count numerous one-word haikus. (“detergent.” “bananas.” And so on.) ~ A couple of days later, I was in the dirah flipping through my notebook, looking at all of the poems I’d written to get to just that right one, when I noticed something strange. Where was that poem that I’d written about loving the meatballs and being taken away by men in white? Had I pulled it out? Had I written something on the other side of the page? Had I, maybe, written a different poem— maybe my final poem—on the other side? On the same paper I had given to Mechel? Just then, he walked in. He looked at me mournfully. “I’m going to need another poem.”