Dallas Reunion
Edward Moore
February 2006
February 2006
Years later and I still find myself lying about my father, Jacob Leon Rubenstein.
When he became famous, my mother told me terrible things would happen to us if people found out we were related. Someone might even try to kill us. She always said he wasn’t much of a provider, and when he died all he left me was a name he didn’t even use.
Growing up, I didn’t get to see him very much.
When I was six, my mother left him. When I asked why, she said, "Because he’s a loud, obnoxious jackass."
Still, whenever I think of him, I don’t dwell much on what made him famous; I just think about the last time we were together. That was back in ’63. I was nineteen and on my way from Phoenix to Chicago, for my sophomore year at Northwestern University.
I wrote and told him I would be between trains for two hours, and asked if we could have lunch together. Because I hadn’t seen him since I was nine years old, I assumed he wouldn’t recognize me. My letter said I would be wearing my Northwestern school jacket. His secretary wrote back to say that he would meet me at the information booth at eleven.
One of the reasons I wanted to have lunch with him was I knew he owned a pair of clubs, and I was hoping we could see one of them.
At eleven o’clock sharp I spied him bulldozing his way through the crowd. As he pushed and bumped people out of the way, they just looked at him but didn’t say anything. As I watched him getting closer, an uncomfortable tingling started in the back of my head. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I had the feeling he was going to do something I’d never forget.
Finally he stood a few feet in front of me and said, "Boy, look at you. Who’d ever thought a dumb mook like me could have a kid smart enough to get into Northwestern? That’s just too much to believe."
I smiled as I told him I wasn’t that smart, and that some of my brains had to come from him. He was my father after all. He gave me a fatherly love slap on my left arm before giving me a big hug.
When he pulled back to look at me, I could see what my mother found attractive about him. He was a big, good-looking guy with waxy black hair, perfect teeth, dark cobalt colored eyes and a seductive bad boy smile. I noticed his eyes seem to dart around as if they were constantly looking for something. Sort of the way a trapped animal looks for an escape path. Oddly, I found that disturbing.
"I’ve got two clubs here, the Carousel and the Vegas. You wrote you’d like to have lunch in one of them, but they’re too far from here. You’d never make it back in time for your train."
I was disappointed, because I wanted to see his clubs. Whenever I mentioned them around my mother, she would spit out the word "whores," before leaving the room mumbling obscenities under her breath.
Those memories faded as he put his arm around me, and I smelled him like my mother would smell a rose. His odor was an acute mixture of whiskey, cheap after-shave lotion, and shoe polish, commingled with the mustiness of a mature man. Still, I hoped someone would see us as we stood there, because at that moment I had a father. Later I ruefully wished someone would have photographed him walking with his arm around me, just so I could have a tangible memento of us being together.
We left the station and entered a restaurant on a side street not far from the depo. It was still early, and the place was empty. As we entered my father noticed an old bald waiter with a droopy eyes sitting at a table next to the kitchen door.
As we sat down, my father shouted, "Kellner, Garcon. Cameriere. You."
I tingled with embarrassment as he continued.
"Could we have a little service here," he shouted. Then he clapped his hands, twice in that Yul Brenner ‘King and I’ manner. That caught the waiter’s attention, and he shuffled over to our table.
"Were you clapping at me?"
"Calm down," my father said. "If it isn’t too much to ask of you – if it wouldn’t be above and beyond the call of duty – we would like a couple of Beefeater Gibsons."
"I don’t like being clapped at."
My father smile as he said, "I should have brought a whistle. I have one at my club that only very old waiters can hear. Now listen carefully. Get your little pad, and your little pencil and see if you can get this straight: two Beefeater Gibsons."
"I think you better go elsewhere," the waiter quietly said.
The father’s expression didn’t change. He paused, looked at him, then finally said, "That is one of the most intelligent suggestions you will ever make. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here."
I followed him out of the restaurant and into another. This time he wasn’t so obnoxious. Our drinks came, and he proceeded to drill me about school and sports. I liked telling him about myself, and I hoped he had some measure of pride in my activities.
After finishing our drinks, he struck the edge of his empty glass with a knife and began shouting, "Garcon. Kellner. You. Could we trouble you to bring us more of the same?"
The waiter guardedly approached and asked, "How old is the boy?"
"That," my father replied, "is none of your goddamn business."
With a steady voice the waiter told him, "I’m sorry sir, but I won’t serve the boy another drink."
"Well I have some news for you. I have some very interesting news for you. This doesn’t happen to be the only restaurant in Dallas. There’s another one open on the corner."
He paid the bill, and I followed him out that restaurant into another. There the waiters wore red jackets that looked like hunting coats. The place had lots of dark wood paneling, a couple of pool tables, and some dartboards on the wall along with a bunch of stuffed animals situated all around the place.
As soon as we sat down, my father began to shout again. "Master of the hounds. Tallyhoooo and all that sort of thing. We’d like to get a little service here. Namely, two Bibson Geefeaters."
"Two Bibson Geefeaters?" the waiter said smiling.
"You know damn well what I want," my father angrily replied. "I want two Gibson Beefeaters, and make it pronto. Things have changed in jolly old England. So my friend the Duke tells me. Let’s see what England can produce by way of a cocktail."
"This ain’t England," the waiter said.
"Don’t argue with me, just do as you’re told."
"Just thought you’d like to know where you’re at."
Banging his fist on the table he said, "If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s an imprudent domestic. Let’s go, junior."
As we left the restaurant I glance at my watch. "I’ve got to catch my train," I said.
"I’m sorry, Junior."
"That’s all right, Daddy."
As we approached the station steps he spied an old man of about sixty sitting in a newspaper stand. I saw him get a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"Let me get you a paper to read on the train."
Before I could say anything he strutted to the newsstand and speaking in a W.C. Fields caricature voice he said, "Kind sir, will you be good enough to favor me with one of your goddamned afternoon papers?" The man turned away from him and started staring at a magazine cover. "Is it too much, kind sir," my father continued, "for you to sell me one of your disgusting specimens of yellow journalism?"
I know my face must have turned red. "Daddy, I have to go," I said. "It’s late."
"Now wait a second, I want to get a rise out of this fella."
"Goodbye, Daddy," I said, and went down the stairs to catch my train.
A few weeks later I saw my father on the evening news.
The stunning images left no doubt about what he did. At the time it was the most shocking thing ever shown on television. Why he did it has been the subject of speculation for years.
Thirty-eight months after he shocked the world, he was dead.
His brothers and sisters didn’t want anybody desecrating his grave, so they put his birth name on his headstone. In a poor Jewish cemetery on the south side of Chicago, his tombstone reads, "Here lies Jacob Leon Rubenstein."
Most people remember him as Jack Ruby.
Edward Moore lives and work in the San Francisco Bay Area and has had several short stories published in the Berkeley Fiction Review, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, an anthology on long term friendship, as well as several Internet publications.