How did this pleasant, ordinary beginning take its plunge toward mediocrity? Overman perseverated on this question throughout his fifty-five years. Most likely, the fall had been set in motion by Irma’s second pregnancy, followed in quick succession by the announcement that Saul had put down a deposit on what was to be their own single-family home. Ira would never forget that morning. The excitement in the apartment was electric, both parents regaling him with images of the earthly paradise the family would soon inhabit. Irma and Saul described a mystical, utopian subdivision on the North Shore of Long Island, filled with parks and shopping centers, speaking of it in the celestial terms Ira reserved for Disneyland. Their enthusiasm was infectious, convincing Ira that Long Island would be a glorious way station between Queens and Anaheim, the homeland where he would ultimately settle amongst the Mouseketeers.
The incredible journey takes place on a crisp March Saturday morning. An exuberant Ira is about to dash outside and twist his body around the monkey bars when Saul and pregnant Irma inform him that they are going to pile in the Plymouth and drive out to see the new house. The boy’s heart starts to pound, bursting with anticipation. If 71st Crescent had a tilt-a-whirl, his new Long Island wonderland might have its own rollercoaster. Maybe a little steam train that stops on Main Street, where friendly shopkeepers offer candy and cupcakes to all the kids in the neighborhood. Twenty-five minutes from now, he would get to see it all.
Saul pulls off the Long Island Expressway at the Lakeview exit and heads down a two-lane country road toward the Melvin Terrace subdivision. There’s not much to see as far as Ira can tell. A few houses, a pond, a cornfield. No tall people in animal costumes. In fact, no people at all. Saul turns left on Melvin Terrace Lane, which will no doubt reveal the kingdom of pleasure they will soon call home. Ira had never seen a palm tree in Queens, but perhaps they had them on Long Island at Melvin Terrace.
Minutes later, the family gets out of the car and Ira finds himself looking down at a dirt pit, surrounded by other pits and lots in the more advanced stages of framing.
“Isn’t it fantastic?” his father beams. “This is all going to be ours.”
No trees at all. No train. No sidewalks. Nothing.
“That’s the backyard,” Saul cries, proudly pointing to more dirt.
Irma explains that no one else will be living in their building since it is, after all, a house. There will be other kids moving in across the street and next-door, but the only one on the other side of the hall will be his new brother or sister. Irma seems to like this idea as much as Ira hates it. This was not the interim pre-Disney lifestyle he had pictured.
Ira is mute and sullen in the back seat as they head home to Fresh Meadows. No one seems to notice, Irma wrapped up in her ideas for wallpapering the kitchen, Saul mulling over which type of grass to plant for his lawn. None of it makes sense to Ira. As far as he can tell, the apartment community of Fresh Meadows is far more like Main Street, U.S.A. than Melvin Terrace. Why leave an enclave brimming with friendly faces for big dirt lots where families were confined to their own pits? He knew the dirt would eventually be filled with houses, grass and sidewalks, but to what end? Perhaps as he grew older he would understand why people placed such great value on putting distance between themselves and others, and furthermore, why they felt the need to change what was already working. There was so much young Overman didn’t understand. This didn’t bother him nearly as much as the sinking feeling that as he grew into adulthood, he would enter a whole world he would never understand.
No surprise, Long Island and Overman are not easy partners. Everything about the place fills him with uneasiness and dread. His six year-old stomach, bloated from the huge breakfast Irma force-fed him, is churning as she walks him to school for his first day. He knows no one. The tilt-a-whirl truck has been cruelly eradicated from his life. There is no reason for being. He is the Jean-Paul Sartre of the Melvin Terrace first grade.
As they approach MT Elementary, Ira tells his mother that he doesn’t feel well. She assures him it’s a case of first day jitters and that all will be well once he meets his teacher and settles in. They arrive at the classroom and he is introduced to a perky young woman named Mrs. Jarvis, who assures Ira that he will have a great time and love school. As she leads him by the hand into the classroom, he looks through the window and sees his mother leaving, limply waving goodbye.
“Ira, would you like to meet your fellow classmates?” Mrs. Jarvis smiles.
Overman nods, suddenly feeling his face turn a whiter shade of pale. Before he or anyone can fully comprehend what is happening, Ira is vomiting all over Mrs. Jarvis. The cereal, eggs, bagel and cream cheese have been melded and reborn in projectile form. The class half-laughs, half-gasps, Mrs. Jarvis doing her stoic best as she tries to smile through the puke. She tells the class she’s going to get some paper towels, but not before Overman vomits yet again. The good news is, he no longer feels bloated. The bad news is that she has left him alone with his new peers. She is gone only a minute and he survives without incident, but this is the first impression that the children of Long Island have of Ira Overman, an impression that will follow him throughout his public school career.
The vomit story indeed went on to become lore, affording each student the opportunity to embellish it with charming apocryphal additions like: “And then he peed on her.” Nevertheless, by the time Overman reached the fifth grade, he had more or less come to terms with suburban life. One reason for this was that he had finally found a subject he deemed worthy of his time and effort: Glorietta Zatzkin. Even at ten years old, Glorietta possessed an undeniable femininity, potent enough to be recognized by the boys and envied by the girls. And the fact that she lived down the block from Overman gave him a leg up. For the record, he had been the first to point out that Estelle Zatzkin, Glorietta’s mother, had huge breasts, which he declared a harbinger of magnificent things to come. In November of 1963, much to the chagrin of other potential suitors, Overman was lucky enough to be assigned an art project with Glorietta. He worked as slowly as possible, attempting to stretch out the assignment as long as Mrs. Jarvis could bear. The two of them were happily painting and gluing away when the news came in. President Kennedy had been shot. Glorietta let out a whimper and threw her arms around him. Overman held her tightly, genuinely sad about the president who seemed like a cool young guy, yet also cognizant that he would never be in this position if not for the assassination attempt. “It’s going to be all right,” he told her. He had heard somewhere that women liked you to say that.
“You really think so?” she sniffled.
“Uh-huh,” he assured Glorietta, clutching her ever more tightly.
Thirty minutes later, word arrived that President Kennedy had been pronounced dead. Glorietta gave him the “you’re so full of shit” look that would become painfully familiar to him over the next forty-five years. He was just trying to be comforting. What else could a person say in that situation? Besides, someday, probably a few presidents down the road, Glorietta would remember who she instinctively went to for consoling; whose arms enveloped her calmly and soothingly, in spite of the fact that he was full of shit.
When Overman arrived home, his mother was at the kitchen table, crying. She was one of the many women in Melvin Terrace who lived under the spell of JFK. As far as Irma was concerned, Kennedy was an icon who could do no wrong, the only drawback being that he wasn’t Jewish. Why was it so important that everyone be Jewish? Ira wondered. Irma’s Polish mother, his Grandma Gussie, actually believed that everyone in America was Jewish. She called JFK President Kaufman, Ed Sullivan was Ed Solomon; even Mickey Mouse was Mickey Weiss.
Ira’s little brother Steven sat on his mother’s lap and tried to wipe away her tears. Ira agreed with Irma that it was a horrible tragedy, but his mind was elsewhere. He was picturing Glorietta Zatzkin with Estelle Zatzkin’s breasts. How if she already had those breasts, they would have been pressed up against him in school today. Suddenly, Overman was getting an erection. The president