Back in the last century I left work on 47th Street early on December 24. Manny complained that I was deserting my post selling diamonds, but I had been working every day since Thanksgiving.
"I should pay you a half-day." Manny was a grinch of the first-order.
"Do what you want. I'm heading home." Boston was my destination on Amtrak. My mother was cooking a big turkey for our family's Christmas feast.
I caught a train north and arrived at our suburban split-level ranch house on the South Shore in time for drinks and dinner. Our guests left a little before midnight and my mother requested her prodigal son attend church with her. I had been a non-believer since the age of eight, but I respected her faith and said, "Sure.”
I dressed in a dark-gray suit with a black cashmere polo shirt. My mother came into the room and asked, “Where’s your tie?”
“Mom, this shirt is pure cashmere.”
“But what about a tie?” My mother was old school.
“You can’t wear a tie with a polo shirt.” I had worn a tie six years as a grammar school student at Our Lady of the Foothills.
My mother frowned with disappointment.
“I hope at my funeral you’ll wear a tie.” The words were drenched in sadness.
Ridden with guilt I changed my shirt and put on a tie. Saying no to my mother was difficult, especially with tears in her eyes.
Later the next week I related this story to the mother of my diamond employer. Hilda tsked and said, “That’s the difference between Jews and goyim.”
“What?” Her son and I were befuddled by Hilda’s statement.
“Your mother simply shamed you to wear a tie at her funeral, if it had been me I would have guilted my son by saying, “Once you kill me, I want you to wear a tie to the funeral.”
“Aha.” Richie Boy and I replied, for Hilda had explained the true depth of Jewish guilt in a single sentence.
Matricide.
We were all bad boys, except to our mothers.
To them we were saints.
Even if we didn't wear a tie.
