Yesterday's reference to Philip Roth’s “Patrimony” reminded me of one of my favorite anecdotes ever. It’s on pages 125-26 of the Simon & Schuster paperback edition. Philip, dutiful, distant son, is having a late-night talk with his friend Joanna, originally from Poland, now a recovering alcoholic living in Princeton, about his 86-year-old father, who is beginning to physically break down:

“Did I ever tell you what happened when he was mugged a couple of years ago? He could have got himself killed.”

“No. Tell me.”

“A black kid about fourteen approached him with a gun on a side street leading to their little temple. It was the middle of the afternoon. My father had been at the temple office helping them with mailing or something and he was coming home. The black kids prey on the elderly Jews in his neighborhood even in broad daylight. They bicycle in from Newark, he tells me, take their money, laugh, and go home. ‘Get in the bushes,’ he tells my father. ‘I’m not getting in any bushes,’ my father says. ‘You can have whatever you want, and you don’t need that piece to get it. You can put that piece away.’ The kid lowers the gun and my father gives him his wallet. ‘Take all the money,’ my father says, ‘ but if the wallet’s of no value to you, I wouldn’t mind it back.’ The kid takes the money, gives back the wallet, and he runs. And you know what my father does? He calls across the street. ‘How much did you get?’ And the kid is obedient—he counts it for him. ‘Twenty-three dollars,’ the kid says. ‘Good,’ my father tells him—‘now don’t go out and spend it on crap.’”

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