The Outsider by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online

David said.
    â€œAnd Herbie Nathan — he’s got this army surplus store in Westport — he’s been spreading the word to everyone who comes in there. He got an old copy of Yank with a story about you, Rabbi, and he tacked it up on the wall of his store, and he figures we could get anywhere from twenty to thirty out of Westport and Norwalk. But let me tell you something, if those clowns figure they’re getting a free ride right down the line, they’re mistaken. They got to join and pay their dues. And now listen to this, Jack Osner’s got a partner in his firm lives in Greenwich. Greenwich, Connecticut. I didn’t know there was a Jew alive living in Greenwich. But there it is, and this Greenwich type is coming with five people. He got very exact directions from Jack. So now tell me, what do we do with maybe a hundred and fifty or two hundred people?”
    â€œThat’s wonderful,” David said. “That’s absolutely wonderful.”
    â€œIt’s wonderful. What about my living room? I feel I’m a good Jew, but that still can’t squeeze a hundred and fifty people into my living room.”
    â€œWe’ll use the church.”
    Mel Klein shook his head slowly, wiping the perspiration from the folds in his neck. “David, you’re a nice boy and I like you. Impractical — that’s a rabbi’s privilege. We can’t use the church. We don’t own it.”
    Lucy slipped away from the table. Confused, David asked, “Why? We bought it.”
    â€œWe bought it. Which means we signed a contract and put down ten percent. The same with this house. How could we know how long it would be before we found a rabbi? All right. We found you and we set a closing date. Monday, three days away. All right, you and Lucy are maybe sleeping here tonight. No big tzimmes. But if we put two hundred Jews into a church we don’t own, Arnold Sloan and Charles Winter are going to blow their tops.”
    â€œWho are Arnold Sloan and Charles Winter?”
    â€œTwo of the coldest farbissener anti-Semites you ever ran into. Also, they’re deacons in Carter’s church.”
    â€œDeacons in the church? But why?”
    â€œBecause Carter is a remarkable man, and he plays the game the way England does, a proper balance of power. When we proposed to buy the church and the parsonage, Sloan and Winter fought him tooth and nail, claiming that we were opening the door for the anti-Christ, whatever the hell that is, and give us an inch and we take a foot and before you know it, the whole Ridge will be crawling with kikes. That’s the word he used, and when Marty Carter exploded, Winter — has the biggest estate on the Ridge — Winter says he was down in Washington and Truman used the same word for the lice who infest New York, and if the President of the United States can talk that way, he has the same privilege. That’s why we can’t use the church until we close, because Winter would like nothing more than to call the cops and empty the building in the middle of the service.”
    â€œCould he do that?” David asked.
    â€œWhy not? It’s his building.”
    Lucy came back into the room and told them she had telephoned Martin Carter.
    â€œWhen did you get a phone?” Klein asked, puzzled, nodding his approval of Lucy.
    â€œToday. Martin will be here in a few minutes.”
    When Carter arrived, David summed up the situation. “I think that’s great,” Carter said. “My word, it’s like an act of faith. Two hundred people! David, we only hit that figure on Christmas and Easter.”
    â€œI don’t think it’ll ever happen again. But can he break up the service and order us out of the church?”
    â€œHe cannot!” Carter answered angrily. “There are other deacons. He has one vote. Sloan has one vote. We have outvoted them twenty times, but even if they outvoted me, I would take it to