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a little while longer he left and waited in the bedroom. When I came out my father was sitting on Kornblum’s bed. Above him was a large family portrait taken for Kornblum’s daughter’s bat mitzvah. The Kornblums, formally dressed, were seated on the grass under a large tree. My father wasn’t looking at the portrait. He said, Tell me, what am I supposed to do? Then he got up, took my hand, and we went back downstairs.
    At the table everyone was eating pastries. Shirley was still sitting beside my mother. She was trying on my mother’s amber bracelet. As my father came in she shuffled over to make room for us. Rhonda announced that my father was a miracle worker. Her neck had never felt better. She made Kornblum promise to send him some of his patients. Kornblum said it would be an honor. Kornblum said my father would get a call Monday morning. Before he knew it, he would be out of the chocolate bar factory. Kornblum would spread the word. A chocolate bar factory was no place for a man like my father. Jerry said that my father could count on him to help in any way.
    On our way out Kornblum shook hands with my father, and with me, and then he kissed my mother on the cheek. It had been a very special evening for him and Rhonda. Rhonda came out of the kitchen carrying my mother’s apple cake. She didn’t want it to go to waste. Even though they sometimes took the kids to McDonald’s, they kept kosher at home. So although it smelled wonderful, unfortunately they couldn’t keep it.
    As we walked back to the Pontiac it was unclear whether nothing or everything had changed. We returned much as we came, the only tangible evidence of the passage of time was the cold apple cake. Before us was the Pontiac, as green and ugly as ever. Behind us was Kornblum’s fully detached house. We walked slowly, in no hurry to reach our destination. Somewhere between Kornblum’s and the Pontiac was our fate. It floated above us like an ether, ambiguous and perceptible.
    My father stopped walking. He contemplated my mother and the apple cake.
    –Why are you still carrying it?
    –What am I supposed to do?
    –Throw it away.
    –Throw it away? It’s a shame to waste it.
    –Throw it away. It’s bad luck.
    Something in the way my mother balked confirmed my own suspicion. There were countless superstitions, numberless ways of inviting calamity, but I had never heard anything about disposing of an unwanted cake. Also, my mother had worked hard on the cake. The ingredients had cost money, and she abhorred the idea of wasting food. Still, she didn’t argue. Nothing was certain. We needed luck and were susceptible to the wildest irrationality. Rightly or wrongly, the cake was now tainted. My mother handed it to me and pointed down the street toward a Dumpster.
    She did not need to say run.

THE SECOND STRONGEST MAN
    I N THE WINTER OF 1984, as my mother was recovering from a nervous breakdown and my father’s business hovered precipitously between failure and near failure, the international weightlifting championships were held at the Toronto Convention Centre. One evening the phone rang and a man invited my father to serve on the panel of judges. The job paid next to nothing but my father took it for the sake of his dignity. If only for a few days, he would wear his old IWF blazer and be something other than a struggling massage therapist and schlepper of chocolate bars. In the bedroom my father retrieved a passport with his International Weightlifting Federation credentials. The passport contained a photo of him taken years before the trials of immigration. In the picture his face carried the detached confidence of the highly placed Soviet functionary. I had seen the picture many times, and occasionally, when my father wasn’t home, I took it out and studied it. It was comforting to think that the man in the picture and my father were once the same person.
    Several days after the phone call we received an official package from the IWF. I