Paradise Rezoned

By Robert H. Lieberman

Arnold Markowitz, a painter and part-time math teacher at a second rate college, lives in hiding in the woods on “Mt. Markowitz” with his young wife and two small children. Life is simple and sweet until Leo Saperstone, a local developer, appears with surveyors and Arnie’s little piece of paradise is threatened with construction of a Mall. The Szorskys, his farming neighbors have already sold out. It doesn’t look good.This is war as one single man determined to protect his nest takes on the developers.
The book opens with Lenny Rosenthal, tax attorney and president of Arnold’s high school class, writing to the alumnae to invite them to a reunion in Brooklyn. The letter prompts a call from Arnold. He needs a lawyer to fight the developers. Lenny, tired of living with his mother, offers to come to the rescue, even if his specialty is the IRS— anyhow, what are friends for?

New York Times - "Mr. Lieberman has a sharp eye for the incongruous and the humor that can accompany desperate happenings."

Newsweek - "(Paradise Rezoned has) hit the jackpot in paper with sales of 300,000 in the first three months."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert H. Lieberman
• Release date: Jul 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781484912218

Robert H. Lieberman

Robert H. Lieberman is a best-selling novelist and film director. He is also a long time member of the Physics faculty at Cornell University."Echoes Of The Empire" is his newly completed film and is available on Vimeo priorate its International Release. https://www.echoesoftheempire.com/#5His previous films include, "Angkor Awakens" and “They Call It Myanmar,” both New York Times Critics' Picks. The Myanmar film, which remains highly current, was named one of the top dozen films by Roger Ebert. All Lieberman's films are now available on all digital platforms.Among his earlier films are the highly praised comedy “Green Lights”, and the award-winning feature documentaries “Last Stop Kew Gardens,” “Faces In A Famine” and “BoyceBall.”His latest novel is “The Boys of Truxton.” He is also the author of “Baby” and “Paradise Rezoned, ” (which sold over 300,000 copies). His other novels include, “Goobersville Breakdown, ” “The Last Boy,” “Perfect People.” and "Neighbors." These are all available in an electronic edition from Kindle and in print from Amazon. He is presently at work developing a feature film based on his new novel “The Nazis, My Father & Me.”Currently he is at work on the new novel "Gordy" which he has worked on since 1985

Book preview

Chapter1

Finally ready to begin, Lenny Rosenthal sank down at his typewriter. All week long he had been composing and rewriting the letter in his head. In actuality—although only vaguely aware of it—he had been formulating his letter for close to ten years.

Lenny sat in front of the massive oak desk, once his father’s, his fingers poised over the keyboard, shoulders and back hunched forward, which caused his abundant stomach to bulge out and jam under his ribs and painfully remind him of the intervening years.

The apartment was quiet save for the ticking of an old antique family clock and the jumbo jets that crisscrossed overhead. (In December 1960 two smaller jets had crashed over the Brooklyn Navy Yard, he could still recall uncomfortably.)

The noisy rush of traffic up and down Utica Avenue had finally begun to taper off, and Lenny had been sweating profusely—as was his custom—despite the still chilly wind that blew off the river and poked its nasty fingers through the aluminum storm windows of his mother’s house. The middle of May and cold. Who would believe it? A quick look at the weather map in the New York Times had revealed a warm front already enveloping the western part of the state; by morning spring would be on Utica Avenue. And none too soon.

Dear Fellow Alumni,

As you may or may not realize it has been ten years since we stood in the auditorium of Hedgegreen High here in downtown Brooklyn and received our diplomas. Nearly a full decade! So much has undoubtedly—

Lenny! Will you stop that banging already and go to bed! Jenny Rosenthal came out of her bedroom clutching the top of her sheer nightgown.

Look, I gotta get this letter out, Jenny. Give me five, huh? Lenny mopped his forehead and trying to be polite, feigned a smile. Jenny and her lousy beauty sleep, Lenny thought, battling that familiar resentment.

It’s you I’m worried about, Jenny lied. What about tomorrow? The new accounts? Jenny Rosenthal frowned and slunk back to her bedroom. Lenny couldn’t help but notice his mother’s youthful walk—the one she practiced secretly at night and wore during the day; that little extra telltale bounce and zing. Since Lenny’s father had died, his mother had become progressively more taken up with her youth. Although forty-nine, she seemed each day to regress a week in time. Lenny had learned to live with it. Soon, by means of her imagined time-warp, Jenny would surpass him in youth. Already he was beginning to feel older.

So who cares? It was only that her insistence upon being called by her first name had made life a bit uncomfortable. People had begun to look askew at the pair when they shopped in Bohack, giving them a sort of knowing, sons-and-lovers grin. Jenny in her pink little dresses with pink stockings and Irish-setter-colored hair; Lenny red-faced and purposely busy with the Birds Eye frozen vegetables. But nothing could be further from the truth. Lenny had learned to put up with her, and that was all. Fuck her! Lenny often thought.

Life with Jenny seemed cramped and tight, a sort of perpetual discomfort like hemorrhoids, or corns on a little toe. That life had been deteriorating ever since he had returned from the army a few years ago and opened his law practice, but clearly this course of events couldn’t continue much longer. Something was going to happen. He had to change it all—his way of living—his life.

For the last two months Lenny had been experiencing a strange sensation. No matter how late he went to sleep, he would find himself awake in the wee hours of the morning, his skin tingling with expectation, his mind alert, his eyes eager and sparkling, ready to welcome and embrace it.

What it was he couldn’t quite say, though his sense of anticipation was thick. It began in the morning hanging above his bed and followed him through most of the day, drifting overhead in the rancid city air like a delicious cloud, beckoning him to wait and be patient.

A windfall? An inheritance? An unsuspected success? A Supreme Court appointment? Who could say? But it was there and it made both life and Jenny tolerable.

So much has undoubtedly occurred in these last ten years, Lenny banged away. Many of you have already reached undreamed of successes … he continued.

Our Senior Class now numbers 252. Last year was an unfortunate year because of the loss of three dearly beloved classmates. Myrna Fish was drowned on a canoeing trip in the Adirondacks. Phil Smith, a man whom we all had great respect for, took his life last July after a prolonged illness. Stan Hermosa, as many of you have probably read, was executed in San Quentin after repeated appeals for the multiple rape-murders of five U.C.L.A. coeds. If Stan were here today, I’m sure he would want to thank all those kind friends who—in response to my urgent plea last year—sent telegrams to Governor Reagan of California requesting leniency in his unusual case.

But let me get on to more pleasant topics. As President of the Class of 1962, I have already begun making arrangements for our class reunion this coming winter, believing that early plans are necessary in order to provide you with ample time to make travel plans.

There will be a gala ball to be held in the St. George Hotel on December 18 to which I’d like to extend a cordial invitation to each and every one of you and your—

Lenny stopped. Spouses? No. Sounded too formal. Mates? No. Reminded Lenny of Playboy. Wives he ruled out immediately. Wives or husbands? Reluctantly he settled for spouses.

Many of you have taken up homes all around this shrinking globe of ours. As a result of the seasonality of my work as a tax attorney, I have had a great deal of opportunity to travel during the summer and fall months before the tax rush and have enjoyed the hospitality of many of you. I have traveled from India to Guatemala to Liberia, to the countries which you—The Class of ’62—have taken as your homes. Now it’s your turn to come back to Brooklyn and visit.

Perhaps a trip back to Jay St., just to visit old Hedgegreen High next December, might seem a little costly, but just think of how your presence might help to make this one of the most successful reunions that Hedgegreen High has ever seen. It’ll be a rare chance to meet classmates of old … and let’s face it, you must be curious!

Find enclosed with my letter your formal invitation. Please reply as soon as possible together with your six dollar deposit so that suitable arrangements can be made. Those requiring hotel accommodations should please indicate it with their deposit.

Yours truly,

Len Rosenthal

President, Class of ’62

Lenny read the letter over. He still wasn’t satisfied. Too wordy. One more try in the morning, then—no matter what—he’d take it to Mrs. Hagen, the school secretary, and have her mimeo two hundred and fifty-two copies. Then to the printer for the—

Finished? Jenny called out from her bedroom, evincing a taste of her growing impatience. When she wanted to sleep the world had to sleep.

Lenny muttered, then closed his father’s old typewriter back into its peeling steel case and gently placed it back in the closet.

Chapter 2

Arnold Markowitz drove out of the Schanoong Valley, winding through the maze of outlying hills, heading home to Mount Markowitz. The penniless land baron. Home to the relative tranquility of his woods.

Early spring—mid-May—and the humid upstate air was warm and ripe with life, fragrant with the delicate apple blossoms that carpeted the surrounding hills; insects drawing their first breath of new life; the birds still bewildered and excited, trying to recuperate from the perilous haul North.

As Markowitz drew near home, the neighboring Szorsky farm emerged, its rotting barns and peeling clapboard house nestled in the foothills of the Markowitz mountain range in the shadow of Mount Markowitz. Squinting in the afternoon sun through the dusty windshield of his jeep, Markowitz drove past the Szorskys, the farm gaily decorated in nouveau-Appalachia—a caved-in barn, where lay the remains of old rusty farm machinery saved for parts never to be needed except in case of nuclear attack which would force progress back thirty years. The Szorskys patiently awaited some modern day Armageddon. Things ain’t gonna go on good forever, Maud Szorsky had prophesied time and again. Not that they is good. The three horses tethered to the trees on the front lawn ran in tangled circles where they replaced the broken Sears roto-mower by gouging the lawn with their shod hoofs. Don’t never need no mowing, Mrs. Szorsky had smiled proudly. Nor fertilizing for that matter.

The Szorsky puppy momentarily looked up at the passing jeep and gave the fifty-acre land baron an eager wag with his tail, then returned to gnawing on the leg of a cow—the remains of which lay decomposing in the upper field after strangling itself last year. What with working and all, a body’s got no time to tend to no dead cow! (another Szorskyism).

Since her husband died four years ago, Maud Szorsky had learnt that farming just ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. She was on the high life now working a drill press for National Cash Register. Beats sittin’ here an’ talkin’ to the goats!

By day the farm was deserted, save for the chickens that squatted on the porch or the pig that rutted in the garden. Henry, Maud’s son, was out learning to become a computer programmer in ten easy lessons. Thirty-five, unmarried, at loose ends, he had at least finally found his field. The V.A. would foot the tab. Now he was ready for matrimony. The only trouble was, it was hard findin’ a nice girl, Mrs. S. would often admit to Markowitz. You know what I mean? Not one of them low class types.

I thought this was a classless society, Markowitz feigned surprise.

Not by a long shot! Don’t want Henry marryin’ no floozie!

Henry had been saving himself. He was Catholic and didn’t even beat his meat. Or if he did, he at least hadn’t made mention of it in confession. But Henry was an amiable chap with a heavy, soft, indolent face and white teeth. Always a kind word—if he did speak. And he sure did like Mama’s cooking. So did Markowitz. But for that matter so did Irma, Henry’s twenty-nine year old sister.

Irma was blond and buxom with those omnipresent upper New York State flowered dresses that hang somewhere around the ankles, just above her blue deck shoes. She was a firm believer in a classless society. She’d take ’most any man. Sometimes she eyed Arnie from a distance. A little bit on the over-friendly side. She’d lose all her reserve except that she had one objection—not really that he was married … just that she suspected he was non-Catholic.

But the farm was empty today and the jeep pulled along the narrow set of tracks which wound up Mount Markowitz. A few thousand feet along the Markowitz road and the air was soft with forest greenery, heady with turpines. Beeches—scotch pines—hemlocks—red maples. All grew in what must have been the best demonstration of brotherhood in the world. Clear water coming from the long-melted winter snows filtered through the shale and bubbled icily down the roadside ditches.

Mount Markowitz. Bountiful in wild apples, wild currants, and wild thoughts.

Arnold drove along the border of the Szorsky farm, the barbed wire fence rusting on the ground where the posts had long since fallen, the meadow overgrazed by Irma’s voracious horses who—when they couldn’t get a nip at Markowitz’s flowers—busied themselves by hungrily tugging at weeds. (How she loves to mount those steeds on a Sunday morn after church, Markowitz recalled with no small interest.)

Three o’clock. Soon Georgey, youngest of Maud’s brood, would be home from Catholic school where even the most devout and patient of nuns would bow to the heavens in gratitude for the momentary respite. Georgey would be home to fire up the Schanoong Valley with two hundred watts of discordant, twangy, scratching country guitar—speakers propped out the window for better sound propagation—serenading one or all of the six Jackson girls that live a quick half-mile down the Whamsattsville road.

Georgey Szorsky. Twelve. Uncontrollable and now unbribable, Markowitz thought as he passed a fresh pile of garbage that Georgey in his laziness had dumped and left scattered at the side of Markowitz’s road.

Arnold got out of his car and patiently stamped on the cans, flattening them into the ground, pieces of old rinds and garbage juice clinging to his shoes as he pushed the pile into the deep grass and covered it with loose brush. In the late fall it would all emerge again in testimony. Out of mind, but never quite out of sight.

The air had the taste of wet soil, a hint of coming summer sultriness that Markowitz relished and he assured himself that nothing could deprive him of that joy. He was about to exhale a deep dose of spring when suddenly, gazing into the hazy distance of the Szorsky field, Markowitz was assaulted by an unexpected scene. Men and autos where hardly a human soul had passed. Two cars grazing in the middle of the pasture. Four men in engineering attire aligning tripods and pounding markers into the ground as if into his chest. Markowitz stood watching them, worriedly chewing on his lower lip. He climbed back into his jeep, his heart so heavy he was afraid it might drop through the floorboards and spill out on his road. A nightmare come true?

Quickly driving on, Markowitz turned the sharp corner in his road and nearly smacked into a new Ford LTD hardtop parked directly in the middle of his path; the unwieldy machine unable to proceed beyond the point where his road turning steep lay rutted and gullied from melting snows and washouts. Carrying his books under his arms, he strode uphill, full force, his neck bent forward as always, the years of hunching over books having left their mark despite his attempts to forget them. Markowitz fought to hold himself in rein trying not to anticipate, but already he was caught in a mixture of grief and anger. New troubles.

In the fall it was the hunters from the city ripping down his No Trespassing signs, maiming or stealing his deer. In the winter the snowmobiles roamed in packs, roaring through the woods till the wee hours of the morning. Free country, ain’t it? In the warmer weather the private planes hatched like nasty little sparrows, snooping from above while he and Ingrid sun-bathed in the raw or made love in the pastoral fields. There was little peace except a few sporadic intervals when the myriad of power mowers needed a quick breath and purely by accident the air in the valley fell still. Yet it was those serene instants that made it all worth-while; and the aggravation that would have driven even the loftiest of saints to gnash his teeth and yank at his hair, could still be accepted good-naturedly.

Stepping over a little gully and raising his head from the stony path he could see the house high above him, the home he had shaped with his own hands, put by pick into the shale of the sharply rising Mt. Markowitz. The lower portion of the house consisted of reddish paving stones, meticulously stolen from the city, stone by stone, chipped and fitted and piled—never needing a drop of mortar (sturdy as if God himself had piled them). The upper portion was made of hand-hewn logs felled from the bastardized stand of Markowitzian timber. Markowitz had made just about all of it. Were it only feasible to carve the toilet bowl and plumbing, he would have done that too.

His mind returned to two years ago when the liberal students at The General Edmond B. Mufford Memorial College—predominantly white—had rioted and demanded their share of disadvantaged minority students. Arnold, part-time instructor, flunky, bottom man on the lowest of poles, got them. All of them. The white man’s unrequested burden.

The books felt heavier than usual today. The day longer. Ghetto math and ghetto physics. Ghetto physics: If the momentum of a pig’s bullet is 23 gm-ft per sec and the muzzle velocity is 3 ft per sec, how much does the slug weigh? Next week he would start with a ghettoized version of remedial physics. How would they take to it? How many Jewish-capitalist entrepreneurs can exploit a ghetto of population 831,000 if the maximized permissible density in Jews per cubic yard is….

Standing on the sun deck as if awaiting him were Ingrid and the boys. His boys. Ingrid, beautiful Ingrid. Blond and firm, once a serious ballerina and a Swede, now again an expectant mother submitting to Markowitz’s moralistic approach—You can’t just keep making love and not produce anything! Think it was put there just for our fun? (Although it was fun.) Ingrid’s face long and pale, as Arnold’s was round and swarthy. Markowitz wiry and tense, as she was soft and curved and milky. And ladylike.

Out of earshot and hearing only his own heart, Markowitz saw him—the middle-aged man in a mauve mohair suit, the jewels on his fingers and cuffs incongruous amidst the woods, gesticulating and smiling and conning Markowitz’s Ingrid. His movements excited, yet restrained. His little boys were searching the man’s pockets as they were inclined to do with their father, while their white, pink-eyed, four-foot-long family mongrel of questionable extraction poked the man in the crotch, curiously probing for some telltale scent of identification. Friend or Foe?

Foe! Foe! Markowitz wanted to cry out and it was only the distance and a thin layer of civility that restrained him. Foe. Arnold. Arnie. Arne Markowitz has been obsessed with a recurring nightmare so real that it catapults him into agonized wakefulness almost every night. Out in the field—the Szorsky field. They are building a housing development. Capitalizing on the spectacular view of the long valley. Cul-de-sacs lined with ugly little split-level, totally modern dreams of esthetic shit. Right smack in front of him …

Still unnoticed, Markowitz continued his hurried approach, switching his books to his other hand, keeping his pace, yet never losing sight of the man—tall and erect with graying hair swept backward from the forehead, long face with a square chin and black hairs that peeked out of his nostrils. The visitor playing the gentleman, polite and pretending that the dog was not goosing him while amiably requesting the naked boys to please keep their hands out of his pockets—especially the pants.

Bjorn-the-bear and Ulf-the-Scandinavian-wolf simultaneously spotted their father, the baron, and broke into shrieks and peals of Daddy! Daddy! A man here to see you, Bjorn was already warning.

Markowitz’s two little kings. Blond-headed like their mother, five and two, with the rich dark eyes of their father, their skin bronze and smooth, still babyishly delightful and sweet-smelling, possessing the kind of flesh that invited pinching and kissing and squeezing and biting. Since they were born Markowitz had not been able to keep from constantly handling them, as if each time checking to see that nothing had changed.

Ingrid saw Arne. Her Arne. Painter-scientist-poet-pioneer-lover madman, his skinny long legs (just like the boys’) flying up the stairs three at a time that led to the deck. Markowitz’s face was still boyishly round and barely furrowed, pushing thirty. His hair a deep brown matching his impatient eyes which were forever in motion.

Ingrid looked at him imploringly, trying to find the chance for a quick word of explanation, but saw it was too late and on her face there was a sense of disguised pity. For Markowitz. Her features were mellow to him, peaches and cream, long strands of golden angel hair (as he called it) dancing in the faint breeze at her temples. She tried to smile, but