The Jewish Musk Turtle

Peter arrived at his sister’s apartment shortly after supper.  Megan, a petite brunette with hazel eyes, was teasing a set of pearl earrings into place. “Did you meet the newest addition to our family?” She led the way into the living room past the den where the two children were watching TV. In a glass enclosure near the Baldwin upright piano a small musk turtle was resting on a flat rock. “We picked him up a week ago Tuesday at the pet store.” “The turtle’s name is Mordechai, but we call him Morty.” 

As he reached down to stroke the turtle’s drab, olive-green shell, his sister blurted, “No, don’t do that!” Peter pulled his fingertips away. “Musk turtles don't do well with a lot of handling. They can be feisty and, if threatened, release a foul and musky odor, which is how they got their nickname, the stinkpot turtle”.

“Stinkpot turtle,” he repeated. Glancing to his left, Peter noticed a Glade air freshener perched on the lamp table. 

“When you arrived, did you see,  Alex?” Alex was their younger brother from the mother’s second marriage. 

“He was just leaving, when I pulled up in the parking lot.”

“How’d he seem,” Megan pressed.

“Not terribly happy.” Peter stared at the diminutive, greyish brown turtle with its highly domed shell, long neck and ungainly short legs. The head was vaguely triangular in shape, with a pointed snout and sharp beak that featured a distinctive yellow-green striping from the tip of the nose to the neck. “Why in the name of God,” Peter redirected the conversation back to the original topic, "would you purchase a turtle that's gonna turn your lovely apartment into a rancid garbage dump?”

“Musk turtles are small, and their care requirements are less intensive than several of the other varieties. We feed him with floating food sticks that contain sufficient protein and all the essential vitamins they need.” Megan adjusted the lighting on the tank. “In the wild, they feed off insects, earthworms, leeches, spiders, millipedes, small fish and fish eggs.” 

“What’s the matter with Alex?” Peter belatedly tugged the conversation back to the previous topic.

His sister’s features congealed in a sour expression. “Alex wants to marry his long-time girlfriend, but our lovely sister, Rita, would sooner rot in hell than condone the wedding.”

Peter thought for a moment. “Alex’s dating that black girl, René.”

“The twosome were best friends all through middle school,” Megan continued, “but once they became sweethearts, Rita began referring to  René as the schvartze.”  

Schvarte was a mean-spirited euphemism for low-life undesirables. And yet Peter’s sister, the oldest of the three siblings, was a barrel of moral contradictions. In the past she attended rallies in support of racial equality, Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory; but once her son began dating a black girl, all that grandiose, libertarian gobbledegook fluttered out the window. Afro-Americans in the abstract were just fine; as theoretical constructs negroes weren’t the least bit problematic, but you certainly didn’t invite them to the Thanksgiving Day meal. 

Peter and his sister drifted back into the bedroom, where Megan was adjusting a pearl necklace. Once the strand of beads was properly settled on her neck, she lowered her voice several decibels and continued in a somber tone. “Rita told Alex that if he moves forward with wedding plans, he’d need to live elsewhere.”

“She’s throwing him out of the house?” When there was no immediate reply, Peter muttered. “So what’s he doing?”

“The wedding's been cancelled.”

“The lovebirds capitulated… threw in the towel.”

Megan shook her head vehemently. “They scrapped the formal wedding plans and will be eloping a week from Tuesday. Only a tiny handful of friends sworn to secrecy will attend an impromptu wedding along with a justice of the peace at the Brandenburg town hall.”

Heading for the front door, his sister grabbed a purse and light jacket. “One last question.” Peter was still trying to wrap his brain around the mishmash of unfolding events. “Where the hell will the newlywed live once they tie the proverbial knot?”

“Don’t know. Nobody’s thought that far ahead.”

* * * * *

 “Who wants a bedtime story?” Uncle Peter settled down on the rocking chair alongside the twin beds. His niece and nephew had just brushed their teeth after watching a half hour of goofy SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons, while in the living room aquarium, Mordechai, the malodorous musk turtle, had long since crawled under the mossy vegetation and drifted off to slumberland.

“I do! I do!” They shouted in unison.

Peter wriggled a Juni P. Jones picture book from a messy pile crammed haphazardly in the bookcase.“ Here’s a good one, Juni B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth.” 

“Naw. That’s old stuff,” seven year-old  Curtis bellowed.

“Lisa, please stop picking your nose,” Uncle Peter insisted. 

The blonde-haired girl who would be entering kindergarten in the fall removed her pinky finger from the right nostril and promptly reinserted it in the left. “What time will Mummy be home?” 

“The wedding gets over around nine, so your folks should be home fairly early.” Peter plucked a well-thumbed Roald Dahl paperback from the heap. “James and the Giant Peach?” Both children groaned in dismay. “Okay then.” Abandoning the rocking chair, he settled down on his nephew’s bed. 

Peter’s sister, Megan, who was something of a wizard when it came to home decor, had decorated the opposite wall with an elaborate wallpaper featuring a rustic, woodland motif replete with a montage of bunnies, bears and butterflies done up in moss green, mauve, wispy wheat-colored pastels and soft earth tones. “Perhaps you’d prefer a modern-day fairy tale.” He paused for dramatic effect. “The story of Morty, the Jewish musk turtle.”

Hey, wait a minute!” Lisa, who had momentarily finished with her nasal hygiene,  sat up straight. “We got a musk turtle with the same name.”

“Yes, but is your turtle orthodox Jewish?” Peter confronted both his nephew and niece in a challenging tone.

“Heck no,” Curtis interjected, “there ain’t no such thing as Jewish turtles.”

“That’s a double negative,” Peter corrected the boy’s grammar, “and anyway, this is just a silly meaningless fairy tale so we can bend the rules for convenience’s sake.” Lisa fluffed her pillow and wriggled her toes under the covers, while her brother curled up on his side next to his uncle. “Once upon a time over the mountain and beyond the river, a Jewish musk turtle named Morty was wandering about the lake, when he stumbled across a silly goose.”

“What’s the goose's name,” Lisa asked.

“Rita… her name’s Rita.”

“Same as Auntie Rita.”

“Yes, but that’s just another crazy coincidence.” Peter shifted his rump comfortably burrowing it into the bed. “‘Hi deyre, silly goose, what’s new mit you?’” Morty affected a thick, Yiddish accent.

“The turtle talks funny,” Rita chortled.

“As I said, Morty was an elderly, eastern European musk turtle with both a yarmulke and metaphysical mindset. 

“A black beanie on his bony skull... that’s ridiculous,” Curtis tittered.

“It’s just a goofy fairy tale with all sorts of outlandish possibilities.” Peter authoritatively shook his head up and down, as though giving tacit truth to what his nephew was saying. ‘What’s new with me?’, the silly goose repeated. ‘I'll tell you what’s new. That horrid raven keeps snooping around while I’m feeding the chicks or feathering my nest.’

‘And what’s so bad about that?’ Morty pressed.

‘Ravens are black, jet black and geese -’”

“Before he could continue the turtle blurted, ‘You got issues wid da raven’s plumage?’

‘I ain’t sayin’ I do and ain't sayin’ I don’t,’ the silly goose snickered.

“Morty pointed at a flock of majestic swans gliding about the far end of the pond. ‘Perhaps I should remind you, the only pure-bred,  lily-white birds hereabouts are those statuesque beauties. You got a black beak, head and neck. Your wings and belly are dirty brown while all that’s left is a tiny band of ivory stretching under your chin and across the chest.’”

“The silly goose blew out her cheeks and flapped her wings in moral outrage. ‘Ravens are stupid. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!’ she hissed, rising up to full stature on her orangey webbed feet and flapping her cumbersome wings.”

“I gotta pee,” Curtis suddenly interrupted the narrative. The boy rolled off the side of the bed and hurried away in the direction of the bathroom.

“How about you?” Peter turned to the younger sister, but she was already dead to the world,  sound asleep.

* * * * * 

“Where did we leave off?” Peter asked, when Curtis flushed the toilet and returned to the bedroom. 

“Ravens are stupid, stupid, stupid!”  

“That’s what the silly goose said, but, as with most everything in her miniscule brain, she was dead wrong.” “Ravens were highly intelligent birds known for their problem-solving abilities and social behaviors. Ravens could mimic human speech and other sounds, and often play and engage in complex social interactions.”

Curtis’ eyes narrowed and forehead furrowed in deep reflection. “Is that true or are you just making it up as part of the fairy tale?”

“All true, true, true!” Peter insisted. “Ravens are large, intelligent birds belonging to the Corvidae family. They’re known for their striking black plumage and impressive cognitive abilities.”

“Cog what?”

“Ability to acquire knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and all five, physical senses.”

“Geeez!” Curtis sighed. “This fairy tale sure is getting complicated.”

“Raven are among the smartest birds, comparable to apes and chimpanzees  in problem-solving skills. They can mimic human speech and other sounds, showcasing their vocal skills and even engage in playful behaviors, such as sliding down snowy hills and playing keep-away with other animals.” “Ravens are highly social and often form strong bonds with their mates; they typically travel in pairs, communicate using over thirty different vocalizations and can even use non-vocal signals to convey messages.”

Peter, who was just catching his stride, glanced over to make sure that his nephew was still listening, but now both children were resting comfortably sound asleep, Lisa resting in a semi-fetal position, her brother splayed out on his back, lips ever so slightly parted. “How sad!” He noted in a whispery-soft monotone. “The fairy tale was building to a climax, but we never quite reached the dénouement.” 

Peter  double checked the children one last time before shutting the light and retreated to the kitchen where he fixed himself a cup of Irish breakfast tea. Once the tea had boiled he added a splash of cream and a spoonful of honey. 

His meeting Mordechai the musk turtle coupled with the fanciful bedroom wallpaper had inspired Peter's impromptu fairy tale. From the outset he had absolutely no idea where the fanciful plot would eventually wind up. But was it any different in real life? His sister’s second husband had long since flown the coop, and now Alex was marrying René with neither his biological  father’s nor mother’s blessings. 

The silly goose in Peter’s fairy tale never worried about such disconcerting eventualities. Similarly, in their fictional universe Bambi could never become twitterpated, fall in love with Thumper the pink-nosed cottontail; similarly, the adorable deer with the white-speckled rump felt no romantic inclinations for Flower, the painfully shy skunk. God, in his infinite wisdom, took special precautions. 

If Curtis and Lisa had managed to stay awake, Peter might have put a humorous twist on the ending by having Morty, the stinkpot turtle, blast the silly goose with a generous puff of noxious gas. Or perhaps the clever and ever-resourceful black raven - the avian Einstein - might have made his grand debut and stood the silly goose on her dull-witted head.

* * * * *

“You certainly got home early,” Peter said, when his sister and brother-in-law arrived home well before ten o’clock.

“The children were good?”

“Angels,” Peter responded, as he grabbed his coat and car keys.

“Let me accompany you out to the car,” his sister suggested. When they reached the parking lot, Megan said, “On the ride home I discussed Alex’s dilemma with my husband. If the newlyweds still need a place to stay until they make more suitable arrangements, they can live with us.”

Peter, who was sitting in the driver’s seat with the key in the ignition, grinned gleefully. “Even a better dénouement than the one I had in mind.”

“Excuse me?”

“No matter,” Peter parried the remark. “It’s a rather long story, more like a fairy tale with talking animals.”