The Mirror's Back

     Once cars put an end to the need for a neighborhood blacksmith, my grandfather Nathan began a new business.  He opened a second-hand store.  It was all before me, but I heard how all kinds of stuff ended up there – stuff he picked and stuff he traded – an old this, a new that.  My mom always said she loved going there to see what other people had thrown out that other people might still want.

     One of the items, so I heard, was an enormous hall mirror with an ornate frame that he got when Kaplowitz went bankrupt during the recession and had to sell his household goods.  Kaplowitz had been well off and the mirror was a prize possession only he could have afforded.  It was the mirror of a rich man and that alone made it worth something to my grandfather.

     As my mother described it, it was a huge thing, full length, and weighed a ton with the fancy frame.  Nathan set the mirror in a prominent spot, the only empty spot in the store at that point, which was against the front wall, blocking the window that faced the street.

What he did not realize, not really being a mirrorman but just a junk dealer, was that the mirror had no backing; there was nothing to protect the reverse side and because of that that the reflective material could easily scratch off. 

     Still, the mirror was his prized possession because it put him in touch with someone like Kaplowitz, so maybe he hoped that the image would rub off on him in some way.  What else could account for the fact that each morning he stood before it and examined himself, hoping maybe to see a wealthier reflection.  And if not – had he measured up, made enough of himself, in other words – was he worthy of that image in the mirror?

     Like everyone in my family, it seems, my grandfather had a bit of a knack for self-obsession.

     Of course, he was also not a stupid man and knew that mirrors were lies…flat while the world is fat, minimizing and thinning, and showing this way while life went that.  But no matter.  The image in there was so vivid that Nathan, just like anyone who stood before it, was captivated by what he saw.

     In fact everyone who walked into the shop noticed it, my mom said, and stopped in front of it, admired themselves for a moment.  But no one could afford it and Nathan refused to lower the price because he himself had paid so much.

      And then there was this other problem: slowly, day by day and in his idle moments, Nathan was meticulously scraping off the reflective material on the back.  Each time she went to the store, my mom said, more of the mirroring was missing.  A section here, a patch there, and soon more was missing than present.  Until at some point a few months later, when he stood before it by the morning light, Nathan’s own reflection was a jigsaw intermixed with anyone outside trying to look in the window in the other side.  Some of kind funhouse mirror that melded you with a stranger peering in. 

     Eventually he scraped it clean and the mirror, this magnificent item that once only reflected a rich man and all his possessions, was nothing more than a piece of glass with a too nice frame.

     “You see what the upshot was?” my mom asked me.  “The tachlis?”

     “Yes,” I intoned, stroking a beard I never bothered to grow.  “Before, he could only see himself and his own needs…to be rich or lovely or clever.  Now, he could not see himself at all but only his neighbors and their lives out there on the street.  He learned to care about others.”

     My mom stared at me for a long time, then yanked on the beard to snap me out of it.

     “No,” she snapped.  “He thought the backing was silver.  So he spent all that time collecting the scrapings and hoping he would make a fortune on it.  But it just a crummy mirror…aluminum or something.  There was no silver.  Kaplowitz wasn’t rich because he bought expensive things; he was rich because he was a cheap son of a bitch.  Remember that.”

     I did, to this day, obviously; but I still do not know exactly what she was trying to tell me.