- Posted on: 10 March, 2021
- 55 Years Old
- Philip Roth
- #1959 #55 #Goodbye Columbus #Male #Marty Kreiger #Novella
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Marty Kreiger 55
Then there was Marty Kreiger, the Kosher Hot-Dog King, an immense man, as many stomachs as he had chins, and already, at fifty-five, with as many heart attacks as chins and stomachs combined. He had just come back from a health cure in the Catskills, where he said he’d eaten nothing but All-Bran and had won $1500 at gin rummy. When the photographer came by to take pictures, Marty put his hands on his wife’s pancake breasts and said, “Hey, how about a picture of this!” His wife, Sylvia, was a frail, spindly woman with bones like a bird’s. She had cried throughout the ceremony and sobbed openly, in fact, when the rabbi had pronounced Ron and Harriet “man and wife in the eyes of God and the State of New Jersey.” Later, at dinner, she had hardened enough to slap her husband’s hand as it reached out for a cigar. However, when he reached across to hold her breast she just looked aghast and said nothing.
