Kicking Tomorrow (9 page)

“Oh, I see. Thanks,” Barnabus said. And frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Excuse me,” Rosie said, “I believe in the Middle East they
do
circumcise teenage girls. Their clitorises! Picture the mutilation! Men’ll do
any
thing to put women down.…”

“What’s a clitoris?” Barnabus said, and now Grandma Bethel put her face in both hands.

Robbie still seeing that image hovering above the table. He tried to erase it by quickly closing his eyes and shaking his head. The image wavered. That’s all it is, he tells himself, a wavering image, a desert mirage. I’m not responsible. Someone else conjured it up. It’s the devil out there in the dunes, uncirclecized, naked, and cruelly sunburnt; he’s grinding hot sand between his palms and callused shaft and he’s in a rage because it’s getting under his fireskin. When he spills his sulphuric semen in the desert’s belly, lo: Satan’s babies are scorpions.
Robbie Robbie stop
. But the harder he tries to shake the picture, the harder it clings to his eyeballs.

When he came to, Miriam was giving him a scornful look.

“I think someone should take this book back,” Rosie said. “The pages are backwards.”

“Page thirteen,” Dad said, and Robbie could see he was concealing a grin behind his Haggadah. “Robbie, please.”

“
K
,” he replied sullenly.
“The wicked child inquires in a mocking spirit: What mean
YE
by this service?
Hey, wait a sec. How come I get this one every year? I notice it’s not wicked ‘son’ any more, so why not give it to Miriam?” No one looked up from their books.
“K,
OK
.
Saying
YE
and not
WE
, he/she excludes himself from the household of Israel. Therefore thou shouldst turn on him/her and say: ‘It is because of that which God did for
ME
when I came forth out of Egypt.’”

“Now, children,” Dad said. “According to the Haggadah,
maror
means bitter herbs. We eat it as, as – as a year-end review, to recall how the Egyptians edged our ancestors out of a lot of valuable property.”

“I love horse relish,” Barnabus said. “I want lots.”

“Radish
, dumbhead,” Miriam said. “And you’re not supposed to like it. You’re supposed to think sad thoughts about your forefathers.”

“Not to mention your
foreskins
I should think,” Rosie said.

“Who are they?” Barnabus said.

Who indeed, Robbie thought. Let’s face it, Jews are losers. He was thinking of the Hasidim up around St. Urbain Street, boys of his own age all in black with fur hats, even in summer, and side-curls like some dreary parody of party streamers. They weren’t taking part in the world. Not like Robbie was. When they grew up they’d make their wives shave their heads, and wouldn’t touch them when they were on their periods. What would they think of Ivy, the time she showed Robbie her biggest secret, well, one of them, anyway: how she daubed menstrual blood on her lips with her finger for lipstick.

“OK
, Barnabus,” Dad said. “Before we eat, go and open the screen door. That’s to invite Elijah the Prophet in for a drink of wine. See, here we place his executive cup: Later you’ll get up again to close it, and when you come back you can check the level to see if he – aum – skimmed his percentage.”

“If Elijah was really real and was a ghost,” Barnabus said, “he could pass
through
the mosquito screen.”

“Oy,” Grandma Bethel said, pinching his cheek hard, “you kids are so
smart.”

Dinner was served, and the talk turned to politics, which wasn’t Robbie’s thing, exactly. He’d tried to keep up by flipping through magazines, opening them just wide enough to see the colour and type riffle by, but never wide enough to read them. And listening to the parents talk was the same; as if the conversation were being riffled too.
“PLO,”
Dad was saying, “recognize aum right Israel exist conflict ideological political Jerusalem last year aum.”

“Solving problems,” Mom interrupted, “Middle East political settlement Gaza ideological conciliation diaspora Arabs Jews war Holy Land.”

“I think Ghadaffi’s lost some weight,” Rosie said. “He’s looking great these days, for a mad tyrant.”

“Abby,” Dad said, “when the Knesset –”

“Darling, don’t talk to me of the
Knesset!”

“No, darling, let me finish. When the Gush Emunim –”

“Wait!” Rosie said. “Let’s ask Bob what
he
thinks!”

Robbie, who had, until this conversation, been under the impression that the Gaza Strip was a place where girls in the Middle East like Rosie worked, held his knife and fork upright, grease sliding down onto his thumb.

“Ha!” Mom snorted, “I’ll give you
Bob’s
political analysis of the last five years: February ’72,
SALT
signed – the Alpha Jerks play the Montreal Forum. November ’72, Nixon re-elected – the Big Racket wows ’em at the Concert Bowl –”

“Actually…” Robbie said as mildly as possible (the flooded house still weighing heaviest on his mind), “it was the Paisley Noses at the Concert Bowl.”

“June ’75, the Watergate hearings underway – Pink Phlegm zonks ’em at Place des Nations…”

“Aum, kids, did you – I read that Ringo was the real brains behind the Beatles.”

Robbie’s ears burned red. Did she have to needle him so hard? Plus it wasn’t fair using her professional
TV
technique on him like that. He felt small, the same way the victims on
Hello World!
appeared: looked down upon by the camera and miniaturized, while the shots of her lent her imperial authority. He put a gun to his head and fired.

“I think Bob has a wait-and-see policy,” Rosie said. “I admire that.”

“Yeah,” Robbie said. “Zackly.”

“My eye,” Mom said. “But all right. If you want. Robbie tell me, what is this
Knesset
we were referring to?”

Thinking hard about this one. And regretting having drunk so greedily. His forehead was wet. He burrowed into the meat, carving aside the fat. And ventured, “It’s a, um, potato dumpling, right?”

“That,” Dad said softly, “is a
knish
you’re, aum –”

Robbie’s lips gnarled up all sad and ugly, and everybody looked at their plates and made like nothing remotely funny or ridiculous had been said at all.

“Anyway children,” Mom continued, coolly changing the channel, and Robbie went under again. “What you must understand is that Passover is not just about olden times. When it talks about the trials of our forefathers we should also take it to mean the ones in the twentieth century. I’m talking, of course, about the Holocaust.”

Robbie Bookbinder, ten years old, standing on the back of an old armchair in the living room in town
(an old armchair that he more recently found just about floating down the front path),
his head close to the ceiling. Reaching up to tip down a fat book with a yellow star on its binding, and wondering if his fingers will leave prints in the dust. The late afternoon light is closing in around him, buzzing like flies. Against angry grey skies, the naked women with broad black smudges of pubic hair standing in the mud. And this is the first time he saw that women have pubic hair. The ditches of blood-blackened bodies, the smoking chimneys, the grinning soldiers posing for pictures. Robbie turning the pages faster and faster in bunches now. And Mom suddenly striding into the living room. “Robbie, you startled me standing way up there.” Guilty Robbie slamming the book shut. “Oh, come on, what is it, we have nothing to hide on these shelves. Show me.” Robbie confused now, and saying, “But Daddy said I shouldn’t.” Mom says, “That’s only because it will make you so very sad.”

Miriam was quizzing round the table. “And you, Barnabus?”

“I believe in the gospel according to Jesus Christ,” he said, knees on his chair and reaching for more horse relish.

“I believe in millions of gods all at once,” Rosie said.

“Aum, we’re still… commissioning studies.”

“Mommy?”

Mom pulled another face Robbie had seen on
TV
, and it usually meant trouble too, but all she said was, “I don’t think it’s a good time to talk about it.”

“What better time than Seder?” Miriam demanded.

Mom sipped her wine and dabbed her lips with her napkin. She leaned forward with both elbows on the table. “Well,” she began, “with all due respect to your grandmother –”

“Not me, surely,” Grandma Bethel said.

“With all due respect, I can’t put faith in a god who’s constantly allowing innocent people to be murdered. In the camps babies were boiled in the fat of their parents while their brothers and sisters looked on. A god like that must be indifferent or wicked. I’ll have nothing to do with him.”

Robbie poked at the squidgy lamb with his fork. Impressive, he was thinking, she should hand out pamphlets, but Mom turned on him. “Don’t you like it, darling? Or is your mind on the Paisley Noses?”

“No, no,” he said. “It’s yum.” He stabbed a piece of, of – a celebrated violinist, a Viennese intellectual, a much-loved aunt–right into his mouth, chewing with his lip curled up.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Mom said.

“No, don’t you worry about me,” Grandma Bethel said.

“What about you, Grandma?” Miriam said. “What do you think about God?”

“I don’t know. That was a hard act to follow.”

“I think Grandma doesn’t want to, aum,” Dad said quietly.

“Why not? Everybody else –”

“Grandma lost some people in the war who were very close to her,” he explained with his hand on Miriam’s arm.

“No, no,” Grandma Bethel said. “Grandma doesn’t mind, dear. You want to know do I believe in God? Of course.”

“But Mommy just said…”

“Mommy can say what she feels.”

“But what about your friends? I mean, the ones who died.”

“Not just my friends, my darling. My mother. And father. And my brother, too.”

“But aren’t you mad at God?”

“I have some questions I’m planning to ask Him. That’s for sure.”

“I think you’re being sexist, saying
Him,”
Rosie said.

Finally Robbie burst out, “There is no God, don’t kid yourselves. And if there was one that’d killed
my
Mom and Dad, I’d shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Oh, Robbie,” Mom said. “That’s very sweet, but God didn’t kill Grandma’s mother and father.”

“Seriously, I’d tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Robbie, please –”

“There you – you’re getting – take it down a notch, please.”

He was close to tears again. Same for everyone else this time, but he was too involved in his grand élan to notice. He was thrilled. An issue he finally cares about and, unbelievably, they want to shut him up.

“I can’t tell Him such a thing, dear,” Grandma Bethel said, her eyes big and moist as fishbowls.

“Why not, for Chrissake?”

“It’s certainly not for Christ’s sake!”

“But why not?”

“Because, that’s all.”

“Because what?”

“Because… He’s…” Grandma Bethel said, her voice trembling. “Because He’s… all I’ve got…” Now she was weeping, fumbling in her enormous lap for a corner of her napkin, “left.”

“Mother, Mother,” Mom implored her, “that’s not true. You have us. You know that.”

“Bethel –” Dad said, helplessly.

Robbie was as embarrassed as everybody else, but he was secretly pleased he had provoked such a reaction. It would start her thinking about life. Stop wasting time, get real. Of course there’s no God, not one who’ll answer your prayers, that’s plain as the nose on your face. He made a wiggly mouth, mimicking her this time, and exchanging a smirk with Rosie. But Rosie was staring tragically at her plate. Only Dad saw him.

“Robbie,” he said, “do you want to get out of here?”

“Uh, no thank you. I was only…”

“No, I mean, just get
OUT
! This meeting is adjourned. Go away, buzz off. We don’t want you here any more.”

“But–I – what about the songs after the meal? We have to find the hidden
matzoh
, and –”

“We’ll manage without you, thanks. Just go away, scram. It’s clear this is meaningless to you. Just, just, get
OUT.”

“
K
, fuck,
K
. Bye, then.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, knees shaking. The family and Rosie turned their heads all together to follow his flight. He tore at his tie and ripped off the buttons of his nice white shirt to reveal
KEEF SUCKS
, grabbed the executive cup and chug-a-lugged the Prophet’s wine. Then he lit out into the night, giving the porch door an almighty slam, to sulk down on the water with the dock spiders.

The next morning, from his bed, he could hear the phone ringing off the hook. As if things weren’t bad enough. All activity was clearly futile now. Adolescence had been one great rip-off in the first place – not even a full decade, just seven measly teen years – but civilization as Robbie knew it was definitely over. What could he do but kill himself? Throw himself down a chimney at
EPX
. Stick his finger in an electric socket to make a human amplifier. Out on the lake motorboats farted, and water-skiers shrieked. The beech trees scrabbled at his window to come out and play. He lay there imagining the sound of Hell’s Yells – all scraping feedback, the sound of exhaust. This dying planet gets the electric guitar for its funeral, a steely annoyance, an army of men with black ice for armour, shouting violent disharmonies. A vengeful sound, a music to rape and pillage by. A sound for burning down schools.