The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (25 page)

I throw my book bag over my shoulder and walk toward Ida in the hall.

“Ya’akov?” says the rabbi, and I turn to face him. He lifts the letter I’d begun off my desk and holds it out for me. I walk back in the room and he meets me halfway.

“Good luck,” he says.

I slowly nod and take the letter from his hand.

T
HROUGH THE SANCTUARY
and out the doors to the parking lot, I move as fast as I can down the driveway to Glendale Avenue. I picture my father on his knees with the phone at his ear and there’s fire and smoke and I don’t know if he can breathe. I listen for sirens but the drone of lawn mowers is all I hear, the sun still so bright. At the corner I turn on Saber and start running uphill past the climbing rows of mailboxes and square-shaped lawns. My mind says the worst, like someone’s dead, someone I love. I could see it in Ida’s face, a fire or a crash, some vicious news she knew. “Yaw muthu is dead, Ya’akov. Huh plane went down.” She must have pointed at the smoke—she saw it first—white but barely visible. She turned to Nate as the plane’s floor began to buckle and saw floating sparks like fireflies, but thousands, raining from the vents. They gripped each other’s hands and nuzzled their heads before an explosion rocked the fuselage and the windows blew out. The fiery wreckage is on some farm in Upstate New York. I keep running
up this hill past the Daffners and the Goulds and see Westlock up ahead. “It’s your brutha who’s dead, Ya’akov. His car flipped ova.” It happened on the
S
curves of Piedmont Avenue. He’s at the morgue right now under a sheet in a long silver drawer and they need me to identify him and say it’s him, it’s him, while covering my mouth and bending over his corpse. I lift his head with my hands and pull his cold cheeks up to mine—
no, no, no, no, no, no, no
, you promised, you promised we’d
go,
we’d
leave
here! A car drives by me and honks for some reason and I’m sure it’s my dad until I look and it’s not. There’s a cramp in my side, deep beneath my rib and I pinch it.

“
Wrong!
” I can hear my father scream. “It can
not
be erased! It’s a crime! A crime against
God.
You vandalized a synagogue, you
pig! Why?
” He shoves him backward into the kitchen table and Asher’s hip smacks the edge. Every glass tips and spills, and Dara and Gabe both dart from the room. Asher says, “Calm the fuck down,” and keeps his hands high and in front of him as my father comes again.

“Get the hell out,” he says, into Asher’s face. “I want you out of my house.”

“Some chalk on a chalkboard, Dad. Chalk!”

“Ask me!”

Asher’s shoulders rise and drop. “Ask you what?”

My father leans his face into Asher’s. “Ask me if I love you right now,” he says with great calm. “Try it. Do . . . you . . . love . . . me?”

I can see my house. It’s lit in a summery, late-day orange and it’s not on fire. When I get to the corner at Westlock I slow to a walk and hear another car racing up behind me on Saber Street. I turn and see it fishtailing and for a second I think it’s Nicky and then it is, it
is
his car. He drives the right side of the
Camaro up on the curb behind me and I jump to get out of the way. Asher is alive. I see him in the passenger seat and it’s not a dream. “Need a lift?”

I run to the window and lower my forehead on his arm. “Oh my God,” I say, out of breath. “Listen. Dad called. Told me to come home. Something’s happened.”

“Get in,” he says, and opens the door.

Beth and Brigitte are in the back so I climb on Asher’s lap. My knees are mashed up against the glove box and my chin and cheek touch the fuzzy gray ceiling. Asher says, “Cozy,” and slams the long door. Nicky floors the thing and my head jolts backward.

“What’s your guess?” Asher says over the blaring music.

“What?”

“The reason he called.”

“I don’t know,” I say, and rest my head against his. I close my eyes. “Asher.”

No flames, no smoke, no charred sibling limbs. I’m surprised to see my father’s car is gone. Nick slows down and even signals but then slams on the accelerator and the car takes off in a shot. I turn to see the house go past us through the back windshield. “Nicky!”

Asher grabs the yarmulke off my head and crams it in my lap. “Surprise fucker! “It was us.”

I stare down at him. “What?”

“Let me get one of those brews for the boy, Bridg.”

Brigitte and Beth start laughing in the back and Nicky goes into a fishtail once again. I spread my arms to the dash as the rear of the thing kicks back and forth with smoking tires. “Stop!”

The car rattles sideways to a frightening halt and stalls. “Relax, you puss,” Nick says. He starts it up again, pumps his foot,
and again we’re flying toward nowhere on screaming tires. Brigitte reaches into a Styrofoam cooler behind the driver’s seat and hands Asher a can of Stroh’s. He cracks it open and holds it up to my lips. “
Exoooooddussssss!
” he screams, and tips it in my mouth.

“Wait!” I try to swallow it but it pours down my chin. “Asher—”

“And the Hebrew slave boy slurped beer from Pharoah’s urn, which symbolizes—”

“Just wait.”

“. . . the tears and mortar and locusts and—”

“Drink up now,” says Nicky. “You’s
way
behind, little man.”

I take the can from Asher’s hand before he tips it again. “Does this mean I’m coming?” I yell. “Does this mean . . . ?” Asher catapults me into the backseat and I land shoulder first between Beth’s knees.

“We got porno!” yells Brigitte, and gives my ass a smack.

“And it was
God,
” Asher screams laughing, “who
freed
baby Moses with his mighty hand. Drink the precious hops of my fields he commanded and they did, yes they did. And it was
gooooooood!
”

When I finally get upright between the girls I have beer on my hair and jeans. The car is just soaring down these thin suburban streets and I cringe on every screeching turn.

“So I’m going?” I yell, but no one seems to hear.

“
Let my people goooooo
,” Asher sings over the music. “
Gooo doooown Moseeees, waaaaaay down to Egypt laaaaand, tell old Pharaoh, let my Jacob goooooo
.”

When I turn to Beth she’s wearing my yarmulke and admiring herself in the rearview. “‘Barook . . . tata, do-anye.’ Good, right?”

“Is he bringing me?” I ask her.

“‘Elohaino melik kolom.’ And I’m Catholic,” she says, pointing at a purple cross on her ankle.

Asher swivels around to face me and lowers the radio. “Exiled into a land of debauchery and lust”—he’s so hammered—“the Hebrew slave boy had only God to defeat now.”

“Asher?”

“The Hebrew slave boy speaks.”

I push off the girls and slide forward on my seat. My face is nearly touching his. “So . . . yes? I can go?”

He looks me in the eyes for a second and lets his head flop forward.

“I told ya he’d think that,” Brigitte says.

“It’s a party, J. You’re coming to my farewell party.”

I stare at the top of his head until he looks up. “
What?
”

“It’s my last fuckin’ night! I
had
to get you.”

“You
had
to call that office and . . . pretend to be
him?
”

“Relax.”

“So I could come to a fuckin’ party?”

“It’s . . . funny.”

“For
you,
” I say, and punch the seat in front of me.

“Hey,” says Nicky. “Easy.”

“Just relax,” Asher says.

“Relax? Rabbi Seth’s calling him right now, you dick.”

“Good! Dad’s not home.”

“But he will be.”

He takes a swig off his beer and swallows quickly. “I’ll tell him it was me.”

“No you won’t.”

“I will.”

“You’re a liar!”

“I’ll get you back to the house by seven,” Asher screams over the music. “He’ll never know. Now shut the fuck up and drink.”

He turns the radio up even higher and we all sit in the thump of Judas Priest. Nicky drives about ninety down Irving and squeals right onto East Robson. I press up against Brigitte, pinned to her shoulder, and she laughs and nibbles on my earlobe.

“Look at you!” Asher screams with a smile. “A second ago you were sittin’ in that shit hole and now you’re pimpin’ between two hot chicks. What’s not to love?”

I lean forward so he can hear me over the music and engine. “Can we talk?”

“Definitely! We’ll party at Mom’s, all right?”

“Is she still there?”

“No, long gone. Jew school lets out at seven o’clock, right?” I nod. “But what if Rabbi—?”

“What if he
what?
”

“Calls Dad!”

Asher takes a sip of his beer and seemingly turns around to think. My ribs are throbbing to the bass of the music. It’s a crunching amplified beam of rock like a
jugjugjugjugjugjugjugjug
that swallows all other sound. The singer screams and Nicky starts to bang the steering wheel to the beat. “Livin’ after midnight, rockin’ till the dawn, lovin’ till the mornin’ and I’m gone—I’m gone.”

“Asher!?” I yell, not sure if he hears me.

“Rollin’!”
Jugjugjugjugjug.
“Rollin’!”
Jugjugjugjujug.

“Your brother won’t let anything happen to you,” Brigitte says. She then reaches into her purse for a pot pipe and matches. “He got all bummed when we left you today.”

I look at her as she puts the thing between her lips.

“He loves you a lot, J.” She winks and tries to ignite a soggy match. “Says he thinks your dad’s gonna fuck you up.” Beth pulls a lighter out of her purse and lays over me to light the pipe. I feel her breasts on my knees.

“Ont some?” says Brigitte with her lungs filled.

“I better not.”

“It’ll really help loosen ya up,” she says, exhaling, and starts to cough in these tiny nostril spurts of smoke.

I take it from her and hand it to Beth. “I love your blond hair,” she tells me, and puts the pipe to her lips.

Asher lowers the music, spins around, and has this to tell me: “If he calls him we’re screwed.”

I nod with wide eyes. “
That’s
. . .
that’s
the plan?”

“But he won’t.” Beth hands him the pipe and he takes it from her. “Try to have some fun, man. I’ll get you back in time and you’ll wish you smoked some pot and drank some booze and—anybody here want to suck J off?”

Beth raises her hand so only I can see. My penis starts to fill.

“I will,” says Brigitte. She climbs on top of me and thrusts her pelvis. Everyone laughs.

Asher lights the pipe still laughing. “You are one wacky fuckin’ chick,” he says with lungs filled. He exhales. “I’m really gonna—”

“Miss me?” she says, climbing off me.

Asher looks all sheepish and wasted.

“Is that what you were gonna say?”

He sits back in his seat and taps the ash out the window.

“Asher!” she screams.

“What?” he says, annoyed.

“Is that what you were gonna say? I’m gonna miss you, Brigitte. I’m an asshole because I’m leaving you behind and I’m gonna miss sticking my
cock
inside you!”

Nicky’s laugh sounds like a car engine trying to turn over in the dead of winter.

Brigitte throws her shoulders back into the seat and mumbles “asshole” a few more times.

“We’ve been drinking since noon,” says Beth, still eyeing my hair. “Ya didn’t dye this, did you?”

“Little Greeny ain’t smokin’ da ganj?” says Nicky.

I sit forward, away from Beth, as Nicky watches her touch my head.

“Can I talk to you, Asher?” I say.

Beth holds the pipe to my lips.

“Stuff’s like lawn grass,” she says. “Real harmless.”

“Lawn grass?”

“Just a little,” Beth says like a nurse. She lights it.

I take a small toke and hold my shoulders back like the burn-outs do. Brigitte starts to applaud and Asher smiles proudly and nods.

“We need more beer,” Asher says. “Anything else?”

Nicky’s currently steering the car with his knees. “Where’s
your
girlfriend, little Greeny?” he says.

Beth puts an open palm on the center of my back and starts rubbing in circles.

“I don’t have one.”

“’Cause you’re a homo, right?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Should we get him a whore, A. G.? How ’bout a transvestite off Broad Street?”

“How about Jonny?” says Asher.

“Oh, that’s cold,” says Nick.

“
No,
” he says chuckling. “I mean where the hell is he? How often ya get kidnapped from Jew school? He should be here, join the liberation.”

“He’s probably home,” I say.

“Does he like beer?”

I nod.

“Back toward Glendale,” Asher says to Nick.

I lean forward and sort of smile. “You’re gonna go get him?”

Nicky yanks the car into a massively hard U-turn that makes us all pile on each other once again. With my face against the window I suddenly think of crashing in this heap of bodies and weed and envision sirens and some red-haired cop lifting my yarmulke with a long pair of tongs. The car pulls out of the U and straightens out and we all fall back into place. “He’s a terrible driver,” I say, but only Beth hears. She looks at me with her smiley stoned eyes and quickly slips her tongue between my lips. As she pulls away I stare at her in disbelief. “
Please,
” I whisper, mostly with my eyes. “Nicky.”

“Please what?” she says into my ear. “Please do it again?”

“O-
kay,
” I say, leaning forward, nearly hopping into the front seat. “What’s this baby got, Nick, a six cylinder?”

“Try eight.”

Beth touches my butt and I turn to scold her.

“Barook, tatta . . . aboniiiiie,” she sings, and the Camaro soars toward Glendale Avenue.

There aren’t any telephone outlets in the bathrooms of my father’s house. There aren’t any in the living room or the basement or what he calls the “library” either. So if he’s sitting or standing in one of these places he would hear it ring probably or definitely but he may just very well ignore it. I’ve seen him do this, not often, but I’ve seen it—times when he’s groggy or reading or the Mets have runners in scoring position. Besides, it’s a weekday, a Thursday, late afternoon, so he’s either at his office or with Rona or somewhere in his car—a car that wasn’t in the driveway when we were there, so there currently seems a greater chance of
not
reaching him than reaching him when one figures the time of day and the various
rooms he may or may not be in when the phone finally rings. At home.