The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (26 page)

But the rabbi does it. He reaches my father at 5:06
P.M
. and proceeds to ask if “Everything’s kosher?” At the time Jon had just answered his front door with Elios pizza sauce on his lips and I’d told him I was stoned and kidnapped and that Brigitte didn’t seem to be wearing a bra. And I don’t think it’s a matter of mistrust that leads the rabbi to call, but more respect for the president, the
nasi,
and what might have gone wrong in the
nasi
’s home. I can see my father’s face, the phone at his ear, slow, paced-out blinks of astonishment that soon quicken as suspicion triggers in his mind. “Yes, yes, I’m here,” he says into the phone. “What time did he leave?”

The first call to my mother’s house comes at five thirty-three. We’ve all just arrived and made our way through Asher’s unpacked clothes and toiletry crap, which is strewn all over the front hall carpet. As it rings, Asher whistles with his fingers and lifts his hands in the air like a bank teller in a western. “
Nobody
answers the fuckin’ phone. Please repeat.”

“Nobody answers the fuckin’ phone,” says the crew in broken unison. None of us moves until all nine rings are done. The silence brings an air of excitement, as if we’ve all just survived a shelling. Jon, Beth, Nick, and Brigitte move on into the kitchen with the beers. Asher says, “Soon be back,” and runs up the staircase. I follow him.

When I reach the top he’s staring at the ceiling in the hallway with his hands on his hips.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“You been in this attic yet?”

I look up at it and shake my head. “No. Can I talk to you?”

“Go ahead,” he says, looking for something to stand on. “I’m
listening.” It’s then he jumps and swipes at the ceiling with his hand.

I lean on the banister and watch him leap twice more. “Before you called the temple tonight . . . I was writing this letter.”

“Can you boost me up there, ya think?”

I weave my fingers together and walk toward him. He braces himself on my shoulder and steps into my hands.

“The letter was to Dad,” I say.

“Lift.”

“You’re too heavy.”

“Forget it,” he says, leaping down. “I need a chair or something.” He walks into Gabe’s room and looks around.

“The letter said I was going to catch a train.”

He walks back in the hall with his arms folded. “Grab me that chair in Mom’s room, will ya?”

He faces me when he doesn’t hear me move.

“Please?” he says.

I drag the chair from her vanity table into the hall. He steps up and pulls open a hatch that leads to a ladder. In seconds his head and torso are rummaging through my mother’s tiny storage space in the ceiling. I stand underneath him at the base of the ladder and talk straight to his ass.

“It leaves from Newark at six fourteen. And during
hafsaka
I was gonna leave. Just walk out of there. I was gonna be on it.”

“Holy shit, it’s a fuckin’ mess up here.”

“Asher?”

“I can’t see crap.”

“Asher?”

“Can you get me a flashlight or, oooh, never mind, there’s a chain.” He pulls it and the room lights up around his head.
“Much better. I’m looking for a box with my name on it. It had all these bones and shit like that in it. Ya seen it?”

“Bones?”

“Not human bones.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“I’m making a mobile for my first project and—oh yuck. Stretch Armstrong leaked all over the place.”

“J?” Jonny says from the stairs.

I look over the banister. “Yeah?”

“Bottle opener?”

“I’ll be down in a second.”

The phone starts to ring.

“No one answers the fuckin’ phone,” says Asher from his hole. “Tell them.”

“Don’t answer the phone!” I yell.

“I hope to Christ that’s not him,” Asher says, tearing open a box.

I look into my mother’s bedroom. I can see the phone on her bedside table. “It’s him,” I say.

“Shhhhh. It’s still ringing.” Asher freezes and I hear him sigh. “Could be anyone,” he says.

Nine rings again, and it finally stops. “No, it can’t.”

Another rip into a taped box. “Remember that ram’s femur I had?”

I look at my watch.

“Or that hoof I used to prop my door open with?”

“A what?”

“I have to find that fuckin’ box. And where’s all my Mongoloid drawings and my pump rifle and—? Oh nice.”

“What?”

“Good box.”

It’s then he starts throwing things down. A male mannequin
wig with dried glue on the sideburns comes first. It bounces once and lands like roadkill against the carpet. A Barbie with painted nipples comes next, followed by a pair of flip-flops, a small animal’s femur, and a tefillin I got for my bar mitzvah. This is going to be quite a mobile. “Gold mine” he says, and down comes his pump rifle and a small box of ammo. When he finds a loaded Polaroid and two clips of film, he jumps down off the ladder with a thump that rattles the walls. He swipes the cobwebs off his hair and points the thing right at me.

Clickadee-vvvvvv.
“Fuckin’ works,” he says. “Give me the finger or somethin’.”

I choose not to.

Clickadee-vvvvvv.
I squeeze the flash from my eyes. “Did you hear anything I said?”

“Yeah, yeah, just come down to the kitchen for a minute.” And he’s off and running. “How drunk are you girls!?” he yells from the stairs. “I need nudie shots for the road!”

When we get there he aims the Polaroid at the open fridge.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Pyramid of Milwaukee’s Best.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Nicky poking carrot into Jon’s ass while Jon reaches for beer.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Beth spanking Brigitte while Brigitte sticks tongue out at camera.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Nicky and Jon “shotgunning” beers.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Beth with hands on knees looking over shoulder with pursed lips.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Brigitte winking with carrot deep in mouth.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
More of the carrot, flickering tongue at tip.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Nicky pretending to urinate in sink.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Beth smiling with middle finger raised as she heads down the hall to the bathroom.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Brigitte mooning camera with cutoffs and panties at knees.

“Yow,” says Asher. “Now
that’s
ma-girl.”

I can see the black patch of her pubic hair between her legs
and a tiny blue bruise high on her thigh. Bottomless female in kitchen.
Clickadee-vvvvv.
I look away when my eyes meet hers but I’ll need to look again. She wiggles her hips with her arms over her head and says something like, “Wahooooo!” Jonny stares at her vagina while raising his beer for a toast. “Nine minutes ago I was watching cartoons,” he says, and sips. Brigitte slowly lifts her pants as Asher circles her and clicks off four more shots. “Oh, you’re a
goddess,
” he says.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
“What a naughty little girlie . . . my girlie.”
Clickadee-vvvvvv.

Beth walks back from the bathroom and sees Brigitte getting dressed.

“You did it already?”

“Flashed her kitty,” says Nicky.

“You did?”

Asher blows on the pictures. “They’re developing.”

“You were ’sposed to wait for
meee,
” she whines.

Brigitte zips her fly. “Asher dared me.”

“I’m drunk
too-oo,
” she says in a baby voice, and starts to lift her T-shirt. I hear Jonny mumble, “Sweet,” as Asher’s camera cranes smoothly toward her chest. With a boozy smile and her eyes squeezed closed she unhooks her bra and out they come—four feet from my mother’s Holly Hobby cookie jar.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
She shimmies briefly—
clickadee-vvvvvv—
and reclasps her bra in the front. Jon and I share an “isn’t life great” glance as Nicky bumps my shoulder and moves right in.

“Show’s over,” he says. “Get dressed. Now.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she slurs.

“I tell ya whatever I want to tell ya.” He attempts to pull her shirt over her head, and she ducks him and scoots away.

Nicky comes at her again. He flicks her earlobe and presses his index finger against her forehead.

“Ow, you
fucker!
” she says, and runs out of the room without her shirt. He goes after her.

Jon’s got his beer in the air again. “To unexpected titties,” he whispers, and shrugs his shoulders.

“Amen,” says Asher, and points the camera at us both.

“Asher?” I say.

“Say snatch,” he says.

“Snaaatch,” says Jon with his arm around me.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.

“Asher?”

“Where’s Brigitte?” he says and runs out of the room. “Bridg!”

“Up here,” she says, and I watch him dart up the stairs.

Drinking games begin in what we call the den—a small room with corduroy couches just off the front hall. “Shoot to Thrill” just cranks from Dr. Nate’s Kenwood and I pray his dusty speakers won’t explode. I have no idea where Asher and Brigitte are but Nicky flutters his tongue when I ask. I take this to mean they’re fucking or sucking or tonguing each other behind Gabe’s cardboard puppet theater. I walk to the front hall and look up the staircase. I can see nothing but a framed picture of Dr. Nate’s mother on the wall. She wears cat glasses and a beehive hairdo and holds a gardening hoe in one hand. Beth walks up behind me and bumps her hip into mine.

“Could be a while, ya know. Those two go for hours.”

I glance up the stairs at the dark hallway. “Hours?”

She nibbles on her thumbnail. “Maybe longer.”

I picture Brigitte tied up in electric tape with a racquet ball in her mouth. A quarter clinks off the table in the den and Jon says, “Yes! Drink . . . please . . . Nick.”

When I turn to Beth she’s looking at my butt. “You have
really
broad shoulders. I like that,” she whispers, and points with her thumb toward Nicky. “Built like a little girl.”

I shake my head. “No, he’s, he’s . . .”

She takes a step closer to me and I can feel her breath on my chin.

“. . . he’s your boyfriend.”

“Have you seen me in school?” she says, and my eyes go straight to her mouth.

“Yes.”

The front on her miniskirt is touching my belt. The quarter clinks again.

“Drink!” says Nick. “Drink it all.”

Beth leans forward and kisses my bottom lip only. It sticks a little as she pulls away and my penis turns to stone. I see an eyelash on her cheek before she presses her open mouth against mine. I taste girl and beer off the slick of her tongue. I close my eyes.

Thump
is the sound from upstairs, as if two bodies fell off the bed. Beth starts to laugh and bend at the knees.

“What the fuck was that?” says Nicky.

Beth’s mouth is wide with giddy disbelief. She shuffles back into the den, clapping her hands. “Some kinky-ass sex is what that is.”

I sit on the bottom step with my erection and glance up at Dr. Nate’s mom. I think I hear Brigitte giggling.

“Jacob?” says Jon. “You playing?”

The phone rings and I quickly look down at my watch. When I run in the den Beth is reaching to pick it up and I have to yelp to stop her. “No,
don’t!
Please.”

Her hand yanks away as if she touched a stove.

“Just . . . let it ring.”

“I almost forgot,” she says.

“No one answers the fuckin’ phone!” Asher yells from the second floor. We all sit there in silence as it rings six times. When it ends Jon clinks the quarter in the glass and picks Nick
to drink. I walk to the window and look out at the street. A neighbor, Mr. Vargus, stands on his front lawn with a garden hose and waters the stones that surround his driveway.

“You in or out, Jacob?” says Nick.

I walk over to the couch. “I have to leave now. Right now. Someone get Asher for me.”

“No way,” says Nicky. “Who
knows
what’s goin’ on up there.”

“
Asher!
” I yell, moving toward the stairs. “Asher?”

“Laaaaaaadies and gentlemen!” says an unseen Brigitte from atop the stairs. “Put your hands together for the one, the only . . . Rabbi
Nudity!
”

Thundering down the stairs comes my brother. And he’s got nothing on. I mean naked, nude, stripped, wearing zero on his body but the tefillin he found in the ceiling, strapped to his forehead and arm. Lunatic. His girlfriend is cackling bent-kneed behind him as she tosses Asher’s
talit
on his shoulders like a prize fighter. Asher plus alcohol often equals nudity plus religious contempt, which equals uninhibited displays of sexual repression which often equals a funny dance of some kind. Somehow I’m never prepared. Brigitte’s wearing his underwear and one of Dr. Nate’s velour bathrobes. She points the Polaroid at Asher as he hops up on the coffee table with his fists on his hips. Everyone’s laughing, including him. His penis looks wet. Lunatic.

“Shalom!” he slurs. “I am Rabbi Nudity.” He whirls the
talit
around like a matador and Brigitte whistles from her teeth. “The
only
naked rabbi in all of Bethlehem.”

Clickadee-vvvvvv.

Jonny rolls off the couch onto the carpet, laughing and pointing.

“Able to leap small Jews in a single bound.” He jumps off the table and bends over a cowering Jon. “Faster than a hasty circumcision.”

“Hail, Rabbi Nudity!” says Brigitte from her knees.

Asher folds his arms and kicks a few times like a Rockette. He then runs out of the room and in seconds returns with his jeans on.

Everyone claps but me.

“It’s almost seven, Asher,” I say.

He reaches for my wrist and looks at my watch. “If we leave in ten you’ll be fine. Doesn’t he have rehearsal or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s probably not even home yet,” he says. “But he might be.”

“But he
might
not.”

“But you’re not . . . you’re not even listening to me,” I say, trying to speak only to him. “Can I talk to you? Can I talk to you alone, Asher?”

“Fine, let’s talk.”

“Now. It has to be now.”

“Go ahead.”