The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (27 page)

“
Alone!
” I yell, and everyone looks at me. “Alone.”

“What’s your problem?” he says with a crinkled brow.

I walk over to the stereo and turn the music down. “I told you all this before and I know you heard me. I . . . wrote dad a letter. Okay? I wrote him a letter.”

Asher looks at the others and starts shaking his head.

“It says I’m leaving.”

“Leaving for where?” Jon says.

“He’s not leaving, Jon.”

“
Yes,
I am. I am, Asher. I am.”

I stare at him for a second and then look down at my watch. “That’s why I need to leave. My train leaves in twenty minutes.”

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”

“No.”

“What train?” says Jon, and I face him.

Asher plucks at the teffilin on his arm. “Yeah. Good question, Jon. What fuckin’ train?”

I slowly walk toward him and look him straight in the eyes. “I need a ride to Penn Station. Take me there now, please.”

“You have lost your mind, friend. I mean, really, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you heard me. You’re just afraid. Say it. You’re afraid.”

Nicky makes a siren noise and faces Asher with a tilted head. “I think little Greeny just called you a puss, Ash.”

Brigitte lifts the Polaroid and decides now’s a good time for posterity.
Clickadee-vvvvvv.

Asher swigs one of the beers on the table and asks Beth for a cigarette. He lights it and walks over to the fireplace, squinting as he goes. “Afraid? Afraid of what?”

When I look at the others they’re all staring back at me.

“Of what he’ll do to you. If you keep your promise.”

He turns and walks quickly toward me, clenching the jaw my father gave him. I try not to flinch. “I never promised you
shit!
”

“Boys, boys,” says Nicky standing. “This is a party.”

“No it’s not,” I say to Nick. “It’s a shtick. A gag. To make you all see how
insaaaaaane
Asher is.”

Asher shakes his rage off and tries to smile through his flushed cheeks. “Listen to this guy.”

“You just used me to fuck with Dad.”

“
What?
”

“You did.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You did.”

“You’re high!”

“Only one of us is gonna pay for this.”

“I don’t need
you
to fuck with Dad.”

“Then why am I here?”

“I told ya six fuckin’ times I’d get you back in time.”

“You called the front office! You said there was a problem at home. He’s the president, they look out for him over there. You
know
this.”

He looks at the others with a shrug of his shoulders. “I thought you’d want to be here.”

“Because you’re
selfish,
like
him!
” The tears rise so I turn and begin to walk out.

“Is that right?” Asher says, following me. “I’m selfish. Is that what you said? I don’t fuckin’ need this.”

“I don’t fuckin’ need you!” I say, spinning to face him. “Surprise! Before you leave me. I’m leaving
you.
” I walk out of the room and straight for the front door.

“J,” says Jonny. “Where you . . . uh . . . ?”

Asher comes running after me and grabs my elbow. “He’s not goin’ anywhere, Jon.”

“Get the fuck off me.”

“Just relax.”

Clickadee-vvvvvv.

“Wouldja fuckin’
stop!
“Asher barks at Brigitte. “. . . with the goddamn camera.” She looks as if he punched her. “It just went off,” she says.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass, just stop!”

“Prick,” she says, and throws the camera on the couch. Asher moves toward me and pulls me by the arm through the front hall.

“Ow.”

“You wanna talk?
Talk.
”

“You’re pinching my—” I yank my arm away from him and walk on my own.

He follows me into the kitchen and pulls a chair out from the table. “Sit. Talk. Go.”

I stand by the chair and say nothing.

“I’m listening,” he says, and opens the fridge. He grabs a beer and cracks it open. He takes a sip. “Go. Say what you want to say.”

I glance over at the clock on the stove. Asher starts to uncoil the tefillin from his arm. “That’s it?” he says. “We done?” He sits heavily and his chair squeaks on the floor. “Talk to me.”

For the moment the house is so quiet, just the hum of the fridge in my left ear. Asher drinks again and places the teffilin on the table. The seven twenty-five leaves in ten minutes. I lean my chest over the place mat beneath me and talk as quietly as I can. “Asher?”

He looks up at me for a second before lowering his eyes to his hands.

“You need me,” I say, “so much less than I need you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is.”

“Maybe to you.”

“You don’t want to need me.”

He sniffs and picks at the flap on his can. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have money and you need money and all I want is to live—”

“Wait, wait, wait. I don’t want your money.”

“You do so.”

“I
don’t
want your money!” he screams. “I want to be gone. I
get
to be gone. I’ve waited my whole life to be outta here.”

I shove my chair back from the table. “Why’d you pull me out of temple tonight?”

“Because I’m
leaving,
Jacob. Because it’s a party and I wanted you here so you could drink with me and leave all that . . . bullshit behind for one goddamn second.”

“You came and got me to fuck with him.”

“No!”

“Say it.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“It’s payback, Asher. Admit it. For every word he’s ever screamed in your fuckin’ face.”

“You’re wrong!”

“Then why? Why am I in this house right now?”

“Because.”

“Because
why?
”

He stands and slams his hand on the kitchen table. “Because I
love
you! All right! Ya happy now?” He flops back into his chair and dips his face into his hands.

I stay still, holding my breath, as these tears I’ve never seen begin to run down his cheeks. And it’s a gift. It is. So precious and unwrapped. These words he gives me. I listen to them again in the echo of my mind as he swipes at his face with his bare shoulder. Like jewels. That’s what my father would say. Words can be like jewels. A quarter clinks in the den and I slowly walk behind my brother in his chair. Me too, I say to myself. “I love you too.”

He reaches his hands up and grips each of my wrists. “I can’t bring you with me,” he says.

I shut my eyes in the wake of these words, and feel the light squeeze of his fingers near my palms. “I get to go alone.”

I look down at the floor, trying not to cry, trying to see who I am without this parachute I’ve stitched. And it’s vicious I’m afraid, this lonesome I taste. I think to beg, I do, and step closer to air my plea. A risk-free plan in three easy steps, a feasible escape to this campus in my mind. But I stop myself and watch instead my brother’s face, his eyes, the slow shaking of his head. “Stop,” he says softly. “No more.” I stare at him as he swipes again at his eyes. “I get to go alone.”

Alone.
“Va’yidaber Adonai el Moshe lemor.” It’s how the Torah portion begins on Saturday morning. And I already know there’s no part of me that will sing these words for me, or any God above. And when the Torah is closed that day, and the final prayer is said, my father will approach me with reward in his eyes and tell me he’s never heard it done better. But what I will have done is nothing more than feed some emptiness in his pride. For I am an appendage. One paid in hollow bursts of love.

Asher sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “You all right?” he asks me.

I begin to nod but the tone of his kindness trips me up. I turn from him, and let myself cry as quietly as I can. When I hear him approach I move away, avoiding his touch. He follows me and I soon feel his hand on my arm.

“Don’t,” I say, and step further from him. “Just don’t.” I walk to the door.

“Jacob?” he says.

I ignore him.

“You need to fight,” he says, and I stop to face him. “Find a way.” A sermon, ladies and gentlemen, from the honorable Rabbi Nudity.

“Is that what you did?” I ask. “When you drew testicles and tits all over the Hebrew school? Huh, Rabbi? Was that you
finding
a way?”

It takes him about four seconds to arrive at “yes,” but he says it with apology. “I think it was.”

I force out a laugh. “Terrific. I guess I’ll need some chalk.”

“You’ll find it.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I’ll find what?”

“Your own way.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’ll be
your
way. It has to be your way.”

“What
way?
Asher. Tell me. What’s my way?”

“Just tell him!” he yells, his eyes enraged. “It’s
over,
Dad! Tell him tonight! You want to impress a room full of Jews,
you
do it,
you
sing about the . . . goddamn wilderness of Zin!
You
study it for months and
you
get up there and
you
—”

“Listen to you! The all-knowing. The runaway. He doesn’t even know you’re leaving.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it
doesn’t?
”

“I’m already
gone,
” he says. “Okay? I’ve set my boundaries and I’m long gone. Long fuckin’ gone.”

The footsteps behind us grow louder quickly. When I turn I see Brigitte skipping toward Asher with a flathead screwdriver in her hand. She lifts the tip of it to his neck, and presses it just below his ear.

“Time out,” he says, his hands carefully rising. “Crazy girl alert.”

“Apologize for being an asshole!” she says.

“Okay, okay. Sorry, girl. Sorry.”

“Say it again.”

“I’m sorry.”

She lifts it off his neck, and finds a drunken smile. “So, what are you guys doin’?”

The phone rings the loudest in the kitchen. Asher cringes
and sits, lowering his forehead to the table. “No one pick that up,” he mumbles. As a quarter clinks in the den and Beth screams, “Drink!” in a wobbly screech, I turn to Holly Hobby and the clock above the stove, and watch the seven twenty-five head to New Rochelle. Rhode Island is not to be, for me. In fact it’s no island at all. Three rings.

When I move toward it, Brigitte asks me where I’m going. Four rings. “What the hell’s he doing?” Asher doesn’t answer her. “Hey. Jacob? Jacob?” Five rings. “Don’t you pick that up,” she says. “Jacob!”

Six rings.

Standing before the kitchen phone I feel a great and sudden urge to laugh. Seven rings. I look over my shoulder at my brother. He nods with a subtle smirk and asks me, “What’s so funny?” Eight rings.

“You,” I say, with a descending smile. “Me. The wilderness of Zin.”

Asher’s eyes seem to unplug as he drapes his arms over Brigitte’s shoulders. I wait a beat with my hand on the receiver. Nine rings.

And then lift the phone to my ear.

I can see it now. Now that it’s morning. A tan body bag from Saks with a tiny oval window over the right lapel. Another beginning is what it means. A pardon for what’s been done. It’s been two days since my father picked me up at my mother’s house. The tantrum was mild and quick and ended in the car. The silence that followed has lasted much longer.

I’d guessed “temple clothes” when he entered my room in the middle of the night. Could smell the beach-ball plastic of the bag from my bed. I sit up now and stare at it, hanging from my doorknob. A suit, no doubt made special for the day, tailored off some dummy my size. I walk to it and slowly unzip the bag. A charcoal three-piece. A black belt, new shirt, and
maroon loafers with tissue paper crammed into the toes. A new yarmulke rests next to the shoes. It’s large and boxy with earth-tone rams and menorahs on the sides.

I pull out the suit, toss it on my bed. It’s time to get dressed.

Rule Number 10 of the Green House Rules

When dressing for synagogue:

a. Slacks go on last and must hang or lay paper flat with hard crease intact until other garments are donned.

b. After the briefs start with the feet. Socks must always match and should never reveal shin skin when seated. Only black or brown socks are allowed, and be sure the elastic is intact and snug around shin.

I see myself in the long mirror on my door. The suit pants are roomy in the crotch, but the jacket seems fine. My tie has a very large head and a short body: “hobo clown,” as my dad would call it. I try again, but it comes out worse. The third time I get it right. Sort of. I step closer to the mirror and tighten it. I gaze hard at my own reflection. My eyes are green. Maybe hazel. The right one has a smeared trace of brown in it. That’s weird. I never saw that before.

“Jacob?” My father calls from downstairs. “You dressed, J? It’s time.”

c. Shirttails should never be noticeably bunched around waist and rear of slacks. Lay them flat against underpants and skin of upper legs. Fasten slacks only when tails are flat so that shirt is taut against stomach at entry to belt.

d. Cuffs and collars need to be stiff with starch. Collar
must fully blanket all appearances of tie around neck, and tie must never gather or twist against fabric in question.

I walk out of my room and to the stairs. My new shoes are slippery on the carpet. For a second I’m on ice and lose my footing. I recover, walk halfway down the staircase, and see my father looking up. He grins when he sees me, his head high. “There he is,” he says, and I slip again, grabbing the banister for support.

“You need to scuff up the bottoms. Go out to the driveway and scratch ’em up a little. But be quick, okay?” He looks at his watch and then back to me. “Look at you,” he says, folding his arms. “You look like a million bucks. They’re gonna weep today, Jacob. Just look at you.”

I walk past my father, and open the front door. In the driveway I remove my right shoe first and begin to rub the bottom against the pavement in circles. Two giggling girls ride by on bikes, and a third soon follows. I watch them pedal down the street until they turn onto Saber and disappear. With my shoe back on I walk out to the sidewalk. When I hear my father open the screen door, I turn to see him. He taps his watch and waves me toward him. “You ready?”