The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (3 page)

“Good morning, kikes,” she says, and plops down in front of us with Noah next to her.

Asher laughs out loud and actually claps. Mirium glances back at him, elated by the kudos, her face aglow. I think it’s hilarious that her dark bangs are always crooked and snipped too high on her forehead. She brags of cutting them herself with scissors made special for lefties.

“Is this the bus to Dachau?” she adds through a smile. Asher loves this too and grins like Barbarino. She gets on her knees to face him, her hands squeezing the back of her seat. “I have a surprise for one of the Green boys.” I look at her chewed-down fingernails, all dotted with chipped red polish.

“Happy birthday, little Greeny,” she says, and hands me a wrapped gift.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Take it.”

I tear a piece of the wrapping paper and can already see what’s inside. I look up at my brother.

Rule Number 1 of the Green House Rules

Under no circumstance can any child in this family own or play with a toy gun. This applies to water guns, plastic guns, cork shooters, penny pistols, edible wax guns, and the miniature sort that comes complete with a 16-inch G.I. Joe. Simulation of shooting at something or someone with one’s finger will result in paternal rage, and or the gripping and lowering of said weapon.

It’s the G-Zap Lazer Fazer. I’ve only seen them on TV commercials. Battery-charged laser sighting, adjustable on-off stun ray, quick trigger release, laser decals, removable scope, the works. I take it in my hand. I slowly turn it over and place my finger on the trigger. “It’s the G-Zap.”

Mirium nods with her eyes closed.

“Hey,” says Noah, trying to see over the seat back. “That’s mine.”

“Relax, Noah,” she says, “I’ll get you another one.”

“That’s
mine,
” he screams, and begins to wail.

“He’ll get over it,” she says, pushing the top of his head back down. “It takes three double A’s.”

“
Miiiiiirium,
” Noah sings in agony.

“Let me get this straight,” Asher says. “You wrapped one of your brother’s toys?”

“I didn’t have time to shop.”

“It’s
miiiiiiiine!
”

“Here, Noah,” I say, handing it to him. He takes it and sits back down, his bottom lip still trembling.

“Say thank you,” Mirium tells her brother.

“No!”

I lean forward in my seat. “Um . . . Noah? You wouldn’t have an extra tzitzit, would you?”

“No!”

“Where’s your tzitzit?” Mirium says, peering over the chair at my waist.

“It’ll be fine,” Asher says. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

She glances at him. “It’s a
chilul
Hashem.”

“We know, we know. He’ll be fine. These things happen.”

“I don’t think you get it,” I say to him.

“Shut up for a second, okay? I know what a goddamn
chilul
Hashem is, remember? I’ve had four since August.”

Mirium giggles and puts her feet on the back of the seat in front of her.

“Here’s what you do,” he says. “Are you listening? Tell Rabbi Belahsan or Mizrahe or whoever comes near you, that in seven days, you’ll
never
need a fuckin’ tzitzit again in your life.”

“Amen,” says Mirium, her Blow Pop in the air.

Asher looks at her, then back to me. “Tell him you’re going to public school where you’ll be eating ham sandwiches and singin’ ‘Jingle Bells’ till Easter.”

Seth roars at this. Mirium whistles with her fingers. Noah fires the G-Zap.
Zwaaazwaaaazwaaaa
.

“Ham sandwiches,” says Seth, still laughing.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I say.

“What are they gonna do? Call Dad? So you forgot the thing, so what?”

“So what?” I say. “So
what?
”

“Look how afraid you are,” Asher says. “They’ve got you
so
afraid. None of this will ever,
ever
matter.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll call your mother instead,” Mirium says, biting a thread off her skirt.

“Fuckin’ yarmulkes and Torah songs and rituals up the yingyang,” says Asher. “You’re not a chimp, are you?”

“Your mom won’t care,” Mirium adds. “She’s not even a real Jew.”

Asher and I look at each other before slowly facing her. She bites through the thread and looks up at us. “What?”

Rule Number 2 of the Green House Rules

When faced with the question of your mother’s religion, please refer to the following explanation: Yes, before she met our father she was a New England–born Protestant who was in no way associated with Christ or any church. But before our births she converted to Judaism in the presence of one Rabbi Ben Perlstein, one Rabbi Hyman Roth, and one Rabbi Avraham Schulman, and thusly, she is, and will always be, a Jew. We do not celebrate any non-Jewish holidays although we do receive gifts from the non-Chosen relatives on our mother’s side who keep forgetting to call these offerings Chanukah presents.

I pull my lunch box up on my lap and watch the school approach through the front windshield. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” I say, and Mirium ducks behind her seat. “I just want to come home on the van.”

Asher lifts one of his ass cheeks and pulls a crinkled yarmulke out of his back pocket. “You will,” he says, putting it on.

I shoot my hand up to see if there’s a yarmulke on my head. There is. My brother chuckles at my fear and gives my shoulder a shove. “Hey,” he says.

I look up at him.

“Breathe, dickhead, okay? Breathe.”

B
ECAUSE
A
SHER
is three years older, his tzitzit lineup is in another room and on another floor. I watch him climb the upper school staircase until he’s gone and then walk with Noah toward the elementary wing. On our way I put my hand
on his shoulder and carefully explain that I might not make it to the van that afternoon, that I “might not make it back.” He takes it quite well. He points the G-Zap at my crotch and says, “Got ya,” before disappearing into the kindergarten—tough little trouper. When I get to my classroom, my stomach begins to clench. I put my books and lunch box by my desk and move slowly into the inspection line behind Ari Feiger. Ari has a glandular issue that gives him breasts and makes him smell like wet skin. He also has striped pajama bottoms that creep out the back of his pants and a dirty blond afro that can actually hold pencils. When I ask him if he has an extra tzitzit he says, “Yes, but not for you,” and walks away from me.

“Ari,” I say, following him, “I’ll pay you for it.”

“I put on a clean one after lunch,” he says. “It’s not for sale.”

“But I forgot mine,” I whisper.

When he hears this he turns to the other six boys in my class and starts singing the word tzitzit to the tune of
The Flintstones.
“Tzitzit, meet the tzitzit, have a yabba-dabba tzitzit, a yabba tzitzit, you’re gonna be so screwed. Ya’akov’s
got no
tzitzit!” he yells and points at me.

“
Shhhh!
Shut up, Ari. The rabbi will hear you.”

“You shut up.”

I shove him backward and he stumbles into a desk. With a running start he comes toward me and punches my arm. I punch him back. He calls me a “pussy” so I grab his fat neck and shove him into the wall of cubbyholes by the door. The other boys gather around us. Ari runs at me and dives at my knees. We both go down to the floor and one of his chubby thumbnails scratches my top gum. Andrew Friedberg yells, “Kick his ass!” and drops to one knee like a ref.

“Mizrahe!” says Gary Kaplan from his lookout station near the door and we freeze and run to line up. When I get there I
taste some blood on my tongue and my right knee throbs. Ari breathes heavily in front of me, fumbling to bobby-pin his rainbow yarmulke. I slide my hand down my leg to my knee and my finger touches skin. The hole is tiny and already frayed, the size of a dime. I stand up straight.

Rule Number 3 of the Green House Rules

The wearing of torn or tattered clothing including dress pants, jeans, pajamas, T-shirts, sweaters, or dress shirts at any time will result in the following act: Abram R. Green, C.P.A., will place two fingers inside the hole and tear the garment from your body. The child will then go to his room to dress again, his destroyed garment flapping as he goes.

a.
Tattered clothing = disrespect of self and parents who purchased clothing.

b.
The decision to don torn garments evokes a failure to comprehend one’s good fortune.

c.
Failure to comprehend one’s good fortune = an inability to be grateful.

d.
Being frightened and humiliated is an absolute way to learn that damaged clothing sends a blatant message about one’s self and family to one’s neighbors, friends, and school peers.

The rabbi enters the room singing in Hebrew. “Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, To-rah, tziva lanu Moshe—Line up, line up, we’re late—Torah, Torah, Torah . . .” Rabbi Mizrahe’s one of the younger teachers at Eliahu but no less pompous and pasty. Squat and balding with absurd physical strength, he’s five foot two-ish but has the calves and forearms of a carnival freak. He’s got the long beard, the dark velvet yarmulke, the ribboned
peyos
and the longest, yellowed tzitzit on this
God’s earth. I have him every day for Talmud and Hebrew, and on Tuesdays and Fridays he’s my math and English teacher. He seems to truly despise school-aged children but because I read Hebrew better than most he saves his sharpest belittling for my classmates. He could care less that I haven’t done a math assignment all year or that I spell like a chimpanzee. He calls me up to the front of the room when he’s tired of his “lesson plans” and has me read in Hebrew from random spots in my siddur. He’ll let me go a half hour or more, his feet up and crossed, his eyelids fluttering shut. From that close to him I can smell tobacco in his greasy hair and muddy coffee on his breath. And nose hairs. My God. A few come out of one nostril and curl into the other. No really.

“
. . .
tziva lanu Moshe!” Rabbi Mizrahe tosses his books and cigarettes on his desk and exposes every filling he’s ever had with an endless yawn. No tooth is spared. In nine seconds the song will begin again from the top. It’s like being stuck on an orthodox carousel. “Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Tor-ah, tziva lanu Moshe.”

Rabbi Mizrahe moves toward the lineup and touches each of Gary Kaplan’s tassels. Gary sings along to “Torah Torah” but stops completely when the rabbi steps past him. I feel a sour and tingly stomach-burning climb up my throat. I try to swallow but I have no spit. Michael Bornstein is next. His yarmulke needs centering but his tzitzit has never hung better. And then I see him. I see my brother. He’s hopping in the hallway, trying to find me. I shake my head. “Too late,” I say without sound. Too late.

As the rabbi moves closer, our eyes meet. I sing with him, “. . . tziva lanu Moshe.” I watch his fingers touch Ari’s tassels. I watch him finish and step up to me.

“Excuse me, Rabbi Mizrahe,” says Asher.

The rabbi stops his song and turns to the door. Asher keeps his eyes from me and takes a step closer.

“I need to tell my brother something. May I see him for a second, please?”

Rabbi Mizrahe faces me and nods his head. Asher steps up and grabs me by the elbow. He leads me back toward the door.

“Do
not
. . . leave this classroom,” the rabbi says. “Torah, Torah, Torah . . .”

Asher holds my shoulders and turns my back to my classmates. He reaches in his pocket for his balled-up tzitzit and crams it down the front of my pants.

“No time to put it on,” he whispers. “Untuck your shirt and let the fringes just hang over your belt.”

“No, no way.”

“You either try it or you
don’t
. I’m not gonna stand here all day.”

“Wait,” I say, but he yanks up my shirttails.

Asher grabs the tzitzit and slides it around the waist of my pants. He then adjusts the tassels so they droop from all four sides.

“It’s crooked,” I say.

His eyes slowly shut. “I’m gonna
kill
you. It’s
fine
. I’m leaving you now.” Asher turns for the door and stops. “Thank you so much, Rabbi.”

The rabbi glances over his shoulder, the song still flowing from his nearly closed lips. “Wait,” he says, and approaches us.

“I . . . really have to get back,” Asher says, his thumb toward the hall.

“What is happening over there?” he says, his head on a tilt.

Asher moves for the door.

The rabbi steps up to me and reaches for my two front tassels. Asher steps into the hall. “I’ll see you later, J.” Rabbi
Mizrahe reaches for the two rear tassels. He gives them each a squeeze and walks to the door.

“Asher!” the rabbi says, and motions my brother back into the room with his finger. Asher taps his watch and moves toward the staircase.

“I’m
so
late. I’ll come back when—”

“Come here, please.”

Asher folds his arms and walks slowly back into the room. Mizrahe steps up to him and reaches under his shirttails. “Where are your tzitzit?”

My brother puts both hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says.

The rabbi grabs the back of Asher’s neck with his small right hand and playfully jostles his head around. He presses his forehead against Asher’s and smiles. “Where are your tzitzit?” he says softly.

Asher glances up at him, their heads still pinned.

“I think I . . . must have packed it,” he says with his own chuckle. “We’re moving, you know? To Piedmont.”

Rabbi Mizrahe laughs. “Today? You move today?”

“No . . . ,” Asher says.

“No,” the rabbi says, shaking Asher’s neck. “You love your brother. You will take risks for your little brother, yes?”

Asher tries to pull away but the rabbi doesn’t allow it. He gets more of a grip, keeping their foreheads locked.

“Would you let go of me, please?” Asher says, and puts his hand on the rabbi’s shoulder. He begins to push him away but he can’t get free. Mizrahe’s face turns pink and his feet shift for more leverage. He seems to think it’s a game, his cheeks rattling from the force. Ari turns to me in disbelief.