When I got him alone the next day I asked him if he wasn’t still trying to join the Jews.
“Letting that slide for a while, J.T.,” he says. He calls me J.T. sometimes when we’re one-on-one. My middle name is Theodore. (Ugh!)
“Why?” I asked him.
“Why?” he goes. He breathed long. “Oh, I don’t know. Hard to say.”
I was disappointed. Some of the best times I had with my father were when he took us around to delis and told us all about Jewish stuff. I was even thinking of trying to become one myself. “Remember how you said the Jew knows how to live?” I asked him.
He grinned. “Yeah, I remember. I’m not saying that’s not true.”
“You still go to delis?”
“Yep, right. Still go to delis. But y’see, that’s… that’s… not it. That’s not… being Jewish.”
“So what is?” I asked him.
He lit up one of those straight little cigars with the plastic tip. That was new too. He used to smoke cigarettes.
“Well,” he said, “I’m not even sure. I just know what it’s not. And it’s not delis and cream sodas and Miami Beach.”
“Or lox and bagels?”
“Or lox and bagels.”
“Or stomping on glasses?”
“Or stomping on glasses.”
“Or wearing beanies?”
He blew out a thin stream of smoke and gave me a winking smile. “It’s all rigamarole,” he said.
“What’s rigamarole?”
He tapped ashes. The cigar end went from gray to orange. “Well, it’s like what we were just saying. It’s doing all these fancy—uh—maneuverings. Without really knowing why you’re doing them.”
I said, “Do just the Jews have rigamarole?”
He chuckled. “Everybody has rigamarole, J.T. Lotta action. Lotta noise.”
“Protestants and Catholics?”
“Sure. Everybody.” He pointed the cigar at me. “That doesn’t make a religion bad, understand. That doesn’t mean it’s not good or it’s not real. It’s just that the real stuff is down at the bottom, and you have to dig to get at it.”
“Like clams.”
“That’s it: like clams. See, Barbara—she took me to a synagogue once, and she gave me some books to read, and, uh, well, I’ll tell you what she said.” He snuffed out the cigar and took out another one, but he didn’t light it. “She said, ‘Look, if you want to convert to Judaism, fine. But don’t do it to play a game or because I’m a Jew. Do it because you feel the need to do it deep inside. Because you have to. Because your soul won’t rest until it’s done. Don’t convert unless you’re going to become the best Jew you can possibly be. Otherwise you’re just playing games. And anyway, I love you the way you are.’” My father lit up, cleared his throat. “That’s what she said. Can’t argue with that, huh?”
“Guess not,” I said.
All that didn’t mean a whole lot to me, except that now I don’t know what to believe and what not to believe about Jews. The thing about grownups is, they go changing things on you, only they don’t tell you about it till afterward. It might be a rug they changed, or a lampshade or a parent Either way, just when you think you’re sure about things—poof—they’re different.
I said, “I guess you don’t like the present I got you too much then, huh?” What I got him was this book called The Rabbi Never Knocks Twice.
“Hey,” he goes. He’s scowling at me.
“What?”
“Did I say I liked it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then.” His eyes were examining me. He sort of wandered over and held his hand out. “Gimme five,” he said.
I gave him five.
“And you still like lox and bagels?” I said.
“Hey,” he goes, “does a fish know how to swim?”
When my father put me and Cootyhead on the train, it was only three o’clock in the afternoon. We didn’t get home till almost nine. The trip usually takes forty-five minutes.
Here’s what happened:
The train broke down. They brought a bus to get us. We got mixed up and got off the bus at the wrong stop. We used the last of our money to buy two tickets to Avon Oaks. We kept listening for the conductor to say “A-a-a-vonoaks.” He never did. We must have made another mistake. We wound up back in the city.
“We’re gonna get killed,” Cootyhead kept saying. She meant killed by Ham and my mom. I wasn’t worried about them. I was worried about getting killed by muggers.
We bummed a dime from a lady to make a phone call. (Actually Cootyhead bummed it. She’ll ask anybody for anything. No shame.) We argued about who to call. We called my father. No answer. Called home. No answer.
“They’re waiting for us at the station,” I said.
“We’re gonna get killed,” she said.
My sister wanted to ask somebody for train fare home. That’s where I drew the line. I’d rather take my chances with the muggers than ask a stranger for a couple dollars. I figured the best thing was to go back to my father’s. He probably just stepped out to a deli for a minute anyway. And even if he wasn’t there, we could use a neighbor’s phone.
I walked out of the station. Cootyhead had to follow.
I let her ask people for directions. I knew we were only about seven or eight minutes away by car. That couldn’t be too far.
We started walking. It was bad enough that we had to walk the city streets. It was twice as bad because of what we were carrying: presents. We each had our presents in a pillowcase. (Except for my prize present: a solid-state LCD microprocessor pocket-size football game. I kept that in my pocket.) We do it that way every year. The grownups on the train on the way home always think we’re adorable. They ask us cutesy questions. The pillowcases were white.
So there we are, walking in the city. Alone. At night. Two suburban kids. Two sackfuls of presents. White sacks. White kids. Sitting ducks.
“We’re gonna get killed,” she kept saying.
“Shut up!” I told her. “Just shut up!”
I kept thinking about gang wars. Kids getting shot on the corners. Crawling up the sidewalks to their front steps. Dying in their mother’s arms. They even shot them in the schoolyards!
I tried to look on the bright side:
1. Those things usually happen in the west and north and south sides of the city. We were in center city.
2. There was a girl with me. You could almost say a little girl. (“Slump down,” I told her.)
I prayed for people. Crowds. Hordes. But there were only a couple of people around. And most of them were in coffee shops. We saw the backs of them on stools at the counters. And the waitresses, pouring coffee, reaching into pie shelves. Shiny urns. Meringue tops. Steam. Light. Warm. I wanted home to be a coffee shop.
We followed this street and that street, and pretty soon I had a feel for where we were. “It’s right over that way,” I said.
Naturally Cootyhead disagreed. She said it was another way. We argued and argued and argued. She wouldn’t give in. So I started to walk. I didn’t hear her follow me. I turned around. She was still there. I walked some more. Turned. Still there. More. Turned. Still there.
I hollered at her. She wouldn’t budge. Then I saw the shadows move behind her. Three of them. I yelled: “Mary!”
No answer. All four figures were still. Mary was a shadow now too. All except the white sack. I called again. No one spoke. No one moved. I knew all four pairs of eyes were on me.
Except for Calvin and the others I know at school, I am afraid of black kids. Black grownups don’t bother me too much. But even black girl kids and black little kids—if one of them hit me I would never hit them back. I like them, and I hate bigots and I believe black people are equal with me, but I’m still afraid of them. I think they don’t like me. I think they don’t even notice me in a crowd in the daytime. But on the street alone at night, I think they would know I was coming a mile away. I think sometimes about them catching me at night. I
want to tell them about my friend Calvin. How I had hot chocolate at his house. How we sled stacked up down the golf course hill. But they have a knife in their hands, and they won’t listen.…
I started to walk toward them. But not because I was brave or anything. It’s just that if there’s a dumb cootyhead girl that gets stopped in front of a dark alley in the city, and that girl happens to be your sister, T.S. on you. You gotta turn back. That’s the way it is. Besides, I was afraid if I made them wait long they’d only get madder.
They were big kids. High school (if they didn’t drop out). Trenchcoats. Wide-brim hats. Scarves. Cool. Black Dugans. Only neat.
They weren’t smiling.
One of them said, “Whachoo doin’ here?”
“Here?” I said. “Looking for our father’s place.”
Mary’s eyes were as big as her white sack.
“He live here?”
“I thought so,” I said.
“You don’t live with him?”
“Uh, no. We live—” I caught myself. Better not tell them where.
“Where you live?” he said.
“Avon Oaks,” I said.
With a long black finger he poked Mary’s sack. “What’s in there?”
“Uh, presents,” I said. “From our father.”
“You too?” he said.
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Nobody said anything then. I took my sack from my shoulder and let it sit on the ground in front of me. Please take them, I thought. You can have them all. I was sorry I ever prayed for big piles. I was sorry I ever said “Eenie meenie mynie mo” when I was little. I was sorry I let myself laugh once when a grownup said that with the gas crisis, now they’d all have to trade in their white Cadillacs for white bicycles. If you let us go you can have my LCD pocket football game.
“Whu’d you get?” he said.
I shrugged. “Oh… stuff. Scrabble. Walkie-talkies. Clothes. You can have them.”
All of a sudden one of the other two laughed. The expression on the one talking changed a little too. “You sure your father live around here?” he said.
I said I thought so.
“Where he live?” he wanted to know.
I looked at Mary. I took a deep breath. “Morville Towers,” I said.
He looked shocked. “Morville Towers? That ain’t around here.” He jerked his head. “That’s way back there.” (Mary kicked me in the ankle and whispered, “Toldja.”) He reached down, picked up my sack, opened it. “Presents, huh?” he goes, looking inside. Then he closed it up and slung it over his shoulder. “C’mon,” he said. “We’ll walk y’over there. You shouldn’t be walkin’ around here. Specially not at night.”
They made us go ahead of them. At first nobody said much. Then the one with my sack tapped me on the shoulder. “You as scared as you look?” he said.
“Nah,” I said.
He laughed. “That’s it, baby. That’s what I ustah say when I was goin’ through white neighborhoods.”
I laughed a little at that, and from then on we did more talking and laughing.
And that’s how we got to be escorted all the way to my father’s place.
DOUBLE DIPS
ON NEW YEAR’S EVE I STARTED TO GET A LITTLE TIRED AROUND eleven-thirty. I was already lying on the floor, so all I had to do was close my eyes. Anyway, there wasn’t anything else to do but wait till midnight. I was already sick of miniature hotdogs and potato chips with onion dip and sherbet punch (We were having our own little party.)
Sure enough, Ham noticed me. “Getting a little sleepy there, ol’ boy?” he goes.
“Nah, just closin’ my eyes,” I told him.
“When do you want me to wake you up?” he says.
“I’m not sleeping.”
“Well, just in case you accidentally doze off a little.”
“I won’t.”
“Just in case?”
“I won’t.”
He leaves the room saying, “I’ll wake you at five of.”
I growled, “I won’t.”
I did.
They say they tried to wake me. They sat they even put a pan in one of my hands and a wooden spoon in the other. But I just kept saying I knew what time it was but I didn’t care, I just wanted to sleep.
Sometime during the Rose Bowl game on TV my mother asked me, “Make your New Year’s resolutions yet?”
“Nah,” I said. “That’s a waste.”
She reminded me that I used to make them.
“Yeah, I know.”
“When did you stop?”
“This year.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“My first resolution was to make it till midnight on New Year’s Eve.”
She laughed. “Maybe you shouldn’t have started off with such a toughie.” She sat down. For a second I thought she was interested in the game. “Y’know, I never make resolutions,” she said.
I was surprised, because she always asked me about mine. “I thought you did.”
“Nope,” she said. “Not since I was younger than you, anyway. Then my mother showed me something better to do. At least I like it better.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Well, instead of looking ahead, you look back. You look at the year you just finished. Not the one coming up.”
“Why?”
“Well, I can tell you. Want to listen?”
“Yeah, okay.” I was getting tired of parades and football by now anyway.
She jumped up and came back with a piece of paper and a pencil. She sat down. She looked at me. “What kind of a year do you think you had last year?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I mean how would you rate last year? Great? Good? So-so? Rotten? The worst ever?”
I hate that kind of question. I was starting to regret this already. I hemmed and hawed.
“Well,” she goes, “don’t worry about it. Maybe I can help you out. Okay?”
I said okay.
“Now. Here’s how to find out what kind of a year you had.” She handed me the pencil and paper. “What I want you to do now is to write Bad at the top of the paper on the left… that’s it… now write Good on the other side. Okay. Now. Very simple. You’re just going to make two lists. One, of all the bad things that happened to you last year. And the other, all the good things.”
“All of them?” I said.
“Well, you know what I mean. The ones you can remember. The ones worth counting.”
I thought a couple seconds. The whole year was a blank. “Nothing happened,” I said.
She turned off the TV. “Think,” she goes. “And one thing: don’t number them yet.”
I thought. I started putting down some things. Like “black eye” and “suspended” and “hit friend with snowball” under Bad. And “hayride” and “snow day” for Good. The bad things really came easy: “pimple,” “stolen dinosaurs,” “starting seventh grade.” The good ones were harder. I really had to dig for them.
“Where are you putting getting lost in the city?” my mother asked. (We told them the whole story.)
“I don’t know,” I said. “Was that good or bad?”
“Up to you,” she said.
I put it under Good. I showed her the paper. The Bad list was a lot longer.
She looks at it. Nods. “Okay”—she hands it back—“now count them up. One point for each Bad, one for each Good.”
I added them up. “Eleven to six,” I told her. “Bad.”
“Okay,” she said. “Don’t put your pencil down yet. What you have there are totals, but it’s not the real score.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t figure in the values. What they’re worth.”
I asked her what she meant.
“Well, I mean good and bad things aren’t worth the same. In other words, a good apple is worth more than a bad apple. Right? A good movie is worth more than a bad movie. A good—uh, what? fri
end?—is worth more than a bad friend. Agree?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“So you see,” she goes, “good things are worth more than bad things. Think of it this way.” She took back the paper. “This pimple here, and this hayride—you don’t want to give them equal value, do you? For example, if this pimple was worth a penny, how much would you say the hayride would be worth?”
“ ’Bout a thousand dollars,” I said. A million, I thought.
She laughed. “Sure. See? So. What do we do with these lists here? Well, let’s say each of the bad things is worth a one, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So. We have eleven bad things. So last year was worth eleven bad points. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now, the good things. Only six of them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But”—she raised her finger, like she was playing teacher—“as we already said, the good things are worth more. You even said a thousand times more in one case, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” she goes, “let’s be conservative. Let’s just say a good thing is only worth twice what a bad thing is worth. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And you had six good things?”
“Yeah.”
“So…” She writes real big across the paper.
2 × 6 = 12
She circled the 12, flaring up at the end like a piano player. “There you are. The Good won, twelve to eleven. You had a good year.”
“News to me,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “A lot of people are that way. When they sit down and figure it out, it turns out they had a better year than they thought they had.” She stood up. “My mother used to call it Double Dips.”
“Like ice cream?”
“I guess so. You know, you always want two scoops of the best? And remember: we were being conservative. We only doubled the good things. I’ll bet if you really figured out what each of the good ones was worth, you’d find out you didn’t just have a good year. You probably had a fantastic year.”
She turned the TV back on and walked out.
COOKING
HOME ECONOMICS IS ITS REAL NAME. WE CALL IT HOME ECH.