The Martin Luther King Mitzvah

by Tekulsky, Mathew;

  After he took the paper out of the fixer, he rinsed the photograph in water for five minutes and hung it up to dry. Then he made me an extra print. I couldn’t wait to bring it over to Sally, but Elise had made a fresh walnut torte, and she told me all about growing up in Vienna while we all had a slice.

  “Before the war,” Elise confided, “we all had to stay in the same part of town. When the war came, my father brought us over here, and although we could live wherever we wanted, we ended up settling on the Upper West Side along with a lot of other European Jews. My father had an import-export business, and we lived in a brownstone on West 77th Street. I’ll show it to you someday.”

  “But the Jews have never been fully accepted into New York society,” Grappa added. “While Harry McKinley over at Fletcher Advertising got the glamorous accounts like Coca-Cola, Barney Herbert’s father, Seymour, has had to settle for the International Paper account, and he’s the best ad-man they have over there right now.”

  “So you see,” Elise explained, “it’s always been the same with us Jews.”

  I thought about this on the long walk in the cold to Sally’s house. I strode quickly, hands buried deep in my pockets, past the crèche that was still on the front lawn of the public library, past Beachmont Temple, where I’d be bar mitzvahed, and then down Beach Avenue. Eagerly anticipating Sally’s delight at the photograph, I half-ran past Gladys’ house to Willow Avenue, and made my way down toward the park and the clubhouse where Jimmy and I looked at Playboy magazines and smoked cigarettes. Climbing up the steps to Sally’s front door, I rang the bell. Mr. Fletcher opened the door and I handed him the envelope with Sally’s photograph inside.

  “Can you please give this to Sally?” I asked.

  Mr. Fletcher took the envelope. “Sally’s in bed,” he said. “She has a fever, but I’ll give it to her. Happy New Year, son.”

  “Happy New Year to you too, sir,” I replied.

  I went home and was asleep before the ball dropped in Times Square.

  During the following week, I learned that Sally had pneumonia. I went to her house every day and threw snowballs softly up at her second story window until she appeared and waved down at me.

  Jimmy Robbins and I made snow angels on the basketball court. I was sure that Sally could see us, and knew that she was laughing. I hoped that she hadn’t gotten sick because she went sledding and then went to the Shabbat ceremony, but I couldn’t be sure about that. What if God was trying to keep her away from Jews?

  Meanwhile, the Fletchers asked me to join them at St. Catherine’s to pray for Sally. I sat through a Sunday sermon by Father Gregory and we sang “Ave Maria” and “Faith of Our Fathers” and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Then the Fletchers went up to take communion. Father Gregory said that if you weren’t Catholic you should fold your arms across your chest when you approached him and he would bless you anyway, so that’s what I did. I said a silent prayer for Sally and then, after thanking the Fletchers for inviting me, I went home.

  “How did it go at church?” my father asked. “I hope they didn’t try to convert you?”

  “Eugene,” my mother said tartly. “Enough of that.”

  “I hope that little girl gets better, don’t get me wrong,” my father went on, “but the Christians always try to convert you. They can’t help themselves.”

  “Let’s not get into that now,” my mother insisted with a sharp look in my father’s direction.

  Feeling a rising tension between my parents, I felt that I needed some fresh air, so I walked over to Gladys’ house. We drank hot chocolate, and I showed her my photographs of Sally in the park.

  “The Fletchers put on a very nice Christmas dinner, don’t you think?” she said. “Harry and I used to go over there every year, but after he died, I just got out of the habit of socializing, even with the Fletchers. Sally was the one who asked me to come over, you know.”

  “Really?” I said, looking down at Sally’s photograph affectionately.

  “So you’re going to be a photographer as well as a writer?” Gladys asked. “That’s nice.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “But I like taking pictures.” I asked Gladys to pose for me; she held up her mug of hot chocolate and gave me a broad smile as I clicked the shutter.

  On my way home, I walked down Willow Avenue and stood under Sally’s window. I threw a snowball at the window but Sally didn’t appear. Guessing she was sleeping, I walked over to Jimmy Robbins’ house and together we had a quick cigarette huddled in the freezing clubhouse. When the cold had penetrated to the bone and our legs were stiff with cold, we went to Jimmy’s house and played a long game of War, flipping the cards over and over until Mr. Robbins said it was late enough and I had to go home. Outside, the moon was shining and the stars were out, and I noticed that there was no light on in Sally’s bedroom. I trudged home between piled snowbanks that glimmered in the moonlight, and my father met me in the kitchen. He had been waiting for me.

  “I want to show you something,” my father said, as he pulled a small photograph from his wallet. “This is the only photograph I have of my parents and me,” he said. He handed me an old photograph of a man and a woman, about my parents’ age, each with one of their hands on the shoulders of a small dark-haired child who stood between them. They were standing stiffly, unsmiling, in front of a thatched roof cottage, wearing old-fashioned clothes and thick sturdy shoes. In the picture, my father was about the same age as me.

  “I was your age when they took Mama and Papa away to Auschwitz,” my father said. “And it could happen again, even here. Do you understand?”

  My father put his arms around me and, despite feeling a bit uncomfortable, I hugged him back. Over his shoulder, I could see my mother standing in the hallway, looking at us. I wondered if she had put him up to this, but I like to think that he thought of it all by himself.

  Chapter Six

  January and February in Beachmont are the coldest months of the year, and the snow just doesn’t melt. The wind blows in off the creek and a lot of time is spent indoors. Jimmy and I played lots of games of War during the final days of Christmas vacation, and by the time we returned to school, Sally had recovered from her illness.

  We studied The Yearling in Mr. Roberts’ class, and had to write a report about The Red Badge of Courage. I discussed these books with Gladys one afternoon in January, taking with me the photograph I had taken of her, placed between two pieces of cardboard.

  “How do you know when something you’ve written is really good?” I asked.

  “Every writer goes through the same process,” she said. “First you emulate someone that you like and everything you write sounds just like them, but sooner or later, you have to find your own voice and just be yourself, no matter what. Then you just do what you think is your best work and don’t try to compare yourself with anybody.”

  Gladys retrieved one of her children’s books about a dog that ran away to the suburbs but decided that she was happier back in the city after all.

  “The grass is always greener,” Gladys said, as she handed me Mocha’s Trip to the Country. I had remembered reading the book in elementary school and couldn’t believe that the real author was now handing me a copy of it.

  “I know this book,” I said. “Mocha’s a beige cocker spaniel and she doesn’t like all the noises of the city, so she runs away to Scarsdale, but then she finds out that all the dogs in Scarsdale are stuck up and won’t talk to her, so she goes back to the city where all her friends are.”

  “That’s right,” said Gladys. “And it’s the same with writing. After wandering all over the place, you finally have to come home. That’s all.”

  I gave her the photograph I had taken, and she put it in a frame on her cabinet.

  “Are you coming to my bar mitzvah?” I asked her.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Gladys tou
sled my hair with a bright smile. “Now go out and play with some people your own age.” She booted me out of her kitchen door with a pat on the rear end.

  The first person I thought about spending time with was Sally, which was not surprising considering she was always on my mind. These days, all the kids were skating over at the duck pond, and Sally wanted to try out her figure skating routines. After Peter had fallen into the creek, Mrs. Fletcher didn’t want any of her kids to go out on the ice ever again. I went over to Sally’s house to try to help Sally persuade her mother to let us go, but Mrs. Fletcher was still reluctant.

  “Mom, it’s much later in the year and the ice is really thick on the duck pond,” Sally pleaded. “It’s not moving water like the creek. Besides, Paula Young is going to be over there, and I want to try out my spins.”

  “All right,” Mrs. Fletcher finally relented. “I’ll drive you over to the duck pond as long as there are other parents out on the ice as well.”

  Sally gave her mother a big hug, and I hurried out the door to get my own skates before Mrs. Fletcher changed her mind.

  Racing down Willow Avenue, I ran past Jimmy who was throwing snowballs at the trunk of the big elm tree in Mrs. Greenbaum’s front yard. I invited him to come skating too, so we all piled into Mrs. Fletcher’s Ford station wagon and she dropped us off at the duck pond. The pond was crowded with people of all ages skating around the central island, and I could see Paula Young trying some ambitious figure skating moves.

  “I’ll be back in one hour,” Mrs. Fletcher told us as we scrambled out of the car. Once out on the ice, I did my best to keep up with Sally, who was a pretty good skater; she did a couple of spins just to show off. I was so mesmerized by watching Sally doing her figure skating routine that I didn’t notice Bobby Taylor and Billy Collins skating toward us out of the throng.

  “Hey, it’s the Jew and the idiot,” Bobby said as he stood skate-to-skate with me, a silly grin on his face.

  “Leave them alone,” Sally said.

  “Jew lover,” Billy spat at Sally, and pushed her so hard that Sally fell backward onto the ice. I rushed at Billy, grabbed him around the legs and shoved him over, then I piled on top of him. The thought of Sally hitting the ice filled me with rage and I started pounding my fists into Billy’s face. Finally, a pair of arms yanked me off Billy and Peter Fletcher took a turn, laying into Billy something awful, giving him a bloody nose until the kid backed away from us on the ice, holding the edge of his sweater to his bleeding nose.

  “I’ll get you for this, Fletcher, see if I don’t!” Billy yelled from a safe distance before retreating down the street. Meanwhile, Peter skated back over to the island, where he had been sitting with some of his older friends, safely out of sight of his mother. I felt guilty for getting everybody into trouble but at least Sally was unhurt. Jimmy, meanwhile, was just standing there, doing nothing.

  “Thanks a lot,” I snapped at him, almost calling him an idiot myself. The honking of a car broke the tension—it was Mrs. Fletcher, who had arrived to pick us up.

  “Come on, kids, let’s go get something to eat,” she said as we climbed into the Ford. We all kept quiet about what had happened out of fear that Mrs. Fletcher wouldn’t let Sally and Peter go skating at the duck pond again.

  Mrs. Fletcher treated us to hamburgers, French fries, and Cokes at Cook’s Restaurant where we played the pinball machines. Once home, I told my parents about the confrontation on the ice but instead of being proud of me, my father went into his just-keep-the-peace routine and I went to my room without even watching Gilligan’s Island. Throwing myself on my bed, I picked up The Red Badge of Courage and wondered if I had what it took to deal with people like Billy Collins. I wondered if Sally would finally get tired of me and find some rich Catholic boy to hang out with. “I’m a Believer” was still at the top of the charts, and I heard it through my pillow on my transistor radio.

  The following day, I went down to Beachmont Temple and talked to Rabbi Cohen. As part of my bar mitzvah studies, I had to not only go to Hebrew school at the temple on Tuesdays and Thursdays after regular school, but I had to go to religious school on Sundays as well.

  “What if I don’t get bar mitzvahed?” I asked Rabbi Cohen. “Will Billy leave me alone then?”

  “Adam,” the rabbi answered, “it doesn’t work like that. These people have it in their minds to hate us anyway. It doesn’t matter if you get bar mitzvahed or not. There is something sick in their heads. You can run away from it, or you can face it. I don’t see you as a quitter.”

  There it was again. I’m not a quitter. I wanted to talk to Sally about it, but Mr. Fletcher answered the door and, giving me a serious look, said, “I think it’s a good idea if you and Sally don’t see each other for a little while.”

  I started to protest, realizing that Mr. Fletcher had heard about what had happened at the duck pond, but Mr. Fletcher interrupted, saying firmly, “I think it’s for the best.”

  Before I could stop myself, I was shouting, “Just like it was with my mother, when you were kids? Grappa told me all about it!” and I ran down the front path to the clubhouse in the reeds. Taking a cigarette from our stash under the floor, I tried to light it but the matches were damp. I decided instead to go to Jimmy’s house, reluctantly forgiving him for standing by at the duck pond. He answered the door, gave me a sheepish look, then dropped his eyes to the floor.

  “I guess I wimped out,” Jimmy told me as I entered his house. “It all happened so fast.”

  “I know you’re an idiot, but I still like you,” I retorted, hitting him softly in the arm just to make a point.

  We played Monopoly for the rest of the day. When I left Jimmy’s house after dark, I could see a light on in Sally’s bedroom as I passed her window but I didn’t throw a snowball. At home my parents asked me what I had done that day and I said, “Nothing much.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next day in art class, I saw Sally working on a woodcut of a flock of ducks rising up above the rushes on the creek. I sidled up to her until she noticed I was there.

  “Hey,” Sally said.

  “Can you help me with my woodcut?” I asked. “Miss Palmer said it would be okay if I got some help.”

  I handed Sally my piece of wood and she helped me pencil in the Manor Park gazebo that I had chosen for my subject. Then, shoulder to shoulder, we got to work, gouging out the parts of the wood blocks that would not be receiving the ink, little splinters of wood flying off in all directions. Then we rolled the ink onto the wood and placed the paper on top, rubbing the paper back and forth with a small disc. Pulling the paper off, we hung the wet-inked paper up to dry.

  “My parents said I can’t see you anymore,” Sally told me as she attached a clothespin to one edge of my gazebo picture.

  “I know,” I replied. “But I’m going over to Gladys’ this afternoon, so if you happen to be in the area…”

  “I’ll be walking that way,” Sally said with a smile and a wink.

  After school, I ran all the way to Gladys’ house. We had three hot chocolates steaming on the table by the time Sally arrived. She had brought her woodcut to show Gladys, who said admiringly, “You could do illustrations for books.” Sally beamed and Gladys added, “Maybe for one of Adam’s books.”

  “What a great idea,” Sally said enthusiastically. “Adam, let’s do a book together! We can work on it here, after school.”

  So that’s what we did. Gladys was the only one who knew that we were spending so much time together. In the book, I decided to tell the story of my father, how he had escaped from the train that was taking him to the concentration camp; how he had come over to America on a boat with his uncle; how he had learned the dry cleaning business and met my mother, and how he and Mom had had me. Then I told Gladys and Sally about my upcoming bar mitzvah and about how I really didn’t want to go through with it.

 
“I just feel like I’m always doing things for other people, like my parents and Grappa,” I said as I took a sip of hot chocolate. “When do I get to do something just for myself?”

  “I think you should feel good about your background and be proud of your father,” Gladys said.

  “I agree,” Sally added. “What does the bar mitzvah involve? Don’t you get a lot of gifts or something?” She smiled mischievously.

  “Well,” I answered, “I have to stand up in front of my family and friends and read a bunch of prayers from the Five Books of Moses, the Torah. Then we sing some songs and that’s about it. Then we have a party.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Sally. “Do girls do a bar mitzvah too?”

  “Girls have a bat mitzvah,” I answered. “But I think it’s too late for you.”

  We all got a chuckle out of that.

  “The thing is,” I went on, “when you have a bar mitzvah, you have to do a good deed which is called a mitzvah, and I haven’t decided what I’m going to do for my mitzvah.”

  “You’ll think of something,” Gladys said. “You’re a bright kid.”

  Over the next few days, Sally finished the drawings and I completed the story. It took us a week to put the book together, and when we were finished, it was rather like a scrapbook. Sally bound it with three pieces of blue ribbon. I was too nervous to show the book to my father, so I shared it with my mother first.

  “You did all this with Sally Fletcher?” my mother said, astonished. “Old Man Fletcher would roll over in his grave if he could see this. You’ve got to show this to your father as soon as he gets home.”

  When Dad returned from the dry cleaners that evening, my mother showed him the book and, after he had read the final page and placed the book on the kitchen table, he said to my mother, “Get me Bill Fletcher’s number.” Dad called Mr. Fletcher from his study and through the door I could hear the muffled sounds of Dad talking for a long time. When Dad returned to the kitchen, he told me that he had invited the entire Fletcher family to my bar mitzvah and that they had accepted.