He took a deep breath and reached a hand toward Gully. “No, Gully. You’ve done enough. I’m safe now.” Which might not be true, he thought, but if I don’t convince Gully of that, nobody will be safe.
“Not safe. Not enough. Not now.” Still the blank gray eyes.
“I command you to stop,” Sammy said.
Gully shook his head. “I am protecting you.” Then his brow furrowed, as something finally showed in his eyes: confusion. “Are you the bad one on the left, too?”
Sammy’s hand began to shake, and he remembered Reb Chaim’s words: “A golem knows no right or wrong, only enemy and friend. You decide which is which for it now. But for how long?”
If Gully thinks I’m an enemy to myself, will he hurt me, too?
Sammy couldn’t believe Gully would hurt him. They’d been through too much together. How could the golem turn on him now?
But then he had a flashback of Gully in the car, fist raised to punch his dad. Remembered him stalking toward Reb Chaim’s office, fists clenched. Remembered him dropping the shadow that had been the dead coyote. And now he was ready to stomp the life out of Erik, who may have deserved some punishment—but certainly not that!
Sammy realized that if Gully stopped listening to him, no one was safe.
Not even me.
But what could he do? It’s not like I can overpower him and take the name of God from under his tongue. Sammy began to shiver. I wish Reb Chaim was here. He knows golems. He’d know what to do.
But then Sammy had another thought: Reb Chaim may know golems, but he doesn’t know this golem. He doesn’t know Gully. Gully might be an uncontrollable, elemental force, but he was also a member of Sammy’s band. And a friend.
And you don’t overpower your friends. Sammy squared his shoulders. You talk to them.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “Gully, listen to me. You’re my friend. You’ve saved me, protected me, played drums with me . . . given me a chance at a life here I didn’t think was possible. And I know you want to keep on doing that.”
Gully nodded and suddenly Sammy could feel tears in his eyes, blurring them even more than the water in the toilet had done. “But now you have become the bad one on the left. You’re the one endangering me the most right now. You, Gully. You.”
“Gully is the bad one on the left?”
There was suddenly something watery in those gray eyes, a mirror of Sammy’s.
“Gully,” Sammy said, his voice now as soft as a lullaby, “give me the paper under your tongue. The one with God’s name on it.”
“I cannot . . . give . . . you . . . the . . . paper. I . . .” Gully stuttered. Almost as if he were afraid, as if he knew.
“You’ve already protected me enough,” Sammy whispered. “Now I have to learn to protect myself. It’s time, Gully. You’re my best friend and I am yours. Give me the paper.”
For a moment, Gully hesitated, like a toy whose batteries were wearing down. A dangerous toy.
Sammy waited one beat, two. Longer than any interval in any of the songs the band ever played. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and the silence stretched between them, a gulf, a canyon. He didn’t dare say anything more, yet he didn’t know what else to do.
But Gully did. Slowly he opened his mouth, that great gray mouth with the gray teeth and the huge gray tongue. He stuck the tongue out but made no move to take the paper out from under it.
Sammy knew then that everything was up to him. Knew it had always been up to him. Reb Chaim had been right all along. Standing on tiptoes, he reached into the Gully’s mouth, trying not to let his fingers show how nervous he was. Those big gray teeth were much too close.
Gully was much too close.
At last Sammy’s fingers were under Gully’s tongue and he pulled the small piece of paper out. It was as dry and clean as when it had gone in. Only then did Sammy’s hands begin to shake.
“You’re my friend,” he said again.
“You’re my friend,” Gully said. Then he began to crumble: first his feet, then his legs, a fine gray mist moving up and up until it covered his stomach and chest. A small crack widened on Gully’s neck, then under his chin, and then his face began to break into small clay pieces.
“Shalom aleichem, Sammy,” he whispered in a voice that broke on the final syllable.
And then he was gone.
All that was left was a three-inch layer of clay dust covering the bathroom floor.
“Aleichem shalom,” whispered Sammy, kneeling down and picking up a handful of the dust. He took a fierce breath to keep from sobbing, before turning to check on Erik.
25.
Sammy Confesses All (Sort Of)
Erik was just coming to as Sammy knelt by him. He was rubbing the back of his head. “Ow.”
Sammy could see a giant bump forming there.
“Give me a hand up, will ya?”
Sammy reached out, then, realizing how big Erik was, gave him both hands.
“That cousin of yours can sure fight,” Erik said. He’d finally managed to get to his feet with Sammy’s help. “Might want to let him know I’m on your side.”
“Are you?” Sammy bit his lip. “On my side?”
Erik didn’t stop to think before answering. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Trying to take a step, Erik wobbled. Sammy steadied him, throwing an arm around him for support. Though if Erik had actually collapsed, Sammy wasn’t sure he could hold him up.
“What about when James Lee comes back?” Sammy asked. “Are you still on my side then?”
Erik didn’t get a chance to answer. In words. But Sammy got his answer anyway, because just then James Lee came charging back into the bathroom. His face was somehow transformed. He didn’t have his normal bully’s sneer on. Instead, he looked angry and shamed and fearful. And moving fast.
Like he doesn’t want to come back here and face Gully, but would rather do that than go home and face his father, Sammy thought.
True to his word, Erik shrugged off Sammy’s assistance, pushing him back.
“James Lee . . .” he began, trying to step between Sammy and James Lee, but—still woozy from the blow to the head—he swayed hard left and James Lee shouldered him aside.
Sammy felt like things were moving in slow motion. He saw Erik fall again, saw James Lee closing in, his big fists clenched, his eyes scrunched up tight.
And I’m all alone this time. Gully’s gone. Erik’s down. Skink’s off celebrating.
Sammy raised alarmingly small fists and stood his ground. He didn’t feel brave, but there was nowhere else to go.
James Lee stepped forward and threw a hard overhand right at Sammy’s nose.
In return, Sammy threw a punch of his own, an untrained uppercut that had no hope of landing, and even less hope of doing any damage if it did. He closed his eyes as he swung but instead of the expected pain of a broken nose, he felt a sharp sting in the knuckles of his right hand. He opened his eyes just in time to see James Lee falling to the ground!
Things moved very fast then. James Lee may have been down, but he was far from out. And Sammy was so stunned to have thrown a punch that landed, he just stood there staring at his momentarily downed assailant.
James Lee began to scramble to his feet, the sound coming from his mouth was more like a beast’s than a human’s.
Sammy guessed—no he knew—his end was in sight. He wondered how his parents’ would take it. Tears prickled his eyes.
Suddenly there was another person in the bathroom, moving with such speed that Sammy hardly recognized him.
Suddenly, James Lee was back on the ground, but this time he was entangled in a strange hold that involved legs and feet and his arm bent back at a near-impossible angle.
Suddenly, Sammy heard a familiar voice.
“Shalom aleichem,” Reb Ch
aim said to Sammy. Then to James Lee, “Don’t move, son, or I’ll have to break your arm.”
“Aleichem shalom,” Sammy said automatically, though even to him it seemed an odd thing to say under the circumstances.
“The police are on their way,” Reb Chaim said to him, but it was James Lee who answered.
“For what?” His voice was pinched and tense from obvious pain.
But he doesn’t sound defeated, Sammy thought.
Reb Chaim chuckled. “To arrest you, I imagine. Kids started showing up in the gym hurt bad, and someone called the cops.” He looked up at Sammy. “I was wrong to leave you alone to deal with this, Samson.” Nodding his head toward the pile of gray dust on the bathroom floor, he said, “But it looks like you did just fine on your own.”
“Hardest thing, Rabbi, hardest thing I ever did in my life,” Sammy said, “but then you’d know about that.”
The rabbi looked down and nodded.
At that Sammy glanced down, too, at the pile of dust in front of him He felt a huge pang of sadness. Gully! And then he saw what the rabbi had seen—a long, strange skid mark in the clay dust.
Suddenly smiling, Sammy realized just why it was he’d been able to connect when he threw that punch. James Lee must have slipped and skidded in the dust, his nose landing right on Sammy’s fist.
But wasn’t the dust behind me when James Lee came in? He laughed out loud. Of course it was!
Reb Chaim and Erik both looked at him strangely.
“You were right about golems, Rabbi,” Sammy said. “But you were wrong about Gully. He protected me right to the very end. Even when it was himself he had to protect me from.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sammy,” Erik said, finally standing up by himself. “Gully’s nowhere in sight. How could he have helped you?”
“Maybe I’ll tell you later.”
“Not going to be any later, dude. I’m taking off before the cops show up.” Erik’s hands were trembling, but whether from fear or just the aftermath of the blow to his head, Sammy couldn’t be sure.
“And why would you want to do that, young man?” Reb Chaim asked.
This bathroom is getting downright crowded, Sammy thought. And very strange. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys, whether they’re standing on the left or on the right.
Then suddenly the cop Sammy had met in Skink’s hospital room was there with two other officers. Their hands were near their guns, and they looked around the room with suspicion.
“Sir,” said one of the other cops to Reb Chaim, “let go of that young man right now and place your hands on top of your head.”
“Wait,” Sammy said as the rabbi did as instructed, and James Lee sprang to his feet. “Don’t arrest him! Arrest him!” He pointed at James Lee.
“For what?” James Lee grinned at Sammy. “I didn’t do anything.”
“For . . . for . . .” Sammy stuttered.
“For assault,” Erik said.
The cop from the hospital said, “He assault you? Because this kid,” he gestured toward Sammy, “looks fine.” His mouth curled into something like a grin. “If slightly wet.”
Sammy realized how crazy it would sound if he tried to explain what had happened there. Even if he substituted a nonexistent cousin for a golem, they wouldn’t believe him. He might even end up arrested for all the kids Gully had beaten up!
“Not me,” Erik said, “and him.” He glanced at Sammy and shot him a small smile. “But me and James Lee Joliette and a few other guys beat up a boy called Skink pretty bad the other day. I think you guys heard about that. We were wearing Power Rangers masks.”
“You willing to testify to that?” the cop asked.
Erik nodded.
Sammy gulped. “You sure, Erik?”
Erik looked grim and vaguely heroic. “I told you I was on your side.”
The cop from the hospital nodded to the officers who’d been about to put a pair of handcuffs on Reb Chaim. “These two,” he said, inclining his head toward Erik and James Lee. “Get them down to the station.” He turned to Sammy. “I’d appreciate you and your friend coming with your parents so we can talk about what happened that day.” He looked around the bathroom, taking in the blood and dust on the floor. “And what happened here tonight, as well.”
“Yes, officer,” Sammy said, though he wasn’t sure what he would tell him. Maybe Reb Chaim will have some advice. Isn’t that what rabbis are for, anyway?
The cops took James Lee and Erik away with Reb Chaim close behind. Sammy stumbled out after them, his mind awhirl with conflicting emotions.
Suddenly Skink appeared, asking what had happened. Julia, too, putting a hand out toward him, but not actual touching his arm.
“Are you okay, Sammy?” she asked. “I swear if you’re hurt, I’m going to eviscerate James Lee.”
“Good word,” Sammy said. “Bad idea.”
And then they were all laughing, and Sammy was telling them how Erik tried to save him, and that Gully was the one who did the deed.
“But he’s . . .” Sammy’s voice cracked slightly, “gone now.”
“Gone?” Julia asked.
Gone. Such a short, nothing word. Four letters, one syllable. And yet it hurts so much.
Sammy nodded and searched for a lie to tell them, something that would explain why Gully had been here one moment and gone the next. But not only couldn’t he think of a believable tale, he also realized he didn’t want to lie to his friends anymore.
Yet if I tell them the truth, can they handle it? He shook his head. They might think he was crazy, and he might lose them because of that. But . . . I need to be truthful or I’m not being a real friend.
He drew himself up. Crazy time! he told himself, trusting them to understand.
“Gone back to the Czech Republic?” Julia asked.
“Farther than that,” he told them. “But let me tell you where he came from before I tell you where he’s gone . . .”
And slowly, painstakingly, openly he did.
That they believed what he said—and later Erik did, too—amazed him. But they’d all seen Gully in action on the drums, in the classroom, and Erik had remembered a bit of what Gully had done in the bathroom. A little, but not the last bit, not when he’d been turned into clay dust. Telling that was the hardest part of all, especially with the clay still coating his shoes, his jeans. But with a catch in his throat, Sammy made it through the telling.
They were all silent for a moment before Julia said, “There was always something otherworldly about him. I never really thought he was from the Czech Republic actually.” Then she smiled.
It was, Sammy thought, a friend’s forgiving smile.
“Otherworldly,” Skink agreed. “Or maybe Underworldly.”
It was their last word on the subject then, but not the final word. Sammy had that, months later, at his bar mitzvah.
26.
Sammy’s Bar Mitzvah Speech
and What Happened After
“Shabbat shalom, everybody. It is a wonder that I am here today at all, as my parents and Reb Chaim can attest. Attest—that’s a great word. I collect great words. Attest means to affirm or assert or authenticate. And my parents and Reb Chaim can do all that about how I got to this place and this space.
“I have a story to tell you. It has to do with my namesake, Samson of the Bible, and the story of Samson which is my Torah portion as well.
“When Samson was born, his mother was so happy, she promised an angel she would raise him as a Nazirite. Now that’s a word I had to look up. Nazirites were consecrated to God. As a sign of this consecration, they never ever cut their hair. In exchange, they sometimes got extraordinary powers. The angel promised Samson’s mother that Samson would become very strong—the strongest man in the world—and help deli
ver the Israelites from the hands of the Philistines who ruled them.
“Well, as Samson grew up, he turned into a truly big, powerful guy. Nobody messed with him. The Torah says he single-handedly killed over a thousand Philistines in a battle using just the jawbone of a dead donkey. Wow! That was a big deal. For the man and for the donkey. And I guess, for all those dead Philistines and their families, too.
“For twenty years, Samson led the Israelites. He was considered by them to be a good man, a fair man, as well as a strong man. The Philistines sure didn’t think of him that way. That’s what happens with power.
“In some ways Samson was the Israelites’ golem. I doubt you all know about golems. The golem was a man made of clay and then animated by the name of God, and his only task was to save the Jews of old Prague who were being beaten and imprisoned and murdered just for being Jewish. Maybe the story of the golem was simply a folktale about power, power wielded at the start for the good. A folktale. Or a parable. Or a fantasy story. Or all three.”
Sammy paused for a deep breath, looked over at the rabbi who nodded and mouthed, “Good point.”
“The problem is that kind of power corrupts. The abused person wants one good day, one day without abuse. Reb Chaim told me this. He said about the Prague golem, that ‘one good day turns into a thousand bad ones.’ He meant that relying on someone else to fight your battles means that you are beholden to evil.
“So was Samson right to lead the Jews against an oppressor? Absolutely. Was he right to kill a thousand men? That’s where things get fuzzy. Is killing an enemy always good? And what is an enemy, really, but a friend you haven’t yet made. What if instead of killing those thousand men, Samson had laid down the jawbone and invited them to a conversation? Trading jawbones, you might say? I don’t know. We only have that Biblical tale. The other side of it . . .” Sammy shrugged. “Well, that’s all rabbinical commentary.
“And the reason I tell you this story? I was in a situation where I was oppressed. You all know that word. It means downtrodden, abused, helpless, mistreated. I was bullied in school. Bullied because I was smart and mouthy and small. An easy target. Bullies love to pick on anyone different and I was certainly different. I was the Other.
B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523) Page 19
