by Howard Buten
I won. I was Drinking Fountain Captain for our class. Every time we had lavatory time I got to stand next to the drinking fountain and hold the handle down and count to three-one-thousand and then tap the children on the shoulder which means time’s up. (I give Shrubs extra though, and Marty Polaski said that if Jessica was in our room I would let her drink up all the water and everyone would die of thirst. I socked him.)
Finally it was Thanksgiving vacation. That day after school I saw Jessica walking out the Marlowe door but she didn’t say anything to me so I didn’t say anything. I watched her walk down Marlowe. Then suddenly she turned and waved at me. So I waved at her. We waved at each other. I smiled. Then she walked back toward me. I was waving and smiling and waving and smiling, but she was waving at Marcie Kane who was standing behind me, not at me. I was embarrassed. I started to go. But then she said, “Don’t say hi or anything, Burt.”
I turned around. I said, “Ok, I won’t.” And I left.
That night I made a puppet. I built him out of pieces of wood my dad had in the basement. His arms were little ones and the rest of him were bigger ones. He had loops for elbows, they screwed in, and his head was a ball that you make Christmas tree ornaments from, I got it from Shrubs last year. I painted him skin colored with red circles on his cheeks. I made yarn for hair, and I sewed him a little suit with red shorts and a white shirt out of rags. I painted shoes on him. It took me all night almost. My dad came down to see, but he let me stay up past my bedtime until I finished because there was no school the next day.
I named him Jerry the Puppet. When he was dry I took him upstairs to the kitchen. It was dark, and my mom and dad were in bed. I folded up a dishtowel and put it on the yellow counter for his bed and then I folded up a washcloth and made it like a pillow for Jerry the Puppet. Then I went upstairs to bed but I thought of something and I came back down. I took another dish-towel and made him a blankee so he wouldn’t be cold. Then I kissed him.
“Goodnight, Jerry the Puppet,” I said. “I’m glad I made you.”
But the next morning I woke up extra early because it was Thanksgiving and I wanted to watch the parade on tv. I went downstairs and turned on Oral Roberts. (I like to watch him, he yells.) I had on my slippers with dog faces on them.
Jeffrey came down. I asked him if he wanted to play Three Stooges with me. I play it frequent with Shrubs. He is Curly. I am Moe. I bop him. Curly is my favorite, he is bald. He goes like this with his fingers, I can do it. Sometimes he is absent and they have Shemp. Shemp looks like Moe only uglier. Sometimes I am him. But no one is Larry. No one ever wants to be Larry.
Jeffrey wouldn’t play. Then the parade came on tv. It was exciting. It had floats. My favorite was Bullwinkle. Who is a moose. He is cartoons. I said, “Hi Bullwinkle!” He waved at me.
Then Mom and Dad got up, they had robes on and we had breakfast and we even got to eat in the den so we could watch the parade. We had pancakes and Little Boys’ Coffee, which is coffee with mostly milk and sugar in it for children. (I gave some pancakes to Jerry the Puppet but he wasn’t hungry.) Then Mom started cooking Thanksgiving dinner.
We have company on Thanksgiving, it is uncles and aunts and cousins on my mom’s side. My dad has a side too only not on Thanksgiving. His side is for Passover. We go to Bubbie’s house. She is my grandmother. Her name is Bubbie. She is very old and talks Jewish which I don’t understand, only sometimes she talks English which I still don’t understand. I feel she should have subtitles. She calls me Baby Cocker because once I went over in my Davy Crockett suit. I don’t have a Zadie on my dad’s side. He is passed away, I never even saw him except pictures. He looks like my dad only brown because of the picture. On my mom’s side I have a grandfather. He is named Gramps. It is Gramps on my mom’s side and Zadie on my dad’s side, only Gramps isn’t dead. Only I don’t have a Bubbie on my mom’s side, she is dead. Her name was Grandma. It is very confusing. I think Gramps should marry Bubbie. They could go to a restaurant and talk Jewish to each other.
For Thanksgiving my mom made turkey. She also made stuffing which I helped her make, I tore up toast. Also she made candy sweet potatoes which are sweet potatoes only like candy and they have a cherry on top which I don’t like so I give them to Jeffrey who gives them to Cleo our dog and she eats them and pukes. This is how we celebrate Thanksgiving.
After breakfast my dad said, “How would you fellows like to go see Santa Claus today?”
I said, “No thanks.”
“Why?” said Dad.
“Because we’re Jewish,” I said. “It’s wrong.”
“Just get dressed, Burt, don’t worry about it,” he said. But I folded my arms up and wouldn’t, I frowned.
So Dad came over and said, “Burt, Santa Claus is for everyone. He is all religions, now hurry up or we’ll be late.”
I said, “So he’s Jewish?”
“Yeah,” said Dad. “He’s Jewish, ok. Let’s go.” So we went.
Santa was at the Ford Rotunda, it is a big building that’s round. It is far. It has cars in it. I asked my dad how Santa got there so fast when I just saw him on tv in the parade downtown and he said he took a helicopter.
At the Ford Rotunda was Santa’s Magic Forest. It had lights and trees with colors on them, you walk through and there are elves that are statues that move like real elves. Also they had a part with reindeers, you could pet them. I couldn’t see the part they have on them for flying, I think it goes in like. I fed one of them a peanut. He ate it. He was brown.
Then we went to see Santa. He was at the end. There was a big line, it went around and around, you couldn’t even see Santa. We waited and waited. Then we got there. Jeffrey went first, he sat on Santa and said, “I want you to buy me a model Thunderbird, you can get it at Maxwell’s, ok?”
Santa said, “Ho ho.”
(I feel Santa is phony baloney because he laughs all the time and I don’t know what’s so funny, to be candid.)
Then Jeffrey said, “I would also like a cowboy shirt and pants and boots with real spurs on them.”
Santa said, “Ho ho.”
Then Jeffrey got off.
I started to walk away but Dad grabbed my hand and pulled me back. I said, “No I have to fix something,” but he said come on. So I sat on Santa. He was hot.
“Where’s Blitzen?” I said.
“Blitzen who?” he said.
“You know.”
He said, “Ho ho.”
“Are you Jewish?” I said.
Santa didn’t say anything.
“Are you?”
Then he said, “Well, I don’t know. Well, yes, I guess Santa Claus is all religions. I guess I am.”
All the parents started to take their children out of line. They heard. Santa said, “I didn’t mean that,” but pretty soon there wasn’t anybody left. My dad grabbed me and we went.
It was warm for Thanksgiving, it didn’t even snow, and by the time we got home it was raining. My mom was still cooking dinner, it smelled an aroma and my daddy read the newspaper and Jeffrey looked at a magazine.
I said, “Mom, how come they don’t have Jessica in the phone book?”
“Who’s that, Honey?”
“Jessica, a girl.”
“They only have daddies’ names in the phone book, Sweetheart, last names,” she said.
I took it out and turned to Renton, it was like a dictionary, I could use it, and there was only one Renton on Marlowe.
I am scared of telephones because once the operator came on and yelled at me for dialing too slow, but I dialed the telephone then. I wanted to tell Jessica that Santa Claus was Jewish.
It rang. Then it stopped. Then it rang, then it stopped.
A girl answered, she said, “Hello?”
“Is this Jessica?” I said, I was nervous, man. “This is Burt from school.”
But her voice was wrong, it didn’t sound like Jessica, and I deduced that she was crying.
“Oh Burt,” she said. “My daddy is dead.”
[16]
RAIN SAYS A NOISE: SHH. YOU CAN HEAR IT WHEN IT comes down. It is God telling us to be quiet.
On the afternoon of Thanksgiving I kneeled backwards on the couch in the living room of our house and looked out the window across the street at the Nemsicks who came out of their house with newspapers over their heads and got inside their car. They were all dressed up. They were laughing. But the motor in their car cried and smoke came out and I thought, They are going to a funeral, which is a party without presents.
From the living room I could smell the kitchen where Mom cooked dinner. The table in the dining room had the good tablecloth on it and the good plates from the china cabinet which I am not allowed to touch. There were the good glasses and the silverware with flowers on the ends and napkins made out of cloth, not paper, like little baby tablecloths.
I looked out the window at the street. Rain fell down in little torpedoes on the cars and made splashing like fog on them. It made lines on the windows, like clear finger painting. I raced two raindrops down. I put my nose against the glass and made fog donuts by breathing and Martian footprints which you make with your hand, it looks like Martians have been walking on the window pane, trying to get out.
I went to the hall closet. I took out my raincoat and boots and put them on.
My raincoat is yellow, it is like a banana peel on the outside. It has cloth on the inside with sailboats on it. There is a hat too, it has a hole for my face. The sleeves on my raincoat are too long, but my mom says I will grow into it. They hang over my hands.
My boots are rubber with like tires on the bottom so I don’t fall down. They have snaps that jingle and I can’t do them right because I am little.
Inside my raincoat I had somebody with me, he had on red shorts and yarn for hair. Jerry the Puppet, I had him with me.
Inside the hall closet also was my father’s coat, I had wore it to see Santa and there was somebody in the pocket of it too. It was Monkey Cuddles, I took him to see Santa Claus. He told me that Jessica was very sad but he couldn’t go because he was in my dad’s pocket, cooking dinner.
I opened the front door. I went.
The rain made thumps on my rain hat that sounded like drums, but my mom says that rain is fairies dancing on the roof, and sometimes I do something when nobody sees, I open the window and put a towel on the window sill and say, “You can come in, fairies, I will turn off the light so I can’t see you.”
The sidewalk on Lauder is made out of squares of cement with like filling in between. It goes down Lauder and turns the corner. I followed it. I was going somewhere, I turned down Clarita and looked at the houses. Inside them I saw people watching television and some of them had decorations in the windows with tinsel around them and one house had a shoebox scene in the window, like I make at school sometimes. This one had hay and camels and sheeps and a baby in it with a gold fan around his head. (Once I made a shoebox scene for extra credit for Social Studies. I wanted a B so my mom wouldn’t be disappointed. It was Benjamin Franklin. I cut him out of the Golden Book Encyclopedia and folded his feet so he stood up. I named it “Benjamin Franklin Stands Up.” I got a C anyway.)
I turned down Marlowe. The trees usually make like a tunnel, they touch almost, but now they were bald. It looked like they were shaking hands over the street, but they couldn’t reach because Jessica’s father died.
And then I was at Jessica’s house, with blue shutters. I stopped in front of it. I stood and looked. The front door was open. There was a walk up to it, like we have, and there was an R on the screen door like we have. Exactly. I stood in front on the sidewalk, in my raincoat, and watched.
The driveway was full of cars, they had license plates on them that said “Michigan, the Water Wonderland.”
Jessica’s house had a lamp post on the lawn, it looked like a little streetlight. You never see streetlights go on. They are always just on. The lamp post on Jessica’s lawn was on. I stood and watched it.
A dog came up to me. He was wet. He was beige. He came out of the bushes from the house next door and went on Jessica’s lawn and smelled her bushes and then went in them and made. He came over to me. He sat down right next to me and watched Jessica’s house. We watched it together. Then he went.
Jessica’s house has awnings, they looked like eyelids, and the rain came down them and I thought, Her house is crying too. But I stayed right where I was in case she needed me or something.
The front door opened. A man and a lady came out. They had a big umbrella. They had hats. They had black clothes on, because it was a funeral. Jeffrey told me you wear black so it’ll be dark and the dead person won’t wake up. The man and the lady came down the front walk. They almost walked into me. They got in the last car on the driveway, and started it. Then they rolled down the window and said, “Can I help you, little boy?”
“No I’m just looking,” I said.
I watched them drive away to Seven Mile Road where there was a lot of traffic, you could see there was spray from the cars in the rain and noise. I am not allowed to cross Seven Mile. It is too busy. It has lines painted on it and there are stores not houses.
I waited in front of Jessica’s house. I looked out the hole of my rain hat. The house next door’s front door opened and two children came out. It was Roger and Joey Lester, I knew them from school, they are twins but don’t look alike. They looked at me but they didn’t know it was me because of the rain hat. I didn’t say anything. They walked down Marlowe. I never knew they lived there, but sometimes Shrubs plays with them. He said they are poor. They don’t have any toys, so they play with their socks.
Jessica’s house has a tree in front. A monkey jumped out of it and landed on my shoulder and told me in monkey language that there were natives on Seven Mile Road who were coming to kill Jessica, so I put my hand around my mouth and gave the call and all the elephants came and scared them away. The monkey said thanks. He went.
Mom said rain is when God fixes his water faucet. She said that God sees everything so I better be good. I asked her if God knows how Milky the Clown does his magic tricks on “Milky’s Party Time,” on tv. (Sometimes I wave at God. He sees me. He is my friend because once I prayed for the Tigers to win and they did.)
I stood in front of Jessica’s. I smelled my raincoat, it smells like a tent when it gets wet. (Once I was in a tent, at Northland at Bill’s Sporting Goods, they had some and I went in. It was like camping out. It smelled.)
Then a truck pulled up to Jessica’s. It was blue. It said “Paul’s Fine Food” on the side, somebody painted it. A man got out and he went around and opened a door in the back and took out a big tray with food on it. He went up the front walk into Jessica’s house. I looked at the truck. I thought, I could steal the truck and rescue Jessica and drive to Florida, but the man came back. He looked at me.
“Hey, kid, you lost or something?”
I didn’t say a reply.
“You ought to get in out of the rain. It ain’t healthy, kid,” he said.
“You shouldn’t say ain’t,” I told him, but he didn’t hear me, he was gone.
I looked at all the windows in Jessica’s house. I thought maybe she saw me, she was watching me, but I didn’t see her, but maybe she was, they were all foggy. I stayed anyway.
Roger and Joey Lester came back, they had a bag, I deduce they were shopping. They looked at me again and I did this with my hand only they didn’t wave back. They went in their house and shut the door.
The wind made the rain go like in curves on the street, and blew inside my hat, I looked out the hole. A branch fell down from the tree behind me. A squirrel ran inside a tree. A car went past. A door slammed down the block. A newspaper blew past me. Somebody yelled, “Collect for the News.” An airplane went in the sky. On Seven Mile Road there was almost an accident. It started to get dark. It was almost night. I stood in front of Jessica’s. I stood and watched.
A man went into her house with flowers. An old woman came out w
ith plastic over her hair to keep it dry. Another lady opened the front door and looked at me but she just shook her head and went back in.
Then it was dark. I saw that the streetlights were on but I still didn’t see them go on. I took Jerry the Puppet and walked on Jessica’s lawn up to the little lamp post on her grass. I put him down at the bottom of it, and then I took off my rain hat and put it over him like a little tent for Jerry the Puppet.
I looked one more time at her house, and then I started to walk home, it was still raining and I didn’t have my rain hat but I didn’t care. I was thinking about something else maybe. I had on my raincoat. The sleeves hung over my hands.
When I got home my mom was very angry.
“How dare you walk out of here without telling anyone. You’ve had us worried sick,” she said. “And you’ve made dinner get cold, we all waited for you, look at the time. Where have you been?”
I took off the raincoat and hung it neatly in the closet. I took off my boots (my shoes stuck inside them like always, I had to pull them out separate). I put my boots away.
There were many people in my house. There was noise and cigar smoke from my uncles.
I walked up the stairs to my room. I closed the door. I layed down on my bed. I looked out the window.
I got up. I sat on the other bed. I got up again. I went and sat at my desk. I got up again. I walked over to my closet. I opened the door. I went in and closed the door.
[17]
ON MONDAY MORNING AFTER THANKSGIVING VACATION I woke up and everything was different. Outside was drizzling and I looked at it and thought, Nothing is the same now. I looked at my cowboy lamp, one of the cowboys was playing a harmonica, I knew it was taps.
My mom came into my room while I was putting on my pants and she saw my peenie and I yelled. She said, “My God, I’m your mother, aren’t I?” And I said no (because I think I am adopted).
But she made breakfast like always and swallowed loud like always and then Shrubs called on me and while I was getting my coat he went in the den and stole candy out of the glass thing.
