The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

by Joshua Braff

  I always dream in these quick and faraway pictures that blur in the white noise of this long ride. Like today, I wear no tzitzit in my mind and so have committed the greatest of all yeshiva boy sins—an actual desecration of God. I reach for the four tzitzit tassels in my dream and when I wake I’m doing just that, frisking my own chest for what I cannot find. And I don’t feel them. I don’t have them. I slowly open my eyes and reach under my shirt.

  “Asher?”

  He says nothing. I lift my shirttails out of my pants and stare down at my stomach. “Asher.”

  A tzitzit is made up of four woolen fringes which are tied to the corners of a thin, white undergarment called an arba kanfoth. The garment resembles a tank top in that it has no sleeves but it’s really more of a poncho in that it’s open on the sides and drapes over the head. All males must wear one under sky blue dress shirts and each fringe that dangles from our pants must be kissed during shaharith, our daily morning prayer service. Every day at Eliahu Academy begins with a yarmulke and tzitzit inspection, which means a long-bearded rabbi in mid-head-bobbing prayer fondles each of the four strands. Failing this procedure is a chilul Hashem, or an act of great disrespect to God. This means detention and no way home without a ride from a parent. My father calls these breaches of faith “F jobs” and just loathes the embarrassment of fumbled rituals. I can picture where the stupid thing is sitting, washed and neatly folded in my sock drawer at home.

  “Asher?” I say. “Ash?”

  He sniffs and places a maroon prayer book between his head and the window. It’s the book he’s been studying from for months now, the Humash he’ll read from at his bar mitzvah on Saturday.

  “I forgot my tzitzit.”

  He doesn’t move. It’s as if he’s unconscious.

  Our father has invited 350 guests to hear Asher perform his allotted Torah portion; Parashah Noach; Genesis 6:9–11:32; and his haftarah, Isaiah 54:1–55:5. Cantor Goldfarb says it’s a lengthy reading, longer than most, and for the last three weeks I’ve heard it rehearsed again and again through the door of my father’s bedroom. Being that our dad is a veteran actor of the Rockridge Community Theater, but not a strong reader of the Hebrew language, his instructions focus on the projection of voice, body posture, and something he calls “pizzazz.”

  “Bang it off the back wall,” I hear him say over my brother’s singing voice as I lay in bed down the hall.

  “Vayihee hageshem al haaretz—”

  “You’re emitting from here, do you see me? Look at me, from here, from up here. I want it down here. See me. It needs to rise and—”

  “Arbaim yom hazeh—”

  “Better, better. Keep that strength. Good. Each a jewel and—right! Better. From here!”

  “Ba’etzem yom hazeh—”

  “Stop, stop, stop. Just stop. Listen. It must come from lower and rise, got it? From the diaphragm, from way down, from here, touch it. You’re all the way up here already and trust me, no one wants to hear it in your nose, okay? How many times do I have to say it? Fifty? Now find it down here and bring it all up, up here and appreciate each vowel, taste each bump, each swing. Now let’s go again—please. From ‘Vayihee.’”

  It was past midnight when Asher left my father’s room the night before. I listened for his footsteps to pass my room and for his bedroom door to finally click closed. I have never seen my brother so drained, so distant, so emptied by the months of invasive attention. There is not an ounce of this ritual he is doing for himself, not a day he doesn’t wish it would all disappear. But when it does end, this Saturday morning, when the bar mitzvah has finally come and gone, our family will leave Rockridge, and Asher and I will enter public school for the first time in our lives. We have never been anything, he and I, but students under God: yeshiva boys.

  I lean close to his ear and whisper once again. “Asher?”

  He lifts his head off the book and looks down at me. “It’s simple,” he mumbles. “Wake me again . . . and I rip out your tongue.”

  Sometimes it’s good to give Asher his space. Even me, and I’m very, very important to him. My mother says he came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck a few times and he’s been “trying to get free” ever since. He rests his head back on the window and tries to relax his eyes.

  On his lap is a paperback copy of The Man with the Golden Gun. Roger Moore is firing a Walter PPK and stands bent-kneed between two women in string bikinis. Asher says the villain in this one has three nipples and goes by the name of Scaramanga. Waiting on the lawn this morning I remind him that Rabbi Belahsan doesn’t like books with naked girls on the cover. Diamonds Are Forever bought him a two-hour detention last year and a call to our father at his office. The two girls on the book jacket weren’t even in bikinis—they just had the silhouettes of their lips wrapped around the tip of a revolver. I glance down at the cover and slide my pinkie onto one of the ladies. She’s got a moon-helmet afro and skin the color of cocoa. I touch her breasts, her knees, the flat between her legs.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  I flinch and pull my hand off the book. “Do you have your tzitzit?”

  “You woke me up.”

  “I don’t have my tzitzit.”

  “Where the hell is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s a bad answer.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Dickhead.”

  “Do you have an extra?”

  “I don’t sell them.”

  “What am I gonna do?”

  “Where the hell is it?”

  “At home I guess.”

  He nods a couple of times and looks out the window. “You’re fucked.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Dickhead.”

  “Don’t say that either.”

  “Check right now,” he says.

  I reach under my dress shirt, trying to feel it, praying to feel it.

  “No?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  Asher looks around at the four other kids on the van. “Take Ezra’s,” he says, and leans his head back on the window.

  “Take Ezra’s? He’s five years old.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Do you have yours?” I ask.

  He lifts one of the fringes from his waist and lets it drop to his lap. I stare at it for a second before facing the boy behind me.

  “Hi, Ezra.”

  “No!” he says, his Fat Albert lunchbox blocking his tzitzit.

  I turn back around.

  The van pulls to a stop in front of a green aluminum house, a few miles from the school. Seth Gimmelstein runs across his front lawn, his tzitzit hopping like the mane of a trophy horse. There’s a black bobby pin anchoring his yarmulke to his scalp and a sharp crease in his charcoal slacks. I would trade lives with Seth Gimmelstein right now, grow old as him. When he sits in the seat in front of me, I tap his shoulder and ask if he’s got an extra. He laughs with his mouth wide and asks if a dog ate my tzitzit. I’m in a great deal of trouble.

  “Hey,” Asher says, staring down at me. “What’re you doing?”

  I bring my lunch box on my lap and turn my back to him.

  “You’re not crying.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Are you really crying?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I’m not. Leave me alone.”

  He sits up and slams his Humash onto Roger Moore. “Listen to me, all right? Are you listening?”

  I nod.

  “You’ll just . . . tell whatever Nazi they sic on you that . . . you’re moving away in a week and your tzitzit’s in a fuckin’ box on a moving truck, all right?”

  Seth finds this hilarious. “Classic,” he says, his chubby shoulders jumping.

  “It’s your birthday on Wednesday,” Asher says. “Tell ’em that.”

  I face him and his eyes widen. “I’m not telling them it’s my birthday.”


  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “But they don’t—”

  “They don’t what?” he snaps. “Believe in birthdays?”

  The van stops a few houses down from Seth’s. A seventh-grader named Mirium Levinson walks across her lawn with a Blow Pop in her mouth. Her red-headed brother, Noah, is six and runs to catch up to her. Asher sits taller in his seat and combs his hair into his eyes with his fingers. He fakes disinterest but I know he likes Mirium; all the boys like Mirium. In September she wore Tweetie Bird panties to school and couldn’t help but prove it by lifting the back of her pleated gray skirt. I could see the crack in her tuchis through Tweetie’s yellow head and I think about it every time she gets on the van now. Asher says she’s the “foxiest” girl at Eliahu because she grew “titties” over the summer and her butt bubbles out. He also likes that she flips off the rabbis when they pass her in the hall and can curse like a felon.

  “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.”

  BECAUSE ASHER 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.