by Joshua Braff
“That’s funny.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But that was a long time ago.” And we fall into more silence. Two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five . . .
“Well, I just love having my back scratched,” she says, nudging her food. “I guess it’s my thing too.”
I glance at the oven clock and touch a fish stick with my fork. “I used to have a back scratcher in the shape of Kermit the frog,” I share. “You know him, right?”
She nods.
“It had Kermit’s head on it. And his, ya know . . . frog hand was the scratcher.”
Megan takes another bite of her double-decker fish sticks and aims her fork at me with one eye closed. “I’ll scratch your back if you want.”
My penis moves. A college girl with painted fingernails. I’ll get a boner before my shirt comes off.
“No pressure, of course,” she says, and lifts her glass.
“You mean tonight?” I ask.
“Or another time.”
I close my knees together and look at my watch for some reason. Megan drinks from her glass with her eyes on me. I bend over another green bean and look up at her across the table. “Okay.”
I’VE ONLY BEEN in Megan’s room once since it became hers. My mom told me to bring her laundry up to her—just jeans and T-shirts and some purple, glittery socks. The tiny room is across the hall from the attic on the third floor and used to be a storage cemetery for all our old crap. At one time there was a striped, teal drum set that belonged to Asher where her bed now sits. I painted the words KISS Army on the bass drum while he was at camp one summer and surrounded the letters with horribly drawn flames. It looked like a cat threw up on it. On paper the surprise was a perfect one. He’d arrive home, pump his fist with approval, and then jump behind the kit to parallel the heavy metal flames. He punched me eleven times in the ass instead and then hung my ventriloquist dummy from a noose tied to a shower rod. I vowed to murder him that day as I tearfully unhooked the rope and held Mr. Jeeves’s limp body in my arms. The drum set now sits in a wardrobe box in the attic. So does a headless Mr. Jeeves.
“Sorry it’s so messy,” Megan says, reaching for the light switch. “I’m in the middle of exams and I’m kinda . . . frazzled.” Her room is like a jungle. There are three ceiling-high floor plants just inside the door that sprout from a soil of strewn laundry and shoes and textbooks and dried-out peach pits in bunched up paper towel. I think I might be standing on a sandwich. Coke can ashtrays sit everywhere and are gorged with mashed-out butts and soggy matches. Through the leaves I see a row of tiny cacti on her desk, and a blow-up palm tree that bends with the weight of Mardi Gras beads. Megan steps left, over a tipped-over hamper, and dives onto her bed. “This is Bonsai Sammy,” she says, and tickles the body of a mini–oak tree on her bedside table. The room has changed. I recognize the TV. It used to be in the kitchen. It’s a small black and white with tinfoil rabbit ears and a broken on-off button. You need needle-nose pliers to change the channel. Megan lights a Merit and exhales an enormous stream toward the closed window by her desk. She sits up on her bed with the cigarette held high and pats the mattress. “You better untuck your shirt,” she says.
There’s a tingle near my testicles when I hear this but I’m hoping it doesn’t mean wood. I pull my shirt up and out of my pants and walk over to the bed.
“Can I turn the TV on?” I ask.
“Sure. You need the—”
“Pliers, I know.”
“Channel two comes in the best,” she says.
M*A*S*H is on. I walk back to the bed and sit down. “How should I . . . ?
“Mmmm, why don’t you lie on your stomach?”
I lay down, facing the TV. Klinger and Radar are discussing something but the sound is too low to hear. Megan lifts my shirt up to my neck. I wait for her nails to touch my skin.
“I’ve seen this one,” she says.
“Me too,” I say, but I haven’t.
This is not a sexual thing. This is not a sexual thing. This is not a sexual thing. It’s not. Just hang out a few seconds. Watch M*A*S*H. It’s more like I’m with someone’s mother or aunt or sister. Just don’t think of her as a woman who will someday wear white stockings to work and one of those starchy hats. I’m her brother. A friend. The young son of her current landlord. Megan giggles through an exhale and the bed starts to hop. “Jamie Farr,” she says, still laughing. I’m sensing a pattern. She scratches vertically first, covering the middle thoroughly before getting the sides and lower half of my back. The sides tickle a little but I brave through it, clenching my stomach. I decide to think of something witty to say when she finishes. I’m down to two options: “Tony Danza doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Or “I’d take you over Kermit any day.” About five minutes later she pulls my shirt down and pats my back. I sit up. “Kermit doesn’t—”
“My turn,” she says and mashes her cigarette into a Coke can. She rolls over on her stomach and pulls her shirt above her bra strap. “I like it kinda hard so don’t hold back.”
The only bras I’ve ever seen besides my mom’s were on mannequins. Or in magazines. Or on mannequins in magazines. This one is creamy tan and has five hooks keeping it closed. It has lots of little lint balls all over it and a silky white tag that says “Maiden Form” in pink. Megan’s skin is beautiful. It’s sort of fair but olive-ish with sporadic brown birthmarks, mostly near her shoulders and hips. I reach to touch her. My fingertips brush her spine.
“Harder is fine,” she says. “You can’t hurt me.”
I sit closer to her, glancing at the length of my fingernails. I dig in a little better and she lets out a moan. “That’s it.” I decide to follow her pattern, up and to the sides, and begin to look forward to the seconds I’m permitted to touch her bra. The laugh track gives off a muted roar on the tiny TV. When I look up, Frank Burns is wearing a flowered shower cap and a woman’s robe. It goes to commercial.
“You got a girlfriend?” Megan says.
Penis tingle. Friend, brother, son of landlord.
“Oooh, don’t stop yet,” she says.
I begin again. “No, I . . .”
“Why not?”
I move my hand up the side of her back, and rest my fingers on the round of her shoulder. “I don’t . . . usually like the girls who like me. Maybe if I didn’t hear they liked me, I might, you know, like them first.”
I can’t see her face but I can tell she’s smiling. “It’ll happen,” she says. “You’re a cutie. Really. Blond and so tall. You look older than you are.”
“I do?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me get this stupid thing out of the way,” she mumbles, and reaches behind her to unhook her bra. In a snap it falls away from her body. I can see the sides of her large pale breasts, pressing against her sheets. My penis begins to fill with blood. I knock my knees together to slow it down and conjure up revolting stuff like Asher says to do: curdled cottage cheese with old-lady pubes in diarrhea with . . . It’s too late. I’m like blue steel.
“Heeeey, I did you longer than that,” she whines.
“Sorry.”
I reach to touch the hidden skin with the tips of my fingers. It’s forbidden and smooth and I have to think to breathe. Megan moves slightly and I get a glimpse of the dark and bumpy part of her nipple. I think my penis might break through the pocket of my jeans. Her face is turned away from me, toward the wall. I scratch for a few more seconds before she flips her black hair away from her neck. I look down at my crotch and then search for a pillow to use when she finally sits up. She’s got them both under her chin. I decide I’ll just sit on the floor when she’s through, a subtle tuck and roll. Megan says “yes” when my fingertips go near her hips. I massage the skin above her belt and she says it again. I sit a little closer and use both my hands.
“You found my weakness. Now a little lower,” she says, and lifts her hips to undo her pants. Praised be thou oh Lord our
God, king of the universe, creator of all that is carved and curved into female. My penis will pop like a gag cigar. No really, it aches. Megan scoots her pants down an inch and settles back in her spot. “Okay,” she says. “Like, where my spine runs out, just . . . yes, good, right there. But harder, okay? Just jam your thumb in there.” I try it. “Nice . . . perfect. Now make circles.” I will. I do. I make lots and lots of circles. Some the size of Oreos, others more like Cherrios. I do the Olympic sign a few times and surround it with Mallomars, and then, without much thought, I lean down and smell the back of her head. It smells like cigarette smoke and sugary shampoo. When I try it again I feel her hair against my chin, my lips. I rub this long, gorgeous woman in slow circles with my palm.
“Gooood,” she says in a whisper that fades. And I gently close my eyes.
“Gooood.”
Dear Samuel and Dot Titelbaum,
I’ve noticed lately that when I put soapy water on my erect penis and stroke the tip in my hand, I get an intense feeling that seems to come from both my brain and my inner thighs. I just churn the thing over and over and my knees and shoulders and even my ribs seem to tingle in a very, very good way. It works in the bathtub too. It’s like I’m stepping higher and higher toward something kind of huge or even a little scary. I sometimes stop the motion when my breath feels sort of lost or my eyeballs lose focus, but it’s usually not long before I’m right back in the saddle. Tonight I did it with Megan in my mind. I pretended she flipped over while I was scratching her back and she watched me as I touched her two breasts. I held them, squeezed them, and then kissed them really softly. Actually, first I touched the right one with both hands. Then I squeezed it and kissed the nipple softly. Then I kissed the left nipple, which I followed with some touching, some gentle squeezing, and a few light kisses. She just loved this. I then pretended she told me to lie down on top of her so I climbed on her and pressed my body against hers. She was wearing only her underwear at the time so I felt the silky fabric against my shaft (slang for “penis”). She kept her panties on but I could feel her crinkly black pubic hair against my pulsating rod (also slang for “penis”). Oh, Samuel and Dot . . . what a feeling it is to lie on the bed of a grown woman. To feel her hands on my back, scratching up and down before tickling the sides ever so gently. I really do think I’ve found a new “thing.” I just can’t wait to—“Jacob?” My father’s voice from downstairs.
Dear Samuel and Dot Titelbaum,
Thank you for the genris gift. I was telling my Dad just the other day how much I needed a subscription to The Jewish News.
One big knock and the door opens. “You get ’em all done?”
“No, not yet,” I say, my back to him. “I’m still writing.”
“I want to see ’em before you lick the envelopes. Every one, don’t forget.”
I turn and face him. “How was rehearsal?”
“Fine, slow, I’m . . . not used to such a . . . subordinate role.”
“You mean—”
“Director’s one of these . . . wannabe types. Very closed off to creative suggestions. An ego up to here, you know? A putz. So . . . call me when you’re done. And Jacob?”
“Yeah.
“Every word a jewel, right?”
I turn back around in my chair. I look down at the card.
“I didn’t hear you,” he says.
“Yes. I said yes.”
Dear Herb and Rachel Abromowitz-stein-berg-er-witz,
Thank you for your genorisness. I don’t know if you know this but I have this friend named Jacob. I know, it’s the same as my name and you think it’s me but it isn’t. Jacob is a boy who went to a yeshiva until the fourth grade. I know, I know, I went to a yeshiva but trust me, there’s heaps of yeshiva boys named Jacob. Jacob will be told he needs to stay back in kindergarten. He is not learning well. When all the other yeshiva children cut paper plates into the shape of dreidels, Jacob’s plate looks like a swastika. He needs another year to get it right. When he arrives at school the next fall, he walks with his classmates to the first-grade classroom and sits down. He leans his new briefcase against his leg and folds his hands. “Maybe they’ll forget” is his mind-set. They don’t. He is escorted back to the wide, crayon-smelling room with the piano in it. Mrs. Silverstein is his teacher again, and again she is a disgusting human being with facial warts, coffee breath, and rolled down panty-hose socks. Jacob will make it through kindergarten this time (turns out you can still spin a swastika), and will never be held back again. He will, though, be diagnosed with a “learning disability” at a time when very few people know what that means. Disadvantage: Uninformed teachers think he’s stupid, as opposed to challenged. Advantage: Too early for trendy medication. The disability does not effect his ability to read or write, although he’s a pretty lazy speler. It does not effect speaking or memory or even learning to read Hebrew very well. But when faced with timed, standardized tests, he begins to drift. An hour into the exam the drifting becomes a sinking and not long after he begins to drown in a pool of numbers and letters and No. 2 lead. As Jacob descends he sees “all of the above” and “none of the above” bobbing idly on the surface. “Fill in every box, even if you don’t know the answer,” he hears a muffled voice say. “Guessing is better than leaving it blank.” So he guesses: CC AB CD BB AC AA.
DCDCDCBCBBDDCDACDBCDDBBAAADBCCDABBDCBDCDBADBCDBDCAA
“Time’s up,” he hears. “Pencils down.” When asked to stand in front of his third-grade classmates and name the months of the year, Jacob begins with “Thursday” and wraps up with “autumn.” When his fourth-grade teacher lifts multiplication flash cards to the class, he decides he’ll just say “six” over and over and hope for the best. He ends up being correct twice out of thirty-five times. It becomes clear that the teachers Jacob is assigned are crucial to his ability to learn. Those with very little patience for students who daydream, tap their hands and feet, or attempt to find McDonald’s characters in the clouds will not only fail to get through to him, but will also humiliate him in front of his peers. He will then return to a home where his father has zero patience for a son with limitations. The man is tortured and embarrassed by this boy who stands before him, and his blatant inability to flourish as a student, a son. His father will literally hover over Jacob and wait for him to fail—dishes washed poorly, homework done sloppily, impromptu math quizzes cornering him at the dinner table—all to demonstrate how grotesque failure really looks, feels, is. So, in honor of Jacob, I was wondering if you’d mind if I just said, thank you for coming to see me get Bar Mitzvahed. Thank you for whichever gift it was you purchased and wrapped and handed to me. And most importantly, thank you for believing me when I tell you, Jacob is not me. Thank God. Your both to generis!
Love,
J (I rarely even go by Jacob.)
Thank You
When my father comes in my room he’s eating a peach. “You should’ve seen Gabe tonight at rehearsal,” he says.
“Why?” I ask, with an intentionally bright smile, eyebrows high.
He takes a bite that leaves the pit exposed and sits with a bounce on the end of my bed. “Everyone who meets him falls in love in seconds. He’s just got this way about him. He’s very, very good with adults. Very mature and . . . social and giving. Bright.”
I nod and glance down at the stack of thank-you notes on my desk. “Maybe they’ll give him a part in the play,” I say, and slide them an inch to the right.
“A part?” he says, annoyed. “He’s in kindergarten.” He takes a final bite and throws it at the trash can by the door. It hits the rim and then the wall. “Damn free throws,” he says, standing and rubbing his palms together.
I let out a friendly laugh and think of something to say that might unite us. “Well”—still thinking—“the Lakers would be crazy to—”
“Let’s see the work,” he says. He wipes the juice from his mustache, his mouth stretched wide. “How many you finish?”
“I did . . . nine or ten
but I’m not done.”
“Which is it?”
“Which is what?”
“Which number? Nine or ten?”
“I think I did nine.”
“Nine,” he says through a sigh, and takes the cards over to my bed. He lies down and kicks his tennis shoes off. “What were you doing all night long?”
I think of Megan’s breasts. “I had a lot of other homework.”
He looks up at me with a “who do you think you’re fooling” gaze from over his glasses. He shuffles the cards a few times and finds a comfy groove in the pillow with the back of his head.
“Some of them are—”
He puts his hand out like a stop sign.
“Not finished.”
He reads silently. I look down at his sneakers on the floor and wish I knew which card he had. I’m somehow comforted that he’s not wearing dark dress shoes, as if the Nikes he wears to rehearsal bring us closer to equals. I face my desk and begin to quietly jab the cover of my dictionary with a pen tip. My stomach burns.
“This one’s perfect,” he says, holding it up.
I swivel toward him in my chair. “Which one?” I say, grinning. I stand.
“Edith Gruber. You spelled everything right. You mention the Israel Bonds. You said you look forward to seeing her at Shana’s bat mitzvah. All good.”
“I really like Edith,” I say, and reach blindly for the chair below me. I sit back down. My father brings the next card to the top of the pile. Before he reads it he reaches into his pocket for his keys. He places the tip of one into his ear and twists with his eyes closed. A time-out. I stare at the cards in his hands. I know of three that don’t thank people for specific gifts and maybe five that don’t mention when I’ll see them again. I go back to poking the dictionary but I push too hard; the whole pen rips through the cover. I hear Megan tell Gabe it’s time for bed outside my room. I’m comforted by the sound as I glance at the door.
