by Joshua Braff
“That’s it? That’s how you hold me?”
I pull him closer with my arms and his chest presses into mine. He begins to cry, and as I hold my breath he suddenly rolls off of me with his legs still entwined.
“Get out of here!”
I look up at him. “I’m holding you.”
“I said go!” he screams, an inch from my ear and punches the pillow by his side. I wait a few seconds and push his dead weight with both my hands. I slide out from under his legs. When I get to my feet I walk quickly across the room and close the door behind me. I stand for a moment, blind in the darkness of the hallway and soon see my mother on her way up the stairs. I turn and walk quickly toward my room.
“Can we talk?” she says.
“I need to go to bed.”
“Will you let me tuck you in?” she says, and walks over to hug me.
I keep my arms at my side as she pulls me into her chest.
“It’s . . . been an awful night. Hasn’t it?” She rests her cheek against mine. “You’re so stiff.”
I clench my jaw and shake my head. “I’m tired, Mom.”
“It’s gonna take some time to understand all of this,” she says. “Ya know?”
“I understand,” I say.
“Do you?” she says, holding me tighter. “Do you understand?”
I shift my feet and clasp my hands behind my back. “You’re leaving him,” I say. “You’re leaving him behind.” I close my eyes and for a second I see them, my mother and my father, a photograph I’ve known forever.
She pulls away from the embrace and takes my face in her hands. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”
I reach for both her wrists and toss her hands back to her. “With me. You’re leaving him behind with me.”
June 3, 1981
Dear Megan,
I will send this letter to your mother’s house in Pencilvania and I hope you will get it. You left a sweater here. It is the red and too big one that is hard to push up the sleeves. You left two plants. The one you call Bonzeye Sammy and the one that I said looked like an old man’s elbow with leaves on it. I gave them water but I don’t know how much to give them. You left five cassette tapes, the belt to your bathrobe, and some socks in the laundry room too. Not the socks with the cat whiskers that I teased you about. Ha Ha. These are normal and white but have little balls on the back. If you call me and give me your number we can talk about when you will come here. I am not mad that you did not say good-bye. I have to go. It is late here. Are you in New Jersey?
Sincerely,
J
June 21, 1981
Dear Megan,
I put your things in a box in my room. If you want to come and get them it is okay. I hope you will call so you can get your things. I live at my mother’s house in Hayward when I don’t live at my dad’s house. If you call my dad’s house and I am at my mom’s house then you should call my mom’s house so I can meet you at my dad’s house. If I’m not at either house, I
may be in Rhode Island in my own apartment with Asher. You should call soon or I may be in my own apartment by then. In Rhode Island. How are you? Did you get my last letter?
Sincerely,
J
July 2, 1981
Dear Megan,
I had a dream you were in a coma. I hope you are not. In my dream you were in the hospital and my mom and Nate were tongue-kissing next to your electric bed. Nate was wearing your whiskers sox and my mom said, oh, oh, baby to him, and then my teeth turned crumbly but Asher caught them. In real life my mom and Nate kiss all the time and my room is very close to their room. I sometimes hum so I won’t hear anything revolting. Nate has huge calves and sometimes bad breath but he is nice to me. He was on TV last week on the news for being a psychologist in a court thing. It was weird to see him on the screen and be in the room with him too. My mom says his career is “taking off” and that’s why he has to travel a lot for his work. I hate this because she needs to go with him every time. This means I have to go to my dad’s house and he makes us go to Beth Tikvah because he wants to be president of the synagogue. The president sits on the beema with the rabbi and cantor during services. He gets to make a speech to the people afterwards too. He says I can help him if I volunteer to be a leader for the kid services they call Tot Shabbat. I wish I never learned Hebrew because you have to read it good to do the Tot Shabbat. I told him I don’t want to volunteer and he said I had to. I don’t think he understands the word volunteer.
I have to go now. Asher is coming here to get his mail. I’m going to tell him that I found a map of Rhode Island at my school. I made a Xerox of it and I keep it in my closet. You are right and I feel stupid. It’s not an island. But there really is a lot of water near it. I put a red dot where I think me and Asher should live in our apartment. It’s very close to this bay and near some real islands too. If he’s in a bad mood I’m not going to show it to him because I don’t want him to change his mind. My father puts Asher in a bad mood every time he sees him. It’s because Asher wants to live at my mom’s even when she’s on trips with Dr. Nate. My father really hates this. He calls over there all the time and wants to know what he’s doing or if he’s drinking or if he went to Hebrew school or not. Asher? Hebrew school? My father still thinks he actually goes to that fuckin’ place? How does Asher get away with it? Why doesn’t the rabbi just call my dad? Is he paid off or something? I’d be expelled in seconds. Wouldn’t I, Megan? Wouldn’t I be expelled in seconds?
If you don’t want to write me back just call and tell me you don’t. I am wasting paper and stamps on you. So thanks.
J
August 12, 1981
Dear Meg,
You’re not being very nice. Maybe you are not getting these letters because of the coma. Ha Ha. I am kidding and I hope you are not in a coma or dead either. It is late here and I am tired. Tonight my father went ballistic on Gabe for drawing a giant cow on our driveway with sidewalk chalk. I don’t know why he got so upset but maybe because the cow had droopy utters that squirted milk. When he came inside he was trying to calm down. He told me to follow him into the den and to read to him from the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible. He likes to listen to it these days when he goes ape shit. I get very nervous and make more mistakes than normal. I read the English and the Hebrew and he sometimes cries right there. He likes the Song of Songs part of the Bible the most because he says it sounds like love poems. I think he is right.
Upon my couch at night
I sought the one I love
I sought but found her not.
I must rise and roam the town,
Through the streets and through the squares;
I must seek the one I love.
I don’t think of you when I read this so don’t think I do. You won’t be reading this anyway. Are you in New Jersey? Do you hate me for doing you know what? I think I am lonely tonight.
J
September 18, 1981
Dear Megan,
This is my last letter. Maybe you are married or maybe you are a nun now and can’t write to boys. Maybe you are just a jerk. I don’t like you right now and I won’t waste my time and ink. You owe me stamps.
From,
Done writing to you
November 2, 1981
Dear Megan,
I think I should get paid money for leading the Tot Shabbat. I’ve done it six times now and I fucking hate it because the room reeks like baby diarrhea and it’s all just bullshit so my father can get on the beema. He says it’s a mitzvah and I should see it as an offering to God. I want to say, To whom? The burning bush guy? He says if I keep up the good work I’ll be able to read from the Torah at the adult service and that this will make him the most proud man alive. Who goddamn cares? is what I say to that. Not me is who. I don’t even believe in God! Do you? Ms. coma, married, nun, who can’t even write me or call me or stop by to say hello. I don’t believe in you either! I’m moving away from here and you’ll be the one who never hears from me. A
nd it doesn’t matter that I haven’t seen Asher in a while because I opened my father’s atlas and found out how to get there on my own. It says it takes three hours and fifteen minutes by Amtrak train and that it’s 195 miles from here. I could take a bus too. A Greyhound. It goes 280 east to the turnpike and then north toward 80. The turnpike then becomes 95 N and then I just wait for a long time and exit at number 21. I’ll need to ask where the school is from there. It would be stupid to get there and learn he’s at Brigitte’s house or something. I’d have to stay in a hotel. Maybe one with a pool. But I’ll find it on my own. Got it? Oh, the plant that looks like an old man’s elbow with leaves is very dead. The leaves fell off the elbow—and I don’t care.
From,
See ya never
November 31, 1981
Dear Jerk-off,
It is eleven o’clock at night and I am in my room in bed. I am supposed to be at my mom’s this week but she went to Indiana for an adoption conference. I think Asher lives at Brigitte’s house now because he once said her mother’s a “wino” who doesn’t know what the hell is going on. I really wish he would come here once in a while. Last night I dreamed Asher jabbed my dad in the toe with an orange Popsicle and he roared like a lion and fell down a manhole. It was very real. Tonight at dinner my father said he wants me to read from the Torah in a few months. At the adult service. I really don’t want to. The president now is Mickey Bloomfield’s dad, Ira Bloom-field, and Mickey did the Tot Shabbat services for two whole years before anyone asked him to do the adult service. My dad says I should be honored that they want me so fast. When I told him I don’t care he slammed the table with all his strength. Everything tipped and spilled and he told me to clean it up. I was surprised that I said that. I may not send this letter. I’m saving every penny. I may need to catch a train.
December 26, 1981
Dear coma bitch nun,
Asher came to my dad’s house yesterday. When I asked him about Rhode Island he said something I couldn’t hear and ran up the stairs to look for a painting he did of a fat lady riding a seesaw. It made me so fucking mad. A few minutes later his door was closed and locked. I knocked on it but he didn’t come out so I knocked again and again until he got all pissed and flung the door open. He said, “What’s your problem?” right into my face and I said, “Tetzaveh, you asshole,” and walked off to my room. That’s the Torah portion my father’s making me read and it’s a nightmare how long the thing is, much longer than the one for my Bar Mitzvah. It’s about this guy Aaron and his sons and this ram they need to bludgeon for no good reason. When Asher came in my room he apologized and couldn’t believe I had to read from Tetzaveh this long after my Bar Mitzvah. I was so glad that he was so mad for me and wished my dad could hear all the words he used. I wanted to hug him and talk about Rhode Island and tell him what I’d learned about living there from a travel book I found at Jonny’s. Did you know that the capitol building in Rhode Island has the third largest unsupported marble dome in the universe? Also, Providence, the place where we’ll be living, is known as America’s Renaissance City. But we didn’t get to any of that because he had to go find the seesaw painting and get out of here before my dad got home. This is my last letter. The next time you hear from me I’ll be writing from America’s Renaissance City. So don’t try to find me or write me. It’s too late.
Sincerely,
None of your fucking business
February 16, 1982
Dear Megan,
At Dad’s right now. It’s really late. Mom and Nate went to Lincoln, Nebraska, for a conference yesterday. I guess it’s a hotbed for the adoption industry. Tomorrow morning is my Torah reading. I’ve practiced and practiced for so many hours with my father that I practically know the fucking thing by heart. I’m still very nervous. All my dad’s friends and colleagues are coming. He’s even more nervous than me and this makes him very unpleasant to be around. I sometimes wonder how much God would like him if he knew him. I think about leaving here almost every day now. I think about walking off the beema in the middle of Tetzaveh and running out the back of the temple onto Glendale Avenue. I keep going to Piedmont Avenue and to the bank and take out all my Bar Mitzvah dough. I then get a cab to Newark, Penn Station, and then a train that goes to New Rochelle to Stamford to Bridgeport to New Haven to Old Saybrook to New London to Mystic to Westerly to Kingston and on into Providence. I then just wait for my brother in a hotel with a pool. I haven’t seen him for almost two and a half weeks now. Tomorrow when the Torah is open I’m going to ask God to please let him get a scholarship to RISD so we can live together in an apartment somewhere between the historic College Hill neighborhood and the edge of the Providence River. I bet you don’t know anything about Rhode Island. I bet you don’t even know how to get there by train or how many firsts Rhode Island has. The first golf tournament, the first circus, the first polo match, the first discount department store ever in America. Did you know this, Megan? No, you didn’t. And that’s what I thought. Don’t try to reach me there. Think of me as dead.
Hate,
You
III
1983
Fifteen Years Old
May 22, 1983
Dearest Friends,
Please join me on June 12 of this year to again hear my fifteen-year-old son Jacob read from the Torah at temple Beth Tikvah at 9 A.M. sharp.
I feel that this reading is quite a significant one.
It marks yet another pinnacle in Moses and Aaron’s plight to bring the slaves of Egypt to a better understanding of God’s intentions for them in the wilderness of Zin. What makes this day even more special is that I have just been reinstated as president of the shul and will again be on the beema with my “blond boy” for his fifth reading this year.
Rabbi Shapiro has said that “Jacob’s Torah readings have a very natural cadence and that you [I] should be very proud of him.” So with that said,
I look forward to seeing you. Please also join us for brunch afterward at our home.
Bring nothing but your beautiful selves.
Love,
Abram
The Deep End
“I’m gonna shoooooot!” Asher screams from my mom’s tiny front lawn. Brigitte sits up on the hood of Nicky’s Camaro in her bra and cut-offs while Beth stays vertical, rewinding a cassette with her pinkie. It’s graduation time at Piedmont High and never have I seen my brother’s smile this deep. I watch from the upstairs bathroom of my mom and Nate’s rental on Bickley Street. Asher’s got a bottle of Korbel between his knees and feigns a mounting orgasm with fluttering eyes. His best friend Nicky loves it and laughs with his head back, awaiting this bullet-to-be. “She’s gonna blooooow,” my brother says next, and pumps the bottle a few more times. I lean my chin against the window. I find a smirk of my own.
“Three . . . two . . . one!”
RISD said yes on the first of this month. A “full ride” as he puts it, a scholarship to paint. I stood behind him when he opened the letter in my mother’s front hall. I watched him, the back of his head, and waited quietly to hear the news. “We’re gone!” I thought I might hear. Get packed, it’s time, let’s roll—any of those would have worked just fine. But it was his time, which he earned, and he chose to say all of nothing. Since then he’s been booked solid with drinking and giggling and performing wobbly cartwheels in the halls of this house. The specifics of leaving have yet to cross his mind.
The cork rockets into the air with a fump, landing seconds later on Dr. Nate’s Buick in the driveway. Asher laps at the foam that covers his hands and wrists. He takes a long sip and hands it to Nicky who swigs it and gives it to Beth. I watch her tip the bottle high with both hands and place it carefully between her lips.
“Jaaacob?” my mother calls from the stairs.
I leap to my feet and collect the tatters of my report card off the tiled floor. I cram them in my suitcase but some drop and float like ash around the room.
“You up there, Jacob?”
&nbs
p; I flushed history and science but then cut my palm on the dull knife I was using, which was awkward on the tile, but I couldn’t find a scissor. I had to tear the rest into confetti shreds and some of them stuck to the side of the bowl. “I’m in the bathroom,” I yell softly. Now I’m collecting bits of paper and trying to clean the dots of blood off the floor and toilet seat—fucking ridiculous.
Beth screams something after she drinks and I look up from my knees. She’s easily the sexiest metal-chick in my high school. An “aluminum-siding diva” from the north side of Roswell Avenue.
“Answer me if you’re up there, please?”
“In the bathroom!”
Nicky’s been dating her for two weeks now, says he found her in the deep end at the Piedmont pool. Her long peroxide hair hangs to her navel and today she wears a vinyl miniskirt with fish nets and a “Blizzard of Oz” T-shirt. She also has these airbrushed breasts that move when she walks, a Barbie-sized tush and a very approachable, just-took-a-bong-hit smile that tilts her head just so. Whenever I see her in the halls at school she’s surrounded by a gaggle of Lita Ford look-alikes with tasseled white-leather jackets and big Aqua Net hair. But when masturbating I give her silky red panties, a see-through bra, and always have her arrive unexpectedly. Occasionally she wears a wig or some type of sharp and curvy shoe but I always smell Marlboros and record vinyl on her skin, and a splash of something boozy on her lips. We laugh when her Houses of the Holy necklace bonks me in the chin and I run my fingertips down the smooth of her silky long back. And after an hour or two of intercourse, she begins her ladder climb down, down, down my chest and soon with eyes closed I feel this tickle of warm breath against my wang.
“Jacob?” she says through the door.
I check the floor and toilet for more blood and confetti. There’s a piece of Spanish pinned to the shower curtain. “Be right out.” She knocks. I open the door just a slit, and hide my hand.
