by Joshua Braff
I can see the black patch of her pubic hair between her legs and a tiny blue bruise high on her thigh. Bottomless female in kitchen. Clickadee-vvvvv. I look away when my eyes meet hers but I’ll need to look again. She wiggles her hips with her arms over her head and says something like, “Wahooooo!” Jonny stares at her vagina while raising his beer for a toast. “Nine minutes ago I was watching cartoons,” he says, and sips. Brigitte slowly lifts her pants as Asher circles her and clicks off four more shots. “Oh, you’re a goddess,” he says. Clickadee-vvvvvv. “What a naughty little girlie . . . my girlie.” Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Beth walks back from the bathroom and sees Brigitte getting dressed.
“You did it already?”
“Flashed her kitty,” says Nicky.
“You did?”
Asher blows on the pictures. “They’re developing.”
“You were ’sposed to wait for meee,” she whines.
Brigitte zips her fly. “Asher dared me.”
“I’m drunk too-oo,” she says in a baby voice, and starts to lift her T-shirt. I hear Jonny mumble, “Sweet,” as Asher’s camera cranes smoothly toward her chest. With a boozy smile and her eyes squeezed closed she unhooks her bra and out they come—four feet from my mother’s Holly Hobby cookie jar. Clickadee-vvvvvv. She shimmies briefly—clickadee-vvvvvv— and reclasps her bra in the front. Jon and I share an “isn’t life great” glance as Nicky bumps my shoulder and moves right in.
“Show’s over,” he says. “Get dressed. Now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she slurs.
“I tell ya whatever I want to tell ya.” He attempts to pull her shirt over her head, and she ducks him and scoots away.
Nicky comes at her again. He flicks her earlobe and presses his index finger against her forehead.
“Ow, you fucker!” she says, and runs out of the room without her shirt. He goes after her.
Jon’s got his beer in the air again. “To unexpected titties,” he whispers, and shrugs his shoulders.
“Amen,” says Asher, and points the camera at us both.
“Asher?” I say.
“Say snatch,” he says.
“Snaaatch,” says Jon with his arm around me. Clickadee-vvvvvv.
“Asher?”
“Where’s Brigitte?” he says and runs out of the room. “Bridg!”
“Up here,” she says, and I watch him dart up the stairs.
Drinking games begin in what we call the den—a small room with corduroy couches just off the front hall. “Shoot to Thrill” just cranks from Dr. Nate’s Kenwood and I pray his dusty speakers won’t explode. I have no idea where Asher and Brigitte are but Nicky flutters his tongue when I ask. I take this to mean they’re fucking or sucking or tonguing each other behind Gabe’s cardboard puppet theater. I walk to the front hall and look up the staircase. I can see nothing but a framed picture of Dr. Nate’s mother on the wall. She wears cat glasses and a beehive hairdo and holds a gardening hoe in one hand. Beth walks up behind me and bumps her hip into mine.
“Could be a while, ya know. Those two go for hours.”
I glance up the stairs at the dark hallway. “Hours?”
She nibbles on her thumbnail. “Maybe longer.”
I picture Brigitte tied up in electric tape with a racquet ball in her mouth. A quarter clinks off the table in the den and Jon says, “Yes! Drink . . . please . . . Nick.”
When I turn to Beth she’s looking at my butt. “You have really broad shoulders. I like that,” she whispers, and points with her thumb toward Nicky. “Built like a little girl.”
I shake my head. “No, he’s, he’s . . .”
She takes a step closer to me and I can feel her breath on my chin.
“. . . he’s your boyfriend.”
“Have you seen me in school?” she says, and my eyes go straight to her mouth.
“Yes.”
The front on her miniskirt is touching my belt. The quarter clinks again.
“Drink!” says Nick. “Drink it all.”
Beth leans forward and kisses my bottom lip only. It sticks a little as she pulls away and my penis turns to stone. I see an eyelash on her cheek before she presses her open mouth against mine. I taste girl and beer off the slick of her tongue. I close my eyes.
Thump is the sound from upstairs, as if two bodies fell off the bed. Beth starts to laugh and bend at the knees.
“What the fuck was that?” says Nicky.
Beth’s mouth is wide with giddy disbelief. She shuffles back into the den, clapping her hands. “Some kinky-ass sex is what that is.”
I sit on the bottom step with my erection and glance up at Dr. Nate’s mom. I think I hear Brigitte giggling.
“Jacob?” says Jon. “You playing?”
The phone rings and I quickly look down at my watch. When I run in the den Beth is reaching to pick it up and I have to yelp to stop her. “No, don’t! Please.”
Her hand yanks away as if she touched a stove.
“Just . . . let it ring.”
“I almost forgot,” she says.
“No one answers the fuckin’ phone!” Asher yells from the second floor. We all sit there in silence as it rings six times. When it ends Jon clinks the quarter in the glass and picks Nick to drink. I walk to the window and look out at the street. A neighbor, Mr. Vargus, stands on his front lawn with a garden hose and waters the stones that surround his driveway.
“You in or out, Jacob?” says Nick.
I walk over to the couch. “I have to leave now. Right now. Someone get Asher for me.”
“No way,” says Nicky. “Who knows what’s goin’ on up there.”
“Asher!” I yell, moving toward the stairs. “Asher?”
“Laaaaaaadies and gentlemen!” says an unseen Brigitte from atop the stairs. “Put your hands together for the one, the only . . . Rabbi Nudity!”
Thundering down the stairs comes my brother. And he’s got nothing on. I mean naked, nude, stripped, wearing zero on his body but the tefillin he found in the ceiling, strapped to his forehead and arm. Lunatic. His girlfriend is cackling bent-kneed behind him as she tosses Asher’s talit on his shoulders like a prize fighter. Asher plus alcohol often equals nudity plus religious contempt, which equals uninhibited displays of sexual repression which often equals a funny dance of some kind. Somehow I’m never prepared. Brigitte’s wearing his underwear and one of Dr. Nate’s velour bathrobes. She points the Polaroid at Asher as he hops up on the coffee table with his fists on his hips. Everyone’s laughing, including him. His penis looks wet. Lunatic.
“Shalom!” he slurs. “I am Rabbi Nudity.” He whirls the talit around like a matador and Brigitte whistles from her teeth. “The only naked rabbi in all of Bethlehem.”
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Jonny rolls off the couch onto the carpet, laughing and pointing.
“Able to leap small Jews in a single bound.” He jumps off the table and bends over a cowering Jon. “Faster than a hasty circumcision.”
“Hail, Rabbi Nudity!” says Brigitte from her knees.
Asher folds his arms and kicks a few times like a Rockette. He then runs out of the room and in seconds returns with his jeans on.
Everyone claps but me.
“It’s almost seven, Asher,” I say.
He reaches for my wrist and looks at my watch. “If we leave in ten you’ll be fine. Doesn’t he have rehearsal or something?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s probably not even home yet,” he says. “But he might be.”
“But he might not.”
“But you’re not . . . you’re not even listening to me,” I say, trying to speak only to him. “Can I talk to you? Can I talk to you alone, Asher?”
“Fine, let’s talk.”
“Now. It has to be now.”
“Go ahead.”
“Alone!” I yell, and everyone looks at me. “Alone.”
“What’s your problem?” he says with a crinkled brow.
I walk over to the stereo and turn the music down. “I told you all this before and I know you heard me. I . . . wrote dad a letter. Okay? I wrote him a letter.”
Asher looks at the others and starts shaking his head.
“It says I’m leaving.”
“Leaving for where?” Jon says.
“He’s not leaving, Jon.”
“Yes, I am. I am, Asher. I am.”
I stare at him for a second and then look down at my watch. “That’s why I need to leave. My train leaves in twenty minutes.”
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
“No.”
“What train?” says Jon, and I face him.
Asher plucks at the teffilin on his arm. “Yeah. Good question, Jon. What fuckin’ train?”
I slowly walk toward him and look him straight in the eyes. “I need a ride to Penn Station. Take me there now, please.”
“You have lost your mind, friend. I mean, really, what the hell are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you heard me. You’re just afraid. Say it. You’re afraid.”
Nicky makes a siren noise and faces Asher with a tilted head. “I think little Greeny just called you a puss, Ash.”
Brigitte lifts the Polaroid and decides now’s a good time for posterity. Clickadee-vvvvvv.
Asher swigs one of the beers on the table and asks Beth for a cigarette. He lights it and walks over to the fireplace, squinting as he goes. “Afraid? Afraid of what?”
When I look at the others they’re all staring back at me.
“Of what he’ll do to you. If you keep your promise.”
He turns and walks quickly toward me, clenching the jaw my father gave him. I try not to flinch. “I never promised you shit!”
“Boys, boys,” says Nicky standing. “This is a party.”
“No it’s not,” I say to Nick. “It’s a shtick. A gag. To make you all see how insaaaaaane Asher is.”
Asher shakes his rage off and tries to smile through his flushed cheeks. “Listen to this guy.”
“You just used me to fuck with Dad.”
“What?”
“You did.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You did.”
“You’re high!”
“Only one of us is gonna pay for this.”
“I don’t need you to fuck with Dad.”
“Then why am I here?”
“I told ya six fuckin’ times I’d get you back in time.”
“You called the front office! You said there was a problem at home. He’s the president, they look out for him over there. You know this.”
He looks at the others with a shrug of his shoulders. “I thought you’d want to be here.”
“Because you’re selfish, like him!” The tears rise so I turn and begin to walk out.
“Is that right?” Asher says, following me. “I’m selfish. Is that what you said? I don’t fuckin’ need this.”
“I don’t fuckin’ need you!” I say, spinning to face him. “Surprise! Before you leave me. I’m leaving you.” I walk out of the room and straight for the front door.
“J,” says Jonny. “Where you . . . uh . . . ?”
Asher comes running after me and grabs my elbow. “He’s not goin’ anywhere, Jon.”
“Get the fuck off me.”
“Just relax.”
Clickadee-vvvvvv.
“Wouldja fuckin’stop! “Asher barks at Brigitte. “. . . with the goddamn camera.” She looks as if he punched her. “It just went off,” she says.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass, just stop!”
“Prick,” she says, and throws the camera on the couch. Asher moves toward me and pulls me by the arm through the front hall.
“Ow.”
“You wanna talk? Talk.”
“You’re pinching my—” I yank my arm away from him and walk on my own.
He follows me into the kitchen and pulls a chair out from the table. “Sit. Talk. Go.”
I stand by the chair and say nothing.
“I’m listening,” he says, and opens the fridge. He grabs a beer and cracks it open. He takes a sip. “Go. Say what you want to say.”
I glance over at the clock on the stove. Asher starts to uncoil the tefillin from his arm. “That’s it?” he says. “We done?” He sits heavily and his chair squeaks on the floor. “Talk to me.”
For the moment the house is so quiet, just the hum of the fridge in my left ear. Asher drinks again and places the teffilin on the table. The seven twenty-five leaves in ten minutes. I lean my chest over the place mat beneath me and talk as quietly as I can. “Asher?”
He looks up at me for a second before lowering his eyes to his hands.
“You need me,” I say, “so much less than I need you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“Maybe to you.”
“You don’t want to need me.”
He sniffs and picks at the flap on his can. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have money and you need money and all I want is to live—”
“Wait, wait, wait. I don’t want your money.”
“You do so.”
“I don’t want your money!” he screams. “I want to be gone. I get to be gone. I’ve waited my whole life to be outta here.”
I shove my chair back from the table. “Why’d you pull me out of temple tonight?”
“Because I’m leaving, Jacob. Because it’s a party and I wanted you here so you could drink with me and leave all that . . . bullshit behind for one goddamn second.”
“You came and got me to fuck with him.”
“No!”
“Say it.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“It’s payback, Asher. Admit it. For every word he’s ever screamed in your fuckin’ face.”
“You’re wrong!”
“Then why? Why am I in this house right now?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
He stands and slams his hand on the kitchen table. “Because I love you! All right! Ya happy now?” He flops back into his chair and dips his face into his hands.
I stay still, holding my breath, as these tears I’ve never seen begin to run down his cheeks. And it’s a gift. It is. So precious and unwrapped. These words he gives me. I listen to them again in the echo of my mind as he swipes at his face with his bare shoulder. Like jewels. That’s what my father would say. Words can be like jewels. A quarter clinks in the den and I slowly walk behind my brother in his chair. Me too, I say to myself. “I love you too.”
He reaches his hands up and grips each of my wrists. “I can’t bring you with me,” he says.
I shut my eyes in the wake of these words, and feel the light squeeze of his fingers near my palms. “I get to go alone.”
I look down at the floor, trying not to cry, trying to see who I am without this parachute I’ve stitched. And it’s vicious I’m afraid, this lonesome I taste. I think to beg, I do, and step closer to air my plea. A risk-free plan in three easy steps, a feasible escape to this campus in my mind. But I stop myself and watch instead my brother’s face, his eyes, the slow shaking of his head. “Stop,” he says softly. “No more.” I stare at him as he swipes again at his eyes. “I get to go alone.”
Alone. “Va’yidaber Adonai el Moshe lemor.” It’s how the Torah portion begins on Saturday morning. And I already know there’s no part of me that will sing these words for me, or any God above. And when the Torah is closed that day, and the final prayer is said, my father will approach me with reward in his eyes and tell me he’s never heard it done better. But what I will have done is nothing more than feed some emptiness in his pride. For I am an appendage. One paid in hollow bursts of love.
Asher sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “You all right?” he asks me.
I begin to nod but the tone of his kindness trips me up. I turn from
him, and let myself cry as quietly as I can. When I hear him approach I move away, avoiding his touch. He follows me and I soon feel his hand on my arm.
“Don’t,” I say, and step further from him. “Just don’t.” I walk to the door.
“Jacob?” he says.
I ignore him.
“You need to fight,” he says, and I stop to face him. “Find a way.” A sermon, ladies and gentlemen, from the honorable Rabbi Nudity.
“Is that what you did?” I ask. “When you drew testicles and tits all over the Hebrew school? Huh, Rabbi? Was that you finding a way?”
It takes him about four seconds to arrive at “yes,” but he says it with apology. “I think it was.”
I force out a laugh. “Terrific. I guess I’ll need some chalk.”
“You’ll find it.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’ll find what?”
“Your own way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’ll be your way. It has to be your way.”
“What way? Asher. Tell me. What’s my way?”
“Just tell him!” he yells, his eyes enraged. “It’s over, Dad! Tell him tonight! You want to impress a room full of Jews, you do it, you sing about the . . . goddamn wilderness of Zin! You study it for months and you get up there and you—”
“Listen to you! The all-knowing. The runaway. He doesn’t even know you’re leaving.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, it doesn’t?”
“I’m already gone,” he says. “Okay? I’ve set my boundaries and I’m long gone. Long fuckin’ gone.”
The footsteps behind us grow louder quickly. When I turn I see Brigitte skipping toward Asher with a flathead screwdriver in her hand. She lifts the tip of it to his neck, and presses it just below his ear.
“Time out,” he says, his hands carefully rising. “Crazy girl alert.”
“Apologize for being an asshole!” she says.
“Okay, okay. Sorry, girl. Sorry.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m sorry.”
She lifts it off his neck, and finds a drunken smile. “So, what are you guys doin’?”
The phone rings the loudest in the kitchen. Asher cringes and sits, lowering his forehead to the table. “No one pick that up,” he mumbles. As a quarter clinks in the den and Beth screams, “Drink!” in a wobbly screech, I turn to Holly Hobby and the clock above the stove, and watch the seven twenty-five head to New Rochelle. Rhode Island is not to be, for me. In fact it’s no island at all. Three rings.
