Finding the Worm

by Mark Goldblatt

  “What do you want me to say, Beverly?”

  She took a deep breath. “Did you ever race a girl—even once?”

  “Not that I can remember,” I said.

  “Do you know what that makes you?”

  “No.”

  “That makes you a male chauvinist,” she said. “It means you think boys are better than girls.”

  “I know what it means … and, for your information, I don’t think boys are better than girls. I just think they’re faster than girls.”

  “Tell that to Eric and Howie,” she said.

  “Do you honestly think that racing Eric and Howie is the same as racing me?”

  “Here’s what I think, Julian. I think that you think I’m not worth racing. You don’t care how hard I worked to get faster, how many times I ran around the track at Memorial Field, how many blisters I got on my feet. The only thing that matters to you is that I’m a girl, so I’m not worth racing.”

  The way she said that, you could hear the hurt in her voice. She had gotten faster. I mean, maybe she could’ve beaten Eric a year ago, but there was no way she could’ve beaten Howie. She’d gotten a lot faster, for sure … it just never crossed my mind that she’d worked at it. I figured it just kind of happened, like she woke up one morning faster than Howie.

  “All right,” I said.

  She stopped and looked at me. “All right, what?”

  “Let’s race,” I said. “Here to the end of the block.”

  “I don’t want to race you now.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No one will believe it if I win.”

  “You’re not going to win, Beverly.”

  “I need witnesses,” she said.

  “Fine, when do you want to race?” I asked.

  “Friday, after school, in Ponzini.”

  “Are you going to bring your cheerleader friends?”

  She smiled. “Maybe.”

  “They’re going to be disappointed.”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  I started to walk again, but she didn’t. Instead, she knelt down on the sidewalk and started to pick at the tape on the edges of the pizza box.

  “What are you doing?”

  She looked up at me. Her mouth crinkled at the edges. “Do you want to know what’s in the box or not?”

  “Can’t you just tell me?”

  “No, I want to show you.”

  I waited for her to pick through the tape on the second corner. After she did that, she slid open the box and pulled out a canvas painting. It was wrapped in layers of brown paper, but you could see the edges of it, where the paint had dripped over. She was real careful unwrapping it. She was also careful not to let me see the picture until she got the brown paper completely off.

  “Ready?” she said.

  “C’mon, I’m cold.”

  “Ta-da!”

  She held the painting out in front of her, and I gasped: it was the painting of the Bowne House.

  “Beverly, where … how did you get that?”

  “How do you think?”

  “You stole it?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” she said. “I’m actually Catwoman, and I steal art from junior high schools. I’m going to add this to my collection. You have to pinkie-swear to keep my secret.”

  “I’m serious, Beverly. Where did you get it?”

  “I painted it, you idiot! It’s mine!”

  “C’mon!” I said.

  “You don’t even know I paint, do you? We’ve known each other since third grade, and you don’t know a thing about me.”

  “How would I know you paint? You’ve never talked about it.”

  “You’ve never asked about it,” she said.

  “How would I know to ask about it if you’ve never talked about it?”

  “Fair point,” she said, then held up the painting again. “So, do you like it?”

  “Do you know how much trouble I got into because of that painting?”

  “Why would you get into trouble because of a painting?”

  “Principal Salvatore thinks I’m the one who scratched it up,” I said.

  “You mean the JF?”

  “He thinks it’s JT.”

  “Well, it looked like JF to me. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that. I figured it was just some idiot ninth grader, but I didn’t know anyone whose initials were JF. I guess it could’ve been JT. Anyway, it’s no big deal. I fixed it, so your troubles are over.” She pushed the canvas closer to my face, and I looked in the lower right corner. The scratches were gone. The signature, now that I knew what to look for, clearly read “bsegal.” “Do you want me to tell Principal Salvatore I fixed the painting, so he can forget about it?”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said. “He’s going to kick me out of Fast Track unless I write him an essay on good citizenship.”

  “Then write the essay!”

  “But that would be like admitting I scratched up the painting—which I didn’t do.”

  “So you’d rather get kicked out of Fast Track?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I need time to think about it.”

  “Let me talk to Principal Salvatore—”

  “No!”

  “Why not?” she said. “I know you, Julian. I know you didn’t scratch up the painting.”

  “This is between him and me!”

  “But he doesn’t know you—I do. Plus, it’s my painting, so I’m already involved.”

  “Promise me you won’t talk to him.”

  “But—”

  “Please, Beverly, promise me you won’t.”

  She shook her head. “All right, I promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled in an odd way. “You never told me whether you liked it.”

  I didn’t know how to answer. “It’s all right.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want me to say? It’s nice. It looks like the real thing.”

  “You used to stand in front of it and stare.”

  “I did not.”

  “C’mon, Julian. I saw you doing it.”

  “I look at lots of paintings,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you don’t stand and stare at them.”

  “Why did you paint the Bowne House?”

  “I like Quakers,” she said. “I did a book report on them. Did you ever hear of Mary Dyer?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you knew about Quakers.”

  “Not as much as you do,” I said.

  “She was a Quaker who got hanged,” Beverly said.

  “Did she live in the Bowne House?”

  “No one lived in the Bowne House except the Bowne family,” she said. “But John Bowne let a group of Quakers meet there. They were being persecuted by Peter Stuyvesant, who was the governor of New Amsterdam. He had a wooden leg.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “Because it’s interesting,” she said. “Don’t you like knowing stuff?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Don’t you want to know why Mary Dyer got hanged?”

  “All right,” I said. “Why did Peter Stuyvesant hang Mary Dyer?”

  “Peter Stuyvesant didn’t hang her,” she said. “Mary Dyer had nothing to do with the Bowne House. She got hanged in Massachusetts. John Winthrop was the guy who hanged her. He didn’t want Quakers in his colony, so he kept kicking her out. But she kept coming back and preaching. She stuck with what she believed, no matter what. She kept coming back and coming back, so in the end he hanged her. He also dug up her dead baby.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I just told you. She kept coming back—”

  “No, why would he dig up her dead baby?”

  “Because it was deformed,” she said. “He wanted to prove that she was working with the devil, so he dug up the baby and showed it to the people of Massachusetts, and it had a face but no head. Also, it had two mouths, and fo
ur horns, and it had claws and scales.”

  “C’mon, you’re making that up.”

  “I swear it’s true, Julian. Cross my heart. It’s in the encyclopedia.”

  “What encyclopedia?”

  “The World Book,” she said. “I can show you if you don’t trust me.”

  “No, I trust you.”

  Which was the truth. I did trust her. She knew I trusted her too, because her smile got bigger. Then she started to rewrap the painting in the brown paper. As I watched her doing it, kneeling on the sidewalk and wrapping the painting, I had a weird feeling that started in the pit of my stomach and rose into my chest. It was like a gust of wind, except it was warm instead of cold. I was still trying to figure out what it was when I heard myself say, “It’s a great painting, Beverly. You should be an artist.”

  “Do you want it?”

  “The painting?”

  “You can have it,” she said. She looked up at me when she said that, but then she looked back down. Then, a second later, she looked back up. She looked straight at me. “I want you to have it.”

  “But it’s your painting,” I said. “Why would you give it away?”

  “I’ve got lots of paintings. I don’t have room to hang them all.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not a big deal, Julian. You like it, so I want you to have it.”

  “I do like it.…”

  She stood up and handed it to me. “You have to carry it home.”

  We started to walk again, except now I had the pizza box under my arm. Neither of us spoke, but I kept peeking over at Beverly. She looked real pleased with herself—I didn’t know if it was because I’d liked her painting or because I’d agreed to race her. But I couldn’t peek at her for more than a split second, because she kept peeking over at me. After the third time our eyes met, I stopped doing it. I stared straight ahead and tried to think of a conversation starter. But nothing came to mind, which makes no sense, since she’s real easy to talk to. What I noticed, though, was that we weren’t walking as fast as before.

  Then, at last, she said, “I know you’re probably going to win.”

  “But you still want to race?”

  “Yeah.”

  March 5, 1970

  Weird Conversations

  When Rabbi Salzberg suggested putting off my bar mitzvah until the end of May, he kind of left it up to me how often I’d come in for haftarah lessons. You’re supposed to go once a week, which I was doing every Thursday up until January, but when the date got moved back, there didn’t seem much point. He and I both knew I had the thing down cold. It wasn’t like there was a big decision. What happened was one week the lesson came to an end, and he didn’t say, “I’ll see you next Thursday, Mr. Twerski,” so I took that to mean we were done, and that was that. Except I know the guy. If I stopped going altogether, he’d think I was taking stuff for granted … and make it a regular thing again. That’s the way he operates. So I stopped by his office every so often just to show him that I wasn’t taking stuff for granted.

  That was the reason I headed over to Gates of Prayer this afternoon. Mrs. Klein, as usual, waved me right through without giving Rabbi Salzberg a heads-up. I pushed open the door to his office real slow. Except as soon as the door started to move, he called out, “Come in, Mr. Haft.”

  I poked my head around the door. “It’s me, Rabbi.”

  “Mr. Twerski?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I just wanted to tell you I’m working on my haftarah.”

  “Maybe you should be helping your friend Mr. Haft.”

  “Eric will do fine,” I said. “He’s studying like crazy.”

  “He has very little time left.”

  “That’s why he’s not slacking off one bit. I mean, you should see how he’s going at it. I’ve never seen him hit the books like that in regular school.” I almost slipped and said real school, which would’ve made Rabbi Salzberg blow a gasket. “Trust me, Rabbi. Eric’s going to come through with flying colors.”

  Rabbi Salzberg slid his glasses down his nose and peered over them. “Things come easily to you, Mr. Twerski. That’s a blessing you shouldn’t take for granted. Not everyone is as fortunate.”

  “Do you want me to tutor Eric?”

  “No,” he said. “We don’t want to put more pressure on him at this point.”

  “I’m really sure he’ll be all right, Rabbi.”

  “How is your sick friend, Mr. Twerski?”

  “Quentin? He’s doing much better. It’s like night and day from when he first came home. He ran a race last week. You should’ve seen him, Rabbi. He was ahead until he stopped—”

  “You’re not worried he’s going to die anymore?”

  “No!” I said. “The doctors said he’s going to be fine!”

  “Do the doctors consult with you on a regular basis?”

  “No, but—”

  “You’re a man now, Mr. Twerski. You must be prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?”

  “Do I have to answer that question?” he said.

  “But I just told you. The doctors said—”

  “God has the final word. Not the doctors.”

  “I’m telling you, Rabbi, he’s getting better.”

  “You should be like Jacob, Mr. Twerski.”

  “All right …”

  “Do you remember what happens to Jacob? Do you remember what happens when he wrestles the stranger?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Do you remember it, Mr. Twerski?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who Jacob is?”

  “Jacob is Isaac’s son,” I answered. “Abraham, then Isaac, and then Jacob.”

  “When Jacob wrestles the stranger, he loses. But he doesn’t let go. That’s the key, Mr. Twerski. You need to be like Jacob. You need to hold on, even when it’s difficult.”

  “Do you mean Quentin? I’m not going to let go of him, Rabbi.”

  “I don’t just mean Quentin.”

  “Then I don’t get it,” I said.

  “You should thank God for the time you’ve had with your friend.”

  “Why are you talking like that, Rabbi? If you’d seen the guy run—”

  He shook his head. “Go and study your haftarah, Mr. Twerski.”

  I shut my eyes. I shut them real tight and felt like I was going to bawl, but I fought it off. I wasn’t going to let him make me bawl. I opened my eyes and said, “You’re wrong, Rabbi Salzberg.”

  “Am I?”

  “You’re wrong about Quentin, and you’re wrong to talk like that.”

  “You may be right, Mr. Twerski. But only in one of your opinions.”

  * * *

  The conversation with Rabbi Salzberg would’ve ruined my day by itself, but when I got home, Howie was pacing back and forth in front of my house. I noticed him as I turned the corner at Parsons, and I slowed down. It wasn’t something he’d do for no reason—hang around in front of my house. Don’t get me wrong. Howie’s a great guy, but he and I have always been kind of at the opposite ends of our group. We’re friends because of the group, not because we’d be friends no matter what. Plus, things between us have never gotten back to normal since I told him Beverly didn’t want to be his girlfriend. I knew he might be sore because I’d walked her home on Monday. And if he knew she’d given me that Bowne House painting, he might be more than just sore.

  I wanted to figure out what kind of mood he was in while there was still distance between us, so I called out, “Hey, Howie!”

  He looked up and said, “Hi, Jules!”

  I knew right away, from the sound of his voice, he wasn’t sore. The look in his eyes proved it even more. He still had the same killed look from when Beverly outran him in Ponzini.

  I walked over and leaned against the iron rail in front of the driveway. “I just got back from temple.”

  “Yeah, your mom told me,” he said. “I didn�
��t think you still had to do that.”

  “I show my face every so often. It keeps Magoo happy.”

  The name Magoo made Howie smile. As hard as Rabbi Salzberg rides me, he rides Howie even harder. Back in our third year of Hebrew school, he once knocked on Howie’s forehead with his knuckle for half a minute, yelling, “Hello? Is anybody home?” just because Howie screwed up a vowel sound. That’s half a minute of the class pointing at you and cracking up. You don’t forget something like that.

  “The old guy’s always telling me I should study like how you do,” Howie said. “But the joke’s on him ’cause you don’t even study.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got until September,” I said. “Eric’s the one on the hot seat.”

  “Yeah, that’s going to be painful to watch.”

  “You think so?” I asked.

  “He’s going to crash and burn for sure.”

  “I think he’ll come through all right. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “You know Eric,” Howie said. “He could piss his pants.”

  “C’mon, even if he’s a little shaky, I’m sure Magoo will help him out. He’s not going let the guy stand on the stage and choke. Eric’s family is shelling out a lot of money for the thing.”

  “I hope you’re right, Jules.”

  “So did you want to talk?”

  He started to rub the side of his face with his right hand. “I heard you’re going to race Beverly tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t my idea.”

  “I was thinking maybe you should take it easy on her.”

  “She didn’t take it easy on you,” I said.

  “Yeah, but that was different.”

  “It’s different, but it’s not that different.”

  “I don’t mean you should let her win. You should definitely win. But I don’t think you should slaughter her. It just … it just wouldn’t be right.”

  He looked down right after he’d said that, like it was a relief, like he’d been saying it over and over to himself, and now that it was said, he could let it go. He didn’t have to remember it anymore.

  “I’m not going to slaughter her.…”

  “I know she gave you that Quaker painting. I know she’s sweet on you, Julian.”

  “Howie, I don’t think—”

  “No, it’s okay to admit it,” Howie said. “I talked to Lonnie. I know you didn’t plan nothing. You and her got more in common than me and her. That’s what Lonnie said, on account of you’re both such brainiacs.”