Finding the Worm

by Mark Goldblatt

  But Devlin was standing with his hands on his hips, laughing at him. “No way, Cue Ball.”

  “Fight me!” Quentin cried.

  “Where’s my pool stick?”

  Another roar of laughter, even louder than before.

  Quentin rushed him, and Devlin caught him and shoved him back to the ground. He tried to get back up again but started coughing.

  That was when the look on Devlin’s face changed. His eyes narrowed, then got wide. I don’t know how much he figured out at that moment, but you could tell he figured out something.

  He glanced around at his friends. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  He started to walk away, and the entire group followed him. They walked down Twenty-Sixth Avenue without saying another word. The rest of the crowd started to drift away too.

  Then it was just us.

  “Everybody okay?” Lonnie said.

  Eric said, “Is my lip bleeding?”

  It wasn’t.

  My neck was a little stiff, but otherwise I felt fine … like I’d just gotten a hard massage.

  Quentin had stopped coughing. We watched him stand up, but none of us helped him. You could tell he didn’t want to be helped. He took a couple of steps to the left, stopped, then took a couple more to the right. He was looking side to side. “Anyone see where my hair went?”

  That cracked up the rest of us, how casual he said it after what had just happened. We started glancing around, and Shlomo noticed the wig between two bushes in the next yard. He ran and got it, brushed the dirt off, and handed it back to Quentin, who pulled it onto his head, even though it looked slightly off.

  Quentin wanted to walk the rest of the way home, but Lonnie made him sit back down in the wheelchair. “I think you had plenty of exercise for today, Sugar Ray.”

  * * *

  It’s three o’clock in the morning, and I’m wide awake. I’ve been awake at three o’clock in the morning before, when I was sick with the flu, or when I had to get up and pee, or when I rolled over in bed and opened my eyes and happened to notice the clock on my desk. But I’ve never been wide awake at three o’clock in the morning. For sure, I’ve never been sitting at my desk, writing, at three o’clock in the morning.

  I started writing at eight o’clock last night, and I got into bed at ten, and the entire thing was written down, and then I woke up at one o’clock and couldn’t fall back asleep.

  What do you expect?

  If you’d seen the way Quentin looked without his hair, you’d be up at three in the morning too. You know what else? You’d spend an hour standing outside your parents’ bedroom, staring at them while they were sleeping. What I mean is … I don’t even know what I mean. It’s three o’clock in the morning! If I knew what I meant, I’d write it down and get back into bed.

  You want the world to make sense. But it just doesn’t. I’m sure if I said that to Rabbi Salzberg, he’d tell me to stop thinking about it and concentrate on my bar mitzvah. If you translate that out of rabbi-talk into plain English, here’s what you get: You’re thirteen years old, and there’s stuff you can’t understand, so stick with what you can understand.

  Except what Quentin’s going through, the fact that he’s bald, the fact that he got a tumor in the first place, how can you understand that? You can’t. Not if you’re thirteen. Not if you’re a hundred and thirteen. There’s no way to understand it, because it doesn’t make sense. It’s like the square root of negative nine. You know the answer’s got something to do with three or negative three, but you can’t make either of them work.

  There is no answer.

  March 26, 1970

  The Terrible Truth

  Rabbi Salzberg didn’t cut me off as I was telling him what happened with the big fight. He was itching to do it. He leaned forward twice and was about to cut me off, but then he leaned back and let me get the whole thing out.

  I was standing up when I started, but I sat down on the creaky wooden chair in front of his desk halfway through. I got pretty worked up by the end, when I was talking about Quentin’s wig. Afterward, he waited while I caught my breath.

  He said, “It’s very brave, how your friend came to your defense.”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “Please don’t tell me to worry about my bar mitzvah,” I said.

  “Ah.”

  “I know that bad things have to happen to good people. Really and truly, I get that. I know it’s not a test if you can’t fail. But if God wanted to test Quentin, couldn’t he have come up with something a little less drastic than a brain tumor?”

  “Ah.”

  “Plus, doesn’t God know in advance how the test is going to come out? I mean, doesn’t he already know Quentin is going to be brave?”

  “God knows what each of us can bear.”

  “So what you’re saying is God looked down at Quentin and at me, and God said, ‘Well, that guy over there is brave, so let’s give him a brain tumor, and that guy over there is not so brave, so let’s have him write two hundred words each week on why he scratched up a painting, even though he didn’t do it.’ That can’t be what you’re saying, is it?”

  “Two hundred words? I don’t understand, Mr. Twerski.…”

  “Why do I have my life, Rabbi? What did I do to deserve it? That’s what I want to know.”

  “We don’t question the will of God.”

  “How can you not question it? Am I that much weaker than Quentin? Why did God put so much on his plate, and so little on mine? Let’s tell the truth, Rabbi. You and I both know Quentin’s not going to be back to normal for a year, maybe more.…”

  As the words came out of my mouth, the look on Rabbi Salzberg’s face darkened. It only lasted for a second—like if you were playing with the dimmer switch on a light, turning it down and then right back up—but it was noticeable.

  “There are things we can’t run away from, Mr. Twerski.”

  I felt a chill in my chest and began shaking my head. “No.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “His bar mitzvah is in November.”

  “No, it isn’t, Mr. Twerski,” he said.

  “I can help him study for it. I know he’s behind—”

  “Mr. Twerski, there will be no bar mitzvah.”

  “How do you know? You’re not a doctor!”

  “The Seligs are part of this congregation.…”

  By then I was crying. “You jinxed him!”

  “You have to prepare yourself, Mr. Twerski.”

  “That stuff you said last time, you jinxed him!”

  “There is no jinx. There is only God’s will.”

  I slammed my fist down on the desk. “You killed him!”

  But then I looked up, and he was wiping away tears.

  Rabbi Salzberg was crying.

  “You must keep the truth to yourself, Mr. Twerski.”

  “But how?”

  “You’re not a boy anymore.”

  “It’s too much,” I sobbed.

  “God knows what each of us can bear.”

  I jumped up from the chair and ran out of his office. What I mean is I ran out of his office. I was running full speed down the hall between his office and the temple, and I crashed through the front door and then jumped down the six concrete stairs. My legs kept churning while I was in the air, and when I finally hit the ground, I hit it running.

  I ran down Roosevelt Avenue in the direction of Bowne Street, and then I turned right on Bowne, and I ran past the Bowne House. I thought about the Quakers, and how dead they were, and then I thought about Quentin, and how alive he was, and I could barely breathe.

  So I tried not to think. I tried to run without thinking. I tried to focus on how hard and loud my heart was beating, how I could feel it in my chest, and how I could hear it in my head. My heart seemed to be beating in my ears, making them throb from the inside.

  I caught the light at Northern Boulevard and sprinted across, then turned left in front of
Flushing High School. It looked like a huge medieval fort, with thick stone walls and a high stone tower, and even though I didn’t want to think the thought, and I tried to push the thought out of my brain, I thought about how Quentin would never see the inside of Flushing High School, and how, in three years, when the rest of us were rushing to classes inside those walls and climbing the stairs into that tower, Quentin would be buried in the ground. How was that possible? How was it thinkable?

  How was it bearable?

  By the time I got back to Thirty-Fourth Avenue, I was gasping for breath. I slowed down to a trot and then to a walk. There was a soft, damp breeze in my face as I headed up the block. The first person I saw was Beverly Segal.

  “You want to race?” I called to her.

  She eyed me suspiciously. “You going to run hard this time?”

  I nodded.

  So the two of us headed around the corner and back to Ponzini.

  As we turned into the alley, she said, “Where’d you come from?”

  “The Bowne House,” I said.

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure you want to race?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just want to race, Beverly.”

  She must have seen that I meant it since she clammed up at that point. We hung our jackets over the fence and walked to the far end of Ponzini. My heart had just slowed down to its normal speed, but it began to beat faster again as we got to the starting line.

  I turned to her. “Remember, this is what you wanted.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Do you want to say, ‘On your mark, get set—’ ”

  “On your mark,” I said.

  She took her mark.

  “Get set,” I said. “Go!”

  It was the fastest I’ve ever run.

  I think Beverly stopped running after the first ten yards. Either that, or I was so far ahead that I couldn’t hear her footsteps. But I kept going faster.

  My heart got real loud again, but not just loud. It felt like it was swelling up, like it was banging away at the front of my chest, straining to get out. Still, I kept pushing and pushing, going faster and faster. Because I wanted it to happen. I wanted my heart to blow up, to blow a hole in the front of my chest, and to land on the ground in Ponzini and flip-flop like a dying fish until it was dead and I was dead. I know that sounds stupid and gross.

  But I also had poetical thoughts. I thought about my soul rushing out of my body, rushing out through the hole in my chest, swimming up to heaven, and then just hanging out, waiting around for Quentin’s soul, and then the two of us yakking it up for however long it took for Lonnie and Howie and Eric and Shlomo to show up. After that, things would be all right again.

  I was just a few steps from the finish line. I closed my eyes and bore down.

  That was when the thing happened. There was a sudden spasm of pain in the back of my right leg, about three inches above my knee. It felt like someone had reached underneath my skin, grabbed a hunk of flesh and twisted it to the side. I started hopping as soon as I felt it. I hopped the last three steps, then crumpled to the ground, holding the back of my leg.

  “Julian!” Beverly yelled.

  I couldn’t have answered her even if I’d tried. The only sound I could get out was a moan. I heard her running toward me a few seconds later. But there was nothing I could do except lie on my stomach and clutch the back of my leg.

  Her voice was frantic. “What happened?”

  I bit my tongue and said, “Don’t know.”

  “Should I get help?”

  “No!”

  “What should I do?”

  I took a deep breath and winced. “Let me rest for a minute.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll be all right,” I said, even though I knew I was hurt.

  “Did you break something?”

  “I think maybe I pulled a muscle,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “The back of my leg.” I rolled over onto my side but couldn’t make myself let go of the back of my leg. The muscle still felt like someone’s fist was clenched around it, about to twist it again. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch!”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to sit up.”

  She knelt down next to me and took hold of my right shoulder. Then she rolled me onto my back, stepped around behind me, and pushed me upright. As soon as I switched positions, the muscle in my leg unclenched. I let go of it and braced my arms against the ground.

  “First Quent, and now you,” she said. “I’m not racing you guys anymore.”

  “I’m going to be fine, Beverly. It’s just a pulled a muscle.”

  “It’s called your hamstring,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “The muscle you pulled.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “That’s the main injury that fast guys get,” she said. “I did a book report on Jesse Owens last year. There was a guy named Peacock who was probably faster than him, but he never made it to the Olympics because he pulled his hamstring. It’s the big muscle in the back of your leg, between your knee and your butt.”

  “I guess that’s what I pulled,” I said.

  Neither of us spoke for a couple of seconds.

  “How many book reports do you do?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you know about Jesse Owens, and you know about Mary Dyer.”

  “I like doing book reports,” she said. “I do them on my own sometimes, for extra credit. I like reading the World Book and knowing stuff.”

  I forced a smile. “I guess that’s why you’re in Fast Track.”

  She sat down next to me. “Why did you keep going?”

  “What?”

  “You made your point. Why did you keep running?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I felt like it.”

  She was staring at me in a weird way. I stared back at her, trying to figure out why she was staring at me, and suddenly I felt the wind gusting up inside me warmer and stronger than it had ever gusted up before. She leaned forward and kissed me.

  She kissed me right on the lips. That would’ve been weird enough, but here’s the weirder thing: I kissed her back. It wasn’t something I thought about doing. It just happened. It must have lasted for five seconds, her kissing me and me kissing her back. Then, at last, she leaned back and looked at me.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I felt like it,” she said.

  “Does that mean you’re my girlfriend?”

  “Do you want me to be your girlfriend?”

  I thought it over. “What would I tell the guys?”

  “You can tell them whatever you want,” she said. “I don’t care who knows or who doesn’t know. The only thing that matters is we know.”

  “But if no one knows, then what’s the difference between your being my girlfriend and your being my friend?”

  She leaned forward and kissed me again.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “So am I your girlfriend?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

  I reached for her face, leaned forward, and kissed her. It only lasted a half second, because my leg seized up, but I did it. I kissed her. “There.”

  She smiled at me and then stood up. “Can you walk?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Do you need help getting off the ground?”

  “Yeah.”

  She put out her right hand, and I grabbed it. As soon as she began to pull, I felt my leg start to spasm again, but I didn’t let go. I held on, and she pulled me to my feet. The first thing I felt was the chill of the air against my back.

  “I’ll get our jackets,” she said.

 
She jogged off toward the end of the fence, where we’d hung our jackets, and I watched her, and I began to smile. But as soon as I realized what I was doing, as soon as I felt the shape of my mouth, I remembered about Quentin, and the sadness came back in a wave. My heart was still in my chest, and it was drowning.

  Beverly came jogging back with our jackets.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re sorry about what just happened.”

  “I’m not sorry,” I said. “I’m glad it happened.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “I’ve got a pulled hamstring, all right?”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. “It must hurt a lot.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  March 28, 1970

  Limp

  Lonnie knows there’s something wrong. He got to the bus stop before I did yesterday morning, and when he saw me limping toward him, the first words out of his mouth were “What’s eating you?”

  “I hurt my leg,” I said.

  “That I can see.”

  “I pulled my hamstring.”

  “Your what?”

  “It’s a leg muscle. I pulled it.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Racing Beverly,” I said.

  “Did you beat her this time?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Bad?”

  “I beat her by a lot.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Lonnie said.

  “I guess.”

  “Now you want to tell me what’s eating you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something’s eating you, and it ain’t your hamstring.”

  I glanced behind Lonnie at the rest of the guys. They were yakking it up, razzing one another, paying no attention to the two of us. Quentin was sitting in his wheelchair, between Shlomo and Howie, giving as good as he got.

  I looked Lonnie straight in the eye. “You’ve got to keep it a secret, all right?”

  “How long have we known each other?”

  “Yeah, but this is different.…”

  “C’mon, Jules,” he said. “You’re hurting my feelings even saying that. You know I can keep a secret. You could stick bamboo shoots under my nails, and I wouldn’t say a thing.”