I told her that I had written a story about Mars in second grade and got a star for my efforts. Then there were the many reports I had written for English class.
“Have you ever written anything on your own initiative, outside of school? A poem or short story?” Gladys asked.
“Well,” I said, “I really like Winnie the Pooh, so last year, I wrote a story about a blue jay who gets his head stuck in a jar filled with peanuts and the little boy pulls him out. I didn’t know what to do with it, though.”
“There’s plenty of time for that,” Gladys said. “What’s holding you back now?” she said. “Sports? Girls?”
I had no response. I knew she was right.
“Go home and write another story about that blue jay and the little boy,” she said as she practically kicked me out the door. “What is his name?” she shouted after me.
“Who?” I turned back to face her.
“The blue jay.”
“Batholomew,” I hollered.
“That’s a great name!” Gladys yelled back. “I want to know more about Bartholomew. Now get out your pen and start writing!”
Running down Gladys’ driveway on a cloud, I saw Jimmy dribbling his basketball down the pavement in my direction.
“I was looking for you,” he said. “Let’s shoot some baskets.”
We went down to Willow Park and started playing H-O-R-S-E. I looked over at Sally Fletcher’s house every few minutes to see if she was watching us.
“Will you concentrate on the game?” Jimmy said irritably.
“Sally’s helping me get to know Gladys McKinley,” I said. “Sally and Gladys want me to become a great writer.”
Jimmy’s eyes lit up.
“Really?” he said. “Wow.”
“Yeah, wow is right. Now shoot the basketball.”
After the game, Jimmy and I went down to the creek, where our clubhouse stood; we had woven together a bunch of reeds that covered a framework of bare branches until it formed a lean-to of about six feet wide. It was closed on all sides except for a narrow entrance at the front; it basically looked like a pup tent. Inside, it was nice and snug and we used to look out through the opening at the inlet of the Long Island Sound as we smoked one of Jimmy’s mother’s cigarettes. The first time we had sneaked a cigarette, we had made the mistake of inhaling, which made us choke and cough like crazy. Afterwards, we could taste the bitter residue in the back of our mouths for what seemed like days. From then on, we were careful never to inhale, and had fun trying to blow out smoke rings.
“I want to show you something,” Jimmy said, pulling out a brown paper bag from inside his coat.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said, and he drew a magazine out of the bag. The cover had a picture of a blonde girl displaying the Playboy bunny logo on her stockinged left leg.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “Let me see that!”
I reached out to grab the magazine, but Jimmy pulled it away. He had been telling me about his father’s Playboys for a while, but he had never before brought one to show me. His father had a subscription and Jimmy had finally managed to pry one loose for a precious afternoon. I moved closer to Jimmy so I could look over his shoulder.
Jimmy opened the magazine to the centerfold and pulled open the page, which dropped down below the rest of the magazine. There was Miss October, in all of her glory. Jimmy may have had trouble reading, but he sure knew about smoking and looking at nude girls.
That night, I dreamed about Miss October, but instead of Linda Moon from Michigan, the centerfold was Sally Fletcher from Beachmont. In English class the next day, I couldn’t stop staring across the room at Sally Fletcher and wondering what she would look like with her clothes off. She was facing the front of the room so I could see her ponytail hanging down, and she looked as adorable as ever. She must have sensed that I was gazing at her because when Mr. Roberts asked me something about the rabbits in Of Mice and Men, she suddenly turned to look back at me. Her eyes were burning a hole in my brain and it was all I could do to turn and face Mr. Roberts and tell him that George and Lennie wanted a rabbit farm. Mr. Roberts said something about a Robert Burns poem and all I could do was mutter, “I guess so,” and look down at my desk. I felt my ears starting to get warm and I knew that they were red.
That afternoon, I skulked behind Sally by two blocks, just in case she had it in for me after English class. When I got to Gladys McKinley’s house, I thought about going in but since I hadn’t written anything yet I kept walking. Gladys spotted me, however, through the screen porch and shouted, “Adam!” So I turned around and took the walk up the long driveway; Gladys opened her kitchen door, and offered me a chair.
“Well?” Gladys demanded. I didn’t answer and she repeated the question, her hazel eyes biting at me through the wire-rimmed glasses that perched on the end of her nose. She wore her wavy, white hair down to her shoulders in an old-fashioned style, with her hair combed back from the forehead.
“I thought so,” Gladys went on. “Procrastination. The curse of the writer. You always find something else to do other than writing, because writing is the hardest thing you are ever going to do. Don’t you ever forget that.”
There was a pause as if she were reading my mind and then she said, “Hot chocolate?”
I nodded.
“My husband loved my hot chocolate,” Gladys continued as she got up from her chair and retrieved cups and cocoa from the cupboard. Taking a carton of milk out of the refrigerator, she poured milk into a saucepan, and set the flame on low. “Harry was his name. He died six years ago. He was an advertising man. Loved words. I guess we all love words, don’t we?”
Gladys stirred the hot chocolate on the stove, absently humming “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.”
“Harry loved this song,” she murmured softly, almost to herself. “We went to the opening night of Oklahoma! in 1943, on Broadway. Back then, we knew everybody. It was all coming up roses for us, back in the 1940s. And I was writing my books. Now tell me about your family, young man.”
I told her that my grandfather, Grappa, was a stockbroker and my mother grew up in a big stone house on the top of a hill on the other side of town.
“Grappa is great photographer,” I said, “and he is going to get me a camera and teach me how to develop my own pictures when I am old enough—when I get bar mitzvahed on my thirteenth birthday. Only six months away.”
I revealed that my father had been born in Germany and lost his parents during the Second World War. He had escaped from one of those trains that had carried Jews to the concentration camps and came to the States with his Uncle Samuel. Uncle Sam was an expert at dry cleaning and taught my father everything he knew. When his uncle died, my father took over the family business. I explained that my father spoke English well, but with a thick German accent, which embarrassed me and made him stand out from other dads. He didn’t make as much money as the other parents in the neighborhood, who were doctors, lawyers, and accountants. My mother helped him out at the cleaners. In spite of the fact that she had been born in Beachmont and had lived here her whole life, we were the black sheep of the town because of my father’s unusual background and strange accent.
I then recounted the time when Grappa brought Mom and Dad into Robbins Chevrolet to buy their 1964 Biscayne sedan. Grappa went over to Jimmy’s father and had a long talk with him; Mom told me later that they had worked out a deal where Mr. Robbins got a discount on his stock commissions and we got a discount on our car. I didn’t think Dad minded too much but I guess his pride was hurt a little bit. Maybe going through World War II the way he did made him more sensitive to things like that. I suppose if I had a brother or sister I could have talked to them about it, but all I had was Jimmy Robbins and everybody thought that he was dumb. I was wondering about whether I’d ever be able to talk about stuff like this with Sall
y, when Gladys poured the hot chocolate into our mugs and sat down again at the table.
“Gladys,” I said. “How do you know when you’re in love?”
She smiled and said, “You just know it. Do you have someone in mind?”
I must have blushed because Gladys added, “I thought so.”
I stared down into my hot chocolate, feeling a nervous exhilaration as the heat rushed to my cheeks.
“Is it that girl you follow home from school every afternoon?” she asked, leaning forward, eyes glinting behind her glasses.
Holy cow, I thought. I’m busted. There was no sense in denying it. I just wondered if the whole neighborhood knew, the entire school?
“Sally Fletcher,” I admitted sheepishly.
“But she’s Catholic,” Gladys protested. “I wish you the best, young man, but I think you’re looking for trouble. I go to church with her father, Bill, at St. Catherine’s. You know, Bill used to be Harry’s boss. He owns Fletcher Advertising that does the Ford and Alka-Seltzer commercials. I’ve known their family for a long time, you know. Bill had wanted to live in his childhood home, in that big house next to your grandfather’s, but his wife, Catherine, wanted them to live in that little house over on Willow Avenue because that’s where she grew up. She doesn’t want to leave the park, and I can’t say that I blame her. That house has a great view of the creek and the cattails and all of the ducks and geese. Her brother died there, you know, one winter when the creek iced over. He fell through the ice when they were kids and I guess she wants to stay there and relive her childhood. I don’t know.
“Anyway, Sally’s Catholic,” Gladys went on. “You know that Catholics and Jews don’t mix around here. Sad, but true. I guess we haven’t really advanced that much, have we? And to think that it’s 1966!”
Just then, “Walk Away Renee” came over Gladys’ radio and I heard The Left Banke singing about not following a girl back home; I thought about Sally and about my bar mitzvah and about Jesus up on the cross with blood on his hands.
“But if you really like this girl,” Gladys went on, as she collected our mugs and put them in the sink, “I have no objection to it. Just remember, it’s not going to be easy around here. And now, I think it’s time for you to leave an old lady in peace.”
Gladys showed me out the door and I could still taste the hot chocolate on my tongue as I walked along Beach Avenue toward home. When I entered the kitchen, my parents asked me what had happened that day, and I said, “Nothing much.”
“You missed Hebrew school again,” my father said; I could hear the irritation and disappointment in his voice. “Rabbi Cohen called me.”
Oh no, I thought. I did it again. That’s what I get for looking at Playboy and dreaming about Sally Fletcher, instead of going to Hebrew school.
“Sorry, Dad,” I said, as I took my seat at the table. My mother put a plate of brisket in front of me and I picked up my knife and fork and began to eat. “Jimmy Robbins needed some help with…”
“Oh, really?” Dad snapped. “You can’t keep tutoring that kid forever. He’s never going to be as smart as you are; he’s just holding you back.”
“Well, the truth of it is, Dad, I hate Hebrew school. Do I really have to go?”
Mom looked over from the Jell-O she was stirring on the stove and said, “You know how Grappa would feel if you quit. And I know you’re not a quitter.”
“But can’t you quit something you hate? Besides…”
“And then there’s Sally Fletcher,” my mother interrupted. “Mrs. Greenbaum told me you’ve been walking Sally home a lot.”
“So what?”
“Mrs. Greenbaum says that you have been following that girl about. If her parents ever catch wind…”
“Look, Adam,” Dad interrupted. “We just want what’s best for you. Finish Hebrew school, get the bar mitzvah over with, and you never have to set foot in a temple again.”
My face lit up. “Really?”
“Of course,” Dad replied. “It’s a free country. But just do this for your grandfather, and for us.”
“And stay away from Sally Fletcher,” my mother added. “She’s Catholic and her parents do not like Jews. Her father, Bill, and I used to live next door to each other and we played together as kids all the time, but once high school started, it was completely different. He wouldn’t let Jews sit at the same table in the lunchroom; he completely ignored me. We had only one hundred ninety-seven students in our graduating class, and still Bill and his friends felt they had to ostracize the Jews.”
“And, despite what you might think, it isn’t any different today,” my father cautioned.
“I’m only walking her home,” I protested.
My parents were unmoved.
“Walking her home is one thing,” my mother retorted, raising her eyebrows dismissively. “Being invited over for dinner is quite another. They don’t socialize with Jews and I don’t know that we should socialize with them.”
And that put an end to that.
The next day, I talked it over with Jimmy Robbins, as he put the finishing touches on a First World War Sopwith Snipe balsa wood airplane model. The smell of glue and model paint in the small bedroom left me feeling quite dizzy.
“Your parents are right,” Jimmy said. “I told you not to get your hopes up about Sally Fletcher. Besides, Halloween is coming up. What are you going to be?”
“A rabbi,” I replied sarcastically.
“Very funny,” Jimmy said. “No, really, what are you going to be?”
“The usual,” I replied, grimacing at my own lack of originality.
“A hobo, again?” Jimmy punched me on the arm.
“And what about you?” I asked. “Don’t tell me, a pirate.”
“Why not?” Jimmy answered, with a grin. “I’m used to it.”
Later that night, Jimmy and I walked a few blocks away to Mr. Johnson’s for dance class, which was held every Thursday night in his spacious basement. The room was set up as a dance studio with mirrors on the walls and a cheesy sound system.
The boys, dressed formally in shirt and tie, lined up on one side of the room and all the girls, in their fancy dresses, lined up on the other. Then the boys asked the girls to dance. I spotted Sally and started in her direction, but I was intercepted by Madeline Rivkin, a short girl with a mousy face and a mass of dark hair.
“Do you want to dance?” Madeline asked me.
I could see that Sally had already agreed to dance with Bobby Taylor, a stocky kid with a crew cut and thick shoulders. I felt simultaneously jealous and self-conscious, but music blared over the loudspeaker and Madeline’s hand was pulling me onto the dance floor . After a hokey-pokey lesson, and another on the art of the jig, I finally got to dance with Sally, and we twirled around and around to the lilting sounds of a waltz. I asked her if she wanted to go trick-or-treating with Jimmy and me but she shook her head, “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Look, Adam, it’s got nothing to do with you,” she said. “My parents have said that I have to go with my brother and his friends, that’s all.” Sally’s brother, Peter, was in ninth grade, and he had a number of friends that he hung out with after school. I just hoped that none of them noticed Sally’s ponytail the way I did.
“All right,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
“Yeah,” Sally said. “Maybe.”
The next day at the clubhouse, I told Jimmy about it.
“You see,” he said, “she’s out of your league. Go out with Madeline Rivkin. She likes you.”
As the wind kicked up and the clouds scudded overhead, I realized that Jimmy and I had only another month or so before it got too cold to hang out in the clubhouse. But I cheered up at the thought of hockey on the creek when the ice froze over.
On Halloween, I got dressed up as a
hobo, as usual, which consisted of a torn sweater, an old cap, and dirt rubbed on my face. Jimmy wore his pirate costume—an eye patch and bandana—and we set off around the neighborhood to collect candy.
Gladys’ house was dark so we passed it by and went toward the Beachmont Manor area that was closest to the Long Island Sound and Manor Park. At St. Catherine’s Church, I saw Sally Fletcher, Peter, and his friends sitting on a wrought-iron bench by the fountain. As we wandered over, Peter Fletcher started toward me, dressed like Frankenstein with plugs sticking out of his neck. He put his hands on my shoulders and whispered fiercely into my ear, “Stay away from my sister, Jew.” Then he turned back to his friends. “Let’s go, guys. Come on, Sally.” Sally, who was dressed as a princess complete with butterfly wings, gave me a quick look over one sparkly wing before leaving with her brother. Jimmy just looked at me with his I told you so face. He said, “She’s not worth it. Let them go.”
As I watched Sally walk away, my heart sank and I lost all heart for trick-or-treating. Who cared how much candy I collected? It wouldn’t bring Sally into my world. Feeling glum and discontented, I collected sweets with Jimmy because I didn’t want him to have to do it on his own. Later at my house, Jimmy and I emptied our bags of candy onto the living room rug while my father read the Beachmont Times under a table lamp and my mother knitted a fishnet sweater on the couch. Jimmy had collected more Three Musketeers than me, and I had more Baby Ruths than he did, so we traded treats to even things out. We both had the same number of Snickers bars, so we didn’t have to do anything about that. When we had finished sorting our candy, Jimmy said to me, “I heard what Peter said.”
“What did Peter say?” my father looked up from his newspaper.
“Nothing,” I muttered.
“He called Adam a Jew,” Jimmy spoke up.
I shot Jimmy an angry look. “Thanks a lot!”
My mother looked at my father over her knitting. “Do you think we should call the Fletchers?” she asked him.
“Let it go,” he replied. “It’ll blow over. Just stay away from that girl, Adam.”
The Martin Luther King Mitzvah Page 2