“It’s okay,” I replied. “I was equally responsible, so I accept an equal part of the blame. Have you seen Sally?”
“She went away for Thanksgiving,” Jimmy said. “There’s nobody over there.”
“No sense in shoveling off the basketball court then,” I kidded, as I took the camera out of its case.
“Hey, what’s that?” Jimmy asked, and I told him about Grappa giving me the camera. “Geez,” he said. “I wish my grandpa would give me something like that. He just likes to pinch my cheek and rub his knuckles on my head.”
As I was showing Jimmy my camera, a mallard appeared at the opening of our clubhouse, probably looking for food. Pointing the camera in the direction of the duck, I snapped a quick picture before the duck waddled away. Sticking my head out of the entrance, I saw the duck lift off and fly across the frozen creek, over the rushes and toward the Sound.
When we went back to school the Monday after Thanksgiving, I finally got to see Sally again. She had gone skiing at Stowe in Vermont, where her family had a vacation home. I imagined myself skiing down a mountain alongside Sally and just as I was enjoying this daydream, the bell rang for English class. Sally scurried off to art.
We met up after school and walked home together.
“I’m sorry about my brother wrecking your snow shovel,” Sally said as she kicked snow off the sidewalk. “He can be so horrible sometimes, and then everybody forgives him and then he’s mean again. He’s the firstborn in our family and he’s a boy, so according to my father, Peter can do no wrong. Did you get your snow shovel?”
I nodded and then told Sally about my camera.
“Will you take my picture?” she asked.
“I don’t have my camera with me,” I said.
“Not right now, silly. Sometime.”
“When?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Sometime,” she said as we turned down Willow Avenue toward her house. That was all I needed to walk on air the rest of the way home.
Chapter Three
A few weeks after the first snowfall, the creek had frozen up long enough for us to be able to play hockey on it. I grabbed my skates and hockey stick and hightailed it down to the ice. I saw Madeline’s brother Arnold Rivkin, Jeff Corey, and Barney Herbert—all kids my age—hitting the puck around; they had set up a couple of goal nets and each skater took turns shooting at one of the nets. Arnold and Jeff played goalie because they had their own goalie sticks and gloves. The skates made a whooshing sound as the metal blades cut into the ice, and when a player’s stick hit the puck, it produced a satisfying thwacking sound.
It was cold but fortunately there was no breeze, so I didn’t have to worry about the wind chill or snow gusting in my face. I slid out onto the ice, feeling a little wobbly at first, but soon I got the hang of it again and was moving the puck back and forth with my stick. Feeling increasingly confident, I took a practice shot at the goal and the puck flew past the Arnold’s stick and into the net.
Finally, Jimmy arrived with his neighbor Jack Dorsey, and we had a three-on-three game. The only downside with playing hockey on the creek was that if my shot missed the goal, I had to skate behind the goal and retrieve the puck, which could skid, it seemed, for miles. It was kind of a pain but it was well worth it in order to play hockey a block away from my house. I would put rubber blade guards on my skates at home, walk down the street, and down a small hill to the creek. It was like our own private skating rink. Through this opening in the rushes, a whole world of winter sport unfolded; either it was us guys playing hockey or the neighbors figure skating in the areas where we hadn’t already taken over the ice.
Jimmy may not have been able to read very well, but he was a darn good hockey player. He was stocky and could bump into people and really make them feel it. We didn’t play with any protective gear, so it was like touch football, and none of us felt the bumps that much. After an hour of play in the glaring sunshine, reflecting in brilliant white flashes off the ice, I spotted two figures coming toward us from Sally Fletcher’s house. Peter and Bobby Taylor were each walking gingerly with blade guards on their skates and hockey sticks in their hands.
“Okay, you wimps,” Peter shouted, “get off the ice! The big boys are coming.”
“We were here first!” Jimmy shouted back, but by then Peter and Bobby had taken off their blade guards and had skated onto the ice.
“Oh, look,” Bobby said, “there’s Jacobs and Robbins, the stool pigeons.”
Peter skated over to me. “I’m not done with you yet, Jacobs!”
Looking over Peter’s shoulder, I could see Sally approaching, her mother following briskly behind.
“Don’t you go out on that ice, Peter Fletcher!” his mother yelled. “Sally, you tell him! He’ll listen to you.”
“Oh crap, my mother again,” Peter muttered in disgust.
No kid wants his mother to be giving him a hard time in front of his friends, especially on the hockey ice, and Peter was no different. But whenever he skated on the creek, he had to confront his mother’s memories of her brother Jim. Peter slid gracefully over to the shore where Sally waited. She looked shyly over at me and I waved. She waved back and my heart leapt. It was exciting to have Sally acknowledge me in front of my friends.
“Mom, I’m not going to fall through the ice like Uncle Jim,” Peter told her. His mother threw up her hands as if to protest, but Peter went on. “The ice is plenty thick here.” He pointed in the direction of some other kids who were skating beyond the boundaries of our hockey area. Peter turned to us. “Come on, guys, five on three. We’ll kick your ass.”
So we lined up—Arnold as our goalie and Jeff as theirs.
“Come on, Jacobs, let’s see what you’ve got,” Peter hollered at me. He slapped his stick on the ice as if he were hitting me on the head.
We started with the puck, but it didn’t matter. Bobby stole it from Barney and he raced down toward our goal, deftly shooting it past Arnold and into the net. Peter turned to the shore, one hand shielding his eyes from the glare. “See?” he said to Sally and his mother. “Go on home.”
Sally was starting to shiver and I desperately wanted to put my arms around her. But Peter had the puck again and he raced toward our goal, taking a wild shot that missed the net, and the puck went skidding down the creek. Since it was a gentleman’s rule that whoever missed the goal went and retrieved his puck, Peter sped down the creek trying to catch up with the little black dot. Just as he neared the puck, the ice gave way and, before we could blink, his feet, his legs, and his torso went through the ice and into the water. His arms flailed around and he started to yell, “Help, help!” Mrs. Fletcher let out a shriek that you could hear all the way to New Rochelle and went running out onto the ice, waving her arms around like there was no tomorrow.
I had been closest to the net when Peter had let his shot fly off, and had immediately skated in his direction as soon as I saw him go in the water. I don’t think I have ever skated so fast, but I pulled myself up short just as I could see the ice starting to break in front of me. Lying down on the ice, I held out my stick for Peter to grab but, floundering in the water, he couldn’t quite get a hold of it. Inching myself closer and closer, I could feel the ice crack beneath me. Finally, Peter managed to grab hold of my stick, by which time Jimmy had a hold of my legs, and Arnold had a hold of Jimmy. We all three just held on for dear life as Peter pulled himself up out of the water and crawled up on to the ice. I could hear Mrs. Fletcher sobbing behind me, and I could hear Sally’s voice trying to comfort her, but all I could think about at that moment was not falling into the water myself.
Once Peter was safely on the ice, we all crawled slowly backward, listening fearfully to the cracking of the ice beneath us. After what seemed an eternity, we finally made it back to the thicker ice and lay there panting heavy gasps of steam. Mrs. Fletcher and Sally hauled Peter up and, arms
supporting his tottering figure, led him home. He was drenched, the icy water already freezing on the edges of his winter jacket. Mrs. Fletcher shouted over her shoulder, “You boys all go on home, now!”
We gathered up our sticks and took the goal nets in to the shore. In our haste to get out on the ice, we had probably started a little too soon in the season; the ice needed a few more weeks to thicken up. I wondered dismally whether our parents would ever allow us to play hockey on the creek again.
Chapter Four
After that incident on the ice, my stock rose dramatically with the Fletcher family. At school the next day, Sally asked me to walk her home. I carried her books and she told me about how her mother had cried all night long. Sally said that Peter wasn’t mad at me anymore, and then she invited me over to her house for Christmas dinner!
When I told my father about that, he almost had a heart attack.
“Are you going?” he asked.
“Of course I’m going,” I replied nonchalantly.
“Just don’t say anything stupid,” he went on. “You never know what’s going to happen. I mean, they pray.”
“We do too,” I said.
“But God listens to us,” my father replied.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You mean like he did during the Holocaust? That really did a lot of good. I’m sure God was listening to the Jews then.”
My father slammed his hand down on the kitchen table.
“Enough!” he shouted at me, his face red, perspiration beading across his forehead.
My mother shot me an aghast look.
I decided that I would ask Gladys what it all meant. The following afternoon, I walked up the driveway to her house and she let me in through the kitchen door. Honey wasn’t there and Gladys’ arm was no longer in a sling.
“Look,” she said, “you can’t expect your father to understand. Not right away. Give him time to get used to it. I’m sure he expects you to have Jewish friends, and he doesn’t trust the Catholics. I’m a Catholic, and if I had married a Jewish man instead of Harry McKinley, my father would’ve had a fit. When I was growing up, we thought that Jews were born with horns on the top of their heads. My grandmother came from Ireland, and I’m not sure she had ever seen a Jew before, much less talked to one.”
During the days leading up to Christmas, I felt an increasing level of anxiety as the dinner with the Fletchers approached. I was both nervous and excited, and I could tell that my father was worried about the visit too—worried that I, or his dry cleaning business, might be hurt as a result. On Christmas Day, I dressed carefully in my blazer, tie, and good shoes, and my mother drove me over to the Fletcher house so I wouldn’t get dirty on the walk over. Sally greeted me at the door and led me in. The Fletcher living room was festooned with Christmas cards hanging from a string. A giant Christmas tree with an angel on the top stretched to the ceiling; tinsel hung down from all sides and ornaments adorned the branches. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” played on the stereo system. Peter rose from his seat on the couch to greet me, followed by his parents.
Mrs. Fletcher practically ran to me, taking my hands in her own, and said, “Adam, we are so pleased you were able to come.” Mr. Fletcher gave my sweaty palm a firm and vigorous shake and said, “Welcome to our home, son.” I could see Sally standing behind her parents, wearing a red and green plaid dress and a big grin. She gave me a thumbs-up.
Then, after an awkward moment of silence, Mrs. Fletcher said, “Dinner is waiting.” She led me by the hand into their dining room. I sat next to Sally on one side of the table, while Peter sat on the other side, with Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher at both ends. An extra place remained next to Peter. Was someone else joining us? I wondered. At that moment, the doorbell rang and Mrs. Fletcher rose to answer it. I heard voices near the front door and then Mrs. Fletcher reappeared with Gladys! Without thinking, I leapt out of my chair and gave her a hug. Just then, to my surprise, Honey appeared from the kitchen carrying a platter of carved turkey.
“She’s on loan,” Gladys said, winking at me as she took her seat.
After all the plates of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole topped with melted marshmallows, peas, gravy, and dinner rolls had been filled and placed on the table, I hesitated, glancing toward Sally’s parents. My father had warned me. They pray, he had said.
Sure enough: “Who’s going to say grace?” Mr. Fletcher asked.
Sally raised her hand.
“I will,” she said. “Lord, thank you for bringing us all together, to share this food with our family and friends, and thank you especially for Adam who saved Peter from drowning, in Jesus’ name, amen.” And everybody repeated amen, including me. It felt good to be part of this group, to be accepted by these people. The fact that they all believed that Jesus was the son of God seemed beside the point. I just liked them.
Later, when I told my father about the dinner, including the pumpkin pie, he hadn’t changed his mind about the Fletchers.
“Just remember, son, you will always be an outsider to them,” he said firmly.
The next day, “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys was belting out on the radio. The words about the sunlight playing on a girl’s hair made me think about Sally and her golden ponytail. Later, at dancing class after New Year’s, Mr. Johnson put the song “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees on the turntable, and all I could think was Yes, I am a believer, I am in love.
I finally got my chance to take some photographs of Sally down at Manor Park. The park overlooks Long Island Sound and has a gazebo with wooden benches on the inside and stone slab-topped benches on the outside. Sally sat on one of these outside benches. Her golden hair flew out to the side, the rolling waves glistened in the sun, and I caught an expression of beauty and innocence just as her eyes turned toward the camera.
Afterwards, we walked along the rocks and looked out at the water. Then I took her home, and as I hopped down her steps onto Willow Avenue, I saw Jimmy Robbins across the street pulling his toboggan out of the garage.
“I’m going sledding with Arnold and Madeline,” Jimmy said. “Want to come?”
“Sure,” I replied enthusiastically. “You know, since I saved Peter from drowning, Sally’s parents think it’s fine now for Sally and me to hang out, so is it okay if we ask Sally too?”
Sally was keen to come sledding, and after bundling up in her winter coat and hat, she joined us outside as Mrs. Rivkin arrived in her station wagon. We all piled into the car, joining Madeline and Arnold, until we were all squashed like sardines in the back seat. Mrs. Rivkin drove us across town on a long, winding road that led us to the Bonnie Glen Country Club golf course. In the winter the course was covered with snow, and at the first tee there was a big hill that you could sled down. A bunch of kids were already sledding by the time we arrived. Mrs. Rivkin waited at the top with the other parents while we hurtled down the slope in Jimmy’s toboggan and then climbed back up again, Jimmy dragging the toboggan behind him. At the bottom of the hill, a long flat area ended in a ten-foot drop into a concrete canal. We had to be careful not to slide across this icy flat area and right over the edge. Nobody had ever fallen into the canal before, but it was pretty scary to get too close to that precipice.
After we finished sledding, we went to Arnold’s house. Mr. Rivkin, Arnold’s dad, was an administrator at New York University, and he had prepared a Shabbat ceremony. My parents were there as well as a few other Jewish adults from our neighborhood. Jimmy’s parents weren’t religious, of which I was rather jealous, but I felt relieved for Jimmy that he didn’t have to read all of the sections of the Torah that I had had to learn. Mr. Rivkin recited the kiddush and then the challah bread was served, and the roast beef and turkey sandwiches with salad and the apple pie for dessert. Although Jimmy had been to Shabbat with me before, I had to explain to Sally what was going on, and she looked a little confused. My
mother came over and helped me out.
“Shabbat is a holy day,” my mom told Sally. “It’s like your Sunday, only we celebrate it on Saturday and we start at sundown on Friday night. Here, try some roast beef.” She put a sandwich on Sally’s plate.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Sally said. “The ceremony, I mean.”
We all started to laugh and then I knew it was all going to be okay with me and Sally.
Chapter Five
The next day, I went over to Grappa’s house to develop the pictures of Sally in the park.
“You know, her father grew up in the house right next to us here,” Grappa told me as he pointed the enlarger down at the photographic paper on the table and adjusted the focus. “Bill had a thing for your mother, but his father would have none of it, claiming that his ancestors had come over on the Mayflower; for all I know, they did. Just ask anyone down at St. Catherine’s. When they were little,” Grappa went on, “Bill and Caroline used to play together, crawling through the oleander bushes in our backyard. But when they got older, Bill’s father wouldn’t let him have anything to do with your mother. I had it out with the old guy once or twice, but it didn’t do any good. When his father died, Bill took over the advertising business.”
“Why do the Christians hate the Jews, Grappa?” I asked, as he placed the eight-by-ten-inch print of Sally into the developing fluid in a small bin on the table. The odor from the chemicals went up into my nose and it smelled bitter but good.
“For some reason,” he said, “they think that we killed their lord, Jesus. It seems as if we’ll never be forgiven for doing that.”
“But that was two thousand years ago,” I protested.
Sally’s beautiful face began to emerge and became clearer and clearer as Grappa lightly tapped the paper with the tongs.
“She’s a pretty little girl, isn’t she?” he said, as he lifted the paper out of the developing fluid and placed it in the stop bath, and from there into the bin with the fixer liquid. “We’ll just let her sit in there for five minutes,” he went on. “She looks just like her father.”
The Martin Luther King Mitzvah Page 4