The Martin Luther King Mitzvah

by Tekulsky, Mathew;

  “Are we going to be on the radio right now?” Sally asked.

  “I’ll put the best parts on the air tomorrow afternoon,” Cousin Louie replied. “This way, you won’t miss any school and you won’t have to drive into the city.”

  So we proceeded to tell Cousin Louie about how we had met Gladys, and how she introduced us to Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King, and how we decided to do a mitzvah by handing out our anti-war flyers. We told him how we got the idea to have a demonstration, and how sad it was that Jeffrey Collins had gotten killed over in Vietnam, and that we wanted the war to end and for all men to be brothers, just like Martin Luther King had said.

  “That’s great, kids,” Cousin Louie said. “Now, what is the most important thing you’ve learned from Martin Luther King?”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “If you know that something is wrong, then it’s your duty to speak up about it.”

  “That’s right,” Sally added. “If you remain silent, that’s just the same as doing the wrong thing in the first place.”

  As Sally spoke these words, I thought about what my father had told me about his childhood in Germany when the Nazis had taken over; about how nobody said a word about it. Then they started taking people away, and still nobody spoke up about it, and finally, there was nobody left to speak out about it because everybody had been taken away.

  Cousin Louie’s wife brought us milk and cookies on a tray, and we talked to Cousin Louie about all of the great music stars that he had met. He told us about the Beatles, the Stones, and the Monkees, and then it was time to go home.

  The following day after school, Sally, Jimmy, and I went over to Gladys’ house to listen to the Cousin Louie interview, which had been scheduled to start at four p.m. Honey let us into the kitchen and, since it was a chilly day, she made us some hot chocolate.

  “With the amount of hot chocolate you kids drink,” Honey said, as she stirred the liquid on the stove, “it’s a wonder you both haven’t turned into chocolate bars by now!”

  I figured that Gladys must have bought the cocoa by the crate or something because she never seemed to run out.

  “I’ll always have hot chocolate for you children,” Gladys said as she joined us in the kitchen.

  Gladys had turned the radio on to WABC, and we sat down in our chairs and sipped our hot chocolate until Cousin Louie came on the air. He introduced his show with “Respect” by Aretha Franklin, a song that was climbing the charts. When the song was over, he said, “I have a special treat for our listeners. We’ve got some great kids in my hometown and I just wanted to put them on the air and let the New York audience know what great young people we have, not only in Beachmont but across this great country of ours.” Then I heard my own voice, and Sally’s, talking about trying to put an end to war! The segment finished up with a commercial for Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum. Cousin Louie played the song “Let’s Live for Today” by the Grass Roots, and dedicated it to the soldiers in Vietnam, hoping, he said, that they made it back home safe and sound. Then finally, Cousin Louie offered condolences to Jeffrey Collins’ family back in Beachmont. We finished our hot chocolates and the singer on the radio told us not to worry about tomorrow. Gladys said, “I’m so proud of you kids.”

  Honey chimed in, “Lord have mercy.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A few days later, I was riding my bicycle past the Collins Service Station when Mr. Collins called me over. I stopped my bike in front of the service bay and stood with my feet on the ground and my backside on the seat.

  “Son,” Mr. Collins said, “I wanted to thank you for the letter you sent, and for what you did with Cousin Louie, you know, mentioning Jeffrey.”

  I looked up at his American flag—it was still flying at half-staff.

  “I’m going to leave it like that for a month,” Mr. Collins continued in a gruff voice, nodding toward the flag.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. I started to fidget because I didn’t quite know what to do or say next. Mr. Collins asked me if I wanted a Coke, so I got off my bike and sat down on a bench facing the gas tanks. He popped open the bottle of Coke and handed it to me. I took a sip and it went down cool and fizzy. Maybe Billy’s father wasn’t so bad after all, I thought.

  Mr. Collins sat down next to me and said, “Jeffrey was a good kid at heart, but he always got into trouble, throwing rocks at streetlights, pinching a bar of chocolate from the five-and-ten-cent store, doing Halloween pranks, those kinds of things. Then he got involved with a few bad people, and, pretty soon, he was stealing cars. We figured the best place for him was the service, but we didn’t expect this to happen. I mean, this war. Son, we hate it as much as you do. I just want you to know that.”

  As I was finishing my Coke, still unsure of what to say, Billy rode up on his bicycle.

  “Hey, Jacobs,” he said, as he got off his bike.

  Mr. Collins took Billy by the scruff of his neck and yanked the poor kid in my direction. Billy’s red hair practically stood up on end, and he was so close to me that I suddenly realized how many freckles he had.

  “Now you two are going to be friends,” Mr. Collins said to Billy as he squeezed his fingers into Billy’s neck. “Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Billy responded, and Mr. Collins released his grip.

  “And stop hanging around with that Bobby Taylor,” Billy’s father went on. “He’s no good.”

  That night at dinner, I told my father about what Mr. Collins had said to me. My father listened patiently and then he said, “Jeffrey Collins was a lot older than you and Billy, Adam. You were too young to remember this, but when Jeffrey was sixteen, I let him work in our store and one day I noticed a lot of money was gone. Jeffrey tried to pin it on Honey’s nephew, Albert, but it didn’t work. This was when your uncle was still alive. Your uncle wanted to press charges, but I talked him out of it, and Mr. Collins has always been grateful to me for doing that.”

  That Saturday, we had our final dance recital of the year at Mr. Johnson’s house. I was paired up with Madeline Rivkin and Sally was paired up with Billy Collins. All of the parents sat in a line of chairs alongside the dance floor. Mr. Johnson played “The Blue Danube” over the loudspeaker and we all started waltzing. Being close to Madeline Rivkin, I noticed that she had her own kind of dark-haired beauty and began to think that I had been too tough on her. Then I realized she was talking to me.

  “You don’t like me, do you?” she asked in a frank kind of way.

  “I like you,” I replied.

  “But you like Sally more,” she persisted.

  I made a turn and almost stepped on her toe.

  “I like you just fine,” I said.

  “She’s not like us,” Madeline kept on. “You’ll find out.”

  I looked over at Sally and Billy, who were smiling at each other as they danced. Billy must have told her that he had made up with me, I thought. That was good. Madeline caught me looking at Sally and she said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Then she stepped on my toe, and I think it was on purpose.

  When I told Jimmy about it the next day at the clubhouse, he said, “She’s just jealous. Don’t listen to her. I was wrong about Sally. I admit it. Hey,” he exclaimed, pulling out a brown paper bag from beneath his jacket, “look at this!”

  It was the March edition of Playboy, and when Jimmy pulled open the centerfold, I saw the biggest tits on a girl that I had ever seen. Plus, she was wearing glasses.

  “I’ve never seen that before,” Jimmy said.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I replied.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was only a few days until my bar mitzvah, and I was reading from the Torah almost every day. I had to read a section of the Torah at the bar mitzvah, and, after a long search, I finally found the right passage. It was at the end of Deuteronomy, where Moses is leading the people of Is
rael to the Promised Land, but God tells Moses that he cannot enter the Promised Land, that he can only see it from afar. So Moses climbs Mount Nebo, looking out over the Promised Land, and God says to him, “Moses, I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” Moses then dies on Mount Nebo, after which his followers cross over into the Promised Land.

  As I studied this passage in Hebrew, I heard Cousin Louie on the radio introduce the Supremes song “The Happening.” As Diana Ross sang about life looking at her, I thought about our meeting with Martin Luther King, when he told me about going up to the mountaintop and seeing the Promised Land.

  We had decided to have a small ceremony and invited a few of my friends, like Barney Herbert, Arnold Rivkin, and Madeline. My family would be there, of course—my parents, Grappa and Elise, a few of their friends, Gladys and Honey, Jimmy and his parents, Sally and her family, and even Jack Williams from the Beachmont Times, who was going to cover the bar mitzvah as a news story. I explained to Sally that we would be reading from the Torah in Hebrew and that she would be brought up, along with Jimmy, to recite some of the passages in English. She said that sounded like fun.

  Finally, the day of my bar mitzvah arrived. I got into my suit and my parents took me down to Beachmont Temple where I took my place at the bimah, the podium in the center of the sanctuary. By now, the crowd had already assembled, and as I looked out over the congregation, I could see Jimmy and Sally in the front row, alongside my parents, and, in the row behind them, I saw Gladys and Honey sitting next to each other. A few rows farther back, Barney Herbert and Arnold Rivkin were fidgeting anxiously and talking to each other. I had never seen these guys wearing ties before, and it looked kind of weird. Watching them made me feel nervous and I began to wonder if I could really go through with this. I didn’t have time to think further about it because Rabbi Cohen asked my parents to come up to the bimah and place the tallit, or ceremonial robe, over my shoulders. Rabbi Cohen then opened the ark and handed the Torah to my parents, who then passed it to me. I carried the Torah around the congregation and back to the bimah. Unfurling the Torah, I read my selected passage from Deuteronomy before Jimmy was called up to recite the same in English. Jimmy read from a piece of paper that Rabbi Cohen gave him, so that he wouldn’t make any mistakes. Then I read from the halftarah, which is from the Books of the Prophets. I had chosen a passage from the first chapter of Joshua, where the Israelites cross over the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land. Finally, Sally was called to the bimah to read in English what I had recited in Hebrew. Throughout the proceedings, Cantor Bloom sang from time to time and an organist accompanied him. It wasn’t so very different from the church service I had attended with the Fletchers when Sally had been sick.

  At last, it was time for me to make my comments on the Torah passage that I had chosen. Looking out at the group of my family and friends, with the Fletcher family in the back, I thought back to when Peter and Bobby had bent our snow shovels, and how I had saved Peter from drowning in the creek. I thought about how his mother, Mrs. Fletcher, had sobbed when we hauled him up from the icy creek. As I thought about these things, I reached up to straighten my yarmulke. The yarmulke was black, with a silver Star of David embroidered into the center, and a bunch of silver triangles around the edge. It had been my grandfather’s yarmulke, brought over from Germany. Earlier that morning, my father had taken it out of his drawer and given it to me. He told me that this was one of the few things he had left of his father, who had been taken away by the Nazis. Now that I was ready for my bar mitzvah, he wanted me to have it. Thinking about all of these things, I was so lost in thought that it was some time before I realized that Rabbi Cohen was gesturing to me, as if to say, Get on with it!

  “Today, we have a man in our midst who is a modern-day Moses,” I began. “His name is Martin Luther King, and I am proud to say that he is my friend. Dr. King has taught me that it is wrong not to speak out when there is evil in the world. Like Moses, he is leading his people to the Promised Land of equality but, more importantly, he is leading our country, and the world, into a new era of brotherhood. Dr. King is my hero, and if there is a God, I think that God has chosen Dr. King as his messenger of peace.”

  I heard Honey say, “Lord have mercy,” and then I went on.

  “Martin Luther King gave a speech recently called ‘The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.’ These three dimensions are length, breadth, and height. The length of life means that you must love yourself, accept yourself, and not try to be somebody else. You must figure out what it is in life that you are called to do, and you must strive to be the best of whatever it is you are. The breadth of life is a concern with the welfare of others. It is about being a good Samaritan and not worrying about what will happen to you if you do a good deed, but what would happen to the other person if you didn’t do it. Height is all about the spiritual. It is about knowing that when you are right, God will fight your battle, but Martin Luther King is also a preacher and he says that Jesus will never leave him alone.”

  “That’s right,” I heard Honey say softly. As I continued, my voice loud in the quiet room, I saw that the Fletchers were smiling.

  “When you have all of these three things,” I said, “you will have a complete life and, as Dr. King says, rough places will be smoothed over, and crooked places will become straight, and judgment and righteousness will flow like a mighty stream. I hope we make it to the Promised Land even if, as Dr. King has told me, he doesn’t get there with us.”

  I told the congregation that my mitzvah was to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, to do what I could to stop the war in Vietnam, and to bring our soldiers back home, so that what happened to Jeffrey Collins wouldn’t happen to anybody else.

  After the clapping had died down, Rabbi Cohen made a short speech about how hard I had worked on my bar mitzvah and he made a series of benedictions with Cantor Bloom singing after each. My parents came to stand with me on the bimah, and my father made a speech, even mentioning the special yarmulke I was wearing. Then, all of us up on the bimah, along with the congregation, sang “Siman Tov, Mazal Tov,” after which Rabbi Cohen returned the Torah to the ark. The rabbi cut small pieces of the challah bread for me and my parents to eat, and we each drank from a chalice of wine. Rabbi Cohen made a closing prayer, the organ began playing, and I carried the challah bread to the back of the room, where a gigantic spread of roast beef sandwiches, potato salad, and chocolate cake was laid.

  Sally gave me a big hug, and Peter shook my hand.

  “Not bad, Jacobs,” he said.

  Mr. Williams came over with Gladys and Honey, and took a photograph of me in my yarmulke.

  “This will be in the paper tomorrow,” he said, “including your speech.”

  We all laughed and Gladys said, “Martin Luther King would be proud.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The day after my bar mitzvah, Sally and I walked down to Manor Park and the gazebo that looked out over the Long Island Sound and the sailboats in the distance. It was a warm day, and the smell of fresh grass and leafy maple trees somehow made me feel that this day was not just another spring day in Beachmont, but a special day for Sally and me. I took out my transistor radio and the song “Groovin’” by The Young Rascals was playing on WABC. As I listened to the singer, I thought about how great it was that Sally and I were groovin’ on our own Sunday afternoon, until Sally said, “Turn off the radio.” So I turned it off, and all I could hear was the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks and the wind blowing through the trees. Before I knew it, her face had gotten close to mine and then she kissed me! A real kiss, right on the lips! I felt astonished and ecstatic at the same time.

  “What was that for?” I asked, surprised.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  It was my first kiss, and I figured it was hers too, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Sally,” I said, “we’re l
ike Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think?”

  She nodded and smiled.

  “All those afternoons that you followed me home from school, I knew you were there,” she said. I didn’t know how to answer her, but she went on. “I’m glad you did. My parents told me that Jews were different, that there was something wrong with them, but I didn’t see anything wrong with you.”

  “My father is a little weird though,” I said.

  “I wonder if we’ll remember this when we get old,” Sally wondered.

  We started walking along the path that overlooked a series of rock outcroppings that the ocean had eroded into peculiar shapes.

  “Look,” I said, pointing at a rounded rock that didn’t have a head or a tail, “there’s a pig.”

  “And there’s a toaster,” Sally exclaimed, pointing to a formation with a flat area on each side and a sunken area in the middle.

  A long ribbon of striated rock rose up from the seabed here and extended itself along the shoreline, with a large cleft at one end. Viewed from the front, this section of rock looked just like the head of a whale with its mouth open. Sally and I clambered onto the back of the whale, and up the head, until we could see out over the water. We raised our fists in triumph.

  “We did it!” Sally yelled. Then, holding hands, we climbed down the head of the whale, onto its back, and up the rocks to the path. From this vantage point, we could see the tail of the whale as well as the head. I took a photograph of Sally with the whale behind her. Smiling at me, she untied her ponytail and shook her head until her hair fell down around her face in a shimmer of gold.

  “Now take the picture,” she said.

  We walked back along the path until we spotted someone in the distance walking toward us. As the figure got closer, I could see that it was Honey. When she finally reached us, she said, “Now, what are you two doing out here?” We told her about the pig and the toaster and the whale and she started laughing—that rich, genuine laugh that she had—and then she said, “I had forgotten that you two were still children.”