“Say it,” he urges.
“C’mon . . .”
“Shut up. Just say it!”
I sigh, shake my head. Fine.
“You got nothing.”
“Bigger! You got nothing!”
“You got nothing!”
“Yeah! Again!”
He shoves me, a pop on the shoulder. I’m a little surprised.
“Say it!”
“You got nothing!”
I have to admit it’s sort of satisfying.
“One more time!” he says, and jabs me again.
“You got NOTHING!” I say, and jab him right back.
“Yeah, man! You got nothing!” Slam, on the side of my shoulder.
“You got NOTHING!” SLAM! Smacking him right back.
Something odd is happening. I feel absurd, but also like I’m getting to whatever lies beyond absurd, the place where it starts to feel good.
“Again!” Smack!
“YOU GOT NOTHING!!” I scream at the top of my lungs, and hit him as hard as I can.
“Yeah, mofo! That’s the shit!” Patrick says, grinning insanely, and slams his beer can end-first against his forehead, the aluminum crumpling into a wrinkled puck. A tiny rivulet of blood starts to drip over his eyebrow. I blink at him.
“Also, later?” he says, not noticing or caring about the blood. “If you get them alone? Hit them with a frigging baseball bat or something. That’s good, too.”
I learned a lot of things sitting with Patrick on the lawn. I learned how he got in the fight with Josh.
“Oh, yeah, that. I was going through this weird Nazi phase? I know, totally f’ed up, right? Anyways, I see your brother, and he’s got the little Jew hat and everything, and I start, you know, blah blah blah,” he said, moving his hand like a talking puppet. “So pretty soon we’re mixing it up, and I’m thinking it’s going okay, and then real quick it wasn’t. So we’re in the clinch and I bit him, and then next thing I know I’m waking up in the hospital. Kid can hit, yo.” He stopped then and felt his jaw, like he was checking to see if it was still broken. “But you know what?” he said. “He actually came and checked on me.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Yeah, I guess I was out for a really long time, and the word was that I was really messed up. So I was in the hospital, and Josh lies and says he’s my brother so they’ll let him in, and he came to see me and make sure I was okay.”
“Josh?”
“Yeah, man. We shook hands and everything. Been tight since then.”
Another item for the Josh Mystery File.
Since he was talking, I figured I should pump him for as much information as possible. Next up: Trish.
“Yeah, she screwed him up good. Strippers, man. Never date them. Believe me—I know.”
Gotcha. Noted. Lesley?
“She’s awesome, dude. Awesome. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s got a future . . . That’s the girl he should be with.”
“Was he ever . . . with her?”
“Not that I know.”
“Why is he back from school? What happened?”
“Not sure about that. That’s Trish, too, probably. I’m telling you, she messed him up.”
Does he have some big secret plan?
Shake of the head.
“Don’t know, dude. He’s thinking something, though. He’s quiet that way.”
Other valuable things I learned: what it’s like to finally punch your abusive dad in the face and break his nose (“friggin’ awesome”); what it’s like to be in juvenile detention (“friggin’ sucks”); and that Patrick is not, in fact, a meth dealer.
“Meth? Naw. Weed, sure. And X. But not meth. That stuff is nasty.”
“Oh. Good,” I said, because I didn’t have anything else to say.
“Yeah, I don’t deal meth. I mean, not anymore.”
Great.
We sat and talked until it was dark. Patrick finished the six-pack and the chips and got up twice to pee in the creek. He went up to the house and returned ten minutes later with a soggy microwaved pizza that we ate right off the cardboard. As we were eating I started to hear the familiar boom boom boom of Josh hitting the heavy bag in the basement.
“Man, is he pissed at me,” said Patrick.
“Me too,” I said.
Patrick chuckled, and held a hand out for a fist bump.
Finally, Patrick said good night, gave me a thump on the back, did a halfhearted job of gathering up the trash, and started his walk back up to the house. He stopped and turned.
“Hey, little man?” he said. “Don’t pay your brother no mind, okay? You’re a good dude.”
Then he saluted and went inside, my new, Mohawked, tattooed, drug-dealing friend. I climbed into the tent and tried to sleep, while from the house I could hear Josh hitting the bag: boom. Boom. Boooooom.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ANOTHER ADDITION TO THE HOUSEHOLD
When I wake up, the sun is above the trees, meaning it’s late in the morning. Josh is nowhere in sight. I’m not running around the block or doing pushups or being forced to do something dangerous and foolhardy. I wonder if I’m dreaming.
I walk up the slope of the lawn, yawning and rubbing my eyes. I hear the sound of someone yanking repeatedly on a lawn mower cord and look over to see Mr. Olsen.
“Hi,” I say, and wave just as the engine pops and sputters to life. He waves back, mouthing something, his words inaudible over the noise of the motor. He watches me for a moment, and then before he starts pushing the mower he does a little shrug and unilateral shake of the head, the sort of movement that signifies an unvoiced whatever—not my business. It could be related to the fact that I’m wearing just my boxer briefs.
I go in through the downstairs back door and shower in my parents’ bathroom. When I emerge from the bathroom and reach the base of the stairs I catch a whiff of nail polish remover and briefly think that maybe my mom is somehow home. And while I’m thinking that and wondering more about the dreaming thing, I hear hysterical, high-pitched yapping and claws clattering on tile. A small dog appears at the top of the stairs, its whole body quivering and jerking forward spasmodically with each sharp explosion of noise, like it’s trying to power-vomit its barks at me.
YAP YAP YAP, says the dog, then hops to the side and repeats the barking, YAP YAP YAP, then more hopping and yapping. I’m standing in the middle of the steps, not sure how to proceed.
“Joey!” I hear Patrick shout, his voice mixed in with a female voice shouting the same thing at the same time. “Joey!” Patrick repeats, solo this time. “Shut the hell up!”
Joey doesn’t shut the hell up. There’s a pause, and some canine-directed profanity, and then Patrick tromps into view and scoops up the dog in one hand.
“Oh, hey, dude!” he says to me, and tromps off again. The angle isn’t so good from where I’m standing, but I catch a glimpse of what I think are tufts of tissue paper sticking out from between his bare toes.
When I get to the top of the stairs I hear the female voice again: “Doesn’t that look cute?” KeeeYOOOT, like that, coming from the den.
“It’s really cute,” agrees Lisa. The dog makes a whining noise. Patrick shushes it.
I walk to the den and look in. Patrick is stretched out on the floor on his back, holding the dog on his chest, the dog licking his face. Lisa is sitting in the comfy red chair, leaning forward a bit, her attention focused intently on her feet. Sitting cross-legged in front of her, her back to me, is a dark-haired woman who is in the process of painting Lisa’s toes. She’s wearing a cutoff T-shirt that reaches about to where her ribs stop, revealing the tattoo on her lower back. TRAMP, it says.
“Hey, dude,” says Patrick again. “I think there’s still some eggs left, if you want them.”
Lisa and the dark-haired woman look up, and I let out an involuntary noise that sounds like heep. It’s Terri the Mean Stripper.
“Oh, hey!” she says with a huge smile.
�
�Uh . . . hi?” I say.
“Isaac,” says Patrick, “this is my girlfriend, Terri.”
“We’ve met,” says Terri. Now Patrick’s comment about dating strippers makes sense. Of course no bra. I immediately try to find someplace else to point my eyeballs.
“I’m so sorry about the other night,” says Terri. “Josh explained everything to me. I was just in a pissy mood, and I was thinking you were staring at my boobs”—hand pointing at boobs for emphasis—“which is, like, silly, because that’s why people are there, and . . .”
She goes on, detailing her pissy mood that night at the strip club and some unpleasant customers and their wandering hands that led to that mood. I’m still trying not to look, my eyes roaming everywhere but Terri. The dog is practically licking the boogers from Patrick’s nose. Lisa is alternating between glaring at me in wonderment and shock—you did what? where?—and gazing at Terri with an expression of the very essence of pure, worshipful love. I’m standing there in a towel, looking for an opportunity to interrupt Terri so she’ll stop talking that way in front of Lisa, and distracted by the dog and by the realization that Patrick does have wads of tissue stuffed between each toe, because he has bright red nail polish on his toenails that is still drying.
“—so anyways, I’m sorry for saying you had a hard-on and everything.”
“Oh my God,” says Lisa.
“Dude, it’s totally okay if you did,” says Patrick. “Every time I go in there I do.”
“Patrick!” shrieks Terri, swatting at him, and they both start cackling. Lisa is giggling. The dog starts yapping again.
“You know she’s nine, right?” I say, but they’re still cackling and don’t hear me. “Lisa, maybe you should, uh . . .”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Go play or something.”
“No,” she says. “Terri, keep going!”
“Oh, sorry!” says Terri, Lisa’s new BFF, and gets back to painting Lisa’s nails.
“Isaac, you should put some clothes on,” says Lisa disapprovingly.
I go to my room to get dressed. Patrick’s clothes are strewn about. There is also some underwear of the very wispy, feminine variety lying on the floor, suggesting that Terri spent the night. I get dressed, averting my eyes from my bed, the scene of the crime.
I pass by the den, Terri saying, “Okay, Lisa, let’s do your hair.”
When I get to the kitchen, Josh is there, measuring the burnt countertop with a tape measure. He straightens and jots something on a spiral notepad, then types something on his laptop, which is resting on the center island.
He doesn’t say anything to me, so I finally say, “’Sup.”
He makes a grunting noise without looking at me, still typing, then starts scrolling through a web page. I wonder if he’s going to bring up what happened yesterday, or if he even remembers it. He’s probably just given up on me is what it is.
The room still smells of smoke. I’m sure it has worked its way into the walls and the curtains, tiny particles binding to all the surfaces, and the room is going to stink for weeks. I don’t say this to Josh. Instead I say, “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” he says, scribbling some more notes.
“I mean, I don’t know. It’s late.” I shrug.
“It’s the Sabbath. Rest day.”
“Oh.”
“There’s eggs on the table,” he says. He’s dialing the cordless phone as he talks. “There’s also some lox and bagels.”
I sit and eat, listening to him on the phone navigating his way through some voice-activated menu: “Kitchen. No, kitchen. Kitchen. Kitchen. Okay, operator. Operator. OPERATOR. Christ.”
He waits, then talks with someone about the types of countertops they have and whether or not he can come and buy something today. Halfway through he abruptly says, “Thanks. Gotta go,” punches a button, and puts the phone back to his head. “Hi, Mom.
Yes, everything is great. Isaac is better. Yes, he was in school yesterday. Not much is happening. Pretty standard Saturday. Yup, very boring here in ol’ Minnesota, Mom.”
From the den comes more cackling and giggling and yapping. I roll my eyes and mutter.
“Here,” says Josh, and shoves the phone at me.
“Hi, Izzie!” says my mom. “Are you all better?”
All better. Everything is fine. Nothing unusual to report. No former meth dealers living here, or any strippers giving Lisa a makeover.
“Listen, Izzie, I was talking with Roni Weinberg,” my mom says. Roni, Eric’s mom. “He’s very lonely and upset, and you still haven’t called him.”
“I will, Mom. I’ve been sick.”
“Very lonely. And I think he needs a friend.”
“I’ll call him.”
“So Roni and I made a plan.”
“Oh, God, Mom, please tell me you didn’t—”
“I think that you should spend some time with him.”
“Mom, I will, it’s just that—”
“I mean, you’re becoming a bar mitzvah, and if we’re talking about mitzvahs, good deeds, what better thing than helping a friend?”
“I will help him.”
“Yes, I know you will.”
“I will. Wait a second—what do you mean?”
“What time is it there?”
“What? It’s . . . eleven.”
“It is? Oh, well, he should be there about—”
The doorbell rings.
“Mom, I’m going to kill you.”
“I love you too, sweetie.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE MITZVAH
MERIT BADGE: KINDNESS TO A FRIEND IN NEED
Eric and I say hey to each other when I open the door, neither of us with particular enthusiasm. Then we stand there in silence, the two losers, until he says, “You know what? I don’t want to be here either. My mom made me come.”
We’re at that impasse when my brother looms behind me and starts pushing me out the door, forcing Eric to step back down the steps.
“C’mon. We’re going,” says Josh, now marching past me and jumping off the front porch.
“What? What are you talking about?”
He turns and walks backwards on his way toward the garage. “We’re buying a new countertop.” He points a finger at Eric. “You, too, Weinberg. Let’s go.”
It’s the confident tone of command, I think as we pull out of the driveway. That’s how he does it. Like the Voice in Dune, or Obi-Wan convincing the stormtroopers they’ve got the wrong robots.
“These are not the droids you’re looking for,” I mumble from the back seat.
“What?” says Josh, driving.
“Nothing.”
Eric is riding shotgun. Josh told him to. “You,” he said, aiming with a finger, “in here. You”—to me—“in back.” We obeyed instantly. Of course, Eric’s unquestioning compliance could be due to the fact that he saw my brother nearly bat Tim Phillips’s head off his shoulders yesterday.
Barely out of the driveway, Josh says to Eric, “You’re not going to puke on my car, are you?” Eric sighs. “I’m kidding, dude.”
That’s it for the talking as we drive. Josh snaps on the radio, loud, and yowls along, loud, grinning and nodding and singing to us, inviting us to join in. We decline. I’m thankful for the noise and distraction. I haven’t spoken with Eric since the whole bar mitzvahpocalypse, and I feel guilty and excuseless, my craven behavior completely transparent. As we drive I try to think of how, exactly, we’re supposed to start over again, what I’m supposed to say.
When we pull into the parking lot of the Home Depot and park, Eric hops out of the car and walks ahead of me without a word or a backwards glance. Maybe he’s pissed at me, or maybe, I think, maybe he’s ashamed to be seen with me. Maybe I’m the loser here. My disgrace might be fresher, but I don’t think getting beat up and humiliated in front of the whole school ranks higher on the loser index than what happened to Eric, which is a lot more exotic and n
oteworthy, the sort of thing people will talk about for years. I almost want to remind him of that.
We enter the store in stretched-out single file: Josh in front, then Eric, then me. Inside, Josh finds an employee and stops to ask directions. Eric gravitates to a spot a few yards off to the right of Josh, I end up equidistant to the left, the both of us sort of shuffling around, shifting our weight, not looking at each other. Magnets both attracted to and repelling each other, not moving too far away but unable to get close. Floating in a cloud of awkward.
Josh gets his directions and strides off toward the depths of the store, and we trail behind, dragged along by the main magnet. He quickly starts to outpace us. About halfway down the endless wallpaper aisle I look up and realize that Eric has stopped. He’s not exactly waiting for me, but he’s not moving, either—just standing there in profile to me, arms crossed. I slow, unsure of what to do, then resume my normal walking speed, thinking to just pass him and catch up with Josh.
Instead, as I get near him, Eric says, “Hey.”
I stop.
He looks at me, then looks away, then does it a few more times, squirming a bit, clearly working on getting something out. I do my own squirming, both internal and external. Neither of us wants this confrontation right now, standing in an aisle at the Home Depot under the fluorescents.
“You know something?” he says, and then points an accusatory finger at me. “I thought you were my friend. But I guess I was wrong.”
It looks and sounds rehearsed. I can picture him standing in front of the mirror saying that to me, saying it all different ways, some worse than others. I wonder how many versions there were, and where this one lies on the scale from good to bad.
“Eric . . .” I say.
“I guess I was wrong,” he repeats, shaking his head.
I start to protest, excuses tumbling out, piling on top of each other: I didn’t do anything, What are you talking about, I was busy, I haven’t been in school—and then something unexpected happens. Something extraordinary. Profound, even. Right there in aisle seven. Something like the scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! when he hears the Whos of Who-ville singing and a light goes on in his brain and his heart suddenly swells and he understands how wrong he’s been.
Sons of the 613 Page 15