Sons of the 613

by Michael Rubens

  “He said he’s going to the bar,” says Patrick as we racewalk toward the driveway. Josh’s car is parked in front of the garage, the blond-haired guy’s car right behind it.

  “Move. Your. Car,” says Josh again.

  “Josh!” I say, coming up to them.

  “Go back inside,” he says.

  “Josh, everyone’s still here. There’s still a party going on.”

  “Go back inside, Isaac.”

  Other people have filed out of the house to see the show.

  “Josh, if you drive, the cops will arrest you, and they’re going to put you in jail.”

  “Josh, dude,” says Patrick. “Seriously, let’s just go back inside, get a beer . . .”

  Josh makes a flicking motion with his hands like he’s flinging us away in disgust, and climbs into the car and starts it up. I start pounding on the window.

  “Josh. Josh!”

  He puts it in gear and lurches forward, smashing into the garage door, turns the wheel violently and reverses, crunching against the bumper of the car behind him. He does it again, trying to back-and-forth his way out of the tight spot.

  The blond-haired guy says, “Stop! You’re ruining my car!” Patrick is behind me, saying, “Josh, Josh, cut this shit out . . .”

  Boom! The car plows into the garage door again, the whole thing shaking. Bamcrunch into the car behind. I’m still pounding on the window uselessly. Then I see that the passenger window is open, and I jump across the hood of the moving car, like something out of a cop movie.

  “Josh,” I say through the passenger window, “you can’t go!”

  I don’t know if I’m talking about going now or about the Marines, or both. He ignores me, reversing the car again. I try to open the door, but it’s locked, and I try to unlock it as I’m stumbling backwards with the movement of the car. In another second he’ll have cleared enough space to drive across the front lawn to the street, which is what he seems to be aiming to do. As he’s spinning the wheel to reposition the car and make his escape I dive headfirst through the open window, my legs hanging out as we fishtail across the front lawn and hit the pavement with a huge bump and screech. I wriggle and scrabble myself in as Josh hits the accelerator, my feet on the ceiling, my face mushed against the rubber mat in the passenger foot well. About five seconds later Josh stomps on the brakes and the car screeches to a halt again.

  “Get the hell out of the car!” says Josh.

  “No,” I say from under the dashboard.

  “Get the hell out!”

  “No!”

  He reaches over and opens the door and starts shoving me out, but I get my left leg wedged between the seats and brace my right foot against the top of the door frame.

  “Get out!”

  “No! I’m going with you!”

  “Ah, screw it!” says Josh, and stomps on the gas again, the door slamming by itself as the car rockets forward.

  It takes me several minutes of uncomfortable contortions to get my head and my feet in the correct orientation, all while Josh is driving way too fast and cutting in and out of lanes. When I finally get myself upright and buckle myself in, we’re on the freeway.

  Would you say anything to Josh, sitting next to him in the car, feeling the dreadful anger pouring out of him? His hands are clenched tight on the steering wheel, and I can see that tension in his arms, his jaw, his neck, his whole body. I can barely fit in the car with all the baleful energy vibrating off of him.

  We park at the curb and Josh leaps out of the car, me following. “Josh,” I say, “Josh,” even though I know he won’t listen and there’s no reason to waste my breath. I don’t even know why I’m following him, other than the need to observe what happens next.

  There’s a line at the door of the club, but he walks right to the front, barely slowing as he enters to give the doorman a curt nod. I speed up, hoping that if I arrive within the right number of seconds the bouncer will still recognize the invisible bond that connects me and Josh and let me in.

  “Whoa,” he says, a big arm thrust in front of me like a turnstile.

  “I’m with Josh.”

  The bouncer is distracted, trying to decide while checking IDs and letting other people in.

  “Please, I have to go in. I’m with Josh,” I say. “Josh,” I repeat, his name a talisman. The bouncer, irritated, makes some sort of gesture that could be dismissing me or waving me in. I decide to take it as the latter and shoot inside the club.

  It’s as crowded and loud as the last time, with recorded music instead of a band. It doesn’t take me long to find him: he’s at the bar, talking to Trish. I watch from a dark corner of the room, standing on a chair so I can see over everyone.

  They’re discussing something. Or he’s trying to tell her something, trying to get a reaction from her, and she’s not giving it to him. He’s got a beer in one hand, and he drains it during a pause in the conversation as she serves someone else. She’s hot, I think, but nothing like Lesley. Lesley is right—how could he choose Trish over her?

  Things are deteriorating fast. Now they’re straight-up arguing, all pointed fingers and shouting and Josh slamming his hands on the bar for emphasis. People are starting to notice, awareness spreading out in a growing ripple.

  There’s a group of three guys to Josh’s right, big football player types. The biggest moves to Josh’s side and places a hand on his shoulder, and I can see him mouthing, C’mon, buddy, but Josh shrugs and bats the hand away without even looking at the guy.

  I’m starting to walk toward Josh, picking up speed, as the guy tries the hand on the shoulder again, and Josh suddenly pivots and gives him an impossibly explosive shove that sends the guy tripping back on his heels to plow into his friends, the three of them going down in a tangled mess of arms and legs and barstools.

  Now everyone in a thirty-foot radius has stopped whatever they were doing and turned toward the altercation. I’m speeding up, trying to get to Josh, and the three guys are trying to sort themselves out and get to their feet, and then I see the bouncer rocketing across the room toward Josh. As he slams into Josh, Josh turns and does some sort of move and the bouncer goes sprawling, but now the three guys are back on their feet and coming at Josh, everyone throwing punches and clawing at him, and now the bouncer is up again and grabbing Josh from behind as Josh twists and turns and lashes out in chaotic fury.

  “Josh!” I scream, but he can’t hear me. “Josh!”

  He connects solidly on one of the football players and the guy goes down, clutching his face, and then Josh nails another and drops him. Josh shakes off the bouncer and turns to deal with the third football player, and even in the midst of my fear I can’t help but think, Jesus, that guy can fight.

  And another part of my brain is saying, Jesus, he looks like an idiot.

  Now the other bouncer has joined in, and more guys pile on Josh like a rugby scrum, the whole mass staggering unpredictably back and forth as they try to force Josh to the floor. I reach the outer layer of the scrum and pull uselessly at thick arms and legs, screaming for Josh, no one noticing me in the least. The whole group, by design or chance, is lurching toward the exit, Josh somewhere in the middle, somehow still on his feet. I trip and get up again just as a sort of shuddering outburst of energy shimmers through the pack, and suddenly Josh is free again, throwing punches, and I dive through an opening to grab at his arm, but he shakes me off with one violent movement without realizing who I am. I’m literally airborne a moment, and then my feet hit the ground and my head hits something else and everything goes stars.

  I’m on the floor, stunned. When I woozily get up, the two bouncers have somehow gotten hold of Josh and are marching him unsteadily toward the exit. He’s bleeding. They’re bleeding. There are bleeding frat boys and barstools and tables strewn on the floor.

  I catch up to Josh and the bouncers in the entranceway, the three of them barely able to fit through the space together.

  “I love you, man, but you got to
chill the fuck out, Josh!” one of the bouncers says.

  One of them kicks the front door open and they struggle to squeeze through the door to the outside, then they hurl Josh out to do a face plant on the sidewalk. I see him framed by the bouncers and the doorway as he struggles to his feet and turns back toward the bar, taking a moment to get his balance. He’s got blood streaming from his nose and from a gash on his eyebrow, but he looks ready to fight again, his hands coming up as he steps forward.

  “Josh!” The bouncer is pointing a finger at him. “Josh!” he repeats. “Go the fuck home, Josh. Don’t make me call the cops. Just go home and we’ll forget all this.”

  Josh is still moving toward us. I pinball my way past the bouncers, ricocheting off their bodies as I push through while they get ready to fight Josh again.

  “Josh!” I shout, and run to him, grabbing him around the waist.

  “Get away from me,” he snarls, and effortlessly peels me off and pushes me aside. But as he pushes I get two-on-one wrist control, just like he taught me: I fasten both my hands around one of his wrists and drop my hips and yank at him, and he’s so unsteady and off balance that he crashes to the pavement again. I’ve taken him down.

  He lies there, not moving, blinking slowly, like he has given up and is content to stay on the sidewalk forever. His cell phone is on the pavement next to him. I pick it up and shove it in my back pocket.

  “Josh,” I say, pulling at him. “Get up. We gotta go.”

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out.

  “Josh, c’mon, let’s just go.”

  A few people are passing on the sidewalk and glance at us curiously.

  “Josh.”

  He hoists himself up into a sitting position.

  “We have to go, Josh! Now!”

  “I’m going back in there.”

  “No, you’re not!”

  He’s climbing to his feet, ignoring me as I try to pull him along the sidewalk.

  “Josh. Josh! We have to go! The cops are coming!”

  He shakes me off and starts walking back to the bar. The bouncers are watching, shaking their heads and trading glances, disgusted. Something bursts inside me, an explosion of anger and frustration. I run around Josh and plant myself in front of him, wind up, and punch him as hard as I can in the stomach.

  He stops in his tracks, startled, and looks down at me stupidly.

  “Josh!” I scream. “We’re going home—now!”

  “What happened to your face?” he says.

  “What?” I say, baffled.

  “Your face.”

  He reaches out a hand and touches the side of my head. When he pulls it back it’s covered in blood. I feel a surge of vertigo and then notice the pain. I gingerly put a few fingers up and feel the wetness along my cheek and my jaw line.

  “Here,” says Josh, and rips the remnants of his tattered shirt off and holds it out to me. It’s filthy, covered with blood and beer and whatever mixture of grime coats the floor of the bar. I wave it off impatiently.

  “Hey, kid.”

  It’s one of the bouncers walking toward me, holding a clean bar towel. “Here,” he says, and tosses it to me. I catch it and press it against my temple.

  “Thanks,” I mumble. A small crowd has gathered. Josh is still standing there, dull eyed, like he’s watching all this on TV, and I feel overwhelmed by shame and embarrassment.

  “You want an ambulance or something?” says the bouncer.

  “No,” I say without looking. I grab Josh by the arm and pull. “Come on.”

  He’s like a horse, immovable for a moment, and then he lets himself be led away from the bar. With his other hand he starts digging in his pocket and pulls out the car key.

  “Josh, you’re not driving,” I say.

  “I’m fine,” he says, and proves it by dropping the key. I snatch it up before he has time to even register what happened.

  “Give me the key,” he says. “Give me the key, Isaac.”

  “No.”

  He reaches for it. I jump backwards and start walking away, still facing him, one hand holding the towel against my head, the other holding the key while I simultaneously try to pull out his cell phone. Josh starts walking after me.

  “Josh, no. We’re taking a cab.”

  “Give me the keys, Isaac.”

  “No.”

  “Give me the fucking keys!”

  “No.”

  “Isaac, fuck you. Give me the fucking keys.”

  I stop.

  “No,” I say, “fuck you.” Then I let the keys drop, and they rattle through the parallel bars of a sewer grate. I don’t hear them hit bottom, however far down that might be.

  “Oh, goddamn it, Isaac.”

  He sits down on the curb and puts his head in his hands.

  I realize I don’t know how to get a taxi. In the movies people always just wave their arms or whistle, but that’s always in New York. I don’t think it works that way here. I pull out his cell phone, thinking that I’ll call information, and freeze. There’s a voice message from our home phone. It has to be Lisa.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  THE EMERGENCY

  MERIT BADGE: JUNIOR DOCTOR

  In the cab I try calling the house again, but no one answers. Lisa was scared in her message, crying, asking where we were, saying she was sick and her head hurt. I picture her alone and unconscious and dying while a party rages around her and we’re in some stupid bar downtown. I redial. Nothing.

  “Shit!” I jab the end call button.

  The cab driver took one look at us and didn’t want to take us. I offered him a hundred dollars from Josh’s wallet. He took us.

  It’s a long, tense ride, and I drum on my legs and jiggle my feet. Josh is slumped down, leaning against the door and staring up and out the window like he’s lost in thought.

  “She said she was going to move to New York with me,” says Josh out of nowhere, still looking out the window.

  “Trish?”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, after a long pause he says, “I hated it there. Hated school. Couldn’t hack it. Total fail. I failed, Isaac. Didn’t even like wrestling anymore.”

  “But you’re going back,” I say. “You’re going back, right?”

  Again he doesn’t answer. After more looking out the window he says, “You know what you should do? You should get a tattoo of a dragon.”

  “What?”

  “A dragon. Get one here,” he says, pointing to the inside of his forearm.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think it’s your spirit animal. You kept talking about dragons that night I found you in the woods during the storm.”

  “Josh, are you joining the Marines?”

  Nothing.

  “Are you joining the Marines?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do Mom and Dad know?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you can’t! When?”

  “The day after your bar mitzvah.”

  “Josh, no! They’ll send you to Afghanistan!”

  “Hope so,” he says.

  Now I’m the one who’s quiet, thinking.

  Then, “There’s no such thing as spirit animals, Josh. It’s bullshit. You’re bullshit. You and all your crap. Your tattoo and your frigging yarmulke. It’s just like Patrick with his stupid Mohawk and leather jacket, just something to put on so you can be different and show off. All bullshit. This whole two weeks has been bullshit.”

  He watches me talk, expressionless, maybe not even hearing me. Then he turns back to the window.

  When we arrive at the house the cars are gone from our driveway and from the block. I’m out of the cab a lot faster than Josh, not caring if he’s coming or not. I can see the extent of the damage to the front lawn: an S curve of tire tracks slashing diagonally across from the driveway to the curb. Before I go in the front entrance I take a quick moment to note the splintered wound in the garage door.

  The house seems empty
, all the partiers gone. It’s a wreck, plastic cups and bottles everywhere, a large spill in the entrance hallway that countless people have tracked through. I go right to Lisa’s room, the hallway light enough to illuminate her in her bed. She’s asleep, flushed, tossing about. Her forehead is hot as hell. I get the thermometer from the bathroom across the hall. Josh is there when I get back, hunched over her. He straightens when I come in.

  “She’s really sick!” he says. He looks freaked out. “Look at her face!”

  “Josh, she’s got Terri’s frigging makeup smeared all over her face.”

  “She’s burning up! You have to get the thermometer.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “Give it here.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Give me it!”

  I hand it to him. Of course he can’t get it to work. He keeps pressing the button too many times and resetting it before he puts it in Lisa’s ear, and then he swears each time he reads the error message on the display.

  “Here,” I say, then just take it from him. “Move over,” I say, and he does, and I take her temperature.

  “One hundred and three point four,” I say.

  “Oh, man, that’s really high. That’s really high.” He’s looking even more freaked out and helpless. Helpless and overwhelmed, like a child, a way I’ve never seen him before. “She could be in a coma!”

  “She’s not in a coma. She’s asleep.”

  “Lisa!” He starts shaking her.

  “Josh, let her sleep. She’s just sick. She probably has strep. The fever, all of it, these are exactly her symptoms when she has strep.”

  “Lisa!” He shakes her more. She opens her eyes and starts bawling.

  He holds on to her as she cries and says her head hurts, her throat hurts.

  “She has strep,” I say. “Remember the diagnosis game I play with Dad?” He ignores me, trying to get her to quiet down.

  “We gotta go to the hospital or something,” he says. “I’m gonna call an ambulance.”

  “What?”

  “We have to get her to the hospital! She could have—I don’t know! She could have anything!”