Sons of the 613

by Michael Rubens

  When I got to her apartment in the morning, I told her my plan. She stood silently for a few moments, then said, “Okay.”

  We left my bike there and rode on her Vespa. We barely spoke, just going over the details a few times. We didn’t talk about the party, about her and Josh, nothing. She let me off early so I could cut through the woods, while she continued on to Nystrom’s.

  “You ready?” she says.

  “I’m ready.”

  “You sure you want to do this?” she says. “It’s pretty stupid.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right, then,” she says. “I can’t believe I agreed to this. Okay. I’m going to ring the doorbell now.”

  She rings it, and I watch the dogs do exactly what I was hoping they would—they sprint around the side of the building toward the front and start barking insanely at Lesley.

  I’m up instantly, running down the short hill toward the fence.

  “Hi there,” Lesley is saying in my ear, except she’s talking to Mr. Nystrom, who must have answered the door. “I’m with a film crew, and I’m scouting locations for a shoot,” she says. I reach the fence and start climbing as quietly as I can. “No, a film crew. Right. Like a movie.”

  I drop down from the fence into enemy territory, pulse pounding, managing to score a direct hit with my right foot on a fresh pile of rottweiler crap. That’s the least of my worries, though. The dogs are still out of sight, barking at her, but they’re just around the corner, and if they lose interest in her and return to the backyard I’ll soon be in several of their stomachs.

  “Wait, please wait. Could I just show you the shot we’d like to get? No? Please? Pretty please? Your house is perfect. We’d pay you, also.”

  I’m sure Patrick would have agreed to help me out, but I think most people would call the police if Patrick showed up at their door. Terri would have probably volunteered, too, but God knows what sort of chaos would have resulted. I really don’t know any other adultlike people I could have asked. It had to be Lesley. Because, well, Lesley is Lesley. She’s beautiful and engaging, and I figured even Nystrom wouldn’t be able to resist her charms. Plus she has those official-looking laminated film-crew badges.

  “Well, there really is no better spot,” she’s saying. I can hear the smile in her voice. “It’s just here along the side of the building, where your . . . lovely dogs are. Can I just show you?”

  It’s working. The dogs are getting louder in the earpiece, meaning she’s moving closer to them, closer to the fence, meaning hopefully they’ll keep paying attention to her while I slay the minotaur.

  The minotaur stares back at me cherubically. It turns out to be heavier than I expected. I won’t be able to just throw the statue over the fence. But I’m prepared for that: I have my backpack. I lay the bag on the ground, roll the statue into it, zip it up as much as I can, hoist it on my back, struggle not to fall over.

  “These really are lovely dogs,” Lesley is saying now. “Although I feel like someone told me they were poodles.”

  In a harsh whisper she says, “Isaac, you are so gonna get it . . .”

  Okay, I wasn’t entirely honest with Lesley when I described the mission, figuring she might balk if she knew the dogs might actually kill me if things went bad.

  “Oh, nothing,” she says to Nystrom. “Just talking to myself. So, what are their names?” Pause. “How wonderful! Which one is Adolf?”

  It’s a lot harder climbing back up the fence with the backpack pulling me down, the straps cutting into my neck and shoulders, the chicken wire painful on my fingers. I’m running out of time. My heart is pumping hard, and I’m trying to hide the sound of my breathing. Nearly there. Then it happens. My foot slips, scraping down the fence, making a huge rattle. I freeze.

  “Wait, where’s that one going?” Lesley says, loud, warning me. “Where’s he going?”

  I twist around just as the dog clears the corner.

  There’s a moment when monster dog and statue thief regard each other.

  Then it’s game on. The dog doesn’t even bother to bark—he just charges, hurtling at me. I feel a burst of adrenaline such as I’ve never felt in my life. I don’t so much climb as launch myself over the fence, somehow landing unhurt on the other side just as the rottweiler slams into the barrier, and I’m up the slope and into the brush, pausing just long enough to give Adolf the finger.

  Lesley and I sit on a fallen tree in the forest behind Nystrom’s house and look at the statue.

  “That’s it, huh?” she says. “That’s what you nearly died for?”

  “Yep.”

  She shakes her head. “Boys are weird,” she says.

  “So are girls,” I say.

  The forest is quiet except for the distant sound of an airplane. Lesley looks at her watch.

  “I need to go to work,” she says. “And you need to go to school.” I nod.

  “Thanks for helping out,” I say.

  “Sure.”

  Neither of us moves.

  “Isaac,” she says after a pause, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really like you, you know. I think you’re a special guy. I hope that you don’t hate me.”

  I’m still for a bit, not answering. There’s a bird chirping somewhere. Another plane is in the air, invisible. At school, third period is just about over. My dad is at the hospital seeing to his patients. Josh is doing whatever he is doing, and Patrick is out there somewhere, and Terri with her yappy dog, and the world and the universe continue on their way. When I answer, it’s quiet, because I’m afraid that the world might hear me, and even that she might hear me.

  “I love you, Lesley,” I say.

  There. All done. Nothing left to hide.

  Next to me, she’s silent. I’m content to sit there. When I chance a look at her, she’s looking back at me, smiling in a strange way, and her eyes are brimming.

  “Aw,” she says. “Aww,” she repeats, and holds her arms out to me, and we hug, a tight hug, twisted awkwardly toward each other on the log. She rocks back and forth a little and I rock with her, and I hear her sniffle and feel her remove her hand from around me so that she can wipe her nose or her eyes. Before she releases me she puts her right hand on my cheek and brings me closer to her so that she can kiss me on the temple: once, twice, a third time.

  “Isaac,” she says, “you’re the first guy who’s ever said that to me.” She pulls me in for another hug, and it’s a long one, even longer than the first. I’d felt distant from her before. I did hate her. But now my mind is full of the impossible, the fantastic, of realities less probable than my fantasy books. I know that the chasm between us is too broad and deep, that by the time I’ll truly be a man and be ready for her we’ll both be different people and she could be married and have kids and live in Los Angeles likes she wants to. It will never work. It’s like losing her again. It’s like a death, a whole future eliminated and vanishing, and now we’re both sniffling and teary eyed.

  We separate and she fishes around in her jean jacket for a packet of tissues.

  “I’ve taken to carrying these things,” she says, offering me one. “I’ve been crying a lot more lately.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I say, and she laughs, and we sit there dabbing at our tears.

  “Hey,” I say, “want to come to a bar mitzvah?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  THE QUARRY IS PRESENTED

  “Josh.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Josh, wake up.”

  “Mmmm.”

  1:39 A.M., less than ten hours left until my bar mitzvah. I’m standing next to Josh’s bed, watching him sleep.

  “Josh,” I say again, and cautiously reach out like I’m trying to snatch a jewel guarded by a cobra and give Josh a few fingertip shoves on the shoulder. I’m ready to duck if he’s the lash-out-in-his-sleep type, which I’m assuming he is. Instead he makes another Mmmm sound, and then takes a big breath in through his nose and brings a hand up to wipe his face.
<
br />   “What’s going on?” he says. “Ow. Turn that off,” he adds when I put the flashlight beam on him. See how he likes it.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  “What are you talking about? What time is it?”

  “About two A.M.”

  “Christ.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I have to hand it to him—he didn’t ask anything else. He just looked at me for a moment, shook his head to wake himself up, then got up out of bed and got dressed without another word.

  He follows me outside into the night, asking no questions as we walk. The last time we made this journey together I wanted the answers to the Mystery of Josh: Who is the girl at the bar? What are his plans? What happened at school? Now I know the answers, and they’re small and simple and maybe a little bit sad, and there’s no romance or intrigue to them. But I guess they’re just human.

  Josh doesn’t open his mouth until we’re huddled in the brush near Nystrom’s backyard and I hand the statuette to him. I hid it here after swiping it, figuring it was too heavy to carry home. Josh twists it around in the moonlight, examining it.

  “How’d you do it?” he says.

  I shake my head. He nods, letting the question go. Josh holds a hand out to me. “Well done,” he says. “You killed the minotaur.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  MANHOOD IS ACHIEVED, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO THE TENETS OF REFORM JUDAISM

  MERIT BADGE: BAR MITZVAH

  “Today, I am a man.”

  I’m the one at the podium now, everyone staring up at me. My voice is even. My hands are steady.

  I finally admitted to my dad that I was afraid of getting shaky and passing out. He gave me ten milligrams of atenolol to take. It’s a beta blocker. Apparently it prevents your body from responding to adrenaline. All the big musicians in major orchestras use it because it keeps their hands from trembling.

  “Take it,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

  I hack my way doggedly through the sections that are in Hebrew. I’m not going to lie—there are a few bumpy moments, lots of starting and stopping and glances at the rabbi for guidance. At one particularly sticky point I pause and say, “I’m really sorry, everyone. I’ve had a pretty eventful few weeks.” This is greeted with an appreciative chuckle from certain quarters of the assembled and a raised eyebrow from my mother. From the back comes a voice: “You can do it, little dude!”

  More laughter.

  “Thank you, Patrick,” I reply, and slog on. I’ll admit to being somewhat touched that he’s attending, and that he went so far as to make a special alteration to his Mohawk for the occasion: shaving a five-inch strip out of it at the crown of his head so the yarmulke has a place to sit.

  Terri is here too, and a few of her friends who I assume were curious about what a bar mitzvah looks like. I’m guessing that my event has a higher stripper turnout than is generally the case. I’ll say this: My grandfather seems pretty pleased with that part of the guest list.

  I kludge my way through the Hebrew jungle and emerge on the other side with what I’d call a C+, or maybe a B- with credit for sheer effort. Not Talmudic scholar material, but not Shabbat short bus, either.

  Then it’s time for my speech. You have to give a speech to demonstrate how mature and thoughtful you are. With the Hebrew part all I wanted to do was survive. But I really, really wanted to say something in my speech, something with weight and substance, something that might actually make people think that I’m, well, mature and thoughtful.

  You’d think I’d have something to talk about, considering the past weeks’ fun. But the more I tried, the less I could make sense of my own thoughts. So I end up delivering the speech I had prepared a long time ago, a generic blah about how the environment is precious and everyone should get along and there should be no more war. Rabbi Abramovitz stands next to me, smiling, eyes closed, nodding sagely. Probably thinking, Oh, for fuck’s sake, why can’t these kids ever say anything interesting?

  I glance up now from the podium. I’m nearly done. Josh is watching me solemnly. Lisa is fidgeting. My mom has her smile. My dad looks bemused. There are some cousins and my aunt and uncle from Connecticut and my grandfather from Florida, and assorted family friends.

  Danny is here. Paul is here. Steve is here. Sarah and Eric are here, sitting together, holding hands.

  Lesley isn’t.

  Before the ceremony got started I asked Josh if she’d called or texted or anything. Then I asked him again. And then again a few minutes later, at which point he promised me that if she did, I’d be the first to know, and if I asked him again . . .

  “What?” I said, waiting for the threat.

  “Nothing. Just go get bar mitzvahed.”

  Maybe she’ll show up late, I told myself. But inside I knew that she wouldn’t. And somehow I know she’s gone from my life forever.

  I finish. There is applause. I step off the podium to hugs and congratulations, a bar mitzvah at last. My dad says, “You were steady as a rock! That beta blocker really worked, huh?”

  “Sure did,” I say, and thank him. It seems ungrateful to tell him that the pill is still wrapped in tin foil in my pocket, untouched.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  GOODBYE

  “You want any of this crap?” says Josh.

  “I definitely want the Navy SEALs poster.”

  “Yeah?”

  “No.”

  We’re in his room. In a few minutes Patrick is going to show up in his beat-up Camry and take Josh to the airport so that he can fly to South Carolina for the beginning of boot camp. My dad offered to take him, but Josh said he had it covered.

  “Really, anything in here, you want it, it’s yours,” says Josh. “They don’t let you take anything along with you.”

  “I’ll poke around.”

  “The porn is all in that bottom drawer.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out about three years ago.”

  He nods. “You always were smart. You can probably just dump the rest of the shit that’s in here.”

  No, we’ll keep it for when you get back, I want to say, but it gets stuck somewhere, so I don’t say anything.

  This whole week I kept expecting the moment when Josh would take me aside and say, Let’s talk. Let’s talk about everything that’s happened and everything that’s going to happen. But no. I don’t know if I passed the course or not. It’s like we’re back at the beginning, nothing changed, not knowing if we’re friends or what he thinks of me or if he thinks of me.

  “Josh . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay.”

  Outside, someone honks. Josh looks out the window.

  “Patrick’s here.”

  I nod. Josh stands up.

  “Well,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. This is the last conversation you’re going to have with him, ever, part of me is saying, and another is trying to build a wall and block that thought out.

  He extends his hand. I shake it.

  “Good luck,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  I follow him down the hall to the foyer. I watch as he has a brief conversation with my mom and dad—my dad puts a hand on his shoulder, patting it, then a hug; my mom strokes Josh’s face, looking at him sorrowfully, an embrace that lasts longer than Josh wants.

  “Lisa,” says my dad, “come say goodbye to Josh.”

  Lisa emerges from the TV room. Josh picks her up and hugs her, kissing her face. She starts to cry. He whispers something to her, Lisa nodding as she listens, sniffling. He puts her down and pats her on the head. A last handshake with me.

  “All right, guys, see you later.”

  Lisa and I go out on the front porch to watch him climb into Patrick’s car. Patrick waves to us, a little salute, and I wave back. Remember this. Remember this moment, just in case it’s the last time you’ll see Josh.

  The
car pulls away from the curb, the crap muffler making the engine sound phlegmy. Lisa, weeping, stays outside to wave at it as it disappears down the block, but I go back in.

  And that’s it.

  I go to my room because I don’t want to be around my parents and their grief. I sit down on my bed, then lie down. The wall cracks and gives way and I’m flooded with the certainty that I didn’t want to face, the knowledge that Josh is gone forever, gone to boot camp and then to some valley in Afghanistan, his pride forcing him to always race to be the first to meet the bullets in each firefight, to walk point on paths lethal with IEDs. He won’t come back, because he doesn’t want to come back.

  Then I hear the farty sound of the Camry again, growing louder, and then honking. I get up and look out the window. The car is back out there at the curb. Lisa comes into my field of vision, running across the front yard, Josh scooping her up and hugging her more. He’s staying! He’s not going!

  I run out the front door and across the damaged lawn to him. He’s still holding Lisa, talking in her ear. When I get there he says, “All right, go back inside. I have to talk to Isaac for a second.” He puts her down and she wipes her tears and hesitates, and he says, “Go on, go on, I’ll see you soon. Go on, Lisa,” and she goes to the front porch and stands watching.

  “Did you change your mind?” I say.

  He shakes his head. He looks around, as if he’s making sure no one is watching or listening. The block is empty, except for Patrick waiting in the car and Lisa on the porch.

  “Gonna miss your flight, Josh,” says Patrick, leaning to talk out of the open passenger window.

  “I’ll be right there,” says Josh. He looks pained and uncomfortable, unable to form his thoughts into words.

  “Josh,” says Patrick again.

  “Yeah,” says Josh. Again the struggle. I hold my breath, waiting for something, anything, from him, some acknowledgment of me. The final merit badge, the thumbs-up from Josh. Instead: “Look . . . just . . . take care of Lisa, okay?”

  “Okay.”