“‘Memory’ from Cats? What are you, a walking gay cliché?”
(Hmm. Maybe my imaginary bullies make a good point with that last one.)
It’s going to be so embarrassing seeing all the pictures one after another. Only my mom will enjoy it, and that’s because she took most of the shots, and because her favorite pastime is kvelling at stuff that pains me. And…well, okay, it’s not like I hate the memories themselves. I do actually like a bunch of the photos when they’re on their own. I like them a lot. I mean, I did pick them out.
The first picture in the slide show is probably my favorite picture of me ever. It’s from when I was seven, which is the year I met Danny, and it’s this picture of us at our second-grade Thanksgiving celebration. He’s wearing like a little construction paper Pilgrim hat and I’ve got this pretend headdress thing on. We’re shaking hands just like they teach you the Pilgrims and Indians did. Oh, and both of our faces are absolutely covered in gravy. Hilarious.
Then, right when the song switches from “Forever Young” to “I Want to Break Free,” there’s another really really awesome pic. It’s from Splash Mountain at Disneyland. It’s one of those pictures they take of you right at the end, just as you’re dropping down the waterfall. I remember I was eight and I was too chicken to go on the ride at first, and I got so scared and embarrassed that I started crying, but then Danny went on and he loved it so much that he made me go on it with him right after, and the man operating the ride had seen me crying before so he let us go straight to the front of the line, no questions asked.
In the picture, I have both of my hands clutching my hair so hard because obviously I was freaked out of my mind, you know? But I’ve got this look of pure exhilaration on my face because I was so happy that I had been brave enough to go on the ride. And Danny just looks totally cool—he’s wearing sunglasses and one of those little Goofy hats that they sell, the ones with the ears. Hannah’s not in the picture since she was on the teacups with my mom.
Oh, dude, and I couldn’t forget to include the picture of us on the fifth-grade class trip to D.C. It’s the craziest. It’s the two of us wading through the freaking Reflecting Pool, for crying out loud. I think that’s like a federal offense, but both of us jumped in anyway, just long enough for the picture, and it was worth it because it’s such a sweet shot. Danny’s splashing water on me and I have this look on my face like I’m about to tackle him into the pool. Of course I didn’t do that because I didn’t want to like, make Zombie Martin Luther King, Jr. mad or something, but man. What a day.
Oh, and I think I forgot what my actual favorite picture is. It’s from Halloween three years ago, when me and Danny dressed up as each other. He’s wearing my standard gray hoodie and a ridiculous afro wig, and I’m wearing one of those little white polos that Danny’s mom used to always make him wear in elementary school, back before he started wearing silver and black 24/7. My hair is all slicked down in the picture too, because Danny used to have hair.
So all the way up through this past summer, yeah, there’s just classic photo after classic photo. Crap—I almost forgot to mention the shot of us from the Europe trip where we’re pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa with our butts! And then there’s us holding up the Eiffel Tower with our butts, and Tower of London butts, and even Stonehenge butts. There were going to be so many other butts photos too. We had all these ideas.
And then seventh grade happened.
I guess this whole past year, I’ve done a pretty good job of blocking out all the good times. I’ve basically made myself believe that I’ve always been a loser, that being a loner is just like normal for me. It can be easier to think that way. For sure. When a friend leaves me, I can just try and pretend like they didn’t mean that much to me. It helps numb the pain.
But it’s fake. I can’t pretend like Disneyland and the Reflecting Pool and the Butt Towers and all that stuff never happened. And Danny shouldn’t be able to, either. Just because he hasn’t spoken to me since St. Patrick’s Day, the day all of his friends made me eat garbage, doesn’t mean that our connection should be broken forever. Just because he wants to hang out with his gangbanging crew more than me doesn’t mean that he should be able to betray his roots. It’s not right. I’m his family.
I don’t know. I guess right now I’m just hoping that at the end of my bar mitzvah, when I have to give my speech, that Danny will listen. I don’t know when else he’s going to hear me talk. He needs to hear what I have to say.
I don’t think I’m a very superstitious person, but I haven’t been able to stop myself from wishing on stuff lately. I’ve been blowing eyelashes and dandelion spores. I’ve been holding my breath in tunnels and at 11:11. I’ve been throwing pennies in fountains and salt over my shoulder. And I’ve got birthday candles coming up, so that’s a big one.
I know that what I’m birthday-wishing for is obvious, but I can’t say it, because I need for it to come true. I’m willing to forgive everything that’s happened. I just want my wish.
And I know saying that makes me sound like a lame little kid, and I don’t care, because that’s what I am. I need this wish.
36 • Hannah Schwartz
Thursday, May 27
It was last Saturday night. We walked all the way to the edge of the pier. The movie had been pretty funny, and definitely very romantic. It was starting to get dark. I gazed up at the sky. I could see Venus and the North Star and a few others that my brother can name. It was chilly so Chad gave me his jacket. So comfy.
I held both of Chad’s hands in mine. I looked up into his green-blue eyes. I knew that this was the right moment.
I took a deep breath. I exhaled.
“We have to end this.”
He definitely did not believe me at first. “Don’t eff with me,” he said, only he didn’t say “eff.”
I said, “Chad, I’m not the kind of person who effs with people,” and I did in fact say “eff.” I asked him if he wanted the full explanation. He said yeah.
So I told Chad straight up that, yeah, it’s over. And it’s all his fault. Somehow I was too dumb to see it before, but I realized it in the last few days: he sucks. I’m so over his constant need for “guy time.” I’ve had enough of having to be the one who calls, of having to organize every hang-out, of having to ensure that not every hang-out is a hookup. Most of all, I cannot stand his stupidly simpleminded view of looking at the world. Not everyone’s a fag. Not everyone’s a wetback. Not everyone’s a slut. And like, even if he thinks that someone is one of those things, who cares? Those labels are cruel and they aren’t important. Sort of like my now-ex-boyfriend.
Chad tried to fight it for a few minutes, but he didn’t last long. He knows he’s a horrible companion. He knows he’s got miles to go before I can think of him as being anywhere close to an okay person. He may be good at the big gestures, and, fine, I guess his eyes and his butt aren’t too shabby. But still. There’s more to life than eyes and butt.
So I dumped the chump. I busted his heart and hopefully his balls, and now I’m just not going to worry about boys for a very long time.
Number two on my list of things to do: complete.
I already got number one checked off when I made that latest DLS post. It was something that had been in my heart for a long time. Now the world knows how I feel about gangs. I think the world agrees, too. Eighty-four commenters can’t be wrong.
Today, it was time for the third and most important thing that I had to do: the apology.
No, I didn’t apologize to Danny. He’s doing just fine, thank you. He’s rolling with his homies and he’s happy being a delinquent, and even if I did say sorry to him, he wouldn’t listen to me, so there’s no point.
Not Danny. I had to apologize to someone who actually deserves it. Someone I’ve genuinely hurt.
I had to apologize to my brother.
I know it’s taken me beyond forever to even realize that this was something I had to do, but it is. And it was so
hard to get up the courage to walk into his room and admit that I was wrong—because, come on, I’m rarely wrong. But I had to.
Jake was practicing his Torah portion when I walked up to his door. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I stood outside for a few minutes and waited for him to finish.
He actually sounded really good. Some of the notes he was reaching…there’s no way that I went that high at my bat mitzvah, and I’m a girl. His vocal range is just…like, he could totally be a little choirboy or a member of the Jackson 5 if he wanted to. Not that anyone wants to be either of those things, but whatever. That still qualifies as a compliment, right?
Jake’s been working so, so hard on all his bar mitzvah stuff. I kind of want to tell him that it’s not that big a deal. I mean, you get the money no matter how good you are. But I shouldn’t get in his way. If working this hard makes him happy, then he should stay in his room and work on stuff by himself all the time.
When he finished with his chanting, I knocked softly on the door.
“Not now, Mom!” he shouted.
“It’s Hannah.”
He didn’t say anything to that, so I walked in.
I didn’t realize it until I entered, but it was the first time I’d been back in Jake’s room since that one night. Everything was exactly the same. Jake’s room hasn’t changed in like, six years. There are still hundreds of bobblehead dolls all awkwardly staring at you from his desk. There’s still the Nerf basketball hoop that him and Danny used to play on for like entire summers. There’s still the gigantic world map with thumbtacks in all the places he wants to visit. (Iceland? Sri Lanka? Easter Island? Honestly, who is my brother?)
I kept looking around his room for a little while. I mean, once I walked in, I realized that I had no idea how to say what I wanted to say. When it’s been so long since you’ve had a real conversation with your little brother, you kind of forget how to speak his language.
Luckily, he spoke first.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
No!
“No!” I told him. “I’m sorry!”
He insisted that he was more sorry, for everything—for the Sweethearts Dance and the whole thing with Danny and for being so lame. I told him that’s ridiculous—I’m more sorry for blaming stuff on him that’s all my fault, for stealing his best friend, for treating him like a nobody even though he’s my brother, for God’s sake.
I knew we’d find a way to turn a heartfelt talk into a stupid siblings argument.
But it was a really good talk. Once we decided that we were both equally victims and victimizers, we moved on to other subjects. School and teachers and friends and family…and I know it sounds super-generic, but, I mean, we did talk about all that stuff. It’s not as if we’d ever covered those topics before. Jake and I really do have those things in common. I never realized it before this, but like, maybe my little brother and I are friends?
Okay, that’s going too far. But what I’m trying to say is that some day in the future, I could maybe possibly sort of accept Jake’s Facebook friend request.
He gave me a sneak peak at the bar mitzvah slide show he’s making, which was unexpectedly the best. I had to help him de-lame the music choices, obviously, but there’s a ton of the cutest pictures. Like this one of me, Jake, and Danny at the premiere of one of Dad’s movies when we’re all really young. The two of them are wearing little tuxes, and I’ve got this shiny silver dress on that makes me look like a disco ball. It’s so funny. It’s awesome.
I’d left my phone in my room, so I’m not sure how long I hung out in Jake’s. But it was light when I went in there and dark when I left, and I actually think that’s pretty cool, that I was in there for that long. I mean, it’s horribly lame, yeah, but underneath all that embarrassingness there’s like, a milligram of secret cool.
The only other thing to report is something weird I found on my phone when I did get back to my room. It was a text. I didn’t recognize the number.
ur gon 2 regret wat u did.
Okay, that’s pathetic even for Chad. Does he seriously think that he still matters to me? Like, at all? Honestly, wtf.
37 • Dorothy Wu
Saturday, June 5
In my next incarnation, I am most definitely coming back as a Jew! Bar mitzvahs, bar mitzvahs…who knew?!
I had a very bad feeling about today. Jake did not return either of my good-luck (or, as they say, “Matzoh Tov!”) phone calls. In fact, he has not returned any of my calls since I spat in his face. Because of our friend feud, I thought he might be flustered when he looked out and saw me in the audience today. Because he would be flustered, I thought that he would potentially start sobbing. But Jake did not cry one solitary tear. Nay. Rather, he did something that none of us expected.
I arrived at the service early in order to see the sights. The whole event was held in the massive backyard of the Schwartz house, which was decorated to perfection. The chairs were white, the little circular hats that all the men and some of the women wore were light blue, and I was dressed in pretty, pretty pink. It was a flower design that I purchased months ago, as soon as I received the invitation for this occasion. I also bought a small trinket to wear on this day. It is a silver necklace with a small dolphin charm that I purchased from renowned jewelry boutique Claire’s. I figured that when Jake saw me, it would remind him of our happier times. For real this time.
When it came time for everyone to take their seats, I looked up at Jake sitting stoically on the stage. I became quite intimidated. He looked very serious and focused, like Abraham Lincoln or that stern Indian that Pocahontas was supposed to marry. Perhaps that makes sense. After all, the theme of his party was “This Day in History.”
Luckily, I did not stay intimidated by Jake for long. For you see, I noticed the most adorable thing. Lining the whole front of the stage were dozens and dozens of pairs of shoes, going from little baby tennis shoes on the left all the way up to the ginormous basketball shoes that are much too big for Jake’s feet on the right. I overheard two ladies behind me talking about them. Apparently, Jake’s mother has kept every single pair of shoes he has ever worn since he was born. This reminded me that Jake is still a little boy, and thinking about that makes me smile.
And then the service began. And Jake stood up, and Jake wrapped a white-and-blue shawl around his shoulders, and Jake started to chant things in Hebrew, and this was the point at which I realized something that I never thought I would realize: Could it be that my little boy is now something of a man?!
Holy Table! His voice…it was so low! Not low in an ugly way either, like a troll or Muzzy, but low like a smooth, cool man. Low like how milk chocolate would talk if milk chocolate had a voice.
And it was not just his voice. For the first time in the history of man, Jake Schwartz stood up straight. He is taller than one realizes. Not as tall as Danny, but tall like his father. Certainly taller-seeming than Tom Cruise, who was sitting in front of me. Mr. Cruise’s surprising lack of height was all that the ladies behind me could talk about.
Jake’s hair-poof was gone, also. He has opted for a much shorter, sleeker look that causes him to resemble a Roman centurion. I like it. I love Jake’s “fro” more than anything, yes it is true, but this new cut makes him look much older, and also I am sure that it was much easier for him to keep his little hat on his head with the shortened hair.
And it was the way Jake walked. There is a part in the service in which the bar mitzvah boy-man takes hold of the “Torah” (the giant scroll that he reads his story from, for all you ignorami), and he has to walk with it all the way through the audience while people touch their Hebrew books to the Torah and then kiss their books.
I would have been so, SO, so, SO nervous if I had to carry that thing. Back when Jake and I used to converse on a regular basis, back during the golden era of our friendship, he told me that if you drop the Torah, you are not allowed to eat during daylight for forty days! And I think he was telling the truth when he told me th
at, unlike the time he told me that the hamburgers from the school cafeteria are actually made of whale.
What I am trying to say is that Jake held on to that Torah strong, and he walked hard. He did not drop it and he made us all very proud.
Then Jake chanted from the Torah, and he was perfect. His voice deftly mixed the inspiring confidence of Nelson Mandela with the melodious range of Jigglypuff. I do not think he made any mistakes, and even if he did err, then he covered his boo-boos flawlessly, which is perhaps even more impressive I think. The only problem was that I could not understand any of the Hebrew things that he was chanting. But then he gave a speech in my native tongue of English and…whoa. No one who was there for his speech will ever forget it. It was heartwarming and haunting.
Shortly after the speech, there was a delightful moment when everyone in the audience was given wrapped candies, and we got to throw them at Jake. One of the candies, which I think was thrown by one of Madonna’s children, hit Jake squarely in the eye—yowch. But Jake did not cry.
After the service ended, everyone went up to the bar mitzvah boy-man to congratulate him. Everyone except me. Too many butterflies. I had the following thought process: I know that eventually I will have my opportunity to tell Jake how wondrous he was and how wondrous he is. However, I feel like he still thinks of me as a poor friend. I just need to find the right moment.
I went home and played Final Fantasy VII for four hours. I tried to avoid thinking about Jake during this time. I tried to keep my focus on Sephiroth.
In the evening, I returned to the Schwartz home for the grand party. Again, the decorations were awe-inspiring. There were two Statue of Liberty statues at the end of the driveway. There was a large cardboard cutout of Mount Rushmore with a hole where Theodore Roosevelt’s face should be where you could have your picture taken. And all of the waiters were dressed as Revolutionary War people, with the tricornered hats and the drums and the fifes and everything.
Trash Can Days Page 20