The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

by Joshua Braff

  I run to the window and lower my forehead on his arm. “Oh my God,” I say, out of breath. “Listen. Dad called. Told me to come home. Something’s happened.”

  “Get in,” he says, and opens the door.

  Beth and Brigitte are in the back so I climb on Asher’s lap. My knees are mashed up against the glove box and my chin and cheek touch the fuzzy gray ceiling. Asher says, “Cozy,” and slams the long door. Nicky floors the thing and my head jolts backward.

  “What’s your guess?” Asher says over the blaring music.

  “What?”

  “The reason he called.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, and rest my head against his. I close my eyes. “Asher.”

  No flames, no smoke, no charred sibling limbs. I’m surprised to see my father’s car is gone. Nick slows down and even signals but then slams on the accelerator and the car takes off in a shot. I turn to see the house go past us through the back windshield. “Nicky!”

  Asher grabs the yarmulke off my head and crams it in my lap. “Surprise fucker! “It was us.”

  I stare down at him. “What?”

  “Let me get one of those brews for the boy, Bridg.”

  Brigitte and Beth start laughing in the back and Nicky goes into a fishtail once again. I spread my arms to the dash as the rear of the thing kicks back and forth with smoking tires. “Stop!”

  The car rattles sideways to a frightening halt and stalls. “Relax, you puss,” Nick says. He starts it up again, pumps his foot, and again we’re flying toward nowhere on screaming tires. Brigitte reaches into a Styrofoam cooler behind the driver’s seat and hands Asher a can of Stroh’s. He cracks it open and holds it up to my lips. “Exoooooddussssss!” he screams, and tips it in my mouth.

  “Wait!” I try to swallow it but it pours down my chin. “Asher—”

  “And the Hebrew slave boy slurped beer from Pharoah’s urn, which symbolizes—”

  “Just wait.”

  “. . . the tears and mortar and locusts and—”

  “Drink up now,” says Nicky. “You’s way behind, little man.”

  I take the can from Asher’s hand before he tips it again. “Does this mean I’m coming?” I yell. “Does this mean . . . ?” Asher catapults me into the backseat and I land shoulder first between Beth’s knees.

  “We got porno!” yells Brigitte, and gives my ass a smack.

  “And it was God,” Asher screams laughing, “who freed baby Moses with his mighty hand. Drink the precious hops of my fields he commanded and they did, yes they did. And it was gooooooood!”

  When I finally get upright between the girls I have beer on my hair and jeans. The car is just soaring down these thin suburban streets and I cringe on every screeching turn.

  “So I’m going?” I yell, but no one seems to hear.

  “Let my people goooooo,” Asher sings over the music. “Gooo doooown Moseeees, waaaaaay down to Egypt laaaaand, tell old Pharaoh, let my Jacob goooooo.”

  When I turn to Beth she’s wearing my yarmulke and admiring herself in the rearview. “‘Barook . . . tata, do-anye.’ Good, right?”

  “Is he bringing me?” I ask her.

  “‘Elohaino melik kolom.’ And I’m Catholic,” she says, pointing at a purple cross on her ankle.

  Asher swivels around to face me and lowers the radio. “Exiled into a land of debauchery and lust”—he’s so hammered—“the Hebrew slave boy had only God to defeat now.”

  “Asher?”

  “The Hebrew slave boy speaks.”

  I push off the girls and slide forward on my seat. My face is nearly touching his. “So . . . yes? I can go?”

  He looks me in the eyes for a second and lets his head flop forward.

  “I told ya he’d think that,” Brigitte says.

  “It’s a party, J. You’re coming to my farewell party.”

  I stare at the top of his head until he looks up. “What?”

  “It’s my last fuckin’ night! I had to get you.”

  “You had to call that office and . . . pretend to be him?”

  “Relax.”

  “So I could come to a fuckin’ party?”

  “It’s . . . funny.”

  “For you,” I say, and punch the seat in front of me.

  “Hey,” says Nicky. “Easy.”

  “Just relax,” Asher says.

  “Relax? Rabbi Seth’s calling him right now, you dick.”

  “Good! Dad’s not home.”

  “But he will be.”

  He takes a swig off his beer and swallows quickly. “I’ll tell him it was me.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “I will.”

  “You’re a liar!”

  “I’ll get you back to the house by seven,” Asher screams over the music. “He’ll never know. Now shut the fuck up and drink.”

  He turns the radio up even higher and we all sit in the thump of Judas Priest. Nicky drives about ninety down Irving and squeals right onto East Robson. I press up against Brigitte, pinned to her shoulder, and she laughs and nibbles on my earlobe.

  “Look at you!” Asher screams with a smile. “A second ago you were sittin’ in that shit hole and now you’re pimpin’ between two hot chicks. What’s not to love?”

  I lean forward so he can hear me over the music and engine. “Can we talk?”

  “Definitely! We’ll party at Mom’s, all right?”

  “Is she still there?”

  “No, long gone. Jew school lets out at seven o’clock, right?” I nod. “But what if Rabbi—?”

  “What if he what?”

  “Calls Dad!”

  Asher takes a sip of his beer and seemingly turns around to think. My ribs are throbbing to the bass of the music. It’s a crunching amplified beam of rock like a jugjugjugjugjugjugjugjug that swallows all other sound. The singer screams and Nicky starts to bang the steering wheel to the beat. “Livin’ after midnight, rockin’ till the dawn, lovin’ till the mornin’ and I’m gone—I’m gone.”

  “Asher!?” I yell, not sure if he hears me.

  “Rollin’!” Jugjugjugjugjug. “Rollin’!” Jugjugjugjujug.

  “Your brother won’t let anything happen to you,” Brigitte says. She then reaches into her purse for a pot pipe and matches. “He got all bummed when we left you today.”

  I look at her as she puts the thing between her lips.

  “He loves you a lot, J.” She winks and tries to ignite a soggy match. “Says he thinks your dad’s gonna fuck you up.” Beth pulls a lighter out of her purse and lays over me to light the pipe. I feel her breasts on my knees.

  “Ont some?” says Brigitte with her lungs filled.

  “I better not.”

  “It’ll really help loosen ya up,” she says, exhaling, and starts to cough in these tiny nostril spurts of smoke.

  I take it from her and hand it to Beth. “I love your blond hair,” she tells me, and puts the pipe to her lips.

  Asher lowers the music, spins around, and has this to tell me: “If he calls him we’re screwed.”

  I nod with wide eyes. “That’s . . . that’s the plan?”

  “But he won’t.” Beth hands him the pipe and he takes it from her. “Try to have some fun, man. I’ll get you back in time and you’ll wish you smoked some pot and drank some booze and—anybody here want to suck J off?”

  Beth raises her hand so only I can see. My penis starts to fill.

  “I will,” says Brigitte. She climbs on top of me and thrusts her pelvis. Everyone laughs.

  Asher lights the pipe still laughing. “You are one wacky fuckin’ chick,” he says with lungs filled. He exhales. “I’m really gonna—”

  “Miss me?” she says, climbing off me.

  Asher looks all sheepish and wasted.

  “Is that what you were gonna say?”

  He sits back in his seat and taps the ash out the window.

  “Asher!” she screams.

  “What?” he says, annoyed.

  “Is that what you w
ere gonna say? I’m gonna miss you, Brigitte. I’m an asshole because I’m leaving you behind and I’m gonna miss sticking my cock inside you!”

  Nicky’s laugh sounds like a car engine trying to turn over in the dead of winter.

  Brigitte throws her shoulders back into the seat and mumbles “asshole” a few more times.

  “We’ve been drinking since noon,” says Beth, still eyeing my hair. “Ya didn’t dye this, did you?”

  “Little Greeny ain’t smokin’ da ganj?” says Nicky.

  I sit forward, away from Beth, as Nicky watches her touch my head.

  “Can I talk to you, Asher?” I say.

  Beth holds the pipe to my lips.

  “Stuff’s like lawn grass,” she says. “Real harmless.”

  “Lawn grass?”

  “Just a little,” Beth says like a nurse. She lights it.

  I take a small toke and hold my shoulders back like the burn-outs do. Brigitte starts to applaud and Asher smiles proudly and nods.

  “We need more beer,” Asher says. “Anything else?”

  Nicky’s currently steering the car with his knees. “Where’s your girlfriend, little Greeny?” he says.

  Beth puts an open palm on the center of my back and starts rubbing in circles.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “’Cause you’re a homo, right?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Should we get him a whore, A. G.? How ’bout a transvestite off Broad Street?”

  “How about Jonny?” says Asher.

  “Oh, that’s cold,” says Nick.

  “No,” he says chuckling. “I mean where the hell is he? How often ya get kidnapped from Jew school? He should be here, join the liberation.”

  “He’s probably home,” I say.

  “Does he like beer?”

  I nod.

  “Back toward Glendale,” Asher says to Nick.

  I lean forward and sort of smile. “You’re gonna go get him?”

  Nicky yanks the car into a massively hard U-turn that makes us all pile on each other once again. With my face against the window I suddenly think of crashing in this heap of bodies and weed and envision sirens and some red-haired cop lifting my yarmulke with a long pair of tongs. The car pulls out of the U and straightens out and we all fall back into place. “He’s a terrible driver,” I say, but only Beth hears. She looks at me with her smiley stoned eyes and quickly slips her tongue between my lips. As she pulls away I stare at her in disbelief. “Please,” I whisper, mostly with my eyes. “Nicky.”

  “Please what?” she says into my ear. “Please do it again?”

  “O-kay,” I say, leaning forward, nearly hopping into the front seat. “What’s this baby got, Nick, a six cylinder?”

  “Try eight.”

  Beth touches my butt and I turn to scold her.

  “Barook, tatta . . . aboniiiiie,” she sings, and the Camaro soars toward Glendale Avenue.

  Rabbi Nudity

  There aren’t any telephone outlets in the bathrooms of my father’s house. There aren’t any in the living room or the basement or what he calls the “library” either. So if he’s sitting or standing in one of these places he would hear it ring probably or definitely but he may just very well ignore it. I’ve seen him do this, not often, but I’ve seen it—times when he’s groggy or reading or the Mets have runners in scoring position. Besides, it’s a weekday, a Thursday, late afternoon, so he’s either at his office or with Rona or somewhere in his car—a car that wasn’t in the driveway when we were there, so there currently seems a greater chance of not reaching him than reaching him when one figures the time of day and the various rooms he may or may not be in when the phone finally rings. At home.

  But the rabbi does it. He reaches my father at 5:06 P.M. and proceeds to ask if “Everything’s kosher?” At the time Jon had just answered his front door with Elios pizza sauce on his lips and I’d told him I was stoned and kidnapped and that Brigitte didn’t seem to be wearing a bra. And I don’t think it’s a matter of mistrust that leads the rabbi to call, but more respect for the president, the nasi, and what might have gone wrong in the nasi’s home. I can see my father’s face, the phone at his ear, slow, paced-out blinks of astonishment that soon quicken as suspicion triggers in his mind. “Yes, yes, I’m here,” he says into the phone. “What time did he leave?”

  The first call to my mother’s house comes at five thirty-three. We’ve all just arrived and made our way through Asher’s unpacked clothes and toiletry crap, which is strewn all over the front hall carpet. As it rings, Asher whistles with his fingers and lifts his hands in the air like a bank teller in a western. “Nobody answers the fuckin’ phone. Please repeat.”

  “Nobody answers the fuckin’ phone,” says the crew in broken unison. None of us moves until all nine rings are done. The silence brings an air of excitement, as if we’ve all just survived a shelling. Jon, Beth, Nick, and Brigitte move on into the kitchen with the beers. Asher says, “Soon be back,” and runs up the staircase. I follow him.

  When I reach the top he’s staring at the ceiling in the hallway with his hands on his hips.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  “You been in this attic yet?”

  I look up at it and shake my head. “No. Can I talk to you?”

  “Go ahead,” he says, looking for something to stand on. “I’m listening.” It’s then he jumps and swipes at the ceiling with his hand.

  I lean on the banister and watch him leap twice more. “Before you called the temple tonight . . . I was writing this letter.”

  “Can you boost me up there, ya think?”

  I weave my fingers together and walk toward him. He braces himself on my shoulder and steps into my hands.

  “The letter was to Dad,” I say.

  “Lift.”

  “You’re too heavy.”

  “Forget it,” he says, leaping down. “I need a chair or something.” He walks into Gabe’s room and looks around.

  “The letter said I was going to catch a train.”

  He walks back in the hall with his arms folded. “Grab me that chair in Mom’s room, will ya?”

  He faces me when he doesn’t hear me move.

  “Please?” he says.

  I drag the chair from her vanity table into the hall. He steps up and pulls open a hatch that leads to a ladder. In seconds his head and torso are rummaging through my mother’s tiny storage space in the ceiling. I stand underneath him at the base of the ladder and talk straight to his ass.

  “It leaves from Newark at six fourteen. And during hafsaka I was gonna leave. Just walk out of there. I was gonna be on it.”

  “Holy shit, it’s a fuckin’ mess up here.”

  “Asher?”

  “I can’t see crap.”

  “Asher?”

  “Can you get me a flashlight or, oooh, never mind, there’s a chain.” He pulls it and the room lights up around his head. “Much better. I’m looking for a box with my name on it. It had all these bones and shit like that in it. Ya seen it?”

  “Bones?”

  “Not human bones.”

  “I haven’t seen it.”

  “I’m making a mobile for my first project and—oh yuck. Stretch Armstrong leaked all over the place.”

  “J?” Jonny says from the stairs.

  I look over the banister. “Yeah?”

  “Bottle opener?”

  “I’ll be down in a second.”

  The phone starts to ring.

  “No one answers the fuckin’ phone,” says Asher from his hole. “Tell them.”

  “Don’t answer the phone!” I yell.

  “I hope to Christ that’s not him,” Asher says, tearing open a box.

  I look into my mother’s bedroom. I can see the phone on her bedside table. “It’s him,” I say.

  “Shhhhh. It’s still ringing.” Asher freezes and I hear him sigh. “Could be anyone,” he says.
<
br />   Nine rings again, and it finally stops. “No, it can’t.”

  Another rip into a taped box. “Remember that ram’s femur I had?”

  I look at my watch.

  “Or that hoof I used to prop my door open with?”

  “A what?”

  “I have to find that fuckin’ box. And where’s all my Mongoloid drawings and my pump rifle and—? Oh nice.”

  “What?”

  “Good box.”

  It’s then he starts throwing things down. A male mannequin wig with dried glue on the sideburns comes first. It bounces once and lands like roadkill against the carpet. A Barbie with painted nipples comes next, followed by a pair of flip-flops, a small animal’s femur, and a tefillin I got for my bar mitzvah. This is going to be quite a mobile. “Gold mine” he says, and down comes his pump rifle and a small box of ammo. When he finds a loaded Polaroid and two clips of film, he jumps down off the ladder with a thump that rattles the walls. He swipes the cobwebs off his hair and points the thing right at me.

  Clickadee-vvvvvv. “Fuckin’ works,” he says. “Give me the finger or somethin’.”

  I choose not to.

  Clickadee-vvvvvv. I squeeze the flash from my eyes. “Did you hear anything I said?”

  “Yeah, yeah, just come down to the kitchen for a minute.” And he’s off and running. “How drunk are you girls!?” he yells from the stairs. “I need nudie shots for the road!”

  When we get there he aims the Polaroid at the open fridge. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Pyramid of Milwaukee’s Best. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Nicky poking carrot into Jon’s ass while Jon reaches for beer. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Beth spanking Brigitte while Brigitte sticks tongue out at camera. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Nicky and Jon “shotgunning” beers. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Beth with hands on knees looking over shoulder with pursed lips. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Brigitte winking with carrot deep in mouth. Clickadee-vvvvvv. More of the carrot, flickering tongue at tip. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Nicky pretending to urinate in sink. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Beth smiling with middle finger raised as she heads down the hall to the bathroom. Clickadee-vvvvvv. Brigitte mooning camera with cutoffs and panties at knees.

  “Yow,” says Asher. “Now that’s ma-girl.”