“We had a party for him last night.”
“I should get him a present.”
“If you give us some money we’ll get some cigarettes for him.”
“I’m not going to buy Avi cigarettes. They’re stupid.”
“It won’t make any difference, he’ll still smoke just as much whether you give him an extra carton or not.”
I shook my head.
When they got up to go they made some reference about me to an old woman standing in the driveway. I’d seen her before: she is noticeable because of a very large sole on one of her shoes to balance her disproportionate legs. I think she is Dovid and Yossi’s grandmother. After the boys left we spoke briefly.
“You go into a store and buy ham with the tzitzis?” she asked me. “You shouldn’t do that. Pretending to be a Jew. It’s not kosher.”
“No, I don’t usually eat ham. I mostly eat oatmeal. I don’t like to cook. I eat spaghetti.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
“I know that a rabbi has to approve the food to make something kosher, but do you eat everything kosher?”
She seemed to hedge on this a bit. She said whatever I bought should have an “O” and a “U” on it, that in a store I shouldn’t buy food that wasn’t kosher with tzitzis on, but oatmeal was all right.
Dovid and Yossi’s mother came out of the house and retrieved the old woman from her conversation with me, and I went back to reading. I remembered I’d eaten a pepperoni pizza the night before with my yarmulke on.
Kimberly, my next-door neighbor, stopped by my chair on her way to the store. She laughed at my new getup, and when she mentioned she’d got back her most recent school papers with A’s, I asked to read them. She brought them out and I started on her paper about Asian stereotypes in the media.
While I was reading, some of the kids came over from the school where they’d been playing: the two sets of brothers, Avraham and Yaakov, and Moshe and Yitzchak, and, on a bicycle, their good-looking friend Sruli Perlman. They came toward me with a great deal of excitement.
“When you stop being a Jew in September,” Moshe said, “can I have your hat and suit?”
I explained that the suit was just some old clothes I had, but the hat had cost me $55 and I thought it was probably the most beautiful piece of clothing I owned.
The boy on the bicycle was doing some wheelies in the street and, in the style of a sports announcer, I proclaimed, “The one! The only! The famous—Sruli Perlman!”
“Sruli Perlman! That’s me!” and he made a fast victorious turn on his bicycle before coming back over by the curb. “How did you know my name?”
I showed my palms to the sky: How could anyone not know the great Sruli Perlman?
The kids were all strangely excited, running about and shouting. Avraham wanted to finish reading what I’d written about him, so I went into my apartment to find it. When I came out with the story I handed it to Avraham, and then I noticed two men walking toward us from across the street. Chris, my Pynchon-loving wispy-haired neighbor, was just about to stop and chat awhile, but after a quick look at me and the gathering storm he hurried on his way, no time to talk.
The shorter, and younger, of the two men had red hair, a fair complexion, and wire-rimmed glasses and was all business. The taller, older man with him had a long straggly beard. The younger man did the talking.
“Not fair,” he said. “Not fair.”
“What?”
And he immediately started trying to get the kids to go home—where did they live, anyway? Avraham wouldn’t tell him. How funny, I thought, that they don’t know he lives right next door. I had my stories with me and offered the man with the straggly beard a couple of them to look at. “These are two stories I wrote about my conversations with the boys.”
He took the papers in his hand and idly glanced at them. The younger man was still trying to shoo the boys away.
“We don’t want the kids talking to you,” he said, “and unless you stop it, we’ll have to call the authorities.”
“I’m in front of my own house. I’m not asking the kids to talk to me.”
“We don’t want the kids to talk to you. It’s your responsibility to tell them to go away and not talk to you. Otherwise, it won’t be friendly. Okay?”
The man with the straggly beard handed me my stories and then the two of them started back across the street.
I called after them, “It’s my responsibility to keep the kids from talking to me?”
Boys had gathered at the windows and in the compound and watched as the two (self-imposed?) deputies corralled my little fan club back to the school. I went back to my reading and tried to concentrate.
Not fair.
A half-eaten apple came flying from the direction of the school and smashed onto the pavement across from me. It had been thrown with real force, but this physical threat was a very small thing.
Not fair.
He’d been talking about my suit and hat! Was he talking about magic? It was getting chilly, but there was still a lot of light, and I resolved not to go in until I couldn’t read anymore, whether I was reading or not.
When Kimberly came back from the store she was surprised I hadn’t finished reading her two short reports. I told her about the confrontation and said I would bring the papers to her when I was done.
When Chris came back from the liquor store I told him about the altercation and suggested I might be going to jail. “Little men,” he said, indicating another alternative, “white coats, long sleeves ...” and he moved on away from me, shaking his head.
Did it make any sense? Was it my responsibility to keep the kids from talking to me? What kind of law would that be?
After a while Avraham and Yaakov and Moshe and Yitzchak came back. Yitzchak was on a bicycle this time. The famous Sruli Perlman was nowhere to be seen.
“What did they say to you?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“They didn’t tell you why they didn’t want you to talk to me?”
“They just told us to believe them.”
“Really?”
Now I was offended. God, I hated that in school, that “Because I said so!” crap.
“They really didn’t tell you why they don’t want you talking to me?”
They shook their heads.
“You know why, don’t you?”
They just looked at me.
“It’s because I’m not Jewish, I’m an atheist, and I’m homosexual. You know that, don’t you?”
I wasn’t getting a very responsive reaction. I don’t think they cared.
I got up and went across the street. Avi’s window was open, and even though I hadn’t noticed him there during the altercation, I was sure he knew what was going on.
“Avi? Avi!”
He came to the window. He had his tzitzis on over his lanky frame and was slim and dark and attractive—and I felt like he might never really know it.
“Avi, those guys came over and told me not to talk to those kids. Well, no one told those kids why they’re not supposed to talk to me. You guys have got to tell them. I told them, I’m not Jewish, I’m an atheist, and I’m homosexual. But that isn’t my responsibility. If those guys don’t want those kids talking to me, they have to tell them why.”
Avi obviously hated being the go-between. “I don’t know. Their parents wouldn’t like it.”
Well, I had said what I had to say. “Avi, I hear it’s your birthday.”
“Who told you that?”
“Some kids. Happy birthday. How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
I was a little taken aback: I thought he was only about eighteen. “Well, I hope you have a wonderful day, and a wonderful life. I hope you get whatever you want.”
“Thanks.”
“Would you like some money? The guys said I could give you some money.”
“It’s all right.”
“Okay. Happy birthday.”
I went back across the street. Avraham and Moshe were spying on the kids with my binoculars, very undercover agent time, hiding behind trees, below walls, and whispering warnings back and forth.
“He said your parents wouldn’t like it,” I told Avraham. “Your parents know I’m not Jewish, don’t they?”
Avraham shrugged.
“Well, I’ll tell them,” I said.
They think I’m Jewish? I’d exchanged hellos with both of them, and I’d assumed they knew what was going on. That old woman knew what was going on. I felt it was a very small community, where one word spoken here is known there at the same time. But maybe that wasn’t the case.
It was too dark to read, and I put my chair, the papers, and the Mishnah back in the house.
After Avraham and Yaakov went home, Moshe and Yitzchak were still playing outside. And I suddenly did wonder—where were their parents, where did they live? It must have been about eight.
I walked out to the end of one of the walls bordering the walkway, which at the sidewalk is about four feet high. Yitzchak brought my binoculars back and then headed on down the street. Moshe was now on the bicycle and making circlebelow me. I wondered if I was very imposing from down there. In my suit, with my beautiful new black hat on, did I have the stature of a rabbi?
“They really didn’t tell you anything? They didn’t say why they don’t want you to talk to me?”
Moshe brought the bike to a halt on the sidewalk and, still straddling it, looked up at me. “They said something about a sickness, and if you spit...” and then his voice trailed off indefinitely.
I wilted.
God, it was depressing.
I didn’t want to have to explain homosexuality to this lovely eleven-year-old boy; I didn’t want to talk to him about AIDS.
“You know why they don’t want you to talk to me, don’t you?” I repeated. And then trying to make it emphatically clear: “It’s because I’m not Jewish, I’m an atheist—I don’t believe in God—and I’m homosexual.”
“Ay-thee ...” Moshe was trying to get his mouth around the word. “But how can you not believe in God?” And he swung his arms around.
“I know, I know, but apart from that—that’s why they don’t want you to talk to me.”
Moshe started cycling in circles again, occasionally looking up at me. He wanted to prove to me that there really was a God.
“There’s this disease,” I started to explain to him, “AIDS ...”
But I couldn’t finish the sentence, the explanation. It was too depressing. My despair telegraphed itself to him as finality.
He started driving his bicycle down the block.
Not fair.
“I’m sorry, Moshe.”
20 / unfinished business
I had just set myself up outside with my director’s chair, a cup of coffee, my binoculars, and my unread newspapers when Avraham and Yaakov’s mother came walking down the driveway with her three-year-old.
Sometimes, in the afternoons, she takes her three-year-old over to the yeshiva and sits with him under the trees in the playground area. When the other women are outside with the nursery-school children I’ve seen her talking with them, but more often than not she sits by herself, placidly amusing her little son while she takes in the quiet and thinks.
I was only dressed in my shorts and yarmulke, and felt a little hesitant about approaching her—after all, I’d been told my nakedness, my lack of modesty, offended the women—but just as she started to cross the street I got up and went over to her.
“Hi, are you Avraham’s mother? My name is Rick, I live here, and I just wanted to tell you that yesterday some of the boys at the school got very upset that I was talking to Avraham . . .”
She made a gesture indicating height—boys?
“No, the older boys, right over there”—and I pointed toward the school—“and I just wanted you to know that I’m not Jewish, I don’t believe in God ...”
She indicated to me that she didn’t care.
“. . . and I’m homosexual. I’m usually sitting here when Avraham comes back from school, and we talk sometimes, about the Mishnah and the Tanakh, and our conversations have been really nice, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong, but that’s your decision, and I won’t talk to him if you don’t want me to. I just wanted you to know. I think Avraham is a very nice boy . . .”
She smiled at the compliment.
“. . . and my name is Rick, and I live right here.”
She nodded that she understood and continued on across the street. I returned to my chair, and as I settled down to read I noticed a boy watching me from one of the windows in the dormitory.
Several minutes later Avraham’s mother came back with Yaakov. He was walking ahead of her, and she was following him, speaking in Hebrew and apparently mad about something. As he passed I said hello to him, but he didn’t answer me.
Early in the afternoon, Shaul, the plumber for our building, came by to work on some pipes in the back. His truck was parked in front of the building, and whenever he passed me we would acknowledge each other. I tried to engage him in conversation, but he didn’t speak English very well and, apart from his very thick accent, he seemed to have some kind of speech impediment as well.
My friend Josh called. I told him about buying my new hat so that I would look like a real Chassid, and how I was threatened, and about the little old lady next door and what she had said about the “O” and “U” being on food containers.
“A lot of foods have that sign,” he said.
“An ‘O’ and a ‘IP?”
“It’s on your oatmeal.”
“Really? Quaker Oats?” and I emphasized its brand name.
“Uh-huh. Go get it.”
I put the phone down and went into the kitchen and came back with my box of Quaker Oats.
“See it?” he asked. “It should be next to the name.”
I turned the container over in my hand, and then I saw it. Right there, just above the “net wt,” was a small circle with a “U” inside it.
I had kosher food in my house!
Josh tried to explain it to me. “It doesn’t mean that a rabbi has approved it. I’m not quite sure how it works.”
“But you’ve always known about it?”
“Sure.”
I felt very strange: I hadn’t always known about it.
When I got off the phone I started going through all the products in my kitchen and found that circled “U” on several of my cereal boxes and even on my Morton salt.
How weird: that there is this symbol, just for Jews, on products which are sold all over this country! And according to my figuring (based on statistics in my 1990 almanac) only 3.8 percent of the population of the United States are Jews, and probably only a small proportion of them are Orthodox.
Very strange.
I was still looking through the products in my kitchen when I heard raised voices outside. I went to the window in my living room and saw the Big Ugly Boy talking to Shaul by his truck. I didn’t know if he could see me through the glass, but he was pointing toward my window.
“I want to kill him, I just want to kill him,” he was practically yelling. “I hate him, he’s a faggot. . .”
I’d never seen any of the boys in such a virulent rage before and I wondered if I had, in fact, gone too far. Had the confrontation with the elders been a signal of some kind? Had I now been deemed an acceptable object for all of their pent-up hate? Watching the Big Ugly Boy gesticulate against me, I could just imagine him doing some stupid, violent thing and I began to feel a little uneasy.
Otherwise, it won't be friendly.
Later in the afternoon, when I went back outside to read some more, I left my yarmulke inside. While I was sitting there, three of the older boys stopped to talk to me on their way to the store. I recognized one of them, a tall willowy boy with a goofy grin. I’d asked Avraham what his name was and he said the boys called him Sea Horse.
“So where
’s your yarmulke?” they asked. “And the tzitzis? Aren’t you going to become Jewish?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m thinking about it.”
They thought that was very funny and laughed at the idea of my being a Jew.
I was feeling a little defensive, but since they weren’t in too antagonistic a mood, I asked the tall boy, “Is your name really Sea Horse?”
He smiled at me, his goofy grin looking even goofier than usual. “That’s what they call me,” he said.
His friends laughed and patted him on the back.
“I think it’s great,” I said, and then I asked them if they were in high school, or if they were bochurs in this thing called beit midrash. They laughed and said they were in high school. And then they wanted to know about my “morals”—they’d obviously heard about my conversation of the previous day.
“You don’t think it’s bad to kill someone?”
“No. I mean, I think it’s subjective.”
“If I stole your binoculars right now, what would you do?”
“I guess I’d ask for them back. But I’d be embarrassed that it was important to me.”
“Would you be embarrassed if someone stole your car?”
“I don’t have a car.”
“What happened to it?”
“Nothing. I never had one. I don’t know how to drive.”
The boys were slightly incredulous at this. “Then how do you get around?”
“Bicycle. Walk. Bus. Friends.”
“Don’t you want a car?”
I shook my head. “I don’t like modern things. I don’t have a TV either.”
“You don’t? Why not?”
“I think it’s stupid, and besides—if I had a TV I’d watch it. I’m hypnotized by the media. Two years ago I saw more than four hundred movies in a theater in one year, so you can imagine what would happen if I had a TV ...”
Looking at their faces, I suddenly wasn’t sure that they could.
“If I had a TV, the first thing that would happen is I’d stop reading, and I don’t want to do that because that’s one of the main things that make my life worth living. Not counting sex, it’s what I love doing most, and so I have to protect it.”
The Boys Across the Street Page 14