“That’s Adam. I don’t know where he is. He’d be about eighteen now; we figured it out on a computer. I’m going to inherit five million dollars, and then I’ll get my children back. That’s all I want. Of course, all the papers are tied up in court, but as soon as we get them all signed—you see, I just found out who my real parents were ...”
Something amazing was happening on the field. The boys were making some real hits, nice catches, and good throws. Compared with the other games I’d watched, today’s seemed pretty good. Most of the boys were familiar to me from before and I wondered: Were they really better, or was today just lucky?
“... a limousine was following me, and a woman got out and ran up to me and said, ‘Your name is Fisher.’ That’s what she said my real name was, Sarah Fisher. Sarah’s a funny name—”
“It was the name of Abraham’s wife in the Old Testament.”
“I could go to the press with it, but I don’t want to cause waves. You see, my mother is Elizabeth Taylor. Isn’t that amazing? When she was married to Eddie Fisher she gave me up for adoption ...”
It was then I realized she was crazy. She didn’t seem like a bag lady, she wasn’t unkempt, and her speech was clear.
“When I get my birth certificate I’m going to send her a registered letter so her staff won’t see it. I used to have hair, jet black hair, and then it turned auburn, and now it’s red. But that’s how I found out I was Jewish.”
“Elizabeth Taylor’s not Jewish. She only became Jewish when she married Mike Todd.”
“No, she was adopted. Her real name was Nidur.”
The teams switched sides. When Patrick, the Serious Young Man, got to bat he struck out. One of the other boys started yelling at him, calling him Mordy. So! Proof! His name wasn’t Patrick—it was Mordy. Another Mordecai!
I took a piece of paper out of my backpack and wrote on it: “Mordy—Patrick—the Serious Young Man.”
“What are you writing?” Jean asked, and there was a note of apprehension in her voice.
“I’m just trying to get all the boys’ names, and that was the first time I’d actually heard one of the other boys call him by name.”
She looked at what I’d written and seemed mollified, but I suddenly sensed a certain awareness about “the word” (“In the beginning was the Word . . .”): I think Jean felt that in writing there was the actual possibility of identity being created, or transferred, or even stolen.
“I had eight children. And I lost them all. I just hope they’re alive, I don’t really care about anything else. There was always some confusion at the births. I was married each time, though. I think they switched babies on me. They do that, you know.” This whole question of identity seemed so futile to me, and I tried to put my thoughts on the matter as clearly as possible. “I don’t think about the past,” I told her; “I think it’s best to just think about what’s happening now.”
I leaned forward and really started to pay attention to the game, not following it so much as focusing on the boys and their interactions with one another. I hoped my concentration might help Jean to get out of herself a bit, and finally she did begin to notice the action on the field.
“What are those strings hanging down?” she suddenly asked. “Those are tzitzis,” I explained. “They’re part of something like a shirt they wear, they have an intricate set of knots, and they represent the six hundred and thirteen laws of Moses.” Jean pondered this for a moment. “See that boy,” she said, indicating a tall boy with glasses, who had reddish hair and seemed rather geeky. “Doesn’t that boy look like me? He moves like me. Isn’t he funny? What if he was my son?”
I looked at the boy that reminded her of herself, a boy I’d never really paid attention to before, and I wondered what he’d think if he found out that this woman watching this baseball game thought he was her son.
“Most of these boys come from a long line of Orthodox Jews, and their parents and grandparents are mostly from Eastern Europe.”
I felt it was incumbent on me to somehow mellow Jean’s impending excitement. I didn’t think any of these boys was quite ready for a reunion with a long-lost mother right now.
Jean contemplated the boys on the field. “A stranger said my son would end up in Israel.”
“This—isn’t Israel,” I ventured.
“I know,” she said, and then as the condescension of my remark sank in, “I know that.”
I noticed a Chassidic boy, not part of the game, standing on our side of the fence, watching his friends play.
“Seven different strangers, with seven different religions, said they would protect my children. All my children had the Mogen David sign carved on their heads. If you ever see a boy with marks on his face, that’s my son, marks like scratches. That’s what a Mormon woman did to him.”
The boy who was watching the game started to walk away, crossing in front of us on his way out of the park.
“Hello, how are you?” Jean greeted him.
He was obviously surprised by this sudden address and glanced our way, sizing us up and acknowledging Jean with a little smile.
When he was past us, Jean asked me if I’d seen the marks on his face. She didn’t give me a chance to respond. “It’s Andy. Look, look, did you see him look back at me? He can feel it. He knows it’s me.”
I watched the boy walk out of the park.
“Where’s he going?” Jean asked.
“I assume he’s going to the store. Some of the boys go there after the game, the drugstore.”
“Do you think he’ll be okay? That’s him, that’s my son. I knew I would find him.”
The idea of a baseball game suddenly seemed to take hold of her, and she started yelling encouragements and reprimands, not a lot but just enough to make her presence felt. These loud interjections surprised the boys and (which was surprising to me) also seemed to gratify them somehow. But her cheering was never quite right—it often came, inappropriately, a beat too late, or else the cheering she was emulating from past experiences wouldn’t quite mean anything, since she obviously didn’t have any sense of the big picture: which team was which, what the score was, or even what the rules were.
One of the pitchers was a little awkward, and was throwing his balls short of the plate. “Throw the ball!” Jean yelled. “I’ll get out there and show you!”
No one seemed to pay any attention to this remark, but she suddenly spoke to me in a quieter voice. “What would I do if they asked me? I haven’t played ball in years.”
Then, returning her attention to the game, she responded to another of the pitcher’s efforts by calling out to him, “That’s just like me! You’re probably my son!”
Well, this was too much, and I burst out laughing. Jean was surprised at that, but pleased she had been able to elicit such a response, and she started laughing, too. The pitcher in question didn’t seem to hear, and I wondered if any of the boys who did hear could possibly have believed what they heard. Luckily, the game required most of their attention.
A few moments later there was the sound of sirens coming from Santa Monica Boulevard.
Jean tensed as she defined the sound. “The police.”
“There’s a fire station just down the street.”
This seemed to reassure her a bit. “I see my son trying to buy food, and there’s someone there with a gun trying to kill him. It’s a dream I have, I’ve always had it.”
I could almost see it: the Chassidic boy standing at the counter of the drugstore, trying to buy a Coke or some candy, and being brutally gunned down. What if that was why we were hearing the police sirens?
Someone threw a ball to first base, Mordy missed it, and it went bouncing behind us toward the tennis courts. There was a pause on the field as to who should go get it, and then Jean was up and running after the ball. She threw a grounder back to the field and Mordy caught it.
“Thank you very much. It is greatly appreciated,” he said. Very much? Greatly appreciated?
When he had thrown the ball back to the pitcher I called out to him, “Nice catch, Mordy!”
He swung around to me and seemed about to protest, but I interrupted him with my smile, and he turned his attention back to the game.
When Jean returned to me she was very excited and, as an initiated participant, she began paying closer attention to the game. Suddenly she yelled out to a boy who was making a play, “Grab that yarmulke and run!”
One of the boys slid into first, and as he did he yelled back at someone about something, “Suck my cock!”
I was impressed. Mordy looked at me, our eyes met for a moment, and I think each of us could have said something, but Jean was here, so we both remained on good behavior.
“Such a mouth on that one!” she said, and a moment later, about another boy, “See that one? He has such a mouth! Just like me. All the ones with mouths are probably mine,” and then she turned to me. “Wouldn’t it be funny if they were all mine?” The official game ended at three-twenty, but since there was still time they played an extra inning. And then it was over and they started back, one of the boys staying behind to pick up the bases and return them to the recreation department offices.
I told Jean I was off to see a movie, but that it was nice meeting her. I think she sensed my brusqueness (I didn’t want her following me, and I didn’t want her to know where I lived) because she said, “I’m just a good Christian woman.”
As I was walking out of the park, the boy who had left earlier was just coming back. As I neared him I said, “Be careful. That woman thinks you’re her son.”
The boy stopped. “What?”
“Be careful. That woman”—and I indicated Jean, who was now standing by the bleachers looking in her purse—“thinks you’re her son.”
I left it at that and went on my way. I had started crossing the street behind a truck that blocked my view of the field when I realized I should go back and see what happened when they met.
Jean was still so busy rooting around in her purse that when her “son” passed by a few feet from where she was standing, walking slowly and staring at her, she didn’t even notice.
24 / the shooting
I wondered if it was a spider.
It looked big. But it was strange, exotic, and white in the morning light. I stood up from my desk and stepped nearer to the window, to see if it was inside or outside, and suddenly realized that the strange brightness was not an insect at all but shattered glass surrounding a small hole.
The boys had thrown (or shot!) something at my window.
But was it them?
Could it be an accident?
I didn’t think so.
Instinctively I felt I knew who did it, and I could just imagine him: the Big Ugly Boy, with his pimply face and his mincing imitations, the one who hated me so much, the one who told the plumber he wanted to kill me: picking something up off the ground and throwing it at my window—yes, I could just see him doing that.
This was obviously a breach that shifted the whole conflict up onto a higher (lower?) level: the destruction of property.
I went outside and looked around. There was a lot of loose material on the ground in front of my window, making it impossible to guess what might have been thrown. There were three large pieces of rock on the sidewalk, weapons just waiting to be thrown, so I picked them up and took them into the backyard and threw them away.
When I came back inside I worked on my story about the crazy lady. It was getting close to the time when the boys went to the park, and I was curious to see just what kind of reaction I would get, I was moving along with my writing, and . . .
Zmackt.
What?
An impact: some small object had pierced the screen and broken the glass, making a new hole in my window.
I immediately got up and looked across toward the school: little kids were playing in the compound next to the dormitories, the women overseeing them were sitting under the trees, and it was all very quiet.
And then I saw him, the Big Ugly Boy—he was walking across the yard where the kids were playing. How perfect. A moment later he was coming across the street. I got my binoculars and stood behind my bookcase so he wouldn’t be able to see me, although I doubt he could with the reflections in the glass. He walked past my apartment, and then back. A moment later one of the other boys, Sea Horse of the goofy grin, joined him and also surveyed my window. After several lingering passes they headed on up the street.
Pretty soon more of the guys were coming from the school, crossing and walking up the street. I decided to go outside. I had on my jeans, a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt, and my new black hat. I’d been wearing it while I was writing and I wanted to show my lack of repentance.
I came out and sat on one of the “stoops,” two blocks of stone fronting the apartment building. As they filed past, some of the boys looked over at me: “What’s with the hat?” “How much did it cost?” “Are you Jewish?”
“Yes.”
I’d never said that before. If you ask enough times, do you eventually get a different answer?
“Why are you growing a beard?”
“I’m showing my respect to God,” I said, only slightly sarcastic.
An aggressive little kid with glasses who looked like a beaver came up the walk toward me. “You’re a faggot. Jews aren’t faggots,” he said.
“Do you fuck other men? Then you can’t be a Jew,” one of the other boys said.
“Why are you shooting BB guns at my house?” I asked them.
This was a cue for the aggressive little beaver. “I did it, my name’s Harry Newman, so why don’t you go and call the police?”
Little liar. It was interesting that I actually had a name and a confession, though.
They called me “faggot” a few more times and then went on up to the park.
After they were gone I decided I wasn’t going to just sit there and take it, and I got up and headed across to the school, my hat still very much in place. Various boys and men watched my resolve with interest as I went down the street and around the corner to the main entrance of the building. Just to the left of the front door was an office. I turned in to the little waiting area there and knocked on the door. Through some sliding office windows I could see a woman in the next room talking on the phone. When she didn’t answer, I waited a little longer and then knocked again, but she didn’t seem inclined to relinquish her conversation.
A lot of guys were gathering around, including Avi and the guy with the wire-rimmed glasses, the one who had told me several days earlier not to talk to the kids. I asked to speak to someone, and a few minutes later a black man came out and introduced himself to me. His name was Leo. He said he was the maintenance man and he asked if he could help me.
I told him what had happened and that I suspected the boys had used a BB gun. He said the boys weren’t allowed to have anything like that, even assuring me that their luggage was searched. He asked to see the damage and, as we walked over to my apartment, I explained that the reason they’d done it was because of the hat I was wearing.
That didn’t really make sense to him, but then he asked me if I was Jewish. When I told him I wasn’t, he laughed and said, “Uh-oh.” I told him that one of the boys had said he did it, but I thought he was lying. Leo said he knew who most of the troublemakers were.
He looked at my window, ascertaining the damage, and then we walked back to the yeshiva together. Nothing was resolved, but there was a vague sense that he would get back to me. When we got to the office, a lot of the boys were hanging around and looking at me with interest, to see what I would do. I saw Catfish standing in a corner and said hello, but I must have spooked him because he turned and ran up some nearby steps to the second floor.
When I got home I called my friend Josh. With the excuse that I didn’t want him to think that things were boring over here on Alta Vista, I told him the latest. He was impressed: levels had indeed shifted.
I was inside my
apartment when the boys started straggling back from the park. The Big Ugly Boy was the first one back. He sauntered by fairly slowly and then let himself into the school’s compound, where a class of nursery school children were running around and playing on the jungle gyms.
Once inside the gate he did not continue on into the building as usual but walked back and forth, occasionally trying to make small talk with some of the little kids. It was so odd that I wondered if he were setting up some sort of alibi. At one point he sat beneath Avi’s window.
I stayed in my apartment while the boys returned from the park, but when they were all back, I went outside and sat on one of the stoops. I didn’t take my chair, or a book, or even my binoculars. I just sat there and waited and watched.
I thought I might go over and talk to a rabbi if I saw one, or—
Ow!
Hot: force striking my neck.
Those little bastards!
Heat throbbing.
Where?
I looked around and noticed a movement of blinds in one of the second-story windows.
I jumped up and strode across the street and around the corner to the office. When I got there the door was open and I saw Mordy, the Serious Young Man, talking to a woman inside.
She turned and asked if she could help me, and I told her that one of the boys had just shot me, with a BB gun, I assumed, and I reached up to show her and—there was blood! I was shocked. For some reason I didn’t think I was really hurt. I hadn’t thought I might actually have proof that I was shot.
The boys who saw me went off to tell their friends, and within moments there was quite a little crowd, looking into the area where I was standing and then backing out again. The woman asked me who did it, and I said I didn’t know, but that I suspected it was a boy I thought of as the “Big Ugly Boy.” I explained in which window I’d seen the shade move, and when I said that, there was a sudden commotion: the threat of possible accusation spread like wildfire. One boy asked me who I was, and when I told him, he defined me to myself: “the famous Rick.”
The Boys Across the Street Page 17