“Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s almost out of gas,” his dad said, turning to him at the door. “The can’s empty, so you’ll have to run it up to the Exxon. And for the love of God, Jacob, remember: unleaded fuel only. You don’t want to ruin another engine.” He was referring, of course, to the ruined engine of the car he’d crashed when he was sixteen, or perhaps going back even further to the fire engine—a childhood Chanukah present—he’d set on one of the electric burners of the stove and melted, dared by his older brother and sister, who, when the time came, claimed complete innocence. It had been the first time in his young life that he’d realized he might not be able to trust his own brother and sister, an upsetting revelation that he entered into his Manifest, furious at them but more furious at himself for taking the bait.
Jacob tamped down his dad’s dig long enough to throw up his hand in a wave. Go with God, my soon-to-be-dearly-departed papa, he thought.
Trembling and furious, Jacob yanked at the mower’s cord, and when it coughed to life, he gave it a push, imagining his dad supine in the tall, spring grass, his arms and legs bound with rope and tied to stakes. He imagined his brother and sister standing over him, Mo leaning in to remove the gag in his mouth.
“Has he confessed yet?” Jacob asked on each pass he made, the acreage of yard dwindling. “Because I’m running out of grass.”
“Not yet,” said Mo.
“Daddy, you need to confess,” said Edith, “or else he’ll do it. He’ll really do it, Daddy.”
“Oh, shut up, Thistle,” Jacob said. “He knows I’m going to do it. But I’m wondering what he’s going to miss most—the balls that gave us life or that poor excuse of a dick.”
Still, his dad remained as stoic and inexorable as ever, contending as usual that he’d never done anything wrong to any of them. “I’m your father. Untie me and we’ll forget this ever happened,” he said. “Your mother won’t like it, that’s for sure. She can’t survive without me.”
Jacob followed the path in the grass his dad had already made. The going was slow and tedious and required a lot of patience—a virtue Jacob had in spades. He’d been patient with his dad throughout his childhood when Jacob scored exceedingly high on an IQ test only to have his dad say it wasn’t as high as his, patient throughout his teenage years when he came home from school having been bullied and his dad said that he probably deserved it, patient into his early adulthood when his dad refused to acknowledge or even deign to discuss his romantic life, the heartaches and joys—and this patience had served Jacob well and had helped him survive in the arid, ungenerous world of his dad’s making. Yet all of that was going to change, because he was done being patient, done making excuses. Just done.
As the mower finally ran out of gas, choked, rattled, then went quiet, he took up the fantasy again and ran the mower over his dad, slicing off his dick, then backing it up to see what he’d done, his dad screaming, though no one could hear him because Mo had replaced the gag. His siblings turned away from the sight, the blood spurting out, the mower shredding and tearing and mutilating his hairy flesh until there was little left to flay. Then Jacob and Edith and Mo passed around the gasoline, sprinkling it over their father, who was still able to writhe and protest, and then the match and then the ashes.
Abandoning the mower as well as the fantasy, Jacob strode into the garage, where, instead of the plastic red container he’d come looking for, he found Mo sitting behind the wheel of the giant Expedition, just sitting there, gazing straight ahead, listening to what Jacob thought were wind chimes but were, in actuality, triangles. He tapped on the glass, startling Mo, who turned down the volume on the radio, then hit a button, lowering the automatic window.
“The mower’s out of gas. His nibs ordered me to get more,” Jacob said.
“Fuck the gas, fuck the mower, fuck the yard, and fuck him.” Mo drew his eyes down and away. “She’s dying and he still talks to her like she’s some kind of wild, stupid animal,” he said. “I can’t take it, Jacob. I just…I don’t want him here. And I don’t want him anywhere near my kids.”
The soft, anodyne pinging of the triangles punctuated the afternoon, a sad, wistful melody that echoed through the garage.
“Good, this is good,” Jacob said. “When the time comes, I want you to remember this moment, this feeling, Mo. We’re doing this for her, not for us.”
He wanted to add that killing their dad would naturally affect them all, that it was as selfish an act as ever there was one. But he didn’t say any of this because he knew his brother, knew that it might only take one misplaced word to unravel his resolve. And Mo wasn’t even his real concern anyway—it was Edith who was going to take a lot more convincing, at least that’s how it sounded the last time the three had spoken. Now he would have to wait until she arrived the following day to make sure she was still on board, that she wasn’t having second thoughts.
“What happened to the German’s head anyway?” Mo asked after Jacob had located the empty container and climbed in beside him.
“Really, Mo? ‘The German’?” Jacob said, setting the container in back. “He bumped it.”
“Good to know. I thought you might have thrown a lemon at him when he wasn’t looking,” he said, pulling out of the garage. “You don’t have to come with me. It’s probably better you don’t.” Jacob understood that his brother wanted, needed, some time alone. “I’m going to the store. Have fun with your nephews.”
“By the way, what did you want to tell us?” Jacob asked before getting out.
“Oh, that,” Mo said. “Well, I’m going to need you and the German—I mean, Dietrich—to sign confidentiality agreements and release forms if you want to be a part of the special.”
“What special?” Jacob asked.
“Seems that some of our devoted fans petitioned the network. No one wanted us to get canceled and everyone was pissed when it happened. We got a ton of fan mail, Pandora, the boys, me. Anyway, the execs at the network thought it’d be a great idea to catch up with us a year later. We’ve agreed to let them film the family during the Seder. Passover with The JacobSONS! Isn’t that awesome? You and Dietrich will be compensated for it in case you’re wondering.”
“Do Mom and Dad know about this?” Jacob asked.
“They’ve already signed on again,” he said. “They’ve been on a few times before. There was that birthday special when the trips turned ten, don’t forget. You’re the only one who hasn’t been on the show.”
“That’s because I hate reality TV and never wanted to be a part of it,” Jacob said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he said, though of course Jacob had offended him. He could tell by the way Mo curled and uncurled his fingers into fists. “But think about it like this: It’s immediate exposure. Being on TV is like being ten feet tall. You’ll never not get noticed again, even if it is because you’re a sellout and your career’s totally tanked and your wife is the breadwinner and is keeping your family afloat.”
“It’ll all be okay,” Jacob said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.
“Up yours, man,” Mo said, irascible. “Shit’s falling apart all over the place and where have you been, in the land of sausage-eating Jew-haters? And after it’s all over, then what? You go back to Berlin with Mr. Hitler Youth, 2022? How do you live with yourself?”
“Mo, you’re being an idiot and incredibly unfair,” Jacob said.
“Whatever you say,” he said. “Now just get out, because I don’t want to lose it on you.”
Jacob descended from the Expedition. The second he did, Mo cranked up the radio’s volume, then backed up and, not seeing one of the dirt bikes, which their dad had removed from the grass and left in the driveway, ran right over it, the bike snapping as if it were made entirely of plastic. So this is how it’s going to go, thought Jacob, watching his brother drive away, the tolling of the triangles lingering in the warm, dry air.
Back in the house, Jacob tried to slip upstairs without b
eing noticed, wanting to check on Diet before saying hello to his mom. He was making good progress and was more than halfway up the stairs when his sister-in-law, Pandora, appeared, crossing the landing. She glanced up from her iPhone, to which she was constantly, even pathologically, attached, just long enough to register him with a long, slow blink of her blue eyes and an even longer, slower curl of her collagen-injected lips, before returning her attention to her phone to finish up a text.
“You’re here,” she said, remaining with her face in her phone. “The trips are dying to see you. They’re in there,” and with an elbow she indicated the other wing of the house. “They call it the Resettlement. They’re still very into the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what the hell happened over there. Sometimes, the UN gets involved and manages to save Israel, but most of the time they just play all that gory footage and hold mock trials for the war criminals and collaborators—needless to say, the first person on trial is often our dearly beloved president. Your brother and I aren’t too happy about it, but maybe their worldly uncle can talk some sense into them. We sure as hell can’t.”
Pandora kept sending and receiving texts, as if this were her one true calling. “Your mom’s resting in the guest room downstairs. Your dad’s cleaning the grill. And Mo’s…somewhere. I guess he went to the grocery store?” She paused, tapped out a text message, and sent it to him. They waited, unspeaking, until her phone dinged.
“Yep, that’s what he’s doing. So…I met your boyfriend a few minutes ago. Nice work. He seems lovely, even for a German. Just kidding.” She glanced up from her phone again. “We’re all glad you’re here, Jacob,” and with that, she sent another text, moving past him down the stairs and out of sight.
Jacob found Diet in the throes of unpacking one of the suitcases. The contusion on his forehead had gone down some and looked less angry and red, although this did not reflect his mood, which had soured. “I met your sister-in-law,” he said, hanging up his shirts and pants in the closet. “She spoke to me like I was hard to hear.”
“Hard of hearing,” Jacob said, standing on the threshold of the closet, barring Diet, who tried to get around him. “I’m not sure Pandora’s ever met a real-life German before. She grew up in Thousand Oaks and never left. Moving to Calabasas, which is just down the road, was traumatic for her. You have to think about her as someone who grew up in the tiniest village in Germany, married, had kids, and just stayed. That’s who Pandora is.”
“As superficial as I sensed she was, I got the exact opposite sensation about your mother. I ran into her in the kitchen when I was getting a glass of Wasser,” Diet said. “She was very nice to speak with. She kept wondering where you were. I told her I thought you were outside with your brother and this made her smile. We spoke only for a little while, but I felt as if I’d known her my whole life.”
Jacob waited for Diet to say the same about meeting him, how he’d felt he’d known Jacob his whole life, too, but he said nothing, and Jacob got out of his way. “Remember that thing my brother wanted to warn us about?” he said. “You’re not going to like it.”
He told Diet about the reality-show special and how important it was to Mo that both he and Diet participate. “So this was the other reason Mo wanted you to visit,” he said. “Well, I hope you told him this is out of the question.”
“I didn’t tell him yes or no,” Jacob said. “Think about it like this: It’d be great exposure for me, Schatz. An instant connection to the fans I do have and perhaps a way to make new ones. You think I want to teach English to Israeli refugees for the rest of my life, or keep watching as friends land big movie and TV deals?” He sat down on the bed, falling silent.
“So what? I’m to be the token German at that table?” Diet asked. “Good for ratings, I suppose. The Jews who watch will love it.”
“Yeah, well, maybe then you’ll finally understand what it felt like for me during Christmas Eve with your family,” Jacob said, then immediately wishing he hadn’t. “Look, all I’m saying is…” He trailed off, his brain snagging on a previous branch of the conversation. “Wait a second. What did you mean when you said this was the other reason they wanted me to visit? What’s ‘the other reason’? I mean, the first reason.”
“Did I say this? It is not what I meant,” Diet said. “You are misinterpreting.”
“It is what you meant,” he said, knowing Diet was nothing if not concise and meant everything he said.
“I think I am turned upside down,” he said, taking a seat beside Jacob. “I have terrible jet lag and on top of that probably mild brain damage, thanks to you.”
“Aw, well, we can go to bed early tonight,” Jacob said, leaning over and gently kissing him on the forehead.
Someone knocked on the door. Before Jacob could ask who it was, the door opened and in poured the trips: Brendan, Brandon, and Bronson, a perfect blend of Mo and Pandora, with a little of Edith and himself thrown in for good measure—they had the prominent Jacobson nose and thin, banded lips, but their faces were linear rather than oval and their ears were pinned back rather than sticking out from their heads. You handsome devils, Jacob thought. Lady- or lad-killers-in-waiting. It’d been several years since he’d seen them, and now at twelve they stood shoulder to shoulder before him, each with his hand behind his back. “What have you guys got there, huh?” he asked, getting up, the triplets pivoting in order to keep whatever they had hidden.
“Maw-Maw told us to bring this stuff up to you,” said Brandon, Brendan, or Bronson.
“She did? Well, lay it on us then,” Jacob said, as one of the trips stepped out of line.
“I’m Bran,” said Brandon, who held out his hand and presented Jacob with two purple satin sleep masks, then stepped back into line.
“I’m Bren,” said Brendan, who held out his hand and presented Jacob with two sets of earplugs, then also stepped back into line.
“And I’m Bron,” said Bronson, who held out his hand and presented Jacob with a thermos and two plastic cups, though he did not get back into line. Instead, he took a step toward Diet. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, extending his hand.
Diet rose, took the little hand in his own, and shook it genially. For whatever reason, possibly because he was sleep-deprived, jet-lagged, and nervous, this moment moved Jacob to tears, and he turned to set the masks, earplugs, thermos, and cups on the bed, composing himself before facing the trips again.
“We brought presents for you all the way from Berlin,” he said and looked at Diet. “Which suitcase are they in, mein Liebling?”
“I think not in that one,” Diet said, glancing hesitantly at the other suitcase, which was still locked and zipped tight.
“Great. Well, I guess you’ll have to wait until a little later. Oh, and boys, thank you for delivering this stuff. Now, do me a huge favor and tell Maw-Maw I’ll see her in a few minutes?”
After they dashed out of the room, Jacob said, “How fucking sweet was that?”
“They seem like very well-mannered children, yes,” Diet said, unscrewing the lid of the thermos and pouring the aromatic amber liquid into the two cups. “Your mother made this for us?”
“She made it for you,” he said. “I told her how much you like tea. I also told her you don’t drink alcohol. That smells like fresh mint from my dad’s garden back in Texas. The tea’s sun-brewed. Growing up, we used to have it all the time in the summer. The fridge was always stocked with pitchers of it.”
“Your father brought the mint. This was nice of him,” Diet said. “How bad a man can he be if he tends a garden?”
“I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive,” Jacob said, a little put off. “I’m sure my mom picked the mint. It never would have crossed my dad’s mind.”
“It is delicious,” Diet said. “And these other small tokens are so useful. I can see now why you always spoke so highly of your mother.” His face darkened, as if he were overcome by a terrible thought. When Jacob asked if something was wrong,
he added, “Nothing. I am just exhausted.” He sipped the tea and smiled, which Jacob thought seemed false.
“After I see my mom, I’m going to meet Clarence,” he said. “He’s the guy I told you about on the plane. You don’t mind hanging out by yourself for a couple of hours, do you?”
“Not at all. I will do some work. The Austrians are difficult clients, so I should get this translation to them earlier rather than later. If it gets too noisy,” Diet said, reaching for the earplugs, “I will just invert these.”
“Do you have any idea how happy I am you’re here with me?” he asked, Diet’s mistake only further endearing him to Jacob.
“Show me tonight, yes?” he said, glancing significantly at the other suitcase.
“Deal,” he said and kissed him good-bye.
Downstairs, Jacob knocked on the guest room door.
“Mom, it’s me, Jacob,” he said, but when the door opened, his dad stepped out into the hall.
“Your mother’s resting,” he said. “You can see her later.”
“I’d like to see her now,” Jacob said. “I’m going to meet a friend for a drink and wanted to thank her for the iced tea and presents before I went.”
Tell Me How This Ends Well Page 7