“Daddy, that’s an awful thing to say,” exclaimed Edith, who’d been the kindest and most understanding of them, followed by his mom, who’d cried silently in her seat beside a dumbfounded, disbelieving Mo.
“But he doesn’t act or talk like a homo,” Mo had said, addressing his dad, who’d kept glaring at Jacob.
“So it’s really true? Well, let me tell you something—you’re just lucky your mom and sister are here because if they weren’t I’d jam a broom up your ass and watch it come out the other end.”
“Honey, enough,” Roz had said, her watery voice raised, but it hadn’t been enough, for his dad had hardly finished with him and went on to tell Jacob that he was sick in the head and that he’d brought incredible shame on the family, acting, Jacob thought, as parochial and unsophisticated as ever, as if it were 1955 and not 2005.
“So I like men,” Jacob had said. “So what? You like torturing mice to death, but you don’t hear me calling you a murderer.”
“Watch that mouth of yours,” his dad had said, “or I’ll make sure you never suck another dick again.”
That was some day, Jacob recalled, when he’d torn out of the house and roamed around the neighborhood, returning well after midnight, after he thought everyone would be in bed, asleep. He’d been wrong, because his charming, compassionate dad had been waiting up for him. He’d been sitting on the sofa in the dark, Jacob’s suitcase resting beside him on the carpet. And rising from the sofa, he’d shoved the suitcase at his younger son, saying, “Sodomy laws might have been abolished in Texas, but not on my property,” and with that, he’d wandered into the back of the house and shut the bedroom door. Jacob had called a taxi and headed to DFW airport, where, after doing some finagling to change his ticket, he’d spent an uncomfortable, restless night sleeping on the floor. The next morning he’d flown back to L.A., where Clarence had picked him up and treated him to breakfast at IHOP.
When the officer returned, he handed Jacob his license, then peered into the front seat. “Is that blood on your hands and shirt, sir?” he asked. At this, Jacob began explaining that he’d been visiting an old college friend, the owner of Eternal Hollywood, and that there’d been this beautiful gaggle or swarm or murder—not a murder, but like a murder of crows, he said, not sure what to call a group of peacocks, if it even had a denotation. Then, from somewhere across the void of time and space the word came to him. “Ostentation,” he whispered to himself, knowing how proud Clarence would have been with him for remembering, then realizing how upset Clarence was going to be when he found out that Jacob had just killed a valued member of this ostentation. He continued blathering that on his way out of the cemetery he’d been thinking about this boy he’d known when he’d been an undergrad at UCLA and hadn’t been paying attention to the road and that he’d run over one of the birds. He went on, telling the officer he lived in Berlin and had flown into L.A. to spend Passover with his family, because his mom was dying of this rare pulmonary disease, and as he kept going, he felt himself spinning more and more out of control, unable to stop, worrying that at any second he was going to spill everything about his real motivation for coming to L.A. “I just paid off a friend to use his crematorium because nothing says ‘I love you’ like incineration,” he heard himself say, though by then the cop had walked around to the trunk.
“Sir, could you step around here, please?” he called. Jacob did as he was told and approached the cop. “Open the trunk, please,” he said, and Jacob, his entire body quaking with fear, depressed the button on the key fob, springing the lock on the trunk and releasing dozens of white feathers into the air, which startled the officer, who took a giant step back. “What is that, sir?”
Jacob stared down into the shadowy depths of the trunk, which held the peacock, although the longer he stared at it, the more it began to morph, becoming the body of his dad, the sight filling him with an incomparable relief and joy, for he understood that accidents happened every single minute of every single day and that perhaps instead of hiring an assassin, the idea of which they had bandied about, they should just handle it themselves without involving yet another party.
“Evidence of my guilt?” he simpered, noticing a small tattoo, a yellow Star of David, on the inside of the officer’s left wrist. His name tag read “Lemke.” Jacob smiled. “You’re Jewish?”
“It’s not unheard of,” the officer replied unsmilingly. He was a short, compact man with a sturdy armature of muscle, buzzed blond hair, and a large, lopsided mouth, which sat just off center beneath his big, fleshy nose. Taken all together, his face, minus the eyes, which Jacob couldn’t make out behind the mirrored lenses, was a pleasing arrangement of features.
“I’m Jewish, too. Ever heard of Mo Orenstein-Jacobson? Maybe you saw that reality show The JacobSONS, which aired on BravoREAL? It was only on for three seasons before they pulled the plug. Between you and me, I’ve never been able to sit through an entire episode.”
“That’s your family?” Officer Lemke stared up from his pad, then removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of wide-set, summer-green eyes and long, dark lashes, which would have made even the most beautiful woman envious. Jacob figured he couldn’t have been much older than thirty. His hairy arms sported a deep Mediterranean tan, indicating perhaps a Sephardic rather than Ashkenazic ancestry. “My cousin was a cameraman on that show. I can’t say I was a fan of it, or your family, for that matter. I mean, I’m glad it went off the air, because I found a lot of it offensive.”
Jacob had guessed that the mere mention of the wildly popular show might get him off the hook for whatever law he’d broken, but he was wrong in assuming such a thing and that the officer wouldn’t have an opinion about the show either way. This was L.A., after all, and everyone was connected to Hollywood, even peripherally.
“I mean, if anything, it’s just given people license—no pun intended—to think even worse thoughts about us.”
“Do they think so badly of us now?” Jacob wondered, but of course they did. And he thought again of the Nathans and something inside of him rolled over and died.
“Are you trying to tell me you didn’t watch the show?”
“They’re my family, but I know my limits and couldn’t subject myself to that kind of torture,” Jacob admitted, though he didn’t see that this was any of Lemke’s business or why he felt the sudden need to justify anything to this stranger. Of course, when Mo asked if he’d been keeping up with the episodes, Jacob naturally lied and told him that he hadn’t missed a single one.
“Well, bravo to you. No self-respecting Jew I know watched it other than to see just how hateful and dysfunctional your family could get. It was an utter embarrassment to the community here. They were pretty instrumental in getting it canceled, actually.”
“It was just a stupid reality TV show,” Jacob challenged, wondering if Officer Lemke didn’t have some other reason for hating it, if it hadn’t hit too close to home.
“We’re all products of some kind of damage, purposeful or not,” and with that, he handed Jacob a citation. “I’m giving you a summons for running a red light in the 9000 block of Santa Monica Boulevard. Feel free to contest it in court. Also, you can’t be driving around with a dead animal in your trunk. Call the city and have them come out to dispose of it properly.”
“Officer Lemke, on behalf of my horrible family, I apologize,” Jacob said, feeling stung in so many different places that he wasn’t sure where to begin to apply the balm.
“It’s not your fault. They’re your family and you love them. I get it. I’m not judging you. Well, maybe I am a little. I do count myself lucky not to have a father like yours, though.”
“He’s not that bad,” Jacob blurted out, which would have made him laugh if he hadn’t been so distraught.
“Maybe not, but I did see a couple of episodes when they all went to visit your parents in…New Mexico? Texas? Even on camera, he refused to play nice. The man’s got an incredible sense of entitlement. And the way he tal
ked to your mother?”
“I’m going to go now, if that’s okay,” Jacob said, bruised.
“Yeah, okay,” Officer Lemke said. “Oh, by the way, you have a bench warrant out for your arrest—a few outstanding parking tickets from the early aughts. I’d take care of those fast because I can guarantee the next cop who pulls you over is not going to be as nice. Happy Pesach,” he said and walked back to his squad car, leaving Jacob alone with the bloody corpse of the peacock and thoughts of his dad swirling through his muzzy head. After shutting the trunk, Jacob climbed back behind the wheel and rejoined the traffic, all of it pouring onto the 101 just as he was.
By the time Jacob returned to Calabasas it was approaching nine o’clock. He was happy to be back at Mo’s, happier still to put some distance between him and the cemetery. Though he’d had an incredibly trying day, he couldn’t deny just how awake he was, the adrenaline still pumping through him. If pressed, he might have said he’d never felt so alive, the world around him pulsing with a radiant, holy light, everything glowing in earnest and warm to the touch. Life. Even out here in the desert, where his brother had made a home.
Before going into the house, Jacob grabbed the cooler from the backseat and popped the trunk, thinking he would spread the remaining ice over the bird to preserve it overnight. But realizing that that would make more of a mess, he dumped the ice out on the ground. What was he going to do with the bird? Did he take Clarence’s pet back to him, fully contrite and accepting of retribution? Did he toss it into some ravine in Topanga Canyon and pretend it never happened? What is the etiquette here for getting rid of a body? Jacob wondered, closing the trunk and heading into the house.
In one of the downstairs bathrooms, he rinsed off his hands and face, the water running pink with blood, which was also caked on his neck and right earlobe, though he had no recollection of how it had gotten there. He wondered what to do about his ruined shirt, for he had no desire left in him to explain the misadventure—he could just hear his dad erupting with laughter at what an awful driver he still was.
In some way, Jacob did have to wonder if the cop had spared him merely because he knew that what was awaiting him back in the Valley was far worse than any jail cell. It was a mitigating kindness that stayed with him as he left the bathroom and roved through the house, expecting his nephews to leap out at him at any second, rattling light sabers and whatever new gadgets and gizmos Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw had bought them. Yet the downstairs, lit up as it was, remained quiet, absent of the usual fracas Jacob associated with the boys.
On his way to the kitchen, he paused at the guest room and pressed an ear against the door, though he knew he shouldn’t, wanting to say a good night to his mom but not face the old man who would have to let Jacob know how disappointed he was in him for missing dinner. So he went to rummage in the fridge, his stomach grumbling. No sooner had he lifted out a platter of uncooked steaks than Mo, Pandora, Diet, and one of the twins entered the house through the side door off the garage. They headed for the kitchen, all of them chattering at once, Mo’s voice rising above the others, his face, when Jacob finally saw it, clearly ravaged with anger and worry. They all moved into the kitchen, Mo reaching around Jacob to grab a bottle of beer.
“Baby, you are back from these wilds of Los Angeles,” Diet said, drawing up beside him.
“What happened to you?” Mo asked, pointing the bottle at Jacob’s shirt.
“Oh, this? Nothing. What’s important is, what happened to you?” he asked Dexter, whose right hand was encased in a plaster cast that ran halfway up his arm.
“Paw-Paw slammed the lid of the barbecue down on my fingers,” Dexter said matter-of-factly, without a hint of resentment.
“Paw-Paw did what?” Jacob asked, dumbfounded.
“It was an accident,” Pandora soothed, glancing up from her phone long enough to register Jacob, who was kneeling down before Dexter.
“Are you okay?” he asked the boy, looking directly into his huge blue eyes.
“Yeah, I’m okay, Uncle Jacob,” he said, “but it hurt like a bitch.”
“Hey, language,” Mo remonstrated, leaning across the counter and tapping the boy gently on the head. “Paw-Paw’s already promised to take him up to the Commons tomorrow to pick out a toy. Isn’t that right, Dexatrim?”
“Dad, don’t call me that!” the boy said angrily, but through a big, toothy smile. “Mommy, is it okay if I go upstairs? I need to discuss an important matter with Baxter.”
“No more summits today, though. Promise me you won’t let your brothers talk you into playing Resettlement and that all of you will continue to honor the armistice,” she instructed, running a hand through her highlighted blond hair and slumping down on one of the stools scattered around the island.
“I think I will escort you upstairs. It’s been a long day,” Diet said, taking hold of Dexter’s other hand. “Gute Nacht.” He kissed Jacob, turned, and walked out of the kitchen, the boy asking Diet if he’d read him a bedtime story.
“I like him,” Pandora said. “Congrats, brother-in-law. You did well.”
“You mean you like him despite his German heritage,” Mo insisted.
“No, I mean I like him because he’s likable. That’s what I mean,” she retorted, glaring at Mo, who sucked on his beer. “Roz likes him, too. I’m not sure about Julian. It’s so hard to tell with him.”
That’s because he’s an asshole wrapped in a curmudgeon inside a misanthrope, Jacob thought, but said, “The inscrutable heart of Julian Jacobson.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Mo said, chugging down the beer, then helping himself to another.
“Better go slow there, Easy Rider. You have a full day of activities tomorrow,” Pandora chided. “Do either of you know my twister-in-law’s ETA? I need to prepare myself psychologically for her arrival.”
“Pandora, c’mon, that’s not nice,” Mo protested.
“I think she said around nine,” Jacob said. “Oh, and before I forget. Clarence sends his best.”
“Oh, yeah? What does the Prince of Death have to say for himself?” Mo asked. “Is he going to produce our one-man show?”
“What one-man show?” Pandora asked, swiping a glance at Jacob. “Did you write something for Mo? We should have a reading of it after the Seder!”
“It’s still a work-in-progress,” Jacob said, glaring sideways at Mo.
“Well, when it’s ready, I’d love to read it,” she said, her face once again at her phone. “So I have like fifty emails to answer. I’ll be in my office if you boys need me,” and with that, she left the kitchen.
After she was gone, Mo went to the swinging doors, which connected the kitchen to the rest of the house, and pushed them open, moving his head back and forth, while Jacob took a seat on one of the stools, staring longingly at the steaks. “I need to eat something,” he said. “Then I need to pass out.”
“Yeah, sure, okay,” Mo said, returning. He got out a frying pan, added some olive oil, set two of the thicker steaks in the pan, then lit the gas burner. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the wife, because she’d lose her mind, but I’m not exactly sure what happened at the barbecue with Dad and Dexter. I think…I don’t know what to think.”
“What do you mean? Do you think he—Jesus, Mo, you think he did it on purpose? Even he couldn’t be that—” But then Jacob stopped himself, for of course their dad could be that hateful, and he prickled at the image of the lid coming down on the boy’s fingers.
“I don’t know.” Mo sighed. “It’s just…it’s what he said to me in passing after it happened.”
“What? What’d he say?”
“He can’t suspect anything, can he?”
“Tell me what he said,” Jacob insisted.
“Well, he just…I thought I heard him mumble something about getting away with it. You don’t think he knows, do you?” he asked.
“I can’t see how he’d suspect anything unless you or Thistle opened your big mouths.”
“Not me,” Mo countered. “You think Thistle might have blabbed?” Out of the three of them, Edith had been the hardest to convince. Finally, though, over the course of several phone calls, Jacob, family archivist and keeper of Julian Jacobson’s crimes against humanity, thought he’d been able to persuade her. “I hope she didn’t screw us.”
“Why would she do that? You don’t have enough faith in her. Besides, you’re starting to sound as paranoid as Dad,” Jacob reckoned. “He might have gotten more cantankerous, a touch slower, and harder of hearing, but he’s still no slouch. It’s just unfortunate that old age hasn’t caught up to him yet and only seems to have improved his higher brain functions. How is it even possible that he shows no signs of senility?”
“Evil is clearheaded and never dies,” Mo joked, which at any other time would have made them laugh, though tonight it merely extended the silence between them, the only sound coming from the steaks sizzling on the stove.
“I accidentally ran over one of Clarence’s white peacocks, then five minutes later got a ticket for running a red light. All in all, it’s been a spectacularly farcical day,” Jacob offered after a while. “This hot Jewish cop pulled me over, though. Not a big fan of yours or the show. He pretty much thought you all single-handedly set the Jews back a hundred years.”
“Yeah, that’s great. Thanks for sharing, Jacob. I always love to hear that kind of crap, especially from a fellow Yid,” Mo snapped. “What didn’t he like about us? No, wait, don’t tell me—he thinks our parenting style was ‘too lax,’ or that our taking the trips out of public school and putting them in Ilan Ramon Day School was ‘too extreme.’ ”
Tell Me How This Ends Well Page 10