little girl.
“Hannah, did you hear me?”
“Grilled cheese is okay.”
She had heard him. Decker made up a grilled cheese sandwich, courtesy of an electronic sandwich maker that not only grilled but also molded the bread into an attractive shell shape. The aesthetics were lost on Hannah. She asked him to wrap it in a napkin so grease wouldn’t get all over her fingers. Meticulous at times, downright messy at other times. Kids never failed to mystify him.
He said, “Hannah, I’m going back to work now. Yonkie’s here if you need anything.”
“Where’s Eema?” she asked again.
As if repeating the question would make her mother appear.
“She’s at the shul.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going now.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.” He bent down and gave her a kiss. “Bye.”
The little girl chewed off a piece of dripping cheese. “Bye.”
The child was in TV narcolepsy. He patted her head, then heard Jacob summoning him. Actually, Jacob had called out, “Dad,” and that was good. When Jacob was angry, he called him Peter.
“Are you still here?” Jacob yelled from his room.
“I’m still here. What’s wrong?”
“Can you c’mere for a sec?”
Decker patted Hannah’s head again, then entered the inner sanctum of Jacob’s private space. Jacob always made his bed and kept his floor cleared of junk, but his desktop was covered with books, papers, candy wrappers, doodads, and other odd-shaped items that Decker couldn’t identify. Sammy’s bed and desk had been left in pristine condition, completely cleared of anything extraneous. Jacob refused to let his mess carry over to his absent brother’s side of the room. It was as if Jacob kept it clean in hopes that Sammy would materialize.
“I think you’d better hear this.” Jacob turned on his answering machine.
Hi, Jake. This is Ernesto Golding. Long time, huh? I don’t know if your stepdad told you what was flying. Probably not. At least, he shouldn’t be talking about me, but you never know. Anyway, don’t go postal, but you’ll probably hear it from someone. So I figured you might as well hear it from me … that I B-and-E’d your temple … messed up some stuff, spray-painted some swastikas, and threw around some Nazi shit on the floor. I was just fooling around, getting stoned one day, and one dare led to another and things kinda got outta hand. I dunno … it was nothing personal against Jews or anything. It was just something to do. I feel bad about it, but like I said, it was nothing personal. And I don’t know how much you and your stepdad talk, but you can tell him that if you talk about it. I’m sorta rambling, I know. Anyway, I haven’t seen you around in a while. I suspect I won’t see you around anymore. I’m going to hang up now.
There was a click, then the droning buzz of the phone line.
Jacob looked at his stepfather with curious eyes. “Did you arrest Ernesto Golding for vandalizing the shul?”
“What he tells you is his business. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s a juvenile, and I don’t talk about juveniles.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Jacob began to pace. “What a prick! What an absolute prick!”
“Why do you think he called you?” Decker asked.
“I don’t know. I barely knew him.”
“Do you have any opinions about him?”
Jacob gave out a breathy laugh. “I have four grandparents who are camp survivors—two of them with numbers. This guy vandalizes the shul and leaves Nazi crap and hate graffiti all over the place. But I’m not supposed to take it personally?” He bit his lip. “Yeah, I have opinions about him. I think he’s a butt wipe.”
Decker restrained a smile.
“He’s a rich kid,” Jacob said. “But he makes a big point of not flaunting it. He’s so concerned about not flaunting it that he flaunts it. Money meant nothing to him because he was always flush.”
“Is he a smart guy?”
“No dummy. He took the SAT twice. Did over 1400 the second time.”
“Better than I could have done,” Decker said. “Of course, that’s not in your league—”
“Stop it!” Jacob snapped.
“Good Lord, take it easy, will you!” Decker barked back. “I’m trying to be nice.”
Jacob looked away. “I’m sorry.” He touched his forehead. “I think I’ve inherited your tendencies toward headaches. Pretty good trick, considering we’re not genetically related.”
Decker wanted to smile but couldn’t get it out. “I’m going now. If you need anything, call me, not Eema. She’s got her hands full.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jacob kneaded his hands. “Look, if you want to ask me stuff, it’s okay. I don’t know much about Golding. I knew him from the parties. I haven’t seen him or any of them in six months. I hope you know that.”
“Yonkie, I’m not looking over your shoulder.”
The teen considered the words, but gave no indication that he agreed with them.
“You miss Sammy?” Decker asked.
“Yeah.” He licked his lips. “Yeah, I do. We E-mail each other almost every day, so in a way I talk to him as much as ever. But then things come up … things you don’t want to write about. It’s not the same.” He caught Decker’s eye. “Golding had a really nice girlfriend … Lisa Halloway. They were real tight, and then he broke up with her. She was upset about it. Totally baffled. At least, that’s what she told me. I felt bad for her. I almost asked her out. Not because I felt bad for her, but because I liked her. She was smart enough and really good-looking.”
“So why didn’t you ask her out?”
“What’s the point?”
“I’m sure she would have gone out with you, Jacob,” Decker said. “Besides the brains, you got your mother’s baby blues.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I know she would have gone out with me. But it wouldn’t have lasted, so why make Eema upset? Eventually, I would have been too Jewish for her, and she would have been too goyish for me.”
He shrugged with resignation.
“You know, it’s not the rabbis and all the mantras they feed us at school that keeps me Orthodox. It’s idiots like Ernesto Golding. It makes me realize how alienated I am from the vast majority of this country. I can’t be a typical American teenager, starting with the fact that I’ve never eaten a cheeseburger.
