He's changed, and Brendan can see it in him. They're now two young men who've seen people die, up close. He shows up at the pool house to spend the Fourth with Bren, because the fireworks now remind him of death and not celebration.
-----
By the time midnight was approaching and the gunfire and explosions were beginning to mellow down, Jeremy had settled next to me on the floor, both of us leaning against those totally useless bean bag chairs. Angus was asleep. We were on what I thought was the last joint, so he took another toke and offered me the remainder. I brushed it away. I was now at the point where no sudden pops or snaps could attack me.
He nodded and held it and a long sigh whispered from him. “Thanks for lettin' me stay here. Be here. Through all the noise and crap. Forgot how loud it can get. How much it sounds like-like...” His voice trailed off, then he murmured, “My folks're havin' a barbecue. Again. That's all they ever have in this state. Set off fireworks and I-I-I just couldn't...”
“I know,” was all I could think to say.
“It's all so different, here. All so changed.”
“I've not been here long enough to tell,” I murmured.
“It's not that. It's me. I was born here. So was my mom. Her folks came through Galveston back around 1910 or something. They were kids. Dad's from New York. They met when he did his residency. He decided to stay. And it was fine; nobody really seemed to care 'bout our religion. Now we get blamed for everything. Embargo. Hijackin's. Even Munich. Somethin' goes wrong, first blame the Jew.”
“Someone I knew once said, Too much blamin' and not enough accepting goin' on in the world.”
He let a near smile come to his face. “Don't have to know me to blame me.”
“But I can't see anyone blaming you for a thing. You're too mellow a lad.”
The smile finally forced itself to his face. “Never was.”
I just nudged him in a friendly joshing manner.
He chuckled. “It's true. I was a terror, in school.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Kids were kind of afraid of me.”
“How so?”
“Long story.”
“Got no place to be.”
He chuckled and settled deeper into the bean bag chair and this long gaze came to his eyes.
Danny's gaze.
I looked away.
“When I was in sixth grade,” he finally murmured, “this family moved in from Port Arthur and one of their kids was in my class. He found out I’m Jewish and started callin' me Christ-killer. Hell, I didn’t even know what he was talkin' 'bout till I mentioned it to mom. Man, she tossed a fit. Went roarin' down to the school, but the principal told her it was nothin'. Just kids being kids. Then he said to me--I mean, my mother dragged me down with her to tell him what I’d been called, and I was embarrassed like you wouldn’t believe.”
I chuckled. “Parents were made to cause their children hell.”
“No shit. Anyway, mom had him explain what it means.” He a gave a nice long yawn. “Two-thousand years ago the Jews had a guy named Jesus executed by the Romans. That’s why Christians call Jews Christ-killers.
“Now I already knew a little bit about this Jesus guy. The way Christians see him. That he’d been hung on a cross till he was dead, and there's some weird crap about him not really dyin'.” He nudged me to look at him. “We don't go along with that, but we're not as hard-assed as we used to be. Not at my temple.” He shifted back to his thousand mile gaze. “Anyhoooo, his explanation didn’t make sense to me.”
“Why not?” I asked, because truth be told, now that he mentioned it I remembered the priests and nuns saying the same about the Jews.
“'Cause, I knew my history. Romans ran the world, back then. Jews couldn't do a damn thing without their okay. So I piped up like a little smart ass, But the Jews didn’t kill Jesus; it was the Romans. You said so, yourself.” He chuckled. “Maaaaannn, you’d have thought I spit in his face.”
His chuckle became a laugh, and he took another drag of the joint's stub then sipped some wine before exhaling.
“Well, that principal bolted from his chair and yelled at mom, Get this little Jew bastard out of my office! Said it so loud, half his staff looked around. That's when mom rose and said, very sweet and cold, Unlike you, this little Jew is the product of a marriage.”
That made me laugh along with him. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. Then she took me straight to a karate class and enrolled me in it, and said, Learn it; you’ll need it.”
“Is that what you used on that drunk, last year?”
“Aikido,” he smirked. “Karate got boring. Anyway, I was barred from the school. Nearly two weeks 'fore Uncle David made the district back down and let me back in. Mom kept me current with my classes, so that was no problem.” He was quiet, for a long moment. “Problem was with that little shit who called me a Christ-killer to begin with. He made friends. Gained converts. Lots of kids. Kids I thought were friends. They were callin' me that. Whisperin' it. And the kids who didn’t say it, who told me in private they thought it was awful what those brats were doin'? They let it happen.” He gave a long deep yawn. “And the teachers did nothin' to stop it.
“Finally, that little shit and I got into it, after school. Right under the noses of three teachers. I think they thought it was time the little Jew boy got put in his place.” Another long pause, then a smile. “I broke the little shit’s arm. Compound fracture. That stopped the fight, all right. Blamed it all on me. I was suspended for a month. Little shit's dad threatened to file charges. My mother tossed another fit, but this time my father told her to shut up and see what happened. Then he took me to a shootin' range and showed me how to fire a pistol. We went once a day for a whole month. Thirty-eight revolver. Forty-five automatic, which hurt my hand with its kick. Shifted to a Ruger ten-twenty-two.”
He looked at me, pretty much stoned. I wasn't far behind him.
“That's a rifle. Word got around. Mess with the Jew, he'll mess with you. You know what? When I went back to school, no one ever called me that name, again. Ever.”
I chuckled. “Sounds like you work better with the head to head approach in life.”
“Only after I’d had two months of karate lessons, five times a week. I mean, I wasn’t even beyond a white belt at that point, but I knew how to get that little shit’s arm over my knee and go snap. It was very impressive.”
“Jesus, Jere...”
He sat forward, still cross-legged, still staring at nothing. “Mom put down I'd won awards for my shootin' and had a black belt in Aikido. For the info. For the kibbutz. So when the Egyptian army started their build-up, I was grabbed and handed a GALIL and sent to Sinai. To stop any advance. I thought they were jokin'. Nobody thought the Egyptians were any good.”
I watched him just sit there, unmoving. Barely breathing.
“They were wrong,” whispered from him.
No comments:
Post a Comment