Twerp Read online

  As soon as the words left his mouth, he took off. He looked like he was running in slow motion, like a giraffe. He had real long strides, but he didn’t look like he was going real fast. He was graceful, though. There was no denying that. But graceful and fast were two different things. Of course, I was so busy watching him, it didn’t occur to me that the game had started. So a second later, I felt Paulo tag me in the chest. “You’re it, Julian!”

  With that, he and Hector took off. I was left standing by myself. I thought about chasing down one of them, but that didn’t seem fair. They were fifth graders. So I trotted in the direction of Eduardo. I figured I’d just feel him out. There was no sense in putting my cards on the table at this point. I trotted after him, and he stood there and waited, and then I got close, and he started to run away from me, and then I took three quick steps … and I tagged him.

  That was it.

  Three quick steps, and I caught him and tagged him.

  He turned to me and smiled. “You’re a fast runner, Julian.”

  I stood with my hands on my hips, wondering what had just happened. “I guess.”

  “Now, where’s Hector?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “I think he’s back over there, by the monkey bars.”

  “Yes, I see him. Gracias.”

  Eduardo ran off in the direction of the monkey bars, and I shook my head. Could Shlomo have been talking about a different Eduardo? What were the chances of two monster-sized fifth graders named Eduardo hanging around Memorial Field? Not likely. But how could Shlomo have gotten the guy so wrong?

  The game continued for a few more minutes: Eduardo tagged Hector, and then Hector tagged me. (I let him, just to be a good sport.) Then I tagged Paulo, and then Paulo was about to tag Hector when three junior high school kids showed up out of nowhere and started making trouble. One of them grabbed Paulo by the right arm, and another caught Hector in a bear hug and wouldn’t let him go. I was at the far end of the playground when it happened. I wanted to pretend it was none of my business. Except I recognized one of the junior high schoolers from the block. It was Hiram, Shlomo Shlomo’s older brother. He was the one who’d grabbed Paulo by the arm. Now he was twisting the arm behind Paulo’s back. The poor kid looked like he was going to bawl.

  So I jogged over and said, “C’mon, Hiram. He’s a fifth grader.”

  Hiram looked up at me. “Why don’t you run away, Twerski?”

  “You think you can catch me?”

  “I don’t waste my time on the likes of you,” he said.

  “My friends, my friends …” Eduardo had walked up behind me. The sight of him got Hiram’s attention, but he wasn’t going to back down just yet. “Do you want to play tag with us?”

  Hiram glanced at his two buddies. Neither of them looked too pleased at the sight of Eduardo, who was, like, twice the size of the three of them put together. No one knew what to do next. But then one of Hiram’s buddies said in a sarcastic way, “You must be their father, right?”

  Eduardo just laughed and shook his head. “No, they’re my friends.”

  “So I guess you’re in fifth grade.”

  “Yes.”

  “What? Are you stupid or something?”

  That made Eduardo laugh even harder. “No, señor.”

  Then Hiram said, “You think you can take all three of us?”

  “C’mon, he doesn’t want to fight,” I said.

  “I don’t remember asking your opinion, Twerp-ski.”

  Eduardo said, “If you want to fight, then yes, I will fight. But I prefer to play tag.”

  Hiram let go of Paulo’s arm. “You prefer to play tag?”

  “Sí.”

  Hiram glanced back at his two friends, then took a step toward Eduardo. “What if we prefer to fight?”

  Eduardo shrugged. “Very well.”

  With that, Hiram lowered his head and rushed him. But Eduardo took a quick step backward, then jumped to the side, and Hiram careened past him, lost his balance, and tumbled to the ground.

  “¡Olé!” Eduardo shouted.

  Hiram’s two buddies ran at Eduardo, but he sidestepped both of them too. He was a blur. He was there, and then he was gone. Hiram scrambled to his feet, and now the three of them were lunging and grabbing at Eduardo. But they couldn’t touch him. I mean it. They couldn’t lay a finger on him. It was like a cartoon, like Casper the Ghost. Eduardo seemed like he was made of air.

  The weirdest thing was, the entire time, Eduardo never once clenched his fists. He never once stopped smiling. It was as if he was still playing tag. He wasn’t going to fight them. He just wanted to dodge them until they gave up. Whenever one of them got close, he cried, “¡Olé!” That made them even madder.

  Soon, Hiram and his friends were huffing and gagging. They were staggering after Eduardo, not even rushing him anymore. Hiram’s face looked like a pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid, that’s how red it was. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. The end came when he stopped and bent over, gasping for air. His friends stopped too. The three of them stood with their hands on their knees, spitting onto the ground. Between coughs, Hiram managed to say, “You’re a foreign freak. That’s what you are.”

  Eduardo gave a slight laugh, then stepped past them. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. He snatched up his overcoat, which was still lying in a heap next to the seesaw, and led Paulo and Hector out of the playground. As the three of them were walking away, he turned and winked at me.

  The truth hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt it right in my guts: Eduardo had let me tag him.

  Shlomo hadn’t been wrong about Eduardo. He was the fastest kid I’d ever seen.

  March 5, 1969

  Mrs. Fine

  Let me tell you, Selkirk is lapping this stuff up. (Sorry, Mr. Selkirk, but it’s the truth, and we both know it.) After the story about Quentin’s eyebrows, he said I sounded like a Jewish Tom Sawyer. I just nodded at that, as if it made perfect sense to me. Or as if I were writing about being Jewish—which I haven’t even mentioned, not even once, so I don’t know where he gets that. Really and truly, Mr. Selkirk, I don’t know where you get that.

  Sure, I’ve got the Big B next year. Bar mitzvah, I mean. I don’t put a lot of stock in it, though. I’ll get up in temple, and I’ll say the words I’m supposed to say. I owe my mom and dad that much. But to me Hebrew school is just more school. Except it’s like being stuck in first grade, over and over. You’re back to figuring out letters and sounding out words, learning how to print and then how to write cursive. What’s the point? English is what I speak. It’s what my friends speak. It’s what I’m going to keep speaking, unless I move to Israel, which is about as likely as Bernard Segal starting in center field for the Mets.

  The worst part of Hebrew school is that Rabbi Salzberg makes such a big deal out of it. He’s always saying how regular school is for your brain but Hebrew school is for your brain and your heart. I mean, he could just say that and be done with it. But he makes it into a regular performance. He makes the entire class stand up, and he asks, “Where does school make you smart?” Then we’ve all got to point at our heads. After that, he asks, “But where does shul make you smart?” Then we’ve all got to point at our heads and then at our hearts. Then he smiles and says, “Exactly right!” Unless, of course, one of us isn’t pointing hard enough. Then Salzberg rushes over to him and starts poking him in the chest over and over, saying, “Can you feel it? Can you feel the Torah in here?”

  “Yes, Rabbi, I can feel it ….”

  The Jewish thing is a much bigger deal for Lonnie on account of his mom. She was in a concentration camp. The Germans cut her tongue in half. She had four surgeries, and now she can talk all right—except it sounds painful. Kind of forced and wet. Plus, she’s got an accent, so it’s hard to understand her. Not that she talks a lot. She’s real nice to us, though. She’ll fix Lonnie whatever he wants, even if it’s a half hour before dinner. She’ll whip out a box of Mallomars like it’s nothing. My mom say
s we should be ashamed of ourselves, taking advantage of Mrs. Fine. But I don’t look at it as taking advantage. That’s just how she is. Good-natured.

  My mom plays mah-jongg with Mrs. Fine. There’s about seven or eight ladies who rotate in and out of their games. It’s a loud game, mah-jongg. Especially if you’re trying to fall asleep in the next room. There’s the clatter of tiles, plus the sound of ladies yelling “One crak!” and “Two bam!” Mrs. Fine sometimes has trouble getting the words out, and it slows down the game. But the rest of the ladies don’t seem to mind.

  I know it bugs my mom, though. There was this one night when Mrs. Fine kept getting stuck and saying how sorry she was. Later that night, after the game was over and the ladies had gone home, I heard my mom crying in bed, and my dad telling her not to dwell on it. There was nothing she could do for her.

  Mrs. Fine goes to temple every Saturday morning. She’s there whenever I’m there—which is about once every month or so when Rabbi Salzberg gets after me about it. But even when I’m not there, I know Mrs. Fine is because she walks past our house going there and back. I’ve never known her to miss, not even once. She used to drag Lonnie with her, and he used to drag me, but now he’s old enough to be left alone, so she goes by herself—Mr. Fine doesn’t go with her because he’s too busy at the candy store.

  But you should see Mrs. Fine in temple. It’s a big deal for her. She doesn’t just bow her head and peek at her watch like the rest of us. She gets worked up. She knows the entire service backward and forward. She sits in the front row with her eyes shut tight, mouthing the Hebrew words even before the rabbi says them out loud. She rocks back and forth, like she’s in a trance. She clenches and unclenches her fists. Then, toward the end, when the rabbi gets to Shema Yisrael, she jerks her head back, and she’s got this real alive expression. It’s like she’s in a fight, and she’s getting whaled on. I don’t know why she goes, to be honest. I don’t know what she gets out of it. As far as I can tell, it just makes her sad.

  Lonnie’s dad, like I said, doesn’t go to temple too often because he’s working at the candy store. He’s plenty religious, though. When Lonnie got a dog three years ago, Mr. Fine named him Lord. Can you believe that? Lord! What kind of name is that for a dog? It’s almost an insult if you stop and think about it. To God, I mean. I’m sure the dog doesn’t care one way or another. He’s a Shetland sheepdog, which is a slightly smaller version of a collie. He’s a good dog, not too barky or drooly. But the name ruins it. I mean, how can you say, “Sit, Lord! Sit! Roll over, Lord!” without it sounding funny coming out of your mouth?

  The last time I went to temple for a good reason was Lonnie’s bar mitzvah. He said his haftarah all right. No major errors that I could tell. After he finished, Rabbi Salzberg walked across the stage, put his arm around Lonnie’s shoulders, and told him what it means to be a Jew: going to services each Saturday, keeping kosher, marrying a nice Jewish girl, bringing up nice Jewish children. The entire time, Lonnie had a yeah, right look on his face. I could tell he just wanted to get down off that stage and get on with his life.

  But ever since then, he keeps getting dragged into minyans. That’s when old Jewish guys get together to say prayers—not even in temple. They get together in one of their basements—and then they sit around for an hour and talk about stuff like what it means to be a Jew. (Jews talk about that a lot.) I’ve never been to one because you’re not allowed until after your bar mitzvah. That’s another reason I’m not looking forward to mine.

  The catch is that you need at least ten Jews for a minyan, and the Jewish dads don’t get home early enough from work, and the Jewish moms aren’t allowed because they’re women, so it’s just the geezers and whatever poor suckers they can rope into doing it. It’s the one time I feel sorry for the junior high schoolers. The weird thing is, Lonnie would be in junior high himself except he had to repeat sixth grade. I half think he flunked so he could wait around for Quentin, Eric, Howie, Shlomo, and me. But to get back to what I was saying, you should see the junior high schoolers duck for cover whenever the geezer patrol starts to scour the neighborhood, looking for that tenth Jew.

  Lonnie keeps getting caught because he refuses to hide out. He just keeps on doing what he’s doing, and if the geezers find him, he takes his medicine. But he goofs on them afterward like no one’s business. He hunches over like he’s a hundred years old and clears his throat so loud you’d think he was about to cough up a lung, and then he starts saying, “Oy, de pain! Oy, de pain!” It’s downright hysterical. He cracks me up every time.

  March 18, 1969

  Amelia’s Room

  I know you don’t care about Mrs. Fine, Mr. Selkirk. I know you’re still waiting for me to write about what happened with Danley Dimmel … and I know I’m not supposed to call him that, even though that’s what the entire neighborhood calls him. Maybe that’s not right. Maybe, if the world were perfect, no one would call him that. Then again, if the world were perfect, he wouldn’t have been born hard of hearing and soft in the head. He would’ve been able to say his own name, and “Stanley Stimmel” wouldn’t have come out “Danley Dimmel.”

  But the world isn’t perfect, and that’s what happened, so that’s what kids call him. That’s what he calls himself. Even though he can talk all right now, on account of his hearing aid, he still calls himself that. It’s his nickname. What I mean is, he likes it. You know how I know? Because I’ve heard him say “Stanley Stimmel.” I was walking past his house a couple of years ago, and he was sitting out on his stoop, which is all he ever does, and there was a substitute mailman, and he asked Danley what his name was, and Danley said “Stanley Stimmel.” It was clear as a bell, the way he said it: “Stanley Stimmel.” But he calls himself Danley Dimmel if he’s talking to a kid. I figure it’s a guy’s choice to be called what he wants to be called. So if he wants to be called Danley Dimmel, that’s what I’m going to call him.

  But it doesn’t matter what I call him, or what I don’t call him, if you want to know the truth, because I don’t talk to him. No one talks to him, which is the reason he sits by himself on the stoop. That sounds mean, I know. You could be dramatic about it and say no one likes him. But no one dislikes him either. He’s just not the kind of guy you have an opinion about … and, no, it’s not because he goes to a different school. Quentin went to that school for a year before his mom raised hell and got him out, and you’ll never hear anyone say anything bad about Quentin.

  It might be different if Danley were a couple of years younger. If he were closer to our age, and if he weren’t the size of an elephant, he might be hanging around with us in Ponzini. Who knows? He might be like Quentin, and no one would say a bad word about him. But that’s not the way things worked out.

  The way things worked out, no one cares about Danley. I don’t care about Danley. There, I’ve said it. You can flunk me in English, or do whatever to me, but nothing is going to change that. I wish what happened to Danley didn’t happen. But it did happen, and it’s not like I’m losing sleep over it. You want to know what I’m losing sleep over?

  Eduardo.

  Maybe that makes me a shallow person, the fact that I couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight for three nights in a row because I was lying in bed, worrying about whether I was still the fastest kid in P.S. 23. If that makes me a shallow person, then all right. I’m a shallow person.

  When I got home from Memorial Field that afternoon I met Eduardo, I felt sick to my stomach. My mom’s stuffed cabbage had no taste, at least not to me. As I shoveled the last forkful down my throat, she asked me if I’d had a rough day at school. What was I supposed to tell her? Yeah, Mom, you could say I had a rough day. But it’s all right because at least I’m still the second-fastest kid at school … unless Eduardo has a twin brother, in which case I’m the third-fastest.

  Do you want to know what I’ve figured out in the two weeks since then? The only thing people care about is whatever they happen to care about. What I mean is, they care
about their own stuff. Take you, Mr. Selkirk. You care about Danley Dimmel and what happened to him, and what I’m writing or not writing about it. You said so yourself in our talk on Monday. That’s your stuff.

  Lonnie, on the other hand, cares about Jillian. That’s his stuff. It’s all he wants to talk about, all he wants to hear about. I wish I’d never written that letter for him, if you want to know the honest truth. I feel for him, for sure, but I knew nothing good was going to come of that letter, and I told him so, and he did what he felt like doing—or rather, he got me to do what he felt like doing—and now it’s turned out just like I thought it would. Worse, in a way. Because Jillian still hasn’t asked me who wrote the letter, hasn’t shown the slightest interest in knowing since I handed it to her last month. On the other hand, she’ll come up to me during a break and ask if I wrote down the homework assignment in math or if she can copy the notes I took in social studies. Even though she sat through both classes the same as I did. But as for the letter, not a word. It’s like the entire incident got erased from her memory. Which would be fine with me, except it didn’t get erased from Lonnie’s memory. Truthfully, I wish she’d just torn up the letter and flung it back in my face. That way, at least I’d know what to tell him.

  The latest brainstorm he had was for me to ask Amelia what to do next. That’s about the last thing I want to do, bring Amelia in on it. But Lonnie said that women understand one another, that there’s a secret language going on between them that guys don’t pick up on. He has no idea how squirmy that kind of conversation is because he doesn’t have an older sister. Or brother. Lonnie’s an only child, so he just figures it’s a five-minute talk, in and out, no consequences. But trust me. There are always consequences. Not for him. He just gets free advice. But Amelia will lord it over me for the next year, at least. That’s how it works.