That’s what I tell HaShem as I walk through Brentwood.
“I never really believed in you, but I was trying to give you a chance. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. I gave you a chance, but that’s over.”
I walk past the shops and restaurants on San Vicente. They’re starting to fill up with the dinner crowd. I see people through the windows, laughing over plates of food.
I stop at a place where two streets merge together in a V shape. It’s a mini park of trees and grass.
“I prayed to you when my parents were fighting and you didn’t keep them together. I prayed for The Initials and you brought her back to me, only to give her a boyfriend. You stole my best friend from me in Israel. And now you’re taking my mother.”
I step into the park. I run my hand down the rough bark of a tree.
I imagine what I must look like. A crazy boy on San Vicente, shouting like a homeless man. Maybe this is what makes people homeless. They’re not crazy on their own, but life has driven them crazy. A terrible God has stolen their lives, and they’ve snapped. Now they stand on street corners, in parks, in alleyways, on the beach in Santa Monica—and they shout at heaven.
Just like me.
It’s almost funny, this idea. Because I realize I’ve found my group.
It’s not the Jews or the Sikhs or the yoga devotees. It’s not the good Jewish kids at my school or the followers of the guru.
I belong to the abandoned. We shout at the sky and the sky does not answer.
I haven’t been touched by God. The guru was wrong about that. If there’s a God at all, I’ve been stepped on by him. Zadie was stepped on, along with most of our family, in the Holocaust.
I sit at the base of the tree in the dark. My legs grow cold under me.
Eventually, the streetlights pop on along San Vicente Boulevard as twilight turns to evening.
A night bird calls from somewhere in the tree above me.
People laugh and clink glasses at the Italian restaurant across the street.
Life goes on, and God doesn’t care. So why should I?
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
I stand up and take it out. It’s a text message from Judi: