Chapter Three

 

Ezra

12 Years Old

 

 

Be strong, be very strong, and we will strengthen each other.

Hazak, Hazak, Venithazek.

The Hebrew words turn over in my head, sloshing with Outkast’s lyrics pouring through the headphones fitted over my yarmulke as I walk home. This is my life—all the influences and interests colliding, conflicting, making sense and chaos. Bubbe wants me to become Bar Mitzvah, so I’m playing crazy catch-up, attending Hebrew school three days a week after school. I practice chess the other two.

Somehow, my grandmother, at only four feet eleven inches, casts a long shadow over me even from New York. I can’t deny that little lady anything, and she knows it. A few months ago she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, so when she begged me to have a Bar Mitzvah celebration, even though it basically requires me to be at synagogue all the time, cramming what the other kids have spent the last few years preparing for into less than two, I’ll do it.

Grandma guilt.

Most of the kids at synagogue are cool, and I've made some new friends, but a few of them love finding ways to make me feel like I don’t belong. Some laugh at me when they think I don’t hear them, or maybe they don’t care. When they have parties or go out together, I’m usually not invited. Mom says I imagine it because she doesn’t want to believe anyone at the synagogue would treat me that way. My father says I’m definitely not imagining it, but to ignore it and keep my head down. Dad thinks it’s all stupid anyway and asks at least once a week why I’m doing it. I tell him, and I guess I tell myself, it’s for Bubbe. But there is a part of me that simply wants to understand as much as I possibly can about this part of myself—my Jewish heritage. Neither of my parents really know what it’s like to live here as me. To look around and see no one who looks like you. To live with the stares and questions about “what I am.” To feel like a puzzle, pieces hidden and scattered, and always trying to find and fit all my parts together. To see myself not as half this or bi-that, but whole.

The synagogue is only a couple of blocks from my house, and I’m almost home. Kimba and I don’t go to the playground as much as we used to now that we’re in middle school. She joined the band. Clarinet. She’s good, but between my Hebrew classes and chess and her band practice, we don’t see each other as much outside of school, which sucks. If I’m home before dark, we can get in a bike ride before dinner.

My house is just ahead when someone jerks my arm.

“What the…” When I look up, three boys from Hebrew school stand there, arms crossed, one smirking, one glaring and one frowning.

“We called you like six times,” one of them, the glare-er, says. Robert. His name is Robert and he always sits slumped in the corner and struggles with the basics of the Torah though he’s been studying for years.

“The music,” I say, pointing to my headphones, which I slide down to rest at the back of my neck.  “Sorry. I couldn’t hear you.”

I look between the three of them pointedly, lifting my eyebrows to ask what they want.

“We came to have a little talk,” Paul, the smirker, says.

I fold my arms to match theirs. “So talk.”

“Stay away from Hannah,” Michael, the frowner, says.

“Who?” I turn the volume down on the portable CD player clipped to my belt.

“My sister Hannah,” Robert says, still glaring.

Who even is she?

“I don’t know who…”

Pale skin. A mass of freckles. Dark brown, tightly coiled ringlets. Looks away quickly every time I catch her looking at me.

“I barely know your sister,” I say with a shrug. “But okay.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Fraction.” Paul laughs.

Fraction. A new one, more inventive than Zebra or Oreo, but just as insulting. Lava percolates in my belly while Big Boi is reduced to a defiant murmur in my ears.

“Yeah, let’s keep it that way.” Robert thumps my forehead and snatches my yarmulke. “You don’t need this messing up your ’fro, do you, Stern?”

“Stop playing.” I reach for the cap, but Robert tosses it to Paul.

Paul’s smirk spreads into a full-blown grin when he catches my yarmulke and twirls it on his finger. “Look, it’s spinning like a basketball. You like basketball, right, Stern?”

All three of them are taller than I am, but I’m the one who would play basketball? I’ve never played in my life. I roll my eyes, but stretch for the yarmulke. Paul holds it over his head out of my reach and tosses it to Michael.

“Give it to me,” I say, my words rattling against the cage of my gritted teeth.

“Take it from me,” Michael counters, his frown lifted, but meanness still shadowing his eyes.

“That’s the problem, right?” I ask, settling back onto my heels, no longer reaching for the yarmulke. “You think I’m going to take something from you?”

“What?” Michael’s spiteful smile slips.

“Yeah,” I say, stepping closer to him until only an inch separates our noses. “You hate that I speak Hebrew better than you do after months when you’ve been learning for years. And you hate that your sister likes me. Well, you can sleep at night because I don’t like her back.”

He pushes me hard enough that I almost fall, but I catch myself before I hit the ground. My hands slam into the concrete, palms scraping, but keeping me from landing on the sidewalk. My will and body overrule the wisdom of my mind, and I spring toward him without thinking, without weighing the odds. Three against one. I shove him back.

“This little shvartze pushed me,” Michael spits, his glare reigniting.

Shvartze.

I’ve lost count of how many times Big Boi and Dre used the N word on the Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik album blaring through my headphones, and it slid right past my ears, a stingless barb never meant to harm. But hearing it wrapped in Yiddish from these boys who have everything and want me to have nothing? It’s not the same. Coming from this boy, so proudly wearing his resentment and superiority, it’s a knife hurled right through my insecurities. It’s a slur that slices through every part of me, not just the black part.

Michael shoves me toward Robert, and Robert shoves me to Paul; they’re tossing me between each other in a game of keep-away.

Keep your head down. Keep your head down. Keep your head down.

I try my best to grab hold of my father’s warning, but my hands are raw and my ego is bruised and I’m tired of everything. Caution slips through fingers greased with rage. When Paul pushes me again, I slam my hand into Michael’s face. Blood gushes from his nose.

“Shit!” Michael cups his face, blood running between his fingers. “You’ll be sorry you did that. Hold him.”

Robert grabs one of my elbows and Paul grabs the other.

“Hit me now, shvartze,” Michael growls through the blood streaming over his lips. The first punch to my stomach steals all my breath, pain radiating from my middle. I slump for a second, giving the two boys holding me all my weight while I try to breathe. Another punch comes harder than the first, or at least more painful, and I wheeze, all the air trapped in my throat. When the third punch comes, I’m glad I can’t breathe enough to speak because I’d beg him to stop.

He draws his fist back, ready to go at me again, but Robert drops my elbow and yelps. Paul drops the other, crying out in pain.

Michael looks over my shoulder, eyes widening. “What are you—”

Before he can finish that sentence, someone pushes past me. A clarinet case slams into his chest once, twice, three times.

“L-l-leave him alone!” Kimba screams, whirling, hitting the other two boys again with her clarinet case. Paul’s face contorts with rage and he lunges for her, but on instinct, even through my breathless pain, I manage to step between him and her, bearing the brunt of his weight with a grunt. Kimba hoists the case high with both hands, poised to lower it like a hammer onto Michael’s head.

“Tru, no!” I catch the case before it lands, pulling it out of her hands and letting it drop to the ground. I loop my arms around her small, wriggling body. She strains toward Michael’s face, her fingers outstretched like claws, her face twisted in anger.

“What’s going on down there?” Our neighbor Mrs. Washington, a few yards up toward our houses, stands on her front porch, hands on hips, wearing an apron with her frown.

“Let’s get outta here,” Paul hisses, grabbing Robert’s arm and taking off.

Michael walks backward, keeping his eyes trained on me, and points one long finger. “This isn’t over, Fraction! Stay away from Hannah.”

He turns and sprints after the other two boys, rounding the corner and disappearing.

“Y’all all right?” Mrs. Washington yells.

“Yes, ma’am.” I make my mouth smile and, letting Kimba go, I wave. From her expression, I can tell Mrs. Washington doesn’t believe me, but with one last piercing look, she goes inside.

“Dammit,” I say, trying out one of the curse words I use when my mother’s nowhere around. “She’s gonna tell my parents.”

“I’m gonna tell them,” Kimba says, her expression squished into a frown.

“Oh, that’s just great. Yeah, tell them I got beaten up by some white guys from synagogue. As if my mom’s not already just looking for an excuse to pack us up and move whether Dad has a new job or not. She’d send me to live with Bubbe in New York. Is that what you want?”

Kimba blinks at me, tears gathering to a shimmer over her dark eyes. “Y-y-you…”

She closes her eyes and presses her lips together, the frustration of not getting the words out clear on her face like I’ve seen it a hundred times before.

Take your time, Tru.

“You think she’d do that?” she asks more slowly after a moment, a tear streaking down one smooth brown cheek. “Take you away?”

I can’t stand to see her cry.

“Don’t… Don’t cry. Nah. I’m just…no. Probably not. Let’s just not tell her. Everyone’s not like them. It’s not a big deal, okay?”

“It is a big deal.” She balls her small hands into fists at her side. “They punched you in the stomach.”

 She steps close, lifting my T-shirt. “Are you hurt? Did they—”

“Stop.” I catch her hand, pushing it away from me, pushing her away. “I’m fine.”

We’re not babies anymore. Not little kids on the swings. Our parents sat us down last year and explained we’re too old for sleepovers, and when Kimba tries to lift my shirt to make sure I’m okay, I know we’re getting too old for a lot of things.

“They hurt you,” she whispers, letting her hand drop. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

She saw them hitting me. Saw me slumped like a wimp, short and small, while those bigger boys punched me. Shame curdles in my belly. Blood heats my cheeks. I’m white enough to blush, but too black to blend.

“I said I’m fine.” The words leave my mouth sharp as needles, pricking us both.

“But, Ezra—”

“Kimba, just stop.” I run my hands over my hair, my fingers tangling in the thick, tight curls.

My yarmulke lies on the sidewalk, marred by a dirty sneaker footprint. I bend to pick it up and twirl it like a basketball, watching it spin and spin on my finger in the silence that stretches thick as taffy between Kimba and me. A creaky, familiar song breaks the quiet, and both our heads turn toward the sound. The old ice cream truck comes into view, making its slow way up the street.

There are so many things I could say to Kimba. I want to explain how splintered I feel sometimes—how there’s something always moving inside me, searching for a place to land, to fit, to rest. I want to tell her it’s only ever still when I’m with her—that she’s my best friend in the world, and I’d rather get punched in the stomach every day than move away and not have her anymore. But that’s too many words that don’t even come close to telling her what I feel.

“Ice cream?” I ask instead, keeping my gaze trained on the rickety neon-painted truck wobbling toward us.

I cross my fingers that she won’t ask again if I’m okay because I don’t think she’d know what do with the truth. I don’t know what to do with the truth. I’m not okay sometimes. The familiar tune gets louder and closer.

Finally, she speaks. “Okay, Ezra. Ice cream.”