The Rabbi answers the door at my father’s home, takes one look at the blood all over my sweatshirt and shorts, and ushers me past my father, who sits at the poker table listening to Karl Klaussen singing on Mass’s only album, no telling how many times the record has been replayed behind my father’s empty eyes.
I strip and step into the shower and stay there a long time, scrubbing myself raw under the scalding water, before stepping out and parting the curtain to watch the Rabbi methodically burning my clothes in the backyard barbecue pit, stirring it every once in a while with a stick to make sure everything is destroyed, including my sneakers, melted down to slag; the smell of burning rubber reaches all the way up through the window.
I half expect the Brookline Police to show, solve a double homicide on the spot, due to a complaint about the foul odor of burning rubber, gold detective shields handed out all around, a lifetime of prison bars in front of my eyes. I find a change of clothes that I always keep in case of unexpected overnights, get dressed, and come downstairs to sit with my father at the poker table after turning the record over to side two, Klaussen belting out:
When the door shuts
It shuts forever
When the moon is out
It’s black as leather
My father doesn’t reach for the cards in front of him. He doesn’t hold the chips stacked in his well. Doesn’t mouth the lyrics to the song that he once knew so well, doesn’t recognize me when he turns his head, finally acknowledging my presence. But something new registers in his eyes.
My father, I realize, knows. Somehow that gift, that curse, is still alive in there. The Rabbi can burn the evidence and I can scrub my skin and put on the poker face that he taught me so diligently during my lifetime, but from him, I can’t hide what I’ve done. Those were your cards, my father’s eyes tell me. Too deep to fold, only one way to play them.
This is what happens when you swim with sharks, my father’s eyes tell me. There’s always blood in the water. The real trick is making sure it’s not yours.
At least that’s the way I interpret them as the Rabbi joins us silently at the table. Whether I’m right or wrong, who can tell? But I understand my father differently now that I’ve made the same kind of decision he must have made in his past. I’ve been freed from the burden of judging him. Isn’t that a gift of sorts?
“The scholar Nachmanides,” the Rabbi’s voice startles me, “refers to Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, as someone who lived his life like a maniac, the Bible even reporting that Jehu was known for driving his chariot wildly, in a disordered state.”
“Huh? What?”
“Though Jehu is generally known more for slaughtering Judah and overthrowing the evil kings of Israel in an orgy of blood in the ninth century B.C.E. And, it must be noted, for personally trampling Jezebel to death. He was an unpredictable and disorganized man. But he did the Lord’s work even while he was the prince of instability. Is that where you are now, Zesty? Have you turned that corner?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I—”
“Then consider this: You’re a messenger by trade, by temperament. Speed and efficiency are essential as you move towards your destination. Sometimes it is the same concept with spirituality. There is something to be said regarding spiritual efficiency. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“No.”
“Simplified, then: Sometimes, perhaps, the most efficient route to spirituality is through fire.”
“How would you know?” I say sharply. I know they’re unkind words, but I say them anyway.
“I served in the Israeli Army.” The Rabbi grunts a silent laugh and rubs his bandaged knuckles. “Before being ordained. In Lebanon. You know of this?”
“No.”
“There, so now you do. And if I might have the last word: You know what I think your problem is, Zesty? You thrive in confusion. The more convoluted the situation, the more threads coming undone, the better you become. This is not an insult. Unpredictability focuses you and you convert it into formulas of probability as best you can. That is why poker runs in your family blood. Chaos becomes you. Chaos as tradition. There’s no need to close your heart around whatever it is you’ve done. It will be harder to serve your father if you do. You and Zero still have duties to fulfill. Obligations. Your father’s soul will soon be in your hands. It’s too soon for you to have a broken heart. You have a job to do.”
When dawn breaks, my father has moved to the couch and rests with a blanket that I’d covered him with. The Rabbi sleeps nearby in the platform rocker. My father seems more withered under the thin covers, slighter than he’s ever been, older. I hear the early birds outside starting to sing for their meal money. They don’t seem to care what I’ve done, either. Life goes on if you let it, they sing. Sometimes maybe it really is just a choice.
“I forgive you,” I whisper to my sleeping father. “I forgive you. And I’ll do what you couldn’t do, Dad. I’ll forgive myself, okay? You hear me? I won’t let it bury me. I know you can hear me.”
I wake the sleeping rabbi with my foot. “I’m ready,” I tell him as he rubs his eyes and stretches himself out of the chair.
“Ready for what, Zesty?”
“To listen. To learn. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, Rabbi. Teach me the words you’ve been teaching Zero,” I say.
And he does.