My father heard attacks.
Julia heard the boys’ voices.
I heard silences.
Sam heard betrayals and the sounds of Apple products turning on.
Max heard Argus’s whining.
Benjy was the only one still young enough to hear home.
Irv lowered all four windows and told Jacob, “You lack strength.”
“And you lack intelligence. Together we make a fully incomplete person.”
“Seriously, Jacob. What is the ravenous need for love?”
“Seriously, Dad. What is the ravenous need for that diagnosis?”
“I’m not diagnosing you. I’m explaining yourself to you.”
“And you don’t need love?”
“As a grandfather, yes. As a father and son, yes. As a Jew? No. So some fifth-tier British university won’t let us participate in their ridiculous conference on recent advances in marine biology? Who cares? Stephen Hawking won’t come to Israel? I’m not one to punch a quadriplegic with glasses, but I’m sure he won’t mind if we ask for his voice back—you know, the one that was created by Israeli engineers. And while we’re at it, I’ll happily lose my seat at the United-Against-Israel Nations if it means I can keep my ass. Jews have become the smartest weakest people in the history of the world. Look, I’m not always right. I realize that. But I’m always strong. And if our history has taught us anything, it’s that it’s more important to be strong than right. Or good, for that matter. I would rather be alive and wrong and evil. I don’t need Bishop Wears-a-Tutu, or that hydrocephalic peanut farmer president, or the backseat-driving pseudo-sociologist eunichs from the New York Times op-ed page, or anyone, to give me their blessing. I don’t need to be a Light unto the Nations; I need to not be on fire. Life is long when you’re alive, and history has a short memory. America had its way with the Indians. Australia and Germany and Spain…They did what had to be done. And what was the big deal? Their history books have a few regrettable pages? They have to issue weak-tea apologies once a year and pay out some reparations to the unfinished parts of the job? They did what had to be done, and life went on.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying.”
“What? That Israel should commit genocide?”
“That word is yours.”
“It’s what you meant.”
“I said, and meant, that Israel should be a self-respecting, self-defending country like any other.”
“Like Nazi Germany.”
“Like Germany. Like Iceland. Like America. Like every country that’s ever existed and not stopped existing.”
“Sounds inspiring.”
“Wouldn’t be pretty while it was happening, but twenty years from now, with fifty million Jews filling the Land of Israel, from the Suez Canal all the way to the oil fields, with the largest economy between Germany and China—”
“Israel isn’t between Germany and China.”
“—with the Olympics in Tel Aviv and more tourists in Jerusalem than Paris, you think anyone is going to be going on about how the kosher sausage was made?”
Irv took a deep breath and nodded his head, as if in agreement with something only he had access to.
“The world will always hate Jews. On to the next thought, which is: What to do with that hatred? We can deny it, or try to overcome it. We could even choose to join the club and hate ourselves.”
“The club?”
“You know the membership: Jews who would sooner fix their so-called deviated septums than break a nose for their survival; Jews who refuse to acknowledge that Tina Fey isn’t Jewish, or that the IDF is; ersatz-quote Jews like Ralph Lauren (né Lifshitz), Winona Ryder (née Horowitz), George Soros, Mike Wallace, pretty much all Jews living in the United Kingdom, Billy Joel, Tony Judt, Bob Silvers—”
“Billy Joel isn’t Jewish.”
“Of course he is.”
“ ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’?”
“Chinese restaurant, no?”
“No.”
“Point is, a Jewish fist can do more than masturbate and hold a pen. Slide out the writing implement, you’ve got a punching implement. You understand? We don’t need another Einstein. We need a Koufax who pitches at the head.”
“Did it ever occur to you—” Jacob began.
“Yes, it probably did.”
“—that I don’t include myself in your we?”
“Did it ever occur to you that the meshuggener mullah with the nuclear codes does?”
“So our identity is at the mercy of crazy strangers?”
“If you can’t generate it yourself.”
“What do you want from me? To spy for Israel? To blow myself up in a mosque?”
“I want you to write something that matters.”
“First of all, what I write matters to a lot of people.”
“No, it entertains them.”
Jacob remembered the previous night’s conversation with Max, and considered pointing out that his show generated more revenue than every book published in America that entire year combined. That might not have been true, but he would know how to play false authority.
“I take your silence to mean you understand me,” Irv said.
“How about you stick to the bigoted blogging, and I’ll take care of award-winning television?”
“Hey, Maxy, you know who made the award-winning entertainment in the time of the Maccabees?”
“Pray tell,” he said, blowing dust from his screen.
“I can’t, because we only remember the Maccabees.”
What Jacob really thought: his father was an ignorant, narcissistic, self-righteous pig, too anal-retentive and pussy-whipped to grasp the extreme reaches of his hypocrisy, emotional impotence, and mental infancy.
“So we’re in agreement, then?”
“No.”
“So we’re agreed?”
“No.”
“I’m glad you agree with me.”
But there were arguments for forgiving him, too. There were. Good ones. Beautiful intentions. Wounds.
Jacob’s phone rang. His real phone. It was Julia. The real Julia. He would have leaped through any open or closed window to escape the conversation with his father, but he was afraid of answering.
“Hi?”
“…”
“I bet.”
“…”
“Do they even have room for it?”
“…”
“I figured. Not the bomb part, but—”
“…”
“I’m in the car.”
“…”
“Their flight is arriving early.”
“…”
“Max did.”
“…”
“Max, do you want to say hi to Mom?”
“…”
“Are you in the hotel? I hear nature.”
“…”
“Tell her hi.”
“My dad says hi.”
“…”
“She says hi.”
“And that Benjy had a great time at our house, and didn’t die.”
“He wants you to know that Benjy had a great time at his house.”
“…”
“She says thanks.”
“Tell her I say hi.”
“Max says hi.”
“…”
“She says hi.”
“…”
“Let’s see. Argus is very old. That was reconfirmed. We got some new pills for joint pain, and they upped the dosage on the other one. He’ll live to bark another day.”
“…”
“Nothing to be done. The vet gave the spiel about what an honor it is to care for loved ones, how it only happens once.”
“No she didn’t,” Max said.
Jacob shrugged his shoulders.
“And tell her the vet thinks we should put Argus down.”
“Hold on,” Jacob told Julia, then muted the phone.
“That’s not what
the vet said, Max.”
“Tell her.”
Jacob unmuted the phone and said, “Max wants me to communicate that the vet thinks we should put Argus down, although the vet said no such thing.”
“She did, Mom!”
“…”
“She did.”
“…”
“We had a nice conversation about quality of life and so on.”
“…”
“I took him to Fort Reno on the way, told him some stories about when I was a kid.”
“…”
“Ate McDonald’s.”
“…”
“Burritos.”
“…”
“No, microwaved.”
“…”
“Of course. Carrots. Hummus, too.”
With a few movements of his hand, Jacob communicated to Max that Julia had asked if he’d eaten vegetables.
“…”
“Will do.”
“…”
“One other thing is that last night we had a little snafu with Sam’s avatar.”
“…”
“In Other Life. His avatar. We were messing around with it.”
“You were,” Max corrected.
“…”
“No, probably not. Max was fiddling with it—”
“What? Dad, that’s just not true. Mom, it’s not true!”
“And I wanted to, you know, display interest, and we ended up doing it together. Nothing dramatic. Just walking around and exploring. Anyway, we killed her.”
“We didn’t. You did. Mom: Dad killed her!”
“…”
“His avatar. Yes.”
“…”
“Unintended.”
“…”
“You can’t fix death, Julia.”
“…”
“I spent a couple of months on the phone with tech support last night. I can probably get it back to more or less where it was, but it’s going to require sitting at his computer until the Messiah calls me away.”
“…”
“I haven’t spoken to Cory in at least a year.”
“…”
“It would be shitty to call him like this after not having returned his calls.”
“…”
“And I don’t think a computer genius is what we need. I’ll figure it out. But enough about the sickness and death over here. How are you guys? Having fun?”
“…”
“You’ve met the infamous Billie?”
“Infamous Billie?” Irv asked Max in the rearview mirror.
“Sam’s girlfriend,” Max said.
“…”
“And?”
“…”
“What’s he like around her?”
“…”
“I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“…”
“And Mark?”
“…”
“Is it good having him there?”
“…”
“Has he had to flush any pot down the toilet, or break up a French-kissing session?”
“French kissing is with tongues, right?” Max asked Irv.
“Mais oui.”
“…”
“What’s wrong?”
“…”
“What?”
“…”
“Something’s wrong. I can hear it.”
“…”
“Now I know something’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong?” Max asked.
“…”
“OK, but can you at least tell me what it has to do with, so my mind doesn’t spiral wildly for the next six hours?”
“…”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“…”
“Julia. What’s going on?”
“Seriously, what is going on?” Irv said, finally interested.
“…”
“If it were nothing we wouldn’t still be talking about it.”
“…”
“OK, I get it.”
“…”
“Wait, what?”
“…”
“Julia?”
“…”
“Mark did?”
“…”
“Why the fuck did he do that?”
“Language,” Max said.
“…”
“He’s married.”
“…”
“But he was.”
“…”
“What do you want me to do? Stab a voodoo doll of myself?”
Jacob turned up the radio to make his conversation harder for his father and son to listen in on. An English grammarian was sharing her infatuation with auto-antonyms: words that are their own opposites. Oversight means both “to oversee” and “to fail to see.” You dust a cake with sugar, dust crops with pesticides; but when furniture is dusted, something is being removed. The house weathered the storm, but the shingles were weathered.
“…”
“That isn’t fair.”
“…”
“Perhaps. But it’s also what people say when something isn’t fair.”
“…”
“Of course it is.”
“…”
“So this is just the most hysterical coincidence of timing since—”
“…”
“Ah.”
“…”
“So please tell me what it’s about. If not balance, then—?”
“…”
“Great.”
“…”
“Great.”
“…”
“The way I do it, yes.”
“…”
“Both.”
“What happened?” Max asked.
“Nothing,” Jacob said. And then, to Julia: “Max asked me what happened.”
“…”
“But you’re upset,” Max said.
“Life is upsetting,” Irv said. “Like blood is wet.”
“Scabs,” Max pointed out.
Jacob turned the volume yet louder, to the point of aggression. He was fast until his feet were held fast in concrete. The earth was held up by Atlas, and the earth held Atlas up on his way to elsewhere. After she left, no one was left.
“…”
“There is no of course anymore.”
“…”
“Are you coming home?”
“…”
“I don’t understand, Julia. I really don’t.”
“…”
“But you told me, in bed the other night, that it was something you—”
“…”
“You just said you didn’t stop it. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you.”
“Maybe you guys should get a room?” Irv said to Jacob in a whisper.
“…”
“Now I get it. Why you didn’t call last night.”
“…”
“Does Micronesia even have a bomb?”
“…”
Jacob hung up.
They were in battle against each other, and they had served together in battle.
“Jesus,” Irv said. “What the hell was that about?”
“That was about—”
“Dad?”
For only long enough to be able to dismiss it, Jacob considered telling his father and son everything. That would feel good, but at the price of his goodness.
“That. That was about a whole bunch of logistical crap, having to do with when they’re coming home later, and where the Israelis will sleep, and what they’ll eat, and so on.”
Of course Irv didn’t believe him. And of course Max didn’t, either. But Jacob almost believed himself.
He cleaved to the life from which he cleaved himself.
THE L-WORD
Billie was preparing her remarks for the General Assembly—after the unproductive caucus of the Pacific Islands Forum, the Micronesian delegation reconvened in Mark’s room and argued well past their scheduled curfew, narrowly voting to hand the bomb over t
o whatever competent and trustworthy third party could safely disarm it and dispose of the nuclear material—when her phone sang the first two words of Adele’s “Someone Like You,” just enough to unleash a Charybdis of feelings without revealing to others that she didn’t find the song totally cheesy. It was the special tone for Sam’s texts; she had been holding her phone in her hand since the night before, wanting and not wanting to hear I heard.
are you working on your speech?
what makes you think i want to talk to you?
that you just wrote that
someone should invent an emoji
for the word someone should invent
for how hurt i am
i’m sorry
actually, it’s guernica
…
where’d you go?
had to look up guernica
you could have just asked
nobody is like you, and you are never
like anybody else
did you get that off the side of a tampon box?
???
try harder
emet hi hasheker hatov beyoter
what truth? and what lie?
really, really like…
that’s the lie
and the truth?
love
did you just say the hardest thing?
no, that was the easiest
why were you so mean to me?
can i tell you something?
ok
when i was eight, my left hand got smashed
in the hinge of a heavy iron door
three of my fingers were severed
and had to be reattached
the nails are all mangled
when my hand stops growing i’m going
to have fake nails attached
anyway, i keep my hand in my pocket a lot
and when i’m sitting i’ll
slide it under my thigh
i know
a few times i’ve wanted
to touch your face
really?
many, many times
then why didn’t you?
my hand
you were afraid of me seeing it?
yes
and also of me seeing it
you could have used your other hand
i want to touch you with that hand
that’s the point
that’s the hand i want you to touch me with
really?
…
where’d you go?
i just pressed my phone to my heart
i could hear it beating
even though we’re not on the phone?
yes
you can touch my face if you want to
i text like achilles
but i’m a pussy in real life
i’m a feminist in real life