Chains Around the Grass (11 page)

Sara’s sobs rose.

Dave looked from one to the other, astonished to be at the center of so much unhappiness when he had sought just the opposite—to sacrifice himself to keep them happy, giving up his precious hours of Sunday morning sleep, his warm bed, his wife’s soft, pliant body…

“We’ll bundle her up good, Ruth. Kid’s gonna be so disappointed,” he appealed to her in a whisper, touching her shoulder. She stiffened, but he just left it there until she finally weakened, going a little hunched.

By the time Sara had finished dressing and eating, the streets were beginning to grow light. A bitter wind made their coats flap like the wingspread of hovering birds. The rising sun and the bitter cold turned their faces ruddy.

When they got to the bay, the best places had already been taken by silent, solitary men, who hunched over old poles, staring into the swirling, dark waters like figures in a wax museum.

“Aw, shoot. Bet all the good fish are gone already. She always ruins everything!” Jesse swore.

“There’s plenty left for us, Jess. Just leave the kid alone,” Dave warned, giving him a playful kick in the rear. Jesse felt the nudge with deep humiliation, giving his sister a look of pure malevolence. She shrank back, hiding behind her father.

Oblivious, Dave took out the can of worms. “Now this is what you gotta do,” he explained cheerfully. “First, you slice up the worms, that way you get more bait out of it. And a worm isn’t like a person. You cut up a person, he dies. But a worm, he just keeps on going.”

“You can live without arms or legs,” Jesse argued.

“Yeah, but I mean his brain, or his heart. You take that away from a person and what you got left don’t matter. But you see, God gave everything its pluses and minuses. A worm, see, it’s the lowest of the low. It’s got to crawl on its belly in the dirt, but it never has to worry about a broken heart.”

Yeah, worms, Jesse thought, watching his sister. But she didn’t seem squeamish about it, cutting them up with glee and sticking them, wriggling, on the hooks.

“You mean kid,” he whispered, “hurting those cute little worms. How’d you like to get sliced up?” He brought the knife close to her and she lurched right into it, startled, letting it graze her arm. She screamed.

Dave grabbed her, examining the long, shallow scratch, his lips compressing. With great effort, he stopped himself from giving his son the zetz he had coming. Instead he smacked his own thigh.

“Why do you have to make me so mad, huh? I get up early, I take you out, try to be nice to you! Now be good kids or I’ll never… all this fighting…” He took a deep breath, and then sighed. “Look, we’re gonna have fun, right? Take the pole and throw it back like this—of course you have to be careful to look and see nobody’s behind you. You could take someone’s eye out, know what I mean?”

They watched their father’s old red pole swing, the silver line arcing through the air, then disappearing soundlessly into the water. Infected with his enthusiasm, Jesse and Sara imitated him eagerly. It was magical, watching the hook sink beneath the waters, on its way to search for hidden treasures in the ugly brown liquid. No one spoke, each holding carefully onto their line, waiting for the thrilling tug. Slowly, the bruised scars of the sky faded, healed by the rising sun.

“Hey, Dad!” Jesse shouted. His rod was visibly bending. “Wouldja look at that! Wow! Nu, so roll it in, come on!” “How?”

“A fish!” Sara jumped up and down, her line dancing with her.

“Hold on to it, Jesse! Now, slow, roll it in. Careful. NO! Not like that! It’s too fast! Too fast you’ll lose it!!… Wait until they swallow the hook good.”

The rod bent almost double, snapping and struggling in the air.

“DAD!!” Jesse implored.

“Don’t let them know you’re scared. Or it’ll just cut loose and run.”

The rod seemed to quiet down for a moment, then all at once the line began unraveling furiously. “Stop it! Hold on to the line! Reel it in!”

Jesse reeled furiously with all his strength, the line jerking with spasmodic resistance.

“It’s almost here! Almost at the surface! You’ve got it!!”

Then suddenly the line began to reel in easily, swiftly. The weight was gone.

“Ach. I should have taken over!”

“I did everything you told me!” Jesse shot back, near tears. “Sure you did, kid. I know, I know…don’t get me wrong. You did swell. Damn!” Then his face brightened: “OK. So what happened? That was just the baby. Now let’s go back in and get the big, fat daddy, OK?”

Jesse followed his father’s gaze and saw that his eyes betrayed him. They were unsure, defeated, nothing like his words! And yet, his eyes never looked down, but straight ahead, beyond the dark waters, above the twinkling human lights, up, up to some shimmering yet painfully distant vision that seemed to sear him with its unattainable beauty.

It was then it occurred to him that he might confide in his father.

“Dad?” he whispered. His father turned to him, and in a moment he saw the uncertainty fade, replaced by the familiar, too cheerful fatherly grin.

Jesse hesitated. It was not the face he wanted to tell, yet it was the face that was waiting to hear, after all.

“Dad,” he repeated, not knowing at which point to begin. “I’ve got into a bit of trouble at school.”

“Yeah?” Dave said slowly, waiting.

“Well, it all started the first day. This jerk I’ve got for social studies…”

“Who, the teacher’s a jerk? “Yeah. The teacher.”

“Oh,” Dave shrugged, amused.

“Anyhow, he’s giving us this textbook crap about the Four Freedoms, Bill of Rights… So I kind of raised my hand and told him about the bosses and the workers, and the way people are being hounded for no good reason… I told him about Paul Robeson.” Fellow traveler, Jesse thought. That’s what Dunleavy had called him, and the class had hooted. And he had been called a Jew-CommieCut-Prick by the micks ever since. And Dunleavy had written: “Try vocational” on all his tests and papers, never giving him more than a C minus, though he knew he deserved at least a B.

“I didn’t mean any big deal.” (Actually, he had given quite a good speech, very heartfelt, a defense of all the good, hardworking and honest people, the workers of the world, against all the dark forces of exploitation, hatred and oppression. Just the basic stuff his father had been telling him all his life.) “All I said was how come McCarthy’s still around if we’re the land of the free? I mean, I didn’t think it was any big deal. The teacher’s been out to get me ever since.” He looked at his father hopefully, waiting to be reassured—even praised—then stopped, aghast. His father’s face, swollen and red, seemed ready to explode.

“YOU CAN’T TALK LIKE THAT IN SCHOOL!” Dave shouted, then took a deep breath. “You can’t…you see, kid,” he said, trying for a measure of control. “It’s my fault. I should’ve explained it to you better. And it was all true. Back in the ’20s, the ’30s, everybody knew that it was the big bosses, the monopolies, that were killing us. I mean…I mean…you had to walk down the street looking down at the pavement because your soles were so thin that if you stepped on a rock or a piece of glass your feet would start to bleed, and then the shoes—the only damn pair you had—would be ruined. And if you wanted to work, you needed shoes; you needed to work twelve, fifteen hours a day. You couldn’t pick your head up, couldn’t ask for better light, for more air, because the minute you opened your mouth there were ten guys out in the street waiting for the boss to crook his little finger and toss you out on your behind.

“But then, you see, came the war, and the big bosses were the ones making munitions for our boys at the front. They were the ones helping us to win against Hitler. And then…then…you couldn’t talk anymore about workers and bosses. It was all mixed up, see? I was mixed up. But I decided, that whatever happened, I was going to be a boss, not a worker, and that no one was ever going to throw me out on my ass any day they felt like it. You have to play the game, Jesse.

Play it whatever way you have to in order to win. Throw overboard whatever stands in your way. And that means graduating high school with decent grades.”

And for a few brief moments, David Markowitz thought of his own father. Jacob Markowitz had known how to play the game. He’d shaved off his beard, gotten rid of his skullcap, worked late seven days a week. He’d let the prayer books, the fringed garments, the cubed te?llin boxes yellow and gather dust.

Dave’s mother, though, had never learned, clinging to her long-sleeved dresses, her wigs, her meticulously kashered chickens, her worn synagogue pew. She had cajoled and cried and screamed, trying to pull her husband back from the edge of the New World, and inevitably, she had lost him. She’d never understood that the American Dream was a god more powerful, more jealous and cunning than the one her ancestors had worshipped. Every day it demanded new sacrifices in exchange for irresistible rewards. It held you in its lush arms and kissed you, beguiling you with unspoken promises until you forgot where you had come from, or that your name had ever been Markowitz and not Marks.

It wasn’t just about money. It was fitting in seamlessly. Being a regular guy. An American. It was being part of—like Truman said—“the greatest strength, the greatest power the world has ever known.” This, after being bonded to a people who had never been able to protect their own bones. Money itself was beside the point; anybody could make money in America, unless you were a real dope, like Morris. Or like Max, the union organizer, his dear friend, riddled with bullets two days after the first strike. Or cousin Elya, deported to Russia for “un-American activities.” The fool.

“Son,” he said, wanting to sum it all up, but failing, because as he tried to formulate the words, he couldn’t believe how ashamed he felt to say them. “Son,” he finally said. “Think whatever you want. But learn to keep your mouth shut.”

Jesse looked at him, his eyes moist, realizing for the first time how short his father was. He re-baited his hook, flinging the rod back angrily over his head then sharply forward until it fell like a blow into the water. No one spoke. Nothing happened. After an hour of fruitless waiting, Jesse’s feet began to tingle, and soon they burned with the cold. At first, he walked around quietly, secretly trying to increase the warm flow of blood to his freezing feet. He cupped his red hands, blowing on them with warm breath, hoping his father wouldn’t notice; feeling guilty and angry with himself for his weakness. But the colder he grew, the more he threw his father secret glances, wondering when he would look up and notice. But Dave was oblivious to everything but the line, pulling it out with dogged hope, rebaiting it, flinging it back in, waiting…waiting…

Jesse glanced at his sister, resentful and envious of the calm, unmoving arch of her small back as she sat uncomplainingly on a carton, her red hands loyally clasping the line. Suddenly, she jumped up, reeling in her line until a small golden blowfish swung pu?ng in the air.

Sara stared with horror as the creature gasped frantically for air, the hook tearing into its delicate mouth as it struggled to escape. With a wild sob, she dropped the line.

“Ho! A little blowfish! That’s not worth anything!” Jesse jeered.

“Quit it!” Dave shouted, gathering his little girl into his arms, his body suddenly stiffening under the silent reproach of her icy hands around his neck. As their foreheads touched, his knees trembled. She was burning up with fever.

Jesse walked over to the pail, peering in then poking the still moving blowfish with a contemptuous finger. “We should throw it back in. It’s not good for anything.”

Sara’s sobs rose. Dave’s hand shot out, catching his son fiercely on his cheek and part of his nose. They rushed home in silence, Jesse following behind his father and sister, his vision clouded with tears, blurring their two figures into one.

Black, monster waves. Sara watched them forming out in the distance; watched the way they heaved back then rose upward like the jaws of a pitiless beast. But they were still far away from her, she realized, looking at them in fascination from over her shoulder. They were not a danger, really. Too far. But slowly, she could see them inching their way closer. NO!! NO!! They were almost there!! At her heels!! And then they were not waves at all, not water at all, but something harder, with an awful, incomprehensible bite of crushing weight.

It was then she understood that she was about to do something terrible. Something for which she would never be forgiven, not by her dear mother or dear father or anyone else she loved or who loved her. They would not love her anymore because of the black, unmentionable horror she was about to commit. They would take away their love and their protection, because it was a very, very bad thing and she was going to do it… NO!! She had done it!! And the huge, bony thing was coming for her, arching over her…!

She screamed.

But it was not the dark, bony thing. It was firm and smooth and smelled of toothpaste and warm pajamas. The soft scratch of stubble grazed her cheek, and she felt the firm, cool flesh on her own hot skin. Then the arms lifted her and the black thing retreated.

“Saraleh, sha, sha. It’s all right, all right. A dream, that’s all. A bad dream. You want Daddy to stay with you, tell you a story? A nice story about Peter Rabbit or the Three Pigs?”

She didn’t answer, letting him rock her, feeling the unnameable joy of being safe in his strong, cherishing arms. He was so cool and she was so hot. She shivered faintly, deliciously, against him, still feeling the black thing close by. She did not want a story, but to hear distinctly, perfectly, the rhythmic intake of his breath and the soft, even thumping of his heart. But she understood how much he loved to tell about the Three Pigs and did not want to offend him.

“Three Pigs,” she murmured and was immediately rewarded by his smile. But then she was very sorry because there was the wolf pounding at the door, trying desperately to get in. A big, bad, black wolf.

“No more, Daddy!” “You feel better now?”

She nodded, lying, trying to please him.

“Now you go to sleep, and I’ll tell you what—I’ll give you all my money and then you can buy yourself something terrific tomorrow? What do you say? OK? He held out his wallet to her, and pulled out ten dollars. “Here. For you. Now you just think about what you can buy with so much money and you’ll have beautiful dreams? OK, sweetheart, Daddy’s girl?”