Jupiter's Bones (18 page)

“So why didn’t you leave?”

“I don’t
know
!” Jacob began to pace. “First off, I don’t drive yet and I didn’t have a ride and I was too zonked to walk or…” He stopped and turned to his brother. “You wanna know the
worst
part?”

“There’s more?”

“I took off my
tzi-tzit
and
kipah
before I went,” Jacob said. “I rationalized it by saying it would be a
chillul Hashem
—you know…to desecrate such holy things in such a rotten place. But the truth was that I was
embarrassed
to wear them. I was ashamed to look so…so Jewish.” He closed his eyes and opened them. “Abba’s probably rolling over in his grave.”

Sammy waited a moment. Then he said, “You know, you’re not as hard a case as you think you are—”

“Please!” Jacob pulled out a kitchen chair and sank
into it. He lowered his head onto the table. “Spare me!”

Sammy sat next to him. He made several false starts, then got the words out. “You know what the trouble is, Yonkie? I’ll tell you what the trouble is. You’re way too smart for that school—”

“What are you talking about?” He lifted his head up. “I’m not a quarter the
gemara kopp
that you are.”

“You don’t do well in
gemara
because you hate it. You don’t even try. But you whiz through the secular stuff like a speed demon. You know more math than I do even though you’re two years behind me. Man, your friends are shaking their heads after taking the PSAT. I ask you how it went, you just shrug like it was nothing. No big deal. You didn’t even call up to find out what you got.”

“I don’t care—”

“
I
called up,” Sammy said.

Jacob stared at him. “
You
called up?”

“Yeah, I called up. I found your exam number on your desk and pretended I was you.”

No one spoke for a minute. Then Sammy asked, “Are you interested in what you got?”

“No—”

“You got a fifteen sixty,” Sammy interrupted. “You know how incredibly
good
that is? Jacob, I worked my ass off for the SAT and you still beat me by sixty points.”

“PSAT isn’t the SAT—”

“Yonkie, give me an effing break!”

“What difference does it make? The only thing Yeshiva University requires is a male body with a
bris
.”

“I think the academic standards are a
little
higher—”

“Not much.”

Sammy shook his head. “How you
insult
your own people.”

Jacob looked down. “I know. I’m terrible!”

Sammy leaned over and spoke softly. “Yonkie,
I’m
going to YU. I
want
to go to YU. It fits into what
I
want out of life. I’ll probably be premed or predent and I want to be able to go to college and
learn
at the same time.
YU is tailor-made for me. But it’s not for everyone.” He paused. “Have you ever thought about the Ivies? Lots of
frum
kids at Harvard—”

“Oh yeah, right!” Jacob sneered. “You got thirty thousand dollars, Shmueli?”

“First of all, there are scholarships—”

“Forget it—”

“Second of all, Peter sent his own daughter to Columbia. He wouldn’t dare do less for you. He can’t afford to show favoritism.” Sammy grinned. “Eema would kill him.”

“I’m not interested—”

“You should be!”

“Sammy, I don’t have a chance. A, my grades aren’t phenomenal, and B, I haven’t done one…normal extracurricular thing in my entire life.”

“So start now! Run for school office! Everyone loves you. You’d win easily.”

“I don’t want to run for school office. I
hate
school.”

“So work on the school paper—”

“No.”

“Join the basketball team. You’re athletic.”

“I’m not interested—”

“Do charity work. Do
something
, Yonkie! Deliver food to the elderly or work on a community teen suicide hot line.”

As he entered the kitchen all Decker heard was the word
suicide
. His heart took off, and he suddenly forgot his pent-up anger. He asked, “What are you two boys talking about?”

The teens turned around. Neither had heard him come in. Jacob remained silent, but Sammy said, “Yonkie’s interested in doing charity work. He wants to do the teen suicide hot line. I think it’s a great idea.”

“What?” Decker jerked his head back and furrowed his brow. “
Charity
work? When did this come up?”

“Just now,” Sammy said. “I’d think he’d be great at it. What do you think?”

Decker pulled up a chair. “Taking on that kind of responsibility is a major commitment. You’re working with real crises. And once they train you, you just don’t show up whenever you want. You put in hours. It’s time-consuming. It’s grueling work. It’s emotionally and physically exhausting.” He turned to his younger stepson. “I can’t
believe
you’re interested in doing something like that.”

“Gee, thanks for encouraging him,” Sammy said.

“Will you just watch your mouth
for once
?” Decker shot out. “I’m really getting
sick and tired
of taking your sarcasm and sass.”

Sammy shut down as if he malfunctioned.

No one spoke.

Then, Jacob licked his lips. “I think I could handle it.”

But Decker was skeptical and suspicious, thinking that this latest stunt was nothing but appeasement, a shoddy attempt by Jacob to get on his good side. Decker was disappointed that Jacob would try so baldly to wash over his bad behavior. “And just when did you intend to do this?”

“Weekends.”

“Jacob, if you do a hot line along with your studies, you’ll have absolutely no free time left.”

Jacob shrugged. “That’s okay.”

“You say that now, but when you’re bogged down in work and all your buddies are out partying, I think you’ll feel differently.”

Jacob sat up and looked at his stepfather. “You’re dismissing me. But I really think I have something to offer. I haven’t had a charmed life, you know. I know what it’s like to sleep with the covers over my head.”

Decker softened his tone. “I’m not dismissing you—”

“Yes, you are, but that’s not the point. The point is I know what it’s like to feel intense sorrow. I mean I lost my father to a terrible death—”

“Yes, you did—”

“And just when Eema was pulling out of it, then came
all that horrible stuff at the Yeshiva…you coming along to investigate, whispering all those questions to Eema that we weren’t supposed to hear. Remember that day in the park when we first met? You basically told us to get lost.”

“I don’t remember it quite like that—”

“I know you didn’t
say
get lost. Instead you tried to bribe us with a ride in the patrol car if we left you and Eema alone for about a half hour.”

“I thought you enjoyed the ride.”

“I did, but that’s not the point.”

Again, Decker missed the point.

Jacob said, “Dad, this big bruiser cop comes around and starts questioning your mother…I mean we knew something wasn’t right.” He looked at Sammy. “Right?”

“Absolutely.”

Jacob got up and began to pace. “And then when that woman…that guard…was murdered. That was pretty damn traumatic.”

Decker opened and closed his mouth. “I’m sure it was.”

“You didn’t think we knew about that, did you? Adults must think that kids are blind or deaf. Of course we knew about it. We just didn’t say anything because Eema was so freaked out, and the whole place was going nuts. I mean, who had time to listen to a couple of pain-in-the-ass kids?”

“Jacob—”

“You know, Dad, it’s pretty freaky to find out that the guy who’d been teaching you computers was arrested for being a rapist. I mean, I didn’t exactly
know
what a rapist was, but I knew he was arrested for doing something bad. Stupid kid that I was, I thought he was arrested for showing us porn—”

As fast as Jacob was talking was as rapid as his mouth slammed shut. Quickly—as if he’d choked on the words.

The room fell deadly silent.

Decker’s eyes darted between his stepsons. “That bastard showed you two
pornography
?”

The teens exchanged looks but neither spoke. They had been around seven and eight at the time of the mikvah rapes. Decker felt his heart drop, a sudden spurt of nausea counterbalanced by a geyser of raging anger. He whispered with fury, “Did that son of a bitch molest either one of you?”

Again, the boys traded glances but remained quiet. Finally, Sammy said, “Guess it depends on your definition of molestation.”

Sweat drenched Decker’s brow. He mopped up his forehead with a handkerchief, then clenched his hands to keep them from shaking. He stood up. “I don’t want Eema to hear this. Let’s take a walk.”

The night was
cool and dark, giving the illusion of privacy. They walked into the orchards, stopping under a navel orange tree scenting the air with its fragrant blossoms. But instead of smelling sweetness, Decker almost gagged on the cloying aroma.

Sammy immediately sat down. Jacob remained standing, leaning against the trunk, picking off bark. All of them shadowed, faces sketched in smudged charcoals. Obscure. That was good. It made it easier to talk.

Decker managed to speak quietly and calmly. “What he’d do?”

Sammy turned his face toward the waxing moon, the beams highlighting the boy’s nose and lips. “We went to his computer club, you know.”

Yes, Decker did know. He did know
.

Sammy said, “There was this one time. I think it was a Thursday.” He looked at his brother.

“It was Thursday,” Jacob confirmed.

“Anyway,” Sammy said. “He kept us after everyone else had left…both of us.” He blew out air. “God, this was a long time ago…”

But Decker could tell that the kid remembered it as if it were an hour ago
.

“Anyway, after all the big boys had left…” He chuckled. “Big boys…they must have been like ten. To
me, they were big…anyway, Gilbert kept us late and said something like, ‘Now I’ll show you boys the
good
stuff.’”

He turned to his stepfather.

“He must have had a subscription to some online porn service—a subscription that the Yeshiva was paying for, ironies of ironies.” A pause. “He showed us a bunch of pornographic pictures…really explicit stuff. It gave him a…” Sammy swallowed. “It gave him a hard-on.”

With effort, Decker refrained from punching something. “Go on.”

“It really wasn’t all that bad.” Sammy brushed it off. “He just like grabbed his crotch and said something stupid like, ‘This is what it means to be a real man’—something stupid like that.”

The boy stopped talking. Decker asked, “And that was the only thing he did? Just grab his crotch and say something stupid?”

Sammy said, “Actually, he made us touch it.” He added quickly, “
Over
his pants.”

“Touch it over his pants.”

Sammy winced. “More like…you know…stroke it. But over his pants.”

Decker felt like throwing up. “Did he ejaculate?”

“Uh…yeah.” Sammy hugged his knees. “Although we didn’t realize what it was at the time. All of a sudden his groin got wet. He turned real serious and said something like ‘You
bad
boys—’”

Jacob interrupted. “‘
Look what
you bad boys’—”

“Yeah, that’s right. ‘Look what you
bad
boys made me do. You made me pee in my pants.’ And we kept thinking how’d we make him pee in his pants? I remember one time we were talking about it—Yonkie and me. And Yonkie said, ‘Why didn’t he just go to the bathroom?’ I kept wondering the same thing.”

Sammy bit his thumbnail.

“Then he told us to go to the washroom and wash our hands. That we shouldn’t go home smelling like pee—”

“I didn’t smell like pee,” Jacob said flatly.

“Oh yeah, get this!” Sammy began to rock. “He said something like, ‘Even though you boys were bad, I’m not going to tell your eema. So if you don’t say anything, I won’t either.’ And we thought, ‘Hey, great! Eema doesn’t have to know that we were bad.’”

He chuckled, but it was anything but merry.

“Actually, it was more…disgusting than traumatic. And then later on, when you learn all these prohibitions against homosexuality, and you realize what happened, you start wondering if you sinned…or if you’re gay because you touched a guy and made him come.”

Decker said, “You know, none of that is true.”

“Of course,” Sammy said. “But it takes a little while to sort it out. It really doesn’t bother me anymore. The guy was a pervert. I was a kid. And like I said, it was a long time ago.”

No one spoke.

Decker asked, “And you’re sure that’s all he did to you?”

“That was it.”

“You’re not holding back, Sam?” Decker asked. “It was just that one time?”

“Yep! After that, we made sure we went home with the big boys. And then when all the stuff at the yeshiva started happening, Eema pulled us out of the computer club. Gilbert must have given her the willies.”

The night became very still.

Decker asked, “And that was the
only
thing he did to you, Sammy?”

“Swear to God.”

He turned to Jacob, trying to catch the boy’s eye. “What about you, Yonkie? Was that the only thing he did to you?”

But Jacob wouldn’t look him in the face. Decker felt his head go light. He turned to Sammy, hoping to extract some hidden information, but the older teen shrugged ignorance. Blind with fury, Decker was trying to keep con
trol. But it was getting harder and harder. “What did that son of a bitch do to you, Jacob?”

The teen didn’t answer.

Sammy said, “Maybe I should take a walk—”

“No, no…” Jacob rubbed his eyes. “It’s…you can…” He sighed as only one can do when burdened by life at such a young age. “There was…this one time.” He licked his lips and looked at his brother. “You were sick.”

Sammy inhaled sharply. “What happened?”

“He caught me…I mean physically restrained me…held my arm…so I couldn’t leave with the big boys.” His lower lip trembled. “He goosed me…hard. He squeezed my balls for kicks. It hurt like hell.”

Decker waited for more.

“That was it.” Jacob slammed his lips shut.

Decker asked, “Over your pants?”

Jacob shook his head. “No…it was…” He tried to catch his breath. “I was a real skinny kid. My pants kept falling down when I would run or jump around.” A breath. “Eema used to buy me jeans with elastic waistbands…only things that would stay on…. So he kinda slipped his hand…” He took a swipe at his eyes. “You ever notice that I always wear belts? And I keep them real tight?”

No one spoke.

Jacob said, “I kept struggling to break away. He just…laughed. He said to me…He said to me, ‘What’s wrong, Yonkelah? Afraid you’ll
like
it?’”

“Asshole!” Sammy muttered.

Jacob said, “I finally did break away. I told him I was going to tell Eema. Know what he said? God, what a
shit
he was! Excuse my language…”

He looked up, he looked at his toes, anywhere but at faces.

“He said, ‘If you tell your eema, she will
die
just like your abba did.’”

Jacob sniffed back tears, his complexion a ghastly white.

“Now I
knew
he was full of it. At seven, I
knew
people just didn’t
die
.”

Another sniff.

“But you gotta remember that all this strange stuff was happening…that Eema was already pretty freaked out. And then that guard was
killed
. And nobody
explained
anything to us. I mean, I was really
scared
.” He turned to Sammy. “You were scared, weren’t you?”

“Petrified.”

“I knew I should have said something to Eema, but…” The teen wiped his eyes. “Anyway, I didn’t wind up saying anything because he never did it again. And like Sammy said, Eema told us we didn’t have to go anymore.”

The boy leaned against the tree, hugging the trunk.

“It took me about a year to convince myself that Eema wasn’t going to die. Then she told us we were moving to New York.” He looked at his stepfather. “I really liked you. I didn’t want to leave you. You took away a lot of the pain from Abba. But also, there was another side…I was relieved to get out of that place! It held so many conflicting memories—Abba when he was well and Abba when he was sick. You and Eema…of course, Rabbi Schulman…I love him. But then there was
him
! Mostly, I don’t think about it. Then out of the blue, I get this image…it scares me. I feel like such a baby…you know, why can’t I get
over
it?”

A sigh and a shrug. Then nothing.

Decker tried to speak, but the words lodged somewhere in the back of his throat. At the time of the murder and rapes, he had been in sex crimes and juvey, considered a top cop with years of experience. He had talked to numerous children who had been abused—emotionally, physically, sexually. One of the key signs of disturbance in young children was sleep disruption.

Jacob’s night terrors.

Decker had seen them firsthand. Yet he chalked them off to anxiety from his father’s death even though Yitzchak had died
two
years earlier.

Suddenly it all made sense. Jacob’s friendly but detached manner, his quiet but secretive nature. Right before Decker’s eyes, if he had bothered to take off the blinders. He had known that the boys had had contact with a
sexual
deviant. He had known that Steve Gilbert, a pervert and
rapist
, had taught both of them computers. He had known this! He had
fucking known this
and never once had he questioned the boys about Gilbert’s behavior toward them.

Because at that time, he had been much,
much
more interested in Rina than in her two fatherless sons. All his attention had been focused on her. Even when he did spend time with her young sons, it was for the purpose of gaining brownie points with her. Always Rina, as he blatantly disregarded obvious signs of distress in a little seven-year-old boy. Even after witnessing Jacob’s sexual behavior yesterday—especially precocious for a kid raised in a religious home—he still didn’t put two and two together. Even the use of Jacob’s
language
:

I can’t talk if I know some kid out there is being raped
.

Some kid. Not some
girl
! Some
kid
!

Any rookie cop could have done better.

If Decker had had just an iota of insight, had shown the
least
fraction of sensitivity that he had shown countless other
unrelated
children, he might have saved his
own
son—hell,
both
his sons—eight years of heartache and misery.

There wasn’t a hole big enough to bury Decker’s shame and guilt.

Jacob was talking to him.

Decker bit his lip. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you, Yonkie.”

“I asked if you were mad at me?”

Decker was speechless. Eventually, he mumbled out, “Am I
mad
at you?”

“Mad at me for not telling you?”

Decker blinked several times, holding back the tears.
That was the
last
thing he wanted—sympathy from the boys. “No, son, I’m not mad at you. How could I be mad at…” He cleared his throat. “I’m mad at myself. I should have…”

He walked over to the boy and put a hand on his shoulder. Immediately, the boy leaned against his chest. Decker hugged him hard, as if the single embrace might right the wrongs. But that was impossible. Eight years of secrets and shame. They all had some distance to travel.

“I feel so damn lousy for you…” Decker regarded Sammy, sitting under the tree, his knees to his chest. Unnaturally silent. Where was the kid’s mouth when he needed it? “For
both
of you,” Decker said. “I just wish I would have…I…”

Sammy said, “You couldn’t have known.”

But he
could
have known. He
should
have known.

Jacob sighed in Decker’s arms. “Could have been worse. At least Sammy and I had each other.”

Sammy spoke softly. “You know, sometimes, I think about Gilbert…rotting away in prison. I remember him as being kind of a good-looking guy. So I think that maybe he’s getting gang raped…often.” He hugged his knees. “That makes me feel better.”

Jacob broke off from Decker’s embrace. “You
can’t
tell Eema anything.”

“I have no intention of telling Eema.”

Jacob looked calmer. But he was still very pale. He said, “I still want to do the suicide hot line. Are you going to help me out or what?”

“Tell me when you want to start.”

“This weekend.”

“It’s a deal.”

A high-pitched voice yelled out, “Daddeeee!”

Rina saying, “Peter? Boys?”

“Yeah, we’re here,” Decker shouted back. “Just catching some air.”

“I need to compose myself.” Jacob walked away.

Wordlessly, Sammy got up and followed. A moment
later, Sammy put his arm around his brother. Jacob kept his hands in his pocket, but didn’t move away from his brother’s touch. Decker watched as the figures grew faint in the distance.

The boys were so damn different. Yet Decker rarely heard them have words, let alone fight. He often wondered why they got along so well. Now he understood. Theirs was a bond formed from sorrow, loneliness and secret taboos.

“Daddeeeee!” Hannah shouted. “
C’mere
,”

Rina called out loud, “It’s Marge, Peter. She says it’s important.”

Decker closed his eyes. “I’m coming.”

“Daddeeeeeee!” Hannah started running to him…such unabashed joy in seeing her father. To her, he was still a hero.

How long before he blew that image?