by John Abbott
The Gluskers were the only Jews in the neighborhood – at least that Scott Glusker knew of. All of his friends were Catholic, like his mom had been before converting to Judaism. This meant that on Sunday mornings Matt and Sam couldn’t ride bikes or climb trees or search for bottlecaps down at Sycamore Park because they went to Catechism. They claimed to hate it, but around Scott they spoke of it in a way that made him feel jealous – and scared. Thinking about answering questions over and over and talking about The Holy Ghost made his stomach clench up, like someone was squeezing it from the inside. And confession. What was that about? How could there be so many ways to mess up? Matt and Sam hadn’t actually gone yet, but they described it in great detail: The cramped black box, the priest’s harsh voice and bad breath, the way you had to ask for forgiveness.
During hide and seek, whenever Scott hid in a confined space, he swore he could hear the slider open, feel the priest’s hot breath. Sometimes he dreamed a man in flowing black robes was following him home from school. Scott would run to his porch but find the door locked. When he turned to face the man, the robes disappeared, and a grinning skeleton reached out its long, bony finger and…then Scott would wake up. Or, other times he was on an elevator going down, slowly, floor by floor, only him and the priest.
Once, when he wanted to scare her as punishment for using some of his baseball cards as a craft project, he told his sister Tilly about the dream. She didn’t yell or cry or even frown.
“How do you know it wasn’t a rabbi?” she said. “Or a judge? They all wear black robes.”
She had a point, but she was wrong about the men in his dreams. They were his dreams, after all, and dreams didn’t have to make sense for the feelings they gave you to be true. Like the feeling he got over at the Rushcamps or the Corwins – no one ever said ‘we don’t want you here’, but that was how he felt. And it must’ve been because they were Catholic and he was Jewish. He had heard his parents refer to Matt and Sam’s parents as racist because they had moved Matt and Sam out of Ms. Martin’s class (the class Scott was in) because Ms. Martin was Black. Scott wasn’t Black, but he figured being a racist meant you didn’t like anyone who was different from you. Why else would Mrs. Rushcamp not let him stay for dinner? Why didn’t Mrs. Corwin invite his mom over for coffee when she invited all the other moms on the block?
And why did the Gluskers get all the blame for the time Scott, Matt, and Sam got in trouble at the YMCA? Usually Scott’s dad took the boys, but he had gone out of town for work. Scott’s mom wanted the boys to use the men’s locker room, but they weren’t old enough to do so by themselves. Just look down at the floor until we get to the pool, she had told them. And Scott had done as he was told…at first. He sat there on the bench, staring at the beige tiled floor as he put his suit on. But Matt nudged him with his elbow and said, “Look at all the boobies!”
Scott looked up at the same moment a woman happened to be taking off her towel. The woman yelled at the boys, then at Scott’s mom. Other women nearby glanced over and shook their heads while clutching their towels against their chests.
“He told us to look,” Matt said, pointing at Scott.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “He did.”
Scott tried to defend himself, but his mom was more worried about getting the boys out of the locker room than hearing whose fault it was. The Rushcamps and Corwins seemed to care whose fault it was, though: they forbid their sons from playing with Scott after that.
The ban was supposed to be permanent, but Scott had a Nintendo, the best climbing tree in the neighborhood in his backyard, and a dad who took kids to the Y (not to mention the kids played together at recess anyway); so it wasn’t long before the kids were hanging out after school again.
When Scott’s dad heard about the ban, he lost his temper.
“Those holier than thou pricks,” he said, waving around an unlit cigar. “Jack’s one to talk with his monthly subscription to Playboy. Plus, he’s an alcoholic. And Skip Corwin doesn’t even have a job. We shouldn’t let Scott play with their kids.”
Scott saw that his mom wanted to say something to calm the situation down but didn’t because Scott’s dad was still too wound up.
“If either one of them – or any kid for that matter – calls you a slur, you punch them in the face.”
“What’s a slur?” Scott said.
Scott watched his mom leave the room.
“It’s a bad word someone says because they hate you for how they were born.”
Scott still didn’t really understand, but he didn’t say so; he listened to his dad list off the bad words he had to watch out for: Hebe, Yid, Kike. With each one, his dad’s voice tightened, his thick fingers squeezing the end of the cigar until the damp, pulpy tobacco stained his flesh.
About the Author:
John Abbott is a writer, musician, and English instructor whose work has appeared in a variety of literary magazines. He lives with his wife and daughter in Kalamazoo, Michigan.