The Poison Tree (10 page)

“I'm asking because those don't look like tennis sneakers—they're basketball. Lift up your feet—you can tell by the tread. Yup—tennis shoes don't have a tread like that. You can't wear those on clay. You'll ruin Mr. Rosen's court.”

As I bent over to look at the soles of my sneakers, Alex's first warm-up serve hit me in the ass on a fly. I looked up and saw Alex. He was laughing, so I tried to laugh it off, too, although it hurt just a little.

“What can I do about it now?”

“There's one thing you can do, young man. Take off those basketball sneakers and put on your tennis shoes.”

“But I don't have another pair here.”

“Norman, what size does the kid wear? Maybe we have—” Len suggested, his shiny head growing red. “It doesn't really matter about the surface.”

Whether he heard him or not, my father ignored Mr. Rosen's suggestion. He simply looked at me and said, “I guess you should have thought of that before you left home.”

“So should you … if you think it makes that much difference,” I shot back.

“Look, Norman, leave it—besides, the court is covered with leaves, it needs to be rolled and swept anyway when we're finished,” Len said, reddening some more.

“Henry—come over here,” Dad said.

Dr. Friedman motioned for his son to stop serving and join him by the water cooler. I glanced over at them, and thought I heard Alex whisper something to his father; I wondered if they were talking about me. When I looked back to my father, he smacked me soundly across the face. The shock of being hit so unexpectedly, and in public, was worse than the pain.

“How dare you talk that way to me?” he hissed. “Get off this court this instant, you little bastard. Now!”

“But I didn't say anyth—”

SMACK
.

“You're a liar.” My eyes filled with tears, and I caught sight of Sy interposing his body between Alex and me. “You can just sit down. I'm not going to have you ruin the court. We three can play Canadian Doubles. Come on, Alex, serve 'em up.”

Dr. Friedman crossed over to where my father was standing, motioning for Alex to wait by the water cooler. After a few minutes of low conversation, my father turned back to me. “All right, Henry, get back on the court.”

Humiliated, I wanted to refuse. But I couldn't. Why couldn't I refuse? I walked back on the court, smiling a stupid, goofy smile borne of my own embarrassment and humiliation in front of all those adults, and Alex.

I was teamed with my father against Sy and Alex. Dad served first and we won the first game at love. Dr. Friedman won the next. Then it was time
for my serve. My first serve was a clean ace to Alex, right down the middle and absolutely unreturnable. I hated him for the sin of having Sy as his father, hitting me in the ass with the tennis ball, and most of all for being there to witness my shame. I hated everyone there, just for being alive. All that hatred went into that one perfect serve. That one clean ace.

Then I served to Dr. Friedman. It was just out, and the second hit the net and bounced back for a double fault. Fifteen–All. Then back to Alex. I was going to ace him again, the little shit. My toss was slightly behind my head, but instead of just letting the ball drop and starting over, I tried to hit it anyway. The ball hit the edge of my wooden racket and sailed far over the fence. I smiled the same ridiculous smile and pretended it didn't bother me at all. My second serve went long: Fifteen–Thirty.

Now behind in the game, I tried to hit the first serve with more direction, but slammed it into my father's calf as he stood with his back to me at the net. He turned slowly and glared. “Jesus Christ, Henry!” Shaken, I babied the second serve into the net. At Fifteen–Forty, I let up on the first serve and sent it into the wrong box. My second serve, now a foregone conclusion, was another double fault. I hated everything about tennis now; I just wanted to get back home to Uncle Lee. And now my father, having been hit once, decided to turn around and glare at me while I served, instead of facing our opponents at the net. The ultimate humiliation.

After losing the set, Dad turned to me with clenched teeth and said, “You make me sick. Absolutely sick.”

I smiled, a combination of defiance and shame, and took my tennis racket with two hands like a baseball bat and slammed a tennis ball as far as I could, far over the fence.

“Now get both balls you hit over the fence, go to the car, and don't ever show your face on this court again. You're finished, mister.”

Before he said it, however, I'd already decided never to play tennis again.

Not long after that, it was time to begin preparation for that sober and inevitable rite of passage nearly every Jewish child must undergo on his thirteenth birthday: the bar mitzvah. For my parents, as for most of
their contemporaries, the bar mitzvah itself did not involve either intellectual demands or religious observance. I was to celebrate my special day with little effort at Rodeph Sholem, the gorgeous, austere synagogue on 83rd and Central Park West where we “belonged.” With a minimum effort, my coming of age would be celebrated with a lavish party, primarily for all my father's business associates. In return, a substantial amount of cash and U.S. Savings Bonds would be deposited in a savings account in the Chase Manhattan Bank. I wouldn't be able to spend any of the money, however; although it would be “mine” in the sense that it would be put in the bank accruing interest for college.

On Saturday mornings for the past several years at Rodeph Sholem, I had been instructed in the art of sculpting dreidels out of clay and learning to fry latkes without getting scalded by spattering oil. I had been spared learning Hebrew or anything much about the Old Testament, other than a few Bible stories and the memorization of five of the Ten Commandments for Mr. Brilliant. We memorized five, and then at the next class, we were told a quiet, shy boy named Eisenberg (who sat by himself at the back of the classroom) had died of leukemia. The previous class, I had seen Eisenberg sitting by himself, quietly sobbing, and wondered why. That very next week, we were informed of his death. The week after that, Mr. Brilliant suffered a nervous breakdown and never returned to the class.

My mother ordered expensive invitations from Tiffany's, booked the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel for the party, hired an exclusive caterer—and then, out of the blue, I decided to spoil everything.

I had learned from Ephraim (whose parents were deeply religious) that there was another kind of bar mitzvah; it involved learning Hebrew, singing, and chanting something called a Haftarah portion. I told my parents that I wanted to learn Hebrew, and that I wanted to be bar mitzvahed as a Conservative Jew, not according to Reform Judaism, which was less onerous, assimilated to American traditions, and (in those days) didn't involve learning Hebrew. This, however, would mean having my ceremony at a different synagogue.

“I have absolutely no idea where he got this crap,” my father shouted when I floated the idea. “You can be damn sure it wasn't from me.”

“Why are you accusing me?” my mother shot back. “My brothers weren't
even bar mitzvahed since there wasn't even a temple in Philipsburg where we grew up. And anyone can see how they turned out!”

Her statement floated in the air for a moment like a rather large bubble waiting to be pricked. “Yes … they can,” my father said, deftly inserting a pin.

“Very funny, Norman,” Mom said, but there was even a hint of a smile. I almost thought she enjoyed my father's joke at her brothers' expense, since for once it was delivered without excessive malice.

However incomprehensible it might be, it was difficult for my parents to refuse a whim as harmless and idiotic as my insistence on a more rigorous training in Hebrew. Until that time, my only exposure to Jewish ritual were the High Holy Days at Rodoph Sholem with my father and the bleak, humorless Passover Seder conducted annually by Grandpa Schvey, punctuated by cruel sarcasm (and in a perfectly exaggerated accent) on the weight and density of Grandma's matzoh balls.

“Knives and forks ve'll need for dis soup, Birdie. Spoons you better can save for de tziken,” provided the only brief moments of levity at the dark, gloomy Seder held annually at my grandparents'.

Perversely, I imagined bar mitzvah lessons as a form of escape from the dreaded High Holy Days with my father, where, imprisoned in my uniform of navy blue suit, starched white shirt, and silver tie, I sat immobilized for hours wearing a tallis and yarmulke. The incomprehensible letters on the Hebrew side of the page transformed themselves into weird Jewish devils with heads of rams, cloven hooves, and pointy tails. I sat beside my father, who never opened his mouth, refusing to join in reciting prayers with the rest of the congregation, let alone sing the traditional songs, but jabbed me repeatedly, insisting I do both.

I decided that my father was present for only one reason: to ensure I never moved for an entire day. I rose when bidden, muttered meaningless prayers in stilted verse, sat, stood, sat, and stood again. If I so much as adjusted the fringe on my tallis, I received a withering glance. Thankfully, this only occurred a few times each year. But the anticipation, especially knowing my every movement would be monitored, filled me with dread.

Since I was prohibited movement of any kind, sitting in the sanctuary did force a kind of communion with things divine, and I prayed fervently for the end of services, either by unlikely natural disaster, or for the Rabbi
to be stricken down, a regrettable but necessary means of liberation. As the congregation rose as one, I imagined Rabbi Plotnick with his neatly groomed salt-and-pepper beard and fixed, benign smile, clutching at his breast and collapsing on the Bimah. I imagined I heard the majestic sound of the shofar, with hundreds rushing to his aid, and I would sneak out the back and spend the rest of the day playing ball with my friends. In the midst of this pleasant reverie, however, my father would give me a stare which reminded me that he would certainly not rush to Rabbi Plotnick's aid, and would make sure I kept my seat while a yarmulke and tallis-clad EMS team arrived on the scene.

Each year, these visits to temple were filled with anxiety, beginning with the inspection of my shoes, suit, and hair. The friction of my tie being yanked back and forth under my collar, the button-down shirt so tightly buttoned against my throat that I gagged, the veins in my neck throbbing like tiny beating hearts—these were the sounds and images I associated with the High Holy Days. So, it was odd that I chose a more rigorous form of observance that might actually force me to learn something. However, I was inspired by a naïve but genuine sense of rebellion against what I considered a meaningless, stupid ritual, which neither of my parents actually believed in, but forced me to undertake for my own good. Plus, it was something I thought I could get away with.

After months of trying to teach me the meaning of the words I was required to chant at my bar mitzvah, Cantor Vogel gave up on me. Realizing I would never progress fast enough to actually comprehend my Torah portion in Hebrew, he decided to make a phonograph recording of my Haftarah, so I could simply memorize the words and melodies, instead of having to learn what they meant. This shortcut was necessitated because of the self-destructive turn my childish rebellion had taken.

At our first tutoring session, I noticed that Cantor Vogel's mouth came to a small but definitive point in the middle of his upper lip, and somehow this led me to the conclusion that the secret behind his beautiful voice was that the old man actually
was
a bird. He fluttered his liquid blue eyes, opened his mouth, and warbled ancient melodies that left us both transported. Sadly, after we had drifted back to earth, he returned to face a young man with a poor voice and no aptitude whatsoever for learning Hebrew.

“Boychick,” the Cantor mused one day, “if we make it by June for your
bar mitzvah, this will be my masterpiece; more likely though, my Masada. What's that—you got ants in your pants, Hennik Itzhak? Never before in all my life have I seen a youngster so restless. Never.”

Cantor Vogel called me by my Hebrew name as a motivational tool; however, except for the times when his lips parted and he began to sing the blessings to me, my concentration was non-existent. When the Cantor sang, his tiny apartment, filled with plastic lawn furniture, dissolved into a world of ancient tapestries and Torahs decorated with silver. But when he stopped singing, the boiled cabbage smell returned, and I was back on 118th Street and Riverside Drive, sitting on mismatched chairs at a table of grasshopper-green Formica.

When I woke on the ill-fated Saturday of my bar mitzvah, I felt my gorge rise from nervousness and swamp me immediately. I put on my navy suit and silver tie, but my father insisted on “inspection” before leaving for the synagogue. I had chosen the wrong shoes and was returned to my room. Holding one of the offending shoes aloft like Mr. Wizard conducting a science experiment, my father observed, “Only someone from your mother's side of the family could have chosen these shoes to wear to his own bar mitzvah.”

I think my father may have been secretly pleased about my decision to follow a more onerous path to getting bar mitzvahed. He showed his support that day by announcing that he was going to prepare breakfast for the family, something unprecedented. Oatmeal with heavy cream, brown sugar and raisins, orange juice, toast and butter were all brought out to the table in steady waves. I, of course, felt so nervous I could not imagine opening my mouth, let alone swallowing. Nevertheless, we sat down to breakfast as a family for the only time I can ever remember. As we ate, I spotted a cockroach in the corner. Although my parents fought about nearly everything, their most violent arguments were about the cleanliness of the house.

The cockroach was a particularly ominous sign. I decided that he was merely waiting for us to finish breakfast so he could take over and have his own meal. I prayed my father wouldn't see it, as it would have instantaneously begun another fight between my parents. Bobby had made his bed and dressed himself. He was importunately calling to Dad to come in and acknowledge that he had mastered knotting his own tie. He knew he had, but he needed my father's approval.