Authors: Jason Robert Brown
13
Jason Robert Brown & Dan Elish
Dedicated with love and gratitude to
Molly, Cassie, and Johnâ¦and their mothers
âJ.R.B. and D.E.
I GUESS it started with Angelina, the flight attendant myâ¦
A HOUSE. We were going to live in a house.
There was day at some point in the next weekâ¦
MY MOM and the rabbi had been on my caseâ¦
“EVAN?”
MY SCHOOL back in New York was a gray brickâ¦
ARCHIE DIDN'T sound like a normal person. First of all,â¦
IN NEW YORK, a bad day was a cab tearingâ¦
I PEEKED outside the door, checking for any hall monitorsâ¦
ON FRIDAY Mom really came through. She drove me toâ¦
AFTER PATRICE and Archie left, I lurked around the theaterâ¦
WALKING TO school that Monday, I expected to be teased,â¦
“BE A MAN,” Rabbi Weiner had said.
I CUT through Pam's backyard and came around the backâ¦
THE PHONE rang in the kitchen. Pam got up fromâ¦
AND THEN I got punched in the face.
“THAT'S IT, I'm canceling the whole thing!”
THERE'S A lot of other stuff I could tell youâaboutâ¦
I GUESS
it started with Angelina, the flight attendant my father met on a flight from New York to L.A. last year. I don't know the whole story. Maybe he caught her eye while she was handing out pretzels? Pretty much all I know is that on July 15 at 5:45
P.M.
, I left Central Park and came home to our apartment to find Mom bawling on the sofa and Dad looking sheepish by the terraceâsort of like he had just cut in front of an old lady to snag a cab.
“Evan. Your father has some news.”
Dad drew in a sharp breath. “It's really very sad.”
I knew it: My grandmother had died. No, grand
father
. Wait, definitely my aunt, oh my god, my aunt
Elaine, it was going to be horrible.
“Your mother and I can't live together anymore.”
I satâmore like collapsedâon our old blue easy chair, like I had taken a giant cannonball to my gut.
“What?” I said. It was all sort of hard to believe. My folks fought every once in a while, but it was a “Why can't
you
put dinner on the table for once?” kind of a thing, not “I hate you and don't want to be married to you anymore.”
Anyway, the next thing I knew, we were all crying and hugging. Then, before I could catch my breath, my dad was heading to the door with his suitcase.
“I'll pick you up for dinner tomorrow at six,” he said. “We'll talk, okay, buddy?”
And just like that I became one of those kids you see on those after-school specials: a guy who sees his dad once a week for dinner and every other weekend. Except I wasn't on TV. And by the time my dad had one foot in the hall, I was crying all over again.
And my mom? Well, she tried to be good, but it took only an hour before the bathroom door was closed, and I could hear her screaming from inside: “A STEWARDESS! IS HE KIDDING?”
My dad had made it sound mutual, like something they had agreed on together over their morning latte. But listening to my mom, I realized that it had been a one-sided decisionâmy dad had decided he couldn't
live with my mom. And it began to sink in that, by extension, my father also wouldn't be living with meânot ever again. That night before bed, I punched out my pillow. Then I kicked in my closet door. You might say I was angry. You might say I was a lot of thingsânone of them good.
The next night at dinner, my dad said all the stuff you would expect. He never meant for it to happen. Life throws you strange curves. He loved me more than anything. I could see he was trying, but by the end of the meal I had tuned him out. Sure, each one of his so-called explanations sounded reasonable, but to my ears he was just spinning lines, desperate to get my forgiveness. Bottom line: My father was ditching me for some woman in polyester who dispensed peanuts across the friendly skies of America. It didn't matter that she turned out to be nice when I met her a few days later. By that point I had already made my decision. I hated her. And to tell the truth, I was starting to hate him.
“But you can't
really
hate him.”
That's what Steve said. He was my best buddy. It was hard talking to him about the miseries of my home life, because he and my other best friend, Bill, were in a much more celebratory mood: Three days before all this happened, I had made contact with Nina Handelman's upper lip at Peter
Kramer's birthday party.
“How was her breath?” Bill said. “I bet her breath smells like candy.”
“Whatever,” I muttered.
“Evan, you can't
really
hate your own father,” Steve repeated.
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Sure I can.”
“It's not biologically possible,” Bill said. “He's your dad.”
“I know he's my dad,” I said. “But he took off. I mean, you should see my mom.”
It was ugly. For the first few days after Dad left, she pretty much lived in her bathrobe, staring vacantly into space, wandering around the apartment, crying. On the fifth day, while she was halfheartedly attempting to make dinner, still in her bathrobe, I heard her mutter, “I've gotta get us out of hereâwe're not safe.”
“Huh?” I said.
She forced a huge, fake smile.
“Never mind me, just talking to myself,” she said. “More spaghetti?”
Later that night, I caught her crying again, this time on the phone to my aunt Pam. I didn't really listen much to what she was saying; I just heard the emotional roller coaster in the next room. Suddenly Mom's head popped into my doorway. “Hey, kiddo, guess what we're going to do?” It was the happiest she
had sounded since Dad left. “We're moving to Indiana!”
She was grinning, ear to ear, like Dr. Teeth, even though her cheeks were still damp with tears.
“That's great, Mom,” I said, and made a mental note to talk to Steve's mom about all of this. She was a shrink.
“Pam offered me a job!”
Aunt Pam had an antiques store. She sold about a chair a week. My mother had a doctoral degree in anthropology. Nothing was adding up.
“Mom, we can't go to Indiana. I've got school. And friends.”
She looked at me, still cheerful, perky almost. “They've got schools in Indiana.”
I went on, making my case. It was only five weeks before my first year in junior high. A few months before my thirteenth birthday.
But my mother would not be swayed; we were moving to Indiana! To be with Pam! Wasn't that great? I argued with her, but it was like talking to a boulder. An insane, grinning boulder. She wanted as far away from my dad as she could get. And I'm guessing she wanted to punish him a little bit, too. You knowâif he didn't want her, he wasn't going to get me, either.
In the end, I had no choice. My dad tried to fight
it, even threatened with the lawyers, but he'd stacked the cards against himself: He had just left his wife for another woman, and he traveled almost every week for work. By the time he officially gave in, my mom had sold off half our stuff. Then one steamy, miserable day in early August, Steve and Bill and a few of Mom's friends came by to help load up the U-Haul and say good-bye.
“We'll keep in touch,” Steve assured me.
“Tell you all about school,” Bill said.
“Yeah, just stay away from Nina Handelman,” I said halfheartedly. “Those lips are mine.”
Bill shrugged awkwardly. “On a strictly literal basis, only the upper lip is yours.”
Was he really going to move in on Nina Handelman the minute I left town? No way would he do that.
“Evan!”
My mom had just finished hugging Mrs. Lieber, our downstairs neighbor.
“Time to go, honey.”
I looked at our apartment buildingâthirty stories, straight up. It had always seemed like nothing more than a tall mass of steel, brick, and glass. Suddenly it was home.
“In the car,” Mom said.
It was hard to believe how fast my life had spun out of control. I thought of making one last-ditch
attempt, throwing myself on the mercy of the court, begging to stay. I was beating all the other guys in Halo! Steve's dad got tickets to the Jets opener! Nina Handelman! But just like that, the feeling passed. I was old enough to know when a battle was lost. So I gave Steve a hug, slapped Bill's back, and walked to the car. All of a sudden I was blinking back tears. Not just because I was leaving, but because of who wasn't there to say good-bye. I knew Dad and Mom were at war, but I guess I still expected him to show up at the last minute, maybe even waving a court order that said I had to stay in New York. Instead I slouched into the passenger seat of Mom's old Volvo, depressed to the bone. I nodded out the window a final timeâeven Manuel, our doorman, had come out to wave goodbye. But still no Dad. And then Mom was in the seat next to me.
“Ready?” she said.
I just stared straight ahead and nodded. Forget my father. He and Angelina were probably in first class on some jet, bathing in a tub of champagne.
Or maybe not. As Mom inched the car down the street, I twisted around for one last look. And he was there! Getting out of a cab. Waving after the car. Running.
“Mom!” I said. “Stop!”
She sped up.
“Mom!”
She stopped.
But then I saw someone else get out of the cab, the early-morning sun catching her perfect younger-woman hair. Angelina.
“Forget it,” I said.
Mom wrinkled her brow. “What?”
“Drive!”
Mom didn't have to be told twice. With a triumphant glance into the rearview mirror, she peeled down First Avenue like she was Jeff Gordon. I watched my dad run for a block, then stop, hands on his hips. He looked confused and sad.
That made two of us.
Â
Our trip west wasn't any joyride. For starters, somewhere outside of Newark, the air conditioning broke down. It was ninety-five degrees. Then right as we entered Pennsylvania, the engine began making a horrible clanging noise, and continued doing it every five seconds for the rest of the trip. Then things got really bad. We were in Ohio when my mom brought it up, almost as an afterthought, half talking to herself.
“Once we're settled, we'll have to get to work finding you a rabbi for your bar mitzvah.”
Clang
, went the engine.
“My bar mitzvah?” I said. “Are you kidding? I'm
not having my bar mitzvah in Indiana.”
It felt good to say it. I should have stopped there. But I kept going, not even sure where the words were coming from. “You want to drag me away from my
father
, fine, you do that, obviously it doesn't matter to you what I want. Well, I don't care what
you
want, and I'm not having a stupid bar mitzvah.”
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
My mother glowered at me, her face on fire with fury.
“You. Are. Having. Your. Bar mitzvah.”
Clang.
Clang.
“Do you understand me?”
I gulped. We were going ninety miles an hour.
“You are having your bar mitzvah, Evan Goldman, and you are having it in Appleton, Indiana, with me and your aunt Pam, and that is the end of that discussion. Forever. Period. Are we very clear?”
Clang.
Clang.
“Yes, Mom.”
We were silent for the rest of the trip.
Back in New York, I had taken two lessons with Rabbi Cohen and decided that Hebrew just wasn't my
thing. I couldn't sing and I didn't know Exodus from Psalms. So I had begged my dad to skip the bar mitzvah and just throw me a big party. But now with Dad out of the picture, apparently the bar mitzvah was on again, and there was no one left to appeal to.
I looked out the window, exit after exit on the highway. Great. I could only imagine my first month at school. Everyone was already going to think I was some sort of weirdo fatherless New York Jewish freak.
What would they think when they heard me chant in Hebrew?
