A Town of Empty Rooms (19 page)

Serena nodded coolly at Betty. “Okay,” she said.

They all walked silently into the night. Serena went out with Tom and Norman. Their cars were parked in the bank lot across the street.

“He's never been mean to me,” she said. What did this mean, if anything? Perhaps he
had
done nothing. She thought of him standing by Forrest, buying the sapling, and she could not reconcile this image of him with the one described. What were they seeing in him? What was wrong? For a moment she understood her husband, his relentlessly sunny perceptions of others; there was a comfort in just believing whatever the hell she wanted.

“Or me,” said Norman, quickly.

“Me either,” said Tom.

“Maybe he only yells at the idiots,” said Norman.

“The congregation is going to hate us if we fire him,” said Tom. “They're going to say we're a lynch mob.” He paused.

“It's the Jewish thing to help him. It's a mitzvah,” Serena said, listening to her voice, wondering.

“He is a great man,” said Tom, slowly.

“Are you kidding? He's a wreck,” said Norman. “Our rabbi is a goddamn wreck.”

The three of them stood in the thick, dusky Southern night, the air honeyed with gardenia, and listened to that.

Chapter Eleven

THE NEXT MORNING, THE PHONE rang; it was the vice principal of Oakdale Elementary. There was a problem. Her son had been playing with Ryan on the school's basketball court and, suddenly, Ryan had thrown some pennies at him and said, “Pick them up.” Zeb had started gathering them up eagerly, and Ryan had laughed at him and said, “See? See?” to a group of kids, “I told you he'd pick them up.”

Pennies. Serena's skin was cold. She had heard about this. It was a Southern thing — they threw pennies at Jews to see if they would pick them up.

Was this real? Was this a joke?

“What are you going to do about this?” she asked the vice principal.

“We have them in the office,” the vice principal said, sounding tired. “You can come in.”

Serena hurried down the school's brown corridors, past the bulletin boards with the cheerful busywork assigned to children during latency, one board with the announcement
The weather today is:
and the corresponding obedient responses:
Sunny. Cloudy. Rainy.
It was a school that prided itself on accuracy, on its students' coloring within the lines, and the art reflected that particular value — the strict reproductions of yellow suns, gray clouds, zigzag lightning. As she rushed toward the office to her weeping son, she felt the fragility with which the school and the children were propped up on these smiling suns and clouds, the ways in which they attempted to maintain some order.

She arrived in the vice principal's office to find Zeb perched on a plastic chair, his arms wrapped around himself. On the other side of the room sat Ryan, looking vaguely irritated, and his mother, trying to bat her toddlers away.

The scene gave Serena a sudden primal urge to call the police, to upend the vice principal's desk; she rushed to Zeb and held him. His cheek was impossibly soft. “Honey,” she said. “I'm here. What happened? Tell me — ”

“He threw these pennies down,” Zeb said, pushing his head into her armpit. “I picked up five cents. He said it was because I was Jewish. Then he laughed.”

“It was just a joke,” Ryan's mother said. She looked like she hadn't slept in three days.

“You think it's a joke?” said Serena. “It's a stereotype.”

“We don't have stereotypes at the school,” the vice principal said quickly.

“He was just playing around,” said Ryan's mother.

“It's more than that,” said Serena. “It's a stereotype that Jews are obsessed with money,” she said, carefully. “It comes from the Middle Ages, when Christians weren't allowed to lend money at interest, so some Jews became moneylenders. But also remember that Jews weren't allowed by law to hold many jobs in medieval times or, later, were kicked out of various countries for no reason, subject to mob violence, and — ” She stopped, breathless, wishing she had listened more in religious school, not sure where to go with this brief, incomplete history of persecution. She continued, “But you know,
despite
the stereotype, Jews are not proportionally wealthier than anyone else, and they don't secretly run the world. A lot of bad things have happened in the past because of this. You can't teach your kids this. You can't make things up about a whole group. It's — cruelty.”

It wasn't even close to a good argument, and she was grateful that they had no access to the Pepsi employee file, but this was all she could come up with at the moment. They all stared at her, shocked; she realized that this sort of bluntness was not the correct strategy here. Ryan's mother blinked. “Medieval times?” she asked, dazed.

“Now, we know that we can all be friends here,” said the vice principal, in a desperately cheerful voice.

“He didn't say sorry,” said Zeb.

“Don't get bent out of shape. He didn't mean anything,” said Ryan's mother.

This statement felt like a physical slap. “Yes, he did,” said Serena, staring at Ryan's mother, who wore the glazed expression of a mother who had made one too many excuses for her offspring. “What are you going to do about this? Shouldn't he be suspended?”

The vice principal hesitated. “Ryan. No throwing pennies at anyone. Let's just shake and get on with it,” said the vice principal, the pressure of a hundred meetings in her weary eyes.

Serena wrapped her arms around Zeb's slight body. He did not want to just shake and get on with it, and neither did Ryan. Why had Ryan thrown the pennies at Zeb? Had he sensed some opportunity, some weakness, a difference that Ryan couldn't even express but had somehow heard from someone else? The vice principal and Ryan's mother sat, their faces composed in prim expressions of contrition. How easy it would be to just believe them, but Serena did not. Perhaps she should refuse to shake hands. Perhaps she should go to the school board, the newspaper — what could she do? She was trembling. She pressed her lips to Zeb's soft hair.

“What do you say?” asked the vice principal.

Ryan had now decided to cooperate. He slid forward, his hand offered limply. Her son eyed him with haughty suspicion. Zeb held out his hand, and they briefly touched fingers.

“Say sorry,” said Zeb.

Ryan squirmed. “Sorry,” he said quietly. Serena looked at the mother.

“This is not. Happening. Again,” Serena said, very slowly, to Ryan. His mother clutched her babies and looked grim.

“So!” said the vice principal, clapping her hands together. “Friends.”

 

 

 

THAT NIGHT, DAN OPENED THE door to his son's describing, in an excited, high-pitched voice, the incident on the playground. Zeb grabbed his father's legs as though trying to grab hold of a tree, and Dan lifted him, feeling the solid, light weight of the boy in his hands. “He didn't say sorry,” said Zeb, quickly, “I got five cents . . . ”

“What happened?” Dan asked, confused. “You got five cents?”

“It's not what you think,” Serena said. “Listen.”

Serena did not even want to look at him since he had cut down the tree. Dan had called the tree removal company propelled by a desire to fix something he could not describe, but he looked at it now, the short stump, and it did not make him feel he had won an argument or even made a particularly important point. The yard was just empty, the sky spreading overhead in a fresh, glaring way. Forrest greeted him with renewed enthusiasm, but he did not seem to be grateful in the way that Dan thought he should have been. He remembered how Serena had stared at the tree as though Dan had killed someone. What had he actually said to her? It was difficult to remember in the whirl of wood dust and noise. It was just a tree; perhaps it could have fallen. Why did she seem to think it was something more? Sometimes he glanced outside and wanted to replace the tree, assemble it back into its tall, stretching height, but then he turned away, quickly, believing that having these thoughts meant he was caving — agreeing with her.

“Listen to your son,” Serena said.

He sat at the dinner table. The fixture above the table shone a bitter yellow light. At his seat was a plate with four frozen fish sticks, slightly warm. There was the brisk, chemical smell of refrigerated food in the air.

Dan had not heard of this before. “Did he maybe just drop the pennies by accident?” he asked.

“No,” said Zeb.

“How much did you pick up?”

“Five cents,” said Zeb. “Almost six — ”

Dan paused. “Not bad,” he said. “Try for more next time. Or next time tell him to throw quarters.”

Zeb laughed. “Dollars!” he said.

“Store up for more YuGiOh cards,” said Dan, sawing away at his food. “If he's dumb enough to drop more money.”

He smiled, a little inscrutably and, in an odd gesture that seemed borrowed from a sitcom, winked at Zeb. Serena was startled by this response but a little grateful for this strategy. Just say the others are fools. She remembered why she had been drawn to Dan originally; he
had the gift of the other view, the wondrous, strange ability to at least appear to calm down. She watched him, mystified; it was as though he lived in an entirely different house. Was this perhaps adaptable? Or was it a mistake?

“Forrest is announcing something great at Scouts,” said Dan. “Better than any pennies. Glory awaits. Finish up. Zeb, get in your uniform.”

Zeb leapt up from the table and ran to his room. He emerged, tiny, deeply official, in the dark blue shirt, the gold kerchief folded around his neck. The dignity killed Dan; he looked at his son, and he wanted, from the deepest part of himself, to preserve it.

 

 

 

HE AND ZEB DROVE UP to the First Presbyterian Church, where the meeting was held. They parked and made their way with the other scouting families into the building. How happy were the other scouting families! Some brought the whole group — father, mother, siblings — to the meetings; it seemed they could not bear to be kept out of the joy. Why wasn't his family like this? The apparent ease of their happiness was gorgeous and galling. Some of the parents were holding hands.

Dan strode to the front of the room to stand with the other assistant fathers; they tended to explode into laughter at the slightest intimation of wit, and they had complicated and extensive sets of keys on their belts.

Forrest's hand tapped Dan's shoulder.

“Let's get started. Dan Shine, how about you lead the prayer tonight,” said Forrest.

Dan stood slowly. Zeb looked up at him. The children and fathers stood on the hard red linoleum and grasped hands. They all bowed their heads. Dan's mind was empty. He had not listened to the opening prayer at Scouts. The boys and parents gripped each other's hands. Dan had no idea what to say.

“The Shema,” Zeb whispered to him.

He looked at Zeb. No. Good god, not the Shema. Dan didn't realize he even knew that prayer. Blessed is God. God is one. Dan smiled
briefly at him, and then out at the crowd. His heart felt like a butterfly caught in a jar.

“Uh,” said Dan. “Let us uphold the, um, Scout motto, do your best — ”

Forrest stepped forward. “Excuse me! Heavenly father,” he added.

“Um. Yes.” Dan cleared his throat. “Heavenly father — ”

“Jesus,” added Forrest.

Dan swallowed. “Jesus,” he said, quickly, “let us hold up the Scout motto and, um — ”

“Uphold our service to you,” said Forrest.

“Amen,” said Dan, quickly. Zeb stared at him. The other scouts murmured amen. Dan had an itch in his throat. He began to cough — once, twice. He held up a hand to indicate he was all right, but his coughs continued. Amen. His eyes were damp; he pretended he was laughing. Some of the parents looked alarmed, and one father stepped up to slap him on the back. Another brought him a cup of water. Dan drank it, quickly; the coughing stopped.

“You all right, bud?” asked one of the fathers.

“Fine, just fine,” said Dan, his voice gravelly. He sensed Forrest and the others waiting for him to say something else. Zeb looked like he was about to blurt out something unfortunate, and Dan grabbed his hand and called out, “Let's go, scouts!”

He stood in front of them, hands on hips, trying to look official, while the scouts gathered, a lake of navy blue with gold scarves. Forrest strode up to a microphone and cleared his throat. “Tonight we're announcing the rules to this year's Pinewood Derby!” Forrest proclaimed. “Best one yet. Listen.” Forrest held up a small car made of two curved lumps of wood. “This is the model,” he said. “You can carve it, paint it however you would like. Watch how this moves.” He put the car on a plastic ramp and rolled it; it zoomed down the ramp and plopped against a chair. The boys were mesmerized by the tiny vehicle, as though they were watching the trajectory of their own hopeful futures. “It can weigh three ounces or less. We judge for fastest, best paint job, best shape. Our race is going to be in a month. December fifth.”

“A Christmas derby!” a mother called out, and everyone applauded.

“This is going to be the biggest Pinewood Derby on record,” Forrest said. “We're combining with Pack 378. Sixty kids. Big trophies. News coverage by WKYX. You can buy the car kits at Walmart or Target or at Craft-O-Rama at the mall. Or you can make your own to Scout specifications.”

Hands flew up; there were numerous questions as to the most effective tire, the fastest shape, what grease was allowed, what brands of paint. Dan listened. Zeb stared at the car, engrossed.