Snow in August

31

She didn’t speak again that night, nor did she speak in the morning. He asked her a few questions: Did she feel all right? Did she want to see a doctor? She shook her head yes, then no. At breakfast, Michael made the tea. Then he went downstairs to Teddy’s grocery store, swinging with one hand on the wall and one on the banister, and bought her some pound cake. Her favorite. She poked at it with a fork. He told her he was going to the cellar to look at the hot-water furnace. But he took a stickball bat from the back of the hall, to use as a cane, and kept going out the front door, heading for Kelly Street.

The parish was just waking up. There were shreds of morning fog. He took the long way along MacArthur Avenue, slowed by the cane, driven by the need to summon Rabbi Hirsch, to have him talk to his mother. Father Heaney was gone. He didn’t want neighbors to know what had happened because his mother might be ashamed. He couldn’t call the cops. He needed Rabbi Hirsch. His soft voice. His humor. His wisdom. Finally, he turned into Kelly Street.

And stopped in front of the door as if he had been smacked.

Someone had carved a swastika into the wood. The gouged edges were rough, as if they’d used a can opener. He banged on the door, called Rabbi Hirsch’s name, used the bat to bang harder.

And then he saw him.

Lying in the gutter between two parked cars. Like that poor wino who died during the blizzard. Up at the end of the street, across from the armory, the corner where nobody lived.

“Rabbi Hirsch!” Michael hobbled quickly to his side.

But the rabbi could say nothing. His face was crusted with drying blood. There was a gash over his right eye. His jaw hung slack and loose. His lower teeth had been snapped off at the gums. There was a huge swelling on the left side of his head, and blood seeped from his left ear, puddling on the asphalt.

Michael raised his bat and began screaming at the sky.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Then the world was red as rage, and he smashed with the bat at the trunk of one car and the windows of the other, he swung at the air, he struck at the ground, he cursed and bared his teeth, and hammered again at the cars, while Rabbi Hirsch lay there, and people were shouting from windows, away down the block, and he wailed again at the sky, wolf howl, banshee wail.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The ambulance came and a police car and a crowd of kids and women and the owners of the two ruined cars. An orderly said, He’s alive. But as they lifted Rabbi Hirsch on a stretcher into the ambulance, Michael heard one cop asking him whether he’d done this to the rabbi, and someone was shouting, Lookit my cah! Who the fuck’s gonna pay for my cah? And the other cop was saying, Your insurance company pays, pal, and the man said, I don’t got any fuckin’ insurance! And then Mr. Gallagher was there, on his way to work, and he said to the cop, This kid couldn’t do this, this kid was with us when we cleaned off the last swastikas, this is a good kid, and look, he’s got a cast on his leg, for Christ’s sake, and there’s no blood on the goddamned bat.

What about these cars? a cop said. Who did this to these cars? Mr. Gallagher said, Find the guys that beat up this rabbi and yiz’ll have your answer.

While they talked, Michael’s head filled with images of violence. He imagined Tippy and Skids and the rest of the momsers, kicking, stomping, laughing, while one of them gouged the swastika into the door; imagined Rabbi Hirsch fighting back, the way he tried to fight at Ebbets Field, and falling between the cars, while fists and shoes and sticks rained down on him; and wished he could have arrived when it was happening, shown up with his father, and Sticky the dog, and Father Heaney, and Charlie Senator. Then there would have been a fair fight. He imagined his mother telling his father what had happened on Ellison Avenue and how they had put their hands on her. And pictured his father getting his M-1 and going hunting for Falcons. I wish I could do that. Go and get them.

He said none of this to the police. And after Rabbi Hirsch was lifted into the ambulance, Mr. Gallagher drove Michael home. Don’t worry, the older man said. The cops will get those bums. Michael did not reply.

As he climbed the stairs, he felt numb and slow, his strength drained away. He gripped the banister to steady himself, and then made an effort to finish the last flight. His mother was sitting where he’d left her, but suddenly her own numbness vanished. She got to her feet and went to her son.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, son. What’s happened?” she said.

He told her. And dissolved in tears and then in rage again. He punched at the air. He shook his fists. He ground his teeth.

“I’m gonna get them!” he shouted. “I’m going over to the poolroom and I’m gonna kill them! I don’t care what they do to me! I’m gonna kill them, kill them, kill them.”

“Don’t bother, son,” she whispered, hugging him until the rage ebbed. “We’ll be leaving.”

Then she turned away from him, folding her arms, and for the first time since the news of the death of Tommy Devlin, she began to weep. The sound was full of a deep, grieving helplessness. And Michael thought: They have to be punished. Here. On earth. Not in Purgatory or Hell. Here.

And then he thought about the only way that punishment might be certain.