The buffet is mostly canned or bagged-chips, nuts, salsa, Oreos, a plastic barrel of Cheez puffs-but everyone seems to have chipped in. There is white wine in a box, several varieties of juice and punch, and a half-empty jug of Smirnoff. We drink our beers and look around. It’s mostly men inside, and everyone appears engaged in conversations that don’t lend themselves to interruption, so we walk back out to the front steps. We aren’t leaning against the railing a minute when a woman approaches us.
“Are you here to see Dov?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”
The woman nods. She is wearing a wig and a navy blue turtleneck. She is probably in her late thirties. “You know him from Facebook?”
“Sort of.”
“I do not agree with everything he says, but I think he is doing a good thing.”
I nod.
“You are frum?”
“No,” I say.
“But you are Jewish?”
I hate this question. Before I moved to Brooklyn, I don’t think anyone had ever asked me if I was Jewish. Now I feel like I get asked every other day, and my answer is more complicated than they assume, or, frankly, want to hear about. Fortunately, Iris jumps in.
“I’m not,” she says. “But she is.”
“Are you from Brooklyn?”
“No,” I say. “We’re from Florida.”
“Florida! Miami? I have cousins in Miami.”
“Orlando.”
“Are you married?”
Iris opens her mouth, but doesn’t say anything. She’s shocked, I can tell, that we’ve been asked this personal question by a total stranger ten seconds after meeting.
“No,” I say.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
I look at Iris, who speaks, finally, and without any of her usual grace: “Uh-huh.”
“Why not get married?”
“We’ve only been dating a little while.”
“Do you want children?”
Iris shrugs. “Someday.”
“I had my first son when I was nineteen,” she says.
Iris looks at me. She knows I had an abortion when I was nineteen. She smiles and puts her hand on my arm. “Well,” she says to the woman, “I hope that worked out for you. Rebekah, I need to go to the bathroom.” She pulls me back into the rotunda.
“Sorry,” she says once we’re inside. “I just hate that shit. What is she, your mom?”
“Maybe,” I say, which makes her laugh. “I don’t think she was trying to make us feel bad. At least you have a boyfriend.”
“Whatever,” says Iris. “I smelled weed out there. Let’s find that person. I bet they don’t ask why we’re not married.”
The weed, it turns out, is being smoked at the bottom of the stairs by two young men, one in sidecurls and black pants, one beardless, with his button-down shirt open, revealing chest hair. He has a small New York Yankees yarmulke clipped to his hair. Iris approaches first, smiling.
“Got any to share?” she says.
The man in the sidecurls, who is more a boy than a man, freezes. His friend seems momentarily stunned by our presence as well, but recovers quickly, taking the joint from his friend’s hand and passing it to Iris.
“Hello there,” he says, obviously thrilled. “I haven’t seen you before.”
Iris takes a pull from the joint and passes it to me. I decline. I feel like I need to be sober for this. She offers her hand to shake. “I’m Iris. This is Rebekah.” Both men look at her hand. Chest hair shakes, sidecurls does not.
“Are you from Williamsburg?” asks chest hair.
“Gowanus,” says Iris, taking a second puff.
“Are you married?”
“Jesus Christ,” says Iris. She hands the joint back. Chest hair giggles (poor man doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into) but before she can lay into him, we hear a commotion at the front gate.
“Is that him?” says sidecurls, straining to see over the half-dozen people who are crowded around a livery cab at the curb. Chest hair seems more interested in Iris than whoever has arrived, so sidecurls abandons him and joins the group escorting a man I assume is Dov Lowenstein up the stairs and into the synagogue.
“Do you know him?” I ask.
“From Facebook. I’ve read about him. Everyone hates him, but I don’t know. I wanted to see for myself.”
“Why do they hate him?” asks Iris.
“Because he calls the Chassidim a cult.”
“He does?”
“Yes, of course. Don’t you know? I understand he had a bad time. But he is hoping for a big payday.”
“We should go in,” I say.
“One more smoke?” says chest hair. He loves Iris.
I take her hand. “We’re good,” I say. “Thanks.”
We follow the rest of the smokers and stragglers into the multipurpose room. Iris grabs two more beers from our six-pack and we find two folding chairs along the edge of the room. As we wait, I blurt out: “I called my mom.”
“Excuse me?” she says, almost spitting out her beer.
“She didn’t pick up,” I say. “I tried twice. Straight to voice mail.”
She stares at me, her eyes glassy.
“You’re high,” I say.
“I know!” she says. “Wow.”
If she wasn’t high, Iris would probably have questions, but she’s just sort of staring at me, shaking her head. At the front of the room, Dov has taken off his jacket. He is wearing a white t-shirt with a rainbow Star of David on it, and his head is uncovered. He has very light hair, so light his eyebrows blend into his pale face. People start sitting down, but everyone is still talking. Finally, the boy with the sidecurls from outside, who is sitting in the front row, stands up and yells “Quiet!”
Dov steps forward to the standing mic at the front of the room. He opens a spiral notebook and sets it on the table beside him. “My name is Dovi Lowenstein,” he says, leaning forward. “But you probably know that.” The crowd murmurs a light laugh. “Let me ask you a question. How many of you know somebody who is gay?”
Iris and I raise our hands. I look around and about half the room does the same.
“Okay, put your hands down. Now, how many of you know somebody who is gay and Chassidish?” About the same number raise their hands.
“Yes,” says Dov. “You see. Yes. Now how many of you know Chassidim who are gay and married?”
Fewer hands this time, but Dov’s point is made.
“Yes, you see?” he says. “This is what I am talking about. Why would a gay man marry a woman? Why! Because he has no choice. His parents tell him to marry and so he marries. Or she marries. What else can he do? If he does not want to lose everything he has to pretend. He has to keep who he really is a secret.” He pauses and picks up his notebook, looks at what he’s written, remembers, continues. “Now, how many of you know someone who went to New Hope?”
About a fifth of the room raises a hand.
“And are they still gay?”
“Yes!” shouts a man at the back. Everyone turns around.
“My friend!” says Dov, gesturing to the man. “Was it you?” The man, who appears, like Dov, to be in his mid-twenties, nods. He is wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with BROOKLYN written across it. I don’t see a yarmulke. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen,” says the man.