Shlomo Cohen found a spot in the center of the crowd, revolved to face the school, and sat where he’d stood, and Berman was huge was the point to keep focused on, while squeezing Eliyahu’s shoulders continually — squeezing them hard, squeezing them firmly, a steady squeeze, and not one you pulsed like I’m comforting you, not like Here is an armless hug for you, a boy who needs to be hugged, but firm and steady like My hands are strong, and my hands, like yours, are capable of smiting, I have strong, smiting hands, and I’m on your side, and we will smite, with ferocity, will face down our enemies—Josh Berman was huge. Not Bam-huge or Flunky-huge, not overactive-glandular-huge, but reasonably huge, Co-Captain Baxter-size, really big for a kid who was in junior high, and so maybe Shlomo Cohen, who was maybe, it seemed, a self-hating Jew, attacked Shpritzy because — but no, because Shlomo wasn’t small. He wasn’t hardly small. Even if it made sense for a self-hating Shlomo to go after someone other than Berman, someone smaller than Berman, a proxy for Berman the Israelite Shover, there were no few potential proxies who fit that bill—all the Israelite Shovers were smaller than Berman, for example — and Shlomo could have attacked any one of those guys, any one of these smaller-than-June’s…
If he didn’t have the snat to pick a fight with Berman, Shlomo could’ve attacked any of these smaller-than-Berman-size Israelite Shovers to make his point. None were so small as Shpritzy, true, but the kind of coward you’d have to be to go after a kid so much smaller than you when there were bigger ones available, ones your size or even just four-fifths your size — because Shpritzy was what? two-thirds Shlomo’s size? maybe even just four-sevenths his size? — that kind of cowardliness was — what? Akin to the cowardliness of hating your own people? Of being so ashamed of where you came from that you’d attack your own people in order to show others that you had overcome your origins? Well, actually…
“There!” the Five said. They passed the word around their circle like a stolen cigarette. “There!” said Mr. Goldblum, blinkering with his finger. “There!” said Pinker, who jumped in place. The Levinson said, “There!” and bounced fists on his thighs, and Shpritzy cracked his knuckles on his temples, saying, “There!”
And then the Five were streaking down the hill’s western slope, each one’s bare hand open in front of him, each one’s gloved hand balled at his side.
They had to slow their advance when they came to the crowd, and as they made their way through, high-stepping laps and legs and heads, June came across the street, into the field. She held her hand above her eyes as if to block the sun, but there wasn’t any sun, the sun was in clouds, and I thought to wave, but I didn’t want my girlfriend to see my face tear-streaked, and my hands were still busy with squeezing Brooklyn’s shoulders.
As the Five closed in on him, Shlomo revolved. It was hard to imagine how he couldn’t have spotted them, but the way his head was tilted, like the head of a squirrel, a squirrel being fed in the park by a stranger — he could not have known the Five were after him. And how could he not have known that they were after him? For the same reason he’d thought to attack Shpritzy in the first place: he couldn’t believe — refused to believe? — failed to believe who he actually was.
I kept my eyes on Shlomo, my hands on Eliyahu.
The Levinson yelled something. Then all the Five yelled something:
“Death to the Jew!”
I knew what they meant. Still, it signified wrong.
Eliyahu took off first; shook my grip and bolted. I followed him, shouting, Don’t hurt them, Brooklyn!
We were ten yards away when they fell upon Shlomo — Pinker, Shpritzy, and The Levinson. Shpritzy pulled the head back by the hair both-handed, The Levinson pinned the wrists, and Pinker stood the hips, crouching, jumping, landing where he’d started. Shlomo screamed. And then Mr. Goldblum and GlassMan arrived. GlassMan dropped all his weight on the crotch, elbow-first. Mr. Goldblum reared back and kicked Shlomo’s jaw in.
His leg was cocked for a second face-shot when I got there and threw him aside. Eliyahu dragged GlassMan away by the ankles.
Mr. Goldblum said to me: “But you said!”
About then is when Brodsky began to catch on. At the edge of the crowd, with most of the teachers, he was too far away to see more than blurred movement, but the movement blurred fast, fast meant violent, and Shlomo kept screaming. The principal yelled, “Break it up!” through his soundgun, and the sitters in the field all leapt to their feet. The standers were already thickening around us.
Mr. Goldblum attempted to make his way past me, faking to the left, slipping to the right. I side-stepped to block him, left-right-left, til he caught me off-footed with a sideways shoulder-thrust. I landed on my ass and he helped me back up, saying, “Sorry, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry.”
We were standing nose-to-nose, Mr. Goldblum and I, and I thought: We’re nose-to-nose, Mr. Goldblum and I, and I’d think we’d be nose-to-clavicle, us, or at least nose-to-thrapple.
Was I also cartoon-looking? I touched my nose.
I noticed his copy of Ulpan on the ground. I knelt to pick it up, still a little bit stunned, and he shot right past me, returned to the fight. I jammed the paper in my pocket, tried to follow him in, but before I’d even landed a second footfall, I got yanked back, then up in the air. Two arms wrapped tight around the crooks of my own, and my elbows pressed into my gut so hard some lunch got displaced and I puked in my mouth.
I spit it out.
I thought: Desormie.
I kicked my legs around, trying to get free. The stun was entirely gone now.
I saw Eliyahu wrap The Levinson’s torso and wrestle him off of Shlomo Cohen’s wrists.
The Levinson’s face was soaked with tears and he was screaming at Shlomo: “Where’s your friends now? It’s my friends who saved you! My friends! Mine! You—” Then he was knocked away by the Chewer, and Eliyahu got arm-barred by Maholtz.
Eliyahu’s fedora fell in the grass.
Finally my heel made contact with something soft on my holder and my holder said, “Fuck,” but he didn’t drop me. He swung around, and I could no longer see Eliyahu and the Five, and then I made contact again with my heel, and my holder swung us back to the first position. If I was him and he was Gurion, I would have leaned forward and fell on Gurion, stuck my knee in one of Gurion’s kidneys and sideways-chopped on Gurion’s neck, but he was not me and I was not him. He just kept holding me in the air while I kicked, and walking us backward, away from the fight, further into the crowd, and laughing, he was laughing, a peculiar laughter. It was forced, but not loud enough for anyone to hear — not anyone but me. He was laughing for my benefit.
I heard Brodsky screaming for Jerry and Floyd. He was still far away, trapped back by the crowd.
My holder kept swinging me left and right. Kids opened a path so they wouldn’t get kicked.
Boystar, now travelling beside us, was thrilled. He got in my face and talked news like it was his: “Maccabee’s a dead man! Maccabee’s dying!”
I wanted to say something back but I was gasping. Every time I exhaled, the pressure on my center got tighter. My holder adjusted his grip a little, and for a few seconds, I could see over everyone’s heads. I saw Co-Captain Baxter. He crushed the crown of the fallen fedora, then stepped to the Maholtz-grappled Eliyahu and took his yarmulke. He threw it behind him, frisbee-style, into the crowd. Maholtz reached his leg around the front of Eliyahu, released the arm-bar, and shoved forward so Eliyahu tripped. He fell bad. He caught his own knee in his beauty, and his wind got blasted. I needed to get loose to help him and I couldn’t. Co-Captain Baxter flipped him over and pinned him, slapped him, twetched in his eye. Everything in sight spun for a second.