Good for the Jews

1. May 2006

Chapter One May 2006 HoHo Coombs showed up, the night of the ‹re. On Hyman’s porch, of all places, and crying. The unfamiliar sound of the doorbell startled Martha into action. She rose for the porch light but stopped when she saw the boy with the bald head, cavernous eyes and black leather jacket, zippers like so many wounds in the skin of his coat. Martha stood in the dark front hallway, other dark rooms opening like butter›y wings around her. Hyman was looking at her back—the blouse there puffed like a bellows—but he could almost see her register the kitchen clock, ticking like an explosive at the other end of the hall. “Holy Jesus,” Martha whispered. Hyman came up behind her. There was, as always, a trace of pleasure in her fear. You lived with a person long enough, you knew what they felt and what she felt was relief. It was here, whatever she’d worried about, ‹nally here. Outside large moths with their terrible meaty torsos ›apped frenetically about HoHo’s scalp, as if they’d been borne into being with the porch light and had to do all their living now, before Martha refound the light switch and killed them. “What is that?” she said. “Just a kid from school.” Martha turned and studied him, apparently unconvinced. A car passed by, its headlights illuminating the room. Something ›ashed blue 185 then green on Martha’s face, brie›y danced there and disappeared. The colors came from the crystals Martha had hung from ‹shing line on one of their ‹rst days in the house. “What kind of kid?” When he didn’t answer, she looked back through the window that gave onto the porch. HoHo might have been some bog creature that had swum up from the silty bottom of the lake, a miscreant aquatic who’d taken to land and found himself here, among more evolved life forms. “I thought we were starting over.” Hyman put both hands on Martha’s shoulders and moved her aside, as if she were a large, inconvenient doll blocking his path to the door. “Just leave us alone. Would you?” “No, I will not. He’s wearing those boots. You know the ones.” “I don’t dress them before they come to visit me.” “Oh, yes you do,” Martha said, keeping her voice low, ugly. “If this is what I think it is, I’ll leave you.” How many times had she threatened that? And how many times had he replied, “No, honey” and “Don’t leave” and “You know I’d be lost without you”? Well, not tonight. He had too much on his mind for a row with Martha. “Go to your room,” he hissed at Martha and turned for the door. “HoHo! This is a surprise,” Hyman said warmly, pretending not to notice the boy’s tears. He stepped onto the front porch. Just an hour ago, Hyman had gotten a call that said a ‹re in Madison had destroyed the synagogue. “Have a seat.” It was chilly, but Hyman didn’t want HoHo inside his home. He gestured to one of the porch’s two rocking chairs. They were meant to look like white wicker but were really plastic and foul-smelling. “Please,” he began but then held up his hand, like a traf‹c cop. “HoHo, are you on something? Because I can’t talk to you if you’re on something. My home . . . It’s just like at school. I’ve got a no-tolerance rule.” “Mr. C.—” the boy said, half-sob, half-plea, but sitting uneasily on the edge of the rocking chair, elbows balanced on knees, body thrust forward for con‹dences. “I just had a bad day, a really bad day.” His eyes were red-rimmed, something unfocused yet racing there. A drug, of course. Methamphetamine? 186 “Mr. C. My girlfriend left me.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” Hyman offered ›atly, “but even so . . .” The round of attachment and detachment that made up the lives of teens had eluded Hyman as a young man. There’d been no one, and then there’d been Martha, who had waited a full ten years before agreeing to marry. She had trouble making decisions, she said. But Hyman hadn’t fallen for that. He knew she’d hoped to do better. So had he. “She left...