Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Nah.”

“You’re OK with money?”

“Yeah.”

“And this thing at Hebrew school. It obviously isn’t because of Grandpa, right?”

“Not unless he’s also the grandfather of whoever did it.”

“That’s what I thought. Anyway—”

“Dad, Billie’s black, so how could I be a racist?”

“Billie?”

“The girl I’m in love with.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“I’m confused.”

“She’s the girl I’m in love with .”

“OK. And you said Billie ? But a girl, right?”

“Yes. And she’s black. So how could I be racist?”

“I’m not sure that logic quite works.”

“It does.”

“You know who points out that some of his best friends are black? Someone who isn’t comfortable with black people.”

“None of my best friends are black.”

“And for whatever it’s worth, I’m pretty sure African American is the preferred nomenclature.”

“Nomenclature?”

“Terminology.”

“Shouldn’t the guy who’s in love with a black girl be the one establishing the nomenclature?”

“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle African American?”

“Pot?”

“I’m joking around. It’s an interesting name, that’s all. Not a judgment. You know you were named for a great-great-uncle who perished in Birkenau. With Jews there always has to be some significance attached.”

“Some suffering, you mean.”

“Gentiles pick names that sound nice. Or they just make them up.”

“Billie was named after Billie Holiday.”

“So she’s the exception that proves the rule.”

“Who are you named after?” Sam asked, his interest a small concession in response to the guilt of having forced his dad’s voice into quiet sadness.

“A distant relative named Yakov. Supposedly an amazing, larger-than-life guy. Story goes he crushed a Cossack’s head in his hand.”

“Cool.”

“I’m obviously not strong like that.”

“We don’t even know any Cossacks.”

“And at most, I’m the size of life.”

One of their stomachs grumbled, but neither knew whose.

“Well, bottom line, I think it’s awesome that you have a girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Nomenclature strikes twice. I think it’s awesome that you’re in love.”

“I’m not in love. I love her.”

“Whatever’s going on, this obviously stays between us. You can count on me.”

“I’ve already talked to Mom about it.”

“Really? When?”

“I don’t know. Couple of weeks ago?”

“This is old news?”

“It’s all relative.”

Jacob stared at Sam’s screen. Was this what drew Sam to it? Not the ability to be elsewhere, but to be nowhere?

“What did you tell her?” Jacob asked.

“Who?”

“Your mother?”

“You mean Mom ?”

“That’s the one.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, as in you don’t feel like talking about it with me right now?”

“As in that.”

“It’s strange, because she’s convinced you wrote those words.”

“I didn’t.”

“OK. I’m becoming annoying. I’ll go.”

“I didn’t say you were annoying.”

Jacob moved to the door to leave, but paused. “Wanna hear a joke?”

“No.”

“It’s dirty.”

“Then definitely no.”

“What’s the difference between a Subaru and an erection?”

“No means no.”

“Seriously. What’s the difference?”

“Seriously, not interested.”

Jacob leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t have a Subaru.”

Despite himself, Sam released a huge laugh, the kind involving snorting and saliva. Jacob laughed, not at his own joke but at his son’s laughter. They laughed together, vigorously, hysterically.

Sam struggled, without success, to regain his composure, and said, “The funny thing … the really funny thing … is … you do have a Subaru.”

And then they laughed more, and Jacob spit a little, and teared up, and remembered how horrible it was to be Sam’s age, how painful and unfair.

“It’s true,” Jacob said. “I totally have a Subaru. I should have said Toyota. What was I thinking?”

“What were you thinking?”

What was he thinking?

They calmed down.

Jacob gave the sleeves of his shirt another roll — a bit tight, but he wanted them over the elbow.

“Mom feels that you need to apologize.”

“Do you ?”

In his pocket, he closed his hand around nothing, around a knife, and said, “I do.”

The one and phony.

“OK, then,” Sam said.

“It won’t be that bad.”

“Yes it will.”

“Yeah,” Jacob said, kissing Sam on the top of his head — the last kissable place. “It’s gonna suck.”

At the threshold, Jacob turned.

“How’s it going in Other Life?”

“Eh.”

“What are you working on?”

“Building a new synagogue.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Because I destroyed the old synagogue.”

“Destroyed? Like with a wrecking ball?”

“Like that.”

“So now you’re going to build one for yourself?”

“I built the old one, too.”

“Mom would love that,” Jacob said, understanding the brilliance and beauty of what Sam never shared. “And she would probably have a million ideas.”

“Please don’t mention it to her.”

That gave Jacob a spike of pleasure that he didn’t want. He nodded and said, “Of course,” then shook his head and said, “I would never.”

“OK,” Sam said, “so, unless there’s something else?”

“And the old synagogue? Why did you build it?”

“So I could blow it up.”

“Blow it up? You know, if I were a different dad, and you were a different kid, I’d probably feel obligated to report you to the FBI.”

“But if you were a different dad, and I were a different kid, I wouldn’t have needed to blow up a virtual synagogue.”

“Touché,” Jacob said. “But isn’t it possible that you weren’t building it to destroy? Or at least not only to destroy?”

“No, that isn’t possible.”

“Like, maybe you were trying to get something exactly right, and when it wasn’t, you needed to destroy it?”

“Nobody believes me.”

“I do. I believe that you want things to be right.”

“You just don’t get it,” Sam said, because there was no way he was going to concede any understanding to his father. But his father got it. Sam hadn’t built the synagogue to destroy it. He wasn’t one of those Tibetan sand-mandala whatevers he’d been forced to hear about during a drive — five silent guys working for thousands of hours on an arts and crafts project whose function was to be functionless. (“And I used to think Nazis were the opposite of Jews,” his dad had said, disconnecting his phone from the car stereo.) No, he built the synagogue with the hope of feeling, finally, comfortable somewhere. It wasn’t simply that he could create it to his own esoteric specifications; he could be there without being there. Not unlike masturbating. But as with masturbating, if it wasn’t exactly right, it was completely and irretrievably wrong. Sometimes, at the worst possible moment, his drunken id would suddenly veer, and in his mental headlights would be Rabbi Singer, or Seal (the singer), or his mom. And there was never any coming back from that. With the synagogue, too, the slightest imperfection — an infinitesimally asymmetrical rotunda, stairs with risers too high for short kids, an upside-down Jewish star — and it all had to go. He wasn’t being impulsive. He was being careful. Couldn’t he simply have fixed what wasn’t right? No. Because he would always know that it had been wrong: “That’s the star that once hung upside down.” To another person, the correction would have made it more perfect than if it had been right the first time. Sam was not another person. Neither was Samanta.