Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Forty pubescents away from home?”

“I wouldn’t describe Sam as pubescent .”

“Pubescent?” Benjy asked.

“I’m glad Mark will be there,” Jacob said. “You know, you might not even remember, but you said something about him, a couple of weeks ago, in the context of—”

“I remember.”

“We said a lot of things.”

“We did.”

“I just wanted to say that.”

“I’m not sure what you just said.”

“Just that.”

“Take the opportunity to get to know him a bit,” Julia said, moving right along.

“Max?”

“Don’t just go off to your separate worlds.”

“I don’t have a world, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“It’ll be fun picking up the Israelis tomorrow.”

“Will it?”

“You and Max can be Team America.”

Max came down the stairs. “Why are you talking about me?”

“We weren’t talking about you,” Jacob said.

“I was just saying to Dad that you guys should try to find things to do together while everyone’s away.”

The doorbell rang.

“My folks,” Jacob said.

“ Together together?” Max whispered to Julia.

Jacob opened the door. Benjy wrestled himself free of Julia’s arms and ran to Deborah.

“Omi!”

“Hey, Omi,” Max said.

“I’ve got Ebola?” Irv asked.

“Ebola?”

“Hey, Opi.”

“Cool Moshe Dayan outfit.”

“I’m a pirate .”

Irv lowered himself to Benjy’s level and performed what might very well have been a perfect Dayan impression, if anyone had known what Dayan sounded like: “The Syrians will soon learn that the road from Damascus to Jerusalem also goes from Jerusalem to Damascus!”

“Arrrgggg!”

“I wrote up his schedule,” Julia said to Deborah. “And put together a bag with a few prepared meals.”

“I’ve prepared a meal or two million in my day.”

“I know,” Julia said, trying to reciprocate Deborah’s obvious affection. “I just want to make it as easy as possible.”

“I have a freezer full of very frozen foods,” Deborah told Benjy.

“Morningstar Farms veggie bacon strips?”

“Hm.”

“Fuuuuuuck.”

“Benjy!”

Sam came running down the stairs with his shoes, paused, said, “Goddamn it!” and turned back around.

“ Language ,” Julia said.

“Dad says there’s no bad language.”

“I said there’s bad usage . And that was bad usage.”

“Are we gonna burn the midnight oil?” Irv asked Benjy.

“I don’t know.”

“Not too late,” Julia told Deborah.

“And tomorrow we’ll fetch the Israelis?”

“I’m taking him to the zoo,” Deborah said. “Remember?”

Irv held up his phone: “Siri, do I remember what this woman is talking about?”

Sam came running back down the stairs with a belt.

“Hey, kid,” Irv said.

“Hey, Opi. Hey, Omi.”

“All’s copacetic with your hate speech?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“You know, I once chaperoned your dad’s class on a Model UN trip.”

“No you didn’t,” Jacob said.

“Sure I did.”

“Believe me, you didn’t.”

“You’re right,” Irv said, winking at Sam. “I’m thinking of the time I took you to the actual UN.” And then, slapping his own hand: “Bad father.”

“You forgot me there.”

“Obviously not permanently.” And then, to Sam: “Ready to give ’em hell?”

“I guess so.”

“Remember, if they seat a delegate from so-called Palestine, you tell them what’s what, then get up and walk out. You hear me? Punch with your mouth, and talk with your feet.”

“We’re representing Micronesia—”

“Siri, what is Micronesia?”

“And we, you know, debate resolutions, and respond to whatever crisis they manufacture.”

“ They the Arabs?”

“The facilitators.”

“He knows what he’s doing, Dad.”

Three full honks, followed by nine rapid blasts— Shevarim, Teruah.

“Mohammed is losing patience,” Julia said.

“And it was never his forte,” Irv said.

“We’ll go, too,” Deborah said. “We have a big day planned: story time, arts and crafts, a nature walk—”

“—eat jelly fruit slices, make fun of Charlie Rose…”

“Come on, Argus!” Jacob called.

“I want to marry jelly fruit slices.”

“We’re going to the vet,” Max explained to Deborah.

“Everything’s fine,” Jacob said, alleviating concern that belonged to no one.

“Except he poops in the house twice every day,” Max said.

“He’s old. It’s convention.”

“Does Great-Grandpa poop in the house twice every day?” Benjy asked.

Silence as everyone privately acknowledged that, as their visits had become so rare, it was impossible to rule out the possibility that Isaac pooped in the house twice a day.

“Actually, doesn’t everyone poop in the house twice a day?” Benjy asked.

“Your brother means in the house, but not in the bathroom.”

“He has a colostomy bag,” Irv said. “Wherever he goes, there his poop is.”

“What’s a whatever bag?” Benjy asked.

Jacob cleared his throat and began: “Great-Grandpa’s intestines—”

“Like a doggie bag for his crap,” Irv said.

“But why would he want to eat it later?” Benjy asked.

“Maybe someone could check in on him while we’re away,” Julia said. “You could even bring the Israelis by on the way home.”

“That’s what I was planning,” Jacob lied.

Mohammed honked again, this time with the sustain pedal.

Everyone headed out together: Deborah, Irv, and Benjy off to a marionette Pinocchio at Glen Echo; Julia and Sam to catch the bus from school; Jacob, Max, and Argus to the vet. Julia hugged Max and Benjy, and didn’t hug Jacob, but told him: “Don’t forget to—”

“ Go ,” he said. “Have fun. Make world peace.”

“A lasting peace,” Julia said, the words having organized themselves.

“And say hi to Mark for me. Really.”

“Not now, OK?”

“You’re hearing something I didn’t say.”

A curt “Goodbye.”

Halfway down the stoop, Benjy called back: “What if I don’t miss you?”

“You can call us,” Jacob said. “My phone will always be on, and I’ll never be more than a short drive away.”

“I said what if I don’t miss you?”

“What?”

“Is that OK?”

“Of course it’s OK,” Julia said, giving Benjy a last kiss. “Nothing would make me happier than for you to have so much fun you don’t think about us at all.”

Jacob came down the stairs to give Benjy the last, last kiss.

“And anyway,” he said, “you’ll miss us.”

And then, for the first time in his life, Benjy chose not to voice a thought.

They stopped at McDonald’s on the way. It was a vet visit ritual, something Jacob started doing after hearing a podcast about a shelter in L.A. that euthanized more dogs than anywhere else in America. The woman who ran it put down each and every dog herself, sometimes a dozen a day. She called each by its name, gave each as good a walk as it could handle, talked to it, stroked it, and, as a final gesture before the needle, fed it McNuggets. As she put it, “It’s the last meal they would ask for.”

Argus’s visits in the past couple of years had been for joint pain, eye cloudiness, fatty lumps on the belly, and incontinence. They weren’t suggestive of an imminent end, but Jacob knew how nervous the vet’s office made him and felt that he owed his pal a reward, which might also serve as a positive association. Whether or not he would have chosen them as his last meal, Argus tore through the McNuggets, swallowing most of them whole. For as long as he’d been a member of the Bloch family, he had eaten Newman’s Own twice a day without any variation. (Julia militantly banned table scraps, as they would “force Argus to become a beggar.”) The McNuggets always led to diarrhea, sometimes vomiting. But that usually took a few hours, which could be timed to coincide with a walk in the park. And it was worth it.