Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

And God, was he loved. Jacob found the movie schmaltzy, overblown, and flirting with kitsch. But he had been profoundly moved. Irv denounced the choice to tell an uplifting Holocaust story, to give, for all intents and purposes, a statistically negligible happy ending generated by that statistically negligible of species, the good German. But even Irv had been moved to his limits. Isaac couldn’t have been more moved: You see, you see what was done to us, to mine parents, to mine brothers, to me, you see? Everyone was moved, and everyone was persuaded that being moved was the ultimate aesthetic, intellectual, and ethical experience.

Jacob was going to have to cop a look at Spielberg’s penis. The only question was on what pretense.

Every annual physical ended with Dr. Schlesinger kneeling in front of Jacob, cupping Jacob’s balls, and asking him to turn his head and cough. That experience seemed to be universal, and universally inexplicable, among men. But coughing and turning one’s head had something to do with genitals. The logic wasn’t airtight, but it felt right. Jacob coughed and snuck a peek.

The size didn’t make an impression — Spielberg was no longer, shorter, wider, or narrower than most doughy Jewish grandfathers. Neither was he particularly bananaed, pendular, reticulated, lightbulb-ish, reptilian, laminar, mushroomed, varicosey, hook-nosed, or cockeyed. What was notable was what wasn’t missing: his penis was uncircumcised. Jacob had had precious little exposure to the visual atrocity that is an intact penis, and so wouldn’t bet his life on what he saw — and the stakes felt that high — but he knew enough to know that he had to look again. But though urinal etiquette forgives a greeting, and the cough might have been a passable alibi for the glance, there was simply no way to return to the scene without propositioning sex, and even in a world in which Spielberg hadn’t made A.I. , that wasn’t going to happen.

There were four options: (1) he had misidentified him as Steven Spielberg and misidentified his penis as being uncircumcised; (2) he had misidentified him as Steven Spielberg and correctly identified his penis as being uncircumcised; (3) it was Steven Spielberg, but he had misidentified his penis as being uncircumcised— of course he was circumcised; or (4) Steven Spielberg wasn’t circumcised. If he were a betting man, he’d push his mountain of chips onto (4).

Jacob flushed (his face and the urinal), washed too quickly to accomplish anything, and scrambled back out to the others.

“You’re never going to guess who I just peed beside.”

“ Jesus , Dad.”

“Close. Spielberg.”

“Who’s that?” Tamir asked.

“You’re serious?”

“What?”

“ Spielberg . Steven Spielberg.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Give me a break,” Jacob said, unsure, as ever, to what extent Tamir was performing. Whatever else could be said about him, Tamir was smart, worldly, and restless. But whatever else could be said about him, he was foolish, solipsistic, and self-satisfied. If he had a sense of humor, it was drier than cornstarch. Which enabled him to practice a kind of psychological acupuncture on Jacob: Did a needle just enter me? Does it hurt? Is this complete bullshit? He couldn’t have been serious about Israeli Italian food, could he? About not having heard of Spielberg? Impossible, and entirely possible.

“That’s heavy,” Irv said.

“And the heaviest part?” Jacob leaned in and whispered, “He’s not circumcised.”

Max threw his hands into the air. “What did you, kiss his wiener in a bathroom stall?”

“Who is this Spielberg?” Tamir asked.

“We were at urinals , Max.” And just to be clear: “And of course I didn’t kiss his wiener.”

“That simply cannot be right,” Irv said.

“I know. But I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Why were your own eyes checking out another man’s penis?” Max asked.

“Because he’s Steven Spielberg.”

“Why won’t someone tell me who this person is?” Tamir said.

“Because I don’t believe that you don’t know who he is.”

“Why would I pretend?” Tamir asked, entirely believably.

“Because it’s your bizarre Israeli way of diminishing the achievements of American Jews.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“You’d have to tell me.”

“OK,” Tamir said, calmly wiping the remnants of six packets of duck sauce from the corners of his mouth, “whatever you say.” He got up and headed in the direction of the condiments bar.

“You have to go back in and be sure,” Irv said. “Introduce yourself.”

“You will do no such thing,” Max said, exactly as his mother would have.

Irv closed his eyes and said, “My core has been shaken.”

“I know.”

“What are we to believe?”

“I know .”

“All the while we thought his Holocaust schlock was compensating for the Holocaust .”

“Now it’s schlock?”

“It was always schlock,” Irv said. “But it was our schlock. Now … I have to wonder.”

“It’s not as if he isn’t Jewi—”

But Jacob couldn’t finish the sentence. Or he didn’t need to. As soon as the fragment of the possibility entered the world, there was no room for anything else.

“I need to sit down,” Irv said.

“You are sitting down,” Max told him.

“I need to sit on the floor.”

“Don’t,” Jacob said. “It’s filthy.”

“Everything is now filthy,” Irv said.

In silence, they watched dozens of people balancing overstuffed trays weave and dodge and never touch. Presumably, a higher life-form would have its own version of David Attenborough. That “person” could make a great episode of a miniseries about humans featuring such hypnotic observing.

Max whispered something incomprehensible, to no one.

Irv rested his head in his hands and said, “If God had wanted us to be uncircumcised, He wouldn’t have invented smegma.”

“What?” Jacob asked.

“If God had wanted…”

“I’m talking to Max.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Max said.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“ Jaws is such a terrible movie,” Irv said.

And then Tamir came back. They’d been too preoccupied by their apocalyptic speculations to notice how long he’d been gone.

“So here’s the deal,” he said.

“What deal?”

“He has problems with urinary retention.”

“He?”

“Steve.”

Irv clapped his cheeks and squealed like it was his first visit to the American Girl flagship store.

“ I can see why you assumed I would know who he is. Very impressive résumé. What can I say? I don’t watch a lot of movies. There’s no money in watching movies. A lot in making them, though. Do you know that he’s worth more than three billion dollars? Billion with a b ?”

“Really?”

“ He had no reason to lie to me.”

“But why did he have reason to share?”

“I asked.”

“How much he’s worth?”

“Yeah.”

“ And you probably asked if he’s circumcised, right?”

“ I did.”

Jacob embraced Tamir. He hadn’t meant to. His arms simply reached for him. It wasn’t that Tamir had gathered the piece of information. It was that he had all the qualities that Jacob lacked and didn’t want but desperately missed: the brashness, the fearlessness where fear was not required, the fearlessness where fear was required, the giving of no shits. “Tamir, you are a beautiful human being.”

“ So …?” Irv begged.