The year I turned ten, my mother stopped taking me to Hebrew School. I would go with Lee, she said.  He had classes there, too, and would walk me through that patch of bad neighborhood on the way.      

Lee had always been a weird kid, retiring and secretive.  Recently though, I’d noticed a change.  The moment he was out of my parent’s ear and eye shot, he acted strange in a new and angry way.  I didn’t recognize this brother nor did I understand anything about him.  He frightened me.  

Lee had a cracked black leather jacket that smelled like herring.  He kept it stashed in the back of his closet.  He liked to wear it with the collar up and a cigarette dangling from his lips.  I don’t know where he got the jacket, but as far as I can remember, my parents never saw him in it.  He always managed to sneak it out of the house, generally under his parka.  The moment we hit the lobby, he stripped off the parka, gave it to the doorman with a wink and a nod and left the building with me hurrying behind him.  I guess, he knew I wouldn’t tell.  I never told on him.  I wanted too badly for us to be friends.  

Once out of the building, Lee was already jay-walking across West End Avenue before I could make it up the block from Riverside Drive.  

“Wait up, Lee,” I yelled, but he didn’t listen.  If he ran into a kid from his Manhattan Day School, he’d motion at me with his thumb over his shoulder and mutter “my sister.”  When I did manage to match his stride, he’d snicker and say “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” under his breath in time to our steps.  

“What’s ‘fuck’ Lee?”  

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”  

“C’mon, Lee. You always say it.  What does it mean?”  

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he answered.  “I hate them,” he added a minute later.     

“Them?  Who?”     

“Them.  Mom and Dad.  I hate them.”  

“Why? What did they do to you?”  

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”   

We walked the rest of the way in silence.     

One  night, I was in my room doing homework, when from all the way down the corridor, I heard my mother, my father and Lee.  All three of their voices were raised in anger, but while the sound of an argument was unmistakable, the screams unsettling, I couldn’t make out the words.       

The next afternoon on the way to Hebrew School, Lee was beside himself, gesturing and ranting the whole way down Broadway, past the apple  bins outside Al’s Market,  past Mr. Levinsky’s Do-it-in-a-Day-Dry cleaners with its tattered yellow awning, past Mrs. Kulnick who grinned and waved at us and pointed to the Black and Whites in the window of the Cake Masters.       

“Fuck ‘em! Fuck ‘em both!  Fuck them and their bullshit. Fuck it all!” Lee muttered non-stop. I had to run to keep up with him.   

He was still swearing when we walked east across the scary block between Amsterdam and Columbus, where dark men hovered in doorways next to girls with ratted hair and blouses unbuttoned down the front.  From the corner of my eye I could see that Lee was crying. When we reached the red brick Hebrew School, Lee turned on his heel and walked off down the street, leaving me just like that, in a panic.  I called after him but he didn’t turn around.   

I stood and watched his back get smaller and smaller as he moved down 86th towards Amsterdam Avenue, his leather jacket flapping in the breeze, another cigarette cupped in his hand.  Finally, not knowing what else to do, I went upstairs to the overheated class room that smelled like Swiss cheese.  Naomi, Vivian, Lena and I were the only students that day.  I fidgeted.  I twisted and turned in my seat.  More than once, Rabbi Lamb had to call me to attention.   

We were studying the Prophets.  Rabbi Lamb asked me to read a passage from Isaiah.  Normally a fluent reader, I stumbled over every word until the Rabbi peered at me from over the top of his half glasses, eyebrows raised, and asked me what was wrong.  

“Nothing, Rabbi.  I’m just thirsty.  Can I be excused to get water?”  

“Nu?  Go.  But make it snappy.”  

Class seemed endless.  The radiator hissed as always, and Rabbi Lamb’s cheeks and beard were coated with sweat.  Finally, it was time to go. Vivian and Naomi always went home together in Naomi’s father’s giant Chrysler that was parked outside and waiting.  Lena was a year older and lived right down the street, so she could walk by herself.  

I had already decided that I would tell no one about my dilemma but would walk home  alone even if it was winter and dark outside.   I wasn’t afraid.  I wasn’t afraid.  I was not at all afraid.      

When I got to the lobby, I buttoned my coat and put on my mittens, pulled my Hebrew books in close to my chest, took a deep breath and went through the revolving door.  

Author's Biography

This vignette will probably find its way into the book-length memoir I'm writing depicting the life of a family in which the son is a schizophrenic. At fourteen, Lee was on the cusp of being diagnosed with the disease.   

Tessa Dratt writes from Chicago, Illinois.

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