Finding the Worm by Mark Goldblatt Read Free Book Online

Salvatore

December 24, 1969
The Tzedakah Dollar
    It’s Christmas Eve, but it’s hard to get in the mood because of what’s going on with Quentin. Christmas is a big deal on Thirty-Fourth Avenue, even if it drives Rabbi Salzberg crazy. He says you’re either cream or milk … you can’t be half-and-half.
    What he means is you’re either Jewish or you’re not Jewish, and if you’re Jewish, you’re supposed to celebrate Hanukkah, not Christmas. Like that’s ever going to happen.
Yes, Rabbi, I’d much rather get eight crappy little presents, like dreidels and shoehorns and handkerchiefs, than one really good present, like a slot car race track
. (Which was what I got for Christmas last year.) But here’s the thing: we get Christmas presents, but we also get the dreidels and shoehorns andhandkerchiefs for Hanukkah. Plus, we light the candles, so it’s never a Hanukkah versus Christmas thing. It’s both.
    Quentin’s family is the same way. So is Eric the Red’s and Howie Wartnose’s—Howie’s parents go the whole nine yards and put up a real tree! If you look in their window at the Hampshire House, you’ll see a lit-up menorah sitting on the windowsill, with a lit-up Christmas tree standing right behind it. Mike the Bike, who’s a Catholic, saw that a couple of years ago and called Howie a dirty Jew—except it sounded more like “doity chew,” because that’s how Mike talks—and then rode off real fast before Howie could get hold of him. But it was a stupid thing to say, because the next week, when school started up again, Howie jumped him during recess. Then, at the end of the day, he jumped him again and broke the kickstand off his bicycle.
    The only Hanukkah-but-not-Christmas guys on Thirty-Fourth Avenue are Shlomo and Lonnie, which makes sense, because Shlomo’s dad is by-the-book strict and Lonnie’s mom was in the concentration camp. The Jewish stuff is a major thing for them. I mean, it’s a
thing
for all of us. It’s not like any of us are worming our way out of Hebrew school. But it’s not a
major
thing.
    The funniest thing that ever happened on Christmas happened just last year. It didn’t happen on Christmas exactly, but it happened
because of
Christmas. It was a week later, so it was right after we egged Danley Dimmel. (Whichwasn’t funny at all.) But what happened with Quentin’s Christmas present—that was the funny thing.
    Quentin got twenty bucks for Christmas last year. His dad woke him up on Christmas morning and slipped him a twenty-dollar bill. Just like that! None of us had ever had a twenty-dollar bill before. Not even Lonnie, who would sometimes wave around a ten-dollar bill he got for working in his father’s candy store. But a
twenty
—that was just unreal!
    I can’t tell you how many arguments we had over what Quentin should do with his money. Shlomo kept saying he should buy a set of walkie-talkies, but Howie kept saying he should buy a Saturn V model rocket kit. The only thing we ruled out was Eric’s idea. He wanted Quentin to get a year’s subscription to
Mad Magazine
, which Quentin would never read, since he didn’t like to read, but Eric would read over and over, because he loved
Mad Magazine
.
    It was the Thursday after New Year’s, late in the afternoon, and the five of us—Quentin, Howie, Eric, Shlomo, and me—were walking up Parsons Boulevard to Hebrew school. Lonnie wasn’t with us, because he’d gotten bar mitzvahed a couple of months before, so he didn’t have to go anymore. (It always feels weird when Lonnie’s not there. He’s kind of the glue that holds the gang together.)
    We were halfway to Gates of Prayer, just crossing Northern Boulevard, when Eric asked us if we’d rememberedto get tzedakah dollars from our moms. Tzedakah, in case you don’t know, is charity money the rabbis collect for poor people. Except in Hebrew school it’s not a choice. You
have
to cough up that dollar every week, and then you have to walk up to the front of