1951, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Adam glanced up and down the street, saw it was all his now, the shops closed and everyone gone home—just him and the humming street- lights. He ground his teeth, waiting as a rusty Buick station wagon with a busted muffler rumbled by, then set the briefcase down on the sidewalk. He let out a grunt; the briefcase was heavy, as well it should be considering there were four wine bottles full of gasoline in it. Adam had never made a Molotov cocktail before, but it seemed easy enough—just a bottle of fuel with a rag stuffed in it—yet he wasn’t sure he’d done it right, as the whole briefcase reeked of gas.
Time to make him pay, Adam, the voice, the other, cooed. Make them all pay.
Adam’s heart sped up, began to drum, his head to throb, like worms were squirming around in his brain. He thought he could hear them moaning, feel them wiggling down into his heart, his gut. His stomach began to churn, to burn and boil, the heat spreading through his entire body. He began to sweat.
He belched, the hot air turning to mist in the cold night, then he retched, the bile burning his throat.
Something cold hit him in the face; he blinked.
A snowflake. Another, then another.
“Wha…?” He stared up into the night sky, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “Snowing?” He tugged at his sweat-stained collar, yanking loose his tie and popping the top button. “It’s too fucking hot to snow!” But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t, knew the heat, the hateful worms, were all inside of him, stewing him in his own juices.
He pulled off his suit coat, dropped it to the ground, ripped his shirt open, tearing it off. He should’ve felt relief—it was snowing for Christ’s sake—but still the sweat continued to trickle down his back and underarms, plastering his T-shirt to his chest. He wrestled the soggy undershirt over his head, threw it into a bush, and still the fever burned. He pried off his hard leather shoes, kicked them down the sidewalk. “God, fuck!” he snarled. “Hate those damn shoes!”
The worms squirmed, feeding on his anger, his hate.
Adam began to pant, his lips quivering as a string of drool ran down his chin. God, he just wanted to strip, take it all off, anything to cool down. He unbuckled his belt and trousers, started to tug them down and stopped.
“What am I doing? Can’t just take my pants off in the middle of the goddamn city.”
Yes … you can, the other said. It is time to do what you want for a change. Let go, Adam, free yourself. Go on … do it!
“No,” Adam whispered, shaking his head, “I can’t. I won’t.” Then he heard them, the worms. Were they singing? God, yes, they were. They were singing to him … it was beautiful. And suddenly everything the other was telling him started to make sense. Adam slid his pants down, along with his boxers, slid them off one foot, then the other, slinging them into the bushes next to his shirt.
“Ahh,” he moaned, as the cold night air washed over his nakedness. The fever was still there, but now somehow pleasing. Adam swayed back and forth, trembling, his flesh breaking out in goose bumps. He looked down at his shriveled pecker and laughed. And if someone had been watching him, they might’ve noticed a peculiar thing—more peculiar than a pudgy man with a bad combover, wearing only a watch, a ring, and a pair of socks. They would’ve seen a spark in his eye, a tiny flame, not some kind of a reflection, but what looked to be an actual fire burning inside of him.
Now, Adam, let us go. We have work to do.
Adam nodded and picked up the briefcase. That was when he saw his socks were mismatched—one argyle, the other dark green. He grimaced, embarrassed, hoping no one else would notice. The worms sang and slowly, his grimace turned into a grin, a most fierce grin. “Yeah, right? Who cares? Who the fuck cares?” He laughed—a sound like a bark—wiggled his toes, laughed again. “Fuck ’em! Fuck ’em all!”
He trotted up the short steps to the double doors of a synagogue. A slender wooden box hung next to the doors—a mezuzah—containing the Shema prayer. Adam pried it off and wedged it between the door handles, effectively barring the door from opening, then headed up the small alleyway to the rear of the old building—the building whose fire codes hadn’t been updated in over sixty years. There, he set the briefcase down next to a small dumpster.
You like to watch things burn, Adam. Do you not?
Adam nodded. “Sure, who doesn’t?”
Then you know what to do.
Adam rolled the dumpster over, blocking the back door. He knelt and opened the briefcase, the smell of gasoline stinging his nose. He pulled out a long kitchen knife, setting it aside, then slid out the four bottles of fuel, each one plugged with a rag. He withdrew a box of matches, removed one and struck it, mesmerized by the flame as it mirrored the fire in his own eyes.
Do it! the other urged.
Adam started to touch the match to the first rag, when a light popped on in the window above him on the second floor. He hesitated, watching as a silhouette crossed the curtain. He knew who it was, would recognize the hunched shape of Rabbi Reuben anywhere. No surprise either, it’s where the rabbi always was, working late into the night on sermons and other community chores, seven days a week, sometimes eight so the joke went. What did surprise Adam was the sudden wash of emotion flooding through him, not more hate and rage, but a soothing, calming feeling. That of … what? Love, he thought. I love this man. He’s like a father to me.
No! the other said, but the other sounded far away now, as did the worms—fading, as though something was smothering them.
“Ouch!” Adam cried, as the flame licked his fingers. He dropped the match, blinked, looking around, confused, wondering what he was doing here. The snow was just beginning to stick and he watched the flakes lighting up as they drifted through the window light.
Burn it down, the voice echoed from some distant realm, just the faintest of whispers now.
Adam’s eyes found the Star of David carved into the stone above the rear door and lingered there. The synagogue was over a hundred years old; the very pillar of this Borough Park Jewish community. Adam glanced down at his sad, cold penis. This was the very place he’d been circumcised, where his two sons had been circumcised, his brothers, his father, perhaps even his grandfather. Adam realized there’d been a lot of Feldstein foreskin shed in this building and knew that had to mean something—had to. “No, no. I don’t want to do it.”
But you do.
Copyright © 2024 by Gerald Brom
All artwork copyright © 2024 by Gerald Brom
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