Dreidels on the Brain (16 page)

I counted the cards. Twenty-seven right, twenty-five
wrong. Not very good, hardly better than average. But I decided to stop there. Because I
really
want to believe in magic. And I want to believe that rabbits' feet are lucky, and that Houdini the rabbit made it to that enchanted meadow, that there actually is buried treasure in the Bixby School sandbox, and that somewhere, on the far side of Chelm, someone is giving away apples.

And even if none of that is true, I really,
really
want to believe my dad will wake up.

Last night, I couldn't fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw either red or black playing cards, then looked up to see that the red ones were held by Captain Kirk, with a sly smile on his face, while the black ones were held by Mr. Spock, who never smiles but just says “Highly illogical,” which the whole business with the cards was. Whenever I opened my eyes, I saw the ceiling of the den, which is covered with glow-in-the-dark paint and phone dials and bits of tape, all the rejects from Omni-Glow.

I decided to try reading myself to sleep, and pulled out
Zlateh the Goat
. I turned to my favorite story, “The First Shlemiel,” which is about—you guessed it—the first Shlemiel. That's another one of those great Yiddish words. It makes your mouth feel like it's chewing on a bagel. When I was a little kid I asked my dad what it meant. He thought
for a moment, then looked it up in
The Joys of Yiddish
.

“It says ‘a shlemiel is someone who falls on his back and breaks his nose.'”

That didn't make much sense to me, so he added his own explanation. “The shlemiel is the one who spills the soup. And the one who the soup lands on—that's the shlimazel.”

Now I had two words I didn't understand, so he explained. “A shlemiel is someone for whom everything goes badly. Everything he tries fails, everything he touches breaks.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now I get it. So what's a shlimazel?”

“A shlimazel,” he said, “is a shlemiel who's down on his luck.”

Since then I've been trying to sort it out—and hoping against hope that my dad, while he may
look
like a shlimazel, and
act
like a shlimazel, isn't
actually
a shlimazel. Because shlemiel stories have happy endings, but shlimazel stories never do.

“The First Shlemiel,” which I've read a hundred times, explains that there was a first shlemiel, who lived in the village of Chelm with his wife, his baby, and a rooster who slept under the bed. Shlemiel was really lazy, and wanted to do nothing more than eat and sleep, so Mrs. Shlemiel did all the work, selling vegetables in the marketplace. One year, for Chaannakah, she made a pot of delicious jam to have on their latkes. Jam may not seem like a big deal to you, but it
was a rare treat for the Shlemiels. The problem was that she didn't want Shlemiel to eat the jam, and she knew that if she simply told him not to eat it, he'd end up eating it—because he was a shlemiel, and that's what shlemiels do. The house was tiny, and there was no place to hide it, so she came up with a plan. As she was going to work she said, “Shlemiel, I have three things to tell you, very important.”

“What's that, Mrs. Shlemiel?”

“First, whatever you do, don't let Baby Shlemiel get hurt.”

“Of course, Mrs. Shlemiel! I won't let the baby get hurt. What else?”

“While I'm away, don't let the rooster out of the house! If you do, he'll run away.”

“Of course!” said Shlemiel. “And what's the third?”

“Last night, while you were asleep, I stayed up and made a pot of poison! It's up there on the shelf.” She pointed to the jam. “Whatever you do, don't eat the poison!”

“My dear Mrs. Shlemiel,” he said. “You need not worry about me eating the poison. I may be a shlemiel, but I'm no fool!”

With that, she went off to work, sure he wouldn't eat the jam.

And what do you think happened? Everything that wasn't supposed to.

When Baby Shlemiel took a nap, Shlemiel went to sleep too, and began to dream. But in his dreams, he wasn't just Shlemiel—he was Shlemiel the King! King of Chelm, king of Poland, king of the world! How did such a shlemiel become king? In this case, he had a magic dreidel, and whenever he spun it, it landed on Gimel, so he won, and won, and won, until he was so rich, they made him king.

Wonderful as his dream was, it was just a dream, and right in the middle of it, the rooster woke up and began to crow. To Shlemiel, who was asleep, the crowing sounded like a bell—and in Chelm, when there's a bell, it means one thing: fire! He jumped up to see where the fire was, and knocked over Baby Shlemiel's crib. Baby Shlemiel fell on his head and started screaming. When Shlemiel heard the screaming, he was sure there must be a fire, so he ran to the window and opened it up. But there was no fire outside, just falling snow. Then the rooster flew out the window—gone! Shlemiel tried to call him back, but it was pointless—like looking for last winter's snow, as the old saying goes. Meanwhile Baby Shlemiel was still screaming, so Shlemiel picked him up and sang him the Shlemiel lullaby.

Finally Baby Shlemiel went back to sleep. But now he had a big bump on his forehead.

Oy!
thought Shlemiel.
I've done everything Mrs. Shlemiel told me not to do! I let the baby get hurt—and now he has a
big bump on his head. She told me not to let the rooster out of the house—and now the rooster's gone. Everything I do is wrong. I'm just a shlemiel.

He was so miserable that he decided such a life was not worth living. And do you know what happened then? That's right. He ate the poison, which, of course, was actually jam. But he didn't know that, though he did think it was surprisingly delicious for poison. He finished it off, then he lay down to die. But he didn't die—he drifted off to sleep, dreaming he was Shlemiel the King.

That must have been when I finally fell asleep, because the next thing I knew it was morning. I heard Howard and my mom talking in the kitchen.

“What else did the doctor say?” asked Howard.

“Well, there were three of them,” said my mom. “Dr. Kaplowski kept shaking your dad, saying that he should wake up any minute. But Dr. Robbins said he wasn't so sure, that he knew of cases where patients go into shock and never wake up. Then the third doctor, whose name was Hardy, took out a safety pin and stuck it in your father's arm to see if he'd respond.”

“Did he?” asked Howard.

There was a pause. “Well, not exactly. But . . . I'm sure he will soon.”

I got out of bed and went into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Joel. How did you sleep?”

She looked more tired than I'd ever seen her. “Fine,” I lied. “Dad's still in a coma?”

“Well, the doctors don't like to use that word. They prefer to say he's asleep, just not waking up. Dr. Hardy says he might even be dreaming.”

“Dreaming? That's good, right? So when the dream ends, he'll wake up?”

“That's what the doctors hope. Maybe some time today. But they also said that the longer he sleeps . . .” She stopped herself, and changed the subject. “Joel, what would you like for lunch today?” I could see she was packing some food in a paper bag—cottage cheese and rye bread and bologna. “Should I make you a sandwich?”

This was freaky. She hadn't made my lunch for three years.

“When are you going back?” I asked.

“Pretty soon. I just need to get a few things.”

“We should go with you,” said Howard.

“No,” she said. “There's nothing to do at the hospital but wait. Besides, you shouldn't miss school.”

“But we're not doing anything in school,” I said. “We haven't done anything all week. We should go to the hospital to be with Dad.”

That's what I
thought
I should say, so I did. But I sure didn't want to go. Like I've told you, hospitals are my least
favorite places in the world—next to buses. The only thing worse would be a combination bus and hospital, a “buspital,” so you could be stuck in a waiting room
and
traffic at the same time.

“Or maybe I should just stay home,” I said. “And wait for you to call.” But that didn't feel right either. What would I do? Sit around and watch reruns of
The Beverly Hillbillies
? Pray during commercials?

Kenny came in from his paper route. “Is Dad out of his coma?” he asked my mom.

“No,” said Howard, answering for her. “He's still asleep. And don't call it a coma.”

“But he
will
wake up,” said Kenny. “Right? From the thing that's not a coma?”

“We can't be sure,” said Howard, settling into the role he loves, boss of the family. “So we all have to keep praying. I'm going to bring my prayer book to school and pray during recess.”

“That's right,” said my mother. “You should go to school, like normal, and try not to worry. I'll bring the telephone numbers of the school offices, and lots of change this time, and the moment your father wakes up, I'll call from the pay phone.”

With that, she took her bag of food and drove off. Kenny and Howard rode their bikes to school. I fed Herrmann.

“There's nothing to worry about,” I lied. “He'll be fine.”

I stepped outside to the tiniest hint of a chill in the air. Really, it would only feel cold to you if you had just been sitting by a fire and then went outside wearing no clothes at all. It wasn't a winter maybe-it'll-snow chill, but rather a summer enjoy-this-tiny-hint-of-coolness-while-you-can-because-it's-going-to-be-hotter-than-hell-today chill.

That's why I was so surprised when I looked at the barometer and saw that the needle was still between 29 and 30, right on the edge of
SNOW
.

I realized the stupid thing hadn't budged since I'd started checking on the first night of Qchanukkah. I don't know what it read before then, because I'd never bothered to look at it. I thought maybe the needle was stuck, so I tapped the glass cover. No movement. I tapped harder. Nothing. I hit it. Nothing. Finally I pounded it with the ball of my hand—and it shattered. A big shard of glass cut right into my palm, and the next thing I knew blood was running down my wrist onto the AstroTurf.

I got so mad, I kicked the wall, which was stupid, because now my foot hurt along with my hand. Trying not to drip blood everywhere, I went back inside, washed off my hand, found the hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom cabinet, and poured it onto my palm. It burned like crazy, but it's what you're supposed to do so you don't get an infection. Then,
with my other hand, I tried to put on a Band-Aid, but it wouldn't stick. There's some kind of surgical tape you're supposed to use, but we didn't have any, so I got cotton balls and masking tape and wrapped it around, which made me look like a mummy in progress.

When that was finally done, I went back outside to clean up the broken glass, and used the hose to wash the blood off the AstroTurf. I looked at the barometer needle up close and saw it was completely rusted, bent back and actually stuck to the cardboard where the numbers were written. It hadn't barometered anything in years. Luckily, the needle hadn't punctured my skin when I'd broken the glass, because then I could get lockjaw, which is what happens when you get cut with a rusty piece of metal. Then you can't speak or eat because your jaw is stuck and you end up in the hospital waiting to die. Maybe they'd put me in the bed next to my dad.

Staring at the broken barometer, I realized what a complete idiot I had been for ever thinking it would snow. Or believing in miracles. Or in God. Or anything.

Walking to school, I was angrier than I'd ever been, at everyone and everything, even my dad. That felt really bad, because if he did die, I would feel even worse than I already did for asking God not to let him come to the assembly,
which is probably what put him into a coma in the first place. Just my luck, the only prayer of mine God has ever heard.

I was angry at my mom too, which was mean
and
impossible. I can't be mad at her, because she's so absurdly nice. I was
definitely
developing a gorgle, and could feel it starting to throb.

I kicked a rock, which flew across Kimdale Drive. That felt good, so I looked for another, bigger rock, and kicked it too, as hard as I could. Big mistake. Because it wasn't actually a rock, but a hunk of cement, sticking up from the ground. It didn't move at all, and now my toe hurt so much, I was hopping around on one foot.