'Yisgadal v'yiskadash sh'mei rabbaw . . .'�
Goddamn it.

I stood over my father's grave with my sister while a fat Rabbi droned in Hebrew. I used to know this prayer'The Mourner's Kaddish--by heart a long time ago, back when I was a kid and this kind of thing meant something. It was a long time ago.

It didn't bother me that nobody showed-- just me, the rabbi, and Esse. I have no pride that needs to be fed by how many people come to see a rock. Anyway, it's only the unveiling.

Esse tugged the cloth off of the grave as the rabbi finished his prayer. The stone wasn't anything special. There were no etched designs. There were no standing monuments to his greatness. It was a speckled grey block set in the ground near the top of a gentle hill. Carved into it were his name and dates, one for his birth, one for when he died last year. A few words in Hebrew were chiseled under the dates. I had no idea what they meant.

The rabbi cleared his throat. 'Well, I'm sorry once again for your loss. I hope this brings you some closure.'�
Esse waved him away. 'Thanks. I'll mail you a check.'�

The rabbi grunted and walked away, leaving footprints wet from the morning dew on the concrete path. A light breeze blew and threatened to blow the yarmulke off of his head, but he scrambled and pinned it into place with his meaty hand.

I turned away from the man. 'So . . . that's the rabbi, huh?'�
'Same one as last year.'�
'I don't remember his name.'�
Esse smirked. 'Me neither.'�
'So . . .'� I stuck my hands in my pockets.
'Yep.'�
Awkward silence.

Esse is six years older than me and was once almost like a mother. Not a very good mother, but the closest I had since I haven't seen mine since I was four and snowflakes sat on my nose.
My teenage years were simple--I followed Esse and her friends around, they got me high. I was their mascot, acting all grown up with her friends while they laughed and got the little boy wasted in the graveyard behind the 7-11.

Then she ran off with her guitar and I've hardly seen her since. The last time I saw her was at Dad's funeral. We don't have much to talk about anymore. She could be a different person for all that I know. She dyed her red hair to a syrupy black and straightened it until it drooped over her face like she were hiding. Smoking since she was twelve and screaming into a microphone has turned her lilting voice to a mellow scotch'the perfect compliment to an overdriven guitar.

'So I saw your video on MTV2 the other day. It looked good.'�
'Shut up. . . you really liked it?'�
'I was just as surprised as anyone.'�
'Well . . . yeah. Video magic and all.'�

There was another long pause between us, the legendary seven minute pause that stalks conversations and makes even the most glib look around nervously. I looked around and the silence seemed to creep in on me, swirling like morning mist around the stones of dead men.

Esse lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. As she spoke, the smoke fled from her mouth. 'Hey Joel, I need to thank you.'�
'For what?'�
'Well like, when Dad was sick last year, you took care of him. You know, I wanted to, but the band was just starting to get big and I had to go tour.'�
'Yeah. It's okay.'�
'I'm no good at that kind of thing anyway.'� She brushed the hair from her face. 'Do you think he forgave me?'�
'Yeah. He always forgave you.'�
'He said so?'�
'No, but you know Dad. He could never stay mad.'�
Esse relaxed. 'Yeah. You're right. Thanks.'�


'Listen to this, Daddy!'� Ten-year-old Esse strummed an out of tune guitar while sitting on my Dad's lap.
'That's great, Honey. Here, let me tune that for you.'� Dad reached over my sister, testing the strings with one hand, tickling her with the other.
'Daddddddyyy!'� Esse wriggled from his embrace and pulled the guitar from him.
'Yay!'� I yelled in my tiny-toothed voice. 'Play, Esse! Play more!'�
'See, Daddy? Joelie thinks it's good.'�
'It is good. It's beautiful. Just like my baby girl.'�
'Hee hee hee, stop it Daddy. I'm grown up. And when I'm grown more up, I'm gonna be a Rock Star.'�
'Oh yeah?'� said Dad.
Esse nodded violently.
'Well then we better tune that guitar.'� He got up to tickle her again, and chased her all around the living room until she hid under the piano.

Dad got her a guitar when I was born so she wouldn't feel neglected. The two of them would spend hours playing together by the piano and putting on performances while I gurgled and cooed in my playpen. When I was older, I clapped and I meant it. It was like having one of those family sing-alongs you see on TV.

As I got older, these memories went brown and rotten as they became just another thing that kept me away from my father. My father was a music teacher, but I think it was always his dream to perform. He was never as happy as when Esse's band took off.

I tried to learn guitar and piano so I could be like them. Esse tried to teach me with the normal patience and tact of a foul-mouthed teenaged girl. I got about as far as a G chord before she gave up on me. So I had to be content with being a spectator as they exchanged chords and loved each other.


I ran my fingernail along the Hebrew on my father's grave. Once I could've read every word. Somewhere I ended up a part time Jew, now I'm on an extended vacation.

'Hey Esse, do you ever feel like a bad Jew?'�
'I am a bad Jew.'�
'No, seriously.'�

She inhaled from her cigarette again, 'God can think whatever he wants of me. It doesn't matter. I'm not here for divine approval.'�
'You're not worried that you're going to Hell?'�
'Nope.'� She finished her cigarette and flicked it away. 'Do Jews even believe in Hell?'�
'I don't remember. I guess we gotta believe in something.'�
Esse scratched her nose. 'I don't think we have one.'�
'Maybe we should.'�
'Why? You asking for trouble?'�
'I'm just being stupid,'� I said. But I'm not. Maybe if there was a Hell we might think about the things we do. I want consequence. I want to be punished.


There are a million ways to be a Jew. My way was baseball, running around the back yard pretending that I was Don Mattingly.
'No, you have to be Dave Winfield this time,'� someone would say.
'Winfield stinks, and I don't wanna play right field.'�
'Fine, you can be Bob Geren.'�
'Shut up!'� And so it would go. My father would tell me about when he was a kid and was a Dodgers fan. He'd glow talking about Koufax's curveball, and grit his teeth talking about their move to LA. But he forgave them, and still loved them.

Baseball was our bond. He came to all my Little League games. I was damn good, and I was so happy to make him proud. Once a month we would drive down the Deegan to watch the Yanks play, even though they were awful and getting worse. We'd always park four or five blocks away so that we wouldn't have to pay for parking. As we walked to the stadium Dad would tell me about the old days when he was a kid. I could almost hear the doo-wop and see the soda shops.

It was a doubleheader. The Yanks were being 'mauled by the Tigers'� (as the next day's Daily News said), and the first game dragged on in a precursor to today's modern baseball that puts the children to sleep and drives them to embrace basketball. Half way through the second game I was full of hot dogs and the frustration that only a fan of a losing team could know.

'Dad, can we leave?'�
'I'm watching the game.'�
I gave him another ten minutes. The Tigers just stole home, the ultimate baseball slap-in-the-face.
'Dad, can we leave?'�
'No.'�
'Please?'�
'No! Stop asking!'�

I started to sulk. Sax grounded out to second. Mattingly popped out. Barfield wiffed on a change up. I was done.
I started to cry. 'I wanna go home!'�
'Stop crying, we're not going home.'�
'Stop being a di. . . so mean.'�

Dad turned red as people started to stare and murmur. His voice sunk to a low growl. 'We're not going home. We bought these tickets and we're going to stay to the end. So act your age and stop crying.'�

My crying abated to sniffles. 'Fine.'� And then beneath my breath, just loud enough for Dad and the people around us to hear, 'great, now I've got a dead mom, and an asshole dad.'�

I heard a sharp intake of breath from someone behind me and knew that I just stole home.
'Fine! You wanna go home? Let's go home!'� He grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out of my seat. We shuffled past disgruntled fans and out of the stadium.

Dad led me through the streets back to the car.
'Slow down, Dad.'� But he wouldn't listen. He sped up and I had to break into a jog to keep up. He crossed a street ahead of me and the light flashed 'don't walk' before I could cross. I waited there watching my father shrink into the distance until the light changed again and I ran as fast as I could before he abandoned me to the wilderness.

I kept playing baseball until I failed a drug test in high school, but after that day my father never came to another one of my games.


'I changed my mind,'� Esse said. 'We should have a Hell. And we should fill it up with deadbeat Moms.'�
'Oh, Mom again.'� I looked over to Esse. Every time she mentions or even thinks about our Mom her face twists like she had a stroke. 'Mom wasn't a deadbeat. Just, you know. Dead.'�

'She's worse than any mother who runs out on her kids. She killed herself to get away from us. I wish she just left, like she ran away with some rich guy or something. Then we could at least hunt her down and confront her. But how do you confront a dead person? You can't dig them up. You can't go back in time and yell at them.'�

'I guess you can't. I don't know Esse, I never really felt like that toward her.'�
'That's cause you didn't know her. You were still a little kid. You don't know what you missed out on. You never lost the tea parties or playing dress up or baking cookies. You never lost the girly stuff that only Moms can do.'�

'You never did any of that stuff.'�
'But I could've.'� Esse flicked the butt of the finished joint off to the side.
'Yeah, you could've.'�


Sometimes I wonder what my Mom was thinking about that day she decided to drive off the Tappan Zee. I bet she was thinking about me. I know she was thinking about me.

I remember the day she died. I woke up and she wasn't home. I didn't think anything about it because sometimes Mom went in to work early. I put on clean clothes went down the stairs and made a bagel with cream cheese in the kitchen. The same as every day. Dad dropped me off at pre-school. It was snowing. There were flakes on my nose and I licked them off and giggled. A kid tried to take my shoe during nap time and I punched him.

Mom never came to pick me up. I wasn't worried cause sometimes she worked late and Dad would pick me up. He lied and told me that Mom had to go on a business trip, so the next day I still wasn't worried. And the next. The day after that I cried.

I never cried when Dad died. There were times when he was dying that I wanted to. Not out of sadness, but of my own frustration of giving up my life to help him ease out of his. Changing Dad's catheter was the worst. Dad'd be lying in bed, oxygen tank at his side, tubes running under his nose. He kept cracking jokes while I wrestled with the catheter tube and bag. The same joke, every day, 'hold on, buy me dinner first.'� It would have been funny if I wasn't holding my father's penis.

I was the only one there when Dad died. The cancer had devoured him. His arms and legs were sticks hanging off of a limp body. His lungs were a pair of balloons hanging off of a stainless steel beast. His heart was a turn table. I approached and my father's pulse quickened--short, regular beeps became urgent and uneven.

'Hey Dad,'� The beeps picked up their rhythm. But at this moment, I couldn't see him. This wasn't my Dad. This was a wreckage of twisted metal, a steel coffin of another parent ditching me. And in that dying body somewhere was a piece of a man who wished that it was my sister there, not his son.

I wonder if he knew that I walked out. I hope he was thinking of me. I know he was thinking of me.


I turned over and knelt in front of the grave stone.
Esse turned. 'What are you doing?'�

I wouldn't hear her. I heard the tone of the heart machine, the strum of a guitar, and the crack of a bat. I felt snowflakes on my nose and the comfort of a father's lies. And I saw myself pouring out the Mourner's Kaddish in a language I didn't know I remembered.
When I finished, I kissed Esse on the cheek and walked down the hill.

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