The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green Read Online Free

keep forgetting to call these offerings Chanukah presents.
    I pull my lunch box up on my lap and watch the school approach through the front windshield. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” I say, and Mirium ducks behind her seat. “I just want to come home on the van.”
    Asher lifts one of his ass cheeks and pulls a crinkled yarmulke out of his back pocket. “You will,” he says, putting it on.
    I shoot my hand up to see if there’s a yarmulke on my head. There is. My brother chuckles at my fear and gives my shoulder a shove. “Hey,” he says.
    I look up at him.
    “Breathe, dickhead, okay? Breathe.”
    B ECAUSE A SHER is three years older, his tzitzit lineup is in another room and on another floor. I watch him climb the upper school staircase until he’s gone and then walk with Noah toward the elementary wing. On our way I put my handon his shoulder and carefully explain that I might not make it to the van that afternoon, that I “might not make it back.” He takes it quite well. He points the G-Zap at my crotch and says, “Got ya,” before disappearing into the kindergarten—tough little trouper. When I get to my classroom, my stomach begins to clench. I put my books and lunch box by my desk and move slowly into the inspection line behind Ari Feiger. Ari has a glandular issue that gives him breasts and makes him smell like wet skin. He also has striped pajama bottoms that creep out the back of his pants and a dirty blond afro that can actually hold pencils. When I ask him if he has an extra tzitzit he says, “Yes, but not for you,” and walks away from me.
    “Ari,” I say, following him, “I’ll pay you for it.”
    “I put on a clean one after lunch,” he says. “It’s not for sale.”
    “But I forgot mine,” I whisper.
    When he hears this he turns to the other six boys in my class and starts singing the word tzitzit to the tune of
The Flintstones.
“Tzitzit, meet the tzitzit, have a yabba-dabba tzitzit, a yabba tzitzit, you’re gonna be so screwed. Ya’akov’s
got no
tzitzit!” he yells and points at me.
    “
Shhhh!
Shut up, Ari. The rabbi will hear you.”
    “You shut up.”
    I shove him backward and he stumbles into a desk. With a running start he comes toward me and punches my arm. I punch him back. He calls me a “pussy” so I grab his fat neck and shove him into the wall of cubbyholes by the door. The other boys gather around us. Ari runs at me and dives at my knees. We both go down to the floor and one of his chubby thumbnails scratches my top gum. Andrew Friedberg yells, “Kick his ass!” and drops to one knee like a ref.
    “Mizrahe!” says Gary Kaplan from his lookout station near the door and we freeze and run to line up. When I get there Itaste some blood on my tongue and my right knee throbs. Ari breathes heavily in front of me, fumbling to bobby-pin his rainbow yarmulke. I slide my hand down my leg to my knee and my finger touches skin. The hole is tiny and already frayed, the size of a dime. I stand up straight.
    Rule Number 3 of the Green House Rules
    The wearing of torn or tattered clothing including dress pants, jeans, pajamas, T-shirts, sweaters, or dress shirts at any time will result in the following act: Abram R. Green, C.P.A., will place two fingers inside the hole and tear the garment from your body. The child will then go to his room to dress again, his destroyed garment flapping as he goes.
    a.
Tattered clothing = disrespect of self and parents who purchased clothing.
    b.
The decision to don torn garments evokes a failure to comprehend one’s good fortune.
    c.
Failure to comprehend one’s good fortune = an inability to be grateful.
    d.
Being frightened and humiliated is an absolute way to learn that damaged clothing sends a blatant message about one’s self and family to one’s neighbors, friends, and school peers.
    The rabbi enters the room singing in Hebrew. “Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah, To-rah, tziva lanu Moshe—Line up, line up, we’re