Free Kicking Tomorrow by Daniel Richler Page A

everybody laughed again.
    “Barukh ata Adonai, Elohaynu Melekh ha’olam shehek-heyanu…”
    Robbie going under now, thinking,
Bondage
. Picturing the oppressed Israelites building the pyramids for Pharaoh, making bricks in the baking sun, sweating in those grotesque leather masks with zips across the mouth. And thinking, Whoa, where do some thoughts come from? Though he knows: he’s seen ads in
Bosom Buddies
magazine.
    “I have a question now,” Barnabus said. “Why aren’t girls circlecized?”
    “Oh, brother,” Miriam said, and Grandma Bethel put her hand to her cheek.
    “I have a better strategy for you, Barnabus – “ Dad said. “Page eighteen, The youngest person at the table, OK?”
    “But why aren’t girls circlecized?”
    “It’s very simple,” Mom said. “Girls don’t have penises.”
    “Oh, I see. Thanks,” Barnabus said. And frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “Excuse me,” Rosie said, “I believe in the Middle East they
do
circumcise teenage girls. Their clitorises! Picture the mutilation! Men’ll do
any
thing to put women down.…”
    “What’s a clitoris?” Barnabus said, and now Grandma Bethel put her face in both hands.
    Robbie still seeing that image hovering above the table. He tried to erase it by quickly closing his eyes and shaking his head. The image wavered. That’s all it is, he tells himself, a wavering image, a desert mirage. I’m not responsible. Someone else conjured it up. It’s the devil out there in the dunes, uncirclecized, naked, and cruelly sunburnt; he’s grinding hot sand between his palms and callused shaft and he’s in a rage because it’s getting under his fireskin. When he spills his sulphuric semen in the desert’s belly, lo: Satan’s babies are scorpions.
Robbie Robbie stop
. But the harder he tries to shake the picture, the harder it clings to his eyeballs.
    When he came to, Miriam was giving him a scornful look.
    “I think someone should take this book back,” Rosie said. “The pages are backwards.”
    “Page thirteen,” Dad said, and Robbie could see he was concealing a grin behind his Haggadah. “Robbie, please.”
    “ K ,” he replied sullenly.
“The wicked child inquires in a mocking spirit: What mean YE by this service?
Hey, wait a sec. How come I get this one every year? I notice it’s not wicked ‘son’ any more, so why not give it to Miriam?” No one looked up from their books. “K, OK .
Saying YE and not WE , he/she excludes himself from the household of Israel. Therefore thou shouldst turn on him/her and say: ‘It is because of that which God did for ME when I came forth out of Egypt.’”
    “Now, children,” Dad said. “According to the Haggadah,
maror
means bitter herbs. We eat it as, as – as a year-end review, to recall how the Egyptians edged our ancestors out of a lot of valuable property.”
    “I love horse relish,” Barnabus said. “I want lots.”
    “Radish
, dumbhead,” Miriam said. “And you’re not supposed to like it. You’re supposed to think sad thoughts about your forefathers.”
    “Not to mention your
foreskins
I should think,” Rosie said.
    “Who are they?” Barnabus said.
    Who indeed, Robbie thought. Let’s face it, Jews are losers. He was thinking of the Hasidim up around St. Urbain Street, boys of his own age all in black with fur hats, even in summer, and side-curls like some dreary parody of party streamers. They weren’t taking part in the world. Not like Robbie was. When they grew up they’d make their wives shave their heads, and wouldn’t touch them when they were on their periods. What would they think of Ivy, the time she showed Robbie her biggest secret, well, one of them, anyway: how she daubed menstrual blood on her lips with her finger for lipstick.
    “OK , Barnabus,” Dad said. “Before we eat, go and open the screen door. That’s to invite Elijah the Prophet in for a drink of wine. See, here we place his executive cup: Later you’ll get up again to