Chapter Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
Greg had a good feeling.
Unlike Hacksaws, which was clearly a family establishment, the bar known as Jumbos lay in the middle of a thicket of trees in a building the size of a trailer. It also had fewer windows, and far less appeal. After paying cash for the cab, he dug his hands into his pockets and entered.
Inside, there were only a few patrons. A man played a game of pinball towards the side. A few barflies pounded back drinks at the bar. Greg took a seat beside the ones at the counter and ordered himself a beer. And then, like he had read about in all his novels—like The Rogue Prince and Samantha Beacher would often do when they were undercover—he attempted to read the room.
He waited. He watched. He learned. And then, he worked to mimic the language, attitude, and behaviors of the people he was meeting. He kept things cool. He made casual chitchat and friendly conversation, until finally, a kid in the back, who had spent most of the evening in a booth staring down at his phone, came up to the bar and ordered buffalo wings.
His hair stood on edge.
He watched the young man out of the corner of his eye, analyzing him. There were no outright signs of white supremacy. No inappropriate tattoos of swastikas or red laces tied into combat boots. If Greg had met the man at Magic Mud Pottery, he would have welcomed him inside with open arms.
The kid was still waiting for his wings when Greg made his move.
“Hey,” Greg called to the bartender. “You got any blue cheese dressing to go with these wings?”
“Sorry,” the bartender said. “Only ranch.”
Greg shook his head, mumbling beneath his breath. “Who the hell doesn’t serve blue cheese dressing with buffalo wings?”
His words did the trick. The kid turned to face him. “Ridiculous, right?”
They spent a few more minutes shooting the breeze, bonding over the sheer audacity of a chef who would serve hot wings without the proper sauce, when Greg nodded to the seat across from him. “You up for company?”
“Got nothing better going on,” he said. “My friend was supposed to meet me here, but his kid got sick at the last minute. Wife started harping on him, you know?”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m Greg, by the way.”
“John,” the man said, taking his offer of friendship. “Nice to meet you.”
Greg doubted that John was his real name. He knew from Nelly, and his crime thrillers, that The Paper Boys were likely to be using aliases.
They continued talking. At first, about cars. And then, about women. Periodically, John would look to the television screen over the bar—the one playing the news on mute—and begin ranting about something. But mainly, Greg let the man talk. He let him word-vomit every one of his thoughts, never disagreeing with him, never arguing...because Greg wanted John to feel comfortable and safe around him. Finally, after two more hours of Greg putting on his best show, John was the one buying him drinks.
“So,” John said. “You working?”
“Laid off.” Greg frowned. “Three months now.”
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks for the beer, by the way,” Greg said, before adding, “Company decided to... restructure .”
“They’re restructuring alright.” John shook his head. “Goddamn Jews.”
Greg’s chest went taut. His stomach roiled. He was disgusted by this man and his words—but he focused on maintaining his cover. Indeed, he found it surprisingly easy to both lie and be believed.
“You know, it’s funny you say that,” Greg said, tipping his beer towards John. “About a month or two ago, I found this flyer.”
John shifted in his seat, leaning closer. “A flyer?”
“Basically, what it said was that, even though we don’t see it, the Jews are responsible for everything bad happening in the world right now. Like they got super powers, you know? They control the government, the media. Heck, according to what was in those papers, they even created COVID.”
“You don’t say?”
“I swear,” Greg said, finishing off his glass. “And maybe I wouldn’t have believed it, you know? But then, in this flyer...they got all these pictures, names and addresses, and lo and behold, right there, right there in front of me in black and white—the evidence. All these Jews in power. Can you believe it? Right under our noses the whole time, and I had never seen it before that moment.”
John nodded. “It’s scary when you realize how much they control.”
“Like magic,” Greg said. “Like witchcraft.”
“That’s exactly it, man.” John slapped his hand down on the bar.
“Though what I can’t figure out—” Greg shook his head, pressing his lips together “—is what they all want in the end.”
“What they want?” John scoffed at the question. “To destroy white America, obviously. To turn us all gay—little boys wearing dresses. Black people leading this country... The end of America, my friend. The end of what we are. Hell, look at what they did to Disney.”
“Damn,” Greg said, shaking his head. “When you put it like that, it does sound scary.”
It was a lie, of course. Personally, Greg didn’t think that boys wearing dresses or Black people leading the country was ruining anything ...but he was playing a role.
The irony was John himself. He was so warm and friendly. So incredibly welcoming, too. Beyond all the drinks the young man had bought him, John was offering him something. A sense of community, a feeling of belonging, a place to lay all his failures and fears. A friendship, created around something so evil and vile, it made Greg feel physically sick.
“I just wish there was something I could do,” Greg said after a few fateful minutes.
John leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Well, you know...there are some folks in town who are like-minded and such. If it interests you, if you’re serious about stopping the scourge against white America, I can see about a meeting. We could always use good folks fighting for the cause.”
Greg forced a smile. “I’d like that very much.”
Faye heard Greg creeping up the stairs of Magic Mud Pottery at three o’clock in the morning. Closing her eyes, listening to him moving around beyond her door, rage built up inside of her. It was worse than she thought.
Faye was losing control of her golem.
Now, not only was he disobeying direct orders, refusing to have sex with her...but he was sneaking out. She had no choice now. She had to get rid of him.
The next morning, bright and early, she waited to hear the shower on the second floor running. And then, knowing that Greg was occupied, she found that creepy-ass golem doll, hidden in the recesses of her closet, and raced down the steps. Heading to her studio, she tossed that clay figure onto a table. Grabbing a hammer, she brought it down onto its belly.
The sound of it dissolving into pieces beneath her swings was wonderfully cathartic. And so she kept going. She kept swinging. A modern-day Lizzie Borden. Until finally, with sweat dripping from her brow, and fully out of breath, she tossed the hammer to the side.
Greg was still upstairs moving around.
“Faye?” he called out. “Everything okay down there?”
“Fine,” she shouted back.
Clearly, destroying the damn thing with a hammer was not enough.
She debated her options. Perhaps golems were more like Estries, female Jewish vampires that could also shape-shift. In order to get rid of Greg, she would need to cram his mouth full of dirt and decapitate him.
It sounded messy.
Instead, she grabbed a shopping bag, collecting up the pieces of her golem doll, before heading to her garage and jumping on her bike.
She rode for as long and as fast as her pedals would take her, not even noticing the November cold, until she was far beyond the environs of downtown Woodstock. Surrounded by trees and nature, she began tossing out shards.
Handfuls of dust flew into the wind behind her. Pieces of that golem doll—like the memories that came with it—dissipated into nothing. She was certain that she had never felt more free, more alive in her own power—when sirens sounded behind her.
Glancing over her shoulder and seeing a police vehicle, she quickly pulled off to the side. A momentary panic filled her chest. Getting pulled over by cops was never a good thing, but how the hell would she explain summoning, and then needing to get rid of, a golem.
Haman’s hat. Could a reversal spell on a supernatural creature be the equivalent to a crime? She was already sweating, losing her cool and her grip on reality, when Chief Eric Myers exited the vehicle.
“Oh, it’s you,” Faye said, breathing a sigh of relief.
She probably shouldn’t have said it with such gusto. It was unfair to expect Eric—an officer of the law—to cut her some slack simply because they were friends.
“It’s me,” he repeated.
She tried to play innocent. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m afraid,” Eric said, grabbing the handlebars of her bike, holding her there, “that someone reported a madwoman, riding around on her bike, littering all over Woodstock.”
Faye guffawed. “You’re kidding me?”
“Afraid not,” Eric said. “Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to take you in.”
The color drained from her face. Granted, she knew it was wrong to litter—but extreme situations, and all that. Also, her pottery was made from clay and mud—totally natural and earthen elements. Surely, returning them back to the ground, back to the forest, wouldn’t damage the delicate ecosystem around Woodstock.
“I’m kidding,” he said.
Faye laughed. “Of course.”
“You should have seen your face.”
In truth, she didn’t find the joke very funny. But considering what she had done—the fact that Gregolem was now living in her apartment, about to wreak every manner of havoc on her life and community—she felt the need to keep things friendly between them.
“What are you doing, though?” he said, reaching his fingers towards her bag.
“Oh,” she laughed, pushing the bag away. “It’s nothing. Just a...a...”
“Just a Jewish thing?”
Faye squinted, unsure of what to say. It was, technically , a Jewish thing. She was trying to get rid of a golem. But still, his comment felt totally off base. There were a thousand things she could be doing right now on a bicycle in the woods... Why land on that? And then, Eric— Baruch Hashem and Blessed Be —clarified.
“You know,” Eric said, trying to explain his thinking, “like that thing you do...on Rosh Hashanah.”
Faye had no idea what he was talking about. “Rosh Hashanah?”
“When you all go to down to the river?”
It took her a minute. “Oh,” she said, touching her head, finally putting it together. “You mean tashlich ?”
“That’s the one,” he said, beaming with pride that he had gotten it correct. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“Kind of,” Faye lied.
Eric laughed, shaking his head, before finally getting serious. “Well, actually,” he said, “I’m glad I caught you, because there is something I wanted to talk to you about. Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Faye...but I wanted to talk to you about your new window display.”
She blinked. “My window display?”
“What on Earth were you thinking?”
Her chin tipped backwards. “I’m sorry,” she said, somewhat flabbergasted, “what exactly is the problem with my window display?”
“You’re advertising to everyone that you’re Jewish.”
“So?”
“So, you’re making yourself a target,” he said. “You think it’s funny to antagonize them?”
“I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
“Because it was stupid, Faye,” he said finally. “Stupid and childish.”
Her entire face contorted, flabbergasted into silence.
But also, she didn’t think that mentioning the fact she was a Jewitch—on her business—should be a danger. Or necessitate a warning. People put up Christmas trees and Christmas lights all the time , and none of them had to go to bed at night wondering if they would wake up to a rock through their front window.
It was exactly the same.
Judaism was not just a religion. It was a culture. A people. Her ethnicity. And even though she used more nontraditional parts of her tradition to find her spiritual center, it didn’t make her less Jewish.
She had a right to celebrate who she was without fearing blowback. She had a right to live out of the Jewitch broom closet. And she wanted to say all these things, argue with him, tell Eric to shove it—but she was stunned, absolutely floored, into silence.
And so she said nothing.
The Great Pretender. The Great Lie she kept selling everyone around her. Including herself. That she was brave, fearless, that nothing could hurt her. That she could survive, and survive, and survive...
She hated that she said nothing. Despised herself for it—like with Stuart and her mother. Like with her father, too, if she was really getting honest with herself. All those moments when he was dying, all those times where she wanted to say, Why weren’t you there?
But she also reasoned, she had no choice.
Not just because Eric was a police officer and a man in power, but because she was a Jew. And this was how she survived being a minority in America. Maybe also a woman. She diminished. She downplayed. Because, contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t just the Holocaust etched into her memory, handed down l’dor v’dor from generation-to-generation.
It was grade school, where a boy threw pennies at her on the way to lunch, before telling her that there would never be a Jewish Miss America...because Jewish girls were all ugly. It was college, where she had to hide her feelings, and sometimes her confusion, about Israel, where she couldn’t even discuss it without another student, sometimes a professor, pointing at her and outright calling her a genocidal maniac.
It was online and in the news. Every drive-by one-star review that had appeared on her Yelp page, people who had never even visited her store, trying to put her out of business. It was every meme shared on Facebook that diminished the atrocities of Hitler, or yellow stars, or concentration camps, to prove some larger, grander point... #JewsAreNotAMetaphor
It was Air France Flight 139, when all the Jewish passengers were separated out from the rest, then held hostage in a warehouse in Uganda, only Israel coming to save them. It was the cruise ship Achille Lauro where Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish man in a wheelchair, was shot and pushed overboard. It was journalist Daniel Pearl, kidnapped in Pakistan, being forced to say, “I am Jewish, I am a Zionist,” before being beheaded in front of cameras. It was Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where on a Shabbat morning, eleven people were shot, point-blank, while they prayed.
It was looking at someone who wasn’t Jewish, who had maybe never met a Jew before in their entire life, and wondering, What do they really think about me?
She hated that she felt this way. Despised that there was always this voice buzzing around in the back of her head, these memories, that constantly kept her wondering. But when she looked at her life, at Woodstock—a town known for peace, love, and rock and roll, littered with anti-Semitic flyers—at the history of Jewish people, both past and current, all those tragedies, mountains of bodies, one stacked on top of another like black-and-white photographs taken in a concentration camp, at her books, an entire industry making money from the Holocaust and dead Jews, but very few bestselling books that celebrated the living ones— how could she think anything else?
And then, Eric—perhaps sensing that he had gone too far—pulled back.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to come off as harsh.”
“I know that.”
“It’s just...” He shook his head, sighing heavily. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Faye. These people you’re messing with, these people you’re antagonizing...they mean business. And it would kill me, Faye, if something bad happened to you because of it.”
“Well, what would you have me do then?”
He pressed his lips together. “I think you should take it down.”
“Down?” She couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“Just until this whole thing blows over...” he clarified. “Just until...these Paper Boys are no longer a threat.”
She shifted on the balls of her feet—all those memories she was holding like a sieve inside of her spilling out. Memory upon memory, until they all began to blur together, and she could no longer tell if she were the receiver of the story, or the one telling the story. But she began to wonder if Eric was right. Perhaps she had been naive in faking courage. She wasn’t brave. She was scared of everything...getting hurt most of all.
But Eric cared about her. And unlike Greg, he was human.
“I understand,” she said softly. “And I do appreciate your concern, Eric. I realize it comes from a good place.”
Eric nodded. “It does.”
He hugged her, and she accepted it, fully.
“So,” he said, finally dropping the topic. He angled his body towards his police car. “Can I pop your bike in the trunk, maybe give you a ride home? If you weren’t fully aware of this...it is, actually, freezing out today.”
Faye laughed. He wasn’t wrong that it was chilly. She moved to take Eric up on the offer, when on second thought, she decided against it. A ray of sunlight appeared, and with the warmth shining down on her, the thought of a bike ride home felt comforting. Necessary.
“Maybe another time.”
“Of course.”
Eric touched her on the arm one last time before departing.
Greg was in the middle of unpacking a box of new clay when he heard the front door to Magic Mud Pottery open. Faye was standing in the threshold, her hair a mess, her skin all sweaty. Her eyes wandered once over his form, unblinking.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re still here.”
“I’m here,” he said, rising from his spot, wiping dust off his hands. “You okay?”
“I went for a bike ride.”
He glanced out the window, where leaves were blowing around in the wind. “In this weather?”
She shrugged. And then, without any further explanation—without another word—she dragged herself past him to her bedroom, where she locked herself in once more.