LITMIR.BIZ

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the river. I mentioned the river before; this is as good a time as any to tell you what happened.

      It was 1921. I was just fifteen years old, already seven and a half feet tall and still growing. Summer’s blast furnace had really begun to scorch El Paso and business was slow, so Papa gave Ben and me time off from working at the store. Mama had taken Myer, who was seven, with her to the synagogue where she and some other ladies from the Sisterhood were cooking a community meal to welcome Philip Roth, our new rabbi. She left Ben in charge. It didn’t take him long to realize that was a perfect opportunity to get a break from the monotony and heat.

      “Come on, don’t be a pill. I’m so bored,” Ben pleaded.

      “Mom and Dad told us it’s too dangerous,” I resisted.

      “If you don’t come along I can’t go. I promised I’d keep an eye on you.”

      “I don’t wanna go,” I insisted.

      “Are you becoming a hermit like one of those weirdoes who live in caves in the Sierra Madres?” Ben taunted me.

      “We swore we wouldn’t go. Don’t you remember?”

      As I saw things, I wasn’t a goody-two-shoes; more than anything, I just wanted to stay home and avoid people. It seemed that everywhere I went in those days, kids and adults teased me. Sometimes their taunts were downright cruel and insulting. They’d play mean tricks; even trip me. So whenever possible I preferred to stay home and keep to myself.

      “I know. I know,” Ben replied. “But what Mama and Papa don’t know won’t hurt them. Come on, Jake, you know how much fun it is and how pretty it is down there. Please, I beg you.”

      I looked up to my “big” brother. I liked his company and wanted to please him, so reluctantly, I let him talk me into it. If I knew what would soon transpire, I never would have gone.

      Within the hour, Ben and I had made our way through the neighborhood. We walked by Vilas Elementary School, passed the Schroeder’s corner grocery and the Chaldean’s barber shop, and descended two flights of rickety wooden steps that led to a rocky mesa. After we hiked down it, we hurried passed the railroad siding next to the icehouse and found ourselves on the well-worn path to the Rio Grande.

      The desert foliage dramatically changed as we approached the river. As if by magic, stands of Desert Willows, Salt Cedars, and Russian Olive trees appeared. Ben and I scrambled through the reeds, red flowers, and honeysuckle. We saw multicolored hawks, falcons, and cranes, not ordinarily spotted in town. As we got closer to the water, I could smell the river and the scarce moisture it gifted to the dry desert air. Just the fragrance had a cooling effect.

      When we got to the water’s edge, we both peeled down to our rough, cotton summer underwear. Ben didn’t hesitate. He jumped from the saw grass on the edge into the stream, laughing and splashing as he landed in the brown water. Then he stood up and plodded downstream, almost knocked over by the current. Fifty yards down river, he joined two boys he recognized from school. Growing up, I often wished I had as many friends as my brother.

      I sat down on the bank. A few seconds later I shooed a horsefly from my nose and wanted to be somewhere else. While I determined what to do next, the words “Rio Grande” rhythmically repeated in my mind.

      Throughout my life, when anything was labeled big, like that river, it immediately tugged at my attention. On the Mexican side they called the same stream Rio Bravo: the fierce river. On opposite banks of the river with two names, sometimes children would fire rocks from homemade slingshots and catapult insults in English and Spanish, but not that day.

      Sometimes the river was full and fast-moving. But at other times it seemed to dry up. When it almost dried up, as it had the winter before, I imagined that its life had moved underground, its spirit descending to where no one could see it. I liked the fact that the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo didn’t always match its name. Just like me, the river did not fit with the names people called it—whatever language they spoke.

      Sitting there with my knees folded up to my chest, I sensed that the river was alive, ever changing. At least for those few minutes, I felt at peace, calmed by the flowing water. Back then, peaceful times like that were islands in the stream for me; few and far between.

      Somewhere up river, the last of the huge winter snow packs in the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico had melted. That, plus two weeks of strong, nightly summer monsoons made the water flow fast and free, almost flooding the banks. That day, it truly looked like a big, fierce river.

      I turned my head to see that Ben and his friends had waded farther downstream to hunt for crawdads in the shade of an old oak whose branches hung out over the shallows. It was really hot. The water looked so inviting but it was too dangerous.

      “Hey, Jake!” I turned and recognized a group of five boys and a girl from the neighborhood approaching. I stood up and cautiously walked toward them. You might say back then I was too trusting or pretty naive. But I think I was still innocent. Three of the boys were classmates from school. One was younger—about thirteen—as was the girl. When I got closer they began to run away.

      “The giraffe, the giraffe!” the ragtag group of teenagers squealed as they galloped off in mock terror.

      I think that whenever something like that happened—and it frequently did—it hurt like a punch in the gut, shattering the illusion I wanted to believe; that I might fit in with the others.

      Caught up in the moment and wanting to be accepted in the new game, I chased them like a lion cub after blue wildebeest. I pursued my quarry in a gangly canter, feeling the afternoon breeze warm my face.

      Winded, I finally cornered them about a hundred yards down river. They huddled under a Palo Verde tree on a bed of its fallen yellow flowers. It’s been so long, I cannot remember most of their names.

      A skinny boy with patched overalls and buck teeth stepped forward and pointed. “Look! It’s Ichabod Crane.”

      Then the girl—she had freckles and pigtails—jumped out from behind one of the boys and barked, “How’s the weather up there, Jake?”

      Everyone laughed.

      Emboldened, a chubby blond boy, a head shorter than everyone else, put his hands on his head. His outstretched fingers formed his unworldly idea of a jungle animal’s ears. Then he swaggered in front of the pack. “Is it a boy? Is it a girl? No! It’s a giraffe.”

      Soon the others picked up the chant. “Giraffe . . . giraffe . . . giraffe!” they bellowed.

      Frozen, unable to flee or fight as any animal would, I just stood there. Eisenbeis—I do remember his name—stepped out from behind the others and sized up the frenzy.

      He was a sixteen-year-old bully and the biggest boy in the neighborhood besides me. I’d seen him beat a boy so bad it left him unconscious. Eisenbeis was the type I tried to steer clear of. He ran around wild because his father was a drunk and his mother left him when he was little. So when he approached me as if to help, I didn’t know what to make of it. But at that moment my hope for an ally made me too trusting. Against my better judgment, I hesitated.

      When he got close enough, I saw a blank stare in his gray eyes, as if he was glaring at someone else. Isn’t it funny that I can still remember the color of that bastard’s eyes? When I realized what was happening, it was too late. Eisenbeis socked me in my groin. Then he shoved me. I was reeling from the pain and wanting to vomit. I had no idea that Tito, his henchman, was crouched on hands and knees behind me to ensure I would fall backward.

      I tumbled, taking the brunt of that hard fall on my left hip. I crashed into the ground with a seismic thud. For the next six weeks I would carry a jagged purple, black, blue, and at times grotesque green bruise, the size of a small meteorite, on my hip; a memento of lost innocence—a tattooed reminder of just how malicious some kids can be.

      I looked up from where I’d fallen to mean stares and crooked adolescent fingers that all pointed at me.

      Don’t get the wrong idea; not all the kids in my school

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