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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Character Based
- Published: 06/03/2024
What Would Junie B. Jones Do?
Born 1945, M, from Boston/MA, United States"Mr. Jacobson, the old Jewish guy who lives on Bickford Street, sniffs little girls' bicycle seats," eight-year-old Benjamin Carter announced guilessly as though the topic made for polite dinner conversation.
The family had just sat down to the evening meal. Grace Carter poured some gravy on her mash potatoes, cleared her throat and asked, "Where exactly did you learn this?"
Benjamin sipped at his apple juice. "Mitzi Brookfield... she overheard her parents talking. They said Mr. Jacobson's got mental abba… abba… abba…"
"Aberrations," his mother offered.
"Yeah, that's it."
Lillian Carter was a quiet, undemonstrative woman, who favored gardening, crossword puzzles and feng shui. The previous year, she arranged Benjamin's bedroom to promote a harmonious flow of nourishing energies. The new setup was supposed to 'excite and calm' at the same time, a concept that neither Benjamin nor his father comprehended. To that end, Mrs. Carter removed the television and kept windows open until later October. Sometimes she even placed small dishes of essential oils – the young boy was partial to bergamot, citronella Java, clary sage and jasmine - on a shelf. She positioned the bed away from the doorway and replaced his bedside table with a twin black walnut set. When Mr. Carter inquired why the boy needed two tables, Mrs. Carter smiled and explained that it was a matter of balancing positive energies.
Mrs. Carter glanced across the table at her husband. The man, who had raised a forkful of meatloaf to his open mouth, lowered the food back to the plate without tasting it. "Speaking of mental aberrations," Mr. Carter said, "the Brookfield clan are a bunch of knuckle dragging nitwits who - "
"Phillip!" Mrs. Carter rose with such force that her chair went flying out from under her, slamming against the hickory hutch. The children eyed their mother uncertainly. The woman retrieved her chair, setting it in its proper place. Her husband smiled indulgently at the three youngsters, placed the meatloaf in his mouth and chewed with his head tilted at a sharp angle. "Very tasty. What spices did you use?"
"Seasoned bread crumbs," Mrs. Carter replied evenly. There would be no more discussion of the Brookfields or Mr. Jacobson's predilections for adolescent bicycle seats. "Basil and thyme."
He speared another portion of the succulent meat. "Yes, very nice."
* * * * *
Later that night after Benjamin brushed his teeth and crawled under the covers, his mother came to his room and said, "Regarding our neighbor, Mr. Jacobson, you shouldn’t believe much of anything that gossipmonger Mitzi Brookfield says.”
Jeremiah Jacobson had lived on Bickford Street forever - long before the Carters bought their split-level ranch house. The Jewish man resided there with his wife and two kids. Over the years, the children grew up and moved away. In late November, three days before Thanksgiving, Mrs. Jacobson, a short woman with sclerotic legs, suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. Since then, old man Jacobson had gone a bit queer in the head. He let his hair, what little there was, creep helter-skelter down over his prominent ears. And then there was the scraggily salt-and-pepper beard which enveloped his sallow cheeks. Whether he grew the beard in mourning or as social protest, the patchy growth made the elderly man look utterly derelict, down-on-his-luck.
Since Mrs. Jacobson’s passing, Lillian felt a strong neighborly sentiment towards the widower. When the temperature topped out in the low nineties, she sent Benjamin's older brother over to trim the old man's lawn. A couple of times when the ShopRite Supermarket featured two-for-one coupon days, she even picked up extra groceries for the older man and had Benjamin lug them over to the dilapidated house with the weed-strewn lawn.
"Regarding Mr. Jacobson," Mrs. Carter began again, "he wasn’t always so odd. The man designed custom bracelets, rings and pendants for thirty-three years. Balfour Jewelry gave him a retirement party when he left work, and there was even an article in the newspaper." Mrs. Carter eased down on the edge of the bed. "The year the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, Mr. Jacobson helped design the fancy team rings."
Rising, Mrs. Carter wandered over to the bookcase. Teasing a tattered paperback from the shelf, she returned to the bed. "What's this?" She laid the book on the bed sheet next to his chest.
"Junie B Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake."
"What's with the B?"
Benjamin wrinkled his nose. "The B stands for Beatrice. Except Junie don't like Beatrice; she just likes B and that's all!"
Mrs. Carter ran her fingertips over the mangled cover. "How come the book is such a mess?"
Benjamin wiggled his smallish rump settling it comfortably on the mattress. "Probably because I read it a million, quadrillion times, that's why."
Mrs. Carter shut the light. Then she kissed his cheek as she did every single night since as far back as Benjamin Carter could recollect. The pretty woman with the pale blue eyes stood over him swaying gently in the dark. Benjamin couldn't make out her features. "Maybe, at this stage in his life, Mr. Jacobson feels a bit like your favorite book. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
The crickets were chirping in the back yard. A neighbor had trimmed his lawn in the late afternoon and the cloying scent of fresh-mown grass drifted through the open window. "No, not really."
Benjamin felt his mother's hand caress his cheek. "Well, perhaps someday you will." "The Brookfields,” she mumbled distractedly almost as an afterthought, “have a penchant for stirring up trouble."
"What's a penchant?"
"It doesn't matter," his mother replied rather abruptly, "just so long as you know that Mitzi Brookfield is a first-class troublemaker and don't feed into her nonsense." Benjamin fluffed the pillow and lay back down. She kissed his smallish hand, pressed it to her warm cheek and went away.
* * * * *
"I spoke to Ben about Mr. Jacobson." Lillian Carter stood just outside the bathroom door where her husband was hunched over the sink, raking a toothbrush across his gums.
"And how did that go?"
"Pretty good." The woman pawed at the oak floorboards with the toe of her slipper. "The kid's in second grade. What’s he know about malicious slander?"
Mr. Carter put the toothbrush away and reached for the unwaxed dental floss. "Jacobson’s wife died… his kids moved away. He's eighty years old for Christ's sakes!" He wrapped a length of floss around his left index finger, pulled the strand taut then wriggled it down between a rear molar. "I ran into Jake Brookfield in the Dairy Mart the other night, buying a slew of lottery scratch tickets. He also had a three-pack of those glossy, soft-porn magazines they stow away behind the counter."
"You don't say!" Mrs. Carter chuckled and shook her head.
"The mags were lying there on the counter wrapped in thick plastic. Salacious Sluts & Blatantly Busty Bimbos... that was the title of the topmost magazine.
"Salacious Sluts," she repeated, leaning hard, for theatrical effect, on the first consonant of each word. "And the jerk wasn't the least bit embarrassed?" Her husband flashed a sick smile and wagged his head from side to side. Lillian shut the lid on the toilet and sat down. "Back in October… do you remember that ugliness with the little Hispanic girl in Benjamin’s class?"
Mitzi Brookfield started a rumor that the classmate was an illegal alien. The Mexican family dogpaddled across the Rio Grande and picked their way to Brandenburg, Massachusetts where they were presently living under false pretenses. Around midday, Lucinda Rodriguez, the scandalized third grader, went home crying. The next morning, Benjamin spotted the dark-skinned girl, clutching her father's hand, heading in the direction of the principal's office. Later that same day, The Brookfields were called into school to meet with the superintendent. After the unfortunate incident, there was no more mention of undocumented aliens or Spanish-sounding rivers that bordered the southern United States.
* * * * *
The following Saturday afternoon, Officer Murphy drove down the street and waved to Benjamin out the window of the police cruiser. Officer Murphy was a tall man with a prominent, beaky nose. Sometimes he pulled over and chatted with the neighbors, but most days he just drove to the end of the cul-de-sac, turned around and headed back to the main street at a crawl. Earlier in the week he pulled the car over at the mouth of Bickford Street and got out his radar gun. "Whatcha doing?" Benjamin asked.
"Looking for people in a hurry to go nowhere fast." The officer winked and aimed his gun down the street in the direction of oncoming traffic. He seldom stayed longer than an hour or so. Then he packed up his hi-tech gadgetry and drove away. Today though, ten minutes passed and Officer Murphy's cruiser never reappeared. Benjamin pedaled his dirt bike to the bend in the road where a small crowd had gathered. The cruiser was parked in front of Mr. Jacobson's bungalow, and the Jewish man was sitting in the back of the police cruiser. Normally easygoing and unperturbed, Officer Murphy wore a sullen expression as he climbed into the car, barked something into the two-way radio and drove slowly away.
"What happened?" Benjamin asked.
"They arrested the old geezer," a teenage boy replied.
"What for?"
The youth shrugged. "Who the hell knows?"
Benjamin hurried home and told his mother what had happened. She was outside hanging laundry on the clothesline. Mrs. Carter fixed a clothespin on the tail of a pleated blouse. "Do you need to pee?" Benjamin shook his head. She threw a handful of wet clothing back in the wicker laundry basket and headed back in the direction of the rear deck. "Get your jacket. We're going for a little ride."
* * * * *
"I need to speak to the chief," Lillian Carter demanded. At the Brandenburg Police Station, Benjamin sat on a chair near a corkboard with a collection of black and white photos of grubby looking men and a handful of equally uncouth females, while his mother spoke to the officer manning the front desk. After a brief exchange, Mrs. Carter disappeared down a hallway into an adjoining room. Ten minutes later she returned and sat down on the chair next to him. Benjamin looked at his mother. She was studying the collection of mug shots stapled to the corkboard. Another few minutes passed in silence. "What are we doing?"
"Waiting," Mrs. Carter replied.
“For what?"
"For Mr. Jacobson to collect his belongings and join us here in the lobby." Another five minutes passed. Benjamin had lost all interest in the unflattering photos. There were too many and, after a while, they all looked the same. Not that the felons looked alike. There were Hispanics, Negroes, a couple of Asians and a still larger collection of white faces - an army of lost souls. Lost and clueless.
Finally, the older man with the unkempt beard appeared in the hallway and came out to join them. "Hey, I know you!" Mr. Jacobson ran his bony fingers through Benjamin's hair and flashed a good-natured smile.
“I’ll be just a minute.” Mrs. Carter disappeared a second time down the hallway.
"My mother says you made the championship rings when the Patriots won the Super bowl."
The man laughed making a dry, cackling sound. Benjamin had never heard anyone laugh like that, but it didn't bother him in the least. "I didn't actually make the rings; I designed them. Employees who worked in the jewelry plant poured the metal, fastened the precious stones and polished." "How do you like this?" The elderly man extended his right wrist to reveal a thick gold bracelet. "That's my own design. It was very popular - a big seller back in the nineteen eighties. Although, I suppose that was a little before your time." He removed the bracelet and draped it across his knee. "It's 10K, yellow gold Cuban Link."
"Cuban what?"
"Cuban link… that's the design style." He pointed toward the center of a strand. "I used a four-millimeter, rope pattern with a hand-crafted lobster clasp." Mr. Jacobson returned the bracelet to his emaciated wrist then held the metal up to the bright sunlight streaming into the lobby from an adjacent window. "Pretty snazzy, huh?"
"Sure is a swell bracelet,” Benjamin confirmed.
"You and twelve thousand fifty-three people share the same sentiments."
"What's that?" Benjamin was pointing at the man's hairy chest.
Mr. Jacobson reached up with a gaunt hand and fingered a gold chain. Several alternating circular links were coupled with a longer oval section to produce a very masculine braid. "Now this charming bit of artisanship is a Figarucci. The design combines elements of both the Figaro and mariner-style."
"No, not the chain," Benjamin brought the elderly man up short. "The star."
He tapped a six-pointed Star of David. "I'm Jewish. It's the symbol of our faith."
"I know. My mother told me."
"Religions… they're all the same," Mr. Jacobson rambled on in his easygoing, distractible manner. “As long as the believer’s heart is true, one faith’s as good as another. But you don't have to be a Jewish scholar steeped in esoterica to appreciate the basic sentiment."
Benjamin had no idea what his neighbor was talking about but it was pleasant listening. Mr. Jacobson's singsong voice seemed to build with subdued intensity and conviction. No matter that the boy understood nothing his neighbor was telling him. The older man had taken him into his confidence; now a pact, a sympathetic communion existed.
"Do you know," the man reached out and tapped the boy forcefully on the kneecap, "in the Talmud it’s written that every blade of grass has an angel that hovers over it and whispers 'Grow!' 'Grow!'"
"Grass angels?" Benjamin repeated.
The old man nodded soberly. Well that was something Benjamin could appreciate. As scatterbrained as she was, Junie B. Jones would also have cherished the notion of tiny, winged sprites flitting about the suburban countryside assisting with lawn care.
Mr. Jacobson, who seemed a bit bleary-eyed, pulled out a grubby handkerchief and blew his nose rather loudly. "Growing grass… it's an incremental, cumulative process. No need to rush the miraculous."
Mrs. Carter, who had wandered off to speak with an officer at the front desk finally returned. "Let's get out of here." Lillian muttered. Benjamin took one last look at the cork board. Was the Brandenburg Police Department planning to put Mr. Jacobson's picture up on the wall of shame?
* * * * *
On the ride home the boy sat in the back. "You could sue the Brookfields for libel," Mrs. Carter spoke without taking her eyes off the road. "Character assassination."
"At my age?" Mr. Jacobson laughed making a dry cackling sound. He didn't seem angry in the least. "That Officer Murphy's a nice guy. I don't think he realized…" The old man didn't bother finishing the sentence.
"Yes," Mrs. Carter agreed, "he just got caught in the middle." Benjamin was still trying to figure out what exactly Officer Murphy didn’t realize and why, as they were leaving the police station, he came out in the parking lot and apologized to the older man.
“Mitzi’s mother was the chief instigator.”
“Did Officer Murphy tell you that?”
“In a roundabout manner, yes.”
After dropping Mr. Jacobson off, Mrs. Carter swiveled in her seat to face her son. "How’re you doing?"
"Good," Benjamin replied.
Their neighbor, who worked at Balfour Jewelry for thirty-three years, was arrested but then, just as quickly, released and sent home. Officer Murphy and Mr. Jacobson were back on friendly terms. Everything was returning to normal.
Mrs. Carter pulled the car over to the side of the road and slid the shift in park. She sat staring at the dashboard for several minutes. When another car pulled up behind her, the woman promptly rolled the window down and waved the driver past. From where he sat in the backseat, Benjamin could see the right side of his mother's face. Walled up in some private reverie, the hazel eye never blinked. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Your lips were moving,” his mother pressed.
“I just remembered something Mr. Jacobson said.”
“And what was that?”
Benjamin felt his eyes compress to tiny slits. “Each blade of grass,” he recited with a rhythmic cadence, “has an angel that hovers over it and whispers 'Grow!' 'Grow!'"
Somewhere in the distance a lawnmower fired up. “What Mr. Jacobson told you… say it again.” Benjamin repeated the Talmudic saying.
Several minutes passed. The lawnmower sputtered and the engine noise was replaced by the trilling of songbirds and crickets. "Mitzi got Mr. Jacobson in trouble." His mother spoke so softly, he could barely make out the words. "For no good reason… from shear spitefulness."
"Yes, I figured as much." Benjamin felt a wave of despair settling in his gut. He could picture the girl grinning with orgasmic glee when she learned of Mr. Jacobson's arrest. Normal people didn't revel in other people's misery. But Mitzi Brookfield, who was heavyset with orangey hair and grotesquely large freckles resembling liver spots, was an eight year old anomaly - a sadistic monstrosity through and through. "What now?"
"I'm wondering,” Mrs. Carter ran a tongue over her lips, “what Junie B. Jones might do in a similar situation."
"Junie's just a stupid kid," Benjamin shot back. "She can just barely tie her shoe laces much less solve the world's problems."
"A grownup Junie B. Jones," Mrs. Carter amended her previous remark. "How would she handle a preadolescent psychopath?"
Benjamin didn't like where this was going. The trip to the police station was bad enough, but falling back on a fictional character from a children's book as a role model didn't seem like such a great idea. "Junie does lots of dumb things."
"Yeah," his mother replied, "but they always turn out right in the end."
"I suppose so," Benjamin mumbled half-heartedly.
Mrs. Carter put the car back in gear. "There’s one last bit of unfinished business." She drove to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned the car around. Three streets down, she pulled over in front of a blue house with white shutters. "This won't take long."
Wowie wow wow! That's a hoot, I tell you. Wait till you hear this! Junie B Jones had a dozen and one nifty catchphrases, but none could adequately describe what Benjamin's mother did over at the Brookfields.
Mrs. Carter rang the doorbell. Mitzi's mother, a short dumpy woman with a mottled complexion similar to her daughter’s, cracked the door. She refused to let Benjamin's mother in, but listened with a constipated expression, her eyes compressed to tiny slits and lips pinched so tight that the crow's feet on the side of her head stood out in bold relief. When Mrs. Carter finished speaking her mind, Mrs. Brookfield shouted, "Get the hell off my property!" But Mrs. Carter didn't budge. Mitzi's mother hollered all the louder, but the squat woman didn't seem to be making a whole lot of sense that Benjamin could wrap his nine-year-old brain around. Mrs. Brookfield was vindictive just like the daughter. Or was it the other way around?
The dumpy woman made a motion to slam the door shut, but Mrs. Carter, with a firm grasp on the doorknob, positioned her right leg against the molding and, using the foot for leverage, muscled the door open. Mrs. Brookfield collapsed in a heap, sprawling backwards on the living room rug. Stepping over the threshold into the home, the uninvited guest shut the door behind her. "Aw crap!" Benjamin muttered.
Five minutes passed. Things got very quiet. The front door opened and Lillian Carter emerged. Before his mother reached the car, Benjamin could hear Mrs. Brookfield let loose with an endless barrage of profanities, and then a second, childish voice began sobbing inconsolably, begging for mercy.
The bedlam at the Brookfield residence continued unabated as Mrs. Carter turned the ignition key and put the car in gear. At the end of the street, the woman pulled up at a stop sign and looked both ways.
"Wowie wow wow! That's a hoot!"
What Would Junie B. Jones Do?(Barry)
"Mr. Jacobson, the old Jewish guy who lives on Bickford Street, sniffs little girls' bicycle seats," eight-year-old Benjamin Carter announced guilessly as though the topic made for polite dinner conversation.
The family had just sat down to the evening meal. Grace Carter poured some gravy on her mash potatoes, cleared her throat and asked, "Where exactly did you learn this?"
Benjamin sipped at his apple juice. "Mitzi Brookfield... she overheard her parents talking. They said Mr. Jacobson's got mental abba… abba… abba…"
"Aberrations," his mother offered.
"Yeah, that's it."
Lillian Carter was a quiet, undemonstrative woman, who favored gardening, crossword puzzles and feng shui. The previous year, she arranged Benjamin's bedroom to promote a harmonious flow of nourishing energies. The new setup was supposed to 'excite and calm' at the same time, a concept that neither Benjamin nor his father comprehended. To that end, Mrs. Carter removed the television and kept windows open until later October. Sometimes she even placed small dishes of essential oils – the young boy was partial to bergamot, citronella Java, clary sage and jasmine - on a shelf. She positioned the bed away from the doorway and replaced his bedside table with a twin black walnut set. When Mr. Carter inquired why the boy needed two tables, Mrs. Carter smiled and explained that it was a matter of balancing positive energies.
Mrs. Carter glanced across the table at her husband. The man, who had raised a forkful of meatloaf to his open mouth, lowered the food back to the plate without tasting it. "Speaking of mental aberrations," Mr. Carter said, "the Brookfield clan are a bunch of knuckle dragging nitwits who - "
"Phillip!" Mrs. Carter rose with such force that her chair went flying out from under her, slamming against the hickory hutch. The children eyed their mother uncertainly. The woman retrieved her chair, setting it in its proper place. Her husband smiled indulgently at the three youngsters, placed the meatloaf in his mouth and chewed with his head tilted at a sharp angle. "Very tasty. What spices did you use?"
"Seasoned bread crumbs," Mrs. Carter replied evenly. There would be no more discussion of the Brookfields or Mr. Jacobson's predilections for adolescent bicycle seats. "Basil and thyme."
He speared another portion of the succulent meat. "Yes, very nice."
* * * * *
Later that night after Benjamin brushed his teeth and crawled under the covers, his mother came to his room and said, "Regarding our neighbor, Mr. Jacobson, you shouldn’t believe much of anything that gossipmonger Mitzi Brookfield says.”
Jeremiah Jacobson had lived on Bickford Street forever - long before the Carters bought their split-level ranch house. The Jewish man resided there with his wife and two kids. Over the years, the children grew up and moved away. In late November, three days before Thanksgiving, Mrs. Jacobson, a short woman with sclerotic legs, suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. Since then, old man Jacobson had gone a bit queer in the head. He let his hair, what little there was, creep helter-skelter down over his prominent ears. And then there was the scraggily salt-and-pepper beard which enveloped his sallow cheeks. Whether he grew the beard in mourning or as social protest, the patchy growth made the elderly man look utterly derelict, down-on-his-luck.
Since Mrs. Jacobson’s passing, Lillian felt a strong neighborly sentiment towards the widower. When the temperature topped out in the low nineties, she sent Benjamin's older brother over to trim the old man's lawn. A couple of times when the ShopRite Supermarket featured two-for-one coupon days, she even picked up extra groceries for the older man and had Benjamin lug them over to the dilapidated house with the weed-strewn lawn.
"Regarding Mr. Jacobson," Mrs. Carter began again, "he wasn’t always so odd. The man designed custom bracelets, rings and pendants for thirty-three years. Balfour Jewelry gave him a retirement party when he left work, and there was even an article in the newspaper." Mrs. Carter eased down on the edge of the bed. "The year the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, Mr. Jacobson helped design the fancy team rings."
Rising, Mrs. Carter wandered over to the bookcase. Teasing a tattered paperback from the shelf, she returned to the bed. "What's this?" She laid the book on the bed sheet next to his chest.
"Junie B Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake."
"What's with the B?"
Benjamin wrinkled his nose. "The B stands for Beatrice. Except Junie don't like Beatrice; she just likes B and that's all!"
Mrs. Carter ran her fingertips over the mangled cover. "How come the book is such a mess?"
Benjamin wiggled his smallish rump settling it comfortably on the mattress. "Probably because I read it a million, quadrillion times, that's why."
Mrs. Carter shut the light. Then she kissed his cheek as she did every single night since as far back as Benjamin Carter could recollect. The pretty woman with the pale blue eyes stood over him swaying gently in the dark. Benjamin couldn't make out her features. "Maybe, at this stage in his life, Mr. Jacobson feels a bit like your favorite book. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
The crickets were chirping in the back yard. A neighbor had trimmed his lawn in the late afternoon and the cloying scent of fresh-mown grass drifted through the open window. "No, not really."
Benjamin felt his mother's hand caress his cheek. "Well, perhaps someday you will." "The Brookfields,” she mumbled distractedly almost as an afterthought, “have a penchant for stirring up trouble."
"What's a penchant?"
"It doesn't matter," his mother replied rather abruptly, "just so long as you know that Mitzi Brookfield is a first-class troublemaker and don't feed into her nonsense." Benjamin fluffed the pillow and lay back down. She kissed his smallish hand, pressed it to her warm cheek and went away.
* * * * *
"I spoke to Ben about Mr. Jacobson." Lillian Carter stood just outside the bathroom door where her husband was hunched over the sink, raking a toothbrush across his gums.
"And how did that go?"
"Pretty good." The woman pawed at the oak floorboards with the toe of her slipper. "The kid's in second grade. What’s he know about malicious slander?"
Mr. Carter put the toothbrush away and reached for the unwaxed dental floss. "Jacobson’s wife died… his kids moved away. He's eighty years old for Christ's sakes!" He wrapped a length of floss around his left index finger, pulled the strand taut then wriggled it down between a rear molar. "I ran into Jake Brookfield in the Dairy Mart the other night, buying a slew of lottery scratch tickets. He also had a three-pack of those glossy, soft-porn magazines they stow away behind the counter."
"You don't say!" Mrs. Carter chuckled and shook her head.
"The mags were lying there on the counter wrapped in thick plastic. Salacious Sluts & Blatantly Busty Bimbos... that was the title of the topmost magazine.
"Salacious Sluts," she repeated, leaning hard, for theatrical effect, on the first consonant of each word. "And the jerk wasn't the least bit embarrassed?" Her husband flashed a sick smile and wagged his head from side to side. Lillian shut the lid on the toilet and sat down. "Back in October… do you remember that ugliness with the little Hispanic girl in Benjamin’s class?"
Mitzi Brookfield started a rumor that the classmate was an illegal alien. The Mexican family dogpaddled across the Rio Grande and picked their way to Brandenburg, Massachusetts where they were presently living under false pretenses. Around midday, Lucinda Rodriguez, the scandalized third grader, went home crying. The next morning, Benjamin spotted the dark-skinned girl, clutching her father's hand, heading in the direction of the principal's office. Later that same day, The Brookfields were called into school to meet with the superintendent. After the unfortunate incident, there was no more mention of undocumented aliens or Spanish-sounding rivers that bordered the southern United States.
* * * * *
The following Saturday afternoon, Officer Murphy drove down the street and waved to Benjamin out the window of the police cruiser. Officer Murphy was a tall man with a prominent, beaky nose. Sometimes he pulled over and chatted with the neighbors, but most days he just drove to the end of the cul-de-sac, turned around and headed back to the main street at a crawl. Earlier in the week he pulled the car over at the mouth of Bickford Street and got out his radar gun. "Whatcha doing?" Benjamin asked.
"Looking for people in a hurry to go nowhere fast." The officer winked and aimed his gun down the street in the direction of oncoming traffic. He seldom stayed longer than an hour or so. Then he packed up his hi-tech gadgetry and drove away. Today though, ten minutes passed and Officer Murphy's cruiser never reappeared. Benjamin pedaled his dirt bike to the bend in the road where a small crowd had gathered. The cruiser was parked in front of Mr. Jacobson's bungalow, and the Jewish man was sitting in the back of the police cruiser. Normally easygoing and unperturbed, Officer Murphy wore a sullen expression as he climbed into the car, barked something into the two-way radio and drove slowly away.
"What happened?" Benjamin asked.
"They arrested the old geezer," a teenage boy replied.
"What for?"
The youth shrugged. "Who the hell knows?"
Benjamin hurried home and told his mother what had happened. She was outside hanging laundry on the clothesline. Mrs. Carter fixed a clothespin on the tail of a pleated blouse. "Do you need to pee?" Benjamin shook his head. She threw a handful of wet clothing back in the wicker laundry basket and headed back in the direction of the rear deck. "Get your jacket. We're going for a little ride."
* * * * *
"I need to speak to the chief," Lillian Carter demanded. At the Brandenburg Police Station, Benjamin sat on a chair near a corkboard with a collection of black and white photos of grubby looking men and a handful of equally uncouth females, while his mother spoke to the officer manning the front desk. After a brief exchange, Mrs. Carter disappeared down a hallway into an adjoining room. Ten minutes later she returned and sat down on the chair next to him. Benjamin looked at his mother. She was studying the collection of mug shots stapled to the corkboard. Another few minutes passed in silence. "What are we doing?"
"Waiting," Mrs. Carter replied.
“For what?"
"For Mr. Jacobson to collect his belongings and join us here in the lobby." Another five minutes passed. Benjamin had lost all interest in the unflattering photos. There were too many and, after a while, they all looked the same. Not that the felons looked alike. There were Hispanics, Negroes, a couple of Asians and a still larger collection of white faces - an army of lost souls. Lost and clueless.
Finally, the older man with the unkempt beard appeared in the hallway and came out to join them. "Hey, I know you!" Mr. Jacobson ran his bony fingers through Benjamin's hair and flashed a good-natured smile.
“I’ll be just a minute.” Mrs. Carter disappeared a second time down the hallway.
"My mother says you made the championship rings when the Patriots won the Super bowl."
The man laughed making a dry, cackling sound. Benjamin had never heard anyone laugh like that, but it didn't bother him in the least. "I didn't actually make the rings; I designed them. Employees who worked in the jewelry plant poured the metal, fastened the precious stones and polished." "How do you like this?" The elderly man extended his right wrist to reveal a thick gold bracelet. "That's my own design. It was very popular - a big seller back in the nineteen eighties. Although, I suppose that was a little before your time." He removed the bracelet and draped it across his knee. "It's 10K, yellow gold Cuban Link."
"Cuban what?"
"Cuban link… that's the design style." He pointed toward the center of a strand. "I used a four-millimeter, rope pattern with a hand-crafted lobster clasp." Mr. Jacobson returned the bracelet to his emaciated wrist then held the metal up to the bright sunlight streaming into the lobby from an adjacent window. "Pretty snazzy, huh?"
"Sure is a swell bracelet,” Benjamin confirmed.
"You and twelve thousand fifty-three people share the same sentiments."
"What's that?" Benjamin was pointing at the man's hairy chest.
Mr. Jacobson reached up with a gaunt hand and fingered a gold chain. Several alternating circular links were coupled with a longer oval section to produce a very masculine braid. "Now this charming bit of artisanship is a Figarucci. The design combines elements of both the Figaro and mariner-style."
"No, not the chain," Benjamin brought the elderly man up short. "The star."
He tapped a six-pointed Star of David. "I'm Jewish. It's the symbol of our faith."
"I know. My mother told me."
"Religions… they're all the same," Mr. Jacobson rambled on in his easygoing, distractible manner. “As long as the believer’s heart is true, one faith’s as good as another. But you don't have to be a Jewish scholar steeped in esoterica to appreciate the basic sentiment."
Benjamin had no idea what his neighbor was talking about but it was pleasant listening. Mr. Jacobson's singsong voice seemed to build with subdued intensity and conviction. No matter that the boy understood nothing his neighbor was telling him. The older man had taken him into his confidence; now a pact, a sympathetic communion existed.
"Do you know," the man reached out and tapped the boy forcefully on the kneecap, "in the Talmud it’s written that every blade of grass has an angel that hovers over it and whispers 'Grow!' 'Grow!'"
"Grass angels?" Benjamin repeated.
The old man nodded soberly. Well that was something Benjamin could appreciate. As scatterbrained as she was, Junie B. Jones would also have cherished the notion of tiny, winged sprites flitting about the suburban countryside assisting with lawn care.
Mr. Jacobson, who seemed a bit bleary-eyed, pulled out a grubby handkerchief and blew his nose rather loudly. "Growing grass… it's an incremental, cumulative process. No need to rush the miraculous."
Mrs. Carter, who had wandered off to speak with an officer at the front desk finally returned. "Let's get out of here." Lillian muttered. Benjamin took one last look at the cork board. Was the Brandenburg Police Department planning to put Mr. Jacobson's picture up on the wall of shame?
* * * * *
On the ride home the boy sat in the back. "You could sue the Brookfields for libel," Mrs. Carter spoke without taking her eyes off the road. "Character assassination."
"At my age?" Mr. Jacobson laughed making a dry cackling sound. He didn't seem angry in the least. "That Officer Murphy's a nice guy. I don't think he realized…" The old man didn't bother finishing the sentence.
"Yes," Mrs. Carter agreed, "he just got caught in the middle." Benjamin was still trying to figure out what exactly Officer Murphy didn’t realize and why, as they were leaving the police station, he came out in the parking lot and apologized to the older man.
“Mitzi’s mother was the chief instigator.”
“Did Officer Murphy tell you that?”
“In a roundabout manner, yes.”
After dropping Mr. Jacobson off, Mrs. Carter swiveled in her seat to face her son. "How’re you doing?"
"Good," Benjamin replied.
Their neighbor, who worked at Balfour Jewelry for thirty-three years, was arrested but then, just as quickly, released and sent home. Officer Murphy and Mr. Jacobson were back on friendly terms. Everything was returning to normal.
Mrs. Carter pulled the car over to the side of the road and slid the shift in park. She sat staring at the dashboard for several minutes. When another car pulled up behind her, the woman promptly rolled the window down and waved the driver past. From where he sat in the backseat, Benjamin could see the right side of his mother's face. Walled up in some private reverie, the hazel eye never blinked. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Your lips were moving,” his mother pressed.
“I just remembered something Mr. Jacobson said.”
“And what was that?”
Benjamin felt his eyes compress to tiny slits. “Each blade of grass,” he recited with a rhythmic cadence, “has an angel that hovers over it and whispers 'Grow!' 'Grow!'"
Somewhere in the distance a lawnmower fired up. “What Mr. Jacobson told you… say it again.” Benjamin repeated the Talmudic saying.
Several minutes passed. The lawnmower sputtered and the engine noise was replaced by the trilling of songbirds and crickets. "Mitzi got Mr. Jacobson in trouble." His mother spoke so softly, he could barely make out the words. "For no good reason… from shear spitefulness."
"Yes, I figured as much." Benjamin felt a wave of despair settling in his gut. He could picture the girl grinning with orgasmic glee when she learned of Mr. Jacobson's arrest. Normal people didn't revel in other people's misery. But Mitzi Brookfield, who was heavyset with orangey hair and grotesquely large freckles resembling liver spots, was an eight year old anomaly - a sadistic monstrosity through and through. "What now?"
"I'm wondering,” Mrs. Carter ran a tongue over her lips, “what Junie B. Jones might do in a similar situation."
"Junie's just a stupid kid," Benjamin shot back. "She can just barely tie her shoe laces much less solve the world's problems."
"A grownup Junie B. Jones," Mrs. Carter amended her previous remark. "How would she handle a preadolescent psychopath?"
Benjamin didn't like where this was going. The trip to the police station was bad enough, but falling back on a fictional character from a children's book as a role model didn't seem like such a great idea. "Junie does lots of dumb things."
"Yeah," his mother replied, "but they always turn out right in the end."
"I suppose so," Benjamin mumbled half-heartedly.
Mrs. Carter put the car back in gear. "There’s one last bit of unfinished business." She drove to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned the car around. Three streets down, she pulled over in front of a blue house with white shutters. "This won't take long."
Wowie wow wow! That's a hoot, I tell you. Wait till you hear this! Junie B Jones had a dozen and one nifty catchphrases, but none could adequately describe what Benjamin's mother did over at the Brookfields.
Mrs. Carter rang the doorbell. Mitzi's mother, a short dumpy woman with a mottled complexion similar to her daughter’s, cracked the door. She refused to let Benjamin's mother in, but listened with a constipated expression, her eyes compressed to tiny slits and lips pinched so tight that the crow's feet on the side of her head stood out in bold relief. When Mrs. Carter finished speaking her mind, Mrs. Brookfield shouted, "Get the hell off my property!" But Mrs. Carter didn't budge. Mitzi's mother hollered all the louder, but the squat woman didn't seem to be making a whole lot of sense that Benjamin could wrap his nine-year-old brain around. Mrs. Brookfield was vindictive just like the daughter. Or was it the other way around?
The dumpy woman made a motion to slam the door shut, but Mrs. Carter, with a firm grasp on the doorknob, positioned her right leg against the molding and, using the foot for leverage, muscled the door open. Mrs. Brookfield collapsed in a heap, sprawling backwards on the living room rug. Stepping over the threshold into the home, the uninvited guest shut the door behind her. "Aw crap!" Benjamin muttered.
Five minutes passed. Things got very quiet. The front door opened and Lillian Carter emerged. Before his mother reached the car, Benjamin could hear Mrs. Brookfield let loose with an endless barrage of profanities, and then a second, childish voice began sobbing inconsolably, begging for mercy.
The bedlam at the Brookfield residence continued unabated as Mrs. Carter turned the ignition key and put the car in gear. At the end of the street, the woman pulled up at a stop sign and looked both ways.
"Wowie wow wow! That's a hoot!"
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Kevin Hughes
08/15/2024Congrats on a well deserved StoryStar of the Day,
and I agreee with the other comments on this thread!
Smiles, Kevin
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Barry
08/15/2024Thanks, Kevin.
Benjamin and his mother possess common decency. Mrs. Carter will do the right thing even if that includes a bit of feminine fisticuffs. Political correctness is of no use here. Curbstone justice and retributive justice (i.e. a good kick in the shins) is more sensible.
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Cheryl Ryan
08/15/2024The beauty of this story is the simplicity of the language and plot. The imagery of the characters sticks and I could relate to them in real life.
Thank you for sharing!
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Barry
08/15/2024This story was written a few years ago when I was in the habit of reading all the Juni B. Jones books to my two daughters, who have long since grown up. Benjamin's mother had strong convictions and understood what was needed to set the record straight. A major problem with contemporary society is that no one is ever held accountable for troublesome/atrocious behavior. We see that in politics as well as the general community.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Joel Kiula
08/15/2024I admire your great writing skills and your stories are always on top. Well done.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/15/2024Thank you. I spent a ridiculous amount of time writing and rewriting this short story and was trying to emulate the prose style of Anton Chekhov, the Russian minimalist who was my favorite author at the time. I find it is extremely important to write slowly and never rush to publish. Gustav Flaubert would write a single page and then spend the remainder of the week revising the handful of words he had put down on paper. Before Maupassant emerged on the scene Flaubert was considered the greatest French writer.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Denise Arnault
08/15/2024Fortunately there are more good people than bad in the world. I wish I knew what Lillian said while she was in the Brookfield house, but I guess we can't always get what we want. Excellent character building and description. You keep making me try harder to keep up!
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/15/2024Denise.
Having written the story, I actually do know what Lillian said but can't repeat it here because we're not allowed to publish such outrageous stuff.
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Help Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/15/2024Thank you Ben. I tried to imagine how a parent faced with unapologetic maliciousness might take control of the situation and set things right. Curbstone justice isn't a bad thing. It's a very reasonable alternative and excellent way to set the soulless Brookfields back on their heels.
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Help Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/15/2024Thanks Donald for taking the time to read through this lengthy bit of writing. My children grew up reading the Juni B. Jones series of children books.
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JD
08/14/2024Well I'm not quite sure about the ending, but otherwise I thought that was an interesting, entertaining, and thought provoking read with a good message. Happy short story star of the day, Barry.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Barry
08/15/2024I'm a strong believer in retributive justice and have known a number of Mitzi Brookfields over the years. Unfortunately, they hardly ever get their comeuppance, except perhaps in creative fiction.
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