No, it’s not about what you think. But it is, sort of.
Their name was Diamond. Sort of ironic, you probably don’t believe it was their name, but there you have it. Would I lie to you? It’s true. Making it sort of his destiny, his fate to be selling those things and…where that led to. But as Jews, we’re not supposed to believe in that sort of thing, are we? It’s Eastern mumbo jumbo of some sort. But do all Jews have to believe the same thing? Obviously not. I don’t believe 99% of that crap. But Diamond, so, yes, it is sort of what you were thinking….
We heard about it from the neighbors who heard about it from their neighbors. That’s how it went on our street…everybody talked about everybody. He’d been assaulted in Jamaica, a stranger alone, known by only a few, on a buying trip, shot right in the head while carrying his loot in a black (apparently not inconspicuous enough) briefcase, the motive obvious, the thirst by poor peasants, self-made gangsters, for the almighty dollar. Them not thinking of the effect that might have on the man’s spouse, his three children, not knowing or even caring about the man as a man. It was just the rocks, the shiny gems in his beat-up black briefcase that they longed for, that they thought they needed.
I’d like to say I knew him well, but that would be untrue. He was just some kids’ dad. The one who shot off fireworks in the park behind our houses every Fourth, who brought all the fun to the neighborhood kids. We didn’t even know what he did for a living, we kids. What did we know or what did we care? (I was only fourteen years old then).
But, let’s get back to the kids. Seeing them in their little suits that day in front of their house, faces grim, somber. Not really knowing how to act—they were kids, younger than me.
But demons, too.
The one time I babysat for them was a nightmare. (I was subbing for my older brother, Roger, who was doing something—I don’t know what exactly—he wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, stayed in his room mostly with the music on, doing who knows what).
I want to say that theirs was a big house, filled with elaborate things, jeweled things, gold, that sort of thing. But the truth is that while Mr. Diamond was a jeweler, he was a small-time jeweler and lived in one of the small tract houses on our block which had been built in the sixties, after plowing down the trees that once stood there, just like the rest of us. Living there on Chestnut Street with, ironically, not a full grown tree in sight. Only the recently planted elms and maples, one to a front strip of lawn, planted by the village of Pomona, after the tract was opened. Living with families where the fathers were insurance salesmen (like my stepfather) used car salesman (like Mr. Katz across the street), gym teachers (like Mr. Brentburger) and office workers, and…who knew what else. (After all, we were just kids. What did we know about adult jobs and work? I had my paper route and babysitting, sure, but…real work?) Upper middle class they called them, the inhabitants of our neighborhood, back then.
On the Fourth, a short man with a bit of a belly and hairy hands, he would stand in the park behind our house with a crowd of kids surrounding him, all excited as he’d say, “Stand back, stand back kids!” then light one of his firework rockets that shot up in the air and, with a blast, unfurled into magical branches of color in the night sky, while the kids squealed and shouted, and said “Ooooh!” and “Wow, that was a good one!” One after another he’d shoot off those loud, color-creating rockets.
The night I watched the kids they were playing games, eating their snacks which I gave them as directed by Mr. and Mrs. Diamond in their instructions which included the emergency phone number written in big red letters: FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY! and then listed the number. So, they had a big night planned and what would really constitute an emergency? Something big, something very BIG, I assumed. Some terrible out of control thing that emerged in the night.
So, what happened that night with the boys did emerge, but maybe not to that level.
9:00—time for bed, as per the instructions. Little Timmy was rubbing his eyes, sucking his thumb, watching the TV—Star Trek I think it was, as I announced it was time for bed. There was Tim—about 3, Teddy—6 or so, and Eric—the nine-year-old and, as you might guess, the leader of the gang. His black straight hair fell over his eyes so you could barely see them, he was that cool, in tune with the “style” of the times. (But what times were those, maybe not the times of the seventies that I remember? That style came later, I think, eighties so I guess he was ahead of the times style-wise.) Yes, Eric, the head demon. All the kids in their pajamas, Eric’s with little red figures on them that were hard to make out, but looked like devils, actually did, but were vaguer so it was hard to tell.
I wore glasses back then, thick black-framed glasses that probably needed an update; it was hard to see the detail on things sometimes.
After I announced that it was bed time Eric whispered something in Teddy’s ear, and he came up to me, big smile on his face, and said, would you read us a story before bed? He sidled up next to me real close, then quickly, catching me totally unaware, snatched the glasses off my face. Then they were all laughing and dashing away with me sitting there on the couch, totally blind because, yes, that’s how I am without my glasses, in a cloud staring at fuzzy images, unable to survive in this world without those glass aids to exist in this world. In the days before their invention, I would have been an easy target, dead before my adulthood, a victim of my own biological, inherited defect. And I yelled, yes, I yelled a lot that night, saying things little children, even little devil children, should not hear uttered from the mouths of their babysitter.
But by the time their parents returned, late, and all the boys were in bed, and I had thankfully retrieved my glasses, I told them a lie: yes, they were perfect little angels because, after all, they were just kids having fun, not wanting to go to bed, their parents away, having a little fun with their (substitute) babysitter.
And that day, seeing the three of them, looking dazed, unnatural in their miniature suits, not knowing what to expect of the future, no longer having a father who (unlike me) was fun, lit firecrackers and sent rockets up in the night every Fourth of July while all the children in the neighborhood screamed with delight, I forgave those little demons, felt bad that I said those things to them that night for what? For something that was so slight in the universe of things, really that didn’t really matter at all, but did, at the time, for a fourteen-year-old who didn’t yet know himself, but now realized it all, saw it in the light of the greater universe of all things, his eyes opened, knowing that these young boys’ lives would never be the same again. And, for a moment, closing my eyes, hearing the whistles of the lit rockets as they ascended stealthily in the air, and seeing them explode into bright shiny pieces, scattering in the darkness until they faded, disappeared forever in the dark summer sky.
The Piker Press moderates all comments.
Click here for the commenting policy.