He prayed: Please, please get me out of this mess. Get me back home safely. I’ll do everything my parents ask, I’ll never fight with my brothers and sisters, I’ll study real hard, I’ll do anything You want, just please, please get me out of this mess.

Vey is mir, he was stupid!

At first, it seemed like such a right thing to do. Hersh…like he knew everything that was on his mind. He understood all of his doubts, all of his questions. He could talk to Hersh. Hersh listened to him. It was like Hersh had been there before and that made sense. Hersh had told him he came from the same type of family—all of them a bunch of hypocrites.

Not that his family was all bad, just…they just didn’t understand, didn’t listen! All they ever did was criticize, criticize, criticize. He’d given up on his parents a long time ago. But he expected more out of aunts and uncles. Aunt Miriam was nice but all she ever did was feed him. Aunt Faygie was a scatterbrain. Uncle Shimmy was never around, Uncle Jonathan had brushed him off like dirt.

Bubbe was okay but she was old. Zeyde? He was old, too.

But Hersh. He listened!

Noam knew it was too good to be true. Hersh had played him for the stupid kid he was. And now he was acting real weird, showing him those stupid knives all the time. When Noam mentioned that maybe he might go back home, Hersh had a fit, scared the wits out of him. Screaming, swearing—well Hersh always swore—but this time the words were directed at him.

And then he threatened to…it was too scary to think about it.

The thing about Hersh was, you never knew what to expect. One minute he’d be pretty cool, even nice. But then he’d turn on you like an untrained dog.

Noam knew he’d taken too long and he was frightened. The knives were starting to get to him. It was those knives. Hersh loved those knives. Even when nothing needed to be cut, he was playing with them—sharpening them, spinning them.

And then there were the fish. Hersh just loved to gut fish. Noam should have known something was wrong with him a long time ago. First time they went to his flat in Flatbush, Hersh gutted a fish. That was weird. But still, Hersh listened to him when he talked. That seemed so important.

He felt his heart beat in his chest as he walked up to the door. His head felt dizzy, his stomach about to chuck up the tref food he’d been eating. At first, it seemed so neat. You could eat anything you wanted and no one was here to make you feel guilty. Now it all seemed so silly, so stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.