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Part 7 of High Holy Days
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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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2020-11-05
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Direct Questions

Summary:

Alan challenges his assumptions.

Part 7 of the 7 part "High Holy Days" mini-series where the Eppes family tries to reconnect.

Work Text:

Direct Questions —

 
Alan set up the items needed for havdalah and thought about the conversation that he’d just had.  ‘No restrictions on Will’ Colby had said.  Charlie had looked surprised but pleased.  ‘What changed?’ Alan had asked.  Colby had shrugged and said, ‘Maybe nothing, maybe me.’

So the High Holy Days had already served one of their purposes, reconciling the boys.  Alan had felt ashamed that he wasn’t able to give up his own grudges that willingly.  He’d felt even more ashamed when Don had told him what Colby had said earlier, about how he, Will and Nena were now part of a family that believed in love, forgiveness and understanding.  

He sighed and looked over to Charlie, who was studying something on his laptop.

“Three stars showing yet?” Alan asked. 

“Yeah, just now,” Charlie responded, “That’s if we could see the sky through all this light pollution.”

“Okay, good.  Go find everyone, please.”  Alan studied the printout of the havdalah ritual again, making sure he had all the necessary components – grape juice, goblet, jar with spices, multi-wicked candle, plate and some matches.

Colby, Will, Don and Nena came in from the backyard and went to get cleaned up.  From their chatter, they’d been playing yet another version of Nena’s ever-changing Everythingball.  Will and Don were debating what kind of ball you could hit the farthest with a baseball bat and Colby was trying to convince Nena that four missed penalty kicks should equal a strike-out.  Alan smiled and waited for them to come to the table.

In a few minutes, his family was gathered around the table, cleaner and quieter.  Alan nodded at each of them and said, “This is havdalah which separates shabbat from the rest of the week.  It’s not too long.”

He checked that they were all paying attention and filled the colorful glass goblet to the brim with grape juice.  Striking a match, he lit the four-wicked candle.  Then he lifted the goblet carefully, his fingers around the bowl of the goblet, and read nine short bible verses about God and deliverance.  He tried to say the words mindfully, not just reciting them, willing them to sink into his bones, into his life.

He continued, “Okay, everyone repeat after me, ‘For the Jews there was light and joy, gladness and honor—so let it be with us. I will raise the cup of deliverance and invoke the Name of the Lord.’”

Everyone stumbled through the words after him, Nena finishing last.

Raising the cup higher, he said, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.”

With his other hand, he picked up the jar of spices – cinnamon sticks, orange rind, cloves.  “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates various kinds of spices.”

He handed the spice jar to Will, who was on his left.  “Smell it and pass it on.  It’s for fortifying the spirit for the week to come.”

Will took a sniff and passed it to Don and on around the circle.  Charlie sniffed it and sneezed and everyone tried not to laugh.

Alan took the spice jar back and set it on the table.  He looked at the candle and said, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the lights of fire.”

“Now everyone put your hands near—not too near—the candle so you can see the glow of it through your fingertips.”  It took a moment of shuffling and Nena climbing onto a chair before the bright candlelight lit up everyone’s fingers.

Alan took a moment to enjoy the sight before he spoke again:

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who makes a distinction between sacred and profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the Seventh Day and the six work days. Blessed are You, Lord, who makes a distinction between sacred and profane.

He took a sip of the grape juice, then passed the goblet carefully to Don and said, “Everyone take a sip of the juice.”

When the goblet was passed around, Alan took the candle from its holder and held it over the small plate.  He poured the last bit of the juice over the candlewicks, dousing the flame.  “Everyone put your fingertips in the juice,” he said, trying not to mind when the juice got splashed onto the white tablecloth.  “And say, ‘Have a good week!’”

“Have a good week!” they all chorused.

“Okay!”  Alan said, pleased.  “Now, we might have a little bit of food left for dinner.”

The others laughed and went to inspect the leftovers in the bulging refrigerator while Alan cleaned up the table.

 

Several nights after shabbat, the four boys were playing cards and Alan was sitting nearby, doing a crossword puzzle.  Nena was already tucked in bed.

A number of games and beers in, the boys started talking about their jobs.  Alan would have normally gotten up and gone elsewhere at this point, but he made himself sit there and listen.

To Alan’s surprise, they didn’t talk about gunfights or bad guys killed, rather their most memorable moments involved the rescuing of hostages, the completion of an air-tight case that got a bad guy put away for life, the cracking of uncrackable ciphers.   Okay, it didn’t surprise him that Charlie was focused on the puzzles he dealt with, but Don’s favorite cases were disasters he’d prevented and kidnap victims he’d saved.  Will counted his successes in drugs kept off the streets, stated in terms of user-doses.  Colby focused on times of great teamwork and intuition.

After a while, the conversation turned towards close calls and near-death experiences and, at that point, Alan got up and left.

He was thoughtful, however, as he climbed up the stairs to his bedroom.  Maybe he’d been making some assumptions – something Larry would chastise him for – and what he needed to do was ask direct questions.  To actually ask these four men why they would devote so much of their life to death and violence.

 

The next morning, Alan tackled the easiest first.  He found Charlie drinking coffee in the kitchen and asked, “Charlie, why did you decide to work for the NSA and those other guys?”

Charlie raised his eyebrows but responded, “They had the best problems, were doing the most amazing stuff.”

Alan nodded, unsurprised.  “And, of course, when Don had an interesting puzzle with that first case, you couldn’t pass it by.”

“Sure, I mean, working with Don is great, but … Look, Dad, I know you believe that I don’t think about what’s done with my work, but I do.  I see it as giving the Good Guys tools to fight the Bad Guys, ‘cause they’ve got smart guys, too.”  Charlie smirked.  “Okay, maybe not as smart, but still …  It’d be like forcing the cops to carry pea-shooters when the criminals have semi-automatics.”

An interesting argument, but … “You’re using gun analogies now?”

Charlie shrugged.  “That’s not as much an analogy as the sad truth some places.”

Alan could only nod to that and get a cup of coffee for himself. 

                                                                                                                        

It was the next day before Alan got a chance to ask Don.  He had some guesses what Don would say, but he was trying to challenge his assumptions.

“Don,” he said, catching Don in the driveway as he arrived for dinner.  “Why did you join the FBI?”

Don raised his eyebrows, looking a lot like his brother had the day before, and leaned against his car.  “Well, I’d always wanted to be a cop and—”

“Why?”

“’Cause, the cops were always the Good Guys, stopping the Bad Guys from blowing up the world or whatever.  And the cops seemed like, you know, regular, average guys and I thought I could do that.”

Alan nodded, although he wished Don would stop selling himself short.  “And the FBI?”

“I guess I wanted the bigger cases that the FBI gets and also didn’t want to be tied down to one specific place, like a cop would be.”

“You went so fast from baseball to the FBI.”  It had almost given him and Margaret whiplash, the sudden switch in their oldest son’s career.

“Yeah, I did,” Don shrugged.  “Guess it was always in the back of my mind, waiting for me to give up my fantasy of making the Bigs.”

 

His two sons tackled, Alan turned to the boyfriends.  He talked to Colby after they put Nena to bed that night.

Sitting down on the couch, Alan asked, “Colby, why did you join the Army?”

Colby answered promptly, like he’d expected the question.  “To pay my way for college when my wrestling scholarship ended.  That, and it’s sort of in my blood.  Generations of my family have been in the armed forces.  It seemed very natural.”

“And CID?”

“Got my degree in Criminal Justice, so it was a logical place for me to go.  And I had some really good friends who were also going into CID.  We made a great team.”

Colby’s jaw set.  “Look, Alan, I know that some parts of the Service have gotten bad reps because of torture incidents, but I want you to know that I never participated in anything like that.  My CO would have never stood for it, anyway.  There were rumors, yeah, of other places, that did bad sh—stuff and if I were a better man, I would have tracked the rumors down and told somebody, but I didn’t and I regret that.”

“My team, we used mostly psychological interrogation techniques.”  He gave Alan a wry grin.  “My most effective one was – still is – looking and sounding like a fat-headed dumbass.  People love to talk down to you if they think you’re too stupid to understand.”

Alan had to smile at that.  “So why did you leave CID?”

Colby shrugged uncomfortably.  “It wasn’t just a desk job.  There was a … friendly fire incident and we all got honorable discharges.  I joined the FBI because it was the best fit for my resume.”

 

It was the next evening before he could find a moment alone with Will.  Alan was doing the dishes when Will came in to get a drink from the fridge.

“Will,” Alan asked, “Why did you join the DEA?”

Will gave him a sharp look.  “Was wondering when you’d get around to me.”

Alan nodded in acknowledgement.

Will folded his arms, leaned against the counter and looked thoughtful.  “Well, when I was an EMT, I kept seeing the bad effects of drug use.  I wanted to do something about it, stop the dealers before it got to the users.  Also, I had … a set of skills that I thought would be good in undercover work.  They were hard-won skills and I thought it would make them … more palatable if I used them for good ends.”

“What skills?”

Will met his eyes squarely.  “The ability to become another person, become what someone expects to see instead of what I actually am.”

Alan blinked, barely able to imagine what sort of life would force a person to learn such skills.

“That,” Will smiled disarmingly, “And a black belt in Aikido.  It’s largely a defensive art, so I might as well get into something where people are always trying to kill me.”

Will’s smile brought out a responding smile from Alan.

“Do you ever regret it?” Alan asked.

“Oh sure, but the days I regret it are fewer than the ones I don’t.  When that changes, it’ll be time to find a new job.”

“You said ‘when,’ not ‘if.’  You think it will change?” Alan said curiously.

Will smiled softly and looked down at his hands, holding two beers.  “Since I met your son, a lot of things have changed.  One of them is my willingness to disappear from sight for weeks at a time.  Having someone to come home to makes a lot of difference.”

Alan nodded, remembering Don saying the same thing to him once.

Will looked back up and met his eyes.  “I wish I could tell you that there is no danger or violence in our lives, but I can’t.  All I can say is that we’re all trying our hardest to work ourselves out of a job.  Maybe someday there won’t be any need for the DEA anymore, but until then …”  He shrugged.

“Hey, Stevens!”  Don called from the other room.  “We outta beer or something?”

Will grinned, a now-familiar light coming into his dark eyes.  “Coming, dear!”

Alan waved him to go before Don got more impatient and Will shook his head with mock sadness and left the kitchen.

Turning back to the sink, Alan washed the dishes slowly and let his thoughts percolate.

 

For the rest of Yamim Noraim , for the rest of the week until Yom Kippur started on Friday night, Alan did a lot of thinking.  Or perhaps thinking wasn’t the right word for it, rather he contemplated or mused, doing a great deal of staring into space, letting his mind wander wherever it wanted to go.  He took his chair out to Margaret’s grave and sat quietly with her, remembering her smile, her words, her very definite opinions.

Finally, in the last hours before Yom Kippur was to start, Alan was ready.  He’d also decided that he was going to fast for the 25 hours required by Yom Kippur, except for the no-water restriction because his doctor would kill him, so they were eating an early dinner.  Alan waited until everyone had served themselves some pasta and more of Will’s excellent challah, then he cleared his throat.

Everyone immediately looked at him, their faces a mixture of expectation and anxiety.  Even Nena looked worried.

“I’ve been thinking,” Alan said slowly.  “About a lot of things.  And I … I guess I owe you boys an apology for some things I said, and thought, about you.  Back in the 60s, things seemed so simple.  The antidote to war was peace, the only true weapon of peace was non-violent protest.  Those who perpetuated violence in the name of peace were traitors to the cause.

“But the world is a lot more complicated these days, or at least feels that way.  Violence sometimes has to be defeated by violence, at least by the threat of violence.    My mistake was equating the occasional need for violence with the desire for it.  I realize now that every one of you would rather have a quiet day preventing death, preventing bad things, than going out and shooting people.  I’ve met people in my life that loved violence, that had a deep joy of bloodshed and mayhem.  Hell, some of them I’ve met at the FBI office, but you boys aren’t that.  David and Megan and probably most of the rest of the people you work with aren’t that either.”

“You are the Good Guys.”  Alan raised his chin and met all of their eyes, one by one.  “I’m ashamed that I ever thought otherwise.”  

Blowing out a breath, he nodded to himself, thinking that he hadn’t said it too bad, and waited for their reactions.

Don reached over and squeezed his hand.  “With you and Mom, we could hardly turn out anything but Good Guys.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said from the other side of the table.  “And with you and Mom as our template, we could hardly choose any partners but more Good Guys.”

Alan squeezed Don’s hand back, overwhelmed that it had taken him so long to arrive at those simple truths.

There was a general snuffling and shifting in chairs until Nena said plaintively, “I wanna be a Good Guy, too!”

Everyone laughed, a sound of released tension as much as amusement.

“You are,” Alan said with a smile.  “No doubt about it.”

“Oh, good,” Nena said.  “Then can I haf a toy gun for Chrissmas?”

The others froze and looked at Alan.

He shook his head, but with resignation, not disapproval.  “I think you need to talk to your Daddy about that.  You know, your Uncle Don had a special toy gun when he was a boy.”

“Really?”  Nena said with big eyes.  “Did Unka Don haf a pony, too?”

Alan laughed and everyone else followed, the tension truly dissipating this time. “Our yard isn’t big enough for a pony,” he said.  “He just ran around, yelling, ‘giddyup!’”

“I don’t remember this,” Don protested and everyone laughed again.

The rest of the meal went by easily, a sense of relief filling the room and spilling out in each person’s words and gestures.  They were back to where they were before the gun lesson – no, they were better than that.  Not only had Alan faced some deep-seated issues about his sons’ jobs – as a family, they’d faced a crisis and shown they could survive it.   Alan knew that they’d face new crises in the future, but now they knew they could get past it – forgive and move on. 

Alan smiled to himself, listening to the comfortable flow of conversation as they made plans for how to spend the weekend.  He took a sip of grape juice, then waited for someone to take a breath so he could put in his two cents.

After supper was over, Alan stood up.  “Candle lighting is next, but after that – if someone else could do dishes, I need to get to the evening service.”

“Should we go get changed?” Colby asked.

“No, no,” Alan said quickly.  “Yom Kippur prayer services are really long.   Don’t worry about it.  You’ve all gone above and beyond what I could have asked for.  I’ll go for the family.”

Colby tried to hide his relief but Alan could see it.  There was relief on the rest of the faces, too.  He smiled in understanding and got out the candles for the special Yom Kippur lighting.

 

Late the next morning, Alan was sitting in the synagogue, following along to the reading of the Torah, when Don slipped in beside him.  Alan looked over in surprise to see his oldest son in a suit and wearing a simple kippah, or Jewish skullcap.  Alan himself wore a kippah while in the synagogue but hadn’t required anyone else in the family to do so.

Alan leaned over, very close to Don’s ear, and whispered, “Why are you here?”

Don gave him a small smile.  “Why not?”

A shushing sound came from the people behind them and Alan had to be content with that answer.  In truth, he was glad to see Don here.  After the Torah reading finished, would be Yizkor, the memorial prayer service.  He hadn’t been to one since Margaret had died.  He knew exactly how Margaret would react to that fact – one of her wry smiles and a shaking of her head with mixed sadness and amusement. 

When it came time to read Yizkor, Alan murmured the opening verses with the rest of the congregation, Don included.  Then came the part where the dead were mentioned by name.   When Alan said, “Ishti Margaret bat Jakob,” he felt an unexpected lifting in his heart.  A lifting of the weight that he had forgotten he’d held, that he’d carried for so long that it had made him walk stooped over, like an old man, looking at the world with a crooked neck and believing that was normal.

He took a deep breath, the air rushing to fill his lungs, flowing into corners that hadn’t tasted oxygen since Margaret had died.  The pain was still there, the weight still in his heart, but his shoulders unbent and he looked straight ahead for the first time in years.  He continued the prayer, but it had already done its task, at least for him.  He looked over at Don and smiled.  Don smiled back, as if he too could see the change in his father.

The smile still lingering on his face, Alan turned back towards the front, spoke the next section of the prayers, and hoped that Will had something good planned for his breaking-the-fast meal.




A reminder what the havdalah set looks like and a havdalah candle.

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