Adam Unrehearsed by Don Futterman

Author:Don Futterman [Futterman, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637589021
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2023-06-23T10:13:08+00:00

Chapter 28

Seth rode low over the ram’s-horn handlebars of his English racer, wearing his dark blue Betar shirt, his knapsack festooned with his Jewish buttons, his breath forming puffs in the late winter cold. Adam trailed behind his brother, out of sight on his golden Stingray, as they crossed Flushing, pedaled down 164th Street past the Italian Ices and Vinnie’s candy-striped barbershop pole, the tiny tidy front yards of row houses narrower even than their own former home, past Peter’s Florist—a greenhouse on a traffic island—skirting Kissena Park, and splitting off to Main Street and Seventy-Second, which Adam immediately recognized as the location of Speedway.

Speedway housed the most intricate slot car track in Queens, famous for the Death Drop that fed into a hairpin turn notorious for flinging cars off the table. The track was decorated with scale-model Flushing landmarks—the library, the post office with its Doric columns, the grand RKO Keith movie theater, the Unisphere and the New York City Pavilion—relics from the World’s Fair six years before.

From across Main Street, Adam watched Seth press a door buzzer for the entrance adjacent to Speedway. A head popped out of the second-floor window, a hand appeared which dropped a set of keys down to Seth.

Not Speedway, but the jackpot! The B House, Betar headquarters!

Astonishingly, Seth took his bicycle chain and lock with him, leaving his English racer tottering on the kickstand, unprotected.

Two youths in Red Ravens jackets came out of Speedway, a little young for such an established gang, one cupping both hands protectively around his finicky and fragile slot car. He walked smack into Seth’s bicycle, knocked it over, and fell on all fours as his car went flying. Adam heard him cursing over the traffic.

Instead of helping his friend or retrieving the car, the second boy raised Seth’s bike from the ground, ran his fingers along the downward curve of its handlebars, flipped up the kickstand, lifted his leg to straddle the crossbar, and got ready to ride off.

Without thinking, Adam pedaled madly across Main Street, standing in the stirrups for maximum forward thrust, eyes on the racer, ignoring the drawn-out car horns. He skidded to a halt within inches of the thieves, blocking their exit.

“That’s my brother’s bike!” Adam yelled.

“Get him out of the way,” said the boy straddling Seth’s racer.

The friend carefully placed his damaged slot car on top of a parked green Dodge Charger. It was two against one, and Adam had to decide fast whether to fight or flee. Adam backed up, spun as if he were about to escape, but instead zipped around the pair in a tight circle to the door buzzer, which he pressed for one long ring, then several staccato beeps. The second Raven threw Adam down, his body slamming into the concrete with one leg under the bike. The window screeched open.

“Why the hell you buzzing…hey, what are you doing to that kid?”

“Seth! Seth!” Adam screamed.

“That’s my brother!” A pause, then footsteps trooping down the stairs. Adam was still on the ground when the door flew open.

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