The Schwa Was Here

2. The Weird and Mostly Tragic History of the Schwa, Which Is Entirely True If You Trust My Sources

My family lives in a duplex—that’s two homes attached like Siamese twins with one wall in common. On the other side of the wall is a Jewish family. Ira knows them from his temple, but we just know their names. Once a year we ex­change Christmas cookies and potato latkes. Funny how you can live six inches away from people and barely even know them. Our neighborhood is a Jewish-Italian neighborhood. Jews and Italians seem to get along just fine. I think it has something to do with the way both cultures have a high regard for food and guilt.

The Schwa was about six inches away, too, in science class, but I had never noticed him. It was weird, because in school I notice almost anything as long as it doesn’t actually have to do with the lesson. And then there was the way Ira got all freaked out about him. It made me want to do some investigating. It took a couple of days, but I did come up with something.

I called Ira and Howie over for a war council, which I guess is the guy version of gossiping. Of course we couldn’t talk in the living room, because Frankie was sleeping on the sofa, hog­ging the most comfortable place in the house, like always. Lately it’s like Frankie slept all the time.

“It comes with being sixteen,” Mom said. “You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don’t come out for years.”

“So they become butterflies when they finally come out?” my little sister Christina asked.

“No,” Mom said. “They’re still caterpillars, only now they’re big fat caterpillars that smell.”

Christina laughed and Frankie rolled over on the sofa, stick­ing his butt out toward us.

“So when do we get to be butterflies?” I asked.

“You don’t,” Mom answered. “You go off to college, or wher­ever, and then I get to be a butterfly.”

She was looking at me when she said “wherever,” so I said, “Maybe I’ll just stay here all my life. With a butterfly net.”

“Yeah,” said Mom. “Then you can use it to drag me off to the nuthouse.”

When it comes to Frankie, Mom always talks about college like it’s a given, but not me. I looked at Frankie snoring away. Sometimes I think God made an inventory error and gave Frankie some brain cells that were supposed to go to me. He could sleep away the afternoon and still pull straight A’s, but me? There were only two A’s I ever saw on my papers: the A in Anthony, and the A in Bonano. What made it worse was that Christina already seemed to be following in Frankie’s footsteps, gradewise, so it cleared the path for me to be the family disap­pointment.

“C’mon,” I told Howie and Ira, “we’ll talk in the basement,” which is the place we always talk about important things. Ours is what you call a finished basement, although it really should be called a someday-will-be- finished basement, because no matter how much work we put into it, there always seems to be a bare wall with insulation that’s never been covered up. It probably has something to do with my dad, who keeps putting in the wrong wiring, or my uncle, who got cheap insulation that just happens to cause cancer. Whatever the reason, walls keep having to come out. Still, the basement had become like our own military bunker where we discuss national security and play video games that my mother is convinced will rot out my brain even faster than professional wrestling. And it really pisses her off when we play the wrestling video game.

But today we’re not playing games. Today is a war council about the weird kid everyone calls the Schwa.

We sat on the floor, and I told them what I found out in the course of my investigation. “I’m not a hundred percent sure how the Schwa got his last name, but my aunt’s hairdresser’s brother is his next-door neighbor, so the story must be pretty reliable.” I paused for effect. “The story goes like this: The Schwa’s great-grandparents came over from the old country.”

“Which old country?” asked Howie.

“I don’t know, one of those old countries over there.”

“China’s an old country,” says Howie. “He doesn’t look Chinese.”

Now I know why Howie always buzzes his hair, because if he didn’t, he’d have millions of people trying to pull it out.

“He means somewhere in Eastern Europe,” Ira said.

“Anyway,” I said, “his great-grandfather’s last name is Schwartz, and for his whole life, all Great-Grandpa Schwartz wants to do is to get out of the old country and come to America, because the Statue of Liberty’s got this invitation: ’Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless—”

“?Huddled masses,’” said Ira. “?Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’”

“Yeah,” says Howie. “If you’re gonna misquote something, at least misquote it right.”

“Okay, fine. So, like everybody in the old countries says, ?Hey, I’m a huddled mass,’ and they all wanna come over. That’s how come my great-grandparents came from Italy, and why Ira’s came from Russia, and why yours, Howie, came from the moon.” Howie punched me in the arm for that one.

“So, anyway, Old Man Schwartz, he’s stewing out there on his beet farm, or whatever, saving his pennies to buy a ticket for him­self and his wife and kids so he can take a boat to America. ?I want to die on American soil,’ he says. Finally he saves up enough money, and they pack ’em onto a boat with like, fourteen thou­sand other families, and they cross the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Don’t tell me they hit an iceberg,” says Howie.

“Different boat,” I said, “but around the same time, I guess. Anyway, they get into New York Harbor, pass the Statue of Lib­erty, everybody starin’ up at the flame going ooh and ahh like tourists without Hawaiian shirts— because, you know, they’re poor, they can’t afford Hawaiian shirts. Anyway, they let every­one off the boat at Ellis Island and they get in this long line standing in the hot sun, all sweaty in heavy coats, because these people don’t yet know to dress for the weather, because it’s al­ways subzero in the old country. Finally they get to the front of the line. Old Man Schwartz, he’s sweating from the heat, and hyperventilating from the excitement. There’s this guy in the front of the line with a fountain pen and a big, fat black book taking down names and letting you into the country. He says, ’Your name, sir?’ And—get this—the old man says, ’Schwa—,’ then puts his hand over his heart, has a massive heart attack, and drops dead on the spot.”

“He got his wish,” says Howie. “He died on American soil.”

“Yeah. So anyway, those guys at Ellis Island, they were like your cafeteria workers of today—they didn’t care what they stuck you with, as long as they got you through the line. So they marked down the family name as ’Schwa,’ and it’s been that way ever since.”

Ira, who had been quiet for most of the story, finally spoke up. “That’s not all I heard.”

I turned to him. “What’d you hear?”

“Weird stuff—not just about him this time, but about the whole family.”

“Weird, like Twilight Zone weird?” Howie asked. “Or weird like Eyewitness News weird?”

“I don’t know,” said Ira. “Maybe a little bit of both.”

“So what did you hear?” I asked again.

“I heard his mom went to the market one day and disap­peared right before everyone’s eyes in the ten- items-or-less line. Nothing was left but a pile of coupons and a broken jar of pick­les where she stood.”

“Disappeared? What do you mean disappeared?”

“And why a pile of coupons, if all she had was a jar of pickles?” Howie asked.

“It’s just what I heard.” Then Ira gets real quiet. “Of course ... there’s another story.”

Howie and I leaned close to listen.

“Some say the Schwa’s father cut her up into fifty pieces and mailed each piece ... to a PO box ... in a different state ...”

“Not Puerto Rico?” says Howie.

“Puerto Rico’s not a state,” I reminded him.

“It’s almost a state.”