Barton Zuckerman was a fat kid. He was always red-faced and winded, looking like he’d just lost a fight. His black glasses were taped across the bridge of his nose. A Rorschach of acne blotched his face. The world’s largest teeth were corralled with braces and when he spoke, he spit.
Junior high was a nightmare. In seventh grade he threw up in biology on the day they dissected a frog, instantly earning himself the nickname Barf. He was the last one picked for every team. At lunch, he was the empty table. While most kids looked forward to their thirteenth birthday, there was nothing he dreaded more. His parents were planning a big bar mitzvah. Together he and Elliot Rothstein had suffered through Hebrew school for five endless years.
The two were standing in the school hallway. As usual, the other kids cut them a wide swath.
“You promise you won’t laugh?” asked Barton.
His sister had eloped, depriving his mother of the dream wedding she had always fantasized about. Now she was pouring all her energies into a big bash for her son.
“I’m having a Dolphins bar mitzvah. A fricking Dolphins bar mitzvah.”
The lockers gleamed like mirrors. Elliot watched the other kids watching them. “Does she know you’re not exactly an athlete, Barf?”
Barton shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t worried about performing in the synagogue in front of two hundred people. He knew the prayer service cold and hummed tropes in the shower. What horrified him was the party his mother was planning...
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