The Schwa Was Here

I don’t really remember when I first met the Schwa, he was just kind of always there, like the killer potholes on Avenue U or the Afghans barking out the windows above Crawley’s restaurant—a whole truck load of ’em, if you be­lieved the rumors. Old Man Crawley, by the way, was a certifiable loony tune. A shut-in, like Brooklyn’s own Howard Hughes, almost as legendary as the lobsters served up in his restaurant below. See, there was this staircase that went up from the restaurant to the residence on the second floor, but with each step it got darker around you, so when you tried to climb it, you kept thinking you heard the horror audience be­hind you yelling, “No, don’t go up the stairs!” Because who but a moron would go up to search for Old Man Crawley, who had fingernails like Ginsu knives that could dice, slice, and julie

But what was I talking about?

Oh, yeah—the Schwa. See, that was the whole point with the Schwa: You couldn’t even think about him without losing track of your own thoughts—like even in your head he was some­how becoming invisible.

Okay, so like I said, I don’t remember when I met him—nobody does—but I can tell you the first time I remembered actually noticing him. It was the day Ma

It was Saturday, and my friends and I were bored, as usual. I was hanging out with Howie Bogerton, whose one goal in life was not to have any goals in life, and Ira Goldfarb, who was a self-proclaimed cinematic genius. With the digital video cam­era his grandparents had gotten him for his bar mitzvah last year, Ira was determined to be Steven Spielberg by the time he got to high school. As for Ma

As for his name, it came in the natural course of human events. Dad had brought him home from work one day. “Look at this guy,” he says proudly, holding him up by the scruff of his neck. “He’s made of a new ultra-high-grade lightweight plastic. Completely unbreakable.”

My older brother Frank looks up from his di

As soon as Frankie says it, Mom, without missing a beat, hauls off and whacks him on the head in her own special way, starting low, and swinging up, like a te

Anyway, Dad tosses me the dummy. “Here, take it,” he says.

“Whadaya giving it to me for?”

“Why do you think? I want you to break it.”

“I thought you said it was unbreakable.”

“Yeah, and you’re the test, capische?”

I smile, proud to figure in my father’s product development job. This was the first time in recorded history that either of my parents had singled me out to do anything.

“Do I get to break something?” my little sister Christina asks.

“Yeah,” said Dad. “Wait a few years and you’ll be breaking hearts.”

Christina must have liked the sound of that, because she flips open the journal that’s practically glued to her hand and makes a note of it.

So, Howie, Ira, and me, we started doin’ unpleasant things to Ma

We got to the bridge, and the three of us, not including Ma

“I should go down to the rocks to film,” Ira said. “I’ll get a good view of him falling from there.”

“Nah,” says Howie, “let’s go to the middle of the bridge—I wa

“If he hits the water,” I reminded them, “we won’t get him back.”

Howie shrugs. “There’s lots of boats goin’ by, maybe we can time it so he hits a boat.”

“We still won’t get him back,” I said, “and we might sink the boat.”

“That’d look good on film,” Ira said.

Now all this time I got this creepy feeling like we’re being watched. But then of course we are being watched. Everybody driving by has got to be wondering what we’re doing standing with a dummy by the guardrail of the bridge—but this feeling is more than that. Anyway, I ignore the feeling because we had important business here.

“We’ll drop him onto the rocks,” I told them.

“Yeah,” says Howie. “Maximum breakage potential.”

“Great. Howie, you stay up here on the bridge to push him over; Ira and me’ll go down and watch.”

We climbed down to the rocks and looked up to where Howie stood holding Ma

“Should I push him or should I throw him?” Howie asks.

“Do what comes naturally,” I yelled back.

“I don’t know,” he says. “This is a very u

“Rolling,” says Ira. “ And ... action.”

Howie backs up for a second, and a moment later Ma