This is not from Article I.

In the ambivalent light of the gas station—bright as day under the roof over the pumps, but dark alongside the garage where I’d parked—his five o’clock shadow may be an actual shadow. I reach in the driver’s door and pop the hood.

“How long you been driving it?”

“Tonight, you mean? Only about twenty minutes.” I let him lift the hood. Even after you hit the button, there’s a latch in front that always gives me trouble.

He seems surprised when it won’t just lift up. I don’t say anything. He struggles with it for a moment and then figures it out.

“Yeah,” I say, “there’s a latch there in front too.”

He sets the hood lift into place (I always call it the kickstand, but I’ve learned) and starts unscrewing the coolant cap.

“You sure you want to open that so soon? Can spray up into your face, can’t it? If it’s too hot?”

“Should be fine.” I take a step back.

I wince as he removes the cap. But nothing sprays out. He fools with a couple things under the hood and goes inside without saying anything.

I step closer and look at my car’s inner workings. I see where the washer fluid goes.

The five o’clock shadow (it’s real, I notice, as he steps out of the light beyond the door) comes back out with a flashlight and fools with what seem to be the same things again.

It’s warm for December but I keep my hands in my pockets (I hadn’t dressed for being outside) and try to appear as though I could disassemble and reassemble a carburetor if I should so desire.

“Coolant level’s fine. Not full, but not low at all. I could put in some more if you want, but I don’t have the same stuff as in there.” He looks at me for a decision.

“You don’t have it?” I stall.

“You’ve got pink stuff in there. I’ve got the blue. Should be fine.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to mix colors.” I smile. He looks back at the car. I try to dispel the air of homosexuality I had created. “I guess if it’s not low, might as well not chance mixing coolant types.” No reaction. I continue. “If you don’t think it’s really necessary, I guess we should just leave the pink alone.” Too far. So much for hetero. He screws the cap back on.

I step up, remove the hood lift, and drop the hood into place. He’d stepped to the door. “Well thanks,” I offer. He nods, and disappears into the light.

I fall into the driver’s seat with a shrug. “You have a good night too.” I speed out of the parking lot. I’d been late already.

Article I, section 5.

About a year ago I had a conversation with one of my best friends that went something like this:

“You don’t really believe Jesus Christ was the son of God, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you don’t actually believe he died and was resurrected and was actually God’s son, do you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m just asking. Do you actually believe all that stuff? That all that really happened?”

“Well. I guess so. I don’t know.”

“Jesus was the son of God. You believe that.”

“Well. Yeah. That’s one of the main points of my religion. So I guess so.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I guess. I think so. Why?”

“Just wondering. I’ve been thinking about this religion stuff a lot recently.”

And then I asked her: “What denomination are you, again?”

She laughed. “I’m not sure. Once we moved here— I think we’re Presbyterian now. But I don’t really know what that means.”

Article I, sections 3 & 4.

When I was five, maybe six years old and my sister was seven or eight, my parents asked us if we wanted to continue going to Sunday school. Both of us said no. So we stopped. That’s all there was.

A few years later, I quit little league after being hit by the ball three times in one inning (while batting, while running, and while pitching) – despite what it sounds like, I was actually quite a good baseball player. Anyway. I remember that being disappointing to my father.

***

In seventh grade, my best friend and I climbed into my mom’s car after the first of what would be many bar mitzvah services that year. My mom asked how it was and my friend replied, “It was okay. It was mostly in some weird language.”

“That’s Hebrew,” my mom said. I’m pretty sure I knew that, because I remember thinking how stupid my friend was. But I’m not certain.

My other best friend in middle school had her bat mitzvah at a Reconstructionist Jewish temple in Deerfield. At least I think it was Reconstructionist. Whatever it was, the point is they never used the word God. Through the whole service. No God. Though there was some Hebrew, so I can’t be entirely sure.

Another of my friends was jealous that so many of our classmates were having big parties that year, so her parents threw her a huge thirteenth birthday party in their enormous backyard – complete with DJ, dance floor (yes, outside, they had one assembled on the lawn), lunch, and thirteen birthday cakes. She invited everyone in our class, as was the custom.

My parents asked if I wanted a big party also. I said no. I didn’t need one. Besides, I wouldn’t be thirteen until eighth grade. I’d be last. And it would just make me feel different.

So I spent my thirteenth birthday in my basement with my close friends. We ordered pizza and played strip Twister and watched “Mallrats” and “Empire Records,” and I fell asleep with a girl in my arms for the first time.

Article I, section 2.

I have an older sister. She lives in the city and I see her a bit, but not much. I have parents, divorced, living in different suburbs. I see them every couple of weeks. I have grandparents – two of them, my mom’s parents. I see them for holidays usually, either for dinner or for dessert. Beyond that, my family has never extended very far.

I have three aunts and two uncles. My mom’s sister, Laurie, who lives in Baton Rouge now, I think, and whom I haven’t seen in years. She’s married to my Uncle Elliot, whom my dad recently and succinctly described as a “lying, cheating, criminal piece of shit.” They have two kids, both adopted, both living in Texas, but not in Houston where they grew up. In a few months those two will have had three weddings between them, none of which I’ll have attended.

And then there’s my dad’s two sisters: Janice, whom we not very affectionately call crazy; and Deborah, who’s married to my second uncle, Howard. They live in Highland Park and have three kids who live in nearby suburbs. Those three kids—average age about thirty-five—have ten kids between them, all at or under the age of six. I see them on holidays too, either for dessert or for dinner.

Three aunts, two uncles, five first cousins, and now ten little kids. There are, of course, others. But that’s the extent of the family I’ve ever really known. I can call up bits of recollections of Fourth of July parties at someone’s house – a great aunt’s, if I’m not mistaken. Probably the same one I used to get twenty-five dollar checks from every birthday (the cards still arrive, but the cash flow stopped at twenty-one). She lives in Florida, but I couldn’t tell you where. There were other kids now and again, I know – Matt, and maybe a Danny. I assume they’re cousins of some degree or another, but really I have no idea.

Beyond those original sixteen (who barely go back two generations)—now twenty-six (the little kids pushing forward one generation)—I don’t have much concept of what families usually call the family.

Now. Sure. There’s some stories I know about the people who came before me. Mostly from my dad’s side. They were the interesting ones. My great-grandmother, Rose B___, went to Birmingham one spring and came back in the fall with my infant grandfather. No one knows who his father was, though people say his name may have been Carl. My grandfather died young, before I was born. But while he was alive he claimed old Carl B___ – that’s another thing, actually. No one’s sure where the name B___ came from. That is, whether it was Rose’s maiden name or her married name, or, for that matter, if she was ever married to my grandfather’s father at all. Anyway, my grandfather – his nickname was Weasel, and even my mom would call him Papa Wease. Papa Wease would say his father, Carl, was hung in Denver for stealing horses.

Rose was an interesting character, even beyond the mysteries of my grandfather’s conception. She owned a delicatessen on Maxwell Street for years. Actually, she owned the whole building. Her deli was on the first floor, there was a restaurant on the second floor, and she lived (with her kids and a man named Jack) on the third floor. A wealthy woman. But my grandfather was a spendthrift and a gambler.

My favorite story about the two of them comes from the late 1920s. Back then, companies used to sponsor baseball teams – and other sports teams. The Chicago Bears were once the Decatur Staleys, named for the company that ran the team, the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company.

But anyway. You had to work for the company to play on the team. My grandfather, Weasel, wanted to play for the baseball team of some bank or other where Rose had all her money. So Rose, a significant customer, arranged for the bank to give her son a job. But he didn’t want a job, he wanted to play baseball. So he played, but he never went to work. And the bank fired him. Rose stormed in and demanded he be reinstated. She promised he would show up to work. So they did. And he didn’t. And they fired him again. And Rose stormed in again. This time the bank firmly said no, so Rose withdrew all her money in cash. A few days later, so the story goes, the stock market crashed, the banks closed, and people lost everything. But not Rose.