Possible happiness, p.1
Possible Happiness, page 1
Contents
Praise for Possible Happiness
Possible Happiness
Copyright © 2024 David Ebenbach. All rights reserved.
Dedication
1
2
3
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5
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Acknowledgments
Book Group Questions
Praise for Possible Happiness
“Tender, funny, and perfectly observed, Possible Happiness explores the mind and heart of the singular Jacob Wasserman. I loved him, and his journey out of loneliness and into an increasingly complicated world is utterly captivating.”
—Jennifer Gilmore, author of If Only and The Mothers
“In Possible Happiness, David Ebenbach introduces us to Jacob Wasserman, a shy and witty sixteen-year-old trying to negotiate the treacherous terrain of high school cliques, romance, and his own demons and insecurities. Beautifully crafted, Ebenbach’s novel is a coming-of-age love letter to Philadelphia in the late 1980s and to one young man’s journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. Deeply satisfying, frank, and moving.”
—Gary Eldon Peter, Minnesota Book Award winner and author of The Complicated Calculus (and Cows) of Carl Paulsen
“Possible Happiness by David Ebenbach is a luminous coming-of-age novel about Jacob Wasserman, a boy who is, by turns, shy, bewildered, hopeful, and hilarious. Jacob thinks too much, feels too much, worries too much, and is deeply loveable. The book opens with the line, ‘Jacob was discovered in eleventh grade,’ and he feels like a discovery. I happily follow him through Philadelphia as he navigates the overwhelming world of his single mother’s sorrows, his own hope that people might actually like him, and the choppy seas of high school. He ventures into a troubled world with only his uncertain soul to guide him, and we are rooting for him every step of the way. I picked this book up and couldn’t put it down. Possible Happiness is a definite delight.”
—N. West Moss, author of Birdy and Flesh & Blood
“In Possible Happiness, David Ebenbach gives us the tenderly subtle story of a young loner’s socialization. Only a writer of Ebenbach’s exceptional gifts could have produced this novel that, while devoid of sensationalism and melodrama, is also deeply engaging. One cares about Jacob, his friends, and his family as one rarely cares for characters in fiction—not as protagonists or antagonists, but as vulnerable, thoughtful people. One leaves them behind with a sense of loss and regret accompanied by the wish for them to live long and happily on.”
—Peter Selgin, author of Duplicity and Life Goes to the Movies
“A tender story about learning to forgive yourself, David Ebenbach’s new novel, Possible Happiness, is an intimate, moving portrait of a boy coming of age in Philadelphia. Jacob Wasserman’s teen angst is real and relatable, as is his heartbreaking struggle to come to terms with his parents’ divorce, his place in his school’s complex ecosystem, and the ever-treacherous dating landscape. Ebenbach has given us a poignant, wrenching tale that will make adult readers grateful that high school is behind us and younger readers hopeful that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
—Clifford Garstang, author of Oliver’s Travels and The Shaman of Turtle Valley
Possible Happiness
David Ebenbach
Fitzroy Books
Copyright © 2024 David Ebenbach. All rights reserved.
Published by Fitzroy Books
An imprint of
Regal House Publishing, LLC
Raleigh, NC 27605
All rights reserved
https://fitzroybooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781646035021
ISBN -13 (epub): 9781646035038
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023949028
All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any circumstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologizes if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.
Cover images and design by © C. B. Royal
Regal House Publishing, LLC
https://regalhousepublishing.com
The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Regal House Publishing.
Regal House Publishing supports rights of free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of artistic works that enrich and define culture.
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Carole Nehez,
who took a mixed-up kid seriously
1
Jacob was discovered in eleventh grade. Not in a Hollywood way, where he was catapulted to stardom by a movie studio or something, and also not in a murder mystery
kind of way, like The remains of Jacob Wasserman were found floating in the Schuylkill River, but more just that he was discovered to exist. It surprised him as much as it did anyone else.
The way it worked was that previously, pre-1989, he had been basically background, walking the halls of Central High School ruminating, mixed in among the crowd, a small, interchangeable piece of the setting of everyone else’s lives. Nobody harassed him, but nobody shouted out his name when he turned a corner like he was Norm from Cheers, either. He just slumped on by, more or less two-dimensionally. Then, in the fall of 1989, he told one joke in class—not even an especially good one—and that started a cascade of events. It was as if suddenly someone turned around and said, Hey—you’re Jacob, right? And then everyone else turned, too, and saw him, and said, Jacob, huh? The extended results of which were that he was discovered to exist in 3-D, already there in front of the world.
In a way, it had started the summer before that.
Jacob had been working summers and weekends at the Philadelphia Zoo since he was old enough to legally be allowed to work, giving kids rides at the pony track in the children’s zoo. That was where he’d met Leron, and Ty, too, who now he rode the subway to school with, almost like friends. Anyway, maybe it was his uniform—red polo shirt and tan shorts—or his hair, which wasn’t as curly since he had gotten a short and preppy cut in June in the summer before his junior year, or the fact that he kind of liked working at the zoo and so was a little happy, or some other thing, but actually he was first discovered at the zoo. It didn’t count as the discovery, because most of the kids working there didn’t go to his high school, so his newfound status didn’t transfer back to Central. But still there was this surprising thing where people were noticing him. Specifically, girl people. More than one. When he discovered that a few of the girls working there thought he was cute, Jacob felt like his life was being pushed into motion all of a sudden. Zero to sixty. Or twenty, at least.
He’d even had a girlfriend that summer. Only four weeks, and they spent about half of that time trying to figure out how making out worked—what exactly were you supposed to be doing with all the different parts of your face?—but nonetheless it was a very big first for Jacob. He felt that he’d crossed a line on the journey to manhood there. A no-turning-back kind of line.
Dating, Jacob learned, apparently showed you sides of yourself you hadn’t ever thought much about. For example, his summer girlfriend—her name was Barbara—had thought he was funny; she told him so. His mother had always told him that, too; it was his jokes that would cheer her up when she was down. But this was the first person outside the family to notice. Barbara said it a lot, in fact, including at times when he wasn’t intending to be funny. Like one time when they were eating their bag lunches on a bench in front of the tiger enclosure—she worked at the zoo, too—and he said, “I wonder what it’d be like to be one of those tigers. I think I’d get tired of pacing around.” He’d really meant that seriously—there was something a little painful and unsettling about the pacing—but Barbara said, “You’re funny.” That was a pretty good example of how their dynamic went.
But he had brought this slight increase in his confidence and this perception of himself into eleventh grade, and sometimes he would notice a moment in class that had the potential for humor, and then in his head he’d tell a joke about it. Like one time Ms. Terrell, the Elementary Functions teacher, was pointing at the letter x she’d chalked on the blackboard, and she asked “What is this,” looking for the word variable, and Jacob, in his mind, called ou t, “A blackboard!” That kind of thing. His grades were high enough that teachers would have probably just rolled their eyes and kept going if he did say some of this stuff out loud, but what would the other kids do? Would they laugh? How would Jacob feel, if they did?
Anyway, so one day—it was late September—he was in Advanced History, listening to Mr. Nowacki talk about pre-revolutionary America. Jacob couldn’t decide whether Mr. Nowacki was a cool guy or not. He owned a sports car, which you could sometimes get him to talk about in class, and he was informal with the students, in the sense that he would call on kids with lines like, “Okay, smart guy, whaddaya got?” and would respond to wrong answers with “No, but thanks for playing,” and he dressed like he was actually living in the late 1980s, whereas a lot of the other teachers were practically still in the 70s. Jacob liked him, but he did sometimes wonder if Mr. Nowacki was cool or just trying to be cool. Regardless, he was friendly toward Jacob, and on this particular day when he asked, “Who can tell me who was living in the colonies at this time?” Jacob actually, without pausing to think about it, called out what had popped into his head. “The colonists!” he said. Immediately afterward Jacob felt his face burning—he was as shocked as a house cat thrust suddenly outdoors—but Mr. Nowacki just twitched his dark mustache and said, “Thank you, Shecky. Shecky Greene, everybody.”
Jacob, still burning, did then give Mr. Nowacki the answer he was looking for, which was people who had fled Europe to escape religious persecution, and Mr. Nowacki said, “Okay—I guess his brain still works,” and things got back on track.
But after class, in the swarming hallway, while Jacob went over that moment again and again—he had a habit of second-guessing himself, except that he usually couldn’t stop once he’d started and so it was more like frenetic fifteenth-guessing or hundredth-guessing or nine-hundredth guessing—someone called Jacob’s name. Jacob turned and saw Eric Strudwick’s head of feathered red hair bobbing up like a balloon over everyone else; Eric was already more than six feet tall at age sixteen. He knew Eric, a little. The two of them were in the same history class, which was not the first class they’d been in together, and they both lived in West Philadelphia, too, as relatively rare white people, and in fact Eric was also similar in that he hadn’t been discovered in the high school universe yet either, though Jacob suspected that more people noticed Eric, at least because of the tallness and the red hair. In any case, despite all the similarities, for some reason they had never really hung out, aside from a couple of times in middle school. Eric and his family had been away—Canada, maybe?—for a couple of years in there, so maybe that was part of it.
Eric closed the distance through the crowd now and said, “Jake” again, extending his hand to be shaken. “You are hilarious.”
It felt a little strange and formal, and Jacob had to wonder if he was being teased—he felt really, really stupid about his joke—but it didn’t seem like it from Eric’s face, and Jacob shook his hand. “Thanks,” he said, almost like a question. The crowd swirled past them, everyone on their way to their next classes.
“How are you doing, man?” Eric said. “Which way are you going?”
Jacob, who didn’t know what was going on, pointed in the direction he was headed, and the two of them started walking together. Everywhere around them were other people, going various places loudly.
“That class is pretty cool,” Eric said, thumbing back in the direction of Mr. Nowacki’s room.
“Yeah,” Jacob said. So that was a vote for Mr. Nowacki being cool, which Jacob noted. “I like it.”
“Listen,” Eric said, with some intensity. Jacob remembered that even back in middle school, the energy level always seemed to go up around Eric. “I’m having a party in two weeks,” he said. Still in motion, he flipped his book bag forward so he could open it and pull out a manila folder, from which he extracted a crisp flier. “Music, dancing. You should come,” he said, handing the sheet to Jacob.
Jacob didn’t really see the flier at first—he was taking his time processing the idea that he was being invited to a party, and not like a birthday party but like a party party. “Wow, great,” he found himself saying. “Totally.” And then he checked the date, as though there was any chance he was going to be busy then. The flier gave the date, and times, too—8pm to midnight—over the words Fresh Dance Party! The whole thing had been handwritten and Xeroxed. “Thanks. I can totally do this.”
“Great,” Eric said, settling his backpack on his back and shaking Jacob’s hand again. “And feel free to invite anybody else you want, too, if they’re cool.”
“Okay, sure,” Jacob said. He was looking at Eric’s extreme, almost translucent whiteness and his preppy button-down shirt and his jeans rolled up, and thinking that probably Leron and the guys wouldn’t be interested in this party.
“Especially girls,” Eric said.
“Definitely,” Jacob said.
“If they’re cool.”
Jacob nodded as if to say, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Then they walked on a little further, down the big hallway now, which was just swarming with people. The rumor was that Central’s administration was overenrolling the school so that they could make an argument for a new science wing. Jacob wasn’t sure that kids would actually have access to that kind of inside information, but it was a plausible explanation.
“Hey—have you ever seen the movie Evil Dead?” Eric said now.
Jacob had not. He didn’t usually go to see things.
“That movie is crazy. I’ve gotta tell you all about it,” he said. “I’m turning here.”
And before Jacob knew it, Eric had turned down another hallway—the school was shaped like a capital E and this was the middle line of the E. Jacob stutter-stepped, which made someone crash into him from behind. “Come on, man,” the person said. And Jacob’s face went hot and he apologized a few times and got himself moving again, off to English class, his thoughts all over the place, holding the flier uncertainly in his hand.
2
Jacob didn’t invite anybody else to the party that week. On the subway home with Leron and the guys, for example, he didn’t mention it at all.
He and Leron and a few other guys all took the Broad Street Line together down to Center City, and then the 34 subway-surface car out to West Philadelphia. But riding together happened more because they all lived in West Philly than because of any deep bonds between them. Mostly Jacob would spend those trips half-listening to Leron talk about whatever new game he’d gotten for his Commodore 64, while Derrick and Ty asked follow-up questions and Omar agreed with everything Leron said, even if he had no way of knowing what Leron was talking about. Every once in a while, Leron would say, “What you think, Jacob?” and Jacob, who had usually been sitting there silently distracted by his persistent thoughts about how awkward everything was and how sad it was that things were awkward, would just shrug, and everybody would laugh, including Jacob, because he wanted to go along to get along. He was sort of their pet white person. Some afternoons they would actually go to Leron’s house on Fiftieth Street and play one of the games, like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out or something—“See what I was talking about?” Leron would say, knocking Bald Bull or Kid Flamenco down, and Omar would say, “Aw, yeah”—and Jacob would feel this sharp, familiar aloneness in the midst of everyone, and then after a while they’d all go to their different homes to do homework and have dinner.
And now there was this party, which he didn’t mention to those guys.
What he did do was ask his mother if he could go, the next night that she wasn’t working, which was Sunday. It was actually the end of Rosh Hashanah, too, which he didn’t realize until his mother mentioned it, and she only mentioned it because someone at her hospital had mentioned it. “I guess we didn’t do Rosh Hashanah this year,” she said. They were at the dinner table together, just the two of them. Jacob’s sister, Deanna, was off at college—Cornell—and his father had lived in Chicago since Jacob was twelve. So it was always the two of them at dinner, unless Jacob’s mother had an extra shift—she was a nurse, and took extra shifts whenever she could get them, because they for sure needed the money—in which case he would heat up a frozen mac ’n’ cheese dinner in the oven and eat that in front of the television. But on this night they were together.
