The Town by Bentley Little

and it had been pure hell. They were all supposed to share the foods, clothes, language, and traditions of their families’ cultures with the other members of the class, and he’d brought in some borscht his mom had made. Mrs. Anders had insisted on pronouncing “borscht” the way it was spelled, sounding out the silent “t,” and no matter how often he said it correctly, she refused to vary her pronunciation. He had the feeling she was trying to correct him, as though she was hinting to him that he said the word wrong, and that made him feel even more embarrassed. It was as if she was making fun of him, something she did not do with Ve Phan or George Saatjian or any of the other kids in class.
    He’d passed out the wooden spoons and small sample bowls of the Russian soup and had been expected to talk about the history of the Molokans as the class ate, to describe how they acted and what they believed in, and he’d said most of what he’d planned to say, but he’d been too embarrassed to bring up the pacifism. It was at the core of the Molokan religion, was what Babunya had drilled into his head since he was little, but it shamed him to admit to it. He honestly believed in those principles, deep down, but at the same time he didn’t really want to. Babunya had always told him that it was in man’s nature to kill, that Cain, the first truly human being in the Bible, the first made from the union of man and woman rather than by God, had killed his brother. It was an evil act, but after he had murdered his brother, he had been marked by God, protected from all human justice, and she said that this not only showed God’s mercy and forgiveness but indicated that God did not want humans to judge other humans, that He forbade revenge, that only He could mete out punishment. It was a prohibition against violence, against war, against the death penalty, and Molokans took their pacifism very seriously. They had left their mother country for it, and they had refused to fight in any of America’s wars because of it.
    That was all well and good, and when he was in his bed in his pajamas and Babunya was telling him Bible stories, it was nice to hear, and he believed in it. But at school those ideas seemed not only irrelevant but embarrassing. It was impossible not to want to hurt people who hurt you, and more than once he had wished Jason Aguilar or Gauvin Jefferson or Teech Sayles dead. Hell, if he’d still said his prayers, he probably would have prayed for God to strike them down. But he had stopped praying several years back. He was not really sure why that was, but at some point he had just felt foolish clasping his hands together and asking God for favors.
    It was not something he would ever admit to Babunya, though.
    The truth was, he was not sure if he even was a Molokan. His family didn’t go to church anymore, and even when they had gone, when he was little, they’d gone to a Presbyterian church in Norwalk.
    His parents also hadn’t taught him Russian, and he knew that was one thing Babunya was not happy about. He knew a few words here and there— popolk, belly button; zhopa, butt; babunya, grandma; dushiska, sweetie—but he couldn’t even remember the short Russian prayer his grandmother had made him say each Thanksgiving when he was younger. Even Babunya herself spoke less Russian than she used to. When he was little, his parents and his grandmother used to talk in Russian all the time, especially when it was something they didn’t want him to hear. When his dad used to talk to Babunya on the phone, his end of the conversation was often entirely in Russian. But that had changed over the years and now they almost always spoke English.
    He walked past the cottonwood around to the front of the house. His mom, dad, and Babunya were now sitting on the front porch, his dad reading the newspaper, his mom reading a magazine, Babunya crocheting. Teo was playing with her Barbies on the steps. The sound of rap music