Joshua Cohen - Witz

Insistent, she nods her wig shifty atop the snowdandruffed, icehump of her head to hang over her one good ear as if she doesn’t hear a thing. And not a shekel more or less, she says then shifts her weight, with her feet asleep; finally, gives up humoring the pretense to obeisance, spits a wad to the floor, worriedover mucus.

Our schmuck sure has a pair on him, I’ll tell you, two pairs, but tell me this — why didn’t he come direct? We work together. We talk. I know his wife by name. We have what you’d call a relationship.

You know, she says, I have the impression this used to be easy.

And then saying to Him, at least your future inlaw respects his tradition.

Tradition schma — and Der gathers his uniform pants as he rises from the pew, stands over her with his epaulets raising his shoulders above his head as if altars converted to highflown burden; he’s hunched and raging with his medals clinking as if his station’s brassy tongues; they’re shrieking, he is, flapping out the threats: incarceration, outerborough deportation, worse, assaulting even with his hands her ears and their jewelry, low at the lobes, drooping to the knees…ridiculous, this is extortion, pure and simple, you know it, I know it and, as you say, nu — the President knows it; he thinks this’ll help him at the polls, is that it, but do I have news for him: there are no more polls. I mean kaput. No longer exist. Not soon. Schmuck wants his way with posterity, goes about it like he’s doing me the favor…she’s impassive, as if unimpressed at his fume, takes from a pocket of her skinned she lived with fifty always sick and dying cats housecoat an appointment diary, and tries to go through it inconspicuously, holding it upsidedown between the pleats of her skirts. Still, he’s quieting amid the reverberations of his voice, their repercussions, her flipping — distancing, harmful to the greater cause, what he’d wanted originally come knocking too early to wake him from the surety of his slumbering plans, entombed for private worship in this, his icebound Temple — if that’s how he wants to deal…

Rising to full height herself, all of her five nothing, putting the Tit in Petite as if to remind that though laughably small as if prepackaged for parody she’s also endowed, still indescribably intimidating, a woman of valor, as goes the translation, of valorous proportions, too, and experience (and this despite having had no kinder of her own)…it’s time, she says bookmarking with a cigarette, replacing the diary, I get my onceover. And so Der orders Ben to stand, too, in the pew too narrow, barely accommodating His girth and perhaps the earliest tingle of a tumescent shed. That and with the height, the stadium’s pitch and the air of its arc He feels but can’t glimpse veiled, He’s dizzied. Der straightens that out as he uncrooks all, pulling the slacks’ bunch up and over Ben’s waist almost to His pits, then tucking in His shirt to tail around it feels at toes, a happy wag.

Pardoning around the site’s sparescaffold lumber, steel, meshnets, and paintcans to waddle into their pew, the yenta comes close and feels Him, at His hardening, tugs and twists, she slaps tush, prods gut, handles the excesses of flesh that we call love, squats then rests at her knees padded by the hang of her breasts like two hotwaterbottles with protrusive nipple nozzles, and on the floor makes to examine the generous spread of His pelvis, takes with the calipers of her many thicklywrapped necklaces the circumferences of His lowerlegs and thighs, knocks with a fist at His kneestrength, their spring, that of His youth as she slightly rises without having had the pleasure of the toes, their nails, to scrutinize His hands, His fingers and their nails, sniffing at Him, even unfurling a length of desiccated, keeping her regular prunelike tongue, though instead of licking a wrinkle she says to Der: I want the face, too, the teeth, examine the gums maybe, healthy or not — then to Him…bear with me, Ben, I have to know you’re you.

Impossible, and Der’s unshakable on this, respect it, please, the limits set, the access — it’s nothing personal, know that: it’s for your own protection, ours…I’m sure you understand, what with your confidentials claused: can’t gaze upon the countenance and still expect to live is what we’re going with, our line.

That’s what you’re selling, but that I won’t buy…no way I can, it’s part of the deal — you know, I’m not that foolish…and I’m not that old, still attractive (she’s arranging her poor, demidyed wig in the reflection of the face of her watch, her husband’s dead, the watch, too), at least gentle, and very seasoned, savvy: I have testimonials, I’ve only ever gotten good reviews…maybe even leaving Him alone with me, for the night, no extra fee, just one night, that’s all I ask. Charity. Tell you what, you can deduct it from what I’m owed. Name His price. Soak me on the rates — I’m wet already. Then to Him, in a gassy guttered whisper, with unwashed maxillary denture, you’re interested, aren’t you, Ben…how can you not, tzedakah?

Enough, says Der with a sneer that gives much wingspan to his errant stache, breaking down, initially, this crumble, though its sharding only the sign of a sour impulse to escape…I want you to listen: we’ve got a pending deal to clone one of Them, to make ourselves a female, 100 % straight bloodline, how we want her, what we want her, when, and this you can tell the President since you two, you’re such close friends. Now that’s an expensive proposition, you’d say, and risky, and you’d be right, not to mention unsound — (an echo, Shade would agree: forbidden according to law both secular, and the newest sacred) — though it’s an option, keep that in mind in its long and tall, don’t sell us short, genug. He should remember that we’re the only ones with the resources to do it, the money and the skill. Don’t underestimate how determined we are to protect our investment, His and ours, I mean — Him, He’s in agreement. Aren’t you, Ben. Say yes. There, you have it from the mouth. We’re invested too heavily is what, He is, what with the hanging sacs, the shed — don’t think we haven’t thought. Explored. Experimented. We’ve parsed and planned and dreamed. Der thrusts out a gloved numbed hand like put it there, so long…so drop this, won’t you, no hysterics, don’t even try; as if to say, I know all the ruse and female. Do we have a deal or am I milking samples?

You’d never. No one would. They’d be unkosher, inbred.

As if they always weren’t.

Don’t give me that mishegas…giving a sigh perfumed with the odious must of routine, coughed by a wink that rouses her, pumps blood back to feet; her stepping out of the aisle as if to make room, to usher in the close — even though I’ll take it, that’s what you pay me for…and you will pay me today, now, and their money in a week, cash, I get ten percent commission. But just so you know, her family won’t take it; and neither will she, who would: if He’s to be a husband, He has to be a husband , not a Company, a Corporate what have you malfeasance snooze or fake…not the Messiah and no, not a God. No cloning, and no veils, Ben — that thing has to come off sooner or later; I’ll tell you what, we’ll put that in the contract.

Agreed, and Der heads after her up the steps as if to make to shake her down, and maybe her price along with her, how in shaking everything’s negotiable — grubs up her hands into a hug unintended, she presumes, she has to, now keeping near, coming on with shimmy…she suddenly holds him tightly, to nuzzle, as he with elbows and shoulders makes to pry her off with hands engloved shoves her away, back down into the topmost pew. Wonderful, he says straightening himself, patting himself down to find if he’s lost anything, a pocket’s medal or ribbon picked. If you kiss for business you should later count your teeth. Your bridge and crowns. That and his moustache should deter, and hers, peroxide fuzz. Now, if you please, I’ll direct you to deal with my associate, Doctor Abuya — you two have much to discuss, lives to plan…a wedding, too, she says, as she rises and turns to walk through that first pew’s row to the last remnant of the slippery aisle and up it, shuffling — lucky for you my brother’s a caterer, he’ll deal…sidestepping pallets, planks, and moundings of plastic trashed out to the archway and its escort waiting of Abuya, Gelt, Hamm, and Mada, who too gingerly geriatrically arm her out through the courtyards back to the entrance and its lionized stairs, as she harangues them with inquiries, shtepping about their own questionable statuses with regard to love, kinder, how much they make and yadda.