Joshua Cohen - Witz

Ben riding sitting but jittered, His minders forced to stand, straphanging, leanedup against doors derelict, slouching asleep; them alone together in the frontcar coming down so fanatically fast, snaking the tracks that swallow themselves in an engorgedly warm worming of tunnel, a rodentlike, every-tailed scurry this rush of Him and train like a roach upon the rail of its own vomit…one lone latemodel hurtle if unnumbered, unlettered — now that one train’s givenover to all, every route — turned expressly loose and dullheaded, shrieking senseless on the system entire with everything else stilled, its others last warehoused in a yard boroughed so far Downtown it’s in Brooklyn, which don’t even think about it, too far and dimly imagined, how it only gives a headache to further squint or suspect: the glumsmogged recesses, through the windows — the catacombs; Ben passing here in the tunnels the snuffed candle shadows of saints without cults, the brave without canon, the homeless more beaten than beatified, without legend or enough money to afford for themselves miracles; ragged almost naked, they’re freezing and skeletalstarved, some kneeling to their Savior’s shattered statues, with orders of the secular others disheartened, huddling around their fires, sternoing for themselves icicles, a potable Hudson, taking turns to guard their encampments from the recent patrols — until, a gasp for air upon the Path tracks in Joysey, Exchange Place the stop with Ben’s train surfacing to spit from its rusted mouth a new Caddy, a towncar blackened without motorcade or support from the air, which takes on its own the alternate route ice homeward to the Garden; Heber and the limo to return to the Garden alone, with the escorting police and fire sirening the night with whirlingly guttural flashes, leaving behind a hundred utility vehicles leased on plans as various as they’ve been complicatedly voided: jealousy green bugs and extended sedans, and the yellow thinning ice fear of taxistani cabs both medallion and gypsy honking a sheepish bleat to the edge of the freeze that’ll never hold their gas; exhaust fills the sky; after a time, they turn wide around and skid home, hazards on, empty.

Shalom aleichem or something like that, says the Radio City stage manager who’s gladhanding, gelthandling to haggle around too early the next morning and this, when everything’s long been set out and signed…and how’s everything by you?

Me, it’s like having a heart attack.

We have an hour left to rehearse, Mada says while ignoring the mensch’s shaking all over to root around for his pocketwatch where, in his pocket — and then the press conference, an hour to rest, shower, and eat; we’re back here for soundcheck at — winding it, noon.

Interviews throughout the afternoon, at the sponsoring hotel the Midtown One Season, demoted by three thanks to frost.

Then to Ben, remember, let us do the talking.

All set?

Gelt puts a goy on the boxoffice, why not.

A phalanx of security shall fill the frontrow tonight, retired police and fire will arise to keepsafe the wings. As for the hall without, its lobby’s been hastily whitewashed, overnight, moonlit by unions: a stretch of wall that used to host a vast verdant mural, famous for its artistry forgotten, redone into this pure snowlike swath, obliterating its representation, made to reflect virtuously above the marmoreal floors, polished and shining. The short agitable stage manager spits a mucose hock of morning chaw to the cuspidor at the side of the stagedoor, retreats from his briefing by Mada and Gelt, heading backstage to overlord the Rockettes’ lastminute refittings for long shapeless skirts, modest wigs frayed to frump, setting hems, renegotiating necklines with what he calls upper management that’s probably only his conscience. A rumbling wells, quakes the theater’s vault, diapasonic, shakes draped forms on flutes, flakes goldleaf, rattles mirrorglass foxed in smoke and framed in chrome and cracking: statuesque Eve dropping her marble apple to roll to a doorstop, let in a draft; the sounding not of His stomach, nor that of the grumbling of those waiting out in the weather for their tickets reserved, a kvetch over price, it’s the warmingup of the organ, swelling initially a pillowlike softness, then rising into a dignified pad of a devotional nature, underscoring the fumbling of a handful of His lookalikes, Ben’s bit players, A Pharisee, Sadducee #3…these understudies curtain up and stumbling through staging, which like the streets connecting crosstown and the avenues north and south has been amateurishly blocked, made safe for the public — them klutzy with smashing their irreplaceable props, and persisting, too, in mispronounciating their lines if they don’t just forget them entire.

A night spent on bed’s edge, rawthroated on the lip of the toilet — Ben bowed to gut up what’d been ordered to be the most settling of catering — after a debut that went, He’ll admit, maybe just an encore short of wellreceived, nu, thank you very much despite; and this despite the encouragement, the kudos, kisses and hugs XO again, VSOP the cartons of cigarettes and the chocolate balloons and the flowers they’d brought Him, that bouquet of bouquets composed only of the flowers to which He’s allergic, He thinks though they’re artificial, silled in every shade known to mortification, disaster: yellow, red, pink, deathwhite, paling petals; the clutch of them Mada, Gelt, Hamm, and Him crowded into His turret atop the Great Hall to wait for the morning editions, the mediated response, the silent radio, imageless teevee, any pitch or delivery, for the earliest word of the cheaping bird; Mada calling downstairs to Garden Control every ten minutes with Gelt, too, listening in on the line from the hallway, after any indication, any news breaking late the already broken. Insecure, maybe, hungry for feedback, thirsty for praise. Under the veil, His face an open book: page Doctor Tweiss, then take cover. As wide as any newspaper spread, the next magazine feature or foldout. His ears “are marks of quotation.” His mouth an indiscretion, if still forgivably young.

What are they saying, Ben’s asking, like tell me, what Are they saying, as if they’re saying nothing at all…what are They saying, as if to say who are they to say anything to me, what are they Saying , as if to ask they’re saying That and why — you want they should stick to the script, repeat after me…and the answer Mada gives to Him’s what, don’t worry, no cause for alarm, the baseless threat of your fret — always a hundred different if equally ridiculous things, Ben, listen up, what they’re saying, it’s still much too early to tell…then, with efficient, neat hands Hamm straightens His false hair, elasticized, once pasted, bearded over His bite: Ben’s never changed out of costume. They’ve got a thousand different agendas, is what Mada’s saying, all demanding the same thing in a million different ways, Ben, bear with us; the door opens and Gelt comes in cloudy in the face and says, though he doesn’t quite seem to believe it, what it really is, Ben, is an issue of popular response, we’re talking appeal. Wide, cutting across like a knife disemboweling. To hell with the critics, the role of the public’s to criticize them…their responsibility, that’s what they do: our polling, our surveys, demographics, you name it — there are methods, there are ways, Ben, take it from me, we’ve got it under control.

It’s all in the packaging (Hamm): we’re poring over the research, the data (Mada), samples, testmarkets (Gelt)…that’s what this tour’s about, after all — the Messiah opening in selected wherevers this summer, or this season passing for…but, goes the Garden’s latest questionaire, how do they want their salvation, with hot beverage, maybe, and their choice of dessert; and so there’s optimization, specialization, brandjobs supercustom. A question, another, half of what’d been asked to last session: should Ben conform to them, or them conform to Ben — asked to eighteen different groups of eighteen different adolescents selected at the holy and holying random, railroaded at Times Square, pennedin ten floors up — a focusgroup, with attention operating at deficit. Them giddy excitement and performance anxiety at the prospect of giving any right answer at their individual rolltop desks in this space luxurious with panes formerly used as a screen studio lit over the foot traffic and growing pools of manure; quills in hand, ink welling, the surveyed stare at parchment scraps; asked their names, ages, purchasing habits, the usual blah and then